Star, I don't think anyone here would tell anyone to go away because they are using a PDA. On the other hand, if the Problem is remote related (can't get the IR to work....) then I don't think we have the knowledge to help them (we know the problems of the Pronto, but not of every PDA) and that is why we send them there (they are more knowledgeable then us.

The problem with that is it makes me tell my recent tech support story.

A fairly new Micron computer had the motherboard die. After the normal long wait and argument with tech support, they agreed to ship a new motherboard for me to swap myself (so I could avoid the extra delay and shipping expense of sending the whole case back). It took 12 days to arrive. I swapped it in and started getting crashes (which was better than the previous motherboard which couldn't reach the first beep). I tested in spare moments for the next day (because I didn't have a long enough chunk of time to try holding for tech support) and found that the colder it was before booting the longer it took to crash, from about 5 minutes coldest to not even loading the OS if rebooted immediately after a couple crashes.

Talked to tech support again and checked jumpers and swapped CPU's and RAM between the new and old boards (I couldn't figure out the CPU fan release without asking so I hadn't swapped CPUs myself) and tried booting from the CDROM to get at supposed repair software there but CDROM booted so slowly it always crashed before reaching anything. Finally we were sure they had replaced a bad CPU board with a differently bad CPU board and the Tech said he would ask his supervisor for permission to send the next board overnight (since the first replacement had taken 12 days).

Supervisor came on the phone and said that since two different motherboards had failed it could only be corrupted contents on the hard drive. I needed to try reformating the hard drive before they would send another motherboard. It didn't matter that the two motherboards failed differently, didn't matter that the time to failure was temperature dependent, didn't even matter that it crashed booting a CDROM before it ever reached the stage of accessing the hard drive, didn't even matter that I couldn't reach the hard drive reformat utility on the CDROM (he was willing to send a floppy with the reformat program on it. I didn't admit that I already had such a floppy).
After much argument the supervisor gave up and put the tech back on who said the best he could do was put me in the queue for another motherboard, which he did and a week later a working motherboard arrived.

2 points:

1) "they are more knowledgeable then us.", that's the problem.......they aren't more knowledgeable about PE, because they aren't even checking the Forum in the first place, it is essentially a "dead" forum. DAYS between posts.

2) i've been guilty in the past of reading 'PDA' in a post here, and immediately sending them to the depths of mordor, without actually reading their problem (PDA?......too bad, wrong Forum!). i'm just saying that most of those "PDA" threads here, are actually ProntoEdit requests.

johnsfine,

Small world, my daughter used to WORK at Micron, back in 1999/2000. Doing guess what - yep, putting motherboards in cases. You might have even been the victim of her handiwork.

Jim L

Star, If it is a PE question then I agree with you that this is the best place. But if it is a PDA question, then the best place is the PDA forum. I also agree that it is no where as active. But the knowledge we have here has increased over time and posts and the same happens there. The more people posting the better the forum will become. Also how often do we ask "what remote do you have?" when we think that it is relevant. Prontos are different then Marantz, different then NCFs, different then PCFs, different then PDAs, B&W are different then color. Some times the information is important

I say that this is not a very good welcome for new users like myself :(

I am expecting my Philips SBC-RU940 sometime in the morning, so thought I would try and find what guides or help is available, this site was highly recommended, but I would have to say that reading the above comment nearly made me look else where.

Whats your problem? you too elite to answer someones questions? or have you forgot that you too were a beginner in using this type of tool? No-one is forcing you to answer someones request for help, it would be easier for you to just ignore the post, instead you decide to make a post that would passably make a newbie very reluctant to post a help request here.

Not everyone knows where to look, or word their search to get the best response, hell I don't even know what a CCF or a discreet code is YET, but I will, and I know I will post lots of newbie questions, but not before I have tried to find the answer myself, but you need to remember that some users only understand that a forum is where they can post a request for help, and may get an answer, they may never have used a forum before, so yes they may need taking by the hand and guided to the right places to look, if you can not do that, leave it to others that can.

I am sorry for my first post being a flame, but this "ALL NEWBIES, PLEASE READ THIS" post rattled my cage

........as it was meant to do.

i'd be willing to bet that any posts you make, will now have a plethora of information guiding "those of us who know" into helping you better.

we're not unfriendly to newbies here, but there is no such thing as TOO MUCH INFORMATION, the more we have, the better we can help you.

be forewarned though.....we do often take great joy in derailing threads. don't take it personally.

I just wanted to echo Fubar's post above. When someone is a real newbie, they don't yet know what all of these things are. How is someone that just purchased his first device like this even suppose to know what a discreet code is? And I know you will say read the faqs and guides, but lets be honest here. When you drop $600 for a universal remote you want it to work right out of the box instead of digging through pages of posts or faqs to find the answer, if you even know what your question is. I am not saying that is the right way to go about it, but it is human nature. So I would say this to those who know all and are annoyed by us know nothings, "Thanks for any help you can provide and if the simple questions from the simpletons bother you, just ignore the post.

Yep, I've already tried.

getting a bit echoey in here, inn't it?

I see we are on our annual rant of this again.

Last year it was my shot, this year Star's. I can see the more things change, the more they remain the same.


JJP

Dr. ChickenBalls, Fubar, and Other Newbies Reading this post and Feeling Offended....

DONT! As stated earlier, no one here gets paid to help people. We are here for several different reasons, Glutton for Punishment generally isnt one of them.

This post is here to help you understand the way to properly state your questions, and encouage you to do a little bit of Research on your own before blindly posting something thats been discussed multiple times before.

The first time someone asks me a question, I can usually go into quite a long explanation. As the question is asked again and again, my responses tend to get shorter and shorter. This is not just in reference to questions here, its typically how I am in general. I suspect a lot of people are this way. That being said, The first time a question is posed in this forum is likely to have a more in depth explanation. Doing a Quick (OK, not so Quick, theres over 119k post on this forum) Search can answer most questions better than re-posting a question.

"I dont know how to -Insert Varous Task Here-, so I'm not going to even Try"

is NOT a good excuse.

Impaqt

Knowlage is power very easy for the ones who have been inpowered with it. but that dose give people the right TO BULLY.To have such a gift is presious.dose it make you feel good in belittling someONE whos no so clever as your selves ITRULY HOPE IT DOSE AS ONE DAY SOON YOUR TIME WILL COME.

Attention Daniel, the intermission forum is leaking again.

Jim L