Stephen P

Over the last five years the cataracts in my eyes have gotten worse. Is it more likely that the change in my Rx is due to an actual change or that it’s just more difficult to get a good refraction?

2012 OD -6.25 +1.00 X 135 OS -6.00 sphere

2014 OD -5.50 +1.00 X 135 OS -5.50 sphere

2015 OD -5.50 +1.25 X 135 OS -5.25 sphere

2017 OD -4.25 +0.25 X 170 OS -5.00 sphere

I'd like to upgrade my Toshiba Satellite P770 to Win 10. I plan to trying it out with a clean install on an extra hard drive.

Toshiba does not support Win 10 on this model. (Basically they don't know and don't bother asking!)

My two ideas are to either:

1. Do a clean install of the original Toshiba Win 7, update it, and then do the Win 10 upgrade.

2. Just do a clean install of the Win 10.

Any idea which way would be more likely to work? Does the Win 10 upgrade carry over any drivers? Has anyone tried this on a P770?

I sometimes write letters to elderly relatives. What font is easiest to read for people who are pushing 80 years old? (I'm using Word 2010)

Is there a way to calculate an eyeglass prescription for a specific distance? In this particular case I watch a TV set that's 8 feet away while sitting in a rocker. The rocking shifts the line of sight in and out of the progressive zone of my regular glasses (SPH -6 NVADD + 2.5). Rather annoying.

Is there a way to estimate a single vision prescription for 8 feet? I asked my ophthalmologist, he just said that the far vision was "good enough".

But what is the correction? I suppose if it's only + 0.25 diopter that's "good enough" for me, If I get a pair of single vision glasses specifically for TV watching, I'd like for them to be dead on.

What else can you do with a Playstation 3 if you're not interested in games?

Relative is looking at getting something to play Blu-Ray movies. WiFi is available. Computer with XP Pro is on network (not media center).

How usable is it as a media portal or web surfing using built in WiFi?

I need to send a TV signal across a room. The computer on the sending side only has a s-video output.

All the wireless A/V senders I've found have composite video inputs.

Is there a sender with a s-video input? I just need to send a plain old analog signal 20 feet.

I keep seeing advertising for Dish packages starting at $19.99/Mo and DirectTV for $29.99/Mo

There has to be at least a tax on top of this. What total price do you end up paying for these packages?

I've noticed that there are e-bay auctions for boards from broken flat panel TVs. I also know that the makers of cheap TVs like Vizio don't carry repair parts for their out of warranty TVs.

How easy is it to swap out boards on these types of TVs? Do the connectors just plug in or is there soldering involved? Are there brands that are easier to swap boards on than others?

For someone with some electronics experience, is board swapping repair very difficult?

The (US) government announced today a change in their $40 off coupon program. While you can still request your coupons starting on Jan 1, 2008, they will not start sending them out until Feb 17, 2008.

These are for the converters that will let old TVs receive the new over the air digital channels.

See http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/press/2007/DTVret...

For the good news: Converters from four companies have been approved as certified for the program: DigitalSTREAM, Zenith, Magnavox, and Philco. They also announced that over 100 retailers have been certified receive the coupons including: Best Buy, Circuit City, Kmart, RadioShack, Sam's Club, Sears, Target, Wal-Mart

Ok, for 10 points, what is the jusiest new tidbit of information that you can come up with about the Coupon eligible converter boxes?

(If you don't know what I'm talking about, see http://dtvfacts.com/ )

I need to find a engine wiring harness to put in a 97 Geo Prizm (a clone of the 97 Corolla) that has a 1.8L 7A-FE engine.

Toyota started putting 7A-FE engines in Corollas in 1993. Is a wiring harness from a 1993 (or whatever) Corolla interchangeable with a 1997 Prizm/Corolla?

Is there somewhere on the Internet with this sort of information.

Besides the 1.8L engine size, I assume the the harness needs to come from a car with AT & AC to match the car it's going into. The car it's going into doesn't have factory cruise control; does it matter if the harness comes from a car with factory cruise control?

Some squirrels decided to chew up the main engine wiring harness on my poor little car. The harness needs to come out of the car to repair it.

The local repair places just say it will be $80/hr and don't even know how many hours it would take to remove/install it.

Does anyone know how long it should take a mechanic to remove/install one of these?

Is this a DIY proposition? Most of the wiring has obvious plugs on the end but it's not clear what's involved in detaching the wiring that goes through the firewall & how it attaches to the fuse & relay boxes.

If you have experience with this, I'd like to hear about it.

I have lots of experience in soldering electronics so I could fix it myself, if I could just get it out of the car!

PS - it's really a Geo Prizm which is nearly identical to a Corolla.