HP 740i can't read DVD

About two years ago, when I built my computer, I selected a DVD burner that would burn to dual layer dvd media. I also wanted one that had the Lightscribe feature. The most affordable drive that could deliver these features was the HP 740i at a price of $90. A few weeks ago, I noticed that the HP 740i drive that I purchased was no longer able to read DVD's. So, I did a search on HP 740i DVD and was surprised to see that this is a common problem.

Several forums detailed the efforts that people have tried to get their drives working again. Some succeeded by updating their software, but many others have been unable to solve the DVD read issue. To solve the problem, I removed the drive and put it in another system (it still burns CD's). I than installed a four year old Sony single layer DVD burner, which has no problem reading dvd's. The HP 740 did not read dvd's in the other system, so it is most likely a defect in the drive. Today you can buy dvd burners for under $30 and the HP 740i has been discontinued. The top end is to have a BlueRay burner. But those will set you back 3 or 4 hundred dollars.

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Sometimes it takes a complete reinstall of the windows operating system to fix a computer that has been infected with a virus or spyware. With a system that I encountered this week, it was actually quicker to reinstall everything than to hunt for all of the system changes that had occurred. Spyware is becoming more sophisticated and can fool you into installing something that will damage your computer system. It seems like all the effort is on blocking and detecting and not enough on apprehending the people creating and distributing these attacks on our personal computers.

Budget Fridge Repair

This week my refrigerator stopped working. Being on a tight budget, I decided to see if I could fix it myself. In the picture you can see the Kenmore ColdSpot 25 cubic foot refrigerator, which occupies a large part of our tiny kitchen. It started making clicking noises a day before it stopped cooling. The problem was with the compressor relay. Since the unit is only five years old, I was able to find the part at a local appliance repair shop. I cleaned the coils and replaced the relay with the new one I purchased for $50.

The repair shop told me that the new solid state relays are not as good as the old ones. But if the coils were full of dirt and the relay failed, which prevented the compressor from going bad, then I guess it did it's job. Anyway it's working now and I saved myself the price of a service call.

This weekend I have to fix someone's computer that somehow got infected with Antivirus XP2008. I would have thought that Windows Defender would have prevented the installation of this spyware program, but it didn't. No matter how much software you put on your computer to prevent trouble, you still have to be smart about what you download. Always do a search for consumer reviews, before you install any new software on your computer.

Hard Times

With the economy the way it is, you have to take time to look at the flowers instead of looking at your retirement account or the price of food and gas, not to mention medical, insurance, and all the rest. Almost everyone I met this holiday weekend has had to cut back on just about everything, me included. Most talk was about the things we have done to save money. It wasn't too long ago when we would be talking about the things we were planning on purchasing, not anymore.

There was no shortage of cars on the road this pasts Sunday, all heading back home from a rare three day holiday weekend. I had heard that the number of travelers was only down by one percent, despite the fact that gas was over four dollars a gallon. I read a news story about the people who are converting their vehicles to run on vegetable oil. I didn't realize that it is illegal to do that in most states. It turns out that if you use a fuel other than gas, some states expect you to get a special permit, so that they can collect the taxes that you are cheating them out of by burning alternative fuels. They want to make sure you are not polluting the air too, but everywhere you turn these days there seems to be a road block to our creative spirit.