My HR Department have one desktop PC, one MacBook and iMac connected on HR network. There is a printer connected via USB to the iMac machine. They want me to help them setting it up to be shared with Mac machines and Windows Machine. So i have to figure out how to do the printer sharing. But sharing the printer from the iMac to Windows machines was significantly more difficult.
To make your Windows Machine communicate with your Apple Machines, you need to have Bonjour protocol. You have to install Bonjour for Windows to you Windows Machines , you can share your printer with them in the same way you’d share it with Mac OS X users.

Below are some simple steps to share printer with Windows users:-

On the Mac (the one that the USB printer that you want to share is connected to):

1. Go to System Preferences and open Print & Fax.
2. Check to see if your printer is installed (ie.HP1020).
3. Go to the Sharing preferences panel to ensure Printer Sharing and Windows Sharing are both turned on.

On the Windows PC:

1. Click HERE to download Bonjour for Windows.
2. Install Bonjour.
3. Follow the steps for setting up Bonjour.

Once you have found your shared printer on the network and it asks you to specify the driver, go with the Generic Postscript.

Click on Finish to add the printer.

I tried to print from my Windows machine, it work for me. Hope this post will help you

Hardware manufacturers always release new versions of their drivers to fix bugs, increase performance, increase stability on your computer, or add new features. When these drivers are released it is recommended that you upgrade your driver to take advantage of these new enhancements.

DriverEasy is a freeware allow us to scan, detect and download drivers. DriverEasy allow us to keep existing hardware driver up to date and download driver for unknown device. DriverEasy have huge Hardware Driver Database which allow us to scan more than 1,000,000 of  hardware driver.

Just click HERE to download DriverEasy to scan your computer hardware driver.

Once downloaded, just double click and follow the on screen instruction to install it.

A) After that just run DriverEasy program, then click the Scan Now button to scan your computer hardware

B) When the DriverEasy scanning your computer hardware, it will auto-detect your computer hardware automatically.

Avira just release Avira AntiVir, version 10. Avira AntiVir Personal is a free version of Avira anti-virus product which provides basic anti-virus and anti-spyware protection against dangerous viruses, worms, Trojans, malware, spyware and costly dialers.

I downloaded  the  Avira AntiVir Personal to run on my Windows 7 machine. i realize there is an annoying feature which will always pops up advertisement screen to persuade users to upgrade to paid premium edition of Avira product

This pop-up ads, of free edition of Avira Anti-Virus product displayed whenever auto-updater runs to update the anti-virus signature database. 

This annoying feature can be disable, just follow the following step to disable it:

• Click Start ->Run-> Type secpol.msc, or alternatively, go to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Local Security Policy.
• Click on Software Restriction Policy-> Right click on it and click on create new restriction policies
• Right Click on Additional Rules and select New Path Rule
• Enter the full path to avnotify.exe in the Path: text box or click on Browse button to locate the avnotify.exe exectable (C:\Program Files\(Avira)\AntiVir Desktop\ and double-click avnotify.exe)
• Set the Security level drop-down menu as Disallowed.
• Click OK and Apply the settings. The Avira Antivirus Notification is now disabled. You’ll never see that notifier again.

To try this Free Anti Virus, just click HERE to download Avira AntiVir Personal

Windows XP/Vista/7
Run ipconfig/all from a Command Prompt window.

• click Start, then Run, then type cmd in the text box.

• Type in ipconfig/all in the Command Prompt Windows and press enter

You should get something like this

Your MAC Address is listed under ‘Physical Address’ as a series of 6 groups of two digits, letters and numbers, separated by dashes, such as in the image below. Make sure you get the physical address of the correct network adapter – usually there are several listed.

Linux

On Linux systems, you must login as root user first before you find the Mac Address

• Launch your terminal
• Type the following command to become root user

[ahkwai@techkaki ~]$ su -
Password:

• Then, type ifconfig. Example:-


MAC OS X

Choose “System Preferences...” from the Apple menu. Then select “Network.” Double-click on “Airport” or “Built-in Ethernet” depending on how you access the Internet or your network.

For ‘Built-in Ethernet’, select the Ethernet tab.  Read the MAC address labeled ‘Ethernet ID:’.

In Windows 7, all the  “special” icons like Computer, User or Control Panel  is not show on desktop by default.  and they are now missing, you might want to know how to add them back.

There are two different ways you can add the icon back

1st Method

To put the Computer icon on the desktop, click the Start button, and then right-click on “Computer”.

Beside Computer icon, we can apply the same method on User’s Files icon and Control Panel icon

Computer icon

Control Panel icon

2nd Method

Go to Control Panel -> Personalize (or right-click on the desktop and select Personalize), and then choose the link for “Change Desktop Icons” on the left-hand side.

Once you click on Change desktop icons link,  Desktop Icons Setting panel will be pop up. Now you can chose the icons you want to show on the desktop by checking the box next to the name.

Windows 7 available in 32- or 64-bit version. You have to make a decision to go for 32-bit or 64-bit before you upgrade from XP or Vista to Windows 7 and I recommend you going for 64-bit. The 64-bit systems handle data and memory more efficiently than 32-bit systems.

To find out which version your computer is using, just follow the following steps:

In previous Windows version like Windows XP and Windows Vista, if you want to change your wallpaper automatically, you need to install third party software to do it. With Windows 7, it come with a new feature allow your OS automatically change the wallpaper at regular intervals throughout the day. By default, Windows will automatically change the wallpaper from the background art. But you can peruse different images such as those in your Picture Library.

To rotate wallpapers automatically, just follow the following steps:-

• Right click on the desktop and select Personalize. Towards the bottom of this window, you can see a link to set Windows Desktop background.

OR

• Press the <Windows> button from you keyboard, type background, and then click  Change desktop background

• Click the Picture Location drop-down or choose Browse to pull from a folder on you hard drive
• Pick Select All if you want to add all the displayed photos to the wallpaper rotation, or click the checkbox next to each individual photo.
• Then click Change picture every and set the desired interval (how often Windows will change the wallpapers). Eg:- 30 minutes,1 day or etc.
• Finally, click Save Changes.

The 3 main differences between Office 2007 and Office 2003 are:

• The introduction of a “ribbon”

• The removal of toolbars & menu’s

• The introduction of XML file format

But not everyone likes the look and feel of Office 2007, interface is the one most people seem unhappy with. If you’re stuck with Office 2007, yet yearning for the familiar menu of Office 2003, now you have an option to make your Office 2007 look like Office 2003.

An add-in tools called UBitMenu able to help you do that. UBitMenu is a plug-in for Microsoft Office 2007 (Excel, Word, and PowerPoint) that makes Office 2007 look like Office 2003 by giving the additional tab with classic menu.

If you do not like the Office 2007 interface, you can click on menu tab to enjoy the office 2003 menu. This add-in program is very useful for IT Support to support the users who hate the new Office 2007 interface.

Below are the screen-shoot

Microsoft Word before add-on

Microsoft Word after add-on

Click HERE to access to UBitMenu Official Web Site

Click HERE to download UBitMenu plug-in in English Language

I’m sure you already notice that YouTube enabled high quality viewing for all users. YouTube’s HD mode will add support for viewing videos in 720p or 1080p, depending on the resolution of the original source.

If the video have 1080p quality, you just need to add [ &fmt=37 ] at back of the video URL. It will enable us to view video in 1080p mode.

How to view YouTube’s Video in Full HD mode

Video in normal mode

Add [ &fmt=37 ] at back of the video URL

Video play in HD Mode

How to download Full HD YouTube’s video to your computer?

To download Full HD YouTube’s video, you need a free tool called Youtube Downloader HD. This free tool allow us to download Full HD Video (1080p) to your computer. Besides videos can be converted to avi video format or to mp4 (compatible with iPod, iPhone).

Click following link to download these Free Tool.

• Installer version (need to install it)
• Portable version (no need to install)

Below are the screen shoot

• Copy the YouTube’s Video URL and past it on Video URL text box
• Click on AVI Full HD (1080p)
• Click on Start button to start download the Video

• If the video not in Full HD (1080p), it will automatically download the video in 720p mode or normal video quality mode

This free tools only support Windows OS. If you have others YouTube video downloaded free tool which support Mac OS X and Linux platform, please let me know.

User account control (UAC) has been introduced in Microsoft Windows Vista. It’s back in Windows 7 also. It’s still protect you from running dangerous software or making unauthorized changes to your system. Even though this feature has been improve in Windows 7, but it still be annoying.

Fortunately Microsoft  allow us to control over the UAC like set the level of alerts and notification.

To tweak the UAC setting, click Start -> type account and select Change User Account Control settings

Now you will see a slider with four notification levels. By default, it only notifying you when program attempt to make changes and not when you make changes to Windows.

Disable and Turnoff UAC

If you want to turn off the UAC feature, just drop the slider down to Never notify.