Testing
How to get rid of the extra page when you create a Word envelope
https://chrismenardtraining.com/post/remove-blank-page-inserting-envelope-word
If you’re like me, I cannot stand the extra page that is generated by Microsoft Word when you create an envelope to be printed. It wastes an perfectly fine piece of paper every time you want to print an envelope unless you hit print the first page only. Who does that? I don’t. I ended up using my Google-Fu and found this link above which shows you exactly how to get rid of the page. Make sure you save the file after you make the changes and delete the second page.
I upgraded to Office 365 64-Bit
I’m not sure if this is placebo but I swear that the Office programs run faster and even the add-ins such as the Grammarly Add-In for Outlook runs a lot faster. I’m in the preliminary stages as I am still testing it out. But once I heard that Office 2019 was going to be installed by default as a 64-Bit application, I figured it was time to make the move.
Adobe InDesign 2019 crashing after opening
I had a client who was experiencing Adobe InDesign 2019 crashing a few seconds after opening it. . It did not matter what file they were working with. I created a brand new file and within a few seconds of trying to draw with the Pen tool, InDesign would close out and crash. This was happening on a brand new iMac, with High Sierra and Adobe Creative Cloud.
I could not recreate the problem on my laptop which is a MacBook Pro with Mojave and I am using the same version of Creative Cloud/InDesign as my client.
I soon Googled and then searched Twitter and found that multiple people were having the same issue. I figured at that point it was probably an issue with the activation servers that the software uses to call home every once in a while.
Just the fact that the software is calling home so much and a mistake on one of Adobe’s server can cause such a large issue is very concerning. Especially when you’re paying these guys hundreds if not thousands of dollars per month to borrow their software. The last they could do is get it right.
According to this forum post from an Adobe staff member by the name of Steve, the issue was a server on Adobe’s end, which I guessed correctly: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2581509.
Per the thread, things should be fixed. We’ll see.
Weird WAN speed issues with my workstation
I’m having some of the strangest issues with my workstations. Here are the specs:
ASUS Rampage V Extreme
Intel Core i7 5820K @ 3.30GHz
Corsair Dominator Platinum 64 GB
Samsung EVO NVMe 500GB solid state drive
Seasonic 1000W PSU
I recently upgraded to gigabit Internet with Spectrum Business. I initially was seeing horrible speeds, anywhere from 100 Mbps to 300 Mbps. I finally hooked my 15″ Mid 2015 MacBook Pro up with Lightning to Ethernet adapter and plugged directly into the modem. I can see my connection is NOT the problem. I see anywhere from 800 Mbps to 1.3 Gbps on the MacBook, CONSISTENTLY. This is the mind-boggling part.
Now we go back to my Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit workstation. I was on 1803 and updated to 1809 last night.
I consistently see speeds being gimped from the gigabit I should be getting to around 100-300 Mbps which is pissing me off. I know that something is using up my network resources and or is doing some traffic shaping. I’ve tried a clean boot, but some programs don’t adhere to a clean boot and keep running anyway. I wish I could do a clean install but don’t have that kind of time anymore. I may look into installing Windows onto one of the various spare PCs I have lying around the house but, procrastination and stuff.
In the meantime, I’d like to put this out there and if anyone else has seen their speed test speeds being gimped but clearly know that it’s working properly because they hooked up another device, whether it’s a Mac or another PC with a different OS or a clean install with no other applications running, let me know.
Something is gimping the connection. I have disabled the firewall, antivirus, and any other programs that I can think of that would use the WAN link heavily. I sometimes can see gigabit speeds through fast.com and speedtest.net, but it’s not consistent. I know some people might be thinking well, there are peak hours and other various explanations, but that does not explain why my MacBook Pro can consistently, and I mean at any time of the day, do speed tests out to fast.com and speedtest.net’s various servers and see close to if not gigabit speeds!
I found a blog that suggested running TCP Optimizer from https://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php. I ran it, and so far I see consistent gigabit speeds. I will continue testing throughout the day and will report back if it’s a permanent thing.
Edit: 12/16/2018:
Well, I can confirm that the TCP Optimizer has fixed my issues. If you see weird slowdowns on your WAN connection as though something is throttling your speed, check out the TCP Optimizer. I ran it, changed the settings to optimal and restarted. It’s been about a full 24 hours and no problems to report. I’m seeing the full 1 Gbps connection being used on all speed tests.
Weird eSIM issue with Apple iPhone XS Max and Verizon Wireless + Simple Mobile
When Apple announced that their new iPhone XS Max was going to have dual-sim capability I was ecstatic. I finally moved my business line which is on Verizon to the eSIM. Last night I purchased a Simple Mobile SIM card from Best Buy and setup a personal line. I didn’t have much problems other than the activation taking a few hours.
Here is the issue I am having. I have two phone numbers which are VOIP lines that, after X amount of rings, forward the call to my Verizon phone number. I noticed this morning I was receiving voicemails with no missed calls. I immediately figured it was related to the dual-sim. I can fix this temporarily by either turning on airplane mode and then turning it off and or going into cellular settings and disabling my personal line and then turning it back on. This will fix the problem temporarily but will eventually start blocking calls that are forwarded from this VOIP line that I own.
I am assuming it is some kind of bug and hope it is not by design. The fact that I can fix it by disabling the line and re-enabling it leads me to believe that this is a bug and not by design.
Windows 10 Photos app printing problem: Your printer has experienced an unexpected configuration problem. 0x800706b5
I ran into this problem with a client’s computer. A brand new Dell OptiPlex 7050 with a NVMe solid state drive. Trying to print a simple .jpg picture would allow the default printer to come up in the settings box but trying to select a secondary printer would cause this error to come up. I tried uninstalling the printer and reinstalling it. The only time I had success was by utilizing the PS driver for the printer. The printer in question is a Ricoh C3003 MFP. After uninstalling and reinstalling it a third time it resulted in ALL printers just saying Connecting… Restarting the print spooler service and changing the driver did not help. I finally found something on Google that said it’s easier to just right click the .jpg and click on print as it will bring up an entirely different program to print the picture. Windows 10 and its what I call “tablet” apps aren’t the greatest. I find them to be extremely buggy and more often than not, I never find an actual fix for the problem. I always have to find a workaround, which, unfortunately, is quite sad.
Windows 10 domain joined computer cannot use Microsoft Account sync
For quite some time I enjoyed the feature of Windows 10 account sync. I could sync I favorites, wallpaper, I believe certain passwords, and app settings. I also found that I could sync these same settings with a computer joined to an Active Directory domain. It appears that you no longer can do this.
It wasn’t until maybe a few months ago that I realized my syncing stopped working. I had to do a clean install on my home workstation, and as soon as I got Windows reinstalled, Windows asked me to sign in with a Microsoft account or a Work account. I signed in with my Work account thinking I’d be able to continue then syncing everything from my home workstation to my office workstation. I soon found out that it is not possible anymore. You have to completely avoid using a Work account if you plan to use Microsoft’s sync feature. Why? I don’t know. In my honest opinion, Microsoft loves to give their business customers the middle finger when it comes to these kinds of things. I wish more companies would blur the line between business and customer features. Alternatively, give it to us both! It worked once before, and I’m not sure why they stopped it.
Another thing that pains me is the way they make a distinction between a “Microsoft Account” and a “Work Account aka Office 365 account”, what’s the difference? One’s free from Microsoft, and the other is an account WE PAY FOR! We’re giving Microsoft money, and they decide to take features AWAY from us or punish us for using a certain type of account!
Western Digital 10TB External Easystore Hard Drive on sale at Best Buy (Early Black Friday Deal)!
On top of getting a 10 TB external drive that normally costs $289.99 you also get a 32 GB thumb drive. One more thing, people have been shucking this drive and according to reports it’s a white label drive with 256 MB of cache. It is not a WD Red drive. However, people have also been reporting that they’ve had no problems installing it into their storage servers/NAS devices. No 3.3 mod was required to get the drive to show up and work properly. It’s plug and play. If you click the picture above it’ll take you right to the Black Friday special.
Free transform in Adobe Photoshop CC 2019
So Adobe took it upon themselves to change the way you free transform in Photoshop CC 2019. Before you’d hold shift and drag and it would keep its aspect ratio instead of having your text look too tall or too thin or too wide and out of aspect ratio.
I finally figured out what they did. The aspect ratio lock is on by default now. If you hold shift it’s the reverse of what you would expect in past Photoshop versions. I honestly don’t understand why they would do this as it’s been one way all these past years and versions and I am talking years!