Toadfish Monastery

On my new windows 10 machine, I can't use the "QUOTE" function here. As soon as I try to type in the box it throws up, it puts up a page saying trouble with the page. Currently on M$shit browser as line of least defence due to my other IT nightmare - little time for setup here so not yet got firefox.

Most odd problem.

Windows Edge is a bit of weird browser. It's very faint on the screen, so must break all sight standards. Nothing where expected; it's really no different to IE except they've moved everything around. Stupid.

EDIT

oh, the problem only arises in two word story, obviously Swato has loaded something nasty

Looks like I got my new tablet/laptop just in time. I am typing this on it right now...... because my ancient Sony Vaio, my trusty machine, much loved, had some terrible thing happen to it. Lots of disc corruption on Christmas Day.

My data files are fine. I backed up 2 weeks ago, and haven't done much since.

At one point there were NO system files on c: (I only have one partition), but by running a million and one recovery tools over and over I now have Vista SP 1 on the c: drive.

Trouble is it won't boot off the hard drive. I can get a command prompt by going via a recovery CD and I got the last two weeks' data files off by using a Sony Vaio recovery utility. If I try to boot into Safe Mode it loads all the drivers, then presents a black screen with "Safe Mode" in white letters in all 4 corners of the screen, but no sign of a more normal safe mode screen. I can only get this by booting off a recovery disc on CD.

If I boot off hard disc, it doesn't boot. It stays with the underscore symbol flashing top left..... and a blank screen.  The hard disc is fine as I can use it with the command prompt as above. I've run various hardware checks. I've run AVG rescue disc. I've run System Repair which is now saying everything is good - but no dice with boot off hard disc. I've also run sfc /scannow and chkdsk - which I think actually made the corruption worse before I re-ran them a hundred times to repair it all.

Given I've got my files, I could just ditch the machine. But I was planning to use it as a spare machine as I am totally dependent on the internet for everything in my life.

So, any ideas how to repair the boot sector?

This bi-election somewhat of a test for Labour party led by Corbyn as first post general election. Won, increasing majority by Labour. Usual for bi-elections for government party not to do well, plus Laabour candidate much loved Oldham council leader, so hard to read, but definitely looking good for Corbyn, who could do with it just now...... Green Party lost their deposit, as did the Monster Raving Looney Party (fielding Sir Oink-a-Lot), but that's hardly news.

Why am I posting this? Possibly because I got the figures right and the well-used journalist heading the studio discussion didn't. So just to show off really.

This could be one of the most important tests you ever take 

Are You an Extremist?

I managed to finish my Tax Return yesterdayy, and have now posted it to the IR. Hooray!!  (I made a loss of £14 from my counselling work)

I have a new cleaner. After after her first session I discovered that two of a row of five blinds and their cords missing and the joiners that connect upper cords to the lower cords (a very significant part, actually both are.) These blinds were custom made and cost a fortune, I mean really, a lot of money, and they are one of the things I did to stamp my self onto my new flat when I moved in. They are still in pristine condition.

Anyway, I looked everywhere for the missing cords and connectors, as they are designed to come off as a child safety feature, and when they do, you just re-fix them, they are not actually broken, just fulfilled what they are designed to do to prevent a child getting strangled.

I could not find them anywhere.

I contacted the cleaner and asked about them. No they hadn't gone in the rubbish - no she didn't know where they were - I got nowhere. But it is not something you wouldn't not notice you'd done, and parts don't just disappear on their own.

I've been trying to replace the parts and have spent hours and hours on the internet and contacting blind manufacturers and these parts no longer exiist. Only cheap tacky revolting non-matching parts are available. (even from luxury blind makers, very odd).

I want to scream and scream and scream. If she had owned up to what had happened and given me the parts I could have re-fixed them. Instead my beautiful blinds are now ruined.

My upset is probably disproportianate. But I am feeling complete despair. (I have recently come off some of my anti-depressent meds which may not be helping and am getting more and more depressed). (my psych. tookd me off them, saying they weren't doing anything, which he can't possibly have known, so must be some other reason, and obviously they were doing something.).

Bl**dy eye tests. Not best pleased. Except that it feels like the first real ailment of old age (my others striking any age) so I shall now admit to being old. Today is therefore my first being old birthday.

I know this should be in "health" but it seems ro warrant a public announcement and is therefore aa current event.

Any Guardian has my permission to move it.

I just bought this:

http://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=F1P93EA&opt=ABU&sel=NTB#cart

The screen is a tablet which detaches from the "power keyboard". I wanted one that was hinged like this rather than 360 degress ones because the back of my laptop is right on the edge of the laptop cushion I use so could not support one that has a flap at the back to keep it upright. I need a laptop, I don't really need a tablet, but I desired one.

My current laptop keeps going into a furiously flashing disc access process making those "working" noises which go on for ever and means I cannot run anything at all, eg. it takes up the whole machine and I don't know what it is. Well, I do know what it is, it is infuriating. So far I have not found any way of identifying what it is. I have to reboot really often. Also, gets very hot, fan probably choked with dust, and it does make a lot of noise, and it is on the motherboard and I am not replacing that......... hence a new laptop.

The upshot of all this is that I have to do the upgrade from Windows 8.1 Pro 65. to free Windows 10 Pro 65 myself as the one with it pre-installed is not available anywhere even though it is on HP website, so that's annoying.

Anyway, all done, I think it arrives Thursday or Friday.

There's quite a lot of work setting up Windows 10 due to the fact that their privacy agreement means MS collect everything that happens on the machine including keystrokes, so have to go around setting (or unsetting) everything that makes this possible (of which the average user willbe unaware).

 


Hurrah for Corbyn.

Now we at least have something to vote for. And PMQ's may even be enjoyable.

His landslide victory was bigger than Tony Blair's.

This is great!

http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/this-great-map-lets-you-explore-the-history-of-migration-for-every-country-in-the-world--b1xiciWtpBe

Scroll down for the interactive version.

Donald Trump Insult Generator

http://en.what-character-are-you.com/d/en/3687/index/23973.html

My Dad will be 95 on 20th August.

I have mixed feelings as he is a bully and can be very very unpleasant. Always has been. But that's not really relevant.

I need a present to give him.

He is in a care home, almost blind, and his main interest is telling the care home management how they should be running things. He formed a committee of elderly ladies to help.

I don't spend a huge amount on presents as I have to give a lot of them and I am pension poor. But it is his 95th.

I have no idea what to get him that he hasn't already got in his care home room.

The only thing I can think of is a hammer to bring his committee to attention.

Ideas?

Mental health workers protest at move to integrate clinic with jobcentre

If only this were a spoof article.

Making a travesty of psychotherapy and blaming the individual for low numbers of jobs is not good policy.

I have had, for more than 30 years a totally brilliant Radio Alarm Clock which you can set to wake you with music from CD, or with the radio, or normal bleeping. It is like a very tiny laptop. ie. large screen and speakers in the lid which opens up (obviously) and then the flat part has the CD player and all the buttons. The nice thing is, because the push buttons for snooze and alarm off are on the flat part on the bedside table, and they are therfore table height, you press them down to work............ much better than having to push sideways against the machine or whatever. Another "feature" is because the flat part is, well, flat, you can put things on top of it, thus gaining space where they would otherwise be on the bedside table (eg. a jar of face cream), though depending on where you place them, you may have to take them off to open the CD player.

So, two days ago, I knocked over a bottle of water which I had forgotten to put the cap on, and the water shot all over the Alarm clock. I socked up what I could and I think it is all dry inside and out now, but the CD player won't work. It spins the disc, gets up to speed, displays 00 on the screen (which is normal, before it registers track 1, 01). But then it stops and the diisc spins down to stopped.

I have been looking at possible replacements and I can't find anything as clever in design. Bascally I've only found 2 that have the functionality and one of those has terrible reviews saying the CD player is crap and buzzes loudly and clciks and so on, so that one is out. They are both bulkier being broadly cube designs. I'm not that keen on the one that gets good reviews. Some people say it is fiddly but it is hard to judge if they are people who have no electrical talents.

I don't suppose anyone knows a way to encourage my existing clock's CD player to go the extra mile and find track 01? Or knows of a devine model I could purchase?

I am very sad.

I am slowly changing from IE9 to Firefox. This is really hard for me as I just don't know where anything is in Firefox. Also, there are problems I want to solve.

The tabs along the top (showing sites) - the print is too small, and the black on grey  not clear enough, for me to read. This is a serious issue for me. Is there anyway of changing it for visually impaired people ?

I tend to have too many tabs open at a time and get out of memory. There are several add-ons that turn the tabs into a list and save memory (and in some cases CPU). However the ones I've looked at don't seem very stable and there are many reports of people losing all the information ie the list of sites. Does anyone know of some add-on like this that isn't  buggy??

Adding bookmarks. There doesn't seem to be any add a bookmark. only an edit a bookmark. That's the only way I can find of adding one. This seems odd. Is there an add bookmark?

In IE9 on the bottom bar is a character/page size. You can change from 100% to less or more. These days I often have to change to 125% to be able to read stuff on a page. How to do this in Firefox?

Scanning ultrasound removes amyloid-β and restores memory in an Alzheimer's disease mouse model

Gerhard Leinenga and
Jürgen Götz*

http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/7/278/278ra33


Less scientific write up http://www.sciencealert.com/new-alzheimer-s-treatment-fully-restores-memory-function : Of the mice that received the treatment, 75 percent got their memories back.

My only worry is if they treated me, I really wouldn't like to get a mouse memory turning up.

I've got sick and tired of this problem. My laptop is whirling away at some task or other which prevents what I actually want to do. For example if I am fetching a web page it can take as long as 2 minutes and then when it does half appear it needs to be recovered, while all the thrashing is buzzing away. Goodness knows what it is doing. It's making my laptop almost unusable.

Search indexing is off so it's not that. I have used the basic monitoring tools supplied with Vista but unable to pinpoint what it is doing.

Any suggestions on how to find out what is going on?

Not so long since I saw a live interview on TV with him. What's he doing dying so quickly*?



* I know he was diagnosed in 2007 and that's a good long time ago, but it must have speeded up recently or something