As I mentioned last week, CenturyLink finally got around to fixing my internet problem; the main issue was a corroded wire in the node near my house which was causing a series of errors that eventually caused my modem to “time out”. The technician said having an older modem, while not the actual cause of the issue, was exacerbating the problem, so he gave me a new one, and everything has been fine since. However, two other tech problems have now materialized, and with Grace gone I have nobody here who knows about this stuff enough to help me. So I figured I’d ask my many tech-savvy readers for help.
The first issue is that the PDF Architect software I bought in 2014 and have built seven books on suddenly decided that my copy was not “authenticated” and refuses to function without a new key PDF Architect will not give because they conveniently no longer “support” the software I bought and paid for which still perfectly fulfilled my needs up until now, and want me to pay for their fancy new subscription-based service over and over again each month, though I only use the software when I’m publishing books. Frank found me free software that will run on my XP machine, but he has never used it himself, so I’d like recommendations; all I need is resident software (not web-based) that will run on XP and combine multiple Word files into a PDF. That’s it; no bells & whistles are necessary, and free is good but inexpensive is also OK.
The other is that on Saturday evening my TV, which has been unhealthy for a few years, did something really strange: I was watching a show and a sharply-delineated vertical white band, bounded by several alternating bands of grey and black, suddenly appeared in the exact center of the screen. Stopping the disc had no effect so it was obviously the TV rather than the disc; I turned it off and turned it back on, and the problem vanished for the rest of the evening. But this smells like a harbinger of imminent catastrophic failure, so I’m going to replace it. Given that the last attempt at replacement was a failure, I should probably get either a newish low-end Samsung (to be compatible with the DVD players) or a 7-8 year old refurbished something else. But again, I don’t need bells & whistles, and I don’t even really want it to connect to the internet; I want the closest thing to a dumb monitor that will simply allow me to play DVDs that I can get. Any advice?
If all you want is a dedicated monitor, would a larger computer monitor work? It should be fairly simple to change inputs for DVD, Roku, and the like.
Grace thought of that soon after the screen started going downhill a few years ago; unfortunately, business practices being what they are, monitors are actually MORE expensive than TVs of the same size. I’ll probably end up getting an older one from a pawnshop.