I'm back

Liz · Post by **Liz** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 12:24 am

Hello everybody. Well I am like a bad penny, I always turn up sooner or later. Apart from the fact that I have been extremely busy with VIEW & coaching stuff, not to mention my kitten Charli starting to act like a hussy & her having her operation quick smart, my desktop computer was down in Brisbane supposedly being repaired.

It is a sad sad tale. finally got my desktop computer back but in worse shape that it had gone down to Brisbane. You would not believe what they did in the month that they had it. Talk about crooks. They actually charged the insurers over $500.00 to repair it. They replaced the power supply, the motherboard (with a cheap & nasty one) the memory & the hard drive. The only thing that they did not replace or fix was the switch that was really the only thing wrong with it. They gave me the original hard drive back which was fortunate because there was actually nothing wrong with it. When I got it back & turned it on it sounded like a jet taking off. If you tried to plug anything into the USB ports it would freeze, you could not turn it off in any way, only by unplugging it. My friend came around & had a look at it. Within a couple of minutes he found several wires that had not been connected. He put the original hard drive in & it worked. He took it home with him & brought it back the next night. The only thing wrong with it was what they had done to it. He found nearly 1600 errors which he fixed. He also found the broken switch which he fixed with a bit of superglue. They had told me that the hard drive had many bad sectors which I doubted anyway because I do regular checks. It is running perfectly & has no bad sectors. He found the source of the noise was a fan screw that had not been tightened properly.

Robert called the insurers & told them what had happened. They asked NCSS where the mother board was & they told them it had been sent back to manufacturer. I don’t know why they would do that as it was out of the original warranty. I think some scullduggery has gone on. I expect Horizon, the insurers will sort them out.

Well I have got that off my chest.

Looks as though we have some new people on the board since I last checked in. a great big

to everybody, you have come to the right place.

Love
Liz

Post by **tex** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 7:52 am

Liz!

I was wondering what in the world had happened. That's an incredible story about the computer repair. How in the world do those guys stay in business? It's lucky that you have a friend who was willing and able to repair their "repair" job.

It's great to see you that you're back. Things haven't been the same around here without your words of wisdom from "down under".

Love,
Tex

JJ · Post by JJ » Mon Jun 02, 2008 10:23 am

Hi Liz! Glad you're back....those darn computers....anyway....good to hear from you! Love, JJ

hazel · Post by **hazel** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 1:39 pm

Welcome back, Liz! Missed you.

Liz · Post by **Liz** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 5:58 pm

Hi All

It's great to be back too.

Wayne you have no idea the garbage they kept telling me when I called to see what was happening. My friend said that the only thing wrong with it was what they did to it except for the broken switch that was the only problem to start with & of course that was the only thing that they did not touch. Alan said that if I have any more problems just to let him sort them out. He is a real whizz at it. He builds his own & said that next time I want a new computer to let him build a 'you beaut one' for half the price that they charge in the stores. He started out working on mainframes 28 years ago so really knows what he is doing.

Love

Liz

annie oakley · Post by **annie oakley** » Mon Jun 02, 2008 6:36 pm

HI Ya Liz!! Missed ya and glad you are back. I hope those crooks get into trouble. Love Oma

sunny · Post by **sunny** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 10:48 am

Liz...glad you're back!!!

Dee · Post by **Dee** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 11:02 am

Hey There Liz!!!!
Welcome Back!!!!

To the computer guys!!!

Love
Dee~~~~~~~~

JJ · Post by JJ » Wed Jun 04, 2008 8:59 pm

Hi...I have been having problems connecting to the wireless connection where I'm living. It was tough to get on, but has been fine for over a month. Yesterday, it pooped out again and I could NOT connect...I tried everything. So, today, I splurged and bought a Sprint Mobile Broadband Modem...it is wonderful! I was so unhappy when I last took my laptop in for service, there was no way I was going to buy more new parts for this old thing. I think my new school will give me a laptop to use

The modem thingy can be pluggged into any computer without a lot of hassle.

TTFN....JJ

Post by **tex** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 9:35 pm

Jill,

I'm in the same boat. The phone line connection where I live out here in the country is so slow that I could practically grow a beard while waiting for it to refresh the board. Broadband is not available, and probably never will be, so most of the time I use an AT&T wireless broadband aircard. Sometimes I use it in a laptop, but most of the time I use it with a desktop computer, by means of a special PCI adaptor. It's still slow, by broadband standards, and I have to use an antenna, (since I'm way out in the country), but at least it's five or six times as fast as that worthless dialup phone line. I'll bet you can actually get high speed service, there in the city.

Tex

Liz · Post by **Liz** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 10:04 pm

What about satellite. I know it is more expensive but I think the government here gives assistance to people who do not have access to broadband. My broadband could be a lot faster but most of the phone lines around here are cactus & need replacing. There is always trouble with the lines.

Liz

Post by **tex** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 11:09 pm

Liz,

I gave some thought to satellite, but I decided to go with the aircard, because the aircard doesn't require a precisely-aimed, fixed antenna, and there are enough relay towers scattered around this area to give decent coverage, pretty much anywhere I might need it, with the aircard. IOW, I can use the aircard wherever I happen to be, without any changes - I just have to plug it in, and connect an antenna, and it's good to go.

The downside is that when I originally bought the card, and subscribed to the service, AT&T promised that the service would be upgraded to true broadband speeds within about two months. That was a year and a half ago, and the towers around here are still chugging along on 2G service, not the 3G service that was promised. Consequently, download speeds are slightly over 100 Kbs, virtually light years away from the 3.6 Mbs speed that was promised. <sigh>

I've had a satellite setup up for years, at my place of business, for receiving radar, weather reports, commodity prices and other ag news, etc., but I've found that during rainstorms, it virtually always loses the signal, and it's sometimes affected by sunspot activity, and other atmospheric conditions. Also, occasionally, a wind storm will alter the alignment, and re-setting it can be a bit tedious, due to the need for precision alignment. If I lived out of range of the relay towers, though, a satellite would be the only way to go, I believe.

Our phone lines are pretty much like yours - they were installed decades ago, and they give pretty sorry service. They sometimes stop working completely for a day or two after a good rain, and when the switches dry out, the dialtone will eventually be back. LOL. Our politicians talk about providing high-speed internet service for everyone, but talk is as far as it goes - at least I'm not aware of any subsidies that are available for those of us who are bypassed by the fiber optic cables.

Love,
Wayne

Liz · Post by **Liz** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 11:25 pm

Seems like politicians are the same the world over. It was promised years ago that every Australian would have access to broadband connection but there are still many areas, especially in the bush that are still on dialup, that is if they have telephone lines at all. There are areas close to cities don't have broadband There are also areas in the outback that still have to rely on radio to communicate with the outside world. It is being promised again but I won't hold my breath.

Love

Liz

Gloria · Post by **Gloria** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 8:00 pm

I'm supposed to have a 1.5 Mbps connection with DSL through Earthlink. I downloaded a little program years ago called Net Medic which shows my actual connection speed. It's never gone above 366 kbps downloading and it's even slower uploading. Sounds slow, but I'm satisfied with it. It sure beats dial-up. I can get a faster connection, but I don't feel like changing my email address.

We have two T-1 lines at my school, but with all the video streaming that the kids and the teachers are doing, Net Medic shows that the connection there is even slower in the mornings than my home connection is. It's rare to actually get the speeds that are advertised.

Gloria

Post by **tex** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 9:29 pm

Gloria wrote:It's rare to actually get the speeds that are advertised.

You said a mouthful there. LOL.

Here's a quick, easy, (and free, of course), way to check your connection speed, if anyone needs or wants to do a speed check now and then. I keep a shortcut to this site handy on my desktop. My download speed, (using the aircard), is running between about 90 and 140 Kbps, tonight. As you mentioned, upload speeds are always slower.

http://reviews.cnet.com/7004-7254_7-0.html

Tex