Western Digital My Book Model WD5000C032 External USB Hard Drive Unrecognized by Windows

After a few month of non-usage it appears that my Western Digital My Book has stopped working. The drive powers on, so you can see the Green Circular LED, but when I plug the unit into my Windows 8 machine: Windows finds the drive, but after its all said and done it says USB Device Not Recognized. I tried everything from rebooting with drive plugged in to power cycling and cold booting the hard drive. One time I was able to see my file folders but the files were all missing. 

As a result, I have decided to remove the SATA drive from the enclosure and plug it into my external USB to SATA dock:

http://www.frys.com/product/5816343?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

The process was very simple, but will basically require you to destroy your "not working" USB enclosure. The directions for removing the drive can be found here:

http://www.adcworks.com/2008/06/diy-how-to-rescue-data-from-your-western-digital-mybook/

Black Tiles Showing On Desktop Instead of Preview For Adobe Acrobat Files (PDF) with Windows 8

I had an issue where the icons on the desktop for PDF files were simply a black square. No small preview of the document, nor the traditional Adobe icon. 

Upon further research it appears that a clearing of the thumbnails cache is necessary to fix the problem.

To do this, launch the Disk Cleanup Wizard go to Control Panel >> Administrative Tools >> Free Up Disk Space By Deleting Unnecessary Files.

Once launched, scroll down the list to make sure that "Thumbnails" is checked:

Then hit "OK". Upon completion, you icons should be repaired.

How To Set Up QOS for Xbox 360 on D-Link DIR-655

There are a couple of different steps needed to setup up QOS on this router so that your gaming packets take priority. 

First: Make a DHCP reservation for your 360. To do this go to your System Settings on your XBOX dashboard and then then click on Network Settings. There you see it, something like 192.168.0.103. 

Next Login to your DIR-655 web interface. Navigate to the SETUP Tab, Then click Network Settings on the left. Scroll down to Add DHCP Reservation. Name it XBOX, enter the IP Address (that you looked up on your XBOX) and copy the MAC from the table below that section (Dynamically Assign Clients). Copy the MAC to the left of the IP of your XBOX, and paste it into the MAC Address Box and hit Save.

Second: Go to the ADVANCED Tab, Then click QOS Engine on the left. Enable everything, the scroll down to 10 - QOS Engine Rules. Then enter the information as seen below:

Hit Save on top of the page and you are done! 

He Is The Batman

Halloween fun on baby's first Halloween. Shot w/ Canon T2i with EF 50MM 1.4F with Speedlite 430 EX.