Team Fortress 2 Servers not Showing on List

I ran into an issue a couple days ago and it was when I was playing Team Fortress 2 by Valve Software. When I called up the Server list, the result was an empty list (no servers responding to the query). I then backed down to the Steam Client and tried there with the same result (but only with the TF2 servers; all other game servers appeared fine). I eventually was able to get the Steam client to show TF2 servers by deleting a file from the TF2 folder (I forget which one off the top of my head, but I found it in the Support section of Valve).

When I entered TF2 and tried again, I still didn't have a server list. Long story short, it was my Avast A/V that was causing the issue. The nice thing was updating the A/V (definitions as well as program) resolved the issue.

My thought is a file was put into the A/V definitions on one update, then removed on the next. Needless to say, I'm able to play again. Woo-hoo!

New Cable, Bad cable, Worst Company

I needed a longer IDE cable to reach the DVD-ROM and DVD-Burner I had in a "newer" computer. I bought a 36" cable made by Mad Dog Multimedia from Circuit City. After purchasing, I registered my cable on their website due to the cost and if something went awry, I wanted to be lined up for help from the manufacturer. Six months later I was saddened when I determined the cable was my source of LATEST DVD burning errors. I was getting better results with a 40-pin IDE cable compared to the MDMM cable. Knowing my warranty information was already inputted in their system, I contacted them by email looking for assistance for an RMA number so I could return the cable for repair/replacement. A week went by. They stated a 24-48 response time on their website (www.mdmm.com) so I tried again by email. Two additional weeks with no response. I then contacted their Customer Service by phone. A recording directed me to a differnt number, which sounded like some guy's voice mail. I left a message as per the nature of my call and asked for a call back. Didn't get one. Tried again a week later. Another voicemail, with no call return.

This is the first time I've encountered a company that totally neglects their customer base from a Support standpoint. After running into troubles, I Googled them and found I'm not alone. It looks like I'm going ot have to eat this one, but not before sending my story out into the Wide Web in hopes of preventing this to someone else.

Data Verification Error when Burning Data DVD

I've had this issue for some time now. I bought a DVD burner for my 6 year old HP computer. To cut to the chase, when I burned data DVD's, the burn was fine, but the verification failed. There always seemed to be five to six errors. I've read that you could ignore the errors, but I found the errors were true so ignoring them was not an option. I tried multiple software packages and all were producing DVD coasters. Burning CD's was fine.

So what was it: Corrupt software settings somewhere, or hardware?

After seeing the issue was across more than one software package, I figured it was either an O/S (XP Pro w/SP2) issue or hardware. Since the DVD burner's warranty was about to expire, I went with hardware . I returned my burner (LG) and received a newer replacement. I installed the unit, conducted a fresh install of all burning software and tried a DVD burn again.

Same result.

I've now ruled out software, hardware, but not O/S. I wasn't about to reinstall XP, and was almost ready to give up when I happened to be on my computer's manufacturer's support page and found there was a recent BIOS upgrade because of an XP SP2 BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death). Playing it safe, I decided to upgrade my BIOS, thinking there's a possibility this may fix the DVD burn issue. The revision history for the BIOS made no mention of any DVD or IDE issues, but low and behold, my burner began producing error free data DVD's.

So, if you're experiencing data verification errors when burning DVD's, consider going to your PC's manufacturer and look for a BIOS update. It was the only thing that worked for me.

This issue took me over a year to solve. I hope this post accelerates your troubleshooting.

One other sidebar to note: If you upgrade Nero and run into issues when burning, Nero has produced a clean uninstall app that goes in and cleans out all instances of all past Nero software from your system so you can do a clean, fresh Nero install.

Too many commercials.

I saw this come across my screen this morning from http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=45264

It seems that ABC wants to disable the fast forward function on DVR's in order to force you to watch the commercials as if you were watching live TV. I almost laughed out loud when I read this. Here's another disconnect that reminded me of the telemarketing industry protesting the tens of millions of people signing up for the federal Do Not Call list.

It seems there are already too many commercials per show. I haven't timed it lately, but it seems just as I'm getting involved with the show, it's time for a commercial break. I've noticed what used to be one and a half and two hour shows are now stretching three hour time slots in order to accomodate the already shortened movie and all the commercials. I had heard at one point that the television industry is in a half hour time slot, aiming for 15 minutes of show and 15 minutes of commercial advertising. We as consumers can tolerate some commericials knowing the industry has to pay their bills, but the rest get fast forwarded via VCR or DVR. If companies follow suit with ABC on this disabling fast forward, I'm going to keep my VCR. I tend to record most shows anyways to bypass the commercials. My time is valuable, and watching commericials tends to feel like a waste.

Hollywood just doesn't get it

I'm running off the top of my head here, but it amazes me that Hollywood doesn't seem to understand the sagging sales seen at the box offices.

In my opinion, the following is happening. People are only willing to pay theater prices for quality movies. Since it seems Hollywood has been producing lower quality (at least in the general public's minds) movies, people feel the price to be paid for them is strictly for home video and DVD. I mean, who's willing to pay fifty bucks ( including popcorn and drinks) for a trip to the movie theater to watch crap? People are thinking it's better to watch it on DVD, that way they can resell the DVD used and get some of their money back if they don't like it. I don't remember a quality/satisfaction guarantee at the theaters, do you?

Where have you been?

I know it's been awhile, but things have been busier than busy. I mean, it's unheard of for me to not be fishing for over six months (let alone once a month), but that's been the case with me. After moving into the new place, we've been battling rains on weekends which prohibited us from being productive in settling and being able to persue our passions. Cathy has ridden once since we've been in, and that was on a week day. We'll get there.

Why us?

My family & I were returning from a trip to the in-laws last night when we stopped for dinner at a place called, Ellen's Dutch Pancake something-or-other in Buellton, CA. It was about 8:30 (they were open until 9) in the evening and it looked like the local hangout. We went in, were seated, and given drinks. After that the service went downhill. The food was okay. My wife had the dutch pancakes, my son, the cheese burger, and I had the chicken fried steak. It was unfortunate they smothered the broccoli in a cheese sauce and left the whole thing to drown in 1/2 inch of water, but otherwise it was okay. The waitress, Joy, never checked up on us for drink refills, except to drop off the bill. "Here you go." Both my wife and I have combined experience of 20 years in the restaurant business and this is by far the worst we've experienced so far. To put insult to injury, Joy was quite nice to the locals that were in there, so it was either (I'm speculating here) since we weren't local we weren't worth the spit in our food, or she wasn't in the mood to clean up after a family had eaten.

IE's about:blank Hijack continued

I did a little more digging and discovered I hadn't run Ad-Aware 1.05 with the latest updates. After doing so (it found close to 100 "critical" entries) it seemed to do the trick and about:blank was truly that. I also discovered that it was probable CoolWebSearch was the culprit in this.

I also learned that for SBC's DSL (in CA) and XP, you don't need their DSL Connection Manager. Instead, I simply used XP's DSL connection, created a shortcut from My Network Connections to the Desktop and it connects faster and gives the user better control to connect and disconnect as needed. Also, the icon changes when the computer is online versus offline.

Finally, I ran into a program called systray.exe in the Process tab, located in Task Manager. Check this out: when I closed the process, it created four more processes! I found it's location in the Windows\System32 folder. After renaming and rebooting I did another search and found my renamed version and a new copy of systray.exe. That's when I pulled out HijackThis 1.99. This was my first experience using it and quickly was able to determine what's supposed to be in the list and what isn't. We removed the suspicious items, rebooted, and systray.exe was no longer a process. It's my suspicion that a corrupt dll was the issue here.

It looks like my final challenge will be to figure out after doing a Google search for something, why a svchost.exe is utilizing 95+% of the CPU for up to 30 seconds before relinquishing control back to me.