Afilsdesigne

Dunkirk in France started a free bus service last September: https://www.france24.com/en/20190831-france-dunkirk-free-transportation-bus-success-climate-cities Results are encouraging so they say. Whilst we must do something about air pollution, C02, plastic etc, I'm not convinced electric cars are the answer. They take up too much space in a traditional car format and will simply keep our roads permanently congested with diesel powered HGVs and the like continuing to pollute our air. The future is probably a combination of personal electric vehicles (chariots er mobility scooters, ebikes, skateboads or the like) combined into a high speed backbone system capable of integrating into any existing congested space. A variant of NASA's skyTran would seem to be the obvious choice: https://www.skytran.com/ . If this system was run as a free public service with a personal vehicle integration system to offer true end to end capability over a 150mph backbone, then it could conceivably work rather well. Of course we are a very long way from anything as joined up as this!

I've had the hack installed for ages and it has always worked fine. Thanks MS for the news ! Is there a similar hack for Windows 7?

As a young teenager, my mum wouldn't let me have an air rifle, so I got a 14lb proper longbow instead with two arrows. My first mistake was to pull the string back too far and managed to shoot myself in the hand - ouch. The next thing was to go on the local field and shoot straight up. I realised immediately this was stupid and ran like the clappers. The arrow came down quite a long way away and I aimed at it with my second arrow. Broke the first clean in half.

"Another option for backup is cloud storage" - Posted by TheNugget. This is very true and you can get lots of cloud space relatively cheap these days. My issue with this though is security. Once data, any data has left your property and hit the Internet, you lose control over it. Data is stored in multiple locations and travels over fibre networks that we already know are routinely intercepted by GCHQ and the rest (thanks Mr S). Now you may have 'nothing to hide' but do you mean this literally? Once AI gets working on your data, any concept of privacy is long gone. You may encrypt your data, but given the tools available to government hackers, or even advertising companies, will you risk this? Far far better to have a NAS to store all your stuff locally. The only real issues with this are fire and keeping the data offline to avoid virus (Bitlocker) type data attacks. Put the NAS in an outbuilding (warm and dry) and you should be fine.

I guess it depends on what you want to achieve. I run a small business from home and data is important to us. The ASUS RT16N served well for many years but just ran out of steam so it got replaced by an ASUS RT-AC86U which is quite a high spec (not to mention expensive) router. The reasons for buying this were, in the end, quite simple. All our date is routed via a VPN (VPNac) both for security and to circumvent geolocation issues so we can research data from within other countries. The router has a dual processor that will, on a VirginMedia 108Mb download link, sustain some 100Mb throughput through the VPN which is fast. The router has been flashed with Merlin software which works very well. Doing this allows you to use your ISP box as a pure modem for the highest speeds. WiFi coverage seems OK with the 86U serving a couple of streaming HD TVs (not simultaneously though), a printer, a laptop and a couple of wired connections too, though I would always recommend using wired connections wherever possible. After two months of hard use, the 86U has not missed a beat. Even watching live TV from an Australian VPN connection worked fine with only a couple of breaks. We have a wired NAS connected as well (Zyxel) which is only powered up when we want to do a data save. Keeping it offline avoids any Bitlocker or virus issues interfering with the stared data.

My last ASUS MB lasted four years and died (no boot) last September which was very unfortunate. The one previous (another ASUS) lasted well over 10 years. My current MB is a Gigabyte (bought in haste). The question about hardware and OS compatibility becomes irrelevant if you use virtualisation software. My current setup runs Linux (Fedora 29 XFCE) and has Virtualbox installed. This allows me to run XP, Win7, 8, 10 all at once if I choose. XP is useful because it has all our older PCB and Coreldraw designs whereas Win 7 is probably the best OS. W10 is way too intrusive but it still works OK. With a decent processor and plenty of RAM, the virtualised OSs run just the same (and as fast) as normal. A large shared drive allows all OSs to share files with the bonus that Linux can delete any file Windows decides is un-deletable. Backing the share drive up to an ext4 formatted disk gives security and no access to Windows (so it can't mess the files up). This setup may be a little more complicated but it IS bombproof!

When I first started work, travel was by subsidised bus and cost 9p if I remember correctly. The buses were packed, ran on time and were quite reliable though low tech and overcrowded. I for one wasn't keen on bus fares being subsidised by the ratepayer but will concede some decades later that I was wrong. If the model had been properly funded, people would have continued to use public transport as it was far cheaper than car ownership, especially if the system had been expanded, improved and made better. Now we have clogged roads, bad air, frustrated drivers and hardly any joined up public transport with little prospect of anything changing the dynamic. Yet we can plainly see the projection of what we currently have leading to total gridlock. We need a viable alternative and fast. With a rising (and ageing) population, car ownership, especially in the cities is going to become non-viable through gridlock rising costs and pollution. With the rise of Internet shopping, delivery vans are going to choke the roads even more. We need a completely different model and we need it installed before the Nice principles arrive by default as they surely will. The only truly sustainable transport models are the bicycle, Horse and two legs. So what can we do to have minimal impact? It seems to me the only viable 'solution' to any of this is a truly modern public transport system that gets you from A to B quickly, cheaply and safely. whilst having minimal environmental impact With an ageing population, simplicity is a requirement too. How to do this in our already overcrowded and busy cities is a real challenge and one that demands a high tech modern solution. After polishing up the crystal ball, the obvious 'solution' is personalised one or two seat electric vehicles (mobility scooter derivative possibly) that integrate into a skyTran derivative (NASA design) to give true high speed door to door travel, even for the elderly. Given a sufficiently large network and overseen by AI this could revolutionise travel and would fit, relatively inexpensively, into the most congested places. Being a suspended monorail it will be weatherproof, not to mention union proof. Small electric vehicles travelling to and from access points on the network could transform our roads and, depending on cost, radically transform air quality, especially if these networks were used at night for transporting goods around. Anything remotely resembling this is decades away though, so, gridlock it is!

Hi Crosser, I got totally fed up with Windows around four years ago after years spent fighting bugs and failures. Unfortunately, some programs (and historical files for the business) needed Windows to run them so it became a little bit more complicated for us. After much research, we took the plunge and installed Fedora Linux XFCE (now on version 26). We did this because Fedora is well known as a good platform to run virtualisations from. Using Virtualbox, you can run any OS just as though it was installed normally, except that you can always have the basic install as a container. This works as a complete OS backup so despite any crashes, you can always get back to where you were over a tea break. Linux has been almost bombproof though an update did crash it once. However, Clonezilla (backup software) soon fixed that. One really good advantage of this setup is that you can share drives across Linux and any containers (each contains an OS, say Win7, XP and Win10). Linux allows you to remove stubborn files that Windows won't let go of. Excellent! Was it difficult? No not really though you will need patience and the ability to search out answers to questions on forums. Yes Linux is very different and it took a few weeks for the business to catch up but I wouldn't change back now. My days of buying or recommending MS products are over!! There are many different 'flavours' of Linux so it will take time to find the one that suits you best. Make a list of what matters and then try to match it as best you can. We have an old IBM laptop used for Internet access purposes only that Ubuntu MATE has just restored to full working operation again (was XP) so some trial and error will be needed. Good luck!

Over the years, I've had countless issues with Microsoft products to the point where I don't use them now unless on a virtualised platform. The sheer amount of frustration and wasted time made me realise just how important bare metal restores were. By that, I mean the ability to switch off a machine, throw in a rescue CD and totally rebuild everything from scratch over a calming cuppa. I've got the same for Linux too (using Clonezilla). So, whilst I can't help with your specific problem, I can tell you how to avoid future ones! Get the machine running and to a level you are happy with and then back it up. Save your backups in a safe place and offline, maybe a NAS drive but make sure the restore program can see them. To be confident about the process, destroy the Operating System and do a full restore. Once working, you will be relatively immune to MS nonsense and will abuse your PC with utter contempt! It really helps to have the OS on a small fast C: drive and all your work and programs on a much larger D: drive, again, fully backed up to NAS.

Quite agree with you Dude111. Indeed our family were talking about this only a couple of days ago. We had a Hoover Constellation vacuum cleaner that lasted at least 20 years before we gave it away to a friend who used it some more. Built to last from real metal, it looked like a round spaceship, was well engineered to float on a cushion of air and had the ability to turn from a vacuum to an air blower by sticking the pipe into the air outlet. Brilliant design and much missed. The problem these days is finding anything of any quality to buy as most of it is cheap foreign plastic junk!

So in the conditional formatting box: Use Formula is and use the formula =B1="A" with the format result set to bold. Works for A and a on my version of Excel. So you are missing the = sign off the front of your formula.

I guess it all depends upon your credit history these days as to where the best loans can be found. Given a half decent record, ZOPA would be my first choice for a loan. This is a peer to peer setup where people with money to spare, lend it out to borrowers at a respectable interest rate, cutting out the greedy banks, rather than the 1000% or worse via TV adverts (that's why they can afford the advertising fees)!

Many years ago, I went to the trouble of taking an advanced driving course. It was a revelation and transformed my driving habits. The advice on using indicators was plain and was common sense and was simply: Use indicators to tell people what you intend to do. If there is nobody around, you don't have to indicate, but you still can if you wish. The whole point is to be actively scanning around for situations, potential hazards and anything that might threaten your safety and be in a position to react by giving yourself adequate time.

It's really rather easy but needs focus on your part. Think about what you are trying to sell and then look at the products from the perspective of someone trying to find them by searching on the internet. What specific words would you use to find your specific product. Eliminate all the fluff and focus on descriptive words that are associated specifically with your product. Include the exact product name/number too. I found this worked very well for my stuff.

You could all save up and register your own website at (say) mumsinneed.co.uk This address is still available and would cost you peanuts to maintain it. Then, you get the option to have your own email addresses, say Sue@mumsinneed.co.uk or maybe enquiries@mumsinneed.co.uk Whatever you want. You don't even have to use the website and could leave it blank if you wished, or, use a ready made template and have your own website at mumsinneed.co.uk