Is there such a thing as a signal booster/some sort of ariel thingy to get better connectivity?

Yes, but whilst legal to sell and own the moment you turn it on you’re breaking the law. As mrblobby correctly states you need a broadband signal generator or Femtocell. Vodafone was the first to market with their SureSignal product but I believe there are others. Check with her mobile provider. Just remember that these are operator specific so once installed don’t go trying to find a different operator when she upgrades her phone.

Does what it says, includes a four port switch and Wi-Fi, what’s not to like? Price maybe. Obviously works very well with Apple products and mine’s not missed a beat for two years.

And me. A couple of times now.

Yes, if a company advertises that service, pretty sure its illegal to advertise a service you are incapable of delivering in this country. Even if you didn’t expect the same level of service it would be fair to expect a certain level of competency.

Really? OK, the legality as you say it is probably the case but service level and competency are the same thing. If a company offers one the other will be easy to deliver. Big business is not about competency it’s about money and the larger the business the more expensive the operating costs. Any company selling in bulk to the mass market via bricks and mortar retail has zero interest in highly trained, expensive staff. The customer on the whole doesn’t need it and isn’t spending enough to warrant it, much easier to piss off the small percentage who have problems.

When it comes to computers I think the safest place to buy is Apple, other than them I’m not aware of any other decent reseller. AV (my industry) is a little different as there are some very good places to buy, like us, but we are not exactly cheap and you need to be spending an awful lot. We (and others like us) offer a pretty complete pre, during and after sales service. You will not get that from the high street. No way.

Staying with the driving theme if you can book a better day than this then it must be pretty darn special, in fact I believe this is more or less the best event if it’s type, anywhere. I enjoyed a day with Palmer Sports a year or two back and to put it simply it was utterly superb; one day, four circuits, six cars and instructors who basically push you to drive as fast as you possibly can, then faster, and a little bit faster still…

Other than the single seater you have an instructor with you in every car and it’s basically live tuition;

“faster, foot down, now keep this pace, hold it, hold it, now BREAK, BREAK, BREAK, break harder! into second, now floor it, 3rd, 4th, hold it, and BREAK HARD etc”. This, in very fast cars, all day. [insert expletive] unbelievable.

Not cheap though. Four figures, but memorable? Oh yes…

PalmerSport

You can still take it to Apple, they just charge for the service as you would expect. Water damage? with electronics, good luck. If it was me I’d write it off and claim on home contents insurance.

not sure how they get away with it really

Because this is what they are told and they don’t have the knowledge or experience to disprove it. Although your case was blatant lying as anyone would know this not to be true I would expect most of their staff actually believe expensive cables are better. When I got into the industry I was hood winked into this with analogue cables (speaker wire, interconnects etc) – what was even more weird was I was certain I could ‘hear’ the improvements as well. The brain plays interesting tricks when it is expecting a result.

Fact is the margins in cables are very good. TVs and source not so.

I’m sorry, do we actually expect low paid, inexperienced and poorly trained employees to offer the sort of service you would expect from well paid, well trained and experienced staff? It’s not just PC World and Currys it’s pretty much all large, technology based chains. Computing is the worst serviced of all retail products as there’s bog all margin in the equipment and anyone with a degree of aptitude is snapped up by the business sector.

Whilst far from perfect the only decent backup I’ve ever had is from Apple stores yet I’m sure lots of you have had horrorific experiences there as well! You’d think there would be a market opportunity but everyone’s so tight they wouldn’t pay for it. Catch 22.

The problem expends to hardware as well. I’ve been selling technology for 20 years and it always amuses me how everyone expects to buy at rock bottom prices and maintain high quality features and engineering. There are some really good examples of how our consumer society drives down product quality as we demand ever cheaper pricing. Look at the VCR, for ten years it was a well built device that would stand up to a fair bit if wear and tear – by the time it was replaced by the DVD player they cost virtually nothing and we’re so poorly built the failure rate was almost double digit. If you had one last three years you were lucky. It’s happening to Blu-Ray players and TVs right now.

Just wait until you start using Internet radio! Some stations with questionable quality but with over 100,000 out there it’s quite amazing. Even better you find great stations with one advert an hour and no presenter – just wall-to-wall music 😀

http://tunein.com/

Very sad. Looks like a pretty horrific crash.

Great film; would be even better if 20 mins shorter.

What, and miss the scene set where we ride? For obvious reasons my favourite bit. We used to do night rides through the set 😀

I’m going to be controversial. Get Sky. Has it all and you can record on demand to view at your leisure. Apple TV is a must for all the reasons above and with both in play it’s all you need.

I’ve just swapped out a Toyota RAV4 XT4 after a little over four years and 110,000 miles, other than standard servicing costs I think I spent about £500 on repairs – frankly astonished at how reliable it was. I live in the North downs and never missed a day of work even with a foot of snow on the road and standard tyres, not Scottish conditions I appreciate but still… Comfortable, we’ll spec’d and I’ll miss it.

My new car may be much, much nicer but come snow I’ll be putting the fire on and working from home 😀

Funny Heatmiser should come up as I’d already been looking at their Wi-Fi stats, they offer a pretty similar solution and currently top of my list; hence my interest in the Hive as I’m curious to see how they stack up.

As a bloke you are always going to fancy your partner less as time goes by

Sorry buddy, that’s bollocks. We’ve been together 26 years, married for 20 and I’ve still got the hots for Mrs. C.

I think he was probably referring to the spark of attraction which is a fair point and it’s certainly not bollocks, you’re just fortunate that that part of your relationship has remained intact better than most. Don’t gloat too much about it 😉

Blimey you only need to look at the amount of broken marriages, affairs etc. to see what a challenge this is to a large proportion of society. I think it’s this perceived goal of a perfect, long lasting, highly sexed relationship that causes a lot of problems. Hollywood and others suggest this is achievable when in reality we’re still animals and this modern idea of a monogamous relationship is a hard thing to do for most.

the most important thing is being a happy partnership to bring up kid. Sex happens when it happens, I dont worry about it.

This is spot on IMO. Nicely put.

Hmmm, I wonder if there are any meaningful lessons that can be learnt from this? I think it’s fair to say that most marriages follow a similar path as relationships either stagnate (bad) or simply mature into something different (normal). I certainly have a few smarties left in the jar but my feelings for my wife are far more profound than they were when we first met, sex just isn’t as important as it was – kids and work have taken care of that. I believe intimacy is still important though, however infrequent.

I’d love to know if there’s anything different about the background relationship of those who are still at it like rabbits! Number of partners, age they met etc… Or is it just a fortunate biological pairing thing?

OP, I think Cynic-al has it. What you’re talking about is a little deeper and sounds like communication needs to improve first.

Do you really need RAID?

For those not in the know RAID is not backup, RAID is content protection and IMO if you’re hosting your library on the NAS without a backup yes you do. Hard drives have a tendency to fail and RAID ensures that if one does you can replace it without having to rebuild your library – something that you defiantly don’t want to find yourself in the position of having to do. The alternative is to backup the HDD but this is less efficient.

For the record I don’t have RAID but then when I bought my 2TB, WD Live NAS I didn’t have enough cash to buy what I really wanted. Also, I have a backup so whilst boring a drive failure will not result in a loss of media.

God it’s unbelievably terrible… Hats off to the Aussies. Straight to bed with no story England, go on, off you go I’ve seen enough 😥

Really are you that much of a xenophobic freak, I work behind a bar part time and I’m more than happy taking them.

Your boss must be ecstatic with your liberal view on exchange of goods for cash… Baring in mind the way criminals specifically target currencies in limited circulation you’re the best kind of target. Where do you work again?

Trail_Rat this looks like a heating only solution and very basic. Also, how much will it cost me to get someone to install it? I’m not about to try it myself as I don’t have the time or inclination. The Hive looks like a much more polished solution with much better features and it’s installed for £199. That does not sound expensive at all to me.

Granted if I had time to learn about this and figure out how to do it myself something like this would be possible but this is not the case. I also don’t see remote control of heating and hot water as a gimmick, I see this in most of the homes we work on and almost everyone notes it as one of the most useful features of their system. These are much more expensive multi-zone systems but non the less, I want some of it…just at a more affordable price!

I’d say Synology or QNAP, both very well reviewed and I’ve heard very positive feed back on both. If it helps, don’t bother with DLNA audio it’s slow and no fun at all, get Sonos and live a happy musical life there after 😛

Other than looking slightly slick, why do you think it is a ‘very attractive product’?

It’s wireless, simple to use, has an app so you can use to reconfigure it away from home and, compared to the rubbish installed at the moment, is a much more flexible thermostat. It also manages hot water as well as heating which is convenient. Our current management of heating is awful as the thermostat is in the wrong location (hall) and whilst preset timing schedules work fairly well they don’t offer the flexibility our lifestyle really needs. If a £40 Screwfix product can solve all these issues I’m all ears. Fire away.

The only other product I’m seriously considering is Nest but a) it’s not available it the UK yet b) it’s more expensive and c) it’s heating only.

Heatmiser look attractive but I’ve not researched the hot water / heating solution yet so if anyone can shed light on their solutions I’d appreciate it. If I was starting fresh with a brand new system it would probably be Heatmiser but as a retro fit I’m not sure yet.

There are three considerations;

1. Storage and back up.
2. Performance.
3. User interface.

If all you want to do is make content stored on your PC available to DLNA compatible media players around the house then a basic NAS is all you need, it provides both backup to your PC and media server function in one. WD Live NAS products are great for this.

If you have a large media library and need to ‘host’ this on a NAS then you need something with two or more bays and RAID to provide at least an element of backup protection. I say element as there is backup and backup, some will argue quite rightly that a backup is something copied and stored separately, even off site. Anyway, a WD or Synology multi-bay NAS will provide this function.

Then there is performance and user interface. Synology have become very popular due to a great user interface, lots of features and great read/write data speeds making them very easy to live with. If you buy cheap you’ll soon discover why,

Set out your requirements and the right product will present it’s self.

Doesn’t seem to matter where these guys come from, as soon as they join an english team they absorb the same bloody mental failings. Management and captain must shoulder some blame, it’s their job to make sure these guys are thinking straight and in the best frame of mind to make good (or correct) decisions. No? Sportsman will always have moments of stupidity but english teams seem to take it to a whole new level.

Maybe being a bit harsh but when you see the Aussie’s pick them selves up and completely reverse a pressure situation it really highlights this. Why couldn’t we do what we know we can and just play the game, no need to ‘take it to them’ or drop the guard and pad out the match, just do what you do best and bat yourself back into contention…

I’ve never been a long sleeper but I sleep well, never too tired during the day. My alarm is set for 05.45 but I’m usually awake well before this. Recently I’ve been falling asleep at around 10pm and I’m fully awake by 4.30am. Doesn’t seem to matter if booze is consumed or not.

Luckily I love mornings and see this as ‘me time’ when I don’t have to wrestle the remote or iPad from my wife and kids. Of course now it’s a bit of a boon, I get to watch the cricket… 😀

Dumb

“Mate, there’s some shit on the end of your bat..”

“really?”

“no, the other end”..

😐

Would have been a smily face if there was any amusement in what happened. FFS what is it with english sportsman, well, footballers and cricketers specifically? They just seem to fall well below the expected mental temperament required of a professional sportsman. Is this a failure of management? historical pressure? what? We know the quality is there but when pressure situations develop our ball players fall apart…!

Just don’t get it.

It’s the Broad and Johnson show.

It’s one of those moments… Enjoy it whilst it lasts 👿

Make that 8 down . Still five short of the follow on… 😯

This is not going well, not at all… England all over the place and under immense pressure.

I was thinking about this on the way to work when I heard about the recent sale of an Orange Diamond for $35.53m, a new record. Plus there’s an even bigger one about to be auctioned that should beat this 😯

Orange Diamond record auction

My business is dependent on extremely wealthy people buying our product so I have no problem with colossal wealth, we do very well out of it and I find most of my clients to be (on the whole) easy to get on with. The thing is this sort of purchase doesn’t generate much in the way of money recycling (with the exception of the auction houses) so very much a super rich investment come plaything. FFS it’s a shiny bit of mineral!

This one perfectly describes my difficulty communicating with adults as a small kid… 😀

Another vote off Airparrot. Allows my 2009 MacBook to stream to ATV2.

Quick bump for the Monday crowd.

Also been looking at the ‘Supper Club’ Nottting Hill and the ‘Kensignton Roof Garden’, the latter may be better in the Summer though?

Cheers.

Thanks Krypton, will take a look.

Anyone been to ‘Opal’ near Embankment, came up in a search and whilst the website looks gaudy the reviews are pretty good. Not sure it fits the bill but sounds interesting.

No, not my taste, impressive but pretty hideous. There is very little external architecture to speak off, I mean looking from above it’s little different from a commercial building. The interior has no cohesion and is a bit gaudy in places. Other than that it’s just a very, very big, famous persons house.

American architecture is often a bit meh really.

Why?

That’s sir is quality. Nice find.

Hmmm, where’s that Autotrader App?

20% but the arrow was pointed pretty much exactly where I great up / live currently, mid to south Surrey… So how this constitutes 20% is beyond me. But I suppose anything a few yards up so getting your feet wet in the channel is ‘North’ is the most literal sense if not geographically accurate 🙄

Excellent thread. It’s not that I don’t believe in God I just find the whole concept a little far fetched, certainly the idea that there’s a single consciousness (however all knowing) that dreamt this (the universe that is) all up.

The thing that always amuses me about this kind of debate is the fact that;

a) Regardless of biblical comment it’s fairly well reasoned that there’s no evidence for God. More so God is apparently outside of our ability of comprehension so evidence will never surface.
b) God is an entirely human creation born from eons of superstitious beliefs that have matured over time, the result being the very defendable idea we have today.
c) Religion in it’s purist (original) form is a means of controlling the masses and individuals have leveraged this for both good and evil. At it’s core though it’s a purely human concept and one that groups have moulded to thier own ends.

So, as it’s a purely human concept and one with zero evidence the likely hood that ‘god’ exists is highly unlikely. If anything has taken a had in moulding our universe ‘it’ definitely doesn’t give a toss about our dirty little corner and certainly doesn’t fit any discription or belief structure that exists.

Like most I find extremism in any form indefensible and most religions are very acceptable to me, regardless of the fact I think all their members are a few sandwiches short of a picnic. I recon there must be a religious ‘gene’ that make some more likely to believe, or at the very least feel more comfortable with a belief.

I like proof and there is none so that’s that as far as I’m concerned. If I do find myself a the gates of the ‘Kingdom’ after this life I won’t be completely unprepared but mildly surprised. I’d have to have words…