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Check this place out forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/ for all user comments on whats good and whats sad with Freeview hardware
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Phoenicks, take a look at Pipex before you commit to BT again. They seem to get quite good reviews and are quite a bit cheaper than BT.
Another reference is www.adslguide.org.uk
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Thanks Colin - very helpful
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i will second pipex for broadband this coming from a bt employee.
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I bought a Thomson some months ago anf find it OK. I chose the Thomson because it has two scart connections whereas many have only one.
The digital quality is superb and switching between analogue and digital you really notice the difference.
The remote on the Thomson isn't brilliant and many of the buttons on it only work with a Thomson television, so it may pay to get the same make freeview box as the television its going to work with. The channel I use mainly is UK history which is good and Sky news likewise.
There are occasional downloads on to the digital receiver which are done automatically with a progress box appearing on the TV screen. However I'm not sure what they are supposed to do and don't notice any difference aterwards. Ocassional remote control lock up occurs and is well known.
Many junk programmes which are nonstop adverts but on the whole the freeviw boxes are good.
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Has anyone flown World Traveller Plus with British Airways?
I have the opportunity of cheap flights with this as a cheaper-than-normal upgrade. Is it worth it?
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Phoenicks,
Without question it is worth it. The only issue is whether or not it is on a route you wish. e.g. it is not available to Argentina.
Short haul within Europe is usually too short to be worht spending *any* extra money, especially since upper class is normally no more than an economy seat with the middle one blanked off with a tray.
However, for any longer flight, substantially more leg room, substantially more recline, wider seats and a much smaller cabin. Def. worth it.
In case you haven't seen them, they are wider, taller seats situated in an intermediate cabin between Business and Economy, although the service received is essentially that of economy.
The only thing which irritates me is that I strongly suspect that it has the recline and leg room that economy had 20 years ago which has subsequently been *so* whittled down.
And if you decide you don't want the "cheaper-than-normal upgrades" then send them my way.
Mark.
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Just to say thanks to the guys in the last volume for reccomending some books to read. Will be looking out for them on our next trip to the shops...
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World Traveller Plus with British Airways?
There is another advantage which is not publicised and that is BA flights are currently very busy "down the back" due to low ticket prices and BA keen to fill seats. As a consequence "involuntary upgrades" as they are shown on the passenger list, are very common. To get an upgrade from World Traveller to WT+ is a bonus, but there is a stronger likelihood of an upgrade from WT+ to Club with the sleeper bed etc if you are already booked WT+.
Even if the flight has spare capacity in economy, it is not unusual for the check in staff to use their discretion to move suitable pax up a class if there is plenty room and particularly if the passenger is a BA card holder.
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Well that sounds b***** good!!!
If i mention my partner works for ATC, its our Honeymoon (which it is) and i dress smartly you just never know!
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Its to Chicago. Checked out the spec from the BA website, but you never know unless someone has actually used it.
GF works for Air Traffic Control so can get industry deals - £245 to Chicago and the extra £190 for the WTP outbound and £170 inbound. So £605 total. But its a 9 hour flight and i'm 6'1 so seriously thinking about it :-)
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at 6'1", and I am, I wouldn't think twice. That's about 20 quid an hour for comfort rather than agony in a seat you can actually sleep in.
And the comment about upgrades is accurate. To that end, always fly dressed in a manner where you will get "SFU" (suitable for upgrade) entered on your record. It frequently makes a difference.
I always fly dressed smartly and I've been upgraded to 1st from Business about 20 times in the last 3 or 4 years.
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I hate to be unpatriotic but at 6'5" I fly American Airlines to the USA purely for the "extra 4" in coach".(economy) It makes a huge difference and is about the same as BA World Traveller+. Flights usually cheaper than 'standard'BA World Traveller prices.
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If my memory serves me correctly, you can make a connection into one type of telephone socket in order to fit an extension socket, but there is one type of BT socket that you are not allowed to meddle with. How can I tell which type of socket I have in my house?
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L'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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Do you mean which is the master ? If you do, then look at it, one has a groove all the way across it, the other does not.
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Not strictly true mark, BT have varied the config and subsequently look several times over the years. Depends when it was fitted. The only way to tell is to take it apart and see if it has any components ( a capacitor/resitor and a thingy ) on the board.
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the main socket should be in 2 pieces if it is undo the 2 screws and pull off the plate use 2,3 & 5 from this socket and same on your extention does not matter what colours you use as long as its the same at both ends.if you have the old just be careful and do the same everyone else does.you will need a tool to put the wire on the bt socket but they usually come with an extenion kit.
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doh extension kit would be even better.
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The type of master socket that has the cover divided into two by a horizontal line is called a Linebox or NTE5. I also have an NTL line and their socket looks almost identical. It's slightly larger than an extension socket and is designed in this way so that there's a clear dividing line between what belongs to you and what belongs to the phone company. In the BT terms and conditions this is referred to as the 'network termination point'.
Removing the lower part of the front cover isolates the extension wiring (your property and not maintained by BT) and the line itself (BT's and their responsibility to fix). The extensions are wired from the inside of bit of the cover that you can remove.
If you ever report a fault to BT and they believe the problem to be with something in the house, they'll normally ask you to take the lower part of the front cover off before sending an engineer round. If, after removing the cover, you plug a known good phone into the part of the socket that's left behind on the wall and it doesn't work, you can be fairly confident that the fault is with something maintained by BT. If BT installed extensions connected to a Linebox, they don't maintain them as part of your line rental agreement: they'll have been sold to you with a year's warranty.
If you have the older master socket, where the front plate is in one piece, don't mess with it. It should only be worked on by a BT engineer and the only type of extension you can add is one that connects via a doubler or piggy-back connector. These sockets are harder to distinguish from professionally installed extensions. As RF said, the main difference between an extension and a master socket is that it contains a yellow capacitor and some other components. If you were to replace a master socket with one intended to be used as an extension, the phone wouldn't ring and any remote test done by BT would show the line as being faulty.
By way of a warning: BT's callout charge for repairs to things they don't maintain, or where you've caused the damage yourself, is £50 plus VAT. Any work done is charged at £55 per hour plus VAT. Details at tinyurl.com/upux .
Irrespective of the socket type, I prefer to use plug-in adaptors for extensions as they're easier to install and remove. Telephone extension wiring is very thin and delicate, and prone to damage.
Having said all this, extensions are easy enough to install. It's a job I'd happily tackle although I'm an incompetent DIYer and would never mess with other types of household wiring. If you buy a complete extension kit, either from BT or a DIY shop, the instructions will be provided.
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A couple of seconds on Google revealed:
www.telephonesuk.co.uk/line_jacks.htm
The type you can work on yourself is the NTE5 towards the top of the page. The type you shouldn't mess with looks like the LJU2 or LJU3 a few rows down. As you can see, these are hard to distinguish from the extension sockets shown alongside them.
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Any of you wonderfully intelligent and smashing people able to help a moderator in need?
For my sins I use AOL and have done so for 8 years, so don\'t really want to change ISP as I\'ve used the same email address for years.
I need to send email \"from\" another name, i.e. Name@othername.com rather than name@aol.com where I specify the \"othername.com\". It\'s a real website, but without mail hosting.
Anyone know of a way of doing this, either web-based on downloaded? Outlook is no good as it has a falling out with AOL and it needs to be simple as I am.
First person with a suitable answer gets a bite of my pickled onion if I ever get to have a ploughmans with HJ.
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There's little security in e-mail so you can specify any address you like to send from. This means there's nothing physically preventing you sending mail that appears to come from tony@number-10.gov.uk.
With any other ISP the answer would be to enter your own provider's outgoing mail server into the e-mail program. As you'll know, the trouble with AOL is that it has its own non-standard e-mail system that doesn't use the POP3 (for incoming) and SMTP (for outgoing) mail protocols. You can't just use any old outgoing mail server because owners of these quite sensibly bar access from users of other service providers. If they didn't they'd be overwhelmed by spammers.
Who is the service provider hosting the 'othermail.com' address? Do they have a server that you can use? You might find the info on their web site. This seems unlikely given that you say they don't provide mail hosting. How do you receive the messages? Are they just forwarded to your AOL address?
There are simple web-based services like mail2web but you have to check your mail first before you can use them to send. I don't think you'll be able to do this because yours is on AOL.
I'm afraid this could be a roundabout way of saying you're stuffed because you use AOL. There's nothing about AOL that prevents you sending and receiving e-mail in the standard way, the trouble is, unless I'm sadly mistaken, you don't have access to an outgoing server for sending.
If you're planning to stay with AOL I can think of three possibilities in order of preference. The first would be my preferred option by a substantial margin.
(1) If othermail.com belongs to you, pay the company that hosts it to provide mail hosting. The cost of this would be negligible and they'd give you access to their mail server to enable you to send. These companies often also provide webmail. If they don't offer this facility, switch to a hosting company that does.
(2) Go to www.netidentity.com and set up an e-mail address with them. Once you have this you can use their webmail or their outgoing server in Outlook, either of which would enable you to appear to send from any address you like. This could be your perfect solution except that it's a bit pricey at 24.95 US dollars per year. I'd strongly recommend you ask around to make sure no other (ie free) web-based e-mail service offers this facility first. I use it myself because it gives me an address of the form firstname@surname.org and works independently of any ISP I use. If you decide to take this route, e-mail me first because I get a trivial amount of money credited to my account for referring you.
(3) Run your own e-mail server on your computer. This would need a certain amount of technical knowledge because of the security implications: you don't want anyone else using it for obvious reasons. I'm not sure if this would work on an AOL connection but I don't see why it shouldn't. Some companies may possibly bar incoming mail sent in this way.
(4) Sign up for Yahoo! Mail. Unlike Netidentity, this doesn't let you specify the address from which mail is (apparently) sent but it does at least let you specify the reply-to address.
Sorry if this isn't terribly helpful but at least it outlines some of the issues. There may be a techie here who knows better ways round some of them and would therefore have a better claim on that sandwich.
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Hmm... just noticed you were only offering an onion, not the sandwich. Doh!
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A technical expert at conversing with the world by phone and web, but you don't appear to have mastered communication at your local pub if you ask for a ploughmans and they produce a garnished sandwich!
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Pub? What's that? Is that where the people who don't need to get out more go?
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Try www.sharpmail.co.uk
Its more for pranks, but you can change the senders address to whatever you wish as long as it isn't already copyrighted etc..
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Try www.sharpmail.co.uk
That link is dead.
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Thanks Welliesorter, you've given me all the information I need.
It appears that I have an NTS5, so I am now happy to wire an extension directly from this. I will thus achieve my aim of not having to have a large ugly adaptor plugged into the socket. I was remiss in not explaining the reason for my question at the outset.
--
L'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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Thanks Welliesorter, you've given me all the information I need. It appears that I have an NTS5
Oops! I meant, of course, that I have an NTE5.
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L'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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Blimey.
Er, thanks Wellie sorter. I shall follow your worthy suggestions and see where I get.
(scratches head)
Now, if I pull this wire out here and plug that, no, that won't work.......
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Right. First socket of the installation must be a Master Socket which has a Bell Capacitor, Resistor and an Arrestor. ( Lightning Protector ) From the Master Socket one can fit one or more extensions. The two wires A and B in the Master Socket are connected to pins 2 and 5 and these then continue to pins 2 and 5 in the extensions. In addition a wire ( C ) in added from the Master pin 3 to point 3 in all extensions.
If your phone chirps or tinkles when you put it down then you have swapped lines A and B or you have not fitted wire C pin 3 to pin 3
Regards
Peter
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