Member postings for clivel

Something that offends most world governments who have been trying their damnedest to try and find a way to tax.

This works very well:
sudo su

Which gives sudo the best of both worlds.

Only an account with administrator privileges has access to sudo, normally this is the first user, but it can off course be changed.

Clive

Just another vote for Linux Mint.

Being based on Ubuntu, Mint offers all the advantages of Ubuntu, but as "An Other" mentioned has a much friendlier use interface, one that will immediately be familiar to anyone who has used Windows XP.

The two main editions of Mint are Cinnamon and MATE. The MATE edition has a less resource intensive UI so would be more appropriate for use on low end hardware.

Clive

Other than one issue going astray about a year ago, and the very occasional issue arriving two to three weeks later than expected, I have had no problems receiving both ME and MEW here in Canada.
So depending where you are, it could be the local postal system, in which case you might consider switching over to a digital subscription.

Clive

The general consensus from people I have dealt with seems to be that if you are running Windows 7 stick with it, the disadvantages, including the risk of problems such as Pete's, of upgrading to Windows 10 far outweigh any advantages.

For those running Windows 8 or 8.1 there is less likelihood of problems when upgrading, so it may be worthwhile, although other than a more Windows 7 like UI, there don't seem to be any especially compelling reasons for upgrading.

Either way, it has been my experience, that when upgrading from one MS OS to the next, given the number of UI changes that seem to have been made for no other reason than change for change’s sake, it can take anywhere from a day to a week of wasted time, trying to mould the OS to fit the user's working habits.

Clive

Edited By clivel on 30/12/2015 17:55:42

The cheapest i.e free, and most effective upgrade I have made to my now 5 year old laptop was a dual boot Install of Linux Mint alongside Windows.
It was a complete revelation at how much faster everything was when running Mint. Applications that previously took forever to open now snap open almost instantly.

As almost all the applications I run are cross platform; FireFox and Chrome web browsers, Thunderbird email client, LibreOffice for word processing & spreadsheets, the Gimp for image editing, and Eagle Cad for schematics and PCBs, with the faster speed and nicer user interface, I soon found that I rarely have any need to run Windows at all. The last time I booted into Windows was about 3 months ago, specifically to run my old Cannon scanner which has no Linux support.

Many people are a bit intimidated when they hear Linux, but installation is actually really very simple. Using Windows download the appropriate 32 or 64 bit "Linux Mint Cinnamon" from the download page and then use the Universal USB Installer to install it on a USB flash drive. Reboot and just follow the prompts.

Clive

Edited By clivel on 28/12/2015 17:23:19

Thanks everyone for the very useful replies.

Unfortunately this area of Canada is the land of cardboard houses, so I have yet to come across anything resembling Thermalite or Celcon aerated concrete blocks locally.

The compressed vermiculite boards for lining wood stoves could be a possibility, however as the closest wood stove dealer is a good distance away, it will have to wait until the weekend before I can do any investigating in that regard.

Another side effect of our cardboard houses is just how quickly they come down. Houses literally disappear from one day to the next, bulldozed, loaded into trucks and taken to the dump. Nothing is salvaged and nothing goes to the scrap yard, making the likely hood of finding ceramic gas fire elements an impossibility. Unfortunately the well heeled foreign buyers who have turned Vancouver into the city with the world's most expensive housing don't have the patience for salvaging anything, they want their brand new monster houses with the minimum delay.

Clive

For some time I have had it in mind to make a small brazing hearth for silver soldering. Nothing too complicated, just a few fire bricks held together by an angle iron frame.
However the only fire bricks I have been able to find in this part of the world - West coast of Canada, are the hard absorbent kind. Whereas what is needed are the soft bricks that reflect heat back into the work. So, given the impracticality of mail-ordering bricks from elsewhere, I have had to put my plans on hold until I can find something suitable.

While reading the "Building a small electric furnace/kiln" thread I came across the link to mikesworkshop which describes the construction of a furnace using a liner cast from a refractory mixture consisting of Portland cement, clay cat litter, and perlite.
This got my thinking that it may be possible to cast my own bricks using a similar mixture, or better yet cast an actual hearth itself using scraps of wood for a mould.

Some years back I cast a few "hypertufa" planters for the garden using a similar mixture (Portland cement, peat moss, and perlite) reinforced with fencing wire. These are reasonably strong, and despite have stood outside exposed to the elements for a few years they have held up well, so I think that it may be a practical proposition to use a similar method for the hearth.

I was wondering firstly if this refractory mixture would reflect heat rather than absorb it, and also if anyone has tried something similar?
Any thoughts would be appreciated,
Thanks,
Clive

Actually unless Katy is able to duplicate your environment closely, it is highly unlikely that she will be able to duplicate the problem by simply installing the same OS and browser as you.
For example the screenshot below:

This shows Firefox 42.0 running on Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon 64 bit in the left hand window.
The right hand window contains Firefox 35.01 running on Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca 32 bit in a VMWare Session.
In both cases the web site appears to be behaving correctly.

So it would seem that the problem is not caused by your choice of OS and browser, but is instead caused by something else on your system, Until we can establish what that is, it is extremely unlikely that Katy will be able to duplicate the problem so as to create a fix.

Clive

Thanks to Neil and Holly my subscription problems have been completely resolved.

It appears that I had the misfortune of placing my renewal during the midst of a change over in subscription companies and that the old company though which I had attempted to subscribe were simply discarding renewals rather than passing them onto MTM.

Hopefully with the change over customer service issues will be a thing of the past, and if the service I have had from Holly is anything to go by I am sure that this will be the case.

Clive

Hi Alan,

I also run Linux Mint as my everyday OS, having done so for the past year or two.

My current environment is Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon 64 bit. When viewing this site with both Firefox 42.0 and Chrome 47.0 everything looks fine and I don't experience the problem you are seeing. I also don't recall seeing the problem in the past using earlier versions of Mint, so I suspect that the problem has something to do with your environment, but what the could be, I have no idea.

Thanks to Microsoft web site development is a lot more complex than it should be. The various IE browsers are notorious for ignoring standards and to make matters worse, for the huge incompatibilities that have been introduced between various versions of IE itself. This has required programmers to introduce obscure workarounds that on occasion have adverse effects on other browsers.

I notice that this site is served via ASP (Active Server Pages), a Microsoft product, so it is likely that the pages are tailored to provide an IE "best experience" which may be detrimental to other browsers. However as pointed out above, I am not experiencing the problems you are, so I doubt that MS is to blame this time.

Clive

I never use adblockers, and urge others to do likewise.

Web sites are not free to setup, maintain, or host. These costs needs to be paid somehow. Some site owners choose to carry the burden themselves, others tout for donations and yet others like on this site, carry advertising to try and recoup the cost. So using an adblocker to undermine this model seems to me to be not much better than a form of free-loading.

Admittedly some ads can be extremely annoying and intrusive, but as none of us are obliged to visit a site if it offends us we are free to move elsewhere. Alternatively a polite complaint to the site owners may result in changes as happened in the case of the popups that appeared on this site some months back.

That being said I must confess that I have partially disabled Flash. FireFox gives the option to "Ask to activate". That way when a web page containing Flash opens up, instead of automatically playing the animation, all I see is a grey box containing the option to "Activate Adobe Flash" which other than when viewing a Youtube video is rarely necessary. This does of course hide the small portion of adverts that use Flash, however it is these self same Flash adverts that are responsible for causing browser crashes or regularly freezing up the browser for sometimes as long as 30 seconds before crashing.

Clive

Edited By clivel on 07/12/2015 00:13:28

Hi Neil,

I appreciate the response. It is gratifying to hear that subscription problems are being addressed. I will forward the relevant emails.

Thanks,
Clive

In September I received an email reminder from MyTimeMedia Ltd that my subscription for Model Engineer was coming due. As I have done in past years, I clicked on the link in the email, filled in my credit card details where required, thus renewing for another year. For the most part this was uneventful with only one minor niggle which was of not too much consequence relating to an invalid subscription number which now appears to be corrected.

Unfortunately my attempts at renewing my MEW subscription which expires a few weeks later have been far less successful. Instead all that this frustrating and protracted waste of time has done, is left me extremely annoyed and no closer to having my subscription renewed.

My first attempt at renewing was on the 30th Oct, where like with my ME subscription, I clicked on the link in the email from MyTimeMedia Ltd, supplied my credit card details using the same card as before, and shortly thereafter received the email subscription confirmation which like with my ME renewal did not contain a subscription number, this had instead come a few days later in the post.

On the 16th November not yet having received the MEW subscription number either by post or email I contacted [email protected] asking if they could confirm whether my MEW subscription had been activated.
The reply I received from [email protected] was that my subscription had not been renewed so they suggested that I check whether payment had been withdrawn from my credit card account. It transpired that no payment had been processed, so after further communications with [email protected] to ensure that I would not be double billed, I proceeded on the 24th November to subscribe once again.
As before a confirmation email arrived, but this time it actually included a subscription number which I took to be a promising sign. However by the 27th no debit had been made on my credit card account, so I once again emailed [email protected] to check on the status of my subscription. They requested that I forward the confirmation email to them along with the last 4 digits of my credit card number, which I duly did.

The absolutely useless response I then received left me astounded: "I can confirm you placed your order via a third party company (subscription.co.uk) and we are still awaiting your order from them. I would suggest contacting them regarding this"

This is NOT good enough!
As far as I'm concerned I did not place my order via a 3rd party, I placed it with MyTimeMedia Ltd via the link in the email I received from them. If MyTimeMedia chooses to process subscriptions via a 3rd party, that is their concern not mine. It is up to them to sort it out if they are actually interested in selling magazines!

Right now I am not feeling the love for MyTimeMedia and seriously questioning whether it is worth expending any more effort trying to renew my MEW subscription. If MyTimeMedia can't be bothered to ensure that the process operates smoothly, then perhaps I am better of reading the magazine in the library instead.

Clive

Hi Roger,
MEW was only numbered from around issue 12. I think that the Aug/Sept 1991 issue was the 6th published.

Issue #166 (Aug 2010) carries an article by Dave Fenner with the another 2 wheel 'Quick' design. This seems a little more complicated to make than the earlier one. The article also includes photographs of a commercial 'Quick' tool. Credit for the photos go to none other than JohnS.

It would be interesting to know what advantage if any, the 2-wheel has over the single wheel tool. If John has used both styles, he may be the best person to answer.

Clive

The Aug/Sept 1991 issue of MEW carries on page 42 a design by Allan Mackintosh for a two wheel "Quick" knurling tool, however It is not quite as straight forward as JohnS's single wheel design pictured earlier in this thread.

Clive

It could be the "Boy Electrician" published in 1913 it is now in the public domain so you can legitimately download a PDF copy such as this one here **LINK**

I had a brief look at the contents page, it includes making a fluoroscope as well as a model railway, but I didn't notice whether it included a slot machine as well.

Clive

When I built my first workbench, I went along with the rule of thumb mentioned above - top of the vice at bent elbow height, this turned out ideal for filing and sawing in the vice, but the bench top itself was too low for anything else.

I subsequently made a second bench with the top of the bench at bent elbow height, I find this is very comfortable in use, especially for marking out as well as for operating the little Unimat lathe which I moved to this bench.

Clive

Edited By clivel on 04/11/2015 18:19:57

I ordered a diamond Toolholder directly from Eccentric Engineering in Australia to be delivered to me here in Canada, It was considerably cheaper than ordering from their US distributor. So I would guess that the same would apply to the Acute.

Clive

Korby,
This eBay seller http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/26cm-Cast-Iron-Blue-Oval-Andrew-Barclay-Sons-Co-Railway-Train-Wall-Sign-Plaque-/261366014104 has them listed at £12.95 which gives you a target for your bargaining.

Described as having "slight chips to give an antique look", currently the seller has 4 available with 79 sold, so they seem to be very much a mass produced item. One wonders why out of all the thousands and thousands of loco plates that the manufacture chose to reproduce this particular one.

Clive

Edited By clivel on 10/09/2015 23:31:08