COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[Wendyf]

I have a calculator of a similar age which has been in use constantly since we had our business back in the late eighties. It has never given me a moment's trouble and is so easy to use.

[Tizer]

I still use a Citizen SDC 320 solar powered calculator but it's probably not as old as your calculator. I still have a tiny pocket one which is older than the Citizen but it's in the back of a drawer somewhere, no longer used.
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Latest news...This looks like a case of putting all your eggs in one basket...
`Websites begin to work again after major breakage' LINK

[Stanley]

I saw the news about the breakdown in the Cloud yesterday. It never affected me as far as I noticed but I have to agree with comments about too many eggs in one basket.
I have a Texas TI-30 STAT calculator bought about then David. It has 54 functions and I think I use two of them.....
Not a computer but my old Philips shaver. I've had it for so long I can't remember the date, at least 30 years I think. I have sharpened the cutters regularly and I think we have reached the end of their useful life. I may have to buy a new shaver!

[Tizer]

A lot in the news today about how Brits spent more time online during the lockdown than people in other countries. I wonder how they found out? Presumably by asking people...but do they distinguish between `online' and other similar activities, e.g. watching TV by TV aerial (as we do) and using a computer but not online etc.

[Tripps]

It never affected me as far as I noticed

It did - a link you gave went nowhere.

The battery arrived, and quickly a new saga developed. I put it on charge for the whole day which I understand is the thing to do. Result - Not charged at all. I even suspected the on switch might have been damaged, but I squeezed the old battery in and all was well. It's going back today.

So - decision time. A new kosher battery from Motorola is best part of £25 and a similar replacement Motorola E6 Play (with guarantee) from Tesco outlet is just £49, or a super model the Motorola E7 Ice flow with a giant 6.5" screen is just £75.

It's 'pockets in shrouds' time.

PS. the Ice flow is on its way. . .
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PPS - I said it was a saga. It always is with me! The seller emailed me, with a photo, and asked if I'd taken the plastic cover off the battery contacts? Does he think I'm stupid?

You've guessed the answer to that one. In my defence the cover did not stand proud, as in his photo, but was countersunk, hiding in the recess. Now I know what it means when the Moto logo flashes constantly during the 'charging' process.

The replacement is on it's way though, and Tesco have given me a very nice feedback already. Looks like I'm going to have the best spare phone in the village.

[Tizer]

Tripps, excuse me going off topic but I hope you've listened to the latest More or Less episode. About three quarters of the way through it investigated why Cambridge seems to have a lower average vaccination rate than any of the rates for individual groups in the town. More or Less

[Tripps]

excuse me going off topic

It's a mercy Tiz.

I finally joined iBBC and I've listened. Makes you wonder what figures on any topic can be believed. Good to hear such a programme though.

[chinatyke]

BBC or Biased Broadcasting Company as it is called by the Chinese government! How right they are.

[Stanley]

I thought about David when I listened to it.

[Tripps]

Biased Broadcasting Company as it is called by the Chinese government! /quote]
And by me sometimes.

Anyway I've decided to give the China Daily a go, and see how they do in regard to balance.

Looks idyllic and reminds me of Fred Kite's famous quote "All them corn fields. . "

All them cornfields.jpeg

PS Found this there - that's a good start - no mention on the obviously biased BBC. Climate change solution
So simple really - why didn't I think of it? This guy is a Congressman !!

[PanBiker]

We have a business broadband account for Bosom Friends and I have just received an offer from TalkTalk business for a leased line deal with full fibre to computer installation. Starting from £70.00 per month +VAT. We will pass on that as we only use it for WiFi for the premises and to feed our smart TV display. Talk Talk upgraded us for free from the 39Mbps package to the 65Mbps deal, I bet they won't do it with this latest offer.

I supposedly have the 65Mbps fibre package and used to get about 55Mbps but since Open Reach have been all over the Croft with the fibre to pole roll-out it has dropped to 49Mbps. Unfortunately that is still within the parameters of the guaranteed speed for the package. Can't complain I got the 65Mbps deal at the same price I was paying for the fibre 39.

I have recently had a slight problem when using on demand on the TV with buffering issues. Daft really as I didn't have any problems at 39Mbps. Router shows 49Mbps solid with no dropouts and a reverse line test from TalkTalk shows solid connectivity also. That of course is on the input side of the router. I use a hard wired CAT5 connection between the router and the TV. I think I may have fixed it though by swapping the lead to a different port on the router, it has been solid since I made the swap.

[Big Kev]

My Sky broadband/phone package is out of contract so I gave them a call to see what deals they could offer me, £43 a month for unlimited broadband (80mbps), anytime calls, caller ID and voicemail. After reading Ian's experience with Talktalk I gave them a call, basically the same package for £26 a month. No contest.

[Stanley]

Triggered by Ian I shall do a test.... 36mbs down and 9.19 up. I think that's about the same as usual.

[Tizer]

PS Found this there - that's a good start - no mention on the obviously biased BBC. Climate change solution
So simple really - why didn't I think of it? This guy is a Congressman !!

See my reply to Plaques in the Climate thread about that man: LINK

[PanBiker]

Triggered by Ian I shall do a test.... 36mbs down and 9.19 up. I think that's about the same as usual.

If you log in to your router it will give you the actual connection speed to the exchange.

[Tripps]

See my reply to Plaques in the Climate thread about that man:

Good to see someone is keeping up.
What the China Daily and One Guy say today, the Guardian says tomorrow.

[Stanley]

Of course!

[PanBiker]

I have found an anomaly with the latest version of Firefox. If you have multiple tabs open as I do when browsing the site. Index page on one tab then the unread posts list in another. I then open each post in a new tab. All that is fine until I close the last but two tabs, leaving the Index and unread posts tabs open. The entire browser windows restores down to postcard size? Clicking maximise will restore the window to full size. I have tried making the minimise down size the same size as the maximise by dragging it out but it still does the postcard trick when closing the last newly opened tab?

[Tizer]

That doesn't happen with my Firefox on Ubuntu. I had the Firefox update with the big changes recently then a standard Firefox update in the last couple of days. I'm on v.89.0 of Firefox for Ubuntu.

I did notice something strange but unconnected. I opened the Firefox Settings page, highlighted the bit about my version and did a copy and paste to this post. It didn't work - just got the last previous thing I'd copied. I tried copying other text from the Firefox settings page but still it didn't work. I'd been using keystrokes but it wasn't possible with the mouse and edit menu either - Copy was greyed out. Perhaps they just don't like people copying their text!

A change in the new Firefox that I find irritating is that when I drop down the Bookmarks or History menu the lines for the entries are very widely spaced which means a lot more scrolling is needed and more items are `off the screen'.

[PanBiker]

I'm on the same version v89.0 / 64 bit Windows version. I hadn't noticed the extra spacing problem but it is the same on mine. On the copy thing, I think it is because the "About Firefox" is predominantly a graphic. You can copy from any of the links that are available from there though.

[Tizer]

I looked for somewhere to send feedback to Firefox and couldn't find any links that gave working pages. The word on the web seems to be that they don't want feedback. As one said, `The best things if to write your feedback on a sheet of paper...then throw it in the garbage bin.'

[Stanley]

I've noticed the spacing Peter but none of the other problems. Mind you I don't even know where preferences is hiding....

[Tizer]

For preferences/settings click on the 3 little horizontal lines at the top right of the Firefox window.

[Stanley]

Thanks Peter!

[Tizer]

Hey guys, we should try joining this thing called the European Union so we can benefit too!
`Chip shortage addressed by US-EU tech alliance' LINK
`Manufacturing more computer chips in Europe and the US will be one of the key focuses of a new technology alliance between the two. The Trade and Technology Council (TTC) was unveiled following talks between European commissioner Margrethe Vestager and US President Joe Biden. The group will also seek to set common standards for new technologies such as artificial intelligence..'.