A customer is referred to me via a department store. He needs his new laptop plugged in and setup… and if possible, setup his broadband connection.

This can end up being very simple, or quite complex. So I’ll see what happens when I get there.

Once there, I find (as expected) the laptop barely out of the box. However, the customer tells me that he bought it to replace the old system that got zapped by lightning.

So the good news it that the broadband connection should be quick to setup… since the modem is still working from the prior pc… just swap the the old usb cable with a proper utp network cable from laptop to modem.

I start the laptop & complete configuring win xp. Once complete, I connect the internet & start running updates. While this is happening, I notice Norton IS hasn’t started automatically (as it usually does), so I decide to avoid mucking around with norton & install antivir (http://www.free-av.com/), once the windows updates complete & the system is restarted (twice, since the winxp updates needed two rounds of updates), norton then decides to show up… grrr.

Customer prefers norton, so I disable antivir & let norton complete its VERY lengthy update process (one of the many reasons I don’t like norton).

While norton is busy choking the broadband connection, I also try to setup outlook xpress with minimal user information… A quick (ok then: slow due to norton) browse of the ISP website, and I find the pop & smtp server information that I need.

At this point, I decide to finish by connecting the laser printer & the parallel port zip drive (client uses the zip drive for backups, but doesn’t have any cardridges… Ben has them… Ben is the customers usual IT support guy, but he is away for a while, so it looks like i’m taking his place).

I must be going blind: I just cannot find the parallel port. This laptop has all the ports a computer could ask for, even firewire & a multi-flash card reader… but no LPT port!

This is the first time I have ever seen a pc without a LPT port. I can understand an ultralight ultraportable not having some port, in order to lose some weight, but this beast is a widescreen job, with 3 cooling fans underneath, and overall quite heavy.

It has an expansion port, which might plug into a docking station (with parallel port), so we call the dept store, only to be told by the salesman that there is no LPT port available for this model. I think: salesmen are not technicians, so he could be wrong.

I tell the client that I cannot do anymore at the moment, but I’ll research some options for him.

Overall, I managed to do most things. Its just the printer & zip drive that need some “fixing”.

After a lot of searching, I find that:

1) The zd8000 has no LPT port.
2) The expansion port plugs into a weird-looking docking station (also with no LPT port). Take a look at: http://reviews.cnet.com/HP_xb2000_notebook_expansion_base/4505-3019_7-31228661.html
3) It is possible to get a PCMCIA card with an LPT port attached, but its a lot more expensive than you might expect ($300 !)
4) The other alternative is to get a new printer, but thats even more expensive.
5) Another option would be to return the laptop & demand a different one (one that has an LPT port).

I have given these options to the customer. He will think about them & get back to me in a few days time.

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 8:57 PM EST

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I’ve been quite busy over the Xmas / new year period, so updating this blog has been very patchy.

I’ve also had some requests for new PCs & to upgrade old hardware to “newer” low-cost hardware (ie used PCs).

As part of my company “Marketing” I would place a “Computer Aid” sticker on these PCs (and on any I worked on at home).

I’ve now taken this up a notch & started tinkering with the startup images of XP & win98 & also inserted my web site (http://www.computeraid.net.au) into their web browsers home pages.

I have found the win XP software by stardock (bootskin) an excellent way to replace the windows XP startup logo with my Computer Aid logo. Take a look at: http://www.stardock.com/products/bootskin

Of course the customers are free to change the startup screen to whatever they want afterwards.

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 11:47 AM EST

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Customer calls, saying that the sound on her PC doesn’t work & she would like to fix it, as her son would like to play some of the games he got for christmas.

She’s got broadband & runs winXP, so this sound like an easy fix sound card drivers, or maybe install new card, & possibly download drivers from the net.

So I take some extra sound cards with me, & when I get there, I see that XP is running very slow, & I’m told the the internet connection stopped working a few days ago. A quick ctrl-alt-del shows that spyware is running rampant, & using 3 different login accounts (each with access permissions, so that each account cannot “spy” on the other) makes eradicating the malware more time-consuming.

I decide to take the PC home & I’m given another PC with a broken power button, & am asked if I can fix it too.

The power button is easy, it lost a spring, but rather than dismantle the button, I open up the PC & swap the power & reset buttons, so the the reset button is now “broken”. This PC Also has Malware, so I clean it up.

The first PC is another story: The son tried to re-install windows XP, but actually installed it onto the recovery partition (with only 5Gb of space, it was running out of space very quickly.).

So I decide to go back to the original XP partition & make that the default boot OS. I then clean up all the spyware, copy some settings from the “new” xp install, install Ewido, ad aware, antivir (http://www.free-av.com/), startup monitor, & do some tuning. I also spend some time explaining that they need to be carefull about what they download & install.

Posted by Computer Help as Technical at 6:30 PM EST

2 Comments »