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SeniorNet UK launched
Following on from a previous thread on PCW Interactive, I thought that you might be interested to know that after a bit of delay we have launched a website (www.seniornet-uk.org) to address some of the items discussed.
Albeit small at the moment, we are looking for the site to grow over the coming months and provide UK ‘seniors’ with assistance in better understanding various aspects of email, broadband, Internet and so on. Full details can be found on the website.
Mike McNamara,
SeniorNet UK
Overpriced and over here
I wanted to upgrade my Macromedia Studio MX2004 to the latest Studio 8 version but have decided not to in view of the large difference between the US$ price and the sterling equivalent. Bearing in mind this product is available as a software download the differences in costs should be minimal. Yet the upgrade is $399 for US customers and £299 ex. VAT for the UK; an exchange rate of 1.33 dollars to the pound! Currently the market exchange rate is 1.75.
Value is even worse if you only want to upgrade Dreamweaver; US$199 and £168 ex VAT - an exchange rate of 1.18. The site refuses to let me buy in US$ and insists on using the international site where the charge is in sterling. The product is the same, support is the same only the poor UK user is being severely overcharged. Come on Macromedia, great product but why overcharge and alienate UK users?
Strangely Adobe, the new owner of Macromedia, has a much fairer exchange rate on its Acrobat products.
Gary Starling
Blacklisted email servers
For several months I have experienced problems with one email sender who advises me that his emails are being returned 2/3 days after despatch, with the comment "....unable to deliver". No other explanation was given. Needless to say I was unaware of this but when advised I examined my security set up and found nothing wrong (Norton Internet Security 2005 listed the sender's email address as OK to receive)
Two weeks ago a further sender had all mail bounced back followed by another last week.
I asked my ISP (tesco.net) if there was any filter being applied and was told that I should go to a site address within tesco.net and remove a 'spam' filter that had been applied to my internet address. This had been done without my knowledge. It was suggested that I remove the 'check' against the filter and try again.
I next asked one sender to send me a simple line of text to test that I could now receive OK. The test failed with the email being returned.
I again approached tesco.net support services as I was still at square one. Tesco’s Their reply is shown below and I wonder if their action is legal and what Microsoft's reaction is likely to be given that Hotmail is blocked.
Personally I am annoyed that no warning was given that this blocking was to take place and therefore I could not alert any of my addressees.
The email just rec'd from tesco.net:-
“Unfortunately Tesco are blocking emails from Wanadoo, Yahoo and Hotmail. These domains are blacklisted by the third party mail filtering service that we use, as sources of SPAM. We are unable to remove the blacklisting. It is the responsibility of the blacklisted ISP to clean up its act and ensure that their domain is not a haven for spammers. Once this has been done they will be removed from the blacklist”
Greedy Windows
It is really exciting to read about Microsoft and the development of Windows Vista. As an IT geek, it really thrills me. But it has its costs. Vista will not run on the majority of the PCs of today. Typical
Microsoft. A small "Hello world" application compiled on Visual C++ to a Windows application resulted in an executable four times bigger than any of my DOS applications - without doing anything.
For the desktop, the applications eat up all the resources made available through new technology. A new 64bit system will not give you much benefit after MS has eaten its part. MS is capable of making intelligent and compact programmes like Windows Mobile. This isn't fancy, and it is
really demanding on the developer.
While Microsoft is thinking 'bigger is better' in the American way, I would prefer compact, efficient and smart like the European or Asian way. My Toyota is compact and takes me where I want with plenty of power. I will not trade it with a bulky American car with accessories I don't need and where the power is needed only to move the surplus metal. I like Vista because I hope it will give the alternatives a boost.
Svein Olav Hagen
Netgear woes
I had been happily using a Netgear DG824M ADSL Wireless router for a few years until around the middle of this year, when my ISP (Eclipse) upgraded my ADSL line speed for free. After that I began noticing that my router would frequently drop the ADSL line connection.
After a month or so, I complained to Eclipse and after following their instructions (e.g. disconnecting all other equipment, etc.), I was experiencing more problems to such an extent that I could not even connect for more than 5 minutes at a time without the router dropping the connection.
BT did the usual automated line checks and could find no fault, so Eclipse arranged for a BT engineer visit to visit my home at 9 a.m. on the following Monday morning. However, on the preceding Sunday, I dug out an old ADSL USB modem and tried that - and it worked perfectly! So clearly this pointed the finger at the Netgear ADSL router that I had been reliably using for about 2 years. Now the fun began...
I needed to cancel the BT engineer visit for the Monday - otherwise I would be charged for the call-out. I rang Eclipse on the Sunday, but of course, received an automated 'out-of-office' message. I next rang BT, but they refused to cancel the call because the ISP had booked it and so 'only the
ISP can cancel it'. My only option was to email Eclipse and ask them to cancel the visit - but they would never be able to do this in time and I would have to pay for the BT call-out!
The answer to my problem however was remarkably simple. Since I now had an internet connection, I went to the BT website 'faults' page and logged in using my BT account number. The page clearly displayed my pending visit and also allowed me to cancel it - which I quickly did!
So if anyone is in a similar situation they now know what to do.
Steve Simmonds
P.S. The problem with the Netgear router was easily fixed by replacing a bad
electrolytic capacitor (purchased from Maplin). It seems that this 'Tocon'
brand capacitor failure is very common in these routers. I have seen several
'faulty' ones advertised on eBay with the same symptoms.
See www.badcaps.com for details of the 'bad capacitor' blight and see my
thread here
http://forum1.netgear.com/support/viewtopic.php?t=14114&highlight=capacitor
for details of this particular fault.
Pocket PC games
I know this isn’t a gaming mag but you started it! I was intrigued to read about the Nintendo DS in your mobile gaming roundup so I nipped up to the loft, unwrapped the one my son had put on his Christmas list and had a go.
Two hours later I was still hooked, the touch-screen games were just brilliant. ‘Perhaps I’ll just take this one for myself to play with on my lunch breaks’ I thought. But then it hit me: I have a modern Pocket PC with a touch-screen, a fast CPU and ATI graphics, so all I need to do it go online and explore the wealth of cool DS-style touch screen games they must have made for the Pocket PC. I hurriedly re-wrapped the DS and went back down stairs and onto the net.
I was gravely disappointed, instead of Wario Ware Touched clones I get clones of old PC games and instead of a Project Rub clone I get countless ancient puzzle and card games. I would have thought that PDA games designers would have looked at the PDA format and designed games around it’s potential instead of trying to squeeze in games designed for big screened PCs with lots of keys.
Even if they didn’t see the potential immediately surely after playing on a DS they would have seen the parallels and made a few clones. The DS has a touch screen, a microphone and Wifi connectivity so do modern Pocket PCs, heck you could even argue that the portrait layout of a Pocket PC is equivalent to two small landscape screens on top of each other just like the DS has. The similarities are too many to ignore so please give me some DS action on my Pocket PC.
Jake
Laptop repairs
I run a PC retail and repair outlet. Desktops are easy to repair, having largely common standard components. Laptops however are another matter.
They do have some common components, ie: hard drives and memory. Optical drives used to be unique, but now increasingly share a common format, albeit with different cosmetics. Motherboards understandably are model unique, but the biggest anomaly is displays. Why should a LG 15” TFT have a different connection interface in a Compaq than in a Toshiba? If the internal cables in a desktop can be standardised, why not the ribbon cable connecting a screen to the motherboard on a laptop?
A common screen problem is Inverter failure. This is a small inexpensive component that handles the screen backlight. Failure results in a dim display. Why can this not be standardised? Why does Compaq for example insist that you buy a new screen/inverter package when only the Inverter (roughly £20 ) is faulty?
I have a collection of faulty laptops with perfectly good screens that could be used to repair other laptops with faulty screens or inverters. If the above issues were addressed by laptop manufacturers, (apart from screen sizes) the 2nd hand screens in those units could be used to economically repair others.
Why would I want to use 2nd hand screens instead of new ones? A 15” TFT monitor costs typically £130 The same screen (minus its casing) for a laptop will set you back about £250! Add the labour and VAT and the repair cost can easily exceed £300! Inevitably, faced with a bill like that the customer abandons his computer and invests the money in a newer better model, adding to the pile of faulty laptops!
In view of the WEEE directive and environmental concerns, and the pockets of consumers, Laptop manufacturers pull your corporate fingers out!
Mission Computers
PS. When reviewing Laptops it might be worth mentioning the availability of parts for repair. Retailers brands like Time & Tiny & Advent, nearly impossible, and in Advent’s case (PC World) ridiculously expensive! SONY – Unobtainable!! They refuse to supply any parts, not even a keyboard!
