Daddy tech support

[MurphCID]

Well it is back to Nacogdoches next Thursday, since she has to register on Friday. I suspect I will do ALL the driving this time. I get out of class, dash home, change, get on the road and will will get in at midnight and have to be at the University at 0800 hours Friday. Then after I suspect I will drive home while the wife and daughter sleep (and snore) the whole trip.

doncha just love being the chauffeur all the time?

Yeah, apparently it's in my job description.

[MurphCID]

HER (aka She Who Must Be Obeyed): Honey, I just heard a loud pop from the stove!
Me: Ok, is anything on fire?
HER: No. But the front burner no longer works.
Me: Oh darn, gosh, heck, and other such foul language. I go down and attempt to see what happened. Well my best guess is; "It's dead Jim!"

Moral of the story, we were at Lowe's today, and ended up ordering a new stove to replace our 30 year old much repaired one. We ended up with a Samsung convection stove. It will be delivered and installed Thursday.

Update: and for Mother's Day, I got up and made fresh scones, and a pound cake (from my great-grandmother's recipe) The Spouse Unit was appreciative.

[MurphCID]

Well it has been an interesting couple of weeks at Casa Murph. Various computer updates, including firmware updates on the kids laptops. My wife hates the new stove because it is not like the old one, and she has not had time to get used to the new quirks. Yesterday I took the youngest to the Apple store (it was insane) to get a new battery for her phone. We left with no new battery, but she decided to use the $300 I gave her for her college gift to defray the cost of a new Apple iPhone 12. Then she changed her mind (again), so we left with a new screen protector to replace the broken one on her phone. On the way home she decided to NOT get a new phone, instead to get the battery replacement. *sigh*

The oldest managed to get her systems updated with little issue. The wife is now hooked on a new Korean Telenovela "The Heirs", and so is happy. For me, some annoying medical issues that I hope to have resolved RSN. Nothing else earth shattering.

[AZgl1800]

have you done any internet research on Samsung appliances?

I did, after our fridge took a dump.............. and started freezing everything in the fridge, right down to +25*F

it is a horrific tale of incompetent techs, poor design, and service manuals that are incorrect and full of false information.

I learned more on YouTube University, than I gained from the factory info....
took a lot of research, like more than 2 months, before I figured out that the fridge had two problems.

1: a temp sensor failed, ordered and replaced.

2: it kept freezing the food in the Fridge side....

3: the Defrost drain tube was clogging up with ice/frost.... fixed that

YouTube had one video that provided the clue:

when a Samsung fridge is delivered to the home, the Technician is "supposed to" Calibrate the computer to correlate the actual temp values in the compartments, versus what the Display shows on the front panel.

Mine is off by 10*F
rather than go thru the elaborate method of Calibration, I just set the front panel at 44*F and the interior is now 34*F

it has not frozen up once since.... that was about 2 months ago.

[chiefjim]

have you done any internet research on Samsung appliances?

I did, after our fridge took a dump.............. and started freezing everything in the fridge, right down to +25*F

it is a horrific tale of incompetent techs, poor design, and service manuals that are incorrect and full of false information.

I learned more on YouTube University, than I gained from the factory info....

I too am disappointed with Samsung kitchen appliances. Last year purchased a gas range. Seems OK until you wish to use the oven. A setting of 350 will result in anything from 300-390. Plan on 30 minutes or more before it stabilizes on a more narrow range. Engineering had placed the temperature sensor too close to the flame bar. If you open the oven door to check cooking progress it acts as if it were turned off. Closing the door doesn't automatically return to the desired settings. Instead users must reprogram the oven temp.

Should have done research online before I went shopping. This issue was well known already. Best thing going for it was the sales price at the time. Had I known earlier would have spent full price for a different brand.

[MurphCID]

I am learning. Unfortunately this unit had 4.8 of 5 stars on reviews.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I am learning. Unfortunately this unit had 4.8 of 5 stars on reviews.

The trick with reviews is to make sure most of the ones you look at are by users, not just review sites, and try to find reviews from users who have had the product for more than just a few days or weeks. Problems with products often don't show up until several months later. Something else to look for in reviews is how well the manufacturers support their products. Watch out for fake reviews.

[DAMIEN1307]

I am learning. Unfortunately this unit had 4.8 of 5 stars on reviews.

Should have done research online before I went shopping.

Heres some research for ya...lol...This is how Samsung actually started and what their original expertise was in...lol...There OK in electronic devices as described below, but it seems appliances is a fairly recent venture for them...DAMIEN

Samsung
The Korean electronics and mobile phone giant started by Byung-Chull Lee in 1938 used to export dried Korean fish, vegetables and fruit to Manchuria and Beijing. It then moved into flour mills and confectionery machines, followed by textiles and life insurance. Samsung didn’t get into electronics until the late 1960s, producing its first black-and-white television set in 1970. The high-tech side did not become highly profitable until the 1980s, when the company began to export computers, VCRs and tape recorders globally. By the 1990s, Samsung was focusing on memory and hard drives for computers. Nowadays it is most famous for its Android phones and tablets, and digital televisions.

EDIT...With a pedigree like this, what could possibly go wrong...lol.

[MurphCID]

Yeah, and a new problem has poked its head up: Cleaning the *&!&*@$^! thing. There is a long list of things you CANNOT use, and they suggest a razor blade to gently scrape off the burned on bits. Also the cleaners they recommend apparently cost lots, and don't work worth a compost. *sigh*

[MurphCID]

I had gotten my oldest daughter a Samsung laptop for High School, and had driven to Houston to purchase it. I will never, ever again own a Samsung laptop. It was horrible (and it was a top of the line model!). Never again. Samsung tablets are ok, but I prefer the iPad. The Samsung did not even make it through two years of High School, so I had to go get her an HP (always had great luck with HP laptops) to finish out High School.

[deepakdeshp]

My 5.5 year HP laptop has very flimsy hinges. Once it is changed and now again they are broken. The display was changed once too.

[AZgl1800]

one thing about my ASUS laptops, I have 3 of them, the hinges are hell for stout.

[DAMIEN1307]

and had driven to Houston to purchase it.

Thats a heck of a long drive from San Antonio !!!...How many hours was it ???...DAMIEN

[majpooper]

ThinkPad - they are tanks . . . . . . . I know, I know - they are ugly.

[MurphCID]

and had driven to Houston to purchase it.

Thats a heck of a long drive from San Antonio !!!...How many hours was it ???...DAMIEN

Three and a half plus.

[DAMIEN1307]

Three and a half plus.

And im assuming that is just one way...lol...counting in rest stops, food stops, gas stops, your probably talking 7 to 8 hours total round trip...lol...DAMIEN

[MurphCID]

Three and a half plus.

And im assuming that is just one way...lol...counting in rest stops, food stops, gas stops, your probably talking 7 to 8 hours total round trip...lol...DAMIEN

Oh yeah, one way. It is a full day back and forth, not counting Houston's insane traffic.

[MurphCID]

I really *)(@!$! HATE WINDOWS!!! I just !@$#)(!!! HATE WINDOWS! I got up this morning, went in and there was that stupid blue screen telling me to sign in to a microsoft account. I rebooted, and it came back. I rebooted again (each time I had to hard reset to get it to go away since it would not allow me to shut down at all). This time it got stuck in a loop and windows would not start. After multiple attempts including a failed attempt to get into BIOS (windows prevented that somehow, I have no idea how it happened), I inserted a Linux Mint flash drive, and windows booted. It had previously hard locked three times before this (forcing me into a hard reset via the BUTTON). ()!$&!)$!!!! Windows STINKS. Updates show the usual glacier slow updates, and installations. Something has zorched my system this morning, and it can only be the never sufficiently &!($(!$ windows. If not for iTunes and Photoshop I would leave windows forever.

Update: Now it is showing Installing 0% (it has been here for the last 20 minutes!) of cumulative update to .net framework 3.5 and 4.8. It still has to install the latest update to 20H2 for 2021-06. I HATE ()*!$&!$!!! WINDOWS!

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I really *)(@!$! HATE WINDOWS!!! I just !@$#)(!!! HATE WINDOWS! I got up this morning, went in and there was that stupid blue screen telling me to sign in to a microsoft account. I rebooted, and it came back. I rebooted again (each time I had to hard reset to get it to go away since it would not allow me to shut down at all). This time it got stuck in a loop and windows would not start. After multiple attempts including a failed attempt to get into BIOS (windows prevented that somehow, I have no idea how it happened), I inserted a Linux Mint flash drive, and windows booted. It had previously hard locked three times before this (forcing me into a hard reset via the BUTTON). ()!$&!)$!!!! Windows STINKS. Updates show the usual glacier slow updates, and installations. Something has zorched my system this morning, and it can only be the never sufficiently &!($(!$ windows. If not for iTunes and Photoshop I would leave windows forever.

Update: Now it is showing Installing 0% (it has been here for the last 20 minutes!) of cumulative update to .net framework 3.5 and 4.8. It still has to install the latest update to 20H2 for 2021-06. I HATE ()*!$&!$!!! WINDOWS!

I feel your pain, man! I so detest (to put it mildly) Windwoes, I will not have it on any of my machines (other than an ancient, retired one I haven't fired up in well over a year that I've been too lazy to replace the OS with Linux). I never used (or trusted) iTunes (I'm not "fond" of Apple, either; besides I prefer the better quality, flexibility, and documentation I can get from ripping music from CDs) or Photoshop (too expensive for my needs, not to mention it's now cloud and subscription based, two things that are anathema to me) so I don't miss them. GIMP meets my needs whenever I need more or better features than what I can get from Pix (which isn't often).

From what I've read, Gimp is capable of doing pretty much everything Photoshop can do but Gimp's GUI is radically different and can be a bugger to learn, especially when one is used to Photoshop. Being free, instead of constantly bleeding money from a user like anything Adobe now does, is a huge plus which may make the learning curve for Gimp worthwhile.

The only Windows only program that I still haven't been able to find an adequate Linux replacement for is DVD Fab. In some cases, I had to come up with a new workflow to accomplish what I did with a Windmows program, sometimes requiring thinking outside the box. Someday, I may try to tackle running DVD Fab in WINE or Crossover but there is no way I'll ever resort to Windblows.

[deepakdeshp]

Windows updates suck . They are as big as 500 MB while mostly Mint updates are of the order of scores of MB. I would advise you to take Clonezilla backups after every major update so that you can revert back to this point in case of disaster. My 30 gb Windows C drive takes 10 minutes to clone on my Ryzen 5 3500 U. Worth backing it up in 10 minutes after hours of updates.