I do like the "look" of Audis, even the pimped up lower power models.

However, the few that I have test driven – and I admit, not current A3 and A4 models, were disappointedly uninvolving. For my first company car I chose a Fiat Bravo over and A3 (!!) and later a 3 series over an A4. 156SW was better than all 4 of those though 😉

TBH I'd err on the side of styling vs power anyway – too few occasions when the bhp can be called in to play. Id rather have an engaging fun car upto 70-80, rather than a technical and power tour de force that only shines at 130+

The German cars that I have owned (3 series, C class, mk5 Gti) have all been brilliantly capable – but that capability has been their undoing…. not enough fun on normal speeds / roads.

On the other hand, the French and Italian cars I've owned have not measured up to the Germans in terms of build quality, but have all been hugely entertaining.

oldgit – It's a metallic (ish) red / brown (chestnut) colour frame. As said, the rear end and the forks are chrome. Keep meaning to set up a flikr account….

Quite keen to find out what tubes – but Google hasn't helped as most tubes of that era seem to be of a standard diameter – and many of the Columbus specs only give the butting / tube thickness, not the OD or ID.

Might have a closer look at the bike tonight. Mrs rkk01 isn't too keen on me riding it to work.

Yep, riding and sorting the house out would be my plan

Didn't see the programme, but dismayed by some of the views being expressed here…

I was mis-reading the "cl" for a "d"…

Players were cr@p.

Almost every other team in SA were mopre skilled, more entertaining to watch, and more efective

That last photo makes here look like some hooker in an Eastern European brothel….

errr… I imagine.

Yes, that photo does really reinforce this…

kind of dirty-pretty face that suggests she may know those sexual positions previously believed to be mythical.

some fussy folks on here??

rkk01 – Member
What a mountain biker said about his safety gear after coming off his (other) bike

Yeah, I often get up to 170mph or so on my mountain bike

Can't say that I have either… hence the (other) bike comment.

Principle is the same though – a m/cyclist isn't going to have an off at 170, hit a solid "come to a dead stop" object without being dead…

… but to come of and get flung down the road, trail, hedge and suffer abrasion and smaller impact injuries is common to both sports.

Of course, Martin was obviously bloody lucky he didn't hit anything solid.

But then again, same applies to us – hitting the trail and sliding on your skin / elbows / hips / knees / face at 30 is going to hurt. Hitting something solid like a tree or rock at 30+ is going to be even worse.

What a mountain biker said about his safety gear after coming off his (other) bike

some further on GT5 – from GT Planet[/url]

All cars will be able to “roll over” if involved in an accident.

Damage may “not necessarily be applied to all races in the game”.

Physics-Affecting Damage
This is damage in which the physics simulation is affected by alignment deviations, etc. This is damage that affects controllability, and the car may not drive straight, or it might become unstable in corners, etc. depending on the amount of damage. Affects all cars.

Dirt, Scratches, and Dents
This is damage that can be visually seen, and involves dirtying of the body, scratches and dents. Affects all cars.

Separation (dislocation) of Body Panels
This is damage in which body panels are dislocated from their original positions, or deform. Affects only premium cars.

Gran Turismo 5.

Except you could just use the others cars or the walls to get around corners. How a driving game can pride itself on realism when there's no decent damage model (that doesn't look to change for GT5) is a joke, it's an absolutely fundamental part of racing!

Looks like you need to refresh your knowledge of GT5 (although no-one will know for sure what is in until it comes out…) Even GT5P had the (highly frustrating) time penalty system for wall / car contacts or grass excusrsions…

Trying to resist the temptation towards CoD Black Ops

Agree that Scottish style access is unlikely, but the footpth / bridleway etc issues could be addressed.

Classic out-dated stuff dating back to when horse / foot were the only means of transport

Would definately echo the comments on navigation and small boat control.

Even if you know what you are doing you need to be organised if you are going offshore.

Do you know the "rules of the road"?? Give way to starboard, motor gives wail to sail – but don't try this with big ships!!! nearly got run over by Brittany Ferries one time we couldn't get the bloody engine started.

Spare outboard? Oars?
Outboard motors are notoriously tempermental. We used to take a small auxilliary if we were going outside Plymouth Breakwater, and the oars. Have had to row an 18' boat from Plymouth Breakwater to Torpoint (8km or so?) on several occaisions.

Oh, and listen to the inshore shipping forecast

Watch for diving seagulls / sea birds on the surface – they're normally after brit (small fish) that have been forced near the surface by larger fish that are feeding on them.

Good way to spot where to troll with feathers for mackerel / herring / pilchards.

Often to be spotted on "tide lines" – areas where two currents meet. Normally visible by different surface texture to water (eg chop / no chop) and often by lines of flotsam where toe currents meet. The flotsam is there because of the meeting of the two water currents, and often so is food / debris in the water column – and fish

Thanks everyone for your help and advice.

Got the desktop back on line, although the LAN connection to the router still seems a bit flaky.

The ipconfig /release and ipconfig /renew commands were very helpful. Got the system to auto assign appropriate IP addresses and then pinged the router – was getting patchy returns.

Tried a few cable and router port swaps to get about 75% ping returns then tried to connect to the router admin page IP. This was very patchy until I settled on one particular port / cable combination, which got me back on line.

Virus database and windows upgrades updated, but connection quite slow and still patchy. Strongly suspect that the onboard Ethernet port is either dodgy or has been affected by a Windows upgrade.

Gauranteed most effective – and looks like healthy Mountain Spring Water TM

Fresh mountain water with a mix of glacial flour and Giardia lamblia…

…otherwise known as Beaver Fever from it's association with beaver's urinating in the stream.

Excellent for double ended action – liquid explosive (no warning) pus / mucus discharge from both ends simultaneously.

I can testify to this – remembering being doubled up by a dirt runway in the Yukon with my kecks around angles and both ends going like that Icelandic volcano.

Onset can be immediate – some of my team mates were in maggot sleeping bags and self immolated with diahorea explosions that they couldn't escape from – and I am talking litres and litres of the stuff….

Breath / belches smell like rotten corned beef that's been left to mature in the sun…

infected individuals experience an abrupt onset of abdominal cramps, explosive, watery diarrhea, vomiting, foul flatus, and fever which may last for 3–4 days before proceeding into a more sub-acute phase. The majority of infected persons develop gradual symptoms that become recurrent or resistant.[14]

In both the acute and insidious onsets of symptoms, stools become greasy and malodorous but do not contain blood or pus because giardiasis does not involve dysenteric symptoms. Watery diarrhea may cycle with soft stools and constipation. Upper GI symptoms including nausea, early satiety, bloating, substernal burning, egg-smelling halitosis, and acid indigestion may be exacerbated by eating and are generally present in the absence of soft stools.[14]

I rented in Buckland when I was there.

Cheap, and admittedly some time ago – might even be an "up and coming" area now…?

.. on the other hand…

Yes, running XP Pro SP3.

Have rolled back to a restore point that I know is good – doesn't make any difference.

I'm going to try and reset the ipconfig settings to try and get the system to get auto IP setup working again.

If that fails I'll try and get manual settings that work for now to allow me to update my virus database and windows updates – then once I've got a working connection go back and find the underlying cause.

scrap your 1 hr from M5 criteria and go to Gwithian

Cougar you are quite right – I had entered the router IP of 192.168.0.1 instead of the computer IP – as suggested 192.168.0.xx, which I will try with DHCP enabled

Cougar – Agreed, I'd much rather get the thing working on the original auto settings.

Will try the malware scan and cmd ipconfig suggestions, to see if that works, but at the mo the auto settings just generate the 169.254 address. Netgear have useful stuff on their site in this respect.

Not too keen on resetting the router just yet as it is working fine with the laptop, and is therefore my only means of home access to the internet…

Without a reachable DHCP server, Windows will use APIPA to assign a 169.254.y.z address. This what we in the industry call "making things up as it goes along" and about the only use I've ever found for it is as a diagnostic step; to wit, if you see a 169.254 address, you know categorically that you're looking at an interface which is configured to receive DHCP requests and isn't currently getting them.

It shouldn't be a 165 or a 195 address, ever. These are both public IP addresses, and would raise concerns if that's anything other than a typo.

Aye, the 165.xxx was a typo – set to auto IP/TCP the PC defaults to 169.254.y.z because it can't get an IP from the router.

the 195.xxx definately wasn't a typo – the diagnostics window highlighted it as a conflict with the 192 of the router…

Cheers to all the STW IT support desk anyway 🙂

A few ideas to try there. I think I'll hold off the new ethernet card for the moment.

On auto the PC currently defaults to a 165… IP address – which it never used to.

The Netgear manual states that "recent" Windows updates have resulted in this setting when the PC can't see a router to get an automatically assigned IP. The auto IP setting deffo isn't working.

Will run a full malware scan tonight – but lack of internet connection means that my malware database is out of date until I get reconnected 😡

Also can't get Windows automatic updates, which given the PC was 3% through one of those when it fell over might be quite useful…

I didn't set the PC 195. range IP…. It arrived at that on its own..!

How do I set the PC IP?? Is it the PC IP that I set manually in the IP / Sub mask / DNS settings page? I think I entered the router IP in this dialogue box 😕

GrahamS weird indeed.

Router login page was same IP as I set manually (and then couldn't access via IE) but managed to succesfully ping via the run command.

When I set the IP manually I used the router control page IP. Is this correct? or do I need the ADSL port IP or PC IP??

Other IP data – subnet, gateway DNS etc were as taken from the router page accessed from my laptop.

When I did this manually I got a consitency errors between the PC IP (assigned as 195.xxxetc and router IP 192.xxx etc) and gateway IPs.

Used to automatically assign IPs ok, but those settings no longer seem to work

Thanks all for input. I'm not an IT techie, but have built my own PCs over the last 10-15 years or so.

Tried all the different LAN ports on the router with the desktop – PC doesn't see router.

Tried LAN ports directly to the laptop and it works fine.
Router to net is fine.
Router to lapto via LAN is fine
Router to laptop via wifi is fine
Router to PC is fubared – including with different Cat 5 cables.

Ethernet port is onboard to M/B. Reinstalled ethernet port drivers, although there were no errors showing in hardware manager.

My conclusion – either IP table on PC has got totally screwed. Tried to manually set, which resluted in being able to ping the router IP, but not able to log in to the router control page IP or internet.

-or, ethernet card / port is dead / dying.

As someone suggested above, think of a PCi ethernet LAN card or a wifi card…

I'd uninstall the ethernet card drivers and then let it find the card again, see if that helps but it may need an internet connection to get them again, catch 22.

Hence me tearing clumps of hair out last night!!!!!!! 👿
Netgear manual also offers advice on detailed network settings setup – via a flaming link to their website

Yes, rebooted router and PC. Have been trying various system restore points in case windows updates had fouled something up.

Tried different ethernet ports on the router as well. Will try the laptop on a wired connection.

Laptop works fine on wired connection (with wifi turned off)…
Can log into router control page and to STW…..

JCL – stop being a c@ck and get yourself better informed…

Whilst you might be well informed about impacts on marine mammals, you allow your specialist knowledge in this area to justify ignorance elsewhere.

As pointed out by coffeeking, pretty much all human activities impact on the natural world, it's resources and biodiversity.

Do you drive??
If so you are directly complicit in the current GoM oil spill and the geo-political tensions in the ME. You have a stake in the US (+ UK and others) military actions in Iraq to protect furture hydrocarbon resources and supply chain.

If you don't drive, fly or use other hydrocarbon fuelled transport then you still have a stake in our collective impact on the planet – perhaps, as you are on this forum, you ride a bike??

Aluminium frame? I've been directly involved in the environemntal assessment of aluminium processing sites – pretty unpleasant. Bauxite mining is opencast, with huge areas of despoilation. Aluminium smelting is highly energy intensive, and typically uses mercury electrodes. Mercury and fluorine contamination often result.

Ohh, and the Astute class submarines are "hunter killers" – not ballistic missile submarines. So whilst they will undoubtedly have a nuclear capability (via sub launched cruise), they are not lurking around in the ocean waiting to trigger nuclear armageddon.

BUT, their use to track and keep tabs on Soviet missile boats during the cold war would have been one of a number of succesful strategies that maintained peace during a prolonged period of tension between nuclear armed super powers.

I am environmentalist myself, but lets have some context??? Spouting off about killing British submariners is hardly likely to advance the protection of biodiversity and the planet's resources is it?

love it

Got turned down for a job with the Portsmouth Tourist Board…

We hope

Well, there is that – a different story altogether… 🙄

Holy crap.

That

looks

amazing

Yep – the long awaited and keenly anticipated GT5.

Due out November – PS3 exclusive.

Much, much more on here…
GT Planet[/url]

Pretty grim when I was at Poly – 86-89…

…Been back a couple times, and to Gosport earlier this year. Even that sent a shiver down my spine.

My first sight of the place is still my over-riding memory – the view from the M27 at Portsdown Hill – a flat grey slab of a city, dumped by a grey puddle of water, swathed in the bleak grey greyness of a wet and windy Autumn day…
.
I'm feeling quite depressed even recounting it.

PS3 if you want this….

GT5

Hopefully the thing will end up on the ocean floor killing all the idiots onboard.

.
.
.
Enough submariners of all nations have been tragically killed in peacetime accidents to make that one of the sickest comments I have seen on STW.

JCL, I can only assume that you are a cold, selfish, mean spiritied little tosser who needs to get out more.

Particularly with Ambush being an RN boat, you are talking about British crews and grieving relatives…

… do you lie awake at night wishing for UK troops in Afghanistan to be killed and maimed to satisfy your own twisted perspective????

If you are making an immature comment in honest ignorance, then I suggest you scout out a copy of "Few Survived", by Edwyn Gray

How do you know that they'll just take the one??

Ohh, I don't know.

Based on info from a family member who recently moved to the US, I suspect that they might still have some currency in that particular market…

Can't see the UK giving up a submarine force – especially while there is a long list of other navies operating submarines… some of them potentially unstable or hostile to UK interests (Iran, North Korea, China, Indonesia

The North Koreans have (allegedly) been making use of theirs recently…