[Richard]

I thought that you might be covered for the ‘free entry’ but I only found that existed after I had done most of the other work. It might be of use to some in the future, perhaps even me if I am daft enough to travel that way again.

I hope that it all goes well for everyone. I think I have buried most of mine apart from my brother, his brood of two and my brood with a new one soon to hopefully arrive OK, fingers cross. They are all north of the Thames.

[Richard]

While Ed is correct in saying that you have to pay very quickly you can use cash at a suitable retailer.

This link open up Pandora’s box on the (non) system

https://www.gov.uk/pay-dartford-crossing-charge

Do read the site thoroughly, if you pay no tax on a vehicle for a disabled user it appears that you do not pay to use the crossing.

It appears that with a bit of digging into the single trip charge under ‘pay by cash’ you end up on the PayZone web site, to be fair it is a few lines down and this is the link:

https://www.payzone.co.uk/

Click on the Consumers line and enter the post code of the hotel or whatever and find suitable stores in the area. You can then pay the charge.

I have no idea how the heck you would use a phone to pay.

Note charging only applies between 06:00 and 22:00 hours. I doubt you plan to arrive outside of that time window but you have not experienced the possibilities of congestion or idiot mobile phone thieves travelling the wrong way on the M11 motorway.

Do remember that you also have to pay on the way back and paying for that might be more challenging, I am not sure that you can prepay by cash at a payzone store and payzone stores may or may not not be nationwide for this ‘service’, you could check out your own local area in respect of the return journey before you set out.

At least payment at a payzone store results in a paper receipt to confirm your actions; – provided that the cranky system was working successfully.

It appears that you can prepay on line up to 12 months before travel according to their website, but do not take my word for anything I have said, check it out yourself or ring their 0300 line to cross check.

Good luck, funerals are not fun but remember the good times and points of the deceased and meet old friends and hold a good wake.

E&OE

Richard

[Richard]

I think I used Enterprise a while back for a multi-person vehicle to go to a funeral. The things was well presented, was very economical and drove well, (even though it was a Ford). (My wife had an Escort some years ago it needed new automatic gearboxes more often than a service!) Many years back I hired a Hertz rent a wreck 3 litre Capri, (said it was a long time back) old men on pushbikes were faster than that thing. I guess Hertz economised on servicing costs back then.

You appear to have thought and researched it well. I am a bit surprised that the insurance covers your household stuff once it is out of the house, I thought that is only normal with all risks categories.

Richard

[Richard]

If you do use a removal company check the conditions of their insurance. Normally they will only insure things they have packed and loaded. I do not have any current idea of likely costs, but with loads of stairs at both ends, that could be some hard work for anyone who takes it on. You do have to balance the cost of getting new stuff against the costs of transport. In some cases it may well not be worth the cost and trouble to shift older bulky things that you no longer like. It all comes down to economics in the end. Some companies will quote low to get the business because they are crap and no one likes to use them. Others will quote high because they are already busy and do not really want the hassle. If you do use a mover, make sure you get some recommendations.

Beware some vans are not well kept and can have had nine bells kicked out of them. You do not want wheels falling off in the middle of the motorway with all your wanted stuff on board. Would that hire figure be for a one way hire? A long drag back with an empty van and a repeat trip just to get back to the new home can be a drag.

[Richard]

I will stick my neck out and see if it bring in any responses.

First up is there any possible wiring problem affecting the slow PC?

Frequent re-transmission attempt due to networking errors?

Could there be a driver problem with the driver on the PC being less than perfect?

Could antivirus software be involved at either end checking the data as it leaves or arrives?

A starting to fail disk drive?

Less than optimum packet sizes across the network?

Background programmes competing? (They not might be things you want or use.)

Anyway, that was just a brain dump, others may question my judgement.

Richard

[Richard]

I cannot argue with your comments, one person laughed at the stupidity of the ‘official looking tripe’ but also knew that some would fall for it as you do. The 95 year old was slightly concerned that it was misaddressed as he has no license or car. He was still slightly concerned that bailiffs might be knocking down his door seeking settlement of the mythical claim. Often the mail seeks only to lure people into opening such crap and then the real misery can start.

[Richard]

A late and hopefully closing question.

Question: Why do departments such as the NSA resemble fish?

Answer: Because they both rot from the head.

Hopefully that is something that we can all agree about.

Edited to remove drafting errors

[Richard]

I have never been an active service person. Most of the people with whom I have dealt over the years served in special roles which in many cases bypassed the normal training. Father spent the war blowing things up and dismantled things that might go bang. He operated to very specific rules, basically never leave anyone behind when blowing things up and try not to blow up anyone on the disassembly line! Everyone encountered later operated to the same rules and knew they had to rely on their comrades at all time.

I still make the point, no one should ever be put into a role where they cannot be reliably allowed to operate. Vetting is vital to ensure that is met. Sadly I have to agree that the NSA has been staffed with too many I would not trust to cut the grass in an abandoned field. That was my point all the way through this stupid saga. No one in the NSA ever appeared to yet the job right, from head to toe, and that includes Snowden, who like all of the other failures, should not ever have been employed by the agency.

Sorry, I should have said as far as I was aware Manning was on ‘active service’. Intervention should have happened a long time before he flew so far off the rails. It is one clear case in which deterrence could never work. He needed vastly better HR management – and he should possibly never have been taken on in the fist place.

Should heads roll, yes, have they? Do not bother to look. That is the indefensible bad news, all in one package.

[Richard]

Wow, even my 2008 Dell Vostro 1500 only took the same time to complete the process.

[Richard]

It took twelve minutes for my first machine, others will follow on. ‘Preparing’ took about half the time. The next couple will be slower.

[Richard]

I think Dave is right, this is a link to what I found with a web search:

https://sites.google.com/site/excelforbeginners/Home/vba-codes/clock-with-automatic-refresh

I cannot vouch that it will do the exact task you want as I have not tested it, but maybe there are other examples on the web.

[Richard]

I did not want to place my trust in deterrence alone, I consider that vetting needs to be taken to a whole new consistently high level. Put another way how can you trust the ‘independent’ person unless they have passed a vetting to an acceptable standard? We have seen and heard of so many cases of unsuitable staff gaining access to the keys of the kingdom, Snowden and Manning, (especially the latter who apparently had huge personal issues and needed help not guilt free access to material he should not have been able to access) have been named but what of the unknowns who rifled through the naked snapshots some unwise people had posted them, via something like Yahoo was it not? Several ‘management’ issues arise, how come the large and indeterminate number of people had the access permissions, the time to access and in many cases copy materials for which they should not have had the time, authority and facilities to copy?

I understand your concerns, but I should ask, were those watch-keepers ever vetted, supervised or had action taken for any malfeasance? Were there any access logs and were they ever checked? Did the system have any checks to confirm how many different data sets were being accessed in a short period of time by authority codes that suggested a limited need for such activity at the time. Did anyone even care? Should easy access be provided to display human readable data to such operatives in the first place? I suggest the watch staff were simply gathered on the basis of minimal pay for a usually boring task and one that sadly is frequently not done very well, unchecked back ups that fail, etc.. HR records are usually only accessed for set periods of the day from known job related and defined points.

The sort of live data that I was more used to accumulated constantly during all hours of the day, though it was typically buffered and often batched. It was a rather different animal to HR records anyway. The ‘buffers’ took a range of forms and no one had easy access to them. The more OLTP activities checked data in live form as it streamed into systems and spat out exceptions via dedicated routes according to predefined and vetted triggers, they were not set as a trivial action. Deep scans were more of a batch form and took a whole lot of machine time. In one case I was quoted two full days while nothing else could process. The normal use ran for only about 6 machine hours per day. That study, into machine performance, (nothing personal at all) was at a very detailed level; it was amended!

[Richard]

Ed, I had written a response to your message and was profoundly surprised not to find it listed here, perhaps it was my fingers.

Two points,

1. Anyone, no make that everyone who accesses and uses data without good, authorised cause should be subject to legal action sufficient to ensure no repetition and to discourage anyone else being stupid. I do not care from whence they came or for whom they think they work. I am not sure that I am so committed to requiring Judge scrutiny before that access is authorised. There are many cases in which a primary actor is under legally sanctioned observation but their contacts come into view as a result. Some judgement is required in such cases, a single contact my be vital or of no consequence but so might frequent contact. Should every follow up also be subject to some form of warrant?
2. Thinking that no data will ever be collected or that by locking down your mobile and ‘protecting’ your web access you will stop anyone knowing anything about you is at best naive.

The HMRC project has a huge appetite for data and collects large amounts every second of the day, it is normally machine processed and as far as I know data only becomes accessible to humans if the machine finds doubts. In a way this is better and more confidential than the old system that was processed by humans and existed as far back as the early 1950s and probably before then. I understand that this and other collectors also gather data from such as the credit reference agencies, one would hope that is in part to stop some of the excesses of the loan sharks.

Social, (antisocial?) media is developing software to allow anyone to take a snapshot of a person anywhere and map that to anything and everything found on the media database. Facebook are expressing some limited concerns but I expect this is to make sure they can take their cut.

There are far more cases than just legal and financial, the murky area of medical data is also important. I have family reasons for wanting advanced research into a range of conditions, illnesses and the way to rule out unsuitable treatments. However, we have also withheld agreement to mass collection and dissemination of medical data. There will be times when medical access to such data will be vital, there are other times when research access to data patterns might be of huge value, and yes, both could be affected by our choice. However, the sloppy handling of data is the weakness so yes it should and must be subject to controlled access with heavy penalties for those who breach the access rules. It would be helpful if the screening processes are also vastly improved. Those with mental health issues, those with mixed allegiances, etc. should in my book not be allowed anywhere near such data.  This is something the Americans appear woefully bad at dealing with  at the more intense levels while we allow those whose balance of mind can suffer due to domestic issues and encourage them to track those who should not be tracked, etc.

Where the heck is the active audit alarm system and who the heck is monitoring the alarms. It is all pretty basic stuff when you consider the activity with a moment’s thought. If I was in personal contact with some deviant* character I would certainly expect to be investigated.

*Deviant in this context covers all possible forms from a common fraudster, via terrorist through to the more common use of the term.

This time I hope I post correctly!

 

[Richard]

PlaneMan wrote:

Check how much you actually use of your included allowances, even £10 a month might be a waste of money if you only use a fraction of your allowance.

Wise words, I will be interested in my own results of a one month test, though it might be a slightly unfair test for the moment as movements far from base are limited by current health issues. I suspect users are either in the high consumption group or the low consumption group, with very little between the two.

[Richard]

Jason wrote:

Are you saying that the PC might not be crashing at all and that perhaps the monitor is simply switching off? Or are you saying that the monitor may be causing the PC to crash? If it’s the latter, forget it. No way in a million years will a monitor cause a PC to crash.

Yes, Jason a monitor fault was my thought. When the usual has been cleared the off the wall is all your are left wondering about. It does now sound more and more like some form of monitor issue, though quite what I cannot begin to guess. They can be rather hairy to fault, especially if it is a CRT with big capacitors!

[Richard]

I think you now have to either cut your losses or go very much step by step, (though after my recent car issue I am prejudiced about wiring and contact issues).

Remove the present OS from the scene and a ‘live disk’ CD/DVD/USB could do that for you.

Test memory using one of the OS independent testers would be my early choice step.

Ensure that all devices are fully reseated and that there is no way that heat creep can be causing an issue.

Could it by any distant chance be a problem not with the PC itself but with the display? That could fit the symptoms of losing the visual feedback.

Could the lead have a marginal connection, which fails after a period of use?

Could there by any form of time out that is blanking the screen after a period of time? It appears that the blanking might happen after a couple of hours each time. Of course this could be a problem of either end, does switching the screen off waiting a few seconds and switching it back on bring up the display once more? If so it would appear to be a screen issue.

Good luck, intermittent faults are the bain of our lives and can end up costly.

[Richard]

They do not worry me either, though that is down to not seeing any to date

[Richard]

Richard wrote:

On a similar and completely unrelated subject, I had a second garage look at my troublesome car, they say it was a wiring problem with a worn wire or wires which they have replaced with a new section of loom to replace the faulty issue. I hope so, the computer analysis was never ringing quite true – there is that damned word again – computer. After all the spare parts and labour I hope this is an end to the issues, which on reflection, always sounded and felt more like an electrical issue. than a mechanical one

Well, the car was done and returned on Monday and initially I thought the MPG was pretty awful. On Wednesday I had it washed, then MOTed, then I refuelled it and took it for a bit more of a run. By the time I returned I had achieved and average of 66 mpg, so I guess that the wiring is hopefully fixed and fine at last – or was it all down to washing it and getting an MOT. Trips to my daughter’s charity volunteering had dragged the MPG down a bit but it is still showing well over 60 to the gallon, I think it lives to run again.

As for Les, hopefully all will now be well, I guess we were all nearly right when we suggested hardware, just that most of use thought of other hardware aspects. I was a little surprised that it did not throw any artefacts before it died. My last dying card replaced most of the display with a selection of random squares of colour, which was a darned good hint that the card was ‘not well’.

[Richard]

Is this stupid idea being rolled out slowly? I have never seen any adverts but this could be because I do not use the cloud service of anyone. Could that be the answer?

Richard

[Richard]

The Duke wrote:

The remote control aspect is an Intresting one. I seen a BBC energy doc some years ago now, and the grid had deals with certain companies letting the grid dial back the companies power, (turn down stuff), to ride out shuddered peaks on the grid. I think this is actually great, and a good use of smart appliances. If they could do this, I’d be happy with a smart meter. I see this as a bonus not a con. As the government is turning off more and more energy sites, the grid is getting smaller and smaller,having to lean on the continent for extra boost. But aparently it’s takes time to do (seconds) and in the at time alliance manipulation on a regional scale would be a good thing.e enough long term manipulation may be good.

Steve, the con is the realisation that doing so with large companies who receive incentives and consume large amounts of power is great. The problem is that it is now clear that residential users do not generate any real benefit. They do not have controllable devices and few if any want to have the house rewired for a negligible <1% national benefit.

Do you have a remote control anything, especially a remote control large power consuming device? I don’t, it would be all off or nothing off at all.

[Author]

Posts