AMLinington

*Claps* I detest newspapers of all kinds and refuse to buy them (I won't buy them for myself or on behalf of others), however that does not stop LeBoyfriend from purchasing both the Sun AND the Mirror. It is possibly one of the biggest things I dislike about LeBoyfriend, but he is a creature of habit and his family have always bought the red-tops so he perpetuates this simply because he has no inclination to break out of the routine. My mother is just as bad - she buys the Daily Fail almost religiously. I've lost count of the number of different cancers my reasonably average, non-smoking, mild-level-of-exercising life is increasing my risk of. I am pretty sure there is not a single organ in my body I am not putting at risk according to the Daily Fail... Personally, I'd rather not spend my hard earned money on a throwaway paper that never tells the proper story anyway. I don't believe there is a single media organisation that is not morally corrupt so I prefer to take an 'average' from RSS feeds from a variety of sources. Better still, I keep my head in the sand and try not to spend my life worrying about other peoples lives - what happens in my own life is all I care about quite honestly.

There are several inaccurate statements there - Crackpipe? Tourist? Aren't they getting slightly confused with Madagascar 2?

GIEF NYANCAKE PLXXORS! Much want. Question is: Real poptart or not?

I agree - especially given the initial cost of the game! I also hear rumours that there is a limited shelf-life on SWTOR so why invest time and money in it? I bought a years subscription to WoW because I still love it and will still play it, but I've given up ever hoping to see raid or endgame content now as I don't have the time to gearfarm, so I potter about in the world playing for the fun of it. My years subscription comes with a free copy of Diablo III and I'm getting pretty impatient for it now as I am dying to try it - I've never played a Diablo game but friends of mine loved it and from what I've seen it looks a lot of fun. Being single player too means I can pick it up and put it down at my leisure. Re: Mists of Pandaria, they have introduced so much content too quickly to satisfy a small number of elitists who smash through the content in minutes (*cough*Semper Fidelis*/cough* - a guild on our realm who possess all the realm firsts). They are upping the level cap AGAIN meaning MORE levelling and gear chasing before many players have ever even SEEN end game content from the previous 3 expansions. By the time I was ready for end game in Burning Crusades, they released Lich King, so I have never been into Black Temple. I managed to see some of Icecrown Citadel and fight the Lich King but never managed to complete as we always failed the defile! They released Cataclysm and all the 'Troll' patches, but they've opened up the endgame content and I don't stand a hope in hell of getting the time to gear up and see this before MoP (and don't get me started on raid leaders demanding achievements!). They are introducing ANOTHER new class that again does pretty much what two other classes do, they can just do the two things together. It's like the love child of a rogue and shaman with a bit of druidishness for good measure. Which of course means that for the first few months EVERY group will have at least 2 Pandaran Monks nicking Druid or hunter gear (I can't remember if they are Leather or Mail wearers) while they 'decide' how they are going to play their toon. If SWTOR reduced their subscription I'd be more inclined to continue with it, but having just had my debit card details stolen and the card cancelled, I am giving serious consideration to not bothering to 'fix' the direct debit in SWTOR.

I've been taking a break from WoW (and missing my Pala tank a lot) and decided to play SWTOR. Le Boyfriend was given it for Xmas by Dear Brother-in-law (curse him) and it looked fun. Since we met in WoW and like to game together (we're a good team) I bought a copy too (HOW MUCH???!! *gasp*). Le Boyfriend has barely reached level 20 and he's bored of it already. I've hit 22 and I'm also bored. Same mechanics as every other MMO but without the ability to easily join dungeons and group quests (at least Pugging in WoW you get 1 good group in 5 as opposed to no groups at all!). What galled me the most was that the game came with 1 month free subscription but would not let me play without putting in my bank details and committing to a DD!!!! Why? I had a month of pre-paid game time! At first I loved how involved I was with the story and how my choices changed the path of my questing, but now I'm starting to get very cheesed off with the constant 'conversations' - many of which are totally pointless and I find myself watching TV until I am presented with my 'choices' - this makes levelling very very slow as I tend to be a 'quest collector' type leveller who will collect as many quests as I can and do them as I go along, then hand them all in at once - this is very very arduous in SWTOR as I am participating in endless conversations. I agree that some of that content type is valuable - like the character lore arc and interactions with your mentor, but am I really interested in listening to some minion blather on about his dissatisfied wife and how he should spend more time with her? Ack, no. I even have the sound switched off now so I just let them blather on until I get a choice selection (at which point I select the most evil option - dark side points and all that). This is not how a game should make me feel - I want to be immersed in the world and disappear into it for a few hours! It is impossible to become immersed in SWTOR because the conversations interrupt the flow of the game. I had hoped I might stick with it to level 50 and see what opportunities open up, but I suspect it will be exactly the same as WoW - an endless gear-chasing exercise while you struggle to get gear good enough for end game instances, then by the time you are ready, new content has come out and you are undergeared again. At the moment I play because it's something new, but TBH I'm getting a bit tired of the MMO format and might go back to stand-alone games. When Skyrim comes down I might give it a crack and I'm looking forward to Diablo III. You never know, I might even regress back to Tomb Raider!

Indeed! Le Boyfriend wants to call our Son (when we have one) 'Jack' but all the Jacks I ever taught in my teaching placements were all 'orrible little so-and-sos. We already decided on 'Olivia Charlotte' for a girl and I am pushing the pleasant and easily customisable 'Jonathan' (Jon is a perfectly acceptable shortened name at all ages) Congrats Zero-hour. Although MORE congrats to Mrs Zero-hour since she did all the work :-)

Ack Blood Pudding :-( Le Boyfriend would love this but I'm not a massive pig fan. I like Smoked Bacon and Smoked Ham and thats about it. Roast Pork itself if revolting (the cracking not so much) and I've hated Pork Chops for years. Just the smell of Gammon makes me ill and I can't even look at a Carbonara without retching (although to be fair, this is entirely the fault of the horrific French hostel we once stayed in). Sausages have to be cumberland and minimum 80% meat content or I won't eat those either. Even the bacon has to be blackened to the point where it snaps - The boyfriend suffers me deliberately overcooking the bacon with impressive stoicism.

I must be a very strange woman, as if I'd said I wanted something and the boyfriend bought it, I'd be happy with that. Le Boyfriend booked me into aerobics classes that a girl at his workplace runs and did I go nuts at him? No, not even a little bit. My 3rd class is tonight and I'm actually quite enjoying it. I am more impressed that he has actually listened to the general weight/appearance-related whining. Worst gift I ever gave was one half of a best friend necklace to a girl at school (I was 12) because I thought she was my friend. Turns out that actually she was my 'friend' because I was good at history (in fact I was good at a lot of subjects we shared - English, maths etc) and she needed to attain certain grades in order to keep getting horse riding lessons... Suffice it to say when I found out and stopped speaking to her, her grades took a very sharp nosedive and my history teacher noticed that there had been a lot of similarities between my work and hers prior to this...

Smoked Bacon - super crispy, warm, crusty roll, melty butter and a touch of ketchup.... Mmmm so good. I am partial to Bavarian Smoked ham too... So. much. tasty.

That's an awesome idea! Could use it on a smaller classroom scale as part of an IT project to write one of those instruction programs to guide a little trolley through the maze. Or something. Should keep year 9 occupied for several weeks ;-)

The problem is that you may earn a reasonable salary, but: 1. Deposit - most banks want at least 10% (for first time buyers) and more. If a house is £100,000 (and very few south of Manchester are) thats £10,000 - saving that much takes a long time. 2. Amount that can be borrowed - a single person on £20,000 with no pre-existing commitments and 100% of his wages in salary and no bonuses (they only take 50% of bonuses into account so my partner who earns £7,000 of his yearly salary in 'performance-related-bonuses' with a pitiful basic salary earns less as far as a bank is concerned than I do, when in fact take-home-pay is about the same) can borrow 4 times their salary. So for a £20,000 salary they can borrow £80,000. What can you buy with £90,000 (assuming they have a £10,000 deposit)? Certainly nothing deisrable down here in the south. Even flats are in the £100,000 ranges. We bought a house that needs a LOT of work doing to it in Gosport for £150,000 and they wanted 10% deposit as FTBs - that's £15,000 - we had to borrow it off parents - there is no way a single person can afford this! 3. Council tax, TV licence, Utilities (water is absurd), Phone, food, etc. A single salary can't cover that!

Regarding App-level control, the smoothwall cannot interact with apps specifically, but you can set bandwidth limiting on domains - so iplayer and youtube can be limited and the bandwidth can be throttled per proxy client or across all proxy clients (so you could potentially limit the domain youtube.com to 1Mb of bandwidth shared between proxy clients - they'll very quickly tire of trying to watch Rhianna videos when it takes forever to load and buffers every half a second...) If you are looking for content filtering, contact Smoothwall to look at the Guardian3 product. @tom_newton can put you in touch with an appropriate sales representative. They can sort you out with some evaluation media to have a play with that you can pop into VirtualBox and mess about with.

I love XKCD. It's so true though. Sad thing is, I'd find it easier to remember Tr0ub4dor&3 than I would horsebatterystaplecorrect - I'd get the words the wrong way around. I find it easier to remember a 36 digit long passphrase made up of initials birthdays etc in the order in which a family was born and where they lived by the very fact that I know the 'algorithm' I used to create it - ie. I might KNOW that I wrote a WEP key (back in the day when we used WEP before WPA etc) that was the initials followed by birthdays of everyone in our immediate family in reverse order preceded by our house number and followed by a shortened version of our road name. So even if I can't remember it exactly I can 'rewrite' it based on the rules. I think I overcomplicate things...

I can provide general advice here but if you want to spend a lot of time with an engineer getting it set up step by step you will need to book in a session via your support contract, if you do not have a support contract you will need to speak to your sales representative who will discuss your options with you. You mention in your original post that you are looking for advice on setting up these features - what sort of advice are you after - best practice, things to avoid, that sort of thing or are you looking for a step-by-step walkthrough (which we cannot do here)? For example, regarding VLANs - how you set this up will depend entirely on how the VLANs are hosted - do you have a VLAN host going through a switch into a single interface of the Smoothwall or are you wanting the smoothwall to manage your VLAN? If you want to set up a VLAN on the Smoothwall you would do this in networking > interfaces > interfaces, you would select the physical NIC you are using then configure your VLAN tag. This tag would obviously then be used on your managed switch to direct the traffic coming into the Smoothwall (and we cannot physically configure your switch for you, we are only permitted to offer suggestions - you would need to manage this yourself or via your MSP). You could then apply different authentication methods to each 'virtual interface'. If the traffic is coming in from a managed VLAN host, it will come in on 1 IP to 1 interface and so the smoothwall will only see this as 1 network on this port. As I said, we can give general advice here but for a step-by-step guide you would need to get this booked in via your support contract. You would also need to provide more specific information about your setup (as demonstrated by the two possible types of VLAN setup) which may not be appropriate to share on a public forum and so I would never ask for this information outside of a support ticket.

iTunes Vouchers, Amazon Vouchers, High performance gaming mice?

Being Honest, I know a LOT of passwords for people in my family. I know bank PINs and online banking logins (mostly because the parents can't get to grips with these slippery intertubes and get me to do everything for them). I know passwords and PINs for the boyfriend and I could hazard an accurate guess at my sisters bank PIN (if its the same one it was 10 years ago). Having said that I have a pretty good memory for number strings. I tend to categorise sites and have 3 or 4 different passwords in the password group for that category. So, for example, lets say my 'category 1 password group' is for sites I don't fully trust or for 'low security' stuff like discussion forums where if someone hacks it and gets my password and email they won't get access to anything higher than other 'category 1' sites - so other discussion forums etc. Category 2 is for online shopping sites - mostly ones using paypal, also sites that I occasionally buy goods and services from. This password group is a higher complexity than cat 1. Cat 3 is for online banking, main email account, utilities etc. Cat 3 are changed often and are heavily complex passphrases or strings of numbers and letters. I also have a 'work' category that has no affiliation with cats 1 -3.

Before you start configuring any of this, the very first question to ask is: Do you want Android devices pre-Ice-cream-sandwich to use this hotspot? If so, SSL Login will not work for them as they cannot support the keep-alive connection - when a browser window is closed or superceded the connection is closed. We are working on mobile devices and there are a lot of exciting things going on down in the development dungeon, but at present this is still a limitation of the Android operating system. If you want Android devices on your network you will need to use an Ident by Location rule and use it to link the location (defined by network range) to a group then configure a bunch of 'Wireless hotspot' policies You may like to take a look at Kanal von SmoothWallTV - YouTube as I think many of your configuration questions are answered in various videos on there.

I agree! That almost verges on an invasion of privacy! In fact, it probably is apart from the inevitable smallprint somewhere that everything you write on their platform belongs to them in some way or other... It's horrible to think that they might be monitoring your facebook account and that they might change their minds about employing you because you are considering a change of career.... If that had been done to me I'd probably have sought legal advice by now! But thats just me...

It is worth mentioning though, that by 'browsers' we assume you mean 'personal laptops' as Android devices and IPads are a whole different kettle of fish. IPad browsers currently do support SSL Login, so SSL Login would be ideal for laptops and ipads, but android devices do not support the keep-alive connection within multiple browser windows that is needed for the SSL login page to work and iPad apps will only work if they are proxy-aware. There are other ways to get around this, but Android devices in particular are a bit of a spanner in the works at the moment - at least until Ice Cream Sandwich (and honeycomb for tablets). It is also worth making you aware that if you set up a transparent SSL Login authentication method, the client machines will need to be using the Smoothwall as their default gateway and they must leave the login page open once they have logged in and browse via different tabs or a new browser window so some minor user training will be needed. As Tom mentioned, there are lots of exciting things going on in the Smoothwall development office surrounding authentication methods, Android devices and iPads etc so watch this space, so to speak.

Well thats bizarre.... If they aren't going to find you a position, why bother checking if you can still do it? Unless they really are trying to find a position for you.... But even so, you can't wait in limbo forever :-S Never mind, though, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Wow! That's so exciting. I remember how excited I was when the HR people at Smoothwall phoned and said 'About your application, we want to interview you!' I'm on the edge of my seat for you, having read about all the issues you've had in the last year. I know how it feels to be in a bad place then to get an interview at a great company - it brightens the whole world! Hope it goes well for you this time :-) They must be keen on you to pull you back in 2 months after your first application - usually the 'We'll keep you on file and let you know if we have anything suitable' is their guilt-free way of saying 'nah, we didn't want you, but don't want you to sue us either', but in this case you must have made an impression! And for the head honcho to personally contact an applicant shows real commitment to the employee experience! Best of luck!

I'm reading this thread with great interest. My grandmother passed away in February this year and we discovered, amongst her possessions, hundreds of those horrible tacky 'decorative plates' from the 'Bradford exchange'. Turns out she bought some votive ones once, but once she'd collected the set they continued to send her random plates. If she failed to send them back (really expensively and inconveniently I might add - since she was an old lady who was unable to go out) they'd demand payment from her in big red letters saying 'Final demand'. When my Aunt tried to get them to stop sending them they refused. 9 times out of 10 Nan just paid for them to stop them hassling her. I believe she was scammed by an unscrupulous company. These plates cost her updates of £20 a plate with an additional £9.99 P&P. They are worth £3 each at a car boot now. I believe this company were in breach of the distance selling regs and since the plates were unsolicited I wonder if we'd have a snowball's chance in hell of getting any of her money back? We're so angry that they took advantage of a vulnerable and impressionable elderly lady suffering with Dementia, but I imagine now it's too late?

Courtesy of TRON Legacy: How do you kill a running process that has hijacked your top-spec operating system? Grep it. Yeah, real effective....

It makes a GREAT mid-layer in a compost heap! We compost most of ours along with the wood shavings - the urine is good for the heap too. If you don't have one it is fine to put in domestic waste. Or dig into the ground. Don't go crazy though as you'll have more poo than you know what to do with. You could offer the urine and poo soaked shavings to neighbours with compost heaps - it's really good for the chemistry of the heap apparently... You might want to get the girl Rabbit spayed - Does are nasty when they are in heat. Really nasty. Bucks just try to have bunny-sex with your arm. Chip is still a 'whole man' and he'll rut on anything - my arm is particular favourite when I'm trying to groom him.... *sigh* But generally he's pretty sweet. Does on the other hand get a bit vicious and she may attack your male Rabbit if you leave her unspayed. Edited to say: FTR Those Rabbits look old enough to mate... Rabbits can mate as young as 3 months old and those look a lot older than that... Are they siblings? Also - nice job on the hutch - it looks great :-)

First things first, the chicken wire run thing is great but it's not at all fox-proof unless you have dug it into the ground or staked it down. We have a Rabbit and 2 cats (although both cats are pretty elderly) and the cats should not be your main concern. Trust me, if the cat gets hold of the rabbit the rabbit will give it a good kicking. Depends on how large the cats are mind you... Foxes are a larger concern for you. We favour a more solid Wooden slatted hutch that is raised off the ground. You can have a small run section underneath. We also have a 'summer run' similar to the chicken-wire one another poster has attached a pic of but the Rabbit only stays there during the day - last time we left him out at night a Fox got in and it's not fun chasing them off in your nightie! We also found another dismembered Rabbit corpse on our path a couple of weeks ago so we know someone elses pet got nabbed. Are the Rabbits Bucks, Does or one of each? Are they neutered/spayed and fully vaccinated against Mixie? I think your Summer/Winter solutions will depend largely on your Garden. If you can find a sheltered spot (we have a nice sheltered patch between the Shed and conservatory) the Rabbits will largely manage the cold weather - especially if there is 2. You will want to make sure that perhaps in winter you pop an extra bit of hay into the hutch for them to snuggle into or buy one of those little igloo-thingies or woven straw 'tunnels' - Chip sat on his and broke it so he has to make due with extra shavings (he's allergic to fresh straw - something to do with the mould that grows on it, or fungus or something). If it's very cold we bring our Rabbit into the conservatory overnight and keep him in a cat carrier or a large plastic box (they will chew out of cardboard too quickly) with a vented lid. As other posters have said, the water bottle freezing tends to be the biggest issue - soggy food too. You can buy expensive neoprene bottle covers in pet shops or you can jerry-rig some insulation with some pipe lagging and an old Mouse mat or some bubblewrap. It's not pretty but when it gets wrecked by the ravages of winter you won't feel too unhappy about chucking it. Food-wise we find that a bit of variation always goes down well so we rotate the 'biscuit' flavours we buy. Teeth can be a HUGE problem for Rabbits as they MUST we worn down by their food or they have to be cut. A common problem with Rabbits is misaligned jaws due to inbreeding and the vets will need to knock the rabbit out and take an anglegrinder to them. So if your rabbit starts drooling excessively and not eating, pop it to the vet. Otherwise we buy those crunchy corn/seed/nut sticks and blocks. Our Rabbit isn't interested in chewing wood but some do and you can buy 'toys' for them. Chip LOVES the special egg biscuits we buy him at the pet shop - he goes mad for them but these are an occasional treat. As our Rabbit has the aforementioned tooth problems we give him the occasional bit of veg etc but to keep him healthy and make sure he gets enough vitamins we give him baby food - the vegetarian kind - he loves it - especially when it's getting close to angle-grinder-time and the bone spurs are causing him issues. 1 jar a day when he's not well, or 1-2 a week when he's fine - the organic ones with carrots, cauli etc go down really well. Make sure you don't make the same mistake my father-in-law did and buy the 'Carrots and chicken' one... Or the ones with pasta - they have to be veg-only. I don't think tomato is very good either so stick with Carrots, cabbage, cauli, broccoli etc. Another poster mentioned fly-strike so I should probably mention something that our poor rabbit suffered recently - if they are long haired, when they start to moult you may find their fur becomes matted. Matted fur is not exclusive to their backs. Rather disgustingly a Rabbit will do two types of poo - normal pellets and cecotrophes - the normal pellets are the indigestible rubbish, the cecum is like Rabbit-silage - good stuff that has been fermeted in a special section of the bowel for a while - a rabbit will re-ingest this - usually as soon as it is passed. So if you see your Rabbit eating it's own poo - don't be worried! Problems come however if your Rabbit's stools are a little on the loose side. Long haired, moulting Rabbits with loose poo leads to fly strike as a worst case, or you can find that the loose poo and matted fur forms a horrible big clump around the anus (and genitals) and it can build up really quickly resulting in discomfort for the Rabbit, possible infection of genitalia etc. We check Chip regularly for this and frequently bathe him as he has issues with self-grooming (tooth-related too....) It sounds from my post that Rabbits are hard to look after but they're not. We just have a problematic one! My partner is a sucker for the runts - he feels sorry for them. We nearly ended up with one that had been a bit mangled by his mother and siblings the other week but Chip is too old to share his hutch with another Rabbit and it wouldn't have been fair on him. They are great pets though, specially for kids to learn a bit of responsibility - dogs are too much work and Cats tend to look after themselves but a Rabbit is dependant on your care. If you handle them frequently they will be socialised and happy to be handled. Make sure you do this or you will end up caring for an animal that will try to bite you every time you clean it out. A.