Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal has a hilarious rendition of what today's tech support would look like during the 19th century. I think it just goes to make it all the more maddening. Just the first two frames of the comic as a teaser... Read the rest of the comic at Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. … [Read more...]
Tab Key Does Not Change List Level in Microsoft Word
I was recently working on an assignment that needed to be typed up in an outline format. Using Microsoft Word 2007, I was very annoyed when I found that I was not able to use Tab to move to the next list level. For example, if I was typing up an outline like this: A. 404 Tech Support 1. Tech News 2. Hardware and software reviews 3. Documented solutions B. Jason's Other … [Read more...]
BlueScreenView – Read Minidumps For More Clues When Blue Screen of Death Appears
Over the weekend, I was troubleshooting reports of a few BSoDs that were crashing a Windows XP PC. Since this was quite after the fact, I had to do some investigative work to try to find the cause so I could figure out a resolution. The memory dumps in their native form aren't the most readable but they provide the most complete information to help track down the problem. Using … [Read more...]
Kingston Warns Certain Solid State Drives Need Firmware Update Or May Face Drive Failure
Kingston is warning customers of some of its Solid State Drives that a technical issue has been discovered that could lead to the drive failing in a small percentage of cases. To address the issue, Kingston recommends all customers of these hard drives upgrade the drive's firmware. The firmware correction is to correct the ssd hanging in the BIOS and boot failure. From … [Read more...]
Data Execution Prevention Keeps Stopping The Print Spooler
Starting off the work week with an odd error is always a guarantee of fun times. Things like the Print Spooler should just work and usually happily will unless something gets in the way. Today's error involved Windows XP's Data Execution Prevention, or DEP, stopping the Print Spooler service from running any time it started up. … [Read more...]