[Ed P]

VLC (like a lot of Open Source stuff) is not the friendliest thing to use. I’d recommend taking a look at their forum.

[edit] you also need to Google a lot if you want playlist managers etc. As stated a lot of (very well) hidden gems!

[Ed P]

BL I have not heard a single kind word spoken in favour of the ‘Olympic Shambles’. I’m afraid that the Hammers were conned. Manchester City however won out big-time with their Commonwealth Stadium. The BIG difference being that their stadium was purpose designed for easy conversion, and they walked away with a really nice venue that also forms the centre of a wide range of other sporting and social activities (mostly in other small centres around the ground rather than in it)..

[Ed P]

“wash/wipe wiring ran across a raised weld and wore through the insulation, with predictable results”

That is the sort of problem I had in mind.  Insulation breaks or wear are a bitch as anything can trigger the fault – damp being a common one, but if the sensor depends on the capacitance of something then a wide variety of apparently unconnected causes can trigger it. You can even get ‘cross-talk’ with the other equipment, just like damned statins cause in my nervous system (easily cured!).

[Ed P]

Richard – luckily it was never put to the test, but from memory the Home Office recommendation <span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>at the time</span> was for simple double ‘drop’ net curtains weighted with lead at the bottom and the surplus length held in a simple open box. The purpose being to contain any explosively broken window glass, wrap it all in a nice bundle and then drop it on the floor. Requirements became more arduous later on, with laminated film etc., but there were some who said this was far more dangerous as large complete panes tended to fly across the room. We maintained that the nets looked ugly and also got some nice additional relatively normal curtaining to partly conceal them.

[Ed P]

Security cuts both ways Richard. We got some very nice new curtains in our London Offices on the strength of ‘security’. I think the company who fitted them never could quite understand either their design or function.

[Ed P]

@Richard – a wiring loom problem?

[Ed P]

VLC on a PC is my choice too. It has some hidden strengths. However for some reason it has been emasculated in the phone version.

[Ed P]

Not really anything to do with the OP, and only slightly to do with Arsenal, but the last few posts led me to this blog. It contains an interesting amalgamation of the Premier Division fans views of their club’s weaknesses. Done by an Arsenal fan early January but done dispassionately. Interesting read.

[Ed P]

In my comment about ‘peripheral’ vision although I did not think actual peripheral vision was an issue – I did think vision would tend to be concentrated along the arc of the gun. Obviously I was wrong.

Equally obviously, I’ve seen too many films where a small video cam is attached to a weapon (Cornershot style) to handle the corners in house clearance! Having said that, US military tactics in Fallujah  seemed to be to just go in via the roof, knock out holes and then drop grenades down willy-nilly. (tough on ‘collateral’ damage however)

[Ed P]

Steve, I suspect the differences in ‘carry’ are due to a change in attitude towards combat scenarios and where future battles will be fought. ‘Your’ method is probably most appropriate to open conflict in central Europe where contact ranges are normally >25 metres. Your ‘BIL’s’ seems to me to be most appropriate for urban warfare where reaction times counts for more than accuracy.

Old adage updated – High Tech weapons can win a war, but the PBI take and hold the territory that matters.

[edit] Thinking about it ‘Field of View’ probably plays a role in this too. I suspect that a ‘carry’ as you were taught cuts out a little of your peripheral vision. (Unsure)

[Ed P]

Thanks for the cabinet link – I have book-marked it for a spring-cleaning job one day. Luckily I do not have the incentives I used to have in the US. My ‘den’ was in the basement along with the boiler room and it was infested with black widow spiders (the ones with the red hour-glass on their backs). My den hygiene soon became quite meticulous as putting your hand in a nest of wires could easily become a fraught issue!

[Ed P]

May be a ‘phone’ or add-on issue as no problems are reported on FireFox under a Linux PC

[Ed P]

“Has lime mortar or plaster been reworked with modern non breathable cement mortar or plasterwork added?”

+1 — Rendered brickwork is a well-known house killer.

[Ed P]

Dave makes a good point. The pressures to hard-wire have grown less each year as wifi has become better. However it really depends on the construction of your house. Despite mounting a Wifi access point high in the house, our internal walls are all solid brick. As a result I need wifi boosters everywhere to get a good signal. I find that I continually have to drop back to using the Ethernet cable to form the backbone of the network with a few Ethernet->wifi access points covering black spots. The central wifi access point really only covers a small fraction of the building. When I had SkyQ installed the installer stated it made his life a LOT easier to use the Ethernet system as he wasn’t called back to deal with Sky’s notorious wifi drop outs.

In my situation I would still put in a CAT5 PoE system, and be less concerned about running a cable to the attic. I would however put in points I could use for connecting outside security cameras (e.g. all external door approaches). This does however then give you the problem of where you site everything. My system (Broadband router, Server, Switch, Patch Panel etc,) all sit high up on my garage wall. This is a rat’s nest of cabling and really looks a fugly spider trap that I must hide away one day!

Set-up your laptop as an access point and put it central and high in your house, then scan the signal strengths on the ground floor(s). If you get a significant drop off then you have your answer; you need to cat5 everywhere. It costs little and looks neat if all the wiring is out of sight. It probably does not add much to the value of your property but in my experience it is a useful selling point.

[Ed P]

You do not have a dual boot do you? Dual boot is a well known cause of severe OS corruption. (Both Win10 and Win7 each think that only THEY own the full disk space)

[Ed P]

+1 for Richard’s comments about furniture layout. Lots of furniture ‘needs’ a wall to sit against. I have recently come to the conclusion that ‘designer radiators‘ may have some merit in some circumstances. B-expensive however, but one might have a place on a lounge wall in order to get around furniture layout problems.

[Ed P]

One tip (from bitter experience), thermostat controlled valves are NOT always good shut-off valves. Have a few isolating and drain points installed so you do not have to drain the whole system for what should be a small decorating job!

[Ed P]

Your OS is severely corrupted. Try Grahams tip, but it COULD instead be your hdd that is the cause in which case a full reformat is required. (I’d look at SMART too).

[Ed P]

Boiler sizing also depends whether it is occupied ‘most’ of the time or if you and your partner are at work 5 days/week. Not much point in heating an empty house, so timers/smart phone controls come into their own. The former situation probably runs best without too much excess capacity. The latter needs a fast warm up so a higher heating capacity makes sense. However if you have smart phone controls you can f necessary over-ride the heating controls and again go with a heating system with a bit of spare.

Better to oversize a bit in either case, as I still remember visiting some friends in Marseilles during an unexpected really frigid cold snap — we all froze our butts off due to totally inadequate heating and 1cm gaps — windows, doors, just about everywhere.

[Ed P]

There ARE situations where Win7 is MUCH better than Win10. I use Windows 7 as a management interface to my security cameras. Windows 10 will NEVER be installed until I am allowed to switch off automatic updates. Windows 7 is just set up to tell me of updates and I then select a convenient time to set aside to bring down the Home Security system.

If M$ do not come up with a viable alternative updating system I will junk M$ and move the system to Linux. (not something I really want to do).

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