Steve Last

I have broadband in the UK, and onspeed is enabled on my laptop which goes back and forth to France.  I have the impression that it is advantageous for some things but not others. As I understand it, there will certainly be an initial delay in getting a page as it has to be requested via onspeed's server and then be compressed before sending on to you. So the time saving will be a function of the difference between your direct dial-up's ACTUAL delivery speed and Onspeed's broadband, the size and content of the page you want, and the time it takes onspeed to respond to your request. Using illustrative and not actual numbers, assume your dial up delivers 5k/sec and onspeed's broadband system can receive 100k/sec; the page you want is 100k, and it takes Onspeed 1 sec to pass your page request. It will take you 20 sec to get this page directly.   Via onspeed, it takes 1 sec to respond to your request, OS gets the page back in another 1 sec. If it can compress it 50% down to 50k it will take you another 10 secs to receive, for a total of 12 secs from requesting it, about a 1.66 times speed increase. If they can compress it 90%, down to 10k it will take you 2 sec to receive for a total of 4 sec, a 5 times increase. If they can only compress it 10% down to 90k it will take you 18 sec to receive for a total of 20 sec. - no improvement  However if the page you want is only 10k you can get it direct in 2 sec. Using Onspeed and 90% compression it will be 1k and you get it in 1.3 sec. If they can only compress it 10% it will be almost 3 sec before it's delivered, i.e. SLOWER than direct dial.  The Onspeed control shows how much compression they have actually achieved but not the total lags in responses.    Also, I found it needs to be disabled for some functions such as updating my website as my host doesn't recognise it as authorised to send changes. It's easy to turn on and off. Overall I think it is worth having and I have just renewed my subs for it. I am also very interested in their Netaway service which is a global network of dialup ISP numbers which is paid for upfront at about £25 think but then deducts credit on a minute-by minute actual usage at about 5p/minute, so you have "local" dial-up numbers in over 100 countries. Of course these are not all true local numbers in the sense that the nearest one to me is Marseille which is 80 miles away, but if you travel a lot on business and use email programmes like Outlook, it looks like a good service since it claims to have an outgoing email relay for these. These programmes often have difficulty sending via other ISPs and currently require a full price international call. Telekonnect aren't able to apply their low cost calls to overseas ISP numbers due to FT's monopoly on this.  When combined with Onspeed and a low cost French phone such as Telekonnect it appears to provide a workable economic alternative to a French broadband for intermittent use to send email rather than international calls. At present Will keep you posted as I try it out.   Steve

Thought that might be the case, but just curious!! Slipped a digit on the size, it's actually about 15 sq metres. Thanks! Steve

There's quite a well known warning to buyers who may have aquired land with a property but don't want to use it for agriculture or anything else, that allowing a friendly neighbour to graze it or similar in return for a "nominal" gift of produce or something, may create rights for the farmer because he has "paid" for the usage.  My question is whether the reverse is true. In our case we have a largely absent neighbour, and we have (with her full agreement) been looking after a tiny patch of garden which is some way from her main property. We have watered, weeded and planted it for the last 5 years.  However she is elderly and often a bit critical of what we have done although she shows no interest in doing anything herself. The question is whether as a result of our exepnditure on it WE now have built up any "rights" over this little patch (it's only about 4 square metres!) which we would like to buy if it ever came on the market, e.g. after she passes on!! Steve 

I have been having similar problems over the last two weeks, using MSOutlook 2000 and my lineone.net (now part of Tiscali) email account.  In my case I can (usually) receive email but sending has become almost impossible. As I use email for almost all my business communications this is a pain, to put it mildly! If you are getting an error number of 0x800cc19 or similar after failed communication, as far as I have been able to find out this is caused by a conflict with any anti-virus software which does a check on outgoing mail. I use AVG Free but Norton and similar are the same. The suggestion is that you disable this facility (which won't affect your own protection).  However, it doesn't seem to have resolved the problem for me, and I will have to wait until I get back to the UK next week and can use my broadband connection to research the problem more efficiently.  Another suggetsion is to go into your "account" details in Outlook Express and increase the timeouts. Anyway, you may be able to find some more detailed suggestions if you Google "SMTP" and that error number together. Good luck.... Steve        

After being away 3 weeks we have just returned to N. Vaucluse (84) and find that our sat. picture which was OK before is now is breaking up a lot and "jittery" on all channels.  Sound is fine and no error messages. Signal strength is showing as a solid grey band and signal quality as solid blue, but I don't have a manual for the box and can't recall what these should show (long time since I had to fool about with it!!).  Before I start tinkering with anything, has there been any change in sat signal strength or anything else recently, and does anyone have or has had similar problems? Steve  

Thanks for the comments, I used Free.fr for a couple of years on dial-up but found the service degraded greatly in the last year so switched to Tiscali which is what I am using now. I will check out the suggestions. Ideally, it would be great to have a company which served both the K and France and you could use the same account in either, but then I see aviating pork occasionaly too! Thanks again Steve  

Having just been advised that we have ADSL available in the village at last, can anyone recommend a good value provider for periodic usage, i.e. 3 - 4 weeks steady use and then 3-6 weeks away with no usage at all?   Tried searching the forum but result is sooooo sloooooow on dialup.... so if there is a thread to point me to?? Steve L.

Slightly off the topic but has anyone here used  http://www.gpspassion.com/ for the radar/speed cams data? This appears to provide a basic database free of charge once you have registered, but I can't quite figure out what the cost of getting the "plus" version is...   it appears to be either by contributing to the database itself which is a bit difficult, or by some other form of contribution which seems to vary by date, but date of what I can't figure out... Steve L    

Final word (probably....!) After a lot of correspondence on a couple of GPS-orineted websites, the situation appears to be that: 1) the TomTom is a very good bit of kit... 2) their product support has not kept pace with demand 3) they are based primarily in Holland and the website can be misleading (though probably not deliberately) 4) the European map set upgrade price only applies to purchasers of older versions of their maps. The actual cost of a set on CD will be about £110 or more.  If you buy those you will also have to buy your own SD card to put them on the machine. 5) the individual maps already loaded onto cards are about £80 - £100 each 6) The main problem - stocks of both CDs and SD cards are extremely hard to find - most suppliers say they are "expecting some in the next week" or just "on order".   I did locate a France card at www.totalpda.co.uk and ordered one by phone, should come Tuesday. IF anyone wants one of these gadgets intending to use it in France inside the next few weeks, it would probably be better to actually BUY it in France as it will then have a French card, you can then get a UK one later.  7) BTW.... maps cannot be exported from one person's device or card to another, they have a code in them by which the map is "activated" in the first Go machine it is used on, and thereafter will only run on that particular machine.   ATB Steve L

Ok, having bought a Tomtom GO 300 which arrived at noon, it all seems to work just fine - very impressive so far. BUT...... I logged on to register on their website and order the upgrade disk with a map of France - only to find that it will not accept my product code as a valid TomTom product ID! Also there is no apparent way to order a map card either on line or from a supplier - the online purchase doesn't function as it refers you to local retailers, and the retailers all refer you to the web-site!!!   Needless to say there is no way of actually speaking to anyone on the phone....   does anyone have a spare French map for one of these things!!!   Steve L  

"http://www.globalpositioningsystems.co.uk were very helpful and have quite good prices." I have actually ordered from them, their price was the same as all the others (£370 - about €555) but they throw in a multi-format card read-write device and a download of the UK safety/speed camera locations, which they say is worth about £30. They also say I can then use the upgrade disk to put the French map on a regular SD card. Will be interesting to see if it works out!  Good service, I ordered on the phone and they subsequently had a very minor problem with my credit card - sent me an email right and away but also called me to sort it out even before I checked my emails. Dispatched it about an hour later! Steve 

[quote]** I presume it is also English language and English menus in that mode?? **That's correct, Steve.[/quote] Thanks Ray, additional info detail request to you by email. Regards Steve

Thanls Ecossais, I managed to find that page a few minutes ago and it answered a lot of my questions - oddly enough the UK site doesn't seem to have any online purchase capability, it refers to a shopping basket but I couldn't find any way to put something in it! Maybe they are only selling through distributors in the UK. There seems to be a remarkable similarity in pricing, every one is £369.99!! One question I couldn't find an answer to (will probably have to call their customer service number tomorrow) was the price of other country maps - it looks like there is an upgrade with a whole lot of countries on a disk for €79, but it's not clear without having the actual stuff in hand whether it will then onload onto a blank SD card, if so whether any particular type of card is needed, or whether one can do any kind of changes on the PC. It would be good to be able to put in changes (points of interest etc) on a proper screen and keyboard. Anyway thanks for all the useful comments Steve  

[quote]We have a friend with a sat nav system Very proud of it The other week we went to a restaurant near the RN10 near Mansle and he decided to show me how good it was.We set off back to my house and withi...[/quote] I'd agree that in most respects paper maps are cheaper, but my main objective is in fact to have access to maps at the level of detail these can provide, without having to lug an entire library about (even if I had them!!) and not the voice instructions, though those are extremely useful if you're on your own in strange territory. We got thoroughly lost near Beziers a few weeks ago, trying to find some friends' house: they had given us good instructions and we had a paper map but there were a bunch of road closures and the atlas detail simply wasn't adequate to get round them without a lot of difficulty.  As an airline pilot I'm very familiar with the limits of automated systems - I actually worked on developing the specifications for digital mapping and have been reluctant to dive into buying them until now because of the known limitations. Also my wife is an EXCELLENT map reader! However this seems to be good point to start making the switch........... Steve  

[quote]We recently bought a Tom Tom GO300 (France only) and it is fantastic! Everything you mentioned is true. Don't know how we lived without it! Bought it at Darty for 449€.Being Americans we use the Fe...[/quote] Having looked at a few this afternoon the TomTom 300 looks very attractive (most user-oriented).  I am intrigued that you say it s only €449 at Darty, typical UK price is £370 / €550 approx. I just looked at Darty's webiste and they are quoting €499 now! If they are that much less in France I will probably delay buying till I get over, especially as I want the France card primarily. One question though, I notice you say an American voice - I presume it is also English language and English menus in that mode??  Steve 

I'm thinking of getting a stand-alone GPS for use in several different cars in the UK and France, and wonder if anyone has experience and/or recommendations as to brands buy or avoid in respect of the various data-bases, e.g. accuracy and up-to-date-ness, cost of updates, whether they include the radar speed camera info etc.... ? Steve     

If you are still having problems try going to Frquent Travellers scheme information section and log in from there. I just did that as the log-in on the new site seems to be screwed up and I got quoted £200 instead of of zero for my prepaid bookings with the main bookings engine.  Of course they may have changed things again by the time you see this! Regards Steve

Exactly the points being made by the locals!! The air pollution definition is basically ozone parts per million I think, so they do have a "scientific" basis to do it which is what triggers the change, but how l'homme dans la rue is supposed to be able to know is a bit doubtful to say the least. Steve Steve

Posted here as well as in travel, as you won't necessarily go looking there routinely!A word of caution - according to our local paper, here in the south at least the speed limits may be reduced in periods when there is high air pollution - e.g. on autoroutes down from 130 to 100 kph, 110 down to 80, 90 down to 70 and so on. Bouche du Rhone round Marseilles is a typical area. This happens on a pretty unpredictable basis for both times and places concerned. They may put written notices on the autoroute toll boths and have the overhead signs illuminated but the same applies on the RNs etc. where you have no such information although it may be in the local paper that day or on the radio. Tough if you just arrived and didn't know about it - the gendarmes are quoted as saying "it's our job to enforce the law not to inform people about it". Seems to have caused a bit of a local reaction. Be warned, though I don't know what you can do about it!! Steve L

A word of caution - according to our local paper here in the south at least the speed limits may be reduced in periods when there is high air pollution - e.g. on autoroutes down from 130 to 100 kph, 110 down to 80, 90 down to 70 and so on. Bouche du Rhone round Marseilles is a typical area. This happens on a pretty unpredictable basis for both times and places concerned. They may put written notices on the autoroute toll boths and have the overhead signs illuminated but the same applies on the RNs etc. where you have no such information although it may be in the local paper that day or on the radio. Tough if you just arrived and didn't know about it - the gendarmes are quoted as saying "it's our job to enforce the law not to inform people about it". Seems to have caused a bit of a local reaction. Be warned, though I don't know what you can do about it!! Steve L

I was using Free.fr which was fine until a few months ago when it became almost impossible to get a reliable connection, so switched to Tiscali.fr - local call charges, no monthly fee. Steve 

Have just been dealing with this so it's very apposite...  I had a letter saying it WILL be included in the taxe d'habitation, unless I send back the form for exemption on the grounds that I don't have a TV, or alternatively that I am covered by one at my parents' home! Which makes it very easy. More intriguing was one sent from a different office because the title to the house is in an SCI of which my wife and I are the sole members. So now we  have a form about paying via the VAT return for all the TVs which we might have in the bar, bedrooms, games room, TV room where no alcohol is served, etc, , as some types of of SCIs are commercial businesses like hotels !!   Just written to the tax collector to say we are a private house, copy of the other letter enclosed, in the hope that that will put them off! Steve  

Yes, I only book one at a time for that reason. As far as I know you could drive down, fly back and make the next trip down with another vehicle. Seems logical. Steve 

Teamedup, is that a quetion or a statement? As they are 10 single tickets you can use them in either direction i.e. 9 going south and one north if you want (I think!).  Also if you use the French version of the site the price is in Euros, comes out the same. I tried buying in Euros in the hope that the peak hours would be reversed but no dice! Steve 

Hi Marc, don't take offence - I suspect that if you have just joined the forum you hadn't noticed that the message you were replying to was actually posted a couple of years ago, and there hasn't been any more discussion of it since then.  Each string of messages on a particular topic is called a "thread"  (i guess because it can wandef off in all sorts of directions and can be of any length)  - hence the surprised response to your helpful message! The forum design makes it very hard to see the date on a message if you're not looking for it. Regards Steve