Topics

My current mortgage deal comes to an end in  October.
My broker has given me prices for a new 2yr or 5yr deal. Needless to say my payments are going up substantially.
With rates likely to go up again this week, would the advice be to lock in a deal now for when my current deal comes to an end?
Or wait it out to see if rates come down before then?
From what I've read it seems rates could peak by the end of this year and possibly fall back by the end of 2025.
So I'm thinking go for a 2yr now and hope rates come down.

Thoughts and advice welcome.

Kicking this one off, anyone know where this is being played?
Armagh?

I currently use a small portacabin as a home office.
It's reaching the end of it's life and probably needs too much spent on it to bring it back into reasonable shape.

I'm looking into options for a replacement. I see lots of ads for Garden rooms, portacabin offices etc. But they are all an absolute fortune.

Anyone on here any alternative options or recommend any suppliers? I'm fairly easy in terms of "what". It just needs to insulated and roughly 10x8 or 12x8 in size.

I'm considering a flat roof sunroom extension to our house and I'm thinking about putting in a multi-fuel stove.
Anyone able to point out any considerations I need to make? One thing concerning me is that our house is two story and if I have a single story flat roof extension, do I need to build a chimney up to roof height of my 2 story house for the stove? Or can I just expose the flue from the stove say a foot above the flat roof?

I'm only in the planning stage and I don't want to let the idea of a stove maybe cause me more headache and cost than its worth.

Anyone any ideas where the best place is to get tickets for the portaventura parks in Salou?

Bitof an issue with a ford galaxy (2008). The bonnet release cable has snapped, somewhere close to the bonnet as the cable can be pulled back freely from where the release  lever is at inside the car.

Anyone know how to get the bonnet open?

Has anyone taken advantage of the  Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme?
I'm trying to work out if these Biomass heating systems are worth the trouble of having to store pellets, clean them out every week etc.
Or if anyone knows of any common problems/faults it would be good to find out.

We are seriously considering moving our kids to a new school, for a variety of reasons.
In September they will be P6, p4 and P3.
We can see that they are not getting the education they need and the school isn't adhering to the ethos to which it is supposed to be subscribed.
You might wonder how I know this...well Mrs. tbrick18 teaches in the school. So we can see it from a Parent's perspective and the perspective of a teacher (biased as that may be).

Its a difficult decision both practically and with regards to the effects it will have on the kids, but unfortunately we feel it would be the best thing for their education.

Has anyone any experience of moving kids to a new school who might be able to highlight some of the problems/advantages of moving them that we might not have thought about? The kids are blissfully happy in the school I might add, with the exception of one class which they will all have to go through.

Thinking about getting a dog for the kids....well they have me tortured and I'm on the verge of giving in.
I wouldn't have the time or knowledge to train a pup so wondering what kind of dog to get that is low maintenance, can be kept outside in a kennel overnight and most importantly is good with kids.
I like labradors myself, but I think they're probably quite high maintenance in that it will need long walks etc.
I'm thinking probably a small dog of some sort that gets enough exercise in the garden.

Any recommendations?

Anyone any clue where I could get a telescope? Preferably in the South Derry/Tyrone/Armagh areas.

Derry v Monaghan this weekend. Will Derry stop the rot and win at home or will Monaghan carry on from their victory over Kildare?

Derry should have a few more personnel available than they did in their last game but will it be enough?

Has anyone any experience of Cloud Computing?

I've been looking into it in more detail recently and am interested to know if anyone has done any Cloud Software development (SaaS) and if so what their experience has been like. Is it very different than say creating a .NET web application?

The IaaS side of thing seems fairly straightforward, are there any real pitfalls here? As a user, what would be the minimum broadband speed required for practical usage in this way.

I've been looking at the GoogleApps which seems like a great idea and I can see the potential of writing software in this way.
I also read that it is anticipated that by 2015 about 80% of all companies will have moved at least partially to the Cloud. Any opinions on this?


Any IT companies out there actively looking at moving to the Cloud in the main?

Sorry for the geeky topic!

Thinking of getting a new phone, mine is ancient. Looking at the Androids as I dont really buy into the whole Apple think (more style than substance for me).
From what I can make out the HTC seem to be market leader but there any gods amount of models. Does anyone have one or know what the latest HTC is?
Or would the likes of a Blackberry/Samsung/Sony Ericson be a better option?

Derry ultra offensive....Donegal ultra defensive....interesting!
At least there will be a new name on the Anglo-Celt Cup this year.

After getting our water back on following an outage from 23rd to 28th December I'm totally peeved at NI Water. I got confilcting stories from different call centre employees, complaints from them about having to work over Christmas and finally not even able to get through to them. On the one hand they told me they only had skeleton staff over Xmas and on the other now all over the news they supposedly had extra staff on over Xmas! I was offered alternative water supply on Christmas eve and didnt get anything until boxing day, even though I offered to collect water anywhere it was available! I dont believe anything from them at this point.
I think they're badly managed and not fit for purpose. Our rates pay for them and we may get water charges added in on top of that!
Hopefully this poll will help highlight what people really think of NI Water after recent events.

Does anyone have any experience of using NANT with Team Foundation Server?
The company I work for are migrating from VSS to TFS and we are trying to investigate the implications to our NANT build scripts.
Any info or help would be appreciated.

Anyone know where the fuel filter resides on a SE D5?

Can anyone recommend a free web hosting service which supports Joomla applications?

Honour denied to cleric who shook priest's hand

By Matthew McCreary
Tuesday, 30 September 2008


Unionist councillors in Limavady last night rejected a motion to grant the Freedom of the Borough to a former Presbyterian clergyman forced out of the area 25 years ago.


A special meeting of the council was held last night to decide whether Reverend David Armstrong should be given the honour.

Mr Armstrong received death threats after offering a Christmas handshake to Catholic priest Father Kevin Mullan in 1984.

The move sparked a backlash among sections of the Protestant community, who branded Armstrong a "Lundy" and forced him and his family to flee to England.

The motion to grant the Freedom of the Borough to Rev Armstrong and Fr Mullan was brought by SDLP councillor Michael Coyle, but his motion was defeated despite receiving 8 votes to 6, as a majority of two-thirds was needed.

Cllr Coyle said he was disappointed at the outcome.

"There's nothing to stop me doing the same thing again in ten days time, but I don't think attitudes are going to change in that time — they have been deep rooted for the last 25 years," he said.

"I am disappointed and angry and I wonder what my unionist colleagues were doing.

"What is really disappointing and what angers me is that not one unionist councillor spoke at the debate.

"I'm sure this will be a great disappointment to both David Armstong and Fr Mullan.

"This was a unique opportunity to offer the Freedom of the Borough, which has never been done before in Limavady."

I know the final hasnt been played yet but I thought I would kick this off as I'm sure at this stage most people have their opinions on who should be selected. if its already been started my apologies!.

I dont think there have been many players this year who have been head and shoulders above all the rest so it might be a difficult choice.