Author: Joe Nord

Updated my website to use version 8.0 of PHP and B2evolution stopped working. Was able to repair it enough to see blog posts again and managed to extract the content. This was the sign I needed to retire the old blog manager and move into the times with WordPress. Technically I used WordPress before B2evolution, […]

Bought a new computer a couple months ago and its nagged me since, that about half the time after the machine goes to sleep, it immediately wakes up.  Windows 10.  I’ve “solved” this so far, by holding the power button down until power is removed and that makes the machine quiet and without lights, but […]

When Windows 10 starts and users logon, the operating system by default will automatically restart all the applications that were running when the system was rebooted including launching them to reload the documents and revisit web browser URLs.  Handy in concept this is not how I want the machine to behave.  I would like a […]

Among the jobs of an operating system is to maintain the disk file system including the directory structure, file names and for each file, the file size and the pertitent date information for when the file was created, modified and potentially accessed.  I have been editing some videos lately and after producing a MP4 using […]

The DOS world’s need for memory grew and the 64KB available to .COM executables was no longer adequate.  The NE “new executable” executable file format was invented and uses the .EXE file extension rather than .COM.  The first 2 bytes of these files includes a tag at the front to identify the format and if you guessed […]

In the beginning, the DOS .COM file format was the format for executables of size less than 64KB and let’s face it, who would really need more.  I’m headed down a path to discuss PE file format executables and no good discussion is right without a foundation.  In the beginning, there was DOS; life was […]

Had an interesting one today when outlook 2016 prompted me to permit a website to configurre email settings for a user that isn’t me.  In this case, it was for a user that doesn’t work at my company anymore and this led me to ponder if someone in IT was trying to connect me to […]

Net Neutrality is an emotional subject. It sounds like it is about equality and liberty for all, but that’s a simplification. As a foundation thought, this is not about “equality”, it is about which federal agency regulates the Internet, the FCC or the FTC?  Read this post and I hope it will bring some clarity to […]

RIFF (.wav) file format has been around unchanged since the early 1990s and still in common use today.   This goes back to a time when CD audio formats were king and RIFF .wav follows the red book convention pretty closely, with the change that the number of channels, bits per sample and samples per second […]

When your computer has more than 1 sound card, you may find it cumbersome to change audio devices.  The standard method requires going through the control panel or settings application , a process of multiple dialogs and multiple clicks.  There is a better way. Run the control panel on Windows 7 or on Windows 10 […]