The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[Renate]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

Here's the song:

Hmm, interesting
[C][C#][C][C#] and some [Am][F][G] in there.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

Related: Radio stations that play music but don't tell us the song's name and the artist. There have been many songs that I've wanted but I could never catch the name. An example of this is the song The Big Hurt by Miss Toni Fisher. I'd heard the song for years but I could never catch the name, and due to the phasing effects used in the recording it was difficult to understand the lyrics, especially over a public audio system. It was only with a bit of searching via YouTube that I was able to finally identify the song.

Here's the song:

If you have a smartphone, try using something like sounds Soundhound? Or ask Google/Alexa/Siri what song is playing?

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

Related: Radio stations that play music but don't tell us the song's name and the artist.

The radio station I listen to lists the song history from the past few days, which is helpful sometimes.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by John F

If you have a smartphone, try using something like sounds Soundhound? Or ask Google/Alexa/Siri what song is playing?

I use Shazam to try to identify songs.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by John F

If you have a smartphone, try using something like sounds Soundhound? Or ask Google/Alexa/Siri what song is playing?

The song I mentioned was before I had a smartphone (I used a flip phone for years before finally getting a smartphone) so I hadn't considered it.

[Sirtel]

My network range extender (admittedly over 5 years old and it was a cheap one) stopped connecting to my 5GHz network. I spent several hours resetting, testing and troubleshooting. Nothing. Somewhere in between I even managed to disconnect my router entirely (pulled the wrong plug) and didn't notice for a while; of course nothing much worked after this, until I finally noticed the router was unplugged.

Well, at the end of the day I was ready to ditch the extender and buy a new one, but for some reason a brilliant idea dawned on me then: to update the firmware! And of course now everything is working again. Why I needlessly wasted many hours without thinking of this solution before, only the devil and his grandmother know...

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

My network range extender (admittedly over 5 years old and it was a cheap one) stopped connecting to my 5GHz network. I spent several hours resetting, testing and troubleshooting. Nothing. Somewhere in between I even managed to disconnect my router entirely (pulled the wrong plug) and didn't notice for a while; of course nothing much worked after this, until I finally noticed the router was unplugged.

Well, at the end of the day I was ready to ditch the extender and buy a new one, but for some reason a brilliant idea dawned on me then: to update the firmware! And of course now everything is working again. Why I needlessly wasted many hours without thinking of this solution before, only the devil and his grandmother know...

That's not a strange as it sounds. I had a flip phone that started manfunctioning and at first I couldn't figure out why. Then I realized I had it for over 3 years and never turned it off. Turning it off and then on fixed the problem.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

That's not a strange as it sounds. I had a flip phone that started manfunctioning and at first I couldn't figure out why. Then I realized I had it for over 3 years and never turned it off. Turning it off and then on fixed the problem.

The Number One advice of every IT help-desk in the world: have you tried to turn it off and then on?

Well, it does help... sometimes.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

The Number One advice of every IT help-desk in the world: have you tried to turn it off and then on?

Well, it does help... sometimes.

I was on the phone with a friend of mine who lives about 1000km away. He was having a issue where he could not drag and drop on his computer though all the other mouse functions seemed to be working. After about 3 minutes of chatting about our grandkids, I asked "Have you restarted your computer?". He replied "No" and then did so. A couple of minutes later he logged in and tested and drag and drop worked.

Cue scene from The IT Crowd Answering Machine episode.



Something I really hated telling people to do before I retired but, damn, so often it worked!

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

The Number One advice of every IT help-desk in the world: have you tried to turn it off and then on?

Well, it does help... sometimes.

Yesterday morning, something on the utility pole exploded and caused the internet and cable to go out for the entire building (possibly other apartments in the area too). Despite me explaining this to the customer service representative, I was still told to reboot the modem.

Fortunately that multiple people calling to complain was enough for them to send out a tech the same day.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Yesterday morning, something on the utility pole exploded and caused the internet and cable to go out for the entire building (possibly other apartments in the area too). Despite me explaining this to the customer service representative, I was still told to reboot the modem.

When you think you've heard it all...

"Help, my computer exploded!"
"Have you tried to turn it off and then on?"

[ownedbycats]

http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_smoke.shtml

[Comfy.n]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_smoke.shtml

wrapped the entire computer in plastic wrap to keep the cat hair out

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Yesterday morning, something on the utility pole exploded and caused the internet and cable to go out for the entire building (possibly other apartments in the area too). Despite me explaining this to the customer service representative, I was still told to reboot the modem.

Fortunately that multiple people calling to complain was enough for them to send out a tech the same day.

I once had a monitor that failed under warranty. The person on the phone was telling me to do the standard things like off/off and change the cable. I told him I did all that. He said he needed to run through this before he could issue an RMA. So everything he read out, I said, yes done and it didn't help. So after that, he was able to issue the RMA and also have a box sent out. Fortunately the monitor was on my mother's computer and she was away for a while. So the monitor was able to be replaced with a certified refurbished monitor before she got back. It was a nice heavy CRT monitor.

[Renate]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It was a nice heavy CRT monitor.

My first monitor was a 14", 640 x 480 B&W because I couldn't tolerate the poor convergence (alignment of the color guns) on the color monitors of that time.

Five years later I upgraded to the Sony GDM-17SE1. That was 17", 1280 x 1024. It also weighed 50 pounds and was 18" deep. You needed a pretty wide desk to accomodate it.

I was glad when LCDs came in.