Q: I have several screensavers that I like. Is there something that'll rotate through them or pick one at random, and so on, like Wallpaper manager does for wallpapers?
A: Absolutely, and it's FREE! Xemico's ScreenSaver Druid is your answer.

Q: I got this error while starting a game... The dialog box has the title "Protection Error". The dialog box says, "A debugger has been detected: unload the debugger and try again" or something similar to this. I don't know what a debugger is! What is going on?
A: This is USUALLY caused by an version of Nero 6, which conflicts with the copy protection authentication system your game uses. If you don't have Nero 6 installed in your system, then I can't help you. Try here instead..

Basically, your game wants to protect itself from hackers and crackers, who uses tools to look into the program's inner functions. Those tools are called debuggers. However, debugger presence can be detected, and program can simply refuse to run if debugger is detected. However, detection is not 100% accurate.

In this case, Nero has a module (specifically, a DirectX video "filter") that somehow triggers this message. And since one of the first things a game does is usually display some sort of logo / animation / movie, this is triggered right away.

There are various other causes for it, such as old version of Divx 5, but those are rather rare nowadays.

You do not need to uninstall Nero, just a tiny portion of it. Follow the steps please...

1) Hit Start button, then select RUN... at the bottom. You'll get the run dialog box.
2) Type in the following EXACTLY as shown below

regsvr32 /u "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Ahead\DSFilter\NeVideo.ax

If you get back a dialog box that says essentially that it is successful, this worked, and try your game now. If you got an error message, you likely didn't type in the above exactly as is, or you don't have Nero installed as originally thought.

Try the game you have problem with, and see if it works now.

Q: I have one of those new mice that has the "tilt mousewheel" function (the mouse wheel can be pushed left or right). How can I map that into a game? The game doesn't see the tilt functions.
A: You need to have the respective mouse driver loaded, but have no function (or a "generic function") mapped to those two controls. Then the game should be able to see it, but it'll have to be a relatively modern game.

Q: I want to add wallpaper and ringtones to my new phone, but I don't want to pay $2.95 or whatever per tone. What are my options?
A: With a PC, there are three possibilities, at least with modern phones.
1) USB data cable. Most phones should have an accessory data cable available for about $10-20, which will allow you to access the phone via the PC with accompanied software. Most will also let you access the calendar, the contact list, and other stuff. It will of course, let you download wallpapers and ringtones, but you'll need to resize/convert them. The accompanied software may do that, or you can buy dedicated software that'll do so.
2) Bluetooth. Most modern phones are Bluetooth compatible, but it does more than transmit voice. with a Bluetooth adapter on the PC (plugs into USB port) your PC can access the phone as if you had an USB data cable, albeit a bit slower. (It'll also let you use the Bluetooth headset as a PC headset, but that's another story)
3) Internet/SMS message. Most modern phones can receive what's known as "multimedia message". It's called MMS by Nokia, and a PIX message by Verizon. Basically it's a SMS message that also carries an attachment, and that could be a picture or some sound. Save that into your phone, and you got a wallpaper or ringtone. There's a free service that does this called ToneThis. Download the free client and give it a spin. Beware, only specific carriers and phone models are supported.

Q: How do I get the best download speed on a bittorrent client?
A: There are a variety of factors that affects a Bittorrent client's speed.

First of all, your router must support incoming connections, and be configured properly for port forwarding for the BT port ranges.

Second, make sure your firewall don't block incoming traffic. Sometimes your antivirus may also do some blocking as part of anti-worm activity. Most BT clients will tell you if it detects a problem.

Third, most upload does NOT equal more download. THere's a trade-off point on every PC, and a good client would let you configure it easily.

I recommend uTorrent (http://www.utorrent.org) as one of the more efficient BT clients around. It also has a very easily configured upload/download limiter that helps you configure the speed. Click on the status bar to bring up the "speed guide". Try xx/512 first. Try it for about 5 minutes, see what kind of speed you achieve on a popular torrent (download some movies or TV shows or whatever, ones with lots of peers and seeds). Then try a higher, then a lower setting. Eventually you'll find one that gives you the best download speed.

On my PC, I found that my best download speed is at xx/384, as I was able to get 95K download. If I set it to next step up, xx/512, I only get about 45K download. If I go lower, xx/256, I get average of about 70K.

Q: Does scanning a CD or DVD on a flatbed scanner damage it in any way?

A: Absolutely not. The only side worth scanning is the label side, thus there will be no light reaching the media side. Even if you scan the media side, most scanners use "cold cathode" light which has low temperature and won't even affect paper, much less CD/DVD media.

Q: Is there a boot CD I can use to diagnose/recover from common PC problems?
A: Try UBCD for Windows, a completely free tool that will let you boot and diagnose most PC problems, even recover delete files and such.

Q: I have created some VIDEO_TS folders. What's the quickest way to burn them to DVD?
A: Use ImgTools via videohelp.com. If you enable the shell integration, just right-click the directory and pick "burn to DVD" and it'll take things from there. Easy as easy can be.

However, there are multiple versions. The regular version requires any version of Nero, even the demo, to be installed. However, there's like 3-4 different versions and using the wrong one can be problem.

The classic version threw in an old DLL that's probably haven't been updated in a while and may not be fully legally responsible.

Q: Is there a free program I can use to calibrate the colors of my monitor?
A: Try Monitor Calibration Wizard, which is free. There's also Nokia Monitor Test.

Q: What is S.M.A.R.T. and how does it affect my PC?
A: S.M.A.R.T. stands for Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology. It's basically a self-diagnostic for your hard drive. As it runs, a tiny CPU inside monitors certain parameters, and if they fall below a certain threshold, triggers a SMART error. With compatible BIOS and/or IDE controller, you will then see the error, which will allow you to do something about it rather than experience sudden hardware failure.

Almost all hard drives nowadays are equipped with SMART. If you want to see what kind of values your HD is putting out, download Passmark's DiskCheckup and take a look. It's free for personal use, and it's read-only.

P.S. if you do see a S.M.A.R.T. error, your hard drive is DYING. There is nothing to FIX. Save the data, and replace the hard drive.