@ricedg
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I’ll be out of the country from Wednesday afternoon to Saturday morning but even then I doubt I’ll be able to avoid it – British ship and Friday we’ll be in Guernsey.
Mrs R is hoping we’ll be back home in time for the wedding service on TV. We probably will be, Southampton is <2 hours away. However #2 son is home for a few days along with my daughter. Might suggest he and I go down the Beaufort and leave the women to it.
I have perennial problems with DNS – it is a bit of a black art – and have central resources on fixed IP.
I think this is the key, a central resource and not a scattering of files around various devices on peer-to-peer. Choose one PC and have everyone put shared files on that.
However you just can’t beat a proper NAS, like a Synology or QNAP, that lets you do it correctly.
LiteOn DU-8A6SH 8x Internal Slim 12.7 mm DVD-RW £13
They also have the 8mm version – link on the same page – for £16. Indeed every variant of DVD drive i can think of is on there.
No, that’s gone. But now we only have to pay a fiver it’s fine by me.
I think that sort of problem is going to start happening with updates just as it is with Windows 7 but in reverse.
Buy a new CPU and put 7 on it and you’ll just get generic drivers. It’ll still work but all the bells and whistles won’t as Intel won’t be doing drivers for them either.
With 10 once the OEM stops supporting their hardware the same happens. I has fun with my T420 and the very first big update (Fall was it ?). Upgraded just fine but a later reset took out all the Lenovo stuff (to be expected) and they wouldn’t reinstall. Lenovo wouldn’t do any Fall updates, now out of support. Not a huge problem as Intel were still supporting the chipset and Windows Hello took over the fingerprint reading duties – not as polished but perfectly functional.
They all want us to keep upgrading even though for most uses even cheaper hardware has been more than adequate for 5 years+. I recently put an SSD into a 7 year old Phenom X4 840 and performance wise I can see it being fine for another 7. What will kill it is if MS decide to stop doing security updates or the motherboard dies.
Zoostorm use standard parts, nothing you couldn’t buy. The problem is the PSUs, they are usually around the 250 watt mark but that’s becoming less of an issue (CPU graphics going up, graphics card power usage going down).
The other thing is warranty. On a built PC it’s usually a year, components are often 2, 3 or more. The biggest plus point is with a build you get exactly what you want.
It used to be the cost of Windows that queered the deal but that’s now a thing of the past with the sub £10 keys on E-Bay.
EDIT – it’s amazing what you can do with £300.
CCL Alpha Intel Motherboard Bundle – Pentium Gold G5400 3.7GHz (same as the old i3) / 8GB Crucial DDR4 Memory / Gigabyte H310M S2H / 3 Years Warranty
Adata Ultimate SU800 128GB M.2-2280 SATA III SSD / Aero Cool QS240 Midi Tower Black Case / KL-600M 600W Modular 80+ Bronze PSU
Same spec (but newer generation) as my office / gaming PC (apart from the graphics) and that goes like stink. £20 more gets you a Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5GHz and Hyper X ram.
John, if I have a look at one of the refurbishers like micro-dream they’d want £110. On E-Bay it’s considerably less.
The HP you’re looking at will be no slouch at handling heavy loads, I know them well, but really needs an SSD. Indeed I’d go as far to say that your use you’d probably best served by a fast modern dual core with an SSD.
For the sort of money you’re proposing to spend on that HP I could build you a Pentium G4400 / Gigabyte GA-H110M-S2H / 4GB / 120GB SSD in a Zalman T3 case with an Aerocool 500 watt PSU with enough left over to get Windows 10 and Office 2016. Should be able to ship that to you for less than a tenner. If you still need a DVD I have loads in the spares cupboard.
What router have you got John? As Steve says this may be an easy way of solving the problem if it supports sharing USB drives.
You don’t need to create a new network, you already have one. What you need to do is use it to share files and folders on both PCs.
The easy way used to be to set up a Homegroup, so of course Microsoft has stopped supporting it.
Have a look at this https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/4092694/windows-10-changes-to-file-sharing-over-a-network
EDIT – just had a look at it. Pretty horrible. If you want to share files and folders I’d use Google Drive or Dropbox.
Share folders in Google Drive http://tinyurl.com/ydawtw3c
How to use Dropbox shared folders http://tinyurl.com/kffrnl6
I guess Microsoft just aren’t trying hard now that peer-to-peer networking is dying out with the rise of cheaper NAS and internet based file sharing.
It’s what I’ve been trying to tell my customers who believe these things (probably because they want to).
In the right environment facial recognition is coming on leaps and bounds, I’ve seen it. But in crowds with partial and side on shots, no.
Give us a clue ?
I use a FairFX currency card, best thing I’ve ever done. It’s a Mastercard and you pay locally (or take cash out of the ATM) in Euros. Never had any trouble using it.
Top up is easy, you link it to a UK debit card and use an app on your phone to top it up (more or less instantly) and view transactions. We leave any balance in there for next time but you can take it out as cash at a UK ATM .
Transactions are free and ATM is 1.50
I use qbitorrent, get it from Ninite. Once it’s installed all you do is double click on the .torrent file and off it goes.
Otherwise just PM me where to get the .torrent file from and I’ll use my Synology app to download it to my server and share the file with you.
Got another smart hub causing problems with wireless devices – printer and Alexa.
Good excuse to visit Cornwall even if it’s only 1 night.
Wow, what a find. I’ve reaquainted myself with some old friends and found a load of useful new utilities.
Going to get the portable version on a USB stick.
EDIT – go here to get the registry entries required to accept the eula for all the sysinternals products.
Meant to update this this morning, cheers Wasbit.
I’ve not tried the wireless yet but the Essential Net Tools will be very useful, especially when on a customers site I don’t know.
The wireless looks like it’s very comprehensive.
First one here on the slowest laptop I’ve got! (1.5Ghz Celeron U with a spinner) Took all afternoon but all OK so far.
Kaspersky didn’t like it at first but has sorted itself now.
I’ve just discovered the Storage Analyzer app, it has a duplicate file section and you can delete a duplicate file from there if you want. Have you turned recycle bins on?
I’ve moved my own PCs from Cloud Station to Drive but unless you want to collaborate by logging into the server to work it’s probably not going to happen for my customers already using CS. New customers I’ll use Drive though.
Do you know you can get a PC app called Hyper Backup Explorer? It deals with previous file versions as well as the latest backup set.
It could be useful. In small businesses (including the charity I look after) the small cabinets can be crammed.
I bought them a 9U one with a shelf for a Draytek 2830, 16 port switch and a Synology NAS plus two injectors for the WAPs. Plenty of room. They get a new phone and BB supplier who cram it all with their kit. The branch office has a 12U one because it has a 16 port analogue CCTV recorder too and they did the same with that!
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