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Computer Support Forums

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:30:00-0500

Got a problem? Join our readers and ask it here in our support forum. Our Ask a question section has just gotten out of hand with spam. Our support forum is heavily moderated so join us!

-Tom

Printer Spooler Crashing - ZSR.DLL ?

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:31:00-0500

Today I had a problem with an XP machine that was unable to print. The sprinter spooler service would crash everytime. I go to services.msc, start it up, it would crash. Clicking on more information reveiled ZSR.DLL was the file that was causing the crash.

After a few Google searches I realized I needed to remove the LaserJet 1020 printer. However with the spooler service unresponsive, this wasn't possible. I tried to remove via add/remove programs however - no luck.

Then I read about the Windows 2003 resource kit. I'm sure there are many great tools in this kit but I was most impressed with cleanspl.exe. This program will totally reset the printer spooler. Not only will it work on the machine you are using but it works on other computers remotely. For example you can put in the netbios (or dns) name of another workstation and as long as you have administrative access you can reset the spooler. The whole thing took about five minutes and after a quick restart the printer was reinstalled and working great again.

Windows 7 - Why I think it has a shot of working

Tue, 05 May 2009 17:41:00-0500

There's a million blogs talking about how great / bad Windows 7 is. My biggest problem has always not been with Windows 7 but rather with Vista. As an IT professional I'm aware that no business wants Vista. Why? Because [insert proprietary software name] won't run on it. So if it won't run on Vista how does Windows 7 stand a chance?

Well fortunately Microsoft did think about this. They have a special 'XP mode' that is designed to run all Windows XP capatible programs. Wow, that's awesome. This actually gives me hope for Windows 7 and with that feature - I can see it being used in a business environment. The technology seems to use a virtual PC to recreate XP's environment. This also helps Windows 7 another way - developers will now write Windows 7 software!

With more people using XP mode that means people are using Windows 7 and adopting it. With more and more use, software developers will actually update their code. I hope Microsoft makes the feature work well. The future of Windows in a business environment depends on it.

Conflicker Virus - Apparently NOT a hoax

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:48:00-0500

Well I know I'm a few days behind on this but the Conflicker is most definitily not a hoax. Reports show that the virus has activated and the infected clients are starting to attack others. If you are interested in this topic at all, I'm sure you already read this somewhere else - no use in me just repeating old news.

What I would like to talk about is some of the interesting technical things about this virus. First of all how it spreads its a little unique. Most virus programs spread in either email 'Click here for your free e-card!' or through a flaw in a web browser, or even a flaw in Windows. What's unique about this virus it uses a security flaw in Windows to infect USB drives. This to me just sounds really clever. A lot of people may not use virus protection or run updates on old computers that don't get on the Internet. Computer users think because the machine is not connected to the Interner that they are safe. Well now if you plug in a USB drive from an infected machine - you aren't.

Let's talk about what the virus actually does once it infects you.

Deletes and system restore points you may have made. Geez how heartless can you be?
Next it connects to its home base and downloads a update.
Now the virus installed a small web server on the infected machine and then gives that info to other infected machines.

So now the infected computer can spread the virus without the home base being involved.

Why this is a big deal?

Anytime you have a virus attack like this its a big deal because so many infected computers are now working together. They could all be used at once to perform a denial of service attack on a site. What else Well, anything really. Since the virus can update itself we don't know what its capable of or what the true intentions are.

Why it's not a big deal

There's a cure and a removal tool! Also if your systems were patched on time you are already protected. Read more here.

Conflicker virus - hoax or what?

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:02:00-0500

I've been reading a lot about the conflicker virus that is out there and soon to unleash fury on everyone on Wednesday. This is going to be a really short post but I just want to point out the highlights.

This virus has been patched in October in 2008.
If your Windows updates are up to date you're probably ok.
If your virus protection is installed and up to date, you are probably ok.
If you are concerned, download the removal tool and run it.
Complete information can be found here.

The bottom line is every few months I hear about something like this. In this case there is absolutely no evidence anything will happen on Wednesday so like all other virus warnings - take them seriously and patch your systems. I'll make a post Thursday assuming Skynet hasn't taken over.

Server C Drive Getting Full?

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:44:00-0500

Many system administrators have had this problem. Your server was preconfigured with only 10GB for the primary parition where Windows is installed. Meanwhile the secondary partition has 36 Terabytes of free space. WTF? Yeah it sucks and of course the admin before you installed Backup exec and virus protection to c:\program files - nice. Anyway I've been there and the answer is to move important programs off asap. Fortunately for my experiences I never had to take it to the next level.

Tonight I had an issue where the C: drive was almost full and there really wasn't much else I could remove. I was thinking of using Partition Magic or some other 3rd party software. First of all let me say 'Why does Windows not have this support just built in?' It would be so great to have Windows allow me to only the fly adjust and resize partitions. Next version of Windows server... PUT THAT IN!!

Anyway I should also mention that on this server we use Symantec Endpoint protection. So I do my search for any files over 10MB and I find a huge problem - Symantec was flooding my hard drive with log files. If you use Symantec Endpoint protection this is a major tip for you or if you run IIS on a server. Make sure for the love of god you mind your IIS logs. When I looked in C:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles\W3SVC2 I found literally 3GB of logs. Delete them! Then go into IIS and turn off logging (unless you need it). If you run a web server and actually host a web site (install of just use it for Symantec Endpoint protection) you may want your log files, thats fine - but move them off the C drive.

So that's my tip : If you are running out of hard drive space and use IIS please check your logs, if you don't need them - delete them. Good night.

Coming Soon(ish)

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 04:41:00-0500

Hope everyone is doing ok out there, its been a while since I've had time to make a post. I've been very busy on some exciting projects. I'm getting closer to sharing them with you. Some of the projects fit better on my other blog (thesearchengineoptimizationexperts.com and websitedesigntutorials.net). Just to give a little sneak peek some of the projects I'll be sharing are:

Facebook Applications

Yea I've been getting into FB programming pretty hard core. It's very addicting. Any programmer loves to program but when you can access users information and incorporate that into your program - its amazing. I'll be sharing my source code for a few applications. Some of which I threw together pretty quickly and others I spend a good amount of time on.

Ruby on Rails

This language and framework is just incredible. I'll go over some basics and show advantages when moving from a previous language (PHP / Coldfusion).

jQuery

jQuery is amazing, as Rails made Ruby amazing - jQuery makes JavaScript even more amazing. At its core it makes things a lot easier to make happen and code more friendly to read. I'll show you some real examples and source code how I use jQuery with mashups with Google's Map API.

Anyway so I'll be sure to post soon.

OMG Gmail is down!!

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 07:16:00-0500

If anyone out there is like me, you spend your ENTIRE life in a Gmail web page. Today my life has come to an end. I tried to access my mail at my home office. For some stupid reason the Internet has been flakey for a while now - no luck. I power cycle my Netgear router and cable modem - still no luck. What the hell. I'm about to access my web server and other sites ... but no Gmail?? What in god's name is going on? It's hard to believe but as I type this its true - Gmail is down. May god have mercy on all of us and pray that the great Google technicians get it back up and running quickly. Until then I guess I'll have to find something else to do with my life.

Turn off Vista's Search Indexing

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 03:49:00-0500

It's almost 4am. I can't sleep. Why? Well for one reason all I can hear is my stupid desktop grinding away on the hard drive. I just can't stand this. What is running? I keep my startup items very clean, no un-needed junk! Well maybe I forgot to mention I'm running Vista. Besides user access control asking a stupid question every 5 minutes, search indexing has to be next on my list of why I hate Vista.

Want to turn it off? Go to control panel and unfortunately you won't see a 'Click here to turn it off'. Its kinda weird you goto Indexing options, then hit modify and through a weird interface you have to uncheck what folders you want to be searched. Anyway I swear I did this but task manager still had the stupid indexing program running.

So I clicked on start then typed in services.msc , hit enter. Find the Windows Search service, right click hit properties then stop, then disable that pain in the @$$ service. Maybe now I can sleep.

Make your computer faster

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:59:00-0500

One of the most commonly questions I get asked is 'How can I make my computer faster?'. Fortunately it's really pretty easy - just remove un-needed startup programs. This video shows you how to do just that and gets into a few other things. You will be amazed by the amount of junk in your startup folder. Once removed your computer will be much faster.

Hope you enjoy it!

Make your computer faster video!

Free Computer Advice - Forums!

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 00:05:00-0500

Since this site was started I've had the Ask a question section up and running. Where people can ask tech questions and have them answered. I've always enjoyed how simple the process worked. However I also wanted to have something that was a bit more complex. Enter the forums. Message forums are a lot easier to navigate, archive and generally access helpful information. I plan on keeping both sections up and I feel they will work together. Hopefully I'll see everyone in the new Free Computer Advice forums!

Thanks! -Tom

Recently Asked Questions

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 00:56:00-0500

Check out some of the most recently asked questions in our Ask A Question section.

Monitor not working
Here we have a question about someone that cannot get their monitor to work. One day it worked fine, now there no display. They tried another monitor on the same computer and still no luck. The answer? In this case its most likely a fault video card, I recommend replacing the video card.

CRT vs LCD
Here we have someone asking about the quality differences between CRT's and LCD's. The question asker notes that when watching movies on a CRT the display is very hard to see, however on his LCD the definition and display is much better. This is very common. CRT's used to be great, however since LCD's have taken over we now have something much better to compare to. Just like with televisons, out with the old, in with the LCD's!

XPRT6.DLL
Seems like this error will never go away. I've been asked if our XPRT5.DLL fix will fix this issue. I believe it will, so please go and try it. If it doesn't please let me know. Here is our XPRT5.DLL fix.

Unable to connect to wireless network
This person is unable to connect to their wireless network. Often times if you just unplug the power to the router, wait a sec, then plug it in - the connection will work again. You may also have to disconnect from the network on your computer, then reconnect. Also if your network uses WEP encryption you may have to re-enter your WEP key. Bottom line: resetting the settings fixes most of lifes problems.

Google's FriendConnect

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 23:33:00-0500

Today I added the Google FriendConnect application to the site. I think it'll be a fun way for visitors to interact and ask computer questions. I urge you to join and check it out, I'll also be going over how to create applications for Google's FriendConnect in the future.

Mass Geocoding

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:32:00-0500

I just wrote a cool tutorial on how to mass geocode addresses using Google's API and JavaScript. Take a look - it was a lot of work for me.

Mass geocoding

Photoshop Tutorial - Replace a Color on a Car

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:16:00-0500

This tutorial has been moved to our new blog - check it out!