Steve Last

Anyone encountered this problem? Freebox worked OK when delivered and for first 2 weeks. Went away for 3 weeks and disconnected everything (just as well as there was a huge T-storm). On reconnecting everything, at first attempt it got “blocked” at the “PPP” display, left it on for 24 hours to see if it would clear but no joy. Disconnected and retried but this time it stuck at the “chasing rectangle”. Did the Hard Reboot as per manual several times but still no joy. Don’t have a spare ADSL modem (surprise surprise!) so can’t do the next bit of the troubleshooting. The only thing that has changed is that while I was off line I activated the free phone number service; this shows up on my account with the main line number. Have emailed for support, but don’t know how long or effective that is likely to be. Any experience of this out there? Steve

Also found another frustration with ***** iTunes …. Ran it a few days ago and got a message saying there is an update available - downloaded the install file to my desktop, installed and it was working fine a couple of days ago. Got here and tried it just now and got a message “can’t run because some files are missing - reinstall iTunes”. Did that from the new setup file….. it appears to install OK and then failes at the last moment when installing ****** Quicktime which I don’t want anyway. Then tells me that installation has been successfully completed. Try to run iTunes: get a message “can’t run because some files are missing - reinstall iTunes”.!!! Also my Freebox ADSL line won’t initialise either so I am stuck with the dialup and can’t reacquire another setup file from Apple - but that’s another story. Steve

Thanks for that, will give it some thought. Not today though, getting ready for the 13 hour trip down to 84 tomorrow and want to be sure the Ipod and Inmotion speakers will be working in the car! Steve

Does the Anapod one solve my biggest complaint about Itunes - I wanted to make a printed list of albums so I could check which of my CDs I still need to put on, and found it impossible without a huge amo0unt of hassle. In Itunes, copy and paste just an album NAME always copies all the track details at the same time. I eventually found a Winamp utility called Albumlist which did it. Also I really hate the way Itunes hides what is doing from you so you don't know where files are being held - I want to put a lot of old LPs and tapes on my Ipod, I can get them into MP3 format but had a horrible time stopping Itunes making multiple copies and othewise fooloing around with them. As a lot of peple have said, Ipod is great, Itunes is fine if you only want to use CDs and downloads from Apple and accept all its defaults. Shuffle is a great and simple idea (I keep finding it plays stuff I had completely forgotten about) but I would really like to be able to have for example it work only on a single genre or artist and things like that, and I haven't been able to figure out how.

"You set this up within the 'votre comte' page online and plugged in your phone into the box" AHA... I may have plugged them the other way round, the Freebox into the phone and the phone to the filter... can't remember now and I am in England again for a couple of weeks so will have to check when I get back. Steve

"I signed up - I got free calls. It does what it says on the tin." - so you went to the section "creer ma ligne telephonique Feebox", this asks you to choose a phone number from a list of numbers starting with 087 then 269 to 274 with a space after it. I selected some and got assigned the number 087274abcd as my Freebox line. What does this actually mean? Do I have to do anything with it? Tell people to use it or is it just a number Free uses internally? sorry to be dim... !! Steve

Can anyone clarify for me the following? I've had a Freebox installed since mid-May and was under the impression that this INCLUDED free phone calls France and UK in the €29.99 a month. However I have been billed for all these calls. The Free website seem to imply that I need to sign up for the calls with a new set of conditions of sale effective July 1st but the associated documentation looks pretty heavy going - 25 pages of conditions!! - and I am reluctant to do this in case it ends up with a double subscription or something. What is the situation - do I need to sign up for something more or was I misled about the included calls? Steve

My understanding is that (like me) you'll still have to pay the line rental element to FT, that is what the "non-degroupe" bit means, they can't "unbundle" the phone line in your rural type area from the FT system. Steve

see also the thread "new Freebox deal"..... Mine arrived as the single box, plus a filter and a yellow network cable. Cable plugs from laptop network socket into Freebox, freebox plugs into phone line via filter. Not sure why you think you need a modem? Allow it plenty of time to set itself up on the phone line before plugging into the computer. Similarly if you have the WiFi card. The Freebox needs to be showing the current time before the computer will recognise the connection. Steve

"In an attempt to clear up the confusion" - an extremely successful attempt, all working fine now, thank you very much indeed for setting me straight!! Best regards Steve

Hi Micheal, I received a Freebox just like the one you described not the new one referred to in the press release, it works fine although sometimes seems to take an awful long while to register itself (I have to disconnect it when the house is empty and it makes a hissing noise on the phone when connected). Anyway I then a few days ago received a "Freebox 802.11g PC Card". This seems to go in the slot in the side of the freebox but there are no setup instructions of any kind and absolutely nothing happens when it is plugged in - no light on the top and my laptop does not detect any wireless networks. How did you get yours to work? Steve

Micheal, sorry, don't quite follow. Are you referring to the NEW "HD Freebox" marketed from April 20, which appears to be TWO boxes or the older version? You are saying your ADSL box has a slot in it, So your laptop or whatever can access the broadband without a card by cable, but to do so wirelessly you need an additional card for the BOX, not that you need a wifi card for the computer? We currently have one laptop with built in wifi and one which has a separate card, so I'll need to have a further card to get either of them to work from around the house, however I could just connect via a network or USB cable - correct? Where did you get this additional card? What's it called in French so I know what to ask for! Thanks Steve By the way I just found an English language version of the press release at http://www.iliad.fr/en/presse/2006/CP_190406_Eng.pdf

"you receive only one box" - that's what the press release indicates is different as of April 20th. Did yours come with a WiFi router built in? Steve

I’m just weighing up which supplier to go for broadband and there appear to be a number of options now in my village. I have already had Free.fr recommended, and would like to know if anyone can confirm my understanding of their current offer as described in the press release of the end of last week. http://www.iliad.fr/presse/2006/Cp_190406.pdf As I understand it, for their €29.99 a month which is payable by direct bank debit only, you now get the NEW type “HD Freebox” which is actually 2 boxes, one an ADSL modem and the other a WiFi router and high definition TV tuner combined (with some other goodies). The flat monthly fee includes ADSL and all domestic calls plus those to 15 other countries. However I can’t find a list of which countries are covered on their site. As I understand it however unless I am in the “degroupage” area (which I don’t think I am) I will continue to pay France Telecom’s line rental fee. Sounds like a very good deal to me if I have it right. Have I, or is there a catch? Steve

Does anyone have any ideas about  how soon from first applying for broadband service each of the various suppliers one actually has the service  up and running ?  I need to get ADSL for my business but will only be here part time so need to know whether if I apply today, for example, it will be working before I go back in a couple of weeks time, or whether it would be better to wait until say a week.befoer I come again befoer doing anything. Also, whether there are any delays in getting the hardware - I have an old BT broadband modem in the UK, would that work on a French system (I realise it would need a phone adaptor)..... Steve  

Thanks everyone, after a bit of "woggling about" with my wife running in and out to say what was happening I got back a 60% signal qaulity so all OK  now- she can watch neighbours again...   good tips, thank you all. Steve 

Thank you....... looks like I'll have to climb up on the roof!! We had heavy wet snow a month or so back and that may have moved it a bit. This is the first time it's been used since then. The coax feeds into the boxes are all good, I remade them as part of the troubleshooting and that doesn't seem to have done it. Thanks again, Steve 

Very strange...   soon after sending the "everything OK after all" it went off again.  Currently we get some channels but not others  with 90% strength and zero quality reading. I don't understand quite why since surely the signal is coming from the same spot via the same antenna/satellite etc? I can understand why we migt get different quality digital signal on the Freeview system in England, since ITV etc is coming from a different transmitter to BBC and so on, but how come it varies from the same satellite?     Does putting a signal booster on the line from the dish help at all? "Puzzled in Puymeras" Steve   

Its amazing how effective this forum is. 10 minutes after filing my message I tried the set again and all working normally, without anything else being touched! I have about 90% signal strength but nothing showing on the  "signal quality"    strip - what should this be? Does it matter?? Steve   

Before I climb on the roof and start waggling the dish, has anyone else lost the sat signal for free channels?  Worked OK this time yesterday, turned on in the evening and got a "no signal received" message and zero signal strength. Same today.   This is in 84 (N Vaucluse) Steve

A neighbour in our village in N Vaucluse swears by the train as she lives in Wimbledon.... says its typically 7 mins from there to Waterloo, then about 6 hours 30 to Avignon via Lille, which is easiest with a simple cross platform transfer and about a 20 minute wait to stretch legs.  Usually says if she is going back they will leave our village by taxi about 1 pm for a 2.20 train (Avignon is about 55 mins away) and expects to be home by 10pm.  That compares with us driving or flying and we only travel midweek if at all possible. We drive if we are staying 2 weeks or more and especially if we have bulky items to bring e.g. cat in large box!! Driving we do it one go which is possible only because of good autoroutes and having a comfortable car), which is leave 7 am for the tunnel at 5.30, out at Folkestone and a 2 hour drive to Marlow where we live. Total journey time that way is 13 hors + or - an hour.   Flying north we will drive Marseille (leave 2 hr 30 before flight) and fly to Gatwick, then its an hour drive aftre retrieving the car from parking.  Total journey time is typically 6 hrs 30, (2.5 hours house to flight departure, 2 hours flight, 2 hours retrieve car and drive home) have to allow longer for southbound due to uncertainties of M25/23 and longer check-in etc at LGW than MRS. Overall flying is about half the road time, but with less flexibility as timing is determikned by flight availability.   We have contemplated the train but it would be no quicker than flying due to need to get into London from here.  Costs work out to be approx £400 round trip by road (£85 fuel and £45 tolls each way plus tunnel at about £130 return using Frequent traveler advance purchase, regardless of number of people.  By air it's £20 fuel to Gatwick plus air tickets, plus probably £25 per day for parking plus a rental car for the duration, so for 2 at at "off peak" air rates it's about  the same cost as driving after 12 days, however on the drive we really lose a full day in each direction whereas flying you lose 1/2 a day each way.    For SW London trips I would think the train is by far the best if you don't need local "wheels". Good luck! Steve   

Thanks for the comments, I see there are now a couple of other threads on this subject so will think on! Steve

I have tried many different packages for this purpose and have yet to find one which is any good at all for renovations work. They almost all seem to start from the assumption that you have a "clean sheet of paper” and are going to work in modern materials and have straight lines everywhere. For renovations it seems to me that the essential thing is to be able to start by making a reasonably accurate drawing of your existing buildings and land from which you can then work. Without that you are stuffed.  Short of having a surveyor come in what you have available is generally only a tape measure to work with, measuring distances from a baseline you choose somewhere on the property. The essential requirement to me would be to have a bit of software which would enable me to identify a point by measuring then drawing 2 arcs from the ends of the baseline, the point being where they intersect. Throw away the first 2 arcs and repeat as necessary, then join the intersection points up and voila!  This is an extreemely simple thing for a bit of software to do - unfortunately I have yet to find any which will do it! The next stage for such a bit of software would enable you to locate say all the walls of a room from the inside,  relate 2 rooms together by say the doorway between them, and the space between must be the existing wall, however thick it is. All the home planning software I have tried however assumes that you are going to build a new wall and therefore know how thick it will be to start with, also of course that it will be made up of straight sections. This is because it is usually North American in origin and the idea of renovating hundreds of years old buildings with stone walls possibly a metre thick, buildings that were originally two or three unrelated structures built at quite different time or even just rock faces doesn’t exits over there I am certain there is a big market for this kind of thing not only among people like us who have old property to modify but especially with estate agents, most of whom still  can’t provide floor plans except for the most upmarket property simply because it’s too difficult and expensive to create at present. Having said that I now use a “general purpose” graphics package to produce floor plans and maps for my business which seems to be the best for the job, it is blindingly fast at vector graphics which is the primary requirement here and is makes it easy to use several layers with different levels of transparency so you can do what I described by switching between layers.  It is called Xara Xtreme  (www.xara.com) and is produced by a British company and costs about £50. You can download a fully working version to try out.  None of the other graphics packages (Corel Draw, Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Photodraw, Adobe Illustrator etc, work anywhere near as well at this.  If you do try and want me to tell you how I use it in more detail I’d be happy to do so.  Let me know if you find anything else. Regards Steve Last  

Does anyone have any knowledge of whether there is a feasible way of using solar panels to keep the background temperature of an empty house raised a few degrees? We have a village house in 84 Vaucluse which gets very cold in winter when unoccupied, but there is plenty of winter sunshine. We also haved a roof section which is invisible from the ground and could take up to 40 sq metres of panels. It would be ideal to be able to use some of the solar energy to keep the basic house from getting so cold that it takes a week to get it back up to tolerable temperature. I know solar can't really be used for central heating but this would be to supplement our current woodstove and electric panels. We have considered putting in a full oil CH system but it seems a bit daft when the cost of oil is going through the roof so to speak, not to mention the environmemtal issues.  Unfortunately we have no land to even consider a geothermal system which a friend has just installed in a new house in Scotland and seems to be very effective. Steve 

I am pretty ticked off to find that the schedule has been "fixed" as well to prevent one using the off peak periods: eg. Folkestone/Calais is up to 0559  but when I tried to make a booking for Jan 2nd I find there is a service at 0126, and another at 0254, then nothing until 0618. I used to use the 0558 and a gap of three and a half hours is not an acceptable service. Guess what: £30 extra to use the 0618!   Steve L