When installing Drupal 6 if you find the database page keeps reloading when you enter the database details try to enter the username/password and database name directly into sites/default/settings.php

For some reason even when setting the settings.php file to writable Drupal cannot write to it which is why you need to enter it manually.

If you get this error when trying to logon remotely through remote desktop (RDP) then you need to check that the user has permission to logon remotely. This needs to be done in both the remote desktop users list and in the remote desktop users group.

This is fully explained in the microsoft support article.

If you HP 4600/4650 printer is giving you a bit of stick then it might be a good idea to perform a “cold reset”.

This can be acheived by doing the following.

Power off the printer (duh!)

Press and hold the green checkmark button.

Turn on the printer and continue to hold down the button.

The printer should make its usual whirring sounds and will eventually come to a point where all three indicator lights are solidly lit up. When you reach this point release the button. Use the arrows to navigate down the menu to “cold reset” and press the green checkmark button.

The printer will perform a “cold reset” and should hopefully be free from any minor glitches.

Ben

This is a solution to a problem that was occuring infrequently for about 6 months in my office before someone asked me to find a solution.

The problem generally happens when a user prints a document. The problem is that the text bunches up on top of each other producing a completely illegible bunch of stacked characters. An example of the problem is below.

Microsoft Word Overlapping text

This obviously causes some issues when it comes to reading a document! Fortunately this is not a permanent change to the document and the solution is fairly straightforward (when you know how!).

The first thing you need to do is open word without a document open.

Once you have word open go to tools > options > print. In this tab uncheck “Background Printing”. and click ok.

Close word.

Open the offending document and the text should now look and print like normal!

The same problem can be solved in Word 2007 by checking the same option.

Office Button -> Word Options -> Advanced -> Print -> Print in Background

If you find this useful please feel free to leave a comment!

Ben

We have a small script that inputs text in to a microsoft word template used for label printing. This text is inserted by a third party program using the bookmarks feature in word.

Recently I came across a problem where when the program started inserting the text in to the label it would continually insert the same piece of text over and over. This caused word to crash and of course the user could not print a label.

The fix was relatively simple and should work for any instance where text is being inserted in to a word document by a third party program.

To fix the issue go to Tools > Options > Edit.  Make sure that “Typing replaces selection” is enabled in this menu.

Please note that this setting is seperate from the standard overtype function using the insert key.

Hope that someone else out there has the same weird problem as me and finds this useful!

Ben