Potpourri of Mat's Tech Question

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Okay, I've been stock piling a few technical questions, and they've finally become enough of a mental annoyance that I'm asking for help. So please, if you have any links, tips or such that can help me move forward, I'd appreciate it.

First, the sound on my wife's computer is dying. She has a Toshiba Satellite 1900 Series laptop. Since we don't have a TV, we watch our DVD's on the computer. Over the past week, the sound has been getting softer. Last night we rented Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and were forced to turn on the captions. Is the sound card dying? Should I just buy external speakers?

Second, my dad and I are starting a company. Micah Communications. I'd like to register the domain name, start a brochure-ware site, and have an e-mail address that would be my name@micahcommunications.com. I don't have the resources to buy an e-mail server, so I need the email to be web based or outsourced. I'd also like to be able to manage it with Microsoft Outlook if possible.

Third, again with my wife's computer .... she just got DSL and Verizon suggests using Outlook Express. For some reason she cannot receive attachments. I've checked all the settings and come up blank.

SP ... my personal Help Desk! (Where's Headbanger...the Help Desk guru when you need him)

 

On the question of the laptop, there is the possibility that it's died out on you (either simply burnt out or any number of other issues). I'd suggest taking it to a technician or computer repair shop, or if you think you can handle it, open it up yourself. Whether or not to buy speakers... that's entirely up to you. I can't say I'm an expert with laptop hardware failure, so I can only offer limited advice. On a saide note: lately Toshiba satellites have had some issues with thermal problems and certain design flaws, you might wanna look into that....

As for starting your company, there's plenty of good webhosting companies out there.

Check http://www.webhostingtalk.com and see if you can find something you like. If you can manage it, I'd personally suggest http://www.linuxmotor.com .

They have nice dedicated as well as shared hosting, and you can certainly get it set the way you like it... they're also very secure, stable, and affordable. They can also handle your domain name registration, etc.

On the other issue with your wife's laptop, assuming that your email service is setup correctly (and since she can receive and send normal mail, just not attachments it should be) then check the options menu, go to security, and uncheck the box that says "do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could be potentially be a virus" (if you havn't unchecked it already).

Other than that, check with verizon and see if they can help you out.

Hope this helps, there's only so much I can do without more info or access to your computer obviously, but good luck. As usual, if none of this helps, then I direct you to http://www.google.com -- once again, good luck.

[ April 17, 2003, 17:14: Message edited by: enjan ]

 

I'm not a tech guy so I can't help you much but I can say with certainty that people would prefer that you shorten your prospective e-mail address.

 

That's right. My current company used to have this insanely long address and I hated having to give it verbally when I give it over the phone or personally. I wouldn't want Mat to go through that.

 

Maybe you should try something like micahcomm instead of micahcommunications...

 

Good points. I'll need to research availible domain names for one easier to communicate (like sorcerers.net )

On the computer side, I'm taking the laptop to CompUSA (where I bought it) to see what they can do. Before that, I'll update the sound card's driver....though I doubt that will help.