GRUB loading, Error 21 on Windows 7

I installed Linux on a flash drive and after booting my computer, I encountered an error:

GRUB Loading Stage 1.5.
GRUB loading, please wait...
Error 21

From what I read, this means that I can no longer boot windows normally without having the flash drive plugged in because my Windows MBR was corrupted by the installation of GRUB Stage 1. Anyway, a great explanation of this mess can be read here (start at the second paragraph).

MBR can be easily repaired with the Windows recovery disc, which I don't have but I did find an easy solution which worked well for me.

Volume slider keeps going down

A strange thing happened to my volume slider - it kept sliding down to 0 by itself.

In my case, the solution was quite simple. My keyboard has media keys and it turned out that the volume down key was jammed. If you encounter this same problem, I hope it's just because of your volume control keys as well. I came across posts in forums whose problem lies in the soundcard or other complicated stuff.

Computer restarts after hibernating

Just a quick tip here. Whenever I run into the problem of having my computer restart instead of hibernating, it is usually because of plugging in a new device -- most often, a mouse.

If this is your case, you can try the following solution.

How I got SpeedFan to run at startup in Windows 7

I was having trouble running SpeedFan on startup. I've already tried placing a shortcut on the Startup folder and even tried using the Task scheduler. Not sure what configuration I am missing on the Task scheduler but I always see an error that SpeedFan can't be started up because of admin permissions or something (although I did set it to Run with highest privileges). Anyway, if you seem to have the same problem, you can try my solution but I don't guarantee that this is the best. If anyone knows how or why, feel free to share it in the comment section.

Display post thumbnails for post summaries in Blogger

I've seen blogs which display post thumbnails with its post summary in their homepage, search results, label results -- well as long as it isn't a static page or the post page itself. You can do this in a number of ways. You can settle for thumbnail images at the beginning of your posts, or create two versions of your post image (a thumbnail size and its original size) or perhaps use a script to do the resizing.

Using custom fonts in your Blogger template

This post will be about applying custom fonts in your Blogger template using Google web fonts. I'll be assuming you are already familiar with HTML and CSS so I won't get into much of its details -- but feel free to ask if you need any help.

How to crop and resize videos in VirtualDub

This post will be about cropping and resizing your videos in VirtualDub. The steps involved are pretty easy so hopefully, I won't end up confusing you or myself.

My CamStudio and VirtualDub settings for time-lapse videos

Today I will share about my CamStudio and VirtualDub settings for recording time-lapse videos (meant for Youtube). I always forget about the setup I use so I thought of posting it here to keep it handy. If you are interested, feel free to read on!

How to add, delete and edit labels in Blogger

In this post, I will show how you can add, delete and update labels for multiple posts in Blogger.

Using if/else to customize elements in specific pages in Blogger

Controlling certain elements visibility, usually widgets, in your blogger pages can a bit confusing if you are not familiar with coding or with the blogger template. In this post, I will note down the things I learned in using the if/else tag for hiding or showing elements in specific pages in blogger.

I'll be focusing in using the if/else tags in your template - how to use it and where you can use it. Anyway, just let me know in the comments section if something isn't clear.

Setting up a Test blog in Blogger

I thought I'll just share with you guys how I setup my test blog here in Blogger. Well it's a reminder to myself too cause there's a couple of things I sometimes forget when putting up my test blog.

In case you are wondering what a test blog is, it's basically a site where you do all your testing especially if you are unsure of the outcome. It could really be risky to apply updates directly to your live blog especially if it's a major change, unstable or experimental.

This post is meant for existing blogs in which you want to put up a test site for. You can still follow this if you haven't got a blog yet but some of the steps used here won't apply.

So let's begin!

Use next and previous post titles as navigation in Blogger

UPDATE [2013.05.01]: Simplified steps and updated code and sample. As a dear reader pointed out, the old post wasn't beginner friendly (and yes I confused myself as well).

By default, at the end of each Blogger post, we get the "Newer Post" and "Older Post" navigation links. As I have seen in other sites, it looks better if it showed the next and previous post titles instead. So in this tutorial, I will show you how to customize your post navigation links so that it will display the titles of your next and previous posts.

Replace "Newer Posts" and "Older Posts" with post titles.