for the week ending June 20, 2009

Thursday, June 18
I downloaded a new version of Media Player - that didn't help - and called PC
housecall about the missing sound. The person I talked to was baffled. I tried a few
more things with no luck and then undid a setting that I had made to undo
another problem I had with Media Player. Voila! I could hear the music.

Wednesday, June 18
I called tech support at Dell about the sound problem and they wanted
$49 - which I wasn't about to pay - to look into what could be wrong.

Tuesday, June 16
I tried to play a CD in my PC, but no sound came out. Oh, joy!

Monday, June 15
My printer had a problem, and before long, it was offline. It's a HP deskjet F380 model,
and I went to the web to put the printer back online. Before doing that I called the no-help desk,
but was informed that the information was not free, so that's when I went online to the
HP solution center. Here's the solution and the explanation for the fix, from the HP web site.

The Printer and Faxes status window displays the message 'Offline - Offline' for the printer
being used. This issue usually occurs after a paper out or paper jam error. The paper problem is
resolved but rather than pushing the Copy buttons to resume the print job, the Power button is
pressed, switching off the printer. The document will then fail to print. When the power button is
pressed again to switch the printer back on the document will then be stuck in the queue
forever, sometimes the document can be deleted but either way the printer will not print at all.
Any subsequent print jobs will also sit in the print queue. A possible solution is to restart the printer.

Just what I wanted to do! If that doesn't work, there's another possibility,
which I hope I need not do. Is this any way for software to function?
When it comes to that last word, I don't think it belongs to HP systems.


for the week ending June 13, 2009

Friday, June 12
Wrong house demolished
A Georgia man finds his childhood home in
rubble after contractors are steered wrong by GPS.
GPS comes with that annoying voice. In this case, it said the wrong
thing or else the people on the receiving end weren't listening.

The Sierra Club web site
I am in charge of the Sierra Club Buffalo/Niagara chapter web site, but
I encountered a problem. I was trying to add a input survey form and when
I tested it on the site, it didn't work, for some reason. It has something to
do with the main Sierra Club web site since it works fine when I put it on my
web site, bobcooks.com. I emailed the webmaster and included the form and
corresponding PHP file as attachments. I hope he / she can be of assistance.

Summit Credit Union technical problems
I tried to set up my online account at the Summit Credit Union,
Buffalo Branch, so I dug out the account number and password.
On entering them, I saw a message stating that I didn't get on,
since something was missing or wrong. I called the number on the
screen for help, but wound up talking to someone in North Carolina.
I found the Buffalo number and called it, but my phone died. That
problem was nothing more than a case of a low battery, which
progressed into a dead one. I figured tomorrow's another day.

a few words about passwords

Tuesday, June 9
On trying to make a phone call, my telephone was dead. It may
not have been working for hours since I wasn't aware of any
difficulties the evening before. I couldn't call the phone company
since I had no phone, so I emailed Time-Warner cable (TW), which
provides my phone service. They esponded quickly, stating that
I would be contacted within 24 hours. I emailed again stating
my situation and asking for a quicker response. After about a
half hour, my phone rang and I was back in business. I emailed
TW, telling them thanks for whatever they did (if they were
responsible) since my phone was functioning. I heard from
them by email, which said, "We understand your phone is
not working." I replied that it was and was soon emailed
a survey. I didn't reply, since I don't do those things.