DaveMac

I'm sure some have inbuilt filters too. May be worth checking them for blockages?

We were talking about this in work and came to the same conclusion as you. These days, people can insure and tax a car using their mobile phones, so it shouldn't really present a problem. It always used to put me off when someone had cashed in the tax and I had to risk driving a car back with just insurance and MOT. North Wales Police would nick you even if you'd just bought it and all the post offices had closed for the day! Cheers, Dave

looks like I'm shafted:- http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2011/19/article/2/made So when I SORN it and get a partial tax refund, the next owner will have to tax it from the beginning of the same month, so the Government gets 2 months' duty from EVERY car changing hands in this shitehole of a country. Yet more legal theft to bail us out of something we didn't cause.

Hi, does anyone know when the new SORN rules kick in? Basically if your insurance is canceled or runs out before the tax, then you have to SORN the vehicle. I want to temporarily insure, MOT and tax a car to sell it. I'm hoping to do this before the new rules kick in or else I'll have to SORN it before I sell. I don't want to keep insuring something I'm getting rid of, yet I also don't want to sell it without a tax disc either! Stupid rules if you ask me, because it won't stop people using cloned plates. Cheers, Dave

You can't move installed programs to an external drive, because they are registered in their current location on the local hard drive. You can really only move files, such as mp3s, video files, picture files and Office files as well as shortcuts, favourites and other things in your profile. There are some workarounds to re-register program files in other locations, but I've had limited success with that and wouldn't recommend it at all. If the machine is running slowly then I'd move large files to the external drive, defrag it and try removing unnecessary programs from startup. This is done by clicking Start>Run and typing msconfig. Under startup, you will see a list of startup items, which you can disable most of to speed up the boot time. Most of this stuff isn't really needed anyway, but you might want to keep anything that looks Anti-virus related, graphics card management, and anything that's related to CD/DVDROM burning software.

I'm really sorry to hear about your loss and I do believe someone was watching over you. I remember driving through Conwy tunnel in 1993 with my family just after my dad had passed away and my Mum said, "I wish something would happen to cheer us all up." No sooner had she said that when a car full of young lads and girls drew up along side us, beeped their horns like mad and ALL waved, smiled and gave us the thumbs up. It was so so strange and no-one had ever beeped in the new tunnel like they used to in the old ones and it just seemed so odd for them to do that just to us and at that precise moment in time. Later that day, I briefly turned on a TV and my dad's favourite song (a rare one, which I've not heard on TV or radio since and which we sang at the funeral) just happened to start at that moment. It was a very strange day, after which we felt that he was somehow still around. Interestingly, when he was younger, he was interested in the occult and the afterlife, but I never believed his stories when I was a kid! Makes you think though! I hope time helps you heal and you can start to remember the good times, without the pain.

I just watched an episode and it was filmed at the Uni where I work. The doors they use all the time are where we go for lunch, but nobody in work ever mentioned it lol!

So, by the time they'd taken the minor dents into consideration, selling the Missus' Punto to them would probably have allowed me to buy a Mars bar and a can of Tango at a push!

That sounds promising and by the time you finish the degree, hopefully the country will have more jobs on offer!

For a laugh, we entered the reg no. of my partner's Punto and they offered a mere £200 for it, assuming it was like new inside and out - hmm a 10 year old car? -maybe not. We actually sold it privately for £750, so anyone who is dickheaded enough to sell a car to them should ideally become a victim of natural deselection as well as the chimps in the above advert. There seems to be no limit to what some people will do for money. I just couldn't go to my grave, knowing that I'd appeared in an ad like this and pissed off an entire nation and why the fook does that woman say "Cheers" in the middle of it? No wonder Elvis shot the TV.

Sorry to hear this. My partner works at a Uni with me and her job is under threat after their degree course got pulled. If you can I'd try for the degree, but that's not cheap these days and you don't want to be selling the Starlet to fund it. Let's hope you can get some backing.

I had the same problem as you, when I started my first job, with contracts. If they aren't giving you a full time contract then you're probably too nice and/or quiet. In my experience the people who climbed the ladder fastest and got full-time contracts were the loud-mouths who smoked cannabis with their supervisors and just generally "brown-nosed." I'm sorry it sounds harsh, but you'd be better off in the private sector where things are a bit fairer. I ended up happy, working at a University and I wonder why I didn't just walk out of that first job. Like Mick said: it depends on how the letter would be interpreted on that day and what mood they were in. Speaking to them directly may work, but don't go above their heads whatever you do!

I'm in! I'll be in the Vette and the missus will be in the Zed, both with straight-thru zorsts. Some people just need a slap to be honest, hope you get it sorted mate (or they die!)

Gutted :(

This is free and allows you to get mp3s from your iPod/iPhone to another machine without wasting time with iTunes. http://www.getsharepod.com/download/SharePod.zip

We have these in work:- http://home.ca.inter.net/~milgram/plato.html I'm sure you can get larger versions that will cover a reg plate and can be electrically enabled whenever laser light or Ka/Ku band hits the receiver. I also have a good angle grinder too.

Very nice. We'll have to start calling you "The Wolf."

I once dropped a V6-Turbo in one of these and surprised a few people from the lights!

For fox sakes - sorry. I hit a badger at 70mph in a Focus a few years back and it did a similar amount of damage. That doesn't look too difficult to sort out - mostly bolt-on bits as the other guys said. Are the front doors OK or have the wings hit them?

This is quite good if you are able to 'see' the drive, already in Windows, plus it's free:- http://www.brothersoft.com/d.php?soft_id=13427&url=http%3A%2F%2Fusfiles.brothersoft.com%2Ffile_disk_management%2Fdata_recovery%2Fpci_filerecovery.exe

I used to work in IT for the NHS and all the money went to the wrong areas. There are more managers than workers and they all get a nice handsome pay packet. I left on principle and now work at a Uni. I remember a time when lots of money became available for IT upgrades and it was ALL spent on managers' and directors' PCs and their network infrastructure. Meanwhile, ward clerks were having to make do with 386 computers running Windows 3.11 in 2004!

You can buy a foreclosure there for about $50K at the moment!

So our NI contributions will be going to private firms after the Health Bill is 'pushed' through. I wonder how long it'll be before that sky-rockets then? http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/2011/01/28/tories-to-offer-private-health-care-firms-500m-bung-for-nhs-work-115875-22880671/

I won't let anyone else drive mine. My brother used to have a Zed, so he has, but the gf knows her limits. It sounds like you need to have words with her if she has put her own life, yours and potentially others at risk and is still prepared to drive it tomorrow. I'd say a flat "NO," but we're all different and I have to respect that.

No wonder the Government are introducing "Austerity Measures." The replacement for the Nimrod aircraft was canceled last year after being 9.5 years late and £789 million over-budget. I wonder just how much money went into this plane before it was pulled. We now have no replacement for Nimrod MR2s or MR1s which are retiring this year. This country is a frigging joke. Funny how this missed being on the news too. From Wikipedia:- The Nimrod MRA4 was intended to replace the capability provided by the MR2. It was essentially a new aircraft, with current-generation Rolls-Royce BR710 turbofan engines, a new larger wing, and fully refurbished fuselage. However the project was subject to delays, cost over-runs, and contract re-negotiations. It was cancelled in 2010 as a result of the Strategic Defence and Security Review at which point it was £789 million over-budget and 114 months (9.5 years) late.