OneGuyFromBarlick

That acronym RAID seems to ring a bell. I have an idea that ditching it solved the problems I had encountered. These days I sail on serenely in Ubuntu land with no payments to anyone.....
Ten minutes later. 80mb of updates and a restart. Brilliant service.......

An interesting read for anyone with old hardware BBC News - Microsoft Payout for Windows 10 Install

Interesting article Kev. Who do you trust these days? One of the main reasons I left the world of Microsoft was because it tried to take decisions for me. Bad plan with this Kiddy!

RAID - Redundent Array of Inexpensive Drives. Nowadays you use an SSD (Solid State Drive) if you want fast disk access. They can be a real pain to get drivers for, but you can usually configure the BIOS or RAID controller to turn one of them into a vanilla hard drive which doesn't need any fancy drivers. You can use the others for data drives or remove them altogether.

Regarding Kevs Microsoft story, Tripps posted a link to the same story the day before.....

I've softened my stance on Windows 10, its isn't a bad OS, if you have accidently or more deviently it has installed itself and it all works, I don't really see a good reason to revert it. I still wouldn't deliberately upgrade Windows 7 to 10 though. Windows 8 or 8.1, yes do it, no question.

I wouldn't move away from Linux for my own computer though.

Thanks for that. I'll wait a couple of weeks, and see if there is any reaction to the US court case, then probably convert to W10. I guess I will survive.

I put tried Linux on my old ASUS machine, but I was in a foreign land.

I came to the same conclusion about the RAID configuration. I'm going to have a rethink about that machine as it has developed some sector errors on the data array. It's over specd for what it does (Internet and Email) but still a good machine. I may flatten it at some point which will give an opportunity to change how the drives are configured, I have a choice on the mainboard.

David, when Pluggy swapped me over to Ubuntu he wanted to make it a transition from Windows but I refused and said that I wanted to go cold turkey and it worked. I have never dabbled in the system black boxes, Pluggy set it up so I had a clear screen with icons for the functions I needed and it was no hardship ditching all my old Msoft programming. Cut down on the booze and fags and get Pluggy to build a computer for you like mine. I promise you that you'll fall into it like an old pair of slippers. If I can do it so can you! It's lovely here in Linux land......

I'll second that. I don't know much about computer software and I've found it easier to work with Ubuntu than with MS Windows. The system file layout is very different from Windows but, as Stanley indicates, you don't need to bother with it and it's out of sight as `hidden files'. You simply work with your data files. It's dead easy to install and uninstall new applications in seconds, although all the essential ones are already loaded. It almost never crashes, and on the odd occasion that it does (a few times a year at the most and due to me doing something stupid) you just reboot and it's working again within a minute or so. You can delve into using the command line in Terminal if you so wish but I never bother with it now, everything is available in a graphical interface. Extra applications are free and you install them from an Ubuntu repository which guarantees they will work on your version of the OS.

`Complaints prompt Windows 10 update change' LINK

Not knowing very much about computers and windows 10 in particular I found a site which helped me unravel one or two mysteries.
Howtogeek. May be helpful to people like me.

Dead right Tiz. I run the 64bit version of 12.04 LTS and it has only crashed once, and that was due to a spike in voltage I suspect. I see I have a big update to install, I shall go and do it and time it.
96mb of new Libreoffice core.... Elapsed time just over one minute and I am back with you. Don't ask me how they do it, it just works. How would Windows cope with almost 100mb of upgrades?

It has to be said. Windows does updates too. Every now and then there is an indication on the shut down icon, and whatever needs to be done is done. Never had a problem, never had a crash. I don't have much interest in how it's done - always thought it's where you're going, and what you do when you get there, that's more important than which car you went in.

Touches desk top.

The past few days I've been plagued by intermittent and slower than normal internet and a crackling phone line, went down the usual lines, cursing the ISP, checking the filters, line connections etc. I was struggling to get hold of the ISP help desk, when I eventually got through they checked the line, pronounced it OK and suggested I just plug the telephone in without anything else, the telephone was crystal clear, which told me the problem was entirely at my end. I went through everything with a fine tooth comb and after much faffing I eventually traced it to an old 12V power supply I used to power my router and Vonage VOIP line box. Its always the last place you look. Replacing the power supply cured everything.

It often isn't anything to do with the ISP......

I've had Openreach out yesterday and today chasing an intermittent line fault. Crackling phone with a router plugged in, by dropping out, slow download and painfully slow upload. Sky had identified a number of faults but don't give details and by the time the engineers are here it's all working again. It's the upload speed and quality of the upload signal that bugs me, the line shows 1.2mbps available but the most I ever see is less than 1 and the trace is all over the place. I still re Mon it's a ploy to get me to sign up for fibre, I may do once the offer it free of charge.

Kev, you may have the same problem as pluggy. The wall wart power supplies often allow trace currents or other E-M leakage. I assume you have the test gear to find out ( or borrow a good one off pluggy to test ). Got any cordless phones in the property ? Could even be an adjoining properties DAB radio or similar!

David, I hope the desktop is solid wood..... I'm afraid I spent too much time with the blue screen in the olden days. I got pretty good at re-formatting my drive that held the OS and reloading Windows then applying the updates.... That usually held it at bay for a while but it always came back at me. In the end I was running Windows NT Professional and that seemed to be reasonably reliable. I still have it running on the old IBM upstairs but with no internet connection, that may be the key!

Whyperion wrote:Kev, you may have the same problem as pluggy. The wall wart power supplies often allow trace currents or other E-M leakage. I assume you have the test gear to find out ( or borrow a good one off pluggy to test ). Got any cordless phones in the property ? Could even be an adjoining properties DAB radio or similar!

Sadly not, the fault was identified on the upstream but because it's intermittent it's a pain to track down. Both Sky and Openreach have seen the problem and it's somewhere between the master socket and the exchange which is just over 500 yards away...

Strange, but we have a similar problem with buzzing on the line at the moment. Two underground faults identified but Col suspects it is a problem in the exchange as whoever is on the other end of the line doesn't hear the buzzing....if it was in the line they would hear it too.

Those bloody Gremlins!!

I archive the years work in one folder, this year it is ARCHIVE 16. I've just backed up this years work so far to the Samsung external drive. 881mb and it took under a minute. Better safe than sorry.
If you remember this drives PU failed me in January but the new one has worked perfectly.

I just came across this message on a website -

Websites are now required by law to gain your consent before applying cookies. We use cookies to improve your browsing experience. Parts of the website may not work as expected without them. By closing or ignoring this message, you are consenting to our use of cookies.

So do nothing, and you have 'consented'. No sign of how you 'unconsent'

One of the most stupid laws, as does not provide for functionallity of a site to work (generaly) without 'cookies' - or least certain types of - . And one cannot tick what kind of cookies / cross site ones not to work.

They will have dumped cookies on your computer as soon as you went to the web page anyway so you might as well `unconsent' by closing the message, exiting the web site and then clearing out the cookies in your browser. I delete all cookies in Firefox at regular intervals and also immediately after visiting some web sites, such as any Microsoft web page.

I stopped worrying about cookies years ago, they are a fact of life!
I came across THIS recently. The FBI did some experiments and found that some Siemens Programmable Logic units which are widely used in industry and infrastructure to control operations are vulnerable. In effect, making vital infrastructure like nation electricity grids liable to disruption. It's a very dangerous world out there and we are living on a knife edge!

Actually - I don't worry about them either. It just annoys me when they tell you what the law says, and then cunningly circumvent it.

The Web is like the Wild West, it believes itself above and beyond the law. I can imagine Wild West bandits handing this message to stagecoach passengers...

Bandits are now required by law to gain your consent before stealing your money. By closing or ignoring this message, you are consenting to our theft of your money and valuables.