raymw

I had one of those, but the wheel fell off.

I used to use 123, can't remember when/why I dropped it, probably when I finished with OS/2. IBM owned lotus, but dropped it about 3 years ago, but by then I'd gone to 'open office'. I think it would be worth persevering in getting stuff to run on win10, maybe get a new, cheap laptop, just to test it out, running software in compatibility mode, whatever. I moved from win7 32bit to win10 64bit, and was quite surprised that much of my old software ran fine - this was with a fresh install of win10, and heaven knows what has gone on with the registry, since much of the software was not even reinstalled, I just ran the .exe's. I had a problem with an Epson scanner driver, but 50 quid would have got a good enough new scanner, and the one year old Canon one I was given is faster and better than the maybe 3 year old Epson - such is progress. In a few years time, when the hardware fails, You may not be able to find xp/win7 whatever drivers for the new gear. Like an old car, it may start costing you more to keep the old stuff running compared to buying new. Sooner or later you'll most likely have to 'get with it', at the moment there is no rush, but it is worth persevering in trying it out before you are forced to update, or forced to go to some other more unpopular os, which will be an even bigger cost/change. Best wishes, Ray

Parental control settings?

A bit late, but maybe OK for next time - problem with getting 'ropes' tight. You can get a sort of elastic thread, I think known as shirring elastic, used for smocking. I reckon would be better than cotton, say. It seems to be available in white or black. Could be fun trying to tie knots in the black, though. I've just bought a couple in 'The Range', £1.29 for 20metres or so. Best wishes, Ray

A note about privacy http://www.zdnet.com/article/revealed-the-crucial-detail-that-windows-10-privacy-critics-are-missing/

Not tried it on normal soldering, but a craft jeweller friend of mine used toothpaste to prevent silver solder from sticking to where he didn't want it. I can't remember the brand of the blacking used by our cable jointers, but tallow was used as the flux (and for fry-ups).

In my post #514 I mentioned problems with a video driver. It is an Intel video system, built into the mother board. It turned out that the video crashed, and resumed, and afaik it was only with firefox. I upgraded the driver from the Intel site, but windows update put it back to the previous version. I disabled the video hardware acceleration in Firefox, a few web searches on the problem suggested this, and since then there has been no crashes. Hopefully I'm not tempting providence in stating this.

This forum and others seem to insist on html code, where certain character sequences are treated as emoticons and convert to images. There seems to be no way of overcoming that, and I can't find a 'preview post' facility, so you have to post, and then edit if you can be assed.. edit - even in the quote where I typed 'b' 'no space' ')' and it showed as that, when posted it changed it to B) but you get a preview in editing ....

Kit building is just as wimpy as buying rtr. Real modellers quarry their own ores.

I got sent this by a friend, but seems like excuses to me.... Best wishes, seasons greetings, and may the bird of paradise fly up your nose, Ray

Hi Peter, I used some of this ultraboard type stuff for photo mounting. I used to get it in 8 by 4 sheets, and they packaged the sheets I bought between two thicker sheets. They used to make, (but I can't now find on their site) a wooden channel edging which simply clipped over the edges of the board, which would save you fiddling with framing/edging, but I think it will sag and warp as a model railway base, maybe not if it is the plastic coated variety. I would give both sides a pretty heavy coat of sealer of some sort, but it depends on the size of your boards, wrt sagging, and the length of time (and where) you will be wanting to keep the layout. fwiw, I have some sheets of kingspan which have bowed, and some which are still straight. Best wishes, Ray

Skilled old codgers beat hi tech youngsters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rn4ByKtGBY (well, I thought it was interesting.

Too wide a tolerance for what, these days? At a time when generating stations are being reduced in numbers, folk objecting more to erection of overhead lines, not wanting to pay more for energy, etc, etc, a wide voltage tolerance allows considerable savings to be made, with little impact on the majority of users. If it is a problem to you, you can get a voltage regulator installed. The UK voltage is 230V nominal voltage, not actual voltage, in the same way as the new 3.7V lithium ion cells, which can vary from 4.2 volts down to something like 3.0V or so when discharged, compared to the older Nickel cadmium cells, which had a relatively constant voltage, until the knee-point was reached. The equipment is designed to work in that range - it's the new/lean way of doing things. Industrial,/commercial users can have a 'special arrangement', and for domestic users, it really doesn't matter. What exactly is the problem?

Not that long ago, parts of Bristol, and elsewhere, had a declared voltage of 210V, while other parts were 240V. A fair bit of expense and effort was put into getting it all to 240V. Then, as much of Europe was on 220V (luckily at 50Hz) manufacturers wanted the supplies to be the same as UK. (or depending on how you look at it, UK to be same as Europe). There has to be a voltage tolerance, generally it was +10%/-6%. So, by changing the UK (the smallest market) declared voltage to 230V, that allowed stuff to be made that worked all over Europe, Since 220V falls within 230V +10/-6% tolerance and then it was aligned further a couple of years or so to +/- 10%. If you have, say, filament lamps rated at 240V they will be dimmer on 230V, but you'll save a bit on electricity costs, and the lamps last longer. It is not a Euro-rubbish standard, but a sensible solution to allow entry to a bigger market for manufacturers, and hence lower cost, or higher profit. fwiw, most electronic devices work quite well on a wide range of voltage (and frequency) these days, and many others, if essential, will have various voltage settings.

The permissible limits for Voltage variation in the UK and Ireland are a voltage range of 207 Volts to 253 Volts. This is in accordance with European Standard EN50160.

and then there is this (but the colours are wrong on the web) http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Rain%2c+Steam+and+Speed+%E2%80%93+The+Great+Western+Railway&view=detail&&mid=32F4F0D93498A8A6801532F4F0D93498A8A68015&rvsmid=6E3C38CED341EF5D67846E3C38CED341EF5D6784&fsscr=-1650

You townies know nothin about art http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2511288/Spoof-Turnip-Prize-showcases-total-lack-talent.html

Many years back, I used to cast white metal direct into a Sylastic (G?) silicon mould. I made a simple chipboard box, covered outside with polythene sheet, sellotaped at the edges, with a hole in the side for a vacuum cleaner nozzle, and I used a glass sheet as a lid on the box. This crude vacuum chamber removed all the air from the silicon mix, and would do the same for your resins. Initially, it will foam up, but then, after the air is removed, it will collapse down again to a smooth surface.

If the data is not 'that' important, shove it in the freezer. http://www.thetechmentor.com/posts/put-your-hard-drive-in-the-freezer-to-recover-data/ but follow the links to possibly better methods, depending on the mode of failure. If the data is important then send it to a specialist as described in this link http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/saving-your-data-after-a-head-crash,review-1315.html

It's not the first time for me. I bought this inexpensive Epson scanner, iirc, back when i upgraded to win7. I had bought a more 'pro' scanner about a year before that, and Epson did not provide the drivers for W7 for that scanner, either. I think they want us to buy new scanners. Anyway, none of the Epson scanners I have had are as fast as this Canon one (Lide 210) less than £50 from Amazon, I think, but free to me. Vuescan would have cost more, but could have had some benefits, but none that I am now interested in.

For my Epson scanner, they have no 64 bit drivers, as I said (and the helpful web blogs, etc., suggest installing another Epson driver, and selecting that - and that doesn't work either, for this scanner.) The Epson site actually suggests VueScan. However the cheap, lightweight Canon scanner I'm now using is much quicker (but does not allow film scanning), and is powered from USB. It uses an LED light-bar, instead of a fluorescent tube, and I think that will give better long term colour consistency, as well as virtually no warm-up time.

wrt Epson scanners, I've had three over the years, because drivers were not updated. My latest, when I went from 32bit to 64bit win10 has no 64 bit drivers. However, VueScan http://www.hamrick.com/ will drive most, but my son has given me his old canon scanner which works fine in win10 64bit.

very pretty https://www.youtube.com/embed/3xWW4sTp4wA?rel=0

Looking for my double angle clamp thingy (which I previously mentioned), I came across something I'd made earlier. A length of 1inch ali angle with the corner cut out for most of it's length in the centre 3 or 4 inches. The angle is the sort of stuff sold by B&Q, and others, about 1.5mm thick web. This still had a few wooden clothes pegs, with the pointy ends cut off, clipped onto the ali. Said angle is easily adjusted to be exactly at 90degrees, and it can be fitted either inside or outside of the bits you want to glue or solder and allows easy access to both sides of the corner/edge you want to join. If needed, the aluminium is thin enough that magnets could be used both sides, or fix a bit of steel/tin can to it. Not quite as stable as a steel block, I guess, but easy enough for anyone to make/use, at minimum cost. Plenty of ways to skin a cat.

Yeh, maybe, but you can't get the glue/solvent down the inside of the corner, with your block in the way. Anyway, I use a couple of slotted angles, probably like the EDM device that Leigh mentioned, allows access to both inside and outside of corner, more or less.