Saturday, May 29, 2010

ET, Write Home

Articles about fixing or ameliorating static on home cordless phone systems almost always say to find the source of the static and fix that, usually a router, usually by changing its frequency.

Why can't the phone do that?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can't fix anything and I never expect a gadget to fix itself. The only time anything came close is when I was having problems with a Dell PC. Folks tell me to try something, I would, no fixee. I was talking to my grandson one night on the phone. He's a software developer or something. He said, "Unplug your power cord for a minute or two. That fixes many computer problems. I thought he was joking. But it worked, "Computer, heal thy self." If I was a preacher, I 'd preach a sermon, use a human instead of a computer. It should work up real good.

Had a point when I started here. Almost forgot it. That is to say you sent me to the dictionary with that word, ameliorating. Regards.

Cerulean Bill said...

Computers are nowhere near as simple as they ought to be. What I tend to forget is that they're complex pieces of software (and hardware, too; don't ask about my experience with Dell power supplies). If cars were like PCs, and lived in the same kind of hostile environment, you'd check the lugnuts on your car every time you went out, just to be sure some prankster hadn't loosened them.

The power thing -- computers will 'remember' things, like the name of the last web site you went to, or what your preferred color scheme is. Some of the things, you didn't really TELL them to; its just that the info is in RAM, and nothing's told it to clear, so its still around. Usually, not a problem, but sometimes, it is. Pulling power is a quick fix for that - no power (and, presumably, no battery backup) equals no saved memory. Same deal with, say, cable modems. The technical term we used to use was 'the computer wants to...' or 'the modem wants to...' Of course, they don't want squat - don't anthropomorphize hardware; they hate that - its just a way of referring to that retained memory.