Stop and Delete Print Jobs Windows Vista/XP

One of the biggest headaches with printers, especially USB printers, is getting a print job to stop once it has already started. Sometimes you can click cancel on the print job, but other times the job will go until completion. Even turning off the printer does not always solve the problem. I finally came across a solution that fixes all printing problems for me.

Step 1. If you need to immediately stop the printer from wasting paper/ink, turn off your printer. This may involve unplugging the power cord from the surge protector if the regular power buttons fail.

Step 2. Go to Start button > Run > net stop spooler

Step 3. Click OK

Step 4. Start > Run > C:\Windows\System32\Spool\Printers


Step 5. Hit OK, and delete all files within the "Printers" folder you just opened. This will delete any print jobs you had remaining.

Step 6. Start > Run > net start spooler


Step 7. Hit OK, and turn your printer back on.

All of your printing problems should now be solved. Please post comments if this did or did not work for you.

Disable Automatic Updates in Adobe CS3

I recently realized that Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Premiere CS3 were updating themselves without permission to do so. I looked for an option within each respective application to disallow automatic updates, but could not find one. After doing some searching, I found this workaround.

To disable automatic updates in Adobe CS3 for Windows Vista:

1. Start > Run > C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Updater5\AdobeUpdater.exe (if this does not work, navigate to to the common files folder and follow the same directory structure to get to AdobeUpdater.exe.
2. Adobe Updater will open, and select continue as it searches for updates.
3. On the screen where you tell it to download the updates, it will have a preferences link. Click the preferences link.
4. Disable updates as you see fit. Here is my configuration:

Jimmy Kimmel - I'm F**ing Ben Affleck

Jimmy Kimmel has finally responded to Sarah Silverman's "I'm Fucking Matt Damon" video, with his own amazing piece, "I'm Fucking Ben Affleck." He went above and beyond, and deserves recognition for this one.

How to Watch .MKV Files

I recently came across a video file that was .MKV, and had to do some sleuthing to figure out how to watch it. The best solution I came up with was downloading and installing the codec pack from cccp-project.net. Select all of the default options as you go through the installer. After installing on Windows Vista 32-bit I received an odd "String Error" message, but the install worked fine.

To play my file, I still had to use Windows' "Choose a program to view this file" and it selected "media player classic," which is included in the CCCP Project installer. After all was said and done, the movie files were playing correctly in the newly installed Media Player classic.