Druidic Dabblings and General Twaddle !!

[V8Druid]

What do you do to stop your boxes getting condensation on the ceilings. Seen the bike covered and made me think

me tool box is very good and doesn't get much, if any ... has a coating of glue inside it from where it once had a layer of foam attached -- don't ask
t'other two vary depending n the weather ... sometimes expect 'em to be bad and there's now't .... or the reverse .....
don't often get to the point that they drip ... might today though .....

I have a sqeejee mop that I often put over the ceilings if it looks bad, which gets the worst of it ....
this was discussed on CEF at length some time ago and there was a coating available to cure it ..... but involves spraying an empty box no chance!!
the coating had good reports .... see if i can find the name of it later

 

[Cyberprog]

I've got a mac for Helen and she seems to cope OK with it for playing secondlife and browsing the net. She's slowly adjusting to it.

I wouldn't buy one new though, got a good deal on this one secondhand and that's fairly rare for it's spec (I7/16GB/1TB SSD Macbook Pro).

Better off with a Dell - I'm on my second XPS 15 now (previous was a 9550 with Quad Core I7, 16GB, 512SSD, now have a 9570 with 6-Core I9, 32GB and 1TB SSD) and they're lovely machines.

 

[pettsy]

this was discussed on CEF at length some time ago and there was a coating available to cure it ..... but involves spraying an empty box no chance!!
the coating had good reports .... see if i can find the name of it later

Graffotherm was what I’ve seen used, no idea how good it is though?

 

[Lancs Lad]

I've got a mac for Helen and she seems to cope OK with it for playing secondlife and browsing the net. She's slowly adjusting to it.

I wouldn't buy one new though, got a good deal on this one secondhand and that's fairly rare for it's spec (I7/16GB/1TB SSD Macbook Pro).

Better off with a Dell - I'm on my second XPS 15 now (previous was a 9550 with Quad Core I7, 16GB, 512SSD, now have a 9570 with 6-Core I9, 32GB and 1TB SSD) and they're lovely machines.

2nd that for Dell XPS, like you say Win 10 does the job pretty darn good, better than 7 anyhow!

 

[V8Druid]

Graffotherm was what I’ve seen used, no idea how good it is though?

That's the stuff ..... got a quote off them in April '16 for two 40 ft boxes

"Good morning Graham,
Thank you for your email.

You need 36Kg for each container = 72Kg @ £3.11Kg = £223.92 Plus Packing & carriage = £283.92 Plus VAT @ £56.78 = Total £340.70.

You will also need a texture spray gun. We sell these at £50 plus vat = £60

We do not take cards of any sort.
Materials will leave our factory within 2/3 days after monies have cleared our bank.

You will need to force dry our material after spraying with a large space heater until the summer (months arrive).

Hope this is of help any questions please ring us.

Kind regards

Gwen"

didn't seem a bad price

 

[V8Druid]

I've got a mac for Helen and she seems to cope OK with it for playing secondlife and browsing the net. She's slowly adjusting to it.

I wouldn't buy one new though, got a good deal on this one secondhand and that's fairly rare for it's spec (I7/16GB/1TB SSD Macbook Pro).

Better off with a Dell - I'm on my second XPS 15 now (previous was a 9550 with Quad Core I7, 16GB, 512SSD, now have a 9570 with 6-Core I9, 32GB and 1TB SSD) and they're lovely machines.

2nd that for Dell XPS, like you say Win 10 does the job pretty darn good, better than 7 anyhow!

I assume this is a lap top ??

 

[Powerfab]

I assume this is a lap top ??

Correct, but they are quite nice, albeit on the pricey side. The top end laptops by Dell and Microsoft etc. are all now into comparable Apple territory.

I've gone down the route of a laptop, but with a simple hub that connects it as a desktop to two 24" monitors, keyboard and peripherals. This is all done through a single USB connection port. The format gives me the best of both worlds and means I can peruse and reply to the forums sitting in front of the log burner rather than shackled to the office.

If you're decided you are completely against a laptop, what about one of the little desktop micro pc boxes now available.
You can stand them on edge or mount it to a monitor with an optional VESA bracket.

And if you were convinced by others to go to the dark side and invest in Apple, your cheapest route of entry is the Mac Mini small box format.

 

[V8Druid]

Was seriously white here at half seven this morning ...

Vicki had four goes at the drive, getting back out, heading for work, after dropping Clara .Might go rob the salt/grit bin up the road tomorrow if it's the same again tonight !!!
MOT booked first thing ... Passed at 15.00 with flying colours ... test man said i only wanted/needed you to change the rubber boots ... yeh right mate ... he's good as gold TBH ..... think he was pulling me leg ...... 'specially when he asked if they'd been much of a job ...... checked the tracking .... absolutely BANG on .... said he couldn't have done better with the laser gauges ... very happy with that
Sodding great pothole on the A465 on the way home managed to bring an ABS/traction control light on on the dash .... sensor must've moved ... quick look in the a.m., but reset itself with an off/on of the ignition, so can't be a lot

finished me first week of treatment tab.s last night ... onto box/week two this morning .... seems OK 90% of the time, now, aside from an iffy head after the night time ones.

 

[Jimoz]

I'd be fuming about that pothole after all that

 

[Smiffy]

Correct, but they are quite nice, albeit on the pricey side. The top end laptops by Dell and Microsoft etc. are all now into comparable Apple territory.

View attachment 11730

I've gone down the route of a laptop, but with a simple hub that connects it as a desktop to two 24" monitors, keyboard and peripherals. This is all done through a single USB connection port. The format gives me the best of both worlds and means I can peruse and reply to the forums sitting in front of the log burner rather than shackled to the office.

If you're decided you are completely against a laptop, what about one of the little desktop micro pc boxes now available.
You can stand them on edge or mount it to a monitor with an optional VESA bracket.

View attachment 11731

And if you were convinced by others to go to the dark side and invest in Apple, your cheapest route of entry is the Mac Mini small box format.

View attachment 11733

Have you got any recommendations for these
Can't justify the apple but see several powered by chrome
And I like my android phone and tablet but when I start looking at anything computery my mind boggles and it means nothing to me
I don't want to do anything much technical just want something about faster than the POS laptop I have atm was really cheap and doesn't do anything very well

 

[Mark]

Correct, but they are quite nice, albeit on the pricey side. The top end laptops by Dell and Microsoft etc. are all now into comparable Apple territory.

View attachment 11730

I've gone down the route of a laptop, but with a simple hub that connects it as a desktop to two 24" monitors, keyboard and peripherals. This is all done through a single USB connection port. The format gives me the best of both worlds and means I can peruse and reply to the forums sitting in front of the log burner rather than shackled to the office.

If you're decided you are completely against a laptop, what about one of the little desktop micro pc boxes now available.
You can stand them on edge or mount it to a monitor with an optional VESA bracket.

View attachment 11731

And if you were convinced by others to go to the dark side and invest in Apple, your cheapest route of entry is the Mac Mini small box format.

View attachment 11733

just bought a dell xps13 i7 16gb memory and 512gb storage last week good little machine But a you say pricey

 

[Lancs Lad]

just bought a dell xps13 i7 16gb memory and 512gb storage last week good little machine But a you say pricey

Got the very same...runs tad hot usually. So if I'm on it for ages I stick it one a boggo cooling fan pad. Not ideal but it is quick...

 

[Lancs Lad]

Correct, but they are quite nice, albeit on the pricey side. The top end laptops by Dell and Microsoft etc. are all now into comparable Apple territory.

View attachment 11730

I've gone down the route of a laptop, but with a simple hub that connects it as a desktop to two 24" monitors, keyboard and peripherals. This is all done through a single USB connection port. The format gives me the best of both worlds and means I can peruse and reply to the forums sitting in front of the log burner rather than shackled to the office.

If you're decided you are completely against a laptop, what about one of the little desktop micro pc boxes now available.
You can stand them on edge or mount it to a monitor with an optional VESA bracket.

View attachment 11731

And if you were convinced by others to go to the dark side and invest in Apple, your cheapest route of entry is the Mac Mini small box format.

View attachment 11733

These little micro pcs are great, we use loads at work. Started with Lenovo but now on Dell both ok. Tbh if your PC has lasted 3-4 years then it's time to move on if it's a business device.

 

[V8Druid]

I'd be fuming about that pothole after all that

aye ..... ... there's bloody miles of it ... been at it years and are circa a year behind, spent millions on a lot of un-necessary BS bits and caused chaos in the process

first time in the last half a dozen trips along there that i actually saw a machine working today

A465: section 2 Gilwern to Brynmawr | GOV.WALES

We converted 8km of the A465 between the Glanbaiden junction at Gilwern and the Brynmawr roundabout to 2 lanes in each direction.

gov.wales

£51m A465 Heads of the Valleys dispute over Clydach Gorge

Ministers are unhappy with contractor Costain over extra expense and delays upgrading the A465.

www.bbc.co.uk

Cost of widening the last bit of the A465 will be more than the Metro

The price just for the last 16-mile section is set to be £770m before VAT

www.walesonline.co.uk

almost all of the elevated sections in the right of the video have been in filled/built up !!!!!!! the L/h lane is the original level of what was a 3 lane road

 

[V8Druid]

Got the very same...runs tad hot usually. So if I'm on it for ages I stick it one a boggo cooling fan pad. Not ideal but it is quick...

googled the original recommendation and the reviews all said it runs very hot, with significant drop in performance once hot

Had a Rock Xtrem TI once which suffered the same issues ...... to the point it fried the mother board after only 20 months ... even with extended warranty on it, it was toast as they couldn't get a replacement board ... was a hell of a good machine when cool .... but got hot pretty quick in use ..... was bloody dear and well PO-ed when it died after such a short period of use/ownership ... would never spend in excess of £2k on another lap top ..... Pam's 350 quid HP has been flawless (for what she does, anyway) and must be pushing 8 years old, maybe more

 

[Powerfab]

Have you got any recommendations for these
Can't justify the apple but see several powered by chrome
And I like my android phone and tablet but when I start looking at anything computery my mind boggles and it means nothing to me
I don't want to do anything much technical just want something about faster than the POS laptop I have atm was really cheap and doesn't do anything very well

Smiffy,
The first and most important consideration is to take careful stock of what you want the machine to do.

Most peoples use if they take time to review is simply browsing the internet, dealing with emails and social media and occasionally letters, spreadsheets and presentations.
If you fall into this demographic then take a long hard look at Chromebooks or Chromeboxes. They are cheaper, faster and more stable than anything else for what they do. Chrome OS has come on leaps and bounds in recent years and now with offline access and saving of files its a no-brainer for 75% of typical casual users.
Google Docs, sheets and Slides is free and can do 90% of MS Office. Google can now also allow you to edit MS files and retain them in Microsoft format without loss of integrity. TBH Google OS is really hard to go past except for what I perceive as an OS "snobbery."

If however you have a specific piece of software that you have been using, then its important that you have an operating system that supports it. But realistically, decide first if you need that particular piece of software and if it is available on another platform. I wouldn't let a program only used 5% of the time make your decision.

I wouldn't pretend to have any knowledge to point you to any one machine. If its Windows OS then go for one with a mid range spec. Low cost machines as you've found bog down at the earliest opportunity. They're built to a price spec and all the components are simply slower. It all adds up to a bottleneck somewhere.
But likewise don't go for the fastest all bells & whistles. That's the problem with all these PC reviews. Its always "good machine but..." Truth is the reviewers are looking at variation in the top 1% of the specs.
For example, i'd go for an i5 processor rather than an i7 and rather instead have a SSD disk than a spinning HDD because there's no point having the fastest processor if the information cant be read / written at a good enough speed.
I'd recon a good mid range Windows 10 laptop could be found in the £500 - £700 range.

 

[Powerfab]

googled the original recommendation and the reviews all said it runs very hot, with significant drop in performance once hot

Had a Rock Xtrem TI once which suffered the same issues ...... to the point it fried the mother board after only 20 months ... even with extended warranty on it, it was toast as they couldn't get a replacement board ... was a hell of a good machine when cool .... but got hot pretty quick in use ..... was bloody dear and well PO-ed when it died after such a short period of use/ownership ... would never spend in excess of £2k on another lap top ..... Pam's 350 quid HP has been flawless (for what she does, anyway) and must be pushing 8 years old, maybe more

Gra,

As I mentioned in my reply to Smiffy, it's the top end crop of machines that push the boundaries of what can be done that causes the heat etc. Ever wonder why the dearest machines are also generally the thinnest? It's become sexy to pack everything into wafer thin shells. Cooling fans as a result have been sacrificed for heat dissipating pastes and the cases doing double duty as heat sinks.

If buying I wouldn't hesitate with any mid range machine from the named brands, HP, Lenovo, Dell Samsung etc. Can't say I have any liking for Acer, Packard Bell etc at the lower end.
Main thing to ensure is that there's no crapware or free trial software installed that you don't need. Remove it all as soon as you set the machine up and then religiously ensure that you don't install anything you don't need. Good housekeeping is crucial to maintaining a responsive machine.

And, if your use case is met, look closely at a Chrome OS machine. I have to say I'm seriously tempted, would have bought one before now except for two or three items of specialist software which I can't do without and only available on Windows. Otherwise I'd have already jumped ship.

 

[Jimoz]

My MacBook must be 5 years old. Still going fine. I never have to wait for anything to load just comes up straight away. Never gets hot. They are well overpriced though.
I use open office can do word excel etc etc

 

[Smiffy]

Smiffy,
The first and most important consideration is to take careful stock of what you want the machine to do.

Most peoples use if they take time to review is simply browsing the internet, dealing with emails and social media and occasionally letters, spreadsheets and presentations.
If you fall into this demographic then take a long hard look at Chromebooks or Chromeboxes. They are cheaper, faster and more stable than anything else for what they do. Chrome OS has come on leaps and bounds in recent years and now with offline access and saving of files its a no-brainer for 75% of typical casual users.
Google Docs, sheets and Slides is free and can do 90% of MS Office. Google can now also allow you to edit MS files and retain them in Microsoft format without loss of integrity. TBH Google OS is really hard to go past except for what I perceive as an OS "snobbery."

If however you have a specific piece of software that you have been using, then its important that you have an operating system that supports it. But realistically, decide first if you need that particular piece of software and if it is available on another platform. I wouldn't let a program only used 5% of the time make your decision.

I wouldn't pretend to have any knowledge to point you to any one machine. If its Windows OS then go for one with a mid range spec. Low cost machines as you've found bog down at the earliest opportunity. They're built to a price spec and all the components are simply slower. It all adds up to a bottleneck somewhere.
But likewise don't go for the fastest all bells & whistles. That's the problem with all these PC reviews. Its always "good machine but..." Truth is the reviewers are looking at variation in the top 1% of the specs.
For example, i'd go for an i5 processor rather than an i7 and rather instead have a SSD disk than a spinning HDD because there's no point having the fastest processor if the information cant be read / written at a good enough speed.
I'd recon a good mid range Windows 10 laptop could be found in the £500 - £700 range.

That's definitely the category I come under
Looking at the chromebox I can't understand the different models
I presume it's the processor that changes ??
So I want a intel rather than celeron ??

 

[V8Druid]

That's definitely the category I come under
Looking at the chromebox I can't understand the different models
I presume it's the processor that changes ??
So I want a intel rather than celeron ??

ditto damned near