NFG

+1, agreed N

Erm, I dont think so, its not quite as glamerous as portrayed, round the clock shifts with little contact home to name a few. Prison with the added risk of drowning was more like it!

Hi I think you may have a point there. Now can we get rid of those fiddly caps that gather sawdust & drop off infrequently? N

+1 Good effort Mr Plogs, have a cizzer on me! Excellent to see a large corporate which seems to have become detached from reality get its nose grubbed in the dirt. N

Hi, Hmm, slightly tricky, speadsheets are rather limited, I suppose you could use a Mail merged Word document to a spreadsheet, depends what it is used for really. A well optimised Access database is fast & reliable over a network, my own financials date from 1998 only 4.3 Mb holding a vast amount of data. People damm Access but often dont know how to build a database & correctly normalise & rationalise their tables efficiently. The big problem with any other Db ie SQL server (expensive), MySQL is youve got to program it to your needs. N

Hi I run XP under VMWare Fusion on my Mac because I program in Access. Windows just runs as another application which is great & writes data to a Mac volume with Time Machine instantly backing up changes. If I break it, I can recover the VM in about a minute, I dont want to be messing around for hours unless some ones paying me! I could use Windows 2000, as far as Im concerned theres no compelling reason to run later versions of Windows as there is zero benefit (to me) all it has to do is run MS Access 2003 (Ive no need for later versions which are, to be honest a bit clumsey & have that daft ribbon menu). I dont use any AV or security because the VM dosnt connect to the Internet. Mac wise, I have a modified version of Firefox for web browsing & control inbound & outbound traffic, AV from Sophos is free & critical data resides on a Linux server only accessible from selected static IPs on local network. N

Hi 8.1 returns the start button, IE11 as default browser whoops optional browser, Skydrive as default directory if you trust the cloud concept & a few other tweaks un-installing across multiple PC & so on GIYF. Win 8 & 8.1 is very different. Ive no desire to change from XP in a virtual machine as theres no benefit, if I had to upgrade it would be Win7. As for end of XP support for updates, I wouldnt worry to much about that as most 3rd party applications will provide adequate security unless you use IE which is always a gaping hole. For years, I installed Windows file servers & once we got everything up and running with Sophos AV installed I'd turn off updates & only apply critical ones once I knew they wouldnt murder the server, ran several 2003 installations for years no snags. N

Hi, thats why I dont do any arb work. N

Thats why I dont do anything like that. My Siret covers IT consultancy / & web site hosting for which I have a small group of clients of which most have been with us for several years (& no, Im not touting for business!). N

Hi Not a recall according to Stihl, they stopped selling the 661 due to malfunctioning engines... Not the best way of dealing with the issue for those who have bought them already & may experience failure out of warranty - or does that explain Stihls actions here? N

Hi There are a few here, but the only ones I know are in Normandy (Normandy Lumberjack) & Big Ben in the Charente Maritime near La Rochelle. I dont have a Siret for arb work here but you may find people in your area if you look at angloinfo.com N

Hi, Its a somewhat difficult choice, the recent offerings from Microsoft are such utter pigs to use, or thats how my (programmer analyst) daughter eloquently put it; namely the ribbon interface & as you state, the requirement to have an account with Microsoft, new ways to do familiar tasks (should be familiar ways ot do new tasks) I could go on... At the budget end of the market, the hardware dosnt seem to last too well, MS software seems to beat the hell out of hard drives unless you have 16Gb of memory - borne out by the all too numerous HDD failures I replace with the "but Ive only had it 18 months or so" ringing in my ears on a regular basis. Of the later versions of Windows, Win7 is perhaps the best - I really mean least bad. However, you can install 'Classic Shell' (Google it) which is quite nice as it provides a Windows desktop interface of your choice, including Win XP. Annoyingly, theres bloatware of very limited ability to get rid of with a new PC, just hose the lot. The very useless McAfee antivirus is thankfully no more, but I suspect theres plenty of desktops heaving with it, best un-installed to stop the nags & AVG or ESET NOD32 used. Demo versions of Microsoft Office can easily be removed and replaced with Open Office or Star Office. Microsofts OOXML format is broken by design, to be honest I'd rather daub dung on the wall with a stick than use Word. It may be an idea to at least try Ubuntu Linux as one poster suggested, its not bad & certainly much more secure than any PC based operating system. You could try a Mac but will probably be put off my initial cost, but through life they work out more or less the same, certainly a lot less hassle, the later versions of OSx are somewhat 'commercialised' I prefer Snow Leopard as its lean and very fast. Ive found Macs a lot more reliable through life, my first 2006 MacBook remains in daily use as does my 2006 Mac Pro which is still blisteringly fast & the software reads most MS file formats, docx etc. The only application I need XP for is Access as I program databases & wrote my company financials on it in '98 it so I run it in a Virtual Machine under VMWare Fusion which is pretty flawless. As for "so that I can retain my autonomy from the all seeing eye of the MS network." you'll need some software that denies outgoing network connections, I use little snitch & a hardware firewall to deny connection to anything I dont approve of, including Microsoft & a host of others. Good luck with your search & Im sure it will all be fixed in Windows 9 ! Just my thoughts

Hi Dean, Im rather fond of Ardbeg, they have it in the DF shop on the ferry at a good price £41 for a litre I think. A spot of Talisker later on peut-etre! N

Hi +1 They seem the dogs bollox, with replaceable nose sprocket as well N

Hi Im trust it will be a good product but it does seem like they are using it for post production testing, I thought it was only certain software companies that did this! All the best N

Hi Some nice shots there, bit like the Lott valley which we often visit. We are in the southern Vendee so not far away N

For exactly the same reason some Chinese electronics have a CE mark. They just print out the relevant documentation & dont give a toss about reality. The sooner people wise up to this dangerous rubbish the better. N

Hi 85m? should easily get wireless connection with a decent access point at that range. well done for persevering tho. N

Hi I trust you told him to chuck it in the bin, dont waste your time with such rubbish. N

+1 Just what posses companies to come out with such utter rubbish & seems completely meaningless if its not going to be widely available. Why dont they make the casing for larger saws from Kevlar or Mylar, surely that would be more effective at weight reduction? IMO N

Hi Our 1995 Land Rover Disco has 208,000 N

Hi Pretty lass there 'an well fit! N

Hello & welcome to the forum, you'll find some good advice here from all. I bought my first saw for exactly the same reasons you post; initially firewood. I like both Stihl & Husqvarna, but there others like Echo & Shindaiwa being recommended by those with more experience than me. Its essential you learn how to look after your saw & keep it sharp, this will allow it to perform its best & allow some budget for PPE. So consider a 12 or 14 inch bar anything longer just reduces chain speed, If you choose Stihl I wouldn't bother with the CBE 'quick chain tensioner' its a bit awkward to get right or the ergo start feature, save your money. So a 181, 230 or 250 is within budget (I own a 250 & it cuts fine, & Ive also used 181s & 230s which seem best on smaller bars) If it were Huqvarna then I would like a 346xp as they really rip, I dont own one but borrowed one & very nice saw, or a 550xp which Ive also had a go with, there may be other good uns, 145, 445 etc but I havnt used them. As previous posters stated, dealer support is important, have a look around your supplier, if his workshop is a well organised hive of activity chances are youre going to get good service later on when needed. Incidentally, a good friend of mine bought a McCulloch paying the same price as a 181 or 145, unfortunately it went wrong within a very short space of time, ended up costing almost what I bought my Stihl for - doh! Just my thoughts, good luck in your search N

Hi +1 from me, Excellent post N