My Samsung Laptop
Owing to a really weird problem that my expensive Samsung laptop developed during the night last night, there will be no Jazz For A Saturday Night this evening.
For some reason I have not yet been able to discover, my $600 Samsung decided to stop communicating with the web, at least through Firefox and Internet Explorer. Apps seem to be able to connect with no problem to download updates. MS Outlook connects to my ISP without delay and allows me to send and receive email just fine.
Speaking of apps, the apps on Wondows 8’s Metro screen mostly connect. NBC News and Bing Weather work fine, as does MSN Money and a couple of others. Interestingly, CNN’s does not, and neither does The Weather Channel’s.
The app for local news station KGW-TV stopped working right months ago, but that is another story.
Despite all the “things” that still are able to connect to the web, I cannot access any web content with either browser.
My tiny Acer Chromebook, which I am using to write this blog post, connects just fine using the secure Wi-Fi built into the same router the Samsung is connected to via Ethernet cable.
Even my BluRay player still has limited access the web via Wi-Fi to connect to my Pandora account or get the weather forecast.
But my outrageously overpriced* Samsung laptop will not connect to the Web either via Ethernet or Wi-Fi, other than in the limited manner I mentioned above.
Quite a number of years ago, the late Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper columnist Mike Royko wrote a column whose basic premise was that it should be legal for humans to execute machines.
After all the problems I’ve had with my computers over the last five years or so, all I can say is, Bravo, Mike!!
I sincerely hope to be back with another review next week. If I have to write it on this Chromebook, I will, but I have to tell you I do not cherish the thought.
10-19-2014 UPDATE:
After spending almost an hour (it seemed longer at the time) last night on “live chat” with a Samsung tech named Sammi, I managed to uninstall and reinstall the LAN drivers. After a reboot, the computer connected to CNN’s web site just fine, so we (the tech and I) assumed all was well and ended the chat session.
I went downstairs for a minute, then returned to the computer and tried to go to this site, WordPress. Nothing. I closed Firefox and relaunched it. Still nothing. I tried several other web sites as well as Internet Explorer. Still nothing.
Several minutes later, after once more uninstalling and reinstalling the LAN drivers, things were working fine. I am cautiously optimistic that the problem is fixed. However, as a precaution, I saved the LAN driver update file in case this mysterious bug returns.
Thank you for reading this.
Al Evans
Wood Village, Oregon
*My personal opinion, based upon the miniscule number of installed programs that came with the computer plus the fact (which I have to admit I did not notice until too late) that the damn thing has no built-in CD/DVD drive. Sure, the laptop is light and slim and looks great. It even works great, most of the time. But come on. For $600 it damn well should have had a CD/DVD drive AND a touch screen. It has neither. And don’t get me started on the built-in web cam. It is worthless. Samsung calls it “hi-def,” but it provides the crappiest hi-def pics I’ve ever seen. The pictures are supposedly 1280 by 720 resolution, but are incredibly pixilated, looking like much smaller files do when enlarged beyond their optimal size. For the money, the Samsung NP510RSE A01UB has been a huge disappointment.
jazz for a saturday night 