wanzelbin

Perhaps safe mode command prompt or XP installation disk so that you can run chkdsk?

Just the usual - try Last Known Good Configuration, or failing that try safe mode and untick the "automatic restart" under System failure section of My Computer - Properties - Advanced : will hopefully get to see the details of the blue screen if that's what it is.

Well done Janet.

Most people are too lazy to vote, but that's because there's nothing to choose between the parties. It was different before Thatcher - there were distinct political ideals and real representative parties that stood for certain things. It wasn't treated as a popularity contest, where you must be doing something wrong if you're not voted into government. New Labour are defined by this new ideology. David Cameron's notorious band-wagon jumping is the latest example. We've got groups of people planning on running the country, basing their policy on what's in fashion - there's not a principle in sight! At a local level, you're only voting on which group handles the money most efficiently to provide virtually identical services. I don't think I'd have chained myself to the railings for that!

The right to vote is great if voting achieves something. Whether it's local or national, most members of the public have little or no confidence in the available candidates. And as Chesters says, they only work to their own agendas anyway. Voting is supposed to be a way for the public to have their say. As I don't believe voting for any one party will make the slightest difference, spoilt ballot papers is the way to go - not turning up can be construed as apathy. Just imagine what a statement the general public could make if 60% or so of all ballot papers were spoilt?

Steve - just to let you know, I asked my cousin and he said that the pictures are in RAW format and take up about 17.5MB disk space, but 32MB in photoshop. He's using a Fujifilm, S3 pro SLR.

Thanks Steve. He is starting up a studio of his own, and is looking to be able to show people the photos pretty quickly on a couple of big screens. D

Hi there. I hope some of you folks can help. My cousin's looking at a fast and effective way of writing pictures straight to a PC from his camera as he takes them. They're big picture files (approx 32MB) and currently he's planning on using a 10m firewire, but wondered whether anyone was aware of a more convenient method. I don't know what camera(s) he's using but I can find out. Any thoughts or suggestions much appreciated. Thanks David

This one's even longer!

Thanks very much everyone. Quite a few options there.

No problem. I'd love to fish the Thames one day. Let us know how it goes - I bought an 8ft AFTM 4 rod last week and hoping to get out on the river soon too.

Good chance it's Windows Update. I've had three PC's brought to a virtual standstill when you start IE lately, and in every case I've tracked it down to that utter **** that is Windows Update. To see if that's your problem, go into Services (under Control Panel - Administrative Tools), and disable the Automatic Updates. After a restart try starting IE and hopefully the problem will have gone. If this is the problem, it's apparently due to a dodgy update sent out by MS a while ago. If I can find the correct KB article, I'll post the link to fix it. As long as you've got ok AV and a firewall, it's best to turn off Windows Updates - they're a complete nightmare.

I've never knowingly seen fish spawning. It's fascinating to just watch them sometimes, without being there to try and catch them. Would be great if you could get those pictures.

I went for a walk along the river this morning. It was low and sparkling in the sun, and the clearest I've seen it for over 6 months. I saw four barbel skittering about just above a natural weir, and lots of little chub darting about below it. One big chub was lying side on to the current, nosing the grass hanging from the far bank before he slowly drifted downstream and out of sight. Everything looked so fresh and green - last time I was there was only a month ago, but the trees and bushes were still mostly bare. Now there's a willow trailing new leaves in the running water, and clouds of blossom are dotted everywhere, hanging over the banks. It was absolutely beautiful and I can't believe I've got to wait two more months :wallbash:

I agree completely. Part of me thinks that working to reduce greenhouse gases etc can hardly be a bad thing (at least for the planet and our established western economies), but it's the feeling that we're being fed little more than propaganda that really bothers me. Another program, "The Trap" on BBC 2, was broadcast around the same time as the global warming swindle one. For anyone who didn't see it, it was a fascinating and scary insight into the attempts made by recent governments to engineer society, based on inappropriate theories and little idea or consideration of the long term effects. There is an obvious analogy to the whole climate change issue, with a similar reliance on theories and models that happen to support a political agenda. If you look through the endless reports from the IPCC and virtually every other pro-man-made-climate-change article, they all refer to the alignment of calculated "models" with observed increases in global temperatures. They happily tell us all about these models results, but i've struggled to find anything on the quality and accuracy of the parameters and logic employed within such models. Yet their results are taken as "proof". Meanwhile the failure of derived predictions based on empirically proven laws of physics don't appear to cut as much ice - apparently, contrary to what their models had suggested, ocean temperatures have dropped since 2003 (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14944138/). I don't see the IPCC holding up their hands and saying "Hold on, that doesn't fit the models - perhaps we've got something wrong!". I used to be quite sympathetic to the whole idea, but it's all got far too political now. It's a ridiculous state of affairs when the public distrust something because the people running the country appear to get interested in it. But that's what's happened and with debacles like WMDs and the "war on terror", who can blame us?

After watching Channel 4's "The Great Global Warming Swindle" (or whatever it was called) a few weeks back, I've become rather confused about the whole thing. Believing a very convincing program, I was horrified at how everybody (including myself) had been so taken in by this whole thing. I decided to look into it further, and soon found a lot of reports in newspapers and web forums where the program was reported as having been extremely misleading. Graphs central to key arguments were doctored or used old data, at least one interviewee complained his words had been misrepresented, history of innaccuracies from the director etc etc. However, there was still a lot of stuff that I've not seen rebuffed. As a result, I've been left rather unsure who or what to believe. One thing the program did acheive was to highlight the question about whether the warming is definitely man-made or not, and that anyone who is interested in mounting a challenge to the prevalent "yes" camp is in for a tough time. I'd love to see some "accurate" graphs of solar activity against temparature, and also a decent explanation of why the official records show a clear pattern of carbon dioxide levels FOLLOWING directly proportionate temperature changes throughout history by approximately 400 years. As I say though, after that program, I can't say that I would necessarily believe anyone!

Thanks Tony. I found a website (http://www.geocities.com/romseyfishing/timsbury.htm) that shows £65 for the day and £50 for evenings. It also mentioned the River Test Carrier (a tributary?) for £25. Any idea what that's like?

I was in Whitchurch, Hampshire yesterday to see a customer, and wandered out to look at the river during a brief lunch break. I'd never seen the Test before, and couldn't believe how beautiful it was. Crystal clear water running over light coloured stone and gravel with a few tufts of old weed here and there. I've read about it, but never actually seen it. Standing on the road bridge by the Silk Mill I looked down and could see perhaps thirty or more trout dodging about looking for food - some of them must have been over 4, even 5 pounds. When I got home I spent a little time on google trying to find out what sort of fishing is available on the Test. It's an understatement to say I was disappointed to see prices like £190 per rod per day. Is the entire Test priced like this? Does anyone know of parts of this or other chalkstream rivers in the south of England that aren't so ridiculously expensive? I'd really love to fly fish some rivers, but there's no way I can afford those sort of prices. Thanks for any help. D

Perhaps in pangolin's absence a mod could edit / remove his post for him?

Pangolin The spam is not originating from your own account - it's coming from 43.84-234-209.customer.lyse.net, which seems to be a customer account for a scandinavian ISP. BTW, as Ferret's done, best to edit your post and remove references to your own email address (though might be worth getting rid of whole address). Ferret You've already spotted it - it's not coming from your own machine / account. As for getting rid of it, blocking that particular address probably won't help as you can bet it's someone whose been infected with some virus / malware and they're part of a network of spam senders. Still, it's about the only thing you can do for now apart from Andy's suggestion. Sorry there's no easy solution, but at least you know that you're not sending out the cr*p yourselves!

Quite often the spam isn't actually coming from your email address, it's just been manufactured to look that way. Best way to confirm this is to look at the message header details. What email application do you use? Outlook? Outlook Express? Thunderbird? I can't speak for Thunderbird (I'm sure some others on here can), but for the other two, do the following and paste the results onto here... 1) Outlook. Open the spam message, click the View menu, then click "Options". You should see a paragraph of text toward the bottom of the resulting dialog box titled "Internet Headers". Drag your mouse across this text (so it is highlighted), right-click over the highlighted area and select Copy. 2) Outlook Express. Open the message, select File menu and then Properties. Select the second tab ("Details"). Select all the text in the box titled "Internet headers for this message", right-click and select Copy. As I say, paste it on here and we can have a look. If the spam really is being generated locally, there's a chance you won't have any text in these sections. In any case, worth running an anti-spyware / malware scan of your systems. D

Unfortunately I'm probably not much help as I've only ever caught two tench in my entire life (I usually fish rivers). However, I'm hoping to go after them on Friday, and have the following game plan: Same as you, a 13' match rod (though it's actually more like 12' 10" as the tip snapped off about 10 years ago). 4lb main line - Drennan float fish mono. 2lb mono for hook length, with probably a size 12 or 14 hook. Going to use sweetcorn as hook bait with liquidised sweetcorn and breadcrumb for groundbait. May try and dig out a few worms from the compost heap as well. Hope that's some help, but I'm really going on what other people and books have told me.

I don't use Outlook Express either, but to make it do what you want: Click the Tools menu, then select Options. On the first tab ("General"), in the "Send / Receive Messages" section the first check box says "Play sound when messages arrive". Make sure this is clicked and all should be peachy. That's for Outlook Express 6 anyway - don't know if there's a later version. D

Nice thread. I can't wait to try some summer chub and barbel fishing. I only really got back into fishing late last autumn, and though I think I did very well (if I do say so myself ), I'm looking forward to doing some real stalking.

I only use barbed for worms - otherwise I'm worried they'll wriggle off the hook!