It won't act as a multimedia PC as it can't run word etc and unlike a PC it doesn't crash or slow down every few hours.

Why would anyone want to run Word on an HTPC??

Now is it me, or is the post match analysis as meaningful as a couple of old biddies talking about the weather?

Give it a week. If matey doesn't stump up, relist the item and keep the £100 for now.

If the guy kicks off, make him dance for his dinner (he messed you about, right?)

After a week or so, let him have his money back, less your costs.

I'm sure the fxxkwads at Gaypal/fleabay will charge you their fees, but will give him a refund and without consulting you.

eBay customer service sucks! Paypal customer service sucks!

Expect a load of grief from them!

<reaches for the whacky backy>

LMFAO! Harry the Spider must be in the over 45 category (like me) 😆

I don't!

Sounds like a drunken swarm of wasps. Thinking about it, this kinda accords with your average football spectating numpty!

If all of the World cup games are going to be blighted by this demented droning row, i'll have even more justification to switch off.

Or maybe we'll watch with the sound down and a bit of music playing.

The National Trust is great!

You can easily get your annual subs back on parking and a couple of visits during a two week holiday.

If you are a tightwad, the Scottish National Trust is a cheaper way of gaining the same access.

For children, most properties have free quizes. They simply have to spot stuff as they go round. Worked a treat when my two were little.

We chanced upon a family funday at one of the NT properties on the IOW last year. NT do events all the time, so look on their website for further info.

Bog chain! 🙂

Of course, if you watch numpty TV shows like The Apprentice, it's evident that "super hot shot" Mr Sugar doesn't even know what a project manager is!

Depends on the size of the project, number of suppliers and stage it's at. I have worked on many projects in the past with multiple pms. For instance, a business pm, an IS pm, a pm representing outsourced development and a pm representing outsourced infrastructure

I think you'll find, under project management methodology jargon, these guys are actually categorized as suppliers.

sofatester – Member

Funny how people can get paid so much for not really doing anything.

Must have been a good PM! (I assume you are referring to a PM).

Try being a part of a project whaere there is no PM. I have been on one or two of those, where telepathy is the assumed form of communication and everthing is expected to organize itself! The cock-ups came thick and fast and these projects were farcical at times. One overan by 40% in time and budget. In terms of budget, it was beyond viability and the client was not pleased! Someone was too tight to employ a PM, they assumed everyone would try and work things out together, but without them knowing what was expected of them.

A proper PM is a vital asset when a project exceeds a certain value.

Sure, proper PM's don't have to roll ther sleeves up, but I can assure you their job is far from easy!

In a project, there can only be one project manager. Study PRINCE2 if you don't believe me.

Cameron and his England flag above Downing street is just a bit of sporting fun!

'Bout time the English were given "a nod" from someone in high places, that they shouldn't feel shame for flying the English flag.

The countries in the rest of the union are allowed to, so why not the English?

Ironically, the ones who are permitted to be proud flying their flags, are the ones having the biggest moan, the disapproving doughnuts. What's that all about? Jeez!

I've been put off buying a mobile DAB reciever due to the flaky performance of every DAB radio i've ever laid my hands on and this has been in multiple locations.

I'm extremely doubtful that I'd get consistently reliable service with a mobile unit, on any chosen station, wherever I happened to be, or have I got it all wrong?

Swanage has a good one. Not too close to Lulworth, but Shell Bay, Studland and Poole harbour are close by.

Ullwell Cotage [/url]

Has a covered pool and a bar. Nice atmoshpere and was chavless all 4 times I went there.

wwaswas – Member

at least it wasn't a cyclist in front of you…

or an old lady.

or a woman pushing a baby in a buggy.

But nobody got hurt so just get your wallet out and have the cars fixed.

A lesson learned.

They call it Scambaiting don't they?

I get emails like this often.

Usually thay are badly spelt letters from a Reverend, or a Doctor, or someone equally thought to be genuine and responsible. The sob stories and unlikely scenarios are so obvious.

So you instatly know it's been sent by low life, from some thirdworld country.

Add the email address to your junk mail filter list. Job done!

Here we go again! The financially naive socialists bashing capitalism. Wake up guys!!

BP – their shareholders – the main shareholders are pension isntitutions.

They are servicing your pension! Assuming you aren't a public sector worker of course.

Obama is making plenty of anti-British remarks over this spill. Now his own people are on his case for not doing enough and passing the buck. So this is well deserved criticism! Obama was only making such a fuss to deflect attention away from him! He's supposed to be the most powerful man in the world right?

In my experience, when there's a crisis, everyone focuses on solving the problem before they start laying blame. In this respect Obama has shown his true colours. He is NOT the great statesman we thought he was!

I'd ask him this question: How much of the world's oil output does America use? Like the Americans have no interest in oil. 😆

Accidents happen and especially when exploration companies are pressured into taking bigger and bigger risks to get the stuff out of the ground! IN this instance, the sea bed is 1 mile deep with water pressures of 1000lbs per square inch. Well step back America and watch BP and it's contractor struggle, then go on TV and pick holes and stamp your feet like a 2 year old! Unbelievable behaviour for someon in such high authority!!

We ALL depend on oil, so BP and any other oil firm are meeting an essential demand. Of course, they are not poor and the only people who could do anything about the way they overcharge for oil is by applying international political pressure, but NO government seems to want to do this. Could it be something to do with tax receipts?

I feel very sorry for all those affected by the damage and they should be financially compensated.

Perhaps we should remind the Americans how our Primeminister kept tight lipped when the boot was on the other foot regarding oil spills.

Perhaps Obama should be mindful of the 100's of British lives being lost for their questionable conflicts in the Middle East, or the huge cost to Britain to be present there.

Jeez, what's wrong with your local pool?

iPhone's don't and won't support Flash, or the forthcoming HTML5 which has integrated video streaming support.

Apple want to control the content which their users can access, so they can keep building the revenue streams with their partners via the Apple store.

There's always someone spoiling the party!

samuri – Member

You don't need to predict where the cuts will be made, the government make it public knowledge.

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/press_04_10.pdf

This is just the first £6Bn, there's another £157Bn still to go!

Today's speech was a heads up for much deeper cuts to come.

We have some painful changes coming and no party that was competing for power would have won votes by being open about what is needed to sort out this monumental mess the UK has got itself into (sorry the Labour party got us into!).

Politicians!! They don't "arf" cost tax payers a lot of money!

At least we now have an administration with some degree of economic competence, who aren't in denial, or living in financial cloud cuckoo land!

I expect the layers of pointless middle management in health, education and defense will take the first big hit.

All senior public sector workers will be pressed to accept a pay cut.

I'm sure the Socialist worker and the unions will be whipping the public sector up into a frenzy.

The next few years could get quite ugly!

Let's hope people are responsible enough and mature enough to understand what is needed to get us back in the black and to get some tangible growth back in the economy.

The insurance industry need straightening out here. Thay are cherry picking!

Premiums for young male drivers are way in excess of the risk they present. The business doesn't want your male drivers – period!

When I was 21, after 1 year of motoring in a 1300cc Fiat, I bought a Ford RS2000 2.0l Escort. I paid £2400 for the car and £278 for TPF&T. I had one minor accident in it when some burk suddenly u-turned from a parked position. He had been having a row with his girlfriend who was stood on her doorstep and a susbsequent court case ruled against him, even though he was 7 years my senior.

The scenes we see on TV of young hooligans tearing things up are not representative of most young drivers. Many of these people probably have no insurance because the premiums are way too high. I'm not condoning them whatsoever, but I can see how frustrating it must be for them.

I saw a TV clip the other day where some young lad had been quoted £4000 (lowest he could find) to insure a humble ageing supermini. The news article was highlighting parent's ignornce about the fraud they were committing by adding their offspring to their own inurance, then not actually using the insured car, but giving it to their son's/daughters.

Come on insurance industry, don't be such unreasonable greedy xxxxs! Stop giving these young uninsured drivers a motive and ripping off hard working young people (or their hard pressed parents)!

I have 5 tents (and a commercial grade popup gazebo with side panels).

I am a self confessed tentaholic! So much so that I am not even gonna look at the links for tents in this thread.

I'm currently resisting a strong urge to buy a superlightweight 1 man tent at the moment. 😆

Those bakers should take a day trip to Paris and take a look at a few patisseries, taste the quality that these shops purvey.

They they might then realise that they are churning out a load of greasy, bland mediocrity. This assumes that they have funtioning tastebuds and aren't too thick skinned.

No wonder people like this woman are struggling.

It depends on where you live mate.

Go to several broadband finder web sites and see what comes up.

I used to use NTL which was taken over by Virgin. Virgin quietly jacked my monthly bill up from £10 to £18 without asking me or notifying me! When I queried it, they steadfastly refused to honour my original agreement with NTL and maintained all was correct with the billing, which had been a verbal NTL agreement. The proof was in the direct debit history, but they weren't interested in investigating this whatsoever.

BTW, try getting a written signed contract out of ANY of these telcos – sheesh, a written contract signed by both parties should be made law!!

So I cancelled Virgin and they slapped me with £36 to terminate even though i was months outside the contract period i had agreed to with NTL. I also never got the extra month I paid for at the beginning of the contract. To top it all, they shut my email accounts down on the day of termination. No period of grace to get these accounts in order, unlike all the other ISP's i have been with in the past.

The word i'd use to describe Virgin is not fit for publication on this site. Sufffice it to say, I would not recommend them to anyone, EVER!

I have a friend who went against my advice and he ended up regretting it too. I had to get my "I told you so" hat out. 😆

RAM is processor memory. In most machines you can fit different capacities on standardised cards. There are usually two slots in a laptop and these can be partially or fully populated. In laptops they are easily accessed under one of the obvious covers on the base of the machine. You'll usually need a philips screwdriver. I wouldn't mess about swapping RAM at this stage, but I would inspect them to make sure they are correctly seated in their sockets. If you do swap RAM, you really need to use an ESD strap. Electrostatic discharge is not to be overlooked, you DEFINITELY can damage electronics if you handle them without protection. I've witnessed this over time, it's NOT bullsxxt! An ESD strap is a couple of quid from places like Maplins, so don't cut corners.

The very first step to diagnosing your problem is to get the code on the blue screen. If it flashes up too quickly to read, video it with a digital camera and step back through the video frame by frame. You need to do this, as you won't be able to recover the system, or your data without knowing these vital clues. Google the code and spend time reading all the forums etc. I'd aim for the Windows support site first.

The two likely areas of failure would be a conflict in the system BIOS oand your system's hardware, or corruption/conflict on the system files contained on the hard drive.

So look the code up online on a different PC to establish where you need to focus your attention first.

Before proceding, think hard about what you did on the machine before it failed. Did you change something, or install software? Back track your actions and write down what happened in the run up to the failure. You indicate that you had this problem before. What caused the failure last time? Perhaps the solution will become crystal clear of you stop and give it some thought. Think it through over a cup of tea away from the machine.

Have you got the correct BIOS confuguration? Try hitting F2 when booting and examine this, comparing with any documentation issued by the manufacturer for your specific model. This should be available online if you dont have the supplied manual.

Then, while still in the BIOS menu, change the boot priority so that the Optical drive is accessed first. This will allow you to boot from an optical disc before the system accesses the hard drive (and you get another blue screen). You can leave the optical drive as the primary boot device, but it's best to switch it back when the problem is resolved.

Does your laptop have a built in dianostics menu? This is commonly accessed by a function key, perhaps F12 and during the boot sequence like you would hit F2 for the BIOS menu. Look at the screen to see if any options flash up before the BSOD (blue screen of death – a name people give to the this occurence). Run the full suite of hardware diagostics to see if it runs clean. If it doesn't, tackle the area of failure. Note down any error messages/codes. Look them up online and decide what action to take next.

If none this yields any clues, insert a Windows recovery disk, or your copy of the Windows OS supplied with the laptop. Look for the Repair options when the menus appear. Again get online and look up the supporting documentation. Don't steam in "all gung ho" as this disk is capable of wiping everything and installing a new base system if you take the wrong option. Be very careful!

If this all seems a bit daunting, you need to pay someone who knows what they are doing, but beware of spotty numpties employed by large high street retailers as they could easily make things much worse. They might have an MCSE certificate, but knowing how to logically step through a hardware/software problem without making a "pig's ear" of it takes a good few years of real experience. People like this are unlikely to share your concern to protect your data and could wipe everything whilst proclaiming there was no alternative. This may well be true, but there is always the option to recover data beforehand.

Data recovery can take a lot of time. My advice would be, if a system rebuild is required, is to buy an external 2.5 drive compatible with the failing hard drive installed your machine and keep the old disk safe for data recovery at your leisure after you get your machine back and working.

Good luck!

BTW, I used to fix large system computers. I did this for 25 years, but have no formal training on PC's. I am completely self-taught, but the approach to analysing problems is the same as for large systems, albeit somewhat simpler.

Please let us know what happens.

Contrary to the tumbling prices of most other goods from the Far East, MTB hardware prices continue their steady climb into the stratospehere.

People I know who aren't into bikes just cannot get their heads around the totally stupid prices asked for decent cycle hardware.

I try to defend the business, but that is an increasingly tough call.

This could go the way of the British Hifi industry and disappear up it's own rear end!

Sure, small shops struggle to survive and need high margins, but the price of a decent bike excludes all but the richest, or most enthusiastic.

One guy I know wanted a new hardtail because his rusty broken £90 bike was beyond economic repair. He said it didn't mater because he'd just go and buy another £100 bike. I told him he was seriously wasting his money and cited how my £1000 full suspension bike lasted 10 years before i rebuild it with minimal maintenance outlay. At year 10 I spent a further £600 on new drive train, F and R suspension, frame bearings and paintjob (all heavily discounted after a long an careful search). The rebuild should last another 10 years, but so long as the temperamantal air suspension I have bought doesn't let me down. The ongoing maintenance costs will be a fair bit higher with this new technology, but the bike is now transformed. Lighter, vastly better handling and much more efficient pedalling with the improved suspension.

Anyway, based on my influence, matey boy has since upped his hardtail budget to £250, but i've told him £400 is more like the rock bottom starting point for anything decent.

Time will tell what he spends, but i can assure you that so many "would be" enthusiasts are being frightened off by the hype and ridiculous prices. E.G. A £2600 asking price for full suspension bike with some components leaning towards the exotic?? This is daft!

Don't suppose the industry really gives a damn though as they can sell full suspension bikes with mish mash of mediocre/rubbish components for around the £1000 mark.

Jeez, isn't the priority towards educating your children in the school??

A bike shed is way down the list of priorities.

How many parents would let their 5-11 year old's ride to school anyway?

If you feel so stongly, go see the head and tell her that your want to do a fund raising event for the school so they can have the bike shed.

The public purse is under enough pressure as it is and adding extra classromm space will allow the school more pupils and therefore a larger grant!

Sheesh, some people!!

A roll of seam tape and a tin of Fabsil should sort you out.

Sleep on your back. The snoring is spectacular. 😆

Mobile phones/MP3 players that have the ability to record FM radio, usually only do so at very low audio quality.

You need a USB a/v capture device with appropriate software. PC and radio will need to be connected and set to record at the right time.

Alternatively you need live streaming capture software which will convert streams to a format of your choice. This would mean using internet radio streams on your PC.

The other thing is to check your chosen radio channel's website to see if they do MP3 downloads of their past shows.

eBay has all sorts, even Ti.

Pure Tempus DAB Alarm clock radio

Has touch sensitive handle for snooze and illuminating the clock at night.

You can connect an external aerial, extra speaker for stereo, headphones and there's a spdif output, should want to connect to an A/V amp.

Had mine for several years, works a treat and has a great tone for listening to voice only broadcasts.

On your way down, stop at Bedruthan Steps beach (check tides) and on your way back go via St Austell, the Eden Project.

is it really that bad? people have the chance to win 1 million quid, the chances are they won't, big deal!

So it does just comes down to money?

The contestants had a "chance" to win big, but let's be totally clear about this arrangement – the programme makers are doing it for profit, they are the winners and as we saw last night, they don't give a damn about those who loose.

If you think it's no big deal because they might have a chance of winning, carry on watching.

If you don't want to be a twunt of tv, don't go on tv. Simple.

Oh right, so the TV company has no duty of care towards these people?

If you were young, or hard up, wouldn't the lure of a million pounds tempt you to be a so called "twunt" on TV?

I wonder if the TV show makers things of the words "cannon" and "fodder" at any stage? Yes! They are also thinking about audience figures and profit!

The feelings those two who lost last night must have been horrendous and for the show makers, this situation was pure gold for them! It cost them very little to get the sensation they know a lot of "saddo" viewers crave.

The brutal "all or nothing" nature of the show is particularly distasteful.

It's gutter TV pandering to the distasteful appetite for the sadistic voyeurism that a significant sector of the TV viewing public has developed.

Other shows like Big Brother (oh, another Davina McCall hosted show), or the earlier episodes of Britain's Got Talent, where they televize people to making complete fools of themselves. Do they really have to show these ugly scenes with the moronic jeering/laughing audiences, who have been whipped up into a frenzy by a warm up act?

I agree, these people are stupid to go on TV, but many have no self-awareness anf aren't smart enough to understand the implications of what they are putting themselves forward for. It's like a modern day circus freak show! Sheer unashamed exploitation!

The TV viewer should be ashamed of this type of display, not enjoying watching it!!!

Much as I hate regulation, I hope TV companies that pedal this sort of trash programming are going to find themselves in deep trouble at some point!

If your neighbour is infact the pervert that he appears to be, lets hope he has any kind of unfortunate fatal accident.

If there was actually any kind of god(which i'm certain there isn't), then a just punishment would be meted out. Don't hold you breath you mumbo jumbo believers!

I'm sure a few liberal minded types will jump to his defense. He'll probably get a grant for something and/or compensation for having his feelings hurt.

So come on you wet liberals, tell me i'm being intolerant!

FOr the SE, I wouldn't consider anywhere within an hour's drive of London, too close. It is very congested and desptite pockets of tranquility, there is generally too much contention for space. You'll spend huge amounts of time and lots of money not going anywhere fast too.

I'd go West or South West. Lovely!

The North would be an option if it wasn't raining the whole time and loaded with people who moan on about hard done to they are!

Maybe you need a weed eating critter, like a guinea pig

I would write down all the things you have done in your life that you enjoy – the things you enjoyed in your job, at school, in your spare time. Analyse yourself!

Have you considered going on a journey of discovery to see if you have any undiscovered talents? A good starting point is with these phycometric tests, which, if you do enough of them might give you a different and additional bit of insigt about yourself.

Think how you might apply these possible strengths as well as your known ones.

Ask people who really know you, for advice about how they perceive you and ask them what they think you would be good at.

These exercises may set you off exploring other avenues.

Do you want to be self-employed, or employed? Weigh up the pros and cons and ask other people about this.

Then look at what you are good at. I'm told these are often things you enjoy, but you may be great at certain things, but sick to death of doing them (like your current role).

Maybe you could move on a step, but develop your existing skills and become a headhunter. For this i'm sure you would need a good track record and most vitally a good network of contacts. How would you overcome these hurdles?

The next step is learning the best way of selling yourself. You need to market effectively and networking is the key to this. I expect you are pretty good at this already.

All my jobs came through networking. Don't rely on the internet and online job boards to yield a solution! It's only a small percentage of people that find work this way.

I'm told that nearly all the successful people in this world had great ambition and most importantly, a plan. A tiny few just get lucky. SO work out a plan and periodically review it. Like a long term business plan for "lunge plc". You know what I mean.

You could go to a career advisory company that will take you through this process, but expect to have to shell out a good £3k or more. They will probably be making a goos cut out of your fees and the training will seem somewhat expensive, but if they have a good network, they might hold the key to putting you infront of some decision makers.

Career planning and execution is a tough challenge.

Good luck!

(BTW, I'm technical guy with a large telco project under my belt. Got any nice contracts in the SE region?) 😀