Using Open Office has saved our company thousands in licensing fees. Everyone in our organization uses it and we have yet to run into a compatibility issue when sending files to our clients. Sometimes we’ve found that the spell check doesn’t install properly initially and it is necessary to manually set it up. You’ll need to install the dictionaries and ensure spell check is enabled.

Here’s what we did to get it going. Note: You will need to be connected to the Internet so the dictionaries can download.

1. Go to File -> Wizards -> Select your language -> Click the “Start dicOOo” button.
2. Now follow the prompts until it asks you to restart Open Office
3. Once restarted go to Tools -> Options -> Language Settings
4. Under Writing Aids verify/modify the settings and click OK.
5. Under Languages verify/modify the settings and click ok.

You should be good to go. I had to modify mine in one more spot because my Locale is different (long story).

1. Under Format -> Character -> Font the “Language” setting should match what you set in your Language Settings -> Languages

Now any new document you start will have spell check enabled.

We referenced this forum post, spell checker in openoffice.org, to get us started on the right path.

Download a copy and give it a try! OpenOffice.org

Hope this helps!

We recently ran into this issue at a new customers location. On our initial site discovery we changed the administrator password on the windows server. Standard procedure when changing IT companies. Later that day the client discovered that the scan to network share function was broken on their Konica Minolta Bizhub 350.

Well we assumed that it had to be because we changed the password. No problem right? Right, if your a printer tech for an office equipment firm. Well we went out there and logged into the administrator management to find the account settings and change the password. It wasn’t there so we called the firm that installed the copier and they told us where to find the scanner settings after explaining the problem. No problem, we found the scanner settings and no where is there any user account settings for the scanner. Remember this was a scanner problem.

We then second guessed our original theory and went to the windows server for answers. The first place we looked was the security tab in the event viewer. That is where windows logs successful/unsuccessful connections. No unsuccessful connections logged by the copier. It appeared as if the copier wasn’t even hitting the server. So we started at the physical layer and worked our way up.

The copier was definitely on the network and able to communicate. Users were printing to it as we worked. We could ping the server, the server could ping the copier. By IP and by name. Not a DNS problem either. We could print to the copier from the server. They definitely saw and could communicate with each other so back to the control panel on the copier. Nothing in any settings that could remotely relate to the scanner or network was helpful. All settings verified and checked out. The scan share was accessible by everyone so we made our second phone call to the copier tech.

He had me go under jobs and list them which showed a TX error. ED09C7. He looked up the error code and it was a user authentication error. So our original theory was correct. Changing the admin password broke the scanning. Ok, great now where do you find the user account settings? Why in User Settings of course NOT the administrator management. Ok, makes sense. The full path to find the user name and password is as follows.

User Setting -> FAX -> OneTouch -> -> Destination -> user password.

Well of course! Go to the FAX settings for a SCANNER issue. Wow! I believe I may never have found it without the call to the tech or some googling. FAX…… The copier was set to use SMB to talk to the server so of course a user name and password had to be used to authenticate on the server. The question then arises why was the failed authentication not recorded in event viewer?

We updated the password and bingo it worked. We hope this saves you a little time in fixing this error.

Yesterday we talked about cleaning out your temporary Internet files. Today we’ll look at preventing unnecessary programs from loading at start up. These programs load into memory and can cause your computer to be slow and sluggish.

99% of these programs do NOT need to load on boot. Adobe updater does not need to load. Quicktime does not need to load. All those Dell support programs, yeah, definitely don’t need to load. All these programs that load on boot can be launched by you when you need them. It’s not necessary for the program to be always ready and taking up valuable resources. Disabling these programs from loading at start up will enable your computer to boot faster and run more efficiently.

Using MSCONFIG in Windows XP.

1.Go to Start -> Run
2.Type msconfig and click OK or hit enter. This fires up the Microsoft System Configuration Utility
3.Click on the Startup tab.
4.You now have a list of all the programs loading on startup.
5.Disable all programs you recognize as not needed. They are just wasting memory.

If you are in doubt if a program is necessary then leave it. Only disable those you recognize and don’t need to be loaded and running at all times. Do a Google search for any programs in question. The leaner you get your startup the more resources you’ll free up to use.

Cleaning up your startup will significantly increase the performance of your PC. Throw in another 1GB or2GB of RAM and it’ll feel like a new PC again.

Something else to look at when trying to speed up your computer is defragmenting your hard drive. Over time your hard disk gets fragmented causing it to work harder and inefficiently. Your hard drive has an arm that moves over the disk reading the data. When your hard disk is fragmented that means the files are not in one contiguous are. That one document you saved could have parts in 14 locations on your hard drive. You can see how that could cause performance issues.

We recommend JKDefrag. It’s much more efficient and quicker than the built in Windows defragmenter. It’s also free! Install and run JkDefrag once or twice a month and your hard drive will thank you with a performance boost.

Welcome to the Interlink Advantage technological blog!

Here you will find posts relating to our technological experiences. Whether it’s business or personal we plan to discuss all things technological from the serious “solve your business network problem” to the “Hey! Now this home theatre setup is cool!” technologies.