Author Archives: David

Splitting the NID

For the past few weeks we’ve had a lot of static & interference on our home phone line … it doesn’t effect the Vonage line, so I figured it was coming from outside the house.

Well, it turns out the ‘NID Splitter’ we have in the phone box is giving out.     A NID Splitter is a device that plugs into the Network Interface Device that acts as a DSL filter for all the inside phone wiring.   A NID is the box where the telephone companies wiring interfaces with the house wiring.   Everything on the ‘Customer’ side of the NID is is your responsibility, anything on the other side of the NID is the telephone companies responsiblity.

It’s called a NID Splitter because it lets you split the phone line signal into two parts … one part that goes directly to the DSL modem, and the other half that goes to the house phone wiring.   The NID Splitter filters out the voice data on the phone line so it doesn’t interfere with the DSL signal.

Since I don’t have a replacement NID Splitter I tried a few things …

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On my reading list: Arguments For Evolution

Here’s a few books that are getting added to my reading list.   Hopefully they will be available at the library, but I think a few of them I’m going to plunk down some cash for.

I’m always amazed how many people, who are otherwise very intelligent, are willing to completely ignore hard facts and scientific evidence in favor of myth, superstition, and hearsay.

Thanks to Pharyngula for the list.
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Yahoo SMTP Deferrals

As I mentioned before … even though I’m participating in Yahoo’s Email Complaint Feedback Loop, I’m still getting deferrals when trying to deliver mail to Yahoo’s mail servers.   I’ve gotten a few complaints, but not nearly enough to really justify having mail delivery deferred.

I think I’ve figured out a bit more about why Yahoo’s mail servers are deferring some of the mail my servers try to deliver to them.

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Dell Chat Support Flub

In general, I’ve been quite pleased with the technical support I get from Dell’s Small & Medium sized Business division.

They usually adapt quickly to my level of technical expertise and take my word for it when I report a problem.   Once the failing component has been identified, they quickly setup the appropriate dispatch to get the problem corrected.

Yesterday, however, was an exception.

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Gateway Recovery Manager error 205

A few days ago Ginny’s desktop machine (a home built system cobbled together from various parts I had on hand) finally gave up it’s ghost.   It wouldn’t book up, just gave one long beep, waited a few seconds, gave another long beep, over and over.

Well, her laptop (Dell Inspiron 8600) is almost out of warranty … and she’s not going to be getting my Dell Latitude D630 (due to the Latitude E6400 being returned), so I figured it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get her a new computer.

So we went over to CompUSA (formerly Tiger Direct) and looked at the small form factor desktop systems.       We chose a Gateway SX2800-01 system (Core 2 Quad, 4gb RAM, 640gb SATA disk, 64bit Vista Home).   The only problem was that it had on-board Intel video and no DVI output (although it does have HDMI output).   Cost about $500.   FWIW: This is Ginny’s first new computer in quite a while.   Most of her other computers were hand-me-downs (from me).

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Returning the Latitude E6400

This will probably be the last post I write with the Dell Latitude E6400 I purchased recently.

Next week I’m going to call Dell and arrange to return the laptop for a refund.

This is the first Dell computer that I’m really dissatisfied with and, frankly, I’m surprised that Dell dropped the ball so badly.   The E6400 is (at least in my opinion) a major step backwards from the D630.

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