Thursday, November 09, 2006

Absent, Yes. SBC vs. Microsoft--Not Pretty

Spent a few days without a computer--the motherboard on my 5+ year old box went byebye.

Learned a few things which may be important to some of you in the future.

When the motherboard went, my MilwaukeePC branch manager suggested that a new box was in order. This one runs on the Intel 64-bit DualCore processor--and while that's a good thing for power and speed, this processor does NOT like the SBC/Yahoo DSL package of goods.

First off, SBC/Yahoo's browser is not compatible with IE7. So you go back to IE6? Well, only if you want another problem--SBC/Yahoo's "one-touch" diagnostic tool.

After 2 different days of BSOD, we figured it out.

The SBC/Yahoo DSL software is re-sold by other telephone-company DSL providers. Seems to me that the vendor name is MotiveSmart, or some such.

Caution!!

4 comments:

  1. I don't understand why your ISPs software even needs to go on your machine...complete garbage. I know SBC works like that(well friends that have it need that), but that just seems like a farce to me.

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  2. I thought that it was a either political plot to silence you, or you had a stroke in anticipation of the electoral disaster. Glad to hear you're still in business.

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  3. James, I learned too late that if I have a router (I do) that I don't need the SBC package to run with their DSL.

    In the initial setup, (XP, IE6, the old 32-bit) I ran all their software just to get onto the DSL network.

    Later, I added the router for my chilluns who have wireless laptops.

    NOW, with the router over the modem, I don't need the SBC crap. I'm not going to have to try running without the router, and I don't know whether using just the SBC-supplied modem will work.

    Oh, well.

    Pete--thanks for the advice, but Linux is still a bit edgy for moderate-smarts users.

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