h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>>And I've got MusicMatch and iTunes for music.

You'll also need Azereus and Limewire, of course.

Get youself a trackerball to avoid the mouse pain. Reduce the angle of your keyboard and get a gel wrist rest. Adjust your seating so that your forearms are parallel to the floor or your wrists slightly below. Trust me...I'm a 'Registered Member of The Ergonomics Society and I'm allowed to stick the letters MErgS after my name.

But I *did* get carpal tunnel syndrome.

Ah, yes, I did download Azareus, too, on your recommendation. for the reminder.

I've got the gel wrist rests at work- for the keyboard and the mouse. I know one suggestion was that I not use the little "legs" on the bottom of the keyboard that tilt it forward.

I remember you had carpal tunnel syndrome. My uncle had surgery for "trigger finger" at right around the same time. Whatever I'm doing at home, it must a better setup than at work, because the wrist stops hurting around Saturday afternoon or so and doesn't start up again until midday Monday.

Excuse me. Shouldn't really post whil p****d.

DELL ARE A HOPELESS BUNCH OF M***********S AND MUST BE DESTROYED.

[puts kettle on and hopes for best]

Don't hold back, Jack, tell us what you really think! From what I've experienced thus far, I'm inclined to agree with you.

Have any of you lot any experience with ordering product internationally? There's a place in Ireland called SendIt.com, and they have a reasonably priced copy of a DVD I'd like. It's £7.99 plus £1.60 shipping, though I'm not sure what kind of taxes are involved. BUT, do the same custims regulations apply to international orders as to merchandise brought home while travelling abroad? I'm wondering if the item might be subject to duty tax and I don't want it sitting in some Customs office indefinitely...

My carpal tunnel obviously stops me typing properly

We got a flyer in the mail with Dell products the other day - written to our biz name and address (quick, aren't they?). And I said to Noggin that their computers seemed very inexpensive indeed. And his response was that everything he'd ever heard about them suggested that they were, at best, unreliable.

I'd never heard of them before.

az

I assumed Dell was OK, becuase we have nothing but Dell products at work and everything seemed great... but I guess I forgot that we also have four IT people fixing things behind the scenes.

Dunno if the system is unreliable, or if it's just that it's difficult communicating technical issues via chat. Particularly when you have to restart your system in between steps and then start up a new chat session.

This is still a dramatic improvement over my old HP. And it's a LOT faster. I love the 19" monitor, I love the audio and sound quality. Next on the agenda is to figure out what kind of media cards go into all these slots on the 13-in-1 media card reader. The camera uses a UBS port, but I think these other slots are used by various memory sticks.

I thought $2000 seemed fairly inexpensive. Once that jerk I used to work for paid me for that week and a half he owed me for, I was able to get the new Beast and the digital camera. I guess if you factor in affordability, you have to make some sacrifices regarding support.

***

Edward, I'm sure there are other activities that carpal tunnel interferes with. I have a hard time gripping things in my left hand with my "problem", which my doctor calls "Nintendonitis" (the proper clinical term is "DeQuervain's syndrome"). Luckily, I'm more or less ambidextrous.

>UBS<

That should read "USB", sorry. That was just a plain old stupid typo, and not attributable to tendonitis in any way.

<>

I doubt it, as most companies buy their computers (or components) from the same suppliers and then stick their particular brand name on them. For example, I bought mine from an international company called BEEP - my computer says BEEP on the front of it, but sure as hell it's made from the same stuff as you will find anywhere.

The main reason I bought my new beast from BEEP was because they'd opened a new shop just a five-minute walk from my house. So I thought - great! If I ever have any problems, and since I don't have a car, I could just take stuff there. And then a year later they closed that shop (though they still have several others here in Seville).

Well, I say 'new' beast - it's actually now about 3 years old. And I've so far not have any serious problems with it. Okay, one of the fans went wonky at one point, but happily our webpage designer came over and fixed that for me.

I'm guessing that your main problem is not having a real-life person to talk to and help your sort out the glitches. Nog bought his laptop at a very well-known department store here and, when he had problems with it, it was quite nice to be able to go to the shop again and have someone - in person - explain things to us.

So most probably your new Dell computer is just fine in terms of it being properly made and being all that. It's just the back-up support that is lacking.


az

Yeah. Which is compounded by having to chat with a different person each time... they bring up the case number and can see what's already been tried, yet everyone seems to suggest the same thing "uninstall the drivers and remove the registry entries, then download drivers". I've done that FIVE times!!

I agree, it's a combination of not having a live techie person to help fix it, and my lack of patience with electronics that don't function as I want them to.

I'd also like to add that this machine is extremely quiet. The old Beast made a grinding and whistling noise, in the back around the fan area. This one is virtually silent!

not sure if this will be of help ??
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6603_7-5118840-1.html
http://www.clothingtraining.org.hk/itlab/tips/dvd.htm

Hmm, those instructions mainly pertain to installing the drives themselves... might come in handy if I ever need to upgrade hardware. Thanks!

Hmphh. My penguin's still not behaving.