The contractor came by my place last Friday and fixed my Dell computer. It's working properly again. He replaced the motherboard and the video card. Just in time since I didn't have a display. I'm glad to be back online; under warranty too so didn't even cost me anything.
Dell was very good about the warranty work. Thorough too with follow up. They called me to check that the tech had made an appointment. Then they called again after to check that the work was done and I was satisfied with everything. I was very happy with how it turned out.
I might still buy another year of warranty if I can. I'll check the price. It was lucky this was covered under warranty.
For the display I've switched to HDMI. Prices on these cables are finally starting to come down. I got a six foot no name cable at wal-mart for $10 and it works fine. The display seems crisper and faster now with HDMI - especially youtube. It was a bit different plugging my speakers into the monitor but it worked.
HDMI is a great invention. One cable, one plug, audio and video, HD, plug it in and it just works.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
The new year
Well another year has begun so it's a good time to think about what I'd like to get done this year.
2010 was a busy year with lots of changes, some good and some not so good. I moved during the summer. I switched jobs at work during the year. Started dating. Looking back on the Jan 2010 post I paid off the car so that was good. There was some negative stuff like the health problems my parents had to deal with.
For 2011 I'm looking for more stability. Stay solvent financially keeping income and spending balanced. Hopefully work will continue to run well since I'm happy with my job after the switch. But I can't really control that. I don't plan to move this year the new apartment is ok and moving is just too much. There are some things I'd like to improve around my place with furniture and such so hopefully be able to get to that.
Of course there's the perpetual take a proper vacation PEI or Ottawa who knows maybe this will be the year.
One resolution is to get better at getting ready for work. I've allowed this to drift to become too long from the moment my alarm goes off to the time I'm at my desk. This is historically around 1 hour and I will work on getting lunch and clothes ready the night before, getting up as soon as the alarm goes off, moving more efficiently in the morning to get ready.
There's still that Important Matter that really needs to be done. Although painful it still needs to be worked through and should have been taken care of a long time ago. So again it has to happen this year, in the first half of the year preferably. Who knows maybe the resolution of that will open up some possibilities that have been on the edge of my radar for a long time.
2010 was a busy year with lots of changes, some good and some not so good. I moved during the summer. I switched jobs at work during the year. Started dating. Looking back on the Jan 2010 post I paid off the car so that was good. There was some negative stuff like the health problems my parents had to deal with.
For 2011 I'm looking for more stability. Stay solvent financially keeping income and spending balanced. Hopefully work will continue to run well since I'm happy with my job after the switch. But I can't really control that. I don't plan to move this year the new apartment is ok and moving is just too much. There are some things I'd like to improve around my place with furniture and such so hopefully be able to get to that.
Of course there's the perpetual take a proper vacation PEI or Ottawa who knows maybe this will be the year.
One resolution is to get better at getting ready for work. I've allowed this to drift to become too long from the moment my alarm goes off to the time I'm at my desk. This is historically around 1 hour and I will work on getting lunch and clothes ready the night before, getting up as soon as the alarm goes off, moving more efficiently in the morning to get ready.
There's still that Important Matter that really needs to be done. Although painful it still needs to be worked through and should have been taken care of a long time ago. So again it has to happen this year, in the first half of the year preferably. Who knows maybe the resolution of that will open up some possibilities that have been on the edge of my radar for a long time.
Monday, January 03, 2011
back online
I was offline for a couple of days there starting new years eve. The display on my monitor wouldn't come up.
The display has been flaky for some time. Last summer the white plug stopped working so I switched to the blue VGA cable. That worked for a few months then it failed a couple of days ago. I bought a 6 foot HDMI cable at walmart for $10 as my video card also has HDMI. Alas HDMI also didn't work.
As a check on the monitor I ran my DVD player into the monitor using the HDMI cable and that worked. I also tried running the PC output both blue VGA and HDMI into the second TV I have next to the computer. Again no display signal. I could see the lights coming on the PC and the keyboard and mouse were lit up so I was pretty sure it was the video card on the PC, especially given that the white DVI had already failed last summer.
I checked the papers and luckily the computer was still under Dell 1 year warranty. I called the number and had my service code ready. The tech was in India it was slightly hard to hear her at times but she was ok. We went through the procedures to confirm yes the monitor is turned on, yes I tried VGA and HDMI, yes I tried again plugging into the tv instead of the monitor.
Then her supervisor had a pretty good idea. She told me to check under the power cable for a connector behind the PC. There was a covered connector and after popping off the plastic cover there it was a VGA connector. I guess that's the one that ships with the PC, I had added a custom graphics card when I bought this PC. I attempted plugging that in and was a bit surprised it worked, I had a display again.
I was a bit worried they would then brush me off with the problem solved. However the Dell support was good. She agreed there is a problem with either the graphics card or the motherboard. They are actually sending a tech to replace both under warranty. She said it should happen this week and gave me a tracking number.
So far so good then. I'll be glad to get the replacement parts I don't want to be down to one display. Hopefully the repair will go smoothly and the system will be back to health. If it goes well I'll check the price and may purchase one more year of warranty coverage.
The display has been flaky for some time. Last summer the white plug stopped working so I switched to the blue VGA cable. That worked for a few months then it failed a couple of days ago. I bought a 6 foot HDMI cable at walmart for $10 as my video card also has HDMI. Alas HDMI also didn't work.
As a check on the monitor I ran my DVD player into the monitor using the HDMI cable and that worked. I also tried running the PC output both blue VGA and HDMI into the second TV I have next to the computer. Again no display signal. I could see the lights coming on the PC and the keyboard and mouse were lit up so I was pretty sure it was the video card on the PC, especially given that the white DVI had already failed last summer.
I checked the papers and luckily the computer was still under Dell 1 year warranty. I called the number and had my service code ready. The tech was in India it was slightly hard to hear her at times but she was ok. We went through the procedures to confirm yes the monitor is turned on, yes I tried VGA and HDMI, yes I tried again plugging into the tv instead of the monitor.
Then her supervisor had a pretty good idea. She told me to check under the power cable for a connector behind the PC. There was a covered connector and after popping off the plastic cover there it was a VGA connector. I guess that's the one that ships with the PC, I had added a custom graphics card when I bought this PC. I attempted plugging that in and was a bit surprised it worked, I had a display again.
I was a bit worried they would then brush me off with the problem solved. However the Dell support was good. She agreed there is a problem with either the graphics card or the motherboard. They are actually sending a tech to replace both under warranty. She said it should happen this week and gave me a tracking number.
So far so good then. I'll be glad to get the replacement parts I don't want to be down to one display. Hopefully the repair will go smoothly and the system will be back to health. If it goes well I'll check the price and may purchase one more year of warranty coverage.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Merry Christmas
In the spirit of NBC that time they showed Conan the Barbarian as the Sunday night movie after football on Christmas Sunday back around 1985. Here's my favorite scene from Bad Santa, the reindeer fight.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
club z
Haven't posted much lately. Been busy, hanging out. You know how it is.
I was at the Bay last Saturday getting some Christmas stuff. There were some sales and I got some stuff. At the cash I put in my HBC rewards card - the successor to zellers club z. I was surprised the clerk said I had enough for a $10 gift card. I immediately cashed in 80,000 points ($800 of spending) for the gift card. So that works out to 1.25% cashback as a gift card. Not a bad deal. It's good at zellers, the bay and home outfitters. The gift card didn't last long. I crossed micmac mall to zellers and bought some stuff there and got my $10 off right away. That was my first cash in for club z. I can't remember when I joined, somewhere around 1993.
Speaking of Home Outfitters here's a tip if you're going to get a big ticket item there. Each month you get something at the home-o they give you a 10% off coupon with your receipt good for the next calendar month. So near the end of the month make a small token purchase, say $5 popcorn, and get your 10% off. Then the next month go in with your coupon and get the $400 food processor or whatever big thing you want. So for the $5 purchase you get a discount coupon worth $40 in this case, an excellent deal.
I was at the Bay last Saturday getting some Christmas stuff. There were some sales and I got some stuff. At the cash I put in my HBC rewards card - the successor to zellers club z. I was surprised the clerk said I had enough for a $10 gift card. I immediately cashed in 80,000 points ($800 of spending) for the gift card. So that works out to 1.25% cashback as a gift card. Not a bad deal. It's good at zellers, the bay and home outfitters. The gift card didn't last long. I crossed micmac mall to zellers and bought some stuff there and got my $10 off right away. That was my first cash in for club z. I can't remember when I joined, somewhere around 1993.
Speaking of Home Outfitters here's a tip if you're going to get a big ticket item there. Each month you get something at the home-o they give you a 10% off coupon with your receipt good for the next calendar month. So near the end of the month make a small token purchase, say $5 popcorn, and get your 10% off. Then the next month go in with your coupon and get the $400 food processor or whatever big thing you want. So for the $5 purchase you get a discount coupon worth $40 in this case, an excellent deal.
Marco Di Quinzio real estate agent
I'll use this space to put in a good word for Marco Di Quinzio the friendly agent. My parents just completed the sale of their house with Marco. It was a good experience. Marco knows Fairview and has a keen pulse on the market. He was able to have a full price offer on the day it went for sale. That's outstanding in today's market. The process went very smoothly and we were all pleased with the price we got.
I knew of Marco from back in school. He was from the younger group, my younger sister knows him from being in class with him. It was an easy choice to list with Marco and it turned out really well.
I knew of Marco from back in school. He was from the younger group, my younger sister knows him from being in class with him. It was an easy choice to list with Marco and it turned out really well.
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