SD XC and XP

I got a new camera a week or so ago but it didn't come with a memory card so I bought the recommended SDXC type with a massive 64GB of memory and faster read/write speeds so that it could handle the big files created by the camera. Took a few practice shots and thought I'd have a look at how they turned out.

Unfortunately, my pc couldn't access the card data. It wanted to format the card. I quickly hit No. That would have wiped everything off which rather defeats the purpose. I tried inserting the card directly in a card reader slot but that didn't work either. Now it is an old pc with Windows XP but it has had all the updates and is SP3 so it's as up to date as it ought to be in that respect. I looked on some forums and saw that the SDXC card has a different file format system and that there were card readers available that claimed to read this new type. So I bought one of them.

I had also tried the card in my new Chromebook, thinking that Samsung might have used a later type of card reader for the device installed on that. No luck there - the Chromebook recognised a card was there but wanted to format it too.

The new card reader arrived today and I plugged the card into it and the pc recognised the various drives on it. I was thinking that it was a bit of a drag to have to fiddle around taking the card out of the camera and then insert it into this little reader every time when I had got used just to plugging a cable from the camera into a USB socket but resigned myself to having to do that. Hang on - the pc still wants to format the card! Damn. Looks like I still have a problem.

I tried a slightly different set of search terms on Google. Something like Why on Earth can't I read my SDXC card?!! and read on a forum that it was a Microsoft Windows XP thing. Things looked gloomy as I'd had all the updates so I dug out an equally old laptop which I'd put Windows 7 on. It seemed that I could at least get the photos with that and then transfer the files to the pc where I wanted them. While the old laptop was thinking about getting started I had another look at the forum and noticed a link to an update related to this someone had posted. I downloaded that, restarted the pc and stuffed the card in the old slot on the pc.

And there they all were! Picasa found all the photos, just like old times!

I should also be able just to connect the camera direct too now. So I didn't need the new card reader or the Windows 7 laptop at all. Just a little update that, for some reason best known to Microsoft, hasn't been included in updates so far. So if you're having trouble reading SD XC cards DO NOT FORMAT them! You don't need to buy some fancy new reader (although it may read them a bit faster if you have hundreds to deal with) and you can do things the way you always used to.

Get the download at this link.

Yes! ASUS Laptop Resolution Fixed [by me]

You may recall the last post about ASUS support saying that my laptop didn't support Windows 7 and there was no help available for changing the resolution or recognising the ATI card instead of some default PnP monitor...

... a colleague said 'just get the driver from ATI (now AMD). Tried that but still couldn't get Windows to recognise it and spent a while going round in circles. Then I had a look at an identical laptop that had been running Windows 7 fine for ages and I did know what graphics card it had and what to do with it. Diving into Display properties you can eventually find Driver details which lists all the files apparently required. I copied those from one machine to the other. The next time I hit Update Driver, instead of being told that I already had the most up-to-date driver for a PnP monitor, Windows proceeded to get what it reckoned I needed and a few moments later I see this screen.

So I'm afraid that ASUS support haven't exactly excelled themselves on this query and, presumably, have left a whole pile of customers languishing in XP or Vista land or with ovals where there should be circles.

I'm not quite sure whether my efforts actually helped or whether Windows just took its time realising the ATI card was there. Either way, job was done in time to give the youngest son his brother's previously ailing but now looking and working great laptop on Christmas morning. As few people will have more than one of these laptops, if you have a similar problem and need the driver file list just drop me an e-mail.

"My Program Files Look Quite Lonely..."

A clean installation of Windows 7 left my son with just a few, lonely-looking applications in his Program Files folder. "What else do you think I should get?" he asked. I was tempted to say "Nothing - you can do everything on-line these days" but I just know he won't be capable of leaving half a terabyte of space empty so before he starts downloading this, that and probably the other too, I decided to list what I had lying around and which did actually get used. And why. And, by the way, they're all *free.

It may be a useful guide to others too so I thought I'd publish it here. That also saves me typing it in an e-mail. (I've omitted games which you'll know far more about than me!)

Security stuff:
CCleaner helps tidy drives up and remove rubbish
WinPatrol (Scotty) keeps an eye on changes you may not want applications to make
Microsoft Security Essentials (it may be there already) jolly good anti-virus and general protection from Microsoft getting it right for a change
Prey (for mobile phone protection link) activate a camera and GPS or shut down if you think it's stolen

Design / photos etc
Irfanview open anything, quickly.
Picasa Google's brilliant album and editing application
JAlbum Another excellent on-line album maker
Sketchup make shapes, be an architect or just have fun
ColorPix get exactly the colour you need
Rasterbator make huge pictures and cartoon effects
Serif DrawPlus design
SerifPhotoPlus edit
SerifWebPlus publish
ArtRage draw, paint, splash around

Music
Windows MediaPlayer (if not there already)
Spotify one of the first in the on-line music field
VLC Media Player play anything
Total Recorder record anything

Utilities
Nuance PDFReader better PDFs
Skype communicate
7Zip compress and extract
LibreOffice if you haven't got Microsoft Office

Browsers
Rockmelt or just Chrome
Firefox (English UK) still useful to have around
(and ensure Internet Explorer updates automatically even if you never use it!)

*Serif offer free older versions but students can get the latest versions for about £10.
Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote are all freely available on-line via SkyDrive.

Pin a removable drive to your Windows 7 taskbar for fast access

The advent of huge amounts of storage on tiny memory sticks and portable hard drives that are now denominated in TB tends to result in us keeping more and more stuff that we might regularly access on them, plugging them in to whichever pc or laptop wherever we happen to be. 

This article from the nice people at Windows Secrets should help make it a bit easier to get at those external drive files on equipment you use regularly.

Windows 7’s ability to ‘pin’ icons to the taskbar allows you to quickly access a program by clicking on its taskbar icon, even if it's not running. This quick access feature should also allow you to rapidly access an external hard drive, but unfortunately the process isn’t as simple as dragging the drive’s icon to the taskbar, as you would an application – doing this actually adds a shortcut to Windows Explorer. In fact the process is much more complicated, but it is possible to add a quick shortcut to the taskbar as follows:

• Right-click on a blank area of your desktop and choose New > Text File.
• Name the new file DRIVE-SHORTCUT.EXE, taking care to change the .TXT ending to .EXE.
• Press [Enter] and click Yes to confirm the suffix change.
• Right-click on DRIVE-SHORTCUT.EXE and choose Pin to Taskbar.
• Right-click on the new icon on the taskbar, right-click on DRIVE-SHORTCUT.EXE from the pop-up menu and choose Properties.
• Click on the Shortcut tab and change the Target and Start in fields to the drive letter of your removable drive followed by a colon (e.g. E:\).
• Click OK. When you now click on your taskbar shortcut you will be taken directly to the removable drive.

Note: if you don’t see the .TXT ending in step 2, go to Start > Computer > Organize >Folder and Search Options. Click the View tab and untick Hide Extensions For Known File Types then click OK.

Windows Media Player 12 and the red N on your desktop

If you have a red N next to Windows 7 Professional then you have the version without Windows Media Player. I can't imagine that you actually bought it. It's probably a version that you got on the back of an employer's licence, like me. It's the version without Windows Media Player. Apparently some EU ruling forced Microsoft to offer two versions of Windows - one with WMP and one without. They both are otherwise exactly the same and cost the same. So you'll deduce that Windows Media Player is 'free' and yes, if you do have that red N, then you can download the Windows Media Feature Pack from Microsoft.

As usual, though, finding it ain't that simple! I actually only discovered that I didn't have WMP when I wondered what the red N was as googled it! The link to the free WMP download wasn't obvious on any of the Microsoft links but, thanks to CNET, all was revealed.

Here's the link.