Ok, I am bored in my office without lights (thanks to inverter).
Here are a few tips for new-comers to DR to save some cash on things like UPS, TV and computer equipments for entertainment etc.
Buying a TV and PC is not the same as back Home. Tvs are expensive and with constant power outtages, you may not be able to enjoy you TV and internet at the same time.
Here are a few tips to converge all the entertainment items through your Powerfull PC.
First of all don't buy a TV and a UPS (for PC) and yet still have both. Here is what you do:
If you are planning on living here in a small apartment in the north coast and not planning on spending alot of money on luxuary items then my plan is perfect for you all.
Buy a powerfull PC (a desk top) with a 7200 RPM huge hard drive, Pent. 4 or Athlon xp, a 17 inch monitor and PC power speakers with a subwoofer and a 2 kilo inverter (dominican made if you buy from my guy, will work forever without breakdowns).
For TV, you buy a TV card with FM and video capture built-in (avertek deluxe with FM and remote PCI, 79 dollars and without remote and FM, 49.99). It comes with a remote control and will convert your PC into a 125 cable ready TV which will also connect your VCR. If you have a huge hard drive 70 gigs then you can also use your PC as a VCR (record on Hard drive in Mpeg format and watch it at a later time).
There is no custom duty on PCs and monitors. So there you have it, a PC, a TV and a FM radio. If you download MP3 music file you can enjoy your favorite music from your PC with far superior sound to your FM radio. It sounds almost the same as CD. If you have 1000 songs on your drive, you have more music than you need for the rest of your life. I am sure you will find friends who have 10,000 mp3 files on their PC and they will be more than glad to dump some on your PC. If you connect youself with DSL (internet Flash) then you can actually hear CD quality internet radio broadcast from all over the world.
Now to have a properly working PC in DR you need windows XP with all the sp1 updates to protect yourself from viruses and attacks. XP is the most stable windows OS platform that your money can buy. Its very difficult to damage the operation system as compared to win 95 or 98se. There is a feature where you can do a system restore to bring back your PC to a healthy state if you mamage to screw it up with installation of a bogus program. Constant power outtages and sudden power off of the PC still doesn't damage the windows.
If you have the UPS for power support in black out, then you only have enough time to close everything and wait till power comes back. Here is a solution: get a fast switching power inverter with 4 batteries and now you have a UPS which lights up the whole house and still lets you play with PC for hours. The problem is that many inverters are not fast enough to switch in order to have your PC work uninterrupted. Many times the pc starts all over and you lose all the data. The problem can be solved with under 200 pesos. Take your PC to a technician and have him remove the power supply and have him install 2 more electrolytic 200v 330 micro farads capacitors. The problem is that many new PCs come with a cheap power supply which only use 220 - 330 micro farad caps in the filteration circuit. You need 660 mirco farads to have a PC working with a inverter. This way when the power goes off and the inverter switches to reserve battery power, in that milli second we have a gap. This is where the reserve power from the caps come into play, thus providing you with uninterrupted power in case there is a black out and the inverter switches in. Most PC power supplies have 330 mirco farads caps so when you put in another set of 330 mirco farads caps in parallel, you are all set. Now your inverter is like a UPS. Don't forget, UPS can't be charged with an inverter so stick to a inverter alone.
Now when you install win xp, make sure you have a latest copy of firewall and an anti virus program ready. Do download the MS patch for win xp for the msblast worm. Here is what you do: Do a clean install of xp and then before you connect to internet, install the firewall and antivirus and most importantly the msblast patch. Now you are all set to connect to internet and feel free to update your windows with the critical file patches (SP1).
I tried to reinstall windows 3 times and all the times when I connect with the internet, I suddenly had received the msblast worm. This worm along with others had destroyed my files and prevented me from connecting to internet and gave me RPC error and kept reinitiating my windows. It was a pain in the neck and I was ready to throw the PC out the window. Later when I did the research, i found out there are attackers all over the net who are scanning the open ports of all unsafe PCs and injecting viruses in them. You don't even have to download anything, just get yourself connected and you have it. Its that simple.
So when I installed the patch, firewall and an anti virus program, thats when my blood pressure came back to normal. I swear to god I was about to break my PC with a sledge hammer and turn into a tibetan Monk for the rest of my life.
So here we have a system which does everything: PC (high quality) a TV (avertek deluxe TV card, PCI, with video capture and FM and remote), A FM radio and a UPS (actually the invertor) if you modify your power supply and buy a cheap inverter from eddy in santo domingo.
Connect a cable service and you get 80 plus channels and if you connect to internet flash, you get a whopping 384BPS speed for 995 pesos / month. This alone will give you all the special digital radio stations from all over the world and even ownload MP3 music and you have a music library. Install the free software winamp and you can make your own play list and enjoy your own favorite music.
All this equipment is enough to let you stay out of trouble and perfect to make you into a serious geek for the rest of your life.
Have a nice day.
regards,
AZB
PS. Prodacom in santiago has a similar PC TV card with remote control and FM radio for 1500 pesos. I am not sure what the picture quality of the TV would be like but for that price, its worth the risk. Oh and if you install a DVD / CD-RW combo into your PC then you have a DVD player and a CD rewriter to further complete your entertainment system.
Here are a few tips for new-comers to DR to save some cash on things like UPS, TV and computer equipments for entertainment etc.
Buying a TV and PC is not the same as back Home. Tvs are expensive and with constant power outtages, you may not be able to enjoy you TV and internet at the same time.
Here are a few tips to converge all the entertainment items through your Powerfull PC.
First of all don't buy a TV and a UPS (for PC) and yet still have both. Here is what you do:
If you are planning on living here in a small apartment in the north coast and not planning on spending alot of money on luxuary items then my plan is perfect for you all.
Buy a powerfull PC (a desk top) with a 7200 RPM huge hard drive, Pent. 4 or Athlon xp, a 17 inch monitor and PC power speakers with a subwoofer and a 2 kilo inverter (dominican made if you buy from my guy, will work forever without breakdowns).
For TV, you buy a TV card with FM and video capture built-in (avertek deluxe with FM and remote PCI, 79 dollars and without remote and FM, 49.99). It comes with a remote control and will convert your PC into a 125 cable ready TV which will also connect your VCR. If you have a huge hard drive 70 gigs then you can also use your PC as a VCR (record on Hard drive in Mpeg format and watch it at a later time).
There is no custom duty on PCs and monitors. So there you have it, a PC, a TV and a FM radio. If you download MP3 music file you can enjoy your favorite music from your PC with far superior sound to your FM radio. It sounds almost the same as CD. If you have 1000 songs on your drive, you have more music than you need for the rest of your life. I am sure you will find friends who have 10,000 mp3 files on their PC and they will be more than glad to dump some on your PC. If you connect youself with DSL (internet Flash) then you can actually hear CD quality internet radio broadcast from all over the world.
Now to have a properly working PC in DR you need windows XP with all the sp1 updates to protect yourself from viruses and attacks. XP is the most stable windows OS platform that your money can buy. Its very difficult to damage the operation system as compared to win 95 or 98se. There is a feature where you can do a system restore to bring back your PC to a healthy state if you mamage to screw it up with installation of a bogus program. Constant power outtages and sudden power off of the PC still doesn't damage the windows.
If you have the UPS for power support in black out, then you only have enough time to close everything and wait till power comes back. Here is a solution: get a fast switching power inverter with 4 batteries and now you have a UPS which lights up the whole house and still lets you play with PC for hours. The problem is that many inverters are not fast enough to switch in order to have your PC work uninterrupted. Many times the pc starts all over and you lose all the data. The problem can be solved with under 200 pesos. Take your PC to a technician and have him remove the power supply and have him install 2 more electrolytic 200v 330 micro farads capacitors. The problem is that many new PCs come with a cheap power supply which only use 220 - 330 micro farad caps in the filteration circuit. You need 660 mirco farads to have a PC working with a inverter. This way when the power goes off and the inverter switches to reserve battery power, in that milli second we have a gap. This is where the reserve power from the caps come into play, thus providing you with uninterrupted power in case there is a black out and the inverter switches in. Most PC power supplies have 330 mirco farads caps so when you put in another set of 330 mirco farads caps in parallel, you are all set. Now your inverter is like a UPS. Don't forget, UPS can't be charged with an inverter so stick to a inverter alone.
Now when you install win xp, make sure you have a latest copy of firewall and an anti virus program ready. Do download the MS patch for win xp for the msblast worm. Here is what you do: Do a clean install of xp and then before you connect to internet, install the firewall and antivirus and most importantly the msblast patch. Now you are all set to connect to internet and feel free to update your windows with the critical file patches (SP1).
I tried to reinstall windows 3 times and all the times when I connect with the internet, I suddenly had received the msblast worm. This worm along with others had destroyed my files and prevented me from connecting to internet and gave me RPC error and kept reinitiating my windows. It was a pain in the neck and I was ready to throw the PC out the window. Later when I did the research, i found out there are attackers all over the net who are scanning the open ports of all unsafe PCs and injecting viruses in them. You don't even have to download anything, just get yourself connected and you have it. Its that simple.
So when I installed the patch, firewall and an anti virus program, thats when my blood pressure came back to normal. I swear to god I was about to break my PC with a sledge hammer and turn into a tibetan Monk for the rest of my life.
So here we have a system which does everything: PC (high quality) a TV (avertek deluxe TV card, PCI, with video capture and FM and remote), A FM radio and a UPS (actually the invertor) if you modify your power supply and buy a cheap inverter from eddy in santo domingo.
Connect a cable service and you get 80 plus channels and if you connect to internet flash, you get a whopping 384BPS speed for 995 pesos / month. This alone will give you all the special digital radio stations from all over the world and even ownload MP3 music and you have a music library. Install the free software winamp and you can make your own play list and enjoy your own favorite music.
All this equipment is enough to let you stay out of trouble and perfect to make you into a serious geek for the rest of your life.
Have a nice day.
regards,
AZB
PS. Prodacom in santiago has a similar PC TV card with remote control and FM radio for 1500 pesos. I am not sure what the picture quality of the TV would be like but for that price, its worth the risk. Oh and if you install a DVD / CD-RW combo into your PC then you have a DVD player and a CD rewriter to further complete your entertainment system.