COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[Tizer]

`Step forward for computing by light'
Latest research shows that silicon crystals can be prepared in a form that confers chirality which means this silicon form will allow much faster computing speeds. A chiral substance is one that can exist in both left-handed and right-handed crystal shapes. Chirality is important in biology but this discovery extends it to the engineering of inorganic materials for computing and other applications. LINK

[Stanley]

My mind goes back to my late son in law Big Harry.... He told me years ago that before I died I would see undreamed of improvements in computing and communications. This new crystal technology is yet one more manifestation of how prescient he was. I still miss him......
See THIS for a disturbing report of the ability of hackers to take control of car computers. The more complications we introduce into systems, the more chances there are for untoward results....

[chinatyke]

See THIS for a disturbing report of the ability of hackers to take control of car computers.

Just coincidence but I hired a Jeep Cherokee whilst I was in USA. It was a new model and had only done 1000 miles. All went well until I parked it outside a motel door in Los Angeles. Then I found that whatever I did I couldn't lock the rear tailgate. On my return to Newport Beach I took the car to the rental company and asked them to have a look at the problem, I was sure I was doing something stupid and I would just need advice or it would be a quick fix. Several of the service guys came out and tried to lock the tailgate, and scratched their heads and muttered about it being a new vehicle. We'll give you another vehicle was their solution. I did the paperwork and was ready to leave when the foreman came in to the office and said they had found the problem. Their boss had come out to inspect the Jeep and tried unsuccessfully to lock the door. He walked away with the key fob saying he would get the supplier to look at it. When he got about 20' away the tailgate locked by itself. Apparently it is a feature, if the remote control key fob is within 20' of the tailgate it unlocks for convenience. It locks again when the vehicle is started. When I first noticed the problem the car was outside my motel room and always within 20' of the fob. These newfangled things are just too clever!

[Stanley]

That sounds like a particularly stupid feature. Some programmer got a bit in front of himself....

[Tizer]

It's bad enough having the usual electronic key for opening your car door and having to be careful you don't accidentally press the open button whilst still in range. I haven't worked out the range for my Golf key but it works through the wall of the house!

With previous cars we were used to pressing the lock button once to do the basic locking of the car doors or twice to deadlock them. When we got our latest car we found it works the opposite way and it deadlocks on the first press and you have to press again if you want it to be openable from the inside. The deadlocking is a dangerous state because when deadlocked any passenger remaining in the car can't get out. It's much safer to require double clicking to deadlock the vehicle.

[Stanley]

Bit of a change from my old Blue Ford Ghia Granada (a distinctive car, not many about). I perked it once in a multi story car park and when I went back to retrieve it I unlocked it, got in and realised that I was in the wrong car! I got out quickly and re-locked it and as I was walking away a man came to the car and got in. I told him what had happened and he laughed ant told me he had done the same thing! Apparently when they got worn, all the keys for that model fitted almost any Granada....

[Pluggy]

I got fed up with the electronic gizmos on cars. My now approaching 11 year old Skoda has a raft of electrical problems and half the stuff doesn't work any more. I'm awaiting delivery of a new car (late August / Early September.) About the only new car available in the UK without central door locking, electric windows, electric mirrors and a pile of other electrical bits to go wrong. It doesn't even have a radio. bliss....

Pity they had to put the bl**dy stupid gear change indicator on the thing. I've been driving for 40 years, I've worked out when its time to change gear.....

http://www.dacia.co.uk/vehicles/sandero/range/access/

[Tripps]

I'm struggling to believe you have anything electrical, which is faulty, and not fixed. Good luck with the Dacia - if it hasn't got one, it can't break, is not a bad philosophy. My son is taken with that brand, but his wife has used her veto.

I bought a LADA estate car once in the70's on a similar principle (dead cheap) and it was the worst car I've ever owned.

PS - back to the topic - Those nice people at Windows Technical Department phoned again this morning, and offered to assist me with a problem I didn't know I had. They are getting bolder now, and left their phone number - 001 985 879 4698. That's in the USA isn't it?

[Marilyn]

On one of our holidays we rented a small blue car (couldn't tell you what kind) and I left hubby in it whilst I raced off and did something.
Climbed back in the passenger seat on my arrival back and discovered it was the wrong car! The male driver was not my husband either! Poor dear, I gave him quite a shock.
Hubby was sitting in matching blue car behind him, smiling of course.
Then, when we got back home to Australia, I had to nip out for essentials and had a few anxious moments looking for little blue car in carpark, then finally realised we were home now and no longer had a little blue car.
I put it down to jet-lag.

[Stanley]

That's a handy excuse Maz.....
David, Mary once bought a second hand Lada.... It took me seven days to realise I couldn't cure it. I gave it to a mate of mine who fixed it free but made Mary promise never to bring it to him again....
OG just went AWOL for ten minutes. Tried the alternative site on Pluggy but that wouldn't give me active topics, then OG came back on this server.....
Canonical just delivered yet another big Linux update....
Had an exciting time with Freesat box at teatime yesterday. As I have mentioned before my old Grundig box (bought in 2008) has been getting increasingly eccentric of late and it reached a peak by starting to drop out and re-establishing itself at random and ever closer intervals. I rang Ian at Garlick's just before closing time and told him I thought it had reached its sell-by date. He agreed and said that he had looked it up and was surprised it was HD, the first they installed. Twenty minutes later he was at the door with a new Humax box which was £60 cheaper than the Grundig! £110 changed hands and I installed it. Installation was slowed down because I had to clean everything behind the set! (I am turning into a compulsive cleaner now I can see the dirt!)
Installing it was straightforward and helped immensely by the fact I could see the screen clearly and the buttons on the remote, good timing! Up and running straight away and what an improvement on the Grundig! Instant HD with no drop-outs and a better HD picture. It has Freetime as well and once I have solved the problem of connecting to my router I shall have that as well. I have a choice between a Humax wireless dongle and two of those home connect plugs, will attack that this morning. [PS. One thing that annoyed me was that the time displayed on the TV guide was an hour behind summer time, I couldn't find a clock setting but in the end did a software upgrade. This took about ten minutes but cured the problem.]
No place for the Sony HD recorder now, I still have it connected so I can watch what I have stored but then I shall go down the modern route to recording. From what I can see I can connect an external USB HDD to the box and record on that. I shall be investigating that as well.... Has anyone done this? Does it work?
Will probably leave the Sony in place to play DVDs.

[PanBiker]

Doesn't your Humax box have a built in Hard Drive? I thought that would be pretty standard nowadays, mine has a 1TB drive built in, had it over 2 years now and only run at about 40% full. The powerline plugs work very well and are a good option if you cant just run a Cat5 cable between the router and box. I send my broadband up unto the loft for my radio station PC over the mains, it was previously a wireless connection but I got frequent dropouts, solid as a direct cable now.

Just had a quick look on Humax, you must have the base model with no HD. I was thrown a bit with the price, Humax sell that one online for £79.00. The base integral model with HD is £189.00 with 500GB drive and £219.00 with a 1TB. Looks like the latest models have WiFi as well.

[Stanley]

This one will have Freetime when I get the connection sorted. I might not need to record, if I do I'll find a way round it.

[Tizer]

Marilyn, I've had exactly the same experience as you but with red cars. We stopped in the Co-op car park opposite the front doors, parked the red Golf and Mrs Tiz stayed in the passenger seat while I went in to get a pint of milk. I was quickly back out, opened the car door and was about to get into the driver's seat when I noticed Mrs Tiz had suddenly and inexplicably got very much younger. I couldn't recall having asked for a replacement of my wife with the latest new model, so concluded that it must be the car that was wrong. Made a quick apology to the young lady in the passenger seat and retreated to the correct red Golf, much to the amusement of Mrs Tiz. Then quickly exited the car park before the other lady's husband returned to their car!

[Stanley]

I got the Humax LAN stick which says it is suitable for Linux but have failed miserably. I've got it to connect to the router but the TV reports the signal is scrambled. Tried using the CD that came with it to install the driver but it reports 'opening archive failed'. Have packed up in disgust....
Any suggestions?

[PanBiker]

A quick search on the web reveals this on the Argos Q&A site:

Humax WiFi Dongle

If this is the same as you have got it looks like it is for connecting via 3G and is not compatible with a router.

A better option may well be a pair of powerline adaptors, you can get them for about £30.00

Or depending where your router and Humax box is a CAT5 ethernet lead which would be the cheapest option, both of these are guaranteed to work and you will get the full speed of your broadband connection at the box.

[Stanley]

It isn't a 'dongle' as such it's a LAN stick rather like a pen storage drive. The instructions are crap but I persevered and got everything entered in the install screen and it said I had a signal and was done. However the TV reports signal scrambled. And yes I restarted the router to reset it just to make sure. The good news is that the TV is still working normally when the stick is taken out of the Freesat box.
I'm beginning to wonder if I need connectivity.....
I tend to agree about the connecting plugs, it looks as though I chose the wrong option! Will see if Garlick's will give me my money back and if so I will get the plugs from them, they have them for £30.....
From what I can see you can link an external HDD to the box to give storage for recordings. Anyone tried that?
[And yes, I have read all the instructions.......]

[PanBiker]

Don't know Stanley, my Sky and now Humax decoders have all been models with integral storage. If it's designed to work that way it should be OK.

If you opt for the powerline adaptors they are quite easy to set up. They don't need any drivers as they are isolated but physical connection devices. Plug and power up the one at the router end first so It gets an IP address, then plug and power the other end at the Humax box. The second adaptor will just pair with the first claiming it's own IP from the router pool. You normally get a lock light at each end to confirm the link. Most come with patch cables for each end but check.

[Pluggy]

I'm confused.....

If its a telly Freesat box and you've bought a Wifi adaptor for it, what's the CD and Linux got to do with it ?

I liked it when computer's and tellies were two unrelated technologies. You did computer stuff on computers and watched the telly as something entirely separate. I'm definitely sticking to my old dinosaur telly, this smart stuff is way too complex.

[PanBiker]

Confused me as well Stephen, having said that I would not try to use WiFi anyway for media streaming, you really need a solid connection. Can't really beat a bit of Cat5 which is how I feed my Humax box or if you can't do with the cable shove it through the ring main.

[Pluggy]

I always said wireless is the only technology I know where its sole positive attribute is in the title.....

[chinatyke]

I liked it when computers and tellies were two unrelated technologies. You did computer stuff on computers and watched the telly as something entirely separate. I'm definitely sticking to my old dinosaur telly, this smart stuff is way too complex.

Exactly what I feel about mobile phones and computers. A phone is for making and receiving calls not for playing with at the dinner table, it really irritates me how bad mannered some people are. Steve Jobs has a lot to answer for.

[Stanley]

Thanks for all that. I agree with Plugs about wireless... I even connect my router with a cable even though it's next to the FM3. I also concur about TV and PC being kept separate but when you're in the shit you try all the options and there was an .exe programme on the CD, presumably a driver, which I thought might configure the LAN stick so I tried it. Luckily the .exe programme wouldn't unzip so I ditched that, probably just as well! The stick is evidently dual purpose and I suspect it's primary role is actually for connecting another computer to the router, that could be part of the problem.
However, all this is in the past because I took it back to Ian at Garlick's and he has swapped it for two Homeconnect plugs with cables. They haven't got the best brand in so he is getting them for me and I await his call. I shall report when I have tried them. The main reason I want to connect to the router is that I will then have access to Freetime and that will probably make the ability to record redundant. If I feel the need I shall get an external HDD.
Leaving all that aside, the new box has given me rock solid HD reception and better quality across all channels. The TV guide no longer comes up with the annoying 'no information available' which was prevalent on the old Grundig box. That combined with my improved vision and the new TV is giving me the best TV reception I have ever seen.....
Thanks for the help, I shall get there in the end!

[Tizer]

We've got the powerline connectors because our massive stone walls (some are internal walls!) are not wireless-friendly even if we wanted wireless. Even a wireless doorbell has difficulty coping here. The connectors work very well and were dead easy to set up, just as Panbiker said. I wish everything else was as easy but the manufacturers mostly `don't do easy' these days.

We have a Sony hard disk recorder on one TV and a Humax on another, the latter combination being inherited from my father-in-law when he went into a nursing home. When playing back recordings on the Sony you can fast forward and still hear the sound which is useful - on the lowest fast forward speed you `fast watch' a programme or parts of a programme and still hear what's going on. On the Humax all the fast forward is silent, which is a hassle if you've got used to it! I'm still not sure about which Humax have a hard disk and which don't. It all got very confusing when the PVR term started being used to describe recorders and again when they started tagging `HD' on the description. You didn't know whether they meant `hard disk' or `high definition'.

[Stanley]

Quite! My old Sony HD recorder has a hard disk but will not record in high definition....
I look forward to experimenting with the plugs.
By the way, when the TV was first installed it found my router during the initial installation programme and announced it had a link. I tried it during the present kerfuffle and found it had lost it... I have heavy internal walls as well....
later at 16:45. I called in at Garlick's this morning and the plugs had just landed. After my afternoon sleep I read and re-read the destructions. Did all the things they recommend (no plug strips, both direct into sockets), set them both up in the kitchen. Took one into the front room and connected to the Freesat box and five minutes later I was watching my mate John Mills on Youtube in perfectly stable high quality HD. Lovely, I haven't tried yet but I am assuming that Freetime is operative now also.
Oh, and as you can see, the FM3 likes the new arrangement as well....
Thanks for the advice, I should have gone for the plugs in the first place.... I am a happy bunny.

[Stanley]

Now I have got used to Freetime and played in the world of online entertainment, particularly catch up with programmes I have missed I am beginning to doubt whether I shall ever need to record a programme again... Thanks again lads for alerting me to the Homeconnect plugs... they work like a charm with no drop-outs.