Hear hear! He never was funny. Making you cringe doesn’t often make you laugh, and that’s all he’s done for years. False smile all the time, full of his own importance – tasteless and talentless IMO.

Colin

Nexus S will be the first with Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Saying it will be out in the UK on December 20th.

Colin

How would you feel if you rang the vet, explained to the receptionist at length why you were coming, asked the question you wanted the vet to answer, and then, when you got there, the vet looked at you blankly and said “Yes, how can I help you today?”. Then you have to go all through it all again, only for the vet to say they don’t know and will have to look it up and please make another appointment and come back.

Yep that looks pretty bad. I wouldn’t be happy if that happened with us. But there will be very few appointments where I’ll be informed beforehand by the receptionist the details of clinical questions the client want to ask – even the most experienced of our receptionists wouldn’t feel confident they’d passed the details correctly on to the vet – they have no clinical training. They’d expect the client to ask the vet directly.
I have 3 suggestions/comments.
1) I can’t remember ever seeing a dog with noted side effect to propalin, no matter how long they’ve been on it and despite what it says on the leaflet. I know that’s no consolation if yours is the dog that has the side effects, but overall it safe to use at the right dose.
2) If the leaflet in the packet worries you ask about other treatments that might be available. I’m assuming she’s being treated for incontinence, there’s at least one common alternative to propalin, which frequently works ( and has a different, but smaller range of side effects).
3) Phone up and ask to speak to a partner/director/senior vet about your concerns. Repeat what you’ve said here. They’ll be used to the questions about the frequency of the revisits and the cost, so don’t be too surprised if you get stock answers about policy and law etc for them – perhaps concentrate on your clinical worries and service experience. If they don’t give you a satisfactory response then maybe you should think about going elsewhere.

Colin

Well its good to be misunderstood. As a vet in the consulting room the only thing I can charge for is my time (and a little profit on the drugs, but as has been hinted at, internet pharmacies are eating into that). So if you come to see me, and it take 5 minutes, very little explanation and simple reassurance, that costs me as much as someone who takes 15 minutes and all my powers of reassurance and 30 years of experience. Now we could charge clients differing amounts depending on the complexity, or whether we liked them or how much they complained every time they came for their recheck, but most practices charge a set amount per consultation. Like so many thing in life, unfair to some.
Its only going to get worse. Numbers of vets are rising, numbers of dogs and cats are falling – every pet is having to support a bigger part of a vet. Requirements for practice equipment and operational standards are becoming increasingly demanding from a legal, regulatory and client expectation stand point. The working time directives alone are a nightmare for the profession. Despite 25 years of badgering the public, less than 20% of pets are insured. In less densely populated parts of the country veterinary provision is no longer a viable business option.

You’ll complain about us till we’re gone, then you’ll complain ’cause we have gone.

Resignedly & miserably yours,

Colin

Does anybody still use qmail? (yes I know they do…) Do you still have to compile it to install?
PHP has certainly had its vulnerabilities, but its a lot better now, I’m told. Facebook’s build on it, although I don’t know how much of a recommendation that is.

as secure as any other open source app out there

I read that to mean that you thought it was all the same – which it certainly isn’t.
YMMV

How about the open source CRM solutions available? vTiger or opencrx for example.
As for open source security, it varies very widely from almost none with no holes fixed, to obsessive, continually watched and rapidly fixed. There isn’t a single “secure as any other open source app out there”

Colin

surfer, Cougar, Cletus

Thanks for the info. i don’t think we have a lot of time to go looking too far afield, but if I need any more help, I’ll be in touch

Thanks again

Colin

We’re in Keighley, but Denwa in Burnley are our current support for the Samsung, and they’ve quoted on the Mitel (and replacing the Samsung with a newer version of the same)

Colin

There are indeed some good deals on ebay. Last years models from the likes of Argos, at about 40 quid less than retail (£180 versus £220 approx). You’ll get them with XP as well, not W7 SubBasic like the newer models have.

Colin

Clonezilla is a Linux distro dedicated to cloning drives – can clone drive directly or via an image. Any OS on almost any filesystem. Works well – http://www.clonezilla.org

Also Parted Magic for partitioning and resizing partitions on disks (if you don’t want to use the whole of the new one as one single partition) – http://www.partedmagic.com

Both free, natch.

Colin

Mint is by far the nicest variant of Ubuntu, if your not an evangelical free software advocate (it comes with the none free codecs -eg flash – installed and working)
But you'll not like it if you don't like green.

Colin

Well done – best wishes to all three of you!

If you want To Ramona it must be be Sinead Lohan's version

And I like "I won't bring you roses" from Mac and Mabel as well

You were always on my mind – by Willie Nelson

This is WordPress. It became WordPress after the old custom-made system was hacked, don't you remember?

Well explain the science. Even just describe it briefly. Let's see if he knows something the rest of the medical community doesn't.
I'm not denying the diet works. It may very well do so. I remain to be convinced it works by anything other than consuming less calories.

Colin

Well, – just looking at the first page of the link – there's a lot of evangelism there.
The reality of the science is that there is only one major way to loose weight – consume fewer calories. I accept some diets are better at appetite control than other – hence my enthusiasm for high protein diets – and that some systems are easier to stick to over the long term (and its the long term that counts – we don't get 3 stone heavier in a year, but we expect to EASILY LOOSE 3 stone in that time) but I don't know of any proven science that says significant weight loss is anything other than consuming fewer calories (or expending more).

Colin

I haven't seen iDave's recommendations but based on what I have read (and what seems to be working for me) calories appear to have very little significance.

What have you read Woody?
Nearly all descriptions of diets (at least every one I've come across that has a name associated with it) have 4 elements
a) solid proven science
b) some good theoretical scientific ideas which are not (yet) proven
c) quasi evangalism
d) utter mumbo jumbo
I try to ignore c) and d) if I can.

Colin

And surely the point of these diets is that you DON'T have to count calories. That's a great attraction. But if you did count the calories, I'm pretty sure in those people who loose most weight would have the biggest calorie deficit. An American study showed that even the Atkins diet worked because people overall ate less calories – there's only so much cheese and bacon a man can stomach.

They work because you end up eating less calories. You do that for 3 main reasons:-
1- a large group of calorie dense and easy to eat foods are removed from your diet
2- the high protein content leads to more satiation after meals
3- the low level of carbohydrates and sugar in the diets lead to extremely stable insulin levels, which helps to control appetite and possibly helps growth hormone metabolism of fat, making the energy from fat more available and thus reducing the desire to eat.

No ketosis here (and only a few pixies).
Colin

Only about 1/3 of the population have a genetic tendency to get high cholesterol. If you don't have those genes, you won't get it, no matter how much fat (and eggs) you eat. When I was really humongous (as opposed to merely obese…) my cholesterol was 4.3 or something. My relatively skinny sister in law was once nearing 8. Something to thank my parents for, but not something they tell you in the benecol ads.

iDave's diet suggestion is far from Atkins – the small amount of carbs in these sorts of diets mean they do not induce ketosis. The high protein diets with low carb intake can be very useful for some people in that they can be very good from an appetite control perspective – ie you're never hungry.
I have been a type 2 diabetic for the last 15 or so years, and I saw the dietician at the beginning of that period and she gave the the norm for the time – low fat, lowish protien, moderate complex carbs, no sugar. I lost a bit of weight, my diabetes settled down, but I still had more weight to loose so about 3 years ago I saw another dietician again. Same story. Low fat low protein, mod complex carbs, etc. So despite the evidence that 95% of people put on this type of diet will be heavier than they were when they started it 3 years later, despite the increasing evidence of the role of protein as an appetite suppressant, I was still told the same old same old – which is a diet type I find very difficult to stick to. I was very disappointed.

To all those who say that loosing weight is "just eating less and exercising more" of course you're absolutely right – just in the same way as poor people could easily become rich – all they have to do is earn more and spend less.

Which HTC? Some have {shudder} windows mobile {/shudder} as their operating system

Colin

I'm a vet not a doctor, but here goes. You have inflamed tendon sheaths with changes to the tendons which make them appear non-normal. You have new bone growth (spurring, oestoephytes) to several bones in the ankle area. You have degenerative changes to several of the joints in the area – ie wear and tear. There is nothing in this report to indicate cause and effect other than degenerative change of time/overuse. I haven't seen the xrays/scans, I'm not an orthopaedic surgeon but I would have thought surgery would be minimally helpful or only helpful in the short term. If you were a horse, I'd be recommending box rest for 6 months. As for medication, it would be glucosamine/chondrotin with either NSAIDs or cartliage modifiers depending on whether the inflammed tendons or the worn joints were considered to be the more troublesome.
Give them a rest for a few months, at least.

Colin

Really nice. I had a Hero which was Android and was my first smartfone apart from Blackberrys. Desire is nicer, slicker, feels better than the Hero. Android just works with this phone.
Perhaps its not better than my son's iphone, but its pretty close to being on a par with it.

Colin

Have you seen this report? Suggests Android is gaining real traction. Over 50,000 apps now – although still not an easy way to access them all. I had a Hero, which I thought was great, now have a Desire, which is just another level slicker. 🙂

Colin

easynote
thinkingspace

Thinking space is a really nice Freemind compatible Mind Mapping tool

Colin

From a quick glance the Harcombe diet appears to be a high fat, high protein, med/low carb diet. It'll work because it restricts calorie intake – just look at the meals offered, no prepackaged food (calorie dense generally) lots of veg, etc. But the real key to these diets is that for some people they help greatly with appetite control. That's one of the main reasons why many traditional diets fail – people become so hungry on them that they can't stick to it for long enough to do the good they want. I lost 3.5 stone on the Sureslim diet a couple of years ago (similar basic type to the Harcombe one but with a different set of bunkum attached to it)- once I was on it I wasn't hungry between meals at all.

Colin

If your serious
Put aside 3 weeks of your life, a few grand and do Land's End to John o' Groats.

Ha ha ha. I did Lands End to John O'Groats in 12 days in 2003. I lost 1lb.

Depends on what you eat on the way.

Colin

Linux Mint is Ubuntu with added ease of use and goodness. Excellent for a beginner or anyone who just want a distro that "just works".

Colin

Count me in too. Need to loose a few kgs over the next few months.

The most interesting quote from your link above Graham is the last quote from the Adobe man "Adobe publishes the PDF standard in its entirety and makes it available for free, without restrictions, to anyone who cares to use it," Adobe Senior Director of Public Policy Michael Engelhardt wrote. "No one needs permission from Adobe to build their own product with the PDF standard."

So why did Microsoft have to change its plans? Because it wanted to produce something which didn't conform to the pdf standard, yet still call it a pdf. Embrace, enhance, extinguish. Microsoft are rarely the innocent party in these matters, no matter what their PR machine says.

Colin

I'm not an IT pro, but I have spent a lot of time over the last couple of years looking at content management systems for our business. I've learnt a lot, some of it the hard way, but I'm happy to admit I'm a bumbling but interested amateur.
I've only really looked at the free stuff. Others will tell you about Sharepoint et al – you hear its a 'mare to set up, but most probably will work fine so long as you do it the MS way – same as all their products.
First thing I think you should consider is whether the Document management or Content management aspects of the site are more important. Content Management Systems are only good at handling content created for them and within them. If version control and inline editing of created word etc files are important then you probably need to look at a document management system like Alfresco or Knowledge Tree. If its more of news, blogs, forums, with read only access to files then CMSs like Drupal, Joomla and WordPress are more likely to fit the bill. My experience is that the CMS's are easier to setup. (But that's probably because the others are java based and I can never come to grips with Tomcat).
I like Drupal. This site is WordPress (I think). Bitmani has downloadable virtual machines with some of these pre installed, so you can try them out to get a flavour of what's possible.
EDIT – I've just seen ATG's post above – Open Atrium does look nice, but I still can't get my version to look as good as their demo video. :-((
Colin

I have used Covian and Macrium Reflect. Covian works well for my simple needs. Macrium looks more powerful and seems to work well, but I haven't fully got to grips with it yet.

Colin

Fabulouso – how far away is Android 2 on the Hero, I wonder? Its going to be launched on the Motorola Droid in the states on the 6th November.

I like my Hero a lot.

Colin

I never have for Trenitalia but never used eurostar. Ticket machines on the platform which take credit cards and give you an English menu. But I've only used them twice. Where are you going to/from?

I know you won't want to install a new distro, but this is one of the reasons I use Linux Mint. Ubuntu based, it comes with all the plugins you need for this sort of thing. Looks pretty too. Try the live cd – should be able to play Freecaster without installing.

Colin