Ned Seagoon

My thoughts: This laptop is important as she is completing her degree with it on-line this year. It has an intermittent fault, which is a difficult fault to locate even if an expert has the laptop in front of them. I'm retired now, but when I working as an IT manager with a large company, some years ago, we considered the life of a laptop to be three years and would replace them at this point. Perhaps it's time to consider this rather than risk her loosing important university work. Your decision of course, but the faulty laptop could be either traded in or repaired (subject to a satisfactory quote) and either sold or kept as a backup machine. The other plus to purchasing a new machine is that it will have a one or two year warranty which should ensure she has a trouble covered laptop to finish her degree.

Now that Adobe have decided to discontinue Flash Player and have actually caused it to stop working does anyone know of an alternative? I found a Flash Emulator, Ruffle, but have not been able to make it work for an on-line Geography game Free online games and quiz about World Geography It looks like no one else, of the many players, has come up with a solution and the owners of the site don't seem to have any interest in coding the game to work with HTML5 (assuming that is possible) Any suggestions please?

Hi Colin, nice to meet you, I'm 77 originally from the UK but migrated to Australia as a child.

I'm considering purchasing access to a VPN so I can securely connect to a remote site. I've never used a VPN before and I'm unsure of the details. I have a Windows 10 PC which seems to come with a VPN client installed and all that is necessary seems to be to configure that client to use the purchased VPN service. However I'm not sure if setting this up would mean that all my traffic would use the VPN or only traffic to the remote site. How do I ensure the VPN is used for only traffic to my remote site and other traffic connects to the internet directly?

I presume it is running windows 10, if so it has built in security, Dell must get a kickback from the paid AV. You can remove that and turn on windows defender, you can find that in Windows Settings/Windows Update/Windows Security. You can remove the paid AV in Windows Settings/Apps/Apps and Features.

The solution proposed by Joddle is a possibility if you wish to spend money on an extra drive, however check the power requirement, specifically the current drain of the new drive before your do this as Dell often do not provide much of a margin for any extra power drain from their power supplies.

I use Snagit for screen grabs, it's excellent, it will grab video, but I've not used it for that, you can download a trial version for free to give it tryout for TechSmith Snagit | Screen capture and screen recorder

Yes make a backup to an external drive. Use the SSD for your operating system and programs you use frequently, use the internal HDD for storage of photographs, videos and documents. However you do not appear to have a lot of saved data and if there is room, there is no problem storing this on your SSD, it will not slow down your computer.

Thanks Ken. Hey Sobeit, why the hostility? Our news here in Australia is full of Brexit news and I was wondering what the ordinary person on the street has to say about it. Rusty has told us he is sick of hearing about it and you have said that it can't happen fast enough for you. You also told me that I should go troll elsewhere, I don't know why you should say that about me, I've never trolled anywhere, you also said that you believed Dual Citizenship should be banned, I can only assume that this is because I mentioned that I'm a dual UK/Australian. I have this because I was born in the UK and have a British birth certificate. When I came to Australia being a British Citizen was all that was required to get a Government job, In fact I joined the Australian Army and being a British Citizen and swearing allegiance to the Queen was all I required. Then Britain cut its ties with Commonwealth countries and withdrew from East of Suez in 1968. Australia abandoned its British Citizenship test for all Government work and started insisting on Australian Citizenship, so in 1990 I applied for Australian Citizenship. I did not do this lightly, I was born British and wished to stay British. I had thoughts of perhaps one day I would return home. When the UK joined the EU I was pleased because that meant that home had now been expanded to include almost all of Europe and I would now be free to live in any country and travel freely between them. Sadly age means that will probably never now happen. The withdrawal from the EU ensured this 'pipe dream' cannot happen. The reason for this thread was to get some input from others affected, what it certainly was not was any attempt to go trolling or to turn this into a political thread.

Thanks Sobeit, thanks for voicing your opinion, I wonder if we will hear from any others. As the vote was not far off 50/50 for the country as a whole, I would hope to hear a range of opinions.

Thanks Rusty, I can certainly understand the frustration of hearing the subject mentioned every time you turn on the TV or the radio. My thoughts go deeper than the superficial rubbish trotted out by so many commentators. When I was born my father was off fighting in WWII in North Africa, he went on to Italy from there and then over to Greece once the war was over, to help with the clean up. He didn't make it home till Christmas eve 1945. I was two and a half by then. The effects of that failure to bond have lasted my whole life. (but enough of me for now) My thoughts are that if the whole of Europe is politically combined, rather than wars to sort out disagreements, politicians can do it with words in parliament. I am aware that many object to those foreigners coming and pinching UK jobs,but it cuts both ways, UK citizens can take work in many other countries, live in other places, some even have warmer winters and so on. If the UK become the odd man out in Europe, it will be the country that is blamed for all the ills that occur in other countries. Take a thought how the Jewish people were blamed for everything that was wrong in Germany and what the result of that was and so on.

But this is the water cooler, which by definition means other topics are OK. What are your thoughts on the topic?

On a slightly different note, we have Nigel Farage here in Australia at the moment sprouting forth on all manner of topics, including Bexit. I really believe he is one person who should have been drowned at birth. A totally obnoxious fool.

I was surprised not to find a thread on this subject, so I've started this, please join in and add your thoughts. I'll preface this with a little about myself, I'm a British born dual Australian/UK citizen, resident in Australia. I was horrified when the result of the referendum was announced, particularly because the majority of those voting seem to have had no idea what they were actually voting for. (I didn't get a vote, the rules precluded me from voting.) Now, some years later, it still has not been fully determined what the result of that vote actually was. I can, from a distance, now see what many people actually wanted, but most seem to have failed to appreciate the things that would probably become attached to that desire. It seems to me something like holding a referendum to abolish all taxes. Most would probably vote yes, and once it had happened complain that they had to pay to see the doctor, go to hospital, send their kids to school, pay tolls to drive on any road, and so on. I believe that the better way would have been to stay in the EU and use political means to change the things that were objected to. eg: Remove some of the arbitrary powers from the bureaucrats and make the politicians who represent you make those decisions, make a rule that citizens of the country get first choice for any local jobs, first choice on any accommodation rental, etc. That said, others may like to have a say about these things, please try to be constructive. Now what I predict may happen in the near and distant future. I think Boris Johnson will shortly call a General Election. If he wins, that Britain will leave the EU, probably without a deal. If someone else wins a new referendum will be called where people are give a list of what they are actually voting for and against. If the UK leaves, some time afterwards Scotland will again vote to become an independent country, and that vote will succeed. Some time after that Northern Ireland will vote to leave the UK and possibly will join Scotland or perhaps the rest of Ireland. And finally as a long shot, Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland will amalgamate to become one country and it becomes a member of the EU. Let's see how my distant predictions evolve. Please add your thoughts.

Hi Butler, you might need to change the Windows Update service settings, and then restart the service. You must be logged on as an administrator to perform these steps. Open Administrative Tools by clicking the Start button, and then clicking Control Panel. In the search box, type administrative tools, and then click Administrative Tools. Double-click Services. Administrator permission required If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. Click the Name column heading to sort the names in reverse order. Find the Windows Update service, right-click it, and then click Properties. On the General tab, next to Startup type, make sure that Automatic is selected. Next to Service status, check to see if the service is started. If it is not, click Start. Administrator permission required If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.