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Callunna
Revolving Grey Blob
3044 Posts
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 Posted -
17/12/2010
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10:26
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Over the years I've not done so bad when it comes to working with computers, and most times I can eventually fix things up when it all goes pear-shaped.
Yesterday my Mac went not just pear-shaped but a complete fruit pudding with meringue and custard. Over the past few weeks it had been getting slower and slower until it said: "You know what? I can't be bothered anymore. I quit." And it did.
Fortunately there's a thing called Time Machine which regularly backs up the OS and all files to an external drive, so I wasn't too nonplussed.
Unfortunately my Mac refused even to start up. Missing its core thingies or something.
No probs - just re-install the OS from the original discs. Almost there - the discs were a bit out of date but I could easily update the version from the internet.
Went to restore all my settings, files, programmes, etc from Time Machine. Unfortunately my finely tuned and slimmed down original system had bloated by about 20GB when reinstalled - and my drive didn't have enough space on it to complete the job.
Grrr.
My backup drive (1TB capacity) is also getting full so it looks like I'm going to have to buy another to dump my data into, then give it all a good clean out.
On top of that, once you start messing with reinstallations, I find much of my work software needs reactivating from the software companies - it's going to take me absolutely ages to get back to where I was a few, happy and organised days ago.
I hate computers.
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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 28/04/2011 : 05:16
Brad, with some printers you can access the default menu and change to black print only, that's what I do and refill the cartridge. I've often wondered about refilling the ink cartridge with black ink but have never needed to do it because my HP Deskjet 3650 runs quite happily in B&W but I don't see any reason why filling the colour cartridge with black shouldn't work. By the way, I had to put a new black cartridge in it the other day because after about 3 years use the black cartridge had started to play up.
Kev, I didn't know that. The files I refer to are straight text files so that wouldn't make any difference in this case.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk  |
pluggy
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Posted - 28/04/2011 : 08:20
They've started using the devious tricks from new inkjets on modern lasers, so it can be difficullt / impossible to refill a new one with toner.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: if you've got an older printer you can refill without difficulty and it still works- keep hold of it. I 'downgraded' a modern inkjet to an 8 year old Canon I'd aquired, because of the pain associated with keeping the newer one fed with ink. The old Canon is completely un-fussy, even if it is slower and the printouts aren't as pretty.
Need computer work ?
"http://www.stsr.co.uk" 
Pluggy's Household Monitor |
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 29/04/2011 : 07:43
I'm with you all the way Plugs! I once had an Epson printer and that stopped printing after x copies whether the cartridge was empty or not!
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 03/05/2011 : 06:25
I hear this morning that Sony have had a bit of a shock while reviewing the 'integrity' of their security systems. They found two other attacks, one happened days before the 70million customer hit, a 25million hack they had never noticed and then, 25,000 customer accounts which definitely had credit card details. You'd think a company like Sony would have the best security available. If not, why not. If the systems were good, are they looking at insider involvement? Whatever, it's another example of how vulnerable large data bases are.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
panbiker
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Posted - 03/05/2011 : 09:10
quote:
Bradders wrote:
Actually you have just reminded me that somewhere in my pile of unpacked "stuff" , I have a very nice Brother B &W printer that needs a new toner cartridge ..(they used to be dreadfully expensive , but I always hoped they could be reloaded, so kept it...!) I got it from a from a shop in Derby S/H for £25 . and it did masses of work before it told me it was empty !....Better dig it out.
Just skimmed throught the post again and picked up on this bit of yours Brad. You may well find that your Brother printer has a plastic plug at one end of the toner cartridge, specialy placed there by those nice people at Brother so you CAN fill your cartridge. I used Brother printers exclusively for that reason.
Nothing lost anyway, just check your make and model on the website link I put up.
Just as an aside and in line with waht Pluggy posted regarding dirty tricks. Many moons ago when I ran my own PC repair and service business. I used a well known breed of Japanese Laser (LED) printer along with the accounts package I ran for the business. It used separate drum and toner units so was very easy to maintain and gave very good results. When I had had it for a couple of years, an error message came up on the LCD display that I had not seen before. All printing was inhibited. I looked the error up in the manual and it said "Printer Worn Out, the recomendation was to dispose and replace?
The printer actually comprised of a paper feed mechanism made from Nylon gears and a power supply and control panel. The remainder of the mechanism was in the drum unit which was replaced every 20k sheets. Nothing in the beast really to "wear out". A call to the regional support centre and a candid word with a mate in the service centre put the root cause of the error down to the "kamikazi" chip on the control panel which had the sole purpose of "expiring" the printer when it had printed a pre-determined number of copies. You've had you money's worth, so tough!
Never had a problem with refilling myself, even done colour lasers with 4 separate toners. The reason moder printers are so cheap is because they charge well over the odds for the consumables. Inkjets particularly are the worst of all coupled with the con that convinces the ordinary bloke in the street that he really does need a colour printer.
Ian |
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 12/05/2011 : 08:18
For a story of lost tecnology being retreived, look at this LINK
Domesday reloaded is a nice story of work lost through the failure of the technology.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 15/05/2011 : 04:33
I see Google have launched a new laptop based on Cloud technology where all the programmes and data are stored out there in cyberspace. Looks like a direct attack on Msoft because once you've paid for the connection everything is free. Really? So Google won't be making any money out of it?
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
pluggy
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Posted - 15/05/2011 : 08:09
Advertising.........
Canonical and Mozilla make products they give away as well, but they have healthy balance sheets (they derive most of their revenue from Google)
Need computer work ?
"http://www.stsr.co.uk"
Pluggy's Household Monitor |
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 16/05/2011 : 06:02
I promise I am not going to get going. BUT, I gain a lot of comfort from realising just how many good and altruistic people there are out in the ether working for the benefit of all and free to air. Thank God Canonical and Mozilla found a business model that works, I have no qualms of conscience about getting my free ride on the backs of the advertisers. 64 bit Ubuntu continues to amaze me. I'm using an .odt file at the moment that is almost 800 pages of A4, 400,000 words and Open Office handles it brilliantly. I'm sure Word2K would be staggering. Navigation, searches and saves are so fast!
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Big Kev
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Posted - 19/05/2011 : 17:48
Just a little warning to any unsuspecting MAC users; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13453497
Big Kev
It doesn't matter who you vote for, you always end up with the government. |
gamer
New Member
47 Posts
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Posted - 19/05/2011 : 18:14
Just wanted to kinda get this topic back on track, and add my 2 cents,
Callunna i have been down that road so many times its unreal and no matter how i try to back up my main OS drive getting back to where i was before the crash has almost never worked for me, got lucky a few times.
I run a few computers ranging in size speed and even the OS they run,
Linux and Windows, so i feel your loose as feeling your pain also.
Most of the backup i do now is of just the main files and things that can not be replaced or re downloaded and the rest well !! you know the rest, reinstall get all updates and protections then put back files that i back up.
Have a good one and i hope you never have this problem again loosing data bites.
quote:
Callunna wrote:
I find much of my work software needs reactivating from the software companies - it's going to take me absolutely ages to get back to where I was a few, happy and organised days ago.
I hate computers.
Edited: because Spell CK did not catch the (Just wanted ti kinda) i had at the top first.
Edited by - gamer on 19/05/2011 13:18:16
 I seem to be just spinnin my wheels sometimes.
PoJ-IYD.com's World |
gamer
New Member
47 Posts
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Posted - 19/05/2011 : 22:00
Callunna Here ya go yet another headach i just saw on my web server, i am scrambling now to get all my backup info updated and i will try and repaire the drive first, the bad part
is it is less than 2 years old. ARG PANIC TIME.....
Event Type: Error
Event Source: Disk
Event Category: None
Event ID: 7
Date: 5/19/2011
Time: 4:45:00 PM
User: N/A
Computer:--------pcname-----
Description:The device, \Device\Harddisk0, has a bad block.
I seem to be just spinnin my wheels sometimes.
PoJ-IYD.com's World |
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 20/05/2011 : 05:57
Kev. Macdefender sounds like scary stuff. Must let my daugher know about it!
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Callunna
Revolving Grey Blob
3044 Posts
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Posted - 20/05/2011 : 09:52
BK: As you know I'm somewhat parsimonious, and having standard Mac procedures in place, I wouldn't buy any software that made the claims that MacDefender did. But thanks for bringing it up.
Gamer: the story ended well and I didn't need to spend hours re-installing, thanks to the Mac's Time Machine which took me back to that happy place where everything worked fine. However, I now have an additional 2TB external drive used solely for full Time Machine backups.
Got a call from a salesperson the other day, saying if I bought 3 sets of inkjet cartridges I could have a brand new netbook thrown in for nowt.
After negotiating a lower price I agreed to the deal, thinking that a Windows computer might be handy to have around, just in case there's some software I need that's only PC-based, or convenient to take with me when travelling.
I'm sorry to say it's utter pap. The wi-fi connection is slower than the old dial-up system. It's now languishing in the drawer along with all the other useless stuff I accumulate.
=================== www.sheldrickrose.co.ukwww.bernulf.co.ukwww.bernulfsplace.co.uk |
Big Kev
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Posted - 20/05/2011 : 11:17
quote:
Callunna wrote:
Got a call from a salesperson the other day, saying if I bought 3 sets of inkjet cartridges I could have a brand new netbook thrown in for nowt.
After negotiating a lower price I agreed to the deal, thinking that a Windows computer might be handy to have around, just in case there's some software I need that's only PC-based, or convenient to take with me when travelling.
I'm sorry to say it's utter pap. The wi-fi connection is slower than the old dial-up system. It's now languishing in the drawer along with all the other useless stuff I accumulate.
'tis Windows CE on it. You'd probably be better with a Windows phone, or stick with the Mac
Big Kev
It doesn't matter who you vote for, you always end up with the government. |
Computers: the agony and the ecstasy
