Things That Make You Say "Hmmmm..."

Some things just don't make any sense, and this week brought a pair of them to me.

No sooner do I post my positive experience with my DVR, the Philips 3575, does it develop a weird issue. I'm watching a DVD while recording something to the hard drive, which I've accomplished before without incident. Suddenly, the disc stops playing, the recording stops, and I've got some weird, white screen up on my TV mentioning some type of system error. Not only that, but the machine is completely frozen, and I can't even get the disc out. I finally have to plug and unplug the machine to reset it, and while the disc responds then, I navigate over to the hard drive, and everything that I recorded previously isn't there! Clearly, a catastrophic hard drive failure has visited me. I then watch the rest of the disc on the Philips, realizing that it's probably toast.

After the film, I head on over to my desktop (thinking that it's a good thing to have a nice LCD display as I'll be watching more TV online without a DVR). When I turn it on, I notice that my monitor has a weird pattern of vertical lines completely across it. Yup, Windows starts, and it's not going away. No, it's not the dreaded safe mode of Windows with the limited color palette. I decide to do a little troubleshooting, as I try and compute via Braille. I plug the monitor from the graphics card into the desktop's on board graphics, but the pattern remains. I then try to plug the monitor into my notebook's video out, and the same lines sit there. I'm a little befuddled as this monitor has been bullet proof since I got it, and performed without a hiccup along the way. I wonder if it might be the VGA cable, but I futz with it and it doesn't seem to make any difference.

I start thinking if I'm having some weird household electrical issue, but I recall that the computer and monitor were both off, through a surge suppressor turned off at the time of the Philips difficulty.

The next day, I find my receipts, and start to get some help, as both are under warranty still. First to the Philips. I call their customer support, and they were refreshingly helpful. I confidently blurt out "My hard drive is dead." The tech guy asks what the machine did, and agrees I'm probably right, but asks me to try something first. We unplug the machine for a full minute, and plug it back in to do a system reset. The machine then is back to normal, and the content on the hard drive seems to be there, and playable. Could it really be that simple? The only residue I've noticed so far is that the blue hard drive recording light seems to have gone out, but it was too bright anyway, so I wouldn't RMA the machine just for that.

Now to the monitor. I go to the Acer support site, and I get approved for the send back. I decide to make sure that there's nothing I need off of my desktop, as it could be sans monitor for the next month, and I don't have a spare these days. As I do this, I'm surprised that the display is completely normal! I run the computer for over an hour, and the weird pattern of vertical lines doesn't return.

While I'm pleased as punch that both the Philips DVR, and the LCD monitor are back to their usual state of health, I'm simply at a loss to explain what might have happened. Is this one for the X-Files?

--Jonas

Update: Jan '08- The DVR continues to function fine. Here's what happened to the monitor.

Printer's Back, Weird Issue

I wanted to give an update on the laser printer. It's a Samsung ML-2010, and it's been lightly used over the last year. The kind folks at Samsung agreed to ship me a replacement a week ago for some weird issues.

True to their word, it arrived a week later. It's a refurbished replacement unit that arrived UPS. I had to reuse my power and USB cables, as well as the toner cartridge.

Anyway, after I had this all swapped, I powered it on, and all seemed ok. All right, let's try a test page. Nothing, nada, zilch. On several attempts, the page wouldn't come out. I was thinking that this was even worse than what I started with. After all a misfeed is better than no feed, right?

I was wondering what this call to Samsung would sound like as I explained that I now had two broken printers, much to their disbelief. I checked one last thing- the printer driver. For some reason, when I selected a printer, I now had two ML-2010's even though I didn't add any software or drivers to the mix. With the print selected to the ML-2010, copy one, the printer now spit out pages like a champ.


Weird, huh? I thought so!

--Jonas

Printer Woes

Anytime you folks think I might run out of things to write about, fear not! With this much tech in my life, just about weekly something goes down lately. Here's the latest tale.

Last year, I chronicled the switch from inkjet cartridges, into the world of personal laser printers. I, like many others, gladly gave up color printing for the dual benefits of affordability and reliability- or so I thought.

Over the last few months, my Samsung ML-2010 has had an intermittent issue with printing. It often takes several tries to get the paper to go through. Once it jammed and required opening the access panels to retrieve the mangled document. Hey, what did I expect from an all plastic printer for $40 on last year's Black Friday special?

Earlier this week, the laser printer wouldn't print anything. I got misfeed after misfeed, and nothing came out. Finally, on the umpteenth attempt, the document went through, but came out with a puff of smoke with each of the six pages. Yeah, really, smoke, no kidding, no exaggeration, like I can't make this stuff up. After the smoke cleared (in more than a figure of speech), I looked into the warranty on this. Actually I unplugged it first, being a good Smokey the Bear type and all of that.

Awesome! The warranty is for one year, and I've got a month to go on it. I go to the Samsung website, and find the link for support. First I had to reset my password for unknown reasons. When I get into my account I discover that I had registered the printer, and my TV, but only the TV is there. I go to put the printer in, and when I press submit after filling in all the boxes, it won't go through and I get an 800 number to call to start this whole thing again. Geez, I'm getting that sinking feeling.

I call the number, and to Samsung's credit, the wait is short. I explain to the guy about the misfeeds, and now the smoke. He tells me that this is beyond tech support, so he kicks me up to repair service. Good move from what I'm seeing, make that hearing, no make that smelling.

The repair guy again takes my long serial number and info. He tells me to try and print something, and put the phone near the printer so he can hear the clicking sound. Murphy's Law kicks in, and the printer works like a champ without a click. On the second try, the clicks are back. "Yup," I'm told, "That sounds broken." Understatement of the month.

Thankfully, Samsung will make good on this. I'm told that they will ship me the printer, and I'll send mine back in an exchange. Sounds like a plan to me. They email me a form, and I have to fill it out to send it back to them- not the easiest process with a bum printer, but I manage, and also a scan of the receipt.

While I think few have experienced the smoke issue, the misfeed one is a common one. No word on how long this swap will take, so we'll keep you posted. I'm glad, so far, that Samsung is handling this without some big runaround. Let's hope that the warehouse is out of this printer, and I get an upgrade...

--Jonas

Read part two here.

Going, Going, Gone

Is It Really Gone?

Buying a notebook computer a few years ago was a daunting process. From someone who likes to build a computer to exacting specifications, it was difficult to find something affordable that had the right parts. When it was all said and done, I ended up purchasing an Averatec. They are kind of a no name, generic computer company that rebrand their notebook line for other companies, and also sell under their own name. They are sold discounted at retailers like Circuit City and Staples.

How did I end up with this brand, and the purchase of a 3250HX? One of the things I really liked about this brand was that there was a vibrant community around these notebooks. There was an extensive community that met in a forum, known as the Unofficial Averatec Forums. Even the Wikipedia article on Averatec mentions this busy community.

It was neat once in a while to go and check out what users were doing with their notebooks. Topics ranged from processor upgrades, to beta wireless drivers, the power trio and optical drive replacements. While my notebook has done well in the longevity department, the time I did develop an issue, I turned first to these forums, and I got good advice that facilitated a fix to the problem. Rather than run by the company, in a spirit of honesty and openness users got good advice from those more experienced.

I'm bringing this up because sometime over the summer, these forums went offline. Apparently, they are blaming a hard drive failure. It's a little hard to swallow that this entire community could run off of one hard drive. I was wondering if my next notebook purchase would be an Averatec, and without the community, the answer would likely be no.

When I was researching this article, I actually did find that the forum has been started anew. While just about all of the old content is lost, it's still nice to see that at least some of the old members have found it, and started anew. Hopefully over time, these forums will be as useful as the old were in supporting the Averatec notebooks. Also, the next time you consider which notebook brand to purchase, take into account where you will get support for it.

--Jonas

PS: I recommend to the new forum that they backup early and often to avoid the same fate!

Mobile Spam, Part III

This is the continuing saga of trying to block the increasing spam text messages from my cell phone which uses T-Mobile for its service. If you’re just joining us, check out Part I and Part II before reading the conclusion.

After waiting for three days to get onto the T-Mobile website, I navigated over to “Communication Tools.” From there I selected “Spam and Email Filters.” Great, I was finally on the correct screen, which was no small achievement at this point!

First I selected the option that I could only receive messages from other cell phones. I figure that most text spammers are sending their stuff through the email system, and not from keying it on the tiny keyboard on their phone, so that should cut things down to size as a starter move.

Next, remember that the T-Mobile guy said that I couldn’t block all text messages? While that may be potentially true, I figured out a way to practically do it. What they intend for you to do is to generate keywords to block that if the message contains those words, it gets identified as spam. While this sounds great in theory, we all know from our email accounts that it never really works. I’ve had spam email blockers on all of my accounts for years, and yet I still receive hundreds of spam emails every week, just like many other users.

Rather than selecting keywords that then identify the email as spam, I went another route. I decided to set it up that the text message would only go through if it contains a certain phrase. That phrase is equivalent to a random twenty character string, which makes the Wargames code look easy to guess. So while I can’t block the text message service completely, this should raise the bar high enough to keep anything from getting through.

While there was an option to have the messages forwarded to an email account, I chose the discard option. I already have plenty of spam, and I don’t need any more. I hope this helps some other folks out there, as since I did this, I have received no further mobile spam messages.

--Jonas

Mobile Spam, Part Two

The Continuing Saga…

After receiving an increasing amount of spam text messages, I decided to get those almost helpful and friendly folks over at T-Mobile on the horn to iron out that I didn’t want to be paying for Spam messages. The conversation went something like this:

Me: “Hi, this is Jonas, and I’m having an issue with my phone.”

T-Mobile Jeff: “Ok, what seems to be the problem?”

Me: “Well, I’ve been receiving Spam messages. I got one a few months back, and now I received two last month. As I pay by the message, there’s really no point in paying for Spam. Is there a way to block all the text messages on the phone?”

T-Mobile Jeff: “Spam?”

At this point, I’m starting to get that sinking feeling…

Me: “Spam, as in unwanted email.”

T-Mobile Jeff: “Oh. Are you sure you didn’t want the message?”

Me: “Yeah, absolutely sure. It was a solicitation for medications the first one, and the second time for under priced software from a shady distributor.”

T-Mobile Jeff: “You must have posted your cell phone number on the internet somewhere. That’s why you’re getting the messages.”

Now I really think that this guy must think he’s dealing with an idiot, but I feel like we’re not quite communicating.

Me: “Listen, I’ve never posted my cell phone number anywhere. I’ve never sent a text message to anyone, ever. Can we just disable the text messages for the account somehow?”

T-Mobile Jeff: “I can’t block it, but we can add a filter for the Spam.”

Somehow, now he understands the term.

Me: “Great, go ahead and do it."

T-Mobile Jeff: “No, you have to do it.”

Me: “Ok, how do I add the filter?”

T-Mobile Jeff: “You have to log on to the My T-Mobile site, and add a spam and keyword filter under Communication Tools.”

At this point Jeff tries to log on to the site and walk me through the process. The only difficulty is that that portion of the site is completely down. Believe it or not, I’ve been trying to log onto that portion of the site for the last three days, and it is consistently down.

Is T-Mobile deliberately trying to keep the Spam going so that they can get the text message fees? Why wouldn’t the Spam filter be on by default? They didn’t offer to take off the charges for the messages that I received. There’s also no way to totally disable the text messaging on the phone according to them. Let’s just say we can add this to the list of complaints, and why I wish I didn’t have a two year contract with them with over a year left.

--Jonas

Read the conclusion over here.