Archive for November, 2007
Why cant I print in Windows Xp? No Printers are Showing Up!!
Nov 28th
All of the sudden, XP will not communicate with the printer. Or any printer for that matter! I can see that there are a bunch of print jobs in the queue. When I try to cancel the print jobs, nothing happens. I’m stuck and need to print. HELP!
OK lets not freak out and pull an office space…It looks like your print spooler crashed out (Edit: no this is nothing like pc load letter). This can happen for a variety of reasons. Corrupted print job and software crash are among some of the possible reasons. Most of the time this can be resolved by restarting the print spooler service. This will clear out your Queue and reconnect you to the printer. I always physically restart the printer if possible and then follow these steps:
Start and stop the print spooler by following these steps:
- Open Computer Management.
- In the details pane, double-click Print Spooler.
- Do one of the following depending on the task you want to do:
- Click Stop to stop the service.
- Click Start to start the service.
This should have you back up and printing in no time. For the more advanced Admin, you can do this from the command line with the following commands.
net stop spooler
net start spooler
net start spooler
Yup the net command has either a start or stop option and it will do just that to any service you know the name of – wildcards work as well!
What do you guys do to solve printer issues – local or networked?
What Does it Mean When My Computer Randomly Plays Classical Music?
Nov 27th
This is not a joke, I repeat, this is serious business! I found this while surfing around on Digg, and thought this was one of the most interesting “features” I have ever seen.
According to Microsoft’s Support website, if your computer starts playing classical music such as “Fur Elise”, or even more modern hits like “It’s a Small, Small World” this is cause for concern.
From Microsoft Support:
During normal operation or in Safe mode, your computer may play “Fur Elise” or “It’s a Small, Small World” seemingly at random. This is an indication sent to the PC speaker from the computer’s BIOS that the CPU fan is failing or has failed, or that the power supply voltages have drifted out of tolerance. This is a design feature of a detection circuit and system BIOSes developed by Award/Unicore from 1997 on.
They go on to say that if you encounter this problem, it is time to get your computer into the PC Doctor to have it checked out. Though it may seem like a virus, it could very well be a serious hardware problem.
Turn off Aero Glass in Vista. A quick how to.
Nov 27th
John from Maryland writes in:
Admin dudes can you help me disable Aero effects from my vista install? I am bored with them and I assume they use gobs of my memory. Hook me up!
We have limited resources while we are on the road but here is the answer as told by the guys from Port16.com. Full credit goes to them as we used their step-by-step guide.
If you are like me, pretty things are nice to look at, but I quickly get tired of visual effects if they don’t do anything for the operation of the computer. That is about how I felt about Aero Glass. It’s nice to look at, but I’m sure it eats up valuable system resources.
If you aren’t like me, and somehow Aero Glass was turned off on your computer, then you’ll want to scroll down some, so you can see how to turn it on.
Your first step, wether you want to turn it on or off, is to get to “Windows Color and Appearance”.
Getting to Windows Color and Appearance Settings
Right Click on a blank space on the desktop, and choose personalize:
The personalization Menu should now appear. Choose “Windows Color and Appearance”
Turning Aero Glass off / Disabling Aero Glass
If you already have Aero on, then you will see the window pictured below (click on it for a larger version). If you have Aero glass turned off, then scroll down to the “Turning Aero Glass Off / Enabling Aero Glass”
Click on “Open classic appearance properties for more color options”
You should see the window pictured below:
Basically, choosing anything besides “Windows Aero” in the color scheme section will turn off Aero Glass. Windows Vista basic looks pretty close, just without the transparencies.
Clicking apply will let you see the change without closing the window. When you are happy with the appearance, click on “OK”.
Turning Aero Glass Off / Enabling Aero Glass
If you followed the instructions above, in Getting to “Windows Color and Appearance Settings”, then you should see the screen below.
All you have to do is click on Windows Aero”, and then click on Apply. If you are happy with the way things look, then click on “OK”. That’s all there is to it.
Thanks Port16! I am sure you made John’s day and mine just a little easier!! [Port16.com]
Is There Such a Thing as a Digg Strategy?
Nov 26th
I have been using Digg.com for quite a while now, and have only recently begun to understand how it is that Digg really works. So many times I have submitted a blog post from Bauer-Power, only to get one or two diggs, then have it fall off into oblivion.
It was only recently that I discovered the true secret to Digg, and it was so simple that I couldn’t believe it.
That secret is simply to participate, and I mean actively participate. Start leaving comments, start voting on the submissions, and submit a lot of stuff yourself (not just your own blog posts).
After that, When you submit stuff, go back to see who dugg your articles and start adding them as friends, and add their friends as friends and so on. Eventually you will have built up quite a large network of diggers. After your network is big enough, when you submit something, you will find that even your mildest of submissions will get 20 or 30 diggs!
Next time you are browsing the diggy goodness, take a look at who is voting. You will start to see the alarming trend that the same people are digging for everyone. Their friends digg their articles and vice versa. If you don’t make friends, you will not make it to the front page. It is that simple.
Try it out, it only takes a day or so to build up your network. Happy Digging!
P.S. Do you have any other Digg tips? Hit us up in the comments!
Futurama is back baby!
Nov 26th
We just caught The Whole Movie a glimpse of the new Futurama movie called Bender’s Big Score. This is an hour and a half of pure futuristic geeky delight. Our pre-order has been in with Amazon for months but as of now it is all over the inter-webs. I just thought you guys would want to know! And here is another little tidbit – They cover how to detect SPAM in the first clip and it is hysterical. (Just to keep it a little technical). 1 Question though if we already paid for it via pre-order is it illegal for us to watch a copy obtained from some other means? What do you think?
Bender gives up his email address reluctantly and it’s: Bender@ILoveBender.com shoot him an email and he sends you back a bit of his witty Mexican humor! Viva La Bender Rodriguez. We are not advocating piracy especially for one of our favorite shows, but torrents are wonderful.
As Bender would say…. There Back Baby – Now bite my shiny metal ass!
_TheFuturamaAdmiN_
Featuring:
1) Al Gore, Coolio and Sarah Silverman guest star.
2) Complete commentary by Matt Groening, David X. Cohen, and cast members
3) All new, full-length episode of “Everybody Loves Hypnotoad”, including TV commercials of the future
4) Mind-bending Futurama math lecture by Professor Sarah Greenwald
5) Promo for “An Inconvenient Truth” starring Bender and Al Gore, including commentary by the former Vice PresidentDo you hear that? That’s the sound of millions of people with good taste in TV cheering the return of Futurama! Fans of the series will be glad to know that the show will return on November 27th as a full-length movie being released on DVD. The initial release will be followed by 3 more DVD movies! After all 4 DVD movies have been released, they’ll be chopped up into 16 episodes which will air on Comedy Central along with NEW episodes created for Comedy Central. Welcome back Futurama, welcome back! [TheAnimationBlog]
Is There Such a Thing as a Digg Strategy?
Nov 26th
I have been using Digg.com for quite a while now, and have only recently begun to understand how it is that Digg really works. So many times I have submitted a blog post from Bauer-Power, only to get one or two diggs, then have it fall off into oblivion.
It was only recently that I discovered the true secret to Digg, and it was so simple that I couldn’t believe it.
That secret is simply to participate, and I mean actively participate. Start leaving comments, start voting on the submissions, and submit a lot of stuff yourself (not just your own blog posts).
After that, When you submit stuff, go back to see who dugg your articles and start adding them as friends, and add their friends as friends and so on. Eventually you will have built up quite a large network of diggers. After your network is big enough, when you submit something, you will find that even your mildest of submissions will get 20 or 30 diggs!
Next time you are browsing the diggy goodness, take a look at who is voting. You will start to see the alarming trend that the same people are digging for everyone. Their friends digg their articles and vice versa. If you don’t make friends, you will not make it to the front page. It is that simple.
Try it out, it only takes a day or so to build up your network. Happy Digging!
P.S. Do you have any other Digg tips? Hit us up in the comments!
