COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[Big Kev]

An internet related 'agony'. Took me two hours to convince TalkTalk that my router keeps resetting itself. Finally managed to escalate to a 'supervisor'. New router is on the way.

[Stanley]

I have a new router in hand because I never changed from the old one as I wasn't bothered about setting my landline phone up again. Talktalk had sent the new one as part of the free upgrade to full fibre.

[PanBiker]

Have Talk Talk not chased you to send it back, they usually send a prepaid return label etc.

It's always best practice to upgrade to the latest specification whether you are going to use the VOIP port or not. The later router will be optimised for fibre. Also if you ever have a problem they will ask you why you are not using the latest tech that has been supplied.

[Big Kev]

An internet related 'agony'. Took me two hours to convince TalkTalk that my router keeps resetting itself. Finally managed to escalate to a 'supervisor'. New router is on the way.

New router arrived, installed and 'touch wood' it's been up and stable since I plugged it in
The old one has been packed into the 'returns' bag, label stuck on and dropped off at the Post Office (under threat of a £50 charge if I don't send it back )
TalkTalk could have saved a two hour wasted conversation if they'd believed me when I said the router was intermittently resetting itself.

[Stanley]

TalkTalk never asked for the router.

[Big Kev]

They never asked me directly, it was in the letter packaged in with the new one they sent me.

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[PanBiker]

Same when I got mine Kev.

[Cathy]

I have just been asked to change my password here, I’ve done so. How do I know that it worked

[Stanley]

I don't know Cathy but if it enables you to do whatever you wanted, it must be working I think.....

[Tizer]

Plusnet have sent me an email offering to change us onto a fibre package. It will be cheaper due to not giving us a landline phone connection. I looked at the details and the broadband would be hardly any faster than we we get now and we'd lose the phone line. We still make and receive landline calls and have friends who don't use smartphones, so we're not going to change until we have to. Also mobile calls here are often poor quality and we can't understand the caller and sometimes have to ask them to call the landline.

[Stanley]

"We still make and receive landline calls and have friends who don't use smartphones"
That's the key factor Peter. I had got to the stage where the only calls I got on the landline were junk so I did away with it when I went on to full fibre.

[Tizer]

I've just checked online for the broadband speeds in our local area. They're all the same as we're getting, about 45 to 49 Mbps, so we wouldn't benefit from a faster speed until they've installed fibre here.

[Stanley]

But even when that's done Peter, you have to ask yourself what benefit faster and faster is. With full fibre we get 80mps but I think the major benefit will be in reliability in the long run.

[Big Kev]

80mbps is what I get here, we're still waiting for FTTP (fibre to the premises), no mention of it yet.

[Tizer]

But even when that's done Peter, you have to ask yourself what benefit faster and faster is. With full fibre we get 80mps but I think the major benefit will be in reliability in the long run.

True. We don't need our connection to be faster, it does all we need now and PlusNet have been very, very reliable (crosses fingers and toes) over the 20 years we've been with them.

[Stanley]

You have to ask yourself what the people would say who we see reports of even today, who live in major towns and cities and have little better than dial-up speeds. It's understandable in remote areas but not in suburbs.

[Tizer]

It's about 11.00am now and so far we've spent this morning trying to sort out an unexpected charge on my credit card account. It's only for about £10 but, more importantly, it means someone has unauthorised access to my credit card details. Phoned the bank but couldn't understand the man who responded, he was speaking 30 words to the dozen. Asked him to slow down but still couldn't understand him due to his strong foreign accent. Had to get Mrs Tiz to help - she found some of his speech difficult but managed to cope. She had to tell me his question but I had to give the reply. After a lot of questions, answers and discussions he began to understand that we weren't people who give away our security details to just anyone. He couldn't explain the charge which was shown as to `Google Ads, Dublin'. Finally he had to transfer us to the fraud department

Went though the details again. No, I ever give my card to anyone else etc. I never buy stuff using my smartphone and don't have my credit card details on it. I don't even spend much on the card, so there aren't many entries and the Google stood out like a sore thumb. In the end they stopped my card and said that I would receive a new one. They don't have further information about what I'm supposed to have paid for. The charge arose the day after I'd bought some tools online from a reputable web site but I'd be surprised if it was related to them. Otherwise no other purchases around that time. They explained about tricks used on retailers' web sites where sometimes there is a box which is ticked by default and will take some money off your card, often as a subscription to something. I said I always avoid those but they explained how some scurrilous sellers will put it at the very bottom of the page well away from the transaction details where you wouldn't see it unless you scrolled to the bottom.

So now we wait to see if they come up with an explanation and see whether or not there is an identical charge next month.

[Big Kev]

Fortunately I'm able to 'block' both my debit card, and credit card, in my banking app. Any queries are usually answered, within a couple of hours, using the chat facility. I can't remember the last time I physically spoke to the bank.

[Stanley]

I dread anything like that where I have to talk to 'an agent' who almost always has an accent and gabbles. I simply can't understand them. (And I don't have Janet to interpret for me.)
I hope it has been sorted out Peter.
I have had another spate of dire messages telling me that my 'webmail' service terminates today if I don't go to a site and fill in the details. I don't know what they are talking about so have done what I usually do, delete the messages and ignore them The sky has not fallen yet. If it does I shall call for help.....

[Tizer]

A couple of years ago we were walking home along our street and saw a man in his shirt sleeves and slippers standing in the middle of the road. As we got near him he asked us for help. He lived in the house alongside and had been trying on the phone to get his bank to help him with a problem. He couldn't understand what they were asking so we went in and met his wife who also couldn't understand what was going on. It turned out to be security checks which need him to key in a code on his phone. In the end we seemed to get it sorted but we weren't surprised he was troubled.

[PanBiker]

I dread anything like that where I have to talk to 'an agent' who almost always has an accent and gabbles. I simply can't understand them. (And I don't have Janet to interpret for me.)
I hope it has been sorted out Peter.

For that reason I always use a chat option if available. You get the added bonus of saving the transcript of the entire conversation as well.

[PanBiker]

Now onto Stanley's Text Editor problems. Peter may come in handy here as he probably uses the same one.

Long story short. Stanleys Text Editor is shoving unicode into his edits for Bobs Bits.

[PanBiker]

I have just checked in a text editor I use (Notepad++). The settings for toggling unicode and other normally hidden characters is in the View menu.

[Tizer]

The text editor by default in Ubuntu is Gedit and has been for as long as I can remember. I've never had any problems with it and I use it a lot every day. I have seen unicode come up but only when it's my fault - for example trying to open an image file by mistake from the gedit file/folder tree or trying to open an old Wordperfect file which Gedit can't understand. It's unusual though because the Gedit tree only shows files with .txt endings.

Is everything in the file turning into unicode or just certain characters?

[PanBiker]

You can see the problem in Stanley's posts from Bob in Bobs Bits. Basically its displaying the unicodes for single and double quotes, open and close. Leads me to suspect an incorrect selection in Stanley's editor which he normally uses to edit Bob's emails. Bits of the story in Bobs bits as well Peter before I moved the conversation over here. He has used a different editor and it doesn't have the problem.