I swear. Why can't I change the desktop background wallpaper image on my laptop? Obviously I was once able to do this, because currently it's a picture of Benedict Cumberbatch. But before I go to this conference, I'd like to change it to something less fangirly but not completely boring. So I picked a picture of a cat. And the computer will not let me set it as the background.

I have a PC. I'm going through Control Panel-Display. Browsing for photos, and clicking on the one I want. That should set the background picture, right? But it does nothing, and Benny is still staring at me. What the heck?

I think most routers only use the USB port for network storage so you definitely want to check.

Even then, it may not do what you want to do. My router, which I otherwise love for its speed and reliability, has a USB port for "network storage", but you need to run a utility to mount it to your local machine. Before another machine can access it, you need to remember to unmount it from the first machine. Not the most useful way to handle things.

I have a PC. I'm going through Control Panel-Display. Browsing for photos, and clicking on the one I want. That should set the background picture, right? But it does nothing, and Benny is still staring at me. What the heck?

Are you clicking "Apply" or getting a pop-up message about changing the settings? Usually you also have to fiddle with tile/center/stretch drop-down menu.

As a last resort, change the file name of the BC picture.

Thanks Jon! I eventually used hellofax.com which needed a minimum of contact info. And comped me a free page when it turned out that the cover letter bumped it up to 11 pages.

Are you clicking "Apply" or getting a pop-up message about changing the settings? Usually you also have to fiddle with tile/center/stretch drop-down menu.

No, megan, that's what's weird - I'm not getting anything. I click on Browse, click the picture I want and click Open - because there's no other choice of anything else to click! - and then - nothing happens. The window disappears and I'm back with the Display Control Panel box, and nothing's different.

I'd think the Administrator locked it, but if so I wouldn't have been able to select Benedict in the first place! Maybe they changed things? I'm baffled.

Peeps, I could use some help. I'm trying to set up live streaming for the wedding and hitting some road blocks, because I don't know what I'm doing.

I have a channel set up on livestream.com. I should be able to use a couple of iPhones to stream as well as the compututer...to Qik, which then feeds into livestream.com. But, when using all of the mics, there are obvious issues.

We're going to have a wireless mic and another mic at the wedding, with the sounds system. I think I'd like the sound to come only from those and turn off the rest of the mics. Will I be able to do that, no matter which feed we choose to broadcast? Has anyone ever done anything like this before? Help!

Zen Master,

I no longer have that version of Windows, but can you go to the picture file, right-click, and choose "set as desktop background" as an option?

Dana! I did a little thinking on the WordPress links question, and didn't come up with anything super-awesome that wasn't either spammy & gross or Too Much (and needing custom work) or just way out of date. And then this rolled through my twitter feed just now, and it looks just lovely for a giant collection of links and descriptions and associated tags: [link]

Awesome, thanks! I will read up on it a lot.

For those of you who miss BBS days... a Google search via simulated BBS, with cool sounds and everything: [link]

I recommend the "search" function rather than the "lucky", as the lucky just takes you to the page, rather than letting you experience the read out of search hits.