[Dave Rice]

Won’t be a problem, I do this all the time in both directions.

[Dave Rice]

Looks OK to me Dave, those I3’s absolutely fly along.

However you can get a very similar bundle from Amazon @ £239 link Kaby Lake Core i3 7100 3.9Ghz CPU, ASUS Prime B250M-A Motherboard & 8GB 2133Mhz Crucial DDR4

Lately I’ve taken to using the £35 Aerocool Integrator 500W PSU link and WD Blue SSDs (I’ve used their HDD for years). I will not build a PC now without an SSD and 250GB is usually more than enough. If they need tons of archive storage or it’s for CCTV recording I’ll add a spinner.

[Dave Rice]

I’ve always advocated an independent wireless solution and having a switch as the backbone of a network.

That just leaves the ISP router to do the routing, DHCP and DNS jobs (although in my own network my Synology now does the DHCP). It then doesn’t matter how crap it is at anything else or if you change ISP.

The location of the router is dictated by the BT master socket and it’s usually in the worst place possible. Having the AP on the end of an Ethernet lead means you can place it somewhere a bit better. The £23 TP-LINK TL-WA801ND even comes with a POE injector so powering it isn’t an issue either if you want a very long lead (I use one on my Sky box).

[Dave Rice]

Yes.

[Dave Rice]

Distance selling rules John. If it’s not as advertised it’s their fault.

[Dave Rice]

It’s Amazon, so if it’s not up to scratch back it goes!

[Dave Rice]

Recently I paid £3.69 for W10 Pro and £2.99 for Office 2016 Pro + on E-Bay

Prices vary from that low up to a tenner each and I’ve bought over a dozen this year. No problems at all but you must do a clean install.

[Dave Rice]

Frozen meat can be just as good. We often buy a larger beef joint that’s on offer and cut it up and freeze it to eat several months later.

Pork and whole chicken being relatively cheap we’ll buy as we need it, but there’s always a bag of frozen chicken breasts in the freezer.

[Dave Rice]

That’s a very old piece of kit now John. I would be worried about the hard drive, although at 1 TB it can’t be original (the 160GB probably are).

Don’t be fooled into thinking that as it’s a quad it’ll be fast. In single threaded performance it’s about half of a modern dual core Pentium. In needs all 4 cores to catch up with the Pentiums two cores for things like video transcoding.

Still, it’s only £85 ?

[Dave Rice]

What CPU are you looking at John?

[Dave Rice]

I’m now totally wireless (apart from the workshop).

A single Ubiquiti UAP-AC-LR http://tinyurl.com/ya42qwgd on the top floor landing (3 storey town house) wired back to a Gigabit switch easily handles everything. 802.11AC 450mbps 2.4Ghz and 867mbps 5Ghz. POE either through the supplied 24v injector or through a standard 802.3AF/a 48v POE switch.

It doesn’t hang about. Transferring an Ubuntu ISO from my Lenovo V110 laptop to the Synology NAS.

The Sky box is attached using a £23  TP-LINK TL-WA801ND 300 Mbps Wireless N Access Point and it connects at the full 300mbps. The PCs use either a £10 WOSUK Wifi Dongle 600Mbps Dual Band 2.4G/5G AC600 Wireless Usb or £12 CSL – 300Mbps PCI Express (PCIe) WLAN card

It all just works.

[Dave Rice]

I’ve got a M262x 282x Series (forget the exact model) laser with duplex. It replaced an earlier version of the one Nolan’s bought.

Hopefully it will last as long because I hate HP consumer printers. Too much bloat and now trying to flog you ink / toner direct to your desktop.

[Dave Rice]

invested in flocks of drones instead.

Whilst not disagreeing with a word that’s been said, the Carriers were designed over a decade ago when flocks of drones weren’t a thing.

However, how would a flock of drones provide air cover for the flotilla?

[Dave Rice]

Never had one that didn’t work. Mostly I use the cheap plastic ones (sounds like Wasbits) usually with another converter inside it to deal with micro SD cards.

That message is usually caused by the card rather than the reader. Try using Disk Manager when the card is in to see if it’s there but corrupted.

[Dave Rice]

Doesn’t bother me at all. I can’t see me paying more than £150 ish ever again. If I was buying now it’d be a Moto G5.

However I may be tempted with a similar spec phone with a truly great camera that could replace my (old but still good) Nikon Coolpix L820. Took the Nikon to Amsterdam a few weeks ago and it’s a PITA having another bag but the G4’s camera isn’t up to it.

Either that or it’s truly pocket sized camera like the Coolpix A900. Hmm, a quick look at phone prices and the Coolpix + G5 looks like the answer by about £200.

[Dave Rice]

If you want “workwear” you can still wear down the pub, look at £12 the pop for Two Tone Polo Shirt  that will probably last forever.

I’ve got a wardrobe full as they do fat boy sizes that are still long in length?

[Dave Rice]

I can increasingly get specialist WiFi gear through Amazon at the same price as my specialist supplier. I have just done this to get  2 Ubiquiti APs delivered to the Amazon locker (they’ve just arrived) as I won’t be in on Monday and Tuesday and need them Wednesday. So great for emergencies when you know what you want. However I will continue to support my normal supplier. Next day pre 12 is only £6 and their advice and support is free.

Hikvision have gone the other way. They have brought out a of range of cameras aimed at the end user and withdrawn the supply of everything else. You can only buy them from a supplier who deals with trade only. The “low end” cameras are still fantastic with features like Darkfighter Lite, but they lack the fancy analytics (but do have things like line crossing and intrusion detection). The support we get from both the supplier and Hikvision is amazing. Free certified technical training – you have to pass an exam not just attend – regular technical briefings and previews of the next cameras. We will soon be able to provide under vehicle cameras that scan a vehicle passing over it. Tie that in with number plate recognition and you can automatically spot any changes like stolen goods as well as bombs. It’s portable too.

[Dave Rice]

I certainly trust Kaspersky as much as any of the others i.e. they all have close ties with their home governments. They consistently top the reviews year after year and that’s good enough for me.

The home version of McAfee I wouldn’t touch, but I administered the Corporate version for 5 years and it’s very good in that environment (it’s a totally different way of working). It’s used in the Defence Industry so who knows what the American spooks have put in there (industrial espionage). Probably no need as the parent company (Intel) have done it all anyway.

I administer the small business version of Bitdefender (Gravityzone) for the charity (lots of W10 PCs but no Windows Domain) and again that’s very good in that environment (central management but not to the same scale as Corporate). I have attended some of their excellent SMB orientated seminars. But the home version will be such a different beast I couldn’t comment. Bitdefender is Romanian, tin foil hats at the ready.

Eset I have no experience of but have heard good things despite them being Slovakian.

Avira is German, Avast / AVG are Czech, F-Secure is Finnish and Trend Micro is Japanese.

Bullguard is British but it’s founder is Danish.

Mon Dieu!  Ou est La France?

[Dave Rice]

That’s what happens after too much zider.

[Dave Rice]

You need cash to buy all those tin foil hats ?

Ed, I don’t know how much of your assets are liquid but I would suggest for most people it’s a very small percentage. Wealth is tied up in property, things like cars and computers and money in investments and the bank, not under the bed (where it depreciates and has to be handed in now and then for the new fangled plastic notes).

Anyway, I am enjoying my liquid assets tonight after a 7 day working week and another to come.  Amazon will now deliver 20 litres of Weston’s Old Rosie God help me of they ever stock Thatchers Cheddar Valley or Katy As you can see I can get it delivered but it’s not as easy as clicking “Buy now with 1-Click”.

Cheddar Valley is the downfall of many a Bristol student in Freshers week. Looks and tastes like apple juice. What is all the fuss about? they say on pint 3 only to have pint 1 hit half way through…

[Author]

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