Easy Test for Conficker Work Infection

A group of computer security experts has formed the Conficker Working Group to combat the Conficker worm which is believed to infect millions of computers world wide.  They have published a page on their website that makes it easy to check if your computer is infected by simply viewing a chart that accesses different security sites to which the worm blocks access.  Here is the link to the Conficker Eye Chart test.

Print Error 306 when Printing from Macbook to Canon MP620

When we purchased our MacBook earlier this year the sales person at the Apple Store talked us into also purchasing a Canon MP620 all-in-one printer for an additional $50. The MP620 is a wireless network printer, which means 1) there is only one cord to the printer (the power cord) and 2) the printer can easily be shared by different computers on your network. The install for our PC went smoothly and we have been able to print and scan without any issues on the PC.

On the MacBook, the install (while a bit more complicated than installing a printer should be) went fine and we were able to do some printing. However, we have been getting intermittent errors when printing. The problem seemed to occur most often when printing photos from iPhoto. Part of a page would print, then printing would abruptly stop part way through and spit out the half-printed sheet. On the MacBook, you would then get a "Print Error 306" message. I thought the problem might be due to a bad connection over the wireless network, so I tried taking the MacBook right next to the router where the signal was as strong as possible. Still the same error occurred.

I then tried re-installing the printer drivers from the CDs that came with the printer. No luck.

I then went to the Canon website and downloaded the latest printer drivers. Specifically, I downloaded and installed the MP620 series CUPS printer driver. Unfortunately, that also has not solved the problem, but the errors seem to be less frequent.

I finally gave up on the wireless connection and just plugged it into the network using and Ethernet cable. The wired connection is working better.

Make Gmail Send Mail Without "on behalf of"

<p>Google has posted a very useful tip on their blog that explains how to configure Gmail to send mail through non-Google SMTP servers.  This comes in handy if you use Gmail to consolidate several email accounts.  You have always been able to configure Gmail use a different account as the from field of the email you send.  However, when it did that the mail headers would use the Gmail address as the sender field.  Some clients would then show the sender field or say something like "sent on behalf of".  With the new option you can configure Gmail to actually send the mail through the servers of the account from which you want your mail to appear to come.  This makes both the sender and from fields be the non-Gmail account.  

Don't Overlook iPhone Earbud Button

One of the driving factors of the iPhone's success is its ease-of-use. To be honest, I don't recall if it even came with a manual.  Probably not. Like most people, I just took it out of the box and started using it.  

In doing so, however, I have overlooked a very useful feature for a number of months.   I did not realize that the microphone on the earbuds is also a button that starts and stops the song or audiobook queued up on the iPod.  My favorite use of the feature is to just take out the earbuds and plug them in, and restart my audiobook without even taking the the phone out of the case.  You can also answer calls by pressing the button.

Fixing a Broken Microsoft Word 2007

I had a nasty problem with Microsoft Word today. It abruptly stopped working. This occurred on a new machine running Vista Home Premium and MS Office 2007 Professional.

The symptoms were the following. When I double-clicked on any Word document in Window Explorer, the Word window came up but would not display the contents of the file. I tried launching Word and then trying to select "File -> Open...", but that hung before the file selection dialog even came up. I then restarted Word and tried "File -> Word Options...". This opened the dialog but only the first tab could be viewed. At this point, I tried rebooting but that did not help.

I then proceeded with a web search for a solution.  There were many similar and very disturbing stories.  A number of people completely uninstalled Office and reinstalled, but the problem persisted.  Luckily I found a page by Tim Anderson that offered a simple solution that worked.  I did the following:

1. Close Word
2. Select "Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt" to open a DOS window
3. Type "regedit" to start the registry editor
4. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Data
5. Rename this key to DataOld
6. Restart Word

Update October 31, 2008.   I arrived this Halloween morning to a replay of this scary situation. Again MICROSOFT WORD STOPPED WORKING!!!!  During the night Vista applied patches and rebooted the machine.  This may be what causes the problem, although I must admit that I cannot understand how such a serious issue exists.  Luckily the same fix solved the problem.

Update December 15, 2008.  The problem recurred, again after Vista applied patches.

Update February 16, 2009.  The problem recurred.

Update March 16, 2009.  The problem recurred, again after Vista applied patches.

Update April 27, 2009.  The problem recurred.

Update June 16, 2009.  The problem recurred.

Update July 16, 2009.  The problem recurred, again after Vista applied patches.