Plan B Forum

Older, you are a wise man you know what is important.

liberty wrote:My whole keyboard board is out. I have to use the on screen keyboard. I don’t like it; it is like learning to type all over again. The wife says you have plenty money buy another one; I say no. I am not going to reward them by buying another computer. As far as know it was as programed to break.

You wouldn't be rewarding "them", you would be rewarding yourself. Don't be so stubborn.

You should trade broken keyboards with wesw. That way we all gain

liberty wrote:My whole keyboard board is out. I have to use the on screen keyboard. I don’t like it; it is like learning to type all over again. The wife says you have plenty money buy another one; I say no. I am not going to reward them by buying another computer. As far as know it was as programed to break.

I presume that when your car finally craps out on you, you will hitch it up to a horse and harness to get around since it too was certainly "programed to break" and you are not going to reward "them" (the auto makers) by buying another one either.

Now, setting aside for a moment the suspicion that there is nothing wrong with wesw's keyboard and he is just being a pain in the ass, here is the difference between wesw, liberty, and me.  The first two are crying "poor me" or railing against a faceless "them", and doing nothing to resolve the problem.

About eighteen months ago, my keyboard on my laptop went out as well.  For a while, I tried a couple of work-arounds, like the on-line keyboard or the Windows character map as well, with varying degrees of success and satisfaction.  But I am also not so naïve or stupid to expect that anything mechanical is going to last forever (at least not without routine maintenance and occasional replacement of used-up or worn-out parts).  For that reason I have kept up a service agreement with the Geek Squad at Best Buy (at a cost of less than $10/month), so I took the computer in to them.  They confirmed that the thing was acting up, and that it could be repaired and brought back to working condition — for the cost of parts alone (the service agreement cover diagnostics and labor).  They also pointed out to me that I was then going to have a computer that was still pretty much five years old and still running Windows 7 — which was going to be phased out (as in Microsoft would no longer provide support for it) in the near future.  So, for the time being, I went to the Goodwill store and, at a cost of about five bucks, found a peripheral keyboard that plugged into a USB port.  Problem solved, at least temporarily.

I then kept my eyes open at the local PawnAmerica, and about a month ago picked up an HP Pavilion laptop with a solid-state hard drive and a 15.6-inch display that is running Windows 10 for less than $250.  Took it over to the Geeks at Best Buy again, where they were able to swap all my content from the old device into the new one — at no charge, I might add, since I still kept up that service agreement.

Now we know who's got brains in their head and who just has bullshit.

-"BB"-

Bicycle Bill wrote:I went to the Goodwill store and, at a cost of about five bucks, found a peripheral keyboard that plugged into a USB port.

Another alternative (new for $7.99).

Tr0ll s just g0tta tr0ll - ain t nuthin actually wr0ng with his keyb0ard.

a few bricks shy of a full load
not playing with a full deck
the elevator doesn't go to the top floor
a couple of letters short of a functioning keyboard

I just like giving BSgal multiple big 0s

Bicycle Bill wrote:

liberty wrote:My whole keyboard board is out. I have to use the on screen keyboard. I don’t like it; it is like learning to type all over again. The wife says you have plenty money buy another one; I say no. I am not going to reward them by buying another computer. As far as know it was as programed to break.

I presume that when your car finally craps out on you, you will hitch it up to a horse and harness to get around since it too was certainly "programed to break" and you are not going to reward "them" (the auto makers) by buying another one either.

Now, setting aside for a moment the suspicion that there is nothing wrong with wesw's keyboard and he is just being a pain in the ass, here is the difference between wesw, liberty, and me.  The first two are crying "poor me" or railing against a faceless "them", and doing nothing to resolve the problem.

About eighteen months ago, my keyboard on my laptop went out as well.  For a while, I tried a couple of work-arounds, like the on-line keyboard or the Windows character map as well, with varying degrees of success and satisfaction.  But I am also not so naïve or stupid to expect that anything mechanical is going to last forever (at least not without routine maintenance and occasional replacement of used-up or worn-out parts).  For that reason I have kept up a service agreement with the Geek Squad at Best Buy (at a cost of less than $10/month), so I took the computer in to them.  They confirmed that the thing was acting up, and that it could be repaired and brought back to working condition — for the cost of parts alone (the service agreement cover diagnostics and labor).  They also pointed out to me that I was then going to have a computer that was still pretty much five years old and still running Windows 7 — which was going to be phased out (as in Microsoft would no longer provide support for it) in the near future.  So, for the time being, I went to the Goodwill store and, at a cost of about five bucks, found a peripheral keyboard that plugged into a USB port.  Problem solved, at least temporarily.

I then kept my eyes open at the local PawnAmerica, and about a month ago picked up an HP Pavilion laptop with a solid-state hard drive and a 15.6-inch display that is running Windows 10 for less than $250.  Took it over to the Geeks at Best Buy again, where they were able to swap all my content from the old device into the new one — at no charge, I might add, since I still kept up that service agreement.

Now we know who's got brains in their head and who just has bullshit.

-"BB"-

That is bullshit; I have a circular saw that is thirty years old that I still use. I have a wood planer that is twenty years old. I have a ratchet set that I bought in 1969 and 22 riffle in 1964 both still functional. I understand the limited lifetime of autos but cars are subject to more mechanical wear and tear than the items I mentioned. And electronic equipment has fewer mechanical parts to wear; they could build them to last if they wanted to they just don’t want to when there is a ready supply of suckers.

I didn’t say I wouldn’t buy another one I could always change my mind and be a sucker too. I am just resistant to all forms of tyranny whether it is political, economic or social.

However, the peripheral keyboard is not a bad idea; I just might steal it.

Liberty--You're probably right, but then the use of the older, sturdy, systems would tend to limit progress. The old rotary dial phones made by western electric were nearly indestructible, but the downside was that the phone company had to retain lines capable of using the dial system, and this limited release of some of the features we now take for granted. Likewise, a multitude of older, slower computers could hamper innovation bot with the net and in programs released, especially of the OS sellers were expected to continue to support the old systems.

I finally got a very cheap 'smart' phone after fighting the keyboard on my old flip phone phone and breaking the hinge about two years ago. I rarely used phone messaging because of the involved process of trying to type a message when each 'key' could be used for 3 or 4 different letters. The smart phone ended that clumsiness and added a word prodiction function as well.

I cannot imagine trying to input a text message with a rotary dial phone. I did keep my landline with a rotary dial Western Electric phone until 1998.

snailgate

True, and what the demise of the rotary phone and the new technology gave us for landlines are wireless phones (no longer must they be tethered to the wall), caller ID (so I can avoid calls I don't want, direct international calling (as well as other calls that needed an operator)... But I still have a rotary dial phone that I would be is in working order, after more than 50 years.

liberty wrote:
That is bullshit; I have a circular saw that is thirty years old that I still use. I have a wood planer that is twenty years old. I have a ratchet set that I bought in 1969 and 22 riffle in 1964 both still functional. I understand the limited lifetime of autos but cars are subject to more mechanical wear and tear than the items I mentioned. And electronic equipment has fewer mechanical parts to wear; they could build them to last if they wanted to they just don’t want to when there is a ready supply of suckers.

I didn’t say I wouldn’t buy another one I could always change my mind and be a sucker too. I am just resistant to all forms of tyranny whether it is political, economic or social.

However, the peripheral keyboard is not a bad idea; I just might steal it.

It's called "built in obsolescence". But there's a reason that circular saw and such still work. 30 years ago there wasn't a big difference between professional and consumer grade power tools. 50, 60 years ago there wasn't any difference at all. So power tools were designed to work day in, day out for a few years in the hands of a journeyman carpenter. A casual user would find that tool would probably work several lifetimes as long as it was maintained. I mean, I still use my Grandfather's 1940 Craftsman table saw... no safety features at all, not even a switch to turn it off (just plug it in). Today, though, people want cheap. "Professional" grade (I mean real professional grade, not big-box store "pro-grade") tools still last. But you can go to Harbor Freight and buy a circular saw for $20. For the average home user that uses the thing maybe twice a year for little projects, it might be just fine. No seasoned pro would buy that crap though. It won't last.

Sure, you could build a laptop keyboard that would last 50 years (I am not sure about the LCD or LED screens though) but who would pay the price for that when unlike power tools, laptop technology continues to advance. I can use a circular saw made in 1950 to do the same job as one made today. But I see no reason other than curiosity of trying to perform computing functions with ENIAC. Manufacturers see no reason to overbuild parts on laptops. Why build a keyboard to last 10 years on a laptop that has an expected use life of less than 5?

This is coming from a guy that is still using a 10-year old PC, a flip phone, and drives a truck built in the 1970s. I found I can still get parts for my 50-year old Hoover vacuum cleaner. So I do know a bit about fix before replace. But if my keyboard breaks, I replace it. It is not worth the hassle of trying to work around the issue, and fixing them is generally out of the question as it's simply not cost effective.

I just clicked on the little apple icon in the upper left of my screen. Tells me this MacBook Pro 13 inch was made in mid 2012. Works fine, with the latest operating system installed. The latest, Catalina, 10.15.1 loaded about three weeks ago at no cost

snailgate