My dvd’s wont play. Why? Short answer: It’s cheaper to remove DVD play back to get around the price of the codecs. To get DVD play back you have to purchase Pro Pack or Media Center Pack. Well, that’s fine for people like me that would rather use VLC Player, WinAmp or some other third party software to begin with. I’ve never been a fan of Media Center or Media Player.

Third Party Options

Curently I use VLC Player on my Windows machines. It works good and best of all its free.
VLC’s main site
VLC media player Download link

I have used Corel’s Win DVD in the past with great success, but you have to pay for it.
Corel’s main site
Win DVD trial Download link

You can always use a DVD Converter to turn your DVD into files that the Windows Medial Player will play.

Wondershare

Wondershare Video Converter
Wondershare Video Converter trial download link

   I installed Windows 8 Professional on my Dell Duo and everything worked accept the screen rotation. After many searches and false leads I finally found a solution that worked. Samsung has a support page for their Series 7 slate with 32 bit and 64 bit rotation drivers. I installed the 32 drivers on my DUO and like magic the rotation was back. I also included a link for the 64 bit driver in case anyone needed it.

Rotation Drivers

32 bit driver
64 bit driver

When I tried to activate Windows 8 I got the following error message: “Error 0x8007007B The File name, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.”. I was unable to change the Windows key in the Windows Activation GUI. The key was grayed out with no option to edit.

1. Open a command prompt in administrator mode “Press and hold the Windows button+R”
2. Type slmgr.vbs /ipk (Windows Key) minus the ( ). *** This forces the Windows key to update.
3. Type slmgr.vbs /ato *** This starts the activation
4. If all went well you should be activated at this point.

Creators, Doug Imbruce and Lois Monier have designed Qwiki to be used as an app that runs on the web and mobile devices. They attempt to present data in an interesting and visual way, that resembles a story telling format.  And it’s pretty cool if you search your hometown or other simple topics.  Qwiki responds by showing you pictures while reading a summary of the topic you requested.  In that regard it almost reminds me of the Dr. Know character in the movie A.I. .  But this is about where the cool points end. When I searched for Qwiki using Qwiki, I was unable to get any information about the tool itself.  This also proved true when I tried any math functions, in this case I tried 2+4= , but Qwiki was unable to provide an answer. Now I realize that the later is not part of it’s stated purpose, but in my opinion, this tool suffers from the lack of flexibility. It’s again important to keep in mind that this is still an alpha, and many planned features may simply be unfinished. If that is true then I could see this being a very neat tool. But again, I don’t see it competing in the same vein as any major search engines because of the way it delivers information. The story telling approach is useful for getting the general surface information about a topic. But when you need granular, detailed, and even repetitive information, Qwiki is just not going to get you there.