on a similar note, has anyone put a photo onto acrylic (most of the places that do canvas do this)? Please with the results?

don't like the way my car has one-click to unlock drivers door & two to unlock all doors. It's fine in principle, but the car then locks all doors when moving and when you remove the key from the ignition at your destination it's supposed to have remembered whether you one-clicked or two-clicked and open the correct number of doors. But mine very rarely does and so the passenger door & boot generally don't become unlocked. Which results in passengers trying to rip the door release off until I tell them they have to pull it twice to unlock it. SOunds trivial, but is annoying.

if its a ford, press and hold both lock and unlock on the keyfob for 10 secs. Indicators should flash, then the single-door-lock-thing is turned off

just got back from my trip, thought I'd give an update

I got a tamron 200-400mm in the end – was about £100ish on ebay.

also a quick 'don't normally see that on a ride shot – but with a different lens – I'd highly reccomend bike safari to anyone who can. More pics @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/5lab/sets if anyone is bored. Thanks again for the help!

you can do morocco far cheaper than that – a bunch of us go down every jan – fly out, hire a car, get one of those lush places right on the point of anchors. Total cost for the week, inc flights, car, food, accom is under £300.

regarding learning – I'd say do a weekend in newquay first – its just set up right. I'm not sure of places for real beginner lessons in morocco, but there probably are some.

H

Ive got an Phase 2 V70 and i can tell you now unless someone makes a hell of a convincing argument against it i'll buy another without a second thought. By far the best car ive driven.

With wheels off three DH bikes and three people and three peoples gear go in no trouble.

can get 4 & 4 in the boot of a mondeo estate easily, and 5 & 5 at a push – 3 isn't even trying :)

diesel mondeo estate. With wheels and pedals off it'll take 5 people and 5 bikes *inside* the car at a squeeze. does the same with 4 and full weekend gear. 45mpg, cost a grand 4 years/40,000 miles ago and has never gone wrong. girlfriend mashed it into a curb causing some damage and I don't really care. Fitted aftermarket cruise control and it'll just sit on the motorway till i get to wales\scotland\devon\wherever

tried changing the auto focus mode, if that's what you're using? not sure about your body, but most have several modes, one of which will track whatever is in frame until you shoot

in addition, close the lens up a bit – dof is great, but if the pictures aren't coming out in focus then its pointless. A bit less DOF will help you when you get started – try putting up to f9 or similar

i would try with no flash, iso 400, f9, and a minimum of 1/100 shutter, hopefully close to 1/200. if you want to use a flash, may as well whack the shutter up a bit. It'd also be easier to get a shot like that with a longer lens – say a 200mm – as the relative distance to subject remains the same for longer (so focussing is easier). I'd say that shot is on at least 150mm, if not longer

put £100/month into a bond, what he doesn't use when the time comes, you can :)

its difficult to say – as 18 years ago grants were still in place etc – so anything could happen over the next 18 (could go the way of the merkins, so you'll need 30k, or could revert back to being free..)

main bearing gone might be a symptom of vibrations from elsewhere – could be an early sign of DMF failure? otherwise, cars are a lot like bikes. Because you're casette has gone, the chainring might go, but your forks are no more likely to be dead

cdiscount have some eastpaks on 80% off at the moment, only the small wheelybag though

rock band works with instruments from all the series, not sure gh does the same. I've got RB and its very very good. You can also buy RB 1 & 2 and copy the songs to your hard drive, then take RB1 back\sell it on – you'll still have all the songs. bargin

£1000 per m^2 is what I've heard. Seems a bit of a waste if its structurally sound though – might be worth thinking how much difference you're going to make by building from scratch – very few new builds have much character in anyway

cancel order #1, create order #2 – no faffing around with returns

its a legal requirement for selling a house now. Worth phoning around though – you might find that there are feelance companies doing it without the estate agent's markup in place

Hugh

if you're going from (say) 15 years left on a 25 year mortgage to 25 years on a 25 year mortgage that'd explain why the payments aren't rising too much. good luck with the hunt, don't forget to budget for stamp duty etc

I don't i'm afraid – i just asked the question 'where can I hire a splitty' on a couple of aussie VW combi forums and that was the answer I got

To be honest, given that any hire vehical has got to have modern running gear by now, and (to the best of my knowledge) there's no reason why you can't fit much the same gear to a splitty as to a bay, I don't see why this'd be the case.

thanks for the tips. I've got a gorillapod, but might look to take my tripod as well

what does the collected think about this sort of option

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Tamron-AF-200-400mm-f-5-6-LD-Canon-fit_W0QQitemZ180400414840QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_CamerasPhoto_CameraAccessories_CameraLensesFilters_JN?hash=item2a00b3e078&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

its not got OS, so the speed would have to be a bit quicker (1/500 or so at max zoom), but otherwise it should be ok?

H

we hired a vintage bay when we toured Aus a couple of years back. advice on the forums is that no-one would rent us a splitty as they'd not be reliable enough – so hope yours goes well. Our trip was epic

only cost £50/day, covered 3000 miles in total

damnit.

'come here damnit'
'fetch damnit'
'your dinner is ready damnit'
'don't shag that hot girl's leg damnit'

etc

one other option I suppose I have is to buy a lens (maybe that sigma 100-400, or maybe the 150-500) and flog it when I get back – to be honest it'd be cheaper than renting (I think? probably only lose £50-100) and I get the option to play with it for longer if I want..

i'm a little wary of getting something very fast (f2.8) as at 400mm I think the depth of field would be so short as to be tricky to shoot with at full length (??) – Granted I can stop it down, but I then may as well get a slightly slower OS lens (right??) – the fast long lenses are also normally a bit of an armful (the 120-300 f2.8 is 2.5kg) – not sure if that'd be too much of a burden?

get a cheap popout minimal – ie bic\nsp. The advantage of a beginner-specific board is that they are normally a bit wider, with a bit more stability inherant than a normal minimal (which might be what you're seeing people riding on), which are slightly slimmer with a view of being easier to turn. I'd go for something at least 1' longer than you are tall, 18" would be best. As a general rule, the longer a board, the easier it is to catch waves, but the harder to steer – longboards are therefore very good for the former, but crap for the latter and can stunt your progress once you get to turning. They're also a pain in the arse to store\transport

one final note, popouts (bics\nsps etc) are a lot more robust, and don't dink as easily – i found this very useful when I was a beginner (akin to getting a beefy wheelset on an mtb). they are, however, pretty rubbish when you get good, and there's a lot of looking down on them by the surfing community as a whole for this reason (a bit like bikers looking down on saracins, I guess)

there's a bosch 24v one that comes up for £100 on B&Q all the time

http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav.jsp?action=detail&fh_secondid=10256482&fh_view_size=10&fh_location=%2f%2fcatalog01%2fen_GB&fh_search=bosch+24+drill&fh_eds=%c3%9f&fh_refview=search&ts=1251808342059&isSearch=true

give it 2 weeks and it'll be back there. I've done the whole house up with it, and its been pretty good. Get a sds driver if you're going to be doing a lot of drilling in masonry, makes all the difference.

my mates bike was nicked from sainsburies, and we found it in the garden next door to my mates. I went down there last night, but no sign of it (plenty of sign of other, probably nicked, townish bikes though – 28 hollingdean terrace, there's an ally next to it, if you ever get in the same trouble). I'll have a drive round again in a few days time – I've got my eyes on ebay\friday ad as well in case it pops up

H

meets just as many eu standards if its marketed as a bike helmet

strong outer shell means it can take quite a few more knocks before replacing, if you're into crashing

did come with my boxed saint cranks, along with a bb install tool

damp is easy to measure – get one of these

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rapitest-RAPDTM118-Damp-Test-Meter/dp/B0001P0JZU

and poke all the walls with it, it'll identify where there is\isn't damp

otherwise, they're probably telling you the fusebox is a bit old, so any future electrical work will be a little more pricey, and that you're spending too much, but not screwing up your chances of getting a mortgage

surely your roof is her floor, and the risks should be based on that (ie, you've a high chance of flooding cos she left the bath running, a low chance of flooding due to a tile falling off the roof, etc)? worth giving them a ring, as all your stuff is 8' of room below any roof, I'd be surprised if it matters

you can get 5 (!) full freeride bikes in the boot of a mondeo estate, with the seats up, and 5 lads inside for a dirty weekend in wales

is a bit of a squeeze, mind

on a more relevent note, the golf estate is based on the mk5, not the mk6

http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_reveals_phone_testing_routine-news-686.php

2 of any cheap nokias on ebay, one as a spare.

i prefer flip phones – the keyboard and screen stay protected. currently happy with a £20 6131 – get whatever comes free on your contract, flog it, buy something cheap, go out on the piss. win

tyre pressures and saddle right down. I run 15 psi and it grips like a bad rash

i had two frames die on the front shock mount, from a niche north american company. Both within 10 hours of riding. I sold the 3rd replacement after they told me that

a) it was a design flaw (and the 3rd frame was a new design for the front shock mount)

b) even so, i was obviously riding it too hard, and they’d not honour the waranty again

get a bigger car and put yer bikes in that?

got 5 bikes + 5 people inside a mondeo estate over the weekend. job done

bump – anybody?

you can get 5 bikes (inc tyres, and some riding gear) in the *boot* of my mk2 mondeo estate, so as a tool to get people riding without strapping stuff to the extremities, i guess thats pretty good :)

its also dull as ditchwater. Worst car I ever owned\drive was a mk2 polo. terrible thing. only owned it for 3 days – bought it to get home when my other car broke down :)

yeah its worth noting I only went the waeco route because the mondeo cruise control wasn’t available on diesels, so aftermarket was the only route. in some cars its as simple as plugging the stalk in

yes – i fitted aftermarket (magicspeed by waeco) cruise to my diesel mondeo. the kit cost about £120 from ebay, fitting took a couple of hours. Easy peasy, works really well

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/WAECO-MagicSpeed-Car-Cruise-Control-with-Vacuum-Servo_W0QQitemZ280336548372QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM?hash=item41455c4214&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A12%7C66%3A2%7C39%3A1%7C72%3A1683%7C240%3A1318%7C301%3A1%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50

uses a vacuum to pull the throttle cable based on a pulse from the speed sensor (which can be picked up behind the stereo)

Hugh

to be honest, if you’re willing to pay for an aftermarket warranty and a car check, you may as well buy private, as you’re not getting one iota of advantage from getting it from a dealership?

call your local breakers i would expect to pay no more than a tenner for a rad switch

try 5QT9K-ZAU54 – might have expired 4 days ago. £5 off £25

i can strongly reccomend one of these

http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav.jsp?action=detail&fh_secondid=10256482&fh_view_size=150&fh_eds=%3f&fh_location=%2f%2fcatalog01%2fen_GB%2fcategories%3c%7b9372015%7d%2fcategories%3c%7b9372047%7d%2fcategories%3c%7b9372203%7d%2fcategories%3c%7b9392094%7d%2fspecificationsProductType%3dcordless%2ffeaturesBrand%3dBosch&fh_refview=lister&ts=1243860602047&isSearch=false

24 volts, 2 batteries

when doing deck screws, it’d run in about 150 per charge of battery. With big (150mm) coach screws straight into undrilled wood, you’re looking at more like 20 before the puff’s gone. bit bulky – i’ve got a small 3.6v screwdriver to get akward screws in