Search around there are normally 50% offers on Oral-B electric toothbrushes. I’m sure Braun make their money on the replacement brush heads.

Beware of eBay for replacement brush heads most of them are fakes.

As others have said move on. The buyer has retracted a number of bids on items and also bought a 1971 copy of Mayfair – so definitely a bit dodgy IMO

The completion period doesn’t need to be a month, it can be shorter or longer if both parties agree. It’s not down to your solicitor deciding that he doesn’t do completions at week-ends, by law it needs to be a week day.

Bee on Crocus[/url]

If you buy a Canon before the 25th of January there is a cash rebate available on the 600d and 550d – see
Canon Christmas Cashback[/url]

Print out some recipes that use cream and hand them out to your existing customers.

I would echo most of the above suggestions. When I’m looking for somebody then I’m interesed in who’s done work local to me. So if I see a van with a tradesman’s details on it parked up outside a house in the neighbourhood I will tend to take a note of it, or more likely take a photo with my phone.

As others have said a 1/4″ is fine for small jobs or when you need to use the router in difficult to access spots. Trend do a 1/4″ and also offer refurb jobs. Check out:Trend Clearance for a cheap £55+VAT job.

Tyke

The missus decided she was fed up with the limescale and also felt the hard water was irratating her skin. So we plumped for one of the more expensive models – Kinetico 2020c Water Softener. Her view was get the best and we will take it with us if we move. Had it about 3years, been trouble free and as a sceptic I have been surprised that even I can notice the difference. As most of the posts say shop around for salt. Ours uses block salt and lasts around 6 weeks, so not too expensive to run.

When looking to buy the softner unit you might not find much difference in prices between suppliers and most include “free” installation, so negotiate on the amount of free salt they will give you.

It’s difficult as he doesn’t report to you directly but I think that you need to sit down with him and review his performance. As others have pointed out sales is a binary results type job – you’re either selling or you’re not. If he’s experienced he will know this and there is no point pussyfooting around.

Tell him that you are under pressure to justify his performance and he needs to help you do this. Get him to tell you what he’s done in the first 6 months, what’s working for him, what isn’t. Then agree some additional targets for lead generation activity, first meetings, proposals etc – try and get him to suggest them first (have some idea though of what others in the company in a simialr role think is acceptable). Get him to formally report on these on a weekly basis. Unfortunately you are going to have to put him under pressure and to a certain extent micro-manage him until the situation is resolved.

If he doesn’t believe he can succeed then he will leave as his lack of activity and results against the agreed performance plan will be more visible. Worst case is that you will have the lack of achievement against the performance based action plan as ammunition to manage him out of the company.

Been with them for 5 years. Good overall service, reliable and not too many performance issues. They do packet shape the network traffic to restrict Peer-to-peer downloads. I average about 6MB download on their 8mb download service.

Go to Four Pillars hotel near Cirencester (just about 3 hours from Brighton), part of the Cotswold Water Park area. Nice Spa hotel with restaurant and also a good bistro pub attached.

Plenty of walking and some quaint Cotswold villages to explore. Sign up for their newsletter and if you are prepared to leave it until last minute they generally email out some special mini-break deals for the coming week-end.

Not sure if it still works but if he hasn’t left feedback yet then get him to do so but use abusive language. Then complain to ebay and both his and the buyers feedback will be removed. Even if he has left feedback he can still leave a comment on the negative left for him.

I’d go for either of the Nikon or Canon range. One thing is to buy only what camera you need in the UK and then look to add additional lenses etc. when you go to the USA as it will be cheaper to buy over there.

Similarly see if you can borrow a camera to try for the couple of months before you go to the USA and then buy the one you want over there.

Avoid buying a car just coz it seems cheap. If the dealers aren’t bidding on on a “bargain” they are likely to know something you don’t.

Decide what you car you want before you go and research the likely price beforehand. Go for ex-lease or if you can find out (sometimes the staff will tell you) company director’s cars (tend to be low mileage and well looked after).

Just using wholemeal flour will result ina crumbly and slightly heavier texture. Try a 50/50 – wholemeal/white flour mix to see what that produces and then adjust the proportions later if you want more wholemeal. Make sure you use bread flour as the higher protein and gluten content will produce better results. Also don’t skip on the salt it helps “stretch” the gluten.

Finally, if kneading by hand you should knead the dough for about 15 minutes until it is elastic shiny. The wetter the dough you can work the better as the water in the dough is converted to steam when it cooks and this produces the holes in your bread. But it is more difficult to knead wetter dough by hand, much easier with a food mixer.

Always very sad when something like this happens. I hope that he’s at peace and that his family will eventually manage to cope with the situation.

RIP Jahwomble

Been with Plus for about 4 years. Despite now being part of BT they are still giving good service and support. They do use “packet shaping” to restrict torrent downloads during peak hours but overall I’m getting around 5-6 Mbps download speeds.

Don’t use Newsgroup services so can’t commment on this.

Which the consumer magazine did a review earlier this year. Not sure what came out on top but Zanussi was one of the Best Buys. Check your local library for back copies of the magazine or be cheeky and sign up for the Which free 1 month trial.

That said our Zanussi is still going OK after 12 years.

As pointed out above – confidentiality can be implied but they should really have taken steps by getting you to sign a confidentiality agreement. The other thing a judge would look at if this came to court would be any precedence with other former employees – if they haven't enforced confidenitality in the past then they will be on very weak ground.

If they are sensible about it they should get you to sign a compromise agreement (which could include some clauses on confidentiality)offering you some form of moentary recompense. Just sign a confidentiality agreement without getting some form of legal advice first – tell your eomployer that and get them to pay for it.

Be careful if they make you work your notice that you don't take anything that could be deemed to be confidential. If they are worried about it get them to spell out what they deem as confidential but don't sign anything.

According to LinkedIn – A ****** ******* is a freelance web developer. Although if it’s the same person web site plagiarist might be a better description

Mod: Personal details removed

I don't know why yours doesn't work. I am using mine on Windows 7 connecting to a Belkin N router. I also have the Belkin F5d8055ea adaptor on another Windows 7 machine. I just used the install disks that shipped with the adaptors.

If you are using Photoshop you should be able to find a free plugin that enables you to save files in .ico format. Max size for .ico is 256 x 256 pixels.

I am based in Surrey, so probably can't help you getting sorted with new colonies. I would suggest joining your local association once you settle into Wales. As you have all the kit you should be able to get hold of some colonies or swarms fairly easily and cheaply. Nucs are selling for ridiculous amounts of money driven by all the new people taking up beekeeping – £150 seems to be the norm.

Disease wise I've been OK. I manage to keep Varroa under control with an active management regime – Apiguard, Oxalic acid, drone traps and icing sugar over the course of the season. It seems to me that Varroa won't necessarily kill a colony off but will weaken it and make is susceptible to other viruses etc. which will make it disease resistant. Our local bee inspector reckons most colonies don't die from disease but starvation especially at this time of year.

They seem to be OK at sorting out a common renewal date for my 2 x single policies when I converted over to a multi-car deal. Also found their claims service (managed by a sister company) to be OK. However, as it ends up being 2 companies you deal with you need to be formal in they way you deal with them (don't just rely on phone conversations).

Yes, been keeping bees for 6 years.

I wonder if you could get your bike classified as a motability scooter then you could ride it on footpaths.

I haven't been bitten by a dog but if I am being chased I slow down enough for the dog to catch up and then encourage the dog to run along with me away from its owner. Then when I think am far enough away I speed up and leave the dog behind.
So far the furthest I have managed to get is about half a mile. It's funny to hear the owner shouting at the top of their voice trying to call their dog back whilst it's quite happy running alongside me wagging its tail.

If enough cyclists did this I'd bet we'd start to see a lot of dog owners start to call their pooches to heel at the sight of a cyclist approaching!

I use a garden shredder (only thing it's used for). You can buy ones that work in a bucket but they don't seem to be very easy to use and only do a small quatity at a time. Or if you are going to do it on an annual basis and a dab hand with DIY you could make an apple scratter:
Apple Scratter on UK Cider

Get as many different types of apples that you can to make up your cider including cookers and crab apples. I would add a commerical yeast as they give more consistent results. Expect to get about 1litre of juice per 2kg of apples. The Finer you can mill/chop the apples the better.

Ski – eBay changed their T&Cs some time ago and can take money out of your bank account to settle any outstanding debts. If you have a very old Paypal account (if I recall around 6 years) and haven't changed your bank details they can't take the money out.

If you want the LG one then go for the slightly more expensive and larger one as it is slightly better spec. and is a more recent model. Both will support your VGA card.

Another one to consider would be:
Hanns G

This has built in speakers, support for both VGA and DVI and 3 year warranty.

The DDC is a way for your PC to directly interact with the monitor to determine optimum resolution, contracts ratios etc.

Bonj – I thought you were saying you just wanted a phone now you have moved on to say you want it to be an alarm clock as well. Make your mind up. If you look at the cost of all of the standalone devices that could offer similar levels of functionality they would be more than the cost of an iphone. Also why would I want to cart around 4 devices when one can do what I want.

As ComradeD states a cheque doesn't expire and as it's a BS one you should be able to get the money fairly easily. Either pay it into your account and see if it doesn't get picked up as too out of date. Or go into a B&B branch and get them to cash it for you; if this fails get them to give you the address for the head office and if you send the cheque into them they will issue a new one.

Put a login password on the laptop.

Been with them for 5 years. Overall very good, reliable and reasonable speeds – 5MB and I'm about 3kms from my local exchange. The download limits only apply to peak hours – 4pm – midnight. You get unlimited downloads outside of this time.

Only issue you might have is that they use packet shaping, so for example if you use torrents or BBC iPlayer to download stuff then download speeds get restricted even if you are within your download limits.

As stated above you should be entitled to a trial period. The key thing is that you are being invited to apply for a job not being offered an alternative position. If I was you I would ask them to quantify why they think that the role is commensurate with your current position.

If you want to wind them up say that you are scoring the position against your old one and will make a decision based upon how closely it matches your old job. Like their selction of your role for redundancy you will be fair and objective about the process!

Bushwacked

I may be reading too much into you email and also your previous posts on redundancy. Contract restictions are difficult to enforce and from what you have said it wouldn't get very far if your employer has previoulsy allowed staff who have left to work for customers.

But I would suggest caution if the new venture you want to work on is to help a customer re-negotiate their current contract with your employer then you could be in danger of breaching confidentiality (which can be implied as well as covered by a written agreement). Be careful if you will be using information, that is money related or refers to specific terms and conditions, that comes as a direct result of working for your current employer. It might be less contentious if you were to help them move to another supplier and ensure that they got a better deal.

Slightly more than you want to spend but only just:
Toshiba T130

It is red, great battery life. Only drawbackbacks might be screen size – 13.3in and lack of an optical drive.

It's not turned on/off by altering a Windows display setting. Normally it's set by the software that controls your graphics card. For example if you have a Nvidia graphics card you use their control panel to adjust the screen display rotation setting.

Might be fixed on reboot as kids games are the main culprit for changing the display orientation on the fly and so on reboot it might revert back to normal.