Anyone who has followed my other posts will have gathered that I'm very interested in diagnostics. After a lifetime in and around the motor trade there are not many mechanical problems which defeat me these days - I have the tools and knowledge to tackle all but the heaviest of tasks, although, at 72, the body is not always up to it!
Although coming late to electronic diagnostics (there was always a "bright younger lad" in the workshop who "knew about" computers so I tended to get given the difficult mechanical jobs) I find myself now understanding, at least some of, the procedures I can perform with my VCDS and Multiecuscan and I'm learning more every time I use them. Causes less annoyance to the neighbors too when compared to removing a gearbox etc!
As you'll probably know, these programs run on windows and I have them installed on my quite new HP laptop. That's where the problems start! This is the second laptop I have owned and I've never actually had any proper training on how to use it! I stumble around, making the most terrible mistakes, until something catastrophic happens or I run into a dead end where I just have no idea what I'm doing, when I have to go and make a nuisance of myself with any friend who can help sort it out! Buying a bright blue one was a mistake too - hands get very dirty in the workshop!
I would like to learn how to properly manage and use the laptop. I have looked at local education courses but they all seem to want to teach office skills (how to use word etc). I still have the old laptop (which, due to my lack of understanding, actually saw little use) but the problem with it is it's absolutely stuffed with updates and has virtually no disc space left. It would be nice to use it in the workshop, for a start it's black, but there's not enough space on the disc to load a program let alone then save results etc! A friend says that I should wipe the disc and reinstall the program (Vista) which would sort it? but I've no idea how to do that.
So my question is - how can I go about acquiring the knowledge I need to use my laptop properly so that I can get on with learning to use my diagnostic programs without being sidetracked into, sometimes hours, sorting about a silly problem which I've caused due to my ignorance? Another illustration could be the troubles I had loading Multiecuscan into the laptop, because I didn't understand about com ports, or even know what latency is, it took me 3 days of intermittent messing about before I got it working! Once I'm into the diagnostics themselves I'm much more competent but when purely "computery" problems occur it all goes to pot!
Any help and advice/recommendations most gratefully received!
Regards
Jock
Although coming late to electronic diagnostics (there was always a "bright younger lad" in the workshop who "knew about" computers so I tended to get given the difficult mechanical jobs) I find myself now understanding, at least some of, the procedures I can perform with my VCDS and Multiecuscan and I'm learning more every time I use them. Causes less annoyance to the neighbors too when compared to removing a gearbox etc!
As you'll probably know, these programs run on windows and I have them installed on my quite new HP laptop. That's where the problems start! This is the second laptop I have owned and I've never actually had any proper training on how to use it! I stumble around, making the most terrible mistakes, until something catastrophic happens or I run into a dead end where I just have no idea what I'm doing, when I have to go and make a nuisance of myself with any friend who can help sort it out! Buying a bright blue one was a mistake too - hands get very dirty in the workshop!
I would like to learn how to properly manage and use the laptop. I have looked at local education courses but they all seem to want to teach office skills (how to use word etc). I still have the old laptop (which, due to my lack of understanding, actually saw little use) but the problem with it is it's absolutely stuffed with updates and has virtually no disc space left. It would be nice to use it in the workshop, for a start it's black, but there's not enough space on the disc to load a program let alone then save results etc! A friend says that I should wipe the disc and reinstall the program (Vista) which would sort it? but I've no idea how to do that.
So my question is - how can I go about acquiring the knowledge I need to use my laptop properly so that I can get on with learning to use my diagnostic programs without being sidetracked into, sometimes hours, sorting about a silly problem which I've caused due to my ignorance? Another illustration could be the troubles I had loading Multiecuscan into the laptop, because I didn't understand about com ports, or even know what latency is, it took me 3 days of intermittent messing about before I got it working! Once I'm into the diagnostics themselves I'm much more competent but when purely "computery" problems occur it all goes to pot!
Any help and advice/recommendations most gratefully received!
Regards
Jock