monkey_pork

Nice, a well considered post ! Excellent plan to go for quality over volume, far more important to get an amp that can drive speakers properly that just hit them with wattage - and a decent stereo amp really will almost last you for ever - you can monkey around with cheap have stuff later if you only want it for films and stuff, multichannel amps don't really compare at all with decent stereo amps in my opinion (unless you throw money at it). You might like to look at Harmon Kardon stuff. Although I don't know what the current range is like (after a few years in the wilderness) but I have had a straightforward HK stereo amp for a good few years now and I have to say it is absolutely fantastic. It's teamed up with some old Mordant-Short stereo speakers (MS30's not have stuff) and is lovely to listen too (with the right source of course). I can't see I'll ever get rid of it (unless it dies :o ) Spend a bit of time setting the speakers up properly too and you'll be all set. Good work mate - a refreshing post (ok, to an old 'beardy' anyway) !

The reason you can't get into any of the website you mention is because the virus writes an entry in your PC's hosts file. The hosts file is a plain text file that is used by your PC as it's kinda first place to look to resolve any DNS stuff. The virus adds an entry like this: 127.0.0.1 symantec.com 127.0.0.1 kaspersky.com - and so on working it's way down the list of have sites ... 127.0.0.1 is the machines 'loopback' address. I'll skip the details, but it's the machines own 'internal' address, so anything that looks at 127.0.0.1 won't find anything (unless you are running DNS and HTTPd services on your own machine, that allow access via 127.0.0.1, in which case you'll know all this stuff anyway ...). It works like this (this is a bit overly-simplified, but the principles are sound): 1. You type www.google.com into your browser address bar. 2. Your machine looks at it's host file to see if it can resolve the name into the ip address (which in this case is 66.102.11.104 - you can put that into your address bar and see for yourselves - don't put www.66.102 etc, just use the number). 3. Unless you have listed '66.102.11.104 google.com' in your hosts file your PC then looks to your ISP to resolve the address (via a process called DNS 'Domain Name Server' - like a kinda #yellow pages' I guess). 4. If the address you typed in is on the hosts file at '127.0.0.1' your machine tries to fetch the page from itself - which it can't do of course as it doesn't exist there. (With the unlikely exception above of course). 5. If it's not listed on the hosts file, your ISP will route you off to the page, and away you go. Now, you could use the hosts file to list all the sites you go to, but it's not worth it - that's why DNS servers exist. You'll be right in thinking that if you delete the 127.0.0.1 avsite.com from your hosts file, you'd be able to access the page - but there are additional steps to take too, such as killing the viruses running processes (in case it rewites the hosts file), and making sure that if you need to reboot, as opposed to restarting the browser that the virus doesn't trigger a new instance and undo what you have done. The IE closing is not a hosts file issue - that'll be one of the machine services being killed by the virus - MSSasser & MSBlaster were 'good' examples of how killing a service could bring unpatched machines down. Best bet - Run Windows update automatically to patch the holes to start with, learn about how to avoid infections on line, and get decent have and decent anti-spyware packages. Stay safe out there ! :o

Top quality find - it puts my local ww spot into perspective ! (although these pics were not at the best point of the tide, and it was with pretty low water levels running into it too, he says (Y)" ) ... edit: That hole run-off is supa-scary - getting stuck in there would have been vile, not enough water to paddle out of, but no way you'd stay there - nasty, nasty.

Lol - Oops - just goes to show how much I know then ! :lol: As far as I was concerned you'd have got away with that too ... but thanks anyway.

Err, excuse the rather blunt question, but what's on your back in your avatar picture - I can see the flesh tat on your shoulder/arm, but at my age I can't see the rest of it too well ... :)"

I'd suggest that your best bet would be to go into your local piercing shop and get what is generally known as a 'captive bead ring' (or a 'ball closure ring' if you prefer). Go for a reasonable diameter, say ~14mm, and a 1.6mm thickness. [Too thin a ring and there is a danger you'll damage the piercing - either simply by cutting, or by explusion if you reject the piercing]. Take the bead out - you should be able to get it out without circlip pliers on this size of ring - and clip the ring over your lip - seeing how it will look is one thing, wearing it is something else entirely - you'll get a feel for how much it's going to bug you, by clipping off your teeth and stuff. If it's too much, look at a labret stud, they will have a flat back to them (not a butterfly type fitting) and sit neatly against your lip. You can also get PTFE versions wich will be much easier on your teeth. They exit with a threaded bar, upon which you screw a bead. Sorry to sound like your dad here- but if you do get it done, get it done at a decent piercing shop, not at a hairdressers, nor a high st jewlers, and don't go DIY... If anyone looks like they are going to use a ear-piercing gun to do it, or if the studio doesn't look clean, just walk away. Your mouth is chocked full of stuff to damage, and a bad piercing here is going to give you all sorts of problems. Any decent piercer will use decent steel too, implantation stuff is 'harder' and has a much lower Nickel content than cheap rings, plus you'll get a ton of aftercare advice too - keeping it clean is important - salt water and clean hands is all you'll need though'. You might like to try here initially, it looks like pretty good basic advice. Then try here if you are feeling upto it. Good luck.

Hmm, keep us up to date on this then as I'm thinking about doing mine too. I'm wondering about doing mine in a matt finish, Kona did a nice matt green on a jump frame back a bit, a bit sludge coloured maybe, but it might suit these frames ... and there is always urban camo of course ... I can't help with the photoshop, but there is a picture of my pretty much stock t-rex here, if anyone wants a picture to mess about with - (although the cranks are in a bit of a rubbish position I've just realised). Mark

LOL - that could be read both ways ! (Y) but I know what you mean: thanks for the endorsement. The reason for the BB's compressed lifespan has become much clearer now too ... (being as it was indeed square tapir, err, you know, endangered, black and white, long nose etc, hmm, oh no hang on, being as it was square taper ...). Thanks too, to everyone who's commented.

It's a powerpro for sure. I'd say this one was just made badly, so I'm sure I can get it sorted under warrenty from my lbs - and from even a quick look at the rubbish way I was riding today I can quite honestly say that I don't ride trials. (Y) I've stuck a UN53 in for now (as that's all I could get today) (Y) ... so we'll see how well that one does (fine, I expect). On the plus side though', I did get to buy a new BB tool as my original one was pretty much done in.

Will, It was a fsa powerpro 7420. They are pretty much low-end BB's I fancy - and so, err, therein may lie the problem ... (Y)" Mark

Hmm, after no more than 40 minutes of very gentle riding my new FSA BB was cracking and banging so badly it was scaring people half a mile away. Stipping it out revealed that it must have started to break apart internally as it was weeping fluids everywhere and stank really badly [of machine oil] - not to mention the spectacular amount of play that the axle had now acquired. As I've had Shimano BB's abused horribly for hard xc, and grinding commuting jobs that seem to last for ages - 40 minutes seems just that bit too short to me, so I'm putting this one down to just a bad 'un ... but is there something especially fatal about trials riding to BB's I need to watch out for (or is it really like most things, and just down to how one rides)? Ta.

Onza T-Rex Base cranks (& bash:22th chainring) - 68mm x 122.5mm

Right, settle down now, jealousy is such an ugly thing ... 405 turbo diesel estate. 206k miles. Seen here in it's usual 'country-camouflage' livery of cow shit, mud and road grit. ... and okkkay, it might look like shite, but it costs me nothing to run, there's nil depreciation to worry about, it swallows almost anything in the boot (bikes are insignificant in that space), it's got a full tow-pack, and my 16' open canoe travels around perfectly happily on the roof. Amusingly if you boot it hard enough (and ignore the smoke) it's still capable of a fair old turn of speed, which catches out a lot of people who assume that it's some kind of crippled white trash wreck. I'm almost getting to nearly like it now (after owning it for 3 years :ermm:" ) - it's a perfect anti-hero kinda car. Probably a diesel LR110 or a VW T4 next as I'd like more space (and 4wd would be handy).

For what it's worth ... I'm using a MET Ippogrifo (with a giro peak velcro'ed on to keep the sun off) - and I find that supa comfy - it fits really nicely and it's holding up well to some fairly grim xc stuff without looking hammered. It's got a lot of protection out the back of the helmet too and I've felt safe enough falling backwards onto flattish ground, but ... Tis' a bit road bike lookin' though - so not to everyones taste I'm sure, plus you might find that the protection, whist sticky out - doesn't quite go down the back of your skull / top of your neck far enough for you. Cheap enough at <£50.00 - but I guess the only way is to try a few on and see what feels best.

Some of the Turkeyfoot badgers will be driving the couple of hours up from South Devon, and we may have a bit of space - it depends on how much rubbish we fill our cars up with ... Maybe *someone* will / could post another topic nearer the time - along the lines of offering or needing a lift ?

I've linked you from our site at: Turkeyfoot.org.uk. It's not got any trials stuff (yet), but it is a bike site (ok, mostly bikes, there will be some open canoe action sneaking in there soon). I doubt it gets much traffic though' as it's only been up for a little while and it's mostly just for us to mess about with, not really to do anything with as such (plus it's a handy portfolio for me :S )... I'd say that the search engine bot's should read the site in full (and index you) as there is no 'no-index' type meta tagging for the bots, nor a robots.txt to control them - the menu structure is straight-forward html list-items - managed by pure CSS, not JavaScript (although to help IE, bless it - there is a teeny tiny bit of JavaScript), so they'll follow that ok. Hmm although that said, it is framed as it uses site forwarding (we are too cheap to pay for a host yet) ... Err, anyway enough jabbering - you are linked from there (with apologies for reanimating an old post). M