HP Pavilion Notebook Webcam Woes

Do you own a HP Pavilion Notebook with an Integrated Webcam? The one that’s built into the top of the lid? If you own one such notebook, has its webcam ever stopped working allovasudden? You probably did some wee bit of Windows Update or Microsoft Update only to realize later that your webcam is no longer responding…its blue light is no longer glowing and you are unable to use it from within any applications such as Quick Play or Instant Messengers.

If yes, you’re in the same boat as me. At least I was in the same boat until today. The Webcam had gone kaput and no longer was recognized from within the messengers I used. A wee bit of troubleshooting (and some insightful advise from Mr. MK of HP Support) later, I nailed down the culprit.

What happened was that during a routine update, the driver was replaced by a newer one which somehow caused the device to get slotted as an USB Serial Bus device rather than a webcam. Uninstalling the driver and re-installing the correct one resolved the problem and voila! my friends can now see me as I chat with them (not that its any added incentive!). The detailed troubleshooting procedure’s outlined after the jump…

Chautha

How time flies!

It just feels like yesterday when I started penning some mundane thoughts on some free blog site that I happened to get hold of as I downloaded some free browser. That was exactly four years ago, to the day. Today, My Wierd Wired World completes its fourth year of existence on the blogosphere.

I know that I’ve not been as regular as I’d like to be and more often than not, there’re more F1 posts than any really creative or emotional stuff (is that due to the fact that I’m losing moi creativity and have voluntarily get rid of my emotions?). As usual, a big thanks to all the regular and irregular visitors and commenters who’ve been visiting this blog and keeping the counters ticking (they’re more crawling now as compared to having been fairly galloping some months ago!)

Happy Birthday to MWWW

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Latesht F1 Gossip

Now that the F1 season is over, we’ll have nothing to do but twiddle our thumbs till the 2010 cars are unveiled and the new season vrooms off in March. But fret not…the media is not surely gonna lie down till then. They’re leaving no stone unturned to bring us the latesht hot gossip from the paddock…er…not exactly the paddock but from the boardrooms, negotiation tables, factory aisles, agents’ offices, luxury yachts and the like.

BBC Sport has now started their F1 Gossip Column, having long devoted such space only to Football. In their own words: “With the Formula 1 season finished, BBC Sport will bring you a regular round-up of the gossip in newspapers and on specialist websites around the world”. I guess that’s one way to keep the journalists occupied till the action starts! And with less than half of the driving seats for next year being decided, I’m sure the gossip mills will be in overdrive for the next few months. So if you’re curious about the off-season happenings around the F1 World, head over to the gossip zone and have your fill of the latesht news.

‘09 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – Sunday Race – Vettel wins as Red Bull make it a 1-2 finish

Red Bull ended the 2009 F1 season in style as Sebastian Vettel won the inaugural Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the Yas Marina circuit and teammate Mark Webber finished second to cap a fine 1-2 for the team. Jenson Button finished third for Brawn GP as he too ended his Championship-winning season with a hard-earned podium finish.

Pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton made a good start but Vettel stuck with him throughout and when the first round of pit stops came, he managed to jump ahead of the McLaren. The race unravelled and ended in disappointment for Lewis as he retired just after with what looked like brake problems. Vettel then was able to cruise through to the win but it wasn’t all that easy for Webber as during the last few laps, Jenson managed to close upto him and hound him all the way to the chequered flag.

Rubens Barrichello finished fourth for Brawn after suffering a front-wing damage in the opening lap with BMW’s Nick Heidfeld in fifth. Kamui Kobayashi capped a fine performance for Toyota as he finished 6th ahead of his more illustrious teammate Jarno Trulli. Toro Rosso’s Sebastian Buemi took the final point for his 8th place finish.

Vettel’s win means he finishes 2nd in the Drivers’ Championship ahead of Barrichello & Webber. With both Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen finishing outside the points, McLaren clinched 3rd place in the Constructor’ Championship and Lewis took 5th place in the Drivers’ Championship – both by a single point.

The curtain thus falls on what was a thrilling 2009 F1 season which saw many a fairytale finishes. I’d run out of space if I start reminiscing about all of them

Hope the 2010 Season would turn out to be as exciting…if not better.

‘09 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – Saturday Qualifying – Hamilton takes Pole for season’s last Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton was absolutely unbeatable at each of the three qualifying sessions as he stitched up pole position for the season’s last Grand Prix at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi. Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber will start P2 and P3 with the Brawns of Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button P4 and P5 respectively. The Toyota of Jarno Trulli was P6 followed by the two BMW’s of Robert  Kubica and Nick Heidfeld in P7 and P8. Williams’ Nico Rosberg and Toro Rosso’s Sebastian Buemi complete the top ten grid positions for the first-ever race at the desert track of Abu Dhabi.

It was a gobsmacking performance by the McLaren team and Hamilton as he was fastest in each of the three sessions. The team will be slightly disappointed as their second driver Heikki Kovalainen suffered what seemed like a gearbox problem and couldn’t make it out of Q2. Red Bull were very slow in the first session but picked up the pace later on and if it weren’t for the KERS power of the McLaren, would have locked out the front row of the grid. Brawns look to be heavily fuelled and they too seem to be fast around the circuit and could be hoping for a good finish.

Q1 was completely owned by McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton as he set an astonishingly quick time of 1 Min 39.8 and was pretty much unbeatable around the Yas Marina circuit. He seemed to get the maximum out of the KERS system and find an ideal line around the spanking new circuit having two long straights and few tight corners. Newly crowned World Champion Jenson Button set the second fastest time which was still half-a-second behind Hamilton’s time and Jarno Trulli, surprisingly, was third fastest. As the drivers tried to come to terms with the still-dusty track and the low setting sun, there were a few spins and offs but no serious accidents. The drivers to miss out in the firsts session were both the Force Indias of Vitantonio Liuzzi and Adrian Sutil, both the Renaults of Sebastian Grosjean and Fernando Alonso and the Ferrari of Giancarlo Fisichella.

I Said It…

[Gr/Bl/W]Avatars gone trotting?

See those li’l images beside each commenter’s name? They’re called Gravatar/Blavatar/Wavatar which is WPspeak for user avatars. They are unique to each user – email id, actually – and kinda brighten up the comments around here.

While its a fact that they will be unique for each visitor/email id, for the past few days have been noticing that multiple comments have the same image displayed beside their comments! Their email id’s are different but in spite of that the same purple-y avatar is shown against each. See for yourself:

‘09 Brazilian Grand Prix – Sunday Race – Webber wins race, Button crowned World Champion

Mark Webber drove a strong race and took maximum advantage of a perfect strategy to win the Brazilian Grand Prix at the Interlagos circuit in Sao Paulo but the big winner of the day was Jenson Button as he drove magnificently to finish fifth and clinch the 2009 Formula One World Drivers’ Championship in the penultimate race of the season.  He had a touch of good luck as well! Pole sitter Rubens Barrichello first lost out on the race lead to Webber and fell down into third place and then picked up a puncture to fall behind Button and thus spell the end of his title challenge.

BMW’s Robert Kubica also drove beautifully as he finished in 2nd place, having started in eighth place. More satisfying would be the 3rd place finish of Lewis Hamilton, who started down in sixteenth place! Sebastian Vettel also had a good race as he finished 4th having started fifteenth. Button took 5th place ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in 6th with Sebastian Buemi finishing 7th and Rubens Barrichello taking the last point-scoring position in 8th. Button now has 89 points and an unassailable 15 point lead in the championship with just the one race remaining. Sebastian Vettel leapfrogs Barrichello into 2nd place with 74 points compared to Rubens’ 72. Brawn GP also take the Constructors’ Championship and Red Bull will finish second. Hamilton and McLaren leapfrog ahead of Kimi and Ferrari into 5th place in the drivers’ and 3rd place in the constructors race.

The start of the race was a frenetic one as pole sitter Rubens Barrichello managed to pull away clearly with Mark Webber behind but it was a close run for third place as the KERS-powered Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen came close onto the tail of the Force India of Adrian Sutil and there was some wheel banging and wing touching as Sutil had to squeeze between the Ferrari and Red Bull. Kimi lost his front wing as he tagged the back of Webber and had to make an early pit stop to rectify that. At the tail-end of the field, Heikki Kovalainen got caught into a spin and nearly tagged the Ferrari of Giancarlo Fisichella behind him. That also brought him into the pits and there was a scary moment therein as Kovalainen drove off with the fuel rig still attached and the Ferrari of Kimi following behind, managed to light up the spraying fumes and causing a flash fire on the Ferrari!