The Acer Extensa 5620-4801 is a great budget laptop with 3 gigs of RAM but I couldn't handle the bloat of Vista so I downgraded to XP using this guide.

My notes:

• Before getting rid of Vista, make the factory recovery DVD's using the installed software (2 DVD's required) and make a driver backup disk (1 DVD required)
• If you can't slipstream an install disk with the SATA drivers then be sure and change the BIOS setting to IDE and then use this guide to get the ACHI working. The driver I used was the Intel 82801HEM/HBM SATA AHCI Controller - the 82801 is the correct one. After updating the driver, reboot, F2 into the BIOS and then change the setting to ACHI. Take out any DVD/CD's you may have so it'll boot faster and more reliably.
• Don't install the webcam driver, just let XP install its own generic driver - this could cause a reboot hang
• If you have Mass Storage Device in the device manager, that's the CardR_TI driver for your card reader.
• Drivers link

Bonus: here's a rapidshare download that's an installer that has all of the drivers.  I can verify that it was created using Driver Genius on a 5620-4801 system with all drivers working but I provide no guarantee that it will work (you're on your own) but if you're installing from scratch it can't hurt anything. Just run it after booting into windows with IDE mode set in the BIOS, then after installing change it to AHCI when it reboots.  It may be a good idea to create a system restore point before installing.

My new laptop is now running fast with less bloat and annoyances with XP. I bought mine for $550 (with a $50 rebate) over the tax holiday weekend but the price has since jumped to over $650!

Update: Try this tiny utility - just put it in your startup folder: Double click simulator and Winamp helper. No more bloated software needed.

I don't know what brand my mouse is but in the past I've never had a problem setting the middle button to a double-click. Unfortunately, Logitech's and Microsoft's generic mouse driver software is missing this option. The only way I could set my USB Optical Mouse was to download a very large utility from Logitech called SetPoint (50+ megs). Well, at least it works now and there is a helper app called uberOptions that can extend your configuration options.

Happiness for today is being able to double-click by single-clicking the middle mouse button.

Tools Needed:
Wise Setup UnPacker http://kannegieser.net/~veit/programm/e_wise.arj

Downloaded e_wise and extract the files to C:\unwise\ - create this folder. e_wise_d.exe is probably the only required file being the unpacker itself.

1. Go to http://themexp.org/ and download any file you like

2. Copy & Paste the file to our "unWISE" directory and rename it to something like "red.exe".

3. Click "CTRL+R" (or Start > Run) and type "cmd /k" then when msdos windows opens up, type "cd C:\unwise".

4. At this point you should be in your "C:\unwise" directory. Now type "e_wise_d red.exe red_done". Where "e_wise_d" is our unpacker program, "red.exe" our downloaded file from themexp and "red_done" is our destination directory for extracted files. You should see series of code flying all over the dos screen, wait till it's done.

You can automate this by creating a textfile in this folder called doit.bat with this as the text:

e_wise_d red.exe red_done

and then double-clicking it in Windows Explorer, that way you can reuse it again without even the need for the command prompt.

5. Go to your "c:\unwise\red_done" directory, you should see file "00000000.BAT" click it to compile all directorys/files.

6. Now you should see "MAINDIR" directory, go to this directory. You should see spyware files in there like; atoolbar400011.exe Also you should see file "EXENAME" without extension.

7. Add .rar/zip extension to our "EXENAME" file. It should look like "EXENAME.rar" or "EXENAME.zip"

8. Now extract the file with WinRAR, go to "EXENAME" directory and you should see all the files.

To do it again, you can skip step 4 and double click the batch file you created: C:\unwise\doit.bat

Does the fan on your Compaq Presario always come on whenever you do anything even remotely CPU intensive, like gaming or video conversion? I always keep my PC fairly clean but I was missing one critical area: the CPU fan grate. Here's what you can do to fix this.

First get an old toothbrush, then open up your PC case and get your vacuum cleaner with the hose attachment. Turn on the vacuum and put it near the main CPU fan. Then use the toothbrush to clean the grate behind the fan itself. Just get it in as far as you can and a lot of dust will come out and be sucked up by the vacuum. Go around in a circle following the movement of the fan and use the toothbrush to clean the grate behind it the best you can. If you can remove the fan itself using a screwdriver then go ahead but it's probably not needed.

Now my fan never comes on. I thought I kept my PC clean but this one area was out of my awareness. Good luck!

This is a short tutorial on how to make a music mix podcast using Winamp.

1. First install Winamp and download/install the SqrSoft ACF Disc Writer plugin
2. Load Winamp and put all of the files in the order you'd like them to play in the playlist window
3. Then click Ctrl+P to get the Preferences window for Winamp
4. Under Plug-ins > Output choose SqrSoft ACF Disc Writer and hit "Configure" to get the box below. This plugin will create a nice fade between tracks and also eliminates silence. Even if you create your own tracks using a microphone you may still find this method useful for mixing your created tracks.
5. The only configuration option I changed from the default was unchecking "Write multiple wave file" which is exactly what we don't want here b/c we want a large, continuous wav file that we're going to convert to MP3 afterwards. You should also set the "Output path".
6. Then play your playlist in Winamp from the beginning - I usually just double-click the first track in the playlist.
7. Your very large wav file will be created very quickly (nice!) and all you have to do now is convert it to MP3 (typically @ 128kbps) using whatever encoder you choose, even Winamp itself.
8. Hit Ctrl+P again and set your Output back to "DirectSound output" so that you can listen to your audio files and not create any more wav files.
9. Check out an example.