COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[Big Kev]

Excellent

[Stanley]

Sounds as though you have found the source Ken! Is there no end to this man's abilities?

[Wendyf]

From what I can understand (Colin gets very irritated by me asking questions) he first backed up the hard drive then did a reinstall of Windows10, it's working fine now but with an ssd drive. This morning he intends to put the original hard drive back in to check all is OK though it is painfully slow so he will probably talk Ken into investing £25 to speed it up with an ssd card. Do it for Mrs P Ken!

[plaques]

Wendy, Colin, Don't know anything about ssd cards, I assume its an external one which would be OK with us. £25 sounds cheap if it needs more to get a better quality go for it. Whatever it takes to keep Mrs P happy I'll go along with. No rush at this end we know its in safe hands.
Thanks again Wendy and Colin.

[Wendyf]

It's just a teeny weeny card that goes in a teeny weeny slot on the front of the laptop.

[Tizer]

That sounds more like an SD card than an SSD drive which I guess would be more like a conventional external hard drive in its physical size and shape (.i.e what Pluggy called `spinning rust'!)

[Tripps]

It's just a teeny weeny card that goes in a teeny weeny slot on the front of the laptop.

I think that might be an SD (camera) card. I believe that an SSD card lives inside the laptop? SSD in a laptop

[PanBiker]

SSD Drives come in handy 2.5" form factor for direct replacement into laptop HD bays. My desktop PC is actually running on one.

[Wendyf]

Sorry guys I must have got it wrong as usual!

[Tripps]

I must have got it wrong as usual!

Enough of the 'as usual' already. (Watching too much Judge Judy)

More like 'for the first time' I'd say.

[plaques]

Laptop home and working. Colin worked his magic. Everything cleaned up an re-installed. No need for a SSD card, the speed is now reasonable with plenty of hard drive capacity. It was in a real mess. Don't do it again. What caused it is a mystery. Maybe a bit of open source software (KODI) or the Microsoft update or both in combination.

Big thanks to Colin for sorting it out.

[Big Kev]

Laptop home and working. Colin worked his magic. Everything cleaned up an re-installed. No need for a SSD card, the speed is now reasonable with plenty of hard drive capacity. It was in a real mess. Don't do it again. What caused it is a mystery. Maybe a bit of open source software (KODI) or the Microsoft update or both in combination.

Big thanks to Colin for sorting it out.

Good stuff. My guess is the last Windows update pushed it over the edge.
I had Kodi on a laptop quite a few years ago, it worked well for a while then the authorities started blocking the servers it was streaming from. I got fed up continually having to reconfigure every time I wanted to watch something (without paying for it)

[plaques]

My suspicion is also on Kodi., Teetering on the edge of legality some of the 'pirated' films were perhaps a bit suspect. Mrs P had kicked it into touch when we got Netflix. Then a friend asked her if she had any problems with it. It had now moved up to version 19.4. Installed it and tried it. verdict a bag of rubbish. Then came the Microsoft update. Total collapse of the Laptop. You can make your own mind up but its the last of Kodi for us.

[Stanley]

Glad Colin has sorted you out Ken. If it was me I'd go for a replacement SSD drive. Pluggy upgraded me a long time ago and they made a wonderful difference even to the FM3.
Never heard of KODI so I looked it up. My crap detector always starts whining when I see I am being offered something for nothing inside an environment where I would normally have to pay. Include me out....

[plaques]

Colin did a magnificent job. As a secondary laptop the speed and capacity are ample for what it is doing. Some time ago I bought a couple of plug in external hard drives for backing up files these have now been superseded by SSD's.

On Kodi. going back some time it was useful for getting films that had been released in other countries but weren't available in the UK . free of course,
Not worth the trouble or risk now-a-days.

[Tripps]

I bought a couple of plug in external hard drives

A feature of the market is that supply and demand for certain items ebbs and flows. Laptops became expensive when kids and workers were at home duse to Covid 19. They are cheaper now they're back. Similarly off line disc storage is a lot cheaper now than it was. I've just bought two drives from Freecom. One to send to Uncle Jim who I discover is still using DVD to transfer photos from one machine to another. A 500GB drive will be quicker and easier.

P - you're right to be happy with the performance of your machine. I've just been offered a doubling of download speed from Plusnet, but I will stay at the current speed as it is fine for what I do.

[Stanley]

Talk Talk offered me free fibre to house installation but I refused it. I have 36 down and ten up, plenty fast enough for me..... The advantage of SSDs for me is because they make every operation where you have to access internal data so much quicker. I have never forgotten the three years I spent using OCR programmes to scan in the LTP transcripts. I used to have to sit there and watch those bloody blue blocks crawling across the screen....
(I got a national award for that project but always said it wasn't for academic achievement, it was for patience!)

[Tizer]

`Apple launches Lockdown Mode to block spyware attacks on at-risk users' LINK
`Apple is currently suing Israeli spyware firm NSO Group, accusing it of targeting victims in 150 different countries with its powerful Pegasus spyware. The firm's software could infect both iPhones and Android devices, allowing operators to extract messages, photos and emails, record calls and secretly activate microphones and cameras.'...

[Big Kev]

My brother in law, who lives in Barlick, took up the offer of FTTP a couple of weeks ago as it was cheaper than his current FTTC package.

Just in case, that's fibre to the premises and fibre to the cabinet.

[Whyperion]

My brother in law, who lives in Barlick, took up the offer of FTTP a couple of weeks ago as it was cheaper than his current FTTC package.

Just in case, that's fibre to the premises and fibre to the cabinet.

Couldnt see a difference with BT, unless I am missing something.

I have never forgotten the three years I spent using OCR programmes to scan in the LTP transcripts. I used to have to sit there and watch those bloody blue blocks crawling across the screen....
(I got a national award for that project but always said it wasn't for academic achievement, it was for patience!)

Is this the end for scanning beds as we know them ? CZUR 'Scanner' and software,

[Big Kev]

My brother in law, who lives in Barlick, took up the offer of FTTP a couple of weeks ago as it was cheaper than his current FTTC package.

Just in case, that's fibre to the premises and fibre to the cabinet.

Couldnt see a difference with BT, unless I am missing something.

He's with Vodaphone.

[Stanley]

Looking at the dire quality of cable installations to flimsy grey plastic boxes perched on uneven stone walls I can't see the connections surviving trouble free for long......

[Tizer]

`Predatory Sparrow: Who are the hackers who say they started a fire in Iran?' LINK
`It's extremely rare for hackers, who operate in the digital world, to cause damage in the physical world. But a cyber-attack on a steel maker in Iran two weeks ago is being seen as one of those significant and troubling moments. A hacking group called Predatory Sparrow said it was behind the attack, which it said caused a serious fire, and released a video to back up its story. The video appears to be CCTV footage of the incident, showing factory workers leaving part of the plant before a machine starts spewing molten steel and fire. The video ends with people pouring water on the fire with hoses.'...

[Stanley]

"It's extremely rare for hackers, who operate in the digital world, to cause damage in the physical world."
Is that true Peter? Surely the point about the cyber damage is that it has physical consequences. Hacking into safety systems can cause accidents, the same can be said about disabling safety controls which is what your example looks like. Imagine the consequences of hacking of programmes controlling driverless vehicles....

[Tizer]

"It's extremely rare for hackers, who operate in the digital world, to cause damage in the physical world."
Is that true Peter?

I agree, it also may be missing the attacks on computer systems controlling water supplies, for example, and on medical systems during the pandemic.