Occasionally your printer may stop printing and refuse to print anything else. This is often because a print job has gotten stuck in the printer queue. There is a way to clear a stuck print job in Windows, but sometimes it requires a reboot which is silly if you just want to clear a print job.

There is, however, a free utility program called Stalled Printer Repair that will fix this problem for you. Just download it; run it; and click “Purge Print Jobs” and you’re done!

Here’s the link:

http://www.fantasticfreeware.com/applications/stalled-printer-repair/

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Compression is a process by which a piece of data is encoded in such a way that it will take up less space when stored. Once compressed, it must be uncompressed before that piece of data can be used.

Let me give you a very simplified example. You already know that a computer stores information in binary format. That is ones and zeros. So let’s say you had the following information:

11100000101000100000000111110111111100100000100000

The data above consists of 50 bits or digits. Is there a shorthand way to write this that takes up less space? Yes there is. Anytime a particular digit is repeated more than two times in a row, you could write it in a different way. For example, since the only valid digits are ones and zeros, any other digit could specify the number of times to repeat the next digit. So if you had six zeros (000000), you could write it 60 meaning six zeros. Writing it that way takes 2 bits instead of 6. If you used this convention to write the above number, you would get:

11150101301805107100150150

That only takes up 26 bits. That’s a savings up 24 bits. And that’s compression.

That is a very simple example of compression. The compression used on computers is more complex than that, but you get the idea.

Compression is pretty common place in the computer world. It’s used to reduce the size of something so that it can be transferred over the internet (or, God forbid, over a phone line) faster and also so that it takes up less space when stored. It’s also a form of encryption, although its goal is not security.

Years ago when hard drives weren’t all that big and they were expensive, you could compress your whole hard drive to save space. But there was a price to pay. Every time read from the hard drive, that data has to be decompressed and every time you write to the hard drive, that data has to be compressed. That slows things down. But with today’s large, inexpensive hard drives, there’s no reason to even consider compressing a hard drive.

Some files cannot be compressed because they are, in effect, already compressed or the format of the file is just not condusive to compression. One example is the jpg format, often pronounced jpeg. This is a method for storing images. Most digital cameras product pictures in the jpeg format. One of the great things about jpeg files is that their native storage format is already compressed. You can try to compress it further, but you want get much, if any savings in size. In fact, due to the overhead of compression, you’ll probably make it bigger.

Zip files are compressed, but they have the additional advantage that you can group more than one file into the compressed file. Windows can handle zip files, but it calls them compressed folders. If you have multiple files you want to store together, you can put them in a zip file (compressed folder). You can then store them somewhere and since they are compressed, they will take up less space. You can transfer or transport them as well. When you are ready to use them, you must decompress them.

If you want to create a zip file in Windows, just select the file, or files, you want to put in the zip file, then right-click on them and choose “Send To” and then choose “Compressed (zipped) folder”. It will create the file and then let you choose a name. To open a zip file, just double click it.

By the way, Zip files (compressed folders) are not the only way to compress data on a computer. But Zip files are the only ones supported by Windows. If you want to use one of the other ones, then you will need additional software.

Some of the more popular formats used today include RAR and 7z. If you want to create RAR files, check out WinRAR (http://www.rarlab.com/). WinRAR also works on zip files, but it’s not free.

For the 7z format, check out 7-Zip (http://www.7-zip.org/). 7-Zip not only works on 7z files, but also works on Zip and RAR files. This is the utility I use most. It works great and the best part is, it’s free!

Most residential computer uses, however, don’t need anything more than what’s built-in to Windows.

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Windows has a group of features called Accessibility Options. These are Windows options that can be set to help people who physical impairments that make it hard to use a computer. People who are def or hard of hearing, are blind or have limited eyesight, or people who have difficulty using the keyboard or mouse. If you or someone you know falls into any of these categories, windows has special features that can help you better use a computer.

There are actually quite a few accessibility options. Too many to go over in detail in this article. But here is a description of some of the more popular accessibility options.

Magnifier
It’s like a big rectangular magnifying glass that you move around the screen with your mouse. It magnifies anything in the box to the power you set. 200% by default.

High Contrast
For people with impaired vision, you can use a high contrast color scheme to make things easier to see. High contrast color schemes increase the legibility by heightening screen contrast with alternative color combinations. Some of these schemes also make things on the screen bigger.

Visual Notifications
By default, Windows uses a lot of sounds to notify you of what’s going on. But if your hearing isn’t very good, Visual Notifications allows you to have visual notifications in addition to audible notifications. You can choose what you what notifications you want it to give you visually.

Narrator
This is a text-to-speech program that basically reads what on the screen to you.

Speech Recognition
If you have trouble using a mouse or keyboard, Speech Recognition allows you to speak commands to your computer. You’ll need to have a microphone connected to your computer for this to work.

Filter Keys
if you tend to hold keys on the keyboard down too long or press it several times when you intended to only press it once, then you probably often get more than one character of the key you pressed. If so, then you might want to enable Filter Keys which will ignore keystrokes that occur in rapid succession.

Sticky Keys
Windows has quite a few keyboard combinations where you have to press multiple keys at the same time. For example, Control-Alt-Delete. When Sticky Keys is enabled, you don’t have to press them all at the same time. You can press them one at a time. So, if Sticky Keys was turned on, you could press and release control, then press and release Alt, then press and release Delete.

Mouse Keys
If you do OK using the keyboard, but have trouble with the mouse you can enable mouse keys which lets you use the arrow keys to move the pointer.

Note that XP doesn’t have all of the options described above, but Vista and Windows 7 do.

This list above is a very small portion of the many accessibility options in Windows.

For detailed information on all of the accessibility options in Windows XP, go to: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/accessibility/default.mspx

For Vista, go to:
http://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/windowsvista/

For Windows 7, go to:
http://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/windows7/

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What Good is an Idle Computer?

With the recent green push, some people feel you should shut your computer down when you aren’t using it. Or you can put it in hibernation or sleep (For more information about hibernation and sleep, see our recent newsletter article on our website). Although it’s a good thing to try and save electricity, you also have to be smart about it.

When  you are using your computer, you want it to be at its best so you can do what you need to do efficiently. You don’t want your computer doing maintenance tasks while you are trying to use it because it slows you down. You want your computer to do it’s maintenance tasks when you aren’t using it. That’s why you should not shut your computer down, put it into hibernation, or put it to sleep when you aren’t using it.

You can have windows turn off your monitor after a certain amount of time to try and save electricity. If you have Vista or Windows 7,  you can have them shut down other components of the computer to save electricity. Setting these settings will allow your computer to do the maintenance it needs to do when you aren’t using it, but will still save some electricity.

Typical maintenance tasks that your computer might do when  you aren’t using it include, but are not limited to, update security software, scan computer for infections, backup, defrag, and more. There are, however, other additional tasks you can have your computer perform. How would you like to have your computer fight cancer and other diseases like AIDS, MD, and more? Or perhaps you would like your computer to look for E.T.? You can have your computer do all of these things and more through the use of distributed computing.

The idea behind distributed computing is instead of using one big expensive computer to process data, why not break the data up into little pieces and have a lot of less expensive computers each process a small piece of the data. Your computer can be one of these computers and it’s free and easy to do.

It all started with the SETI@Home project at Berkeley. Back in 1999, they created a screen saver that would kick in when you weren’t using your computer. This screen saver would process data for the SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute. Since then, the software used for this has evolved way past a simple screen saver. The software is now called BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing).

Now there are lots of projects, in addition to SETI@Home, that you can have your computer work on. And you don’t have to limit it to one project. You can work on lots of them. I started with SETI@Home back in 1999. I still have my computers do some work for that project, but most of my computers concentrate on projects from World Community Grid. Why? Because their projects save lives. They are the ones with the projects that help fight Cancer, AIDS and other diseases.  Their projects help people.

Yes, using  your computer for distributed computing does use a little more electricity. But isn’t it worth it to help save lives? And if you have a friend or family member who has died from Cancer, or is fighting cancer right now, why wouldn’t you want to join in the fight?

If you want to use your computer to help with these projects, here’s how.

First, go http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/ to download and install BOINC. Now run BOINC. It will give you the option to attach to projects like World Community Grid or SETI@Home. You’ll create logins for each project as well. You can configure BOINC to run all the time, or only when your computer is idle.

If you need help with BOINC, we will be glad to help you with it remotely at no charge. Here are some websites with more information to references in this article:

SETI@Home                   http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/
World Community Grid  http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/

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PDF doesn’t stand for Pretty Darn Fun. It stands for Portable Document Format. A document in this format will have .pdf on the end of it. This format was created by Adobe in 1993. When  you download a book, manual, or other document from the internet, it is often in PDF format. Some forms are also in PDF format.

If you want to view a PDF document, you need the free Adobe Reader which can be downloaded and installed from adobe.com. Most computers already have this installed.

What we wanted to address in this article was how to create a PDF file. If you want to create a fancy PDF file that contains a form other special functionality, you would have to purchase Adobe Acrobat which is very expensive. The standard version of Acrobat currently lists for $299, but if you have a previous version, you can upgrade for $99.

However, if you just want to take a document you have created in Word, Publisher, or some other program and create a PDF version of it, you don’t need Acrobat. And the best part is you can create it for free.

You may be wondering why you would want to create a PDF of your document. Why not just send your document? Good question. There are several reasons why. To answer this, let’s use the example of a Word document. Let’s say you have Word 2007. If you send a Word 2007 file to someone, it may turn out that they don’t have Word, or they may have an older version of Word. So that person would not be able to view the document. But everyone has Adobe Reader. So if you converted it to PDF format, they would be able to open and view your document.

Another reason is that if you sent someone your Word document, if they have Word they can open it and change it. If you want to make sure the document can’t be modified, then you might want to convert it to PDF before you send it.

So, here’s how to convert your document to PDF.

If you have Office 2007, you can download a free add-in from Microsoft that lets you save  your documents as PDF files. You can download and install that by using the link below:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4d951911-3e7e-4ae6-b059-a2e79ed87041&displaylang=en

If you have an older version of Office, or if you want to create a PDF file from a different program, you can still do it pretty easily and for free.

Go to cutepdf.com and download the free CutePDF Writer and install it on your computer. Once it has been installed, it creates a virtual printer. Then, all you have to do is open up your document in the program you created it in. Then print the document, but instead of printing to your default printer, change the printer you are printing to so it prints to the CutePDF virtual printer. When you print to the CutePDF printer, it will prompt you for a file name and location for your PDF file. It will then create the PDF file for you so that you can then send it out via email.

CutePDF is not the only utility like this that is free. Another popular one is pdf995 which you can get at pdf995.com.

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Sometime in the next few weeks, Google will be releasing a new service called Google Voice. It’s a free service that many people may find very useful.

Here’s how it works. When you sign up, you get your own special Google phone number. This is a real phone number that people can call. If you move, your Google phone number stays the same. But unlike a regular phone number, this one is powerful.

Unlike your standard phone line you get from your local phone company, this phone number comes with voice mail and has a lot of features. Here are just a few of the features.

You can have your voice mail e-mailed to your or sent as a text message to your phone in addition to being able to call a phone number and get your voice mail messages with any phone.

You can set your Google phone number up so that when anyone calls it, every phone you have will ring and you can answer the call at any of these phones. Or you can set it up so that when a certain person calls, it only rings at home, but when a different person calls, it will ring on your home phone and your cell phone.

Here’s an example of that. You could set it up so that if a call comes in from your parents house, it would ring at all of your phones (home, cell, work). At the same time, you could set it up so that if an acquaintance calls, it just rings at home or goes straight to voice mail.

What I like best about this is how you could handle solicitation calls. I could put all of the people I know into Google Voice and specify which phones will ring when they call. I could then specify that when anyone else calls, it goes straight to voice mail. This won’t eliminate solicitation calls, but should dramatically reduce them.

Another cool feature is call screening. With the traditional answering machine, you could screen calls by listening as a caller left a message. You can still do that with Google Voice, but you can do more too. You can specify that anyone who calls who is not in your address book must record their name the first time they call. That recording will then be played to you so you will know who is calling and if their caller id is blocked or not. If they don’t record their name, their call doesn’t get through.

When you block a call, the caller will get a message that sounds like the phone company message notifying them that the number is no longer in service.

People can even send text messages to your Google phone number. You can have text messages sent to your Google phone number sent to your cell phone.

The list of features goes on and on. For more information, take a look at http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html#

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Think about the types of things use computers for.

We use computers to communicate with each other. We use email, instant messaging, chat, forums, blogs, voice over IP (i.e. Skype), and much more. Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace are huge conduits for communication.

We also use computers for entertainment. We play games, we watch video on websites like youtube, and some of us record and watch TV. You can even watch TV episodes and movies online. We also listen to music both on our PC and over the internet. We even buy our music online. And we load up our music on our mp3 players. And when was the last time you bought a roll of film? That’s all digital now. And you can share your photos online.

We use our computer for financial activities as well. We pay bills online, track our bank accounts, transfer money, analyze our financial situation, keep records, and trade stocks.

Computers are big with education as well. We take online classes. We use computers to do our home work. And we find the answers to the questions we have.

Our health is dependent upon computers. Think of all of the medical equipment, medical records, and so forth. You can look up your symptoms on the internet and find out what your problem is and what you should do about it. You can also look up a drug.

Computers are Huge in business. Most businesses these days pretty much run their businesses on their computers. For most businesses, if the computers go down, the business is pretty much dead in the water.

And we use our computers for reference. When I need to know something, I no longer pick up a dictionary, encyclopedia, or any other printed reference book. I hit the web!

This is by no means anywhere near a complete list, but it gives you an idea.

Now think about how much of this would be possible if you didn’t have the internet? You can play games on a computer without the internet, but the list of games you can play without the internet is getting smaller every year. You can watch video on your computer without the internet, but you have to get it on your computer by physical means like a DVD. The same goes for music. You can record and watch television on your computer without the internet, but you wouldn’t have any program guide. You would have to look in the newspaper or TV Guide to see when something is going to be on. About the only financial things you could do would be to do some analysis and record keeping.

Having no Internet at your business would be a serious impediment to doing business. You might be able to access your database and take phone calls, but with no e-mail or web access, it’s going to be difficult to do all of the things you need to do.

As far as education goes, you could order some DVD’s and watch a class that way, but you could do that with a DVD player too. And you used to be able to purchase reference material for medical conditions, encyclopedias, dictionaries, and similar on CD. But the information on them was stagnant.

All of this goes to make a point. The Internet is what has made the computer so invaluable in the home and in the workplace. The popularity and importance of computers is due to the Internet. Before the internet, computers were used primarily by the government, big business, researchers, nerds, and gamers.

 In a way, the Internet is more important than the computer itself. Your Internet connection speed is often more important than the speed of your computer, although the speed of your computer is certainly important. As time goes on, however, the computer will become less and less important while the Internet will become more and more important. The computer is basically becoming an appliance for accessing the internet.

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When you go on vacation, you might want to keep up with your e-mail, facebook, and other online communications. Plus, it’s nice to have web access when you are on vacation so you can find things to do or find a good restaurant to go to. So what are the ways you can do that?

First you need a device capable of accessing the internet and the web. Many phones will do this. Blackberrys and other phones can access your e-mail, view web pages, and so forth. But they are limited. A cell phone might do for many people, but for others, it’s just not enough when you are on vacation. Many hotels have an office area where customers can go and use a computer, access the web, etc. But it’s not convenient. You may go down to the lobby only to find that they are all full.

No, for many of us, it’s best to bring a laptop along with us on vacation. If you don’t have a laptop, you might want to look into a netbook.  A netbook is a small, inexpensive laptop that is great for travelling. One good netbook is the Acer Aspire One. You can get one for around $300. They aren’t fit to be your normal workstation and you won’t be able to play graphics intensive games on it, but it’s great for travelling.

Now that you have a laptop, you will need a connection to the internet. Many hotels and condos provide free internet access. Some charge though, so try and book your reservations someplace that has free internet access. Some have wired, some have wireless. Wireless is nice, but wired is OK too. You just have to use the computer in one particular spot. If you aren’t able to find lodging with internet access, there is one other option. Many cell phones can act as a modem. You hook your phone up to the laptop and access the internet over your cell phone. Not all cell phones have this feature and you must have an internet plan on your phone.

Some hotels offer free wireless internet in the lobby, but not in the rooms. So you might have to take your laptop down to the lobby and use it there. Another option is to go to a business that provides internet access. Places like Schlotskys and Starbucks.

Now that you have a laptop and it’s connected to the internet, you may want to know the best way to access your Email. No matter what your e-mail address is or how you normally access it, you can access it through the web. The problem here is that any Email you already read on your home computer, won’t be visible there. Another problem is that if you read it on the web, it may never download to your home computer. You can set up the Email program on your laptop to download your Email, but you have to set up the settings correctly or your e-mail will never reach your home computer. One drawback to this method is that your inbox could fill up on your internet provider’s server.

The method I recommend is remote access. Basically, use your laptop as a remote terminal to access your home computer. This is the same type of software we use for remote support. It allows you to use your computer just as if you were sitting in front of it. Just leave  your home computer turned on when you leave.

For businesses with a server, you can use Remote Workplace to access your e-mail and calendar while you are away.

And by the way, if you run into trouble with your computer while you are on vacation, give us a call. We can remotely support your computer over the internet.

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Have you ever noticed a button on your keyboard labeled something like “Prt Scr”? The actual abbreviation on your keyboard may be slightly different, but it stands for Print Screen. Those of you who used personal computers before Windows came around may remember that the print screen button would actually print what was on the screen as soon as you hit the button. But when Windows came around, that changed.

Now when you hit the print screen button, it takes a screen shot (a picture) and stores it in the Windows Clipboard. The Windows Clipboard is the temporary storage area that is used when you copy and paste. After you hit the print screen button, pull up Microsoft Word or some other similar program. Then click on Edit/Paste in the menu (or hit Ctrl-v on the keyboard). It will paste an image of what the screen looked like when you hit the print screen button. Once you’ve got the screen shot in Word, you can change the size, crop, and so forth.

But what if you don’t want an image of the whole screen? Perhaps you just want a shot of the current windowed application. No problem. Instead of hitting print screen by itself, hold down the Alt key on you keyboard and hit the print screen button.

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