DrummerBoy

Timings wrong!! I was at the airport to pick u you up an hour early!!

From what I understand BP had to use entirely US contractors, by US law, and so chose the one who offered the 'best' combination of service and experience. Now most deep sea oil drilling expertese is actually Norwegan or British, as the Yanks like keeping their feet dry, so in this case the 'best' could not be selected form the 'best' available in the world. BP are still responsible and seem to be responding very well to their responsibilities, but they were/are playing by someone else's rules. I particularly like the way the company is not being referred to as 'BP' anymore, but 'British Petroleum', by anyone in the US.

Just emailed mine to ask him why he didn't bother to vote.

I think you're right on that score, but I think this route gives me a good upgrade path. I can get the joy of Quad core straight away, and move up on the graphics card a little later. Then later still it's a AM3 MoBo and DDR3. Don't forget I'm doing all this now, on a P4, and as basic AGP graphics card!!

Checked the website, as the manual has nothing to say about core architectures, except for check the website!! Anyway, other people have used 45nm cores so no issue there. However, after consulting several techy gurus at my place I have found a 3rd (or is it 4th?) way!! Phenom 2 X4 with an AM2+ Mobo. Ican reuse the existing RAM and there is a board with built in Radeon graphics chipset, for £60. I can get toline proc and MoBo for £190 (inc VAT). That maybe the way I'm gonna go. Hits the price/performance point for me.

Some good stuff in here. For what I'm looking at I can get a i5 MB with built in graphics for less than a AM3 MB and an extra graphics card. That might balance up the monies somewhat!! Good point on the processor core type, I'll check the FoxComm manual tonight and see.

I can't remember the exact FoxConn model at the mo, but it was a recommended in PCPro a few years back, and I got it because it was a socket 775 board and supported Core2Duo chips. On the i5 front I guess I'll have to look at saving up some pennies. If I go that route it'll have to be 64bit Windows 7 as well. I'll have to tell Tiny Tim there'll be no Xmas this year.

Damn you all!!! Here's me hoping for a cheap wonder chip!! Seriously though, thanks for the feedback so far.

OK folks, I've done a search, I've even spoken to the mighty DosBox, but I'm still in a bit of a quandry. My main machine at home needs a better engine under the bonnet (Currently on a P4). My options are (ranked in order of cheapness!!): 1) By a Core2Duo (probably e8400) to swap out, keep all other bits (Foxconn MoBo) £110 2) Upgrade Mobo, CPU and RAM to Phenom X4 (prob the 955), and new DDR3 RAM £250-£300ish 3) Upgrade Mobo CPU, and RAM to i5 £350-£400 So, bang for buck terms what's your thoughts? The machine is used to multitrack audio mix down (CuBase); basic video work (although HiDef) with Premiere elements, and the usual email, office type apps. Hit me!!!

Having just upgraded our old AN (or bought a new one as it's also known!!), I can tell you that the SUN SANs are actually Hitachi. We trialled a Hitachi SAN, and it's an excellent piece of kit, but it's the Rolls Royce end of things. We have 13TB and went with a Fibre Channel EMC in the end (we already had EMC so training was a lower overhead). PM me if you want further details as to why we didn't choose the HDS beast (nothing wrong with it BTW!).

I saw the Judge on morning TV and he did make the point that there has never been an instance of a Shikh oulling this knife, and being prosecuted for improper use. He also, quite rightly, pointed out that if it is used illeagally then you get prosecuted. As it stands we do not teach our children how to handle this type of item (their religion does teach them), and if we did teach people resposible handling of 'dangerous' items, we'd have less harm in society from them. We are that risk averse that we can no longer see the wood from the H&S trees. Just my £0.02, flame away!!

Hey Bro, did you not get 'Stand Cam' working? - damn, web page reloaded correctly, and I can see all now!!

Perhaps I should have titled it 'Domemstic Goddess Wanted'??

Cheers Bro. The existing wireless solution works but is too slow for streaming media, hence the proposed new solution.

Dear All, I've not been happy with the performance of my home wireless network, and am looking at alternatives. I will keep the wireless aspect for laptops (4 in our house), but I have 2 main hubs of IT gear in the house. 1) Main group by the TV downstairs comprising of a Vista MCPC, XBox 360, Bluray player and Netgear 824g router. 2) Upstairs office, main Vista PC, NAS (Icybox), and 2 printers connected to a Netgear 606 wireless print server/hub. It's the connection between the 2 sites I am not happy with. I am thinking of replacing the wireless link between the 2 with a Main Ethernet system (perhaps the new Belkin powerline stuff Belkin Powerline HD Gigabit mains Ethernet adaptor ? Register Hardware). I would want to keep the 606 just as a print server/switch, but not use it's wifi bits. Does this seem like a plan, or am I missing something obvious?

I have to say we are a Dell shop and they tend t be very competative on pricing. Our Dell Blade chassis's are coming up on 5 years old, and never had a failure yet (touch wood). We've been pricing up a replacement of late and found the following: IBM - Expensive HP - Not looked at Dell - Pricing OK, but not as good as it used to be. As regards SAN's we have an EMC SAN that connects to the Dell Blades with no problems, and I can't see why there would be a problem unless the HBA (if you go fibre) adaptors are none standard.

it wouls be great to work for an organisation with that kind of ethos. The problem is (over here, not the US) over regulation of the job market, and employment laws. In the US (I know as I work for a US ownded comapny and have visted their offices) if you took the p*ss witht he rules you would be down the road ina heart beat. Over here, the emplyer would be pushed to get rid of someone who 'retired on the job'. Most people wouldn't do this, but the odd one or two who would can kill (literally) a comapny, esp a smaller organisation. Also don't forget most US (as these policies read as if they are from US companies) companies only offer 2 weeks vacation a year, so they are probably thinking that extreme people would maybe take 3 weeks!!

Another thing about this is that most people who would be hit by this tax do not live, or vote, in the towns and cities where there will be charges, so you coulddn't even vote out the party concerned at the next election!! Also a parking space is not really a benefit in kind, If so then the next logical step is to tax your desk, your provided IT equipment and so on. And what's the betting that the council workers are exempt from charges, as well as 'essential workers'. Heck if my taxes pay for nurses, aren't I essential for providing that service? And councils wonder why the centre of cities are emptying of shops and out of town retail and business parks are flourishing!! Let's face it all authority in the UK hates cars and drivers, but don't have the guts to say it outright. My company wanted to move premises this year, but couldn't find new accomodation due to Johnny 2 Jags rules on parking spaces and square footage. As an IT knowledge company we have staff who travel up to 50 miles each way every day, but can't have enough spaces without buying twice as muach square footage as needed. Funny, when the NHS took over the bottom 2 floors of the building we are currently in there was no problem in providing loads of spaces for them. Politics, bah humbug!!!

This just seemsto be another look at us we're doing something, that is actually nothing, policy by the government. The reason being given for this new check is the Ian Huntley case. Which, the inquest concluded, happended because the existing rules weren't applied. I can appreciate people wanting to safeguard children, but they are under less risk today, from preadatary adults, than they ever have been, especially with public hysteria where it is. In addition the type of checks this entails, also will mean people can be failed for having unproved allegations against them. Start of a McCarthy style witch hunt???

We've used the Google (and other) clouds for development testing, all very good. However, if you are looking at putting information that falls under the Data Protection Act up there, don't. You have no say in which country the cloud servers reside. No means of audit on backups etc. Let's be careful out there folks!! The 'Cloud' seem to be marketed as a something for nothing system, which there not, as the rules of economics kick in at some point. Good idea for certain things, but sys admins do need to thoroughly think things through first.

Data protection goes to new heights in ensuring the privacy of each child in the classroom, by blanking their features.

If you are legally allowed to copy/transcode a DVD then Magic DVD Ripper works well. It will also transcode DVDs into MPG, and other formats.

we use Bond villains, and are moving to Comic Book baddies, as we've run out of Bond villains:D

Don't know if this would help, but we use SugarCRM here (commercial organisation), and there is an IT asset management plug-in available for that that also includes software licensing, and it's all open source!! Also has case and bug handling in the product as well. Just read Dos_Box's comment above. I know this stuff is not stand alone, but I have managed to install it, as it has a good install package. WAMP/LAMP stack is what's needed. And I found a link to the software I was talking about: http://www.sugarforge.org/projects/ithelpdesk/

Interesting question. Analogue in the real world would be is it legal to enter someone's home if they leave the door unlocked?