Technology

The HP ENVY 14 (and ENVY family in general) is a great laptop, but has one huge annoyance: when you press Volume Up or Volume Down, a bar appears and TAKES THE FOCUS away from the running application, closing full screen video and minimizing full screen games.

We have the fix. Luckily it is simple.

- Click the Start Menu
- Type System Configuration
- Press Enter
- In the screen that appears, click Startup
- Uncheck the item called HP MediaSmart SmartMenu
- Click OK
- Restart your computer

Here is a screenshot of what that looks like:

When ordering a computer -- such as a desktop, laptop or server -- from Hewlett Packard (HP), there are a number of status messages which will appear in the online screen. HP's Order dropped to factory message means that the order has been approved by sales and has been sent to the factory's queue for production. This message means that it is currently queued for production, but that production on the laptop has not yet begun.

Apple has announced that iOS 4.0 (previously known as iPhone OS 4) will be available for the iPad in the fall. In the mean time, several small service releases are available for the iPad. However, iOS 4.0 is currently only available for iPhones, not the iPad. The delay is due to additional work that is needed to tailor iOS for the iPad. It is rumored that additional features will be added to the iPad version that are taking longer to complete.

The Apple iPad requires 10 watts of power to charge. As a result, it will refuse to charge from many USB ports on computers, even some MacBook Pro models. If you cannot charge your iPad from the computer then this is the problem. To charge the iPad, you should use the included wall charger.

You do indeed need to buy Xeon processors to configure them in a dual processor (as opposed to dual core) configuration. Xeon processors are generally more expensive than non-Xeon (e.g. Core/Pentium) processors. Xeon chips have a certain flag set on them that will cause them to be recognized as Xeon CPUs by a motherboard and then run in a dual configuration. One alternative is to consider AMD solutions.

Ah, Aero Shake. Why are you so annoying? Follow this simple guide to turn this feature off once and for all.

Aero Shake Gesture -- How to disable it?!!

- Hold down the Windows key and press R. This will open the run window.

- Type gpedit.msc and press enter.

- Now select User Configuration, then Administrative Templates, and then Desktop

- Scroll down and choose "Turn off Aero Shake window minimizing mouse gesture"

- Double click on it

The easiest way to check for free disk space in Linux is by using the DF command:

df -h

Simply type this command into a terminal and press enter. The -h option adds a human readable output. Run the command in the mount that you want to see. You do not need to run it in the top level; you can run it anywhere in that mount and it will show the free disk space available, as well as the total.

The PHP mail() function with sendmail can become slow or get blocked if the /etc/hosts file is not configured correctly. What is happening is that the mail() function is being blocked and forced to timeout based on this information. Check that the /etc/hosts file is setup with the correct hostname. If you are not sure how to do this, you may want to call customer service for your web hosting company and ask them to help you with it.

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShip Two has a rumored release date of late 2010 to early 2011. However, given that the spaceship is being built from scratch by Mojave Aerospace and Scaled Composites, delays are possible. Nevertheless, the company is taking new bookings on their website. No publicly announced dates are available, but flight testing of the two-part spaceship continue and are expected to accelerate through the next few months.

For those lucky enough to be in the OnLive a25 public beta, things usually work quite well. However, sometimes either of the following can happen:

- Error a25 (shown in gray, at the bottom, left corner) "An Error Has Occurred" You have been disconnected from the OnLive Game Service. Would you like to reconnect?
- Invalid Email Address or Password (even though you repeatedly type in the correct password)

If either of these errors occur, then you should try the following:

Apple FaceTime on the iPhone 4 does indeed work on Verizon Wireless using a MiFi. All you need to do is get a MiFi from Verizon Wireless, connect your iPhone 4 to it over WiFi, and connect. Here is a video demonstrating the feasibility of this. This video was recorded in the United States. It may not work as well for international video calls.

You've probably heard about Microsoft's attachment for the Xbox 360 called Kinect, which can sense full body motion and gestures. We ran a computer simulation of what Kinect with an App Store would be like, and we think the results speak for themselves:

The Motorola Droid 2 has a rumored release date of July, 2010, putting it within range of the iPhone 4 launch, potentially doing attempting to take some sales away from the Apple's juggernaut. The phone is rumored to have a 1 Ghz processor and 512 MB of RAM, making it one of the more powerful smart phones on the market. A price and official release date have yet to be confirmed by Motorola representatives. The video below shows leaked footage of the highly anticipated phone. The phone will be an exclusive for Verizon Wireless, which owns the Droid brand name license.

The Apple iPhone 4 is set to go on sale in June, 2010, however it was briefly available for pre-order through AT&T for 1 day. During this time, over 600,000 phones were sold in a single day, crashing AT&T's signup servers repeatedly, resulting in the pre-order process being down throughout the day for most people. AT&T has now announced that they have already pre-sold all of their inventory and are no longer offerring pre-orders of the highly-anticipated phone. Apple's website has also stopped taking pre-orders.

UPDATE: The latest breaking news has announced that Microsoft will be cancelling the KIN line of devices completely due to poor sales (see below). The company will not even bother with the planned European launch of the devices later this year based on the poor North American sales.