I1
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Posts posted by I1
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Yes.However, when I looked at them they appeared a bit different to the UK policy I previously had. In the UK Pet Insurance often covers both 3rd party insurance as well as vet bills. When I looked in France I was told that my house policy covered 3rd party insurance for my dog (assuming I was behaving responsibly/sensibly). I could take out vet bill insurance separately. The policy I looked at (AGF) was cheaper than in the UK but had a lower max. pay-out limit in a year. There were none of the “ongoing illness” aspects some UK policies have (e.g. arthritic treatment), etc. As I was mainly concerned with 3rd party cover I did not search too extensively.Check with your house insurer about 3rd party cover should there be a claim caused by your pet (accident, damage, etc.) The same insurer will probably be able to offer you vet bill insurance, though do not automatically assume it is the same thing as in the UK (it may be as my experience was of a single policy and others may be different). I’m sure you can shop around and find other policies from other insurers as well.Summary it is available but may be different to what is normal in the UK.
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Treading very carefully in what I say now and certainly not suggesting that there is anything wrong with anything anywhere, but the page http://forums.livingfrance.com/shwmessage.aspx?ForumID=289&MessageID=109068 displays very interestingly in my browser (sorry I cant “hyperlink” the page but silly me doesn’t use Internet Explorer).
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Quote: “You're never going to like a product that runs on a Microsoft server”Quote: “You obviously dislike anything Microsoft”I actually develop software systems for the Microsoft platform (and have done since the pre-Windoze 3.1 days). There is no element of like or dislike. It is “appropriate/suitable/reliable/etc.” or "inappropriate/unsuitable/unreliable/etc.”.I have no strong feelings about phpBB (other than in my limited experience it works), and I use it as an example. People here are beginning to leap to conclusions a bit.
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Quote: “I notice even TF (as an example mentioed by yourself) does not keep people informed the way you describe.”TF was raised by somebody else and don’t need to keep people informed about such issues as that forum does not suffer from the problems this forum does. From an IT management perspective one only needs to keep users informed about fixes, etc. when there are major problems.Quote: “Secondly the this forum and others run by Archant are free services and only cater for a small amount of the IT business of the company so for technical staff to spend hours, days, weeks on this problem continiously is not on, they do it when they can, bit like Forum Admin.”Exactly, I agree. As I commented, running these types of forums does not take a lot of work (particularly where you have a group of external moderators to assist). It only becomes a lot of work where you have unreliable and inadequate software running on inappropriate platforms (as indicated in a previous post). Given that Archant (quite reasonably) don’t want to spend lots of IT resource on such things it is amazing that they are continuing with this forum software and solution where other more proven solutions would require a lot less ongoing work.
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Quote “I am finding it quite tedious to continually hear about about the shortcomings of this site.”Then stop reading these threads !!!Quote: “It is plainly obvious that Archant are trying to sort things out”The problems could have been resolved many months ago were it not for Archant IT selecting a specific platform to run the forums on and being unprepared to change that when it became clear it was not working.Quote: “but the continual criticisms are not IMO helpful to all and sundry.”Unless somebody says that something is wrong, those running the site will not know and the faults will not be rectified. There is nothing worse in life than people being **** off and keeping quite.Quote “Both Tim and James I think are taking the problems seriously and in the course of time I am sure they will rectify them.”We are told they are working closely with the forum software developers but still we can be given no indications as to what issues will be addressed nor when these will be addressed (at least all I have seen is a link to the forum developers own forum that say nothing about planned enhancements and fixes and nothing about schedules. In IT terms this is not working closely with the developers. I’m sure they are taking it seriously, but are the forum software developers and others ? Failure to keep users informed is another classic failure that increases frustrations and aggravation in IT systems. Any IT manager should know this.Quote “I think praise should be passed to them for their patience as I am sure they have other jobs to do for the company. Let's not forget that the site is free and continue to give our support as a sign of our appreciation for their time and efforts.”True it is free. However, I would have thought it in Archant’s (and in particular LF’s) interest to operate a credible set of forums. As stated by somebody in an earlier post, this entire situation must be highly embarrassing to Archant’s credibility. Running a forum should take very little work, particularly when you have external moderators to assist in the management. It is only when poor software run on inappropriate platforms cause unending problems that it takes such a lot of work.Quote: “Actually TF seems to be 'down' at present, in fact I have never had an email notification of a post from them despite ticking the box, I really don't consider this to be a big enough deal to worry about. However other Phpbb (or yabb)boards I use certainly have not behaved in that way, may be Finlay has customised their software in some way. (or maybe I have rogue browser).”E-mail notification positioning on actual message is standard phpBB functionality. I would try checking your registered e-mail address or, if you are an AOL user there are issues with receiving mail from non-AOL addresses (nothing to do with forums, just AOL and your account settings). I have never had any problems with phpBB e-mail notifications (our company also runs a phpBB forum and never had any problems there either) – but this is getting a bit off topic.My apologies if I’m being a bit abrupt (and will no doubt get loads of nasty responses) but as I mentioned earlier, such problems are totally avoidable and I find it frustrating that they are not being avoided. I hope I have not insulted anybody in the above (as that was certainly not my intention) but rather I wish to address the points raised by some preceding posts.
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Quote: “…“Last Page …” link to get to the post (or scroll through pages if there have been several posts and I cannot know where the first of my unread posts is). This requiring several pages to be generated, sent to my browser, etc.<<<I read your comment regarding this before and find that it happens with every other forum I visit”Russethouse: If one takes the example of phpBB (as used by e.g. Total France mentioned in an earlier post), the e-mail link takes you to the post the mail is notifying you about. Not only the correct page, but also the scroll position in that page for the post. As it does not e-mail “flood”, the single e-mail notification you get takes you to the point that you last read the post to, so you can continue reading the new posts. (But phpBB does not “fit-in” with Archant IT Group’s capabilities)I am critical of the way this forum is being organised. Certainly, my impression is that these is less activity. By that I mean fewer posts (certainly in those areas of the forum of interest to me) and fewer responses to those posts. Fine, web traffic may be increasing but there can be other reasons for that.I am aware that some people do not like me being critical. However, I believe that if something is wrong, one should say it. Note that my criticisms are not sitting just throwing critical comments. I have spent some time assisting sorting out forum software failures (e.g. with non-IE browsers being unable to access Control Panel, PM areas, etc.), I have assisted in compiling lists of shortcomings for the developers (something people are often paid for in IT), in logging problems and failures (to assist in identifying the causes of the problems), I have been making suggestions about how things can be improved, etc.In the course of a (too) long IT career, I have seen many IT project failures and have come to appreciate the underlying indications and causes that can contribute to such failures. IT project failures are in nobodies interest.The fact that I still respond here indicates that I really do wish this forum to succeed. Such forums are invaluable. I really don’t want it to fade away – hence my strong desire that the functionality issues get sorted-out and quickly. I have far better things to do with my time that just make comments of software functionality and my comments are not just “mud slinging”. Please, please can somebody somewhere do something about the quality of this forum software so everybody can get back to the real idea behind such forums.
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If you run over ADSL, this site is still slower than others (people seem to be mentioning TF which is quite a lot faster). This site (LF) is variable. On occasions it takes 6 seconds to load the main page (can be faster sometimes), but it has taken in excess of 20 seconds to load a page.However, Total France is a very busy active site so the speed difference cannot be in the server loading. Also, as Archant IT keep telling us, their “compile once run many times” is far more efficient” than scripted based forums (despite the fact that others are faster).One thing that will increase the loading on the LF servers is the forum software functionality. For example, when I get an e-mail notification about a post to a thread that is more than one page, I click the link in the e-mail then have to use the “Last Page …” link to get to the post (or scroll through pages if there have been several posts and I cannot know where the first of my unread posts is). This requiring several pages to be generated, sent to my browser, etc.As we are mentioning other forums, I have pretty well moved across to TF now as basically “It Works”, is active, friendly, fast, well run, etc. In addition, the forum software systems support users and assist in communications such that you don’t notice them (whereas here you are always fighting difficult, low functionality, un-reliable software). From reading through some TF posts, I am not alone in moving to that forum. OK, TF software may not meet Archant’s IT groups desires, but users want something different (something fast, reliable, etc.) and if Archant IT wont provide what the users want, then the users will go somewhere that does provide it.I actually think the LF users deserve medals for “sticking-in-there”. Problems have been going on for many months now, yet people are tolerating things they would never accept in other aspects of life.
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I’ve always discussed all my (pet related transport) questions with the normal Brittany Ferries ticket line. I was not even aware there was a separate phone number.Brittany Ferries do limit the number of animals of each ferry (20 each trip I think) so you might need to book in plenty of time if you are booking for 4 (almost a quarter of the limit for the ferry).I would try asking you local vet about carrier sizes.I have heard that the Pont Aven kennels are not used for the cross-channel trips but only for the longer trips to e.g. Spain. I’ve never travelled on that boat so don’t have personal experience.If you are two cars, I don’t see how they would associate the two together so whatever the rules may be (which I don’t know), I cannot see how they would be enforced. That said, every time I have entered France with my dogs they have been totally ignored by customs. Certainly, arriving at Caen (and Portsmouth) you don’t have to stop and declare your pets. All the paperwork is checked by Brittany Ferries and nobody else worries though I suppose they probably do spot checks occasionally).
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Quote: “Thank-you, I1, for reminding us that nothing in IT is guaranteed”.Actually this is not the case atall. When we develop software we guarantee it. We guarantee that, should the customer identify a problem we will start investigations into the problem within a specified time (normally 8 working hours). If the problem cannot be fixed quickly, then work-arounds will be discussed and proposed where possible. Problems (under our contracts) include operational problems (when the systems are run on supported platforms) that are not due to software bugs and also include missing or faulty functionality. It appears that Archant are giving their software suppliers a “very easy time” (we would love customers like yourselves).
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Quote from Archant IS/IT: "We aim to select systems that provide the best combination of benefit / performance / resilience / supportability and compatibility ..."
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But is you want to delete some and keep others it is very poor. Select the ones you want to delete on e.g. Page one, move to page 2 and it will discard all your selections from page 1 (without warnings or anything). I went through 13 pages selecting which ones to delete !!!!
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This message cannot have happened. We have been told that the software and architecture are resilient and that all the problems have now been sorted.
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I just spent ages going through un-un-subscribing from all the topics that are now dead or I no longer want to subscribe to. Went through each page checking those topics I no longer wanted notification for, then pressed the “delete button” and discovered that it ignored all my selections other than those on the current page. I had wasted all that time as each time I changed to the next page it discarded anything I had selected.I develop commercial software so have some experience of software systems. This forum software is inadequate in a large number of areas, to the point that I should never have been released for general use – let alone to have charged people money for it.I seem to continually be wasting my time on this forum. The other week I had to spend ages deleting out 50 plus duplicate messages due to a bug in the forum software, now my efforts to tidy my subscriptions have all been wasted time !!”We are continually being promised things will be better but they don’t seem to. Its always coming. Achant have lost all credibility as a company – they can’t even setup and run a forum properly. As I previously stated, in my own company a non-technical person installed, configured, set-up and maintains a forum and it works. Archant with all their flash job titles IT groups, etc. cannot even do that.I appreciate I’m critical of this forum software system – but it deserves it. Ban me if you want for being outspoken – but I’m past caring any more. Communicating through this software is just such hard work I’m considering joining the many others and posting the “deserted elsewhere” message on another forum.
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I was being really dumb and mis-read the post (I wont admit how I read it as its embarrassing).
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E-mail floodingE-mail notification takes you to the first page of the topic rather than the post you are being notified about.No support for message formatting in non-IE browsersWhen editing a message the text is a single block with for line breaks.No option in personal settings to set default “Subscribe to topic” (or not)Only option to scroll through pages (in a thread) using next/previous/last rather than e.g. 1,2,3… (once in the topic)Can only quote a single post in a message being posted (and cannot select which bit of the message is being referencedAvatar image does not accept .PNG format images or, having lost my Avatar, I now cannot upload a new one (only a browse button and update does not change it, though there is a white space after the browse button - tried .PNG, .GIF, .BMP, etc) none restore my Avatar image.Just a few off the top of my head. From memory without much thought.How do LF plan to try to get some of their users back to try and generate some activity back in this forum ?
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Quote: “We aim to select systems that provide the best combination of benefit / performance / resilience / supportability and compatibility while meeting our requirements”I assume you consider this forum system has such features as performance and resilience.Quote: “in high traffic environments the more scripting languages you have running on a web server the more problems you're likely to encounter”And we are having no problems here ? The loading on this forum does not represent high traffic. There are far larger phpBB sites around running decently (with decent functionality).Quote: “To opt for a PHP solution would also require cross training of some of the development team to provide support for the system” – so, learn something new. Its what IT is about. phpBB can be installed an run by non-development people. My own company has a small phpBB system that was entirely installed, set-up configured and is maintained by a non-technical person with no help nor questions, nor involvement from any IT people.Quote: “available for ASP.NET, which is our preferred platform” AND “we don't have a "Microsoft only" strategy” – you are clearly totally open to other architectures.A quote from a moderator “Living France's publishers' IT people, who insist that ASP.net (a Microsoft system) is the only way to go”.A quote from Tim Stephenson: “The Microsoft platform / environment is simply what our company is currently standardised on for software” Clearly no “Microsoft” strategy here !!!
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I would suggest starting at your local refuge centres (e.g. SPA is nationwide, but there are probably loads of more locally based ones). To find then try Yellow Pages or check at your local vet.Whatever you do DO NOT buy a dog from a pet shop. In France some pet shops still sell dogs and these have a bad reputation. I am told that these dogs are often bred in puppy farms, are often in poor health, often separated from their mothers far to early, often have false papers (e.g. age, vaccinations, etc.) Not only might you he helping such dis-reputable trade but the dog you would “end-up with” may have a number of problems (health, behavioural, etc.).If you can’t find what you are looking for via the refuges, try your local vets. Other than that, I can only suggest breeders (who would probably only have puppies). You don’t say why you prefer not to have a puppy as bringing a dog up from a pup age has some advantages.
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And again trying to view a thread>>>>>>Server Error in '/' Application.Input string was not in a correct format.Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.Exception Details: System.FormatException: Input string was not in a correct format.Source Error:An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.Stack Trace:[FormatException: Input string was not in a correct format.] Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.DecimalType.Parse(String Value, NumberFormatInfo NumberFormat) +207 Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.LongType.FromString(String Value) +90[InvalidCastException: Cast from string "false" to type 'Long' is not valid.] Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.LongType.FromString(String Value) +199 Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.LongType.FromObject(Object Value) +711 Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.ObjectType.BitOrObj(Object obj1, Object obj2) +865 InstantASP.InstantForum.WebSite.shwmessage.ThreadRepeater_ItemDataBound(Object Sender, RepeaterItemEventArgs e) System.Web.UI.WebControls.Repeater.OnItemDataBound(RepeaterItemEventArgs e) +109 System.Web.UI.WebControls.Repeater.CreateItem(Int32 itemIndex, ListItemType itemType, Boolean dataBind, Object dataItem) +139 System.Web.UI.WebControls.Repeater.CreateControlHierarchy(Boolean useDataSource) +477 System.Web.UI.WebControls.Repeater.OnDataBinding(EventArgs e) +48 System.Web.UI.WebControls.Repeater.DataBind() +23 InstantASP.InstantForum.WebSite.shwmessage.BindData() InstantASP.InstantForum.WebSite.shwmessage.Page_Load(Object Sender, EventArgs E) System.Web.UI.Control.OnLoad(EventArgs e) +67 System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +35 System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +98 System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain() +750Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:1.1.4322.2032; ASP.NET Version:1.1.4322.2032
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Got this trying to refresh (browser refersh button) an existing page being displayed.>>>>>>>>>>Server Error in '/' Application.Input string was not in a correct format.Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.Exception Details: System.FormatException: Input string was not in a correct format.Source Error:An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.Stack Trace:[FormatException: Input string was not in a correct format.] Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.DecimalType.Parse(String Value, NumberFormatInfo NumberFormat) +207 Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.LongType.FromString(String Value) +90[InvalidCastException: Cast from string "false" to type 'Long' is not valid.] Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.LongType.FromString(String Value) +199 Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.LongType.FromObject(Object Value) +711 Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.ObjectType.BitOrObj(Object obj1, Object obj2) +861 InstantASP.InstantForum.WebSite.shwmessage.ThreadRepeater_ItemDataBound(Object Sender, RepeaterItemEventArgs e) System.Web.UI.WebControls.Repeater.OnItemDataBound(RepeaterItemEventArgs e) +110 System.Web.UI.WebControls.Repeater.CreateItem(Int32 itemIndex, ListItemType itemType, Boolean dataBind, Object dataItem) +139 System.Web.UI.WebControls.Repeater.CreateControlHierarchy(Boolean useDataSource) +477 System.Web.UI.WebControls.Repeater.OnDataBinding(EventArgs e) +48 System.Web.UI.WebControls.Repeater.DataBind() +23 InstantASP.InstantForum.WebSite.shwmessage.BindData() InstantASP.InstantForum.WebSite.shwmessage.Page_Load(Object Sender, EventArgs E) System.Web.UI.Control.OnLoad(EventArgs e) +67 System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +35 System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +98 System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain() +750Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:1.1.4322.2032; ASP.NET Version:1.1.4322.2032
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Sorry, my above post was meant primarily in response to Miki's post, but I cannot edit my previous post (no such button any more).It is a feature of software development called "creeping featurism” – basically where the developers continually add new nice little features. This forum software seems to suffer from the reverse (what few features it does have are starting to disappear).
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As has been said on many occasions Archant IS have a IT strategy that MUST be followed to the exclusion of all else. Quality, reliability, user facilities, etc. appear not relevant to Archant’s IT strategy (Microsoft everything).We have been promised solutions continually. Archant do this, do that do the other and the error messages change but the underlying problem remains (the underlying problem being that it does not work properly). Even if it did work, there is still poor functionality on this forum software.I personally post questions I have in other forums, though will still respond to threads here (though it is hard work and feel I am persisting where others have given up).If one takes the example of phpBB (a different forum software system): its free, it supports non-IE browsers properly, its used everywhere (very very large to small forums), it has far better functionality to this software (dramatically so), its fully supported and maintained, etc. IT WORKS. Rather than use something free reliable, etc. Archant prefer pay loads of money for something that does none of these properly (but is Microsoft based !!).
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[quote]Things must be bad for Ryanair - booking period for these cheap flights extended to midnight Thursday. John not[/quote]
Middle of last year a couple for friends got some 99p tickets (plus airport taxes, etc.) to come out and visit. I think that these are often available, though maybe RyanAir have just increased the number of cheap seats in each aircraft (and mayby the number of flights covered). Certainly 99p has always been available (just not on every filght and not all seats). -
[quote]From Rodez the flights are from €0.99, if you put in a French start you automatically get the euro price.[/quote]
Do you have a web site address for them ? -
[quote]Remember, I1, "he who pays the piper calls the tune" and as you ain't paying, you cannot expect to call (well, perhaps you can but may be considered unreasonable for so doing). John not[/quote]
True. However, I work on the assumption that Archant and LF like people to contribute to this forum. Having a lively and informative forum is actually to their commercial benefit.The other thing that disappoints me about this is that it represents a all too frequent failure of an IT group. As I have gone on in similar threads, when IT lose sight of their purpose (to provide facilities for users) is when it all starts to go wrong. The function of IT is to provide services. Other than is a few more specialist companies (e.g. those that develop then sell software) IT is not an end in itself but rather provides services for others. When IT lose sight of this the users suffer (users I the broadest sense of the word, including internal company users and customers and external users).Archant have decided to bear with the failures of the forum software and to “work with” the forum software developers. What this means is that the forum users (you and me) are actually providing a free testing service (indirectly) for the forum developers whilst enduring all these problems. Despite the “close working relationship” Archant have with the forum software developers, they can give no timescales with regard to rectification of bugs, etc. I wish I had customers like that i.e. one that would endure such bug-ridden software, help me test it for free, allow me not to commit to any timescales to correct the bugs, etc. –a customer from heaven (I wont say more).(For those recording these "Unhandles Exception errors, I just got another trying to post this response).
Help - in Dept 64
in Pets
Posted