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  #106  
Old December 2nd 17, 06:05 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Rene Lamontagne
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Posts: 2,549
Default Dell computer with no input

On 12/02/2017 10:12 AM, philo wrote:
On 11/28/2017 09:27 AM, Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 11/28/2017 9:08 AM, philo wrote:
On 11/27/2017 01:06 PM, Mathedman wrote:
Â*Â*Dell computer with no input capability!
My wife just bought a New Dell "all in one" computer.
But the thing is bizarre. It has no DVD drive,
nor place to install one. It has one USB port ---
but the computer does not recognize anything plugged
into the USB slot !
Â*Â* Further more, it has Windows 10 installed which
doesn't have "Control Panel (at least none I could find)
Â*Â* So how do we do anything? We can access internet sites
It doesn't even have Internet Explorer!
Â*Â*So what to do with the thing?



I looked at the specs for the lowest end Dell I could find and it has
four USB ports.

I suspect you are doing something wrong


I suspect Mayayna is right, And she bought a tablet with keyboard.

Rene




Perhaps so.

I never saw the point of a tablet.


I bought one more out of curiosity than anything and to take photos for
my Wife who couldn't get around much, Also Staples had this 10.1 inch
Digital2 with Windows 8.1 on it for $129.00 cdn.
I have barely used it since my Dear wife passed away and it sits on the
shelf with the keyboard and mouse which I needed, I have large hands and
that touch screen just does not cut it.
I pull it out about once a month to charge the battery and let it update
Windows.
Too many cons and not enough pros for me, Someday I will give it away to
some needy person.

Rene


Ads
  #107  
Old December 2nd 17, 06:10 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
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Posts: 11,873
Default Dell computer with no input

Mayayana wrote:

After that I went back to only Memorex, to be on the safe side.
I'd heard rumors that all of them were made by the same 2 companies.


You don't need rumors.

Using Imgburn, it gives the media tag and the "claimed"
manufacturer.

For example, the Verbatims I used to get here were "Ritek".
There is "Ritek" and "Taiyo Yuden", as two examples of
decent actual manufacturers.

Each actual manufacturer has a track record on
quality and retention.

The brands you see, they buy product in bulk, and put
their name on the box. But what's inside is marked by
the media tag, giving the true source.

As far as that media tag goes, there has also been fraud.
A company making media, where their own brand is tarnished
because of bad product, can put "Taiyo Yuden" on the media
tag, and when they don't burn right, Taiyo Yuden gets the
blame.

The media tag should indicate the speed range. Like
say "4X to 12X speed". At 12X, the laser power will need
to be higher to burn a bit, because the dwell time is lower.

The drives run in CAV and CLV (constant angular velocity
and constant linear velocity). And this might play a part
in the shape of the error curve later.

When you scan freshly burned media for "raw" errors, there
are characteristic shapes to the error curve. Reed Solomon
error correction can safely read back data when the
graph shows "1000 errors" on the left axis. Once you
get to the 10,000 error level, things become iffy.
Maybe good media is around 10 errors on the left axis
of the graph. No media makes zero raw errors. And the
three dimensional Reed Solomon interleave method
does an excellent job of fixing the flaky nature
of the media. The scheme works quite well, except
if you try to archive something, and the error scan
is up around 2,000, and when you scan in a few months,
it's hitting 10,000. You don't really know how stable
the media is, until you check the error scan over time.
You want good initial burns, in the hope that in
actual fact the media is stable. Maybe a CDRW you burned
at 10 today, is only hitting 1000 in 20 years time.
You really have no idea on what the stability is like,
for the defective stuff.

There are medias defined (by their supplier) as "archival
quality", and for those, they pretend there is something
special about the starting materials. For example, some
media used to use a "gold colored" layer, and people would
rave about how good those would be. M-Disc is an example
of polycarbonate discs with an entirely different active
material inside, where the manufacturer raves about the
chemical used. (Drives today may be "listed" to burn
M-Discs, so its a term you can look for in the specs,
like looking for LightScribe support.) Lightscribe was
a chemical layer that turns color when blasted by the
laser, and the user can place a monochrome label on the
disc after the data burn is complete. Lightscribe gets
darker, the more times you burn the pattern into the disc.
(It means applying a label can take just as long as
the data burn itself, doubling your production time.)

Paul
  #108  
Old December 2nd 17, 06:40 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
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Posts: 2,679
Default Dell computer with no input (now CD writing)

In message , Paul
writes:
[]
rave about how good those would be. M-Disc is an example
of polycarbonate discs with an entirely different active
material inside, where the manufacturer raves about the
chemical used. (Drives today may be "listed" to burn
M-Discs, so its a term you can look for in the specs,
like looking for LightScribe support.) Lightscribe was
a chemical layer that turns color when blasted by the
laser, and the user can place a monochrome label on the
disc after the data burn is complete. Lightscribe gets
darker, the more times you burn the pattern into the disc.
(It means applying a label can take just as long as
the data burn itself, doubling your production time.)

[]
Isn't Lightscribe on the other side of the disc?

I've not seen lightscribe discs for sale for years - are they still
made? And, although I made sure to get a lightscribe-capable drive last
time I bought one (the external one for this machine), I've never loaded
any special softwa presumably you need to do so to design (and burn?)
the labels. (You say they get darker the more times you burn them: does
that mean that that side of the discs have an absolute start point the
burner can detect, so you _can_ burn them a second and subsequent time,
and they line up? And if that's true - and sounds as if it should be -
then presumably _that_ part of the burn _would_ be more effective if
done at a slower speed.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

The best way to achieve immortality is by not dying.
  #109  
Old December 2nd 17, 06:40 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Char Jackson
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Posts: 10,449
Default Dell computer with no input

On Sat, 2 Dec 2017 10:12:16 -0600, philo wrote:

I never saw the point of a tablet.


I always take a small 8" Samsung Galaxy Tab with me when I travel. It's
great for watching video while I'm in an airport or flying. I could use
my phone for that, but I've gotten into the habit of using a separate
device so that my phone still has battery life when I arrive. I also
travel with a high capacity battery charger, but that wasn't always the
case, and I still like the larger screen and the fact that I'm not using
my phone.

While at home, the tablet is on the coffee table in the living room.
When I'm watching the news and they say something happened in Wiseacre,
Wyoming, I pick up the tablet to see where the heck that is. I came from
a small town and I've always been interested in other small towns.

The tablet also serves as a secondary remote for the TV, the stereo, the
Roku, and a source for commercial-free music via Bluetooth.

As others have pointed out, you're probably not going to be a content
*creator* on a device like that, but it's excellent as a content
consumer.

--

Char Jackson
  #110  
Old December 2nd 17, 06:41 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Dell computer with no input

Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 12/01/2017 05:14 PM, Ken Blake wrote:

[snip]

I know a man who has used AOL for umpteen years. What's strange about
it is that his technical knowledge and skills are generally very
good.


I had AOL for awhile but left in 1998 (IIRC, that was also the last time
I sent a fax).

BTW, AOL was supporting "X2" (so-called 56Kbps modems). The local ISP I
switched to had not yet, but internet access was still twice as fast.


AFAIK, 56K is 56K down and 33K up. (See Wikipedia V90 and V92
articles for more details. We never got V92 here as far as
I know. I don't think any providers switched over to
V92 support.)

One direction is a bit special, in that the signal is
only converted to analog form in the last hop, and that
preserves signal quality. (I keep getting the blasted
directions wrong when drawing diagrams for this, and
I hope I got it right this time :-) )

digital trunk analog
Pool --------------- Central Office ------- 56K down
near my house \ /
\ /
no degradation download 56K quality issues
are in this section

If the pool operator used analog trunks, then degradation
would start on the left of the diagram, and the rates
would start at 33K down and drop according to conditions.
The end modems will keep gearing down until the
characteristics are good enough to maintain the
session.

Using the modem Hayes AT strings, you
can even program what standards the modem is
allowed to select during negotiation (program
for "all-or-nothing"). I don't really consider
that to be practical though, as the scheme has
some plusses and minuses. It's better to
let the modem just seek its own water level,
and read the connect rate off your screen,
and then decide whether to drop the line
and retry.

The "hunt" behavior at the pool end,
is supposed to cause you to get a different
modem each time you call, so after only a
few tries, you eventually avoid the "duff"
modems and get one that is still functional.
Some pools don't have good maintenance and
a duff modem can sit in the pool for weeks
without getting attention.

Paul
  #111  
Old December 2nd 17, 07:03 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Mayayana
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,438
Default Dell computer with no input

"Paul" wrote

| After that I went back to only Memorex, to be on the safe side.
| I'd heard rumors that all of them were made by the same 2 companies.
|
| You don't need rumors.
|
| Using Imgburn, it gives the media tag and the "claimed"
| manufacturer.
|
| For example, the Verbatims I used to get here were "Ritek".
| There is "Ritek" and "Taiyo Yuden", as two examples of
| decent actual manufacturers.
|

Is that better than rumors, though? My disks say
"CMC MAG". I can't know that until after I buy them.
If I look it up online I find posts in chat groups that
say various things. I didn't find any definitive reviews.
Half-baked "top 10" sites seem to say Verbatim is
best. How do they know? They don't say. I found no
hint of anyone having done official testing.


  #112  
Old December 2nd 17, 07:03 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Nil[_5_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,731
Default Dell computer with no input (now CD writing speed)

On 02 Dec 2017, "J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote
in alt.windows7.general:

I'm curious, though, especially as you say you have experience to
back it up, why faster should be more reliable than slower.


I don't know the technical reasons, but it seems to me like a
reasonable proposition. The media is manufactured to work optimally at
a certain speed, and it works best when the writer respects that. It
would probably burn OK at any speed that's mentioned on the package,
but there seems to be no disadvantage to burning it at the highest
rated speed.
  #113  
Old December 2nd 17, 07:23 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Dell computer with no input

Mayayana wrote:
"Paul" wrote

| After that I went back to only Memorex, to be on the safe side.
| I'd heard rumors that all of them were made by the same 2 companies.
|
| You don't need rumors.
|
| Using Imgburn, it gives the media tag and the "claimed"
| manufacturer.
|
| For example, the Verbatims I used to get here were "Ritek".
| There is "Ritek" and "Taiyo Yuden", as two examples of
| decent actual manufacturers.
|

Is that better than rumors, though? My disks say
"CMC MAG". I can't know that until after I buy them.
If I look it up online I find posts in chat groups that
say various things. I didn't find any definitive reviews.
Half-baked "top 10" sites seem to say Verbatim is
best. How do they know? They don't say. I found no
hint of anyone having done official testing.


They review drives.

https://www.myce.com/review/LG-GH22L...00/features-2/

The second plot from the bottom, shows "trouble".
So now I know that MCC or Mitsubishi might be an issue.
Or, it could be the drive doesn't recognize the MCC
tag and didn't handle the writes well.

https://www.myce.com/review/LG-GH22L...performance-4/

In those articles, the DUT (LG product) does the writes,
while a Liteon does the quality (read-verify) scans. This is
because KProbe software runs on Liteon drives, and gives access
to a certain raw error indicator. Other brands of drive,
you couldn't use KProbe on it, and there are other
error indicators that are less preferred ones. As a
consequence, people who do these reviews, have to
acquire a Liteon known to still be in good
condition, to use for scans.

If you browse the myce forums, you'll see what tags
they're looking for, and where they've found desirable
product recently. With the decline in optical media
usage, you cannot expect a large signal to noise
ratio now.

I didn't see anything at my computer store recently
that I "recognize", which is why I ended up coming
home with some CMC in a bag. There was no Verbatim
on the shelf. And at Staples, they were innundated
with "Staples brand" media - they used to stock Verbatim
on their shelves too.

I thought it was so cool, when about three years ago,
actual Ritek discs with Ritek packaging showed up
on my good computer store shelves. But all of those
have disappeared, so I guess Ritek didn't get the
level of sales they expected.

Paul
  #114  
Old December 2nd 17, 08:04 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default Dell computer with no input (now CD writing speed)

In message , Nil
writes:
On 02 Dec 2017, "J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote
in alt.windows7.general:

I'm curious, though, especially as you say you have experience to
back it up, why faster should be more reliable than slower.


I don't know the technical reasons, but it seems to me like a
reasonable proposition. The media is manufactured to work optimally at
a certain speed, and it works best when the writer respects that. It
would probably burn OK at any speed that's mentioned on the package,
but there seems to be no disadvantage to burning it at the highest
rated speed.


I would disagree: the media is designed such that, up to a certain
speed, it will work with an acceptable number of errors - i. e. if you
try to use it above that speed, you're on your own. But I don't think
that means it is _best_ at that speed, only that it will probably _work_
at that speed (because people want high speeds). I still think slower
will make a better burn - sharper edges between burn and no burn, deeper
blacks (or whatever) in the burns. Like the frequency response of an
audio system (say tape) - the highest frequency is the highest it _can_
reproduce at all (above say -3dB), not the frequency it reproduces best.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

It is complete loose-stool-water, it is arse-gravy of the worst kind
- Stephen Fry on "The Da Vinci Code"
  #115  
Old December 2nd 17, 08:17 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Rene Lamontagne
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,549
Default Dell computer with no input (now CD writing speed)

On 12/02/2017 1:04 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Nil
writes:
On 02 Dec 2017, "J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote
in alt.windows7.general:

I'm curious, though, especially as you say you have experience to
back it up, why faster should be more reliable than slower.


I don't know the technical reasons, but it seems to me like a
reasonable proposition. The media is manufactured to work optimally at
a certain speed, and it works best when the writer respects that. It
would probably burn OK at any speed that's mentioned on the package,
but there seems to be no disadvantage to burning it at the highest
rated speed.


I would disagree: the media is designed such that, up to a certain
speed, it will work with an acceptable number of errors - i. e. if you
try to use it above that speed, you're on your own. But I don't think
that means it is _best_ at that speed, only that it will probably _work_
at that speed (because people want high speeds). I still think slower
will make a better burn - sharper edges between burn and no burn, deeper
blacks (or whatever) in the burns. Like the frequency response of an
audio system (say tape) - the highest frequency is the highest it _can_
reproduce at all (above say -3dB), not the frequency it reproduces best.


I have had many cases when burning at rated speed gave me bad burns,
Cutting back to one half or one quarter speed gave me a good burn, A
couple minutes more was well worth it.
For me slower is always better.

Rene
  #116  
Old December 2nd 17, 08:54 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Ken Blake[_5_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,221
Default Dell computer with no input

On Sat, 2 Dec 2017 10:12:16 -0600, philo wrote:


I never saw the point of a tablet.




Small and light, so easy to travel with.

But a smart phone is even smaller and lighter, and I now use mine
instead of my tablet.
  #117  
Old December 2nd 17, 08:57 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Ken Blake[_5_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,221
Default Dell computer with no input

On Fri, 01 Dec 2017 23:13:10 -0600, Char Jackson
wrote:


I don't personally consider internal drives to be at significant risk.
I'm going to need some really bad experiences before I change my mind. I
think external drives are at a much higher risk. I know most folks here
won't agree with that, but that's what my experience has shown me.



If you mean external drive are at a higher *physical* risk, I agree
with you. Besides having all the same risks as internal drives, they
are also at risk of being dropped and broken.
  #118  
Old December 2nd 17, 09:14 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
pjp[_10_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,183
Default Dell computer with no input (now CD writing)

In article , says...

In message , Paul
writes:
[]
rave about how good those would be. M-Disc is an example
of polycarbonate discs with an entirely different active
material inside, where the manufacturer raves about the
chemical used. (Drives today may be "listed" to burn
M-Discs, so its a term you can look for in the specs,
like looking for LightScribe support.) Lightscribe was
a chemical layer that turns color when blasted by the
laser, and the user can place a monochrome label on the
disc after the data burn is complete. Lightscribe gets
darker, the more times you burn the pattern into the disc.
(It means applying a label can take just as long as
the data burn itself, doubling your production time.)

[]
Isn't Lightscribe on the other side of the disc?

I've not seen lightscribe discs for sale for years - are they still
made? And, although I made sure to get a lightscribe-capable drive last
time I bought one (the external one for this machine), I've never loaded
any special softwa presumably you need to do so to design (and burn?)
the labels. (You say they get darker the more times you burn them: does
that mean that that side of the discs have an absolute start point the
burner can detect, so you _can_ burn them a second and subsequent time,
and they line up? And if that's true - and sounds as if it should be -
then presumably _that_ part of the burn _would_ be more effective if
done at a slower speed.)


I used Lightscribe a fair amount for a more or less personal music cd of
myself playing guitar. Was nice could give frinds etc. a copy of the
disk that looked professional, e.g. in a case with cover etc. and a disk
looked store bought.

VERY HARD to find any Lightscribe disks anymore. I liked them and still
have a couple drives with burn them. Note you had to turn them over to
burn the image side and Yes it took awhile, like 20 Min.
  #120  
Old December 2nd 17, 09:52 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Char Jackson
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,449
Default Dell computer with no input

On Sat, 2 Dec 2017 05:55:47 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Char Jackson
writes:


some attributions removed
where-as with flashdrives and hard disks it tends to be an all
or nothing affair with limited number of attempts.

[]
I have a large-ish Ziploc bag of them, some going back to about 2002
that were handed out by people (vendors) who wanted my help to get their


Those (1G or 2G - or possibly even smaller) are probably quite reliable.
(See Paul's past posts [Ppp!] for why - bits per cell.)

stuff into the corporate network. Someday I should use or write a
program that just writes data in a loop until they die.


Why destroy them deliberately?


Because the past 15 years tells me that I have no use for them, (they're
way too small for anything practical by today's standards), and I think
it would be interesting to see the failure modes. Until then, they just
stay in the bag, serving no purpose. I do have 3 64GB flash drives and a
128GB that I use on a regular basis, but the others are too small to be
practical. There are a smattering of 128MB and 256MB, then it goes up
(slightly!) from there to 1GB and 2GB. I didn't buy any of the small
ones; they were all freebies from potential vendors. The only ones I
bought were the 4 bigger ones.

[]
My server here has 40TB of internal storage, about 38TB usable after
formatting, and I have it configured as a single volume. It would be
nice to bump that to at least 80TB so that I'd have some breathing room.
I have a stack of 10 2TB drives that I've pulled out of a second PC, but
what can a person do with such small drives these days? Not much, so
they stay stacked in a drawer for now.

You're either winding me up, or you have _very_ different requirements
than I! I've never had a drive as big as 2T. What _do_ you handle that
takes all that space (-:?


The biggest offender is video, as you'd imagine, but there's a lot of
work product, as well. There's only a few TB's still available, so
unless I grow the farm I'll have to let some stuff go.

--

Char Jackson
 




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