This tip is for Volvo owners, especially in South Africa because your Volvo doesn’t come with a built-in SIM modem. So you decide to buy a MiFi router or a USB Hotspot Dongle, in order to provide Internet access to your car because you don’t want to tether your cell/mobile phone, to provide Internet access. This tip is also for International owners that don’t want to pay for the expensive data plan from Volvo. You find that your Volvo won’t…

Read More Read More

If you open Microsoft Office and as it synchronises your mailboxes, you see an error about your Internet Calendar, then do the following steps to rectify the situation:Firstly close Outlook. Then type Run into the search box in the Taskbar at the bottom of your screen. You’ll see the word Run at the top of the list of results. Left click the word “Run” at the top of the results to open the “Run” search box.Now type or paste the…

Read More Read More

If you are browsing a website and see the below message, do not under ANY circumstances type the instructions!Simply click the cross icon on the top right hand corner to close the website page, but do NOT type these instructions as malware will be downloaded and installed on your computer that allows Scammers to view your files! HACKED WEBSITE

Think of productivity as the engine, and ROI as the speedometer showing how efficiently that engine converts effort into profit. 💡 1. More Output per Hour When staff complete tasks faster and with fewer errors, the same salary investment produces more deliverables. That means higher revenue without increasing costs — a direct ROI boost. Comp-U Train can improve staff productivity. ⚙️ 2. Reduced Waste and Rework Efficient systems and trained employees minimize duplication, mistakes, and downtime. Every avoided error saves…

Read More Read More

Sales presentations aren’t about talking more — they’re about asking better. At Comp‑U‑Train, we’ve learned that the right questions can shift a prospect’s mindset from hesitation to commitment. Power questions uncover pain points, highlight hidden costs, and position tailored training as the obvious solution. For example, asking “How much do you estimate your current approach is costing you in lost productivity?” reframes budget concerns into a conversation about savings. Suddenly, training isn’t an expense — it’s a recovery plan. Similarly,…

Read More Read More

A customer called us complaining that their Laptop would freeze after booting up. She could move the cursor for about 30 seconds and then the cursor froze and no keyboard buttons worked.The Laptop screen was frozen!The only way to reboot the Laptop, was to hold in the power button for five seconds which would shut down the computer. Upon booting up the computer it would again freeze.This is not a good situation to be in, as the Laptop’s Window Operating…

Read More Read More

In today’s fast-paced world, communication is everything. For SMEs, WhatsApp Business is more than just a messaging app — it’s a powerful tool to connect with clients, build trust, and grow sales. One of the biggest advantages is immediacy. Clients can reach you directly, and with auto-replies, they feel acknowledged even if you’re busy. Quick replies save time and ensure consistent communication, while catalogues make your services easy to browse and share. Labels help you stay organized, tracking prospects, workshop…

Read More Read More

In a world where technology evolves faster than most people can keep up, the real challenge isn’t learning software — it’s overcoming fear, uncertainty, and the belief that “I’m too old” or “I’ll never get this.” For more than 22 years, Jackie Thomas, founder of Comp‑U‑Train, has been proving the opposite. Her work spans South Africa and Swaziland, from training 100 factory workers who had never touched a computer, to helping elderly clients connect with family overseas, to empowering job…

Read More Read More

If you are reading your Whatsapp Chat messages on your Windows computer using Whatsapp Web, rather than on your mobile phone and you are not able to download the videos, because the option is missing in the menu, you need to firstly click each video and watch it in its entirety.After you finish watching the video, you will then see the “Save As” option in the top right drop down menu. Left click the option to save the video to…

Read More Read More

If you need an amazing App to Schedule, Confirm, and Remind Appointments via WhatsApp, then I use and recommend Confirmafy Confirmafy works with Google Calendar but if you don’t use Google Calendar, you can log onto their website and use the Calendar. After you create an account with Confirmafy, you can access your online calendar to schedule appointments and then interact with the Whatsapp messaging system! The free version of Confirmafy only lets you send out reminders but the paid…

Read More Read More

If you need to pay your tax to Uncle Sam and live outside of the US, I recommend that you use the Wise app. During the opening of my Wise account, I found out that I needed to upload the required ID documents a few times before they were accepted.My ID is a book and the app wanted me to scan the front and back which it rejected. Also I was told that my proof of address had a problem….

Read More Read More

Pay attention folks with facebook business pages that do facebook ads.Be very careful, because as soon as we post an ad from Comp-U-Train, we get an e-mail about infringing copyright. The scammer posts a link in the email, in order to get your facebook credentials so that they can steal your account!When you look at the from address of the email, you can see that it’s a scam but the email looks legit.Facebook sends out your paid ads to the…

Read More Read More

We recently attended a call-out, where the customer was complaining that their Microsoft Outlook 365 was unresponsive and showing “not responding” at the top left corner. When you open Outlook, one of the things that it does, is to synchronise any calendars that you have subscribed to in the Cloud. These Calendars are called “Internet Calendars”.We discovered that one of the Google Calendars that the customer had subscribed to was corrupt. This caused Outlook to stall and become unresponsive.You can…

Read More Read More

Have you tried to “copy” a file to another location on your computer by dragging and dropping and only see the option to “move” the file?If you try to drag and drop a file from one folder to another and only see the option to “move” the file, then hold down the CTRL (control key) before you click the file to drag it. You will now have the option to move the file.This happens if you are trying to drag…

Read More Read More

If you have the GeyserWise system, that uses a 12 volt pump that has stopped working, it is most likely the 12 volt battery that drives the pump; that has failed.Unfortunately, the GeyserWise display does not have a battery indicator, to tell if you if the battery has a problem.The 12 volt battery voltage is topped up by a small solar panel during the day. It is mounted next to the tube collectors on the roof.At night when there is…

Read More Read More

If your computer or laptop screen is dark but you can hear the sounds, try to shut down the computer gracefully. This situation can happen if you walk away from the computer for a few minutes and the computer tells the screen to go to sleep. Even though the computer is on, the signal to the computer screen is stopped and you’ll most probably see the computer screen’s power button flashing. To shut down the computer gracefully, press the power…

Read More Read More

If you need to print anything in colour, then buy an Inkjet printer. Not only is an Inkjet printer cheaper than a Laser colour printer, the results are superior. Laser is an acronyn for “Light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation“.If you only need to printer Black and White documents, then my recommendatin is to buy a Laser printer. A Laser printer produces sharper text and is also cheaper to run and faster to produce the prints. Another benefit is…

Read More Read More

If you find that you are not able to suddenly print using Wi-Fi, please make sure that both your compter and printer are connected to the same Wi-Fi network.Many printers cannot connect using the 5GHz band, so your computer and printer must be connected to the 2.4GHz band of your Wi-Fi network.Normally you’ll see the name of your Wi-Fi with the number designation 2.4 or 5 at the end to donate the two different bands.There is also the situation where…

Read More Read More

Shutting down your computer is not the same thing are restarting. Believe it or not, when you choose to shut down your computer, it doesn’t actually fully shut down. If you need to fully clear the memory in your computer, you should RESTART your computer and not shut it down. I recommend doing a restart every week.

To help prevent fraud if your cell/mobile phone is ever stolen, make sure that your SIM card is locked. Because phone security is very good these days and prevents robbers from being able to access your phone, it is easier for the robber to simply remove the SIM card and put it in their phone. This will then give the robber access to any OTPs or phone calls that would have been meant for you. Your SIM card will come…

Read More Read More

Jackie is a seasoned Microsoft Office Training Specialist with over two decades of experience helping South African businesses streamline operations, upskill staff, and improve productivity. Her unique methodology integrates emotional intelligence, structured assessments, personalised notes, and real‑world workflow optimisation. She has transformed teams across Gauteng and beyond — from tea ladies who became receptionists and secretaries, to SMEs who now run on her custom templates, SOPs, and filing systems. With clients who have stayed with her for more than a…

Read More Read More

Once per month, Microsoft releases bug fixes and new features for the computer’s operating system. This action is called “patching”; as in patching a hole or vulnerablity.These patches are released on the second Tueday of the month from America.Here in South Africa, that is early morning Wednesday.That is why you awaken on a Wednesday morning, to see that your computer needs an update.If however, Microsoft discovers a severe security vulnerablity, the patch to fix this will be released almost immediately…

Read More Read More

I wanted to install a Linux distro on an old Laptop. After creating a bootable USB drive using Rufus, I inserted the USB stick and booted the Laptop.Initially the Laptop detected the USB stick and gave me the Linux install options.I made my choice and the installation started but then the Laptop booted to the normal OS.I thought it was strange so shut down the Laptop and tried again.This time the USB stick was not detected by the Laptop at…

Read More Read More

The “netplwiz” command which allows you to set your computer to automatically sign-in, doesn’t work when you switch to a Windows Hello PIN.Unfortunately, the “netplwiz” command only works with passwords. The PIN adds another security layer on top of accessing your computer, so the “netplwiz” command doesn’t accept a PIN as the password.You will need to go into the Users settings and disable the PIN option which returns you to using a password. After that, the “netplwiz” command will start…

Read More Read More

We recently attended a customer’s home that had a strange audio problem. They had a Windows laptop computer serving as a Medial Server, that they used to play movies to their TV. The laptop was connected to the TV using the HDMI connection.The customer had plugged a Logitech Soundbar into the TV’s 3.5″ headphone socket.When the movie was played, the sound would only come from the inferior TV’s built-in speakers.He could not get the sound to play from his new…

Read More Read More

One of our customer’s is not able to connect her computer to her cell phone when she turns it into a Hotspot.She does this when her home Wi-Fi goes off-line and she turns on the “Hotspot” feature on her Samsung phone.Even though the computer says that it is connected to the Hotspot and there is “Internet access” available, she finds that she has no Internet access. I suggested that she goes to the “Advanced Network Settings” on her computer via…

Read More Read More

I have a Samsung phone that has two SIMs installed. SIM 1 is for my private phone number and SIM 2 is my Business phone number.I downloaded Whatsapp Messenger to the phone to use SIM 1 which is the personal Whatsapp version.Initially, I had activated the “Dual Messenger” function on my phone, which installed a second copy of Whatsapp Messenger which I then connected to the second SIM. The second SIM is for our business.You can see the second copy…

Read More Read More

We have a Geyserwise system connected to our Geyser and occassionally see an error E1 or E9 in the Geyserwise display.The E1 error occured after a water outage and I had turned the Geyser power off, until the water supply had returned and I had been able to refill the Geyser with cold water by running the hot water tap.When I turned the Geyser power on I saw the E1 error. The Geyserwise manual says that the fault is a…

Read More Read More

I have both of these apps on my Samsung phone. When I scan a QR code to add a 2FA account, I do it with both apps in order to have a backup.However one thing that I found out this morning is that I bought a new phone and installed both apps.With the Google app on the new phone, when I logged into my Google account on the Authenticator app on my new phone, the accounts on the old phone,…

Read More Read More

Many websites now offer 2FA or “two-factor authentication” which helps secure access to a website, such as Amazon, by either sending a SMS to your cell/mobile phone, or allowing you to use an Authentication application. When 2FA is enabled on the website, you will be asked for the 6 digit code generated by the Autentication app.2FA adds another layer of security on top of the normal credential requirement, such as your username and password.To set up the 2FA for a…

Read More Read More

Note: before you do this, you’ll need the phone with you that has already been activated for the “two-factor authentication”.You will see the code in the Authenticator app on the first phone.We had a customer that had already set up the Microsoft “two-factor” authentication on her phone.She wanted to add her husband’s phone to the same Microsoft account without having to go through the many tasks required to generate a new QR code.The way to easily do this, is to…

Read More Read More

We have had two instances (including myself) where customers with a Google email account, cannot receive codes from Microsoft. These codes were required to add a Gmail account as a secondary method to access a Microsoft account. The code was never received and it was not in the Spam folder in Gmail.The only way to resolve it was to use another Gmail account. Microsoft does not state that there is a maximum number of times that a Google account can…

Read More Read More

We thank this brilliant Gentleman for inviting this now ubiqutous symbol. There are many websites available, that help you to design your own QR code. Simply by scanning the code with their mobile phone’s camera, the code can be used to direct someone to your website, or even to pass a Business or Personal Contact to someone. By the way, QR stands for “Quick Response”.

If you suddenly find that you have no sound from your computer, then check the following items:

As you are probably aware, the end of support for Windows 10 happens on October 14th of this year. If your computer can upgrade to Windows 11, then I urge you to do this before then.If your computer is too old, then you have a decision to make.Using an unsupported Operating System, means no more security updates for the operating system which is a dangerous place to be. considering that the most recent Microsoft update had patched almost eighty vulnerabilities!Bowing…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

For many years, I have experienced YouTube videos to be jumpy and not smooth when I turn on the hardware acceleration in Microsoft Edge.I finally found a fix posted on Reddit.It involves typing edge://flags in your Edge’s address bar.You are then presented with some choices. There is a bug in Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) and possibly Chromium itself, regarding the rendering of WebGL programs on Windows 10 and 11 with NVIDIA and AMD Radeon Graphics.  Do a search for ANGLE and…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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….

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

Are you looking for the gift that keeps on giving. Let Comp-U-Train help you with the gift of knowledge. Contact us at [email protected] to order this amazing gift!

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More

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…

Read More Read More