XP and a New Puter ... It's a Whole New World ...WOW

vanity | 01-01-02 | mercy

[mercy]

It sorta just snuck up on me. My old nanao monitor started winking at me, the ole gal felt like dropping by Comp USA and the next thing I know I'm rolling out the door with a new VAIO tower, a Samsung syncMaster flat screen LCD and a Canon bubble jet (there goes my buy American bluster).

I wasn't going to do it. Really. The thought of venturing past my garden path was too scary. The ole Dell XPS 200 and windows 95 was so .... well, familliar. I was afraid taking the leap would be just too painful. Boy was I wrong. Mama was in the mood to spend money and ya just can't go against that flow. Might not happen again in a coon's age.

Been hearing not so good things about Dell and the prices have been plunging so that one has to wonder about what they're putting in those things these days. Besides I wanted the security of just being able to walk the box into the service dept. if I had a prob and actually getting the thing back in days rather than weeks. The Sony seemed like a solid machine and not a conglomeration of god knows whose parts. The flat screen just knocked my eyes out. XP made my old OS look like a cheep 40's cartoon. So I jumped.

Despite my desire to get in a dig at Bill Gates whenever possible I'm going with 'internet exploder' for now. doesn't seem so bad and I'm not really missing Netscape ... yet. (I may pinch him a bit by dropping Office and going with Corel) I haven't had any trouble with XP whatsoever. I've deleted some junk they had in the box and I've added several programs. I'm all over the net and not a glitch. ON THE FIRST DAY. I can't believe I waited so long. I love the whole package. AND for some unknowable (for me) reason my internet connection is chunking along at twice the speed of before though my dialup connection is the same lame ole 28k and I already had a new top line modem in the ole box. Go figure.

So if any of y'all out there are like me and afraid of the change .... don't be. It's wonderful.

[Amelia]

If it can't find the hard drive at all, my idea wouldn't do you any good - I was thinking boot into DOS & then just copy the files.

[SamAdams76]

Did you ever get that network going? I had the same situation as you. A new Windows XP machine and a Win98 machine. My XP came with a NIC already installed and I bought one for the Win98 machine and installed it manually. I then ran cables from each computer to a five-port hub.

I was up and running in five minutes using the XP networking wizard. XP's wizard made a floppy for me to install on the Win98 machine. I ensured that both computers had the same workgroup name and activated FILE AND PRINT SHARING on both.

I was able to share out the hard drive and ZIP drive on the old computer and map them to the XP computer. I also shared my printer to the Win98 computer as well as the Internet connection. It was so easy that I am kicking myself for not doing it earlier because I used to have to wait hours for my kids to get offline and vice versa. Now we can both be on at once!

One thing I didn't see mentioned that you might have forgotten. When you installed the NIC card on the Win98 computer, it comes with a cable that you are supposed to attach to the motherboard from the NIC. Did you do that?

[Amelia]

I'm thinking now it must be something in the house wiring, but I'm not sure where. When I brought the 98 computer downstairs & cabled both computers directly to the hub, it worked beautifully. I can read all the files on the 98 computer from the XP, and the 98 accesses the internet.

The other thing I did was plug the 98 into a different connector in the hub - my cousin says he uses the same hub but it has at least one bad connector, so that could have been it as well -- but the hub was showing connections to both computers all along?

Now I guess just a matter of narrowing down where the house wiring needs help?

[Rowdee]

Thank you.

[Bogey78O]

Get a good hard drive utility program. If there's a physical drive in there it ought to see it. Partition commander helped me with mine.

[Bogey78O]

That's a WON cable. You only need that installed if you need to access and turn the computer on from the network. Some motherboards aren't designed for that so the cable cn't be used.

[Bogey78O]

Most bad spot are in the splice. There is a tool to test network connections. It'll tell you if you have good splices. Just recheck it and make sure the pin setup is correct.

[CWRWinger]

Is there such a thing as a no-monthly-charge ISP? I want to get off of Compuserve. I saw K-mart had "free internet access" disc available a year or so ago, but never tried it.

[mercy]

There are, or used to be, 'free' ISPs but you had to endure adds adds adds. I've heard of $10 per month ones but they are probably add choked as well. I pay $20 bucks a month for a 28.8 dialup and that's all the local Verizon lines will handle anyway. No adds. Pretty reliable. Look in your yellow pages.

[Texas Tea]

bttt

[Bogey78O]

How can your lines handle only 28.8? You mean you local dial-up server right? The phone standard is 56k. You can only get up to 53k due to regulations on it though.

[mercy]

Oh brother you should 'try' living in rural Texas and just see what phone service is like. Sucks is too nice a word. Our phone company does not even gaurantee a digital capable line. Voice only. I'm lucky enough to get some digital capacity. I can occaisionally get up to 8k or so transfer rates. But that only holds so long as the local population does not exceed the number of lines we now have. When that happens they start doubling them up with carrier setups (whatever that is) and we will get no dial up ability at all. I'm forty whole miles from austin.

[Bogey78O]

The carrier setup you're talking about is a called a DAML. I've put a few up. It basically merges two dial tones together over a copper pair. But still, copper analog from the switch can handle 56k connections. There may have been an earlier switch with lower capabilities but if that's the case you're below the common standard.

Blame the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Phone companies don't profit off of upgrading their lines. So they don't bother to.

[gcraig]

"So why can't my computers see each other?"

If you mean see each other via TCP/IP ping, it would seem impossible to route outbound via a common router if they were'nt able. I suspect you mean in the Network Neighborhood -- and in that case you need to load the NetBEUI protocol, and have both computers join the same workgroup. You can config that via a right click on the network neighborhood. Check the help files for more info.

[Amelia]

I tell you, having FR is better than having technical support! You guys are really great!

[TaRaRaBoomDeAyGoreLostToday!]

Windows ME needs to download the security patch as well.

[fso301]

Been hearing not so good things about Dell

Am curious. What have you been hearing about Dell?

[mercy]

Customer service means hours on the phone. Sending the box in for repair means weeks without a computer but it takes lots of time on the phone before they will even advise you to send it in. They're putting cheap parts in them.

I don't know the full veracity of all this but I got a very good warantee from CompUSA that means a new machine if just about any hardware component goes out on this sony. If I have a minor problem that is better to just have fixed, like a OS reinstall I can take it in and get it done. With Dell there is no where to take it. Nowhere. You just have to mail it in. What a pain. I had a dell before because they had a store in Austin. They closed it. They lost me. The VIAO has firewire and usb ports all over it, a disc burner and comes with some pretty nice pic and vid software.

[CheneyChick]

XP is great, Macs are no longer any more reliable than a Windows box.

Sorry, but that statement made the BS buzzer go off! Tomorrow you will have one more reason to drool over Apple........