[Ed P]

Sorry no can do as I use Start10+Fences+Stardock’s Windows Blinds+Deskscapes 10! I’m afraid I have thought that unmodified Windows 8 and above are rubbish from a usability/productivity/appearance standpoint.

[Ed P]

Please publish the link!

[Ed P]

You may wish to do a virus scan!

link

[Ed P]

Boeing have done it again —- Lost in Space!

Boeing is not only a failure in the airline industry, but it also screwed up its attempts to enter the commercial space race with its Starliner.

Unfortunately its oh-so-(un)reliable instrumentation and control inserted the spacecraft into the wrong orbit!

The quote from NASA sums it up:

“NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine explained the spacecraft “believed it was in an orbital insertion burn” and “burned more fuel than anticipated to maintain precise control.”

The lesson is obvious. Don’t book a place on the first Boeing flight to the moon, it might believe you meant to go to Pluto!

 

 

[Ed P]

Wheels-Of-Fire wrote:

If you would like to check if your router has left any ports open then Shields Up ! By Gibson Research is good idea, its free and you may like to look at some of the other stuff on the site like InSpector.

Fing is pretty good at checking any wifi ports you have open.

[Ed P]

We had all this many moons ago wrt an iPad iirc, Dwynnehugh will give you all the legal ins and outs but your best bet is to contact the seller tell them you have it, and ask them what they want to do with it. My guess is that freight on an office chair is going to be close to their cost for the chair so they may make you an offer.

[Ed P]

All the best – December is obviously a popular birth month for Forumites!

Interestingly, birthdays are not spread evenly over the year. see link

[Ed P]

As some of the Iraq vets can probably testify, sand dunes in the Middle East are something else yet again. A 30 degree slope on one side then a crest followed by a 60+ foot near sheer drop on the other side. One of my colleagues with more adrenaline then common sense hurtled over the top of one of these monsters in a dune buggy and we all attended his wake.  Sand dune racing in that part of the world needs to be approached with a degree of caution.😣

[Ed P]

As you are a serious photographer, the one tip I would give is to check the file integrity of whichever backup system you use. jpeginfo is free, quick and dirty but it checks for gross header errors. There are paid for systems that do a more thorough job. Whatever you decide do not do as I did and put your faith in untested backups.

Based purely on personal experience I would avoid compressing jpeg files. It adds little in file size savings and adds a layer of risk. I would also avoid the cloud as a primary backup, and use solely as secondary backup. (Do  read the t&c for the backup provider some almost want copyright on your work!)

[Ed P]

+1 for VFMs comments and I would highlight USB devices as bad actors. Some can go wrong and cause apparent mobo/power failures. Disconnect all non-essential USB devices especially any PVR-type sticks.

The other obvious thing is to look for loose wires/connectors – double check the power lead connections. The modern mobo start-up steps are more complex than they were in the past and as VFM said a whole range of things can result in the mobo being at the wrong voltage state at the wrong time.

[Ed P]

Do a hand check for temperature on the piping when heating the water, it might help you pin down the problem area.

[Ed P]

I hope that The Times or Independent posts up a tally of all the promises that Boris has made since taking command of the Brexit bandwagon, and highlights those that he breaks. His career track record on honesty and keeping his word has been poor at best! Even ‘Getting Brexit Done’ was only achieved at the expense of the DUP and caused their subsequent meltdown.

[Ed P]

Labour need Andy Burnham as leader. He is my ideal Singaporean Socialist with Capitalist under-pinnings. Pity he is Mayor of Manchester as he is doing a good job fighting for that area.

Now I can only hope for the best and hedge against the worst.

[Ed P]

Well I just hope those in the car industry do not come to regret their votes.

[Ed P]

I do not know what it is like in your neck of the woods, but here it is a perfectly foul day with driving rain and a wind chill of -1. Only the dedicated or driven will vote, and turn out could be low!

[Ed P]

IPA is my go-to solvent. AS a solvent it is very weak and harms very few things unlike acetone which will turn most plastics into gunk.

Blend 99.5% 50:50 with distilled water and it makes a good general purpose cleaner for your PC and monitor screen.

[edit] I once worked for a period at British Nylon Spinners Pontypool. They took the nylon chips from ICI, mixed with additives as required (often TiO2 for whiteness and light fastness) and forced the molten mix through spinnerets to make nylon yarn.  I’m not sure why, but the spinning floor used copious quantities of unadulterated water azeotrope alcohol and there seemed to be a fair trade between them and other staff who had access to Barley Water – the net result was an evil vodka strength brew that could make your toes curl or turn you tea-total.

[Ed P]

Beeching was told to cut the guts out of Rail in order to favour Marples’s Road construction interests and building a motorway network. It was a ‘study’ that verged on corrupt. It had nothing to do with economics and most of the line closures would be economically viable today. You have only to look at the high utilisation of tiddly little branch lines in Germany to see what might have been.

[Ed P]

Its the damned system of different franchises. The Civil Service + John Major designed a system which is made to fail.

Quite frankly, having suffered under Govia Management’s incompetence compounded by the Chief Incompetent Chris Greyling and Network Rail’s funding issues, I long for the good old days of British Rail and I could not care less which political party reintroduced it.

[Ed P]

Jaguar have just announced that through their “i-Pace e” racing experience they have added 12 miles to the battery mileage for their road-legal electric road vehicle range. It demonstrates that the powers that be should open up the ridiculously heavily constrained  Formula-E specifications to get widespread benefits for an ever-growing marque.

[Ed P]

+1, that and working around gas & steam turbines in the days before ear defenders and 80 decibels max exposure.

[Author]

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