Yes, I'm Brenda the computer geek. I tame computers. The beasts should do what we want, yes? Of course they should. Once upon a time I provided computer support for anyone within the Greater Bendigo area. For those who have stumbled across this page from elsewhere in the world, Bendigo is located in the heart of Victoria, Australia.
Once upon a time, I said. That is because I can still fix your computer, but only if you bring it to me. I did enjoy the home visits, but major health issues have prevented me from doing this since late 2009.
Since March 2008 I've been working at Enhance, now renamed ReVamp Computers (I really wanted this to be "reVamp"). (This is where I can fix your computer.) Thanks to the health issues I was away for all of January and February but I'm back now and catching up. I've created a subdomain so Revamp Computers can have its own website. Yes, the name change from Enhance To Revamp Computers is official! To find out more follow the featured link in the Navigation pane.
Programming Club
This now has its' own website! http://bendigocoders.info
3D
After seeing a 3D camera I was tempted to buy one and I managed to resist until the price was under $200. Now there's the question of how to view the photos when they're not on the camera. You can hook them up to a 3D tv. But it gets better: 3D laptops are coming. In fact Toshiba already has one. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of faith in the Toshiba brand at present (remember, I fix laptops).
Low and behold, a day passed and Dick Smith had a Toshiba 3D laptop for sale! I noticed in the picture though, that there was a pair of 3D glasses featured. Mmm.. I was under the impression that Toshiba had released a 3D laptop that didn't require the glasses. I should do some more research. Yes, Toshiba 3D laptop, no glasses necessary, due out "late August 2011". I could not find any available in Australia, however the model name and number to watch out for is Toshiba Qosmio F755-3D290. For now I'm not fussed. The camera itself is enough. It comes with Windows software which is useless to me.
More 3D
I've been playing with the camera. It really is a nice toy. It also has that "wow" factor when people see the photos in the camera's screen. I'm still too cheap to fork out for a 3D laptop. But I did discover a tiny and free program called mposplit written in c. This simply extracts the two pictures in the mpo file into two jpegs for me. Then I use Gimp to shrink both pictures and then combine the two into a double picture like the one at the top of this page. The size you see here is the size I make them because I'm unable to focus on pictures that are bigger. For those with cash to splash maybe this link will give you something to think about http://www.mobilegeeks.com.au/blog/asus-g74sx-vs-toshiba-qosmio-x775.
The LinuxMint Drama (January 6th 2012)
Wait, I need a minute to calm down! Ok, ready? Good. Early in 2011 I installed LinuxMint 10 just before version 11 was due out. I was inspired to just jump in there because my main computer was still running an older Ubuntu, whereas the laptop had been running Mint 10 for some months and I really liked it. Eventually I found some time one weekend to upgrade to version 11. At the beginning of the weekend I installed Mint 11 and at the end of the weekend I scrubbed the whole idea and reinstalled version 10. I was going insane dealing with the scrollbars, or lack thereof, but it was the graphics fiasco that clinched it.
My graphics card was an Nvidia GT 440 which worked fine in Mint 10. I installed the proprietary Nvidia drivers in Mint 11 and they didn't work. The system said the drivers were not activated. No amount of clicking the activate button or restarting changed anything. With the driver installed and not working the graphics delay was painful for even the most mundane tasks. If I uninstalled the proprietary drivers normal graphics speed returned, but of course without the capability to run the Really Slick Screensavers which are a lot of fun. I'm into computers for the fun and the eye candy. I gave up. No Mint 11 for me.
Now Mint 12 is here. I haven't seen it. I can't. Meanwhile I've made my peace with the Mint 11 scrollbar weirdness. I actually turned this off for the brief part of the weekend when I had Mint 11 running. However I can't install Mint 11 or 12 on this system. I wanted to change the graphics card to one with two DVI ports since I resented running one of my new monitors on the old vga port. Not that I could tell the difference and the jury is still out as to whether it matters at all, but I just wanted to. I was tempted to use the ATI card that my eldest son offered me but... BUT... it was HUGE... and wouldn't fit in the case. It did inspire me to buy a new power supply though. (Gorgeous Corsair PSU, love it.) My current setup is supposed to have a new ATI HD 5750 (so not that new) graphics card in it. AusPCMarket sent it to me, postage free, very quickly. I installed it and it worked, briefly. The fan never spun and so as soon as it got hot it turned off. At this point the sensible thing to do was to fish the old NVidia 8600 GT out of the Windows PC because it does have two DVI ports. However this only has 512MB of graphics RAM and the others have 1GB. In fact the one my son offered me was 2GB. Hmmm.
I didn't do the sensible thing, yet, but I'm getting closer. What I did do was really stupid. I went to the local IT Warehouse. I know IT Warehouse has a bad rep, and I do find them expensive, but the one in Bendigo does at least have knowledgeable people there and their customer service is, well not excellent, but they don't look happy not to be able to help me like that other crowd. Also I don't have ReVamp customers coming from IT Warehouse with any horror stories. (Yes, their competition, remaining nameless to protect me, not the guilty, provides me with a lot of work.) I wanted a graphics card and I didn't want to wait a week while I returned the faulty one and got a replacement. Did I mention the amount of stock at IT Warehouse is minimal at best. Instead of an ATI card I walked out with another Nvidia card, a GT 550 ti with 1Gb RAM and two DVI ports. Since I had this theory that Mint has little or no support for the latest Nvidia cards I was just begging for trouble. And I got it.
I had to boot into recovery mode to stop the ATI drivers from working. Then I had to download and install Nvidia drivers manually to get the new card working at the proper resolution. Now that I had my current Mint 10 back in working order it was time to try a live disc with Mint 11. It started to boot and then stopped. Compatibility mode, same thing. 32 bit, same thing. Download Mint 12, burn disc, same thing. Hmmm.
Tonight I'm going to play musical graphics cards. When the replacement ATI card arrives I'll be tempted to stick it in a see what happens but meanwhile I'm expecting the bliss of everything just working for a while.
The LinuxMint Drama... Success! (January 28th 2012)
Bliss did not happen instantly. I spent a week and a half running Mint 12 with the Nvidia 8600 GT installed. It refused to boot the live DVD until I tried it with only one monitor attached. Once Mint was installed on the hard disk and the proprietary driver was in I attached the second monitor and all was good. Mint 12 was interesting and it had one good point: The Gnome screensaver was not installed so I was able to run xscreensaver without any of the usual hassle. But apart from that I found Mint 12 to be just an experiment in skirting around the new Gnome 3 desktop. I have high hopes for the next version of Mint but I really want to use Mint 11 for now.
It turns out none of my graphics cards are going to let do that the way I want. AusPCMarket sent me a preplacement card for the one I had to return (remember the fan never worked?). I have to say the replacement card was very second hand looking, as was the box and the rest of the packaging. Nothing like the condition of the one I sent back to them. Really disappointing. The card itself is also next to useless in Linux. I can't even run Plysolfc with the latest ATI Catalyst drivers or the one that Mint 11 offers to download and install. X crashes if I run certain screensavers. I thought it might only have been if I have the "tear free" option turned on, but no, even with it off X crashed again. I'm still currently using this crippled system because I just had to stop and do some real work, like fix that laptop that's been hanging over me since last year.
Back to Mint 10! (March 2012)
I had trouble with Mint 11 on the laptop. It ran hot and kept hanging. I tried a few different distros, starting with Fedora and ending with the rolling release of Mint Debian. I was really keen on a running a rolling release. But the errors! It turns out that none of these errors occur under Mint 10. Well maybe once in a while. But it's been a few weeks now and the thing hasn't hung once. I guess the power management is stuffed in all the latest incarnations of linux that I tried. Meanwhile I made a wonderful discovery. One of my reasons for setting out on the upgrade path was to get an updated Firefox without the hassle of doing it myself. Low and behold: Mint 10 now supports the latest updates of Firefox and my other favourite program, Thunderbird. The only thing I lost was the switch from Open Office to Libre Office. Honestly I was just happy to be home. So happy that I had to turn the main PC back into a Mint 10 box. It went well. The new Nvidia card wasn't recognised at all but the latest drivers from the Nvidia site worked. I even have Pysol up and running properly. So really it wasn't broke so why did I try to fix it? I guess I just happened to have found the best of Mint and the flakiness of the later releases can only be put down to the far too frequent upgrade cycle. They simply aren't getting it right.
History
I've been playing with computers since 1988. I began with an 8088 IBM XT clone. While I paid for it I have to admit my dad actually did the buying for me. I was living in a tiny town, 250 k from Melbourne, and my dad knew all there was to know about computers at the time. My XT had 640K of RAM and CGA Graphics. This meant 4 colours in graphics mode and 16 in text. The best graphics screen resolution was 320 * 200 pixels. Yes, I could get a higher resolution, but only with 2 colours. It had a 20 Megabyte hard drive and a 5¼ inch floppy disk drive which took double sided, double density disks. These only held 360 K of data as opposed to the 1.2 MB that a double sided, high density disk could hold. The operating system was DOS 3.3. No Windows, no icons, although I did have a mouse.
The mouse came into its own in Microsoft Paintbrush. Eventually I got a printer. Again, I paid, but my dad did the shopping. He hooked it up. It was an Epson colour dot matrix. (I insisted on colour. I really wanted a HP PaintJet, but they were way too expensive.) Anyway, into the paint program. Print. It wouldn't print in colour. It just wasn't an option with that paint program and that printer! Dad shrugged. He went back to Melbourne. I told the paint program it had a different printer. Voila: colour!!! I've been taming computers ever since.
FAQ
Q: How should I clean my LCD screen?
A: I keep two microfibre cloths for this. Coles sell them in packets of two for about $4. It is important not to use the cloths for anything else as any particles picked up by the cloth could scratch the screen. I rinse one of them in warm water and wring it out. Make sure the screen is off. Wipe the screen with the middle of the wet cloth (avoid the oversewn hem). Now dry the screen with the other cloth. Rinse out the wet cloth again and hang it to dry indoors to prevent it collecting wind blown grit. When dry put them away where they won't be mistaken for ordinary dishcloths. (Old ones make very good dishcloths though)
Q: Which anti-virus program should I use?
A: I've heard good things about Avast so I'm currently using it on one Windows install to give it a workout. Usually however, I use the free version of AVG. If you have a generous broadband plan you can download this here. You want "Free basic protection". It's a bad idea to do this on dialup or any broadband plan with under 500 MB of download allowance. Currently the installation file is over 60MB.
One other thing: During the installation I turn off the scheduled daily scan. If you installed it because you think you have a virus then you should run a scan immediately and you may want to leave the daily scan checked for the moment. But if you just installed it on a clean system then it's a waste of time. AVG runs live in the background and checks the folders you open as you go. It also checks emails as they are received and sent. Setting an automatic scan is still a good idea, after the program is installed, if you don't think you'll ever remember to scan it yourself. You are no longer limited to just daily scanning or nothing either. Options include selected days of the week or once a month on a date you choose. Make sure you tick the box beside "Enable scheduled scan".
Q: Why can't I open AVG?
A: If you can't run AVG, or your anti-virus of choice, then it's possible you already have a virus or some other malware on your computer.
Q: My computer has a virus. Help!
A: Save your data files, such as photos and documents, if possible. Do not save any program files or program installation files: They may be infected. You will need to reinstall the operating system (Best guess, if you have a virus, is that your operating system is a version of Windows.) You will need your original discs or the backup discs that you made when your computer was new. If you have neither of these you may have an install partition hidden on your hard drive. If this is so the instructions that came with your computer should tell you how to start this process. It varies between brands. After you have reinstalled the operating system you will need to install any programs that you use such as Office or games.
