I did the whole Hope vs Shimano thing a couple of years ago when I was upgrading the brakes on my 5-Spot.

In the end I went for the Hopes because of the ability to get spares from Hope, not that I expect them to break lots, but as I plan on keeping these for a long time and being able to get spares means that I won’t need to buy a whole new set of brakes in 5 years time if a seal fails etc.

Whether they are more powerful than the XT/XTRs doesn’t really matter to me, the Hopes manage to stop me just fine on long alpine descents without any trouble at all. Although I suspect that the old Deores I have on one of my other bikes would do that too! Once you get to a certain level of stopping power it really becomes immaterial I think..

A definite thumbs up for just getting out and exploring the place, I think I know the area reasonably well but still find new bits of trail when I go out… there is loads…

One thing though, if you are going off to explore, try and use a gps or smart phone to log where you left the car, I’ve had to try and guess a number of times when out and about and someone is in the middle of nowhere and have no idea where they left the car!!

The two biggest things I have found in keeping my feet warm are:

Having enough space in my shoes to easily wiggle my toes around. I was finding that even with nice thick socks I was still getting cold feet, as I was cramming them into my normal riding shoes, and so restricting the blood flow. Changing to larger shoes helped, changing to larger winter boots helped a lot!

Keeping my legs warm… you aren’t going to keep your feet warm if you cool the blood down in your legs before it gets to them! So wear insulated longs…

z1ppy – I bought the 202-TE and it’s been great so far… in fact it’s exceeded expectations as I hadn’t realised it had the Plex server app available for it, or that our TV had the Plex player.. it was a nice surprise to discover that one! Even my other half can find and watch films/TV on the box now!

It’s also got an hdmi port and runs xmbc (sp?), which came in handy when we went to the Lakes just before Christmas… could take the drive with us and plug it straight into the TV in the cottage.

Can’t actually remember how much it cost, but bought it with one of the WD NAS drives, thought it worth paying a little extra for the drive. I did compare it to building my own server, which am quite happy to do, along with hacking software about to get things working, but for the saving it just didn’t seem worth the hassle… plus the Asustor is running a cut down version of Linux, and the toolchain is available if I ever want to install anything else I fancy which isn’t on the app store. I do keep meaning to build get_iplayer for it, but never quite get round to sorting it out!

mcph – Is it this course you are studying?

If so, under the study materials tab it says that you should have access to student discussion forums, which is part of their ‘virtual learning environment’. It also suggests that there are online support groups as part of this as well.

I just recently got the exact same deal as the OP is looking at with Tesco, and for me it’s been fine, although I don’t tend to use the data that much, I find I get a far better phone signal than I used to at home. I used to only get and signal in one bedroom of the house, now I get a good signal pretty much everywhere…

T’other half is also on Tesco but 3G, and doesn’t get as good reception about the house as I do.

Thanks for the comments folks…

From what I have been told so far, they are planning on using a mole borer to do the actual work, which they’ve said would need a hole digging in our field, before making that all good. Apparently the contractor has been recommended by the water company.

We do also have an electricity pole, which has just reminded me, this pipe would have to cross a buried 11kV electricity cable… I wonder how that works with the mole borer… I don’t fancy being around if that eats the cable!

And they are definitely asking for legal easement, as they are talking about getting their solicitors to sort it.

It is for their house…

They already have a water supply, but they are selling and apparently the current supply needs to be changed, and going along our land is the easiest way for them to do it.

I don’t particularly have a problem with them doing it, I am just a little wary about any possible consequences from it…

Firstly, RAID is not a backup… so while mirroring can help in some situations, if you manage to corrupt your data, it’ll be corrupt on both. It does help protect against drive failures though.

Always back up to an external drive.

As for a NAS recommendation, I bought a Asustor 2 bay drive about a year ago, and it’s been faultless. Was cheaper than the equivalent Synology or Qnap, and is just as capable.

We pretty much cook everything from scratch in our house, and about the only whizzy things which get used regularly are the stick blender for soups and the Kitchen Aid for cakes… bread and pastry are made by hand.

We do use the Magimix occasionally, but unless doing large quantities, we find it almost always quicker or easier by hand… especially when the clearing up is taken in to account!

Can’t really help with the Java bit… but expicitly defining all the circles like that seems to me to be missing the point somewhat, where you are doing the maths externally to define the circles.

Wouldn’t it be better to let the computer do the maths to calculate the circle coordinates as part of the routine? That way you are not limiting the number of circles… also it then becomes easy to change the starting position etc…

For the mouse clicky thing… Oracle have some tutorials on their site

Am now wondering what I have done… got a place at 6am, it seemed like a good idea at the time, now I am remembering that I almost always break myself when doing events!

Next thing to worry about, CX or XC bike? Singlespeed or gears? Decisions… decisions…

I was looking at this last month, and ended up going for a Moto G with 1000 mins, 5000 texts and 1G of data with Tesco Mobile for £16 a month…

I’d suggest going down the M1, A43, M40, A404(M) and then wiggle across on the back roads to Bracknell and then Farnborough.

I’d absolutely avoid the M25, especially as you will have to go around the Heathrow section, which is bad at the best of times!

It’d be worth checking the thermostat… our Hotpoint recently stopped working and after working through the wiring with a multimeter found that the thermostat wasn’t coming on at all.

Getting to the thermostat can be fun, depending on where the temp adjust dial is, ours was behind the plastic strip above the fridge compartment, where the door hinge can be adjusted. Others are inside the compartment itself. They are all usually get-able though I believe.

Cheapest place for a replacement was from the Hotpoint website itself too… which surprised me!

Our Kitchen Aid gets used most weeks I’d say, and has done for the last 8 years or so without missing a beat.

However, whether it is actually better value for money than some of the other mixers is debatable… but they do look nice, especially the sparkly red ones!

I think some of you lot could do with watching this…

And I think it’s a pity that such programmes don’t get made by the Beeb or anyone else any more…

Also it looks like I am getting a shed load of pears tomorrow as well… it looks like it’s going to be a busy day!

I had originally planned with going with your plan Neil, but after speaking to several experienced cider makers they convinced me it was a good idea using the tablets…

And now panic over… I just had a flash of inspiration and remembered that I had bought some, and where they were… wooo hooo!

I appreciate the offer so thank you, but that might just be a little far….

I was kinda hoping there might be someone closer!!

Just the other side of Cannock Chase from Cannock… half way between Lichfield and Stafford…

Tried there, they are sold out at the moment… and are listed as being sold out on the website as well…

I think things are conspiring against me, even the homebrew shop in Burton was closed when I went over earlier!

Rich pickings at SSUK this weekend for you then DrP… some come already pickled too!

Having just seen this post from tazzy, and reading this thread, I’m getting just a little worried that despite the protests from the organisers on here, they do actually appear to know what they are doing…

How have we possibly let this happen to a SSUK event!

Yours,

Disgusted of Rugeley

True, it was mostly just all mud last time I went for a ride!

I shall be taking out my unofficial pebble polishing cloth on a ride tomorrow, but seeing as I have no idea where I will be going I might or might not polish the correct pebbles…

But that seems to be totally in accordance with the nature of the event!

molgrips… just fine for me with the scrambled eggs I made yesterday, and also fantastic for fried eggs as well! The pans actually build up a non-stick-like coating on them as you use them over time…

Have a look at Nisbets for catering stuff…

My preference is for iron/blue steel frying pans, the Vogue ones they do on Nisbets are okay, but a little thin, the De Buyer ones are thicker and better quality, but also more expensive… and quite weighty too!

With all iron/blue steel pans, you do need to treat them correctly in the first place and get them seasoned, but this is usually just heating them for 30 mins or so with an inch or so of oil in them.. once seasoned they are just brilliant to use, and you won’t ever need to buy a new frying pan again!

We cook quite a lot of curry from scratch, and have numerous books on the subject as well, but by far the best book we have found has been Rick Stein’s India… I think every curry we have cooked from there has been fantastic, just be mindful that most of the recipes are Indian hot!

One of my favourites is also one of the most simple and that is the Paneer Jalfrazi, however it’s nothing like the jalfrazis you normally get in the UK!

For the past couple of years on trips through France with some friends we’ve stayed in Calais for a night on the way down and just taken the bikes to the rooms. The staff didn’t bat an eyelid as we wheeled them through reception. They were clean though, it might not be the same story if the bikes were filthy!

And although I haven’t used stopoverconnections, I thought I recognised the name, and having just checked I do, I know the folks who run it, so hello Penny if you ever read this!

Any particular reason for slot drop-outs? If not, then see if you can find a Dialled Love/Hate going secondhand.

Other than that, who was it that produced the swop-outs, as seen on the Decade Versa, which would possibly be an option, but not necessarily cheap! DMR wasn’t it? If so then you might be able to find one of their frames which take them knocking about secondhand too.

Magic feeling isn’t it… and even better to be able to ride to work. I just moved about 5 miles from work after almost 3 years of doing 80 miles a day… am loving being able to ride in, even if I have got soaked a few times!

As for engineering jobs, have noticed a pick up in spam from the agencies, but in some areas there have been shortages of engineers for a few years… I think we still have some vacancies unfilled from a couple of years ago!

By the sounds of it, this is one of those deals where they fit the panels for free and the company who installs them pay you? If so, the details need to be looked at very closely as some appear to be okay deals, while others seem to be less so. One thing to bear in mind with these deals is that they might make the house harder to sell if there is something like this in place.

If it’s not one of those, and your FIL is going to be paying for the installation himself then have a look at the page about Feed-In Tarrifs on the Energy Saving Trust website here, although the figures are slightly out of date, the rest of it is correct.

But basically, you get paid for every unit of electricity you generate, not for whatever the installed capacity is, the current rate is about 13p/kWh for new installs less than 4kW, slightly less for larger ones.

On top of this you also get paid for every unit that you export to the grid. As said above, you’d theoretically get paid by calculating how much you used and how much you generated, but unless you have a smart meter they can’t do that, so just assume you export 50% of what you generate. The current rate for this is about 5p/kWh

The actual rate you are paid depends on when the installation is registered with the energy supplier and is adjusted (usually down) every 3 months or so, but once registered it is fixed, alnd indexed linked, for the next 20 years.

Paid… and I hadn’t even registered, I somehow missed that bit!

And if it’s looking like it might get a bit desperate on the camping front, I only live a couple of miles from the Chase and have a small field which could take a couple of tents for the weekend…

I’ve got a Revo with the SP hub and it’s pretty much spot on really, the only downside can be if you are a little unfit and slow going up hill as you can find that you are riding with a light that is getting dimmer and dimmer… so it’s some encouragement to get up those hills!

Oh, and while it does have a standby light, I do prefer to take some kind of other torch out with me just to use if fixing punctures etc… but just a small headtorch is enough for that.

And scotroutes, I put mine into a WTB Frequency i25 rim… which has made a rather nice wheel I have to say…

Planted the onions, garlic and first early potatoes the other weekend, and to be honest I have lost track of what the other half has been doing, but I believe we have various flavours of lettuce and tomatoes well on their way, along with carrots, beetroot, peas, sweetcorn, broccoli, cabbage… all sorts really…

Although we have grown stuff before, this is our first attempt to grow the majority of our veg for a year. It’s going to be interesting!

Next job is to finished digging and weeding the last of the beds, before moving on to constructing the chicken ranch and finally the pig palace…

The seals are a pain to get out of the lowers… I ended up getting a big pan of boiling water and holding the seal end of the lowers in there.

Once the seals had heated up they popped out fairly easily.

Getting the new seals back in again was interesting too! Ended up using a large socket a wooden mallet in the end I seem to recall!

The rest was pretty straight forward I think, the YouTube videos certainly helped a lot.

Just checking, do both drives have their own MBR? And when you installed Ubuntu, what was the boot order, and was the Windows drive present and visible?

I am wondering if this is because you are using the BIOS to swap the boot order, so then the order which the BIOS reports the drives to Ubuntu might now be different from when they were installed.

For example, grub needs to know were to find it’s stuff, and if that’s now on a different drive ID as the drive order has been changed, then it might well not see anything and dump back to the boot menu.

You could try just replacing the hard drive, it shouldn’t be too hard to do. Just make sure you get the correct type of drive!

Otherwise we just got a Humax box, which I’m rather liking, no SCART though, but it does have component video outputs, which can be connected to a SCART socket with the right adaptor.