# Computers, Computers, Computers



## AtleanWordsmith (Sep 21, 2015)

I dunno.  Just wanted to move this discussion out of the "So How'd Your Day Go" thread.

Anything you want to post about computers, complaints about OS, whatever.  Just a random computer-related thread.  Because... yeah.



Crowley K. Jarvis said:


> Should've done my research then. I just got the thing 'cuz it had alright specs with the price. I would've taken something different If I'd known it wouldn't fail to connect a good 1/3 of the time.
> 
> It's doing fine now, but it was tripping for two hours. /cry
> 
> ...



I got the Football because I needed something that could take abuse, it's not bad, though.  A bit old, because I wasn't willing to shell out the extra five hundred for a newer model, but reliable and virtually indestructible.  It's just a refurbished model, but ~$400 for a fully rugged laptop isn't a bad deal at all, and, like I said, it'll connect to anything and everything.  The only drawback is the fact that it weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of eight to ten pounds.

As for Windows 8, I have no clue.  None of my systems will accept the upgrade... frankly, I personally don't see that as a bad thing, from what I've heard.


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## Crowley K. Jarvis (Sep 21, 2015)

Yeah, it's terrible. And they're skipping straight to ten. I don't want it. 

Also, Crappy video cards.

I shouldn't have to custom-build a computer just to have a video card that doesn't lag when I play Minecraft.

'Nuff said.


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## AtleanWordsmith (Sep 21, 2015)

I had the option to stay on Windows XP when I ordered the Football, so I took it.  Wasn't planning on using it for anything other than my photography/reportering, and I still don't use it for anything other than writing or uploading photos.  I've got Don't Starve on there, but that's about the most I demand of it.


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## Crowley K. Jarvis (Sep 21, 2015)

And now it's flipping out again. WHY!? CAN'T YOU PROGRAM CONSISTENT WIFI!?

Everything I want to play need an update, so I can't play offline! Aaarhg! 

This is literally a problem no other freaking computer designer has, apparently!

-Angrily shakes fist- DAAAAMN YOU TOSHIBA!


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## Joe_Bassett (Sep 21, 2015)

All my PC's are Windows 8.  My dad is waiting for the bugs to be worked out of ten before he upgrades.  My dad hates Windows 7, He thinks there are too many security issues on it .


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## AtleanWordsmith (Sep 21, 2015)

I believe my desktop is running Windows 7.  I'm not completely sure.  To be honest, I'm heavily into older stuff anyway.  I like older cars, older guns, older computers, older clothing... I don't know what it is about all of it.  I'm pretty happy with XP, though.  It might not have everything, but it's functional enough and suits my needs.  For now.  Who knows what the future may hold?  More old stuff for this old fuddy-duddy.

Maybe I'm just a hipster.


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## Phil Istine (Sep 22, 2015)

Personally I would have been totally happy to stay with Windows 98SE.  It did what I needed and at least there was no need to restore from some hidden partition - you could just re-format and start again.


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## Crowley K. Jarvis (Sep 22, 2015)

The problem is, the more new features they try and add, the more errors and the more complicated it is. 

And everyone used to the old system has to readjust again. 

They could've had a perfect computer already, functionality wise, if they'd have just kept one version, fixed EVERY bug, and been done with it. 

But we always have to have something new...

I'm pretty tech savy, but I had quite a few menus to go through before I even found my CALCULATOR. That's just stupid. They want to make everything like a phone. Quick, easy buttons with no files or scary text without bright colors. 

I don't want a stupid fullscreen menu, I want to view my files, and know exactly where EVERYTHING is. That way, I can delete what I'm not using, keep my computer fast, and do everything I want to... It shouldn't be locked up like an iphone.


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## LeeC (Sep 22, 2015)

Put in perspective Crowley  our culture is locked into an "ever expanding" mind-set, which necessitates expanding economic activity, all in a finite realm. 

Evidence of awareness can be seen back in c1700 by Bernard Mandeville:
Luxury employ'd a million of the poor,
and odious pride a million more;
Envy itself and vanity
were ministers of industry;
...​
To keep it up we must have ever expanding output and increasing levels of "specialization." Kinda a "sins of the father visited on the son" thing.

Not surprising this plays out re our electronic gadgets ;-)

Having worked on the early stages of UNIX, I gravitated to Macs, but all have succumbed. The corporate players are trying their best to take the personal out of personal computer, making us pawns of their tentacles in the pursuit of ever greater wealth (a great, if not original, theme for a book  ). 

I found this even more strikingly evident when I finally upgraded to OS X Yosemite, seeing excessive background internet activity with my "Lil' Snitch" gateway. Heck, they even screwed up their basic email client "Mail" to where I had to get a third party email client. 

How does humankind break the chains that bind ;-)


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## JustRob (Sep 22, 2015)

Anything will do for me. As I sit here working on my quad processor desktop machine running Vista just to the right of it is a machine that I haven't turned on for a while running Windows 95 I believe. To my left is my essential off-the-grid workhorse for my software development work running Windows Millenium, although a flip of the hidden switch on the front changes it to running Linux and Windows 98. Behind it on the shelf, just in case I need it, is a machine running Windows 2000. The one by my right foot currently has Windows XP and Kubuntu installed for a recent project. Of course on the workbench to my far right is the grandaddy of them all, my embryo Honeywell 200 from the 1960s, not a PC but a nascent mainframe. In the spare bedroom next door is my old laptop running Windows XP and containing the essential database holding all the wiring information for the Honeywell 200. Somewhere in the house is the new tablet/notebook running Windows 8.1 and fiercely refusing to update to Windows 10 as I don't want to go there. Then of course my angel has now bought an iPad, which is pretty much a mystery to me and hardly a "proper" personal computer at all as it seems to retain far too much allegiance to its manufacturer for my liking. It's probably the best solution for her needs though.

These aren't all my machines, just the more evident ones. 

Recently my desktop machine was suffering from Vista bloat and barely giving me any time to do useful work on it, so I looked into cleaning it up. I also bought a solid state drive for it to share the workload with the existing single hard drive. To get the maximum speed out of that I also bought a fast interface card, but that turned out to be too big to fit in the case, so I had to cut away some of the metal inside the case with a hacksaw. With the SSD installed in the interface card the machine is now performing much better, which is curious as I'm not currently using the SSD to store anything, not even the virtual memory file. My angel suggested that by taking a hacksaw to the machine I have "scared it shitless", to use her precise words, and it is now behaving itself for fear of what more I might do. While I was checking whether the interface card would actually work with the machine I had all the parts spread out over the desk but working before I started hacking the case. Maybe the machine was shocked at this blatent vivisection as well.

I have a very good working relationship with computers. They respect me apparently. It is a strange thing to say but somewhere in their tiny minds my reputation for ruthlessly fixing all problems precedes me and often I have discovered that just the threat of my tackling a fault is enough for it to disappear. It's very annoying for me though, going to fix a fault on someone's computer only to discover that the gremlin has fled on hearing the news that I'm coming. The manager of a charity where I helped out once told me that she'd actually warned her misbehaving computer that she'd call me in to fix it and the fault immediately vanished. I don't know what the IT equivalent of green fingers is, binary digits maybe, but somehow I have it, or at least used to. Nowadays I have trouble keeping up with developments and quite honestly doubt that it's a good plan anyway. In a way the old friends around me are far more user-friendly than their modern equivalents with their hidden agendas, open source systems excepted of course. Long live the GPL and its cousins, close and distant!


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## belthagor (Sep 22, 2015)

Best thread ever!

I figured out how to embed subtitles to your stuff (videos) without using 500$ software ^^

Wanna hear?


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## Teb (Sep 22, 2015)

Windows 10 sucks.

Nuff said.


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## Deleted member 56686 (Sep 22, 2015)

Just out of curiousity, how bad is Windows 10 compared to 8.1? I do miss the days of XP.


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## midnightpoet (Sep 22, 2015)

I talk to my computer, but it never listens; maybe, like Scotty's from Star Trek they will do everything you want orally.  Sounds like what happened before they created writing.  I'll agree on Win 10, it sucks.


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## Blade (Sep 22, 2015)

Crowley K. Jarvis said:


> The problem is, the more new features they try and add, the more errors and the more complicated it is.
> 
> And everyone used to the old system has to readjust again.
> 
> ...


:eagerness:

If the goal here were to market a product designed for human beings in order to enhance their productivity and improve the quality of their lives we would be fine. The products seem to be aimed at engineers who may actually appreciate the convolutions and so-called improvements.:disgust: All the fanfare is focused on the latest 'super-units' and their sales numbers rather than on basic function.:grey:

In my own case I have a PC at home (Windows 7) that is not hooked up to the net which I use for writing and games and go to the public library to go on-line. I kind of prefer the computer world as a spectator rather than as a paying participant.


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## Teb (Sep 22, 2015)

This pc is running windows 7, my windows XP machine spontaneously combusted before my eyes, which was the machine I used for most gaming I did on line. This one will run the only game I play on PC now, which I sometimes wish it wouldn't run cos it's the ban of my life but that's another story.

I upgraded to Windows 10, found it not to my taste and reverted back to 7. 

My Xbox is the gaming platform now. The PC will allow me to write and surf the net at times, such as now, when the wench is watching drivel.

Kids got laptops and tablets, touch screen doesn't suit me and the laptops are just dvd players for when I am at work.

Computers won't take over the world, but Microsoft are trying to take over it on their behalf.


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## midnightpoet (Sep 22, 2015)

Remembering the old days, when the only choices were pen and paper or the old typewriter, I'll struggle along with this electronic vampire and let it suck my blood.


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## -xXx- (Sep 24, 2015)

*lurks*
3.11 on 486dx...sigh, stable, that, sigh  <3
*returns to lurking*
*nods apology to studious surrounds*


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## Bishop (Sep 24, 2015)

*Cracks knuckles* Okay. It's time to show off my comp-u-ego.

Home Network:

My home network is run off of a Windows Server 2012 R2 environment with a full active directory in place, mimicking the corporate environment I use at work. This is run off of a virtual server which is on one of the secondary hard drives in my main tower, which I have named AREA51. This tower has four hard drives, two SSD (one for booting/OS and one for storing game installs) and two HDDs, each clocking 1TB for slave storage/virtual machines. This tower is also running an AMD 8350FX (soon to be on a Skylake processor, though), which feeds into an ASUS motherboard with 16GB of RAM and a corsair 750CXM power supply. Most importantly, however... is the EVGA 980TI SC w/ ACX cooling. Without a doubt, the greatest video card ever manufactured, by the greatest company ever, EVGA. This machine is running Windows 10 Enterprise.

Secondary machines include: 2 Windows 7 Enterprise VMs, 2 Windows 8.1 Enterprise VMs, 1 Windows XP VM, 1 2009 24" MAC (paired with the windows domain, running MAC OS 10.10.5), and a Lenovo Y500 gaming laptop (4th generation i5 with twin GT960M video cards, also running windows 10)--This machine is AREA52.

All systems have microsoft office 2013, except the main tower which is where I'm running office 2016. The main tower has 3 monitors, two horizontal 1080p monitors and one vertical for programming and coding--all Dell and ASUS.

Corporate Environment:

The company I work for uses a series of Unix servers, as well as Windows 2012 environments, so the server structure is more complicated, but it's another basic Active Directory running the majority of things. My computer is a Dell E5450 which I customized, running a 4th gen i7 processor an SSD, and 16gb of RAM. It docks into a docking station that powers 3 monitors, again two horizontal, one vertical. Also on my desk is a mock server environment that is separated from the company's network for advanced testing (so we don't break anything in the network in testing), a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 with an i7 and 512gb SSD, and a 2013 27" MAC. And behind my desk is a series of shelves with test machines that represent one of each of every computer model that the company uses, for me to test--all Dell models, 10 machines total that are wired to my little mini network for me to remote into from my desk. The total environment houses over 10,000 machines, managed mostly through Microsoft System Center and Configuration Manager.

As for all the talk on Windows 10... I love it. I will say, I was intimately familiar with Windows 8/8.1, which is similar to Windows 10, and the tools that are available when you right click on the start button are WAAAAAY ahead of Windows 7 in terms of IT personnel accessibility. It simplifies my access to the tools I need to use dozens of times throughout the day, and the search bar allowing me to go directly to a file path is a godsend as well. The updated powershell environments in 8/10 are fantastic and give me a lot more options in scripting, and the default driver compatibility makes loading Windows 10 on a fresh boot a breeze. These OS's get a lot of flak for being 'tablet oriented' but Windows 8 got a bad name because of its lack of a start button (corrected in Windows 8.1) and the only fault I see in Windows 10 is the fact that, in reality, there's two control panels, and that's kinda annoying. In reality, once you learn keyboard shortcuts, how quick searching works within these two OS's... it's far superior. Windows 7 was a great OS, no doubt... but for us IT guys, 10 is what we've been waiting for.


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## Pluralized (Sep 24, 2015)

Bought my wife a couple of Dell and one HP laptops over the past couple, and they're all glitched out and slower than Christmas. Meanwhile, the ol' MacBook air still has never so much as looked at me sideways. It's solid. Boss tells me to 'get whatever I want' for my next work computer, so I'm looking at a Mac Pro with 64GB of RAM and a triplet of 4K monitors. *Drool fest*


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## Bishop (Sep 24, 2015)

HP laptops come with a second operating system's worth of bloatware. If one buys an HP laptop (really, any PC/Laptop...), one should immediately format the hard drive and reinstall windows. Then again, some of these companies are now putting bloatware in the damn BIOS, making it nearly impossible for a normal user to fathom eradicating it... Oh, and don't get me started on Lenovo's computers coming with 5, COUNT THEM 5, partitions on the hard drive for GOD KNOWS WHAT... but I'd still prefer it to MACs any day.


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## bazz cargo (Sep 24, 2015)

*Sigh*

I have an old dual core mother board, two 1 terabyte hard  drives and a caddy system. I have XP for music, video and DTP software,  Linux for internet things and windows 7 which hasn't been used for an  age. 

I keep chopping and changing the linux OS. I also have a three terabyte usb back up drive. 

How long ago was it that all men could do was compare the size of their hard drives?


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## midnightpoet (Sep 24, 2015)

Old joke:  I remember when if someone (usually a lady) commented on your four-and-a half inch floppy it didn't have anything to do with computers.


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## bazz cargo (Sep 24, 2015)

^*Groan button*


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## ppsage (Sep 24, 2015)

I just got a referb Lenovo thinker w/2.5gHz and 4gig. Small HDD 250. Nothing on it but win7 pro. No optical drives. $200 buck from some garage in North Carolina. Hassled around for about six weeks getting everything fixed but they were perfect about it and even sent me parts I needed when their fix didn't take (fan issues). Runs everything I do like a wizard, but eats battery compared to my slowpoke Aspire so maybe I'll keep that for when I got no hookups. 

@Plur. Maybe you've given up on her windows machines, but if you haven't I have very good luck doing almost everything in a separate limited account which can be easily deleted when it gets too bloaty. Only anti-virus is defender. (I hate anti-virus, it's as bad as the problem.) My data seems clean when I save it and put it over to the new account. This is a very low tech solution which even dummies can learn to do in way less than an hour. With win7 there are very few things I really need administrator privilege for. I've never had anything get out the account that caught it.


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## Blade (Sep 24, 2015)

midnightpoet said:


> Remembering the old days, when the only choices were pen and paper or the old typewriter, I'll struggle along with this electronic vampire and let it suck my blood.



It is up to us really.:eagerness: You can just take what you want and leave the rest. I don't recall anyone tears ago lamenting their situation in life and yearning for the internet to be born.:cookie:


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## Bishop (Sep 24, 2015)

ppsage said:


> @Plur. Maybe you've given up on her windows machines, but if you haven't I have very good luck doing almost everything in a separate limited account which can be easily deleted when it gets too bloaty. Only anti-virus is defender. (I hate anti-virus, it's as bad as the problem.) My data seems clean when I save it and put it over to the new account. This is a very low tech solution which even dummies can learn to do in way less than an hour. With win7 there are very few things I really need administrator privilege for. I've never had anything get out the account that caught it.



I very much wish I could do this to people in my family/friends circle who call me for "computer help" all the time. "He works in IT, he can fix it. It's probably a hacker!" No. You monkeyed around, downloaded a bad link, and now you've got malware, and a billion toolbars in your web browser. My wife refuses to let me turn these peoples' windows accounts into limited access accounts, where I could actually set up blockers for things like this... but their computers would run beautifully if they just accepted my guiding, administrative hand. Sure, they'd have to call me to install programs, but I can create a little IT ticketing system for them. Put in a ticket and I'll permit download/install access when I can. That'll be $12.50.

Sigh. A perfect world...

In reality, I'm happy to help people with their computers (probably because I'm a little showy about it), but what irks me to no end are two types of users: People who refuse to believe they can do MOST basic functions of a computer. "Oh, I'm not a computer person, I have no idea how to get a fit-bit on my computer, so I better have you do it." No. You're a perfectly capable human being who can read directions on a sheet of paper. My mother-in-law is this type of person, and it drives me nuts. Every little thing is a tech crisis. The second type of person... 2) Impatient people. This is my father-in-law. "Is this going to take a lot longer? What are you doing? Is this a hacker, did someone hack me? How much longer?" Stop. The reason I do this for a living is because of the living part. I love computers and love working on mine, but working on other peoples' computers (which is only a very small part of my job at this point anyway) is something I'm paid for. I'm doing this for you for free, so please calm down and relax. It's going to be a while--judging by your internet search history, I've got some serious cleaning to do. If you want to pay me as well as my bosses pay me, you can yell at me like they get to. If you want the free service, please be patient.

The other thing... I like working on computers, but having me come to your house to provide 'speed up my computer service' is (and I'm not trying to toot my own horn TOO much...) kind of like asking a professional mechanic to come wash your car. What I like to do is get into the deep, nitty-gritty bits, coding, network architecture, systems administration, encryption, security... it's what I do at my job, and I LOVE my job. But your Gateway/HP/Dell/Lenovo home desktop that you've had for five years and have slogged down with Bonzai Buddy and weather apps and flash games... it's busywork. So when my father-in-law says, "I thought you loved this stuff?!", I wish I could politely respond, "I love doing REAL computer work."

Alas, that's in-laws, though. /Rant over. If you have a 'good with computers' guy/gal in your life, just be nice and patient and (s)he'll be happy to help.


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## Crowley K. Jarvis (Sep 24, 2015)

Malwarebytes. Easy, free, and it works. No problem. 

Most people just don't know to decline additional offers whenever they download stuff, and then wonder why their comp is so slow. Should I get lazy and forget to delete stuff, I just do a system restore and then update everything again.Usually though I'm pretty good about it. 

I think some people's attitude towards computers says a lot about their general life view.

'I know nothing about this subject, and I don't know where to start.' That never stopped you before. You still learned to read, work, and function in society. But they just say 'I'll give up and never try.' Pfff. 

Using a computer ain't so hard with even a small bit of practice.


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## midnightpoet (Sep 24, 2015)

My wife is the impatient one; if something minor goes wrong (I can't print this @#$$%^) I usually can fix it - but I'm slow.  Although I started working with computers in the 1980's they were mostly mainframe.  I'm not up on the latest jargon, and some things are beyond me.  She gets impatient with me and the computer and wants it fixed NOW.  Oh well.  I'm pretty up on how to clean the computer and malware but let's face it I'm old; stuff takes me a while to catch on.:grin:


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## ppsage (Sep 24, 2015)

> Sigh. A perfect world...


Working in a limited access account is such a no-brainer. Only give the admin password (since win7 it'll ask if you know it in any kind of account) when you expected to need to for something you know what you're doing. 90% of my troubles went away by doing this.





> I'm not a computer person, I have no idea how to get a fit-bit on my computer


This is my wife only it's really true. When it comes to computers, she can't learn. She works happily in a limited account, and can't remember the password, or find the slip she wrote it on, or the notepad file on her desktop with all of them in it.


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## -xXx- (Sep 25, 2015)

Blade said:


> It is up to us really.:eagerness: You can just take what you want and leave the rest. I don't recall anyone tears ago lamenting their situation in life and yearning for the internet to be born.:cookie:



*hand up*
that was me.
I'm not sorry.


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## JustRob (Sep 25, 2015)

Bishop said:


> *Cracks knuckles* Okay. It's time to show off my comp-u-ego.



Ego noted. Nice toys. How many months to go before they are obsolete? Nowadays for me it's the trailing edge stuff that's exciting. A few years ago I invented a new way of using magnetic core memory that makes it run 50% faster. Unfortunately I did it fifty years too late but I found it very satisfactory on a personal level. Fortunately I found a supply of faster core memories as well, so don't need to use it. I've located an original fifty year old control panel for my Honeywell 200 replica, but it's in California a third of the way around the world from me, so I'll need some pretty long connecting cables or a cheap deal from FedEx. Of course I don't have the detailed design for the H200, only the functional specification, so I also have to design all the processor logic one gate at a time. Now that really is the lowest level possible. The fun part is only using 1960s technology, that's_ two _gates per chip or else just transistors. Video processors? What's video? There's ninety light bulbs to flash in the control panel. Does that count?

If you haven't seen my project website it's here. http://honeypi.org.uk/  It's long overdue for an update though.

I recognise your rants about neighbourhood users needing help as well. A basic rule in IT support work is that you aren't just fixing the system but also the people using it. The skill there is in deciding what they are capable of learning to do themselves and what you are better off doing for them.


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## Phil Istine (Sep 25, 2015)

I have a fairly old computer kicking around and some ancient monitor.  It runs Windows Millenium (terrible OS).  But it does have a CD writer, floppy disc and a 20gb hard drive with a word processor installed.  Being on the internet can distract me from writing so it occurs to me that I can set it up in another room and have it purely as a writing machine. It does have early USB.  File transfer can occur via USB stick.  That will probably be for printouts to save hooking up a printer - though I do have an old single colour laser that might still work.  It does have a parallel port but I have a USB/parallel converter cable if needed.
I did once have it cabled up to my main computer eons ago as a basic network.
Even now, I've not made the leap to wireless technology.  My only exception to this is the Amazon Kindle I bought a few months ago.  I only got that because someone gave me Amazon vouchers for my birthday.  I regard it as an investment because it saves me money on books.


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## J Anfinson (Sep 25, 2015)

Bishop said:


> HP laptops come with a second operating system's worth of bloatware. If one buys an HP laptop (really, any PC/Laptop...), one should immediately format the hard drive and reinstall windows. Then again, some of these companies are now putting bloatware in the damn BIOS, making it nearly impossible for a normal user to fathom eradicating it... Oh, and don't get me started on Lenovo's computers coming with 5, COUNT THEM 5, partitions on the hard drive for GOD KNOWS WHAT... but I'd still prefer it to MACs any day.



Lol. Every time I get a new computer this is what I do. There's so much junk that comes on them. No, I don't want your resource hogging Norton/McAfee trial subscription, and you can shove it because the first thing I'm doing is uninstalling it. 

What really sucks is that most of the time it doesn't come with a windows disk, so what I have done at times is use a backup disk for one of my other computers to "restore" to the new one so it'll be clean. I only have Vista and XP, though, so if I get anything newer I'll be screwed and have to just uninstall everything the best I can. Which I'm not a tech guru at, so all I know how to do is through the control panel. I have no idea how to find stuff in the registry without one of those free scanning tools that may or may not delete stuff that belongs.


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## Bishop (Sep 25, 2015)

If you ever need a guide on how to grab a windows ISO and burn it to a flash drive, I can teach. It's a simpler process than most people think and then you can have that instead of the Microsoft disks, which cost about 15 bucks. From there, you boot to it and it acts as an installer.


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## JustRob (Sep 26, 2015)

ppsage said:


> Working in a limited access account is such a no-brainer. Only give the admin password (since win7 it'll ask if you know it in any kind of account) when you expected to need to for something you know what you're doing. 90% of my troubles went away by doing this.



Yes, I always set myself up a limited account for my normal work. Some people that I help don't even understand that they can set up multiple accounts for separate family members or purposes. They don't even understand that a computer can do more than one thing at a time. However, I find it best to let people work in the way that they feel comfortable. My philosophy is that there are two sides to charity, benevolence and tolerance; one means helping others to live their lives in a better way and the other means letting them live their lives the way they want to.

One of the classic mistakes that system developers make is to test their systems using their own accounts, which invariably have high level permissions, so they don't realise that normal users can't use the systems because they don't. I've seen it happen so many times, often because their company security policies insist on all their work being done through their own accounts. The consequence is that the company gets very tight security but a system that doesn't work. The safest system is the one that can't do anything at all of course.



> This is my wife only it's really true. When it comes to computers, she can't learn. She works happily in a limited account, and can't remember the password, or find the slip she wrote it on, or the notepad file on her desktop with all of them in it.



My angel doesn't know the admin passwords for our computers and this gives her confidence. She now has an iPad, which I suspect gives her false confidence, given that it has no email security features built in at all. Just because Apps run in sandboxes it doesn't mean that they are entirely secure.



Phil Istine said:


> I have a fairly old computer kicking around and some ancient monitor.  It runs Windows Millenium (terrible OS).  But it does have a CD writer, floppy disc and a 20gb hard drive with a word processor installed.  Being on the internet can distract me from writing so it occurs to me that I can set it up in another room and have it purely as a writing machine. It does have early USB.  File transfer can occur via USB stick.  That will probably be for printouts to save hooking up a printer - though I do have an old single colour laser that might still work.  It does have a parallel port but I have a USB/parallel converter cable if needed.
> I did once have it cabled up to my main computer eons ago as a basic network.



Windows ME (Millennium Edition) was an enhanced version of Win98 and had some useful extra features. I still use it on my development machine as it has the old drivers necessary for my old peripherals, such as SCSI devices. I think every version of Windows was criticised but maybe XP was the favourite with the best track record overall. I am carefully preserving and backing up my XP machines. I have an XP machine which has a licence to upgrade it to Vista and also a Vista machine with a licence to downgrade it to XP, which is just perverse, but it does prove that the transitions from one version to another were movable feasts.

I have two networks at home, one with an Internet gateway and a second without, that being for elderly machines which I can still run without the burden of antivirus software and perpetual automatic updates and other behind the scenes activities. Even my regular Internet machine can be switched out of the router network to work in peace when I feel that it isn't paying my demands enough attention. Often for simple tasks like word processing a stripped down lower specification machine can be more efficient than one that's struggling with a load of multitasking.

My solution with the printing was to take advantage of the multiple sockets that many printers have. My laser printer has USB, parallel and network sockets and, contrary to the official advice, it can cope with input from more than one, so it is possible for it to be hooked into a network for my Internet work and also connected to one or two machines outside the network without any crosstalk between the connections. If you can stretch the cabling to do this it's an alternative to using two printers. USB cables have a maximum length but I have an incredibly long parallel cable that I don't use for anything any more.

P.S.
The technical term for transferring files from one machine to another using an offline medium, such as a removable storage device, is "sneakernet" because of the walking involved.

P.P.S.
Although I now have the option of two wireless networks in our house, there are also a mass of underfloor cables that I've installed to connect the rooms in various ways for different purposes. Heaven knows what any future owner of it will make of them.


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## -xXx- (Sep 28, 2015)

JustRob said:


> P.S.
> The technical term for transferring files from one machine to another using an offline medium, such as a removable storage device, is "sneakernet" because of the walking involved.



we called it nike.net, back in the day. 
it was mostly secure.
except for the one guy and his copy machine problem.
Finally, I pulled the media out of the floppy center.
He brought back a black and white picture.
That was the one he got to copy every time.
etc.
ad nauseum.
In the future, I will refer to him as "Holly".


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## bazz cargo (Oct 8, 2015)

I was wondering if this was the best place for tips.

I have an Epson Stylus sx215. it will happily run cheapo inks. The thing works well enough. So much for the review.

By poking around I found that if I set it to print on matt paper but use gloss paper in the machine the picture is so much better.


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## walker (Oct 8, 2015)

I'm an old computer kind of guy. I can be productive writing on very old machines. Surfing the web requires newer hardware.

I've been doing 90% of my work on LInux since 2001? 2002? Can't remember.

I recently learned about Macs, and I like 'em. There is even a command line for vim and programs like that. 

For anyone complaining about Windows and thinking of switching, my take is that the work on Linux systems comes at the front end. It can be tough to install, and tough to get all your hardware working, but once the system is running, it is very stable. Windows is the other way around. You bring the computer home from the store, push a button, and it works. Everything is downhill from there.


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## bazz cargo (Oct 10, 2015)

Hi Walker,
I too use Linux. At the moment I'm swearing at Zorin 10. The Zorin branch peaked with V4 and has gone very badly down hill since.

I have a copy of Knoppix 7.5 and OpenSuse 13.2, each are 64 bit. I will be trying Suse next. 

Back to the general thread

Linux and Mac OS are based on kernels that can be traced back to Unix. They are cousins. 

Linux is 'open source,' which means the software is either free or priced very reasonably. Some of it is windows 95 level, some of it is seriously cutting edge. 

I don't like the Apple way of tying its users in to paying lots of money just to be cool. I'm not cool.

With Linux and Apple there is no expensive anti-virus software needed. 

Linux magazines cost about $10. & they come with a DVD on the cover with the latest distros.


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## walker (Oct 10, 2015)

Hi bazz cargo (awesome name),

Debian is the only distribution I've ever used. I've seen it change a lot over the years. On my first installs I had to pick the drivers from long lists at the time of install. There was also a lot more tweaking of configuration files involved. Now, most things are auto-detected. Other systems, for managing printing and whatnot, have changed over the years. 

I wouldn't know about comparing Windows to linux software. I haven't relied on Windows software for a long time. I certainly have all the software that I need, for photo processing, sound, internet, what have you, and I don't feel the lack of anything.

My thing is the stability of the system. I just want to turn the computer on and have it work, and that's what Linux does. It's incredible. The hardware craps out on Linux boxes, not the software. In fact, the software gets better with time, because you tweak it as you go along. I have had occasional problems, but nothing like the wandering-through-molasses of a gummed-up Windows box, and plus, I can almost always fix issues that come up. Nothing is opaque.

I've started working on Mac laptops in the past year, and I like them, but I do miss the consoles (Ctl-Alt-F1-F7) of Linux. But the Macs are nice machines, especially the quality of the components. The touchpads work really well. The keyboards are nice too. The unix heritage is obvious on the one terminal they do give you. I find a lot of familiar *nix commands. The Mac I have was a cheapie (few years old) off ebay, and damaged. The damage was less that I expected. An honest seller disclosed everything. I popped in a new battery from Amazon and I'm good to go.


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## JustRob (Oct 11, 2015)

bazz cargo said:


> I have an Epson Stylus sx215. it will happily run cheapo inks.



I have an Epson Stylus. It doesn't have a model number because it is the original model marketed before there were any others. It doesn't even need inks. I have filled it with food dye and it still prints successfully. If I used it to print on rice paper I could actually eat my words. I'm sure that there are occasions on WF when others would consider that desirable. 

I have toyed with Linux versions for very many years since I first experimented with Slackware Linux, one of the oldest distros. I've never used it exclusively though and many of my machines have had dual boot configurations alongside Windows for maximum flexibility. The latest distro that I tried out recently was Kubuntu, which I installed on a notoriously stubborn and uncooperative old model of computer, a Compaq Evo D510. The advice on the Internet for dealing with problems on these machines is to bin them, but Kubuntu installed and ran with no evident problems, so Linux really has come of age now, so far as I can see. 

With Microsoft planning to provide Windows on an annual subscription basis in future I anticipate a smooth move to using Linux at that time. Most of the software packages that I use on Windows are ported from Linux anyway, things like OpenOffice and Mozilla Thunderbird. My desktop machine runs Vista and Microsoft didn't maintain an up to date version of Internet Explorer for that, so sometimes I have to switch to Mozilla Firefox to get a website to work properly. I might just as well switch entirely to Linux, but there is some hardware that doesn't work with it and as a former IT professional I can usually muddle through with anything to hand, so can't be bothered to change things for now.

As my angel recently bought an iPad I am now obliged to comprehend the wonderful world of Apple apps, which is to a seventy year old PC hacker like me about as enjoyable as a fortnight in Disneyland. To be honest, I found programming a Psion organiser (Remember them? They came somewhere between Filofaxes and iThings.) far more fun. I do grudgingly accept that being able to change channels on the TV and music on the Hi-Fi system using an iPad app is handy though. I'm not sure that I'm going to rush to put the house lights or central heating online though.


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## bazz cargo (Oct 11, 2015)

@Walker. Cool is the last thing I am. Old fart is a better description.

@JustRob.  Yeah, some tech is outside the Linux camp. I think most Distros are forked from Debian.

@All. 

I  made my computer. It came as a kit from Novatech. I'm sure there is a  USofA equivalent. If a bit breaks I can replace it and not have to junk  the whole machine. I have used a caddy system to swap OS so I can try  stuff out without having to be stuck with something that doesn't work.  

I have found something called Calligra, it is an office suite that includes a novel writer's processor. It does epub and mobi. 

I  miss my old Atari 1040STE. It had a word processor on a 720 floppy that  I could add words too, making it customisable and ideal for writing Sci  Fi, all those weird names and stuff.


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## JustRob (Oct 11, 2015)

bazz cargo said:


> @JustRob.  Yeah, some tech is outside the Linux camp. I think most Distros are forked from Debian.



SUSE isn't. I used SUSE for some years. There's still a SUSE badge on one of my computers and you can only boot the computer into SUSE by pulling the badge out a fraction of an inch, which switches on an additional disk containing the hidden system. I just installed this hidden switching facility for fun and also to save installing dual boot software.

Today we had music playing in our kitchen diner during our Sunday lunch, controlled by an iPad on the dining table. That might seem simple nowadays but in our house it is a ridiculously complicated process as follows. Most of it doesn't use wireless connectivity.

The desktop computer in my workroom upstairs has server software installed along with a library of over 2000 songs ripped from our CD collection. This machine selects songs at random from the library.

The data is streamed to a network switch which connects the computers in that room.

It also passes the stream over a cable to the router in the living room downstairs.

The router passes the stream to a Squeezebox Touch, which converts the digital stream into audio.

The audio is fed into the Hi-Fi amplifier.

The sound output from there is fed into the living room speakers through cables running back up into the ceiling and across the room and down inside the walls.

It is also passed to a selector switch box which can select outputs from any of our stack of video recorders, both terrestrial and satellite, as well.

The audio signal is combined with a default picture from our Blu-ray player so that it is acceptable by a TV.

This combined signal is fed into a modulator which turns it into an analogue TV transmission signal and merges it into the TV aerial line along with all the received channels from the roof aerial.

The TV aerial line then runs back upstairs into the main bedroom where it is amplified by a booster amplifier and routed into the televisions in each bedroom.

One output from the booster amplifier runs back downstairs to the TV in the kitchen diner.

The result is that the same song can be heard simultaneously on every TV in the house as well as on the living room Hi-Fi system and also any computer connected into the network by wireless or cable.

In addition we now have an app on my angel's iPad which displays the playlist and controls the playback, so we can put that on the dining table and control the sound coming from the TV directly across the room, but actually via cables running around the house several times.

Actually, that reads a bit like the plot from one of my novels. Maybe that's where I've been going wrong.


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## aj47 (Oct 11, 2015)

There was no distro for the .91 kernel.  Just saying.


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## bazz cargo (Oct 12, 2015)

@Just Rob. Dang man, I just bluetooth direct from my phone. Lazy I guess.

@Annie. Curious, I don't follow much on the Penguin side. Too much to do and too little time. I just dabble. 

@All. If I can get away with doing as much of my own maintenance as possible I'm a less miserable old git. Being held hostage by a box shifting megastore is not my idea of fun.


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## -xXx- (Oct 15, 2015)

meh.
atom processors, first cut, meh.
*momentary need to grumble*
*tech-wut-naught*

*slams dew and runs*


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## Writer One (Oct 15, 2015)

Anybody know anything about Imac 7.1? Writer One


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## Arrakis (Oct 19, 2015)

A few months ago, mine bloody laptop went kaput, due to a failing hard disk. As a result, getting online has not been easy. I never _imagined_ it would be this inconvenient, not having your own computer. I cannot even edit mine stories; it's starting to drive me mental. In this forum, there have been so many excerpts I've wanted to review, but have been unable to. [Shrugs] Oh well. At least I was able to back up all mine data. Hopefully I'll be able to save for a new laptop, once I'm done with school.

Learn from mine mistake: Never, ever buy used or refurbished hardware, no matter how much you want to save your money.


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## ppsage (Oct 19, 2015)

I've been happy with refurbished but for me replacing a hard drive or a cooling fan isn't a reason for a new laptop.


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## JustRob (Oct 22, 2015)

I've just returned from a meeting of the Computer Conservation Society at the Science Museum in London. The main event was a talk about the code-breaking Colossus computer at Bletchley Park in WWII, given by a man who'd done a great deal of research into the subject just as a hobby even though he had no connection with anything or anybody to do with it. He was quite apprehensive as he was addressing not only the people who'd built the replica of Colossus now at the museum at Bletchley Park, but even some who'd talked to Tommy Flowers himself, the man who built the original during the war, about his work. Despite this he gave a fascinating talk from a very different angle and everyone was impressed.

He did come up with some very interesting points about Flowers. One was that at the outbreak of the war he was in Berlin and was advised by the British authorities to leave. He crossed the border into Holland only hours before it was closed. The Germans had had a key man in their ultimate defeat in their grasp and had let him slip at the last moment. If he'd been interned by them the history of both computing and Europe would have been very different. It was a last minute message decoded by Colossus that prompted Eisenhower to give the go-ahead for the D-Day landings.

Our speaker also showed us pages from Flowers's diary from the time, which was very modestly written. One entry read something to the effect of "Got Colossus working," and one a few days later simply read "Delivered Colossus to B.P." and yet another "First run of Colossus." This last was in effect a momentous record of the start of the computer age, but directly underneath it he'd written "Car broke down," followed by how he'd been given a lift home by someone else. So he might have been the builder of arguably the first working computer ever but he didn't even know how to get his own car to start. 

Brilliant details. It says something about bringing one's writing to life as well, that real people have many facets and so should our characters.


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## bazz cargo (Oct 22, 2015)

@Arrakis

Hello. Sorry to hear of your troubles. A new hard disc can be bought on ebay for twenty or so dollars. Ten dollars would get you a Linux mag with a working operating system. That should keep you going until you can afford a new machine.

@JustRob

Dang, I wish I'd been there.


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## JustRob (Oct 22, 2015)

bazz cargo said:


> @JustRob
> 
> Dang, I wish I'd been there.



The UK CCS meetings are open to anyone who wants to come. You don't need to be a member.

http://www.computerconservationsociety.org/lectures/2015-16/current_program.htm


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## bazz cargo (Oct 23, 2015)

200 miles to Manchester. The battle for home computing, if I suddenly get a wad of cash.


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## JustRob (Feb 9, 2016)

As I recently launched my new website I've been watching activity on it with interest. Mostly the hits are all the search engines around the world exploring it. I'm getting to know their nationalities now. Then there have been the hackers trying to gain access through vulnerabilities in Wordpress, but I don't use that so they just bounce off. Apparently around 30% of websites do use it though. It is believed that Wordpress vulnerabilities are allowing the dreaded zero day viruses to spread around the Internet and these are aimed at bringing down big businesses, so the next hits that I noticed were from a major security company employed by those businesses to search for the zero day viruses. It's all very interesting, but irrelevant.

Very occasionally I see a real person accessing the website for the actual reason that I set it up, but that happens pretty rarely. Oh well.


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## JustRob (Apr 9, 2016)

This might look like consecutive posts but there's been two months between them. Where did everybody go? For that matter where have I been?

About a week ago I wanted to print out a map in colour, so turned on my seldom used inkjet printer. It was of course dried out and useless. I use a monochrome laser printer for my day to day work and an aging dye diffusion printer for photos, so the inkjet hasn't been used for years probably. Even the dye diffusion printer is obsolete, or will be once my current stock of printing media runs out, and those things are expensive to buy nowadays, the decent quality ones anyway. Hard copy photos aren't that essential any more with so many electronic viewing devices around, so I probably won't bother.

My inkjet is an Epson Stylus Color. (For once I must defer to the American spelling of that word within a trade name even though it grieves me to do so.) It has no model number appended as it is the original with that name marketed in 1994. At that time it was a big advance over previous Epson printers and incorporated leading edge technology. I have never replaced it as the running costs of modern inkjets with their cartridge use rationing algorithms are relatively high. My machine does not have this feature and will happily drink the cartridges dry, after which I can refill them for further use, which is just as well as they are no longer available. Hence I just buy ink in bulk in bottles. In fact for my more tasteful output it will even work with edible food dye, I have discovered. The problem with inkjets though is that they must be used regularly to prevent them from clogging up. Mine certainly hasn't been over those more than twenty years.

I had some printing head flushing fluid which cleared some of the blockages quite well, but to use it effectively I needed to dismantle the printer and remove the printing unit. This involved removing the case, which in turn involved removing the main control panel. After an extensive cleaning operation which left my hands all the colours of the rainbow I reassembled the printer, turned it on and waited for it to complete its initial automatic cleaning cycle, which went on and on ... and on and on and on ...  The machine was stuck in a perpetual cleaning cycle and I had just bought a new supply of inks for it in anticipation of its resurrection, which might turn out to be a total waste of money. So much for economy of use. I did manage to persuade the thing to run a couple of test prints, but then it resumed its eternal obsessive cleaning cycle like a person with OCD. The test prints indicated that my own cleaning operation had not been entirely successful anyway. Along with the new supply of ink I had also ordered some "Magic Bullet" head cleaner as my supply of flushing fluid had run out, but I had the more pressing problem of an electronic fault that must have been caused by my removal of the control panel.  

I won't go into the long story of the electronics, but it did involve removing the main processor board, much poking around with test meter and soldering iron, a lot of thought and two inches of Sellotape. Since then thorough purging with the Magic Bullet solution hasn't solved the ink blockage problem, which was actually exacerbated by the machine's OCD cleaning cycles. At least I now have the supply of ink to refill the cartridges emptied in the process though. 

After a week I still haven't printed my map and still have a working but clogged up vintage inkjet printer. I could print the map on my next door neighbour's modern inkjet printer, but I am resolute in my intentions to get mine fully working. My original head flushing fluid was probably the sort that contains isopropyl alcohol, whereas Magic Bullet relies on a more gentle detergent for its action. Next week I intend to buy a bottle of isopropyl alcohol and drown my printer in it. There is the possibility that this intention may itself clear the blockages without my having to follow through on it, but I intend to buy the stuff anyway, just as a threat. 

It may seem strange for an experienced computer professional like myself to consider psychology to be effective at curing faults in such inanimate devices, but I have found it to be so in the past. Others have even found it effective in curing faults in their computers simply by threatening to call me in to fix them. In this case there is a remote quantum possibility that the molecules causing the blockage might all decide to move elsewhere over the weekend faced with this stand-off between us. In principle such things are very unlikely to happen but so was the entire process of evolution that created me, so simply by existing as a human being I have an aura of improbability around me. My intention regarding the events of next week may have elements of quantum entanglement with the states of those offending molecules this week and in quantum entanglement what happens at one time or place is what doesn't happen at the other, so the molecules can either move sooner or later, but by my strong intention they will move eventually, so it may as well be sooner.

For more probably unhelpful hints on how to influence the future through deeply held intentions and quantum entanglement take a look at my novel and associated comments and speculation, all available on my website. Ah, perhaps that was the intention of this post all along. I wonder what my printer would go for as a collector's item on eBay ... after I unclog it next week of course. Is that just another threat to loosen those stubborn molecules though? Maybe.


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## bazz cargo (Apr 9, 2016)

My beloved is a crafter, she goes through a lot of ink. I have discovered the Epson Compatible Inks work just fine.

Way back when I was using an Atari 1040 ste I had an early, monochrome Cannon inkjet. The quality wasn't so good but after I had set the Emulator to Epson it worked well enough. Happy days.


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## JustRob (Apr 9, 2016)

Of course my Epson isn't my oldest inkjet. I do have another monochrome one -- don't remember what make -- which I rescued from the back of a cupboard where I once worked. It has a static ink tank connected to the print head by a long pipe and one can just pump ink into the tank through an inlet to refill it. This printer is so old that it has a tractor feed for continuous stationery and I took it home because I had a stock of that type of paper rescued from elsewhere. I used to use the printer for low quality high volume printing but stored it away when I needed the shelf space for other equipment. It is a big beast, although not as big and heavy as my wide carriage Wang daisy wheel printer, which I haven't got working yet. I bought that a set of extra print wheels on eBay a while ago just in case I do one day. I'm really behind schedule on recommissioning much of my junk, but the older it gets the more interesting it gets -- a bit like me maybe. 

My angel's plan for my burial when I die involves renting a large refuse skip into which to put all my junk _and_ my body, given that it's always been difficult to part me from it in life. I'll have to make sure that I have my favourite music recorded on my vintage Ferrograph reel to reel tape recorder and a long enough extension lead to reach the skip for the ceremony. She'll probably keep my Honda Type R hatchback though, even though that's just reached its tenth anniversary and is now a collector's item, especially with only fifteen thousand miles on the clock and being the "final" limited edition of its type. That means that they threw in all the extras left over in the factory when they ended production. Typical of the things that I own, that, I suppose.


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