NFG

Thanks, there are some good friendly people here as well, oh and posted how to make Eau de Vie! - in the lounge section N

Yes & it was excellent, not sure if its around still tho. Recently we spent a week in Benodet - Finistere & found some excellent Breton Cidre. N

Hello, I think the nature of the subject attracts spectators who prefer to read as opposed to contribute, which may be daunting for the first timer. Im not in the industry, but we are producing some of our own firewood, the knowledge here is invaluable & very useful. Being a semi retired techie, Ive contributed to a few IT related threads as a means of contribution. N

Hello, I dont profess to be an expert in sprayers but I have a berthoud which Im very pleased with, been in use about three years now. I considered it worth it because the spare parts / extras for it are readily available & it looked good quality. The spray pattern seems very good & I think it came with two nozzles as well. N

Hi, Yep its daft, but not as daft as the 256Gb of HP ram I once received for a server, the primary box was so big it was on a small pallet. N

Hi I recommend the following providers: Zen AAISP IDNet I have run an independent IT consultancy for about 15 years (not touting for business, no connection to any of them) & recommend to our UK clients. Before leaving for France, I used IDNet for about 3 years who were excellent. Eclipse & Plusnet are also pretty good I would avoid BT, AOL, Sky & any of the more commercial packages. I did manage to successfully connect a client to the much maligned talktalk (their idea not mine) at well over 5.5Km where BT & several others had failed, using the classic Netgear DG834 router slightly tweaked. Make sure you use a decent router as the free ones can be problematic (I think those with the problematic AR7 chipset may have been fixed/upgraded now). The quality of your connection also depends on how good your copper string is Samknows can help with this & provide information about services available at your exchange LLU DSL etc. good luck in your search. N

Hi all, Don't often go but got a nice Dutch hoe & a pitch fork for 6 euro at a Vide Grenier down the road. At our local one we bought a very nice range kettle for the Rayburn for 5 euros. Later on there was a group, food & bar where we got rather drunk they were very generous with the vin rouge, perhaps they wanted to off load it but we did our best!

Hello, Bonjour, Our neighbour has an effective method of killing moles. He produced a small gun with a nail & spring as firing pin in two cylinders that screw together to hold a small shotgun cartridge. This is mounted on a stake pointing downwards, the trigger is a small hoop of steel to allow the shot to pass through, if moved upwards it releases the spring catch to fire. As the mole digs the heap, the removal of soil lifts the trigger & boom, it fires through the steel hoop - instant death. Not sure if you can buy them but works a treat. N

Hi, iMO, its all a complete load of bollox, engineered to extract more taxes. As a result of Brown & Blairs policies, the UK has once again shot itself in the foot & it will probably take decades to unravel the mess, if ever.

Alternatively, Check that you have embedded True Type fonts, in options under "Preserve fidelity when sharing this document" although your version may be different! N

Hi, The problem is Word, not your MacBook. I suspect it may be because word saves everything as a .docx file, this is OO XML, unfortunately Microsoft created it, but cant maintain consistency with its own standard, XML is broken by design. OOXML is defective by design one of many bloggs I would set the default file format for word to .doc (it defaults to .docx) & try again, everyone with older versions of word will also heave a sigh of relief as they wont have to convert documents. I wouldnt expect Microsoft to fix it, not even in its next opus magum of bloatware, so Pages may be a good bet. Ive used Pages, Numbers & Keynote for a while & its pretty good. Quite frankly, I would rather daub dung on the wall with a stick than use word. Good luck N

Hi Dean et all, Sorry to see your mince was watery Unfortunately, this practise of interfering with food seems widespread. Whilst the label states 100% beef, there is a degree of water in meats. This becomes a problem if & when water is added, or if the rules relating to what can be called 100% beef are massaged/abused. Being fortunate to reside in France with a bit of land, we produce a fair amount of our own food, mainly fruit & vegetables along with a few eggs we know theyve been sprayed with only rain water (well, hopefully) & no added preservatives etc. We also make our own Eau de Vie distilled from fermented plums which is used to make a variety of fruit Pineaus - fortified wine like Sherry & Port. Meat here is good, but a little dearer then the UK so we eat it less & try to source locally or from the Saturday market supporting petit producteurs. It may cost a bit more but if you dont support your local shops then they eventually get done in by the big supermarkets. That said they do a nice leg of New Zealand lamb in Leader Price. We have a mincer so can buy cheap cuts & mince - maybe dearer than mince but we just eat it less often. I think it important that people should try and source a little of their own food, in the UK we had a tiny garden but managed to grow loads. Its also important to pass these skills to the next generation otherwise the risk is total dependence on large markets & thats not good. Thats my thoughts anyway N

Hi Theakston's Old Peculiar Bishops Tipple - but its not as good as the original by Gibbs Mew Old Speckled Hen and quite reasonable in our local Hyper U N

Hi, I have also found that earlier versions of software (you may rely on) dont always run on the latest version of Windows. Therefore, if you need compatibility with existing software, 7 may be the best choice. If its more important to have the latest version then go for 8, warts and all. If you want, you can install the classic UI shell, Welcome to Classic Shell which emulates earlier versions of Windows - I personally detest Vista, 7 & 8, but dont let my opinion sway yours as I find Windows 2000 a pretty good OS for what I need. N

Hello, We make small quantities of Eau de Vie which is plum brandy at around 60% ABV its fairly powerful stuff, all perfectly legal in France. The Eau de vie is used to produce Pineau with grape juice or white wine & fruit of choice. Pineau is delicious & a lot of people make it to a variety of recipes, if you visit France the Pineau des Charentes is well worth a try. Anyway, Id like to try barrel ageing some and whilst I could easily obtain large used barrels here, does anyone know of a supplier making small oak casks, 20 or 30 litres? as the smallest I can find is 110 litres & way too large. I think Alistair's prices at Wadworths may be too much but I think they must be one of the few remaining cooperages in the UK. Thank you N

Hello Respect, et bon courage! N

Bonjour, hello, For all French dwellers or people wanting to have a go at this, here is my method for making Eau de Vie - plum brandy or you can use any fruit. Its probably not perfect but it works for me... 1. Collect fallen plums and add to large container say 60 litre with 1kg of sugar to 10 litres of plums - roughly 1 bucket. Mash it all up as you fill the container. Place the lid on, but do not seal. A mixture of varieties of plums including Mirrabells is good. The plums must be fallen because this will start the fermentation process once they have had a bit of sun on them - or thats what I understand. 2. Allow the juice to ferment, stir about once a week during which it should smell good & bubbles continue to rise. Ensure lid is loose fit to allow gas to escape. 3. Once your tonneau is full, observe the fruit starting to sink & clear liquid forming on top - this is good. 4. When your local alambique (distiller) is in the area arrange an appointment & take your juice to be distilled. Take a bottle of wine or two & a glass bidon or suitable container - you will make anything between 10:1 to about 6:1 depending how strong your fermented plums are. 5. Grin as you sample the new Eau de Vie which dosnt cost much to distil. 6. Allow the Eau de Vie to breathe for about a week, by this I mean dont put the cork/bung in the bottle / carbouy just leave the bung loose on top. Thats it, you can now use it for preserving fruit, making Pineau des Charantines and anything else involving strong alcohol. Take care if you drink it because its about 60 percent. N

Hi Just to say, its very noble of you to supply your code for others to use, well done! N

Hi Jon, In the Vendee - second sunniest region in France, although the last few days it has gone cold & theres been about 1 metre of snow in northern France. We heard one of the ferries could not dis-embark due to extreme weather in the north & several hundred people rescued from vehicles stuck in the snow. We did get snow last year but it dosnt happen very often. Hopefully it will warm up soon. N

Hi, Some cloud, mostly sunny today 20 degrees at mid-day, perfect for some gardening. N

Hi, Yes, very good dry stone walling - apart from what drying on top of it! N

Bonjour, Got the thumbs up to buy a bottle on the ferry yesterday, had a difficult decision between Jura Superstition & Laphroaig quarter cask which I eventually went for. Tasting now and its really good, I do like the Islay & Island malts, Lagavullin, Talisker. So the Jura Superstition will be next. N

Hello, Saw this today on TIM, I know its the DM but beware anyway... HMRC snoops on Facebook. Are tax spies watching you? | This is Money substitute Facebook for forum of choice. What a grubby lot they have become. Take care, 1984 was a warning not government guidelines. N

Bonjour! 23 - 13 = tout est perdue pour La France! We had lunch with our neighbours today, they asked what the English sing & I had to explain & sing swing sweet low sweet chariot - with actions and they were highly amused! The French had a very good team for the first half, then messed it all up after half time. le cuillère en bois peut etre? N

Hi, I have successfully deployed VM Ware Fusion for Mac in a number of ways, creating a new installation of Windows or exporting a complete PC as a virtual machine to the VM folder. I havnt tried parallels because the VMWare Fusion permits me to run Wndows when I need it and keep it locked in its virtual container. VM Ware can access folders on the Mac so that files are backed up with Time Machine, the virtual machine is quite large so I exclude from Time Machine but have copies of the VM on another backup drive. I have used Fusion from version 3 for about 3-4 years now, no problems at all. I agree that Microsofts offerings are pretty nasty! I have been involved with several testing programs prior to sizeable roll-outs & worked in IT for around 30 odd years. N