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fruit
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Posts by fruit
New Part L – windows and doors in England and Wales
May 11th
Part L News – Breaking News : Sash Window and Tilt Window Hardware – Mighton Products.
Provides a brief summary of the new requirements for windows and doors installed in England and Wales after October 2010.
It seems to me that these new regulations favour large scale manufacturers and will make life very difficult for small joinery shops supplying one-off or bespoke replacement windows and doors.
GM crops created superweed, say scientists | Environment | The Guardian
May 11th
GM crops created superweed, say scientists | Environment | The Guardian.
An interesting article about weeds that have become resistant to some of the most commonly used herbicides employed when raising GM crops.
GM crops created superweed, say scientists | Environment | The Guardian
May 11th
GM crops created superweed, say scientists | Environment | The Guardian.
An interesting article about weeds that have become resistant to some of the most commonly used herbicides employed when raising GM crops.
BT and VAT invoices
May 11th
BT bills for standard home telephone lines do not usually have sufficient information on them to be used as VAT invoices. Their website states that VAT invoices can be requested by calling 0800800150 (a VAT invoice has to be issued if requested in accordance with VAT regulations). I did this some time back and received a VAT invoice – just the one. I called again in March this year and requested that in future I require a VAT invoice with each bill.
My bill for this quarter has just arrived – with no VAT invoice.
For more than half an hour I tried to negotiate BT’s dreadful phone menu system but was unable to find an appropriate option or even find an option that would allow me to talk to a human operator.
I have now put my request in a letter. I wonder if anyone will read it
UK ID Cards and a few crazy ideas
Mar 18th
I’ve just come across an article in The Guardian stating that Home Office Minister Meg Hillier has suggested that bus passes for over-60s could be scrapped and that millions of elderly people could be asked to carry a UK ID card to prove their age when they travel.
The Register reports that she has also suggested banks could give a free ID card to customers opening new accounts, particularly those who have no current way to prove their ID.
These stories both seem to relate to an article in Progress Online, the New Labour think tank magazine and subsequent comments to the media. Personally I think the comments beneath that article make more sense.
See also http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk and liberalconspiracy.org
NHS Summary Care Records
Mar 18th
I have recently received a letter from my Primary Care Trust explaining the benefits of this wonderful new database.
Although it seems a good idea in principle, my main concern is with the long term security of data. Data that is personal and specifically about me. This government has an appalling record when it comes to the handling and storing of personal data. Lax procedure and carelessness, at the very least, have resulted in government departments losing the personal details of many millions of people over the last few years.
What could happen in the future? It is possible that a different government may decide it cares less about personal freedom than the money it could make by selling information about me, perhaps to an insurance company who could then base the cost of policy premiums on my medical history, especially worrying, as once on the database, my data can only be hidden and not removed.
I could list many other concerns I have but I think they are all summed up very well on this page http://www.neilb.demon.co.uk
Windows update error
Mar 7th
I have a laptop that dual boots XP and linux. It is getting a bit old and slow running XP these days and doesn’t often get used unless I’m away from home.
I used it at my mother’s house the other day and thought I’d better run through the usual Windows update routine as I had a net connection and only a BT HomeHub between the world and me – update error 0xC800042D
I gave up after several attempts but have just tried again at home with the same result. I couldn’t find much help in a quick read of the MS links provided, so I turned to google. Seems I am not alone and it’s quite a common error and soon sorted following advice given in several links.
The latest updates seem to include the new browser chooser option, which I’ve applied but not seen as I shut down immediately after applying the patches. However I have the IE8 upgrade disabled as I use Firefox except for when I check for Windows Updates using IE7, wonder if that’s why it failed.
Typical Windows user patches every 5 days – a related and interesting link I came across the other day.
IPv6 – when
Mar 7th
Yesterday I reinstalled my server with ubuntu 9.10 as a vm using virt-manager, less than an hour’s work I guess. Next I started to set up mail using dovecot and postfix but for some strange reason they seemed to default to IPv6 settings so I couldn’t connect using IPv4. Not a major problem and easily sorted, but when are we going to see widespread use of IPv6 in the UK?
Within a few years the remaining IPv4 addresses will run out. It may happen very quickly given the increased internet use in countries such as India and China.
My ISP, AAISP support IPv6 tunnelled or natively, google offer IPv6 searches, but there’s not much about. There are few, if any, widely available IPv6 capable routers. No soho firewalls that are easy enough for general users to configure. Apparently BT have no plans to support IPv6 on their 21cn network – supposedly fit for the new century.
Could be quite a mess when it does all happen.
Elm tree reintroduction project starts – Google News
Mar 7th
Elm tree reintroduction project starts
Telegraph.co.uk – Stephen Adams
The first step to re-establishing elm trees in Britain is being taken this month with 250 schools receiving saplings to plant. By Stephen Adams From the …
via Elm tree reintroduction project starts – Google News.
Good news for future generations, for centuries the English landscape was populated by elm trees until Dutch Elm disease killed most of them in the 1970s. It has been estimated that some 20 to 25 million trees were lost in all.
Strange squidguard log entries
Mar 3rd
I look after an IPCop firewall in a remote office for a small company. Yesterday I noticed some odd internal IP addresses appearing in some categories of the squidguard logs. These addresses don’t appear anywhere else on the network or logs so I was somewhat puzzled.
It turns out that these were entries from the same day of the month but one, or even two years ago. logrotate is set to rotate the squidguard log files, but only once they reach a size of 100k. The least found categories will obviously have fewer entries so may well cover a period longer than a year.
When viewed in the web gui, only the day and month is searched, and subsequently listed, so today I see entries for 03 March – but, of course, not just for this year.
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