Showing posts with label itmanager. Show all posts
Showing posts with label itmanager. Show all posts

2014/09/02

And now, ladies and gentlemen, the HP printer will not print any more!

Problem: Sometimes some models of HP Laserjet printers suddenly end up producing prints while being turned on and online



Cause: Probably in some cases it may happen that the document sent to the printer "clog" the print queue or otherwise create problems in the printer driver or in the "spooler" Windows printing. These are the "software components" that manage printing. 

Sometimes, unfortunately, turning off and on the PC and / or the printer, the problem persists! On Windows, the printer seems online, but already by clicking on the icon, you will see a yellow triangle that indicates the problem.
Solution 1: 
  • Press the power button (which will become lit green) to turn on the printer. 
  • Open the Properties window. 
    • With Windows XP: Click Start -> Printers and Faxes, right-click the right mouse button on the printer and click Properties. 
    • Windows Vista: Click on Windows -> Control Panel, click Hardware and Sound -> Printer, then click with the right mouse button on the printer and click Properties. 
  • In the Properties window, click the Ports tab, then Enable bidirectional support and then Apply. 
  • In the Properties window, click the Configure tab, select the status On and then Apply. 
  • Unplug the power cord from the electrical outlet and from the back of the device. 
  • Disconnect the USB cable from the computer and then reconnect it. 
  • Reconnect the power cord to the back of the product and then plug it into an electrical outlet. 
  • Press the power button to turn on the printer 
  • Try again to print.

Solution 2: 
  • Click Start -> Settings -> Control Panel 
  • Open Administrative Tools and then Services 
  • Look for the Print Spooler service, and click 2 times on 
  • Press the Stop button and stop the service (if it is not already stopped because of the problem) 
  • Now click on Start -> Run 
  • Write the command cmd and press the Enter key 
  • A window will open the DOS prompt (black) in which you must type the following commands: 
  • Navigate to the root folder with: cd \ 
  • Navigate to the folder spooled with: CD Windows \ system32 \ spool \ printers 
  • Delete all of the contents of this folder with DEL *. * 
  • Restart the Print Spooler service by clicking 2 times over and pressing Start
  • Try printing

Solution 3: 
Download the HP Print Diagnostic Utility (HPPDU.EXE) which performs a series of checks and can also automatically fix this specific problem, indicating that the print queue has pending "works" to be deleted. In addition, this software analyzes and solves a number of other errors and problems that can occur with both HP printers connected via USB or via Ethernet (LAN)

Update of 17/09/2012: The HP site appears to have eliminated this particular tool from its servers but you can still find it on the network (for example here). In compensation HP has released some new tools for verifying hardware and software problems of its products, namely the HP Diagnostic Tools


Note: sometimes the problem is much more simple and crude and just check that the print spooler of the printer in question has not been inadvertently put in "sleep". 

Check to see if the menu item "Printer" have a check mark in "Pause Printing" and if there were, deselect it


Of course, this type of error is not unique to HP printers but is common to all brands as it depends on the user's carelessness !!

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE: 
In the past I have had problems in particular with the HP Laserjet P1006 and 1022, the operating system used was Windows Seven
In at least one case the error message concerned the Print Spooler service that was not running. The software HPPDU HP has solved the problems immediately and automatically. 
In the case of HP Laserjet 1020 and 1022 (and other printers Host based) as reported in the HP support blog, sometimes by printing PDF documents containing scanned images, HOST based printer drivers do not process the job properly and block the spooler. Also in this case we can use the solution 2 to unlock print spooling. A definitive solution seems be to adopt the PCL driver of a printer oldest such as the classic HP LaserJet III.

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

2013/10/04

HDD LLF: how to low level format the Hard Disk

HDD Low Level Format is a free software tool ( for personal / home use only ) that allows the Low-Level Format (LLF) of hard disks (and mass storage devices in general).
What is LLF
"Typically this involved subdividing each track on the disk into one or more blocks which would contain the user data and associated control information. Different computers used different block sizes and IBM notably used variable block sizes but the popularity of the IBM PC caused the industry to adopt a standard of 512 user data bytes per block by the middle 1980s. " Source Wikipedia English

HDD- LLF has the following characteristics :
  • Supported interfaces: S-ATA (SATA), IDE (E-IDE), SCSI, SAS, USB, FIREWIRE.
  • Big drives (LBA-48) are supported.
  • Supported Manufacturers: Maxtor, Hitachi, Seagate, Samsung, Toshiba, Fujitsu, IBM, Quantum, Western Digital, and almost any other not listed here.
  • The program also supports low-level formatting of FLASH cards (SD, MMC, MemoryStick and CompactFlash) using a card-reader.


HDD- LLF can also work with external drives connected via USB, and Firewire as well as with supports SD , MMC, MemoryStick and CompactFlash .
There is also an option to quickly delete the partitions and the sector MBR (Master Boot Record) of HDDs .
The utility is available in two versions: can be installed on Windows or directly executed ( portable).

WARNING: After running this low level format tool, the whole disk surface will be erased.
Data restoration is impossible after using this utility!


PERSONAL EXPERIENCE :
I used HDD- LLF for low-level format an external drive connected with USB no longer wanted to learn to operate and above who do not " want to be" formatted by Windows. With both Windows XP and Seven, the format utility (which try to format only high-level) returned an error message and did not proceed . With HDD- LLF I managed to break the deadlock and then, through the utility of Windows XP " DISK MANAGEMENT " , I was able to format ( high-level) disk with the NTFS file system and now it works !
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

2013/08/06

How to migrate Google Apps accounts from one domain to another?

The e-mail domain administrator at some point in the time, may need to migrate a Google Apps account to another account managed with Gooole Apps, in the same domain (eg from pippo@esempio.COM to pluto@esempio.COM), or belonging to a different domain (eg from pippo@esempio.COM  to  pippo@esempio.IT)

There are at least two solutions to solve this problem:

1) use an e-mail client
For example with Thunderbird, you can create links to two accounts (source and destination) by choosing IMAP access. Then you can move all the emails from one account to another working on a folder at a time.
The process can be very long in terms of time (and boring) especially if your internet connection is slow and you have many mails to be move! In addition, calendars, address book, contacts and documents in Google Drive must be migrated by other processes.

2) use a third-party software
Specifically, it is Backupify MIGRATOR for Google Apps that may transfer all safely and automaticallyGmail Messages, Google Drive Docs, Contacts address book and calendars from one account of  Google Apps to another. 
It 'a paid service but to prove you have available 1 FREE migration!
Simply login with domain administrator credentials, and if you must have access to a second domain you must use its administrative account. Then you choose the source account and the destination account, so you begin the process!

[Source Link] Backupify MIGRATOR

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE:
The advantage of Backupify Migrator is that once you start the process does it all without the need to have your PC switched on or to check their work.
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

2013/06/26

2013: Kingsoft Office Free / Professional

I had already written about this product for the office, and even then I was very excited, (see this post: New: "Kingsoft Office Suite Free 2012", but the new 2013 version has exceeded improvements in the previous !

Kingsoft Office 2013 has totally changed its graphical interface to align with the new standards of similar products competitors, so it looks very much like the so-called "Ribbon"  interface of Microsoft Office 2007/2010. However, you can also set the old interface similar to Microsoft Office 2003.
The software has a built-in PDF converter and an automatic spell check!




The compatibility with Microsoft products is always the first place:
Kingsoft Writer Professional 2013 is fully compatible with Microsoft Word 2007/2010.
Input file format: (97/2000/2003/2007/2010) doc, docx & dot.
Output file format: (97/2000/2003) doc & dot.

Kingsoft Office 2013 exists in two versions: totally Free fo personal use, and Professional ($ 69.95). In this table you can see the differences between the editions.

[Source LinkKingsoft Office 2013 Free
[Source Link] Release History

Updated 18/10/2013
Kingsoft Office exists in a "reduced" version for Android systems, and is an alternative to Microsoft Office for Tablet.
[Link] Kingsoft Office for Android Free

Updated 3/11/2013
There is also free Kingsoft Office for LINUX (in alpha).
[Link] Kingsoft Office for Linux Alpha version 12 patch 2 - Free.


PERSONAL EXPERIENCE:
In my opinion the compatibility with Microsoft products has increased. In particular, examining some Excel files I noticed that some features such as Macro, notes and graphics, in the 2012 version were still partly incompatible, while in this 2013 version were fully compatible! Some Powerpoint files very large (with many photos and effects) are now handled correctly.
In addition to compatibility with read and write files to DOC and DOCX, I point out the extreme compatibility with RTF (Rich Text Format)
An other peculiarity is thas the suite is smaller (50 MB) and faster than most other office suites. 
The only downside now is always the same, or the lack of the other language (non english)!
However, there is the possibility of including a spelling dictionary ! To download and install it, follow the instructions (in Italian) provided by Kingsoft hereof other languages.
There is a support with questions and answers in English on the website of Kingsoft. Also on this web page are available some user guides  of all the products of the office suite (both in PDF and browsable online).
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED