COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[Whyperion]

Windows (*8?) Lenovo lost abilty to connect to other devices ?

Dont know if something has changed but the mini USB lead to USB (tried 2) dont bring up the drive letters of the android phone or tablet, which I wanted to transfer pictures to to show mum . Have I, android or microsoft changed some kind of setting. All happlily use wireless router to connect to broadband, but I cannot build a wireless network either for all three devices, it should be straightforward but asking Windows to find anything is taking a short eternity.

Ahh, somehow I have found troubleshooting..

re USB device

Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43)

not very helpful as it does not tell me how to fix the problem/s

Turn off, turn on again.... !!!

(Would be interesting to find out about the wireless network as I use a couple ... )

[chinatyke]

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/errorc/a/ ... -error.htm

[Tizer]

About a week ago the BBC announced that it would pursue those who watched its TV programmes on smartphones and tablets if they didn't have a full licence. I can't remember whether I mentioned it on OG but my first thought was "How are they going to know if someone is watching via such mobile devices?" Well here is the answer:
`BBC to deploy detection vans to snoop on internet users'
"The BBC is to spy on internet users in their homes by deploying a new generation of Wi-Fi detection vans to identify those illicitly watching its programmes online. The Telegraph can disclose that from next month, the BBC vans will fan out across the country capturing information from private Wi-Fi networks in homes to “sniff out” those who have not paid the licence fee. The corporation has been given legal dispensation to use the new technology, which is typically only available to crime-fighting agencies, to enforce the new requirement that people watching BBC programmes via the iPlayer must have a TV licence." LINK
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After the Osram digital light bulb hacking we now have a more general report on the problems...
`Def Con: Do smart devices mean dumb security?' LINK
"From net-connected sex toys to smart light bulbs you can control via your phone, there's no doubt that the internet of things is here to stay. More and more people are finding that the devices forming this network of smart stuff can make their lives easier. But that convenience may come at a high cost - namely security. Def Con, which sees 15,000 of the world's top hackers gather in Las Vegas, was this year studded with talks about the security shortcomings of IoT gadgets. Holes, data leaks and bugs have been found in everything from CCTV cameras to solar panels, thermostats to door locks. One talk about the bugs in those sex toys revealed that these intimate gadgets are being perhaps too candid with data about the people enjoying them."

[Tizer]

As a VW Golf owner I was a bit annoyed by this piece of news...
'Millions' of VWs accessible via hack (BBC)
LINK

The car manufacturers, rather like the banks, have rushed into digital technology without fully understanding the security aspects. They put out new products or services without properly testing them for digital security. My present Golf has a number of high-tech widgets that don't always work as they should. An example is the `tyre pressure monitor' that keeps causing false alarms. When I look on the Golf owners internet forums I find others complaining of the same problem. It's not helpful to have a false warning telling you to stop and check your tyre pressures when you're going at 70mph in a stream of heavy traffic on a motorway. It's not a genuine `tyre pressure monitor'; it operates indirectly by using the ABS to detect changes in the rolling circumference of each wheel compared to the other wheels (by measuring the speed of rotation). Anything else that alters the relative speed of rotation of a wheel sets off the alarm.

[Stanley]

I can't help thinking that if someone put a car on the market with no computer controls at all they would do well! I can't help thinking back to the days when we could do all the maintenance ourselves. We could de-coke a side valve in less than an hour......

[Pluggy]

I was surprised my cheap Dacia has tyre pressure sensors but it been a requirement on new cars since November 2014, Unlike these nasty Golfs it has actual pressure sensors.

They have already saved me the cost of a new tyre when it alerted me to a nail in a rear tyre. You get a puncture in a rear tyre on a front wheel drive and you often don't notice until its too late. I'd run a flat rear tyre for I don't know long on the Skoda before someone pointed it out to me. Needless to say the tyre was scrap.

The Dacia only needed a cheap tyre repair.

[Tizer]

That says something, when the cheap Dacia has direct sensors and the expensive Golf has indirect that give false alarms. Perhaps VW were too busy concentrating on how to cheat emissions tests to worry about tyre sensors.

[Big Kev]

Support Analyst Vacancies available over here in Horwich if anyone is interested

[Stanley]

My daughter Susan is looking for a job in administration. She resigned as Town Clerk for Colne after a councillor called her a donkey in public. Unfortunately she has no software engineering skills!

[Tizer]

Launch of the smart meter IT system has been delayed again. Guess which company is responsible for the project - it's Capita, of course!

[Stanley]

I've been trying to make sense of the latest Smart Meter TV campaign..... I can't make out if they are saying all smart meters are free after 2020 or that you can apply for them now.

[PanBiker]

I asked for smart meters when the rollout started, the BG website told me then that my property was incompatible whatever that meant. Ever since the smart meter upgrade section in my account overview has indicated, "You're on our smart meter waiting list".

For suitability it only asks two questions: "Are all meters and fuse boxes accessible" and "Is your property a flat". Yes to the first no to the second, I comply with the requirements so get on with it.

[Stanley]

I never applied Ian, I just got notification out of the blue that I 'qualified' for free installation, whatever that means. What's puzzling me at the moment is this malarkey about 'free electricity' 9-5 on one day at weekend. My crap detector tells me there is no such thing as a free lunch. Has anyone fathomed what they are up to?
Pluggy, looking ahead, support for 12.04 ends in April next year. What's your recommendation about upgrading? What version are you running? I'm thinking about upgrading at the end of the year after my annual back-up..... Does this make sense?

[Pluggy]

I've been running 14.04 since mid 2014, The latest long term support version is 16.04 which came out at the end of April this year. It has been nagging to let me upgrade (shades of Windows 10) but I've resisted. I have 16.04 running in a VM and have played with it, In all honesty it is little different to 14.04 which is turn isn't that much different to 12.04 If you''re going to have to upgrade I think I'd go straight to 16.04 from 12.04, you certainly won't feel like a fish out of water. I'd go for a clean install and file transfer rather than let it upgrade (long bitter experience with Windows and old habits die hard......). On a slow machine, you would notice the slow down with the later version because in time honoured OS tradition it gets bigger each time, but with a machine as powerful as the FM3 I can't see it making much odds. Doing it at the end of the year makes sense.

Regarding BG's free electric malarky, its just marketing. Electric is cheap at weekends and it won't cost them a great deal. Putting a couple of percent on the stuff the rest of the time would make it a zero cost exercise.

[Tizer]

I too am on Ubuntu 12.04LTS, 64-bit, and I've been wondering about upgrading. It would have been an earlier upgrade but I recall they extended the life of 12.04. I agree that backing up, doing a clean install and then loading the data files is better than using the offered automatic upgrade. Also, Ubuntu used to warn against doing an auto upgrade that skipped intervening versions. The increased size of the OS will affect me on my slower PC (built by Pluggy) than it will Stanley on his supersonic computer; it will affect Mrs Tiz even more, her machine is older than mine and was built by Tizer Computer Corporation Inc (as described on the old OG site)! Perhaps I'll be asking Pluggy to run off a couple of new ones for us - we still use PCs so much that we need one each or there'd be marital strife!

[Pluggy]

I would think the machine I built for you back in 2013 will run a later Ubuntu without too much fuss Tiz. It wasn't up to Stanley specs but it was far from a can of worms. A 2013 Desktop I3 will outrun most (95% +) 2016 spec laptops.

Possibly talking myself out of sales here.......

[Christian]

I would think the machine I built for you back in 2013 will run a later Ubuntu without too much fuss Tiz. It wasn't up to Stanley specs but it was far from a can of worms. A 2013 Desktop I3 will outrun most (95% +) 2016 spec laptops.

Possibly talking myself out of sales here.......

Called being decent!

Ever noticed that kit you will happily run yourself, you would never sell or advise someone else to use?

I'm still happily working away on an old i7 Dell Laptop with Windows 7. I think an SSD will eek a little more life out of it. Even on Mint 15 it didnt respond to shabbily, just issues with the nic drivers wound me up to breaking point.

[Stanley]

Thanks for that Pluggy. My thinking exactly, I'll have a look at the rabbit when the time comes.....I agree about the clean start.....
In passing, I remember some people querying my strategy when you built the FM3 and yes, I was going over the top a bit but I have never regretted it. Absolutely trouble free.... (That was a mistake wasn't it, it'll bite my leg now!)

[Pluggy]

Ever noticed that kit you will happily run yourself, you would never sell or advise someone else to use?

No. I often sell and recommend the same stuff I run myself.

The machine I'm using now bears more than a passing resemblance to the one I sold Tiz in 2013.

I did a job quite recently where the customer had fitted a new SSD (Samsung EVO 850 - close to the dogs goolies in SSD terms) to an aging I5 gaming rig. It had misbehaved ever since. The "standard" serial ATA interface has evolved since and new stuff very often doesn't get on with old stuff.

[Tizer]

My Pluggy-built 2013 PC is still going strong, no problems. I'll probably upgrade to v.16 and then think again about the PC. I'd certainly come back to Pluggy if I wanted one again.

[Stanley]

I was thinking about going down the SSD route a while ago but came to my senses. One thing I have always believed about computers is that how well the components are matched and communicate with each other is vital. My old IBM is still plugging away upstairs just to run the old scanner and the obsolete laser printer Ric gave me many years ago. You switch it on and it does the job. Remember 'nobody ever got sacked for buying IBM'?

[PanBiker]

Some precision fast and synchronised heavy hammering in Bodge's clip. One thing I noticed, they were all hammering left handed, I wonder if the film was reversed when it was digitised?

[chinatyke]

Some precision fast and synchronised heavy hammering in Bodge's clip. One thing I noticed, they were all hammering left handed, I wonder if the film was reversed when it was digitised?

I had a friend in Burnley who used to work in a Sheffield steelworks. He told me that the steelworks had right-handed and left-handed sledge hammer men when they were tapping a furnace. His job was to hold the 'spike' that they were hitting with their hammers in order to remove the furnace plug. There were always vacancies for left-handed hammer men but not for right. One day he went to work and discovered that the spike holder the previous day had been hit in the head with a sledge hammer and sustained life-changing injuries. Later that night, his wife discovered him in the back yard hitting a spike left-handed with a sledge hammer. When she asked him what he was doing he said "There is no way I'm ever going to hold that spike again, I'm going to be a left-handed hammer man!"
It was told to me as a true story and I've no reason to disbelieve him.

I agree with you, Ian, I viewed the clip and thought their co-ordination and teamwork was superb.

[Stanley]

The best man with a hammer I ever saw, Tommy Fitton at Galbraith's Garage Accrington, was ambidextrous. John Plummer, my firebeater at Bancroft was the same, he could shovel right or left handed. Handy in confined spaces when two of you were shovelling together.
I believe your story about the spike man China. My dad was on a gang like that once at Vickers in Trafford Park and they were reputed to be the first furnace men in the North of England to use an Oxygen Lance for tapping. An old boiler maker told me they used to have similar hammer gangs when forming curved boiler plates for Kiers and pans....

[David Whipp]

I clicked on this topic twice, as the content was strangely divergent!