Tag Archives: telecom

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a small trip down the htpc lane

Sorry for the delay between blog posts – in case you weren’t aware or don’t live near the motorsport cave, I was working trackside at the Hamilton 400.

Before I departed, thanks to a #geekzone idler, found the joys of using up my data cap with torrents. To get started, I am using a client called utorrent. The main goal of this was getting rid of left over data cap before Telecom rolled over to my next 40gb allowance, and also to give me something to watch on my Laptop while at the Hotel.

As a side note, I will do a blog post later about the Supercars & related side events before my memory fades into my bourbon & coke.

On return to Auckland and civilisation and a packet of Toffee Pops on the desk, I set about experimenting with connecting my Samsung 32” TV to my computer. This is something I wasn’t too sure of. The video card installed on my desktop is an Asus Nvidia 9400GT Silent/HTP/512M. It more than does the job as far as video cards go, and while the double depth of the card limits me to one other PCI card on my motherboard, I don’t quite know what I would put in the other PCI slot anyway, unless I urgently need more USB ports?

Back to the Television experiment. After reading the manual that came with the TV and some hair pulling later, I had it. The Nvidia Control Panel needed updating to support multiview, and once I had that sorted, I could set my resolution on my TV to the optimum as recommended by Samsung and connect the sound to it as well.

Now before I get too carried away, I am struck with a problem. I can either have sound through my PC speakers or through the Television, which is no good when watching Sky. Also, each time I want to watch television through my PC, I have to go to medium lengths to set up the television and configure the display setups.

So as of now, I am currently researching my way around this medium problem. Is this a case for Hardware Profiles? Basically I want to set it up so I have my usual desktop setting, and then I can say have my TV setting, which changes my audio and visual output over to the Samsung. Can this be done?

Then I am lead down the HDMI path. At present, the television is connected to the desktop via a D-Sub or VGA cable. Obviously most modern video cards are HDCP compliant, and also capable of an HD signal, of which I know the Nvidia 9400GT is, but only through the DVI connector, of which I am running my AOC monitor. So that leaves me with the quandary of should I look at getting a new video card with DVI for my AOC monitor and an HDMI output for TV. Or will the component connector on the rear of the give me the same desired HD output? I don’t know, but it sure is something for me to play around with!

One thing I know for sure if, if the torrent thing keeps happening for me, I will need to buy bigger hard drives!

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Broadband is Back!

Well, I am back online and my connection is stable – with many thanks to an intervention from a certain #geekzone lurker who shall remain nameless. He knows who he is and that I am eternally grateful for his assistance.

That said – Going without internet for more than 24 hours helped me realise the extent of my internet addiction. I do not know what is the more desperate sign – going to my parents to bludge their connection, or connecting up my mobile phone to my laptop to use as a Modem.

Either way, I have to face facts that I am hooked and live my life online. A sign of the times perhaps? Maybe not these times. Seems like only yesterday I was in IRC channels talking to people in Mississippi. And thanks to them, I can spell the name of that state.

Without internet, I wouldn’t have ordered the organic parrot food, the HP printer cartridge, shopped around for the best deal, so that I got a free 100 pack of 6×4 photo paper. I wouldn’t have purchased two SD cards an a camera battery from the online retailer who makes some bricks and mortar stores look like rip off merchants.

Given that I have grown up on PCs and can chart my childhood, teenage years and the first decade of adult life through the generations of dial up, x86 series intel chips, I can remember when there were three chip manufacturers – AMD, Intel and Cyrix. When RAM cost more than a tyre for a car and still does, depending on the tyre.

Because this generation is wired and going wireless. Ask me two years ago if I would have had a laptop and a wireless router in my house and I would have said no. Today, I have a laptop, wireless router and other devices that all access the wireless access point. Somethings that never crossed my mind two years ago.

So maybe I shouldn’t turn a blind eye to this new technology. I am reading computer magazines and forums again, because when it comes time to embrase the next big thing in IT, I want to know what it is and how to get the most value from it.

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The up and mostly down of a telecom broadband connection

This house nearly came apart at the seams. At 7pm last night, we left the internet, working and we then left the house. We returned somewhere around midnight-ish. Shock horror, no internet. Reset modem (#1), nothing. Reset again (#2) and still nothing. Check settings, okay, no DNS information coming from Telecom exchange.

Phone telecom. 15 minutes on hold at midnight. Get hold of call centre in Manilla/Vanilla/Ice Ice Baby and explain whats happening. Reset modem (#4, #5 & #6) check settings. Man promises my a 12 hour pro-rata credit on phone bill. He says will get the pvc server reset in the morning.

Get up at 9.30am (sleep in!) and look at internet. Still not going. Reset modem (#7). Check, still no IP address issued from Telecom. Call Telecom. Manilla Ice much faster to answer this time. Explain it all again. Reset modem countless times, including factory reset.

Factory resets are where the modem is retored to well, its factory default. Doing this erases all Telecom settings. Later on in the afternoon it will dawn on me that the settings have changed and that the Manilla Ice has assumed I have a telecom standard modem (I dont). He says that he will get a technician to call me ater 3pm. Its now 10am. hmm… 3pm is a long way to go if you’ve got no broadband.

I tell him my credit better be worth it because as I’m on the top level residential plan, I expect better than this for my $$$ (40gb per month for $80 with free static IP address, unlimited speeds in both directions… currently pulling 6.8mbps and not even on ADSL2+ yet – another story for another day) He told me I would get one months credit on my broadband bill. Yay!

3pm and the technician calls. Go through with him all the same stuff I had been through with the Manilla and Vanilla Ice Ice Baby. He establishes I’m making a DSL sync (I could have told him that, I did, he didnt listen) and so the fault must be in the grey pillar beside the road, in the cabinet or at the exchange. Hes escalated the issue and will send a technician tomorrow. Tomorrow is Monday. This is a day of work, where one earns wages to pay the broadband bill. I point this out to him.

Right now, I am wanting to cry. Break down in tears in my computer room and sob because I cannot cope without internet for 12 hours, how can I cope without internet for two nights? Its unheard of!

Anyway, after some #geekzone intervention, we’re back online, although the connection is difficult and misbehaving like a kid in a toy store, but oh gosh its nice to be back online. Just not sure how long for. I will make sure I get that credit on my phone bill too. I will hold them to it by gosh.

On another note, Windows 7 is still impressing me. I have not yet installed any software (been playing games) but have made the decision that when it comes up for sale as a finished OS, I will upgrade my desktop and most likely my laptop. I was going to switch my laptop to Linux, but seeing how fantastic W7 is with its power settings, It would be worth it. Again, I haven’t had W7 and Vista running on the same machine, so I cannot make direct comparisons, but may for fun, do a dual installation on my laptop so that I can.

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Ferrit is Closing

This I think is a damn shame. Since its release, Ferrit has offered New Zealand’s internet consumers the ease and simplicity of having many stores in the one website, so that you can compare prices, features etc and make a decision. I think the bonus of late has been the free shipping offers available.

If, for example, you placed an order on ferrit, from say 6 different retailers, one would not pay any freight at all. With the closure of Ferrit, you have to go to 6 websites, place an order, and probably pay for a courier on top at an average of say, $6/courier.

Personally, Ferrit has saved me money on many occassions. IT products being one of particular note. I think it saved me $10 on a Logitech Nano Notebook laser mouse and $15 on a Logitech PS3 headset, all by shopping around their different retailers.

New Zealanders have been typically slow in the uptake of online shopping, but I saw this trend turning around prehaps when I was teaching a co-worker the joys of Christmas shopping on the internet. I have done this now for two years and I must say, I was the least stressed person of them all. I may go back to Bricks-and-mortar shopping this christmas because of the expense of a courier for each and every item.

Ferrit is a Telecom subsidiary, and while I doubt we should be surprised that its closing, I am one person who will be mourning the loss. I will be another car again, trying to find a park at the malls for Christmas shopping….