Alex Ferguson 2

We had to buy a slide-rule when I started my apprenticeship. Students were laughed at if they had one at school. Schools were backward in those days. My slide-rules are somewhere around here including a circular one. As for tape recorders, cassette recorders, vinyl players etc., how many do you want? My workshop transistor radio, Philips 600, (not the 600 car radio) is quite new, could be less than 50 years old as is the other on the bench, Sharp BZ-23 , 1965-72. The radio going in the corner, Lenoxx PR-38 here is even newer, possibly only 40 years old. There is a relatively new Milwaukee in the rubbish tin because they can't make reliable items and can't supply circuit diagrams and it can't be serviced. The other old radios don't need servicing as they always work.

I've replaced about 30 hard disks with SSDs in laptops. Usually 240GB, possibly be 25 pounds as they are $NZ57 here. They get Linux Mint installed on them and the Windows disk is plugged in via a USB-SATA cable and all files and folders copied across. If the owner buys a cable they can use their old HD for backup. Laptops range in ease of fitting from one screw to replace the disk to 20, plus 5 under the keyboard, and then a "crowbar". It appears your desktop problem is the hard disk. If it hadn't been then the suggestion would have been to remove a cover and scan the motherboard. Also remove the power supply and look it over. What you'd be looking for are capacitors with bulged tops. They must be absolutely flat otherwise it indicates a dud.

I've edited over a hundred PDFs and use LibreOffice Draw. It is FREE and runs on everything. As well as this, running Linux, there is a specific app for PDFs, Master PDF Editor. However the OP is unlikely to be able to use either. If the PDF isn't too private, possibly putting it up as an attachment to this thread to see if someone can fix it?

EvilC57's picture of a Buccaneer at the petrol station. I thought you lot were out of petrol, pumps were empty and then he turns up. Probably "panic buying" by the air force.

A quick look on the web and this - "Blocked domains would also be blocked from setting cookies, but there's no "block cookies" function in the extension (ublock origin)." You might want to read this too - https://www.theregister.com/2019/11/21/ublock_origin_firefox_unblockable_tracker/ On Firefox there is a delete cookies when Firefox is closed in the Privacy option under Settings.

No, not that I know of. That's a separate deal by the website you are looking at. I presume (note presume) there is a link that trips the website into sending ads to you. The ad blocker blocks those. Ads appear on your screen. Cookies go to a separate file.

Have you got "ublock origin" installed on your web browser? No? If "No" then that is why you are seeing adverts.

"But you may have to plug your phone in to your internet router or a new wall socket." That's what you do anyway. The modem/router has sockets for internet and phone. Most of this country, the modem has a wire that goes to a box that converts the copper from your computer and phone to fibre. It is still a "landline". All that has changed is it is glass instead of copper and the boxes down the road have to allow for it. If it isn't a landline it is 3G or 4G or 5G and is the equivalent of glorified WiFi and called cell phones. And their coverage is limited in lots of the country. The "boxes down the road"? Things used to use relays and rotary switching. All of that is now transistorised so we're talking technology upgrading and finally glass instead of copper. "Once the PSTN is completely switched off, if not before, you will be unable to make a phone call via a landline with no internet connection." Are they sure? I could have "landline", not cell phone, and not have internet. A terminology problem? "But Ben Wood, of CCS Insight, says: "For the vast majority of people, the landline is now just an annoying tax they have to pay when they want internet access." " So how else are they getting their internet? By cell phone? Yes, they can but fibre will probably be much quicker. Power cuts - yes, this is the problem keeping your in-house wire to fibre box going. Readers here being model plane flyers and probably just about all are RC, a 12 volt LiPo with the correct plug will keep things going. Yes, I have adaptors somewhere lying around but so few power cuts here it isn't important. A decade ago when we had a major earthquake they were saying look on the internet for information. How? No power so no internet and certainly no desktop computers. OK, a UPS with a big battery is all you really need but what about down the road, does all of that have enough battery power available? For how long? Basically it is terminology and the misuse of it. Exactly the same as "social distancing" when they mean "physical distancing".

Polite? Polite!!!! WHAT!!!! They are wasting your time and trying to rip you off, be rude.... or blunt about it.

The game is to see how long you can keep them on the phone to save someone else from being annoyed by them. I don't bother getting up to go to the computer but always complain it just crashed again, and again... Especially as I don't run Microsoft it will obviously be a scam... again. I did ask once, couldn't under stand what was being said, did they have someone who spoke English. She hung up immediately.

In New Zealand I always tell visitors it never snows before 1 January and never after 31 December. We had 6" of snow down south one Boxing Day a few decades ago. Remember, Xmas is mid summer here. This year when we were there, February, snow on the peaks while in Fiordland. Floods, yes while Germany was under water we had a couple of areas with flooding. Other times the sky will be reddish with smoke from Australia.

Arrh, that explains it, forgotten there are places with really cold bits of the year. Yes, it does get as cold or colder further south of here.

You are saying they don't have a watering can with just water in it? You are saying you have to pay for water? I only fill with clean water... and it works.... free.... If the windscreen is dirty I wash it with the free scrubber while filling with petrol.

When you have near a year of updates wiping screen and print drivers and then finally in October 2018 wiping all the data and reverting from Win10 to Win7... AND it happening to near a million people round the world, I certainly don't have any love of Windows or Microsoft. A product that you have to pay for that can't be relied on is just not on, especially when there are totally free systems that are totally reliable and are easier to use.

Install LibreOffice (FREE) and use that. It also allows editing of PDFs. Export, not Save after editing. And of course the obvious answer is to use Linux Mint to make it easy to change over too.

Those tools might have been handy but long nosed pliers were often the substitute. Mentioned above - Murphy radios, Strowger equipment as in private telephone exchanges. Yes to both. I started as a radio and TV servicing apprentice and later worked for Plessey at one time, from tape recorders (dictaphones), private telephone exchanges, VHF radios. As for exchanges, simply go out and fix them. Know anything about them? No, just go and fix it. I ended up working at a university on everything from designing and building DC supplies to fixing xray machines. Of a technology period to have worked in, it was probably the best. Design and build it. In a decade or so's time, buy it off the shelf.

You were lucky. I only had a rotary hoe to use. No recoil starter, you had to re-wrap the starter rope for each pull. Our first rotary hoe was really too big for me, handles about nose high. The next one was much smaller but wheels the same width as the rotor so needed to be held up to stop it falling over into the previously hoed row. We had 5 acres, half in bush which mean carrying winter firewood timber out on one's shoulder to father who was running the large circular saw. We did have mudflats to row and sail on or catch an outgoing tide in winter, bare feet crunching the ice as you stomped across the mud to launch. Then head out to the open sea for the day. No radio, not communications. There were two rules, be home for dinner, don't drown yourself. Oh, a third rule - obey the other two rules.

Passwords - I do to a spreadsheet, stored on a backup disk and it can be printed and stored. A copy off site would bypass a fire. No virus could corrupt the paper, only mice or woodworms to worry about. Then again, you could chip them as runes in rock for perpetuity....? When entering a new password, making one up, I'll type in in Note Book/Text Editor or some-such text only, then copy and paste, especially when it has to be put in twice and all you see are black dots. An existing password to be re-entered, you can see if you have typed it correctly before pasting it.

Depending on the browser you use in Windows, usually you can export the bookmarks in a file and import them to Firefox on Linux. Note I said "usually". I'm fairly sure I've done it a few times before. You would of course have to do it in Windows and then save the file somewhere, USB stick or .....

It might show whether a BIOS problem or not. Burn a Linux Mint iso to a spare USB stick and boot up with that. You will need to go to the BIOS and tell it the first boot item is the USB stick. Once booted, can all disks be seen? If they can it tends to say not a BIOS problem. If they can't all be seen it might mean anything, BIOS or system. It certainly won't break anything but might indicate something.

Now you've brought in global warming "a goldfish swimming calmly around the pole." There are bicyclists and bicyclists. At times I was doing well over 10,000 km a year. One rode with eyes open. Yes I hit a few cars, cars turning in front of me with out (them) looking. A cat running under the front wheel on a dark night. At least one car door in a very narrow busy street. Black ice on a cold morning. At least I'd learned how to fall, tuck & roll, so didn't damage myself.

Sheet balsa, well it is wood and paper is wood so we are only haggling over how much processing has been done to the "wood". But Yes, agreed.

A great pity you can't send hardware down the internet otherwise I could probably have fixed it. I'm quite sure it wouldn't fit down fibre..... get jammed in one of those little plug-in connectors probably.....?

Have you looked inside the power supply? A common fault is capacitors losing capacity. If any capacitor has a slightly bulged top then it is on the way out or dead. Admittedly I have had recently a perfect looking capacitor that had lost all capacity. Also if looking at capacitors, is there a small one hiding behind a bit of wiring? Had that too.

I had a problem only slightly different, hard to start, OK sometimes loss of power after a while. The coil, change it and at least that is one item of a reasonable age out of the way. That's what fixed my problem.