Quillan

Well five minutes late but I thought I would give people a little extra time to decide if they want to help moderate and run the forum but sadly only one person put their name forward. As Hoddy popped in for the first time in a month or two I thought it only polite to pass the persons details on to her and let her decide. Quite frankly for all the prostrating by many over the years and all this rubbish about supporting the forum I would have expected a lot more than just one. Seems people are quite happy to take but not to give, sad really.   I shall no longer be a member, I told Hoddy she can 'ban' me if she wants, it's up to her but I won't be posting anymore as I can read what I want without being a member.   I do hope the forum continues (really) and after 13 odd years as a member I have seen a lot of people come and go and gained a lot of very useful information from it. I think somebody was referring to Miki when they said Micky or whatever and whilst it was a unanimous decision by all the moderators to ban him I do owe him a lot of gratitude for the help he gave me in setting up my business for which I will be forever grateful.   As to those that have contacted me over the last 24 hours, thanks.   Goodbye and good luck.    

Well checking you never reported any post having a problem in, indeed the last time you reported anything was back on the 24th June to tell us about fake dollars. I can't sit here all day checking every post to the forum but this is a known problem that goes back many years. The fix was to have the URL link function added (that was done ages ago) so that users can connect a URL to just a few words which stops the problem. Because this forum is not HTML5 compliant it cannot deal with these things automatically. In truth there are many things technically wrong with the software as somebody pointed out when they run a diagnostic on just one page a month or two back. Unless the specific post is pointed out and dealt with immediately it is a little difficult (but not impossible) to find which one individual post causes the who thread to get 'over sized'. If I do see one I deal with it but as I said I don't have the time to look at every post and rely heavily on members reporting problems. I wonder why they never replied to the posts in the Tech Support Function or posted in the Moderators section?   Still it is excellent news you got a reply, you should be a moderator as clearly you can get things done.

Idun I don't really care other than you seem to have done the impossible, get a reply. It seems at least one person did what I wanted. Will they be fixing the forum? They never even posted when people complained about forum problems and they certainly have made no contact with me although seeing as I 'moved' the thread and not deleted it they can read it all themselves plus my apology for one comment placed here. You will be pleased however to know that I will be taking your advice. I just hope you don't have to eat your words about not needing another moderator. Perhaps you would consider taking on the job?   Edit - If by any chance anyone from Archant does read this, which I doubt, please, please, please look at the Technical Support section of this forum and read the complaints about it's performance etc. try and get the problems fixed and keep the members informed even if it is a one liner telling them your looking into the problems.   http://services.completefrance.com/forums/completefrance-forums/cs/forums/308/ShowForum.aspx   Also please give the members notice when you carry out updates (not to mention testing them before going live) and/or take the forum down for maintenance.

Ok fair enough. This forum takes up to much of my time. The rubbish software means it takes me over 30 minutes (at one time it took over an hour) to perform a simple administrative task that should take two minutes at the most. I have to use three different browsers to do several moderator functions on software that is 10 years old and not compatible with anything newer than IE8. Pages that take ages to load due to adverts. Can now only really be used anywhere near properly with IE11 in compatibility mode because neither Edge or Chrome will support the old format properly (neither have compatibility mode) so really I just can't be bothered anymore. Sure I can install and use yet another browser, download some add-ons but why should I just for this forum when all the other forums I am on simply work with any browser with no problem. Why should I spend my time writing PM's and Emails drawing attention to members threads of many pages with people complaining about the software and never get a reply, heck they (tech support and Admin) don't even post to the forum. I would simply leave it to the other 48 (yes really, 48, I just counted them) Archant moderators of this forum to do the job but only one has ever posted (probably many have left Archant but nobody revoked their moderator rights which as anyone in IT will tell you is very dangerous) so that's really not going to work and the two administrators do not even answer PM's or emails.   So I need three people to step forward NOW, don't be shy, and I will make you Moderators after which I will walk away and you can simply get on with it and very good luck to you because you will need it. If I don't get any volunteers (you don't even get a free copy of the magazine anymore by the way, we lost that several years ago) I shall walk anyway and there will be no point in complaining about spam etc. because nobody will be listening. By the way, and I don't mean to put people off, there is no forum manual but moderators have access to the moderators section of the forum (not seen by normal members) from where reading all our posts to each other you should be able to work it out which is better at least than when I started.   Yes this is a whinge but it is no threat I can assure you. I have my family to think of and really I no longer have the time to deal with this junk and no I am not looking for sympathy nor do I expect any.   So come on people, I give you till 18:00 CET tomorrow night to come forward after which I will have gone and your on your own. Once I have left I can't make moderators because I will have lost my 'super' powers.

Oh dear, time to come clean.   There was a reason for the post which sort of worked. I wonder how many of you have contacted Forum Admin and more to the point how many have received a reply which if I am right is zero.   I sent a PM to one of you and I see no reason why I should not now make it public. Basically after so many emails etc. over the last six months or so about problems with the forum software, extreme advertising and other forum issues and getting absolutely no reply to anything from Forum admin through to Tech Support I decided to wait for something to come up that could be used to get people to complain and perhaps something might get done.   As to the comment (adlibbing a bit) about Americans being forcibly sterilized, well I apologise although there was a reason. The rest is based on factual data available all over the Internet. Anyway here is a copy of the PM. The very first line of a few words has been removed because I do not wish to make the forum member 'known' to the rest of you. If he or she wants you to know who they are that's up to them.   "Line deleted so as not to identify person concerned.   There are so many things wrong with the forum now. Problems with browser compatibility for a start. Adverts covering the pages. No information to the users or moderators when changes are made. No support from Archant at all for the members which is really disgraceful, let alone no support for the moderators of which it appears I am the only one left. Even direct contact with the IT support department about forum technical problems go unanswered (not even a "we will look into it") and absolutely nothing from the Administrator who I don't even know who it is these days.   I strongly believe that the reason Archant bought the forum was because it was very active years ago and they used subjects discussed as the base for many articles they wrote in their magazine because basically they were running out of ideas. The dramatic fall in magazine sales in recent years has now led to it becoming an Internet magazine. If I look at all the other "French" forums they have all become much the same now, a few interesting subjects here and there (Pickles stuff abut CSG was really interesting and helpful) but the rest are usually rubbish (UK TV on a Saturday "Nite") (ed - sorry about that) plus the number of posts have dwindled dramatically.   Paragraph removed due to personal information and not relevant. Part of it did however confirm that forum posts have dropped a lot over a period of several (4 to 5) years.   As you said it has been a long time since the forum actually needed moderating resulting in me putting my "Moderators Hat On" not being needed. The only thing that needs doing is removing spam these days but even that has dropped off dramatically.   I shall stay keeping an eye on things even if my attempt to get Admin to say something to me and remove the thread resulted in a big fat zero. It has certainly proved to me they are totally un-interested so I have deleted the thread now."   So as you can see it was an attempt to get some notice on the members behalf and I apologise for any offence caused in the process. Just a shame it never worked but at least we all know where we are with regards to Archant and the forum.

In the UK the legal system uses the DX postal service but unfortunately they do not operate outside of the UK. What they do is pass legal documents on to FedEx. It therefore seemed obvious to Mrs Q to use FedEx to send documents back to the UK. If you really want that extra security you can have them delivered what is called "hand to hand". This means a guy used to come to our house (in a FedEx van)  which is out in the sticks some 4km from Quillan and collect the document in person. That document would then be delivered and placed into the hand of the recipient, not to the company in general, but the actual named person. They have never, ever, failed to deliver and have always been on time.   I did once sell some 6N tickets on Ebay and have La Poste courier them from Quillan to a hotel in Paris where the purchasers were waiting. They arrived well in time for them to leave the hotel and watch the game. I have only done this once so I have no idea if this was a fluke or not.

What's the betting the word "Off" will be part of the conversation. [:D]

If they are that important then use FedEx   http://www.fedex.com/fr_english/how-to-ship/   Mrs Q used them all the time for very important legal papers. You print the label off and they collect from your door. Nothing has ever been lost and you can track their progress from the minute they collect them from you.

It's interesting what people use them for. I use mine for books, the weather, radio and cooking. I like Bluetooth because you can connect to just about anything. We have a couple of speakers to use in the garage, on the terrace etc. It also connects to our 'sound bar' rather than turn the Humax box on.   I like the BBC cookery recipes, you can make a personal folder on their website and use the tablet as a cookery book. I can 'carry' all the IGN maps of France on mine and use it for walking which  do a lot.   Books are handy. I use Calibre which other forum members recommended to load books onto the device (works with Kindles as well). Great when we visit the hospital for Mrs Q's treatments. I find a corner in the waiting room and read. I can even get newspapers if I want but to be honest I don't bother with them. There are thousands of free books out there to download and use.   There are lot of things I didn't know you can do with them and I now have a small section of very useful apps. A couple I found that are handy for me are meat cooking time, you enter the weight be it in lb's, kg or whatever, select the type of meat how you want it done, is it a fan oven and out pops the time required. The other converts any type of cooking dry weight or liquid measurement into another like a 'cup', 1/3rd of a cup etc. American pint to English or ml or the other way round. It doesn't get used much but it is very handy to have when you need it. Being able to tell my Humax to record a program when out and about and forgotten has saved my bacon a couple of times now although in fairness that app is on the phone.

Every time I see Trump I can't help but think if that's a toupee the wrong way round or he seriously needs a barber. The thought of him having assess to a nuclear launch button frightens me ,ore (but only slightly)  than Putin.

We got our removal company to pack everything and transport it to France. We also took out extra international shipping insurance which gave us 90 days to make a claim, plenty of time to unpack and check things. We did this because our logic was that if they packed it and there were any problems it was all down to them. It worked out quite nicely for us, things were broken and there was no problem with getting items replaced. Other than that it was quite painless, we just walked out of our house one morning giving the keys to the movers and told them to get on with it. We never packed a single thing, not even a cup (we did take important documents and jewelry but that was it). They even took the Sky dish down not that it worked down here being too small and all.

So far Orange and Free are the same then which I did rather assume. If you buy a 'pass' with Orange you pay by credit card so they have those details. Of course no self respecting terrorist would use their own card. No system is totally secure but you can make it terribly difficult so that illegal use is kept to a minimum.

Best wait till after the 10th and see what happens. We have seen this before, the old protest vote, only to lose in the second round.

The thing is that this is not about switching off WiFi hotspots, it's about knowing who is using them. If I walk around my village of 200 people there are loads of hotspots for SFR, Orange, Free etc. I know how Orange works, you get a screen pop up that askes for your email Orange address and password. Once accepted you can use the Internet etc. I assume the others are the same but they know who you are and of course know your postal address etc because of your Orange billing details. Even at McDonalds you have to create and use a login to get access. They might not know immediately where you live but they can work it out if they need to and of course the time you were there and your browser history which is all logged. Seeing as McDoos has CCTV both inside and out they have a photo to boot and seeing how they have ID cards in France it takes only a few minutes to find where you live etc. With Orange if you don't have an Orange email account you can create a login and pay for either time or bandwidth although it is not cheap. I did try the 'Fon' thing but that really turned out to be a waste of time and nobody used it unless you had it set as an open network.   With open networks it is difficult to see how the police etc can monitor usage and track people. Rather like hadopi it will fall by the wayside after a year or two. The funny thing about that was the only people they managed to catch bang to rights turned out to be people working at the Ministry of Culture, the very people who were supposed to be protecting copyright etc.   Don't forget they only want to do this when there is a State of Emergency although I suspect in this case the 'emergency' may become permanent.   Anyway it has not been passed yet and there is already a big 'anti' lobby it might not happen so I am not that worried. If it does I suspect it will be up to the ISP's to turn the Hotspot function off on their routers remotely and if you want to plug in an open WiFi extender I can't see they will ever know unless they pay you a visit.

There you go see Wooly, knocking Normans barrel. No space in there for all that junk so nothing to get violated over plus he can just pick it up and move it to another place without packing and unpacking.