DSL disappointment
I feel hard done by. I recently moved into a small office in Dublin’s city centre. I applied for a high speed DSL Internet connection and found out only recently that my line is not suitable for it. I ordered DSL through IOL and I assumed in my naivety that because the two people I am sharing the office with have broadband,
I would certainly be able to get it. I have since received the reasons from Esat sales as to why I can’t access the service: My line is too far away from the exchange and my line is too sensitive.
At the time of making my application, I didn’t feel the need to enquire whether or not the line was suitable. In retrospect, I do feel however that the salesperson involved should have known to check for this.
I download a lot of files from my clients, so having high speed and keeping costs down are real necessities. I now have to resort to using other options, which are not as fast and which I have to pay fees for the connection, monthly rental and for the modem. IOL has an offer at the minute where the modem, installation and first month’s use of broadband is free! Surely there should be an alternative offer, be it a discount or a similar offer to broadband for someone in my situation who is trying to run a business and cannot get broadband?
Paula Moen, Dublin
PC C: Despite your difficulties with DSL, there may be some light at the end of the tunnel. The fact that you are living in the Capital means that you should be able to access a wireless broadband service. Visit www.irishbroadband.ie for more details on this. Its broadband for the small office offering starts at EUR149 for installation and EUR90 for monthly rental, including upload and download speeds of up to 512Kbit/s. But be warned that the contention rate is 20:1, so it could end up being as slow as 25Kbit/s depending on the number of users accessing the service at any one time.
Restore private folders
I had to reinstall Windows XP on a system containing private folders. Now I can’t get back into these folders, even though I’ve created the same user names as before. What can I do?
Robert Bell, Monaghan
PC C: Reboot your PC and before Windows starts loading, press
Product providers know best
I recently upgraded my anti-virus software from Norton Antivirus 2000 to NAV 2003. My operating system is Windows Me. Now, every time I try to send or receive e-mail I keep getting a time out message. I searched my ISP’s (Eircom) web pages for a solution and the only help I could find was the following:
(From Eircom Residential Technical Support)
Norton Antivirus Causes Outlook Express 6 to Stop Responding
Symptoms
When you use Outlook Express to check mail, Outlook Express may return a time-out error message. You can successfully Telnet to the server, but you cannot use Outlook Express to connect to the server.
Cause
Norton System Works includes an antivirus e-mail scan. This issue can occur if this Norton System Works antivirus e-mail scan is enabled; Outlook Express 6 times out when connecting to the mail server to send or receive e-mail. This issue affects only Outlook Express 6.
Workaround
To work around this issue, disable the e-mail scan portion of Norton System Works.
I tried this and it works. However, I find this workaround to be ridiculous: Disabling the e-mail scan in order to send or receive e-mails leaves my PC open to contamination from viruses. Is there a better solution to this problem?
Brendan Whooley, Internet
PC C: Golden rule here: Always go to the manufacturer of a product for technical support. You should contact Symantec to find a more suitable workaround. I am certain that the Eircom technical support team were just trying to be helpful when they gave you this advice, but it would be very dangerous to turn off your virus scanner just so you could send e-mail – a very temporary and foolish workaround indeed!
19/01/04
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