[blacklion1725]

I’m on the edge of London (just inside M25) – getting around is ultra bad at the minute, on my line – the main line in to London Liverpool Street and Stratford (Westfield shopping centre, West Ham Stadium) – no service for 8 consecutive weekends – related to crossrail I think. They are alos half way through 19 months (!!!)  of roadworks on the A127 to replace a bridge over the railway to cater for taller crossrail trains. They also regularly take out the tube (district line) at the same time as the overground). Sometimes they even take out the C2C Fenchurch Street line as well. It is absolute carnage on my side of London.

I hope crossrail is worth the aggro – it in theory should be a big help (already driving house prices up all along the route from Shenfield in Essex through London and on to Reading in Berkshire.

For now though yes it is very very grim. We still have it better than than those poor sods that depend on Southern Rail trains though.

[blacklion1725]

John I think any devices like that will run off a TV USB port – even a low powered one. If you are buying from Amazon then if it won’t you can either return or just plug the USB charging cable in to a mains/usb adapter rather than the TV. There’s loads of these adapters (example) – and if you end up needing a mains adapter you may already have one (many phone chargers are a plug with a separate USB cable) but if not very cheap (examples) – but chances are your telly USB port will handle it fine.

[blacklion1725]

Thanks Dave – will have a look. Must check how the WD and Seagate freebie Acronis versions work these days too.

For a system image restore, the windows (W7 backup and restore) tool has served me pretty well – have had more failures than success with W10 reset features……especially on tablets but also on PCs/laptops. Very badly implemented (i.e. inconsistent – if it works it works – if not it leaves you in a worse state than when you started).

[blacklion1725]

Interesting – does it need a boot usb to restore a full image? I must admit the W7 Backup and Restore is dead handy if you have a backup on the same machine (no usb needed) – but that (Macrium) is quite a space saving.

[blacklion1725]

Dave I’m really not so sure how hot ebay are – they pull the ones that are glaring – but just have a look how many almost certainly moody TV solutions are sold on there (try “IPTV” or “OpenBox Gift” for example). Been on there years, fairly clearly advertising access to all sorts of premium and/or geo-blocked TV content through mysterious IPTV portals and STB card sharing – and largely left alone – ebay seem to to play a game of nudge/wink with sellers whereby you can go so far with a listing as long as you include certain disclaimers or avoid certain no-nos.

Chances are the keys will stay working, but there’s really no way of knowing how long and once Paypal’s (very limited) protection has run out…who knows……no great shakes for £5/£10 but potentially a lot of aggro to straighten out – especially for someone else.

[blacklion1725]

If the RCAs are outputs there will probably just be red and white for stereo audio – if there is a third (yellow) RCA then it is almost certainly an AV input. )If there’s 5 – red/white/red/green/blue – then it is a component audio input.  Very difficult to say without trial and error – if I’m reading John’s post right then that link is for “a” 32″ tesco tv not necessarily his one.

Another thing is that many TVs offer audio out via the scart (in fact audio and video out) – but often restricted to the TV freeview tuner (copy protection I’m guessing) – but if that is all you want (i.e. not Sky or DVD etc) then something like this might help

A photo of the interconnects on the back of the telly would be helpful – otherwise I think it is a case of trial and error. God news is all the bits and pieces to test it are very cheap if you haven’t got any to hand.

[blacklion1725]

must admit the 10 keys worry me a bit, only in the sense (a) where have they come from and (b) will they get blocked a little way down the line. Probably not. Dave is spot on with the Assistive Technologies upgrade, done loads for people now.

If starting from scratch I still prefer the caveman approach of buying a W7 key (with COA) for peanuts – installing and activating  that with no faffing/upgrading and then upgrading to 10 using Dave’s link. At least there is knowledge that the underlying W7 key came from somewhere half-legit. I’m probably worrying about nothing – but they are around a fiver and only take a little longer than the electronic W10 keys.

[blacklion1725]

Good read all this Dave – if I’m right though the W7 backup and restore can only store one backup to a Network location (so no incremental backups) – not a probe if file backups are catered for separately I suppose.

I ran an N45L with WHS2011 for a while, but it was overkill for me. Good to see that W10 can be bent in different directions though.

[blacklion1725]

Nothing yet in Essex/East London but forecast says we will cop some later but not as bad as they were forecasting. Apparently downgraded from “Storm Doris”, and affecting South West and Wales the worst.

[blacklion1725]

I think John just wants to use the TV USB port for power Ed – not sound. Maybe to power something like an optical-phono or HDMI-phono converter. Most of those little gadgets run off 5V dc so can be powered from a suitable USB port.

[blacklion1725]

Here you go – link

[blacklion1725]

IE is still there in W10 as well as 10 as Edge – not recommending it but it might save you using another PC – just type “internet explorer” in to the cortana/search and you should see it (you can pin it to start from the search results)…..

Just done a quick dummy run on Ninite with Edge and it worked AOK though….so maybe something else?

Edge is woeful in many respects but is a handy media browser, probably the best one if you have a “networked media” home – that’s all I use it for.

[blacklion1725]

you can also just run https://www.messenger.com/ in its own browser tab. There are Chrome apps too, I think they more or less just do the browser thing anyway, but let you pop out a messenger-only window.

[blacklion1725]

My telly has a 1.0A USB port as well as a 500mA port- so they can go higher. The 1.0A powers a portable 2.5″ USB HDD no problem.

[blacklion1725]

Yeah that was me mate. You <span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>have</span> to beat that lot tonight…..I’m out with three of them Thursday, will be unbearable if they win.

[blacklion1725]

Sky Go doesn’t look as good as Now TV to me, but its free/cheap and works well enougj. Now TV is excellent…as was Sky Mobile (not sure if that is still around) that I think was only about a fiver for sport. I might have a dig into Sky Go versus Now TV (how they deliver it) but to me Now TV looks significantly better.

[blacklion1725]

NowTV and SkyGo totally separate mate. Both Sky owned……but NowTV is the PAYG option and SkyGo [Extra] is what you get if you have a full Sky sub – the content available on Sky go mirrors your subscription up to 2 devices live streaming (no downloading). If you have Sky Go Extra (either 2 Sky boxes or 1 box + £5/month) then you have up to 4 devices all recording and 2 streaming at any one time).

Sky Go is pretty good – both my lads live away and have a full Sky package via the internet, as does my Pal in the States. Works on PC, mobile and (best) on Playstation and Xbox. But it is a separate thing to Now TV.

I’m very much inclined to drop my 2nd Sky box and pay the £5 Sky Go Extra sub once my current wiring project is finished. I could probably do without it all together but one step at a time. My wiring project is calso catering for a post-Sky world……I need to stop loving cricket.

[blacklion1725]

Duke – no SkyGo on Roku – nowtv yes but no SkyGo – only Playstation or Xbox outside the PC and mobile platforms.

[blacklion1725]

2nd hand is how I’ve been going for a while – care is needed but £100-£150 gets you a real gem – a premium phone from a year or two back. The same money will get you a very decent new phone, but I prefer the slightly older premiums. The Z3 Compact is an absolute belter if your want something smaller – sturdy (fit a tempered glass screen protector) and waterproof (ish).

I’m in the Samsung “S” camp (too big for you) but will probably jump ship when my S5 gives up the ghost. Probably go LG as the battery/SD card combination suits my use.

Each to their own though.

[blacklion1725]

Sony Z3 Compact – lovely smaller phone, still very capable and modestly priced for a good’un 2nd hand. Had one for a while, sold it on for what I paid, really is a nice phone if you want something compact. I think the only concession from the full Z3 is screen res (720 vs 1080 I think)

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