Tech Questions & Answers Archives - Page 212 of 259

Q&A: Why do I get an erroneous “Out of Ink” error when using refilled ink cartridges?

Posted on July 5, 2015

Question from Alice S.: I went to buy new ink cartridges for my Canon MP495 printer, and while searching for the right cartridges I happened to notice that the store also sells refilled ink cartridges.

The prices of the refills were about half the price of new ones so I decided to give them a try. When I got home I installed the refilled cartridges and began printing several documents that I really need to get printed.

At first everything was fine, but after a few pages had been printed an error message popped up on the screen telling me the printer was out of ink and that I needed to order more. I know that both cartridges have plenty of ink, so why is the computer telling me otherwise?

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Q&A: Is there any way to suspend a Netflix account for 6 months without closing it?

Posted on July 1, 2015

Question from Heila G.: Rick, my hubby and I are preparing to go on a six month mission trip to Peru and we don’t want to keep paying for Netflix while we’re gone since we won’t be using it.

Will Netflix allow us to suspend our account for the six month period that we’ll be gone, or will we have to cancel the account and open a new one when we get back? I hope we don’t have to cancel because we’ll lose all of our preferences and stuff.

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Q&A: How do I get OS X Yosemite to display file extensions on my Mac?

Posted on June 29, 2015

Question from Keitha D.: Hi Rick. I need your help with an issue I’m havingwith my Macbook Pro.

I recently upgraded from OS X Mavericks to Yosemite, and ever since the upgrade I can’t seem to view any file extensions. Can you tell me how to get them back?

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Q&A: Why is my USB external hard drive not working with my new USB 3.0 card?

Posted on June 18, 2015

Question from Derick T.: Hi Rick. I had been wanting to add some USB 3.0 ports to my HP desktop PC for a while now. I finally broke down and bought a USB 3.0 expansion card (#ad) and installed it.

The new USB ports work fine with my USB mouse, keyboard and printer, but when I plug my Seagate external USB hard drive into it I can’t get the computer to recognize the drive. I know it should work because the box the drive came in said it works with USB 3.0. Am I doing something wrong?

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Q&A: Can I install Windows 8.1 on a laptop that originally came with Windows Vista?

Posted on June 11, 2015

Question from Glenn W.: I have an old, but awesome 2008 era Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop that came with Windows Vista. It still works great except for the hard drive which just died on me with no warning.

I found out that I can buy a brand spanking new replacement hard drive for less than $50, but I don’t have a set of Windows Vista restore discs.

If I replace the hard drive can I also install Windows 8.1 in place of Vista? (I would actually prefer Windows 7 but they don’t sell it anymore.)

Or is this machine so old that only Windows Vista will work, which would mean I’m out of luck either way?

Sorry for the multiple questions, but this is all very confusing to me. I hate to throw away a perfectly good laptop just because the hard drive died.

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]