jamesb

Dell Studio 17 with touchscreen (and backlit keyboard, just 'cos), as well as a bit of up-speccing from the standard and a mouse of happiness. The mouse arrived yesterday, and I spent all night playing with it and learning the different extras (from playing around rather than the manual), I never knew that I needed five different ways to use a scroll wheel (tilt left, tilt right, click, smooth rolling and click scrolling) until I got it. The laptop itself has arrived today, but I've not been able to play with Baby yet, due to being at work. Other ideas for names are welcome, Baby's just temporary until I can properly christen the system.

I did think about it, but its massively underpowered for what I'm after, the screen's too small, and I can't touchtype on a touchscreen keyboard. I've gone with my original decision now, but thanks to all who gave suggestions.

I have considered it, however without being independently wealthy or having party backing there really isn't too much I can do. Even printing leaflets would wipe out my savings, and then I wouldn't be able to afford the deposit. After I make my first few million I'll be able to look into it more seriously. Well I do something. While I will place a vote for the least-worst option, I will also write to the MP in question explaining that I did vote for them but under protest, explaining why their party affiliation makes me unwilling to give them my full support but that from what I have seen of their actions on the local scale, and working on behalf of their constituency, I feel that they are a better option. Its not much, but at least I am getting my views across in a more effective manner than simply spoiling a ballot paper. Partly agree here. I would encourage people to spoil a ballot paper rather than not vote at all, or lodge a protest vote for a fringe party (but not one that has a chance of getting in, that could be disastrous). Also because of the strictness of party lines, and the way that adherence to them is enforced. If parties did what they are supposed to and simply represented an attitude with a few core beliefs, rather than a hard-line set of detailed rules, then we wouldn't have so many problems. MPs should have more freedom to speak their own mind, and more importantly to represent their constituents. Many do the best they can with this, but in order to have any weight to their voice they have to belong to a party, which limits their freedoms. No argument there.

Good question, why don't you put it to Google?

I need to order a new laptop in a few days. I've pretty much decided, but having seen the latest Apple/PC debate I thought I'd see if I could get an Apple instead, with the same features. I'm not talking so much about spec as the basic, simple things which made the model I'm planning to order perfect for me. Now, I'm naturally anti-Apple (I think its genetic), but I'm willing to consider it. I don't think that the features which I'm really looking for are unreasonable, and my budget is fairly reasonable (I think). However, I don't really have the time to do a massive hunt through various Apple stores or resellers trying to find something which matches my requirements, and since we do seem to have a lot of Apple users here I was hoping someone might be able to just say a particular model matches what I want perfectly. The essential features which have decided me so far are: - Large touchscreen (over 15" is fine - bigger is better) - HD screen - Full size keyboard with number pad I am honestly not trying to troll here. I am genuinely considering trying out a Mac, and would just like to know if there is a model within my budget which matches what I need (want).

Nokie N85 with Spotify here, streamed (and cached) music whenever I want, and a built-in FM transmitter should I decide to listen in the car and not want to bother with cables.

If it's good beer you're looking for rather than a particular brand, a lot of supermarkets run various offers on single bottles of real ales and such. Can't go wrong with a few bottles of Wychwood.

Respawning in 10...9...8...

Payday is coming and, having just finished off Bayonetta, I'm looking for a suggestion for this month's game. Anything for the XBox 360 or Wii would be good, preferably with a decent co-operative multiplayer (on the same console rather than internet). Any ideas?

Thanks - I should be getting my new laptop in a few weeks and you've saved me from going through the hunting process myself.

I thought the requirements for it to be art were any one of the below: - Cherubs - Urns - Fig leaf - Satyrs - Monochrome, with 'moody' shadows

Have a look for something called Easy BCD, it may help.

If you're using your own car for work you can also get tax relief. I can't remember the exact details as its been a while since I made use of it, but I ended up getting back all of the tax I paid over a year and a half due to the allowance (about £5000). If I remember correctly, you get 25p per mile for the first 10 000 miles in a year, and 10p per mile beyond that added to your tax-free allowance.

Well, the banks are being encouraged to loan money...

Just had a thought. Streaming doesn't work since they can't get enough money for it. A subscription service for the hardcore fans doesn't work as most fans don't care about the extra content they get from this. So, what about a service whereby you could charge £1 a month, or £12 a year, or some similar amount, to 'sponsor' a band. In return you get their music sent to you on release. You could also get a discount (small) on bandwear and similar as well as access to video footage of their shows (streamed from the site, and set up to only be available to those users who are subscribed, not downloadable). This wouldn't be a be-all and end-all, but would offer the following benefits for bands: - 10 000 subscribers becomes viable financially. You're getting £120 000 a year at that many users. For a small, amateur band who might have 1000 'fans' (still generous, but plausible) you're getting £12 000 a year, plus any money from live shows, merchandise and so forth. Its just an outlandish thought, but people might be willing to pay £1 a month for quite a few bands purely for the convenience of having the music sent to them directly (or downloadable easily from a legit site with no risks of malicious payloads attached to the file), along with the extra benefits. It dodges the current issue of subscription services, since you're subscribing directly to the band and funding the band, so there's no iffiness with splitting the revenues between lots of different people. Still far from ideal, but possibly a starting point for amateur bands at least. Someone's probably already set it up.

If you ever open a bank, I want an account. At 2p on 10 000 downloads you get £200. Minus taxes you get maybe £150. For a small band of three members, that's £50 each. Now assuming that this is a full time job, and that you're very lucky and get 10 000 downloads of each song you release per year, that's £50 per song per year, so you only need to release 400 songs a year for a reasonable return. That's only 33 a month. Easy! So long as you spend nothing on publicity. Even at 20p per download, you're still going to struggle, and this is for bands who get a lot of downloads.

The media, the BBC, or Panorama? Whichever way, no.

When I started driving an LPG car a few years ago it was about 42p/litre if I remember correctly. Its now edging ever closer to 70p/litre. Whichever way you look at it, as a percentage raise or in real terms of pennies, LPG is rising at a faster rate than petrol. I've gone back to a petrol car for the moment, but as soon as I can I'm getting a bike. Sadly the cycle to work scheme here expired just before it occurred to me to use it.

What happens if you take out the Sub wrapper and just run the script raw?

Losing a day's worth of petrol sales, or a few day's worth, isn't really an inconvenience for the companies though - people still use petrol the same, no one decides not to drive but to take public transport instead. All it means is that the money coming in is delayed a few days. A real protest would involve people actually choosing not to drive for a few days, which would actually affect the revenue overall. Save a couple of week's worth of petrol money and buy a bike.

Use SelfSSL to create a temporary certificate and replace it with the new one when it comes in?

I can vouch for this - they released the Symbian version of the app a few months back and I'm now hooked. I have a few hundred songs cached at any one time, and when I'm in range of any open Wi-Fi it just connects through that. The premium service is definitely worthwhile, and you can know that you're doing your part to stop the service from crashing and burning as not financially viable.

Inferred from user comments. I should probably have said 'many' rather than 'most'. Certainly those who get irritated with the general chat topics do seem to use New Posts. Those who don't use it, I'm guessing, don't get annoyed with it.

There've been quite a few threads recently buried because of general chitchat, and equally some irritation being voiced. Since most people use the New Posts feature rather than going to the particular forum I wondered if it'd be possible to set up a filter system. If the details of a person's custom filter could be stored with their login it might avoid a lot of the anger, since people could only display new posts from the technical forums, or even just the technical forums they are interested in/willing to contribute to. Just a thought.

I had this problem as a student. They seemed to take my requests to have the limit reduced as requests for an increase. I was asking for a reduction to £1000, over the course of a year they raised it from £2500 to £15 000. Not sure how that works. Not really a problem now though, the limit on all of my cards totalled together is £50.