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Perhaps you'll learn more about me as you read my blog. For anyone who translates my blog using the translator facility, don't forget if you wish to read the comments in your own language to click on the title of the post down the left hand side otherwise they will remain in english. Also I assume that the translation is accurate but I don't know, so please allow for errors.

Friday, May 12, 2006

The Frustrations Of Computing...

I am unable to guarantee that this will be the most enlightening or interesting blog entry you will have read, its a bit of a rant and a way of getting some frustrations off my chest.

I'm sure that many of you have experiences of computer problems both serious and funny. We are continually learning and I suspect that we always will how to make our use of computers better and more interesting and some of us will always be a few steps behind and need help. I know that I often do.

Unfortunately, something can come along for no reason that you can actually see yourself.

The other night my reasonably new and hardly used printer decided that even though the cartridges were hardly used, it did not wish to print in colour as we know it. Instead it only wanted to combine two of the colours available and no matter what I did with various tests, cleaning functions etc...built into the printer would the problem right itself. Then because of the very expensive cost of buying new cartridges so expensive, I may as well use the printer very rarely or not at all(defeating why I have one)I decided to go back to an earlier cartridge and attempt a practise that I used to do many years ago...refilling a cartridge so you get a longer life out of them and bring the cost down some what.

Having done so...when I put it in the machine, it would not even entertain the cartridge at all. It just did not want to know. I put the newer cartridge back into the printer and it still refused to give me proper colour.

I gave up.

I return later and do something else by attempting to print a picture which needed more of the colour I guessed was missing and it works. Why?

Now the original cartridge(now refilled)originally had stopped working one day so I assumed that it was empty but as it no longer works when refilled with ink, I am baffled why it cannot be reused.

Does this mean that all cartridges that I attempt to refill will refuse to work? I know that after 6 - 8 attempts of refilling quality can go down so a new one will and should be replaced every so often but according to the information that I have these cartridges are suitable for refilling so can anyone think why this has failed?

Do cartridges have some kind of self destruct mechanism within them?

Now the most annoying thing of all...suddenly and without warning a few days later I found that I could no longer access a number of sites that I use for posting my views on various aspects of the radio and television and a site that I subscribe to that gives me quite a lot of news about media in the UK and wildlife.

I still cannot tell why. And one site in helping me remedy the problem suggested a cookie clean out which may/may not be why I can no longer get onto the messageboards of the BBC. Then again, I have put in my details as I know them to be and from information supplied by the BBC when I joined and guess what, none of it works...not even when you manage to get the extra secret security question that "Only you should know the answer to" and I put the right answer in and it refuses to accept it.

I have been locked out of my account as I write this for 64 hours and have written three e-mails explaining the problem, asking for help and so far have received no answer. I have seen many subjects I would love to comment on and many of my friends posting away and all I can do is read their comments and make no contribution.

So where do I go from here? And though I dislike complaining as I hate ill feeling(there may be a good reason for not hearing anything as yet)but I have not even received any reply acknowledging my e-mail. If there is a really good reason I'll happily say so on here(especially if I have made some kind of error in attmpting to contact)but for now what else can I think the reason to be?

I guess all I can do is write yet another e-mail and then perhaps resort to writing a letter and using the good old postal service? Which seems very strange in this highly technical age.

Thanks to Mango, Curmy and others willing to try and get my views out there and help correct a situation that I am unable to myself.

So if you wondered why I have been so quiet for a few days, now you know why.

I'll be back.

Gildy

4 Comments:

Blogger Linda Mason said...

Gildy,

Sorry to hear that your problems are continuing. The only thing I can suggest is clearing your cache of all temporary internet files and cookies and your history etc too. If I ever have a problem logging into sites this usually does the trick.

As to your printer, how long have you had it? Is it still under guarantee? To be honest if it's playing up and not covered it is usually cheaper to buy a new printer. Try googling your make and model and see if anyone else has been having the same sort of problems. That's how I found out I had purchased the naffest tumble drier on the planet!

I hope that things are sorted out for you soon. Sorry I can't really be of any more assistance.

Mags xx

12 May 2006 at 23:38  
Blogger The Great Gildersleeve said...

Mags,
Isn't funny how we've all accepted and done so without thinking.

What you say?

Calling each other who I see as friends by shortening the name...you know Rupe, Curmy, Mags, Raisins and many more.

So much of this seems to have happened since certain events and the board in general does seem to be full of humour, apart from a few small differences, most that post there seem to hold similar ideas but there is respect and its less frantic or fraught compared to other areas.

I do miss posters when they go missing.

I may not always have the chance to reply but always try to read what is written.

And to have some say that you are missed or wish to help does mean a lot.

There is a lot of trust amongst quite a few of us and people like yourself helped me take the plunge. I could quite have easily just kept on reading.

Now, I even have a blog...for goodness sake.

Some that are able to contact direct are suggesting all kinds of solutions. The one disadvantage of a board is that though they bring us together when something like this happens, or someone is taken ill, the pc crashes etc...we cannot get the word out to friends or worse could lose contact.

The printer, its a Hewlett Parkard, fingers crossed its a temporary blip. But that's true the printers are so much cheaper than the cost of running them.

All sites are working except the BBC. I think if I register as a new member I could be in business but I feel that they can and should fix things at their end so I can go by the identity I am known by.

They have done so in the past for a number of people or the problem has been caused by a software glitch at their server and come right after a few minutes.

What makes me laugh is that if I manage to get as far as the secret security question "Where Were You Born?" it tells me that my answer is wrong!

I agree with your suggestions for a fix, I am also clearing off all the e-mails that have built up.

Rupe has even offered to talk me through the defrag procedure if I do not know how to do it.

Thank You

Gildy xx

13 May 2006 at 00:33  
Blogger Span Ows said...

Hi Gildy, thanks for all your comments recently (TODAY!)

re the printer, best not to ask me as it would end up in pieces on the patio - this I say from experience and the mod-cons are many that have faced the same fate...where I live now there is actually a scuffle outside my window whenever I return from 'shopping' as they know something (perfectly OK and workable to 'noraal' people) will come flying out of the window - I wish I was exaggearting.

Re the log-in problem, the cleaning of cookies and files etc won't help - that is something I do every day (having many police family and friends helps..ooops, nuff said) I suggest you log in with completely new details (name, 'shown name' and password). It seems to work for 95% of the MB users!!!!!

13 May 2006 at 00:59  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi Gildy

Glad to see you're back on the BBC MB. Regarding the security question that caused you problems, and my apologies if this insults your intelligence, but it should be case-sensitive and probably whitespace sensitive i.e. you'd have to type it exactly as you typed it when you created your membership, with identical capitalisation and spaces...

I frequently encounter clients who have to resort to their security questions in order to access their webmail accounts (because they've forgotten their passwords) - more often than not problems then arise when they can't recall if they used capitals or lowercase for their postcode, mothers maiden name etc...

In my experience, it has always been an input error on the users part. And you can often see it dawning upon them...ah, maybe they did put a dot in St Albans, or misspelt their answer entirely in the first place (e.g. Edinburru)

Then again, you're record in the BBC MB database may have temporalily "gubbed"...

All the best

16 May 2006 at 21:26  

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