Possibly, or maybe having to learn new technology all our lives will make us cope with it better when we're that age.
Nerd/Boffin Technical corner. Page 87
King Dobbin2008 is Dead, long live King Dobbin2014.
It's a funny peculiar thing, that I've seen happen several times before, but shortly after I bring in any new equipment, the old one that it is replacing, often just 'lies down' and dies on me..
I think I've seen it with computers and screens before & I definitely remember a router that did it.
And now last week I brought into use a Windows 7 computer to replace my 6 year old main XP workhorse and old Dobbin died on me two nights ago and all attempts to resuscitate it today have failed. It doesn't even get to the very first 'state of the video' display and it doesn't give any beeps; it's as dead as that famous parrot.
Dratted nuisance because now I won't easily be able to check various settings of lesser programs.
Fortunately my email & bookmarks are intact as they are in a virtual computer running Mint 11 and I had copied its entire virtual disk to a big USB drive before Dobbin died. The virtual m/c is now running, hosted on the Win7 machine.
All this was happing while my broadband was being messed about as well..
Sigh.
How many working computers do you actually have, Bill?
Quote: Ben @ 23rd April 2014, 10:32 PM BSTHow many working computers do you actually have, Bill?
erm... presently
1 new Win 7 computer
2. a netbook with win 7 basic
3. a nice newish (to me ) Macbook Pro
4. a experimental fast machine with no Hard disk inside, just trays, so easily configured as anything. currently Windows 7 with Flight simulator X
5 a SmaLL Business Server 2003, which mostly acts as my File store and auto backup.
6. and old Windows 98 computer rarely powered on, fitted with old floppy drives and tape interface for old media conversion.
7. The recently died Dobbin2008 which ran Windows XP as my main workhorse.
8 a cheapo smartphone with Android 2.2
9. a Newbrain 1982 computer that uses TV output and audio cassette storage, that I recently repaired & is working again.
Up in the attic are two Apple ][ computers that I haven't tried out yet, plus Sinclair home computers plus two real-time control computers that I once programmed to preserve millions of £ of fruit in a fruit warehouse in Harlow
In my garage and a storage garage umpteen older Z80 computers, mostly not working but which I might get working one day before I donate them to a museum. They used to control the MK Electric Product Test Laboratory.
Oh and my Ithaca Intersystems S100 CP/M computer that I bought in 1980 for over £4000 (that would be about £20,000 in modern money). Last powered up about 5 years ago, not sure if it is still working.
Not sure why my (new) PC won't recognise android phone, I've downloaded KIES but it doesn't help...also tried getting a wireless transfer app, which is really good for taking pictures and video off the phone, but says the MP3 files I want to put onto the phone are 'too big' (unless I pay to upgrade).
What other ways are there to connect?
I generally take the memory chip out of the phone and read it into the computer with a little USB chip reader.
True, but it's fiddly with a micro SD card, isn't it? Not something I want to have to do often.
thanks for the loan of the mp3 Bill Will
ES Explorer, Nogget. Set up a LAN connection and then send files through that. I've not got that working but I haven't really tried it but I can see how it could work.
Ok Lee, I'll give it a try...now I've just got to work out how to use it. I wonder which user name and password it wants?
Oh yeah, that's the barrier I got to. I think it wants your login and password for your windows user account. But if you don't use a password, I have no idea.
Quote: Lee @ 8th May 2014, 9:50 PM BSTOh yeah, that's the barrier I got to. I think it wants your login and password for your windows user account. But if you don't use a password, I have no idea.
Not sure I want to give that sort of information out, really...
That's fair enough but that app seems pretty legit. It seems to be one of the geek's favourite and afterall, it's installed on your phone, where it could do whatever damage it wanted to, if it wanted to.
Quote: Nogget @ 8th May 2014, 10:03 AM BSTNot sure why my (new) PC won't recognise android phone,
It turns out I just needed to use a different USB port. For some reason, neither of the front ones would do it.
"Never store passwords on your computer in case they are accessed by Gameover Zeus or another aggressive malware program"
Does this mean you shouldn't write your password in a document, or you shouldn't enable automatic log-in?