COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[Stanley]

Morning Peter! I'm glad you had a good break. I shall seriously consider the upgrade to 22.04 now you are back in the world.....

[Stanley]

I think I've done it! An hour of high stress for me. But it did everything by itself and as far as I can see it has loaded everything. If I find something is missing I'll fret about it then..... Phew! I think I ought to lie down in a darkened room.....

[Stanley]

Later..... this version is faster!

[Tizer]

Congratulations and well done! And yes, it is faster. You're now fully secure again. have a look in the installed apps to see if there's anything else you need or fancy trying out. To do so, click on the show apps icon in the bottom left-hand corner of your screen. There are two pages, just click on the two dots at the bottom of the first page to toggle between them. To edit just press your Esc key. One of the apps, probably at the end of the 2nd page, is Tweaks and it lets you literally tweak various things such as font sizes etc.

[Stanley]

Thanks Peter and thanks for being there to give me confidence. For the time being I shall just enjoy being clean and up to date again.....

Later after this morning's posts on the site. I keep finding small changes which are annoying but no doubt I shall get used to them if I persevere....

[Tizer]

Don't hesitate to ask for help if you can't sort it yourself. I've found minor changes that stumped me at first until I found they were really quite simple. Things like being unable to find how to shut an app and then realising I was just looking in the wrong place. On my v.24.04 when I want to enlarge an image my + key in the top row no longer does the job (although it still prints + when writing text). I have to use the + key on the numeric pad of my keyboard. Yet the usual - key will decrease the size! I must ask Janet if her + key still does the job.

[Stanley]

I will fumble my way through as usual Peter....

[PanBiker]

Does CTRL not come in to play with the + and - for enlarge & decrease?

[Stanley]

I don't know about Peter but it works with me Ian.....

[Tizer]

Does CTRL not come in to play with the + and - for enlarge & decrease?

In my previous versions of Ubuntu I could increase and decrease the size of images by simply clicking the two keys in the top row of my keyboard without having to hold down any other key. The hyphen/underline (- _) key to decrease and the plus/equals (+/=) key to increase image size. A very useful feature. (And I'm referring here to viewing images, not editing them.)

[PanBiker]

Looks like they have changed the ASCII code for half of the feature which makes no sense really. Does the minus on the keypad work for the feature?

[Tizer]

Yes, it does work too. It's not really inconvenient, just a bit strange. It's the same on Janet's PC and she's on the 22.04 like Stanley. When I have time I'll probably google to see if if it's the same for other users. I'm on full-time post-holiday gardening at the moment to get as much done as possible before the coming heat wave. I don't cope well with hot weather these days.

[Stanley]

"I don't cope well with hot weather these days."
Neither do I Peter.
I have a query about 22.04. How can I change the dictionary it has put me on. I appear to be on American English! I can cope but it's annoying.

[Tizer]

Which software applications are you referring to. There's more than one dictionary. If it's Thunderbird then open it and click on Tools | Edit | Settings | Composition and tick English UK and unclick English US.

I've just checked Janet's 22.04 and her Thunderbird was already on UK English without her having changed the setting. Curiously though, my 24.01 Thunderbird was on the US setting!

If your problem is with LibreOffice then open the application, hold down the Alt key and press the F12 key to get Options. Click on the `Languages and Locales' drop down and choose General. That will show your language settings.

[Stanley]

Thanks Peter. I think I have applied the changes....

[Tizer]

That's good news.

[Stanley]

Nice to know you are there!

[Tizer]

I think Tripps, like me, still gets his broadband from Plusnet. I wonder whether he too received the email I got on Monday which had the familiar title `Share your feedback for a chance to win' but started the body text with `Help us get it right next time' followed by `We’re sorry you’ve left, but we’d love to know why....'? I forwarded a copy to abuse@plus.net then rang Plusnet and got them to confirm that I still had the best part of my 18-month contract to run. There were other odd things like the fact that the closing date for the draw was the day before they sent the message out! I was passed on to someone who said it must be a scam email when I told him the address it came from. I had to explain to him it was the same address as the emails from Plusnet in the past that confirmed my contract renewals. The Plusnet Community forum now has a number of other folk reporting the same email which has become known as the ``We’re sorry you’ve left..' message. So I've written a long post on the forum with all my information about it.

[Tripps]

I think Tripps, like me, still gets his broadband from Plusnet. I wonder whether he too received the email I got on Monday

No - however I got a message from plusnet@comm.plus.net ysterday. Said to be a survey.
I think it was legit, and I looked at it, as I wish to leave them, but still have a long way to go on my contract (seemed a good idea at the time).
The address seems a bit sus - but I think it was probably genuine. I thought it might point to a way out.

I read the T&C's and found that the data was only anonymised after they had it for six months - so I said I was not happy with that. I then got an immediate message to say I was not suitable for the survey, and immediately sent on my way.

I'm bombarded with offers from two 'fibre to premises' outfits with high speed service, at the same price I now pay for fibre to cabinet. Jut have to wait it out and hope to survive long enough.


Perhaps they are looking to reorganise their business -they are owned by BT now, and have already ceased their mobile phone service.

[Tizer]

Perhaps they are looking to reorganise their business -they are owned by BT now, and have already ceased their mobile phone service.

I've only found out through looking at their Community forums that sometime in the coming months they will sub-contract the handling of emails to a `cloud' company called Greenby. All the billing side will stay with Plusnet. I think they are losing out to all the other services like those in your area and Jurassic Fibre which operates down here in our part of the woods. We are going to end our landline service and may switch to Jurassic when they can offer us fibre to the cabinet.

I've just had a quick look at the latest answers to my post in the Plusnet forums and this is now posted from a Plusnet Admin guy
Thanks for reporting this issue everyone.
It is a genuine email from Plusnet and we're looking into why you were sent it in error.
I'm sorry for any confusion this has caused.
James

[Stanley]

I am still with TalkTalk but I too have a tale to tell about mails connected with email services and broadband. I've been getting them ever since I got fibre to desk free. They all tell me I am about to lose email service/web access unless I click on the link they provide. (As if! )
These all go direct to junk but I always look at my junk each morning to keep abreast of things. Oh, and I am occasionally sent a bill for £85.....
It's a complicated and dangerous world out there....
PS. Why do I never get ads for penis enlargement these days.... ?

[PanBiker]

I take it you are blocking the emails Stanley?

[Stanley]

I'm quite happy with things as they are Ian. I don't know enough about the system to start playing with it.

[PanBiker]

Its not playing about its more like standard housekeeping for email.

See if there is an option on the right click menu. Double whammy in Outlook it marks dodgy emails as junk and moves them from inbox to the Junk folder. It adds the sender address to a block list maintained in the background.

I would have thought that would be a standard procedure in most email clients.

[Big Kev]

I would have thought that would be a standard procedure in most email clients.

Not in Thunderbird, there's no native blacklist feature. You have to configure filters to move unwanted mail from your inbox to 'trash'. A lot of emails will be sorted by the ISP mailbox, I believe Stanley uses TalkTalk, so that is the potential 'blacklist' function.