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SQUID is a bit like a large cache running on a Unix based box. Users do not have access to the internet but instead to the SQUID cache (SQUID has access to the internet). All is client browser username/password controlled has loads of security, configurable blocks, barring, logging, etc… Users (browsers) do not have any access to the internet but only to the SQUID which limits what they can do.

[quote]Firstly to Dick Many thanks on info re FileMaker, it has been a long time and do remember good words said about it. There are though some good program features within Access as well and many o...[/quote] Re: Issues with MACs - just use a SQUID.

[quote]Thank you, as I understand it one is at least in principle free to choose one's GP in the UK; the limiting factor is on the GP's side, they will only take on so many patients, and in some areas this m...[/quote] When I last registered in the UK, it was a complete nightmare. I was in single, no children, in my early 40's, had not seen a doctor for years, etc. yet practices 3 miles away were rejecting me because I was "too far away". In the end I had a choice of one (that was actually 4 miles away. This was not in London. I had the impression that the practices were "cherry picking" the easiest patients. Any hint of having to do anything atall inconvenient (like travel for a home visit) and they would not take you.

“Where does the idea come from that the doctors here don't keep records?” In my case through lack of knowledge and the assumption that in a totally de-centralised system who keeps the records (e.g. you visit 3 different doctors, who holds what records ad can these be referenced by other doctors who probably don’t know who you visited and when, etc.).

Many fuel suppliers will also sweep chimneys (or have somebody to do it for them). Check in Yellow Pages (Ramonage)

Out of interest, I believe that in the UK a doctor receives money for having somebody registered. Is the same going to happen in France or is everything funding wise the same except that you are limited to a single surgery. I ask mainly from interest and as to whether the French GPs regard it as a positive move or negative (in they now have to keep medical records, paperwork, etc.)

[quote]The paper bit has you offences on and has to be carried with you even in the UK as well as the vredit card bit. My credit card bit has the EU flag on it.[/quote] A bit of an aside, but I still have an old paper licence (so don't know about these new things). Have the UK really issued a credit card style (convenient) licence and them make you carry around a bit of paper as well ?

With regard to trailers, the UK law is changing/changed to comply with the EEC directives (and thus be consistent across Europe). If you are not familiar with the new rules see http://www.dvla.gov.uk/forms/pdf/INF30_020702.pdf. However, does anybody know that, if you change your licence to a French one, do you lose tha right to tow trailers or not. Also, has anybody "lost" their photo licence, ordered a replacement (supposedly easy) and swapped the replacement for a French one, thereby actually having both licences ?

My own attitude is one relating to the reasons for IT and computers. Excluding development companies who make their money developing software, the purpose for IT is to serve the users. Basically to make the life of users easier. A large number of IT groups completely ignore this purpose and thus totally fail in the reason fro their existence. When a user requires a MAC for some good reason, then it is the job of an IT group to provide it (or to sort out how what is needed can be done). Different computers have different benefits and it is for the user to justify the reason for their need and thus to justify the costs, not for IT. One aspect to the justification for the costs will be the IT group’s costs (e.g. additional security devices, learning curve time, whatever), but this is just part of the users justification. It is totally inappropriate for IT to decide as to the need for a second scanner as they do not use it. The user needs to make the justification for the scanner and then IT need to sort out the technical stuff to do it. Clearly, IT may be involved in the justification and may be given the opportunity to comment (e.g. our costs would be lower if you could use xxx as we know how these work already/have existing maintenance contracts/etc.) but IT’s role is to serve. IT should not be controlling groups but a service groups – doing what the users need them to do. I have seen so many companies where IT have too much power, forget their purpose and become ends in themselves and completely fail the users.

With Wanadoo you buy your ADSL modem (ideally from them). For example, when I gone mine (a couple of months ago), their USB ADSL modem price was 1 Euro. Don’t know their price for a WiFi one but it’s a lot less than in the shops. I got the Ethernet ADSL box for 10 euros. These special prices require you to commit to 1 year. I got all my stuff sorted out by telephoning Wanadoo as asking them for it all. They deal with asking France Telecom to connect your ADSL to Wanadoo, etc., sending you the ADSL modem, etc. Unfortunately, the connection process can take up to 14 days (France Telecom plus getting you the ADSL box) – mainly France telecom. During this time, if you currently use a fixed price contract you may find it no longer works properly. I found I could still connect through dial-up but the connection would be dropped immediately to a couple of minutes later. I checked this with Wanadoo and it was because I was marked as an ADSL customer not a dial-up and they could not change that or the France Telecom connection request would be cancelled (and thus I would not get to ADSL). I thus had to use the Pay-as-you-go dial-up service for the couple of weeks for the change-over. Note that whilst you can change the ADSL “package” you subscribe to, you cannot do this online and have to call their premium rate numbers to do it. You can test the speeds and things available to you using http://www.degrouptest.com/ (though I have only ever got it to work using the phone number and not the postcode and a lot of what it does is “database driven” so if ADSL has only just arrived, it may take a bit to be updated to show any ADSL availability – give it a go and see. Above is my experience as of a couple of months ago.

I don't know about Switzerland, but I would try to speak to somebody at their Embassy (or wherever). Web sites are notoriously inaccurate. For example, the British Embassy, France web site still says that old format (PETS) paperwork cannot be issued by anybody after end-Sept 2004 (yet DEFRA say differently and the Embassy Agriculture Department say differently if you actually talk to them).

Microsoft does have quite a hold over the computer industry in so far as it has a large market share. However, that in itself is no indication as to their product quality (good or bad). Some people have always use other systems, others are gradually trying and discovering alternative systems. In the case of browsers, people are starting to switch way from Microsoft of a variety of reasons (functionality, security, etc.). For example, the US Department of Homeland Security has recommended that people do not use Internet Explorer due to its security weaknesses. Despite being included “out-of-the-box” with a very high proportion of computers, IE’s market share is falling (which means that either Windoze based PCs are dropping in popularity or increasing numbers of users are taking action to switch to alternatives). I personally gave up using IE as my default browser as, clicking on the LF e-mail messages about a post to a thread, about half the time IE would just lock-up. I thus changed to an alternative browser which I find better and basically it works. Everybody makes their own decisions depending on their experience. Most companies are trying to make their external presentation as open as possible. Present your best image to everybody (even MAC users !!). Most companies cannot control the computers or browsers their prospective customers might use so, to give best impression, they try not to tie themselves into a specific platform. There are many standards and software solutions that allow this to be done successfully and with ease. It is worth noting that there are two software suppliers in the context of the LF forums; the Microsoft Operating System and middleware systems and the non-Microsoft developed forum software. As forum users we can really only see the system as a whole. Any failings could lie in a variety of places and without detailed internal knowledge of configurations, operations, etc. it is difficult to identify where the problems and limitations lie. It is a point worth noting that LF (or rather their publishers IT group) have made strategic decision that, to make best use of their facilities, you must use Microsoft Windoze based software, a strategic direction contrary to that taken by most companies. The direction LF wish to go is entirely their decision. Speaking personally, over the last week or so I had become so fed-up with the LF forums I had started participating to a much greater extent in some of the other French forums available and found them to be informative, with many knowledgeable participants, with forum systems that basically worked (such that you could concentrate on participation is discussions rather than the software mechanisms). I returned here as I was told the problems had been sorted-out. I don’t think it is a question of “boycotting” but rather, for me, of deciding where I wish to spend time. Do I really want to go through posting repeatedly to try and stop getting error messages then having to go back through and delete all the duplicates when somebody pointed out to me that it had actually worked despite the failure error page I got shown, etc., etc.

You can check your Sky coverage possibilities at http://www.brymar.co.uk/info/info.html (which includes coverage maps for europe for the various Sky Asta "beams"

Don't know what is the cause of your problem as there are many possibilities. In fact it stems from people trying to be too clever. I consider there is nothing wrong with a link that says www.somwhere.com (as you know its a web site in the same way as you know [email protected] will send an e-mail message) - things like "click-me for more info" don't tell you what is going to happen (including opening a virus'd document, etc.). What happened on my computer is that the security settings stopped such links activating (have not bothered to find out where as I don't personally use them as I tend to delete html format e-mail messages due to the risks from their content). Many companies tend to avoid html format e-mails these days as, many systems use a scoring system to detect SPAM (e.g. key words in text, key words in subject, html format message, etc.) and html tends to add points and is thus more likely to be rejected or classed as SPAM. Similarly, should an html message arrive at a SPAM trap, it is far more likely to become a blocked sender by virtue of the html format message. Sorry but I can't be a lot of help.

Subsequently found out that despite getting an error back multiple times, each of the times had actually posted the message - so I then had to go back and delete out all the additional posts. I returned when the speed improved, but previously whilst it was slow, I got relatively few errors reported. Today I've had loads of these errors being reported (so I am starting to be a bit more negative as its still "hard work") !!!

Sorry, I had loads of: Server Error in '/' Application. Exception of type System.OutOfMemoryException was thrown. 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.OutOfMemoryException: Exception of type System.OutOfMemoryException was thrown. 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: [OutOfMemoryException: Exception of type System.OutOfMemoryException was thrown.] Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:1.1.4322.2032; ASP.NET Version:1.1.4322.2032 ------------------------------------------ I though the problems with this forum were meant to have been sorted ! I'll delete some of them out (if it will let me).

After 6 of these: Server Error in '/' Application. Exception of type System.OutOfMemoryException was thrown. 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.OutOfMemoryException: Exception of type System.OutOfMemoryException was thrown. 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: [OutOfMemoryException: Exception of type System.OutOfMemoryException was thrown.] Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:1.1.4322.2032; ASP.NET Version:1.1.4322.2032 I gave up trying to post. sorry Redcap but through no fault of your own you wont be getting the information I had to post to you (and everybody else) - lets see if this one gets posted ?

There is a UK site that can speed test your ADSL (probably some in France but I don’t know of them). It seems to work fine if you are in France – after the test just click the “I’m not in the UK” button and you get the results. It should give you an indication of what throughput (in both directions) you are achieving. Site is http://www.adslguide.org.uk/tools/speedtest.asp (sorry, you’ll have to cut and paste the link).

Try looking on http://www.brymar.co.uk/info/info.html. when I set mine up (further south than you) I was very lucky and got the alignment pretty quickly (it was definitely luck not skill in my case).

If you have a local area network (cables or otherwise), you may be able to run a Proxy Server on the computer that currently has access to the internet. There are free-ware proxy servers available (e.g. http://www.handcraftedsoftware.org/) and they are not too difficult to setup. You may easily find a proxy server solution cheaper than a WiFi one depending on what network cards (or built in cables network connections) your computers may already have. Another benefit is that it doesn’t disrupt your existing computer connection and doesn’t need WiFi cards or other RF stuff (thus cheaper). Just another of many alternatives.

It may be that some of what you cannot do is related to you not using Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE). If you do use IE, then ignore the rest of this as it is not true in your case. However, I do not use IE on a PC platform and have seen others (e.g. MAC users) say that they are limited in terms of what they can do (e.g. no message formatting). This is because the forum software is “Microsoft Centric” and does not like the idea that you are using anything other than Microsoft software. Apparently Archant IT has a “Microsoft Only” strategy.

The new servers seem (mostly) faster, though can on occasions still be slow. The functionality aspects seem no better (e-mail notifications take you to the 1st page rather than the one the post is on, e-mail swamping on multiple posts to same thread, etc. as raised in many other posts). I have tried reloading and killing off all cookies and cache with no effect (except I’ve had to re-enter all my passwords to pretty well everywhere). I still cannot format text and still get the occasional errors (e.g. one I got a few moments ago): Server Error in '/' Application. Exception of type System.OutOfMemoryException was thrown. 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.OutOfMemoryException: Exception of type System.OutOfMemoryException was thrown. 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: [OutOfMemoryException: Exception of type System.OutOfMemoryException was thrown.] Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:1.1.4322.2032; ASP.NET Version:1.1.4322.2032

[quote]Thanks for the advice. I have a M. Bricolage quite near me so I shall go and make enquiries. Hopefully it will do the trick and we will all live happily ever after. Quite what I do about the rack...[/quote] I also have Stone Martens in my roof. With regard to them (I don’t have cats so I have no ambiguity about the identification), they are a real nuisance and very difficult to get rid of. Be careful who you ask about them locally as they are protected and it is illegal to “do anything about them” (hence the fewer people who know the better). People say that they hate noise so leave a radio on a lot of the time. This did not work on mine (even a loud hi-fi had no effect). During the late-spring I even took to bashing the plasterboard when I heard them (right at the point they were) – with no effect. I started with one, then got a family and now the youngsters have gone their way and I’m back to one (or two). I have purchased a humane trap so I can relocate them elsewhere but I keep getting hedgehogs (who then like the trap so much they stay in it). If you find a way to remove the Stone Martens, do let me know.

[quote]You can either deposit money in Euro or UK pounds - so no exchange rates apply on deposits, The credit balance in your account expires after 180 days of inactivity, so with a 10 euro deposit I have 1/...[/quote] From Skype (14/Dec/2004) re: Billing Currencies: ----------------------------------------------- Skype charge your credit card account in Euros. Your credit card company will convert this Euro amount back to the currency, in which your card is issued.

In the case of the "double posting" bug, the duplicate postings appear at the end of the thread (subsequent posts being included before the 2nd (and subsequent) duplicates. The duplicates cannot be deleted (by either the author or moderators - or so I have seen posted somewhere). Certainly the “double posting” issues are a bug in the forum software – and it appeared that the indicated thread may have been the same bug but now in a triple form. This is my reason for posting the warning (to those running the forum) as, if a bug is not reported it is very unlikely to be fixed.