Where's the "Any" key? New Tech Support Thread

[donblood]

It means she's gotta delete some of her emails.  When your mailbox reaches a certain size, the mail system warns you that you're getting close to your limit.  It reaches another threshold and you're prohibited from sending messages until you delete or archive some of your shit.  It reaches yet another threshold and you can't receive mail; senders get the message you got.

The particulars vary by mail system and the administrator's policies, but that's the gist.

[Ignatius]

you might wanna edit that email address to save her from the more unscrupulous elements of lptj.

[FreddyKnuckles]

thanks, it was in there twice and I deleted the first one and didn't see the second.

You can't email her anyway, it doesn't work.

She deleted her inbox, sent, outbox, and deleted folder.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Means her mailbox is full.

[FreddyKnuckles]

yeah after we let it sit a while it started working again.

[girl]

Mom's computer won't recognize her printer. (It used to work fine.) I tried updating the driver, but when I try to install the new driver windows told me that it doesn't need it. Today she plugged in her iPod, and it doesn't recognize that, either--unknown device in USB port or something. (Also used to work.) I don't know what's wrong. She's ready to buy a new computer to fix the problem, but I'm guessing it's probably something really simple that LPtJ would know about, right?

If it's not something simple, help me help her choose a new computer.

[diesel_powered]

Get a mac.

[girl]

That was my first choice, too. She likes her monitor, too, so the Mac Mini would be just right. There's a new Asus eee desktop that would also be great for her. Look how cute:


The thing is, she gets pretty confused by technology. Like, she called at 11:30 a couple of nights ago because something popped up telling her it found spyware. I had to explain that it was an ad trying to sell her something. Her iPod also confuses her a little. For this reason, I think she'd get along better with the simplicity of the mac.

See where I get the shopping urge gene from? First, is there a simple fix for her pc?*

*edit (the practical side comes from my dad.)

[Nick Ink]

Whenever I type a message on the board and get a few lines down, the screen flicks back up to the top every time I try to type, making it impossible to, for example, edit that long post I just made in the Earbuds / 2008-09 Midterm thread (I had to type the whole thing in word and then c'n'p it onto LPTJ in the first place).

This started yesterday and the only other thing I did yesterday was accept an update of IE (to 8, I think)

Any ideas? I'm slightly Ralph Wiggumish in my tech skills, so talk slowly please.

[alex]

I'll get the obvious question out of the way first: Is there an obligatory reason to be using IE? If not, since this sounds very much like a browser (update) related issue, maybe you just want to switch to something else (by which I basically mean Firefox)?

No idea how to fix this within IE, though, sorry.

[Nick Ink]

Thanks. I know everyone despises IE, but I'm a creature of habit and (until now) it's done everything I've wanted it to. But perhaps that's what I'll do then.  

[alex]

Hmm, just googled around a bit and some people seem to think that you could maybe solve the issue by using the Compability View, which seems to basically allow you to display certain websites in the same way the appeared in IE 7.0, which might just solve your problem considering it emerged when you updated to the newer version - see here for instructions: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/features/easier.aspx

[Nick Ink]

Hmm, just googled around a bit and some people seem to think that you could maybe solve the issue by using the Compability View, which seems to basically allow you to display certain websites in the same way the appeared in IE 7.0, which might just solve your problem considering it emerged when you updated to the newer version - see here for instructions: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/features/easier.aspx

Wow, that was easy!!

LPTJ, and you, alex, in particular, are fantastic!!   

[elpollodiablo]

The new version of Firefox for Mac is awesome. Snappy as hell.

[donblood]

Yeah, 3.5 is the shit, and not just on Macs - slightly underpowered PCs see a major speed boost.

[elpollodiablo]

It's such a huge improvement over 3, it's kind of amazing. Like I was very happily using FF on my Mac prior to v.3.0 and then after a few frustrated weeks switched to Safari, which gave me back my snappiness. Now Safari 4 seems sluggish, bloated, and prone to crashing, while launch time for FF3.5 is almost instantaneous.

[donblood]

Yeah, the FF dev team was feeling a ton of pressure from Safari, Chrome and even IE8.  They looked around and realized they weren't the fastest game in town anymore by a wide margin.

[diesel_powered]

Hmm... this is good to hear as FF has randomly become super sluggish and crashy all of a sudden.

[diesel_powered]

Oooooh... this is better. I don't know what they broke in the last update, but it's fixed now.

[girl]

I'm just asking this again, in case someone who knows about USB ports missed it the first time.

Mom's computer won't recognize her printer. (It used to work fine.) I tried updating the driver, but when I try to install the new driver windows told me that it doesn't need it. Today she plugged in her iPod, and it doesn't recognize that, either--unknown device in USB port or something. (Also used to work.) I don't know what's wrong. She's ready to buy a new computer to fix the problem, but I'm guessing it's probably something really simple that LPtJ would know about, right?

[diesel_powered]

I'm really rusty on Windows, but I'm pretty sure the problem is conflicting drivers. Get into the device manager, pull up the offending hardware, and uninstall the MS drivers. Then install the newest drivers from the equipment vendors and reboot.

Microsoft drivers are notoriously bullshit and install automatically when you plug things in, so it's always a good idea to install drivers before plugging anything in.

[girl]

Yeah, but these are both things that just randomly stopped working, and I did try to install a new printer driver. Windows said, "no thanks".

. . . I'll try again. Uninstall and reinstall.

(Then we're buying her a new computer.)

[diesel_powered]

Make sure the offending peripherals are unplugged during the whole process, otherwise Windows will do that whole "OH! IT LOOKS LIKE YOU PLUGGED IN NEW HARDWARE! LET ME FUCK IT UP FOR YOU!!" thing.

[diesel_powered]

So here's a question: Does anyone know what might cause a sudden drop in performance on a Mac? Or does anyone have any suggestions on ways to diagnose this problem? A couple weeks ago, everything was fantastic. Now, seemingly at random, I get periodic slowdowns where things freeze, I have a hard time switching between windows, and things beachball for an annoyingly long period of time. I've run Onyx, but that really didn't help much. If it were a Windows system, I'd say it could be a virus, but I'm pretty sure I'm okay on that front.

[elpollodiablo]

Yeah I wish I knew the answer to that. I do system maintenance really religiously, try to keep my file systems tidy, etc, etc, but the only surefire method for a real speed boost I've found has been a clean install of OS X.