JonDuncan

Thanks, that's good to know.

Just wonder if this is the typical procedure in France: when signing the Compromis de Vente papers, and paying the 10% deposit, is it usual to make it payable direct to the estate agent rather than the notaire? Also, with regard to the seven day cooling-off period, does that automatically apply to all property purchases, because an estate-agent told a friend that when buying building land, as a opposed to a house, the 7 day period does not apply. Thanks for any help.

It was the very first option presented when I switched it on for the first time, Chancer, and it said you couldn't change it once you'd chosen one or other. So I'm afraid it would be a complete reinstallation job, which would be rather impractical obviously .....

I had to get a new laptop yesterday, which is very nice .... I bought it on Amazon.fr and knew it was going to be in French, so I was I prepared for the extra messing around of remembering what's what en français. Had a big surprise when switching it on to be given the choice of French or English installation. And so I have my shiny new 17 inch whopper all in convenient English after all. Just wondering if anyone else has got a new computer recently and had that option even though it is "only" 7 Home Premium? I did think it was only the Ultimate edition that allowed for language packs, this is an HP machine incidentally.

Damn! Danny sneaked in while I was editing my post! [:P]

[quote user="pachapapa"]Interesting listing, I see tasmania is a country and also apparently the island of  Aland in the Baltic, given up trying to get an ° on top of the A. (2) Hors nos spéciaux. Dans la limite de 500 correspondants différents par mois. Liste des destinations illimitées vers les fixes : Europe : Açores, Allemagne, Andorre, Angleterre (*), Autriche, Baléares, Belgique, Bulgarie, Canaries, Chypre, Crète, Croatie, Danemark, Ecosse (*), Espagne, Estonie, Finlande, France métropolitaine, Gibraltar, Grèce, Guernesey, Hongrie, île d’Aland, Irlande, Irlande du Nord (*), Islande, Italie, Jersey, Lettonie, Liechtenstein, Lituanie, Luxembourg, Macédoine, Madère, Malte, Monaco, Norvège, Pays-Bas, Pays de Galles(*), Pologne, Portugal, République tchèque, Roumanie, Saint-Marin, Sardaigne, Sicile, Slovaquie, Slovénie, Suède, Suisse, Turquie, Vatican. DOM/TOM : Guadeloupe, Saint-Barthélémy, Saint-Martin, Guyane, Martinique, Mayotte, Réunion et Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon. Amérique : Alaska, Argentine, Bahamas, Bermudes, Brésil, Canada, Chili, Colombie, Etats-Unis, Hawaï, île de Pâques, Iles vierges américaines, Mexique, Panama, Pérou, Porto Rico, République dominicaine, Venezuela. Appelez aussi en illimité les mobiles du Canada et des Etats-Unis. Asie : Bahreïn, Bangladesh, Chine, Corée du Sud, Hong Kong, Inde, Japon, Macao, Malaisie, Singapour, Taïwan, Thaïlande. Reste du monde : Afrique du Sud, Australie, Brunei, Ile Christmas, Guam, Israël, Jordanie, Maroc (**), Nouvelle-Zélande, Russie, Saipan, Tasmanie [/quote] Bit weird (to me), but I get a different list, and to be fair to Orange, they call them destinations, not countries .... [quote]Vous profitez d’appels illimités vers les fixes de France métropolitaine et de plus de 100 destinations dont les DOM.[/quote] [quote] Les destinations fixes des pays de l’Union Européenne : Allemagne, Autriche, Belgique, Bulgarie, Chypre, Crête, Danemark, Estonie, Espagne, Baléares, Canaries, Finlande, Grèce, Hongrie, Irlande, Italie, Ile D’Aland, Sicile, Sardaigne, Lettonie, Lituanie, Luxembourg, Madère, Malte, Pays-Bas, Pologne, Portugal ,Açores Madère, République Tchèque, Roumanie, Ecosse, Irlande du Nord, Pays de Galles, Slovaquie, Slovénie, Suède, Angleterre. Sont exclus des appels en illimité les numéros Premium UK commençant par 44870 et 44871  Les destinations fixes des autres pays d’Europe : Andorre, Croatie, Guernesey, Gibraltar, Islande, Jersey, Liechtenstein, Macédoine, Monaco, Norvège, San Marin, Suisse, Turquie, Vatican.  Les fixes et mobiles d’Amérique du Nord : Canada, Etats-Unis, Alaska, Hawaï  Les destinations fixes des pays d’Amérique Centrale et du Sud suivants : Argentine, Bahamas, Bermudes, Brésil, Chili, Ile de Pâques, Colombie, Iles Vierges Américaines, Mexique, Panama, Pérou, Porto Rico, République Dominicaine, Venezuela.  Les destinations fixes de Russie et des pays d’Asie, du Proche et Moyen Orient, Océanie suivants : Australie, Bahrein, Bangladesh, Bruneï, Christmas Island, Chine, Corée du sud, Guam, Hong Kong, Inde, Israël, Japon, Jordanie, Macao, Malaisie, Nouvelle Zélande, Russie, Saipan, Singapour, Taïwan, Tasmanie, Thaïlande.  Les destinations fixes des DOM : Guadeloupe, Saint Barthélémy, Saint Martin, Guyane, Martinique, Réunion et des TOM : Saint Pierre et Miquelon et Mayotte  Les destinations fixes des pays d’Afrique et du Maghreb suivant : Afrique du Sud , Maroc Sont exclus des appels en illimité du Maroc les numéros à mobilité restreinte commençant par 212526, 212527, 212533, 212534, 212546 qui bénéficient de la tarification vers mobile[/quote]

Thanks for replying again AnOther - I was getting better speeds not that long ago in my current location as well as my previous one and actually the line speed has gone up a bit in that time too, it's approximately 5300 kb/s .  On Livebox I get this: Attenuation Up : 20.8 dB; Attenuation Down : 47.0 dB; Noise margin up : 8 dB; Noise margin down : 10 dB. Degrouptest reports "longueur de ligne : 4264 mètres; affaiblissement théorique : 44.104 dB" And on the attenuation test site, it says It would appear your line is under performing with regard to ADSL, this may be due to issues like the ring wire, unfiltered equipment and other factors. Ideally you would expect to see connection speeds of 7375Kbps or higher at your attenuation Basically it is no big issue I know, and I'm glad to have the amount of speed that I do, but I get perfect performance on sites like the BBC IPlayer streaming video at 1500kbs and even 3200 for HD programming, and that's through a proxy! Is there any correlation between streaming and downloading? I would have thought so but I don't know.

Well I've been messing around with my speed-gazing over the last few days and can see I am been capped by Orange at 512KB/s without any doubt. One interesting (to me) way of doing it is when using Vuze, if you have a very fast download available, to get to my capped top speed of 500 odd, then in the settings available you lower the speed to 200 for a few seconds and then put the option back to unlimited. My speed would then shoot up 900 and then drop back after a couple of seconds to 500 and stay there again. Anyway, I wonder if this is the same with other providers like SFR or Free, does anyone know? I find it quite annoying because before I moved house, I was getting uncapped speeds on the same Livebox on the same knackered old laptop .... [:)]

Just watching the speed as it downloads is what I do. The 10 MB test files you linked to AnOther, took about twelve seconds to dowload for me, registering a speed of 512.8 KB/s.

Thank you for the replies. It's alright Jonzjob, my version of ranting is a mild, timorous even, interjection with no threatening undertones. And sorry about your speed issues, having spent eight years on sloooooow dial-up until last summer, I do understand ... Thanks for the links Danny, afraid I haven't got through all 60 pages yet but it does confirm I'm not alone, actually I will have a good look at that whole forum, should learn a lot.

My connection speed is about 5 and a half meg. I can watch live streams up to BBC's HD output without problem. But when it come to downloading, either through direct site downloads through a browser or Vuze, my speed never goes above 500 kB/sec. I have tried researching the question and there seems to be talk of Orange capping "excessive downloading" .... Am I imagining a mountain out of a molehill or might it be worth a rant on the English helpline?

[quote user="Alpinemist"]Also any idea how long it takes to get set up[/quote] Very fast for me, ordered on a Wednesday afternoon delivered on Saturday morning and internet connected instantly - took a couple more days for the phone side to be fully activated but it was still usuable. Then when moving house some months later, new line installed within two days and the switchover was within hours. The Livebox Star package is pretty good too in my view.

Not working yet for me.

I`ve just set up to divert my Orange landline calls to my mobile, will be keeping an eye on my suivi forfait over the coming days <slightly nervous smiley> Reading the small print, it seems that it is free for one hour to mobiles plan (in my case) and then 0.16€ a minute.

[quote user="pachapapa"]Downloaded it and it works on Radio and TV but I get have you got a BBC licence pop-up. HSS-2.04-install-anchorfree-232-expatshield.exe [/quote] The licence fee pop-up is standard if the IPlayer doesn`t "remember" the computer you`re logging in with because of cookies and wotnot. You have the correct, latest version of expatshield installed [:)]

[quote user="Jay"] Well there you go. That's why you don't get snap crackle and pop on VoIP. Never had any pop-ups, neither BBC nor adverts. Suggest you change browser to Firefox 4 [/quote] .... in conjunction with add-on AdBlockPlus, then no ads at all. I`ve been using ExpatShield since last November and the server has gone down a couple of times, taking a few days to get fixed each time, but the application itself works very well, giving you access to many streaming providers in the UK eg http://www.blinkbox.com/ http://video.uk.msn.com/browse/tv-shows/genres http://www.youtube.com/4OD as well as ITV and BBC players. And this international BBC IPlayer that has been announced will only ever be a severely diluted version of the UK one, it`s only been trialled on ipads and that isn`t till later this year. So don`t hold your breath necessarily if you actually hoped to catch a particular programme this decade .... or just watch it for free on ExpatShield* [;-)] *other free UK VPNs are available, but this seems to be the best, if you set it up correctly.

[quote user="Jane and Danny"]Whe you install the adblock plus add on, there is an option to use a choice of ready made filters/subscriptions (i.e. lists of sites/ads to block) Pick a popular one and it will block most pop ups or ads. Then you can always right click on any image/ad and choose to block image and you should not see it again. More here - you can choose one and just add it by clickong on subscribe. http://adblockplus.org/en/subscriptions Danny PS When I tried Expat Shield, I had no adverts at all. I think I have the easylist english, if I recall. [/quote] Yes you're quite right, Easylist does the job perfectly in conjunction with Expat Shield.

It's just the general confoundedness of computers! Do the BBC & ITV Players work for you Sue?

The YouTube one is bit pernickitty (doesn't seem to work for every one), but SeeSaw and MSN should work, presuming you are running ExpatShield successfully.

Loads of free content at http://video.uk.msn.com/browse/tv-shows/genres too.

Try using http://www.youtube.com/shows?feature=mh or http://www.seesaw.com/ for catch-ups of Channels 4 and 5. They both work fine for me.

If it doesn't work at the first time of asking, disconnect and reconnect - that worked for me. It might save a few minutes' aggravation of the full uninstall/reinstall routine ;)

[quote user="Bugsy"]A related question, I understand that the 'Mac' version of this is 'Hotspot Shield'. Does anyone on here have any experience of using this? .[/quote] No, Hotspot Shield is for the US, there isn't a Mac version yet. Anyway .... Expat Shield is working correctly again!

Just check your suivi conso in the espace client on orange.fr the day after making a call (it takes a short time for them to be listed). That will show your your call details and on the right hand side the pleasing column of the cost of said calls will be 0,00 €. I'm on the same package and make frequent calls to UK and Oz. There are no limitations on calls to landlines. It's great!

I have an Orange Net Plus account and am moving soon. The new property doesn't have a phone line at all (but it is okay for broadband) so obviously one needs installing. Trying to find out the costs online is confusing me rather. It seems that Free offer line installation for 40€. Does anyone know if that compares favourably with FT/Orange? I imagine the the best option will be to stick with Orange, but if there's something better about, I'd be interested ....