You may have noticed the four volume sliders in your Samsung/Android phone settings.The first volume control is the “Ringing” volume control. This controls the sound of the phone when someone calls you.The second volume control is the “Media” volume control. Continue reading Samsung System Sounds
We recently received a trouble call that a customer’s Samsung Galaxy note was not working properly. She couldn’t download emails and the Tablet was making unusual sounds when the customer wasn’t doing anything. It was also exhibiting abnormal behaviour.I brought Continue reading Keep your devices software updated!
Here is another Scam purportedly from the IRS. Companies will never contact you like this. Scammers want to get a hold of your banking information. Never ever respond to these people. Unless you have initiated the contact personally, then must Continue reading IRS Scam
If something is amiss on your computer, make sure that you RESTART it and not do a SHUTDOWN and start up. The reason is when you restart, it shuts down your computer first. If you shutdown it puts your recent Continue reading RESTART not REBOOT your computer
Don’t fall for scams like these!Either do the three finger salute (ctrl+alt+del) to get to the shut down icon, or hold in power button for up to 10 seconds to shut down your computer.The scammers disable the back and close Continue reading Scam Alert!
If you want to copy something to a USB drive and then delete said file/folder from your computer, first safely eject the USB drive from your computer before deleting the file on your computer.Otherwise, Windows Explorer will show a “still Continue reading USB drive still in use error
We recently attended a customer call whose Dell W10 laptop can’t see their Huawei Wi-Fi router listed under the Wi-Fi networks Other devices can see and join the router. Tried disabling and re-enabling the Wi-Fi adapter but there was no Continue reading Dell laptop not seeing Huawei LTE router
If you find that you have to press the ” quotation key on your keyboard twice for the ” to appear, it means that you have accidentally set your keyboard for US International rather than US. You need to go Continue reading Have to press ” key twice to appear
This morning we lost the Internet connection on our Windows 10 v1909 computers using a LAN cable connection. So I bust out my handy dandy USB Wi-Fi dongles in order to connect to my phone’s tethering. Previously once I had Continue reading No Internet using tethering and Wi-Fi dongle
I recently added some contacts on my Android phone and was surprised to see that they didn’t automatically appear in the contacts on my Android Tablet. I went into the “Accounts” settings on my phone under the “User and backup” Continue reading Contacts not syncing to my Android Tablet
I recently downloaded a music compilation CD containing 100 lovely songs.When imported into my Windows 10 Groove Music application, instead of a single album with all of the songs contained, I was presented with one hundred songs separately!A quick look Continue reading Groove Music shows each song of compilation as separate song
We recently attended a trouble call where a customer could not send or receive her Google Gmail on her Tablet.She stated that this situation had existed for over a year!Her laptop needed to go in for repair and desperately needed Continue reading SSL (Accept all certificates)
I recently attempted to clone a customer’s HDD to a new SSD. For many years, I have used the excellent Acronis set of apps to do the cloning. I also use the Back up and Recovery tools. These tools are Continue reading Acronis USB RMB apps crashing
I recently installed Office 365 and could not get the email account setup properly in the Outlook app. I kept getting a SMTP error. I verified that the email password was correct by successfully logging into the webmail portal. I Continue reading Microsoft Office 365 SMTP incompatibilty
Give someone you love a Comp-U-Train gift certificate for Christmas and give them the gift that keeps on giving!
We recently attended a tech call to replace the customer’s Wi-Fi router as the existing one had gotten damaged by a power surge. The customer was not happy about the prospect that lay ahead with rejoining her dozen or so Continue reading Easy way to replace Wi-Fi router
We recently attended a service call, where a customer had bought a new Android phone and after inserting the old SIM card, discovered that the SMS messages had not transferred over from her old phone. SMS messages are not retained Continue reading Transferring SMS messages between Android smartphones
Click me for the course information. Don’t miss this fantastic opportunity! The Windows 10 Workshop on Wednesday, 4 December 2019 at 10h00 in Fourways. Johannesburg.
Today we attended an urgent call because a customer could not access their Gmail account on any of her devices. The customer had bought a new Smartphone and set it up for her Gmail account. However she did not take Continue reading Google account locked out because of unrecognised device
We recently attended a trouble call where a customer was having intermittent problems printing to her Canon Wifi network printer.She had been using it successfully to print from her Windows 10 laptop; her Apple iPhone and Apple iPad.Suddenly one day, Continue reading Wi-Fi Printing Problem
If you use the same password for more than one website, please change it immediately. Add an additional symbol such as !@#$ etc. In this day and age where websites get hacked and people’s usernames and passwords getting stolen, you Continue reading Always use different passwords
We recently attended a customer whose domain is hosted by company X. They had received an email purporting to be from company X saying that their email box was full and that they needed to pay some money to increase Continue reading Your email mailbox is full scam
I often get asked what is the difference between cloning a hard drive versus imaging a hard drive. Cloning is the process of creating another drive which is an exact identical copy of your original drive. You would clone a Continue reading Cloning vs. imaging a hard drive
I recently bought three ADATA 2.5″ SSD drives to install into customers laptops. The reason for this, is that these modern SSD (Solid State Drive) drives are much faster than the older HDD (Hard Disk Drive) mechanical drives. The three Continue reading ADATA SSD migration woes
We had a call from a customer to say that the UBTV app (application) on their Android media box wasn’t working. They told us that when they clicked the app’s menu icon, the screen went black for a second or Continue reading UBTV not working
On our recent trip abroad, I took several 360 panorama photos with my smartphone camera. When I uploaded them to my facebook timeline, the photos were just a thin horizontal strip; rather than an interactive immersive 360 experience. I discovered Continue reading 360 panorama photo not showing properly on facebook
We recently stayed in a Hotel and needed to access the Internet using the complimentary Wifi access. Unfortunately, whenever we opened the web browser on our phone, it would not be automatically directed to the Hotel’s “landing page” which is Continue reading Cannot connect to Hotel Wifi landing page
Today we received a call from a customer complaining that when they had their new Western Digital “My Book” USB back-up drive plugged into their Windows 10 computer, it failed to boot up. Straight away, I thought that the boot-up Continue reading Computer not booting up with Western Digital “My Book” USB HDD plugged in
We recently received a call from a customer that the brand new wireless mouse that they had received for Christmas, was acting erratically. It seemed to have a mind of its own. The cursor would either lag behind or jump Continue reading Wireless mouse erratic behaviour
We recently attended a trouble call, where the customer had bought a new Android phone and had correctly joined it to her Google account. She complained that many of her old phone contacts had not populated the contact list on Continue reading Transferring Contacts between Android phones
We recently attended a trouble call, where the customer could not run a new installation of Microsoft Office 365 successfully. She had recently uninstalled an older business version of Office, called “Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2016”, that had been retired Continue reading Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2016 and Office 365 clashing
We were recently called to a customer’s home who operates an events organising business, to solve the problem about why a calendar event that she had created in the “S Planner” calendar on one of her Android phones, was not Continue reading Synchronising S Planner calendars between Android phones
When you create a new Gmail account, you will be sent a congratulatory email from Google confirming that your account has been successfully set up. It is vital that you do not delete this email. Please record the exact date Continue reading Gmail creation date
We have a customer that tells us that when she is writing a long email using the Windows 10 mail app, all of a sudden the text disappears. This has happened on a few occasions and upsets her unnecessarily since Continue reading Ctrl z safety net
We’ve been receiving quite a few emails recently containing dire messages, warning us that our email or bank accounts will be cancelled unless we click on a link and verify the account. When the link is clicked, the user is Continue reading Phishing emails to get your account details
Time and time again, we get calls from frantic customers to say that they have forgotten their passwords and cannot access their online accounts. Similarly, email accounts can be locked for various reasons such as the email provider has noticed Continue reading Update your personal details in your accounts
We received a trouble call in late 2017, from a customer complaining that their laptop had suffered premature failure on numerous occasions over the year. They had replaced the laptop HDD (Hard Disk Drive) and Motherboard a couple of times Continue reading Laptop bag causes laptop to overheat
In a previous blog post, I detailed how to upgrade to Windows 10 from a previous OS (Operating System) on a notebook with a small storage drive. This procedure required the use of an external USB drive of at least Continue reading Updating Windows 10 on a notebook with small storage drive
We received a call from a customer complaining that their laptop wouldn’t reboot/shut down properly. He got the message. “Task Host id stopping background tasks (Microsoft \ Windows \ Plug and Play \ Device Install Reboot required)” He also experienced Continue reading “Task Host id stopping background tasks (Microsoft \ Windows \ Plug and Play \ Device Install Reboot required)”
I recently attended a trouble call where the customer was complaining that there were multiple auto-complete username entries in the various web forms using Microsoft Edge. She explained that she wanted to delete these obsolete entries. Previously, she had managed Continue reading How to delete a single auto-complete entry in Microsoft Edge
An Internet address is known as a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) and you will be familiar with the ubiquitous “http:\\www.computrain.co.za” format of a URL. The URL is what you type into the address bar at top of your Internet website Continue reading How to create a URL desktop shortcut using Microsoft Edge
This morning, I received a panic call from a customer that had overnight, attempted to upgrade their laptop to the latest version of Windows 10. They told me that after they awoke, they discovered that their laptop was only showing Continue reading Windows 10 update failure
A couple of days ago I visited an innocuous website that had been hacked, albeit unbeknownst to me, by Internet cyber criminals. As soon as the website opened, I was greeted by both a webpage and Windows messenger message. The crooks Continue reading Scareware
I recently attended an interesting trouble call, about an upgrade problem of Windows 10. The customer had a Lenovo notebook with only a 32GB hard drive installed. This in itself, is not problem. However, after having the Windows 10 OS Continue reading Upgrading a Windows 10 notebook with low storage space
Today we attended a customer that was having trouble connecting her new laptop wirelessly to her printer. The wireless setup was continuously failing because the software installation gave an error that it could not find the printer on the network. Continue reading Printer Wi-Fi Direct causing interference
This morning I got a call from a customer who had tried to do an overnight online in-place upgrade from Windows 64bit OEM 7 Pro to Windows 10. They have a HP laptop i7/8GB RAM and when they checked their Continue reading HP laptop restarting loop after Windows 10 upgrade
We recently attended a call from a customer with a brand new laptop whose fan was running at full speed and quite noisy. This fan noise can sometimes be attributed to a laptop that is overheating because of excessive dust Continue reading Laptop fan running at full speed and noisy in Windows 10
Sometimes on facebook, you will see posts on your timeline which you would like to share. Unfortunately you see that there is no “share” button available that you can click on. This is caused by the writer of the post Continue reading How to share a post on facebook when there is no share button
Whilst giving a PowerPoint presentation, have you ever needed to do some research on your computer or the Internet at the same time because you were asked a question but not wanted the delegates to view what you are doing? Continue reading Multi-task during a PowerPoint presentation
We had a customer who wanted to know if they could see the amount of available hard disk drive space that was being used on a shared network computer. This networked computer was a media server which stored her movies. Continue reading How to view the available hard disk storage space on a networked computer
We had a call from a customer who’s computer sound was stuttering/skipping/popping when they played their music. As you can imagine this was quite uncomfortable on the ear. Rebooting the computer didn’t fix the problem on this occasion. I verified Continue reading Audio stuttering and popping when playing music
We recently attended a customer who was having problems with their SOHO network. She was not able to see any shared folders on another laptop computer. Looking in the “File manager” of the laptop, I could not see any shared Continue reading Shared folders not visible over network
We recently had a customer call us to complain that their new 320GB USB external drive was only showing a capacity of 32GB. They had tried to use it to create a “system recovery drive” which is to be commended. Continue reading External hard disk drive reduced to 32GB
On two recent occasions, Jackie Scott-Thomas from Comp-U-Train has had the privilege of giving training to some domestic workers at Hirsch’s in Fourways, Joburg. Don’t miss the next event! Please read about it here click me
We had a customer that reported that they were not able to make online payments to a certain payee using their Internet Online banking service. The payee also used the same bank as our customer. Upon visiting the customer’s home, Continue reading Adding Beneficiarys as Online banking payees
As your computer’s HDD (Hard Disk Drive) ages, it is prudent to avail yourself of new storage technologies such as the SSD (Solid State Drive). You will notice a huge speed and permformance improvement when you swap to a SSD. Continue reading How to clone a HDD to SSD using EaseUS Todo Backup
WINDOWS 10 START MENU WE CAN SIMPLIFY IT FOR YOU :):)
KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS FOR WORD :):) Select the letter to the left of your cursor . Shift + Left Arrow Select the letter to the right of your cursor. … Shift + Right Arrow Select text from your cursor to the Continue reading Microsoft Word keyboard shortcuts
We received a call from a couple of customers saying that they were having problems with their Optical Mouse. One mouse was a wireless mouse that had stopped working and the other was a USB (Universal Serial Bus) cabled Optical mouse Continue reading Optical Mouse Problems
We recently had a customer who brought her laptop to us out of frustration because she couldn’t upgrade from Windows 8.1 to the new Windows 10 OS (Operating System). Every time that she tried to perform the upgrade, the upgrade Continue reading Upgrading to Windows 10 stuck at 90%
Last week we were called to a customer’s home who had been trying to install their new Epson wireless printer for two hours. They were getting an error and realised it was time to give up and call Comp-U-Train. Upon arriving Continue reading Installing Epson wireless printer using WPS
A customer recently asked me if they should use the spare HDD (Hard Disk Drive) in their computer to create an image of their C drive periodically, or should they mirror the C drive partition. Note that the OS (Operating Continue reading Mirroring vs Imaging a Hard Disk Drive
In the new Microsoft Edge web browser that comes with Windows 10, there is no easy to move your favorite links from one folder to another. In Internet Explorer you could choose to organise your favourites and then simply drag and Continue reading How to move favorites in Microsoft Edge
Recently we had a client complain that they could not download recent emails to their Microsoft Outlook programme. When they pressed the “send/receive” icon, the emails showed that they were being downloaded but nothing appeared in the inbox. Needless to Continue reading Can’t download Gmail to Outlook
You’ve all heard the old adage about patience patience patience. Never is this more true then when trying to do Microsoft updates. We’ve had a lot of customers lately who have been getting new laptops and complain that when they Continue reading Patience patience patience
We had a business customer bring their laptop to us who was not able to send mails through her ISP (Internet Service Provider). She was able to download emails as normal. Upon receiving her laptop computer in our repair shop, I Continue reading Cannot send emails through iburst.co.za
We were recently called to a customer’s home whom was having problems using the “create disk image” backup utility of their Windows 7 computer. When the utility looked for drives to backup the image to, the second internal HDD (Hard Continue reading Installing OS with two HDDs causes backup disk imaging problem
I’ve noticed lately, that a lot of customer’s laptops that have come into the repair shop, are understandably using the default manufacturer’s setting to go to “sleep” after a certain amount of time. Unfortunately, the laptop is not smart enough Continue reading Laptop sleep mode warning
We had a customer call us about her laptop that had been ravaged by a virus. It had left certain important features of her Windows 7 Operating System, such as the “System Restore” function being inoperable. System Restore is a Continue reading One of the files containing the system’s Registry data had to be recovered by use of log or alternate copy. The recovery was successful
Comp-U-Train uses and highly recommends the ICT services of ARM.it here in Johannesburg, South Africa. ARM.it offers excellent value for money Internet data packages, as a bolt-on to your Telkom Internet service. Telkom provides and maintains the hardline infrastructure, that Continue reading We use and highly recommend ARM.it!
For some reason, the Google AdSense ads that normally appear on our website stopped being displayed. Please understand that every day that the ads don’t show, means less ad revenue being generated which affects our bottom line. It was therefore Continue reading Google AdSense ads not showing
Yesterday we attended a customer’s home who was complaining about not being able to print from Internet Explorer 11 using Windows 7. Every time that they attempted to print, they were presented with an error saying “There was an internal Continue reading Cannot print from Internet Explorer
We had a customer call us, complaining that they could not download their Gmail electronic mail using Microsoft Outlook. We verified that the correct POP & SMTP servers had been specified in the Outlook settings, as well as the security SSL ports. Continue reading Microsoft Outlook cannot download Gmail
Do you have a Microsoft Word document containing a table with contacts that you want to export to your Microsoft Outlook 2013 contacts? Open your Word document and click anywhere in the table and you will see “Table Tools” appear above the Continue reading Export Word document contacts table to Outlook 2013
If you plug in your USB drive and get an error message that the disk is not formatted, don’t press the “Format disk” button! Don’t do it otherwise you’ll overwrite the FAT data or the data itself (depending on how Continue reading USB drive needs to be formatted
If you’re not able to connect to the Internet using the Wi-Fi connection on your HP laptop, despite the Wi-Fi light being on after pressing the fn+keyboard key, go into the “Windows Mobility Center” in Control Panel and make sure that the Continue reading HP laptop Wi-fi not working!
Here at Comp-U-Train, we can’t stress the importance of installing anti-malware software on your PC. The term “Malware” is a portmanteau of “Malicious Software” and includes virus’; Trojans and keyloggers. The latest type of malware to attack is called “Ransomware” and Continue reading Protect your computer with anti-malware software!
If you’re having problems backing up your Samsung S4 apps when using the Samsung Kies software because the programme keeps hanging at that point, try clearing the app cache for each app. You can access this by clicking each app Continue reading Samsung Kies software hangs backing up Apps
Pivot Tables These are confusing to most people. I would like to clear up this confusion and give you some tips on creating a simple, user-friendly Pivot Table. These tables allow us to organise large amounts of data into a Continue reading Pivot Tables
I thought that I would offer some tips & tricks gleaned from editing a family video using Windows Live Movie Maker. 1) When you “split” a video, make sure that you also split the audio otherwise the video and audio Continue reading Windows Live Movie Maker Tips & Tricks
Today we had a curious tech support call from a customer. As Microsoft will soon be discontinuing all support for the XP OS (Operating System) from April 8th, 2014, they wanted to upgrade the Internet Explorer browser version 6 to Continue reading Can’t update Internet Explorer v6 to v8 in XP SP3
We just returned from a service call where a customer was unable to play a Brain Training game on their Windows 7 computer. When the game was launched, it kept giving an error that the resolution of the monitor was Continue reading PC Game gives increase the resolution error
Yesterday we received a trouble-call from an anxious customer telling us that they could not boot their XPHome computer as it was stuck in a boot-loop. It was continually showing a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) and then rebooting. Upon Continue reading XP computer BSOD with fssfltr_tdi.sys error
If you are unable to install Windows Update 2804579 then please read the following: Try the easiest thing first by typing “msconfig” (without quotes) at the start>run “open” field. Choose the middle selection “Diagnostic Startup” and press the OK button. Continue reading Windows update KB2804579 fails to install
If anyone is using Microsoft XP with Internet Explorer 8 and experiencing slow window scrolling together with hard drive thrashing (hard drive light staying on); especially when viewing javascrpt rich websites like FB, then Google has a free plug-in. This Continue reading Internet Explorer 8 running slow
As part of computer troubleshooting, if you need to know which Microsoft “Services” are required to run a Wi-Fi connection, please enable the following Services: DHCP Client Event Log Network Connections Plug n Play Remote Call Procedure Wireless Zero Configuration These Continue reading Microsoft services needed to run Wi-Fi
If you need to see the page ID number and are using Internet Explorer, turn on the “Status Bar” from the View>Toolbars pull-down menu. Now log in to your WordPress admin page and view your “pages”. Then position your cursor Continue reading Find WordPress page ID number
