LosOjos

Do you absolutely need RAID? the reason I ask is if you're using Windows 8, Storage Spaces are great: Storage Spaces: FAQ - Windows Help

It would work, but I still think my way is tidier and easier to maintain seriously though, using the last script I posted will work for any programs simply by editing the last line - no need to worry about editing in multiple places. I have so many scripts I use and adapt daily, I try to make it as difficult as possible for a typo to throw me off!

Right you are! OK, even more condensed version: @ECHO OFF IF DEFINED ProgramFiles(x86) SET _programs=%ProgramFiles(x86)% ELSE SET _programs=%ProgramFiles% "%_programs%\SIMS\SIMS .net\pulsar.exe"

I can see the grid lines in all of those... Perhaps you just need to increase the contrast on the monitor?

That's what my script does Vik There's no 'else' in BAT scripts, but the two 'IFs' in that script achieve the same effect EDIT: there are 'ELSE' statements - thanks @vikpaw!

Just thought I'd share this, a tidier way of achieving the same with less repetition (note there's no check for SIMS.net's existence now, but the resulting error would alert you to that anyway): @ECHO OFF IF DEFINED ProgramFiles SET _programs=%ProgramFiles% IF DEFINED ProgramFiles(x86) SET _programs=%ProgramFiles(x86)% "%_programs%\SIMS\SIMS .net\pulsar.exe"

Word of mouth mainly; I find providers vary so much by area I'm better off asking the locals who they use and if they're happy. Tricky as I don't know many round my way and those I do are generally 60+ and not fussed how fast their BB is, but I'm sure a few chats down the local pub will turn something up!

That's my problem - I went from Virgin's true fiber connection at ~30Mbps on the basic package to Sky's poor excuse for a 'fiber' connection (IMO, they shouldn't be allowed to advertise FTTC as a fiber connection, it seems damn unfair to the true fibre connection providers!)

Not sure yet, it all comes to us via BT OpenReach so theoretically we'll get the same speed regardless of who we go with, so I'll go with whoever has the best general ratings in the area

I consider that a problem!

Swedish hacker finds 'serious' vulnerability in OS X Yosemite - News - Macworld UK Thought I'd share; no details on the flaw yet but be vigilant; I feel the name 'rootpipe' might be enough of a clue for malicious hackers to find this one before the proposed fix deadline of January.

I'm on Sky FTTC, absolute carp. When it was first installed, I got 20Mbps, which I was happy with. Week two: 17Mbps Week three: 15Mbps Then, we had a major fault, the entire phone line died. Took 10 days to get it back up and running. Since then, speed has never topped 8Mbps. I have contacted Sky multiple times, always for the same round of troubleshooting followed by sweet FA. Wouldn't send an engineer. Last week, we managed to get an engineer out to look at the Sky satellite dish, while he was there two of his colleagues turned up, one happened to be a BB engineer so I told him about my problems and he very kindly took a look for me (he could have said no, he wasn't there to look at the BB). He told me there was absolutely no record on my account of line problems (I have chat logs proving I contacted them 3 times on Twitter, no recorded calls unfortunately) and that he had no requested my line be retrained. Have to wait until Monday to see if it's helped; so far, no change. My contract is up in January and I'm long gone!

I don't think so, but we get our access via a deal with LA so not 100% sure. It's my understanding that it's just an update and in fact FFT Live will no longer be updated, so on that basis I'd have thought access is covered by existing contract. The SIMS add-on (which it sounds like you purchased) simply automates the import of FFT data rather than you doing it manually from a spreadsheet upload I think.

Either contact their previous schools and ask them or wait for FFT Aspire to launch later this month (supposedly this week in fact...), when we should be able to request any student's FFT data using their UPN. there's more info here: http://www.edugeek.net/groups/data-managers/521-when-does-fft-update-new-year/

I had a Yodel driver forge a signature and make out the parcel had been signed for by a teenage lad at my property. I informed them that if there was a teenage lad at my property, I wanted a full description to file a break-in report with the police and that if he had indeed signed for it, it seemed very odd that he then left the parcel in the middle of my drive in the rain. I even have copies of the forged documents (managed to get these from staff at Yodel collection centre, as I had actually already arranged to collect the parcel by this point after 3 failed attempts at delivery!) and photographic evidence, all sent to company HQ. Didn't even get an acknowledgment, let alone apology.

I've not picked up the camera for any "serious" photography in getting on for 12 months. I really ought to get back in to it, I used to really enjoy it. These are a couple of my personal favorites:

Yeah totally agree and I guess this is another point in which I differ from many modern gamers*, I still value a good story mode or local multiplayer far above online mutiplayer. Again, having a young family means my gaming time is restricted to short bursts over the week with the occasional all night stint if I'm really in to a game (and have the energy) - really can't be fussed sitting wasting time in lobbys! Titanfall worried me - whenever a game does as well as that did, you're bound to get imitators, I just hope the industry doesn't decide that total lack of offline play was what made it a success! * at least, that's the impression you'd get from the severe lack of decent length singleplayer games and local multiplayer games (on PC at least)

Not necessarily. I buy a lot more indie games than AAA as I find there's a lot more variation in indie titles, and I'm more likely to buy a new release indie title as the price is generally much lower. Transistor for instance - fantastic game, £15 brand new. Had it been made by a AAA studio, it'd have been £40, no way would I pay that so I'd have waited for a sale when it dropped below £20 to buy it. It's swings and roundabouts - on the one hand, buying new releases maximizes profits and gives AAA publishers the impression that X type of game sells, so you keep getting X. Buying DLC gives the impression you're happy to buy DLC, so they'll keep releasing DLC. If they notice that their titles sell as well or better as GOTY releases, that should give them the impression that people would rather wait and buy the "finished" product. They still make a profit on games in sales BTW. EDIT: I should probably clarify upon re-reading my post: I wouldn't have paid £40 for Transistor as I don't feel it's long enough to warrant that kind of money, not simply because I consider £40 too much for a game. Likewise, if a game I really want is released with a clear intent to sell DLC, I'll wait for the GOTY, even if the GOTY is the same price as the initial release, to get all the content. I'm not just being tight, though VFM is an issue with a young family. Can't justify spending £70+ on a game when I know I could save at least £30 of it by waiting and not buying DLC separately

It's a really bad idea to allow out of date software, particularly web based, to run. Do you need Flash at all? A lot of sites have gone HTML5 now (though I accept educational software is generally 10 years behind so you may well have some that relies on Flash for years yet!)

DLC is part of the reason I rarely, if ever, buy new games. Wait 12-18 months and you'll almost always get the GOTY edition (or a bundle with all DLC included) on Steam for at least half the price of the base game on launch, if not cheaper. I realize this model doesn't work for everyone (I used to make sure I had games on day one too!), but it works fantastically for me! Also means I can be 12 months behind on hardware, with all the cost savings that brings. Win-win if you're not bothered about having everything immediately! The only time this falls down is when a new generation of consoles gets released - despite PCs generally being way ahead of consoles in terms of overall grunt, it seems AAA devs really up the anté when a new console is released, pushing the minimum PC specs sky high - case in point AC:Unity. Still, I won't buy that for at least 12 months, by which point I should be able to pick up a second hand GTX 780 for a fraction of the cost it is now or there may even be an X60 equivalent that is powerful enough by that point, as hardware devs also seem to ramp it up around the same time to keep PCs on top. Also considering SLI'ing my 760, which would be even cheaper but may or may not be supported, so a gamble. Will know more in a month or so on that front

If it's just for a hobby, pick one that interests you. TBH, all have their pros/cons. At work, I use C#/ASP.NET/MVC/Razor as we have Windows servers and I wanted to learn how that all works. It's a very "big project" focused setup, so it takes a while to get something running but then it scales very easily. If you already know and like PHP, you could put some time in to updating/refreshing your skills there. RoR is very popular with young coders (and I read somewhere recently the average wage for a RoR programmer is £45k!), so if you're looking to learn something completely new I'd certainly recommend that, but I'd also say put the time in to learning pure Ruby first, it will help in the long run. On that front, this free e-book is considered the bible amongst Ruby programmers (I'm working through it myself right now): Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby. It's a little crazy and there's a lot of pointless random story telling involved, but it does at least keep it interesting and a lot less dry than most programming guides, so I can understand it's popularity. In short, and this applies I think to whatever programming project you take on, find a project that interests you, a language that clicks with you and go for it. Better to be a fantastic Pascal* programmer than a rubbish Ruby programmer. * there's a guy who is quite well known around hackathons for almost always coding in Pascal, spending a lot of the time finding ways to make Pascal work on any given tech. Most people think he's mad, but he clearly loves the challenge and he's a damn good programmer so why not?

HTH For the VLOOKUP version, the problem is likely similar - the last argument, TRUE/FALSE, refers to whether it should be an approximate match or not

The last argument of MATCH (1 in this case) is the match type - 1 is less than, 0 is exact, -1 is more than. If you're matching strings, you'll want an exact match, i.e. change it to this: =INDEX($J$2:$J$29,MATCH($A2,$K$2:$K$29,0))

Post an example @nephilim and I'll take a look what's wrong - the formula definitely works, large portions of my data analysis rely on it

Post an example @nephilim and I'll take a look what's wrong - the formula definitely works, large portions of my data analysis rely on it