I bought a printer about four months ago from a printer manufacturer located here in the United States.  They are a big name in printers; and have many lawyers, which I don’t, so I won’t mention their name here.

Well, the printer stopped working one day when I was printing something vitally important.  I performed all of your basic troubleshooting to diagnose the problem.  After finishing it didn’t appear to be anything on my end.  I figured that the printer was broken and I would have to contact the manufacturer’s toll free number for help.

I got someone with an extremely heavy Indian accent (not the Native American type).  To make matters worse, he couldn’t understand me either – get the picture?

By the way…I have a couple of good friends that I work with named Babu and Kamlesh, who just happen to be from India.  We get along very well and I don’t believe we have ever had a problem understanding each other or communicating. 

But, back to the story. 

First the tech rep needed my email address.  “OK, it is ron@doubleclicks.info, now let me spell that for you.”  I continued, “That is r-o-n at…”  He then requested that I spell it for him.  So I spelled it all again very, very slowly.  He then repeated it back to me using the phonetic alphabet, “R, as in Romeo then A as in Alpha…”  I had to interrupt and say, “No, that is O as in Oscar”.  He understood and continued repeating from the beginning with the R & O then he said, “M as in Mike.” I had to stop again and you know what happened next.  This continued to about the “c” in my email address.  I finally decided I didn’t have 3 hours to waste on my email and home address so I asked him to just look up my warranty information via my phone number…he found it all.

After a little over two hours he finally determined that it was a broken printer and connected me to the replacement center.  This person also spoke (to me) a foreign language and I had an even worse time understanding him.  Then this person repeated the same tests I had done with the other man for the past two hours.  I asked if he would escalate my call to a supervisor.  I was told all of the supervisors were out until the next Tuesday when they would be happy to return my call.

Well five days after that Tuesday I got back online and this time in the manufacturer’s “Online Help Center”.  This was a God-send to me.  I don’t know what language they spoke, where they lived or even if this tech was male of female; and I really didn’t care.  But they got it resolved and a new printer on the way to my home in about 35-40 minutes.  So my advice to you is always use online tech support as it will save you a lot of time, aggravation and a possible stroke.

Also, back to one of my buddies, Babu, I told him about the situation and asked if he would come to my house and translate for me if it happened again.  He laughed and said that one time he called a company for tech support thinking that he would speak to a fellow countryman without any hassles.  He got Chiongbian who was from the Philippines and Babu couldn’t understand a word he said.  I guess what goes around comes around.

I wanted to talk about a great internet program this week called “Jott” (jott.com).  It does pretty much what its name infers with a twist or two along the way.

Jott is a Web 2.0 application.  A Web 2.0 app is a newer type internet program that is usually very interactive and allows you to do many new interesting things.

When using Jott, you have to have a cell phone and email.  (Anytime I mention cell phones I also have to mention that I work for NTELOS, ntelos.com which is a communications provider.) 

Now picture this.  As a busy techie person in today’s society you think of something you have to email someone about.  It doesn’t matter if it is a business message, a note to your significant other about picking up dog food or a reminder to yourself about a dentist appointment next Thursday.  It can be any type of emailing that you can imagine.

If you have an email enabled phone you could type the message in there and send it; however, it has been my experience that this is not a great choice.  Especially when going down I-81 surrounded by 18-wheelers traveling at death defying speeds.  This is the situation where I strongly suggest Jott!

I have the toll free number for Jott (877-568-8486) on a quick-dial key for my phone.  I press that key, Jott answers, I tell it who I want to send an email to and I proceed to dictate the email.  It sends the recipient the email IN TEXT (yes, it converts a voice message to email) with an attached sound file of me saying the message.  Is that slick or what?!

It even allows you to import most address books so I put my entire 300+ email addresses into my Jott contacts list.  I can say, “Robin”, to send my wife an email.  There are also three other Robins in my contacts along with two Roberts and one Rob.  Jott hears that they are all similar and lists them all - asking me to choose the correct one.

It sometimes has a little bit of a problem when you don’t articulate well as you dictate your message.  For instance, I sent a message and said, “Hello”.  When the message arrived the email used the word, “Hallow”.  The voice message was attached so it can be played back on your computer later.  Then you can listen for any inconsistencies.  It isn’t perfect but right now it is free and extremely useful. 

I spoke with Jott’s Founder and CEO, John Pollard, and he said that one day it is possible for some features to have a cost; however, the basics should always be free.

Use this program and pass along the site to all of your friends.

We like to go to Florida and yes, we always go in the summer.  We love it really, really uncomfortably hot (actually not, but it is one of the benefits of being married to a dedicated teacher - summer only vacations).  I found a reasonably priced hotel at guestprivileges.com.  This is a site for Choice Hotels along with all of their related chains.  You can find others, but this is the one that I have used for several years.  The hotel is right on the beach where we intend to spend a week in St. Augustine.

As you know, I’m a geek so this is how I planned the summer vacation.

The first things we wanted to check on were some of the local sites and attractions.  I went to Google.com and typed, “Things to do in St. Augustine FL” and found the city’s website, oldtown.com.  The site was full of information…yes along with advertisements for hotels, sight seeing tours, airplane tours and even a special weight loss link.  But you know what, for free information I am happy to deal with some ads. 

I found out also that St. Augustine is the nation’s oldest city.  Since I am a native Virginian I bristled at that as I know Jamestown has that title.  Oops, when checking with my wife…remember the teacher mentioned before, I found that Jamestown is the oldest English settlement and St. Augustine is the oldest Spanish settlement.  OK that’s settled.

I found out that we would be going to see the Castillo de San Marcos.  Interesting in that it is over 300 years old and is built of coquina, a nearly indestructible limestone consisting of broken sea shells and coral.  That sounds neat to me!

Flagler College which has an interesting history is also there.  There is an alligator farm, museums, the actual old town which has been turned into a “mall” type of shopping area, golf courses and ghost town tours…oh scary. 

Of course there are also a ton of restaurants for all different tastes which I really look forward to.  And there are even more places to shop which the school teacher really looks forward to.

I almost forgot…there is also one of the largest Ripley’s Believe it or not “museums” there which neither of us looks forward to.

Before you plan your vacation, see how much information you can find online first.  The internet could make trip planning even easier.

Rita wrote me recently with an interesting question.  She had a couple of good questions and today we are going to look at one.  She got a warning that said, “Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt. \ system32\ntoskrnl.exe. Please re-install a copy of the above file.” which requires a Windows disk.

That stinking ntoskml.exe error is a pain and it has many causes and possible solutions.  Rita and others who have had it need to go to ‘computerhope.com/issues/ch000646.htm‘ for assistance.  You may find relief there.

She asked about using her restore disks which came with her system and wondered if they would wipe out all of her other programs and data files.  Also she, like most people, doesn’t have a Windows disk to reinstall the file. Computer manufacturers now give you these restore disks instead of just a Windows CD.  This is a good thing because if you just install windows on the system you will not get all of the drivers for the particular hardware that is on your computer.  If you only installed windows on a computer your monitor may not work properly, your modem may fail, and the keyboard and mouse could have issues along with a multitude of other problems.  It is just easier for you to use the restore disks provided.

The restore disks that come with most all new computers do just what they say.  They restore your computer system to the exact same condition it was in, as far as software, the day you purchased it and took it out of the box. 

So yes, all of your additional programs that you have installed over the past couple of years, all of the letters you wrote to your elected officials and your business spreadsheets will be destroyed.  So make sure that you backup all of your important files — BEFORE you perform anything with your restore disks.

Now if Rita could use another computer and find the ntoskrnl.exe file on one of her restore disks she may be able to fix it.  But I doubt it. 

I suggest that in this case a person should take their computer to someone who can remove the data files and store them safely on a CD, DVD or flash drive.  At a later date those files can be copied to the restored system.  After backup of those files I would run restore and hope that all is well. 

I say, “…hope…” because one of the outcomes which that error sometimes indicates is an approaching hard drive failure - yuck!

Pop ups are the scourge of the internet (in my opinion).  To see one you may go to many different sites.  I usually see one when I visit CNN.COM.  Yes, I just tried it and got a pop up window advertising Orbitz.com, the travel company.  It is the window that “pops up”, hence the name, when you visit another site on the internet.

Now you know what they are.  When you go to many sites (it now feels like all of them) you get an advertisement that pops-up when you get to the page you wanted.  It covers up part, if not all, of the page you were interested in and requires you to stop and close it in order to remove the ad (the advertiser hopes you read it first and then click on the ad).  Apparently enough people actually do read/click on the pop-ups to check the items advertised, since they are popular and seem to be getting more so each day.

Some sites will have a pop-up when you enter their site and another when you leave to go to another location on the Internet.  Some of them have multiple pop-ups that just won’t leave you alone.  Web page developers have another item in their advertising arsenal called a “pop-under” window.  These ads are hidden under the main page you were looking at and you don’t see it until you close the top page.  I am not a fan of them and I will venture a guess that you aren’t either.

I have a couple of ways to temporarily deal with them.  When they appear use your mouse to click the close button in the upper right hand corner of the pop-up.  If there is no close button (aren’t they smart?) then use the “ALT+F4″ keystroke to shutdown any active window.  Active means that it is the top window you are viewing and the “Title Bar” is dark in color.

I personally don’t stop pop ups as some of them are needed to get to the proper place you are looking for.  For instance, some online banks have them for you to log into your account with.  If you stop the pop ups it will be much harder for you to gain access to your online accounts.

Most modern day web browsers have ways to stop pop ups if you wish.  In Microsoft Internet Explorer go to, Tools | Internet Options then click the Privacy tab.  From there you can figure it out.  In Firefox, it is Tools | Options and next the Content tab.

Don’t be too upset by pop ups.  They keep portions of the internet free for you to use.  The main site makes a small amount of when you click the ad, you don’t even have to buy anything.  So click every now and then just to keep things going.