[Dave Rice]

I don’t know about via the net but I’ve been using TP-Link Kasa products and the app is straight forward. Linked into Alexa with minimum fuss too.

The blurb does say “Remote Access – Easy setup and control from anywhere with the free Kasa app (iOS, Android).” so maybe you can use the net? Linky

[Dave Rice]

WD have become a nightmare. I buy Toshiba P300 desktop drives, even for NAS, up to 3TB. 7,200 rpm, 64mb cache, 2 year warranty, good price. Never had a failure in 3 years +. Toshiba Canvio are my #1 for 2.5″ portables.

TBH anything larger is pretty much always going to be a NAS or CCTV recorder and there I’ve been buying Seagate Iron Wolf or Sky Hawk. Seagate have been working with Synology and Hikvision to include diagnostics in the firmware besides everything else.

[Dave Rice]

Years ago there was a Wi-Fi co-op in part of Bristol with everything done on a shoestring.

Pringles cans were the preferred DIY antenna, they worked!

[Dave Rice]

My contempt for them grows. I replaced 6 in one year.

When one of my customers moved to home working we needed a device to connect to his Virgin Hub (in modem mode) and I got a £26 TP-Link TL-WR940N. The company Synology server was moved to his house and his PC holds the master database for the accountancy software they all use so an inwards VPN server was set up on the Synology.

As you can see it’s not been idle and I know the day I installed it, 182 days ago at 17:43 hrs.

He’s even set up a second business while at home (he can now practice under his own name) and we’re using the same hardware (partitioned by permissions) but with a VOIP number for the new “phone line”.

Who needs an office for a small business? Who needs a phone line?

[Dave Rice]

I’ve heard from Bob. He says he can manage 100 yards walking which TBH I think is pretty good considering and said so.

“All the best to you and Forumites. Won’t be back for at least 2 months”.

[Dave Rice]

I’ve just seen Bob talking to a mate on FB and it seems he’s still very rough. There is more surgery to go and they need to fatten him up a bit first. He’s hoping to get transferred to Louth for that.

I’ve sent him a quick supportive message and of course all the best from all here.

[Dave Rice]

I’m trying to wean my customers off Classic Shell and onto the Windows 10 gui. The problem is it’s not really like Windows XP or 7 beneath the desktop, you still have to deal with Settings rather than Control Panel. TBH Settings is a lot more logical than CP ever was.

When it comes to it people still run things from the Taskbar or a shortcut and once I get them using the much better Search when they get lost I’m finding the objections are going away.

[Dave Rice]

Probably best to stick to Solwise. Good kit, I still use their external WiFi bullet and antennas.

However if you’re starting from scratch I’d use the TP Link kits you can find on Amazon.

 

[Dave Rice]

Excellent, thanks for the link.

[Dave Rice]

If it’s not spaghetti code I’m lost. Seriously I used to enjoy coding when I could freestyle it, I don’t have the patience to structure things properly. That’s not to say my coding was a total mess, I learned early that I needed to comment almost every line and try and keep it neat because when you come back to something you can never work out what’s going on :wacko:

If I could get my old Atari 800 back with the basic and assembler cartridges I think I would have a play again. Oh and Page 6 magazine.

[Dave Rice]

Only had one go too. They have more than paid for themselves.

[Dave Rice]

 

[Dave Rice]

OK I have 4GB of PC3 12800s – DDR3 1600.

Yours for a fiver. Are you still at The Firs?

[Dave Rice]

I haven’t been bothering him, but I see Bob has FB open pretty much every time I’m on and is active. I’ll give it a day or two and see how it’s going.

I can of course post something on his timeline if we want to do a “Get Well Soon” sort of thing, or if you see something that you think would make him chuckle I can share it with him.

[Dave Rice]

I probably have some DDR3 in the spares box, I’ll have a look.

2GB should be enough for Mint though and I agree with ED, slowing down is almost always down to a spinner running lots of bad sectors.  Having said that I’ve recently had to look at a laptop of very similar spec to Mrs JCD and suspected the HDD. Checked out fine and her husband having an identical one we looked at that too. Going slowly, ram almost maxed out and the spinner maxing out but checking out fine.

So may be 4Gb just isn’t enough and it’s paging that’s causing the HDD hits, but 95% of my PCs out there will have 4GB of ram (I’ve only upped to 8GB < a year) and I’m not getting anyone else complaining. However they will have SSDs so may be they are paging, just so quickly it’s not an issue?

The plan with the laptops is to do as JCD did, looks like it is the answer!

 

[Dave Rice]

Already done Ed.

[Dave Rice]

Update: he’s certainly up for a chat 😊 However things don’t look as rosy as I thought. It was a 17 hour op involving 3 hospitals expertise and he had 16 days out of it in ICU. They had problems waking him up and he thinks he’s had a stroke of some sort and speech is difficult. He’s has 2 stoma and a catheter (but I don’t know how permanent they all are) and says he only has heart, lungs and liver left. He’s hoping for 5 years.

But he’s still Bob and his mental attitude is going to get him a long way. Hopefully his speech will improve, I’ve seen that a lot these days, there is certainly nothing wrong with his mind or his fingers :good:

As long as he wants a chat I’ll be replying. I have of course wished him all the best from everyone here. I think he’s going to be “all right” and it certainly won’t be for lack of trying.

[Dave Rice]

I’ve got hold of Bob through Facebook, he’s as chipper as ever. They manged to collapse the veins in his right arm and give him an infection and he’s still receiving blood transfusions, but the good news is he can start solid food from tonight. Apparently he’s lost over 3 stone!

From what I can gather from other FB posts the cancer is sorted and he’s looking forward to another 5 years+ with SWMBO :good: I’ll keep us updated here with any news.

[Dave Rice]

Good news

[Dave Rice]

Having run my own local ISP there are lots of technicalities you’d have to overcome and they all need money throwing at them.

What about the ides of a portal for local businesses? Our local freebie the Bradley Stoke Journal is an example of someone doing this as a business, and that is the crunch. Someone has to do a lot of work whatever you do.

[Author]

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