The Honest Courtesan

My life is made so much easier by the generosity friends and readers!  After my resourceful and generous Australian friend read about my current technology issues, he decided to do some research and discovered a free, open-source PDF-making software which will run on XP!  He sent me the link last Monday; I downloaded it and it works perfectly, so now I’m back in the process of preparing Lost Angels for publication.  The day before that, Chekhov dropped by, ostensibly to get some eggs and return a borrowed tool, but actually to give me a new TV set he claimed to have got on sale.  It wasn’t too difficult to set up, and fortunately I was able to bypass all the streaming-channel setup stuff, which would have just been a waste of time.  We did, however, discover that Samsung has planned-obsolescenced their own older soundbars by ensuring there is no compatible means of connecting them to their newer TV sets.  Not to be daunted, Chekhov ordered a new soundbar to be delivered last Thursday, and though it was easy to connect I had a new problem:  it barely put out any sound.  To reach a comfortable viewing volume, I had to set the old soundbar at about 30 (of a maximum 100), but the new soundbar is nearly inaudible at that level; depending on the DVD and other, more mysterious factors, I had to raise the level to 75-100 for comfortable viewing (and it only goes to 100).  The internet told me this is a known issue with Samsung soundbars, but provided no useful information on fixing it; every “separate” article I could find was apparently copied from some ur-text, right down to the wording, and none of them are much above the “make sure your cable is plugged in” level of helpfulness.  Finally, Samsung customer service via text talked me through resetting the soundbar, so now it sounds good at 60.  But I won’t be surprised if I end up having to do this more than once, or perhaps even regularly.