Add a TCP/IP printer in Windows 10

Add a TCP/IP printer in Windows 10

Sometimes you have to manually add a TCP/IP printer in Windows 10. For example, I have an older HP Laserjet 4100 with a Jetdirect network card in it that I use to print from all of my PCs over my local area network (LAN). Getting Windows 10 to print to it isn’t difficult but it’s hardly intuitive.

If you have your network printer already set up but just need to change its IP address, I covered that here. If you want to share a locally attached printer with other computers on your network, you can do that too.

Printing straight to the TCP/IP address of the printer is convenient. It means you don’t have to have another computer powered up when you want to print.

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A Firefox ramdisk profile in Windows

I’ve been using Dataram’s excellent free ramdisk program for several months now and highly recommend it. On some machines, I install Firefox to the ramdisk and move the profile there. But the biggest benefit comes from putting the profile (not just the browser cache) in the ramdisk. Storing the profile in a high-speed, near-zero-latency ramdisk solves virtually every Firefox performance issue. Here’s how to set up a Firefox ramdisk profile in Windows. Read more

An easy way to change your power plans in Vista and Windows 7

If you need to change power plans to manage your computer’s power usage, here’s the easiest way to do it without fumbling around in control panel. This works in either Windows 7 or Vista.
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Windows shutdown command

Windows shutdown command

Let’s say you need to shut down or reboot your computer from a command line, a batch file, or a desktop shortcut. Maybe you want to shut it down right now, or in an hour. You can do all of that and more with the Windows shutdown command, shutdown.exe.
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Fix weird Internet connection problems with ipconfig

One of the most maddening things that can happen when you’re using a computer is that a web site you visit routinely quits working. Your Internet connection appears to be fine, but suddenly, for some reason, you can’t go to the site you were just using. Try to go to another site you haven’t visited in a while, and it’s fine. But whatever site you were using a minute ago doesn’t work anymore. The site becomes accessible again immediately after you reboot, but that’s a really big hassle.

There’s a much less drastic fix. It’s easy too, but non-obvious.

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