Have you ever opened up your browser and got an error saying that you are offline? As such, you are unable to access the internet. This normally occurs because of a number of reasons. The three most common are (1) Your internet connection is not active, (2) Your firewall is preventing you from accessing the internet, or (3) Your browser is to set “Work Offline”. Fixing any of the three causes for the error is quite simple. Let us look at them one at a time.

Your internet connection is not active: This usually means that you do not have an active internet connection because your ADSL Modem is off or the telephone line to your computer has not been connected or you have not dialled-up to the internet as yet. It could be also be possible that you have a connection but there may be a problem with your ISP. Anyhow, ensure that your ADSL Modem is on and that the telephone line is connected to your computer. If you are connected and you suspect that your ISP is at fault, call them up and find out what is happening.

Your firewall is preventing you from accessing the internet: If you suspect that this is the case, adjust your firewall settings to allow your browser to access the “Internet Zone”. By default, the more effective firewalls ask that you give permission to any program wishing to access the internet. This ensures that programs are approved by you so as to prevent unauthorized access to your computer. Once the firewall program asks you if you want to allow your browser to access the internet, click “Yes”.

Your browser is to set “Work Offline”: This is by far the easiest to fix. Simply go to ‘File’ in your browser and click on ‘Work Online’. This will enable the browser to work online, allowing it to access the internet and open up any web page that you type in the address bar.

This is an error many of us have gotten from time to time. We want to use a particular program or piece of software and when we try to open it, Windows tells us that it is in use by another application. That makes no sense. After all, we are just about to use it and have not been using previously. So how could that be the case? It is as puzzling to figure out as it is to solve. Generally, though, there are some things that are taking place behind the scenes that is causing this error.

I have found that at times when the amount of memory in use has been depleted to a certain value, this type of error tends to appear. Also, it seems that at times there are other background programs that use a file or two that the program we want to use needs to operate. There are also times when we may have previoulsy used the program and ‘thought’ that we shut it down properly, but when we look in the Task Manager we see it still running. In this instance, closing the program from the Task Manager should solve the problem. But, the majority of the times that the problem is resolved is by restarting the computer.

As this error continues to occur, always check to see if the application is already running and close it or simply restart your computer. The problem should be fixed once the OS finishes loading.