Hold on, regarding the national team and soccer news
Trolls and aggressive types are everywhere online, but apparently, they’re part of the moderation team here too. I used to post all the time, but now I just lurk occasionally. It’s hard to deal with people attacking me, claiming I don't have the right to chime in during the World Cup or the Euros just because I didn't spend the entire year talking about soccer.
Seriously though! They really ought to hire a designer to clean up their website.
They’ve got three different prices listed—the standard one, a 5% discount version, and then this mystery third price?! I was just at the local Target, and the guy printed out all the product info for me (two whole pages of A4), but that third price is nowhere to be found. It shows up on the site, but not on the printout. Total fail.
I hit up a few shops today, and honestly, it looks like the Zenbook is pretty much my only real move.
Now I’m just stuck deciding between Architectural Digest or HGspot. At Architectural Digest, $147 everything is a bit more pricey, but they throw in a bag, some extra cables, and an additional two-year warranty...
Thanks for clearing that up. Which specific models would hit that sweet spot between being portable and actually having some muscle under the hood? I want to see if there are any sales running right now, or maybe look into picking up something used...
Right now, I'm lugging around an Asus X550VB 15.6 which weighs about 5 pounds. It’s getting old, and honestly, I just want something thinner or at least way lighter. I don't even use a DVD drive, so that's one less thing I need.
I am a bit worried about the USB situation on those smaller laptops, though. I'd hate to plug in a mouse and an external keyboard only to realize I have zero ports left for a thumb drive. Are there actually decent USB hubs out there for situations like that?
As for Windows, my biggest headache is the Start menu. It's cluttered with all this junk—ads, weather widgets, Xbox stuff, photos... it's a mess. I'm really hoping there's a way to just shut all that nonsense off. If not, I swear I'll just wipe the whole thing and perform a clean install of Windows 7.
I’m looking for something small and lightweight, but high quality. I don't want to feel like I'm lugging a brick around in my backpack when I travel. When I'm at home, I plan on docking it to an external monitor.
It'll be for office work and some moderate gaming. On my current old laptop, I play World of Tanks, League of Legends, and World of Warcraft on low settings. My goal is to crank those specific games up to max settings on the new machine, and if a newer title comes out, I'd at least want to run it on low.
I'm based in Washington, D.C., so I'd prefer to buy somewhere local that's easy to reach via public transit. Maybe somewhere like ADM, Architectural Digest, Links, or HGspot... I’d rather avoid big-box retailers like Best Buy, and definitely no huge shopping malls where you have to drive out to them.
Regarding the OS—Windows is optional. I’d love to find something with Windows 7, though I assume that's pretty much extinct by now. If I'm forced to go with Windows 10, I guess so, but I'm not thrilled about it...
The microphone and webcam need to be solid because I spend a lot of time on Skype calls.
Brand doesn't matter much to me, though I'd definitely skip Asus since I'm using one right now and the keyboard is just terrible.
A good warranty is a must.
Storage capacity isn't my main concern, but reliability absolutely is.
Alright, I found it. It’s pretty weird that there isn't a way to get to that setting through the Control Panel.
Anyway, the system picks up the drive immediately and says it's healthy, but it won't let me actually touch any of my files. Every single option is grayed out except for Delete and Help.😢
I'm not entirely sure if this option even exists on Windows 8, but I’m sitting here at my desk working on my Windows 7 machine and I can't find that menu anywhere. I tried digging through the Control Panel, but it was a dead end. It just says "No items match your search."
Just give AT&T a call and let them know you're unhappy. It’s way more effective than just venting here on the forum. Honestly, there’s a good chance they might even send you a brand-new one for free.
If I’m totally stuck on how to tackle both of these issues at once, does anyone have any advice on what to do with the drive? Is there some kind of software out there I could download that might actually be able to reach the disk—you know, the one that shows up fine in Device Manager but just won't show up anywhere else?
A friend asked me to take a look at her setup because her external hard drive and her phone aren't playing nice with her computer. My first thought? It’s probably just a Windows glitch.
I tried plugging the drive into every single USB port available. The LED lights up and you can hear the thing spinning, but it’s a ghost—it won't show up in the drive list, so there's no way to get to any files. The weird part is that it actually shows up in Device Manager! I tried updating the driver (no luck, it claims it's already current) and I messed around with the Quick removal / Better performance settings, but nothing moves the needle. Windows keeps insisting the device is working properly.
Then I tested it on my machine, and I got the exact same result. So, I told her, "Look, it's definitely the hardware."
But then things got weirder. I plugged in her phone, and her computer won't even acknowledge it exists anymore. On my computer, the phone shows up in the device list, but when I try to open it, I just get an empty window. Even if I click "import files/pictures," it tells me there's nothing there to grab.
Now I'm totally lost. Is it both devices acting up, or are both computers the problem? Help!
Her PC - Dell Inspiron, Windows 8.1 My PC - Dell Inspiron, Windows 7 drive: Dell (maybe 40 GB?) phone: iPhone 6
So, I tried tackling my connection issues by picking up an AT&T stick, since someone suggested their signal might be more robust. It helped, but only halfway. With Verizon, I was getting a decent signal maybe 0-5% of the time, whereas with AT&T, I’m seeing it about 40-60% of the time. Still, that's just not enough if you're trying to get actual work done.
I’ve got this vacation house out in a spot where the cell signal is pretty much nonexistent. In certain parts of the house, I just get "no service," and in others, my phone manages to cling to an Edge connection just enough to trickle some data through. But here’s the kicker: when I try to use my Verizon internet USB stick with my laptop, nothing works. It connects to the network, sure, but then says the signal strength is at 0%. I tried tethering too, but no luck there.
I heard there are these access point devices designed to grab a better signal—basically, you plug the USB stick into them and they broadcast Wi-Fi to your laptop. Has anyone actually messed around with those? Any specific gear you'd suggest? I really don't want to drop money on some hardware, head out to the mountains, and realize I'm totally cut off from the world since I need the web for work...
Another massive headache with Hugh! When I went to withdraw my money from that CD, I was actually planning on closing all my accounts there. But the teller at the branch talked me out of it. She convinced me that if I just left everything open, I wouldn't have any more fees—that the balance could basically sit at zero forever without a hitch. I asked her twice to make sure I wasn't missing anything, and she swore up and down that since there’s no activity on the account anymore, they won't charge me a dime. It's like when a car mechanic tells you a part is fine just because you aren't driving it much; you think you're saving money, but you're really just waiting for the bill.
Well, fast forward to yesterday, and I get hit with a notification. My foreign currency account is sitting at zero, but my US dollar account is actually in the red because they slapped me with an account maintenance fee. So now I'm back to square one: heading down to the local Chase branch, waiting in line, paying off the negative balance, and then finally trying to shut everything down once and for all...
wiredtinker11 said:Here’s a solid little deep dive into what’s actually happening over at Citigroup and their current roadmap for a potential sale: http://north America.aljazeera.net/video/a...iness-14092013
I’m assuming everyone’s personal savings are safe and sound, right?
I went into their branch today and honestly, I almost lost my mind. The whole place is a mess and nobody seems to know what they're doing. It’s ridiculous—they have this ticket machine that isn't even working properly, just flashing error messages on the screen (if it's broken, why not just unplug it?), and they don't even have a simple umbrella stand, so people are just leaving them all over the floor. To top it off, I sat there for over 45 minutes, even though when I walked in there were only three people ahead of me and three tellers working. How does that even happen?
It turns out they were prioritizing quick transactions only, leaving the rest of us hanging even when the branch started thinning out! The woman acting as the personal banker was busy with who knows what, and the staff at the regular counters apparently aren't skilled enough—or maybe just don't have the authority—to handle anything else.
Just when I thought I finally had all my bases covered, some guy sends me a document in a .odp format! Seriously, can people just pick a lane? We don't need five different file types just to send over a simple memo...