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Recent Posts

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351
Living Room / Re: Why Russell Holly returned his Microsoft Surface Pro - A Cautionary Tale
« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 04, 2013, 08:07 AM »
LOL - not much new there then ... MS suck at all forms of sales and aftercare for hardware and software - always have, probably always will.
352
Living Room / Re: More speed/bandwidth from an 802.11n laptop<-->WiFi Router/Modem connection?
« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 04, 2013, 03:28 AM »
Strikes me that a full spec wireless n setup should be better than that. 802.11n should have a much larger range than g, and whilst n-light has a better range it is only single band and not going to be that much better than g.

A lot of manufacturers are going for n-lite these days - personally I think it is a bit of smoke and mirrors. Most people want n (if they even know what it is) and n-lite allows manufacturers to bamboozle people with 'n rated' products that are not full n spec. Presumably it is so that they can claim it is n and it costs them a lot less to produce.

If speed is important to you go for full spec 802.11n throughout. But as I suggested earlier try to buy everything from one manufacturer and if at all possible from the same product range within that catalogus. It is a bit more expensive than n-lite but you are getting at least double the speed and full range/penetration on the signal.

I used to use wireless throughout but now I prefer reliability to clutter free and I use a gigabit switch to connect fixed apparatus together at gigabit speeds, 802.11n lite (using a free router from my ISP - I have an old full rated 802.11n Netgeat router that went a bit flaky and I have to say it worked great while it wasn't flaky but I couldn't justify replacing it given that most of my setup is now wired) for tablets, printers and laptops and  mains plugs for hard to reach fixed stuff like TVs (which provide adequate transfer rates for TV streaming).

Combination seems to work well for me and file transfer between desktop computers is excellent.
353
Living Room / Re: More speed/bandwidth from an 802.11n laptop<-->WiFi Router/Modem connection?
« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 03, 2013, 11:15 AM »
Try changing the wireless channel at the router - it may be a conflict with another local network.
354
Living Room / Re: More speed/bandwidth from an 802.11n laptop<-->WiFi Router/Modem connection?
« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 03, 2013, 07:16 AM »
I live in an area where most houses are old and stone built - homeplug networking really works best as WiFi can be patchy at best in some houses. You can even use homeplugs to expand wifi - just connect homeplugs between the router and a room with poor wifi and add another wifi Access point.

Note make sure the homeplug devices you use actually work at the speeds specified. There were some Gigabit compatible homplugs (ie. they talked to access points and routers at Gigabit spec) but the actual ethernet connection into the plug was standard 100mbps!!!
355
Living Room / Re: More speed/bandwidth from an 802.11n laptop<-->WiFi Router/Modem connection?
« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 03, 2013, 05:14 AM »
If you want to get maximum speed with minimum wires there are now a number of GigaBit mains-plug networking options. You can still add WiFi to the mix when needed but for static equipment fast mains-plugs and a Gigabit switch will give faster speeds than WiFi.
356
Living Room / Re: More speed/bandwidth from an 802.11n laptop<-->WiFi Router/Modem connection?
« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 02, 2013, 12:45 PM »
Now you will want to trade them all in for a the full spec 802.11n kit.

By the way unless you have corporate high speed broadband you won't see any speed differences at all for broadband - just large file transfer across the network.
357
Living Room / Re: Show us a picture of your.. CAR!!!
« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 01, 2013, 04:45 AM »
And then they wonder why Kyoto failed!  :-[

If it isn't a stupid question why aren't there riots in the street over this?

Actually there is a simple solution for the US government - put up fuel taxes (like they have done in most of the developed world) so that if you drive efficient cars the overall tax take is the same. In the short term they would make a huge windfall - in the long term people would buy fuel efficient cars -  everyone wins!
358
Living Room / Re: Show us a picture of your.. CAR!!!
« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 01, 2013, 03:12 AM »
I don't know what the availability of diesel is like in the US (probably a PITA like Canada) but you get a hell of a lot more miles to the buck!
-Carol Haynes (February 28, 2013, 04:54 PM)

It's readily available at most major gas stations - but priced significantly higher per gallon than gasoline/petrol. Where I live, regular gasoline is averaging about $4.01 this week whereas diesel is running around $4.36. Looks like the US oil companies noticed the increased mileage and adjusted their price for diesel fuel accordingly.
 :-\


-40hz (February 28, 2013, 09:17 PM)

It's more expensive in the UK but nevertheless it is still cheaper in terms of mileage.

My Peuoget is costing me between 10p and 11p per mile (unless the weather is really bad when the cost goes up for all vehicles) to run but my partner has a much smaller petrol car (considered to be so fuel efficient the government gave her a subsidy to buy it) and yet it costs her between 14p and 15p a mile to drive.

It is just a fact of life that a good fuel efficient diesel will give you a lot more miles to the litre/gallon than an efficient petrol engine (unless you are prepared to drive a two seat Smart Ka) - so even with the price differential it is still considerably cheaper to drive diesel.

I presume those prices are per US gallon? That works out at $1.15 per litre for diesel - in the UK that would cost £1.46 per litre (ie. $2.22 US) which is why I am paranoid about getting the best mileage I can.

At the end of the day all cars cost a fortune - a good rule of thumb is that the total cost of running a car is about twice the cost of the fuel you put in it (at least in the UK) - so with price differentials it looks like in the US it would be more like 3 times the cost of the fuel. That is assuming you don't buy a clapped out old banger that costs a fortune to keep running at all.

If I lived/worked in a city with decent public transport I would just hire a car when I needed to - a lot cheaper - and use public transport. Unfortunately in the area I live public transport is completely impractical unless you are retired or not working and able to plan your day around the infrequent buses.
359
Living Room / Re: Show us a picture of your.. CAR!!!
« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 28, 2013, 04:54 PM »
Not my car but the same model:



Peugeot 207SW turbo diesel.

Great mileage - cheap road tax (in the UK only £30 a year).

Bought it to replace a Citroen Xsara (also a turbo diesel - 10 years old and ran like a dream) I killed in a flood - loved that car. It looked like this:

Actually I love the Peugeot - comfortable ride, SW back so flat for loading heavy boxes for work etc.. Relatively small engine but accelerates well.

I don't know what the availability of diesel is like in the US (probably a PITA like Canada) but you get a hell of a lot more miles to the buck! Peugeot make the best diesel engines in the world (which is why Ford and Citroen use them in their cars too).
360
Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Free Software from Microsoft.
« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 27, 2013, 05:44 AM »
I don't see why you guys are still saying there are no limitations, that this is free. As I posted above, you're promising that you'll deploy an MS-powered website (onto one of their approved hosts or servers, i.e., not el cheapo hosting) within the next year. It may be that they can't enforce it -- other than to terminate your license rights -- but you'd still be acting in bad faith to make the agreement without the intent to follow through on this promise.

d.  Web Pro will deploy a Web Pro Website on Windows Azure or Windows Server (on a Hosting Server or with a Hosting Partner) by the first anniversary of Web Pro’s enrollment in the Program.
-CWuestefeld (February 25, 2013, 11:28 AM)
-CWuestefeld (February 27, 2013, 02:54 AM)

They don't say what the website has to be like - you can put up a single page on windows server running on a local VM saying WebsiteSpark sucks and fulfil the obligation. They are providing the server software as part of the package so apart from a bit of disk space it isn't going to cost much.
361
Living Room / Re: Why a one-room West Virginia library runs a $20,000 Cisco router.
« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 27, 2013, 05:40 AM »
Hey - they could connect everyone up and give them free broadband !!!

This is typical bureaucratic BS and it isn';t just the US that sees this.

Many years ago (early 80s) I worked in a college that was given some money to spend on computers. There was a deadline and a rep from Prime minicomputers saw the college coming. £25,000 later a fairly useless (for our purposes) minicomputer was installed for class teaching. Of course the teaching staff avoided the room like the plague! At the time we were teaching programming using Pascal so I wrote a front end for the Pascal compiler to make it look and work the same as Turbo Pascal, after that a bit of teaching went on but it was never used for the 25000 reasons it was purchased!
362
Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Free Software from Microsoft.
« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 25, 2013, 03:49 AM »
Just to clarify you get 1 license each for:

Expression Web 3
Retail

Expression Studio 4 Web Professional (WebsiteSpark)
Retail

Expression Studio 4 Premium (WebsiteSpark)
Retail

Visual Studio 2010 Professional
Static Activation Key
 
Visual Studio Team Explorer Everywhere 2010
Static Activation Key

Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop
Static Activation Key
 
Visual Studio Express 2012 for Web
Static Activation Key
 
Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows 8
Static Activation Key
 
Visual Studio Professional 2012
Static Activation Key
 
Visual Studio Team Foundation Server Express 2012
Static Activation Key
 
Visual Studio 2010 Professional
Static Activation Key
 
Windows HPC Server 2008 and Windows Web Server 2008
Multiple Activation
 
Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 and Windows Web Server 2008 R2
Multiple Activation

and 5 keys for
 
Windows Server 2012 Standard
Retail

I find all this slightly bizzare - are they winding up the partner program? If not what is the incentive for designers to sign up for the partner program when they are giving this lot away for free?
363
Living Room / Re: Free Nationwide WiFi
« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 24, 2013, 07:03 AM »
When was the last time you heard about anyone abusing baking soda or dish washing liquid?
-Renegade (February 06, 2013, 05:23 PM)

LOL very true - but in the UK you can no longer buy Tartaric Acid (an ingredient used for making drinks like elderflower cordial). Apparently it was used in the London Tube bombers arsenal - along with chapatti flower - though I haven't noticed a shortage of chapattis !!
364
Living Room / Re: Michel In Guides!
« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 24, 2013, 06:32 AM »
In the UK It works like this:

If you feel you have a greater claim to a domain name than a current holder you can submit a request for adjudication to Nominet (the national governing body for domain names). If the domain is not currently being used or clearly not displaying content relevant to the domain name or infringes on a business or trade name then they will transfer the domain to the claimant. If it is less clear there is an appeals procedure where an aribitrator helps make the correct decision.

At least that is MY understanding of how it works. Here is their full guide: http://www.nominet.o...ving-domain-disputes

I have used this process a couple of times where people have come to me to design them a new website and the previous webhost claims they own the domain name (usually to stop their customers leaving them). This usually involves them registering the domain incorrectly with their names rather than the client details - something frowned on anyway as it is a legal requirement in the UK that anyone (other than private individual websites) must be contactable via the WHOIS service so if the domain is registered to the designer or hosting company it is clear that it is being sat on to prevent someone transferring to another service.

In the US this is just blatant extortion - I have been doing some work for a local company and their .com domain had lapsed. When I went to see about registering again it is now described as a 'premium' name (it isn't it is very specific to one small 2 person firm and no use to anyone else) and they want hundreds of dollars to return it. As far as I can tell there is no way in the wild west US internet to get around this blatant ripoff scam.

The same happened to me a number of years ago - I used a domain registrar to look up the availability of carolhaynes.com - it was available (for about £15) but when I came back the next day to purchase it the price had shot up to £300. Needless to say I didn't buy it. Six months later I tried again (this time through a UK registrar) and secured it for the normal price!
365
Community Giveaways / Re: Giveaway Rule Suggestion.
« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 23, 2013, 05:13 PM »
Agree - I suggest supporting member with 25 posts as a minimum.
366
Living Room / Re: More speed/bandwidth from an 802.11n laptop<-->WiFi Router/Modem connection?
« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 21, 2013, 11:12 AM »
As I said in a previous post that has been my experience of their products too.
367
Living Room / Re: More speed/bandwidth from an 802.11n laptop<-->WiFi Router/Modem connection?
« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 20, 2013, 08:49 AM »
Also I don't really find TP-Link hardware all that consistent. I have seen a number of identical models that seem to perform differently in the same location - wonder if it is a quality control issue?

The most consistent results I got were from Netgear Rangemax hardware where all machines used compatible Netgear devices from the same range.

What are you actually trying to achieve - fast network file transfer?

By the way looking at your initial post again the WiFi quality isn't 100% which can affect speeds.

There are some chipsets that don't play well together - so there may be a conflict between the Broadcom device and the router? Not sure what chipsets TP-Link use.

I used to have some problems with Intel chipsets and that was a conflict with a router chipset.
368
Living Room / Re: More speed/bandwidth from an 802.11n laptop<-->WiFi Router/Modem connection?
« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 19, 2013, 03:08 AM »
I have struggled with this in the past and came to the conclusion that only devices designed to work together (whether full or draft n spec) by the same manufacturer get anything like the advertised bandwidth.

In the end I just gave up worrying about it as there doesn't seem to be a manufacturer that produces a complete range of suitable device. In particular internal mobile adaptors (eg. laptop PCI or PCIe adaptors) seem rather difficult to find and mostly don't seem to achieve full throughput.
369
General Software Discussion / Re: Rumors of Adobe releasing CS2 for free? (true or NOT true)
« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 18, 2013, 09:27 AM »
Its all very strange - you would think Adobe would restrict downloads and serial numbers to people who already have registered copies of CS2 - just put the links in their account. They could even issue individualised replacement serial numbers.

They don't seem to be too bothered about anyone downloading and installing given they have published all this openly.

Presumably they take the view anyone still on CS2 is unlikley to pay for an upgrade - especially as CS6 can only be upgraded from CS3 onwards as far as I can tell. Making CS2 freely available may tempt some non-buyers into buying a package they try for free.
370
General Software Discussion / Re: Embedding external files into PDF file
« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 18, 2013, 06:43 AM »
Not sure you can do with with PDF files, at least not without a security warning. It wouldn't be a good idea to allow that either (IMHO).
371
General Software Discussion / Re: Embedding external files into PDF file
« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 18, 2013, 06:01 AM »
Adobe Acrobat

You can just create links within the document (a bit like anchors on HTML pages).
372
General Software Discussion / Re: Embedding external files into PDF file
« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 18, 2013, 04:58 AM »
You can include the entire content within one PDF and use internal links to jump about. That way there would be no security prompts.
373
Living Room / Re: Office 2013 Ripoff
« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 16, 2013, 07:58 PM »
See https://www.donation...ndex.php?topic=34017 - already discussed 'a bit'

Good clear article from PC world though.
374
General Software Discussion / Re: MS Office 2013 Home/Business - non-transferable (1 PC p.person) - Caveat emptor.
« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 14, 2013, 12:23 PM »
On amazon.com:

Product Features
Platform: PC Key Card
  • Licensed for one user for install on one PC. Box inculudes one Product Key Card - No Disc
  • The latest versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook
  • Designed to help you create and organize faster with new, time saving features and a clean, modern look
  • Save documents in the cloud on SkyDrive and access them away from home
  • One time purchase for the life of your PC; non-transferrable

See http://www.amazon.co...-1User/dp/B009SPWJ98

As I noted above they make this very clear on the microsoft office website if you buy online.

Another little 'nasty' that has slipped through is that the student/academic edition has a 4yr license that expires - never used to! And it is done via Office 365. I suppose a 4yr subscription is fair if you wanted Office 365 but the academic DVD version has disappeared and there doesn't appear to be a key-card equivalent.

See: http://www.amazon.co...quired/dp/B009VL9YGU
375
General Software Discussion / Re: Avast Installs Chrome
« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 14, 2013, 09:44 AM »
It's still on the US site too  :-[
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