[Dave Rice]

I don’t sell through them any more after bad experiences. I pulled an expensive item the day before it ended as no bids. Someone complained and E-Bay accused me of trying to sell goods I didn’t have and banned me from PayPal. The person who complained bought loads of other stuff on sale at the same time and said to me he’d been daft not to just put a fiver on it earlier.

Mind you had he done so Tim was waiting in the wings in Spain to make sure it didn’t go for that ?

[Dave Rice]

Yes Windows is a PITA but I’ve spent the day setting up Ubuntu servers in the Cloud  (more on that later) and there’s no way I could have done what I’ve done on my own and I do know my way around to some extent. You need to know what you’re doing whatever os you choose.

Windows 7 is now the equivalent of Ubuntu 9.04, perhaps if you kept as up to date on Windows versions as you do Linux? Us Windows after 7 users haven’t been messing about with keys for 6 years or so.

[Dave Rice]

You don’t need a sim card to connect to your WiFi. You should be able to click past where you are.

[Dave Rice]

Drez – PM me with a price for the G6. Just waiting to be paid for my last last 3 jobs, then I’ll have some disposable ?

Bob- got this Dash Cam for a CCTV customer and his son likes it so much he’s nicked it. Only £29 (+ SD card) SVMUU Full 1080p HD on Amazon. Does the same job as the others from what I can see. Picture quality is fine. If the Mrs wants one this is what I’ll get.

[Dave Rice]

It happens to them all.

[Dave Rice]

Are they not off in Google land rather than being on the phone?

[Dave Rice]

Just thought I’d look up Tonido (Personal Cloud) again. There is a version for the RPI now, I will investigate when I get time.

However I think it’s more of a folder sync via a server than a pure network file share, like One Drive or Dropbox.

[Dave Rice]

Daughter back from Bangor for a few days, changed trains at Newport and WhatsApp’d me to complain about the cold. \It is bloody freezing here with this horrible light drizzle.

Already planned as Man in the High Castle binge with the kids tomorrow while the Mrs goes out on a Halloween 10K. Lebkuchen on offer at Tescos, they won’t last the day.

[Dave Rice]

My blog here https://forumite.co.uk/raspberry-pi-file-server/

 

[Dave Rice]

In order of features and price: G6 Play – G6 – G6 Amazon Special – G6+

Doesn’t help with battery life as the more features (especially bigger screens) the more power is used.

These days I usually get a day and a half out of everything which’ll do me, but I’m not a heavy user. Maps – directions seems to be my battery killer.

Portable power banks are so cheap now I keep one in the backpack. Picked one up at Lidl for £15 a month ago, no idea of the mAh but it’ll charge my G5 more than twice and does so @ turbo 3 amps. It has a read out of charge left as well. MyMemory have a Ren Pal Monster 26000mAh for £18, bought one a while ago to power my WiFi test kit but the daughter “borrowed” it.

[Dave Rice]

I forget what Les does for backup, but I know we’ve spoken about it before. NAS are great if you do file sharing or have a business to run (indeed I think essential for the latter).

One thing I do with old 2.5″ spinners is get a sub £10 USB 3 enclosure for them and give them back to the customer together with an EaseUS (free) backup schedule on their device. It’s up to them if they remember to plug the thing in but at least I now there’s been 1 full system backup ?

[Dave Rice]

I’m looking for a around £200 phone too, my trusty G4 is showing screen burn in plus I’d quite like NFC now too.

99% sure I’ll be going for the G6 and probably spend the extra £30 on the Amazon dual sim / 4Gb / 64GB version and the Spigen carbon fibre bumper case.

[Dave Rice]

Totally agree with all of that, everyone is different. But I can only of course speak for my own circumstances with regards the solution we went for.

It’s a minefield out there and you need an FA not only for guidance but also to access products you can’t on your own – or even know of the existence of.

[Dave Rice]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Your relationship with your FA will probably not be anything like you think it will be. You won’t be bombarded with unit trusts etc. The funds I invest in do all that, as I mentioned the fund will be invested in scores of things, it’s the fund management that do all the technical stuff.</p>
I think you should at least talk to one, there is no commitment. They cannot sign you up to anything there and then, legally there’s heaps of stuff to go through first.

[Dave Rice]

Apart from specialist uses, spinners are dead. I am even moving beyond 2.5″ SSDs now to M2 models (they sit in a socket on the mobo) as having built a PC with one I can see how much faster they are again.

The last laptop I bought for a customer was a Lenovo V330 with a Core i5-8250U (4 cores, 8 threads, 3.4Ghz), 8GB RAM, and a 256GB M2 SSD (£519). I want one!

Once these 8th generation CPUs start making their way into the SFF barebones world you really will have pocket rockets behind your monitor(s). Some 7th Gen even now have 2 x HDMI Iris graphics and up to 32GB ram.

[Dave Rice]

Re the 25% lump sum, you’ll probably be advised to take it. Once explained it makes sense.

1. If you get run over by a bus your family will have it not the pension company.
2. You’ll be surprised how little it adds to the monthly payout.
3. You can invest it and make it work for you and not the pension company.

My 25% has been far better off in my hands. The interest it’s made is way more than the difference in pension income, although I haven’t need to touch it.

The thinking behind my investments is capital growth for 5 to 10 years then look at getting an income from it. But who knows what will happen between now and then and as I mentioned nothing is locked in. Lighthouse keep an eye on all the managed funds at a high level and there is a regular newsletter.

There are many, many different funds at different risk levels invested in different sectors and geographical locations. That is what Lighthouse look at and advise their advisers accordingly. The Aviva app gives you pie charts of exactly what your fund(s) invest in (it will be scores of things) and where, who manages it (with a potted CV) and what the aim of the fund is i.e. long term capital growth. Then there’s charts of performance over 1 month, 3 months, 1 year, 3 years and 5 years. As you’d expect, you also see how much your initial investment was and what it is worth now.

This is a longer term affair, not gambling on stocks over a short period so there is little point in watching the movements up and down. I am of the “don’t buy a dog then wag your own tail” school of thought, so once the course of action has been agreed I trust the adviser to know far better than I if action is needed. So far all that’s been is annual moving funds from a “joint bucket” into individual ISA wrappers in line with our different risk strategies. That’s now complete and all the interest is now tax free when we come to take it.

Never having had any savings it’s quite easy for me to not be tempted to touch anything, I forget it’s there most of the time. The same goes for owning the house.

EDIT – there are specific products aimed at passing money onto the kids, or saving for university or a house etc. That’s where you really do need a good FA to advise on the pluses and minuses of all these strategies. My adviser doesn’t make commission on the products he advises on – he doesn’t “sell” anything. He made an initial 3% setting things up and another 1% annually to manage the investments (it drips out monthly) which is totally optional. It might seem like money for old rope but like me he earns his crust when things go wrong, which is just when you need it. All the figures I see are after everyone has had their bit, there are no hidden fees anywhere.

Nothing will happen until you have been through loads of assessments and had them thoroughly explained to you. This is not the man from the Pru.

[Dave Rice]

I can’t help thinking this would all be easier with WiFi instead of copper cables.

[Dave Rice]

I went through the same 3 years ago. When it comes to the tax bit of final salary pensions, my experience is an accountant says talk to an FA and vice versa. Neither was prepared to commit to an absolute answer but reading the blurb from HMRC I worked out I would be under the limits.

I knew I needed financial advice, but who to trust? In the end I decided to trust the Union (Unite) and I got a free consultation with my local Lighthouse Financial Solutions adviser. They do a lot with the Unions and it’s what attracted my adviser to become part of them when leaving the banking world to go out on his own.

They have been absolutely brilliant and my 25% lump sums and the left overs from the redundancy have been properly invested in funds you just cannot get access to yourself. I have full real time online access to all the investments, they’re all brought into one place by an app run by Aviva. They also got me a much better deal on the pension I had to sort out myself.

You will need to undergo an assessment to determine your attitude to risk before any investments are made. Everything is fully explained and you do not make out any cheques to your adviser. In the last 3 years I have averaged 8% after all commissions have been paid and it’s now all in ISAs – split between myself and my wife to get the maximum tax advantage – and in 3 different schemes (my wife has a more cautious attitude to risk than me – mines not high though – and hers is doing better)! This year is not going to be brilliant, but it’s all about 5 year + performance. My wife’s fund has achieved 16.7% over the rolling last 5 years.

There is no way I could have done this myself and hearing others experience I feel I am getting a much better deal than them. I am as informed as I want to be – there is no point watching them go up and down – and the Aviva app gives you a full break down of each fund and it’s performance over time. Whilst I have an annual review I can contact my adviser at any time. I can also withdraw 100% of the investments any time I like too, there is no lock in.

So my advice is if you have a Union, ask them for a referral. If not give Lighthouse a ring.

[Dave Rice]

The older Celerons, probably not. The Silver Pentium I’d like to get my hands on. The i5, especially with an M2 SSD, will be very nice indeed.

[Dave Rice]

Not bought a new Brix for ages, but yes the Celerons were a bit underpowered but an SSD went a long way to negate that. I’ve used laptops with the same i3 CPU / chipsets and they’ve been fine, as have the AMD quad core equivalents.

Funnily enough I was only looking at them on the weekend, thinking they may be a solution for Les. The £150 Intel Nuc June Canyon NUC7PJYH Pentium J5005 caught my eye. It may say Pentium but Intel have been bumping names around again, however it does have the performance of the once legendary Q6600!

Is the I3 worth £120 more? I doubt it. If I was spending north of £250 I’d go straight for the £299 Asus VivoMini UN65U Intel i5-7200U and an M2.

[Author]

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