Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Beware... Techie at work......

I haven't been able to post a message recently because I've been having a few problems with my computer. Managed to get it up and running again, although I'm not sure for how long, so I think I might be popping over to Novatech to see what bargains they might have. I never buy a fully built/configured computer. I think its always better to build it yourself - you get EXACTLY what you want, and at a fraction of the price you would normally spend if you were to buy one from say PCWorld, or Currys.

One of the teaching assistants at my school contacted me, asking if I could fit a new harddrive into her computer. Apparently she had taken the PC to a reputable PC repair company and was told that her harddrive had completely failed and needed to be replaced. Now, they were going to charge her £70 for a measly 40Gb drive (I've just bought a 200Gb drive £25!!). Fortunatly she realised that was quite expensive and ended up getting one elsewhere for £20. Anyway she still had to pay £50 just for having a look at it.

Well, I had a look. I took the old drive out and put the new one in. Powered it up - nothing. Now, the two things I thought it could be were that the IDE cable was damaged (which it wasn't by the way), or that the IDE connector which the hardrive was connected to on the motherboard was faulty. I took the new drive out, and put the old one back in again, connecting it to the same IDE channel (secondary) as her DVD Rom. Not ideal, but it worked fine. Her harddrive booted without a problem and now her computer works fine. Now, what the f*$@ was that Computer Repair Company (whose name I shall not mention here) talking about??? They charged her £50 for having a look at her computer, mis-diagnosing the problem, and trying to flog a 40Gb harddrive for £70 when in fact she didnt even need one!!!!!!

BEWARE of IT specialists who haven't a clue what they are talking about!!

Anyway, enough of that...

Yesterday I decided it was time to make my home computer network completely wireless, so I decided to buy myself a Belkin 802.11g 125mb PCI wireless card for my desktop PC to work alongside my wireless tablet PC (Acer Travelmate C110) and router/modem. Got it all setup within minutes and it works like a dream (I just wish I could get our wireless network at school working as well - although thats another story for another time!)

Oh... Me and Michelle sat down and watched Poseidon last night on DVD - absolutely fantastic film, and one which I think is actually better than the original. Highly recommended.

Enough of me waffling on....

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