Technical Support From The Bored and The Jobless

          Apologies to the soap opera "The Young and The Restless".

          I posted the following on HP's Facebook page: I upgraded from Windows 8.0 to Windows 8.1 and HP Solution Center stopped working for my printer. Despite following the instructions in the solutions area of the HP website, it hasn't worked. Reading through the forums, there were no answers that worked either. Finally, after looking for something similar to Windows Fax and Scan, I found something that can be used an alternative to the HP Solution Center so you can scan to PDF (which Windows Fax and Scan does not offer). The solution is a free HP Windows 8.2 app called HP Scan and Capture. I hope whoever encountered a similar problem with HP Solution Center finds this helpful.

          In other tech support issues, my Uncle called me about being unable to print out all pages of a document and I found out he was trying print it out from his email instead of opening the file in Microsoft Word. After showing him how to do it over Teamviewer then trying to print it out, only blank paper came out of the printer. A good guess was that it was out of black ink. As a workaround, I adjusted the document color to dark blue instead and was able to print it out. Then another minor complication came up: the pages cut off at different parts that were not the same as the one onscreen. Since it was a legal document, I figured that it was on legal sized paper. My Uncle said he was going to buy some black ink and legal size paper the next day. Problem solved. Actually, 2 problems solved since I was able to find a workaround for the HP Solution Center problem too. I know my Uncle appreciates my help and I hope HP does too, especially since it was free.

Want tech support for free? Call me...

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Random Thoughts For Early 2010

     After several months of avoiding it, I finally did karaoke again at home because I saw Manny Pacquiao singing on the Jimmy Kimmel Live show last week. You can check out my karaoke experiences here: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com/2009/06/dabbling-in-closet-karaoke.html

     One thing I don’t like about writing these blogs: I tend to sit too long and not move around. The only movement happening is when my fingers start typing. How many calories do you think that burns?

     So what’s with all these Nerf products? I went to the store to buy my nephew a birthday present a few weeks ago and the shelves were stacked with Nerf toys. I bought one for him and he got Nerf toys from two other guests also.

     Just when I thought I was doing okay with my expenses, my mortgage payment got higher due to an increase in property taxes. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the homeowners association raised our monthly dues. So much for trying to save.

     I received my federal income tax refund on February 26^th. Basically, the federal government gave me back my deposit in the form of withholding taxes. At least I have something to pay for the increase in my mortgage and homeowner’s association dues and also the new elliptical machine.

     One of the runners from our running club recently ran a 50 kilometer race on trails and finished in 7 hours and 55 minutes. That’s about the same amount of time I engage in aerobic exercise for a whole week, sometimes lesser.

     Remember when I blogged about giving computer and internet tech support to my uncle and auntie a few months ago?  You can find that entry here: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com/2009/12/computer-frustration.html  . They still call me once in awhile but I found a function in Skype that allows them to share what’s on their screen to me. So now, if they have a question, we connect on Skype and they can point out to me what the problem is or ask me how to do things while I tell them where to point their cursor or where to type certain things to get the results they want. Microsoft Windows Live Messenger has a remote assistance function to it but I’ve never tried it and my Uncle and Auntie don’t have Messenger.

     Last week, I resisted the urge to use the internet so I could catch up on my reading. My reading nowadays is severely limited to Runner’s World, Westways, Competitor, and the USA Today magazine that comes with the Sunday newspaper.

     It’s funny to be remembered by former classmates or townmates not necessarily by my name but by a nickname a girl gave me in high school. Back in the day, I was nicknamed Renault. I heard that girl has been widowed, married a second time, has about four kids and still lives in the same town. I’m not in touch with her. Searching Google or Facebook has not yielded any results.

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Computer Frustration

Computers are at times so quirky, fickle, and unpredictable. On Saturday my Uncle called me so many times asking questions about his computer that I started answering my phone “tech support, how may I help you?”. He was having problems getting on the internet again because his computer was not connecting with the wireless router even though he moved the router closer. Well it turns out the USB dongle receiver had detached from the computer. Not knowing this, Verizon advised him to just hard wire the DSL modem to the computer’s Ethernet connection. That should have taken care of the problem, but nooooo…He called me again to ask about this and I told him to turn off the modem for about a minute, then turn it back on. Still no luck. I thought maybe there was a brief interruption of service in his area so I advised him to wait about an hour and try again. An hour or so passes by and I get another call saying there was still no internet connection. I was out of ideas so I looked it up on the internet and called my Uncle back to give him step by step directions. Turn off the modem, unplug it from the electric socket, turn off the computer, plug the modem, turn it on, start up the computer, and BAM! The heavens parted and the internet came down and showed itself to my Uncle.

On Sunday I had computer problems of my own. I started up my back up laptop so I can update the antivirus software and Microsoft Windows. However, while the computer would connect to the router, it could not connect to the internet. Despite several Microsoft suggestions in the Help and Support section of Windows Vista on how to fix the problem, still no cigar. So I tried something that Microsoft did not suggest. I turned off the DSL modem, turned off the wireless router, waited a minute, then turned everything back on again. Problem solved.

My co-worker just bought a new computer and will be getting a wireless router soon, and she needs help. Noel’s tech support at your service, ma’am.

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