I got the dreaded “power calibration” error while trying to burn a backup disk on this three-year-old IBM T43. As this was the first time I had encountered it (and half past midnight really isn’t a very good time to encounter problems for the first time) I had to go ask my good buddy Google for help.

It appears that there are three main causes of the power calibration error.

1. The drive doesn’t like the media. With the proliferation of cheap blank media there will be instances when the blank cd itself is the problem. I thought this was my problem at first, having bought a stack of 100 cd’s from a local dealer that prides itself on very affordable prices, but consequently offers little if any warranty.
2. Power consumption. In this era of usb hubs that look make your peripherals look like sucklings on a sow there may be a chance that your cd recorder is not getting the power that it needs to burn your cd’s. So off went the usb hub and I suffered the eraser-head pointer tool on the T43 keyboard. Still no go.
3. Dirt. Yuk. Yep, this was actually the culprit in my case. I live in a country where dust and grime is part of everyday life and I remember again that this laptop was assigned to a heavy smoker before it ended up on my lap. I took out my bottle of micro clean and spritzed a q-tip, swabbed the lens (very gently) and then gave it a few bursts of the rubber dust blower. THAT fixed it.

Am burning happily again now, and I’ve passed the tip on to my buddies at work. Hope it helps you too.

With all the software upgrading these days, including the latest Firefox v 3.0, I lost track of the other program versions I have on my machine. I had also installed the powerful (but trial) version of Kaspersky Internet Security which found all the malfeasants on my machine, but has apparently also affected my uTorrent.

The problem was this: whenever my uTorrent was open, whether downloading or just seeding, I couldn’t browse any websites. The browser (IE, Firefox, Safari, Flock etc) would just say “connecting” or “waiting”, but no pages would be served.

First I made sure that uTorrent was in Kaspersky’s list of safe programs–it was already there I didn’t have to re-include uTorrent in the list. Then I tried switching from wireless to wired. Still no go.

Finally I took the easy way out and uninstalled uTorrent (saved all the unfinished download torrent files on a separate folder for later use of course). Rebooted my machine. Went to the uTorrent site and downloaded the latest version available. Reinstalled uTorrent.

Now I am writing this post as I am downloading from uTorrent. And the whole process took less than 5 minutes (yes I am not kidding) to do. Rather than try to fiddle with settings and stuff, I would prefer to just start from the beginning. Same attitude I have towards real life.

One of the minor but still pesky things about Windows XP is the default Windows Messenger that automatically starts when you boot up your computer. With all the new messaging software available such as Skype, Yahoo Messenger and Meebo, you really don’t need Windows Messenger sitting useless on your taskbar eating up precious resources.

Here’s how to give it the boot.

On your Windows XP machine, click on Start > Run

On the text box paste the line below:

RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\inf\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove

So that it looks like this:

Then click OK.

You will see a quick window near the top left of your screen which signify the files involving Windows Messenger going into cyberspace heaven, where all good deleted files go. After this, no more useless Windows Messenger in your PC or on your task bar.

*thanks to an old post by one of my favorite tipsters, LiewCF.com