Posted by Solutions Center on Fri, Jun 25, 2010
IT Support | Recently, there has been a lot of buzz going around the
IT Supportworld about the iPhone 4, the Droid, and the iPad. The biggest reason is because each of these new devices is applying a new User Interface (UI). These devices have changed from using a mouse and a keyboard to input information and manipulate objects, to using your fingers to input and manipulate objects, while on the same plane as the data. But this is just the beginning!
Remember the movie Minority Report, where detectives used hand gesture driven computers to perform their forensic analysis? The interface allowed them to use their hands to manipulate objects in a 3D space, just as we do with objects in the real world. Well Oblong Industries, a company cofounded by Minority Report's science advisor, has developed the g-speak spatial operating environment. This UI design is going to revolutionize the way we interact with computers on a fundamental level.
At a TED Conference in February or 2010, John Underkoffler gave a live demonstration of g-speak and talked about his vision for its future as the next generation of computer interfaces. He showed the audience how seamlessly a user can navigate the 3D environment, move objects from one computer on a network to another, how objects can be disassembled in 3D to see the parts that make it up, and much more. His vision is for this interface to replace current interfaces within five years.
Posted by Solutions Center on Wed, Jun 23, 2010
IT Support| You have a laptop that you use at both your work and your home offices, and because of this, you routinely print to multiple printers. However, you only have the ability to set one printer as the default, so you constantly have to make sure you switch back and forth between them depending on where you are. Well, you used to anyway.
One of the new features of Windows 7 is the ability to have "Location Aware Printing." This feature allows users of all editions of Windows 7 to setup simple rules for printing, which are dependent on the current network the PC is connected to. Simply put, when you are at home, your default printer will be set to the one at your house, and when you are in the office your default printer will automatically change to the one there.
The best part of this new feature is that you do not need your IT Support engineers to set this up. Here are the simple steps to set up the Location Aware Printing feature on your Windows 7 PC, or you can watch the short video tutorial.
Posted by Solutions Center on Mon, Jun 21, 2010
As an
IT Support professional, I often hear from my family members and friends about how their printer freezes up and the queue does not respond. Here are a few steps that you can take to try and resolve this issue (before you kick it(, without being a
certified IT professional or a
managed services provider.
Step 1
Go into the ‘Start' menu and select ‘Run'. When the run window pops up, type in ‘services.msc' and press enter.
Step 2
Once in the Services window, scroll down until you see the ‘Print Spooler'. Right-click on ‘Print Spooler' and select ‘Stop'. This will stop the computer process that contains your print queues.
Step 3
Next, you will need to clear the jam. Now that the Print Spooler service is stopped, open an Explorer window and type ‘C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\PRINTERS' into the address line. Delete all of the files in this folder.
Step 4
Now that the jam is cleared, you will need to restart the Print Spooler service. Go back to the services window, right-click on ‘Print Spooler', and select ‘Start'.
Problem Solved. Thanks Trigon!
