windows

Windows 10 Can’t See Shared Folders – How To Fix

Recently a client had me reinstall Windows 10 on a couple of his computers. As we all know, after a couple of years it seems pretty common that Windows 10 computers get buggy – they hang, post cryptic error messages, or just plain stop responding. Which was what was happening to my client. I won’t go into the gory details of a reinstall of Windows 10, but to be honest it is much less painful than with previous Windows versions.

Now my client has roughly half a dozen Windows computers in his home office with one PC set up as their server. It was quite basic in that his “server” was nothing more than a shared folder on his PC. Everything was networking fine until I reinstalled Windows 10 on the old / buggy computers. These computers could no longer see the shared folder on the server. In doing some internet searches I found out that Microsoft in their infinite wisdom has removed Homegroup. Which in my opinion isn’t a bad thing because it just seemed to be more of a pain than any thing.

So in order to get sharing working for all the computers this is what I had to do. First go to the computer that has the shared folder on it. and make sure that the Windows Defender Firewall app allows printer and file sharing. The simplest way to do this is to click in the search bar and type in defender firewall and press enter. the following window will open up. Click on Allow an app or feature through Windows Defender Firewall

Windows 10 can't see shared folders -how to fix

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How to Open a Stuck CD / DVD Drive

The other day I was asked by someone to look at their DVD drive that had a CD stuck in it. This can be frustrating when even pushing the Eject button, and the CD won’t eject. This is how to open a stuck CD / DVD drive.

There are several reasons why a CD or a DVD will get stuck in the drive. Sometimes the rack and pinion gears inside the DVD will get hung up and not properly move. Sometimes the motor that opens up the DVD drawer will stick. Sometimes the DVD will not properly seat thereby not allowing the DVD eject mechanism to function properly. And lastly, perhaps the CD / DVD drive is broken.

Fortunately, there is an easy solution.

The first thing to do is to turn off the computer. Don’t just press the power button, or unplug the computer. Be sure to do a regular shutdown. Then look closely at the front of the computer. Almost always there is a little hole underneath the CD or DVD tray. The exact location will vary, but it is almost always underneath the tray of the CD drive.

Below is a photo with the hole circled:

Once you have located this hole, you will need a paper clip. Straighten the paper clip out. I usually fashion it like in the photo below:

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How to Run Winkeyer on a Raspberry Pi computer

Being a Ham Radio operator that likes CW (Morse code) and contesting, it helps to have a programmable keyer that will get text from a computer. In my search, I found the Winkeyer USB by K1EL Systems. There are several variants of the Winkeyer that include kits as well as fully assembled keyers. In this post, I will show you how to run Winkeyer on a Raspberry Pi computer.

Most logging programs have some way to send a pre-set string of characters to your rig, such as “CQ CQ CQ FD DE WB8ERJ WB8ERJ FD AR”. which is fine however when running CW at any speed faster than say 13 WPM, the computer is prone to timing problems and your CW comes out like you have terrible CW skills. This is because sending Morse Code that is generated by the computer has timing problems – especially in a Windows environment!

So by using the Winkeyer instead of the computer to key the transmitter, the task of actually generating the Morse Code is off-loaded from your computer, and your Morse Code is sent perfectly.

I have used Winkeyer with N3 FJP‘s contest logging software and it works just fine with that logging software, and I am sure many others. But there is a problem, I rarely run Windows computers and usually run Linux on a Raspberry P i computer. Specifically an install package by Jason, KM4ACK. Now this particular install package is targeted to portable / off-grid Ham Radio Operations. Since I have been doing POTA acvitations, Jason’s setup works great, and I highly recommend it.

So I needed a way to run Winkeyer in the Raspberry pi. On K1EL’s site there is this page that mentions winkeydaemon. Which is the answer to the problem. However not being completely fluent in the world of Linux, the task was a bit daunting. Maybe its just me and my lack of Linux knowledge, but I found the documentation to be rather difficult to follow.

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Configure An HP JetDirect 300X Print Server

Recently I acquired an Hewlett Packard JetDirect 300x print server. They seem like great little devices for setting up an old printer with only a parallel port to work on a network like what I have on my home network. However I came up on a problem. I had no way of knowing how to communicate to it. I didn’t know its IP address or anything! So after a few weeks of searching, I have found a way to reset it back to factory defaults. Here is how its done:

Set the DIP switches on the back as follows:
Man / Auto = MAN = UP
10 / 100 = 10 = DOWN
Full / Half = Half = DOWN

1. Press and hold the TEST button on the top while plugging in the power.
2. After 5 seconds, let go of the TEST button. (This sets everything to default)
3. Unplug the 300X and plug in a CAT-5 cable to your network (Needs a DHCP Server..)
4. Connect up a printer to the server.
5. Power up the 300X server.
6. After about 30 seconds, press the TEST button on the 300X, and the server configuration will print out.
7. Note the IP address.
8. Telnet to the above IP address. And configure the server.
9. Give it a static IP, and turn off unnecessary protocols.

To Configure a Microsoft Windows computer to print to this server:
1.Add a printer
2.Add a local port Type: TCP and use the address above.
3.Follow the prompts, and you are done!

This article was originally posted on www.mikestechblog.com Any reproduction on any other site is prohibited and a violation of copyright laws.