Jay

Or THIS

Thanks.

Anyone? A negative response would be acceptable!

I've been unable to access my account with CA Charente-Périgord via the net for a couple of days. At first it was a technical problem, now it is access code. Anyone else having the same problems?

Thanks Claire - how come I couldn't find that?? Wonder if the little man is walking or running because his plane was late? Reminds me of a sign directing people to our local Super U, 5min it says, yeah, perhaps if you do 100 in the 70 zone just next to the cop shop!

Our son is flying into Paris CDG airport and intends taking the train to Poitiers or Angouleme. Can anyone give advice on the time required to exit the airport and get to the station so that I can book him a suitable connection without waiting around for hours. Also I have looked on the CDG website and understand the train departs from the ROISSY station, is that correct?

They are sometimes a bit of a pain those machines. There is a lovely smell of fresh bread in a morning when I get up but then I have to wait till the wife comes downstairs, gets the loaf out of the machine, cuts it, puts the jam on and serves it up with a cup of tea. She then has to clean the thing out and make it ready the next evening with the flour and other stuff.

No they do not come ready mixed. The object of using the polystyrene in the mix is to keep the whole thing as light as possible. Ours seems very stable although we just used standard floor tiles. There was no other preparation except for laying down plastic sheeting prior to laying the cement mix. Level it just like you would any other concrete floor. We did make sure all the floorboards were secure. I'll look tomorrow for the sack the polystyrene came in if you like and let you know what it is called and what mix we used. As I remember it you just replace some of the sand with the polystyrene, no doubt there will be a builder on here who will correct me if I am wrong!

Done a similar thing with the upstairs bathroom in our Gite. The floor boards are a couple of hundred years old and not very level. I used a 20mm deep mix of cement, sand and polystyrene balls which you can buy at most Brico stores. Instructions for mix are on the sack they come in. Laid the tiles on top of that and under the door I put a polished wood beading. The result looks good even though there is a small step up into the bathroom. The tiles have not moved and no cracking of joints in the two years they have been down.

"You are falling into the trap of thinking that because X is followed by Y, Y must have been caused by X."  This would seem to be the case: "The euro saw a new high hit of 0.8412, the highest level since its inception in 1999. The reason for the sudden move was helped due the BoE Governor Mervyn King painting such a bad picture on the state of the UK economy." See HERE and Friday 14th: Watch out for Jean Claude Trichet (Euro zone equivalent to Mervyn King) speaking tomorrow afternoon at 1.30pm. What happens next heavily depends on how down beat his comments are on the Euro zone. There are plenty of other examples!

When the blank drive is first seen by Disk Management it will not be seen in Windows Explorer as a drive letter. To get it seen in Windows Explorer as a drive letter, the drive will need to be configured through Disk Management. Windows XP/2000 will normally see the unpartitioned drive when you open Disk Management and start the wizard for you. For full details/instructions see HERE. It may be an idea to download seatools from the same site.

Just spoke to a friend who was in the UK when Speedferries were held captive. They have had a phone call to say they will have their return ticket money refunded.

This morning: The pound has seems to be stuck in the 1.22 are at the moment against the Euro with no near term prospects for a correction back towards 1.25 and above. This afternoon 1.19 Source: http://www.euros-pounds-currency-news.blogspot.com/ How low can it go? Any bets?

[quote user="Hoddy"]Yes, we went to the local EDF office to request it. If I remember correctly, it cost E118 in 2003. Hoddy [/quote] You would think that, as it saves them time and money, they would fit them for free. Every time we have had our meter read for the past two years they have had to send someone out by appointment - that can't be cheap! Think I will put up with the little man calling at the house. I would think it must be called something like "transmetteur pour le metre de l'electricite." No doubt Claire will be along correct my poor use of French.

[quote user="ErnieY"]With respect Jay I would say that the reference to Harddisk0 in the error message is pretty conclusive evidence that it is the hard drive failing. CD Rom's do not have blocks to go bad. [/quote] I am well aware that a CD drive will not throw up a bad block error , however the control chip on the motherboard can do this if a CD drive fails. The actual error reported harddisk0/D, which would also seem to indicate a D: drive, which in this case could well be the CD drive if the computer has only one HDD and is not partitioned. It seems to me it is better/cheaper to eliminate the CD drive first before spending money on something that is not required. A backup of important stuff on the computer is essential Jazzer. As you do not have a DVD writer may I suggest a USB pen drive to back up your files.

[quote user="Hoddy"]We had the same problem so we had a gizmo fitted which allowed the meter man to read it electronically without even getting out of his van. Hoddy [/quote] Did you ask to have the "gizmo" fitted and if so how much did it cost?

[quote user="Jazzer"]Many thanks for your time ErnieY. I assume you mean the processor(please excuse my lack of knowledge) It is Intel Celeron ACP/Genuine x86 Family6 MOdel 8/0 It is & years old. By the way- I don/'t know if there is any connection but AVG is tellling me there has been an invalid update cointrol CTF file which affects my Anti Virus and spyware. [/quote] The bad block messages are a serious error report of current device failures or impending device failure. Having said that it is probably the CD reader that is about to fail or has failed. Mother boards have a control chip on them that could well be effected by the bad drive and thus throw up the message you have. The easiest way to check this (if you feel confident) is to open up the computer and disconnect the CD drive cable then run the computer without it. If no new error message then replacement DVD/CD read/writers are quite cheap and easy to install. There are programs on the net that will check your hard drive for bad blocks if you find it is not the CD reader. I have a couple of aged hard drives, one 10 years old that still function properly so old age may not be the problem. Best to back up any important work anyway. No point in buying a new computer unless you have outgrown the one you have, especially as it is running Windows XP which is better than the new Vista (my opinion), or it fails because of a motherboard fault. The AVG invalid update has nothing to do with your system. This is quite common, try downloading it again.

The Skype phone is an audio device and when you connect it the computer recognises it as the primary device. You can try to solve the problem by going into the Skype Tools/Options menu and click on the audio settings tab on the left. Change the settings for "speakers" from windows default to the device you require. I don't have a phone on mine so I am not sure what your devices will be called. Hope this solves your problem! If this doesn't work for you then go HERE and follow the instructions.

[quote user="Quillan"]I guess I must have the latest as it only arrived a few days ago. I don't think the OP would know about the the yellow socket, its more of a techie thing and not mentioned in the manual that comes with the Livebox, well not in mine, it just says TV/Decoder You can plug a switched, or any hub, into the Livebox using just just the red port. We have two laptops, HP Ipaq, HP Printer, a media remote control (Philips) streaming both video, audio and pictures running Wifi plus a Novel server, Apache Server, and two PC's running via a hub plugged in to the red port and it works very well. Once my dish is setup we will have the TV as well. I think they are brilliant. [/quote] This has got to be a wind up!! How can you not know if you pay for an FT line??

[quote user="tegwini"] Difficult to stop them - they did calm down as they grew up, but never stopped the slobbering.  We made a point of wiping  their mouths- very necessary, as we often noted 12 inch strings of saliva hanging from their mouths, and I have a photo to prove that !! [/quote] Brings back fond memories or our Boxer "Dillon" we had many years ago. Please don't post the pictures!!

What sort of cost is insurance? We have just received our renewal today and it is 600€ which covers our house, Gite, personal liability and third part cover including pool.

Parsnips wrote: "We have been here 16 yrs,( retired on an adequate pension)" Sounds like you have never taken a risk in your entire life! Isn't it better to have tried and failed than never tried at all? Not everyone has an adequate income from the UK to live on. We have friends who moved here because of the dream, work all hours God sends, make a reasonable living and love it. Of course you will get the spongers in all countries, not least the UK. I do agree with you about the dreadful, out of date TV programs, but please don't tar everyone with the same brush. Mandycats wrote: "Actually Ron Avery there is no need to be rude and take a tone with me" What tone is that then? You condemn someone for speaking the truth? Also Ron's post gave me the distinct impression he condemns the TV programs which are out of date just as much as anyone else. We have several Polish friends in the UK, two of whom work for our daughter, and I can assure you they are the hardest working people I have ever met. They work to maintain their families in Poland and have never claimed benefits of any kind in the UK. Imagine working away from home for several weeks at a time for years without your family around you, just to make a decent living. They have my admiration!

[quote user="Anton Redman"]No it does not rule out the cables but if when you swop the cables at the LNB end the problem stays with the same LNB that is moves cables then you know you have a problem with the LNB. If the problem stays with the same cable then you have a cable problem. [/quote] Have you swapped the cables yet as Anton correctly suggests? This would be the definitive test as to where the problem lies.

According to Meteo it's rain tomorrow and sun/showers on Tuesday, however they have been known to be wrong!

Tried to book a crossing for early December via the tunnel and it is fully booked. We don't usually travel via the tunnel but decided to give it a try this time. Is it usual for it to be fully booked this time of year?