Thunderbird Set Up Help

VtSkier wrote:

The only hassle I've found is that I forget how
I paid them the year before. It uses a European
credit card service, and since I only use it for
this one payment, it forgets about me and I
have to re-up every year. That would be OK, but
when I re-up and enter my email addy, they say
that that address is already in their system and
I wind up calling the US representative.
A fine waste of half an hour each year.

Dang, you reminded me! It's that Click n Buy thingy... I had it bookmarked
after similar difficulty last year. hard drive shredded itself a few months
back though (common problem with these Toshibas apparently) and lost all
that stuff. I'd better go check my stuff on that is OK.

--
ant
Don't try to reply to my email addy:
I'm borrowing that of the latest
scammer/spammer

ant wrote:

hard drive shredded itself a few months
back though (common problem with these Toshibas apparently) and lost all
that stuff.

In the two years my friend owned her high-end Toshiba notebook it killed its
screen, its motherboard, its hard drive (twice) and its power supply before
Best Buy would finally issue her a "lemon" refund. Fortunately she had
bought the extended warranty and only lost a couple $hundred, which was
easily made up by the decrease in price over the two years.

Notebooks and flat-screen monitors are about the only electronic thing where
the extended warranty makes sense.

--
Cheers,
Bev

Subscribe today to "Fire in the Hole - the Quarterly Journal
for Incinerator Toilet Enthusiasts" -- Andrew

On Oct 28, 6:18 pm, The Real Bev wrote:
ant wrote:
hard drive shredded itself a few months
back though (common problem with these Toshibas apparently) and lost all
that stuff.

In the two years my friend owned her high-end Toshiba notebook it killed its
screen, its motherboard, its hard drive (twice) and its power supply before
Best Buy would finally issue her a "lemon" refund. Fortunately she had
bought the extended warranty and only lost a couple $hundred, which was
easily made up by the decrease in price over the two years.

Notebooks and flat-screen monitors are about the only electronic thing where
the extended warranty makes sense.

--
Cheers,
Bev

Subscribe today to "Fire in the Hole - the Quarterly Journal
for Incinerator Toilet Enthusiasts" -- Andrew

I just bought a Craftsman wood-chipper today. Turned down the
extended warranty. The last one I had I bought used and it lasted me
over 10 years before the engine froze up and I sold it to someone who
wanted to repair it. It even survived my dropping a pair of hardened
hand loppers down the intake chute (I had to replace the gas tank
because it was holed by one of the pieces that came out through the
sheet metal).

The Real Bev wrote:
ant wrote:

hard drive shredded itself a few months
back though (common problem with these Toshibas apparently) and lost
all that stuff.

In the two years my friend owned her high-end Toshiba notebook it
killed its screen, its motherboard, its hard drive (twice) and its
power supply before Best Buy would finally issue her a "lemon"
refund. Fortunately she had bought the extended warranty and only
lost a couple $hundred, which was easily made up by the decrease in
price over the two years.

Yep. Something in my motherboard has gone too. Lots of crashes, which got
more numerous, and if it flexes (it's a laptop!) it crashes. Only way to get
it to fire up again is to turn it upside down for a bit. What a pile of crap
it is. Annoyingly, it has a big new hard drive in it too. (The morning it
finally **** itself, we rang a mob locally, they had one, so we choofed off
and got it, and the computer was running within an hour). Had the old drive
opened and checked, and it was all busted up, nothing was retrievable. I'd
backed up all my photos and music when it began to have problems, but
there's all these little things you forget to snaffle.

I'm never buying Toshiba again. I had a little Toshiba TV years ago, which
died just out of warranty. I should have remembered.

Annoyingly, a family member has a very ancient Toshiba which is running
fine. Fat and clunky and horrible, but it works.

Notebooks and flat-screen monitors are about the only electronic
thing where the extended warranty makes sense.

Very true.
Now my "portable" laptop is living on a breadboard, to stop it flexing.
Going to have it checked out to see if it's something fixable, but if not, I
guess I'll have to grab another one in the US where they're cheaper. It
won't be a toshiba though.

--
ant
Don't try to reply to my email addy:
I'm borrowing that of the latest
scammer/spammer

ant wrote:

Had the old drive
opened and checked, and it was all busted up, nothing was retrievable. I'd
backed up all my photos and music when it began to have problems, but
there's all these little things you forget to snaffle.

I like to keep my files on external usb hard drives,
or on Google Docs.

Annoyingly, a family member has a very ancient Toshiba which is running
fine. Fat and clunky and horrible, but it works.

Fat 'n clunky outlives sleek 'n stylin' every time.
I can't work on planes anyway, so if I have to bring
the company laptop along, I put it in checked baggage.

Now my "portable" laptop is living on a breadboard, to stop it flexing.
Going to have it checked out to see if it's something fixable, but if not, I
guess I'll have to grab another one in the US where they're cheaper. It
won't be a toshiba though.

In Seattle, a replacement laptop motherboard
plus labor costs about the same as a new laptop.
And of course, a real computer with a real
keyboard and mouse is much less.

-- Mike Treseler

Mike Treseler wrote:

ant wrote:

Had the old drive
opened and checked, and it was all busted up, nothing was retrievable. I'd
backed up all my photos and music when it began to have problems, but
there's all these little things you forget to snaffle.

I like to keep my files on external usb hard drives,
or on Google Docs.

I've got a second hard drive containing 2 backup partitions for my entire
system, and there's another complete backup on the same hard drive. I've
got a USB drive, but it just takes too long to do anything serious with it.

Annoyingly, a family member has a very ancient Toshiba which is running
fine. Fat and clunky and horrible, but it works.

Fat 'n clunky outlives sleek 'n stylin' every time.
I can't work on planes anyway, so if I have to bring
the company laptop along, I put it in checked baggage.

'Twas ever thus. Husband used to repair VCRs ("Got a closet full of 'em")
for fun. The first ones just needed new rubber for the most part. ("You're
gonna need new heads, cost you a couple hundred bucks plus labor and will
take about 3 weeks, I can sell you a brand new one today for just a little
more than that...")

The most recent ones (including Sony, who has destroyed any respect I ever
had for them) had fine rubber but broken non-replaceable parts and weighed
roughly 1/10 as much. There's a reason for the drop in price.

Now my "portable" laptop is living on a breadboard, to stop it flexing.
Going to have it checked out to see if it's something fixable, but if not, I
guess I'll have to grab another one in the US where they're cheaper. It
won't be a toshiba though.

In airports you used to see people sitting in chairs. They still sit in
chairs, but a lot of them sit on the floor next to the wall plug for their
laptops or cell chargers. Even guys in suits.

In Seattle, a replacement laptop motherboard
plus labor costs about the same as a new laptop.
And of course, a real computer with a real
keyboard and mouse is much less.

It would be nice to not have to depend on the kindness of relatives giving
you an account on their machines (sorry, thumb drives are WAYYY too slow),
but some of us are way too clumsy to carry expensive things around. You can
recognize us easily because our glasses have big scratches in the middle :-(

--
Cheers,
Bev
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooo
People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's
safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs. --Unknown

Mike Treseler wrote:
ant wrote:

Had the old drive
opened and checked, and it was all busted up, nothing was
retrievable. I'd backed up all my photos and music when it began to
have problems, but there's all these little things you forget to
snaffle.

I like to keep my files on external usb hard drives,
or on Google Docs.

things like my US tax return, favourites, obscure things that you just don't
think of until they're not there any more. I have a sleek little external
hard drive now (we bought the case to house the failing hard drive in to see
if we could extract anything) but the software for it is puzzling the crap
out of me.


Annoyingly, a family member has a very ancient Toshiba which is
running fine. Fat and clunky and horrible, but it works.

Fat 'n clunky outlives sleek 'n stylin' every time.
I can't work on planes anyway, so if I have to bring
the company laptop along, I put it in checked baggage.

my first laptop was an OLD IBM thinkpad. Fattest little thing ever (and slow
as a wet week) and it survived a prolongued bounce down the stairs when it
fell out of my backpack when I bent over. Left it in Stowe as my host could
use it to run his printers.

Now my "portable" laptop is living on a breadboard, to stop it
flexing. Going to have it checked out to see if it's something
fixable, but if not, I guess I'll have to grab another one in the US
where they're cheaper. It won't be a toshiba though.

In Seattle, a replacement laptop motherboard
plus labor costs about the same as a new laptop.
And of course, a real computer with a real
keyboard and mouse is much less.

that's my fear. Things here also are usually cheaper to replace than repair.
If the motherboard is cracked, I'm screwed. Which really annoys me! laptops
are expensive, they should not just break like this. This is a Tecra A2,
only a few years old, with all the dodges and fancy things.

I've never had a mothership computer... it wouldn't work for me. My signal
to the house is wireless, and of course the signal IN the house is wireless
too. I'm used to the laptop being totally portable. It just goes around. It
goes in the garden. (on its breadboard now).

--
ant
Don't try to reply to my email addy:
I'm borrowing that of the latest
scammer/spammer

The Real Bev wrote:
It would be nice to not have to depend on the kindness of relatives
giving you an account on their machines (sorry, thumb drives are
WAYYY too slow), but some of us are way too clumsy to carry expensive
things around. You can recognize us easily because our glasses have
big scratches in the middle :-(

i suspect the latest chihuahua jumped onto this. he spends a lot of time on
the couch back, looking out the window and chewing his rawhide bones. he
jumped onto my stomach once, and just about winded me. And pressed my
glasses with his hand and squashed them onto my face.

I'm hoping it's just a component dislodged.... the spot where it is is the
bottom left hand side. but it could also be a cracked motherboard in that
spot!

I am puzzled as to what is a good laptop brand to get though. None seem to
stand out any more as good, solid, reliable units. For something that costs
so much, they ought to be.

--
ant
Don't try to reply to my email addy:
I'm borrowing that of the latest
scammer/spammer

"ant" wrote in message
...
Mike Treseler wrote:
ant wrote:

Had the old drive
opened and checked, and it was all busted up, nothing was
retrievable. I'd backed up all my photos and music when it began to
have problems, but there's all these little things you forget to
snaffle.

I like to keep my files on external usb hard drives,
or on Google Docs.

things like my US tax return, favourites, obscure things that you just don't
think of until they're not there any more. I have a sleek little external
hard drive now (we bought the case to house the failing hard drive in to see
if we could extract anything) but the software for it is puzzling the crap out
of me.


Annoyingly, a family member has a very ancient Toshiba which is
running fine. Fat and clunky and horrible, but it works.

Fat 'n clunky outlives sleek 'n stylin' every time.
I can't work on planes anyway, so if I have to bring
the company laptop along, I put it in checked baggage.

my first laptop was an OLD IBM thinkpad. Fattest little thing ever (and slow
as a wet week) and it survived a prolongued bounce down the stairs when it
fell out of my backpack when I bent over. Left it in Stowe as my host could
use it to run his printers.

Now my "portable" laptop is living on a breadboard, to stop it
flexing. Going to have it checked out to see if it's something
fixable, but if not, I guess I'll have to grab another one in the US
where they're cheaper. It won't be a toshiba though.

In Seattle, a replacement laptop motherboard
plus labor costs about the same as a new laptop.
And of course, a real computer with a real
keyboard and mouse is much less.

that's my fear. Things here also are usually cheaper to replace than repair.
If the motherboard is cracked, I'm screwed. Which really annoys me! laptops
are expensive, they should not just break like this. This is a Tecra A2, only
a few years old, with all the dodges and fancy things.

I've never had a mothership computer... it wouldn't work for me. My signal to
the house is wireless, and of course the signal IN the house is wireless too.
I'm used to the laptop being totally portable. It just goes around. It goes in
the garden. (on its breadboard now).

FWIW, there is no reason a desktop can't handle wireless, with the appropriate
card installed.

Bob

ant wrote:

I am puzzled as to what is a good laptop brand to get though.

If it has to be a laptop,
I think Dell is as reliable as any.

-- Mike Treseler