I recently had to change my on-board drive controller from IDE mode to ACHI mode, due to a new SSD installed. Windows 8.1 was installed with IDE mode by default in BIOS and I had to make the change after this. After attempting to manual change the default set IDE mode to ACHI, in BIOS, I was unable to reboot into my Windows 8.1 install.  After doing a small manual change within the Windows Registry, I was then able to change the on-board drive controller from IDE to ACHI and successfully booted to my newly installed Windows 8.1 environment.  There seems to be a couple different ways to resolve this issue.

This resource turned out to be very helpful:

IDE to AHCI after installing Windows 8

How To Root Kyocera Rise v4.0.4 No PC Required

I recently purchased the budget Android phone, the Kyocera Risa, by Virgin Mobile and was looking for the best way to Root my device.

I did find an excellent guide to doing this:

How To Root Kyocera Rise v4.0.4 No PC Required

Although the Rise is a bit limited by it's internal hardware, I found that rooting this phone did improve performance as well as opening up various flexible options to other software apps, that would not have been possible otherwise.

The Rise does not support Custom ROMS, unfortunately, but there is some level of customization with apps such as ROM Toolbox, Pimp My Rom and Nova Launcher.

The Best Tools to Easily Perform Remote Tech Support

I thought this was a good overview of free remote access options that are available now.  Personally, I've used Teamveiwer many times in the past and would whole heartily recommended it.

The Best Tools to Easily Perform Remote Tech Support

I had to recently add the Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc), to a Windows 7 Home Premium environment, which natively, does not come installed.  I didn't realize that one could install this on a limited version of Windows 7, such as Windows 7 Home Premium.

These steps were easy to follow and provided the addition of gpedit.msc, that was in need.

Adding gpedit.msc to Windows 7

XBMC Media Player

I have recently been enjoying using XBMC as my main media player for my Desktop, Laptop, Android Tablet and Raspberry Pi.  The options and variety of the plug in's available for this media player is amazing.  One of my favorite plug in's has been 1Channel.  With the 1Channel plugin you can access a great number of TV shows and Movies, at no cost.

XBMC Media Player

1Channel plugin

5 Portable Network apps

A recent techrepublic.com article, had a good list of 5 Portable Network Apps which included:

Connection Monitor
TCPView
DNS Benchmark
Pale Moon Portable 
EasyPHP

The nice thing about these is the ability to be run off portable media. Portability can be an advantage, at times, especially in network monitoring.

Looks like another good reason to get the Raspberry Pi mini motherboard.  Cambridge university is offering a free online course in building an Operating System for the Raspberry Pi. Thanks to HowToGeek for the posting. 

http://www.howtogeek.com/123593/get-hands-on-with-raspberry-pi-via-free-os-building-course/#comment-191722