woah

Plus they've either been repainted in the past year in the new livery, or getting repainted at the moment so they're looking tidier. Plus the fares are now in line with Stagecoach.

Still lots of improvements for First to do but much better than they were this time last year.

Looks like a very nasty crash, the road is shut between Lister Avenue and Fox Lane - I'd avoid the area if you can. Several police cars and ambulances, as well as two fire engines.

Trams will be terminating at Gleadless Townend and Birley Lane I imagine too, one is stuck at White Lane tram stop in Halfway direction at the moment.

Personally, I would say on somewhere like eBay, probably £150 to £170 quid - I'd make sure you have some good pictures of it if you're selling it online and use a utility like Speccy to get the specifications as accurate as possible.

Having made some telephone calls I am told that " Real " time information at bus stops in Sheffield is only running at a 4% of all the bus stops in the city.

 

This of course does not include the Supertram stops, which is the only modern tram network in the UK that does not have any " real " time infomation at its stops

The real time information is at most city centre stops now as well as all the bus interchanges (except Crystal Peaks) - it's also in some areas such as Broomhill but considering the buses that serve that area are so frequent it seems a bit pointless!

Trams don't have it I don't think, but they are generally very reliable time-wise anyway because they can often cut through traffic.

Glad to see it's getting a bit of TLC, though I think perhaps it would have looked better if they put some new street furniture and plants in on the grassy areas to make it a nicer place to walk around as well. I lived near there for 10+ years and the problem with the big problem with that pond is the morons who will never ever stop chucking litter in it.

Perhaps some money could go towards the Community Centre as well, which is dismal old place which hasn't changed since the 1950s - and it is really underused as a result. It'd certainly be a better place to hold classes and other meetings than that leaky old garden shed they call a library!

Does anyone remember that opticians on Broomhill. It had a small automaton optician that they would dress up in various different outfits.

They did, and it still lives on in Timpsons in town - the one on High Street next to Natwest and TJ Hughes.

These are decent cars and diesel will help with the fuel costs. You can see there are three fully sized seats in the rear so so car seats should be fine:

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201246492190609/sort/default/make/RENAULT/model/SCENIC/postcode/s123hr/radius/30/fuel-type/diesel/price-to/3000/onesearchad/used%2Cnearlynew%2Cnew/advert-type/featured-listing/dealer/416826/usedcars?logcode=flp

I should imagine so, they were open Christmas Eve. I use JustEat so look on there to see which places are open and order it that way if you're unsure.

Why can't we use debit and credit cards on buses? The contactless technology should make this simple enough.

I suspect it will happen in the future - London has just introduced it and both Stagecoach and First have replaced all their ticket machines recently (Stagecoach a couple of years ago, First a few months ago) to accept smart cards. I'm not sure thought if they are compatible with the NFC contactless technology though, or whether the current OAP and other passes use NFC.

At the very least I'm sure they could introduce a smart card like the Oyster card in London which simply debits fares from your bank account or offers discounted monthly tickets that are automatically topped up. Stagecoach do have such a thing but it's not very good because you can only top it up with week tickets etc. manually - there's no real advantage over the paper ticket.

I am with the Yorkshire Bank and have been for over 30 years and have never had a problem with them. If I want to pay in I just use the drop in box inside, straight in and out. If I want to draw out I use the cash point. On the odd occasion where I need to see the teller its less than five minutes wait. I don't see any problem. Maybe you have had one bad experience, who knows?

I've since moved to Natwest - and I have two branches near to me, instant deposit machines so the money goes in instantly without any service queues, much friendlier service too. They also provide you with a Visa Debit card rather than Maestro which a number of online websites don't accept.

The Saturday service is essential when you work somewhere Monday-Friday that isn't near a Yorkshire Bank, because otherwise - when am I supposed to do my banking?

I don't think Yorkshire Bank are terrible but I do wish they'd open on Saturday at least. They must be the only high street bank that still don't.

I wouldn't be surprised if they're shut. They're a hopeless bank, they offer nothing special and they must be the only bank left in the world that will not open any of it's branches on Saturdays. It's not like the staff are quick and efficient Monday-Friday either.

I don't watch it all the time, but there's usually reports and bits from Sheffield, they have a couple of reporters based in Sheffield/Barnsley after all. A lot better than they used to be!

No point in sinking to Star levels of news though when there's more important stuff going off elsewhere in the region.

There are the recycling sites across Sheffield, however you'll need to phone them beforehand if you're bringing a tall vehicle because they have a height restriction - to stop companies dumping vast amounts of rubbish on a regular basis.

I went there once and found it rubbish - and I'm not picky with restaurants. Food is nothing special, and portions are pretty small and very expensive.

I was very against Windows 8 but I've taken the plunge and upgraded anyway. It's something you do get used to and it's actually better - both the OS and the new interface. The final version is far better than the previous test releases. It's definitely more enjoyable with a touch screen though which unfortunately I don't have.

It's still going to annoy a lot of people and it's going to throw a lot of people when they use it - but there are some significant performance improvements and there is a lot of potential in the new Metro UI and apps. It's not perfect though and I'm sure there are plenty of improvements to be made, I think there has to be a better way of integrating desktop apps for a start.

It is a very big ask - there's this:

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/toshiba-satellite-c870-11g-refurbished-17-3-laptop-13985316-pdt.html

Which is pretty close to 750GB - but the processor isn't exactly mind blowing. You'd want to spend £15 upgrading to Win8 too if you really do want that.

I'd say you'd be better looking around the £400 mark minimum for something with a decent processor.

EDIT: Take a look at this too, would also need upgrading to Windows 8 but is better value because of smaller screen:

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/hp-pavilion-g6-1302ea-refurbished-15-6-laptop-red-17291939-pdt.html

Got to love the Star - posting an article about this girl, appealing for information about her whereabouts, at 1pm this afternoon

What a hopeless excuse for a newspaper it is..

Has anyone seen any progress or opening date for this place? I work nearby so wouldn't mind a wander round - but don't want to go out of my way to find it's not open yet!

Not quite; I've had to fix laptops where the drivers for the trackpad had been uninstalled and it no longer functioned. The keyboard however.. never seen a laptop needing keyboard drivers. Seen some that needed drivers for extra keys (like multimedia buttons), but even without the drivers the basic keyboard still worked.

Ah right - I've seen laptop trackpads happily working on blank Windows installations - perhaps it's certain trackpads which are troublesome then!

I think it's definitely a hardware fault by the way - make sure you tell them you've done a factory reset.

Hi, a couple of month ago I got a new laptop but now the keyboard or track pad won't work, I took it back to the shop and they said its a problem with the software... And because its a software failure and not a hardware the 12month warranty doesn't count.. Are they right and ill have to pay to get it fixed or are they just fobbing me off??

 

Any advise or any ideas with what's the problem is welcome !!

What a load of rubbish. A built in trackpad should work fine even if the official drivers aren't installed and same goes for the keyboard. It is almost certainly a hardware problem and even if it isn't, it's not your fault. Take it back and tell them to get it sorted!

I always thought all the catch up channels were already available through Sky, we have VM and they have always been on it...

They've always had Sky stuff and a few rubbish bits from other digital channels - but only recently have we gotten the 'full fat' ITV Player and now we are getting BBC and Channel 4 catch up too, finally..

iPlayer is launching on Sky in two days time - so very soon!

__________

Alternatively try Google Chrome as an internet browser, personally I much prefer it - it has Flash Player built in and updates everything itself.