COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[Tripps]

A 'lady' just phoned to get me to have a survey of my loft as there was a possibility that my insulation was dangerous.

I think she was a computer voice algorithm.

"How do you normally access your loft?"

"I usually climb up onto the roof and go down the chimney"

No reaction at all - I rest my case.

[PanBiker]

[Stanley]

Nice one David.....

[Tizer]

`Why millions of useable hard drives are being destroyed' LINK

[Stanley]

What an interesting article Peter! I can see the reason why an organisation that isn't prepared to invest in a solution will just destroy hard drives and charge the expense to the customers but what a waste.... Mind you, I would have thought that the new solid state technology would ensure the old drives were redundant. Re-using an old drive doesn't make it any faster or more reliable. I think that might be part of the basic problem as well as security.

[Tizer]

`UK weather: Why your phone overheats and how to prevent it' LINK

[Big Kev]

My older model Samsung Galaxy J6 smartphone has a new lease of life. I have uninstalled all the 'fat' Google updates and disabled it (unfortunately it's not something that can be completely removed without 'rooting' the phone) and installed Google Go. It's much lighter on resources and the phone has stopped randomly freezing. I've done the same with the Facebook app, Facebook Lite does the same thing

[Tripps]

Chap rang the door bell this morning. Said he was from County Broadband and they were just finishing work in the village, and were checking that we had all heard of them and giving me a last chance. He said they can do 300 Mbs full fibre to premises for £37.99 per month. A phone on PAYG was free or free calls to local and national numbers was £6 pcm.

I said that I had just committed to a 2 year deal elsewhere - paying £43.49 pcm -but he said they could fit their service and defer payment for up to two years until that expired. Then their two year price would then kick in, and there would be no RPI + 3.9 % increases. I found no reference to that in their literature so I rang them. Immediate answer, and an email confirming it all in about five minutes.

Impressive.

He assured me that they have full access to Openreach ducting and fitting would be painless.

I'm tempted. . . .

**********************************
I note from a search on here that they have been pestering in contact with me since 2019 !

Now today another team 'Gigaclear' ring the bell and a decent sounding chap offers me fibre to premises for £17 per month, but first they will have to dig a trench for the installation. I told him that County Broadband had said there already was a duct to the premises, but he showed me the Openreach map on his tablet computer which clearly said that there wasn't. "ND means no duct"

Then as he left (with my email address to get back to me) - a letter arrived which had a full legal look about it, and a professional looking map. From Gigaclear, and they were offering to pay me £75 for permission to dig the required trench.

Show me as confused. I'll think about it, though it needs the agreement of two other parties. He also said my two year contract with Plusnet would not be a problem.

[Stanley]

I'm just paying £31 a month, everything is working and nobody is nagging me. I like it like that.....

[Tizer]

`Why is it so rare to hear about Western cyber-attacks?' LINK

[Stanley]

I read that link Peter and it frightened me to death so I did the obvious thing. Closed it down and tried to forget about it. Before you castigate me, what else can I usefully do? Sit and worry?

[plaques]

I'm now on my third 12V power supply to my laptop. In each case the cable near the molded input / choke has indications of internal failure.
Has anyone tried to replace the connector with an off the shelf connection say from RS etc?

[PanBiker]

If you are referring to the filter choke, you can get clip on plastic encased ferrite's for different sized cables.

[Big Kev]

My CCTV system spat out a warning that there was no storage available. Usually this would indicate a HDD fault , I had a spare in ths cupboard so swapped them out. The device formatted the HDD but still the same error and I suspect a fault with a component on the motherboard. It's a few years out of warranty so I've ordered a new one, fortunately there's an offer on Amazon, it's due for delivery tomorrow.

[Tizer]

Elsewhere on OG today there's something about a web site wanting to check out Stanley before they give him access. Mrs Tiz has bought stuff online from M&S for many years now but yesterday when she tried to log in she got a page saying they would not allow access from her server. We tried shutting off the adblocker and allowing cookies etc but still got the same page. When she tried it on my PC she got in OK. She emailed them with a screen shot of the page and we await their response.

[Big Kev]

My CCTV system spat out a warning that there was no storage available. Usually this would indicate a HDD fault , I had a spare in ths cupboard so swapped them out. The device formatted the HDD but still the same error and I suspect a fault with a component on the motherboard. It's a few years out of warranty so I've ordered a new one, fortunately there's an offer on Amazon, it's due for delivery tomorrow.

Plugged in the new DVR and still the same, turns out it's the power supply to the cameras that's failed (I've recently replaced the power supply to the DVR). The camera and DVR power adapters are the same spec so the system is operational again.
As the new DVR is up to date with more features I've decided to keep it and have put the old one in the cupboard as a backup. That'll teach me to check everything before replacing, could have saved myself £80 there...

[Stanley]

A Firestick moment Kev.....

[Big Kev]

A Firestick moment Kev.....

I fixed this one

[Stanley]

[Tizer]

I had a Firefox update yesterday. When I next wrote in the Search Box and pressed Return it produced a search done on Bing although I've always had Google as default in the Settings menu. I looked in the menu and it had been changed to Bing, so I've changed it back to Google. But how did it get changed by a Firefox update?

[Big Kev]

I had a Firefox update yesterday. When I next wrote in the Search Box and pressed Return it produced a search done on Bing although I've always had Google as default in the Settings menu. I looked in the menu and it had been changed to Bing, so I've changed it back to Google. But how did it get changed by a Firefox update?

Could it be related to this? "Microsoft Wants Firefox to Ditch Google, Switch to Bing - OMG! Ubuntu" https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2023/05/mic ... o-bing/amp

[Stanley]

They asked a question.....
"What do you think Mozilla should do?"
My response is stay away from Microsoft!
Didn't change on my platform Peter.

[Tizer]

Thanks for that link Kev, especially where it says `Mozilla tested Microsoft’s Bing as Firefox’s default search engine back in 2021'. I knew that this had happened to me at least once before, a few years ago. The threat of Bing being made Firefox’s default search engine doesn't worry me because you can change the default at any time. However I can see Firefox would be concerned because anyone installing it for the first time would be immediately left with Bing and might not know how to change it (although it's very simple) or just too lazy to bother changing it.

[Stanley]

"anyone installing it for the first time would be immediately left with Bing and might not know how to change it (although it's very simple) or just too lazy to bother changing it."
I suspect that's one of the factors that led to Microsoft gaining its dominance. Some of us weren't lazy but curious and went looking for something different.

[PanBiker]

According to Linda at TalkTalk via chat. My request for removal of the Anytime UK Calls boost is "stuck" she has escalated it to the back office team to sort it out. I asked for the date on the request which they have as back in June. They actually promised in May but didn't log that one! Apparently the Full Fibre Loyalty department can't deal with refunds for backdated overpayments, I have to speak with the billing department for that, (I have a direct dial number). I told her I would wait for the promised action from the back office, apparently it takes 5 - 7 days to do a database change! They have had 8 weeks so far, (actually more like 12) since my first appeal but they are not admitting that one. I have 2 transcripts and two, (soon to be three) emails confirming what they said they would do and have failed to action. So I reckon they owe me £48.00 although I think I will only be able to argue £32.00 with a paper trail.

I scored them down, 6/3 on the exit to today's chat and told them why, I normally give 10/5