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October 24, 2007

Learning to live with HP

We are aware that Bleeding Edge’s reputation as a PC brand basher may be at stake since we began fitting out the spouse’s office. What with our shopping forays on the Gray’s Online auction site which we wrote about recently, the premises seem to have become a Hewlett Packard showroom.

Apart from the cheap LaserJet 3005DN network printer, and the networked colour LaserJet 2840 printer/scanner/fax we mentioned then, last week we snapped up a couple of Intel-powered HP Compaq DX7300 PCs – one a Core 2 Duo and the other a D915 - in a frenetic round of last-minute bidding.

With auction charges and delivery fees, they cost less than $600 each, and with the operating system DVDs included in the price, and the possibility that 12 months free support might be worth having in a small business environment, we decided we couldn’t do better with the white box alternatives we usually buy.

The bonus was that it would also allow us to do a longer-term comparison of the retail PC option which the average user seems to prefer, with the Bleeding Edge workhorse PC alternative which, judging from our email, thousands of our readers have apparently chosen.

One of our HP purchases came with a Windows XP Pro SP2 DVD, which is what we’ve standardised on as the most reliable version of Windows. The OEM version, which we would have had to buy with our whitebox components, would have cost around $180.

The second PC shipped with a Windows Vista Business DVD. We’re not thrilled with Vista, but we gambled on being able to downgrade that to XP Pro. Since August, Microsoft has been allowing the big manufacturers to offer XP discs to their Vista Business and Vista Ultimate customers, and an HP spokesman has indicated the switch can be made for “little or no charge”.

We’ll be writing about our experience on that matter next week, but we can tell you that at the time this column was being prepared, none of the Indian gentlemen we talked to on the incredibly polite support line seemed to be aware of it. In the meantime, we will be doing our best to improve their knowledge on this, and other issues.

We don’t recommend buying PCs without an operating system CD/DVD, but a lot of people seem perfectly happy to do so. The first thing we’d do, in that case – provided the system came with Windows XP - would be to create a set-up CD using the information here.

It’s likely to prove very handy, if only for quickly removing all the pre-loaded junk on new PCs from manufacturers like HP and Dell.

Even if you do have a Windows XP installation CD, you might check out this site, which shows you how to use Bart Lagerweij’s Pre-Installed Environment (a.k.a. Bart PE) to create a live bootable CD/DVD.

It gives you a complete Win32 environment with network support, a graphical user interface (800x600) and FAT/NTFS/CDFS file system support, which is a great replacement for a boot disk if you’re burning in a system, virus scanning or rescuing files to a network share.

Our new HP environment gave us the opportunity to trial the free HP help line, when we suddenly found we couldn’t print to the LaserJet 3005D over the network. We were confronted with an error message that informed us that “the spooler subsystem app has encountered a problem and needs to close”.

Not only did it close, it seemed to take all the printer drivers in the Printers and Faxes area of the Control Panel out to lunch. We tried re-booting, then clearing the print queue for each printer, but every time we tried to print, the error message popped up, and all the print drivers disappeared again. Worse, the problem also struck the other PCs networked to the printer.

We did several Google searches and discovered that while several users had experienced the problem, none of the solutions in the Microsoft Knowledgebase and on other public forums seemed to help. Their advice to edit the Registry and/or reinstall the drivers – on each PC – didn’t appeal to us.

We rang the HP help line, and talked to an extremely helpful gentleman in Bangalore, called Mark. (It’s a good idea, in our experience, to take a note of the name of these people when you call, because you might need to refer to them when you find yourself being transferred, or ask to escalate the call. Bleeding Edge, by the way, is never shy about escalating the call.)

Unfortunately, Mark seemed to have been furnished with a list of possible solutions that took us through entering services.msc in the Start/Run dialogue box, stopping the print spooler then restarting it, then proceeded to removing the printer driver, downloading another copy, and reinstalling it, and wasn’t prepared to depart from it.

While we decided to humour Mark and go through the procedure on one PC, we were not about to replicate it throughout the network, particularly given our discovery that the uninstall option on the HP Programs menu doesn’t remove all the printer files, and you have to hunt around your drive to find other things to zap. If you’re reading this, HP, you need to do a little more work on your uninstall procedure.

Instead, we did something we should have done in the first place. We headed to the HP users forum and rummaged around the postings, which is something the HP tech support department should probably be doing too. We struck paydirt in one of the hints.

It alerted us to the possibility that what we were dealing with was more of a network error than a spooler issue.
We’d already used the printer’s console to print out a configuration page, which gave us its network address. We right-clicked on the LaserJet’s icon in the Printers and Fax area (Start/Printers and Faxes) and selected the Ports tab under Properties. While the port did have a check mark, we discovered that the DHCP server had assigned it a different address from the one it had been allocated at installation, and although the option “Always print to this device even if its IP address changes” was ticked, it clearly hadn’t worked.

We changed the IP address, and we again had a working network printer. Maybe Bleeding Edge could learn to live with these brands, after all.

Posted by cw at 03:49 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Putting a cap on Telstra

We thought we'd posted this a few months ago, but having just had an email from someone looking for it on the site, apparently not. So ... here we go:

It took some time for the Bleeding Edge family to realise we were being stalked by our mobile phone bills.

In the past, your columnist has avoided monthly financial disasters, possibly because, being required to answer so many calls from people calling in, we don’t often have the time to dial out.

In January, for instance, our Telstra MobileNet bill was just $31.81. We had made only 29 paid calls, for a total of $20.25. (On the monthly business group plan we share with the Bleeding Edge spouse, the other 35 calls we had made to her mobile were free). The bill was padded out by one SMS message, 29 forwarded calls, and one call to MessageBank.

Our usage disguised the poor value that Telstra’s Mobile Business Group packages generally represent, even allowing us to contribute the admittedly tiny balance of our monthly call allowance to the Bleeding Edge spouse, whose profession demands a good deal more talking and texting. What with call transfers and MessageBank, her $70 business package has never been quite enough.

In January, her total bill reached $117.63, prompting us to talk to MobileNet about a more economical plan. Our thoughtful Telstra consultant suggested her calling pattern indicated she’d get better value from Telstra’s Business 80 plan.

Bleeding Edge was possibly lulled into a false sense of security, because in February our bill shot up to $60.82, after we dropped $40.86 on 42 calls. We’d also splurged on SMS texting, firing off 56 messages worth $12.73. That month, the spouse’s bill seemed to be on the way down, with her share of the joint bill coming in at $90.36.

At that point, things got completely out of hand. In March, Bleeding Edge spent $66.90 on idle chat, which seemed absurdly restrained, compared to the bill that arrived for our marital partner: $266.55 … more than double the January charge, and roughly 300 per cent up on the previous month.

In April, while our paid calls returned to a more normal 34 at $22.53, for a total of $31.35, our life’s companion had spent another $199.98. In May she was on her way to a new record. In just 25 days her bill had reached $229.13.

That was when we had another chat to a friendly Telstra consultant, and discovered the existence of capped plans. We suspect a lot of Telstra MobileNet users are similarly ignorant of the existence of what we regard as financial rescue packages, because … well … we Telstra MobileNet users tend to be financial innocents who regard it as our duty to keep those constantly complaining Telstra shareholders happy about their investment.

Optus users, Vodafone users, Virgin users, and most particularly 3 users, have been happily enjoying the benefits of capping for several years. They understand that capped plans charge a flat monthly fee – generally from around $29 to $70, but for particularly talkative people as much as $149 and even $179 – for a “bucket” of call credits.

On a $30 plan, for instance, you might obtain $300 worth of calls. The trick is to know how many cents you’re paying for those precious seconds, and whether some services – SMS messaging for instance – attract an extra charge. Provided you stay below the nominated limit, you can save a lot of money. Unfortunately, as a lot of complaints to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman indicate, you can also end up paying a lot more than you expected. In one case, for instance, a woman on a $30 plan which offered $300 worth of calls was presented with a monthly bill for $850. She ended up paying half that, when the ombudsman ordered her to split the difference with the telco.

As with most of its services, Telstra’s capped plans tend to be less generous than those of its competitors. It maintains our loyalty only because its geographical coverage is vastly better.

But after months of sticker shock, we’re being particularly careful with the spouse’s new $79 monthly capped plan, which supposedly delivers $550 of value. We know that Telstra has an ingenious currency converter which can make $550 worth substantially less than on 3, for instance.

Specifically, the fact that the Telstra cap bills in 30-second increments makes it less economical than plans which charge in per-second increments. And the 35c flag fall and call rate of 30c per 30 seconds will quickly mount up if we exceed the cap.

That’s why we’ve registered our account with telstra.com, and routinely check our bill online. It’s by no means easy to register with telstra.com, largely because, as we discovered, Telstra seems to have several different account numbers for the same account, and frequently supply you with the wrong details. It also tends to include phone numbers that aren’t Telstra services, and refuses to accept numbers which emphatically ARE Telstra numbers.

But if your bank account is going to peacefully co-exist with Telstra’s desire to deplete it as quickly as possible, it is worth taking an hour or [sigh] two, to speak with a friendly Telstra customer representative and get your billing details registered online. The information and services it offers is genuinely impressive. We particularly like the ability to preview your call charges before they are billed. This is vital information when you’re being stalked by your phone bill.

Posted by cw at 03:42 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

October 22, 2007

Buying TomTom in Australia

TomTom is one of the best GPS programs around, with clear directions, good maps, and an intuitive interface. However, it's not available to buy for your PDA in Australia. This is a real shame, since there are so many GPS-enabled phones available nowadays, such as my Dopod U1000.

Well, it turns out that it is actually possible to get a copy of TomTom in Australia. You can grab a copy of the software itself straight from their website - you just have to buy the maps. To buy the Australian map, click "Maps" on the left of their home page, then "Buy Now". Select "NAVIGATOR 6" as your product, then "Map of Australia", and then go through the usual checkout process. It'll cost you $150, which is a pretty good deal for such a useful program.

Posted by Jeremy at 12:13 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

October 07, 2007

Patching a system together

The first job in Bleeding Edge’s new role as systems administrator for the Bleeding Edge spouse’s small psychology practice, was to build the system. Frankly, we found it quite nerve-wracking.

We’ve spent a couple of decades in this column forming and dispensing opinions on all sorts of technological matters. We know that networks can give small businesses like the spouse’s substantial cost savings and dramatically increase their productivity. We know that Voice over IP and Internet faxes and SMS messaging for instance, can be deployed over a network to cut phone bills and maximise human resources. But it does tend to concentrate the mind wonderfully when you’re actually backing these theories with not insignificant sums of cash.

We planned to provide PC and VOIP links in three consulting rooms, a group room and a reception area, hook up a LaserJet 3500DN network printer we’d picked up cheaply on the Grays Online auction site, and the Canon DR-2580C fax we wrote about recently.

We’d be using an Internode ADSL2+ Internet connection, which would give us outstanding Internet speeds and the best possible VoIP call quality. To guard against the possibility of interference, we also decided we needed to install a central splitter.

Although Internode has a very good reputation for uptime, we decided that we had to have a fallback to the PSTN line available in every room if the Internet did drop out. We would manage calls through a Linksys SPA3102 Analogue Telephone Adapter. We would handle data connections through a Linksys 16-port switch.

Typically, the scenario kept changing. When the spouse decided she needed a colour printer and copier, we went back to Grays Online and managed to buy a reconditioned HP Colour LaserJet 2840 network colour printer, scanner, copier and fax unit with a 12-month manufacturer’s warranty, for about $600 delivered – little more than a third of the new price.

That meant putting in another Ethernet port and PSTN phone connection, because the data compression used in VoIP connections makes them unsuitable for faxes.

We had to have a licensed installer to fit the central splitter, and because the office is in a Victorian building with thick walls and very little space under the floor, we decided all the cabling would be better installed by a professional.

We used eTechs Communications, largely because they’re recommended by Internode. In addition to installing 15 RJ45 outlets, with what seemed like miles of Cat5 ethernet cable, five PSTN phone ports, a 24-port patch panel and a central splitter from C10 Communications, we got quite an education – professionals can make a jungle of cables and connections look surprisingly neat and tidy - and something of a bonus.

We knew that we’d have to install patch cables to all those outlets, and hook them up to the switch and the ATA via the patch panel with yet more cables.

We priced patch cables at several of the big retailers, including Harris Technology and Dick Smith and at Jaycar. The cheapest 1m lead we could find would have cost us $3.95. A 2m version would have set us back $5.25. We decided that a responsible systems administrator couldn’t fritter away a couple of hundred dollars on leads. Although separating out the pairs in a Cat 5 cable, putting them in the correct order and crimping them is a surprisingly complex task – it’s amazing how those little wires can slip into the wrong track and ruin the job – it seemed to us that no self-respecting systems administrator would spend good money on patch cables when he could make them himself.

Instead, eTechs’ Melbourne installer, Julian, offered us his cable off-cuts, and a cable parer. We already had a crimper and a cable tester we’d picked up for a few dollars on eBay. Although Julian also gave us some RJ45 connectors that allowed us to make some patch cables to test the installation, we needed a lot more to complete our patch cable collection. That’s where we got our first unpleasant surprise.

We priced some RJ45 connectors at Radio Shack. They offered them in packs of eight for $12 - almost the price of four complete cables. We went shopping again. The best local price we could find was at Jaycar: $29.95 for a pack of 50. That still seemed too much.

The best price we could find for a roll of Cat 5 cable was $134.20 (plus GST) at the electricians’ supplier, Middendorp. That would have made the cable component of a 1m patch lead about 50c, with another $1.20 for the connectors.

We took Julian’s advice, and turned to the Internet. We picked up two packs of 100 connectors, with those nice plastic boots included, for $15.98 from one of several Hong Kong suppliers. With $14.98 postage, that reduced our connector cost for each cable to about 30c. Even with the handful of dud cables we managed to turn out before we got the hang of twisting and positioning those little wires, we managed to meet our patch cable requirements for a tiny fraction of what we would have spent on made-up cables.

The experience has given us yet another insight into the characteristics of the responsible system administrator. He tends to have an eye for a bargain. And very sore fingers.

Posted by cw at 12:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack