Messages

101

Living Room / Re: The End of my Macbook Pro Experiment

« on: June 08, 2015, 07:41 PM »

Intrigued by the "Apple make better hardware" at the top of this thread? They use motherboards from Foxconn just like many PCs - as I understand it they are pretty much identical and quality. They use standard graphics cards (usually a generation or two behind window), standard intel cpu, RAM and hard disks and SSDs

Apart from the white box with an apple on it what is so much better than a bog standard Windows laptop?

For the price you should get gold plated keys !!!

Given the number of people using Mac these days I get about the same proportion of Mac users phoning up and saying "my Mac is very slow" as I do Windows users. In 7 years I have only had one person phone me and say can you help - I use Linux.

102

Living Room / Re: Simpler tax forms? Intuit says NO!

« on: April 16, 2015, 07:32 PM »

They are currently trying to scare everyone into using their cloud solution for QuickBooks. Sorry I don't want to store all my data in the cloud thanks very much!

103

General Software Discussion / Re: Make Windows 8 login/lockscreen transparent?

« on: March 16, 2015, 08:35 AM »

Is it just me or am I the only person in the world that sees absolutely no use for a lock screen?

104

Living Room / Re: Sorry, Ebooks. These 9 Studies Show Why Print Is Better

« on: March 03, 2015, 04:07 AM »

Paper books all the way for me - spend too much time staring at screens as it is.

I can see the argument for going on holiday and taking a library of novels but for me that is all eBooks can replace. Anything with content other than text paper wins every time. Also anything that needs concentration seems to work better for me on paper.

Plus it is nice to lend then to people or give them away to friends or charity shops when you have finished with them.

105

General Software Discussion / Re: Win7 update loop

« on: February 14, 2015, 05:16 AM »

Probably a bad download that can't install properly - why not reset windows update and let windows do the update properly - or else download it and do it manually?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971058

106

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« on: February 02, 2015, 10:40 AM »

LOL 

107

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« on: January 27, 2015, 09:00 AM »

These are the strings I am using:

http://www.thestring...st-cello-strings-set

It took a lot of experimenting - I have been through 4 sets of strings (not all that sort of price) in just under two years.

One set I got as a free sample (they were priced over £200 but free was far too expensive for them - they stayed on for 2 days and then were gone - not even useful as spares!), one set I got at 30% cost from the manufacturer (the ones I am using - but I have already had to replace the A string because I wore it out).

These are the ones I would like to try ... http://www.thestring...re-cello-strings-set

Also getting through lots of bow rehairs - I play a lot :-)

108

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« on: January 27, 2015, 03:30 AM »

Imagine...two quality instruments for the combined price of approximately five sets of Tomastik-Infeld flatwound strings. The mind boggles!

-40hz (January 26, 2015, 08:21 PM)

That bass is considerably cheaper than my cello strings :-)

109

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« on: January 26, 2015, 07:50 PM »

wow, that's really impressive Carol!

-tomos (January 26, 2015, 12:05 PM)

Thanks.

On instruments - modern Chinese string instruments seem to be getting there these days at affordable prices.

I bought a Chinese cello (list price around £1400, ~$2100 US) and as a student instrument it is very impressive. My teacher really likes it and I showed it to another teacher who didn;t know the history or make and she thought it was probably worth about £5000. Like all instruments there are better and worse instruments so you have to be careful.

There is a lot of snobbery about instruments and where they come from - people pay a premium just for a name. There have been Stad violins that have been more or less destroyed and then restored and they still go for silly prices even though they are mostly not Strad (and the bits that are are glued together!).

In blind testing people are often surprised at what they actually like best.

Bows are similar - some shops/dealers have trial schemes and suggest you try a bunch for a while - often it isn't the most expensive bow that sounds best though I have to say bows are a bit of a black art! Just bought a new bow which I am very pleased with but it was a nerve-wracking minefield!!


40Hz - if you can play instruments tuned in 5ths I reckon it takes about an hour to adapt to the new spacing. I have tried various cellos and they are all a bit different in size (even full size varies enormously) but I have tried 3/4 and 7/8 models too. It is surprising how quickly you adapt!

So long as you are not using German bowing on the bass cello bowing is similar but obviously lighter and more responsive than on a bass.

110

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« on: January 26, 2015, 09:48 AM »

Sorry I haven't been around much over the last few months - been totally obsessed by my cello!!!

-Carol Haynes (January 26, 2015, 08:39 AM)

Understandable. Being a bass player, the cello (along with the saxophone) is an instrument I always wanted to take up. Imagine...to be able to play melody for a change...can such a world exist?

-40hz (January 26, 2015, 08:54 AM)

Lots of nice melodies available fro the bass - just a shame they were mostly written for the cello and a damn sight harder to play on the bass.

Cello is inconvenient for travelling but pales into insignificance with double bass hassles (I used to play bass years ago)

My advice it take the plunge -  get a cello and go for it - apart from tuning you have a good head start from bass!!

It will be 2 years in March since my first lesson and the obsession become more urgent every day - now playing in 2 orchestras and various ensembles including a cello quartet (great fun) ....  



From a concert last week - I am second from the right at the front

111

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« on: January 26, 2015, 08:39 AM »

Uploaded on Oct 20, 2011

"Alla Hornpipe" from Handel's Water Music, Suite #2 in D major.

This performance is dedicated to the memory of my father Mervin Smart (1934-1991) who loved Handel's music.

Know it dates back a while but just seen the video - cool!!

Sorry I haven't been around much over the last few months - been totally obsessed by my cello!!! (Also I get enough input about computers during the day). Played this Handel in a concert last week ;-)

112

Living Room / Re: driveless cars

« on: October 17, 2014, 07:31 PM »

"Your car needs to reboot to install updates" WTF!

113

Living Room / Re: Win9 will be FREE!

« on: October 02, 2014, 02:07 PM »

After you install Windows Technical Preview, you won’t be able to use the recovery partition on your PC to go back to your previous version of Windows.

Clever trick - why not just leave the recovery partition alone?

114

Living Room / Re: Win9 will be FREE!

« on: October 01, 2014, 10:59 AM »

OT - out of curiosity why is anyone still using OpenOffice at all? Barely developed these days and seems to be the only thing that uses Java anymore (and that in itself is a good reason not to use OO).

Why not jump to LibreOffice which is much better and doesn't rely on Java and is actively being developed?

As for MS Office - 2007, 2010 will be the last versions I use from choice simply because you have a DVD and can install on desktop and laptop (or 3 PCs fro the Home and Student version). No interest in Office 365, and if Windows becomes a subscription service I will decamp to Linux (or even Apple - except I can't afford that) when end of life on the final none subscription version happens. Having said that manufacturers are already struggling - trying to sell subscription based products with their hardware is just going to make sales even harder. So many of the big names are already pulling out of PC and laptop sales in Europe (including Sony, Toshiba and Samsung) - it is only going to get worse.

115

Living Room / Re: DoCo...I need your help!

« on: September 17, 2014, 01:45 PM »

Sorry to hear your news - difficult times :-(

116

Living Room / Re: No iPhones 4u

« on: September 16, 2014, 06:11 AM »

Unfortunately stuck with EE here as the only mobile carrier that has reasonable courage.

Should update that last comment as I hadn't realised within 6 months O2, Vodaphone and EE have all withdrawn contacts from Phones4U

Agree 100% with TalkTalk/Carphone Warehouse assessment - and they are actually quite unpleasant to their customers when they try to leave!

117

Living Room / Re: No iPhones 4u

« on: September 15, 2014, 07:13 PM »

Another example of corporate greed from Vodaphone and EE - rapidly heading towards a UK duopoly.

Cudos for Dixons picking up staff but it makes you wonder how long any of these third parties involved in mobile phones are going to survive now that the big brands want to move their sales in house whilst gobbling up the smaller mobile phone companies.

118

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 8 Pro System Image Backup.

« on: July 18, 2014, 06:08 AM »

Reformat your flash drive to NTFS and use System Image in Windows 8 control panel. Should work - though it may not recognise the flash drive.

If it doesn't then shrink a hard disk partition and make a big enough partition to make a backup and then copy the contents to the flash drive after the backup

119

Non-Windows Software / Re: Android: Looking for true app data backup solution

« on: July 14, 2014, 05:04 PM »

Yes please too!

120

DC Gamer Club / Re: Defense Grid 2 - Limited Beta - *** HURRY - Free keys ***

« on: June 19, 2014, 03:16 AM »

All gone now :-(

121

Living Room / Re: Building Another Budget Gaming PC...

« on: June 17, 2014, 08:08 PM »

When I built my PC, Carol suggested I use the Antec 300, which has turned out to be my all-time favorite case for the price.  I was able to find the One on sale for $50 so I opted for it.

-MilesOhToole (June 17, 2014, 05:59 PM)

Glad you liked it ;-)

My last build used one of these and I am a convert - huge fans, huge fun and really flexible case for the price and cracking build quality (and it comes with a 3.5 inch cradle and internal 2.5 inch cradles for SSDs).

http://gaming.cooler...ucts/cases/enforcer/

Built a couple of machines with these for customers too and they were pleased.

122

General Software Discussion / Re: What the Heck is Happening to Windows? Article on Windows 8 Disaster

« on: June 01, 2014, 03:08 AM »

What melodrama. I got a new notebook with Windows 8, and after my initial panic, was pleased and pacified to find I could make it quite decently Win-7-ish with the free Classic Shell. (If someone's already mentioned that here, sorry; I don't have time to read the whole topic.) As Win 8 is clearly faster and more responsive than 7 (which was already great, IMHO), I really don't see what the problem is.

-ander2255 (May 31, 2014, 09:50 PM)

You sure quicker/more responsive isn't just new install syndrome. I am using 8.1 on my laptop and after a few months it has started slowing down like all other versions of Windows??? Plus I have had to disable Fast Startup because it doesn't work properly on my laptop (and I have seen a number of customer machines not booting properly or at all because Fast Startup has screwed itself up).

123

Living Room / Re: Website hacking - tools to help spot issues

« on: May 24, 2014, 11:14 AM »

Looks like an excellent link that might have some ideas for you:

http://www.askwebhos..._An_Abuse_Issue.html

Specifically, point 4

4. Login to WHM (Web Hosting Manager) and click on "Contact Manager" under "Server Contacts" menu. Make sure you placed "2 or 3" on Alert Priority Assignment right beside "Recently Uploaded Cgi Script Mail". This will email you on a daily basis (if there are uploaded pages or scripts) that are set to use your smtp or mail on your server which could be the source of spam abusers to send out spam using your ip addresses. Setup a filter for it and it always is prefixed on the Subject: "[newmailcgi] Recently Uploaded CGI scripts" take note that even php form mail that are insecuredly setup to send spam are also reported to your email address setup as contact manager on your server's WHM. Make sure to actively monitor this and when it happened to give ample warnings to the user who uploaded this.

-wraith808 (May 21, 2014, 10:08 AM)

Fantastic exactly what I was looking for. I have also managed to get LFD and ClamAV sending email warnings and a daily off peak AV scan of the system.

LFD alerts are particularly useful because it also warns of email flooding events instantly which means I can quickly suspend an account while it is investigated.

124

Living Room / Re: Website hacking - tools to help spot issues

« on: May 21, 2014, 08:22 AM »

Is there any way to restrict write access to the server to a whitelisted IP list?

125

Living Room / Re: Website hacking - tools to help spot issues

« on: May 21, 2014, 08:20 AM »

Just looking at that MySQL stuff (thanks 40Hz) and I am coming to the conclusion I don't want to do this anymore - too much stuff to learn to be able to be effective and no inclination to learn it.

All I want to do is run a few websites for local people I know and friends and not have to cope with bastards constantly attacking and disrupting everything.

So frustrating!!

Be far simpler in the long run to go back to hand coding pages in HTML without using any scripting languages!!!