Hints Tips & Rants
by Dale Atchison
Tampa Bay Computer Society


Starting Over

Sometimes, you just have to accept defeat and go back to 'square one'.  Sometimes, you'll even find that a fresh start can turn defeat into victory.  The military calls it regrouping, the Buddhists and Hindus call it reincarnation, and we computer nerds call it power cyling the system.

When your network won't work, when you can't get to the Internet (especially if you're wireless), or you can't print, turning everything off, waiting a minute or so, then restarting the whole system will fix your problem, most of the time.  (When it doesn't, time to call in a tech.  Good for me and my kind. <G>)

I recommend you turn off your system in this order:

  • Turn off the broadband modem (cable, DSL, or FIOS) if you have one, then pull its power plug, but don't get it confused with the plug from other devices — they're probably different voltages, even if the plugs look alike.

  • Turn off your router, if it's separate from the modem, then pull its power plug.

  • Turn off your printer, then pull its power plug.

  • Shut down your computer, using the Start button or a desktop shortcut, doesn't matter which.  Just make sure you don't turn off the computer by pulling the power cord or flipping a switch — that's a last resort reserved for a PC that won't shut down any other way, and indicates a more serious problem.
There's no need to turn off your monitor, unless you have one of those all-in-one computers with all the guts built into the monitor base.  And the turn-on procedure assumes the monitor is already turned on.

Wait at least a minute after the computer shuts down, then...

  • Plug the power cord back into the printer, and turn it back on.  No need to wait at this point, as the delay in the next step will allow plenty of time for the printer to settle down before it's needed.

  • Plug the power cord back into the broadband modem, and turn it back on if there's a power switch.  Wait at least two minutes, then...

  • Plug the power cord back into the router, and turn it back on if there's a power switch.  Wait at least a minute, then...

  • Press the power button on the computer tower to turn it back on.
Hopefully, what we've accomplished with this procedure is to give the modem time to find the Internet before the router goes looking for a Web connection, and we've given the router time to realize it's supposed to be a DHCP server before the computer asks it for an IP address.  AND, most computers want to see a functioning printer at boot, or they don't bother loading the printer support software that usually runs in the background.


Big Lots?  Are You Kidding Me?

Would I kid you?  After all we've been thru together?  Of Course Not!

If you're not lucky enough to live in one of the few American cities that still have a CompUSA store, you can find a lot of the accessories and consumables you need for day-to-day computing at the close-out giant, Big Lots.  I picked up a laptop cooler base with two USB-powered fans for $13, a cordless USB wheelmouse for $12, and an unpowered USB hub for $6.  And I keep several of their $7 USB and PS/2 wheelmice in stock — I sell them for $15.  Cheap powered speakers are $6, and they have a USB numeric keypad for laptops for $8, if memory serves me.  Laptop cases are $25, and they have multimedia keyboards, though I have such a stock of same that I didn't bother to look at the price on theirs.

Watch out, though: every now and then, you'll actually pay retail PLUS for something they have that one of the chain stores sells cheaper; I just paid $15 for 50 DVD-R blanks, then saw them at CompUSA for $9.  I hate that.


I Hereby Put a Curse on HP/Compaq

Please allow me to apologize if you're one of the people I talked into buying a Compaq Presario or HP Pavilion.  After Dell's tech support went first to India, then straight to Hell, I started recommending HP/Compaq exclusively when folks asked me about desktop computers.  (Of course, I still recommend the Toshiba Satellite to anyone who asks me about laptops.)

Back in the '90's, I used to hate both Compaq and HP, but felt like both lines improved tremendously when the companies merged a few years back.  And their US-based tech support was a major factor in my decision to recommend them.  This at the same time that Gateway was sliding rapidly down the tube, seemingly into oblivion.  And who could understand Gateway's decision to buy eMachines?  (With the demise of Packard-Bell, eMachines was arguably the worst line in the industry.)  All Gateway had going for it was their excellent telephone tech support, which was roughly on a par with that of HP at the time.

Oh my, but how things have changed.  Gateway improved significantly with the addition of eMachines; their new eSeries looks a lot like an eMachine, but with a full-sized power supply — power supplies were always the weak spot in an eMachine.

I haven't had occasion to use Gateway's tech support recently; I wish I could tell you it's still based in the US, but I really just don't know.  However, I have considerable recent experience with HP's tech support, ostensibly in California, and those definitely weren't surfer or valley girl accents I've been listening to.

I won't bore you with ALL the tawdry details of my latest dealing with HP tech support, but the upshot is this:

They've sold me two sets of recovery DVDs for one of their towers, given me a third set for free — that's three identical sets of recovery DVDs — but now they tell me their DVDs won't work on the tower they were written for unless I buy a replacement hard drive directly from HP, for roughly twice what the same drive costs at CompUSA; apparently, the recovery DVD checks for the presence of an already HP-configured drive at boot, and can't configure an industry-standard hard drive to accept Windows Media Center Edition.  (This according to 'Melody' and her supervisor.)  You can't have read anything I've written in the past nine years without picking up on how much I hate proprietary hardware; if I can't shop for parts online or locally, I don't want your computer, no matter how nice it looks and runs when it's new — everything breaks eventually, and I shouldn't have to pay two or three times more to buy replacement parts because your engineers couldn't figure out how to make it work with off-the-shelf components.  Remember why the IBM was so successful initially (off-the-shelf components), and what made Packard-Bell the dog of the industry (proprietary parts)?

So, long story short — or is it way too late for that? — anyone asking me for a recommendation concerning what brand of desktop computer to buy from this point on will hear the praises of Gateway's eSeries towers, at least until they disappoint me like HP has.

...and I'm sure they will eventually...

...stay tuned...


Till next month...

DaLe aTchiSon



I send these guys a few dollars every month... sure wish you would join me.
And 100% of your labor charges go to this rescue, too.