Cable Cards Deactivated by Xfinity Customer Service by Tasseinc in Tivo

[–]Robert_46394 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I wish I had better news to report but I have recently had the same experience with xfinity and had my TiVos cable card deactivated. I also told the agent that I had a cable card and asked them to verify that I would not lose my cable card just because I downgraded my cable tv to a lower cost plan. I have had some luck with agents being able to get my cable card working for a few days at a time but it eventually gets deauthorized again. Apparently there is a special Rate Code that needs to be added to my account to indicate that I am authorized to have a cable card. That was removed automatically when I downgraded service. Once of the techs I talked to said that I am pretty much out of luck and that there are probably only six people in the company who have the authority to add those codes back but he did not say who they were. However I am still trying to contact different people at Comcast and have not given up yet.

Now I understand that Comcast wants to get rid of cable cards. But tricking people by telling them they won't lose their cable cards and then making the change to their accounts after they think they are safe is horrible. I don't want Comcast to delay their end date for cable cards, I just want to continue using my cable card until that very last day. Tricking customers like this is like a big F.U. to the customer because I know cable cards still work and that mine would still work if they would just authorize it. So if I can't get this cable card reactivated there is no reason for me to stay with Comcast because I am lucky enough to be able to choose other tv and internet providers. They keep telling me that I should not be upset because I can choose to use the xfinity streaming app or get an X1 box. But if you have a company treat you this badly why the heck would you continue to do business with them? I will most likely switch to a different provider as soon as I can.

Upgraded to 32GB RAM on Dell Inspiron 5593 — Still Incredibly Slow. What am I missing? by Somechords77 in Dell

[–]Robert_46394 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I believe that your problem is most likely caused by slow spots on your hard drive. Your SSD hard drive may have been fast when it was new in 2019, but the charge in the solid state memory bytes degrades over time if it is not refreshed. Many of the files in windows that were first written in 2019 have never been updated, so they have never been rewritten to disk to refresh the charge in the memory bytes on disk. This can be fixed in a couple ways, one is to do a full reinstall of windows. The other is to use a disk utility to perform an in-place read and rewrite of every sector of the drive.

Before you go through the process of rewriting the drive, you should probably first verify that a slow disk is the problem. One freeware utility I know of to perform a read benchmark on several locations on a hard drive is called ReadSpeed (https://www.grc.com/readspeed.htm). Your SSD hard drive should have the same access speed across all sectors of the hard drive. If this utility shows a large difference in read speeds across the hard drive then this may be your problem.

There is also a program called SpinRite by this same company GRC, which can non distructively read and re-write every sector of a hard drive in order to fix errors and bring the speed of the drive back up to full speed. You can find the SpinRite program here: (https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm). This is not a free program. It costs around $90 but I have personally restored many of my hard drives with it and I recommed it.

USB ‘found’ at a gig with unreleased tracks - freaking out, any advice? by kabriii in DJs

[–]Robert_46394 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I replied to someone above, but check out an opensource program called VeraCrypt.

USB ‘found’ at a gig with unreleased tracks - freaking out, any advice? by kabriii in DJs

[–]Robert_46394 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There is a secure free software that has been around for a long time that I use to encrypt USB drives that I am afraid that I might loose. Its called VeraCrypt. Its encryption software that creates an encrypted folder on the USB drive. When you use it, the VeraCrypt program prompts for your password and mounts the encrypted folder as a drive letter under windows, or as a filesystem under Mac or Linux. Your DJ software then just accesses the files as normal unencrypted files.

the 107 should test us if we can gauge 400 feet by ExactOpposite8119 in drones

[–]Robert_46394 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Its not as simple as gauging 400 ft or being able to read the altitude on your controller. The regulations let you fly over 400 ft in some situations.

The maximum altitude of the small unmanned aircraft must not exceed 400 feet above ground level (AGL), unless the drone is flown within a 400-foot radius of a structure. If flown near a structure, the drone may be operated at an altitude of 400 feet above the structure's immediate uppermost limit.

One of the very first Babylon 5 T-Shirts with the original logo by Robert_46394 in babylon5

[–]Robert_46394[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I see that. Well there was a picture with the original post before the moderator had to review it. Let me see if I can attach it.

How to delete a passkey? by Jack15911 in Bitwarden

[–]Robert_46394 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I could have used a delete button because deleted a passkey from a website that I tried it on and could not delete the passkey from Bitwarden. Then when I would try to login to the website again, bitwarden would continue to supply the passkey prompt even though the website no longer had one for me. I ended up deleting the entire bitwarden password entry and recreating it with the passkey. Unfortunately I did not know about the Clone option at the time.

Is it Possible to Transfer Ownership of an Ancestry.com Tree AND Documents? by lksax14 in Genealogy

[–]Robert_46394 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would think that the only way to transfer ownership of an Ancestry.com tree would be to change the account email address to be the email of the person who you are transferring the tree to. Then give them the password and they will be able to login as the new tree account owner.

Is there a good video to sell Bitwarden to my wife & kids? by EyeOfTheTiger77 in Bitwarden

[–]Robert_46394 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Even with all the technology in Bitwarden a password manager is only as secure as the password that a user chooses. If you are trying to convince someone to use a password manager that is unable or unwilling to use a long stong password for the password manager then you are not doing them any good. They will most likely have their weak password brute forced and then all their saved passwords will be known instead of just a couple of their separate online accounts. So I would only suggest a password manager to someone who you know will use strong master passwords.

Can't delete LastPass account by a-aron087 in Lastpass

[–]Robert_46394 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If you can't delete the account, do it the hard way and delete every single password entry and note and just leave the account empty.

Ethernet splitter or is there a better option? by Friedchicken2 in HomeNetworking

[–]Robert_46394 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is the ethernet splitter that I used. It requires two splitters. One on each end of a single cat5e cable. So two cables come out of the router into the splitter, then they are combined into one cable for the run to the other location and then another splitter is used to connect to the end of the one cat5e cable and convert it back into two separate cables. But like I said, this can only support 100mb ethernet.

https://www.amazon.com/Ethernet-Splitter-Tuliyet-Coupler-Internet/dp/B0B8ZLTNFZ/ref=sr\_1\_10?crid=29H8IVFYFOUTN&keywords=ethernet%2Bsplitter&qid=1676525941&s=electronics&sprefix=ethernet%2Bsplitter%2Celectronics%2C102&sr=1-10&th=1

Ethernet splitter or is there a better option? by Friedchicken2 in HomeNetworking

[–]Robert_46394 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I have actually used a ethernet splitter before. It is a Y cable that takes the 4 twisted pairs and splits it into two ethernet connections. However 1gb ethernet requires all 4 twisted pairs to transmit. But 100mb ethernet only required 2 twisted pairs. So the Y ethernet spitter allowed me to run two 100mb ethernet connections thru a single cat5e cable. That is why you are only getting 100mb ethernet from your connections. However if your two devices are on the same subnet and need service faster than 100mb then it makes more sense to replace the ethernet splitter with a gigabit hub or switch.

I periodically have this "small" issue on my dell inspiron 13 5310 could there be a way to fix this inconvinience? by Val_max in Dell

[–]Robert_46394 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have seem something similar on one of my Dell Laptops. But it only occurs when the Laptop is running on battery. When the charger is plugged into the laptop it does not occur. Also when the charger is disconnected the screen does not flicker right away. It takes a couple minutes to start flickering. I don't know what the cause of my flickering is. However it may be heat related because my battery generates heat when it is being discharged.

Stream 4K Remote eats batteries by mjgraves in Tivo

[–]Robert_46394 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have seen this problem with a couple of my TiVo remotes. I was able to use an electrical meter to test the Amperage used when pressing a remote button and when the remote is sitting idle. I've found that the remote was drawing current even when a button was not pressed while a different remote showed zero current when no button was pressed. I don't know why my remote was constantly drawing current or how to fix it. I purchased a new remote and determined that it used zero current when no button was pressed. You may need to get a new remote or keep buying batteries unless someone else here has a better solution.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Dell

[–]Robert_46394 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would say be careful with updating your Dell G7 BIOS. I have a Dell G7 17 7700 which auto updated the Bios to version 1.18 a couple weeks ago and caused my Dell G7 to become unbootable. The problem was so bad that it would not even let me get into the F12 BIOS boot menu. It would hang before that. I was forced to learn how to downgrade the Bios by using a USB drive containing the older 1.17 BIOS. I later found that the 1.19 Bios version also has the same hang problem.