Dave on I am looking to boot my Dell Dimension 5150c into Safe Mode.
See the Dell support page where they state that to get into the boot menu, you must use the F8 button,after the basic input/output system (BIOS) has finished loading, but before the windows XP splash screen is displayed.
keywords: “windows XP” “boot menu” “safe mode” DELL 5150c Dimension
Dave on A flying business visit in Spring 2008
Dave on The bulk of this snip was written in 2008, much has changed since, although I am still, annoyingly a Sky customer. I updated it in November 2013 when I upgraded the box for free.
I have just spoken to Sky who have offered to upgrade my skybox for free. So that’s good then. I will be getting a skyplus box with 500Gb of storage and a 12 month warranty. In addition I will be able to connect to sky’s non-satellite channels (catchup, on-demand and store) using the internet and my wifi network (this should be exclusively the return channel manager, although maybe some of the content is delivered over the internet). The network looks like this at the moment. 1 Dec 2013
I get Sky, the free-to-air reception is poor where I live and I need to improve my services.
I have rented TV and Video/DVD player, and a Skybox. (The DVD has now gone back, and the rental ownership facts are now wrong. We use a laptop and wifi to use catchup TV. I need to work this out. We can do better. Also, technically it seems we don’t rent the Skybox!)
The (traditional) ariel on the chimney, is connected via a splitter box to the video receiver and the second TV set. There are three SCART cables, between the three boxes in the room, the TV, Skybox and DVD/VCR.
Some time ago the cable between the phone and the sky box was damaged and so became unusable. Later it was discovered that this damaged line caused significant degradation to the ADSL service and so was disconnected from the phone system. DFL 14 July 2013
On the 22nd May, the remote control handset for the Skybox gave up. I tested it with three sets of batteries, so it could be the box. I have decided to try and replace the handset.
I can consider ‘Freeview’ or ‘Freesat’. Freeview comes over the air, or via Sky. Boxclever state that the quality of the terrestrial digitil signal has probably been improved since we last tested it and costs about ?2.00 for a months rental for a Freeview box. Maybe we should try out the free-to-air Freeview service as a test. The minimum contract is one month, and if it worked it would solve the 2nd TV problem.
Freesat would require a new aerial, but is a retail purchase i.e. no subscriptions. It has more channels than Freeview and is claiming to be investing to increase them. No Channel 5, and no Deutsche Welle, but it does include Euronews. Freeview includes Sky News and One, Freesat does not.
Boxclever can’t rent us a Freesat box.
The BBC have a web page Digital TV without subscription that helps to understand the position.
I have no idea what this means for BT Vision, although they said last time I called that Freeview is a pre-requisite. If I propose to take a BT Vision service, I must rationalise my BT services and billing processes.
Dave on The nearest passport agency office is in London.
They need any current passports, a birth certificate, two proofs of identity/address, the application form, certified and un-certified picture and the fee.
A birth certificate can be applied for online from the General Register Office if you know all the details, include year of registration. If you don’t know them then you need to get a GRO index number, this is very tricky since you need to visit a physical copy of the index and it seems the GRO don’t keep it any more. It might be at Kew and the City of Westminster archive may have a copy.
Dave on This was first written in 2008, various links are no longer available, and I have lost some of my supporting documentation but you might still consider bits of this article useful. I have tagged it as deprecated since next time I play BG1 or II I plan to use the NWN engine.
This is not as easy as it once was. The reasons for installing BG1 have changed with the advent of BG1 NPC Mod, which requires BGtutu and the Dudleyville fixes. Read More
Dave on The Guardian on the 29th March published a letter and reply in its Dr Woek column about becoming a teacher. The reply referenced http://www.lifelonglearninguk.org/ which is the body responsible for qualifications in teaching.
Dave on The boat trip we took in July ’06 went down the Prinzengracht, with views of the West Kerke and the Pulitzer Hotel, named in “1000 places to see” by Patricia Schultz and adjacent to the Jourdain.
We didn’t do the flower market either! Needs to be done.
Inspirations for the next trip maybe.
What’s weather like?
Dave on The Eternal City, I visited in 2008, and made some notes and links; they are all broken now, but I have left the link to my map, which is a bit crap.
Dave on This article describes my efforts to implement the configuration described at http://www.snipsnap.org in the Apache as a Proxy. Read More
Dave on This is a suspended/abandoned project.
Dave on The Ninafer mod for BG1 was hosted at the “Chosen of Mystra”. I found that her installation files seem to have disappeared from the internet. I have uploaded my disk copy to this page. The best I can offer is this zip file, called Nina.zip, it contains a setup.exe the .tp2 file and the supporting folder. I talk a bit about her, and document my mirrors; there are two pictures, one of which can be used with the mod. Read More
Dave on Is this the future collaboration platform for the Internet, or another amazing waste of time. The EU Commission took it seriously for a while, and it’s still going. Here are my notes and links, Read More
Dave on I have a BT Studio 1100. The customer services line is 0870 605 8047, and open between Mon-Fri 0830-1800, Sat 1000-1600. I found the BT Customer Services omnibus page on Google.
14th August 2007
Dave on I have been down to Poole, the nine days ending 1st July. The company Moonfleet Sailing offer a nine day combined theory and practical course for the RYA Day Skipper. This offers a weekend in the class room, five days and nights on one of their yachts for the practical and the following weekend to finish the theory and take the exam. Read More
Dave on Honda Radios have a protection code. They hold this in a volatile RAM i.e. it needs power to retain this information and it loses the code when changing the battery. This article was written in 2007 and is probably pretty worthless now. Jan 2019 Read More
