Web Development Insight

This is a bit off the subject but is important.

I noticed my computer time was off a few minutes. Big deal. But when I tried to update the time (in XP double click on the time in the notification area, internet time tab, then ‘update now’ button) an error occurred (RPC not available). I tried this with a few different time servers (I use clock.via.net) and all gave the same problem.

Without boring details, what I did was verify the operating system files were intact and correct.

This sounded like a long shot but amazingly it worked.

I would recommend doing an operating system verify once a month or if you have strange problems with your computer.

Doug

Many people complain that their computer is too slow and it takes a long time to boot up. Startup programs are often the culprit. There are many hidden startup programs that are installed without the user’s knowledge - monitors and schedulers to name a few.
msconfig comes with Windows XP and does a minimal job of showing startup programs. We like autoruns by SysInternals. It is freeware and shows MUCH more than just startup programs: drivers, services, print monitors, browser helper objects…the list goes on. You can hide signed Microsoft entries so only 3rd party items show up. Autoruns makes it easy to disable/enable startup entries. This can also be the bane of autoruns.
Autoruns has a command line mode, too. And it runs on all versions of Windows; 95 on up.

Doug