Microsoft Windows 8 Upgrade

A desktop 4 core PC has Windows Vista (virus) so it suffers from frequent hangs for no apparent reason.  No amount of patching and disabling services has cured it.

Microsoft Windows 8 upgrade is currently offered at $39.99, including Media Center upgrade to play DVDs.  The upgrade was surprisingly pleasant.  As promised, data files were saved and everything else was removed during the clean install.  After the install, don't forget to request the Media Center upgrade key.


Screen shots of the Windows 8 upgrade process.

Checking compatibility

Price and license agreement

Choose to create media or download on the fly

Choice to keep personal files and settings

Install

Personalize color scheme

 Express settings, or not

Sign in means to sign in to web account.  Downloading apps through web store will require this account.

Installation complete

Begin re-installing applications and customizing.

Wifi Router Fixes for Actiontec and Zytel

I encountered a Verizon Actiontec home wifi box that would connect for hard-wired, a laptop, and a tablet.  It would not connect to a smartphone.  The security was WEP.  I changed the security to WPA2 and every device was able to consistently connect.

I encountered a CenturyLink Zytel PK5000Z wifi box that would not allow connections for transient devices.  Devices that were consistently at the store were able to reliably connect.  Transient devices would start to connect then fail to get IP address.  There was no WEP/WPA security.  Changing to WPA2 made no difference.  Removing NAT made no difference.  The firmware was up-to-date.  I changed the DHCP expiry from one day to five minutes.  This allowed all devices to consistently connect.

Tools for Website Maintenance

A friend asked for help with a website.  These tools have been useful.

Reference Guides

Font examples:
http://www.angelfire.com/fl5/html-tutorial/fontlist.htm

Color wheel:
http://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_colorpicker.asp

Software

PhotoFiltre Portable
Simple yet feature rich image editing suite.  Doesn't use Windows installer.
http://download.cnet.com/PhotoFiltre-Portable/3000-2192_4-75374045.html

Core FTP LE
FTP client.
http://www.coreftp.com/download.html

TotalEdit
Text editor supporting many software languages.
http://download.cnet.com/TotalEdit/3000-2352_4-10422689.html

Code

Place syntax validators in page footers:
<a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer" title="This page validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional"><abbr title="eXtensible HyperText Markup Language">XHTML</abbr></a> | <a href="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/check/referer" title="This page validates as CSS"><abbr title="Cascading Style Sheets">CSS</abbr></a>