Blog – Page 3 – Comp-U-Train computer training

Installing Epson wireless printer using WPS

23rd May 2016 Jackie & Andy

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 on-site, the customer told me that they had read the installation instructions which said to press the “Wi-Fi” on the printer for 3 seconds but kept getting a failed installation error message. What is not made clear in the Epson instructions, is that…

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Mirroring vs Imaging a Hard Disk Drive

20th April 2016 Jackie & Andy

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 System) Boot and System files must be on the same partition! Mirroring the HDD (Hard Disk Drive) is also known as RAID 1. “RAID” stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive (Independent) Disks. This is a way to provide redundancy of your…

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How to move favorites in Microsoft Edge

20th April 2016 Jackie & Andy

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 drop the links between folders. In Microsoft Edge, if you want to move a favorite link to another folder, you single left click on the favorite in question (your browser will be taken to that favourite link but ignore that) and then single left…

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Can’t download Gmail to Outlook

9th March 2016 Jackie & Andy

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 say she was getting quite frustrated with this, because she didn’t want to keep using the Gmail webmail access portal. A quick look in the advanced settings for her Gmail account in the Outlook programme, revealed the problem. She had…

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Patience patience patience

5th March 2016 Jackie & Andy

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 try do an update, they receive errors of some sort or another. Newly installed Operating Systems will automatically download and install all necessary updates. Unfortunately this will hog your Internet connection. If you try to do other updates simultaneously, the…

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Cannot send emails through iburst.co.za

6th September 2015 Jackie & Andy

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 established that her outgoing email account had indeed been locked; most probably as a safety guard by her ISP, iburst.co.za After checking with her ISP, she had it confirmed that her account had indeed been locked because of a proliferation…

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Installing OS with two HDDs causes backup disk imaging problem

16th July 2015 Jackie & Andy

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 Disk Drive) was not shown under the “Where do you want to save the backup?” dialog. The customer complained that this had been the case from when they bought the computer and were now wanting to create a backup image…

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Laptop sleep mode warning

12th July 2015 Jackie & Andy

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 to know that something crucial is being done such as installing a programme or doing an upgrade or update. The result of this is that the programme suffers a corruption of some sort. Before attempting any such work, Comp-U-Train would like…

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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

8th July 2015 Jackie & Andy

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 “safety net” which can get you out of a sticky situation should the need arise. It is a fantastic tool that allows you to go back in time and undo any action that you had previously undertaken. Read more about…

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We use and highly recommend ARM.it!

4th June 2015 Jackie & Andy

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 carries the Internet data signal to and from your home. An analogy is to think of the water supply to your home. Your local water supply company provides and maintains the water pipe infrastructure to your neighbourhood. The Internet data is like the…

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Cannot print from Internet Explorer

3rd June 2015 Jackie & Andy

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 error, and Internet Explorer is unable to print this document”. They could print from other programmes which led me to try the Microsoft resolutions presented in this knowledge base article. Unfortunately none of these solutions worked! The way that the…

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Microsoft Outlook cannot download Gmail

23rd March 2015 Jackie & Andy

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. Despite this fact, they could not connect to Gmail. We have discovered that since July 15th, 2014, Gmail has changed the way that 3rd party clients such as Microsoft Outlook are allowed to connect to Gmail. To resolve this problem, enable…

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Export Word document contacts table to Outlook 2013

2nd December 2014 Jackie & Andy

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 ribbon Click Layout on the far right of the ribbon. (Note, not “Page Layout”) Next, click the “Convert to Text” button at the end of the ribbon On the box that pops up, choose to convert the table using “Commas”…

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USB drive needs to be formatted

24th November 2014 Jackie & Andy

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 you did the formatting). Instead, click Cancel. Take note of the drive letter of the USB drive. This error is commonly caused by pulling the USB drive out of the socket on your computer before it has been safely unmounted…

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HP laptop Wi-fi not working!

12th November 2014 Jackie & Andy

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 Wi-Fi connection is enabled there!

Protect your computer with anti-malware software!

23rd July 2014 Jackie & Andy

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 is so named because it holds the victim to ransom. As an example, below is a screenshot of a very serious type of ransomware, which works by encrypting your hard drive, as well as any drives that you have plugged…

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Samsung Kies software hangs backing up Apps

25th May 2014 Jackie & Andy

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 in the “Applications manager” and pressing the “Clear cache” button. Don’t press the “Clear data” button!

Pivot Tables

24th April 2014 Jackie & Andy

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 table that we can then Filter as well as many other features. First of all we need to start with the data that you are putting into the Pivot Table. It is very important that we use uniform styles of…

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Windows Live Movie Maker Tips & Tricks

15th April 2014 Jackie & Andy

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 tracks will go out of sync when you delete a section. The splitting tool is accessed via the Video & Audio tabs. 2) When you add a “Title” to the video, it will not automatically add blank audio so that…

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Can’t update Internet Explorer v6 to v8 in XP SP3

31st January 2014 Jackie & Andy

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 version 8 which is the most secure. Unfortunately, every time they tried to install v8, they received an error that the installation had failed and that they would have to manually download an update called KB932823. When they tried to…

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PC Game gives increase the resolution error

13th January 2014 Jackie & Andy

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 set too low and must be increased. After checking that the resolution of the monitor was at a nominal setting and therefore should not have posed a problem to the game, we noticed that the customer had enabled the Windows…

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XP computer BSOD with fssfltr_tdi.sys error

10th December 2013 Jackie & Andy

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 arrival at the customer’s home, we witnessed the same action. On inspection of the BSOD, we saw that the culprit was a Windows “System” file called “fssfltr_tdi.sys”. This file is from the “Windows Essential Family Safety” feature. The only way…

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Windows update KB2804579 fails to install

16th August 2013 Jackie & Andy

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. Now try downloading the update. If the update still fails, then please follow this procedure” Open the registry editor by typing regedit at the start>run “open” field and go to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Component Based Servicing\Packages Backup the Packages keys by…

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Internet Explorer 8 running slow

3rd August 2013 Jackie & Andy

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 is a replacement javascript engine which speeds up the webpage rendering significantly. It’s called “Google Chrome Frame” and you can download it from here:

Microsoft services needed to run Wi-Fi

31st July 2013 Jackie & Andy

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 Services can be accessed by typing “msconfig” (without quotes) at the start>run prompt and choosing the “Services” tab.

Find WordPress page ID number

30th July 2013 Jackie & Andy

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 over each page’s name and the page ID will be shown in the page’s slug shown in the status bar at the bottom of your browser.

Play Flash “.flv” files in Windows Media Player

29th July 2013 Jackie & Andy

If you want a quick and dirty way to play Adobe’s Flash “.flv” files that you’ve downloaded from the web, simply rename the extension from .flv to .wmv When you now double-click this same file you’ll be able to watch it in Windows Media Player!

Windows 7 Show Desktop

9th July 2013 Jackie & Andy

Windows XP had a very useful icon in the “Quick Launch” Toolbar that let you quickly show the desktop rather than being faced with the chore of closing/minimising open windows. Windows 7 has the same feature but it located at the bottom right hand corner of your screen. To show the desktop click on the horizontal bar on your desktop as shown in the image below:

Add XP network icon data lights to Windows 7

1st July 2013 Jackie & Andy

Are you using Windows 7 and miss the XP or Vista network icon data lights that were in the bottom right hand corner system tray? These lights would flash to show you when you were uploading or downloading something. If so, you can download a free app which will restore this functionality from here: http://www.itsamples.com/network-activity-indicator.html To keep the lights showing in the sytem tray and not being hidden after a while, click on the “Show hidden icons” up arrow in…

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Can’t update Adobe Flash Player

24th June 2013 Jackie & Andy

We received a call from a customer that had not been able to update their Adobe Flash player. This player enables the viewing of streaming media videos on websites such as YouTube and Facebook. The customer kept receiving a pop-up notice telling her that there was a new version of the player available and to go to a download link. However, whenever she tried to go to link using her cell/mobile phone data connection and initiate the updating process it would…

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ADSL speed slow and no dial tone

2nd June 2013 Jackie & Andy

We stopped by a customer’s home recently who was complaining that their ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) broadband connection was slow and unreliable. When visiting webpages, they would receive a time-out message. They also complained that they intermittently had no dial-tone when picking up the telephone handset. This also resulted in people who were calling the customer would still hear a normal ringing tone, but the customer’s telephone would not ring. Normally, we would have immediately referred the customer to their local…

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“Java” icon missing from Control Panel

25th May 2013 Jackie & Andy

We received a call yesterday from a customer saying that the “Java” icon was missing in the Control Panel of their XP computer. The customer told us that this problem seemed to happen after upgrading the version of Java that was on their computer. We concluded that there was a corruption that happened during the upgrade process resulting in the icon not be restored to the Control Panel. This issue also seems to affect Windows 7 users. The Java “console”…

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When was my computer born?

21st May 2013 Jackie & Andy

If you want to find out when your Windows computer was “born”, open a “DOS” (Disc Operating System) box by typing cmd in the start/Run field or in Windows 7 at the start search field. A black box will appear and next to the flashing cursor, type the below text exactly and press the Enter key: systeminfo|find /i “install date” Type exit and press the Enter key to close the DOS box.

What is the Microsoft Office free trial?

21st May 2013 Jackie & Andy

A customer of ours called us enquiring about the free trial icon that is showing on the desktop of her new laptop computer. The “Free Trial” is just that. It gives you 30 days from when you first run the programme to try it out. After that, the trial expires and you’ll get the opportunity to buy and download the normal version. Please note that you cannot convert the free trial into a normal version simply by purchasing a registration key…

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Computer can’t see Wi-Fi printer

19th May 2013 Jackie & Andy

We visited a customer who wanted to use their printer over their home Wi-Fi network. Previously they had connected the printer using a USB connection but had discovered that the printer was Wi-Fi capable. The problem was that they could not get the printer working when connected by Wi-Fi even though they had used the printer’s front display controls to join their Wi-Fi network successfully. The issue is that the computer must be loaded with the correct driver so that it…

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How to resize Hard Drive Partitions

18th May 2013 Jackie & Andy

A customer called us recently concerned that he was getting low disk space error messages. When he bought his computer a few years ago, a friend had partitioned the hard drive into two partitions namely C: and D: at a ratio of 50/50. The C: Primary active drive contained the OS (Operating System) and the D: drive was for his data. He wanted to know if he could increase the size of the C: partition to 70/30 and how to go about doing…

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Windows Offline CD “Your PC needs to restart….” error

17th May 2013 Jackie & Andy

We have had a couple of cases with not being able to use the Windows Offline CD disc and observe the following error when booting up the computer from the CD: Your PC needs to restart…. Error Code: 0x0000005D Parameters: 0x030F0209 0x756E6547 0x49656E69 0x6C65746E This error is due to older computer CPU (Computer Processing Unit aka the brain) either not having enough RAM (Random Access Memory) or not supporting a feature called “NX”. If you see this error then another…

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BBC.co.uk videos shows black flash screen

13th May 2013 Jackie & Andy

We recently had an interesting problem that had us scratching our heads. A customer of ours has not been able to watch any streaming videos shown on the BBC.co.uk website on their Windows XP computer using Internet Explorer version 8. When they click on a video link they are presented with a black screen. There is also no audio and it seems that the Adobe “Flash” player has stalled. We initially suspected a corrupt installation of the Flash programme which is what…

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Windows Service Packs

3rd May 2013 Jackie & Andy

According to Microsoft, a SP (Service Pack) is a “Windows update, often combining previously released updates, that helps make Windows more reliable. Service packs, can include security and performance improvements and support for new types of hardware”. Microsoft finishes by advising “Make sure you install the latest service pack to help keep Windows up to date.” This is very good advice indeed but please be advised that some SPs can be quite large and can easily consume the vast majority of your monthly…

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What is a file extension?

2nd May 2013 Jackie & Andy

We received an urgent call from a client who had been sent an image from a friend but they were not able to view the photograph. The customer told us that the image file was a white icon with a name and when they double clicked it an error message appeared asking what programme should be used to open the file. After travelling to the customer’s home we saw that the image was missing a crucial piece of information that…

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What is a computer driver?

24th April 2013 Jackie & Andy

I have often been asked the question “what is a computer driver”? Computer hardware companies sell physical hardware for your computer which needs to be talked to by your computer’s OS (Operating System). The computer OS could be Windows XP; Vista or Windows 7. Together with your new hardware, the company will release a piece of software (computer programme) which you need to install on your computer. By “hardware” I mean anything from a graphics or sound card to a printer…

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Missing programs from add/remove programs

19th April 2013 Jackie & Andy

We just had a customer who was missing programs from add/remove programs. The customer had wanted to remove a particular anti-virus programme but couldn’t find the programme listed under the “Add or Remove programmes” tool in Control Panel. For some reason the entry had been removed. There was also no uninstaller for the Programme listed under the Programme’s entry in the Start/Programs list, or in the Programme’s folder in Windows Explorer. This was an interesting situation as the programme was running on…

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Backing up your computer files

18th April 2013 Jackie & Andy

“Backup, backup, backup!” is a mantra that I preach often as now, more often than not, precious computer files such as photographs; documents; videos or songs are stored on a computer hard drive and not periodically “backed up”. Because of digital photography, we have all gotten lazy and rely on our computers to store these valuable milestones, comfortable and complacent in a false sense of security that we can view them at our leisure. Gone are the days where we were handed photographic…

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What does boot up your computer mean

17th April 2013 Jackie & Andy

Have you ever wondered why turning on your computer has coined the phrase “Boot Up” or what does boot up your computer mean? The explanation goes back to the days when folks wore boots as their normal foot attire and people remarked to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” Bootstraps were the loops at the back of each boot that you used to pull the boot onto your foot and the phrase “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” simply meant to get yourself…

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Windows Defender Offline CD

17th April 2013 Jackie & Andy

Sadly, some Malware cannot be removed conventionally by anti-malware aka anti-virus software. Luckily, Microsoft has come to the rescue by allowing you to create a boot up CD disc that will remove this malware. This CD has its own anti-Malware operating system included and will allow you to fix any problems before they have had a chance to take hold. The procedure is to download the Windows Defender Offline software and then create a boot up disc. Please make sure that you…

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Improve your TV sound

16th April 2013 Jackie & Andy

My husband and I decided to buy a new LED backlit television for Christmas to replace our aging CRT TV. Unfortunately the sound quality of our new 32″ panel was poor in comparison to our old TV. In order to try to improve the sound quality, we did research on the new “Soundbars” that have come into the market. Unfortunately, most of them were quite expensive and out of our price range. I told my husband that I had an…

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Deleting Vista’s Windows Mail “Autofill” entries

16th April 2013 Jackie & Andy

Recently, we had a client who complained that when he typed a friend’s name into the “To” field of a new email, he saw entries for his friend’s old email address appear as well as the current correct email address. Even though he had deleted the obsolete address information from the contact list the deleted entries still automatically appeared. This is a quirk with Windows Mail and for some reason Microsoft haven’t gotten around to fixing it yet. This is…

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Disk or Disc?

15th April 2013 Jackie & Andy

Which terminology is correct: Hard “Disk” Drive (HDD) or Hard “Disc” Drive? Is it a compact “disk” or “disc”? The answer is that if light is used to read the data, then the correct word is “disc” as in Compact Disc or Digital Versatile/Video Disc (DVD). Your hard disk doesn’t use light to read the data. The data is read by detecting the magnetization of the material in the platter; so it is a “disk”.

Phishing email

15th April 2013 Jackie & Andy

In the last few days, we have received two emails at Comp-U-Train purporting to be from ABSA bank. This email rang our alarm bells immediately as firstly we don’t bank with ABSA and secondly we recognised it as a typical “Phishing” email This email is a typical Phishing hoax and is a way to try to get you to reveal your banking username & password. Once the criminals have this information they can log onto your banking account and part you…

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