How To Solve Mac Printing Problems
Folks, rather than reinvent the wheel, I’ll simply tell you the first thing to do is clear the Printer’s “queue” —
1) Open Apple menu and go to “System Preferences” and choose Printers. (You can also use Finder.)
2) Select the active printer and choose “Open Print Queue” button.
3) Select and cancel the print job(s) as desired, canceling them and removing them from the printing queue.
And point you to this article for the more advanced steps:
* How to resolve Mac printing issues
“Printing on a Mac is typically reliable. Occasionally trouble arises, however. Here are a few recommended resolutions for returning printing to proper operation.” Read more..
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Today’s quote: “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” ~ Dalai Lama
Copyright 2007-2015 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.
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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.
How To: Troubleshooting and repairing Windows 10
For those folks who declined to follow my advice, (to hold off at least 3 months) and already have ‘upgraded’ to Microsoft’s latest operating system.
* Troubleshooting and repairing Windows 10
“Windows 10 has been in wide release for only a few months so far, and as with any version 1.0 release some early adopters are experiencing issues. Here’s Ed Bott’s guide to some time-tested troubleshooting tools and techniques.” Read more..
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Today’s quote: “No matter what you’re going through, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel and it may seem hard to get to it but you can do it and just keep working towards it and you’ll find the positive side of things.” ~ Demi Lovato
Copyright 2007-2015 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.
>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<
All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.
Thanksgiving tech support survival kit (2014 edition)
Folks, here’s a read worth, well.. reading.
* Thanksgiving tech support survival kit (2014 edition): Get some down time over Thanksgiving by preparing in advance for the inevitable ‘Turkey Day’ tech support requests deluge.
“Accept it, if you are a regular reader of this blog then your “Tech IQ” will be way ahead of your average PC users (and I mean way ahead!). And I bet that you’re surrounded by friends and family who just about know how to switch their PC on, and think that the more toolbars they have installed into Internet Explorer, the richer and more fulfilling their browsing experience will be.” Read more..
Today’s quote: “The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.” ~ Albert Einstein
Copyright 2007-2014 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.
>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<
All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.
And please, never forget – one person can make a difference.
Find a way to make someone’s day today.
(Best advice I ever heard? Don’t sweat the small stuff.)
How To Remove A Stuck CD (and a software giveaway)
Troubleshooting a slot drive
I still fiddle with my iMac, and the other day I came across a problem which has spawned today’s “how to” topic — namely, the DVD I was had been watching would not eject out of the ‘slot’. And, the iMac doesn’t have the paperclip hole to forcibly eject a disc from the “superdrive”.
image source: bindapple
The official Apple methods for getting a disc to eject go like this:
- Press and hold the Eject key on your keyboard.
- Right-click (control-click) on the disks icon on the Desktop and select “Eject” from the contextual menu
- Drag the disks icon to the Trash bin within the Dock
- Select the disc’s icon and hit “Command-E”
More advanced Mac stuck disk eject methods
- Launch Disk Utility and select the CD/DVD from the sidebar. Click the Eject icon at the top of the Disk Utility screen.
- Launch the Terminal and type following command:
drutil eject, and hit the Return key. - If those fail, try restarting your Mac and hold down the mouse button (or trackpad button if you have a laptop) as the system “boots”. Keep holding it down until the system fully restarts (or the disc pops out, whichever comes first).
None of those worked for me, so I had to resort to a manual method. The first thing to try is to tip the machine so the disc drive is vertical to the horizon (slot down), so that gravity can assist, while trying one of the eject methods above.. maybe giving a little shake as well. Hopefully, your disc will “fall out”.
Gravity (and shaking) didn’t help me, so it was time to reach in there with something. Tempting though it is, tweezers are not the tool of choice (as they can/will scratch the disc). I used a stiff business card (though a credit card can work too) with a length of double-sided tape pressed on. Insert the card at the “top” (long side closest to the screen/disc’s ‘label side’) of the slot, with the sticky tape toward the back of the machine (the bottom of the disc drive) and then “fish” the disc out by a slight to-the-back (away)-and-out motion.
If it simply will not come out (even with tweezers), you probably will require disassembly, and probably will need to visit a tech.
Software giveaway: I noticed a decent limited-time software giveaway on BitsDuJour.. which seems to be experiencing some technical difficulties, but you may want to sign up anywho.
Wise Care 365 PRO for PC – Coming Soon
100% Off
$54.00
= $0“Wise Care 365 PRO is a comprehensive PC tune-up utility that promises to keep your Windows PC secure and running at peak performance.” more
Unrelated: where did this week go?
Also unrelated: 7 Things Your Body Language Is Telling Your Boss
“From the way you sit in your chair to the color of your tie, nonverbal communication can have a big impact on your professional life. Here’s some advice.” Read more..
Looking back..: Junk mail looks just like it did back in 1997.. doesn’t it?
Because, why change a good thing, right?
Today’s quote: “We are, perhaps, uniquely among the earth’s creatures, the worrying animal. We worry away our lives.” ~ Lewis Thomas
Copyright 2007-2013 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.
>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<
All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.
CD drive won’t read discs
Folks, here is a question I received that I think is of ‘general benefit’ to all to know.
Q: Hi Tech Paul.
The disc player in my Dell Optiplex has started to ignore cds and dvds that I burned myself but still can play those that I purchased or rent. What’s going on? Do I need a new codec?
A: Dear Reader,
No, you do not need a new “codec“. I suspect that your “reading” trouble is due simply to dust/dirt on the laser’s lens. Blowing on it with compressed air (such as from a can of the venerable Dust Off) should resolve your problem. (If you cannot see the little lens unit, open the tray, and blow around in there as best you can.)
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Today’s quote: “The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.” ~ Isaac Asimov
Copyright 2007-2013 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.
>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<
All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.
A Tale of Computer Troubleshooting
I’m a tech. And a one-man Help Desk. And I’ve been one for a long time.. since Windows 95, to give you an idea. The other day I get a call. (No surprise there.)
The caller tells me that when they went to turn on their computer that morning.. the screen is solid black. And they are quite concerned, of course, as they have tons of work to do that needs doing yesterday.
They tell me it’s an old Dell with Windows XP, and, no, (unprompted) they hadn’t visited any naughty sites, nor seen any ‘strange behavior’.
So I ask some questions, and have them try rebooting, you know, I go through the SOP.
They tell me the power light comes on, they can hear the fans, and that it “sounds normal.. there’s just nothing on the screen.” (am I hearing a case of the notorious “black screen”? No, this is a Desktop.)
So what would your diagnosis be?
You might guess the monitor died.. right? That they need to go buy a new one?
Well, I tell the caller that there are several possibilities (causes) as for their ‘black screen’ trouble, either hardware or software, and the only way I could zero in on it would require I have access to the machine (not over the phone), and that in all fairness they should be thinking about buying a new machine instead of repairing that old XP. (I wrote It is time to face facts and finally dump Windows XP way back in early 2011.. 2 years ago now.) Pay me to rescue and transfer their data, not keep a relic alive for another .. who knows how long?
Well, that’s not an option, so can I come over? And .. I don’t have much money.. (why do people always say that..?)
So I go over to their house and quickly verify that, as I suspected, it is not a dead monitor (by plugging one of my own).
See, my first suspect, and line of thought as I was driving over, was that a Windows Update had ‘gotten stuck’. Why? Because the day before the call was ‘Patch Tuesday‘, and Update glitches are a cause of startup failures (and black screens). I knew this last batch of Updates had had some troubles.. as two other calls, the day before, had shown. In short, a software failure.
And I knew there were other possible suspects. I have been doing this a while..
But when I powered up their machine to test my monitor/video cable. I heard something my caller had failed to mention — five long beeps, with a short beep. Which points at hardware. Those beeps are a code, you see, and their number and sequence tell a tech what is wrong (um.. at least, that’s the idea behind POST Beep Codes.)
So I powered up my laptop and went to the Dell website and downloaded the technical manual for that model, and looked up the beep code and discovered that the code I was hearing meant that their problem was a failure with the RAM memory.
Which will also produce a ‘black screen’.
So I looked at the RAM specs and then went out to my car and grabbed my package of 2x 1GB PC3200 DDR modules out of my kit (for just such occasions) and went back in their house, opened the computer’s case, popped out the old RAM and put mine in, and BINGO! — their computer started right up, faster than before. (Because their old modules were only 512 MB’s).
And I charged them $75. (One half-hour labor plus the parts.)
My client was delighted and flabberghasted. They were expecting to pay much, much more.. And they not only were able to get right back to work, but had gotten an unexpected upgrade.
I tell you this story not to blow my own horn, or drum up more clients. I tell you this because my client, upon hearing the bill, expressed what I find to be an extremely prevalent conception out there in “average computer user” land — that technicians are crooks, gougers, and/or incompetent, and/or always tell you to buy a new device.
Or they think they can “Google it”, and fix it themselves.
I tell you that story to try to explain why that conception, out there, common though it be, isn’t fair to us techs.
We know what to look for (and listen for), what questions to ask, and can (usually) get right to the heart of the trouble and get you back online again in jiffy. In today’s marketplace, with literally TONS of unemployed IT types willing to fix your computer, we simply cannot gouge in our pricing (were we so inclined).
And if we tell you a part needs replacing, it does. And I (and I’m sure other techs, too) do not profit on parts — we order ’em cheap and pass the saving on to our clients.
.. to test my theory, try googling ‘black screen’. See how many answers you have to read before you find “replace your RAM”.
I know this little story isn’t going to change the world’s view of repair techs but.. if your computer won’t start up, the screen is black, and it’s beeping at you? Be sure to tell your tech about them, won’t you? Have a great day, everyone!
Today’s reco: Windows Repair (All In One) – A GREAT Utility For The Tech Toolbox
“When it comes to computers we can find ourselves getting into all sorts of situations where it is very difficult to assess and fix the problem. For example, a couple of friends of mine recently ran into a situation where the windows updates service was broken on a computer they were working on and they had to resort to researching the matter on the internet in order to get a fix.” Read more..
Today’s quote: “You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.” ~ Walt Disney
Copyright 2007-2013 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.
>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<
All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.
• About Tech Paul
I am a Retired computer & network technician. I used to think the machines were pretty cool. Now I don’t.
They’re anything but.
I regularly posted how-to’s and tricks & tips and general computing advice here starting in 2007. (Use the Search tool to find answers. But be aware, many are rather dated.) Sometimes I answered (your) specific questions in an article if I believed the answer was generally helpful to “everyone”. All the writing you see was my own, typos and all. There always is/was an implied “IMHO” in what you see here.
Note: You are responsible for using this blog and its content. I am in no way liable for any losses caused by user error, viruses and/or other malware, hardware or software failure, or any other conceivable reason.
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