Friday, August 31, 2012

Email & Online Safety Tips:

Most of us have been using email and shopping online for quite some time, so we know how to use it safely – right?? Wrong… we all get comfortable and too often when we aren’t paying attention, we leave ourselves open to scams without even realizing it… so just a few basic reminders to stay safe online…

BE SURE IT SAYS HTTPS - Before you ever type in any personal information whatsoever on a website (shopping, medical facilities, registering on a company site for info, travel websites, etc) – always be the one who went to that website by typing the website into you browser address bar..  Don’t go there by using a link in an email you received..  Once there, you always want to see https in the Internet browser address bar before you ever type any personal information.  For example when I got to walgreens.com to see what’s on sale – the address in the browser bar will read:

But when I left click on the “shopping cart” the data in the internet browser toolbar changes and now reads:


reputable companies never ask for info via email - Your bank, favorite online store, mortgage or credit card companies will NEVER – NEVER – NEVER - send you an email requesting sensitive information such as your username, password, account number, etc. If you ever receive an email asking for you for this information – print it off and delete it.. Once you print it off, notify the company directly of what has happened.  When you type information into any website, you want to be sure you generated the access to that specific website… never click on a link from an email to visit the site.

BE WARY OF EMAILS FROM GENERIC NAMES – Spammers, Scammers and others who are phishing often send emails using a single name “Jean” or other common names, such as “Uncle Dave” or a common company name – Wells Fargo, Bank of America, or political affiliation these days…  But that doesn’t mean that it is who you think it is.. Most of our friend or families emails come in showing both their first and last name - Pay attention to the email and any attachments they may include – go with your gut, if it looks funny or unusual delete it…

IF IT SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, IT’S PROBABLY A HOAX!
When we receive emails offering easy money, free or cheap products and services, requests for money because our friend is stuck in another country or an offer for a foreign lotteries – remember they are almost always a hoax…  delete them and never, never forward them to anyone on your email contact list/address book

Protect your friends & families privacy - Always be sure you type friend & families email addresses in the “BCC” line of all emails (not the To line), so they receive the email but don’t see each other’s addresses – this way if and when they forward the joke or information to others, email addresses won’t be shared unknowingly..  
If and when you receive an email with lots of other addresses, as soon as you choose to forward it on, be sure to eliminate any of the addresses that are listed before your forward it…  Together we can protect each others privacy and reduce the amount of junk mail we get..

Friday, August 24, 2012

Find The Specific Info You’ve Searched For On A Website


We’ve all done it.... searched for a specific word or phrase, and when we go to the link our favorite search engine recommended, we can’t find the exact words or phrase that was in our search… but yet they showed up in the search engine list… where are they??

It’s easy to find them – just use your keyboard shortcuts…

When you are on the webpage, Hold down your CTRL KEY and the "F" KEY

  • Remember the F key, in conjunction with the CTRL key = find 
So once you do this, you will see a search box appear on your monitor screen (almost always it appears at the bottom of your open window)

Now you can type in the same word or phrase into that search box and your internet browser with find and highlight each instance of that word as it appears on the page.

Then click the "next" button to allow the page to auto-scroll to the next instance of the word.

Friday, August 17, 2012

What to do when you see an "Error Message"?


From time to time, we all receive an error message we don't understand – so you will want to capture your screen so you’ll be able to research the error message accurately, first on Google and if that doesn’t help you then you can show what was actually on your monitor to your favorite tech support person for their help…

FIRST: To capture your screen:
When the error message is on the screen – Hold the CTRL Key down and simultaneously hold the  PRINT SCREEN KEY  on your keyboard (on some laptops you will need to hold the Fn key and simultaneously hold the PRINT SCREEN KEY).  This action takes a copy of everything on your monitor at that moment in time including your Task Bar…
Next, open whatever you use for your word processing program, Word Pad, Word, Word Perfect – and when you have a blank page on the monitor – activate paste and remember there are 5 different ways to paste-use the one you are comfortable with:
1)     Use the right click on your mouse-action list appears, choose paste
2)     Use the action key on your keyboard, when you tap it, the action list will appear, choose past
3)     Use the Paste icon on your toolbar
4)     Use edit on your Menu Bar, when the menu list appears, choose Paste, or
5)     Use your keyboard: by holding the CTRL Key and  V key at the same time


SECOND: Once the photo of your monitor w/the error message is on your piece of paper, save it (you should have a "troubleshooting folder" on your pc for these things) – Once it is saved, print it off for your reference…note I always put a date on my document so I know when it happened - and once I get the "fix" to the problem I type that on the document also for future reference... 

THIRD: Type the error message into Google Search, so will find recommendations from others who have had the same problem – some will e individuals, but more than likely you will see recommendations from the software company itself telling you how to correct the problem.  It’s recommended that you a few different websites opinions before jumping to a conclusion. 

Remember, we can type any question into Google in plain English, it is the easiest way to search for anything - You can even type in a telephone number and if it’s not a private number/or cell phone you will see the name & address of the person it belongs to..

FOURTH:  If you don’t find a simple solution you are comfortable trying, then talk to your favorites tech support person – you can show them hat was happening or if you are contacting them via email, you can email them the document you created so they can see exactly what was happening at the time you received the error message…

Good luck and remember with a little effort – you are the one in control..…


Friday, August 10, 2012

How to Clear or Unfreeze Your Printer Spool

As referenced in our Blog Posting of Printer Terms on August 3, 2012.

Sometimes when you are printing - there can be an error and nothing will print.  You may or may not see an error message, but when there is an error, documents in the queue (in line) for printing will freeze and nothing will print. You may think that something is wrong with the printer, but the problem is caused by the Print Spooler. The problem can be solved rather easily and removing the jam in the printer will only take a few seconds.

Right-click on "Computer" or "My Computer" and a drop-down menu will appear. Click on "Manage."

Click on "Services and Applications" and then click on "Services" to view all the services on your computer.
Scroll down to "Print Spooler" and right-click on it. A drop-down menu will appear, on which you will click on "Stop" to temporarily halt the service.
Shrink the window and click on "Computer" or "My Computer."
Click on the primary hard drive on the computer, which is normally the "(C:)" drive.
Click on the "Windows" folder.
Click on the "System32" folder.
Click on the "Spool" folder and the "Printers" folder inside it to view the print jobs you want to clear.
Press the "Ctrl" and "A" key simultaneously to select everything and press the "Delete" key to clear the Print Spooler. Close the window.
Restore the "Services" window, right-click on "Print Spooler" and click on "Start" so your printer can schedule print jobs again.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Glossary Of Printer Terms (Part 2 of 2):

This is Part 2 of the blog posting we began on Sunday, July 29th, 2012.

Printing Media - What the printer prints on, i.e. paper, transparencies, film and CD/DVD surfaces. The media type that a printer can support differs by printer type and model.

MFC Printer - A MultiFunction (MFC)/All-In-One printer can perform a rich variety of task including printing, scanning, copying and even faxing. With an MFC/All-In-One printer, you do not need to invest in separate copiers, scanners or fax machines (unless you have special requirements). In general, an MFC/All-In-One printer makes installation easier and saves valuable office space.

Non-impact Printing  - Non-impact printing allows printing an image without striking the printing media. Both inkjet and laser printers are non-impact printers.

OCR – OCR stands for ”Optical Character Recognition” and is a computerized process that enables us to convert a paper document into a computer file that you can edit or manipulate using a program such as Microsoft Word or Word Perfect..OCR used to be an expensive technology, but today is found on many of the All in One/MCF printer/copiers…  All OCR systems work in conjunction with your printer/scanner so that when we put the document face down on the scanner glass, it takes a picture of the document, but stores the
picture” in the form of a bitmap file/also known as an image file – and the OCR software then examines the patterns of dots in the image file and create a file that contains text that is represented as fonts and ASCII codes (once this is done most OCR system discard/delete the image/bitmap file)

PPM - Pages per minute, used to measure printing speed. A printer’s printing speed varies depending on print quality settings, print media, and page size.

SPOOL/SPOOLING: Basically, spooling is the process of placing data in a temporary working area for another program to process. Today, most of us here this term in reference to document s sent from our computer to our printer – known as print spooling.  This means that documents formatted for printing are stored usually in an area on a disk on our printers and retrieved and printed at the rate determined by that printer..  Printers typically can print only a single document at a time and require seconds or minutes to do so. With spooling, multiple processes can write documents to a print queue without waiting. As soon as a process has written its document to the spool device, the process can perform other tasks, while a separate printing process operates the printer
On a stand-alone computer, spooling is handled by the operating system. On a network computer, documents are sent to a print server, where they are spooled before being sent to the designated printer
(We will address how to clear you printer spooling if it freezes or gets jammed in next weeks blog on August 10th)

Two Sided Printing - A technology allowing printing on both sides of the paper (sometimes referred to as duplex printing).

USB - The USB (Universal Serial Bus) port is a popular I/O interface used for connecting computers and peripherals or other devices – USB connections are the most popular interface today for all printers and most other peripheral devices.