I wanted some way to log into my home desktop to ensure that what I had setup would take place as planned. Psycik suggested a site called logmein.com and installing that on my computer so that I can use the web to access my PC. I signed up and thought I was up and running. I checked it all, and it worked.

The flaw in my plan was a large storm that swept across Auckland late last night. And whilst the ginger and I lay in bed, with the blinds open, watching the lightning, my computer had been shutdown and was unplugged from the wall, just in case. I have the up most faith in these surge protector boards, but when they cost so much, unplugging is a logical, cost saving way to go.

But that is beside the point. This morning before venturing out to work, I booted up my PC. Windows loading screen, and then, nothing. nada. zero. zilch. zip. Oh no! Could it be that it was throwing a tantrum about being powered down? I normally keep it in Standby or some form of hibernation, but this was looking serious.

Making disgruntled mumbling noises beneath my breath, I beat the well driven path in the storm to the office. Pondering for the 40 minute drive, what the hell was wrong with my computer. Maybe if I log in from work, it might let me see the screen.

Denied. I logged into my computer from work. Logmein was successful. But all I could see was black. Using the logmein panel, I rebooted into safe mode. A HA! I can see my screen. I poke around and determine nothing serious has happened, but why can’t I see my screen?

So I disabled the logmein on the desktop, rendering my PC alone in cyberspace until I got home from work. But have no fear. I found the answer. Of course, just minutes after disabling logmein. I found my answer to the problem here.

Basically, logmein installs a display adapter and its pretty low level, basic stuff, but it can do pretty nasty things to your existing driver. Just uninstall the driver that logmein installs in your system (logmein mirror) and reinstall your display adapter.

I recommend booting up into either Safe Mode or using Remote Desktop Connection to do this as you will not be able to see a goddamn thing until you’ve reinstalled your old video driver and rebooted your PC.

So the long and short of it is, just over 12 hours since the problem arose, its now working perfectly.

Also of a side note in my browser wars, logmein doesnt work with Google Chrome.

Sorry for the delay between blog posts – in case you weren’t aware or don’t live near the motorsport cave, I was working trackside at the Hamilton 400.

Before I departed, thanks to a #geekzone idler, found the joys of using up my data cap with torrents. To get started, I am using a client called utorrent. The main goal of this was getting rid of left over data cap before Telecom rolled over to my next 40gb allowance, and also to give me something to watch on my Laptop while at the Hotel.

As a side note, I will do a blog post later about the Supercars & related side events before my memory fades into my bourbon & coke.

On return to Auckland and civilisation and a packet of Toffee Pops on the desk, I set about experimenting with connecting my Samsung 32” TV to my computer. This is something I wasn’t too sure of. The video card installed on my desktop is an Asus Nvidia 9400GT Silent/HTP/512M. It more than does the job as far as video cards go, and while the double depth of the card limits me to one other PCI card on my motherboard, I don’t quite know what I would put in the other PCI slot anyway, unless I urgently need more USB ports?

Back to the Television experiment. After reading the manual that came with the TV and some hair pulling later, I had it. The Nvidia Control Panel needed updating to support multiview, and once I had that sorted, I could set my resolution on my TV to the optimum as recommended by Samsung and connect the sound to it as well.

Now before I get too carried away, I am struck with a problem. I can either have sound through my PC speakers or through the Television, which is no good when watching Sky. Also, each time I want to watch television through my PC, I have to go to medium lengths to set up the television and configure the display setups.

So as of now, I am currently researching my way around this medium problem. Is this a case for Hardware Profiles? Basically I want to set it up so I have my usual desktop setting, and then I can say have my TV setting, which changes my audio and visual output over to the Samsung. Can this be done?

Then I am lead down the HDMI path. At present, the television is connected to the desktop via a D-Sub or VGA cable. Obviously most modern video cards are HDCP compliant, and also capable of an HD signal, of which I know the Nvidia 9400GT is, but only through the DVI connector, of which I am running my AOC monitor. So that leaves me with the quandary of should I look at getting a new video card with DVI for my AOC monitor and an HDMI output for TV. Or will the component connector on the rear of the give me the same desired HD output? I don’t know, but it sure is something for me to play around with!

One thing I know for sure if, if the torrent thing keeps happening for me, I will need to buy bigger hard drives!