E-Chat Quick Question Thread

[54_and_counting]

7 hours ago, Molotov said:

I used powerline to great effect for well over a decade. I’d certainly recommend it if you can’t run dedicated cables without major cost or disruption. Go for it. 

As long as the powerline are plugged straight into the wall at both sides, plugged into an extension loses a lot of transfer i found,

Ended up spending a bit more of the powerlines with plug sockets in them so i could use the socket for other stuff as well, defo worth the price 

[Molotov]

1 hour ago, 54_and_counting said:

As long as the powerline are plugged straight into the wall at both sides, plugged into an extension loses a lot of transfer i found,

Ended up spending a bit more of the powerlines with plug sockets in them so i could use the socket for other stuff as well, defo worth the price 

Absolutely. You should never use Powerline in an extension sockets. That’s been a known issue since v1.0 was released around the year 2001. 
I prefer wired direct connections but I’ve lived in properties where it was cost prohibitive to deploy a wired solution to my office. 
I’ve been working remotely in IT since ‘98. I used Powerline successfully for many years - when it was first released it was a game changer. 

Don’t wish to consider the old dial up modems back in the day.  

 

“In the 1990s, most people who had Internet access at all did so using modems connected to standard telephone lines. In early 1993, the fastest available modem was capable of transferring data at a maximum speed of 14.4 kilobytes per second (kbps), equivalent to 864kb per minute, or 51.84Mb per hour. The launch of the 28.8k modem in 1994 doubled this theoretical maximum. 33.6k modems followed in 1996, and eventually 56k ones arrived in 1998.

In theory, the launch of the 56k modem allowed for a maximum data transfer speed almost four times as fast as the 14.4k one, with the promise of 3.36 Mb of data transfer per minute, or 201.6 Mb per hour. However, in practice the maximum advertised speeds were never attained for any dial-up modems as a result of latencies in the infrastructure serving data to end-users. For example, it was common for large file downloads requested on a 28k modem to run at an average of between 1 and 6kbps. Thus, the true speed of data transfer in a real-world setting was often only about one fifth of the advertised one.

This led to downloads of software over the Internet often taking a matter of hours per file even in the late 1990s. Graphically intensive web-pages could take several minutes to completely load, even without containing video content. There was also no guarantee that that the individual images all downloaded successfully: often, images would fail to load at first attempt. This required the user to right-click the failed image, marked with an ‘X’, and attempt to re-download each affected image until it worked.

Right through the early 2000s, there was also a frequently encountered issue of competition for Internet access at peak usage times. Often, particularly in the early evenings, Internet access temporarily failed or crawled along at sub-standard speeds for individual dial-up users.“

[Iminavest]

Any recommendations for a decent tablet? Mainly for watching Netflix etc while away with work so a reasonable sized screen would be useful. 

[TxRover]

On 14/08/2023 at 13:45, Iminavest said:

Any recommendations for a decent tablet? Mainly for watching Netflix etc while away with work so a reasonable sized screen would be useful. 

Given the reduced price point of the plain old iPad, it’s hard not to recommend it. Not the Mini iPad, not the iPad Air, not the iPad Pro. If you’re just watching video streamed via WiFi, a 9th Gen 64GB iPad 10.2 inch starts around £369 at Apple UK, and can be found cheaper, or even such as £309 for a refurbished model from Apple UK. There’s even the 8th Gen 32 GB WiFi for £249 refurbished.

Honestly, I’d skip a 32GB model, but any of those have decent battery life and a great reputation. I’ve bought refurbished from Apple, and you can’t tell.

[throbber]

I have a 2014 MacBook Pro with Retina display that I never use now - what’s the best option for flogging it and how much could I get for it?

[TxRover]

On 27/08/2023 at 01:52, throbber said:

I have a 2014 MacBook Pro with Retina display that I never use now - what’s the best option for flogging it and how much could I get for it?

Apple declared them obsolete a little over a year ago, so no support or updates. There are a few on eBay, that’s a hassle, but they’ll pay more than a recycler. Maybe try something like zapper.co.uk?

[BFTD]

Is an iPhone 5s actually useful for anything these days? I was going to install Audible on it and give it to my mum for listening to audiobooks, but it needs a newer version of iOS for that.

I'm used to repurposing old PCs as torrent servers or media players, but I know Apple stuff is an absolute arseache to use for anything other than what Apple wants you to.

[BFTD]

Alright, I guess the answer is no - my iPhone 5s is almost as useless now as when I first got it  

Here's another question though - I've got two SIMs in my current phone, which I've been using as a modem for the last few months. When I use the Vodafone SIM, I can do internet banking without problems, but trying to log in when using the Smarty SIM just punts me back to the login page 99% of the time. If I do get logged in, it'll kick me back again within seconds.

Obviously the answer is not to use the Smarty SIM for banking, but I'm curious about what the two connections do differently that causes this (but not enough to bother the bank's tech support). Any ideas?

[scottsdad]

I made a Gantt chart on excel and need to turn that in to a .jpg file. Any hints on how to do this, greatly appreciated!

[scottsdad]

On 01/10/2023 at 13:29, BFTD said:

Alright, I guess the answer is no - my iPhone 5s is almost as useless now as when I first got it  

Here's another question though - I've got two SIMs in my current phone, which I've been using as a modem for the last few months. When I use the Vodafone SIM, I can do internet banking without problems, but trying to log in when using the Smarty SIM just punts me back to the login page 99% of the time. If I do get logged in, it'll kick me back again within seconds.

Obviously the answer is not to use the Smarty SIM for banking, but I'm curious about what the two connections do differently that causes this (but not enough to bother the bank's tech support). Any ideas?

2 sim cards, eh?

Now, I'm not saying that only sex fiends and drug dealers use two sim cards. Others might, but not me. 

[German Jag]

38 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

I made a Gantt chart on excel and need to turn that in to a .jpg file. Any hints on how to do this, greatly appreciated!

Click on the chart, press Ctrl C, open Paint and press Ctrl V. Then save into whatever graphic file format you need.

[scottsdad]

3 hours ago, German Jag said:

Click on the chart, press Ctrl C, open Paint and press Ctrl V. Then save into whatever graphic file format you need.

That's what i thought, but my computer has paint 3D which seems far more useless than the original. 

[BFTD]

4 hours ago, scottsdad said:

2 sim cards, eh?

Now, I'm not saying that only sex fiends and drug dealers use two sim cards. Others might, but not me. 

I'm innocent, guv.

I just connect the drug dealers on one line with the sex fiends on the other. What they get up to is none of my business!

[German Jag]

1 hour ago, scottsdad said:

That's what i thought, but my computer has paint 3D which seems far more useless than the original. 

After the Ctrl C, press the Windows button, and type Paint. If you‘re lucky the old Paint might still be somewhere on your computer. 

[TxRover]

On 01/10/2023 at 07:29, BFTD said:

Alright, I guess the answer is no - my iPhone 5s is almost as useless now as when I first got it  

Here's another question though - I've got two SIMs in my current phone, which I've been using as a modem for the last few months. When I use the Vodafone SIM, I can do internet banking without problems, but trying to log in when using the Smarty SIM just punts me back to the login page 99% of the time. If I do get logged in, it'll kick me back again within seconds.

Obviously the answer is not to use the Smarty SIM for banking, but I'm curious about what the two connections do differently that causes this (but not enough to bother the bank's tech support). Any ideas?

Smarty SIM apparently doesn’t support “short codes”, which can cause some issues as larger banks and such use these to avoid getting screened as spam. How that might impact your ability to login is beyond me, but this issue (not supporting short codes) is causing headaches recently.

[BFTD]

5 hours ago, TxRover said:

Smarty SIM apparently doesn’t support “short codes”, which can cause some issues as larger banks and such use these to avoid getting screened as spam. How that might impact your ability to login is beyond me, but this issue (not supporting short codes) is causing headaches recently.

Nice - I wasn't really expecting an answer to that!  

I presumed it was likely something to do with them being cheap as chips. I'm not going to complain too much about a rolling £16/month for unlimited internet.

[TxRover]

1 hour ago, BFTD said:

Nice - I wasn't really expecting an answer to that!  

I presumed it was likely something to do with them being cheap as chips. I'm not going to complain too much about a rolling £16/month for unlimited internet.

It’s that they apparently use short codes to authenticate sometimes, and if the SIM doesn’t support it, it might just fail to work. You mentioning the price makes it clear why they aren’t gonna have any frills.

[Iminavest]

Looking at getting myself a laptop mainly for watching fitba/streaming on my travels and gaming but no idea where to start. Fairly open budget wise but preferablyaround the £4/500 area.

Any recommendations?

Edited October 19, 2023 by Iminavest

[BFTD]

5 hours ago, Iminavest said:

Looking at getting myself a laptop mainly for watching fitba/streaming on my travels and gaming but no idea where to start. Fairly open budget wise but preferablyaround the £4/500 area.

Any recommendations?

You'll need to be more specific than "gaming" - what are you planning to play?

I got an HP 17-cp0021na (8GB RAM, Ryzen 5625U) a few months back for £399 and I've been very happy with it for the purposes you mentioned. I've only been playing the Quake 2 remaster, XCOM, Not Tonight, This War of Mine, and Sunless Sea, and it's handled them flawlessly, but I don't know how it would cope with more recent/demanding titles. Really like the IPS screen on it too, although the ones I'm used to are at least five years old now, but check you're getting IPS as apparently cheaper models use a poorer-quality panel.

Had a couple of pretty mediocre machines in the years prior, so it's been a bit of a relief to have a laptop that hasn't had any annoyances!

[Iminavest]

On 19/10/2023 at 15:46, BFTD said:

You'll need to be more specific than "gaming" - what are you planning to play?

I got an HP 17-cp0021na (8GB RAM, Ryzen 5625U) a few months back for £399 and I've been very happy with it for the purposes you mentioned. I've only been playing the Quake 2 remaster, XCOM, Not Tonight, This War of Mine, and Sunless Sea, and it's handled them flawlessly, but I don't know how it would cope with more recent/demanding titles. Really like the IPS screen on it too, although the ones I'm used to are at least five years old now, but check you're getting IPS as apparently cheaper models use a poorer-quality panel.

Had a couple of pretty mediocre machines in the years prior, so it's been a bit of a relief to have a laptop that hasn't had any annoyances!

Would probably end up getting the xbox game pass so a bit of a mixture of games.

Had a wee look at recommendations on that and most seem to be coming out around the £800+ mark.