The highly anticipated Apple Tablet, now strangely named iPad, has been revealed.  Before I even start, I want to be clear.  I am an Apple fan.  I own an iPhone.  I think iPods are the best media player on the planet.  They make cool looking laptops.

What iPad is has been covered to death: a 1 GHz, 16 GB (and up), 9.7" iPhone that may or may not use 3G, depending on your financial commitment to it.

What it isn't is simple: worth the money.  $499 for the base model, $649 if you want it with 3G.  For that money you can also buy a full featured laptop, or for a closer match, a netbook.

Let's compare!

iPad features that a netbook doesn't have:

• Touch Screen
• (End of List)

Netbook features that the iPad should have, but doesn't:

• USB ports
• Camera (how did they miss this one?)
• An external monitor port
• A replaceable battery
• Full size keyboard
• Mouse
• Flash support
• Ability to install any software (iPad is still stuck with the App Store and it’s rules)

Apple may be in trouble.  iPhone is no longer the king of the smartphone mountain.  Google's phones are not just competitive; they are at the very least as good and improving rapidly.  Droid's ability to run multiple applications at the same time makes it superior to the iPad/iPhone.

Their laptops are a niche market at best. Their desktops are only used in multimedia production, and that befuddles me; they run software written for Windows to do it!  Both are easily double the cost of a comparable Windows machine.

At some point, iPod fanatics will decide they have enough storage space that they don't need to run out and upgrade every few months.

(For what it's worty, Blackberry is in even more trouble.  their devices are now a distant fourth behind iPhone, Android, and the newly revamped Windows Mobile platform.  Sorry Blackberry honks, their devices are, well, not good.)

Mac OS has not done much in market share in years and frankly, never will.  It's just not viable to big business.  Google's Droid, in just under a year in existence, has surpassed their mobile device OS.  Safari is a non-starter, their office suite will never gain market share, and the mail client is lacking.  iTunes sucks.

Apple needs to get out of the software business.

Apple did redefine the market with the iPhone, it just couldn't stay out in front of it.  Same with the personal computer.  Same with the iPod as a personal music playing device.

Apple excels at innovating new devices that change how people do things.

That is where they need to focus.

So you're lonely, it's late, and all you want is a companion.  So you dig out your old Michael Bolton CD, he always comforts you.  Today will be no exception.

You place the CD in to the CD-ROM, CD-WR, DVD-ROM, or DVD+-RW of your Windows XP or Vista computer, and wait for the magic to happen.  Waiting, waiting, wai...  WHAT THE £µ(|≤?!?!?!?!  WHY DO I HAVE NO MUSIC?

So you look in My Computer, or Computer in Vista, and there is no CD/DVD drive.  Why me?  Why now?

So now you check the Device Manager by going to Control Panels, then System, then Hardware and you see your optical drive has blasted little  yellow exclamation point next to it.  You double click it, and it says something like "Error Code 39" inside.  Or "Windows cannot load the device driver for theis hardware.  The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)"

Fret not, my friend, for the solution is near.

Hit Start, then Run, and type in regedit and press Enter.
Drill down by hitting the (+) plus signs next to:
+HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
+SYSTEM
+CurrentControlSet
+Control
+Class
+{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

If you see any of the following on the right side, right click and Delete them:
-UpperFilters
LowerFilters
UpperFilters.bak
LowerFilters.bak

Close the Registry Editor
Reboot your PC
Enjoy your Michael Bolton CD

De-Porning another PC.  Another one that should have been using something better than AVG.  Live and learh, eh?

Anyway, this one had a few issues that all came back to one, simple solution.  The issues I had were:

• Could not start the Event Log Service on Local Computer. Error 126: The specified module cannot be found
• And the Task Scheduler was similar: Error 1717: The interface is unknown

There are several other services and programs that this could effect.  A lot of things depend on the Event Log service to function correctly.  The fix is simple:

Grab a fresh copy of the event log dll, appropriately named eventlog.dll.  You can Google the file name or one is available here: http://www.driverskit.com/dll/eventlog.dll/769.html

The copy above is in a zipped folder.  Double click the zipped folder, then copy the eventlog.dll file.  Go to C:\Windows\System32 and paste it in there.

Now, to start the services hit the Start button, then run, and type in services.msc before hitting OK. Navigate to the the Event Log service, right click it, and hit Start.  Repeat with the Task Scheduler or any other failed services as needed.