COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[PanBiker]

Grrr, TalkTalk are screwing up my email passwords. TT are undergoing an update to their webmail and the address I set up for OneGuy and Paypal, Windows Mail is reporting that it's password needs updating. I have tried two different methods of doing this and neither will let me reset the password. I can't directly access the address via Webmail either at the moment. Each time I try to update via the lost password link it sends me a link that goes to another email address on my account and not the oneguy address. If I try to do it directly via the email management interface it tells me that a perfectly legal complex password meeting all required criteria is wrong.

Upshot of this for the site is that I will get no notifications of any donations made.

I will leave it for a couple of days to see if they complete their update changes.

[plaques]

Something going wrong with TalkTalk in general. We lost the wi-fi signal connection twice, once yesterday and again tonight although the 'wired' connection is still running. At this moment the wi-fi is back and lets us use the Sky cinema boost but the App to enable Nexfix isn't working. Probably a user volume problem but it should happen. I'll see what tomorrow morning brings.

[PanBiker]

Dropped my WiFi as well tonight, about an hour ago.

[Stanley]

Sorry to hear that. I have had no problems......
Talktalk does the new password routine on me at times, I just leave it to heal up, it always has up to now. But that's early in the morning.

[Tizer]

My Roberts alarm clock is one of those that claims to set its time frequently from the `atomic clock' but occasionally, like a couple of days ago, it will read a totally different time that's many hours different and doesn't bear any relationship to the correct time. I know the signal doesn't come directly from an atomic clock but I don't know where such signals originate and who is responsible for them (In other words who should I blame for my clock's misbehaviour? )

[PanBiker]

I sorted the OneGuy email one later last night. I think it only affects talktalk.net addresses. My tiscali one seems to be OK.

Just read your post Tiz and it used to be Rugby for the time signals don't know if it's the same for the latest auto jigging stuff. Digital ID signals are all lover the place now on thousands of TV, radio and mobile phone masts.

Just googled this Wiki:

List of Atomic Clocks

Ours is at Teddington but I don't know how it's distributed, as soon as you shove it down a piece of copper or transmit it through the air it will loose it's accuracy. I think using the Atomic Clock is a bit of marketing magic. You can get pretty accurate time from any mobile mast.

A good test to show how much delay there is between analogue and digital is to listen to both at the same time. Analogue leads and the digital follows a few seconds later so much for digital accuracy.

[Tizer]

Thanks for the reply, Ian. Yes, marketing magic - Wikipedia says the same. Whenever my clock time goes wandering I always think about the many more important time-controlled things that might be going on the blink, in hospitals for instance. We're very familiar with the digital lag, having had a mixture of FM and digital radios for some years now.

[Pluggy]

If your internet via wired works and the wifi is off, you don't really have a case against the ISP, its a local problem, You could blame the ISP for supplying a crappy router (if you actually use an ISP supplied router - I don't ) with crappy wifi but thats it. The wifi signal is purely between your computer and the router/hub/whatever your ISP calls the box connected to your phone line. Most of it uses an insanely congested 2.4 GHZ band.

[Tripps]

I have a clock from Lidl which cost very little, and is said to be 'radio controlled' .

The long wave signal which does the controlling is from Mainflingen in Germany DCF 77

It's been a bit of a disappointment as the batteries don't last too long, and it often stops for no apparent reason and spins round to 11 o'clock. Having recently decided that time doesn't actually exist - I've relegated it to the kitchen, where it tells the 'right time' occasionally.

Brings back memories - I used to measure the emissions from Rugby once a month.

[Pluggy]

Alkaline or Zinc Carbon ?

There is no place for Zinc Carbon batteries in the 21st century IMO. Alkaline are typically 5-10 the capacity for double the cost. High or moderate current devices can screw zinc carbons in very short order.

[plaques]

You could blame the ISP for supplying a crappy router

I know nothing about routers but this new one from TalkTalk is certainly better on Wi Fi output than the crappy Dlink I had before. Router This one allows both 2.4 & 5 MH plus four wired slots. you can interrogate the router to see what is switched on although what good that does me I don't know. The Nexflix is a wired connection via a powerline so one would have expected that if my desktop (wired) was working then the Nexflix should be working unless TalkTalk aren't sending it down the line. Talking to TalkTalk is one big headache so I'll forgo that pleasure and see what happens tonight.

[PanBiker]

If it's the same as mine P it's manufactured by Huwaei. Sally has just got a new Android phone from the same maker, fully featured and very good value.

I have my Freesat box on a direct CAT5 connection, but I use powerline connectors to shove it up to my radio shack in the attic for the stuff up there. I would agree that the WiFi is pretty good, full coverage anywhere in our house, back yard and front garden. I'm fairly certain that the WiFi dropout to my laptop is the adaptor in there, it resolves with a reboot or sometimes getting windows diagnostics to reset the internal adaptor. My laptop is on it's last legs, has no battery now either.

[Tizer]

If it's the same as mine P it's manufactured by Huwaei. Sally has just got a new Android phone from the same maker, fully featured and very good value.

Watch out for your Huwaei gadgets self-destructing when Gavin Williamson instructs MI6 to shut them down!

[PanBiker]

He might not have his job much longer.

[Tripps]

Alkaline or Zinc Carbon ?

Was Zinc Carbon - now is Alkaline. The clock sulked a bit after spinning to 11 o'clock, but I just ignored it and now it's behaving itself. It's an Auriol which I think may be exclusive to Lidl and I find it has a three year guarantee.

Some people seem to have a problem, in that theirs set to Central European Time, but mine is showing UTC. Must be a Brexiteer.

[Cathy]

In mid December I received 6 phone calls from 6161 numbers and some others, I didn't answer any of them because I didn't recognise them. Some left messages on message bank, when I went into one of them it was calling a number (?). No messages were actually left.
Since then my facebook page disappears after 1 second on screen. I logged into facebook on another mobile and everything is fine. Facebook tells me nothing is wrong.
Does anyone know what I can do to restore facebook on my phone??

[Stanley]

Sorry to hear that Cathy. I can't help. I am a jerk with phones but I am sure the lads will have suggestions.....

[Marilyn]

Have you tried deleting the App Button for Facebook on your phone and then reinstalling it, Cazza?

[Cathy]

I go thru the internet address each time on my phone and we've changed my password using a nother mobile.

[Big Kev]

If you access FB through a browser each time, have changed the password and it works OK on another device it sounds more likely to be the browser. Have you tried to 'restore factory defaults' on the phone?

[Stanley]

Haven't I heard somewhere that many other Facebook users have found themselves locked out, perhaps a Google search might be in order.
On another matter, I have just done my annual backup and created a new folder ARCHIVE 19 and populated it with my most frequently used folders, all with the suffix 19. I think we are safe for a while!

[Stanley]

Last year when I did my archive back-up I must have done something a bit different because for a year I have had to put up with a phantom file called 'comments' in my OGFB picture file. Also the current year wasn't at the top of the list and the other entries weren't appearing in alphabetical order. I am happy to report I have done better this year, 'comments' has vanished and in the new folder ARCHIVE 19 the files are in the correct order. Result!
[I've just had a look at the folders and whatever I did yesterday has corrected the fault in Archive 18 as well so that's even better.]

[Tizer]

Lidl Auriol alarm clock - I had a look at this on google and and found lots of pages about the time setting. Also this statement which seems to imply that Lidly staff don't travel abroad!
` This afternoon a spokeswoman for Lidl confirmed the clocks were faulty. The mechanism uses a radio time pulse transmitted from Frankfurt - and no one realised German time was an hour ahead of British time.'

[Stanley]

[Cathy]

Thanks Big Kev for your advice. Have looked on-line and am a bit concerned about 'doing it myself' so I will take my mobile into my Telstra (Telecom) store and ask them to do it for me.
Wish me luck .