Turning into a beast of a thread 8)

didn’t expect such a response, thanks

haven’t had time to sort my razor debacle, got the shaving oil though now trying it soon

then if it doesnt help it may be curtains for the Braun

there seems to be a hell of a lot of models of Merkur…

nuvi 1340 .. car jobbie

Going to try shaving oil with the Braun

then mull over a Merkur

Braun foil/blades pack is 20 ish quid… which is a lot of dough.. but then I guess it goes through them more slowly

Battered

AVG or lob windows in the bin

Unless you go mental on torrenting, streaming videos or downlaoding games.. 10GB should be plenty

Exact Audio Copy

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

Ive got one and like it

never owned a t/s or android phone before

added peace of mind knowing it should last a while

Nah Defy will be upgraded to 2.2

https://supportforums.motorola.com/community/manager/softwareupgrades

Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA)

DEFY MB525 (Europe) Upgrade to Android 2.2 planned for Q2 2011

I reckon this is one of the best value smart-phones on the market, even if you don’t want a rugged phone

Motorola defy, will probably work and cheaper than all these other options and survive some abuse

http://www.gsmarena.com/motorola_defy-review-546.php

Who actually has a good level of mmmbop stock atm?

I couldn’t see much the other day. 20″ seemed out of stock everywhere IIRC

Get this nas instead, it’ll do a lot more than just act as an external hard drive. You can stream media (and share if you want) from this and use the built in DVDRW to back up stuff.

http://www.dabs.com/products/lg-electronics-n1t1-1tb-nas-itunes-server–dlna-and-built-in-dvd-rw–black—white–7235.html

Benq should have you covered for a 22″/24″ monitor if you don’t want to blow the bank.

If you want a slightly better panel you might consider a Dell IPS panel. Such as the Dell U2311H or Dell U2211H

The financial crisis wasn’t just caused by banks. They tried to help someone by offering them a loan. The problems were caused when the people they tried to help let them down.

Regardless of who is to blame (for those that want to blame – I sometimes like a good bit of blame 😆 ) we’ve all been living beyond our means in the UK for some time. Think about how many possessions the average person must have and all the cr@p they buy – a frightening thought. Can we maintain or justify such a situation? Probably not.

If we want that high standard of living though (the exact definition of which may vary depending on what you value) without having the British Empire Mk2 to make up for any short comings or problems (like being able to nick resources) we need to do something more than just lobbing money around on computers and shaft companies/people with short selling.

We need companies who are the best in their field or near enough, we need people to buy our stuff. At the end of the day isn’t that what its about? Because if it goes wrong (the economy) at the most basic level like in Zimbabwe it wont matter what bankers you’ve got.

allyharp thats the nail on the head right there

real wealth generation

if none of the companies exist that the banks trade on… what is left to trade on?

and on this front we are fairly screwed, as we are not awash with resources or making loads of stuff people want to buy

TandemJeremy they can all speak German and the US would bowl over and hand them green cards on arrival.

druidh, personally Im not as comfortable as others with an economy that is so reliant on the financial services. But like it or not, thats what weve got.

Just my opinion.

Graham S

-Do banks have to give bonuses? The govt could force them all to abandon bonuses, but it wont in a million years. Should doctors get a bonus for saving lives? Should Engineers get big bonuses? Army?… and so on…

-These people are speculating on companies, they can have a nasty effect on these companies with their “deals” and short selling

-A lot of it is psychology and BS.

-Imagine if Mr Jerome Kerveil’s dealings had worked.

Kerviel had told investigators that such practices are widespread and that getting a profit makes the hierarchy turn a blind eye

-Bankers let them leave, where they going to go? And someone is always ready to step up/replace. Sure the job is pressured, but do you need to be a rocket scientist to do it?

Right time to chillax. We’re all doomed anyway 🙂

Get the Motorola Defy. It’ll survive a beating (relatively speaking) and you wont be worried taking it out and doing sports. Its also got a better spec overall than those other two phones.

crotchrocket

not after an arguement but

You don’t suddenly find more engineers if you sack bankers

Agreed but are we helping the ones we’ve got enough?

We can’t compete with China/thailand/taiwan for manufacturing. We don’t have mineral resources..

Not necessary needed in vast quantities for hi-tech low volume manufacturing

We do have a massive market, an international reputation for financial regulation, protection, integrity and a tax system which allows big money to flow through a centre where some of the best educated, well proven financial professionals in the world.

Yet we find ourselves in this mess

so the UK prolly can compete on a world stage for finance and high tech innovation.

If everyone in the UK supported the other things we do (innovate) we wouldn’t be so reliant on bankers.
But how many people can genuinely be supported by innovation?

California, can we compare to that?

FWIW: the german economy is very different to the UK one, they have made an international reputation of getting the engineering right – compare BMW to Leyland

Yup Germany has a balanced economy or at least more balanced than ours.

We do have Rolls Royce a internationally reputable company and arguably the best in its field? So why don’t we have more like it?

crotchrocket

I don’t see the need for so many bankers. We need a more balanced economy not one merely concerned with financial services.

We are fairly shafted anyway.. its not like we have the natural resources of China/Oz.. We certainly don’t make much any more of any note… Not sure we are a technological centre

Germany does better than us they actually export stuff

French own our energy supply which isn’t great

We are told the bankers and CEOs have to be paid huge amounts and receive above inflation pay rises else they would go elsewhere.

I say let them go.

Bankers don’t make real money, they don’t manufacture things, don’t dig things out the earth, they don’t solve the next big science/technology problem.

Yup thats right let them go. 🙂

how about communism

don’t say its not viable – as you say we are shafted anyway
🙂

Yeah I haven’t read every post on here

But a couple of things

google search “millionaires in cabinet” … turns out theres 23

so these are the people who know about debt management 😯

oh and now VATs gone up.. they can waste more of our money without actually reducing debt 😯

uponthedowns

http://projects.gnome.org/gnome-color-manager/

this now comes with Fedora on install I believe… probably be able to get it going in ubuntu as well

dirtbiker100

Im surprised at that.

For the graphics it should just be a case of going into the restricted drivers, i’d be surprised if it hasn’t detected it

https://help.ubuntu.com/8.04/hardware/C/restricted-manager.html

The USB/ps2 adapter, you sure its all plugged in tightly. No reason for that not to work. ps2 it has to be in before the OS is booted – not hot swapped in.

stuey

with the latest version I’d disagree, now broadcomm network drivers are there – there’s very little ubuntu doesn’t find – some things like graphics drivers are in restricted drivers tool which aren’t enabled – you have to enable them

but installing ubuntu only requires 1 reboot I think .. it installs in about 10 minutes from a DVD is my experience.. try that with windows.. and less fetching of drivers from the net manually

I only have one niche piece of hardware (an ESI Julia soundcard) Ubuntu sorts it out no problems

I know Sat Navs are a pain though, as the USB driver to connect it is windows only (Garmin and TomTom guilty).. so thats one for virtualbox or another machine

The only big weakness seems to be 3d acceleration… its getting better but isn’t able to compete with windoze because ATI/Nvidia don’t throw enough resources at it

Sun’s VirtualBox for stuff you can’t run in wine… assuming your pc has the grunt required

Do you know if it can take guards like the defy?

Just like splitting a bike gets you more money than selling it whole – I think the same would apply here.

If you can be bothered sell and list all individually.

The ones that don’t sell after some time period (more patience required 😆 ), bundle those and flog ’em in one go 🙂

Ebay for the adverts.

Sony TX5 might be worth a look and can be had for about 200-230 quid

It is small and will take a beating (relatively speaking), has a decent processor (as it can perform in-camera panorama stitching)

-Water, dust, freeze and shock proof – depths down to 3m
-CMOS Sensor
-720p video
-10fps shooting

http://www.sony.co.uk/product/dsc-t-series/dsc-tx5

Samsung LE32C530 32in at amazon

hdtv review LE32C530

In our input lag and subjective gaming tests, the Samsung LE32C530 performed unbelievably well, lagging by only 14ms! Needless to say, this figure makes input lag completely irrelevant on this LCD TV, making it one of the best we’ve ever seen for fast, fluid gaming enjoyment.

Lag this low means you can use it with your pc with no worries.

The Samsung LE32C530 is a bargain in just about anyone’s eyes. It can be had from many online stores – including Multizone AV who has kindly supplied our review sample – for approximately £320, and in-depth testing has revealed that there’s more to be had for the money than we initially hoped for. We can’t think of any comparable displays at this end of the market and highly recommend this display to users who are happy to tolerate the viewing angle and motion limitations of LCD TVs. While it is not the equal of every other HDTV that we’ve rated “Highly Recommended”, the Samsung LE32C530 offers outstanding value for money that earns it a spot in this category.

Get this and save a few bob and put it towards other stuffs.

Does anybody sell laptops OS-free? I have a valid licence for XP, Vista (several types) but would prefer Linux installed anyway.

Novatech do

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/laptop/all/%5B/url%5D

http://www.wilkinson.co.uk/store/product.php?productid=20274&cat=693&page=1

Single lens k-x for 329.99 here if you dont want to spend for the dual

K-x is hard to beat for a DSLR at that price

You might also consider an Olympus PEN as well? Not DSLR I know but very compact and with the in-body stabilisation + adapter lots of legacy lenses can be used

Lancia Delta Evo 2

you will need to save some money to keep it running obviously 😀

Olympus E-pl1 body at SRS for 249

E-pl1 body @ SRS

Personally I think this is a cracking deal, this has in-body stabilisation and will be good for a variety of lenses (get an adapter off ebay). Its small and light, quality is decent for the money.

If you go the DSLR route for 400 quid you might consider a Pentax K-x or K-r which will give a lot of more expensive cameras a serious run for their money. Pentax make very good prime lenses.

Nah TV wise, you just need a low enough input lag for a computer or console.

I use this as PC monitor through a DVI-HDMI cable without any problems, sufring, games, films the lot

Samsung LE32C530 Review

Video editing can be intensive – might need to elaborate a bit with what you are dealing with.
What is your old spec? Power Supply wattage?
Budget?
Building yourself is always cheapest.
Laptop is good for portability but costs more for the same spec as desktop and all computers depreciate.

If you are confident building and selecting the components do this.

If you want a prebuilt barebones or bundle then Novatech do some that might be worth a look

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/barebones.html

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/bundles.html

If you don’t need much power this might be worth a look

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/225756

save a few bob and get a motorola defy which will survive the outdoors

Techradar review motorola defy

Amazon uk have a good price on the sim free about 250 quid.

What is your budget?

This comes in at 219+postage. A good price. It has in-body stabilisation and you can get adapters from ebay to fit a lot of different brand/type of lenses (all of which will be stabilised).

This is body only, so you will need to buy a lens to get started.

http://www.bristolcameras.co.uk/p-olympus-pen-e-pl1-body.htm

Wonder if you could open up the Brennan and lob a bigger HD in.

You are looking for a one touch ripping solution? This is possibly the awkward bit.

Unless you have lots of underground stuff most CD ripping software on a PC automatically populates tags from databases such as freedb or gracenote. Most will add the art too. You have to sit there and prod buttons with a mouse though each time.

The Brennan is quicker because it looks like you lob a CD in and it just rips it with little button poking. Its bloomin expensive for the amount of storage you get though.

If you can invest the time in ripping the CDs and storing them on a NAS which has a streaming capability this might be a good solution?

Then you just need a DLNA or steaming capable device to stream it off the NAS.

LG make a few NAS with some useful features. This one looks decent but 1TB may not be enough if you start dabbling with FLAC and such.

http://www.dabs.com/products/lg-electronics-n1t1-1tb-nas-itunes-server–dlna-and-built-in-dvd-rw–black—white–7235.html

I messed around with FLAC a few years ago. But decided to rip to MP3 320 so I could bung rips easily on any device and have good interoperability.