Macbook Pro no sound from built in speakers

Macbook Pro

Problem: No sound was coming from the internal speakers.


Solution:
1. Tried resetting the PRAM (Holding Cmd, Optn, P, R at startup), no change.
2. Tried resetting SMC (Removing the battery and power, hold on button for 5 sec, replace power and battery), no change.
3. Plugged in headphones. Sound came through the headphones but when I removed them, still no sound. However there was a red light on in the headphone socket. Apparently this is the optical out socket also and the light on meant that the optical links was active.

Finally I used a toothpick and ran it around in side the socket (with the computer off) restarted and had sound, and no red light.

iTunes clear/ghost stars removal

Problem: Ghost/clear star ratings on songs.

These star ratings are album ratings.

Solution: From grid view (other views may work but I have tested this one) right click on the
categories bar and add a column for album rating.

I then sorted my music by album. Next to the album art is a star rating (these are the cause of the ghost stars). I then clicked the left most start to give it a 1 star rating. Then I clicked and dragged that star which removed all stars from the album.

Beware! Mario will most likely unfriend you.

MYOB Retail Manager 8.1 Epson Docket Printer

Problem: The epson TM-T88IV receipt printer was not working with MYOB Retail Manager 8.1. I could print windows test pages from the installed printer but MYOB wouldn't operate with the printer. The Printer is setup on a EPS00x Port rather than the COMx Port that it is plugged into (and setting it to COMx would cause it to stop working altogether). MYOB wouldn't recognise this port as being available to use.

Solution: Remove the printer, driver and software from the system. Set MYOB to the COMx port that it was plugged into and the printer model to the closest match available (TM-T88III). Unfortunately this solution only worked while logged in to the administrator account (windows XP), would fail when running MYOB under the limited account setup for staff.

Outlook express email crashing program removal

Problem: Outlook express was crashing just after opening due to an email being displayed in the preview pane. Before when the email was not the first in the list OE would work normally until it was displayed.

Fix: Edit the registry key that turns on the preview pane, copy out the good emails, rename/remove the inbox file, start OE and copy back the emails previously moved.

1. The registry key is located under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\{.. some id key...}\software\microsoft\outlook express\5.0\mail\
    Edit the key "ShowHybridView" with a value of 0.
2. Open OE, select the good emails then drag and drop them into some folder (some new folder created on the desktop) then close.
3. You need to have on show hidden files. Go to your user directory
    C:\Documents and settings\"user"\local settings\app data\microsoft\identities\{...same as above...}\outlook express

    There should be some inbox.* files, I renamed those (or you could delete but renaming gives you a way to recover if things go wrong).

4. Start OE again, simply drag and drop the files from step 2 back into the inbox (the reverse process to step 2).  Done.

Remote Desktop Not Showing Printers

Problem: I have setup a local printer attached to a laptop that works remotely via RDC. However the printer does not  show up on the list of printers on the remote server even though the share local resources check box has been ticked.

Possible solution: I am unable to verify this however, it seems likely that the remote server will need to have the drivers installed on it before the printer is redirected successfully. The following article describes the solution, but requires privileges that I don't have.

http://www.proposedsolution.com/solutions/remote-desktop-connection-rdc-printer-install/

Internet Explorer Add Google Search Provider

Problem: I needed to add google as the default search provider to internet explorer 8. I tried the usual method and to select google and checked the set as default box and clicked OK. However it didn't change to google, but remained bing and google was not in the search provider list.

Possible Fix: I haven't bee able to try this fix (on a clients machine)
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie8-windows_other/unable-to-add-search-providers-ie8/ac7d99fb-9e81-4f08-9c64-ae4ba742b552 (Post by Riker2335) seems a possible solution.