Category Archives: Review

AdSmartMedia advertising

Computer Aid Posted on by

I got a cold call last Wednesday morning (from an “03” Victoria phone number) from a representative of AdSmart media

As usual, I thought “here we go again”. As usual, he had a thick foreign accent

As usual, I listened politely. However, what was offered sounded interesting at first: Advertise a 30 second video of my business at selected retail outlets.

They would produce, for free, the video, which he said could cost up to $3000. I doubt they would spend more than $100 producing a video, but I decided to listen, as I’m always open to new ways to advertise Computer Aid.

After a few questions, it turns out it was actually a 13 second video, which is rotated with about 40 other videos… so my video plays about once every 8 – 9 minutes, or 2.5% of the time… based on prior experience, this should be dirt cheap, but I suspect it won’t be. There’s bound to be a high markup due to the costs of cold-calling to drum up advertisers

Anyway, their website looks nice, except its one of those awful “pretend singe page” layouts that seem popular at the moment, and I can see the costs are a bit higher that I would be prepared to pay: $22 per week for 1 location, $33 for 2 locations, $44 for 5 locations, $66 for 10 locations, etc

The nice part, is that there is no long contract: 1 or 2 months, then you can cancel

Plus you get to keep the video they produce

So, AdSmartMedia can make up to $22 X 40 = $880 per location, on 1100 locations Australia wide

Since I’m vaguely interested (except for the cost), I’m transferred to a “supervisor”

Now, a transfer to a supervisor also makes me suspicious. Its just that she is more experienced in convincing reluctant prospects (like me) to sign up

I tell her I need to do some research before I commit. She offers to call back that afternoon, I say: call tomorrow, as I’m busy the whole afternoon

She gets me to commit to being available to accept a call between 10 & 11am on Thursday… fine, I put it in my calendar

In the meantime, I have some spare time between customers, so I decide to check out these “locations” (they have the addresses on the website)… most seem to be small convenience stores, fishNchip shops, newsagents, bakeries, etc

I had time to have a look a 6 locations as follows:

  • Guy behind the counter didn’t know what I was talking about, & there was no advertising screen that I could see
  • Fast food place had a display, showing adverts for “MadAds.com.au”
  • Store had display (but it was off because the remote had been “stolen”)
  • Store had display working correctly (but given the loud environment, no sound could be heard)
  • Store had a display “frozen” … displaying some snickers bars
  • Another store had the display off… checkout lady didn’t know what the display was for & the owner wasn’t there (but he would be there “tomorrow”)

So, from what I saw, it looks like my money would end up in a black hole, with nobody calling me, because very few people would see my ad

So what happened on Thursday?

Nothing. Nobody called

But they did try to call on Friday morning (9:42am), but I wasn’t able to take the call

The only way I could see this working for myself, would be to visit all 25 nearby stores & pick the ones that actually have operating displays (and I won’t bother having any sound in the video, as its unlikely anyone will hear it)

I’d also have to regularly visit the stores to make sure the displays are not “accidentally” turned off

Otherwise, this could be an inexpensive way of producing a 13 second promotional video of my company

I won’t be using this particular product, but your mileage may vary… I’m sure there are others that found this product effective, but its just suitable for me

tp-link TL-WPS510U fault

Computer Aid Posted on by

I was recently asked to setup a USB printer (a dymo) as a print server, so that everyone in a small company could print to it.

The company supplied me with a new tp-link TL-WPS510U device

How difficult could it be? (famous last words)

I run the setup software from the supplied CD. The software detects the WPS510U, then finds the current WiFi network, then reconfigures the WPS510 to work “nicely” with the existing WiFi network.

So far, so good.

Then the setup software re-boots the WPS510U so that it can activate its new settings, & start working.

So, after waiting 15 minutes, I realise something is wrong.

I reset the WPS510U back to factory defaults, & try again (in case I made a mistake), but I get the same results.

Reset back to factory defaults, then, as a workaround, I also try to configure it via the USB port instead. Again, once it resets to take on its new settings, it dissappears.

OK, maybe its faulty, so I take it back to my office to see if I can get it to work on my network… & it works! Flawlessly!

Obviously I did something wrong at the customer premises!

So I go back & decide to use my own laptop (since I used it to configured the WPS510U at my office)…

But it still vanishes from the customer WiFi network!

At this point, most people would just give up & plug the printer into a USB port & then share it out.

But I’m curious, so after some lateral thinking I realise the customer network is using WiFi channel 13 (I am in Australia, after all, and channels 12, 13, 14 are perfectly legal… But then I have had similar issues with a Wii console (shame on you, Nintendo!))

So, after I change the customer WiFi to use Channel 11, the WPS510U can finally configure itself correctly (shame on you TP-Link!)

So, now the final step is to connect the company PCs to print to the “new” printer… except half of them cannot detect the printer over the network!

OK, I know when I’m beaten… I now give up & just use the printer connected via USB directly to a PC, then share it out via windows networking.

Problem fixed, & very disappointed with TP-Link

Android battery life, Kitkat vs Marshmallow

Computer Aid Posted on by

I recently got 2 samsung i9506 (S4 galaxy) phones

i’ve had such a bad experience with lollipop battery life, that I went back to using kitkat

But now that I have 2 identical phones, I decided to compare kitkat with the latest android: Marshmallow

Although the phones were not setup identically, I did give Marshmallow some big advantages as follows:

KitKat phone:

  • running standard Samsung kitkat 4.4.2
  • uses my current SIM card, used as a normal phone
  • I rooted, & disabled as much Samsung bloatware as possible
  • Running GSam battery monitor
  • Connected to WiFi
  • Max screen brightness
  • Fully charged
  • about 5 different gmail accounts activated, with notifications active
  • various other accounts setup (eg trello, firefox, etc)

Marshmallow:

  • Running AOSP Cyanogenmod (from sometime in May 2016)… IE a bare-bones android with no bloatware
  • no SIM card
  • GSam battery monitor
  • Connected to WiFi
  • max screen brightness
  • Fully charged
  • Only 1 gmail account

Now, since I use my phone a lot, what concerns me the most, is the battery drain while the screen is on, & I’m active browsing, reading emails, & playing some trivial games like hill climb racing.

So I used both phones, side-by-side, and spent about 30 minutes on various activities… the same stuff on both phones, side-by-side.

I then went into GSam, & looked at the battery “rate of change” chart, to see how efficient each android was…

Surprisingly (and disappointingly), I found that MM would drain at around 35% to 40% per hour… ie it would go flat in under 3 hours of constant use.

Given that KitKat was also powering a 4G SIM card, it should have been worse… but it drained the battery at around 20% – 25% per hour… ie it would go flat in around 4 – 5 hours.

Just to be sure, I swapped the batteries, & did the test again… & got the same results… so I’ve ruled out any differences in batteries.

As a result, I can guess that both Lollipop & Marshmallow have some major flaw, or an inefficient OS design.

As such, there is no way I will be moving away from Kitkat anytime soon.

The only reason I would recommend MarshMallow, is for those who only use their phone for 2 or 3 minutes per day, as MarshMallows “doze” mode means the battery barely drains while the phone has the display off.

YMMV (Your mileage may vary)

Paypal Here: a quick evaluation

Computer Aid Posted on by

I’ve been wanting to accept credit card payments (without the big monthly fees) for many years.

Recently I contacted paypal, and asked about their Paypal Here system (I’m in Australia).

It sounded good: approx 2.9% Paypal fee on each transaction, with no ongoing fees: just perfect for me.

After Paypal activated my “here” account, I downloaded the app to my Android phone (android 4.2), and it all looked nice, and without actually entering a transaction, seemed to be just what I wanted.

However, once I took a real payment, from a real Customer, I found 2 major problems, which make me reluctant to use Paypal Here:

  • At the time of entering the Credit card details, the paypal here app tells me that I cannot continue until I activate the phones location services, and offers to take me to the settings where I can activate these services… but ALL the location services are already active! So what do I do??? I eventually decide to go OUTSIDE, so that the phone can get a GPS lock on my location, and then I’m able to complete the transaction. I can’t see any reason why this happens, and its a major problem to ask the customer to come outside with me, just so they can pay by credit card.
  • The next day, I look at my paypal account on my computer, and I see the paypal here transaction, but with no other identifying information. This is despite me spending time to enter the invoice number into the (optional) description field on the Android App.

PP_HereSo, not only to I get these awful “features” with Paypal Here, I also have to pay an extra 0.5% for the extra inconvenience.

Sorry Paypal, as far as I’m concerned, “Here” is “Gone” (at least until you can fix your app)

Acer cashback offer is really not worth it

Computer Aid Posted on by

About 6 years ago, I took advantage of a laptop cashback offer.

After about 1 month, I got a cheque in the mail, and I was happy camper.

About 3 months ago, I had the need to make use of an Acer cashback offer for a laptop.

I assumed that it would be a similar process… but no, it was worse.

Obviously, the 3 month delay is the first problem… Particularly when these offers seem to have restrictions like “offer must be completed by “this” date, and offer must be complete “X” days after purchase…

Then, instead of getting a cheque, I get an EFTPOS card

So, looking at the info I was sent, I can see further restrictions:

  • Card is valid for 12 months from the activation date
  • Card cannot be used at ATMs to withdraw cash (presumably, I can buy something from a supermarket and get cash-out… but I’m not sure
  • Card cannot be topped-up, or merged with another card

So now I’m looking at finding a way to spend all the money on the card, and not leave a few dollars.

I can try the cashout option (but it might not work)

Or the only other alternative is to buy over $49 at the supermarket (The card value is $49), and pay the first $49 from the card, and the remainder in cash.

And the sad thing is this: Acer do not operate the cashback system themselves… the use GiftCardPlanet… who charge Acer: $5.95 postage, $4.95 production fee per card, and a 2% credit card surcharge on the value of the card…

That could mean that my $49 gift card actually costs Acer $60.88

So, let me get this straight: Rather than hire a real person to administer the cashback program, an use cheques, such that a $49 might end up costing acer, say, $55 per $49 cashback, they choose to spend over $60 per $49 cashback offer.. with the extra money going to a “card” company, rather than put that extra money into the “my” pocket. And then make it more difficult for me to actually get the full cashback.

I must say: I really cant be bothered with all this crap… From now on, when I see a cashback offer, I’ll look for the actual cost, and compare actual costs, and just pretend the cashback offer doesn’t exist.

Career77.com and workvictory.com another scam alert

Computer Aid Posted on by

If you are looking for work and you get an email that begins with:

Thank you for your recent submission for a role at Employed Success.

To progress your submission further, you must finish an Online Assessment. This has to be completed within the next 7 days in order for your submission to get consideration for roles with Employed Success.

Then my advice is: don’t bother. Just move it into your spam folder and move on.

Its actually a variation on the: Work At Home Mom Makes $6,397/Month Part-Time

They say you make the money from google, but I doubt it.

My website and blog make me about $40 per month, and thats after 7 years of blogging (about 850 blog posts to date), so your chances of making 100 times as much depends on what kind of interesting / depraved / wacky nonsense you can serve up, in the hopes that it goes “viral”. Just because 1 person got lucky and got millions of hits on their youtube video of their pet rock which suddenly developed the ability to play chess, doesn’t mean you will too.

Great ADSL internet plans

Computer Aid Posted on by

This one will only apply to people who live in Australia.

I don’t often advertise goods and services for other companies, but after 7 years with the same ISP, and having helped many people with changing their current plan to a much cheaper one, all without asking for anything in return, I decided to become a TPG reseller.

I’m hoping to generate a small amount of revenue from being a reseller, but my main aim is to let you know that I’m so happy with my own personal experience with TPG over such a long period, that you can genuinely save a lot of money by switching to TPG.

I regularly look around for cheap internet plans, but in the last 7 years, I’m yet to find a company that provides a better value internet service than TPG.

Since I do a lot of my work on the internet, and I also design websites, I find I spend most of my time on the internet… probably more that most people.

Yet it might surprise you to find that I am using TPGs cheapest internet plan at $29.99 per month

For that, I get 50GB per month, which I rarely exceed. And on top of that, the 50GB is actually split into 25GB peak, and 25GB off-peak… So I rarely exceed 25GB per month during normal daily hours.

And the internet is used by 3 active PCs, 2 mobile phones, and a few android tablets.

Now, if you want to check out the details, go to:

Great value internet plans

Please note:

What you pay will be the same, regardless of whether you go to TPG directly, or if you signup via my reseller links, except:

  • with TPG direct, TPG gets to keep all your money
  • with me, you will be helping out a struggling computer repairer (me)

Amazing mobile phone plans

Computer Aid Posted on by

OK, this one will only apply to people who live in Australia.

I don’t often advertise goods and services for other companies, but after 7 years with the same ISP, 2 years with the same ISP for my mobile phones, and having helped many people with changing their current plan to a much cheaper one, all without asking for anything in return, I decided to become a TPG reseller.

I’m hoping to generate a small amount of revenue from being a reseller, but my main aim is to let you know that I’m so happy with my own personal experience with TPG over such a long period, that you can genuinely save a lot of money by switching to TPG.

Honestly: when I first found out that TPG had mobile phone plans, I was skeptical (I was with Virgin at the time).

At the time, there were 2 companies that I did not trust: Dodo and Soul (due to very bad customer service)

And TPG purchased Soul… So I decided to stay away from TPGs mobile phone offerings for about 2 years.

I eventually noticed that they had a $15 per month plan, that seemed similar to my Virgin $29 per month plan (both use the Optus Mobile Network)

When I looked more closely, I found it was actually MUCH better.

$550 of calls per month, 1.5GB of data per month (so I could actually use my android phone as a modem if I really wanted to).

So I tentatively tried 1 of my phones, and didn’t have a single problem.

There were no unexpected “gotchas”, and no need to worry about going over my call or data limits.

I then decided to get a phone for my 9 year old son, and try out the TPG $1 per month plan.

I figured that there had to be some sort of catch with this one… most likely the calls and SMS TXT messages would be much more expensive (per minute), compared to other plans.

Instead it was just the opposite: 9.9¢ TXT messages, and phone calls were 10¢ flagfall and 9.9¢ per minute. How good is that!

I now have 3 phones with TPG, and I’m paying a total of $31 per month (actually a tiny bit more, as the $1 plan sometimes involves paying an extra $1 or 2, and calls are made).

Now, if you want to check out the details, go to:

Cheap mobile phone plans

Please note:

What you pay will be the same, regardless of whether you go to TPG directly, or if you signup via my reseller links, except:

  • with TPG direct, TPG gets to keep all your money
  • with me, you will be helping out a struggling computer repairer (me)

If you are also looking for a good, and inexpensive android smartphone, I also sell those.

Scam warning: Terry Riley bettennis.com.au

Computer Aid Posted on by

By now, most of us can pick a well-polished scam quite quickly.

With Terry Riley (bettennis.com.au), its a not well-polished, so initially, it fell into the realms of: “unlikely, but possible”.

I got a call from a “Cathy White” just before I was going to visit a customer. It sounded like a scam, but since she just wanted my email, and permission to send 1 week of betting tips, I decided: why not. She said Terry “lives and breaths tennis”.

So I ended up getting 3 tips from Terry and (without actually betting anything), I checked the outcome, and all 3 were winners.

There is very little information about Terry Riley on the internet.

Since his email tips also show his Varsity lakes address (gold coast, QLD), I figure: a real scammer wouldn’t do something like that.

To prove his past track record, he sends you a scan of hand-written tips for 4 months (Jan 2011 to April 2011), and the results seem reasonable: between 1 and 4 losses per month, and about 14 to 21 wins per month.

Overall, the wins more than cover the losses.

After a lot of thought, I decided that the yearly payment of “only” $600 was a reasonable risk, as I could bet at whatever level I wanted … I was just buying tips, so I wasn’t locked in to losing many thousands of dollars… and I could stop anytime I liked.

So I started a betting account (with a modest amount of money that I could afford to lose), and started receiving Terry’s tips.

After a few months, it I got the feeling that Terry was a big tennis fan, and that someone might have convinced him to use his knowledge of tennis to make some money.

After a few months, it also became obvious that Terry could not pick winners as well as he thought he could.

Sure, in the 10 months since I started receiving his tip, I’ve probably had 2 months that were profitable, and 2 months that were break-even, but otherwise its been a downward slide.

After a few months, Terry decided to introduce 2 tiers of tips: tier1 = tip is likely to win, but tips are less frequent, while tier2 is more frequent, but less likely to win. Obviously I started ignoring all the Tier2 tips.

I’m now down to 15% of the initial money deposited into my betting account. If I had started with the “recommended” $10,000, then I’d be down to just $1,500. Luckily, I used a much smaller starting amount.

To his credit, Terry doesn’t make excuses for any incorrect tips, but when I received 5 losing tips in a row, followed by 10 tips of alternating win-lose outcomes, it became obvious that Terry has either taken his eye off the ball, or he exaggerated his abilities.

After having done some research in this field, Terry’s results are no better than if you randomly pick results yourself, or if you follow a simple rule like: only bet on players whose odds are between 1.1 and 1.2

Verdict: Terry tries hard, but just doesn’t deliver.

Which is the best online services for the businessman on the go and how can he benefit from it?

Computer Aid Posted on by

The era of the mobile office has truly transformed business people’s lives. Formerly obliged to attend a physical office in person every day for set hours, with long commutes and fairly ineffective working practices to contend with, today business people can work flexibly wherever they wish, using the power of technology to carry out their jobs more effectively.

Business Changes

The advent of new technologies doesn’t simply change the platform or equipment that applications are delivered on – it also changes cultures. Mobile working and wireless-internet facilities provide the scope for flexible work patterns and negate the need for a physical office space. Staff can work from home, at client locations and also remotely while traveling. This has huge potential benefits in terms of cost savings on fixed overheads and office servicing, time, carbon-emission reductions and improved staff morale.Where once distance was seen as a problem, it now poses no barrier, as online networks allow remote teams to communicate and collaborate across wide areas. Web conferencing, file sharing, online collaborative work spaces and other tools facilitate remote business and often improve its effectiveness. Each piece of technology has its own benefits that can help businesses to grow, while keeping costs down.

onConference

This useful app offers web conferencing and local-to-international conference calling. One of its key benefits is the ability to teleconference using existing phone lines rather than the internet. There are call-recording options to capture meetings for later playback and a free Meeting Manager service online that sends out invitations in a simple, professional and streamlined format. You can use interactive webinars and even share your personal desktop, so that other enabled users can see data, documents and applications first hand. The package is paid for by user and by minute, rather than by a subscription, so it can be great value for money.

SlideShare

SlideShare allows users to upload PowerPoint presentations for either private or public viewing. It’s compatible with Open Office (a free equivalent to Microsoft Office) and Mac Keynotes and there are both free and paid for ‘Pro’ options available. Once the slides are uploaded, they can be viewed by up to 60 million visitors a month, helping to generate a little awareness and buzz about your products and services and opening the door for new connections and linkages. If you need ideas for a sales presentation, the website allows you to browse for inspiration or use an existing template to work from.

GoToMeeting

There’s a 30-day trial for this service that’s entirely free and worth a try. It offers online meeting spaces and video-conferencing for up to 15 people using PCs, iPads, Macs or smart phones. If you want to sign up to the full service, it costs a flat rate of $49 dollars a month to host as many meetings as you want. It’s a cost-effective option for allowing project groups, disparate teams, clients, training groups or sales staff across branches to catch up quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively. It can improve productivity through shorter meeting times and the reduced need for travel. For someone managing a business across several locations, it is an extremely useful tool.These are just some of the services available for the technologically aware business person. New ones are being released all the time, offering new features and even greater benefits.

About the Author:

The above article is composed and edited by Roxanne P. She is associated with many Technologies communities as their freelance writer and adviser. In her free time she writes articles related to mobile applications,  social media, dsl internet providers related articles etc.

Is SaS the future of computing?

Computer Aid Posted on by

I guess the first question a lot of people will be asking is what is SaS?  SaS which stands for “software as a service” is becoming an increasingly common concept in the business world.  Instead of going to a shop and buying the latest software which is then there’s to use forever a lot of businesses now pay subscription fees to use the software.  This is most commonly used in a lot of business specific software like accounting software  but its success means that we could see it being adopted across the board and coming into our homes, in some instances it already has.

So why would we want SaS?

Affordability

There are a number of advantages to using SaS that could make this something we should welcome.  Firstly it allows us to pay for software in a more affordable way; by not having to invest such a large amount of money all in one go the price tags become less scary, a few pounds / dollars a month is much more viable to many home users than several hundred or even thousand pounds / dollars all in one go.  If it turns out you don’t like the software you can just stop paying and never spend anywhere near the hefty amount you could have wasted otherwise.

Flexibility

The flexibility of SaS only adds to the affordability and makes high end software available many who would normally not be able to afford it.  This is because we only pay for it when we are using it, so if you’ve previously not bought the best photo editor or accounting program because it was not worth it for the amount of time you would be using it this might now change.  SaS allows you to only subscribe when you need the software, so if your only using a month of Photo editing software just after your holiday to edit all those vacation snaps,   or a month of accounting software at the end of the tax year to get your books in order the chances are you will never end up spending the amount you would have if you bought the program in one go.

Staying up to date

We’ve all fallen victim to how quickly computers and software update, it can sometimes seem that just as soon as we’ve invested in the latest software package the next one comes out, and all of a sudden our work is no longer compatible or we start to want the latest features other people have.  With SaS you are always using the very latest version; even minor updates are instantly available to you without your payments changing, SaS means your money is always buying you the latest thing.

Commitment from the software company

The software company only makes money from you whilst you are using the software so they have an incentive to keep you using it as long as possible.  This means they will not only strive to keep the software as up to date and good as it can be but they will also offer you great technical support to make sure your getting everything you can out of it.  The company making the software have a much greater responsibility to offer you computer help so the days of having to solve problems for yourself by traipsing the internet could be over.

You can spend less money on your computer

Many SaS programs aren’t actually installed on your computer but are run on the computers of the software company that designs them.  You then connect to their computer using a high speed internet connection and use their machines to do your work from home.  This usually means that your computer doesn’t need to be the most expensive fast one to get results as all the hard work and processing power is being done elsewhere.  It’s the software companies that have to buy the super computer not you.

So what’s the catch?

Well if you use software a lot and don’t normally feel the need to upgrade to the latest and greatest program then it could over all end up costing you more than buying software in the traditional manner.  Software is also less likely to fall in price allowing you to find bargains if you get a slightly old version as we  move to a culture of just constantly updating software rather than releasing new versions.  You may also not be able to access your work if the internet goes don or you don’t have a connection however there will no doubt be ways around this.

SaS defiantly looks to be moving away from just being for businesses in the form of accounting software and luckily the advantages seem to outweigh the disadvantages.  However for many people who have become accustomed to buying a piece of software to keep forever it may be a big change to get used too.  If you’ve got a subscription to an antivirus service or even play online subscription games you have already seen the beginning of the change.