'cartakeback.ie': legit or a scam - the jury's out...

 A quick 'IMHO' on these imbeciles.  I have an old Corolla, though well past its 'sell-by-date', runs and is in good nick generally - though sitting idle for over a year now, so surplus to requirements.

Similarly, I had a Peugeot 306 a couple of years ago, also sitting idle, and generally, in good condition, but being too lazy to search out Buyers, ended up just selling it to a local scrap-merchant for a €40 - this may be of interest later!

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I came across 'cartakeback.ie' on the internet, opted for their 'Instant Quote' for the Corolla, and was pleasantly surprised to be offered €309 for my 00 reg. Corolla, which included the collection-fee.  Were I to deliver it to their premises, relatively close-by, the Quote increased by just €5-€7.  I also asked for a Peugeot-Quote - a car long since sold and broken for parts - fully expecting to be told that the car had already been scrapped.  Didn't happen, they actually Quoted me even more for it - €320 & change - which made no sense!  So I emailed them about it,  only to be told that I'd need to get onto the Department Of Transport for further information.

Never mind, the Corolla I still owned, and I presumed the offer was legit, so I thought, bye-bye Corolla.  As its battery was flat and a rear brake-caliper was sticking, I felt it didn't qualify as being "accessible" (cartakeback.ie's term) enough for ease of collection.  It took a week or so to rectify the situation and in the interim, the "Guaranteed" quote had expired - the Quotes given are valid for just 7 days.

No problem, I just applied for another Quote, same car details etc.  This time however, the amount offered had nose-dived to €200 for the same car,  collection included.  Miffed, I emailed 'cartakeback' about the huge price variation, only to be told that their current offer was a reflection of market prices, plus Christmas was almost upon us etc...

Jaded but undaunted, one week later & mostly for a laugh, I requested another Quote for both cars, opting to have the Quote emailed to me.  This time the offer for both cars was the same, €300.  However, below the emails "Guaranteed" money offer, was a "Retrieve Quote" button, which when clicked, saw both quoted prices plummet to €200.

One email to 'cartakeback' later, I learned two things, first, the "Guaranteed" €300 should in fact be read as "up to €300", and second, the €300 offer applied only to cars that were being dropped off at their facility by the Seller.  This ad-hoc policy shift is clearly horseshit, as the first quote I got from them, had a price differential of just a few Euro for cars collected versus being dropped off by the seller.

It would appear that cartakeback's Quoted offers are meaningless.  They just quote a figure that they feel potential punters will find attractive - despite stating that their Quotes are "Guaranteed" prices - then low-ball them, by any & all means necessary.  I raised this in my email to them but it was just ignored.  

 

 

Edit.

 Six months on, I requested yet another quote for the same old Corolla car a week or two ago and was 'Guaranteed' €250 this time round.  Seeing as I had to get rid of it as there's a move in the offing, I accepted.

 The First agreed Collection-date came & went.  The Collection-time had been vague - between 11:00am and 4:00pm - and I had spent 6 hours waiting, before losing patience & phoning them.  "No, it won't be collected today, sorry!"  Exasperated, I arranged another date, set for a few days later.  That date also came & went without them making an appearance.  I did however get a phone-call this time, at around 3:00pm, apologising for the inconvenience.  A third date for collection was offered & agreed upon - and third-time proved the charm!

 Their Collection-Driver was an amiable individual and had the car hooked up & spirited off in a few minutes - quite professional.  He paid in cash as well, so no complaints there either.  For a car that I had paid €6,000 for back in 2006, that had only 120,000 genuine miles on it, and never had broken down & was still running perfectly, €250 seemed way too little.  That said, I had tried selling it on DoneDeal a couple of years ago, for a measly €400 and failed, so maybe I should be thankful it's gone.

 While it never broke down, it suffered from Toyota's infamous oil-ring problem from the get-go, requiring that the engine-oil level be monitored & topped-up frequently - doing that for 14 years proved a real bummer!  After two years of driving my current car, it's still a novelty to find, come an oil/filter change, the oil-level, reading 'Max' on the dip-stick.

Raspberry Pi - Raspbian OS.

  Just a quick comment on the Raspberry Pi, or its OS rather.  Although I had promised myself that I'd upgrade my long-in-the-tooth Pi 3B+ to a Pi 4, complacency and general laziness intervened.  On the one hand, since its main use is as a media-server, the added 'Ooomph' of a Pi 4 is probably not needed - the only media-streaming situation where the 3B+ really struggles is with 1080+ HEVC video - though its lack of memory (1Gig) and abysmal Bluetooth support has always been a major bug-bear.

  I had waited for years for the BT issue to be resolved, or at least its problems mitigated, alas in vain.  When I realised that the OS itself was no longer being supported, and worse, the repositories themselves had been taken down, I felt saddened at its abandonment by Raspbian - and that I was going to have to shell out for a Pi 4.

Then I discovered that the brand-spanking new OS release available for free from Raspbian's site is backward-compatible with pretty much every piece of hardware that they've released, and all was right with the world again!!!

 Even better, they finally have a BT implementation that is pretty close to perfect - at least in operation - I'm not a fan of its UI-accessibility one bit - right-clicking the speaker-icon, left-click output selection, then another left-click to finally select the BT device - way, way too convoluted!  Clicking the BT icon itself reveals a non-working means of doing the same thing - so it's obviously a work-in-progress.  But once a BT device is selected, it works almost perfectly!  One annoyance I've found is that on start-up, although it will automatically connect to the last BT device used (if present), I invariably have to manually select the BT output device for the app in question (VLC, for instance)  via the Pulseaudio Control application.

The other huge deal (for me) with the new OS is that VLC now has graphics hardware support by default - no more manually building VLC or searching online for working links to builds.

All in all, I'm very happy with the OS upgrade.  The only thing I'd criticise is Raspbian's continuing insistence that users be tied to that awful TrueVNC.  I don't care if its developer originated 'VNC' - this is Linux we're talking about, 'freedom of choice' and all that.  Currently, rather than having the sane option of using Remmina to access my Pi media-server via my laptop, I either have to 'ssh' onto it if terminal-access will do, or fire up the wide-screen that's connected to it and use a tiny (read, 'uber-cheap') BT keypad.  I can control all of my other computers & OS's using Remmina, why not the Pi??!?

Remmina's site FAQ even acknowledges the problem with Pi's, yet doesn't offer a solution (read, link to working s/w) just a 'solution' that's non-working and/or outdated:

 FOR THE LOVE OF SANITY, UPDATE THIS PAGE!!!

Zorin 16 Review (Linux distro)...

  I think this is my first Linux Distro (mini) review ever.  But after watching a Zorin 16 review on the Youtube channel, ‘Explaining Computers’, which handed out a solid ‘RECOMMENDED!!!’, and seeing the ‘Distrowatch’ internet site giving it a 8.5 out of 10 rating, I felt compelled to post, if only to blow off steam.

  Zorin is actually a commercial package, the developer asking £39 Sterling for the 'Professional' version.  The 'Core' version I'm commenting on is available free-of-charge, and according to the Explaining Computers review, is essentially the same as  the Pro version, minus some installed (though freely available for download) software packages and User-support from Zorin.  So, yes, I’ve installed Zorin, mainly out of curiosity, based on the overly positive review by ‘Explaining Computers’.  In fact, I'm typing this from Zorin, using the excellent Libre Office that’s provided.  I remember, back in the 90’s, paying for my first introduction to Linux – Suse Linux, at around £30 – and feeling slightly embarrassed for the community at the word-processing package that was supplied.  It worked ok, it was just that the user-interface was well below par when compared to the M$ Word offering at the time.  But that was the past, Libre Office is a well-polished piece of software that is a pleasure to use.

  And apart from that one positive point, it’s going to be all down-hill from here!  Wait, I’ll make it two – I was really impressed at how fast Zorin ‘can’ close down the computer – I emphasise ‘can’ for a reason - 1st time it switched off the computer really rapidly, next shutting-down, the system just hung and I had to hit the ‘Reset’ button, so there’s that...

  Anyway, after first backing up my prized Deepin 20 installation using Terabyte, I installed Zorin over it, on the partition where it resides.  I did this ‘cos I had initially tried installing it on my old laptop – Dell M1210, 2006 vintage, ‘only’ 4GB (3.2 usable) of RAM etc. - but that ended in failure, for the same reason I’m sure I’ve commented on here previously.  You see, a ‘regression’ (sic) introduced into the Linux kernel years ago (shortly after Mint 17.3’s debut)  which has never been rectified, results in kernels newer than 2.6.32.74 (Mint 17.3) failing to even detect the SSD in use. Long story...

  The Zorin installation is on a AMD 5350-based computer, so definitely not what you’d call a powerhouse – yet it’s the best I’ve got!  It’s one plus is that it has 8GB RAM (7.2 usable), so no memory issues, which is just as well.

  So after just a couple hours using Zorin (though ‘enduring’ seems more apt), it's time to cite its shortcomings. 

1:  It’s got possibly the worst boot-screen I’ve ever seen – all black & white, with an overly-large font – looks like something you’d have seen running on a ‘286 in the 80’s.
2:  Out of the gate, it uses at least 900MB of RAM, with a ‘new-to-me’ 600MB+ of ‘Cache’ memory also in use.  Why not just say it needs 1.5GB just to boot and be done with it!
3:  Although it seems to recognise my hardware, it fails to set the max screen resolution – the max it provides is 1024 x 768, my old monitor is capable of 1360 x 768.  Deepin sets it properly, Zorin should too!
4:  It doesn’t detect the integrated Bluetooth of my 7260AC wireless card.  In fairness neither does Deepin.  It’s a disgrace that cards of this popularity, which work (BT included) fine on EOL platforms such as Mint 17.3, no longer do on so-called ‘improved’ Linux kernels.
5:  Even an external ‘universal’ Bluetooth dongle doesn’t work!  It detects it, will with difficulty 'pair' with my BT headset, but that’s as far as I can get.  The installed BT s/w, that’s part of Gnome 3.xx is abysmal, and always has been.  Deepin’s heavily based on Gnome 3.xx so suffers similarly.  That’s the reason my first act whenever I’m confronted with Gnome 3.xx is to install Blueman.  Works well with Deepin, can’t get it to work at all with Zorin – a first!  Installs fine.  With BT disabled, Blueman’s icon is visible.  Click it, select ‘Enable BT’ and the icon disappears from the taskbar!  Try getting it to show itself by running it from the programs Menu also fails, periodically throwing up a pop-up, explaining that the connection to Bluez failed, and therefore it cannot continue!  Bloody infuriating!!!
6:  The Software manager UI sucks.  It’s got the same spartan appearance you see at boot-time – all B&W, depressing as hell.

  And the above is just after 2 hours of (ab)use.  I’m afraid of what I’d discover with extended use.  Believe it or not, I’m not even having a go at Zorin here.  The underlying problems are caused by crap like Gnome 3.xx.  I recall the (justified) backlash to it when it first came out, also the Developers wildly optimistic ‘Roadmap’ – they were supposed to have version 4 up & running 2014-2016 if memory serves.  Yet here we are, 2022 on the horizon, still 3.xx and it still sucks!  The fact that these clowns can’t provide an even usable BT solution this far down the line really baffles me though!  One of the biggest complaints way back when was their insistence in ‘dumbing-down’ the UI.  Well, 10+ years later, nothing has changed.  The BT configurability that's provided is almost non-existent, and providing an unusable BT experience, for me anyway.

  The fact that Gnome 3.xx is the future of Linux doesn’t bode well for Linux.  But we're stuck with it, it seems.  On the upside, Deepin Linux is in fact based on Gnome 3.xx though heavily modified – thank the Lord – but as they say, a pig with lipstick is still a pig.  And despite the almost apologetic tone from reviewers for daring to say something favourable about a Chinese Linux distro, Deepin is thee most polished Linux OS out there, for quite a while - if not, since forever - the pig it's built on of course, not withstanding!

  Summing up.  I’m sick & tired of superficial ‘reviews’ such as are being supplied by the likes of ‘Explaining Computers’ and Distrowatch.  They are little more than a Bells & Whistles summation, with little or no real-world review of the OS’s provided features being done.  Distrowatch I get, has to remain positive about the state of Linux, come what may, it’s their bread & butter after all.  Then there’s the kernel developers.  Bugs are introduced that will more likely than not, EVER be fixed.  The affected user is left with little choice but to suck it up.  Despite this, the number of ‘new’ Linux distros being released doesn’t seem to be abating, despite 90% of them offering nothing on what’s already available.  Cynical old me is beginning to conclude most are doing it for the money – in the form of donations – that successful distros tend to bring in. 

In conclusion, I'm not impressed with Zorin and it definitely doesn't warrant paying £39 for it, and that's excluding VAT as well!  By all means, install it and check it out, or alternatively, try it out online here - I wish I had!!!  I may play with the installed version a bit more, given the effort I've already put into getting it up & running, but its days are numbered.
 

Addendum.

True to my word, or NOT, as in this instance, I still have Zorin installed, on not one, but two computers.  Not an endorsement by any means either!  I had spent so much time trying to get it working properly on my 'good' machine (AMD 5350) that I figured, what was there to lose trying it on my mini-itx Intel Atom quad-core pc - only more time, as it turned out!

The Intel pc also has just 2Gig of memory, so I expected that Zorin would refuse to install, not, as it happens.  Neither does it boot successfully - the current Linux kernel just doesn't like the integrated Nvidia graphics that it finds, refusing to start Xorg.  After a huge amount of time, I discovered that if I booted in recovery-mode, dropped to the root-terminal and tried starting X manually, it still threw up the same 'refresh-rate' error, but would eventually start X-server.  Once up, I then found that I could switch over to Wayland, with which, the problem disappeared.

Despite this 'success', Zorin proved effectively unusable with 2Gig of ram.  Not a shocker given that the Gnome 3.xx garbage still grabs most of the memory anyway - I had been curious though to see if Gnome, on seeing how little memory was available (only 1.73Gig after the Bios has had its nibble) would curtail its voracious appetite somewhat - no such luck!  Load an instance of Firefox, and things grind to a halt and the system locks up.  So yeah, unusable.

Ever indefatigable, I then decided to see if Zorin Lite would work on the 2Gig machine.  This is in effect Zorin 15.  Things didn't start well - the very same Nvidia graphics bug exists with the Lite version!  I also have to go through the same rigamarole to get to boot as root, sans Wayland however, so not a usable solution long-term.  Once achieved, I was treated to a user-interface that is really spartan in appearance.  Yet despite the 'Lite' moniker, Gnome still insists in gobbling up well over 1Gig of the available ram.  The only plus was that the system didn't hang when I then ran Firefox.

Having had my fill of Zorin Lite, I wiped it from existence by restoring the Zorin 16 backup (via Terabyte) that I had made, over it, then installed Zorin 16 on my AMD 5350 machine instead - at least here Gnome 3.xx would have 8Gig to play with.

Different machine, different problems, though thankfully not graphics-related.  Here my memory constraints are SSD-related, having just a puny 120Gigs to play with.  I was forced to split the partition occupied by Deepin Linux, but in the knowledge that thanks to Terabyte, reverting back to how things were, wouldn't be an issue if/when Zorin proved more trouble than it was worth.

And that is pretty much where it stands.  Zorin 16 runs ok on the AMD setup.  Since this is the 'Core' version of a commercial offering, there are some limitations, and one of those is the number of UI setups that are available.  Of those that are, none contain a 'Clear desktop' method - this is unacceptable.  The other thing that really rubs me the wrong way concerns Wine.  While Zorin offers "Windows support", the word "Wine" is never mentioned.  So, despite the entirety of this "Windows support" being provided by the Wine Project, those good people never seem to be outwardly given any credit by the Zorin developer.  This fact is exacerbated after you have manually installed Wine and tried running a M$ program - Zorin interjects, each and every time, with a pop-up, warning you that you are about to run a Windoze program (Duh!) and do you wish to continue.  Again, the backbone of all of this functionality is Wine-based, yet not a mention of this, as far as Zorin is concerned.  Yep, it grinds my gears. 

As mentioned, Deepin 20 is also built on Gnome 3.xx.  Therefore, I challenge anyone to compare & contrast the two operating systems.  IMO, Deepin wins hands-down in almost every category.

One thing I will add in conclusion.  Given the appalling performance issues I've experienced with Zorin on the 2gig Intel system, as well as having recently become curious at how good Cloud-based OCR'ing has become, I downloaded & installed Windows 8.1 (which 'UI-Path' lists as a pre-requisite) onto it.  I had never played with Windows 8.x before, so the fact that it even installed onto such a low-spec, 2008-era machine, was a surprise.  Even more so that I can also browse the i-net without issues.  The fact that UI-Path (a 500Meg download) installs & runs perfectly, albeit very slowly, even with a concurrent instance of Firefox, is amazing.  I have in fact, just ordered from Amazon, a 2Gig of DDR2 ram-stick for all of £6 Sterling, in the hope that whatever remains after being BIOS-SODIMM'ised may facilitate a worthwhile speed-boost!  Contrast this with the fact that I can barely get Zorin to run on the same hardware...

Methinks I may have pre-judged Windows 8.x a mite harshly - a late realisation I know!  But I do hate all of those stupid menu-items, as well as that awful M$ Store you need to register with to even install software.  I've actually tried 3 time thus far to register, only to be told right at the end of the registration process, that it failed and to try again later - Grrrr.  To my credit, I did download & install Windows 10 at one time, for a look & feel.  I wasn't impressed.  It appears that Windows 8.1 is quite a benign OS in comparison.

More Chinese FAKE Components shenanigans...

 Though many of my posts start off by saying that they'll be short, then end up anything but, this I promise shall be to the point - therefore, short!

 I ordered 10 2n3819 N-FET's well over a year ago but didn't have a reason to call one into service until today.  While they look exactly as they should, lazar-etched as well, they are not what they claim.

 They turn out to be NPN transistors, not FETs!!!  Below is a (poor) photo of a fake 2n3819 (left) along side the genuine article (right), along with both component-tester's results.

 Those pesky orientals really grind my gears at times.

 

 

Linux - Bluetooth SUCKS!

 Though past-posts here might lead one to believe that it's Linux-wireless that has been my major bug-bear over the years, truth is, it hasn't been so for a long time.  Seems, somewhere along the line, the Linux Devs got their shit together - that, or Intel finally started supplying drivers that actually work, who the hell knows.

 Anyway, it's Linux Bluetooth that has been driving me demented for the longest time.  Pretty much from the 'beginning' actually, when I switched over to Linux, 2008 or thereabouts.  Sure BT has always kinda worked, but you try mix-&-matching and you're in for a whole world of pain.

 My setup involves three BT-enabled PC's, but only one BT-headset.  Surely it's not unreasonable to expect pretty much seamless usage of said headset across all three pc's?  That has always been my expectation at any rate, but 12+ years of experience to the contrary had proven this to be wishful thinking.  This isn't just a Linux problem either - though I can't speak for current M$ offerings, Win7 is just as bad.

 Confined to a single pc, BT works pretty well - once your BT-headset has been paired with the pc, you can generally expect hassle-free performance.  The problems begin when you then try using the same headset with a different pc (which works fine) and then switching back.  Trying to get the already-paired headset to re-connect with the pc can be a nightmare.  With Win7 it is in fact easier to just re-pair the device.  Linux is generally more amenable, particularly if you're working with Blueman, but still way more hassle than it has any right to be.

 The question is, WHY???  Much as I loathe Android, it manages to make re-connecting to an already-paired device a doddle - so why can't Linux do the same?  While I don't have an explanation, I at least have figured out a reasonably hassle-free means of getting my BT-headset re-connected.

 Incidentally,  almost all of the BT problems I've experienced revolve around 'Audio-sink' connections - 'headset' connections seem to work flawlessly, but are of no use when just trying to listen to music.  The fact that this is so and that my M-Pow headset has a built-in mic, and therefore chooses a 'headset' connection by default has been a source of constant irritation, salting the wound, you might say.

 The re-connection problems all stem from the Pulseaudio module 'module-bluetooth-discover', at least on my setup.  If you are unable to connect to your headset via a 'Audio-sink' connection, but a 'Headset' connection attempt works fine, issue the following command from the terminal;

pactl load-module  module-bluetooth-discover

 If it spits back a number, that means the module was not loaded, so another attempt to connect with a 'Audio-sink' connection will almost certainly succeed.  Why 'module-bluetooth-discover' unloads itself is open to question, but one thing I have discovered is that any problem with Pulseaudio itself will result in 'module-bluetooth-discover' being purged.  Thing is, Pulseaudio is so integrated into Linux, that any Pulseaudio crash would likely go unnoticed by the user anyway - the OS immediately reloads Pulseaudio in the event of a crash.  There are in fact many forum threads devoted to trying to STOP Pulseaudio being reloaded in this fashion - not an easy thing to do apparently. But I digress...

 What I've opted to do is, rather than trying to fix Linux, instead, if a 'Audio-sink' connection fails, just run the following Bash script;

#!/bin/bash

pulseaudio --kill                                  
kill -9 $(ps -e | grep blueman-manager | awk '{print $1}')
pactl load-module module-bluetooth-discover           
sleep 5                                              
pactl load-module module-bluetooth-discover

 

 All this does is, kill Pulseaudio (it will restart itself) and Blueman (Blueman often hangs when it experiences a re-connection issue, it will also self-start).  Then load the Pulseaudio module  'module-bluetooth-discover' TWICE, with a 5sec delay in between.  For some unknown reason, while loading it just once 'works', it immediately unloads itself!  The 5sec delay between reloading is also crucial - setting 1,3 etc. delays, result in a failed attempt at reloading.

Edit.

 I've been playing with a brand-spanking new Deepin 20.2 release, Bluetooth specifically, and once again, I'm underwhelmed.  In a nutshell, BT SUCKS with bells on!  Frankly, I can't believe BT is this bad with current Linux versions.

 Nothing that I've commented on above applies to Deepin 20.2's problems - for instance, the 'bluetooth-module-discover' is correctly & intelligently reloaded whenever it is either deliberately removed, or when (on Mint 17.3 at least) some other BT-related crash causes it to be purged.  Yet despite this, nothing works properly, with the exact same problem described above, being the order of the day!  Whereas Mint 17.3 now always reconnects to my BT headset, no matter what it had been paired & connected to previously - that is, once the above Bash script is run - Deepin BT absolutely refuses to reconnect, where the headset had been last connected to another machine.

 So, although both OS's display identical re-connection problems, the underlying reason for their failure seem to be completely different.  Bloody infuriating.

 Although I commented on M$ Windows 7's similarly shabby BT performance above, I neglected to mention that at least one available Windoze application fixes the problem - IVT BlueSoleil - Bluetooth done properly!  I've only just discovered that they also do a Linux version, which is intriguing.  Unfortunately, for whatever reason, their site is down at the moment, so no link available.  Oddly, they still don't have a 'secure' https URL which is strange - and maybe part of the reason their site seems to have been hacked.

Edit.

One last comment on this.  As I've mentioned already, BT on my Raspberry PI 3B+ is practically unusable, providing the worst BT experience of the lot.  I've just discovered though, after trying it with an old (BT 2.0) CSR BT stick, that bluetooth works perfectly well!  Trying out the same old BT stick on both my laptop & Linux/Win7 Desktop computers, both of which sport Intel 7260AC Wireless/BT cards, the experience, while not perfect, is markedly better.  And if memory serves, integrated BT with Qualcomm cards was equally awful.

So it's beginning to appear that combined Wireless/BT cards are generally a bad idea.  In fact I've noticed that on my laptop, when I introduce the CSR BT dongle to the mix, Intel BT does not seem at all happy.  Bluemon generally refuses to allow switching between the Intel & CSR adapters, often crashing Wireless itself, and requiring either a reboot or a Suspend/Resume if I'm lucky, in order to restart it.  Given that I'm using native Intel BT drivers with both my machines, I guess I can only conclude that if the almighty Intel can't get their own cards to work properly,  what hope is there for the rest of us.  Sigh.