Zog

I recon the best solution would be to have a purge on those responsible and, rather than make the pay the fixed penalty for littering, make the get gown on their hands and knees and scrape the street clean. Duration of punishment - the equivelent time that the fixed penalty buys at the basic minimum wage. Just as an aside, Singapore soved their gum problem by banning the sale of chewing gum.

I just had a quick look on Amazon and found what I consider to be very much an entry level bare bones system for £370 including VAT. Built very much to to a minimum spec. that will support modern games titles. This however excludes the operating system, monitor keyboard and speakers etc. Add another £80 for an oem operating system and thats £450. I dont want to discourage you but I priced the individual components from as cheap a source as I could and saved by lowering the spec slightly.The components alone came to over £500 without considering the operating system and carriage. This also ignores the build and software install time. It is possible to build a system that plays games for less than £500 but it could by not be properly described as a gaming system. There are loads of them on the market for less than £500 and they come complete with everything you need. Plug in and go. They are called laptops. You can buy complete desktop systems that will do the same job. There are also systems that will play games very effectivley for less tham £500. They are called playstation and xbox.

Further to my previous post and in reply to these comments ~ . Firstly, the wall was perfectly ok and the coping stones sat there quite happily ever sice the wall was built over 30 years ago. If I hauled the coping stone of the top of the wall by virtue of some activity that involved the use of the wall it would be classed as vandalism or wilfull damage to public property . Somebody, namely the taxpayer, has to foot the bill for the repairs. The Council has a duty of care and if a child gets injured because the cement that attaches the coping to stone to the wall is not designed to withstad this sort of activity, it will be duty bound to take measures to prevent any further occurance. Once again at taxpayers expense. I am not being negitive and I am certainly not slating those involved. With every activity, recreational or otherwise, there is an elment of social responsibily. To hide behind "kids will be kids" is ducking the isssue and it also sends the wrong message to the kids. Just because it can be classifed as a youth activity does not give the paricitants the right to damage public property or behave in a manner that would generally be classified as unacceptable in any place other than one specifically provided for that activity. You can not provide facilites for every passing fad that a minority of children decide to participate in as long is it is considerd cool. If there is a large enough uptake then I am all in favour of providing a safe and controled enviorment for children to participate in and enjoy the activity.

LauraJane90 wrote ~ It happens very near my house on a fairly regular basis. Some of the coping stones on the wall are now missing. The rendering on the wall is taking a battering. It just happens that it was one of the areas that the instructur chose to do the training in. It may have been risk assessed prior to the training but it is far from safe now. I am very familialr with risk assessments and and how you could assess attempting to scale and come down a 7 foot wall without a laddder is beyond me. I see no personal protection equipment like helmets or knee and elbow pads. Paving stones a very unforgiving. Damage has been caused to council property as a result of this activity. Yes, we were all young once and did the similar things in a less structured manner but it was not smack in the middle of a quiet residential area where it caused a disturbance. Parkour is by definition an activity that mainly takes place in city centres and urban areas where it is most likely to cause a disturbance. If, as an adult, I behaved in this manner, I would soon find myself facing a breach of the peace charge. I witnessed a more mature devotee coming over the wall at the fort just after midnight recently dressed in the full ninja kit. That just about had me reaching for my mobile. I am not against minority or extreme sport activities provided they are properly regulated, properly risk assessed on an ongoing basis and do not cause alarm or distrbunce to other members of the public.

As far as I am aware, only one grade of petrol brought to Shetland. Just a word on this ~ http://www.oilstorageregs.co.uk/ That is if you can afford to buy over 200 lts. Had the same problem many years back when I owned a full blown rally converted Cooper S. Ran very hot and I was forever changing cylinder head gaskits. To get it to run in the town you had to reset the ignition timing but thats not an option on a modern car. The only time it ever ran properly was when I was given a small quantity of condemned Avgas to mix with the 98 octane which was branded as Super at the time. I needed 101 +.

Next to impossible without a mouse the further you progress. You can also obtain a keyboard with an overlay and software which will create a custom hotkeys. Both of these will plug into usb ports on your laptop. If you want to play on the move you can still use the laptop keyboard at default settings and obtain a usb mini mouse. I played to the extent that I had just about maxed out as a Palidin. I object to having to pay for a game and then pay to play it so I used "free" third party servers. This was ok for a while but somhow Blizzard manage to get control of the server I had built up my charecter on and integrate it into the official network. I just could not be bothered to start from scratch again. A few months after I stopped playing I stated to get junk email (proportedly from Blizzard) saying my account had been hacked etc - Strange because I never played on a pay for server and had never opened an active account with Blizzard. I was invited to click on a link and verify my account details to remain playing. (I had not played for months and had erased the game from my PC) enough said. The game itsel was full of cheats and hackers which was self evident from the number of messages which flashed up on the screen informing players they had been banned. I can't comment on actual prerformance of the game now because I last played over 18 monts ago but you were very lucky if you kept a game connection running for 1/2 an hour during the evening although it was ok in the early hours of the morning. For the mature gamer I recomend the following free game ~ http://zandagort.com/ You get the first 10 days fully featured and can continue to play with a cut down version thereafter or pay $5 for the next 30 days. Its not anything like WOW in that you just enter what you do and leave it to happen. Its a stratedgy simulator with multi players.

Some antivirus software is notorious for resource hogging. AVG is a good example but its free! I would not entertain Norton on any of my machines. I use Kaspersky. This is however, is another topic. I did try a cordless mouse but not for long. I passed it on to the wife and then it went in the bin. If you must use a cordless mouse, fork out for lithium bateries. They last much longer and dont have the performance drop off. They either work or don't. If you are heavily into gaming wireless is not an option for either keyboard or mouse. One thing not touched on is operating systems. Matters will be ompounded if you are using Vista. Its a resource hog. If you don't want to migrate to windows 7 because of the pending relaase of windows 8, then regressing to XP is an option. Having said that support for XP SP3 will end soon despite it's refusal to die as the os of choice for many businesses and individuals alike. I run navigation software on Windows ME on a very modest spec laptop. I cut the os down to the bare minimum and have only what is needed to keep it functional. It boots up and starts the program almost as quickly as my overclocked i7 system on windows 7 gets to the desktop. Its all very complicated and lot depends on what you use your computer for. It can be tweeked to suit your needs but at the price of performance in other areas.

It may not be a mouse problem as such. There can be a multitude of causes which just slow the whole system down to a snails pace. If it is happening online, it will probably be due to a slow network connection whilst accessing a host server. Could be either client or host. Older laptops are just not able to cope efficiently with modern software. They generally have slower processors with cutdown cache memory to reduce heat and power consumption. Hyperthreading is one of the first things to go i.e. the ability to multitask. Coupled with this, older laptops tend to be low on memory and there is a trade of between system memory and physical memory. The net effect of this is excessive use of the system swop file on the hard drive and the inevitable slow down of the whole system. Conversly, applications that are graphic intensive require physical memeory that just is not there. There are other things that cause the whole system to slow down such as a full hard drive and lack of housekeeping. Fragmented files are bad for slowing down the application associated with the fragmented files. The hard drive has to search longer for the appropriate file segments. The solution to this is simple ~ defragment the hard drive. Before doing this, delete all temporary files especially internet files, Also delete any unused software. This does not actually get rid of the files as such but creates more writable space on the hard drive. This will speed up the defragmentation process because of more space and obviously it does not have to process the files you deleted. The net effect of this is more hard drive space and faster file reading. For heavily graphic dependent programs such as gaming, reducing the screen resolution and refrsh rate will speed things up but at the cost of image quality. Modern laptops are much better with graphics but once again it is a compromise between quality and battery life. A moderately specified desktop will outperform all but the most expensive laptop. You could also look critically at the number of background programs that you are running. Laptops tend to have proprietry management programs running that are not necessary to make the laptop function and use small but finite system resources. If you are not working online or installing new software/files turning off the antivirus will speed things up. Watch out also for programs and antivirus updates. These normally have priority over other applications when installing and downloading and will slow the system down drastically if they are large files. It is best to let them do their thing before attempting to use the laptop. This applies equally to desktops. Obviously you need antivirus updates on your machine as soon as possible but operating system and other application updates can be set to install when you switch off prior to the system actually shutting down. These tips are not exhaustive but the secret to getting a laptop or desktop to function at is best doing the housekeeping on a regular basis.

One of the things I do to amuse myself when I have to leave the building for a smoke is count the number of drivers using mobile phones. My vantage point is on Commercial road. It varies according to the time of day but it can be as high as 1 in 4. It is only a matter of time before there is a crash between two vehilces going in opposite directions because both drivers are on mobiles. I have already seen a rear end shunt. Why do those who feel that they have to be in contact all the time and are above the law not buy bluetooth hands free? I saw one in Tescos that cost less than the fixed penalty. You don't need to look like one of the actors in Blakes 7 either. It clips on to the sun visor and accepting a call is no more dangerous than adjusting the visor. I recon the police should confiscate the mobile phone on the spot in addition to the fixed penalty.

This is more likely to SCAM. Don't touch this or reply. At best you will end up on a mailing list that will SPAM you with offers of online gambling.

Going right back to the 1st post there is an other factor in the equation and that is human reaction time. The average human reaction time is approximately 215 ms. A good online game player will have a reaction time considerably less than this. I play online on American servers a fair bit where the ping is arround 150ms - 200ms. I normally dont' bother with servers that have a ping higer than 175ms. It goes like this - you see something happen on screen and react to it +215ms add half your ping +75ms your reaction registers on the server then +75ms to see the result of you initial reaction. Thats 1/3 of a second. The default frame rate of the game I play is 300fps ( and I can exceed this) so if you see a moving target and shoot at it and miss the target is 100 frames away before you find out if you made the kill. If you are playing against a player with a reaction time of 100ms and a ping of 30 you are dead before you know it has happened. = ownage. Here are a few tips - 1) Wireless internet connections introduce a small but quantifiable ammount of lag and at best and are still prone to interference which will introduce lag spikes. Solution - use a wired internet connection. 2) Same applies to wireless mice and keyboards. Solution - use a wired mouse and keyboard. 3) If you are a serious player arrange to play when you have exclusive use of the internet connection. ( remember people can piggy back on your wireless connection without your knowledge.) 4) If you have to let others use the connection at the same time, limit their download bandwidth. If they are using the likes of uTorrent forget even playing. Solution - kick them offline. 5) Try to avoid heavy internet use periods like 1700-1900hrs. After 2100 tends to be better especially during the week. 6) If you can, try to use a server that that evens out everybodys ping. 7) Don't go for the highest graphics setting unless you graphics card can cope with it. You are far better with lower resolution and a higher frame rate. Turning off the eye candy like shadow detail and lowering the render detail will boost frame rates considerably. Try varing the settings in you video options and find a compromise between quality and frame rate. In game tips for high ping - 1) Pick you targets. If they are far away and moving across you field of vision all you do is waste ammo. Best is moving direct to or away from you. ie the narrower the angle the better. Position yourself where you know that targets will come at you in this manner but don't camp the spot. Thats bad etiquite. 2) Familiarise youself with the map. Learn the power up/ammo/weapon points and where the cover is. Your opponets will go there. One again don't camp. They will always arrive at the same place and normally slow down at that point. 3) If you have the option get practice in on a low gravity map. It pays dividends whe you go back to normal speed. 4) In open play, try to anticipate where you opponent is going to be in 1/2 a second. The higher your ping the harder this is. My appologise to experienced gamers for this noob's guide.

AVG free ( I have no experience of the commercial product) is a resource hog. The only reason I used it because it was free. I had to turn it off whilst online gaming. I moved on Kespersky because it had one of the smallest background system footprints you could get. Its just short of £40 for 2- 4 pcs. I never even considered Norton or McAfee because because of past experience with so called "trial" periods left me wondering how the had the nerve to ask money for the product. There is no "one anti virus fits all". A lot will depend on what you use the computer for, what your browsing habits are and to some extent the actual specification of the computer. Your browser also makes a difference. More virus are written to exploit Windows Explorer's weaknesses than any other browser. Likewise the Linux is less prone to attack because it is a minority user operating system. The main thing to remember is anti virus software is only as good as the last known virus in the virus database. You are not protected from a new strain with an unknown virus signature. People have to get infected before a defense or cure can be developed. You can help youself by NEVER accepting a online prompt to do anything that may allow any access to your system unless you are 100% sure it is safe.

I'm with Plusnet and although it owned by BT, it's not run like BT. There is another reason and that is they will provide a broadband only service. It has suffered the same misfortunes of late, as has everybody else, but that was all BT's fault. I would not touch TalkTalk with a barge pole. I got involved with them when they took Tiscali over. They have a habit of changing your contract and failing to keep their promises. This is as about as good as you can get for broadband comparisions and its spells out exactly what you get and exactly what it costs. http://www.confused.com/tv-broadband-phone This is however not necessarly what the sales person will say. Get them to confirm every detail and do not be talked into taking anything extra because it costs more and thats their job. As soon as they start to say that they don't do that package in Shetland, hang up.

You could try a system restore. Click on "start" ; select run ; type "restore" in the box and then launch the restore application on next screen. Selact a restore point prior to the date you first had the problem and let it run. It will reboot the computer. You may have to click on "restore active desktop" to get back to the ordinary desktop. This might work. Its easy to do and worth a try.

posiedon wrote ~ I have just pasted the above quote into my email spelling/grammar checker and it has suggested that the above quote is not properly constructed and ought to be fragmented. It is what you say and not how you say it that is important.