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The printer ate your TPS reports, but no excuse matters when you’re rushing off to meet clients empty-handed. No wonder everybody loves to hate printers. When you need them most, they’ll display a stupefying error message and create a hot mess of jammed paper and spilled ink.

But before you pick up a baseball bat to express your printer rage, take a deep breath. With some patience and attention, you can probably overcome the printer problem that vexes you–and avoid having the nightmare recur in the future. Here’s how to address five of the most common printer complaints.

1. Paper Jams

Printer jams occur when the paper feeding through the printer goes awry. Sometimes the printer ignores the problem, soldiers onward, and extrudes a crumpled mess into the output tray; on other occasions, the printer stops in midjob, and the crumpled mess–or part of it–remains trapped somewhere inside the machine.

When a paper jam occurs, some printers flash lights at you and scream for help. Others sense where the jam is and provide guidance on clearing the blockage. If your printer offers diagnostic advice, follow it. Also, take time to check the printer’s documentation for help in clearing jams. Here are the basic steps you’ll follow to correct the problem:

Turn off the printer. If you’re going to be working inside the printer, you don’t want any trouble with electricity or moving parts. And if you’re dealing with a laser printer, you also don’t want the fuser to generate additional heat. If the paper is jammed in or near the fuser unit (you’ll feel the heat as you come near it), you’ll have to wait for the fuser to cool off before clearing the jam.

Open all doors leading to the paper path. If you can’t tell which door leads to the paper jam, start by removing or opening the input tray and following the paper path all the way to the output tray, opening every door or panel that you can find along the way.

Carefully pull out paper sheets and scraps. Check for paper sheets that are stuck or askew, as well as for paper scraps. Pull paper out of the path firmly but very carefully and slowly. When possible, pull paper in the direction it is supposed to go in under normal conditions–not backward, which could strain the printer’s mechanics.Take care to remove all of the paper: As any scraps that remain could cause further jamming. If you have the misfortune of breaking a mechanical piece in the printer, stop what you’re doing and call for service.

Close all doors and turn on the printer. Once switched on, the printer should reset itself automatically. If the printer reports that it is still jammed, double-check for stray paper scraps, and then close all the doors again. If the printer continues to complain, try turning it off and then back on. If the complaints continue, you’ll have to call for service–and hope that a deep-seated piece of paper–rather than a broken mechanical part–is the source of the problem.

How do I avoid this next time? As in most relationships, good communication and kind treatment will help your interaction with your printer go smoothly. Use only one kind of paper at a time in your input tray. Whether you have a single input tray in your printer’s driver or many input trays, tell the printer what kind of paper you have in the tray: Most printer controls include a section or drop-down list where you can pick a paper by name, type, thickness, or other quality. If you aren’t sure whether your printer takes a certain kind of paper, check its documentation. When you reload your input tray, pay attention to the tray’s needs, such as how the paper should be loaded and whether the length or width guides need adjusting.

In Video: How to Choose the Right Printer

2. Stuck in the Print Queue

Regardless of how sophisticated it is, a printer can print only one job at a time. Sometimes a job will get held up for some reason and block every job behind it. If you’ve confirmed that the printer hasn’t stalled for a mechanical reason, such as a jam or a lack of paper, toner, or ink, check the print queue to see whether a specific job in front of yours might be the culprit.

If your printer is not networked: If your computer has a dedicated printer associated with it, you can get to the print queue directly. On Windows, access is through the Control Panel’s Printers program item; on a Mac, it’s through the Utilities’ Print Fax program item. Any stuck jobs will be listed there, and you can easily cancel them.

If your printer is on a network: On a networked queue, you have control only over the jobs that you send from your own PC. If another person’s job is the problem, you must either contact them for help or ask your IS department to intervene.

How do I avoid this next time? If the print queue clogs up regularly, your IT staff needs to figure out why it’s happening and then address the root cause. Common problems include trying to print a job whose file size is so large that it chokes the network or your printer’s memory; trying to print to a special kind of paper–such as letterhead–without loading the paper or specifying the tray in which it’s loaded; and requesting a print job that requires you (or some other user) to feed the paper manually, but failing to perform this step.

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Jsf1973 asked the Laptops forum why his computer was making a very annoying whirring noise.

This is almost certainly a fan–either one that’s come loose, or one that’s having to work harder than it should to keep your PC cool.

But you shouldn’t completely discount the possibility of something far more serious: a hard drive problem. A dying hard drive is more likely to make a clicking noise than a whirring one, but it’s best to play safe. Make an extra image backup of your hard drive, just in case. See More on Image Backups if you need details.

Once your hard drive is protected, start looking for a culprit amongst the fans. You need to figure out which fan is causing the problem, see if it, or anything near it, is loose, and clean out any dirt that may cause overheating. How you do this depends on whether you have a laptop (as does Jsf1973) or a desktop.

Desktop
Shut down, unplug, then open your PC. Then plug it back in, turn it back on, and see if you can find the ultra-noisy fan. If you’re not sure, try the Cardboard Tube Test: Get the cardboard tube from an empty paper towel roll. Hold one end to your ear, and point the other to various moving devices in your PC. (If you don’t have a paper towel tube handy, improvise. A rolled-up magazine should do.)

Once you find the noisy fan, shut down your PC, unplug it, and examine the fan, what it’s attached to, the mounting that attaches it, and anything around it. See if you can find anything that needs to be screwed down. Or if there’s something caught inside the fan. In other words, see what you can do to fix the problem.

If you can’t find anything, heat may be forcing the fan to work harder than it should, and excess dust could be causing the heat. Heat is also a likely culprit if you don’t hear the noise when the case is open. Use a can of compressed air (you can buy them at any computer store) to blow away the dust. Read the safety directions on the can carefully.

Laptop

The same job is much trickier with a laptop, which unlike a desktop, isn’t designed for user repairs. With the PC running, pick up the laptop and hold it close to your ear. Try to determine where the sound is coming from. You might also use the Cardboard Tube Test described in the Desktop section above.

With the PC off, spray compressed air into the vents to remove dust. Use only a moisture-free compressed air canister. I should mention that not everyone thinks this technique is a good idea, since it blows dust back into the laptop. But it disperses the dust and can help.

Don’t open a laptop to fix a fan or to clean the insides unless you’re very confident about such things. If you decide to give it a try, search the web for instructions (or a video) specific to your particular model. If you can’t find such help, or if you’re not that confident, take it to a professional.

My thanks to Car54 and mjd420nova for their contributions to the original forum discussion.

Add your comments to this article below. If you have other tech questions, email them to me at answer@pcworld.com, or post them to a community of helpful folks on the PCW Answer Line forum.

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Hassle-Free PC

Want to keep your system running smoothly? The more fragmented your hard drive becomes, the harder–and slower–it works. And over time, a hard drive can be mighty fragmented indeed.

Piriform’s Defraggler 2.0 offers a number of advantages over the defragmentation tool that’s built into Windows. For starters, you can choose what you want to “defrag”: selected files, selected folders, or your entire hard drive.

It also has a “quick defrag” option that can give your drive a tune-up in a matter of minutes. Like Windows’ Disk Defragmenter, Defraggler 2.0 can be set to run at designated times. Unlike DD, it provides a lovely visual drive map that shows just how fragmented your drive is.

Version 2.0 adds various interface improvements, better Windows 7 compatibility, and the option to run “offline” when your PC boots.

If your system seems slow, I recommend giving Disk Defraggler a try. It’s free, easy to use, and definitely better than what’s built into Windows.

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By now, you’ve either gotten your first snowfall of the season, or local shops have at least sprayed some fake snow in their windows to simulate the effect. Either way, there’s no doubt that the holiday season is here, and you should be readying your camera for action. If it’s chilly where you live, be sure to read about how to winterize your camera–and read on for five tips on how to get the best holiday photos this year.

1. Take Control of Tricky Lighting With White Balance

Photo courtesy Flickr user Julie.As you’re taking pictures of guests dressed in their festive Christmas sweaters, don’t forget about the lighting, which might be tricky–especially if you’re shooting a late-afternoon dinner with sunlight streaming through the window, various room lights, and perhaps even some candles all competing for your camera sensor’s attention.

Trust the camera, and your photos might have an ugly color cast. Your best bet is to set the white balance manually by taking a reading off a white sheet of paper before you start shooting. Check your camera’s user guide for details on how to do this. And remember to reset the white balance back to automatic when you’re done.

2. Combine the Best Parts of a Group Portrait With Photo Fuse

Anyone who has ever tried taking a group photo at the dinner table, around the Christmas tree, or at the Festivus pole knows that you have to take a half dozen photos to get one that’s barely acceptable. This year, you have a new tool: Windows Live Photo Gallery’s Photo Fuse feature, which is part of Windows Live Essentials. (Read “Windows Live Photo Gallery Wave 4: Five Reasons to Try” for more about the Windows Live update.)

Photo Fuse lets you swap elements among several similar photos. Now, even if there’s something wrong in each shot–people blinking, sneezing, whatever–you can create a composite photo that shows everyone at their best. Load the photos into Windows Live Photo Gallery, then select them and choose Photo Fuse from the Create tab. You can then click around the composite photo to choose among the photos and put together a new version.

3. Shoot Some Candles and Decorations Up Close

Photo courtesy Flickr user Robin Tell.I love the holidays because it gives me a chance to shoot lights, decorations, and candles up close. Be sure to steady your camera on a tripod, since this is the kind of photo you’ll want to take at night. I like to look for subtle details to capture up close, like ornaments, candle flames, and presents.

As with any kind of night photography, there’s no right or wrong exposure. Set your camera to manual mode, pick a midrange aperture (like f/5.6), and then try a several-second-long shutter speed. Check your results. If you want brighter, more dramatic lights, open the aperture a little. If you want the overall scene to be brighter, lengthen the exposure time. You can bracket the exposure for a variety of effects and pick the one you like best afterward.

4. Take Portraits With Holiday Lights in the Background

Photo courtesy Flickr user Luz A. Villa.Want to cruise your neighborhood and shoot holiday lighting at night? Armed with a tripod, it’s easy to do–be sure to read “Photograph Spectacular Christmas Lights.”

While you’re at it, you might want to put some people in those scenes and shoot some portraits. Remember that you need to combine a slow shutter speed–which exposes the lights and decorations in the background–with a flash to illuminate your human subjects. And don’t wait too long to go out: The best time to get these photos is around dusk, when there’s still a little light in the sky.

5. Include Your Pets

Don’t forget to include your four-legged family members in your holiday pictures. Be sure to consider these “Five Tips for Taking Photos of Animals,” and introduce them into scenes you want to shoot.

Also, take a tip from the making of OK Go’s dog-infested video White Knuckles. If you want your pet to look somewhere in particular, dangle food. You can have a helper hold a treat or piece of cheese near the camera to get your dog’s undivided attention.

Hot Pic of the Week

Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique.

Here’s how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don’t forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.

This week’s Hot Pic: “Common Puffin” by Emily Mabee, Lewiston, Maine

Emily says: “I took this photo on Machias Seal Island, which is off the coast of Cutler, Maine, with a Canon 50D.”

This week’s runner-up: “Flowers and Bees” by Jill Ooms, Sidney, British Columbia

Jill captured this photo in her front yard using a Nikon D60.

To see all of last month’s winners, visit the October Hot Pics slide show. Visit the Hot Pics Flickr gallery to browse past winners.

Have a digital photo question? E-mail me your comments, questions, and suggestions about the newsletter itself. And be sure to sign up to have Digital Focus e-mailed to you each week.

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Travel used to be about getting away from it all, but these days even leisure travelers don’t want to leave the Web and their smartphones, tablets, or laptops behind. And staying powered up and connected on business trips is too important to leave to chance.

A little bit of advance planning and research can help you stay up and running no matter where you go. Here are our tips for minimizing tech hassles when you’re on the road.

Find the Best of Everything

There’s a reason seasoned travelers want to stay connected, and it isn’t just to manage e-mail. The Web is an incredible resource for researching hotels, restaurants, shopping, and anything else you need to know when visiting a place you’ve never been to before.

Try checking the regional boards on Chow.com or Yelp.com to find a good restaurant, for example. Once you’ve chosen a place, use a mapping app to help you get there. Buy tickets online for trains, theatrical productions, or popular museum exhibitions. Location-based apps like Foursquare can even send a timely coupon your way. Staying connected can really help you get away from it all in style.

Fly the Tech-Friendly Skies

Airlines in recent years have taken to technology to help cut costs and long lines. Most will let you check in online up to 24 hours before departure and print your own boarding passes. This gives you the opportunity to select seats and, in some cases, get upgrades at a cut rate: Virgin America, for example, offers any unsold business class seats for drastically reduced rates within a day of departure.

With some airlines and on some flights, you can even skip the printing part by using a smartphone to access the bar code that is scanned in at the departure gate. If this option is available, the airline will typically let you opt to have the boarding pass sent to your smartphone when you check in online (instead of printing it out). What you’ll get on the phone is a link to a Web page with your unique bar code.

This eliminates the risk of losing a printed pass, but be careful: You might run into other problems. What if poor connectivity at the airport prevents you from accessing the page? You could opt to save an image of the page as a screen shot, but now you still have to worry about keeping the phone charged. And we’ve also seen reports of problems trying to scan in an image on a cell phone screen. Still, the technology is coming into wider use and will doubtless improve over time.

Airborne Internet

Seat Guru can map amenities on your flight. Several airlines now offer Aircell’s GoGo Wi-Fi-based inflight Internet service (you can find a list of participating airlines on Gogo’s Web site). And there’s good news for holiday travelers this year: Thanks to a promotion with Google Chrome, GoGo service on the three airlines that have it on all their flights–AirTran, Delta, and Virgin America–will be free between November 20 and January 2.

However, no Internet service is available on flights across the Atlantic or Pacific oceans–at least not yet. GoGo connects through Aircell’s network of cell towers on terra firma. A company called Row 44 has launched a satellite-based service–Southwest offers it on a handful of flights–but the verdict is out on how well it works. With a satellite-based service, it wouldn’t matter if the plane were over land or sea (the late lamented Connexion by Boeing was satellite-based).

Whether or not you can get online, it’s nice to have electrical power for your notebook or portable DVD player, especially on long-haul flights where work or gaming can really make the time speed by. Sadly, power outlets aren’t very common outside of business class, and on some airlines you need special adapters to plug in.

But you can investigate the options in detail on Seat Guru, a great resource for all sorts of information about the amenities on different airlines and airplanes. Start by reading Seat Guru’s guide to in-seat laptop power, which has links to comparison charts showing which airlines and planes have outlets. In many cases some, but not all, seats have easy access to power outlets. So it pays to click through to the seating charts for the airlines and planes you’re considering: Seat Guru shows exactly which seats have outlets and which don’t.

Stay Charged

Finding a power outlet at an airport can be a challenge. Fortunately, more are adding charging stations in waiting areas. But what if you find one and it’s already fully occupied? If you carry a multioutlet travel power strip and surge protector with you (for example, the Targus Travel 4-Outlets Surge Suppressor), you can usually talk someone who is connected into letting you hook up the travel strip so that you, that person, and maybe a couple of others can all charge from the single outlet.

Because more and more devices come with built-in transformers, you shouldn’t have to worry about whether you’re in a country with AC or DC. But outlets still do vary from country to country, so make sure you have appropriate plug adapters. This is especially tricky if your device uses a three-prong plug, since some adapters accommodate only two prongs and not the third, ground prong. This is something you should check for before you buy plug adapters.

A couple of vendors offer configurable plug adapters that you can use in several countries. While they’re rather bulky, buying one can be preferable to having to load up several different adapters if you’re going to be visiting countries that use different types of plugs.

That travel power strip mentioned earlier can also save you from having to buy lots of plug adapters: Use one to plug the strip into the wall, and then you can plug in four of your devices without other special gear. The strips can also come in handy in hotel rooms that have skimped on free outlets.

Next page: Get online anywhere, and get to know hotel business centers

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