Printing and Spell check.

Question submitted by Donald on Tuesday, September 16, 2020 at 00:41:09 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Question: I have 3 years support on my purchase contract of28 Mat 2011. Personal desktop R210501N with Windows Home Edition. The spell program checks almost every word and always advises word unkown???:. The printer command now seldom activates the printer. Printer connestions good. ???

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Answer: Have you checked for spyware? I recommend a program called Spybot - Search and Destroy. It's a free download at download.com and it helps clean up many spyware and virus issues. Spyware and viruses are the number one cause of strange computer behavior. Printer issues can be caused by all sorts of things. Things I commonly check...

Are there old print jobs in the printer queue? Is the cable between the printer and the cpu a good cable? Does it print at all and under what circumstances? Is your hard drive almost full? Do you have the latest print driver updates from the manufacturer?

I had a printer last month that would only print once in a while and it turned out it was a defect in the XP printer driver. I downloaded a new driver and it started working right away.

Does the printer make any strange new noises?

The spellcheck problem could be caused by a corrupt file in your word processing software. I would try running a repair of the software. You will need to insert the original CD and run the repair option when it comes up. Otherwise you could download OpenOffice.org and have a working spellchecker right away.

Good Luck

Ed Smit Questions@JustAskEd.net For more answers to your computer questions visit justAskEd.blogspot.com

Adobe Reader

Question submitted by robyn on Saturday, October 4, 2020 at 00:21:44 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Question: I was given an option to upgrade to the latest version, so i did. I deleted by mistake my original adobe reader and now I find out I have to pay for the latest version which I don't want, so how do I get my original adobe reader back and delete the new one. Any help will be welcome. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi Robyn,

Did you have the full Adobe Acrobat program which allows you to create and edit PDF files? If so, you want to uninstall the new version and load your original version again from the original source. If you only use the reader program (it allows you to read Acrobat files) it is still free for all versions (the latest version included). You probably accidentally downloaded the full featured Adobe Acrobat version which does cost. To download the free reader click here. To download an older version of Reader click here. Personally, I don't download every update of software unless there is a compelling reason for updating (a feature that I just must have). All software companies want you to download their latest and greatest version but in most cases they just slow down your system. Most "improvements" in software are so incremental that you won't see a real improvement for 3 to 4 version numbers (and that usually doesn't happen before you buy a new computer because it's now too slow). This is how the computer industry makes its money. The hardware companies make a newer faster computer with more storage. The software companies make software that uses more resources then your current computer has available. You then need a newer faster computer to run your new software which is supposed to save you time and energy but ends up costing time and money to get a new computer, and so the vicious cycle continues on until you stop upgrading just because you receive a pop-up that says you should. I don't download all the updates for software. I usually turn off the automatic checking for updates garbage that pops up constantly on my screen because it usually just slows down my computer and doesn't improve my quality of life. When there is a security problem with a software I will sometimes download those updates but I rely on my security software to notify me of true vulnerabilities. Memory resident software that goes to a site and checks for updates automatically slows down your computer. If you let every software check for updates you're using all sorts of bandwidth without getting anything done for yourself. A typical user has an operating system, an office suite, acrobat reader, java, an MP3 player program, and virus protection. If all of those programs check for updates when you first start up you get a bottleneck that causes your system to appear slower and slower. I just disable all automatic checking (except for my virus scan software) and check them maybe once a month. This makes my system work faster and also stops annoyance pop ups about software updates that don't help me get my work done. We live in an age of distraction. We are bombarded by constant information. At least we have the power to take back our time on the computer from the ad world on this front. This was probably waaaaayyyyy more than you were bargaining for but sometimes I can't help myself. ;o Good luck, Ed Smit Questions@JustAskEd.net For more answers to your computer questions check JustAskEd.Blogspot.com