[Cost of slates (22)?]

[quote user="Ty Korrigan"]Guess I look like a pikey...
[/quote]

And what's wrong with that? Are you deliberately trying to wind me up?

[Avenues to finding work]

[quote user="Rob G"]
 the majority of employers of any size in the area are industrial, and are unlikely to require the services of a marketeer.

[/quote]

I spent 6 years in the marketing department of a GEC (remember them?) subsidiary. The company is now part of British Aerospace. Also worked in what is now part of Glaxo Smithkline. They have a big marketing arm as well.

If you're looking at Web authoring there are two basic markets for that -- the cheap & cheerful £100 a site stuff and the fully interactive, database driven e-commerce type. The cheap end requires that you can churn out halfway decent sites fast and get enough customers to maintain volume -- not a market I'd like to be in. The high end requires the right type of customer close enough to meet with and a much higher level of IT and design knowledge. I'd be wary of a one-man operation being able to provide all the skills.

[Cost of slates (22)?]

Don't know about the price in 22, but my cousin used to do a decent trade in importing second hand slates from France for UK renovation projects.

Makes me think that carting a a ton or few the other way may not be a good investment.

[Evening meals....too much !!]

Jon D wrote "I find doing it wearing nothing but an apron helps a lot. "

Do you do the funny handshake as well?

[area plans]

Actually, the three columns look like they should be Hectare, Are, Centare.

The are (area equal to 100 square meters) is the basic metric unit of land arera measurement.

A hectare is 100 ares (10000 sq m)

The centiare (or centare) equals 0.01 are, which is exactly 1 square meter

This means that you have an area of 18 hectares, plus 80 are. Total 180080 sq m).

[Maplin Free to Air Kit]

ChezShells wrote

<>

Maplin have a 12v jobbie:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=48736&&source=14&doy=15m7

They also do a 65cm dish for £30, but I think you'll need to get the exta bits -- LNB, cable etc. -- separately.

[Tu instead of Vous?]

I've been browsing a number of French (francophone) fora recently and noticed that many of the participants use 'tu', even when responding to obvious first-time posters (i.e. total strangers).

[No Taxe Fonciere for green new builds]

I was reading an article in Architecture Bois about HQE (haute qualite environnemental), a French green building standard, and it mentioned that if a new build meets certain criteria then you can get 15 (in some cases 30!) years exoneration from taxe fonciere.

Assuming that Taxe F is of the order of 500 euro / year this could be well worth having.

I think the law mentioned is the one below:

Décret n° 2005-1174 du 16 septembre 2005 relatif aux critères de qualité environnementale exigés des constructions pour bénéficier de l'exonération de taxe foncière sur les propriétés bâties prévue au I bis de l'article 1384 A du code général des impôts et modifiant son annexe II

Text is from Legifrance:

http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/WAspad/UnTexteDeJorf?numjo=BUDF0520324D

[Teaching 5 year old to read English]

I taught my three (bilingual) sons to read english before they started school, using flash cards and the Ladybird Peter & Jane books. Eldest read his first book (14 word vocab!) before his 4th birthday.

We started with a "Teach your Baby to Read" pack, by Glenn Doman, that included lots of flash cards and instructions, plus a Dr Seuss book. I don't know if the whole packis still available, but the Doman book that explains the philosophy & method is in Amazon's lists.

The boys never really got into the Dr Seuss's but they were all reading fluently by the age of 5. The trick was to make the flash cards part of a game and actually to treat reading sessions as a reward.

[Cost of communauté universelle?]

Not a lot of help for the OP, but it's just cost us 180 Euro before buying. All three kids are 'ours'.

[CAN A VENDOR PULL OUT of a CdV ?]

I'm not complaining about our situation (apart from the writer's cramp!) but noting that if the OP's CdeV had been drafted in that way there would have been less cause for confusion. As I understand it the buyer never intended to get a loan so a clause suspensive based on needing one just fogs the issue.

[CAN A VENDOR PULL OUT of a CdV ?]

Just as a general comment, it always amazes/amuses me how much "official" rules seem to vary in France.

We are in the process of buying a building plot using our own cash. We both had to write out in longhand, and sign, a statement that we were not going to need a loan and that if we changed our minds then problems getting one would not count as clauses suspensives.

[Microsoft Office 2007]

My first freelance client was a small company employing about 20 people. I built a complete customer management and order processing system for them, starting from a totally manual set-up.

My only experience of a bespoke FMP application is the one my local Apple centre (I'm writing this on a Mac Mini) uses. It cannot be described as integrated because the the way you look up a part number to enter into an order involves writing it down & re-keying. Maybe an experienced FMP developer could do better, but in the circumstances it's not a great advert for the software!

By the way, in the main 'sits vac' website for freelance developers I have seen hardly any ads for FMP devs (although there was one in Martinique :-) ) but Access as a skill is highly marketable. I know this is not significant for typical Office users, but it says something about the market for the products.

As a project manager on one of my contracts said: 'The answer is Access; what's the problem?"

By the way, I've had a quick look at the SIMS info and , although it doesn't specify it I'd guess that the database engine is MS SQL Server Enterprise edition and the front ends are built using MS .NET framework (even more of a guess that the project language will be C++).

[laptop wireless connection France]

Unfortunately, if someone on a capped tarif is inexperienced enough (highly likely) to leave their Wifi unsecured you (and others) could be using enough of their allowance to screw them up.

Places like bars that offer free access are a totally different situation.

[Microsoft Office 2007]

[quote user="fulcrum"][quote user="Dick Smith"]

We have applications written in Access at school and they cause us huge problems because they are so unstable, as well as difficult/impossible to modify.

[/quote]

If the wrong person fiddled about cobbling a database together then you will have problems.

One of the problems with Access is that it is

sold alongside Word and Excel. Therefore users expect to just use it out of the box. However it needs someone who understands its structure before they start. Another problem with so called expert users of Access is that they hard code some of the information into forms etc.. so that maintenance becomes very difficult.

I have years of Access experience and know that it is a very stable product and works very well. You can put together very quickly a database if you know where to start.

Tables are the only thing that hold data.

Queries are for manipulating data from Tables or other queries into whatever order you require.

Forms are for displaying the database to users.

Reports are for printing your info.

Modules are for Visual Basic code.

I'll bet that in a day (eight hours) I could get a reasonably competent office user to understand Access in order to start constructing a fairly usefull and manageable database.

[/quote]

Fulcrum,

All very true. I've been earning my living with Access for the last 12 years and in all that time I've been on one, very poor, 2-day course in how to use it. On the other hand, I've designed & delivered a whole lot of training to both IT and admin people.

Yes, you do need to understand how the basic components (tables, queries, forms...) work together, but anyone wth a reasonably logical approach to design can grasp that pretty quickly.

No, I wasn't an IT professional when I started using Access, just a training officer with a background in video & photography. I went freelance as a database specialist 8 years ago and my recent clients include MFI, BP, Balfour Beatty, Network Rail, the Scottish Executive .... In many cases it was a matter of using Access as a tool to integrate and manage data held in serious enterprise apps like SAP & PeopleSoft.

I've looked at lots of other data management tools (Filemaker, 4D, Progress...) and am yet to find one with the combination of flexibility, development speed and conectivity that Access has.

But what do I know? I'm just a database specialist!

[First laptop purchase: advice needed please...]

Loire,

"Knowledgeable"? It's a big subject and many things I leave to the techies...

However, I'll try. I don't have a system in France -- I'm in the process of buying a building plot -- but my 80 year old father in law managed to get himself on line and he's no technical wizz.

Wifi is actually separate from your internet connection. It's used instead of wires to network computers together, but a lot of broadband modems include the gubbins to allow your computer to link to them without wires.

I don't know how to tell if you have a digital phone line -- I've only met them in big organisations.

You don't need to buy a separate modem because you have one built in. Assuming that you have a normal, non-digital line you can plug your built-in modem directly into the phone socket the way you do at home, although you'll need a French cable.

Mains electricity won't be a problem Just use an adaptor and pretend you're in the UK.

A French ISP will probably send you a CD. In fact I think you could probably get one at most big supermarkets.

Hope this makes sense.

[First laptop purchase: advice needed please...]

Clair,

For what you want to do almost any current laptop would handle it. I've got an old Toshiba with 64 MB of memory and a 6GB hard drive that could deal with all your needs. The spec you've given is practically entry level nowadays.

What sort of databases are you interested in? I'm a database developer and unless you want to run an Oracle server on your laptop the spec is not an issue. Something like Access or (Yukkkk!) Filemaker wouldn't be a problem.

I've also dabbled in graphic design and the only thing that might stretch your machine would be editing really big (5MB plus) picture files.

I'd sugest a Centrino or a mobile Athlon simply because they run cooler, which is nicer when you use one on your lap.

For choosing a model, I've been happy with my Toshibas and a lot of developers I know use Hewlett Packards. If you're permanently in France then see what's available through your local dealers or outfits like Boulanger, so that you can get backup. In the UK there's more choice for mail order so I'd be tempted to go that route.