How To Become a Computer Technician

So you want to be a Computer Technician, but you don't know how? Well guess what, I am going to tell you how.

First things first, I am blunt and to the point. I hate typing and thinking about grammar, that is why I went into the Technology field.

I have over 10 years experience in web design, computer networking, hardware, software, java programming, Apple & IBM (pc) format computers, telephone work, home theatres etc, etc, etc, & I make a lot of money doing. So basically I know what I am talking about & I am going to give you some advice that took me 10 long, hard years to learn.

How To Become a Computer Technician

1. MOST IMPORTANT: LEARN how to find the right answers. This can be true for ANY field, ANY person works in. You do not need to know everything, and guess what, if you spent the next 10 years reading, going to school & obtaining certifications, you still wouldn't know all there is to know in the field of Technology. But if you can figure out what resources will help you find a solution for you the fastest, then you are on your way.

2. Go to school and/or get certifications. Of course you need to learn about computers, software, hardware etc to become a computer technician. Find something that fits you, something that makes you excited to go. 4 year schools are not for every one, so make sure they are right for you if you choose to go. In my 4 years in college the only thing I learned to do is program at Level II in Java (a blind monkey could program at that level) and drink a lot of beer. 2 year schools are good because the get straight to the point about the actual jobs you will be doing out in the REAL world. (I was offered a teaching position at one of these 2 year schools at the ripe old age of 25, I laughed in their face & said no because of the salary they were offering). Certifications are important regardless if you get a 2 or 4 year degree. They tell other people that have NO CLUE about technology that you, indeed have a clue about technology

Did you follow that?

A couple of certifications that I highly recommend are the A+, Networking + and any Microsoft Support Certification.

3. Be patient, with yourself and the people you work with. You will always be learning if you become a computer technician. The average lifespan for a particular model of technology (ie computers) is about 2 years. Meaning as soon as you buy it, it is OLD. Things change everyday in Technology and you have to keep up with it!

4. Have a Positive Attitude! Remember, when people call you or you are dispatched out to work on someone's computer, TV etc, they usually are frustrated. Most people will try to fix the issue themselves before calling anyone because they are cheap. By the time you or I get there they are ready to cry. A positive and friendly attitude will go an EXTREMELY LONG WAY. You will be their savior and they will tell all their friends about you. This point might be the most difficult, especially in Technology because not very many people understand how it works and because our lives are so dependent on it.

That is it, 4 simple steps.

Can you handle it?

These are the 4 things I have tried to do over the last 10 years. Trust me, I am no genius, not by a long shot. But I figured out how to find the right answer for the problem, combined with an education, some certifications and the right attitude, I have people knocking down my door for my services.

Read this article a couple of times until this info really sinks in. This advice works so use it!

Stop sitting there and get busy!

For more information on How To Become a Computer Technician, check out a couple of this sites I have listed in my bio, those will help.

Good Luck!

OUT

How To Become a Computer Technician
Check For The New Release in Health, Fitness & Dieting Category of Books NOW!
Check What Are The Top Cooking Books in Last 90 Days Best Cheap Deal!
Check For Cookbooks Best Sellers 2012 Discount OFFER!
Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection

Motorola SB6141 - The Latest Motorola DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem Is Here

First of all before I tell you about the Motorola SB6141, the latest DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem from Motorola in this review, it is important to at least have a high level of understanding of what the DOCSIS 3.0 specification is and what are the advantages it provides to a modem that is built to that specification.

DOCSIS stands for Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification. As you can tell from the version number, the 3.0 specification is the third and the latest version of DOCSIS; the 3.0 specification was actually released way back in August 2006 by a consortium of technology companies led Cablelabs of which Motorola is a member to use channel bonding technologies to provide ultra fast broadband services.

So how does this channel bonding technology helps to improve the data transfer speed? In simple terms, a modem like the SB6141 utilizes the channel bonding technology together with the DOCSIS 3.0 standard to cleverly harness the extra unused bandwidth capacity to provide the boost to users.

Motorola SB6141 - The Latest Motorola DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem Is Here

Imagine combining eight already large data pipe of 40 Mbps of data per channel to give you a theoretical total downstream capacity of 320 Mbps? In the theoretical or optimal case, you could utilize data rates of more than 320 Mbps downstream and 160 Mbps for upstream channels.

However do note that like all modems, actual data throughput will generally be less due to physical layer overheads e.g. error correction coding, burst preamble, guard correction etc

Also do note that you get what you pay for. For example if you subscribe to a 20 Mbps package from your ISP, you will not be able to take the full advantage of the SB6141's data capacity due to the capping from your ISP.

Even though users cannot make total use of its theoretical through put, most users of the Motorola SB6141 would feel the speed surge immediately when they switched over to the SB6141.

The Motorola SB6141 supports both IPv4 and IPv6 and is also backward compatible to the original DOCSIS/EuroDOCSIS and includes an internal filter to eliminate potential interference from MoCA signals' inter modulation beats.

The Pros and Cons of the Motorola SB6141

No matter how good a product is, there will always be some weakness. However the SB6141 is an excellent product that has evolved from its solid predecessors the Motorola SB6121 and SB6120, so there are few flaws. In fact these should not be termed "Cons" as it is not the weakness of the Motorola SB6141 but rather the accessibility provided by the ISP Comcast:

Comcast does automatically not support the SB6141 at the point of writing. However some customers have managed to get Comcast to manually provision their SB6121 for them. Once that has been done, s reset signal will be sent to the modem and you have to repower it to get it working. Also to make sure that you buy the appropriate Comcast package to make full use of the Motorola SB6141's capabilities i.e. you pay for the speed

These are some of the Pros of the Motorola SB6141

It now supports AES traffic encryption for enhance security Easy to set up Has a build-in internal filter to reduce potential interference from MoCA signals' inter-modulation beats Cheaper than its predecessors the Motorola SB6121 and Motorola SB6120 Capable of channel bonding up to eight downstream channels and four upstream channels. This offers a potential increase in data rates of over 300 Mbps for received data and over 100 Mbps for sending data Shares the same firmware image as the hugely popular SB6121 and SB6120. This helps to reduce operator qualification time and eliminates configuration management problems for the ISPs

Motorola SB6141 - The Latest Motorola DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem Is Here
Check For The New Release in Health, Fitness & Dieting Category of Books NOW!
Check What Are The Top Cooking Books in Last 90 Days Best Cheap Deal!
Check For Cookbooks Best Sellers 2012 Discount OFFER!
Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection

Overall, if you are looking for speed and if you are willing to pay for the speed from your ISP, then the Motorola SB6141 is the modem to go for. Click here to buy the Motorola SB6141.

Regzooka Review - Should I Use Regzooka?

Are you wondering if you should use Regzooka? Well, a group of experts and I have purchased a variety of different registry cleaners and put them to the test to see which software is the most effective for our consumers. Regzooka was among one of those registry cleaners that we have tested.

On paper, Regzooka is an award winning registry cleaner that is created by BluePenguin Software, a technology company that is known for creating systems utility tools for removing spyware. Keep in mind that "award winning" should not be a deciding factor when choosing which software to use because most programs like this have won similar awards.

Upon doing additional research on their company, I discovered that they have received a very poor rating in the BBB (Better Business Bureau) Business Review. In fact on September 28th 2010, BluePenguin Software had their accreditation revoked by the BBB's Board of Directors.

Regzooka Review - Should I Use Regzooka?

Now that we have reviewed the facts on Regzooka, let me report to you exactly what we discovered after having purchased and tested this program ourselves.

After the results for Regzooka had come in, we were not surprised when we found that this registry cleaner was classified as mediocre among the other programs tested. This software was a fairly decent and had all the necessary functions to do a thorough scan on your computer, but lacks some advanced options and special features such as the System Optimizer or Evidence Eraser that we want in these programs.

The interface was not as user-friendly as we hoped for. Some features were hidden away and might require a few minutes of digging before you could find them. Novice computer users may not be able to navigate this program as well as advanced computer users, however all the basic functions to perform a computer scan were simply laid out.

One thing that set Regzooka apart from the other programs we tested is its 100% guarantee of error removals. If this software did not clean out 100% of your computer errors, you had 60 days to do a complete refund. This was a nice option, however many other programs also offered 100% 60-day money guarantee if you were not satisfied with the program.

Overall, we give Regzooka 6.5/10 because it is a fairly decent piece of software that could potentially remove all the errors and help speed up your computer performance.

However, within the given price range, there are many other registry cleaners that offer much more in terms of special features.

Regzooka Review - Should I Use Regzooka?
Check For The New Release in Health, Fitness & Dieting Category of Books NOW!
Check What Are The Top Cooking Books in Last 90 Days Best Cheap Deal!
Check For Cookbooks Best Sellers 2012 Discount OFFER!
Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection

Want The Best Registry Cleaner For Your Computer? Visit: Best Registry Cleaner

Google Chrome Keeps Crashing - How to Fix It

There are many reasons for Google Chrome crashing. One of the reasons could be an old version of Internet Download Manager. To resolve the crash due to this reason, update to IDM v6.03 beta, or disable the 'Advanced browser integration' option within IDM by going to go to Options and then General.

If your Google Chrome is crashing when trying to print on an Asus EeePC with an out-dated version of Asus WebStorage, you can solve this by downloading the latest version of ebStorage.

Another common cause for the crash is the incompatibility of Google Chrome with much software, to solve this, current approach is to try and disable the software or try getting an updated and latest version of it to see if this resolves the issue. Different software which have been identified so far being incompatible to Google Chrome are out-dated versions of iS3 anti-spyware (STOPzilla), NVIDIA Network Access Manager, NVIDIA nTune,NOD32 version 2.7, Hide My IP, Venturi Firewall, out-dated versions of WinMount and PPLive. There have been incompatibility issues causing crashes reported with NVIDIA Desktop Explorer caused by the nvshell.dll library. You can try to resolve this by removing nvshell.dll.

Google Chrome Keeps Crashing - How to Fix It

Another common cause for the crash is the user profile of your browser being corrupted. You can fix this problem by creating a new user profile to replace the corrupt one by following the steps below.

Completely exit from Google Chrome Go to the Start menu > Run. Type in either of the following directories in the text field and press OK. Windows XP: %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data Windows 7 or Windows Vista: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data Rename the folder called "Default" in the directory window to "Backup default."

Open the Google Chrome again which will create a new "Default" folder automatically, which should resolve the problem.

Google Chrome Keeps Crashing - How to Fix It
Check For The New Release in Health, Fitness & Dieting Category of Books NOW!
Check What Are The Top Cooking Books in Last 90 Days Best Cheap Deal!
Check For Cookbooks Best Sellers 2012 Discount OFFER!
Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection

To fix this error and many more errors easy, safe and fast you should get a registry cleaner toolkit. I have made a comparison chart about the best registry cleaners that you should check out.

With my 12-years computer experience as an software developer, I know about the windows platform more than anyone else. It is so complex that you cannot keep you system in a good condition manually.

How to Recover Data From Failed Hard Drives

There are two main methods of recovering data from failed hard drives.

First of all, you can run specialized data recovery software that could retrieve all of your important data files. In the majority of cases, you will be able to recover the data from your failed hard drives without too much trouble using data recovery freeware, or purchase fully supported software if you prefer.

Please note hat data recovery is not always possible if the actual problem is due to aging or faulty hard drive component such as a broken head arm. In those extra-ordinary cases you would have the hardware fixed by an expert technician before being able to access any of the precious data on the hard drive.

How to Recover Data From Failed Hard Drives

As far as data recovery in concerned, there are no limitations to the physical size of your hard drive. Whether you are trying to recover data from a 1 MB pen drive or a 300 GB Ultra-SCSI drive, you should still be able to recover the data.

Additionally, there are no limitations to the different types of operating systems which you may be trying to recover data from, such as Microsoft Windows to Linux systems. This also extends to include different file formats such as FAT32 and NTFS which are very common file formats for Windows systems, or the Mac OS file system used by Apple Macs.

Information can be retrieved from all sectors of the hard drive - even files that you may have deleted in the past which had ended up in recycle bin prior to your hard drive failing would be recoverable.

Secondly, data recovery experts will be able to recover lost data from most damaged hard drives. It's not surprising that most common damage is attributable to drop damage and spill damage, especially in the case of laptops.

At the corporate level, most companies use RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks) configurations to protect their data and to negate the impact of a single hard disk drive failing. There would be no loss of data if one of the disks in a RAID 5 disk-set failed as you would be able to re-construct the data for the failed member from the remaining disks. However, if the entire RAID volume failed, then that would be a cause for concern.

In the case of a RAID volume failing you would have little alternative but to send your hard drives to a data recovery expert to restore the RAID configuration as well as the data. This would also be the case if your disk partition failed and you were unable to access the data held on that particular partition or disk.

The recovery of your important data and files from failed hard drives is possible using data recovery software. If your hard drives are badly damaged, or the RAID volume-set has failed and the data on the hard disks is inaccessible, requesting professional assistance from data recovery experts would be a better option.

How to Recover Data From Failed Hard Drives
Check For The New Release in Health, Fitness & Dieting Category of Books NOW!
Check What Are The Top Cooking Books in Last 90 Days Best Cheap Deal!
Check For Cookbooks Best Sellers 2012 Discount OFFER!
Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection

For practical advice and information on data recovery freeware, software programs, tools and utilities to help you safely recover your data, please visit our website, http://www.datarecoveryfreeware.net

One Method of Data Recovery from a Dead Hard Drive

Here is the situation. A laptop comes to us with a dead hard drive. Unfortunately, the user needs some files off the dead drive. After much research on the internet and a couple of data recovery quotes we decide to try and recover the information ourselves.

Luckily for us the drive won't spin up at all. I say luckily because the usual problem is that the circuit board on the bottom of the drive went bad. That doesn't mean that something else isn't the problem, but replacing the circuit board is the simplest thing to try.

The first thing needed is another hard drive. That may sound easy but it isn't. You need an identical hard drive, and by identical I mean the same model number, part number, firmware, everything. In our case we had a Hitachi Travelstar hard drive that had three numbers to match. The important numbers were the model number, part number, and MLC number. I believe the MLC number has something to do with the firmware revision but don't quote me on that. After speaking with Hitachi I was referred to a company called CueTech. They specialize in finding "hard to find" or obsolete computer parts. The wanted to charge between 0 and 0 for the drive, which I thought was reasonable for the work required to find one. Instead of using them I decided to search on my own and after two days, still had not found another drive for sale that met my needs. We then started looking in house for similar laptops and found one that had an identical drive. Now we were in business.

One Method of Data Recovery from a Dead Hard Drive

Now that we had our drive, we needed to protect ourselves because the user wanted their machine back in working order. So before we started any kind of surgery we made a ghost image of their hard drive. After waiting the 20 minutes or so for the backup to finish we began the surgery. First we removed the hard drive from the working system and laid it on a static pad with the circuit board up. We then used a T-5 Torx drive to remove the screws securing the circuit board to the hard drive. Your drive may need a different size or style of screwdriver. We then repeated the process on the bad drive. We put the circuit board from the good drive onto the dead hard drive and placed it back in the laptop. It booted! As soon as we new it worked we then setup the system to make a quick drive image. After waiting another 20 minutes we had a drive image of the bad hard drive and our data was recovered.

To finish the process we had to put the circuit board back on the original good hard drive and verify that it was working correctly. Once that was completed and the laptop returned to its owner, we installed a brand new hard drive in the system that had the original issue. The last step was to restore the drive image to the new hard drive, verify that it worked, and give the laptop back to the owner.

One Method of Data Recovery from a Dead Hard Drive
Check For The New Release in Health, Fitness & Dieting Category of Books NOW!
Check What Are The Top Cooking Books in Last 90 Days Best Cheap Deal!
Check For Cookbooks Best Sellers 2012 Discount OFFER!
Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection

Gary Higbee

[http://www.greatnorthcomputing.com] - A community for SysAdmins and Programmers.

Import OST File to Outlook

There can be various situations when you need to perform OST to PST conversion in order to access emails, contacts, etc. stored in OST file. Let us consider a situation to understand when you may need to convert OST to PST. You joined a company on contractual basis for a year. When you joined the company, you are provided a MS Outlook account, which you also used to work in offline mode when you are not connected to Exchange Server. Therefore, you have OST at your computer system.

After a year, your contract is renewed but with a gap of one month in between. When you rejoin the company, you find that your mailbox from Exchange Server is deleted and you find that your inbox is empty but the old OST file is available. Now you need a way to import OST file to Outlook, so that you can have access to your old emails, contacts, notes, etc.

As your mailbox from Exchange Server is deleted, you do not need to worry because you still have chance to recover emails, notes, contacts, etc. from old OST file. If you have old profile available, then you can login from that profile in offline mode and then get access to the OST file. However, in case the old profile is deleted, you can try system restore point to recover data from OST file.
When you restore your computer to an earlier point (the point on which you used Outlook for the last time), then Outlook will achieve its old settings that will allow you to access the OST file in offline mode. Following steps help you in restoring your computer to the restore point when you last used Outlook on it:

Import OST File to Outlook

1. Select Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore. The "System Restore" dialog box appears.
2. Select the "Restore my computer to an earlier time" option and then click the Next button.
3. The wizard displays many restore points. Check if a restore point indicates the date on which you used Outlook for last time.
4. If you find the date, select it, and click the Next button and let the wizard do its work.
5. The process may take some time. After the system has been restored to the selected restore point, start Outlook, and go in offline mode to work with old outlook file.

However, in case, you do not see any valid restore point then the only way to recover emails from old OST file is performing OST to PST conversion. Until you do not convert OST to PST, you will not be able to import OST file to Outlook. You can successfully convert OST to PST using Kernel for OST.

Kernel for OST is a third party OST to PST conversion tool, which helps you successfully recover emails stored in an orphaned OST file by converting it to PST file. Once the OST file is successfully converted into PST file, you can open it with Outlook by clicking File > Open > Outlook Data File. While converting OST to PST, the software keeps emails structure, formatting, and properties intact; therefore, you do not need to modify recovered emails before reuse. Kernel for OST software supports MS Outlook 2010, Outlook 2007, Outlook 2003, Outlook 2000, Outlook 98, and Outlook 97. Moreover, the software can be installed on any version of Windows operating system to recover data from OST.

Import OST File to Outlook
Check For The New Release in Health, Fitness & Dieting Category of Books NOW!
Check What Are The Top Cooking Books in Last 90 Days Best Cheap Deal!
Check For Cookbooks Best Sellers 2012 Discount OFFER!
Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection

For more information visit at: http://www.osttopstconverter.net/
http://www.osttopstconverter.net/blog/how-to-import-ost-file-data-to-ms-outlook/

Author of this article has expertise in the field of providing solutions and tips on converting OST to PST. His articles pave Outlook users' way to import data, import OST file data to MS Outlook and also help to find the suitable OST to PST converter solution.

How Data Is Stored On A Hard Drive

When a file is saved on a computer, the data is stored on the hard disk platter's magnetic coating. This magnetic coating on the platters is the 'glue' that keeps your data. Any damage to that magnetic coating means that there is data loss as each piece of missing coating contains data. So a platter missing a little bit of that coating has a better chance of a successful data recovery as opposed to a platter that has had massive amounts of that magnetic coating removed or destroyed.

Hard Drive Failure Parts

Typical hard disk components that fail include:

How Data Is Stored On A Hard Drive

Platters Hard disk platters, or spindle, is rotated by an electric motor. The speed of this rotation is measured in rotations per minute (RPM) and the higher the performance of the hard drive...the higher the RPM is which increases the reading and writing of data to the platters. Any surface contact to the platters can cause serious damage to the magnetic strip the contains the data. This includes dust, finger prints, water, and most important of all, the heads of the hard drive. Platter damage is the most serious type of damage to cause hard drive failure.

Heads (Head Crash) When the hard disk is not actively in use, the heads are parked until the hard drive needs to read or write data again. It is when this head moves outside the super thin cushion of air between platters that causes the head to crash and touches the hard disk platter.

Firmware Firmware is the program instructions located on the chips on the Printed Circuit Board (PCB). Each firmware revision is specific to its hard drive type and each hard drive can go through dozens of firmware revisions to increase that particular manufacturer's disk drive's performance. The older the hard drive, the more difficult it could be to find a working firmware for that specific hard disk model.

Printed Circuit Board (PCB) The PCB of the hard drive is the electronics of the hard disk that manages and operates the hard drive. If a PCB becomes damaged it is often replaced with an identical PCB with the same firmware on the original hard drive. Typically PCB damage is from water or fire, but there are other reasons why a PCB would fail. And many times a failed PCB affect other aspects like firmware or heads.

Types of Hard Drive Failure

Generally speaking, when a disk drive fails it is due to one of the following causes:

Media Failure Otherwise known as a head crash (as described above), the heads of the hard drive have physically touched and damaged the magnetic coating on the platters.

Mechanical Failure Generally speaking, any electronic failure to the hard drive falls in this category. Fire, water, electrical damage to the hard disk would require 'parts' replacement.

PCB Failure As described above, PCB failure falls in the mechanical failure type and typically can be 'swapped out' for an identical PCB for that specific hard drive type. Along with the correct firmware for that disk drive, a PCB replacement can be a difficult type of hard drive repair if the hard drive is an older model.

Logical Drive Failure This type of hard drive failure is usually the least damaging to the data. This type of error usually means that the operating system of the computer (or utilities) can see the drive, has marked it as unallocated space, but because the computer's MFT is corrupted or damaged, can't read the data. Hard drive failure of this type is not that destructive and the chances of a complete successful data recovery are high.

Types of Non-Mechanical Hard Drive Failure

Other causes for data loss and why data recovery would be required could include the following:

Natural Disasters Extreme weather conditions that are out of our control can make a bad day even worse. Whether the computer was submerged in water due to a flood, scorched by fire or in the proximity of a lightning strike, there is still a chance to recover data from the hard drive.

The Human Factor Accidentally deleting files, formatting the wrong hard drive, and attempting to upgrade you operating system only to have it fail are common issues that come up. Also, as careful as most people are with their laptops, a small drop from the couch to the floor or down a flight of stairs, is the type of forceful jarring to the disk drive that could cause serious damage to the hard drive platters.

Viruses E-mail typically are the way most viruses are spread from computer to computer. Also, visiting questionable websites that have scripts, malware or spyware waiting to comprise your system and put your data at risk. It is recommended to run the most recent anti-virus software to protect your data from this sort of data loss and to reduce the need to require data recovery service.

So how do you protect yourself from losing your data? Back it up! However, should you still require data recovery services, be sure to use a company that specializes in hard drive data recovery.

How Data Is Stored On A Hard Drive
Check For The New Release in Health, Fitness & Dieting Category of Books NOW!
Check What Are The Top Cooking Books in Last 90 Days Best Cheap Deal!
Check For Cookbooks Best Sellers 2012 Discount OFFER!
Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection

Jason Perry

ADR Data Recovery is available to evaluate the damage and potentially recover your lost data. For more information on ADR Data Recovery's service, visit http://www.adrdatarecovery.com

How To Set Up A TV Satellite Dish And Sky Digibox To Watch English Channels Such As BBC And ITV

Hardware Requirements:

I am assuming that you have the necessary equipment as detailed in my previous article about 'How to get the equipment to watch English TV in Europe'.

You need:

How To Set Up A TV Satellite Dish And Sky Digibox To Watch English Channels Such As BBC And ITV

A TV (preferably one with a SCART socket)
An ex-rental Sky Digibox that has already been used in the UK
A dish of the appropriate size (see my earlier article and astra2d.com for a size guide) with LNB
Co-ax cable
A Sky viewing card or Freeview card
Necessary fixings to mount the dish
Mounting the dish

The satellite we are looking for is Astra 2D 28.2E. This located at 28.2 degrees East of South. Let me tell you why setting up the angle and elevation is very important and has to be done very carefully. Astra 2D is in a geostationary orbit, which means it appears to be stationary when seen from the rotating earth.. The normal height for a geostationary satellite is 36,000Km and the satellite is only 8m tall and just over 2m diameter, it actually looks like a tin of baked beans with the lid open! So the alignment of the dish has to be done very accurately.

I cannot help you too much with the exact angles you need as they vary depending on your location. Here in the Southern French Alps a compass bearing of 150 degrees with an elevation of 34 degrees are the figures required. In Bucharest in Romania a bearing of 177 degrees and an elevation of 39 degrees would be required. Looking on the internet, particularly on ex pat web sites for your area, will normally reveal the magic numbers.

So mount your dish where you like, it does not need to be on the roof as it does not work like an aerial. It just needs a clear path between it and the satellite, no trees or buildings. The steepness of the angle surprises a lot of people, in the type of dish where the LNB is supported on an arm attached to the bottom of the dish, the 'beam' angle we are interested in is roughly parallel to that arm. Set the elevation to the correct value and leave the bracket slightly loose so that you can turn the dish from side to side. Using a compass, point the dish at a compass bearing you have (150 in my case). You will not get it right first time, but the closer you are, the less danger of finding the wrong satellite there is.

Getting it all working

Now, connect the dish to the box an the box to the TV and switch on the power.

Warning: The dish cable carries a small electric current, so never connect or disconnect it while the box is live; otherwise some of the electronic components could be damaged

Do not worry if the remote control does not react immediately - after switching on the power the Digibox can take several seconds before it will respond. On the remote control, press Services, then press 4, then 6. This will display a Signal Test screen. Ignore the Signal Strength and Signal Quality bars for the moment. You should however have something in the Signal Strength bar. (If you do not, you have a faulty connection on the way to the LNB).

Place the TV where it can be seen while manipulating the dish, move the dish until the zeros change to 0002 (Network ID) and 07d4 (Transport Stream). The change will be quite sudden so go carefully to avoid swinging the dish too far. The Lock Indicator will also change from 'Not locked' to 'OK'. The value of 07d4 is usually the case but you might encounter others, particularly if you are trying to get a signal in southern Europe. However the Network ID must be 0002, otherwise you are pointing at the wrong satellite.

Finishing off the setup

As soon as the Network ID and Transport Stream values change from zero, a digital signal is being received. Clamp the dish, then press the Backup button on the remote control 3 times to return to the normal screen. Now wait until the box has finished getting the program data.

If after aligning the dish, you get a signal but there is interference on sound or vision, it is almost certainly caused by the dish elevation or direction being slightly out of alignment. Move the dish very slightly and carefully and watch the Signal Quality bar on the Signal Test screen for the greatest value. Anything over about 50% should give good reception.

How To Set Up A TV Satellite Dish And Sky Digibox To Watch English Channels Such As BBC And ITV
Check For The New Release in Health, Fitness & Dieting Category of Books NOW!
Check What Are The Top Cooking Books in Last 90 Days Best Cheap Deal!
Check For Cookbooks Best Sellers 2012 Discount OFFER!
Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection

Rick Lomas lives in Serre Chevalier in the Southern French Alps.

There is a good source of information about satellite TV and mobile phones on his website http://www.ricklomas.com as well as ideas on how to make money online.

Rick is currently working on various websites selling mortgage payment protection insurance, as an affiliate for British Insurance.

How to Solve Sending Reported Error (0x80040201) Error in Outlook

Microsoft Outlook supports using IMAP (Internet Mail Access Protocol 4) account that uses a personal folders (.pst) file as the default e-mail store. A PST can get corrupt for several reasons and show abrupt symptoms, such as described below. These events create situations that demand for PST Recovery solutions.

For example, consider a situation when you try to send an e-mail message in MS Outlook 2003, which is configured to use an IMAP account. The message sending fails and you receive an error message as mentioned below:

"Sending reported error (0x80040201): 'Unknown Error 0x80040201."

How to Solve Sending Reported Error (0x80040201) Error in Outlook

You might observe additional symptoms like you fail to delete email items from your personal folder.

Cause

All these symptoms indicate that the Outlook PST that you are using as the default data file is corrupted. The most probable reason could be PST file size above 2 GB. MS Outlook 2002 and its earlier versions have a file size limitation of 2 GB for PST, beyond which PST gains chances of being corrupted. However, PST file corruption can also result from other reasons too.

Solution

To repair the corrupted PST, Outlook installation includes a Scanpst.exe file. The file launches 'Inbox Repair Tool' that can fix most of the corruption issues associated with Outlook PST. This is a hidden file, so make sure that the 'Show hidden files and folders' option is enabled to view the file. Further, you can follow these steps to start repair:

1. Close Outlook
2. Click 'Start' and then 'Find' or 'Search'
3. Type 'scanpst.exe' in the search box
4. Double-click the file to open 'Inbox Repair Tool'
5. Browse to the affected PST and specify the file name
6. Click 'Start' to begin repair
7. Click 'OK'

The Inbox Repair Tool(scanpst.exe) cannot repair the PST that is above 2 GB in size. Though you can use the 2 GB truncation utility to crop the file first and then repair, but this causes specified value of data to lose. A more efficient and safe solution to repair such PST (or any corrupted PST) is to use a commercially built PST Recovery Software. These applications are perfectly designed PST(personal storage file) Recovery utilities that use advanced scanning algorithms to examine and repair the corrupted Outlook personal folder.

PST File Recovery Software is a user-friendly utility that repairs corrupted PST and restores it with original content and view. The PST Recovery Software supports MS Outlook 2007, 2003, 2002, and 2000. The software offers a 3-pane interface, similar to what Outlook appears. The tool is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2003, and 2000.

How to Solve Sending Reported Error (0x80040201) Error in Outlook
Check For The New Release in Health, Fitness & Dieting Category of Books NOW!
Check What Are The Top Cooking Books in Last 90 Days Best Cheap Deal!
Check For Cookbooks Best Sellers 2012 Discount OFFER!
Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection

Axel Culver has passion for writing Technical article. He is right now writing articles related to Product like PST Recovery Tool and Microsoft Exchange Recovery Tool. He is a professional writer.