Ed Buford - Just Another Geek

Parts are Parts

In the next week we’ll begin installing a new phone system, and removing our antiquated unstable system. Our current system only needs to survive a few more days, but I guess that’s more than we could ask for. Thursday the voicemail machine died. I took it back to the lab and checked it out and sure enough the power supply was dead. Now the voicemail machine is just a computer so it doesn’t seem like a big deal to replace a power supply… but this computer is a 486

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Now my Dad was a packrat, he saved stuff you just couldn’t understand why. I suppose I’ve inherited that. So when we needed a power supply for a 486 I took a drive to my house and dug up my first PC. It was a 486 DX2 50mhz machine, it was smoking in it’s short lived time, but I retired it years ago. In fact I even loaned it and when it was returned I still hung onto it; I don’t really know why, maybe it had something to do with the $3000 I had invested in it.

I drove home and retrieved this old friend and took it on a last ride. I pulled the power supply out of it and put it in the voicemail machine and it sprang back to life. I looked at the carcass of my first computer and felt quite pleased that it had served me one last time.

I think my Dad would have been proud.

Whois That?

Whois is a program that will give you cool info about a domain name or public IP address. You can use Sam Spade or some other online version to pull this info up but if you’re like me, I’d rather have a command line. Mark Russinovich from Sysinternals has created a Whois command for Windows. Download it and put it in your system32 folder then kick the tires, it really is a good ride.

Offline NT Password & Registry Editor

Every have a computer you just can’t login to? Well as a computer geek I’m often faced with the challenge of logging onto computers I don’t have a password for or the administrators account has been disabled or locked out. Now the best solution I’ve seen is ERD Commander but this wonderful software comes with a hefty price tag. There is however a very slick Open Source solution and it works very well, it’s the Offline NT Password & Registry Editor. You download it and create a bootable floppy disk that you use to boot up the machine you want to change the password on. You’ll want to read everything when you boot the machine up, but you can click enter for most of items have the correct default set for it. Make sure you change the password of the local administrator account to blank; I’ve tried changing other accounts and had poor results.

Although this tool isn’t for the faint of heart; it is easy enough to use and it’s guaranteed to make you smile.

Fridays Favorites

If you’re reading this blog at then chances are you’re a geek, and that means you like to learn stuff others don’t know :)  and it’s a big bonus when those things actually make your life easier!

Inspired by Jason’s Friday Funnies, I’ve decided to start a Friday Favorites post. It will be about my favorite tools, shortcuts, websites, geek stuff, non-geek stuff and just anything I really like in general.

To kick this thing off I’ll give you my most favorite of all keyboard shortcuts. This shortcut includes the Windows key (usually stuck between the CRTL and ALT keys on your keyboard) and the letter E.  This will open the Windows Explorer. I love this shortcut, but alas my IBM laptop doesn’t have a Windows Key :(