COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[chinatyke]

My 2½ years old computer monitor packed in yesterday and I took it to the repair shop. They've quoted 200 rmb (about £22) to repair it with a 6 months guarantee. Now my wireless keyboard is acting up and keeps missing odd letters as I type. I've just had a look underneath and there are 2 AAA batteries in it that are also 2½ years old so maybe I'll need to bite the bullet and splash out on new ones!

[Tizer]

My Logitech wireless keyboard is about 20 years old and has served me well. It's only had about three battery changes in that time!

[Stanley]

I have the same Tiz. The reason I had to change regularly at one time is because I wore out the letters on the keys and don't touch type. This one is doing far better!
China. if it's wireless try taking the transmitter out and replacing it a couple of times to clean the contacts up.

[chinatyke]

I have the same Tiz. The reason I had to change regularly at one time is because I wore out the letters on the keys and don't touch type. This one is doing far better!
China. if it's wireless try taking the transmitter out and replacing it a couple of times to clean the contacts up.

Thanks. I'll try it, belts and braces.

[Stanley]

Mine does that occasionally and either that or a new AAA battery cures it.

[Tizer]

Anyone out there still on Windows 7?
`Microsoft ends Windows 7 support: What should you do?' Win 7
`Cyber-security experts are urging Windows 7 users to upgrade their operating system. Microsoft is going to stop supporting Windows 7 from Tuesday so that it can focus on "newer technologies". As a result, Windows 7 users will no longer receive the all-important security updates and patches that keep their machines safe. One in four Windows users is running Windows 7, according to statistics website StatCounter.

[chinatyke]

Anyone out there still on Windows 7?
`Microsoft ends Windows 7 support: What should you do?' Win 7
`Cyber-security experts are urging Windows 7 users to upgrade their operating system. Microsoft is going to stop supporting Windows 7 from Tuesday so that it can focus on "newer technologies". As a result, Windows 7 users will no longer receive the all-important security updates and patches that keep their machines safe. One in four Windows users is running Windows 7, according to statistics website StatCounter.

When I bought this laptop almost 3 years ago it had windows 10 installed and I asked for Windows 7 to be put on because I'd heard bad reports about Windows 10. The shop partitioned the drive and put Windows 7 on to one of the drives. I've never used it! Windows 10 is good and apparently my machine/chip set was made for it. I suppose I should wipe Windows 7 off but it remains on G drive! If I ever need to recover some space it will be the first thing to go.

Got my computer monitor back from the repair shop today and I'm so happy looking at a 27" screen instead of 15.4" - I can see what I'm doing again!
I have a new mains power supply on order for my wife's Acer laptop after the recent trouble and that should arrive tomorrow.

[Stanley]

China, I got a bigger screen same size as yours when I was having sight problems. The eyes are cured now but I would never go back to the smaller one.
I wonder how many government systems and equipment are still running on obsolete versions of Windows? I'll take a small bet that it's more than anyone thinks.
How's the keyboard China? (And incidentally your operation scars?)

[chinatyke]

How's the keyboard China? (And incidentally your operation scars?)

Not had any further trouble with the keyboard, perhaps your trick with the dongle worked.

Operation wounds have healed nicely and scars are fading fast and blending in. Thanks for asking. That little drama has been relegated to the distant memory archive now!

[Stanley]

Good on both counts. Just as it should be!

[Big Kev]

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They turned it on this evening, I'll give it a couple of days to settle down.

[Stanley]

Looking good! Just checked mine for a comparison. 37 down, 9.5 up so you are doing better!

[Big Kev]

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Slowly picking up

The router is connected at 72.5 mbps down and 20mbps up so the first test, via wifi, isn't a true reflection.

[Stanley]

A lot faster than dial-up!

[Big Kev]

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It certainly is...

[Tizer]

Some interesting options to try here..Alternatives
`What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?'

[Stanley]

Logically, such new companies with strong ethics should get a foothold but the inertia of the giant's hold on the public is vast. I wish them well but are you switching to DuckDuckGo as your default browser?

[Tizer]

I used Bing for a while after Google mucked up my searches but moved back when they relented, it was good but the big G had the edge. I'll try the others when I've got more time.

Here's a woman fighting Instagram and winning...
`Instagram rejected model's rosacea images' LINK

[Stanley]

My only comment on that is that it is a funny old world and I don't understand it!

[Tizer]

This caught my eye today because a long, perfectly cut trench has appeared down the pavement of a street on my local walk...
`Fibre-laying tools aid rural broadband rollout' LINK

[Tripps]

We're having a presentation in the village hall on Wednesday from a company which wants to get the whole village fully fibred up. They are giving it all the hard sell, should be interesting.

[Big Kev]

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Be interesting to see how much faster it gets

[Stanley]

Janet told me many years ago that submarines used very low frequency radio for their communications to get data for their Battle Space systems and had transmission speeds better than gigabyte per second. It makes me wonder if fibre to the property is the ultimate. I see that the economic time scale for investment in FTTP is 15 years. Will fibre still be the best then?

[PanBiker]

The RN lads we visited from the radio club showed us how it all worked. The problem with VLF and UVLF is that the lower in frequency you go the bigger the transmitting antennas have to be. VLF submarine communication involved antennas that were a couple of miles long and more. You can't fit them on the top of fire station hose drying towers or the average communications mast. This is why we use microwaves which are essentially line of sight but don't need the same power to form a nodal network small dishes and plates and away you go. A hard wired network is always preferable be it metal based or fibre. Speed of light in the latter so it will need a quantum leap to better that or a warp drive.

[Tizer]

Quantum leap is an appropriate term. Employing quantum entanglement would give transfer at better than the speed light - it would be literally instantaneous, even for communicating with other planets, other galaxies. We can't do it at present but it will come - we've already got the beginnings of quantum computers using qubits. Quantum computing