Recent Posts

4901

General Software Discussion / Re: recommend backup soft?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 26, 2007, 01:08 PM »

Why not use Windows Backup?

Another alternative is http://www.avantrix.com/backplus.htm which I used to use and works well. There is also a DVD backup version of the app that allows you too make backups directly to DVDs. I bought a copy but never used it that much (it works in the same way but is a separate purchase).

4902

Living Room / Re: Accesspoint and/or router - help!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 25, 2007, 04:42 PM »

It's strange because it is available in Europe (I have one in the UK) but I can't find anyone who stocks it outside the UK.

You could always call Netgear and ask them where you can buy one - or telephone one of the distributors on the website (there are two list if you click on the where to buy link). Failing that you could always buy one from the UK and use a UK/Europe plug adapter (dead cheap).

Personally I wouldn't touch another Linksys access point after previous experiences.

The Netgear European Offices for contact are:

UK & Ireland
NETGEAR International, Inc.
Greenwood House
London Road
Bracknell
Berkshire RG12 2AA
United Kingdom
P: +44 (0) 1344 458200
F: +44 (0) 1344 311570
E: [email protected]

SWEDEN
NETGEAR Filial Sweden
Veddestavagen 13
175 62 Jarfalla
Sweden
P: 46-8-505-821-71
F: 46-8-505-821-74

FRANCE
NETGEAR France
2 Rue de Marly
Le Chesany
France 78150
P: 01 39 23 9855
F: 01 39 43 0847

BELGIUM
NETGEAR Netherlands bv
Schorpioenstraat 286
3067 KW  Rotterdam
The Netherlands
P.: +31 (0)10 2070 430
F: +31 (0)10 2070 439

GERMANY
(Eastern & Central Europe HQ)
NETGEAR Deutschland GmbH
Konrad-Zuse-Platz 1

SPAIN
NETGEAR International, Inc.
Muelle de Barcelona, s/n
WTC. Edif. Sur, 2 Pl
08039 Barcelona
Spain
P: 34 93 344 32 04
F: 34 93 344 32 99
E: [email protected]
81829 Munchen
Germany
P: 49 89 92793-2500
F: 49 89 92793-2510

ITALY
NETGEAR Int'l, Inc. - Italian B.O.
Piazzale Biancamano 8
20121 Milan
Italy
P: 39 02 72546624
F: 39 02 72546500

POLAND
Netgear Poland Sp. z o.o.
Regus Sheraton Plaza
ul. Prusa 2
00-493 Warsaw, Poland
P: (+48 22) 657 01 98
F: (+48 22) 657 00 31

4903

Living Room / Re: Accesspoint and/or router - help!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 25, 2007, 02:27 PM »

Here is the one I have (on the Danish site) ...

http://dk.netgear.co...Gateways/DG834N.aspx

There is a router (look up DG834T) which has a gigabit interface but it doesn't have the ADSL modem.

By the way I only edited your post to correct the URL

4904

General Software Discussion / Re: Firewalls - please, i can't be bothered.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 25, 2007, 02:00 PM »

Certainly Outpost 4 was beyond the pale for me - I still have a current subscription but I am not installing it again. I tried reinstalling 3.5 but it keeps insisting I should upgrade to v. 4 and I am not sure it is updating any more.

Now I am just using Windows XP Firewall behind a hardware wireless firewall - no problems for me and my machine runs so much faster and better.

4905

Official Announcements / Re: wtfcody.com - Cody now has a home not just an address.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 23, 2007, 08:47 AM »

Or how about a roll over where Cody peeps out and invites people to visit his workplace?

You could have a flash animate click through page that shows Cody with his suit and tie commuting to the office ...

4906

Official Announcements / Re: wtfcody.com - Cody now has a home not just an address.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 23, 2007, 07:12 AM »

Yep - just think it would be nice if there was an obvious connection in the banner ...

Nudone how about doing likewise on the wtfcody site for dc.com ?

4907

Living Room / Re: Apologese - I will be offline for a while ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 23, 2007, 06:33 AM »

Don't read if you are sensitivee to bad language

F*** F*** F*** F*** F*** BUGGER!

Set up the returned board yesterday - guess what - didn't POST.

Phone tech support - try using a screwdriver to boot it (rather than the front panel switch) .... strangely it booted.

Rebuilt system - all work fine

Ran MEMTEST 86+ all night - no memory errors this morning

Put in Windows installation disc (blank HD in there) and rebooted and guess what - won't POST AGAIN. Now doesn't matter what I do (with or without screwdrivers).

Called tech support - please send it back ...

So far this board has cost me £18 to send it back + £25 they have charged me for testing and return and now it will cost another £18 to return it again - a total of £61 !

I can buy a new board for under £100 should I cut and run on this one before I throw good money after bad ?

4908

Official Announcements / Re: wtfcody.com - Cody now has a home not just an address.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 23, 2007, 06:26 AM »

Congrats - lovely site.

Mouser how about adding a link to the banner here when you click on Cody - you could have a roll over setting so that if the mouse passes over him he say "Hi there, have we clicked yet?"

What does the WTF stand for (or is it too obvious)?

4909

Living Room / Re: cost of running a pc (in the UK)?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 23, 2007, 02:58 AM »

I use a UPS with my system - I can switch everything off from my desktop (couple of clicks) including the UPS which means all power is cut to the system.

The only power usage therefore when I switch off is the trickle charge on the UPS when the battery is not 100%.

Actually the UPS has sufficient power capacity (in the event of a blackout) that I also run my HiFi and DVD through it so they are all protected from power outages and dirty power signals plus I can ensure none of the devices are left on 'standby' or 'soft-off'.

4910

General Software Discussion / Re: Singing the anti-spam blues

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 21, 2007, 06:45 PM »

Actually POPfile has come on a bit in recent years - OK it is a little geeky to start with but once it is up and running it is pretty hands off.

4911

General Software Discussion / Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 21, 2007, 06:44 PM »

Depends how much you want to spend ...

Adobe Lightroom is now available but it isn't cheap ($199 at the mo discounted from $299).

It is squarely aimed at the Pro user (ideally using Photoshop CS2 too) who has thousands of photos to manage - and one of it's goals is processing RAW digital images in single image or batch mode. There are also printing, slideshow and web building modules which are easy to use.

I was lucky enough to get a free copy because I used to use Pixemantec RawEssentials Premium. The were absorbed into Adobe and as a gesture of good will to Pixemantec customers Adobe offered a free copy of Lightroom which is considerably more expensive and does a lot more.

If you need something serious and you don't mind paying check out the trial version (fully working for 30 days) at http://www.adobe.com.../photoshoplightroom/ or take a look at the Flash demo on the webpage.

4912

General Software Discussion / Re: Singing the anti-spam blues

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 21, 2007, 06:28 PM »

I have been singing the praises o POPfile for years but no one listens (maybe it is my singing).

The only issue with POPfile is that you use a webpage to configure the software. Fine in Outlook because you can set up a folder in the folder tree that opens it when you click but in other clients it may not be as easy - you can of course just use the optional tray icon to access the control panel.

POPfile is a Bayesian filter system that is not spam specific but doesn't take long at all to start classifying anything you like. Basically the way it works is it adds a field in the email header with the classification you want to use and then in the mail client you use rules to sort the incoming mail on that field. Simple but effective (if a little clunky and geeky for the first 30 minutes).

There is a plugin for Outlook (2002 on) that allows all the configuartion to be done from a toolbar in Outlook. It used to work great (and really simple and effective) but I found that it started to have some problems with later builds of POPfile. Outclass hasn't been updated since 2004 because the writer doesn't want to continue working on it. He would like it to be developed though if anyone wants to take on a project.

For details see:

http://www.vargonsoft.com/Outclass/

and

http://popfile.sourceforge.net/

4913

General Software Discussion / Re: Ripoff Britain strikes again ... this time with Vista Pricing

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 21, 2007, 06:20 PM »

I'll have a copy for $4 - make a great coaster

4914

General Software Discussion / Re: Holly Bananas, i need help! USBs not working

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 21, 2007, 02:13 PM »

I presume you have gone through the usual reboot etc.

Have you tried using system restore to go back a few hours to see if they work with an older version of the registry?

Does your BIOS have USB device detection (mine says on POST screen USB Devices: 1 Keyboards, 1 Mouse, 1 Hard Disc) - if so does it still detect the devices? If it did before and doesn't now it looks like a hardware fault, if it did and still does it looks like a corruption in windows somewhere.

If not the only other thing I can suggest is a minimal fresh install of Windows on a spare small partition to check it isn't a hardware fault (it isn't impossible for USB controllers to fail).

If it tracks down to windows can you completely uninstall all USB devices including hubs and controllers and then try and rebuild from the device manager?

Also check you have no disc errors (run an offline CHKDSK on your system disk) - one of the driver files may have been damaged.

4915

Living Room / Re: Apologese - I will be offline for a while ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 21, 2007, 08:02 AM »

The PSU is, I suppose, a possibility but it is a high quality PSU (and cost a lot) and it worked fine for 3 months and is doing so again now.

The duff setup was taken apart so often and put back together again so that i am pretty sure there were no loose fitting compnents and is one reason I reduced the system down to a single graphics card, single memory module and a CPU 9and then swapped them all for working components from another machine). It's all very strange.

As I said to nudone in a PM I have ordered a new CPU, PSU and a graphics card and I will retest the old board when they arrive (I don't want to keep experimenting with my main system) so we'll see what happens.

4916

ProcessTamer / Re: MS Word2000?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 21, 2007, 05:36 AM »

My experience of Office installers (2000, 2002 and 2003) is that if things get screwed there is only one real solution and that is to reinstall Windows and Office from scratch on a clean partition. No amount of fiddling ever seems to make a bad Office install better IME.

Best advice I can give is to do a reinstall and make sure you get a snapshot image before you do anything else so that you can always quickly install again in the future.

4917

Living Room / Re: Apologese - I will be offline for a while ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 21, 2007, 04:30 AM »

No it has the same serial number as the board I sent in.

4918

Living Room / Re: Apologese - I will be offline for a while ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 21, 2007, 03:15 AM »

It did occur to me to ensure the board didn't work before I returned it.

Any ideas on how to blow a chip (and not me) without it looking obvious or doing any other damage?

4919

Living Room / Re: Apologese - I will be offline for a while ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 20, 2007, 06:58 PM »

Spoke too soon ... I am really cross with someone (not sure who though).

My original mobo arrived back today with a note saying they can't find any fault with it. It cost me over £18 (~$35) to post it back under warranty but they claim when they tested it everything was fine. Not only that they are charging me a £10 inspection fee plus return shipping plus tax for the privilege.

Anyone any ideas how to proceed now? I seem to have a mobo that was definitely dead when I posted it to them (I had spent a day and a half fiddling with every possible combo of components, even those from another system and it wouldn't POST no matter what I did - in fact there was no video output or even a beep when it was switched on). The new mobo is using all the same components and works fine.

Trouble is if it is an intermittent fault I could end up stuck with a lemon that plays up at home but tests in the workshop and I am really stuck as to what to do next.

What I have done is written a really snotty email complaining that they didn't follow their own procedure (which was to contact me before returning an item that wasn't found defective) and so I am not prepared to pay anything since the problem is effectively unresolved and now can't be without me spending another $35 to return it to them. Basically I have told them if they make a charge on my credit card I will report them to my card company as I have not authorised any transaction and didn't supply credit card details for the purpose - they only have my card details as it is stored in my account for website purchases. Should I approach my credit card company for a refund on the original purchase on the grounds that the item is 'not fit for purpose' ?

4920

Living Room / Re: Google Releases Paper on Disk Reliability

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 20, 2007, 05:00 AM »

Also mentioned on the BBC website: http://news.bbc.co.u...chnology/6376021.stm

4921

What's the Best? / Re: Anti-Virus Package

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 18, 2007, 06:26 PM »

Kaspersky is neat enough, and I certainly like the pro-active/behavioral blocking stuff that can catch stuff if it's (pretty good) heuristics fail. And their use of "has this file already been scanned?" database is great

-f0dder (February 18, 2007, 04:13 PM)

Out of curiosity what happens if a file is in the database but is silently changed by a virus or other malware?

4922

Found Deals and Discounts / PCTools website - 25% discount on all products for 72 hours

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 18, 2007, 06:24 PM »

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To starting saving please visit http://www.pctools.com now, select any PC Tools product, enter 25VIP7216 in the coupon field in shopping cart and save 25% off your entire PC Tools order. You can use the code as many times as you want, on as many products as you want and share it with anyone you think could benefit from some world-leading software at a huge discount.

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And thanks as always for being a PC Tools customer.

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4923

General Software Discussion / Re: CD Ripping

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 17, 2007, 08:44 AM »

How about ISO Buster ? There is a free version and it copies on a bit by bit basis if you want (and will even try to repair by multiple reading to try and recover damaged areas). The pro version adds some functions for $29.99 See www.isobuster.com

4924

Living Room / Back up and running .... EU consumer law ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 17, 2007, 08:40 AM »

Hi f0dder,

there's a 14-day no-questions-asked full return warranty

Actually this is true throughout the EU as it is part of EU consumer law. However the minimum time allowed throughout the EU is 7 days (but I suppose some countries may increase that minimum) and lot's of sellers extend this to 28 or 30 days (though they don't have to). After the 'free return' period you are deemed to have accepted the goods and then any warranty is between you and the manufacturer - not the supplier unless the supplier is used to manage the warranty.

It covers any product at all that you buy mail order. In the UK they are called the "Distance Selling Regulations". See http://www.oft.gov.u...egal/DSR/default.htm for full details of what is and is not covered - interestingly even gift voucher purchases are covered.

There is an exception however for software, CDs and DVDs ... you can only return them if the seals/packaging is unopened - so you can't 'try before you buy' with these items or copy them.

By the way I am now back up and running .... new mobo bought from DABs - even including next day/saturday delivery the total was less than overclockers.co.uk before VAT and basic shipping! Presumably over the next few weeks the warranty replacement will arrive - but at least I have proved it wasn't other components in my system that caused a problem!

4925

Living Room / Re: Apologese - I will be offline for a while ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on February 16, 2007, 03:10 PM »

I understand what you are saying but the mobo is over 3 months old - the retailer can justifiably argue that I have accepted the goods.

As I understand it they don't have to refund or replace an item if the goods were as specified and the customer accepted the goods. Overclockers will accept returns up to 28 days for any reason which is way beyond the Distance Selling regulations but they argue that outside that period the warranty is with the manufacturer.

I have had other things that have gone wrong after a period of time and insode the warranty where the retailer simply says you need to send it back to the manufacturer for repair or replacement (and argue with them for a refund if that is what you want). The terms of the warranty are replace or repair (at the manufacturer's discretion).

It wasn't Overclockers that said a 4 week turnaround - they stated they would test the item and if it wasn't working they would return it to the manufacturer for warranty replacement. It was Asus that told me they have a 4 week turnaround - which given that the dealer will confirm it is defunct is a little excessive in my opinion.

I am in the strange position of defending the retailer - but I do understand their point. If they offered to repair the item they would probably invalidate the warranty as only ASUS can do repairs.

Another example, if I buy a TV from a High Street box shifter (such as Argos) which has no repair facilities I can't see they would replace goods that died just before the end of warranty (or after a policy based period) they would expect you to use the warranty service - that is what warranty is. Almost all warranties say 'repair or replace at the manufacturer's discretion' and I can see how a retailer can assess which the manufacturer would want to do - esp. if they don't do their own repairs.