Here’s how to back up and restore your 3rd party apps on your Blackberry. This should work for PC users with Blackberry Desktop Manager (written for v5.0)… sorry Mac.

Backup
Step 1:
Connect your BlackBerry to your PC and open the BlackBerry Desktop Manager. Click the “Switch Device Wizard” button. On the “switch device dialog box”, click the “Switch BlackBerry Devices” button.

Step 2:
Select your device and make sure the “allow me to select applications….” button is checked. Click “Next”. If you have a password, enter it and continue.

Step 3:
If you just want your apps, check “Third Party Applications” and leave “Include Messages” and “User Data Settings” unchecked. Click the Next button.

Step 4:
Once the operation is complete, do NOT click next or cancel. Search your PC for files and folders with the same name as your BlackBerry PIN. Make sure you search hidden folders as well. You may also type %temp% in the path bar of an explorer window and find the folder that’s named by your PIN.

Step 5:
Copy the folder with your PIN as the name to a safe location. This is your backup.

Step 6:
You may now cancel and close the BlackBerry Desktop Manager. Your backup is complete!

Restoring Your 3rd party Applications
Step 1:
Plug in your BlackBerry to your PC

Step 2:
Launch the “Application Loader” and click the “Add” button

Step 3:
Find your backup file, by default called YOURPIN.alx, where YOURPIN is your PIN. Click Start!

Need more help? Send us an email at help@pcxmedics.com, or use our contact form.

How to transfer music from your iPod to your PC

There are a couple of ways to do this, but unfortunately, most are not free. Enter iDump (Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000). iDump is a great little app that lets you copy your files from your iPod to your PC using an explorer.

Connect your iPod to your PC and drop the .exe file in the root directory on your iPod. Run it from there through explorer while your iPod remains connected and you’ll have access to all of your songs. Select the songs you want to transfer then pick a destination directory and the naming protocol.

You can grab iDump from CNET.

Need more help? Send us an email at help@pcxmedics.com, or use our contact form.

Is your Mac iBook’s video flaky? Does putting pressure around the middle left of the base fix the video momentarilly? Chances are your graphics chip has a cracked solder joint. Basically, there’s a chip on the motherboard that is used for some video processing. The chip has a faulty solder connection to the motherboard. For more background on the issue, see this article, and for more technical info, see this report.

There are at least three remedies for this problem that we’ve found, all of which have varying degrees of difficulty and efficacy. All of them require opening the Mac.. ready?

Opening the G4:
Take out the battery. Pry off the four corner stands, as below:

Mac g4

Take out the screws on the bottom of the base. You’ll need a torx driver for some of these.

Remove the two screws in the battery well :

Mac g4

Pinch the plastic around the battery well to pry it off

Mac g4

Use a screwdriver and pry off the small slot in the battery well.

Mac g4

Work your way around the base with a soft tool to prevent damage.

Mac g4

When you have 3 sides pried off, lift up on the front, and the base should come apart:

Mac g4

Take out the screws holding the metal shield:

Mac g4

Pulling up the black power ribbon reveals the Vreg chip

Mac g4

Option #1)
If pressure or a GPU reset (holding command-ctrl-A-V during startup) fixes video temporarily, the easiest of the remedies to try is to put some sort of wedge on top of the Vreg chip. This might not work for long however, since the wedge will eventually settle and release pressure on the chip. Anyway, it’s worth a shot, and is a good test to try before trying the other remedies.

Option #2)
Try to remelt the solder around pins 1 and 28. These are the two shown here, pin 1 denoted by the dimple on the chip, pin 28 across from it.

Mac g4

It’s possible to do this with a heat gun, but a soldering iron is more precise. Hold one to the two pins for a few seconds. If you smell something burning, it’s probably long enough. Make sure you apply pressure to the chip while you do this to ensure a good connection when the joint reflows. Consider epoxying the ends of the chip so it does not move off of the board:

Mac g4

Unless you’re a gambler, we wouldn’t recommend covering the pins with epoxy since you might have to go with option 3 in the future. Put something heavy on the chip while the epoxy cures.

Option #3)
If the above options failed, the last option before purchasing a new motherboard is to resolder pin 28. This is usually the first to go, presumably because it is a power pin for the chip. You could also try pin 1 if you want. Scrape off some of the green PCB plastic around the pin.

Mac g4

Solder the pin to the PCB and make sure the solder flows over the pin. We usually use a blade to protect neighboring pins 27 and 2:

Mac g4

With any luck and steady hands, you should be able to get the pins resoldered properly. Something like:

Mac g4

Epoxy the ends of the chip as above. Close up your Mac, and good luck.

Need more help? Send us an email at help@pcxmedics.com, or use our contact form.

Some basics:

If you use the internet, you run the risk of a malicious attack by hackers from anywhere in the world. You can take some simple steps to secure your computer.

Firewalls
Firewalls are probably your best friend on the internet. There is plenty free and legal software to allow someone to find information about your computer relatively easily if you have no firewall. Not having a firewall enabled is akin to waving an “attack me” flag. If you have a weak password (discussed below) in addition, your will inevitably be attacked, whether by software or hackers.

How do you defend yourself? Turn on your firewall! It just takes one click in the control panel. You can also use a firewall program like ZoneAlarm or a device such as a router.

Passwords
The easiest way to be attacked online is to have a weak password or no password at all. Take for example your administrator account on your laptop. If it has no password, it takes almost no effort to gain access to all of your files. If you don’t have a password, and your firewall is off, someone in Tajikistan could be listening to your mp3s or deleting your term paper, forcing you to look consider a data recovery service. You should also rename your administrator account from “Administrator” to something else. This makes it harder for someone to break in.

How do you protect yourself? Easy! Microsoft recommends using at least seven characters. Mix in some symbols, numbers, capital and lower-case letters, and you’ve got yourself a decent password. If your password is “jane123”, it takes almost no time for an experienced hacker to guess – there is plenty software that does all the work. Change that to J@nE12#!, and there’s almost no way to crack it without a supercomputer. Although less critical, you can use the same idea when setting up email and other passwords.

Viruses, Spyware, Adware, Trojans, Malware, Pop-ups, Phishing, etc
Even if you have a strong password and a good firewall, you’re not quite out of the water yet. It’s easy to come across some malicious software while surfing the net or reading email. Your computer can even get infected by simply visiting a site! This category is one of the most common ways to be attacked online. These programs can do anything from gather information about your net surfing habits to stealing credit card information to destroying your operating system. Use P2P software such as Limewire, Kazaa, DC++ or other sharing programs? You’re opening a door for malicious software into your computer.

You can take steps to protect yourself against these threats. Use common sense. If you get a file or a link from someone promising you something free, don’t open it. Install anti virus software. You can choose from a myriad of free and paid software, each with advantages and disadvantages too complex to describe here. If you already have a virus, installing one of these will probably not be effective. You need to have these installed BEFORE you get a virus or spyware.

Make sure you have automatic updates enabled if you use Windows. Microsoft releases many security related patches which may protect you.

You should also disable hidden shares if you use Windows 2000 or XP. These can be used by hackers to gain access to ANY your files if they have your username and password.

Unfortunately, many viruses target Internet Explorer and Outlook Express because these packages are so popular. A simple security precaution might be to use another browser or email client, or at the very least, set IE’s security settings to high.

Need more help? Send us an email at help@pcxmedics.com, or use our contact form.

Diagnosing common LCD problems
If you have a laptop or an external flatpanel monitor, chances are you’ve run into some problems with the LCD. If you haven’t yet, you probably will. LCD problems are some of the most common laptop complaints next to hard drive crashes and loose power connectors. Cracked LCDs, lines on LCDs, plasma effect, dim LCDs, dead pixels, backlight problems, and flickering LCDs are quite common.

Here are some simple tests to determine what’s wrong with your display and estimate the cost and difficulty involved in fixing it. This is not meant to be repair advice, so do not attempt to service your laptop if you don’t know what you’re doing… and if you’re reading this, you probably don’t. Do not disassemble your laptop if the battery is in or it is plugged into a power source.

Cracked LCD
Not much to test here, you’re going to need to replace your LCD. Either that, or buy an external flatpanel.

Lines on LCD
This is generally due to a broken LCD or internal LCD video cable. Sometimes if you drop your laptop hard, it can damage the LCD (and the hard drive if it’s on). Plug the laptop into an external monitor or LCD tv. Does the picture have lines? If not, you either have an LCD cable or LCD problem. If you see lines on the external monitor (assuming the external works fine), you most likely have a graphics card problem.

Plasma, oozing, octopus ink, growing plume
More than likely, your LCD is damaged and needs to be replaced. This is usually caused by a physical malfunction of the glass sandwich inside the LCD. As with the above test, check to see whether or not you get a clean picture on an external monitor. If you do, it’s time for a new LCD.

Dead, stuck, hot, or otherwise funky-looking pixels
These can be caused by manufacturing defects which cause transistors to die or stop responding inside your LCD. Sometimes you can fix a dead pixel, but you can also make the problem worse if you’re not careful. A safe bet is to try to fix the problem with software. Programs such as UDPixel and JScreenFix can try to diagnose dead, hot, or stuck pixels and even attempt to fix them. If these don’t work, as a last resort, you can try to gently press the affected area with an eraser to try to coax oil into or out of the pixel layers. Again, this is not guaranteed to work, and might make the problem worse, so be careful here.

Dim display
This could be due to two common problems: inverter or backlight failure. An inverter conditions power for the LCD, and generally sits near the laptop hinges under the LCD case. Inverters are dangerous because they generally run between 4-7 amps of current. 1 amp will easily kill you so don’t mess with these if you don’t know what you’re doing. If the screen is ever bright, chances are your inverter is fine. Backlights are difficult and dangerous to replace, so don’t try unless you know how. Most backlights are fragile and contain mercury, which is a carcinogen.

No display
If you get no display at all, check it with a flashlight. Hold it at different angles to the screen. If you really can’t see anything, try to plug it into an external monitor. If you get a clean picture, a bunch of things could be wrong. You could have a loose cable if you drop your laptop a lot. The cable could be pinched in the hinges and severed. Rarely do you get a complete failure of the LCD, but it’s possible.

Display works while booting, but stops working at some point
You’ve probably got a software issue. Time to check the drivers and check for viruses.

Display scrambles over time
This is generally caused by an memory problems or an overheating video chip. If memory is the problem, you can try to remove one or two modules of RAM from the bottom of the laptop, usually behind a panel. If this fixes the problem, time for a new stick of RAM. If heat is the problem, there are usually two causes. Either the video processor is overheating, or the entire laptop is overheating. You will need to have the laptop taken apart to clean out dust, test all the fans, and check the thermal compound under the heat sinks.

Need more help? Send us an email at help@pcxmedics.com, or use our contact form.

What Im going to present is probably not the cleanest or most elegant way of opening an iPod classic, but it works.  Oh, and I wont take responsibility for damage, injuries, etc, so with that in mind…

First a bit of background on the problem.  If you’ve ever messed around with any surgeries on any of the older iPods (changing the iPod battery, LCD, hard drive, earphone jack, motherboard, clickwheel, etc), you’re probably pretty familiar with the methods of opening them.  The 5th gen iPod video is pretty close to the classic in terms of appearance, so you might wonder why the classic is so much harder to crack open.  It seems that Apple’s accounting dept has taken notice of DIYers lowering their margins by fixing their own problems.  Starting with the classic, Apple has kindly intensified the structural security of the case.  That is, they’ve installed interlocking metal tabs into the case of the classic.  These pretty much deny any of the soft plastic tools that you can use to open the older cases.  This is also why you wont find many how-to’s about opening classics.

Now comes the difficult but obvious decision: there’s no easy way to open the case without damaging it.. but if I don’t open it, my iPod is a $300 paperweight.  Once you come to terms with this, keep reading.

There are posts and videos that talk about using knives to pry open the classic, or using screwdrivers or other blades to wedge the case apart.  Once you have some practice, you can get these open in about 15 min; but the first time I tried took me an hour, and I destroyed an LCD.  In my opinion these methods are far too risky, because one wrong blow and the LCD cracks.  Or worse, you drive a blade through the motherboard.  I’ve seen a hard drive with a knife wound, not to mention countless ripped headphone jack/hold switch, hard drive, and LCD ribbons.  There’s a safer way to get inside the iPod classic, but it’s gonna take power tools and some steady hands.

If you’ve got a Dremel or other rotary tool, you’re in luck.  If not, go get one, because youre going to need it for something anyway.  You could probably use a drill with a small bit, but this one’s more risky, as you could push the bit into the internals if you break through the case.  Anyway, slap on the carbon cutting bit, some goggles, and find a place to work.  The locations of the clasps can be seen in the images below:

iPod classic

iPod classic

iPod classic

Clamp the iPod so it won’t go anywhere, but be careful not to crush the internals or scratch the case too much.  Obviously the LCD is not the best place to clamp, unless that’s what you’re replacing.  Make sure your iPod’s hold switch is on; I’d suggest taping it down.  SLOWLY dig three shallow grooves with the rotary tool at the locations of these clasps.  These should be just deep enough so that you can see inside the case in the middle of the groove.  Be careful not to go too deep and not to let the rotary tool run off of the iPod.  You can now work your tools in between the case halves.  This part takes some patience as well, so don’t rush it.  From here, you can pretty much proceed around the case and crack it open.

Once you’ve got the insides worked out, slap on some tape to seal it and get yourself a silicone case and you’re all set!

Need more help? Send us an email at help@pcxmedics.com, or use our contact form.

Join the pcXmedics AIDS Ride for Life team in September 2009!  Email Dmitry to sign up!

Here’s more info on the event:
aidsrideforlife.org

The AIDS Ride for Life is a 50, 85 or 100-mile bicycle ride (not a race!) around Cayuga Lake. Together we raised $278,000 in 2008 to benefit AIDS services and education through the Southern Tier AIDS Program. Join us as a rider or volunteer for the experience of a lifetime.

This is a lot of fun and a great way to raise money for a good cause. If you don’t want to ride, you can donate!