Comp-U-Train computer training

If you are an Expat and want to watch television shows from your home country that is “geoblocked”, preventing you from accesssing them from your country of residence, then you can use a VPN (Virtual Private Network” service to allow you to view them. Comp-U-Train uses and recommends the excellent VPN service from Nord. Once you have created an account with Nord, then launch the VPN application.Then click the desired country and click to connect to it.You will see a…

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A customer bought a brand new Lenovo i7 laptop with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD.They have an eight year old HP 6960 printer and wanted to connect it to their new laptop using Wi-Fi. To start the process, I downloaded the drivers for Windows 11 from the official HP website. HP website shows drivers for Windows 11 but not specifially for 32 or 64 bit, which is unusual. I downloaded the software and installed it but it doesn’t work with…

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Even we get scammers trying to steal from us. Today we received an email from a company that looked just like it was from our Domain registry and web hosting company called 1-Grid.The email said that our Domain had been “Cancelled”. I quickly logged into our account at 1-Grid to see that our account was up to date and therefore prooved this was a scam. The scammer had spoofed 1-Grids email so it looks like it came from them.The email…

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If you want to learn how to type start by putting your left fingers on the A S D F keys and your right on the J K L : keys.These keys are called the “home keys”.You’ll notice that the F and J keys have a ridge on them. This is to help you park your left and right forefingers (the one that you point with) on their respective home keys. Now comes the fun part:Simply start by typing the…

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Have you started receiving pesky sales notifications from websites that you have previously visited and accidentally allowed Notifications? Microsoft Edge stores all of the websites that you visit and if you allow the Notifications, it is added in the Notifications permission list. To stop the Notifications for good you can do the following. 1) Click the three little horizontal dots on the top right of the Edge Browser to open the Browser’s Menu 2) Click the Settings cog at the…

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We had a customer complain that her Microsoft application on her computer had started giving her an error that her Outlook email account’s username or password was incorrect. I immediately suspected a 2FA problem since the old Outlook needs an app password when 2FA has been enabled. I was able to log into her Microsoft account which proved that her credentials were correct. I noticed that 2FA had not been turned on.Fearing that the Credentials cache on her computer had…

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My wife reported that her 2016 Samsung Tablet S2 with version 7 Android, had done a facebook app update and when she went to reopen the app she saw that she had been logged out of her account and needed to log back in. When she tried to log in, she was told that the app needed to perform a “security check”. This required her to enter the contorted looking text that was presented on the screen. After successfully doing…

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We visited a customer that was having trouble converting several images to a pdf. What was happening was that the pages were not in a numbered sequence. She was using the File Explorer’s printing tool to convert the images to a pdf.She had numbered the images as she wanted them printed, but the numbers were not correct when the pdf was opened. She had tried using the “Microsoft convert to pdf” and the “Adobe Acrobat” print output formats.The trick is…

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We attended a customer’s home where they were using the amazing Google Home to control their in different rooms. In each room they had a Google Home speaker.In one room if the customer asked Google Home to turn off the lights say in the living room, Google would respond with “Turning off Living Room lights”. In another room with another speaker, Google would simply emit a ding dong tone when it turned the light on or off. The customer wanted…

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We were called to a customer’s home that had problems printing from her laptop to her Printer.On closer inspection, I saw that the Wi-Fi network that the laptop was connected to, was set as Public even though she was on her home network.I changed the network to Private and the printer started printing again.However on restarting the laptop I saw that the network had been changed back to Public again. I decided to uninstall the Avast anti-virus software on her…

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We attended a customer that was having a problem cloning his old HDD (Hard Disk Drive) to a new SSD (Solid State Drive). The programme that he was using to do the Cloning was the excellent Acronis application. The Acronis tools were installed on a USB stick, which the customer used to boot the computer. The Cloning should be done outside of Windows, to minimise the risk of corrupting the data on the HDD. Needless to say before you attempt…

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We attended a trouble call where a customer could not uninstall the McAfee Security Scan Plus software from their laptop.Unfortunately this software is bundled with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader programme. Unless you untick the box to not install this McAfee Security Scan Plus programme, then it gets a free ride into your computer. What happens is when you click the “Uninstall” button, you are given the normal permission window to uninstall the programme, to wish you click Yes, but…

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Beware of scams trying to scare you into clicking on a link in a SMS. This is called “phishing” and is sadly quite common. The aim of the scammer is to steal your private credentials such as your username and password. This action is to solely steal your hard earned money. Sadly Banks and Governments seem powerless to stop this or help you try to recover your stolen assets.

We attended a customer’s home to trouble shoot the Send/Receive button missing from one of her Outlook email addresses. Also she noticed that no new emails were appearing in her inbox for a few weeks, despite seeing them in her cell phone email application. Also there were no emails appearing in the inbox of the affected email address. Suspecting that a Folder rule had accidentally been set up to direct the incoming email to the wrong Folder produced no result….

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We recently attended a printing problem of a customer using a Windows 10 laptop at home. The laptop was connected by Wi-Fi but had repeated trouble printing to their Wi-Fi connected Printer.Sometimes this can happen if the Printer is far away from the Wi-Fi router and the signal at the Printer’s location was very low or being blocked by interference from other equipment in the home.However this was not the case as the printer was only one metre away. Her…

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Do not install this optional driver as it clashes with Windows update and causes the Windows update process to freeze at 61%.It also causes a yellow pause icon to appear and there is no “resume update” button.

We took possession of a customer’s Lenovo laptop, that was stuck doing the latest Windows update. Also there was a yellow “Pause” symbol showing as in the image below. This symbol normally shows if you have delayed the update, however this was not the case in this particular situation.However you should also see a button called “Resume Updates” however this button was missing.The Windows update Troubleshooter couldn’t fix the problem and Windows media creation tool update software said that the…

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Scammers and fraudsters will try every trick in the book to obtain your private credentials.By “credentials” I mean your account’s USERNAME and PASSWORD.Microsoft will never call you out of the blue or send you warning emails like in the photo below.Cryptocurrency exchanges will never email you out of the blue asking you to verify your credentials.Google or other email providers, will never email you out of the blue warning you that your account will be suspended, unless you click a…

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We recently attended a customer that had changed their Internet Service Provider. They received a new Wi-Fi router and after setting it up, they found out that their Google Home speakers could not connect to the Internet.This was because the new router had a new name and the Google Home devices listed on her cell/mobile phone were still connected to her old Wi-Fi network which didn’t exist anymore.Unfortunately, there isn’t an easy way to change the Wi-Fi network that the…

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Yesterday, my wife received a SMS on her cell phone from our bank. The SMS is designed to alarm the reader into taking immediate action and you can see how it looks legitimate. When I clicked the link, you can see that the next page which shows where to enter your private credentials (username and password). This page also looks authentic.Please understand that your bank or Microsoft or other service provider, will NEVER contact you either telephonically or via SMS…

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We have had a few customers that needed a new Google app password created for their Microsoft Outlook programme, because they had changed their Google account password.I have found the option to create a new app password, is not visible in the list of sign in options. However, if you search for “app passwords” in the search bar at the top of the Google account, you will see the option for “App passwords” showing in the results. You can therefore…

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I recently allowed OneDrive to back up my documents to the Cloud.After the uploading had finished to the Cloud, I got an error when I tried to open and download my emails using the Outlook mail client.The error was “Outlook .PST cannot be opened”For some strange reason, MS chooses to create the “Outlook Files” folder in the Documents folder, instead of the root of the drive. OneDrive does not back up the root of the drive it only backs up…

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We recently helped a customer fix a problem with their USB stick.When they plugged the stick into the computer’s USB socket, they were presented with a question box on the screen whether to format the stick or not.This happens if the File Allocation Table on the stick is corrupt and cannot be read by Windows.Do not under any circumstances answer “YES” to the formatting as the contents of the stick will be deleted and you will make things worse.Instead, note…

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We had a customer that wanted to tag a company on Facebook, that she had used, but when she started typing the name, the company name would not appear.Another friend was able to tag the company with no problem.We suggested to try adding the @ sign in front of the name. The customer tried this and low and behold the company name appeared in the list of results.When you add the @ sign, it Facebook treats the name as a…

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We got a new computer to connect to our TV monitor.Our computer serves our home as a HTPC (Home Theater PC) Media Server. We leave it on 24/7.The new computer only had a DP (Display Port) socket to connect to the HDMI socket on the TV.Consequently, I ordered a cable with a DP plug on one end and a HDMI plug on the other.There is a built-in adapter on the cable to change the protocols required to convert a DP…

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We recently attended to a customer that could not print anything using the Microsoft Edge browser. The “print” button can be used to print webpages that you are looking at as well as .pdf ((Portable Document Format)) documents that you are reading. Microsoft Edge has no problem handling .pdf documents.This situation alarmed him, because he urgently needed to print up some documents that he had received and didn’t want to install a third-party application to print the documents. The symptom…

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If you ever get this message or a similar type, immediately press and hold in the power button on your computer for up to ten seconds. Do not under any circumstances call the telephone number shown

Your Bank will NEVER contact you like this. If you suspect any nefarious activity on your account, call your Bank. Do NOT click on any link in a SMS or email purporting to be from your Bank.

You receive a SMS purportedly from sky.The scammer tries to get you to download a virus to your cell/mobile phone. This virus will then steal your passwords. Beware!

If you want to add the day of the week, to the date/time on the bottom right of your display in the notification area, add ddd to the short date field as shown in the below screen shots. You can add dddd but if you find the day of the weeks is not showing because of insufficient room in the notification area, then change the dddd to ddd Start by typing Control Panel in the search field in the bottom…

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We look forward to helping you with our Computer Skills Development Package.Looking forward to a New Year with exciting opportunities.

If you have an inkjet printer, make sure that you use it at least once a week. This stops the print head ink from drying out. I suggest that you print something which uses all the colours of your printer. Below you will find a photo that you can use to exercise your printer.

Many times I see facebook comments containing long lines of text which are very difficult to read because they contain no paragraphs.In order to add a page break to your facebook comments, press shift and enter on your keyboard at the same time to create a new paragraph or line break

We attended a customer’s home who told us that she had to keep reinstalling her Office 365 because it would disappear from her computer when she booted up in the morning.Upon arrival she showed me that she downloads the Office 365 installation file using her Husband’s computer and put it on a USB stick and then installs from there.The problem is that the 365 installation file is custom created for the computer that is downloading it. You can’t transfer the…

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You may have noticed that when you visit websites using Microsoft Edge, there is an option to add that website to your favourites. This option is via an icon at the right hand side of the Internet address bar or URL bar.You may also have noticed that some stars for websites are a solid colour.The reason for the two types is that if the star is filled in then it means you have already added that webpage to your favourites.Clicking…

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We had a customer that was given access to a shared folder of another friend’s Google Drive in which to deposit files.Her friend had a Google Drive storage size of many Gigabytes available while our customer only had a free Google account, that only had a couple of Gigabytes left. The free Google account gives you 15GB of storage space which is shared between all of your Google services. She had tried to upload some large files from her computer…

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