Biased Computer column in newspaper today

Andrew Parker seems pretty simple, I suppose you cant expect all jouranlists to have a clue.
 
Sneeky

Thanks for the links to a great article - wish we could take that and publish it, but MG being the opposition won't allow it...does give a great summary to pass onto the Editor though and I will do just that first thing in the morning.

Oh - guess what? Surprise, surprise - Telscum didn't bother to call or show up to install my ADSL today - the allocated day! Ba$tard$!! :mad:
 
So is this guy legit or are you saying he's a con? Seems you S/africans battle the telecoms company endlessly - we even hear about it here. What other offerings compete favorably with mwab? I'm trying to advise my family in Queensburgh, Durban.
 
Welcome ostinato. From my point of view at this points its pretty hard to actually say. Our telecomms regulator was supposed to release a findings document to the goverment almost 3 months ago and has still not, Our only telecomms company has as of yesterday changed everything and forced per gig billing through out the whole country basically at prices almost 10 more than most where paying last month.

There are a few ISP's out there that will offer you some things, but I think this storm is far from over and it might be best to sit it out until its over
 
keru's being fair. the rest of you don't even know this guy... so learn NOW!!

'Having just signed up and agreed to the terms and condtions of this site it seems no-one actually cares if sumone breaks them.....

By agreeing to these rules, you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-orientated, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violative of any laws.
The owners of MyADSL reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread for any reason.'

wizard, mask , bwana and maestro - u've all broken these rules, and dont be surprised if the guy sues your ass hehe!

I've read switch on in the natal mercury for months - and the guy (andrew) is very on the ball. he helped me with my eastcoast adsl when their support took hours and didn't fix. I had to use dialup for weeks because no acces, emailed switch on and Andrew repled, and took me step by step through the router config - and had me back up in an hour. even checked on me few days later and sent me free firewall and antispy.

This guy cares about the ppl who read his stuff and has always been helpful. he even helped my boss who doesn't buy mercury .... I'd have no idea about antivirus, spam, spies ect if it weren't for him. You should encourage this ppl because most computer co's i've used have charged for the same advice he gives free every week. why you all gotta flame him even if he makes one mistake. whats the point of that? he's more helpfull than your flames. Where's the support here for ppl who help 4 free!!!

catch a wake up homies... ur flaming the wrong dude.





keru said:
I agree with Mask that the journo/ writer did not do his home work and just rehashed a press release. The other side of the coin is that Mweb is spending money on popularising the ADSL product. More users in the ADSL community will probably give the community a better voice as far as the industry is concerned.
A cheaper option is not always the better option. I had a account with axxess which was disconnected today. I had sent them a fax to continue with my account. Now their telphones are constantly engaged , nobody answers their cellphone. For any business to be reasonably successful you need to provide support services. This needs to be able to cope during hours of crisis rather than a normal business day.
At the end of the day telkom which has the monopoly calls the shots.
Click to expand...
 
flipper said:
Where's the support here for ppl who help 4 free!!!

catch a wake up homies... ur flaming the wrong dude. it's stupid.


YOu shud read all his stuff first!!
Click to expand...
Not to defend anyone.. but firstly welcome.. (and you should delete your second double post) secondly he might of helped one person... you.. and there are also maybe tons of other people out there that believe in him. So when he goes and writes up about something which is clearly in accurate he is causing more harm than good to the general public

As to helping for free.. Catch a wake up homie.. and look around you It happens here hundreds of times a day where people give advise a lot more technical than router setup which hmm no offence.. should NOT take more than 5-10 minutes.. not a hour. If you ask people here, they will tell you all about all the virus programs and spyware programs out there.. Which if you only just learnt about them... sorry homie.. but thats damn scary.. where have you been all this time? I just picked up one line in his article which was completly incorrect as stated above.. do you like being told lies?

He might seem on the ball then to a new user.. but for an advanced user as many of those you stated are.. his information is old, outdated and inaccurate. Which unfortunatly is being spread to the people who are not advanced users and this in itself is a problem and hampers education of the general public (like yourself) as to how things should be run.
 
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thanks for the update, soryy about the double message..
I realise that you all help ppl with their adsl, which is great, but to be honest - you aren't very nice about ppl who have no experience of computers. In SA you need to realise that there are millions of ppl who went to HOD and black schools - we didnt even have electricity. I'm happy to learn about new stuff and computing and I'm alot better now - but not thanks to ppl who talk technical and criticise those who don't understand the modern stuff... i tried your site in august - after reading about it in flippin switch on!!!!! and battled to get anywhere. only Eastcoast and Andrew were acutally able to tell me what I needed to know and there are many ppl like me who need help!!! Why can't you make an internet site that helps new computer users, old ppl etc .. why you all gotta talk about evrything new and not really help ppl who are just starting. Don't get me wrong i dont want to be flamed..... I can see now that mybroadband.co.za help lots of ppl.. but I battled to understand it first time and I'm not stupid. Even now I see the ad above which advertises an extra GB for R99 the same price as Mwebs extra 1gb you all bitch about.. so what's your grind? be nice!!! viva switch on for the newbies!!!
 
also re the hour thing - he sorted it in 5 mins - i screwed it up and took and hour because switching between dialup and testing ruoter - and took east "tech support" hours and they never got near to fix it barking up the wrong tree. just thought you sould know this dude a pro, and knows how to deal with ppl. a nice person, glad to stand up for him here!!!

I gonna email him about u dudes. he shud see what you all saying behin d his back.
 
hey just saw you gonna defecate down my neck... sorry dude have a ciggy!! he he he :-)
 
Arrrggg You miss understood what I meant... What I meant is that I am.. and I am sure everyone else here, are completly interested in helping out EVERYONE in South Africa, of any race, colour or creed... Please dont make this a colour thing as its not that.. There are many people of many different races on these forums and we all get alone fine.

What I meant though is that what was said in the article was biased.. as Mask indicated, Meaning that people where learning the wrong information. Helping people is a great thing, but teaching them WRONG is not a great thing. if you also look closer.. Mask also works for a newspaper and has been speaking to this guys editor about the misunderstanding.

Everyone here will help in any form that is needed if you read the posts here then you will see that people respond depending on how people ask questions. If you ask a technical question, You more than likely will get a technical reply. If you ask "newbie" question you will get told how to do it step by step I never ment that myasdl was for only technical people. http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=24418 is a great example of how new people were helped.. and its a sticky so its easy to see and find for anyone new

This guy is doing a great thing by teaching people.. but being biased is wrong as what everyone here was getting at. These are also not hidden forums they are open to the public just like you who got here.. so how can that be talking behind somebodies back???
 
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where's mask when all this is goin down?

If mask works for the paper and knows the ed, then HE should write about the real ADSL stuff - but nobody know who mask is... take away the mask he he he :-)
 
bias? u read the articles about wireless ADSL?

No bias man - he write about everybody and anything good. u don't see that by being narrow minded about ONE article - he been writng for ages every week man. He wrote about wireless adsl, he wrote about how to get connected, whats good on the web ect... what has Mask wrote about? who is mask?

No changes to the phone line? bullsh*t too - why you need a filter if the phone line not changed? hey? the phone line IS changed... that what you wait for telkom to do - to make the change to the line. no matter if they do it at the exchanges.... it still a change and you still need it changed.. ok so you dont need to install a whole new line if u already got one -- but that is one mistake u flaming him so much about.

Forget about this.. let mask speak up in the newspaper or here ... I gonna find the readers - many ppl I know who have benifitted from these articles .. they can tell you about this dude. now you trying to ruin it for them by discredeting this dude behind his back.

Anyone think that the ed of a paper EDITs the stuff he printing? SO this mask telling his boss the ed , that the mercury print biased stuff.. he gonna have NO JOB..!

thank for the chats man. please go easy on the dude cause he help me and many others.. and he even tell ppl about your site tell them to go there!! so this your thanks!?
 
anyone else here read the natal mercury? what you think of this andrew parker then? speak up then ppl...!
 
VQuest said:
And we won't even mention that he didn't say anything about the fact that Mweb's 1GB offering was twice the price of other ISP's.
Click to expand...

...and the fact that you cannot use it as a dial-up account once your cap is reached - this option is pure ADSL with no dial-up facility - I think it is the same for the 2GB option too...

With the cap being so low, there may be a few dial-up users who wish to take this option - IMHO these types of user would learn very quickly that 1GB is not sufficient for their needs, particularly once they get the "taste" for speed over dial-up...

Very biased article, definately an advertisement for M-Web...
 
flipper said:
No changes to the phone line? bullsh*t too - why you need a filter if the phone line not changed? hey? the phone line IS changed... that what you wait for telkom to do - to make the change to the line. no matter if they do it at the exchanges.... it still a change and you still need it changed.. ok so you dont need to install a whole new line if u already got one -- but that is one mistake u flaming him so much about.
Click to expand...
Ok lesson time.

Firstly what you are doing now.. is called flaming Click on that word and go to the link at wikipedia, if you do not know about it, then bookmark it now, its a very good site that can help with lots of things.

Now how does an ADSL line work. Lets start by explaining that when we talk we talk in a frequency range, this range is usually from 0 to 3.5 KHz. Now the Telephone line which is made from copper wires is able to carry this frequency from one end to to other end as discovered by Mr Bell and changed our lives.

However these lines can actually use up to 3MHz. WOW. Can you see the big difference. There is a huge range that is being wasted. Enter DSL. Here some clever people found a way to use this range. Typically it is capped at say 1.1Mhz as line quality changes how high this frequency can go. (I actually think its a lot less on most parts of South Africa but not the point now is it)

So when you plug in your router it converts the single to a higher range. usually 25 KHz to 160 KHz for the Up signal (thats when you send things) and 240 KHz to as high as it can go for the down signal (Thats when you receive things, this is usually calculated when your modem turns on and "syncronizes with the the other side) But as I said before it is usually about 1.1 MHz.

Pretty neat right! But if you look you well see I said that we speak at between 0 and 3.5 KHz, but the modem only starts using from 25 KHz. Does this mean we are not wasting more.. Well even though we speak at that range. We can generally hear things up to 22 KHz. Can you start seeing what is happening here??

So now we take that little filter that Telkom gives you, and we put it in the line between our phone and our telephone. This little thing does two things. On one side it "Filters" out the sounds that the Router is making, and on the other side it "Filters" you speaking and any other noise going on around you (like your mom screaming, You wife moaning, or your parrot squaking to pic up the phone) so that it does not go higher than +/-20 Khz.

Since no sounds from your phone or fax machine can go higher than that your modem will not be getting any Interference and will not disconnect all the time which is what interference can do! WOW

Since this is already long.. as to what happens in the exhange.. Yes. Telkom must make changes there, But they are currently trying to (or so we are lead to believe) upgrade all the exchanges.. its the same as you changing your computer when it gets out of date or buy a new car. Now when you order your ADSL line. Some Telkom idiot needs to go to the exchange.. find your wires out of a few million that come into the exhange. Take those wires and plug them into the DSLAM port set up for ADSL. He then phones his office and tells them what port you are on!

BINGO.. You have ADSL.. I hope you understand now.. that hmm NO SPECIALLY MODIFIED LINE NEEDS TO BE INSTALLED. Some jackass needs to flick a switch basically! If you dont have a telephone.. you dont need a filter.. Now that you know what flaming is and how the ADSL works.. Go back and read and you will see that it was only mentioned ONCE to mask (who said he/she had spoken to the ed about), and once to you! Not so many times as you stated.. Reading comprehension FTW... Have a nice day!

EDIT: Oh and if you did not know KHz means thousand Hertz, and MHz means Million Hertz
Its also a lot more techincal that I started above.. but thats a basic break down. If there are any errors please correct them for me
 
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Flipper – thanks for all the postings. I just want to clear some things up. When I read the column this week, it made me very upset as I am aware of the other offerings available to new users of ADSL. I agree that Andrew offers a good service by offering information and advice to readers, and I should have made that more clear here. However, knowing this probably added to my annoyance as I know he is more knowledgeable on such issues. I certainly distance myself from such comments such as the one provided by Maestr0 – it didn’t even deserve a response. I obviously missed the column he wrote on 26 July regarding various ADSL offerings as well as his support for Myadsl. It offered a far more balanced view of the choices available at that stage.

So, to clarify, these are my final thoughts on this:

1) I don’t think that the M-Web offering is totally useless at all – I just think that people will have too high an expectation from the way it is advertised.
2) I by no means think that Mr. Parker is completely useless – if I did, I wouldn’t have even read his column. I wish I had the patience to help relatively new users the way he obviously does. It was just the bias of this particular column that had me annoyed – especially as he started by writing that “the number of options available has gone up.”
3) I have often tried to think if there is anyone here at Independent in Durban who could write articles relating to the current broadband situation. Having now found out more about Andrew, I believe he should write some full-length articles (where he has more than a 500 word limit) – that’s not up to me though…between him and the Editor.
4) “ADSL requires a specially modified line to be installed and rented from Telkom” – we know what he means by this, but a newbie will assume that a separate line needs to be installed – simply a poor choice of wording.
5) I am by no means anywhere near an expert on ADSL! But I have learnt a lot from these forums. MyAdsl forumites are very helpful if you ask a simple question. If one searches for answers, it can be a little daunting at times. Remember too, that in any community, online or off, you will get all types of people, which is why there are often some pretty harsh postings!
6) I still have my job :-)
7) I am by no means a journalist, so will not even make attempt to write an article – Andrew is the one for that.
8) At 12:52am you asked, “where's mask when all this is goin down?” …Fast asleep! Hehe

Hope that makes things a bit clearer from my side.
 
:eek: Sorry mask. I actually assumed you where a Journalist. Of course I didn't actually say you where I just said you worked for a newspaper.. That is correct right?

Oh and I was not Harsh.. was I :D
 
Kalvaer...don't believe everything you see on Hardcopy - there are people other than journalists who keep the papers flowing :)

...and no, you were not harsh - perhaps a bit sarcastic, but not harsh. :D
 
Lately I dont think most* of the journalists do not know what they are doing at all so I actually feel sorry for those of you in the background.

* Not all... Some of them and I did not mention names
 
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