Chris: Geek Guy

I only use my printer occasionally, and it’s even rarer that I’ll want to print on letterhead paper or on the reverse of an already-printed page, so I often forget which way the paper should go in!

Fortunately most printers include one of the below icons embossed on or near the printer tray. The folded corner denotes the “top” of the page, i.e. where the letterhead would go, and the lines show which side will be printed on, so you know whether to place the paper face-up or face-down.

Beats trial and error!

More details are in the post at Of Zen And Computing.

Lifehacker describes a quick fix for old volume knobs that cause static and popping when turned up or down. It sounds silly, but just switching the equipment off then turning the volume knob back and forth for a minute or so may get rid of most of the built-up grime that’s causing the static. I actually tried this the stock car radio from my twelve-year-old car and it worked a treat.

Open Source Living provides an index of software that is not only free, but also has all the benefits of open source. It’s well worth checking out if you’re looking for a quality piece of software to do a particular job, but don’t want to break the bank.

Some of my favourite pieces of open source software listed on the site are:

• 7-Zip – archiving utility that supports ZIP and RAR as well as its own 7Z format
• Audacity – great for quick audio recording and editing jobs
• MediaWiki – powers the biggest and most well-known wiki in the world, Wikipedia
• Mozilla Firefox – my favourite Web browser
• Mozilla Thunderbird – well-regarded desktop email client, although I’ve now switched to Gmail
• nVu – Mozilla-based WYSIWYG HTML editor
• OpenOffice – a very capable alternative to Microsoft Office, without the price tag
• phpBB – one of the most popular and easy-to-use forum packages
• WinSCP and FileZilla – full-featured FTP/SFTP clients
• WordPress – the blogging platform that powers this very site
• Zen Cart – a highly-customisable online shopping platform

Engadget points out the cheeky icon used by Mac OS 10.5 to represent Windows computers, and offers instructions on how to remove it. I’m predominantly a Windows user, but I actually quite like what Apple have done!

"Perpetuating the myth of Mac users' disdainful sense of self-superiority" or just a bit of harmless fun?

I bought an electric toothbrush from Dixons online and had it delivered to work. I was somewhat alarmed when the below sales receipt arrived at my home address the following day…

Luckily my card wasn't charged this amount...

Free Rice is a fun word game that lets you build your English vocabulary and donates 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Programme for each right answer. It might not sound like much but the site has already donated over two billion grains of rice to help stop world hunger.

Here’s how to change the default message on networked HP printers from “Ready” to something more entertaining, and baffle your co-workers.

Your mileage may vary, but I’ve found this doesn’t work on some newer models. Older printers that are network-ready and support HPPJL (HP Printer Job Language) should work fine though.

If you have a recent (T610 or newer) Sony Ericsson phone, floAt’s Mobile Agent is a great tool for your PC. It allows you to manage your phone’s contacts and messages and do other nifty things such as allow you to pick up and dial calls from your PC. It’s great with Bluetooth but most features also work with USB or serial cables. And, like the best things in life, it’s free!

Windows XP has an annoying habit of prompting you to restart every few minutes after you’ve installed updates. If you’re fed up of clicking Restart Later every few minutes but it’s not convenient to restart, try this: click the Start button, then Run, type sc stop wuauserv and click OK. This will stop the Automatic Updates service until your next restart, and stop it from bugging you.

Not now, Windows!

This reading order guide for Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels is indispensable for any Pratchett newcomer.