Well my one month sabbatical from tech blogging turned into two months in the blink of an eye.

It has been good to stop for a while and reflect a bit.

The things i like about tech blogging are numerous.

I love technology. I like talking and writing about it and in particular sharing knowledge.

I do appreciate the feedback (comments and e-mails) from the people who contact me.

Several people contacted me wondering if I was perchance trapped under something heavy and couldn’t get to a keyboard.

In reality I was waiting for something exciting to happen in technology…….

A visitor to the site left this question?

“I’ve just ordered a Dell Latitude D630 and know already I need to downgrade from Vista Business to XP Pro but everything I google on the matter is littered with conflicting information…seeing as you have done this would you be so kind as to give me a procedure? Treat me like I know nothing and we won’t go wrong!!”

Note: This process will require a re-format of your computer and you will need to ensure you backup any data first as all the existing data and software will be lost.

Pre requisites

1 x Dell Windows XP Pro CD and lots of time.

Step 1) Check that Dell Support Windows XP on your Hardware. For this specific user I know the answer is yes but not all Dell Models have Windows XP Support.

Go to www.support.dell.com then Drivers and Downloads and browse to your model.

From the Operating System dropdown box make sure there is a Windows XP option. Leave the Drivers Web Page open for the moment.

Step 2) Get to know your Dell Vista Hardware first. Find out what you will need.

You want to do this so there is no guess work about what other hardware you have inside your Dell.

Example: A Dell can ship will up to 5 different video cards.

So in Windows Vista click on the Start Menu and when you see Computer right click it and choose Properties.

Then from the left hand side choose the Device manager.

I always make a note of the Display Driver and Network adaptors and Sound (those expanded in the above picture).

Step 3) Download from www.support.dell.com the Windows XP Drivers you will need.

To keep yourself organised put each download into a Folder for easy access later.

Ideally you want to store these on a USB Key or burn a CD with them on.

Step 4) Backup any of your own Data from Windows Vista.

Step 5) Insert your Dell Windows XP Pro CD, turn on your computer and press F12 for boot options. Then Choose your CD/DVD Drive from the available boot options.

Tip: Make sure you don’t have any external hard disks or other peripherals connected. A mouse is ok.

The Windows XP Setup will take a few moments but eventually ask you what you want to do, choose the first option To Setup Windows.

The Windows XP Setup will now look for a version of Windows Installed and offer to Repair or Install a fresh copy. You want the fresh copy so press ESC.

On the existing Partition Screen you will see the various Partitions.

You want to Delete the largest partition and if you see a Dell Vista Recovery Partition you can also delete that. Leave the smallest FAT partitions alone.

Next you want to create a new partition in the un-partitioned space. Accept the size which should be the maximum available. Format the partition NTFS (Quick) after which the Windows XP Install files will be copied and the installation will continue.

Tip: The Win Supersite has a Step by Step guide with pictures of this procedure.
Link: http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sg_clean.asp

Step 6) Once Windows XP is loaded you will need to install the Dell Drivers in the correct order.

1:System Software
2:Chipset
3:Video Adaptor
4:Network Card
5:Audio
6:Modem
7:Wireless
8:Input things like touch pad
9:Bluetooth
10:PMCIA/Smart Card

Tip: Dell now have their own “Driver install order” document which is more detailed that the one above. Link: Here

You should now be ready to connect to the internet and visit www.windowsupdate.com for the latest updates to windows.

Earlier this week Apple updated a few products in their range. The Mac Mini, iMac and the Mac Pro.

I’ve always wanted to find a place for an Apple Mac in my own technology but never get around to it.

The entry level Mac Mini would be an excellent place to start.

However due to the horrendous exchange rate affecting the UK pound most international tech companies have recently increased their prices.

So take the once desirable £399 Mac Mini this week becomes a £499 proposition.

Suddenly a £499 PC that ships with no Keyboard, Mouse or Monitor seems decidedly unaffordable.

I think most of the recent price increase is down to the exchange rate but a small part is Apple now know who a Mac Mini customer is and have figured they will stomach the cost.

The last couple of years have been horrible in technology The Windows Vista wilderness as I will no doubt remember 2007 to 2009 so as we approach the demise of the Windows Vista  era consumers have the increased cost of technology to contend with. No wonder low cost netbooks are all the rage.

If you are still interested in the new Mac Mini check out the PC Mag Review on the Link below.

Link: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2341928,00.asp

Well after an absolutely fantastic experience on a beefy desktop PC I installed Windows 7 on an Dell XPS M1530 Laptop.

It functioned reasonably well for the first couple of days but developed a problem that installed applications would not run, or more correctly they would run but only in background.

I then found I could not terminate these running application from the taskmgr and ultimately had to remove the laptop battery to perform a reboot as it would not shutdown.

I encountered this issue in both iTunes 8.02 and Windows Media Player and it was pretty consistent.

Alongside the fact Windows 7 could not display a populated taskbar if an external monitor was connected made for a really annoying user experience on the XPS M1530.

The enforced removal of the battery could ultimately have caused damage to the Laptop so I elected to remove Windows 7 beta on this machine.

I can’t accurately blame a specific piece of software or Windows 7 for the problem. However  I do know it  stopped Windows 7 in its tracks.

Hopefully the Windows 7 RC1 goes public next month (April) and I will dive back in.

Sorry, could not resist the post title.

It appears Gmail users are having a bad day.

Gmail has had mini outages before but this one is seems to have caught the big G off guard.

The Class A types soon headed over to twitter to see if their Gmail problems were isolated. However the flurry of tweets about Gmail arrived by the thousands.

Tips: Apparently Gmail’s  IMAP support is still operational and if you have an iPhone you can still access the service. Most typical users who access the service via a web browser will have to sit this one out.

Gmail has 113m users worldwide so I guess this is kind of a big problem and it is very unlike Google to be offline for this amount of time. Currently 3 hours and counting.

For updates see: http://mail.google.com/support/ or to check out the carnage in real time while it happens see: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=gmail