Re: [CGUYS] Comcast even faster?
But yeah, the speed tests are showing higher bandwidth since I lasted tested some months ago, but I suppose that *could* be thrown off by bursting, not so sure about caching. There are all sorts of tricks the ISP can use to make it look like your connection is faster. They could be caching pages, especially those known to be used for speed tests. Years ago some video card manufacturers were caught programming their cards to detect the use of speed test software and respond with pre-calculated results. Doing something similar is not beyond the capabilities of Comcast. Last month were not these bozos telling us that bandwidth was in short supply and needed to be rationed, with higher charges for anyone who downloads too much? * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
[CGUYS] Comcast bundle feedback
I'll be moving into an apartment (don't know which yet) in Arlington from a single family home and wonder what options for cable/satellite exist. I suspect the Comcast is the only choice. If that's true, what's the service like on the bundle of TV, phone and internet. Is FiOS available in multi-unit rentals/condos? Thanks, Bill * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Comcast bundle feedback
Quoting Bill L'Hommedieu [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I'll be moving into an apartment (don't know which yet) in Arlington from a single family home and wonder what options for cable/satellite exist. I suspect the Comcast is the only choice. If that's true, what's the service like on the bundle of TV, phone and internet. Is FiOS available in multi-unit rentals/condos? FiOS *is* available to multi-unit buildings. Some friends of mine have it (in Annapolis). I don't know if they have to build it in with the building (their's is a fairly new building), or if they can retrofit. It seems like apartments/condos would be fairly profitable pickin's for Verizon since the potential customers are--literally--right on top of each other. As for Comcast's bundle, I don't know, but you can tell them that you can get Verizon's Triple Play for $99 and see if they'll match it. Katan * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Comcast bundle feedback
Bill, I have been a long standing customer with Comcast for Digital TV and High Speed Internet. Until recently, I had the TV and Internet ala cart. That is separate. I bundled the two together back in Jan. to get more premium TV channels for only a slight increase in monthly payment. It was a poor choice. The separate businesses of the company do not talk to each other. I was triple billed for two months running for the TV service. The drawback to the bundle became apparent when every time I called to straighten out the TV billing (and I had to call many, many times!) my high speed internet service would be disconnected. I then would have to make many more phone calls to get that restored. Seems that with the bundle, if there is the least little discrepancy or change in one of the bundled services, Comcast requires that ALL the services in the bundle be disconnected and then the customer has to contact the business office of each services (in your case three!) and navigate through their bureaucracy to get the service restored. By the way, they continue to charge you for the disconnected service.This takes a lot of patience as often multiple calls to each business office is required. So you will never have a single problem, true, you will have them in threes! This is a good reason to avoid bundling. For more detail, especially why you might not wishto bundle phone services with Comcast. visit this page: http://www.comcastmustdie.com/ I can not recommend Comcast to anyone with a clear conscience. Regards, John Settle Quoting Bill L'Hommedieu [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I'll be moving into an apartment (don't know which yet) in Arlington from a single family home and wonder what options for cable/satellite exist. I suspect the Comcast is the only choice. If that's true, what's the service like on the bundle of TV, phone and internet. Is FiOS available in multi-unit rentals/condos? FiOS *is* available to multi-unit buildings. Some friends of mine have it (in Annapolis). I don't know if they have to build it in with the building (their's is a fairly new building), or if they can retrofit. It seems like apartments/condos would be fairly profitable pickin's for Verizon since the potential customers are--literally--right on top of each other. As for Comcast's bundle, I don't know, but you can tell them that you can get Verizon's Triple Play for $99 and see if they'll match it. Katan * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** * * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Comcast bundle feedback
That almost sounds like a horror story I had with Comcrap... er... I mean Comcast a few years back. Emails sent to me suddenly started bouncing. I called Comcast and after wading through the cesspool of explaining it wasn't *my* computer but their servers, I finally got escalated to someone that said, Email servers are like big databases. Sometimes, something happens and an account gets closed. That's what happened. So for a few days - without my asking - there was a glitch - and my email account was closed. I asked about a reduction in my monthly fee and was turned down since email is a free service we give you with the internet account. I write a tech column for a local newspaper. I rated ISPs and developed what I called the Headache Scale. The more headaches a particular vendor gave me, the worse their score. I gave Comcast an unheard of 25 headaches for some of the worst customer service I'd ever experienced. If you do get Comcast Internet (bundled or not) and you have a problem, be prepared to wait on hold - for what might seem like a few days - and leave your brain in the jar by the door. I called one day with a problem with my cable TV service and got through to someone in less than 30 seconds. YMMV. Larry -Original Message- From: Computer Guys Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Settle Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 10:47 AM To: COMPUTERGUYS-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Subject: Re: [CGUYS] Comcast bundle feedback Bill, I have been a long standing customer with Comcast for Digital TV and High Speed Internet. Until recently, I had the TV and Internet ala cart. That is separate. I bundled the two together back in Jan. to get more premium TV channels for only a slight increase in monthly payment. It was a poor choice. The separate businesses of the company do not talk to each other. I was triple billed for two months running for the TV service. The drawback to the bundle became apparent when every time I called to straighten out the TV billing (and I had to call many, many times!) my high speed internet service would be disconnected. I then would have to make many more phone calls to get that restored. Seems that with the bundle, if there is the least little discrepancy or change in one of the bundled services, Comcast requires that ALL the services in the bundle be disconnected and then the customer has to contact the business office of each services (in your case three!) and navigate through their bureaucracy to get the service restored. By the way, they continue to charge you for the disconnected service.This takes a lot of patience as often multiple calls to each business office is required. So you will never have a single problem, true, you will have them in threes! This is a good reason to avoid bundling. For more detail, especially why you might not wishto bundle phone services with Comcast. visit this page: http://www.comcastmustdie.com/ I can not recommend Comcast to anyone with a clear conscience. Regards, John Settle Quoting Bill L'Hommedieu [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I'll be moving into an apartment (don't know which yet) in Arlington from a single family home and wonder what options for cable/satellite exist. I suspect the Comcast is the only choice. If that's true, what's the service like on the bundle of TV, phone and internet. Is FiOS available in multi-unit rentals/condos? FiOS *is* available to multi-unit buildings. Some friends of mine have it (in Annapolis). I don't know if they have to build it in with the building (their's is a fairly new building), or if they can retrofit. It seems like apartments/condos would be fairly profitable pickin's for Verizon since the potential customers are--literally--right on top of each other. As for Comcast's bundle, I don't know, but you can tell them that you can get Verizon's Triple Play for $99 and see if they'll match it. Katan * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** * * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** * * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] new problem with computer
For the No Admin Tools problem, I might have a fix for you... Oh...your IT guys are quite incorrect. XP Home does indeed have Administrative Tools (how else are you supposed to look at your hard drive information - other than through Windows Explorer). I still suggest you download some utilities from the drive manufacturer and check the drive with them. It's pretty rare that a drive suddenly becomes unformatted. It's not like it's going to misremember that it once was used for something. Larry -Original Message- From: Computer Guys Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert Sent: Friday, May 09, 2008 5:54 PM To: COMPUTERGUYS-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Subject: Re: [CGUYS] new problem with computer As of now my problem might be solved, described below. Today I went to my IT department, got some advice that was moderately helpful, but mostly to buy a new computer. I have a Dell XPS that is 4 -- 5 years old, 3.2 GHz. Pentium IV, 1 GB DDRAM, internal SATA drives. They said that Windows XP Home has no Administrative Tools, but I know that I have used it many times. When I came back home, Administrative Tools worked -- nothing that I did -- and it reported the non-bootable internal hard drive that I reformatted as healthy (it had suddenly become unformatted). Then I tried to restore from backup the data lost on that drive, but Driveimage couldn't do it because the drive couldn't be locked. After much frustration, I noticed that Driveimage has an ignore button, so clicking on this started an long list of red warning messages that this action is dangerous. Finally, Driveimage restored all the data and everything seemed OK. Then I tried to burn a DVD using ImgBurn and it couldn't because the DVD burner couldn't be locked (the same problem that Driveimage had with locking the internal hard drive). Taskmanager couldn't terminate ImgBurn nor could it force a reboot. I used MS Process Explorer to find that ImgBurn had two instances of ImgBurn running that Taskmanager couldn't see. I used PE to terminate the processes for ImgBurn. Still couldn't burn, so then I forced a reboot by using the off switch on the computer. After the computer rebooted, everything appears OK and DVD burned. Any comments? Could the (nonbootable) hard drive be near to failure? Next, try to solve the networking problem (thank you all very much for you generous help). === I'm the one that is trying to network my computers thru Zone Alarm. New problem now, maybe related to networking attempts? Internal hard drive (not boot drive) reported unformatted, don't know why. I reformatted, then tried to restore data from backup using Driveimage. Could not restore because drive could not be locked by Driveimage. Thinking that maybe I had to create a partition on the reformatted drive, I discovered that there are no administrative tools on the computer. The StartControl PanelAdministrative Tools window is blank. I'm now thinking that this is the reason that the disk can't be locked. Right now I am backing up the boot drive and thinking that I need to do a Windows XP Home repair from the CD. Is there a better plan? * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** * * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
[CGUYS] reel-to-reel to CD/Audigy 2ZS
I am trying to record old reel-to-reel tapes, on to CD. I did a search on the Net and, found a message on TehcSpot where, someone had said(back in 2002) that, the Audigy(I have the Audigy 2ZS) has a program called 'Sound Recorder'. I can't find it on mine(I have all the software) so, presuming he just had the Audigy(referring to the possibility he did not name it correctly when he posted his response), I am wondering what Creative Labs changed the name of the 'Sound Recorder' to, for the Audigy 2ZS? Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Christopher * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] reel-to-reel to CD/Audigy 2ZS
Are you speaking of Windows Sound Recorder or something else: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Recorder_(Windows) If you are looking for a simple sound recording program, what about Audacity? Richard P. I am trying to record old reel-to-reel tapes, on to CD. I did a search on the Net and, found a message on TehcSpot where, someone had said(back in 2002) that, the Audigy(I have the Audigy 2ZS) has a program called 'Sound Recorder'. I can't find it on mine(I have all the software) so, presuming he just had the Audigy(referring to the possibility he did not name it correctly when he posted his response), I am wondering what Creative Labs changed the name of the 'Sound Recorder' to, for the Audigy 2ZS? * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Comcast even faster?
Eric, can you give any insight as to Verizon's long-term plan for FiOS? Is it going to be everywhere? Urban/dense suburban only? No clue? Everywhere eventually, except where local regulations prevent it. To provide the TV part we have to have regulatory approval in the form of a franchise agreement with the local government, which could be as small as a city or county government. The last numbers I saw (this was over a year ago) were forecasting that by 2012 we will have passed half our subscriber base, nationwide. Passed means that fiber is deployed and lit, not that a particular subscriber is a FiOS customer, although they could be. Since we began the deployment in 2004, in theory the network will be fully built out by 2020, best case scenario. This is a best guess on my part, not the official position of Verizon, of course. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
[CGUYS] Meeting scheduling website?
I am needing to schedule a half a dozen meetings over the space of 5 weeks with a dozen people who I don't work with. I imagine there is some free Evite type of online tool that will tally what dates people would prefer to meet on and what dates/ times they would prefer not to meet so as to make my scheduling work easier. Can anyone recommend such? (Hopefully it doesn't involve us all getting an infernal Yahoo account...) db * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] reel-to-reel to CD/Audigy 2ZS
Richard P. wrote: Are you speaking of Windows Sound Recorder or something else: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Recorder_(Windows) If you are looking for a simple sound recording program, what about Audacity? Richard P. I am looking for sound recording program that is part of the Audigy 2ZS Christopher * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] reel-to-reel to CD/Audigy 2ZS
On Mon, 12 May 2008, Christopher Range wrote: Richard P. wrote: Are you speaking of Windows Sound Recorder or something else: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Recorder_(Windows) If you are looking for a simple sound recording program, what about Audacity? Richard P. I am looking for sound recording program that is part of the Audigy 2ZS The Audigy 2ZS is your sound card, right? Or is it something else? If it's a card, any program which uses the OS's sound API should be able to use it, right? Now, if that card has special features, only supported by software from the vendor of the card (Creative?), that's another issue. (Sorry if I'm restating the obvious, but I haven't been paying close attention to this thread.) -- Vicky Staubly http://www.steeds.com/vicky/[EMAIL PROTECTED] * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Comcast bundle feedback
As the other comments have indicated, Comcast service is very uneven. I have them for Internet and Cable here in NJ, and I have had enough issues with them that I don't like them very much, but not enough to motivate me to change just yet. FIOS is available from Verizon in my area, and I have been getting the hard sell from them, but I don't know enough about the quality of their service in my area to justify switching to them. Bob Garfield (of PBS's show, On the Media) has had some bad experiences with Comcast and has started a website, http://comcastmustdie.com/ for others to air their gripes. You might want to go there and see if any of the people reporting problems live near where you're moving. David Subject: Comcast bundle feedback I'll be moving into an apartment (don't know which yet) in Arlington from a single family home and wonder what options for cable/satellite exist. I suspect the Comcast is the only choice. If that's true, what's the service like on the bundle of TV, phone and internet. Is FiOS available in multi-unit rentals/condos? Thanks, Bill * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
