Category Archives: Guides

Any guides that GEEK! create will slot into this category.

PEAK 100417AGPK USB Dual TV Tuner Windows XP/Vista/7 32/64Bit Driver (download in post)

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Right – I literally just upgraded the motherboard on my computer and then reinstalled Windows. Rather stupidly, I didn’t think to check I had all the driver disks for my USB devices – and nonetheless I since haven’t been able to get a driver for my USB TV Tuner.

It’s a PEAK USB Dual Tuner DVB-T, and I had it running perfectly on my original 32-bit Windows 7 Home Premium. However, I’ve now moved over to 64-bit Windows – which is great, but I can’t for the life of me find the stupid mini-CD that came with the device to install the driver.

Even more annoyingly – the company’s website (PEAK) is no longer working (www.peakhardware.com), and there aren’t any drivers on any public driver site – so I was absolutely stuck there.

Thankfully, I had a eureka moment and realised that I’d, in the past, also installed the tuner on my netbook. Whilst I couldn’t use the driver on that (because it is 32-bit), I was able to identify the name of the driver used and get a copy online (much more readily available).

Anyway – if you’re having the same problem as me – it uses a driver called the AF9015 BDA Device – and luckily enough, I have a driver for you!

UPDATE: I FOUND THE DRIVER DISK! While digging through my drawers, I found the driver disk. So, to make things simple – I’m going to simply upload the driver directory of the disk to GEEK!. All you need to do is unzip the file and run /DVB-T/Setup.exe. 32-bit and 64-bit drivers for XP, Vista and 7 are included.

DOWNLOAD – 3MB

Hopefully, that should solve the problem!

Five top tips for selling your phone to recycling companies

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You may well have got yourself a brand new phone this Christmas, which is always a nice present now-a-days. I, myself, got a brand new HTC Sensation XE for Christmas (technically it was an early Christmas present – or at least part of it was!) – which I adore.

But it does beg the question, what happens to the old phone? Mine always seem to end up sitting in boxes until they’re no use to anyone at all. This time I thought I’d sent it off to a recycling company. There’s method in the madness – people will pay you to recycle your old phone, but you have to be careful when you do so. So here are some top tips for recycling your old phone:

  • Shop around – find the best price. You’d normally see that phrase when buying a gadget, but it does also applying to selling gadgets too. Just because a phone recycling company advertises on TV, doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll give you the best price. In fact, there’s actually quite a lot of mobile phone recycling companies around – so you’re more than likely to find a better price if you do some hunting. Take a look at sellmymobile.com – just type in your make/model and it’ll do the rest for you.
  • Check the price you’re getting is consistent. Make sure you read the terms & conditions carefully when you’re selling the phone. Some buyers will only offer you a certain payment within a number of days – after which point they can lower that offer by a substantial amount. Also make sure that you’re not under any contractual obligation – it’s your phone,  you can change your mind if you want.
  • Make sure you’ve backed up anything you want to keep… If you want to keep anything (like camera shots, contacts or messages), make sure you’ve got a copy safely stored on your computer or on another phone. Once you’ve sent off your phone, you may not get it back (and if you do, it may well have been flashed to remove all content). Most recent phones include software to back up content on your phone – so make use of it!
  • …and deleted anything you don’t want to keep. Make sure to ‘restore factory settings’ on the phone before handing it over. You don’t want any of your personal details (or friends’ personal details) to end up in someone else’s hands. Restoring factory settings will put the phone back to how it was when you first got it, and should delete any content that was once there.
  • Remove any accessories that you aren’t required to hand over. As already mentioned, you may not get your phone back – even if you request it. So make sure you remove any accessories you don’t have to hand over (perhaps accessories that you bought yourself) like memory cards, cases and spare batteries. Memory cards may well come in handy on new phones, and if not they’re a handy portable storage medium.

There you have it. Five tips to make the most of phone recycling companies. It’s debatable as to whether you’re better off auctioning your phones on sites like eBay – but if you just can’t be bothered with the hassle, you’re quickest way to get some cash is to hand it over to one of these companies. Just make sure you’re not being ripped off!

Stop PresentationFontCache.exe hogging CPU power

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Recently, I’ve come across an annoying problem in Windows 7. There seems to be a service, named PresentationFontCache.exe, that hogs CPU power for an extended period of time – which can be extremely annoying when playing games or using CPU-intensive applications.

From research, the service seems to be part of the ‘Windows Presentation Foundation service’ and doesn’t appear to be anything harmful – just a nuisance. It would be a bad idea to kill the service permanently as it is quite important (although many have resorted to killing it without major issues), however there is a good fix which I’ve come across.

To fix the problem, we simply need to remove the cache that it creates.

Head to C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\LocalService\AppData\Local (it won’t show up in Windows Explorer – you’ll need to manually navigate to it). Now in this directory you should see up to three files – named as follows:

  • FontCache3.0.0.0
  • FontCache-System
  • FontCache-S-xxxxxx….

If you delete the file FontCache3.0.0.0 whilst the PresentationFontCache.exe service is killed (kill it from Task Manager), it should resolve your problem. I actually removed all three files and it hasn’t done any damage, but I’m relatively sure you only need to remove FontCache3.0.0.0. Apparently, in some cases, the file may be called FontCache4.0.0.0 – in which case remove that file. 

Once that’s done, reboot your computer and all should be resolved!

Control RailWorks with an Xbox 360 controller (Windows)

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If you own the popular rail simulator RailWorks, you might be interested in this guide which shows you how to run the controls from an Xbox 360 controller.

By default, you play RailWorks with a keyboard and mouse. Whilst this is relatively playable, it does seem to get boring and tiresome after a while – so I investigated using other methods to control the game. I happen to own an Xbox 360 controller for Windows (as I use it for Test Drive Unlimited 2 and Grand Theft Auto IV) and thought it would be good to get it going with RailWorks.

To do this, I got hold of a handy piece of software called Xpadder. Newer versions seem to require a small purchase to pay for the product (bizarrely older versions are free and there are plenty of downloads for those on the internet – but you may need to run the program in compatibility mode as Windows XP if you’re using Windows 7). Nevertheless, it’s a small price to pay!

When you’ve downloaded and installed Xmapper, you can download the profile that I’ve created for RailWorks (see below). If you haven’t previously set up an Xbox 360 controller with Xpadder, you may want to import the controller files too (see below). Simply import the profile into Xpadder and you’re done.

Once it’s up and running, start up RailWorks. You should be able control the game using the controls below:

CONTROLS BUILD 1.0 – RAILWORKS (XPADDER)

  • Left analogue stick and D pad both control acceleration of train (up for increase acceleration, down for decrease acceleration). Tap the left analogue stick to raise/lower pantograph (electric trains only).
  • Right analogue stick controls brakes.
  • A – train door release
  • B – windscreen wiper switch
  • X – horn
  • Y – emergency brakes
  • LT – Increase reverser (for forward)
  • RT – Decrease reverser (for backward)
  • START button – pause game
  • SELECT/BACK button – start/stop engine
  • LB – Alerter reset
  • RB – Request permission to pass signal at danger

Known issues:

  • If you request permission to pass red signal, you are forced to close a dialog box with the mouse (not much can be done about this).

> Download the Xbox 360 controller configuration for Xpadder

> Download the RailWorks profile

Obviously, this is a work in progress. In future, I’ll update the profile to provide new functions.

Important: When you’ve finished playing RailWorks, you’ll need to disable Xpadder from the notification area – otherwise your controller will conflict with other programs and games and you’ll start getting unwanted keystrokes!

Enjoy – leave a comment and let me know how you get on!

Encrypt Your Hard Drive for Free with Truecrypt

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Article first published as Encrypt Your Hard Drive for Free with Truecrypt on Technorati.

It’s worrying to think that the computer you’re using right now could be holding all of your personal documents, photos and videos. If your computer was stolen tomorrow, would any of the data on your hard drive be safe?

Backing up all of your data is one thing – and thankfully more and more of us are getting into the habit of doing so. However, have you ever thought about the personal data on your machine that someone else might find?

This is where Truecrypt comes in. It’s a free, open source utility designed to help protect you and your data in the event of someone getting hold of your hard drive. It works by encrypting your entire hard drive and then requiring a password (or encryption key) on boot up to access the data. As soon as the correct password is entered, your machine is fully functional. Without the correct password, the data is meaningless to anyone – even the most intelligent of hackers.

Getting hold of Truecrypt is very easy. Simply head to the download page on their website (here) and grab your copy.

Once you’ve got it up and running, simply follow the clear on screen instructions for getting your drive encrypted. The program will need about 20 minutes of your time to configure all of the relevant options, and then it will do the rest in 1-10 hours (depending on the hard disk size and computer speed).

There are many other paid solutions available, but if you’d rather not spend money this should be more than sufficient. Whilst expensive versions of Windows do include encryption as standard, you do have have a hard drive that supports it. If you don’t have a supported drive, you have to use a memory stick to boot your computer – which certainly isn’t ideal.

However, if you’re using a low powered machine such as a netbook,you might want to think twice before encrypting your drive. Bear in mind that your computer will have to decrypt your data constantly when it is in use – and this may have adverse effects on your computer’s performance and battery life. If you still want to encrypt data with a low powered machine, you might want to consider placing it on a memory stick and encrypting that instead (Truecrypt can encrypt portable storage too).

On the other hand, if you store vast amounts of data on your machine and need to keep it safe from unauthorized access – this is the ideal solution.