Info and forum posts by 'Grumpy Old Git'

RE: [VIDEO] Holy Cow! Too much for this snake to eat

Where was the salad?

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RE: Network Speed Question...

@Chris, i tend to agree, i was kind of hoping to get at least a tad more out of the powerline plugs than the wireless connection, but they seem to be about equal, makes me wonder how they get away with "500mbs" claims even with pure gold house wiring i think it would sturggle.

Looks like i will have to hard wire an ethernet cable to downstairs somehow - or bring the GoFlex drive back upstairs and hook it up to the pc and use the WD media box to just stream the data back down, not ideal as the gui in the WD media box relies on caching the the front covers of the films and when its used to stream it doesnt do that, so theirs this awful lag as your browse the movies.

It might be worth me looking at getting a 3tb internal drive for the pc, at least then (in theory) if its connected to a sata port direct theirs no sata/usb conversion going on from the hd to the media box and loading films will be at the max for the setup i guess.

Any thoughts on building a media box?
  
Hell this is a minefiled!!   

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RE: Network Speed Question...

Thx for the reply Chris, it does confuse me a bit i must admit, Mbs MB/s etc etc - i was using wireless to begin with, but it was taking hours to dump 5 or 6 films at around 4gb each to the GoFlex hd, and was getting around (if i remember) 2.8MB/s - that was roughly about 15ft away downwards through a ceiling to the WD Streaming box (details are a bit thin on how good the wireless part of the media box is) - that why i went the powerline adapter route, though its risen a tad its still pretty abysmal considering i can drop a 8,5gb mkv file from my hd to an old laptop drive via a usb 2 port in around 7 to 8 mins...

perhaps i should connect the GoFlex to the pc via its usb/sata connection and stream the media down the powerline?

All i`m trying to do is cut down the time for me to add new films to the drive, i usually do 5 or 6 at a time but usually means i have to run the comp overnight....

Streaming the media via shared folders has its own minor issues unfortunately in that the covers etc arent cached in the media box so you end up with a lag while it finds the "covers" to display, the way it is now its instant....
     

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RE: Which athlete are you most like

I got David Kavelasvili the greek weightlifter.....

I feel like a god....  

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Network Speed Question...

One for the network gurus....

Heres the deal, i have recently got into media streaming with a fair bit of sucess, a couple of minor issues that i seemed to have sorted out and am happily storing all my movies onto a Seagate GoFlex 2TB HD.

Setup up is thus:

WDLive streaming media player that has the 2TB drive connected directly to it via onboard usb plug, my main pc is in an upstairs office and i am using a pair of Netgear nano 500mbs powerline adapters, this is then connected to a netgear wndr3300 router via one of the ports to D/Load my MKV files to the drive when done, all of this works fine - my question is one of transfer speed?

How long realistically should a 10gb file take to transfer over to the GoFlex HD?

Stats at the moment for a 10gb file are 2.85MB/s and showing appx 1hr to completion?

PC has the usual 10/100 network installed - can i assume that will be a bottle neck?
I realise the given stats for the powerline adapters are best case scenario, but can i improve that in anyway? or am i getting the most i can given the equipment i have.

What seems odd is that i have an old laptop drive in a caddy plugged into a usb2 port and i`m sure i shot a 8gbGB file in about 8mins across to it... appx 24.5MB/s

Again and as always thanks for any replies!

Grumpy
   

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This item was edited on Wednesday, 1st August 2012, 21:06

RE: Co-op bank now to be a major high street player.

Now i come to think of it your prob right Doc, either way..... its brickworthy

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RE: Co-op bank now to be a major high street player.

Quote:
Bring back the weekly/monthly pay packet option Big +1 on that, banks offer me absolutely zilch that enhance my life, quite the reverse, banks should be their for your benefit - not vice versa. They have forgotten a long time ago that we are customers - everytime i hear that smug bastard jimmy carr`s voice overs for barclays banks i want to throw a brick at the tv.

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RE: Youtube videos advice

Admars, many thx, the first link is exactly what i needed works a treat

Thanks again

Grumpy  

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Youtube videos advice

Any gurus have any advice on how to get the vids on youtube on to a pc? - and be able to plonk them into itunes and or my HTC One x?

Iv`e manage to get webm files, but itunes wont like that i`m sure, i have firefox - is their a one click solution or will i have to d/load vid and convert?

As usual many thanks for any suggestions.

Grumpy  

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This item was edited on Saturday, 7th July 2012, 16:57

[VIDEO] Playing with knives happy clappy styleeee...

Ok. so iv`e never posted in the music forum but i was rummaging through my old DJ collection of music and was trying to find my copy of Bizarre Incs "Playing With Knives" (original version) and searching on youtube found this...

Now for anyone who can remember the italo house toon - well done (the first time round that is) what the guy has laid the the track over just made me laugh out loud - hope its not just me  

And yep i loved it then and i love it now - enjoy!


Not so Grumpy!   

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RE: [VIDEO] Paxman Ripping People a New One

How many ways are their to not answer a question....

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RE: Laptop deals

Quote:
wanted a quick opinion in case someone had horror stories to tellRob, well personally speaking i`d never buy another HP if it was the last one on earth, I had a HP Pavillion series laptop a few years ago, it ran for about 13 mnths then it would start "losing" audio saying "no drivers installed" - then would come back after a reboot then dissapear without warning, then the on board cd drive would drop off the device list then return, the wifi would also be sporadic in operation - after much frustration i found a HP forum that showed HP had a massive problem with Pavillion laptops using a certain graphics chip, insufficient heat sinking and overheating of said chipset (and the use of enviromentally safe solder) would cause the pcb to delaminate and the solder to "lift" from areas of the chip causing all the aformentioned problems (and a few others) - its well documented and the only cure was either a new "modified" motherboard (at a cost that far outweighed the cost of the device) or 3rd party removal and re-balling of the chipset and a new modified heatsink.

Now i`m well aware crap happens when manufacturing devices but my frustration was the fact HP would not under any circumstances admit they had a problem, emails were ignored and their own tech advice and forums would "suggest" you do a reinstall or it it was a windows os update fault - infact anything other than hold their hands up and fix the problem.

In the end i broke it down for bits and sold them on ebay - in fact a company that does the specific fault repair bought the mobo off me to refurbish!

Having said all that my daughter turned up with a HP for me to look at the other day and it looked on the surface a nice machine (but then so did mine..)

I just want to deal with companies that have some kind of morals when they know they have a problem and i vote with my feet and wallet - maybe a futile gesture for a company as big as HP but they sure as hell wont be getting anymore of my cash (oh and dont get me started on Halfords and TomTom!)

I will dig out the main link for the HP forum thread on the whole saga a bit later - its interesting reading insomuch as the HP moderators steer you towards it being everyone elses fault except hp - and if you have the time just google "hp pavillion no audio device installed"

#Edit - link for the main thread - strangely i checked my spam email account and found 3 new posts on the same subject!
http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-PC-Sound-and-Audio/HP-Quicktouch-on-screen-display-has-stopped-working-and-no-audio/m-p/1608497#M24580
 

Grumpy

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NEW* The Grumpy Old Gits guide To Bank Holidays....
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This item was edited on Saturday, 23rd June 2012, 06:13

RE: Need a new shower - advice please

The Triton Ivory II came in 3 wattage sizes

8.5KW
9.5KW
10.5KW

Most modern showers offer multipoint access for water inlet - external and internal.

I won`t add anymore as i have seen Bandicoot has said it all above.......  

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NEW* The Grumpy Old Gits guide To Bank Holidays....
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RE: Need a new shower - advice please

Plumber sounds about spot on to me, entry level electric shower units are two a penny pricewise tbh, i often found it cheaper to buy the same item from say screwfix or B&Q than i could buy it from my wholesaler and i suspect your plumber will be of the same opinion, which is why he is saying up to you...

At 8 years old or more its done well if it was used everyday - most don`t get that far

Grumpy

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RE: Car Insurance and Road Tax stitch up!

Seems to be a bandwagon all organisations seem very happy to climb onto these days, all the budget airlines with their "admin" charges for using a debit card - pray tel how else you are supposed to pay them? - "extra" for this "extra" for that - insurance companies (whether it be your home, house or pet etc etc) have the audacity to charge you premium rates to call them (note its always a free 0800 number to join - but but have a minor query or try and correct them on a cock up they might have made and up come the 0845 numbers) and then add £30.00 or so to just change your address details? - this entails what kind of rocket science? - robbery pure and simple, clichet that with "rip off britain".

It really depresses me that most if not all of these major companies have forgotten the people that matter the most... their customers.


Feeling very Grumpy    

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RE: Off to see Gary Numan tonight.

Rob i was sooo tempted to ask if he was still flying/wrecking planes - but diplomacy got the better of me


Grumpy

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RE: Does anyone know anything about combi boilers?

Thats going to make it a tad harder to pin down fluff, but damn i do love a good mystery lol - where their is the damp wall is there a rad nearby? and i suspect u have carpets as well? - i used to have a cheap damp meter that i`d run over the floor and it would give a fairly accurate clue as to where  the water actually was (tho water will gravitate to the lowest point speciahe leaks in a ceiling and the first you know is the drip from the ceiling rose!) - just keep the filling loop topped up, at least you will get HW - thats seperate from the Heating side, but if the pressure drops the whole system usually goes into lockout.

Its one of the downsides of a completely carcassed system (tho probaly easier to fix than having to pull a ceiling down etc) could have been leaking for quite a while by the sound of it.

Best of luck when the plumber gets on the job and its not to messy for you!


Grumpy    

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RE: Off to see Gary Numan tonight.

Quote:
grumpy old git!

Oi thats my job lol!

Funny tho I was working at a womans house many years ago and she had a small business making curtains for the rich and famous - and Gary Numan and his Mrs turned up to pick up some drapes, i recognised him and we had a brieff chat, he was off to Germany to do a few gigs the next day, seemed a really nice guy.


Grumpy  

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This item was edited on Thursday, 7th June 2012, 10:22

RE: Does anyone know anything about combi boilers?

Adding sealant rarely works to TBH - and its a bit overdramatic (on his part) to say it needs completely re piping, Unless of course the floors are concrete - then its a whole new ball game of trying to track it down, having said that most of the leaks I had to deal with were at joints at the tails of the rads, usually where they came up from the floor, some plumbers use 90deg elbows isntead of using the pipe bender - and if the pipes havn`t been wrapped in lagging. the cement/chemicals can attack the solder to a point it disintergates and it begins to leak (seen and repaired a few like that) - its more noticeable on a combi system as the water in the rads is at around 1.5bar -  do you have a wall or an area around a rad pipe thats showing signs of damp? - if its a wooden floor i.e has floorboards/chipboard the likely candidate is a nail/screw thats been used to stop a squeeky floor board fairly recently.

Fortunately as said not your problem, down to the landlord to get it fixed, its just damned inconvenient as you prob have no hot water either.

Hope you get it sorted soon


Grumpy  

 

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NEW* The Grumpy Old Gits guide To Bank Holidays....
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This item was edited on Thursday, 7th June 2012, 10:03

RE: [VIDEO] Incredible Space shuttle launch footage

Quote:
QUOTE: Jitendar Canth says...
"they were designed to be reused"Thats quite incredible, the groaning and the metal noises were errie enough, knowing they were going to be used the next time around wouldn`t fill me with confidence if i was due up on the next flight!

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RE: [VIDEO] Incredible Space shuttle launch footage

I think whats even more mind blowing is the cameras survived the journey up then down and the impact! - had more atmosphere (excuse the pun) than any sci fi movie soundtrack i have seen in years!

And surely they dont retrieve those things and use them again??


Grumpy  

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RE: Driving Test in an automatic?

Quote:
you failed your test, it`s handbrake on and into neutral
lol i wasnt being that specific about the order but take your point 


Grumpy

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RE: Driving Test in an automatic?

Second that Rob, try and convince to go manual -  also most people i have sat behind in an auto seem to forget that you should forget you have a left foot, (i`m sure the driving instructor has made a point of that) in an auto its pretty superfluous, right foot does brake and gas - dont use the left for the brake and right for the gas, it usually results in the brake lights being on for most of your journey and those behind havnt a clue what your doing  - and dont leave the vehicle in drive when stationary, (at traffic lights etc) drop it into N and handbrake on.


Grumpy

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RE: Car "wrapping" (vinyl covering) anyone done it?

For what its worth Jimbo, i had to do some "car wrapping" many years ago when i worked for a major car hire company and an advertising agency regularly hired 10 or so cars to go to the motor racing events, we had to wrap 10 morris marinas (snigger) in JPS branding, this was done with vinyl and a hair dryer and a magic ingredient called soapy water and a squegee - the guy that came to show us what to do smothered the panel with soapy water so he could get it positioned right then used the squegee from the centre out to get rid of the water and any bubbles that occured any left were delt with via a ping and warm up with the hairdryer which made it shrink to shape.

They didnt look half bad considering we were total amateurs!


Grumpy  

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This item was edited on Wednesday, 30th May 2012, 09:20

RE: Fish tank air pumps, anyone know about `em?

In my opinion air pumps actually do very little in the way of aerating the water and are more for asthectics i.e attached to air stones for bubble curtains and divers in helmets... and air pump just adds noise and no real benefit to the fish. (are these goldfish per chance?)

Aeration is achieved by overall surface area of the tank and movement of the water just above the surface, breaking this surface allows oxygen to leach into the water - if their is a power filter system in place that suck water in and blows it out the other so to speak, sticking the outlet nozzle just above the surface will introduce more air into the water thasn an airstone will

Credentials:

avid tropical fish keeper for 20 years, 2 x 190litre all glass community tanks and 1 x shrimp tank and not an airstone in sight. 

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If Quizzes are Quizzical what are tests...

Grumpy Old Gits Valentines Survival Guide
http://www.jinglejolly.co.uk

RE: Does anyone know anything about combi boilers?

Most combi`s have auto air bleed systems and can quite possibly have just "settled" tho i`d say it was unlikely, as SJ i think said it was the filling loop you had turned on not the gas - the guage is usually around 1 to 1.5 bar for pressure any less the boiler will not run - though you will get water from the hot tap it will just be cold.

If its been re pressurised by mr heating man and has lost pressure again after a few hours you are probably looking at either a small by pass leak in whats called the PRV (pressure reilef valve) which is quite common (have a look outside at the vent pipe and see if you can see signs of fresh water), a small water leak from a rad which will result in lost pressure also - and no hot water - more serious (cost wise) is if the expansion vessel has failed - its job is to "absorb" if you like any expansion in the system as the temp of the hot water rise, its usually a tank at the back of the boiler inside which is a rubber bladder filled with some air that the expanding water presses against - returning back when the water cools down - if thats failed then any pressure rise will result in the PRV venting to the outside world and when your boiler cools down your pressure will have dissapeared and so will your hot water.

Fortunately for you its down to your landlord to fix  

I know the above won`t help you as such but at least you might get an idea of whats going on  

P.S Caveat to the above is it could be several other things but they are the likely suspects...

Grumpy

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If Quizzes are Quizzical what are tests...

Grumpy Old Gits Valentines Survival Guide
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This item was edited on Monday, 28th May 2012, 14:52

RE: MKV conversion....

Well the results are in, Handbrake did a job on the 30gb file and it went down to.... 6.83gb taking just over 4hrs, that was on Normal mode, i did start it on High profile but there just wasnt enough hours in a day for me to let it do that! - as i said i was just curious and its a bit of a learning curve, iv`e been used to using shrink, ripitforme etc etc and have been out of the game for a few years.

EDIT..... seek and ye shall find, iv`e just been over to the Handbrake webbysite and found the FAQ which has pretty much answered all my question above!  

Many thanks for all the input guys its appreciated.

Grumpy  

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If Quizzes are Quizzical what are tests...

Grumpy Old Gits Valentines Survival Guide
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This item was edited on Monday, 26th March 2012, 08:04

RE: MKV conversion....

Quote:
sj says...
...but it`s not really crunching any numbers. It`s not re-encoding Sj - my fault, just a figure of speech! - file size isnt too much of an issue tbh, as i don`t see more than 50 or 60 films going on it, i don`t want to shrink the film to a point that there is picture degredation etc, and i like the fact that when its done it doesnt need any further work - i.e it rips the movie into a folder and i drag and drop it into the hd - couldnt be simpler for me.

Miles, iv`e got a mission for handbrake at the moment, its working on a 30gb blu ray file - says its going to take 4hrs on regular setting (18hrs or so on High Profile!) with (2hrs to go) its not something i intend to do regularly! - again just curious at the result, when its done i will set it loose on a 4.5gb file and compare the results - being only a 27inch set i suspect its not going to be so critical, the wife will most likely not even notice, but i can see me using it now and then.

Grumpy

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If Quizzes are Quizzical what are tests...

Grumpy Old Gits Valentines Survival Guide
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RE: MKV conversion....

Rob, yep your right, it does a 1 - 1 clone of the movie file and puts it in an mkv container if i understand it right, which is brill as it works a treat, with a normal dvd you end up with a file around 4.5gb per movie, Blu Ray in excess of 29 - 30gb - personally im quite happy with the 4.5gb version and would be happy to just buy a bigger 2.5" drive to accomodate the files (its for the bedroom tv and having 40 - 50 films in a little box that can be just erased or added to is quite appealing)

TBH i`m just exploring the possibilities of shrinking the file a bit and see if the quality drops that much and i`m even contemplating upping the anti to a 1tb 3.5" drive and be done with it (it will be just tucked away out of sight)

I`m just impressed with what can be done with a clapped out HDD from a discarded laptop and 15 quid! - MakeMVK is quite astounding at how fast it crunches the numbers, very impressive - even did a 30gb Blu Ray file in about 15 mins or so

Grumpy

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If Quizzes are Quizzical what are tests...

Grumpy Old Gits Valentines Survival Guide
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RE: MKV conversion....

Ok iv`e now done my Sunday chores and back to the interesting stuff.... i have a copy of handbrake installed on the pc and now look for quidance as to the best method of using it without losing picture quality? i did an mp4 but the tv doesnt see that, only other option in the box is MKV


Grumpy

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If Quizzes are Quizzical what are tests...

Grumpy Old Gits Valentines Survival Guide
http://www.jinglejolly.co.uk