Tech Troupe

Ok,  so I installed Windows 7 64bit version about a month ago. After a while I noticed I was clicking way more times than I should in order to do stuff. Clicking on links in Facebook games required 2 or 3 clicks because the screen would flash (very quickly) and the click would not register. It’s not just online either, Office programs and even my media player would exhibit the same issue. I did not have this issue with Windows 7 32bit version. Weird, I know.

As my computer got a little slower I noticed that it would say Not Responding on the title bar whenever these flashes would occur. This made it easier to put into words what was going on. It was also easier to search for the problem online. It wasn’t until today that I finally found a fix.

Behold! The Fix:

Run your registry editor (type “regedit” in the search box in the start menu), and then delete the following registry keys (if you have them):

HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop\HungAppTimeOut
HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop\WaitToKillAppTimeOut
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\HungAppTimeOut
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WaitToKillAppTimeOut
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WaitToKillServiceTimeOut

Restart the computer after deletion, and the screen flashing issue on Windows 7 should be fixed.

At least it was fixed for me. I am whole again.

I ran into a problem with clicking on my neighbor’s posts. You know the ones where they ask you to help out by sending them something and you get something in return. Some people call them wall bonuses or post bonuses. Well whatever you want to call them I couldn’t accept any of them from any games including Frontierville, CityVille, Farmville or the new Empires & Allies. So I had all these goals, or missions to complete and I couldn’t help anyone or get anything back by clicking on my neighbor’s wall bonuses. This was happening in both Firefox and Internet Explorer so I knew something was wrong.

Everything I tried ended in failure. I tried reinstalling Firefox, disabling addons and extensions and even reverted back to an older version of Firefox. But nothing worked until I installed Google Chrome. This browser seemed to work just fine compared to the other two. I wasn’t completely sure why but I didn’t care at the time because I had goals and missions to complete.

So I used Google Chrome for about a week until I decided to look deeper for the problem with Firefox and IE. I disabled some suspicious services and startup programs but that didn’t help at all. Finally I thought about what affects the way a person sees the internet, other than the browsers of course. Being that this problem affected BOTH browsers then it must be a third-party issue.

After running Hijack This I noticed AVG Antivirus had more services running than what showed up in both browser’s addon sections. I figured I might as well try uninstalling AVG since I just about uninstalled everything else already. Eureka! I solved it! It seems simply disabling AVG in the addon section of Firefox or IE doesn’t actually disable AVG from filtering what you see in those browsers.

Eveidentally a recent AVG update affected what you see or do on Facebook and Facebook games by Zynga. It’s still strange that I was able to install Chrome and have no problem. Perhaps the update affected browsers that were already installed but not ones that get installed later? Not sure. Don’t really care now. AVG is gone. I’m currently using Comodo Internet Security (the free version) with both antivirus and a firewall. I can also click on and accept wall bonuses again.

Ever since they put that Rewardville junk on top of all the Zynga games in Facebook, including CityVille, everything seemed to slow down. I don’t really have any evidence so it’s just a theory for now.

I have a top-of-the-line computer with a great processor and even I have problems with CityVille and other Zynga games slowing wayyyy down. No, it doesn’t matter if I play with Firefox or IE9, it still slows down after a while. My only remedy is to shut down the browser and start it back up again. After that it stays fast for while again.

Just frustrating, that’s all.

FrontierVille tips, or hints, or cheats or whatever you want to call them are listed below. All these tips, hints or cheats are 100% legal and you don’t have to download anything or join a group or hack the game or whatever. They are all things you can do within the FrontierVille game on Facebook.

Frontierville tip, hint, cheat #1: Get Horseshoes

Turning in the Inn collection will get you one Frontierville horseshoe every time. You can build more than one Inn, heck you can build 20 Inns if you want and collect daily bonuses from each of them. It’s a nice easy way to get free horseshoes, provided you have enough neighbors to help you out on building the Inns in the first place.

Frontierville hint, cheat, tip #2: Level Up Quick!

Leveling up in Frontierville can take time, especially since the coyotes are now eating the chickens! But you can still raise a great amount of chickens and get your daily bonuses from your coup. Another way to level up quick is to grow peppermint. For every peppermint collection you turn in you get a whopping 100XP. Also, peppermint re-grows every four hours!

Frontierville cheat, tip, hint #3: Raise Your Energy Limit

Turning in the Sawmill collection will raise your max energy by one. Build multiple Sawmills in order to collect many daily bonuses and keep turning them in. As your energy level rises you’ll be able to do more things, like harvest more peppermint!

Frontierville tip, hint, cheat #4: Grow Animals Faster!

There are quite a few missions which require you to sell many adult animals in order to complete. As you may already know, this can take a lot of time especially in the case of some of the slower growing animals. Turn in the Bear collection in order to get the Animal Ready Boost as this will make all your animals ready to feed. Once you feed them you can use another Boost and feed them again. To get the collection you will need to either defeat a lot of bears or you can turn in the Mystery Animal Collection which will give you a stuffed bear. You can collect daily bonuses from this stuffed bear which gives a part of the bear collection every time. Obviously you can have multiple stuffed bears and keep collecting every day! You can also use the Animal Harvest Boost in conjunction with the Animal Ready Boost to make things even quicker! You can obtain the Animal Harvest Boost by turning in the Barn collection.

Don’t worry we just may have your fix so you can get back to your pet!

Zynga is a social network game developer on social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace. One of their popular games is called PetVille. This game, like all other Zynga browser-based games, makes use of the Flash multimedia platform. Although easy to use and fun to view, Flash does have its drawbacks. The most important drawback is the amount of resources needed to display and interact with the highly-intensive animations as in PetVille. Another issue is data corruption via the browser or the computer itself. Let’s take a look at fixing both of these problems so you can continue enjoy playing PetVille like you’re supposed to.

Problem 1: Slow animation or game-play.

Problem 2: PetVille won’t load or parts of the game won’t load.

Solution for both problems: Make your computer faster! Sounds easy, right? You can always buy a new computer which would solve this problem, but most of us can’t right now. So, let’s make what we got better:

Follow each step and you should see an increase in speed and hopefully will fix any loading issues as well.

Step 1: Clean unneeded files from your hard drive. Download this great little program called CCleaner. It gets rid of a lot of files that are just clogging up your hard drive including your browser cache and cookies. It’s safe and it works!

Step 2: Defrag your hard drive. This is a very easy and effective way to help speed up your computer. You should defrag your hard drive about once a month (or set up a schedule in Windows Vista and Windows 7).

Open Disk Defragmenter by clicking the “Start” button, clicking “All Programs”, clicking “Accessories”, clicking “System Tools”, and then clicking “Disk Defragmenter”. The defragment program should now open. Make sure to click “Defragment Now”. Note: it may take between a few minutes to a few hours to complete.

Step 3: Restart your computer. I have been working with and repairing computers for over 15 years now and it still amazes me how simply restarting a computer can do so much.

Step 4: Close unwanted programs. Most of you have programs that you don’t need or simply not using running in the background as you are reading this. Do you see the icons in the lower right hand corner of the screen? That’s where most of them are. Go ahead and hover over each icon in order to see what program it is. If it’s something you’re not using (i.e. MSN Messenger) then right-click the icon and exit or close the program. You don’t have to worry about closing the wrong program because they will all be there the next time you restart your computer.

Step 5: Login and start playing PetVille!

If you are still having problems getting PetVille on Facebook to load correctly you may want to try a different browser like Mozilla Firefox. It’s highly recommended here in the computer repair industry because it is more difficult to get spyware and trojans on your computer than its counterpart; Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Still have problems with PetVille? Here is another solution that may work for all Zynga games including PetVille:

You may encounter problems with PetVille on Facebook being slow or simply won’t load properly. Zynga games on Facebook use JavaScript which is a client side technology. This means that the actual processing of some things within the game happens on your computer using the processor and not on the Zynga servers. If you notice that your game is having difficulties loading or responding slowly to your actions it may be because your systems cache is full (the cache is where your computer stores information needed to display websites.)

You can clear your cache by following the instructions below.

For Internet Explorer 7 and 8:
1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. Click Tools at the top.
3. Scroll down and select Internet Options.
4. Click Delete under Browsing History.
5. At the bottom, click Delete All. Then click Yes.

Close Internet Explorer entirely and re-launch.

For Firefox 3.5.8 or 3.6:
1. Open Firefox.
2. Click Tools at the top of the page.
3. Select Options
4. From tabs, Select Privacy
5. Click “Clear Your Recent History”
6. From Drop Down Menu, Select “Everything” AND
From Drop Down Menu, Leave Only “Cache” checked
7. Click “Clear Now”
8. Click “OK” on Privacy Screen
9 . Then, close Firefox and re-launch.

For Safari:
1. From the Safari menu, click Empty Cache.
2. When asked: “Are you sure you want to empty the cache?” click Empty.
3. From the Safari menu, click Preferences.
4. From the Security dialog box, click Bookmarks.
5. Click Show Cookies.
6. From the Cookie dialog box, click Remove All.
7. Click Done.

For Opera 9.x:
1. In Opera, click the Tools menu.
2. Click Preferences.
3. Select the Advanced tab.
4. In the left-hand column, click History.
5. In the Disk cache section, click Empty Now.
6. Click OK to close Preferences.

Google Chrome :
1. Open Google Chrome.
2. Click the “Wrench Tool” at the upper right corner below the “X”/”Close”.
3. Select “Options”
4. Click on the “Under the Hood”
5. Then click “Clear Browsing Data”
6. Make sure the “Empty the Cache” and “Delete Cookies” is checked and also the “Clear data from this period” is “Everything”.
7. Click “Clear Browsing Data”

You might also have to clear your flash cache, or reinstall the flash player.

In order to clear the cache for PetVille please click on this link:

http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html

Then click on “Delete all Sites”.

 In order to uninstall your flash player please follow the instructions on this page:

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/141/tn_14157.html

then reinstall it from this page:

http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Thank you and good luck in PetVille!!

Don’t worry we just may have your fix so you can get back to your vampire!

Zynga is a social network game developer on social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace. One of their popular games is called Vampire Wars. This game, like all other Zynga browser-based games, makes use of the Flash multimedia platform. Although easy to use and fun to view, Flash does have its drawbacks. The most important drawback is the amount of resources needed to display and interact with the highly-intensive animations as in Vampire Wars. Another issue is data corruption via the browser or the computer itself. Let’s take a look at fixing both of these problems so you can continue enjoy playing Vampire Wars like you’re supposed to.

Problem 1: Slow animation or game-play.

Problem 2: Vampire Wars won’t load or parts of the game won’t load.

Solution for both problems: Make your computer faster! Sounds easy, right? You can always buy a new computer which would solve this problem, but most of us can’t right now. So, let’s make what we got better:

Follow each step and you should see an increase in speed and hopefully will fix any loading issues as well.

Step 1: Clean unneeded files from your hard drive. Download this great little program called CCleaner. It gets rid of a lot of files that are just clogging up your hard drive including your browser cache and cookies. It’s safe and it works!

Step 2: Defrag your hard drive. This is a very easy and effective way to help speed up your computer. You should defrag your hard drive about once a month (or set up a schedule in Windows Vista and Windows 7).

Open Disk Defragmenter by clicking the “Start” button, clicking “All Programs”, clicking “Accessories”, clicking “System Tools”, and then clicking “Disk Defragmenter”. The defragment program should now open. Make sure to click “Defragment Now”. Note: it may take between a few minutes to a few hours to complete.

Step 3: Restart your computer. I have been working with and repairing computers for over 15 years now and it still amazes me how simply restarting a computer can do so much.

Step 4: Close unwanted programs. Most of you have programs that you don’t need or simply not using running in the background as you are reading this. Do you see the icons in the lower right hand corner of the screen? That’s where most of them are. Go ahead and hover over each icon in order to see what program it is. If it’s something you’re not using (i.e. MSN Messenger) then right-click the icon and exit or close the program. You don’t have to worry about closing the wrong program because they will all be there the next time you restart your computer.

Step 5: Login and start playing Vampire Wars!

If you are still having problems getting Vampire Wars on Facebook to load correctly you may want to try a different browser like Mozilla Firefox. It’s highly recommended here in the computer repair industry because it is more difficult to get spyware and trojans on your computer than its counterpart; Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Still have problems with Vampire Wars? Here is another solution that may work for all Zynga games including Vampire Wars:

You may encounter problems with Vampire Wars on Facebook being slow or simply won’t load properly. Zynga games on Facebook use JavaScript which is a client side technology. This means that the actual processing of some things within the game happens on your computer using the processor and not on the Zynga servers. If you notice that your game is having difficulties loading or responding slowly to your actions it may be because your systems cache is full (the cache is where your computer stores information needed to display websites.)

You can clear your cache by following the instructions below.

For Internet Explorer 7 and 8:
1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. Click Tools at the top.
3. Scroll down and select Internet Options.
4. Click Delete under Browsing History.
5. At the bottom, click Delete All. Then click Yes.

Close Internet Explorer entirely and re-launch.

For Firefox 3.5.8 or 3.6:
1. Open Firefox.
2. Click Tools at the top of the page.
3. Select Options
4. From tabs, Select Privacy
5. Click “Clear Your Recent History”
6. From Drop Down Menu, Select “Everything” AND
From Drop Down Menu, Leave Only “Cache” checked
7. Click “Clear Now”
8. Click “OK” on Privacy Screen
9 . Then, close Firefox and re-launch.

For Safari:
1. From the Safari menu, click Empty Cache.
2. When asked: “Are you sure you want to empty the cache?” click Empty.
3. From the Safari menu, click Preferences.
4. From the Security dialog box, click Bookmarks.
5. Click Show Cookies.
6. From the Cookie dialog box, click Remove All.
7. Click Done.

For Opera 9.x:
1. In Opera, click the Tools menu.
2. Click Preferences.
3. Select the Advanced tab.
4. In the left-hand column, click History.
5. In the Disk cache section, click Empty Now.
6. Click OK to close Preferences.

Google Chrome :
1. Open Google Chrome.
2. Click the “Wrench Tool” at the upper right corner below the “X”/”Close”.
3. Select “Options”
4. Click on the “Under the Hood”
5. Then click “Clear Browsing Data”
6. Make sure the “Empty the Cache” and “Delete Cookies” is checked and also the “Clear data from this period” is “Everything”.
7. Click “Clear Browsing Data”

You might also have to clear your flash cache, or reinstall the flash player.

In order to clear the cache for Vampire Wars please click on this link:

http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html

Then click on “Delete all Sites”.

 In order to uninstall your flash player please follow the instructions on this page:

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/141/tn_14157.html

then reinstall it from this page:

http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Thank you and good luck in Vampire Wars!!

Don’t worry we just may have your fix so you can get back to hunting for treasure!

Zynga is a social network game developer on social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace. One of their popular games is called Treasure Isle. This game, like all other Zynga browser-based games, makes use of the Flash multimedia platform. Although easy to use and fun to view, Flash does have its drawbacks. The most important drawback is the amount of resources needed to display and interact with the highly-intensive animations as in Treasure Isle. Another issue is data corruption via the browser or the computer itself. Let’s take a look at fixing both of these problems so you can continue enjoy playing Treasure Isle like you’re supposed to.

Problem 1: Slow animation or game-play.

Problem 2: Treasure Isle won’t load or parts of the game won’t load.

Solution for both problems: Make your computer faster! Sounds easy, right? You can always buy a new computer which would solve this problem, but most of us can’t right now. So, let’s make what we got better:

Follow each step and you should see an increase in speed and hopefully will fix any loading issues as well.

Step 1: Clean unneeded files from your hard drive. Download this great little program called CCleaner. It gets rid of a lot of files that are just clogging up your hard drive including your browser cache and cookies. It’s safe and it works!

Step 2: Defrag your hard drive. This is a very easy and effective way to help speed up your computer. You should defrag your hard drive about once a month (or set up a schedule in Windows Vista and Windows 7).

Open Disk Defragmenter by clicking the “Start” button, clicking “All Programs”, clicking “Accessories”, clicking “System Tools”, and then clicking “Disk Defragmenter”. The defragment program should now open. Make sure to click “Defragment Now”. Note: it may take between a few minutes to a few hours to complete.

Step 3: Restart your computer. I have been working with and repairing computers for over 15 years now and it still amazes me how simply restarting a computer can do so much.

Step 4: Close unwanted programs. Most of you have programs that you don’t need or simply not using running in the background as you are reading this. Do you see the icons in the lower right hand corner of the screen? That’s where most of them are. Go ahead and hover over each icon in order to see what program it is. If it’s something you’re not using (i.e. MSN Messenger) then right-click the icon and exit or close the program. You don’t have to worry about closing the wrong program because they will all be there the next time you restart your computer.

Step 5: Login and start playing Treasure Isle!

If you are still having problems getting Treasure Isle on Facebook to load correctly you may want to try a different browser like Mozilla Firefox. It’s highly recommended here in the computer repair industry because it is more difficult to get spyware and trojans on your computer than its counterpart; Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Still have problems with Treasure Isle? Here is another solution that may work for all Zynga games including Treasure Isle:

You may encounter problems with Treasure Isle on Facebook being slow or simply won’t load properly. Zynga games on Facebook use JavaScript which is a client side technology. This means that the actual processing of some things within the game happens on your computer using the processor and not on the Zynga servers. If you notice that your game is having difficulties loading or responding slowly to your actions it may be because your systems cache is full (the cache is where your computer stores information needed to display websites.)

You can clear your cache by following the instructions below.

For Internet Explorer 7 and 8:
1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. Click Tools at the top.
3. Scroll down and select Internet Options.
4. Click Delete under Browsing History.
5. At the bottom, click Delete All. Then click Yes.

Close Internet Explorer entirely and re-launch.

For Firefox 3.5.8 or 3.6:
1. Open Firefox.
2. Click Tools at the top of the page.
3. Select Options
4. From tabs, Select Privacy
5. Click “Clear Your Recent History”
6. From Drop Down Menu, Select “Everything” AND
From Drop Down Menu, Leave Only “Cache” checked
7. Click “Clear Now”
8. Click “OK” on Privacy Screen
9 . Then, close Firefox and re-launch.

For Safari:
1. From the Safari menu, click Empty Cache.
2. When asked: “Are you sure you want to empty the cache?” click Empty.
3. From the Safari menu, click Preferences.
4. From the Security dialog box, click Bookmarks.
5. Click Show Cookies.
6. From the Cookie dialog box, click Remove All.
7. Click Done.

For Opera 9.x:
1. In Opera, click the Tools menu.
2. Click Preferences.
3. Select the Advanced tab.
4. In the left-hand column, click History.
5. In the Disk cache section, click Empty Now.
6. Click OK to close Preferences.

Google Chrome :
1. Open Google Chrome.
2. Click the “Wrench Tool” at the upper right corner below the “X”/”Close”.
3. Select “Options”
4. Click on the “Under the Hood”
5. Then click “Clear Browsing Data”
6. Make sure the “Empty the Cache” and “Delete Cookies” is checked and also the “Clear data from this period” is “Everything”.
7. Click “Clear Browsing Data”

You might also have to clear your flash cache, or reinstall the flash player.

In order to clear the cache for Treasure Isle please click on this link:

http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html

Then click on “Delete all Sites”.

 In order to uninstall your flash player please follow the instructions on this page:

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/141/tn_14157.html

then reinstall it from this page:

http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Thank you and good luck in Treasure Isle!!