OK, it seems like I had to rant about it in order to get a buyer for the thing? The guy is going to enjoy it. I was also a little sad to see it go since we were losing money on it. And it was a very nice machine. But like I said before, it just wasn't cutting it, and since we're techno-geeks, something had to be done about it.
YAY!
Showing posts with label Computers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Computers. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Monday, March 12, 2007
Seriously interested buyers.. yeah right!
Why is it that when I put stuff for sale on newsgroups and online classified ads, there's always a bunch of people claiming that they are "seriously interested", and then end up being not interested after all? WTF is wrong with you people? Ask questions, that's fine, but don't say you are interested if you don't know yet! And there are those who offer you trades... my add does not say "for trade" or "for sale or trade", does it? It baffles me... I even got someone offering me puppies in exchange for a 51" TV I sold not long ago... o.O
I'm currently selling an iMac. I know it's a big purchase for a potential buyer, we're selling it for $1200. So I understand that people would have doubts about making that purchase. I know it's a good deal, I know it works flawlessly, but it is understandable that people would have doubts. I mean if the machine is so good, why do I sell it, right? (I previously wrote a blog about why, so I won't go into detail again, but simply put, it was just not cutting it for the use my wife was making of it - and you cannot upgrade an iMac unfortunately). So that's why asking questions and even coming to see it and try it out is a good idea. The last person being "seriously interested" was supposed to come last Saturday, and the way he talked, he was coming to pick it up. Then he called saying he was sorry but he could not come because he did not know that his bank was closed on Saturdays, and at the ATM, he has a daily limit. So he would come Sunday instead, with a second daily limit withdrawal. Understandable, and he seemed honest. I told him it was no trouble. Comes Sunday... he did not come by. He didn't even call to say he wasn't coming. Seriously interested? Yeah, maybe he was too embarrassed to call again to cancel or something, but then he did not think that maybe he was preventing us to do other things... which he did not, but that's beside the point.
Anyway, that was my rant for the day I guess. The iMac is still sitting on a desk, waiting for some new-owner love....
I'm currently selling an iMac. I know it's a big purchase for a potential buyer, we're selling it for $1200. So I understand that people would have doubts about making that purchase. I know it's a good deal, I know it works flawlessly, but it is understandable that people would have doubts. I mean if the machine is so good, why do I sell it, right? (I previously wrote a blog about why, so I won't go into detail again, but simply put, it was just not cutting it for the use my wife was making of it - and you cannot upgrade an iMac unfortunately). So that's why asking questions and even coming to see it and try it out is a good idea. The last person being "seriously interested" was supposed to come last Saturday, and the way he talked, he was coming to pick it up. Then he called saying he was sorry but he could not come because he did not know that his bank was closed on Saturdays, and at the ATM, he has a daily limit. So he would come Sunday instead, with a second daily limit withdrawal. Understandable, and he seemed honest. I told him it was no trouble. Comes Sunday... he did not come by. He didn't even call to say he wasn't coming. Seriously interested? Yeah, maybe he was too embarrassed to call again to cancel or something, but then he did not think that maybe he was preventing us to do other things... which he did not, but that's beside the point.
Anyway, that was my rant for the day I guess. The iMac is still sitting on a desk, waiting for some new-owner love....
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Router post #3
OK, my previous router (the D-link) was obviously defective. The new one (the Linksys) was flying out of the box. But... (there's always a "but")
Yesterday I was working from home. So in total there were three PCs connected to the Internet. First thing is that the "work" PC kept on getting disconnected. Not frequently like the D-link was doing, but it happened maybe 5 times during the "work day". Also, later in that evening, using either one of the home PCs, some web pages would take very long to load, or would not load at all. A rare page would load normally. This and the work PC disconnections were probably related. I tried resetting the router with the small reset button on its back. That seemed to fix the problem since any page would now load fine. But that only lasted for a short period, as the slow loads came back. Oddly though, my MSN was working, as well as the torrent that was active at that moment (downloading at 60kb/s, which is pretty decent). Just before the end of the evening, I decided to update the firmware or the router. Again, this seemed to fix it until we got to bed... A few minutes ago I asked my wife how was the Internet, and she said it was not so good. She did not seem to think it was as bad as yesterday evening, but still not very good.
There isn't seem to be any consistency to this whole thing. At this point, I'm not sure if it's the router again, or our Internet provider (this does happen when they are in the process of upgrading something), or the Internet in general (it does also happen that sometime the Internet just is not as snappy as other days). But I'm going to let it run for a few more days, and if the problem remains, I think I'm gonna try another damn router. Someone on a message board said "with routers, it's hit or miss". I now believe him.
Yesterday I was working from home. So in total there were three PCs connected to the Internet. First thing is that the "work" PC kept on getting disconnected. Not frequently like the D-link was doing, but it happened maybe 5 times during the "work day". Also, later in that evening, using either one of the home PCs, some web pages would take very long to load, or would not load at all. A rare page would load normally. This and the work PC disconnections were probably related. I tried resetting the router with the small reset button on its back. That seemed to fix the problem since any page would now load fine. But that only lasted for a short period, as the slow loads came back. Oddly though, my MSN was working, as well as the torrent that was active at that moment (downloading at 60kb/s, which is pretty decent). Just before the end of the evening, I decided to update the firmware or the router. Again, this seemed to fix it until we got to bed... A few minutes ago I asked my wife how was the Internet, and she said it was not so good. She did not seem to think it was as bad as yesterday evening, but still not very good.
There isn't seem to be any consistency to this whole thing. At this point, I'm not sure if it's the router again, or our Internet provider (this does happen when they are in the process of upgrading something), or the Internet in general (it does also happen that sometime the Internet just is not as snappy as other days). But I'm going to let it run for a few more days, and if the problem remains, I think I'm gonna try another damn router. Someone on a message board said "with routers, it's hit or miss". I now believe him.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
My router was broken after all
Just to put a closing note on this issue, the router was broken after all. The way that I found out is that I bought a Linksys WRT54G (a very popular model), installed it, and the disconnections stopped. Not only that, but our downloads are now much faster! So not only the D-link was disconnecting us, but even when it was connected, the speed was not good.
Anyway, a good $70 spent and all is back to normal :-D
Anyway, a good $70 spent and all is back to normal :-D
Monday, March 5, 2007
My Router's acting up!
I've had this wireless router, a D-Link DI-624, for over a year now. It's wireless, but like many alike, there are also 4 ports for wired connections. For a major part of this year, actually all up until about a month ago, it worked very well. Not sure if the speed was the best, but it suited our needs. But recently, it's been acting up.
At first, I did not know what was going on. We were losing the network connection from all our computers (2 wired, 1 wireless) at the same time. A popup message from the Windows tray said "A network cable has been unplugged" or similar, and then not more than a few seconds would reconnect, and another popup would say "Now connected to network". There could be a gap of many hours between two disconnections, but often, we would get disconnected every 5 to 10 minutes. When sufing the web, this goes almost un-noticed, except from the popup. But internet radio would be interrupted, as well as online games, downloads would have to reconnect, and also, when I work from home using a VPN, that of course would disconnect also. That is unacceptable. It wasn't that bad even bake in dial-up time.
I decided to call our ISP. The tech guy suggested it might be the cable between the modem and the router. Makes sens, so I changed the cable, and it seemed fine since we talked for a bit, and he made me do a couple of tests, and I did not get disconnected. So I hang up, but sure enough, shortly after, it happened again. I called them back, and this time, a level-2 tech suggested that if my router is close to the modem, it interferes/confuses the modem - mine was about a foot away, which would seem to be much too close. So I believe him and put the router 5-6 feet away from the modem. No luck - it happens again. The other thing the level-2 tech suggested is to connect one PC directly to the modem, and see how this goes. That's the next thing I tried, and what would you know... Everything worked fine, making the culprit... the router!
I went and read reviews for this router, and it seems like A LOT of people are having the same problem. Even a few using the router with no problem for a period of time, and then the disconnections started. Also, I posted this to the TechReport forums, and it seems like people have different experiences with different routers. Some switched to Linksys or Netgear because D-Link sucked and are now satisfied, and some switched to D-Link for the same reason, and are satisfied too o.O
Oh well, I guess I will have to guess and try something from a store where I can bring it back if the problem is still there...
At first, I did not know what was going on. We were losing the network connection from all our computers (2 wired, 1 wireless) at the same time. A popup message from the Windows tray said "A network cable has been unplugged" or similar, and then not more than a few seconds would reconnect, and another popup would say "Now connected to network". There could be a gap of many hours between two disconnections, but often, we would get disconnected every 5 to 10 minutes. When sufing the web, this goes almost un-noticed, except from the popup. But internet radio would be interrupted, as well as online games, downloads would have to reconnect, and also, when I work from home using a VPN, that of course would disconnect also. That is unacceptable. It wasn't that bad even bake in dial-up time.
I decided to call our ISP. The tech guy suggested it might be the cable between the modem and the router. Makes sens, so I changed the cable, and it seemed fine since we talked for a bit, and he made me do a couple of tests, and I did not get disconnected. So I hang up, but sure enough, shortly after, it happened again. I called them back, and this time, a level-2 tech suggested that if my router is close to the modem, it interferes/confuses the modem - mine was about a foot away, which would seem to be much too close. So I believe him and put the router 5-6 feet away from the modem. No luck - it happens again. The other thing the level-2 tech suggested is to connect one PC directly to the modem, and see how this goes. That's the next thing I tried, and what would you know... Everything worked fine, making the culprit... the router!
I went and read reviews for this router, and it seems like A LOT of people are having the same problem. Even a few using the router with no problem for a period of time, and then the disconnections started. Also, I posted this to the TechReport forums, and it seems like people have different experiences with different routers. Some switched to Linksys or Netgear because D-Link sucked and are now satisfied, and some switched to D-Link for the same reason, and are satisfied too o.O
Oh well, I guess I will have to guess and try something from a store where I can bring it back if the problem is still there...
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Darth Who
Yep, that's the name Annie gave to her new PC... I like it!
After all, it seems that the switch back to PC went smoothly, considering the pain in the butt Windows can be. It's odd with all these people we hear about switching from PC to Mac... It probably is good for many people, but the fact is that it was not for us. We saw a big downside of owning a Mac, and I'm not talking about the Mac Pro (since this one would probably have done the trick), I'm talking about the "more affordable" ones: the iMac (if you call that affordable - but it really is not that bad considering all that comes with it).
The problem: Annie is a power user. Not power in the sense of gaming power, but more like having a dozen apps running at the same time, one of which is Photoshop with 50+ high-res photos. The iMac just could not handle it smoothly. It did not crash mind you, but you could tell it was hurting... a lot. And it was not the RAM, because it had 2Gb already. The solution should have been relatively easy: time for an upgrade - more powerful CPU, better video capacity, faster RAM, bla bla bla. I usually expect an upgrade of around $500. Well, you just cannot do that with an iMac.
An iMac is basically built like a laptop: you can change very few things in there. I probably could have done this in a Mac Pro, but damn, the cheapest Mac Pro is $2800CAD, and that's the box alone (no monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers) - it's simply not affordable for us. So, what could we do, buy a new iMac? Damn, we spent over $2000 about a year and a half ago only (that was the price of the 20" iMacs back then), and now we should spend another $1700 plus taxes? And then 2 years down the road it's gonna be another $1700 when this one doesn't cut it anymore? The way we saw it is that if we buy a PC now, we would not have to spit that much money each 2 years. Only the necessary components can be upgraded. The rest is still all good. Why would I need to change the monitor, if all that is needed is more CPU power?
The other plus of going back to PC, is that I can pretty much troubleshoot any problem on them, and usually fix it. And if I don't find it by myself, there are TONS of people who can help on the Internet. With a Mac, the resources are very few, and even if I find what the problem is, I very probably would not be able to fix it. And we are not the type of buying the extended warranties everywhere on everything (it's more like close to never), but when buying a computer from Apple, you almost HAVE to, so might as well just add it to the price (so add another $400!!!). Otherwise, having it repaired is uberly expensive, so might as well just buy a new one... Sounds like you lose anyway you look at it :-/
Anyway, I think we made the right choice. I know Annie's going to miss OS X a bit. But Windows is just a getting used to... then it's fine.
After all, it seems that the switch back to PC went smoothly, considering the pain in the butt Windows can be. It's odd with all these people we hear about switching from PC to Mac... It probably is good for many people, but the fact is that it was not for us. We saw a big downside of owning a Mac, and I'm not talking about the Mac Pro (since this one would probably have done the trick), I'm talking about the "more affordable" ones: the iMac (if you call that affordable - but it really is not that bad considering all that comes with it).
The problem: Annie is a power user. Not power in the sense of gaming power, but more like having a dozen apps running at the same time, one of which is Photoshop with 50+ high-res photos. The iMac just could not handle it smoothly. It did not crash mind you, but you could tell it was hurting... a lot. And it was not the RAM, because it had 2Gb already. The solution should have been relatively easy: time for an upgrade - more powerful CPU, better video capacity, faster RAM, bla bla bla. I usually expect an upgrade of around $500. Well, you just cannot do that with an iMac.
An iMac is basically built like a laptop: you can change very few things in there. I probably could have done this in a Mac Pro, but damn, the cheapest Mac Pro is $2800CAD, and that's the box alone (no monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers) - it's simply not affordable for us. So, what could we do, buy a new iMac? Damn, we spent over $2000 about a year and a half ago only (that was the price of the 20" iMacs back then), and now we should spend another $1700 plus taxes? And then 2 years down the road it's gonna be another $1700 when this one doesn't cut it anymore? The way we saw it is that if we buy a PC now, we would not have to spit that much money each 2 years. Only the necessary components can be upgraded. The rest is still all good. Why would I need to change the monitor, if all that is needed is more CPU power?
The other plus of going back to PC, is that I can pretty much troubleshoot any problem on them, and usually fix it. And if I don't find it by myself, there are TONS of people who can help on the Internet. With a Mac, the resources are very few, and even if I find what the problem is, I very probably would not be able to fix it. And we are not the type of buying the extended warranties everywhere on everything (it's more like close to never), but when buying a computer from Apple, you almost HAVE to, so might as well just add it to the price (so add another $400!!!). Otherwise, having it repaired is uberly expensive, so might as well just buy a new one... Sounds like you lose anyway you look at it :-/
Anyway, I think we made the right choice. I know Annie's going to miss OS X a bit. But Windows is just a getting used to... then it's fine.
Friday, February 23, 2007
I'm now good at building PC's
Two days ago, I bought the necessary components to build my wife a PC (yes Ben, you read right: she's going back to PC!!!). And I did not realize how good I have become at it. It's no exploit, that's for sure. Many people can actually do this. But why I say I have become good at it? I hook up all the components together, plugged all the wires, powered it up, and it was ready to go! It's not rocket science, but if you try it yourself, most possibly you will find that you hooked something up wrong, mostly if you did not do this very often...
Well, now she has a brand new PC running WindowsXP. It's snappy and solid! The specs:
Well, now she has a brand new PC running WindowsXP. It's snappy and solid! The specs:
- Antec NSK4400 case (with 380W Power Supply)
- ASUS M2N motherboard
- AMD X2 3800+ CPU
- ASUS Extreme X1300PRO 256Mb video card
- 2Gb of Patriot PC6400 RAM
- WD 320Gb KS Hard Drive
- LG SuperMulti DVD drive
- Samsung 225BW 22" WS LCD (WOW!!!)
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