Hi Roger,<div><br></div><div>Thanks for that, I'll let you know if I'm in a position to test them over the New Year.</div><div><br></div><div>Interesting story about Microsoft, I think they're really having to push the customer service with Windows 7. Them having a more positive helpful attitude can only help the industry as a whole. I like his comments about Vista, I'm waiting for them to say "Ok, like Highlander 2 - let's pretend Vista never happened".<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">2009/11/29 Roger Gibson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:rcgibson@talktalk.net">rcgibson@talktalk.net</a>></span><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
Hi Les, Glad you are improving.<br>
<br>
Re signalling over the mains, I do it. Bear in mind my internet at the<br>
end of a few miles of damp string telephone line rarely gets up to<br>
1Mbps, so I don't ask a lot. However, with a long straggly house with<br>
thick stone walls, a wireless router was not really man enough for the<br>
job, so to connect Maire's office to mine at opposite ends of the house<br>
I bought a<br>
<br>
Belkin Powerline AV Networking Adapter (200 Mbps)<br>
<br>
for about £55 a year ago. It has two 13A plug units which I plugged in<br>
and it worked without any setting up. I have a wireless router at each<br>
end which each looks after things locally, wireless to laptops, hard<br>
wired to PC and printserver etc. Electrically, the rooms are on very<br>
different circuits. It advised not connecting through my Belkin<br>
Surgemaster, but I forget now whether I tried this or not. We get<br>
fairly frequent power cuts, but it seems to cope.<br>
<br>
I shall be away for a week over the New Year if you want to borrow it to<br>
try.<br>
<br>
On a different tack, I had problems recently with a dual boot laptop<br>
having it's Windows 7 system, which had been given to a charity I work<br>
with for nothing by MS, and I had been running successfully and legally<br>
for a couple of months or more, which suddenly started saying the system<br>
was invalid, possibly pirated, and that I should reactivate it. I<br>
followed the instructions to do this, but it would not reactivate, and<br>
told me to ring someone at MS on a UK 0800 number. This I did, and the<br>
person who answered quickly said it was too technical for him, and when<br>
could he get a colleague to call. I stated a time, and on the dot a<br>
very helpful chappie from MS in New Delhi rang, understood the problem<br>
straight away, and asked me to try a few things. He was not fazed by my<br>
using Firefox, 'it has a lot of good features we must try to copy' , but<br>
confessed himself puzzled by the error message. He asked to take over<br>
my system, and I watched him looking at a host of registries without<br>
changing anything, all the time telling me clearly what he was doing and<br>
why. He then said, this is very puzzling, he would have to think about<br>
it and consult his colleagues. Then he said, 'it has fixed itself', and<br>
sure enough the error message had gone. He did a few more tests,<br>
confessed to still being very puzzled, 'but then funny things do happen,<br>
but not so often as with Vista. That was a terrible system'. He then<br>
promised to ring me in a week, at a time of my choosing, to check it was<br>
still OK. He was so informative and polite. Never once was it<br>
suggested I had done anything wrong. Dual booting was a perfectly<br>
reasonable thing to do. I've got his personal email address, so if ever<br>
I want help again, I'll try him. I was so surprised to get polite<br>
helpful common sense from MS, I thought I would share this.<br>
<br>
Last Thursday in December is New Year's Eve, second last is Christmas<br>
Eve, any plans for a December meeting!<br>
Roger.<br>
<div><div></div><div class="h5"><br>
Les Pritchard wrote:<br>
> Hi all,<br>
><br>
> I hope you had a good time at the social. I'm now slowy on the mend so will<br>
> see you all soon.<br>
><br>
> I have a question about these ethernet over power systems that are around. I<br>
> know they've been mentioned before at the LUG, has anyone got any experience<br>
> of using them? I'm hopefully moving house in the near future and really<br>
> can't face cabling CAT5 to all the rooms again. I know that's not the techie<br>
> way, but for now I don't want to go round chipping out perfectly good walls<br>
> as I spent enough time doing that in the current house! So I figured that<br>
> these solutions could be a way of getting net access / video streaming to<br>
> the rooms. I could go with a wireless bridge, but I'm assuming that the<br>
> 200meg powerline systems should give me a better throughput, even if it<br>
> isn't really 200meg.<br>
><br>
> Am I right in thinking they work across the house's phase and not just a<br>
> circuit within it?<br>
><br>
> Your experiences good or bad will be appreciated!<br>
><br>
> Thanks<br>
><br>
> Les<br>
><br>
><br>
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