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[Meat Loaf is present at the venue, ready and willing to perform, but unfortunately some important local production issues have to be resolved.]

This series of concerts featuring Meatloaf, Shayne Ward and Chris De Burgh, was due to kick off tonight with Meatloaf....however, looks like it didn't happen.  Anyone know why?

Meatloaf - Postponed
The concert in Bundoran, Donegal, Ireland featuring Meat Loaf has regrettably had to be postponed until tomorrow evening, Wednesday July 16, due to technical production problems with the local site. Meat Loaf is present at the venue, ready and willing to perform, but unfortunately some important local production issues have to be resolved.
For Customers unable to attend the rescheduled date, refunds are available.

Customers who purchased their tickets from an outlet can obtain a refund by returning their tickets to the point of purchase.

If you have purchased your tickets via phone or Internet, you must return your tickets via a secure method of post to:

Ticketmaster Head Office, Grafton House, 70 Grafton Street, Dublin 2.

The organizers apologize for this postponement but we are delighted that Meat Loaf has kindly agreed to perform for us all tomorrow.

http://www.ticketmaster.ie/promo/x6r6ir?tm_link=tm_home_f5

The important things in life.....

Domino's advertise 'Free Delivery' on the side of their vans as well as in store.  However, to have a specific pizza delivered costs £12, but if you go into the store, the exact same pizza is £8.50.  So how can they say they are offering free delivery?

Also, last week when in the store I placed my order and the girl behind the counter said...'Oh, there is a buy one, get one free offer on that pizza'.  I know this pizza is £8.50, so I asked her how much it was again, to which she replied £12.50.  So I questioned her on it....if you go for the 'Buy one get one free offer' it costs £12.50, if you don't want the offer, it is only £8.50.

So how can they be giving one for free if they are charging an extra £4?  Does anyone know if this is in anyway breaking any sort of trading standards?  I'm sure they have themselves covered, but it seems dodgy to me.

Well did anyone attend the opening show last night?  If so, how did it go, does he still have it, worth the money etc. etc.

My 18 month contract is due to expire next week, and Vodafone have been phoning a few times looking to discuss an upgrade etc.  I have been asking for the Nokia N95 8Gb, but they were looking to charge me £180 to get it on an upgrade.  As I'm already on their £35 a month tarrif, and was willing to go onto a new 18 month contract, I thought that I should be getting it for free.  Afterall, new customers who sign up to a £35 / month. 18 month tarrif, get the phone for free.

Vodafone weren't budging, so I asked them for my PAC code to allow me to move my number to a new provider....they said that they would have to charge me to give me the PAC code as I was calling out of hours (7.30PM)!!

To me, this is a complete joke from Vodafone....I'm already on the contract which gives the phone for free, and they won't give it, plus they have the cheek to ask me to pay to get the PAC code, absolute joke. 

If anyone can explain the logic in Vodafone not even trying to keep a customer, I'd love to hear it.  Or anyone got any suggestions of how to approach them, apart from leaving.  I am looking at going to O2, but someone told me that O2 don't have 3G coverage in the north of Ireland....does anyone know if this is correct?

Here is a fella who knows how to give a TV interview.....not a detail missed!  Interview starts at 26 secs 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7360923.stm

Has anyone used 3G internet access over your mobile phone? 

If so, is it any good, easy to use, access speed etc?

Also, what is 3G coverage like, is it just in built up areas or available all over?

Ladies and Gents......

I need to hire a medium sized van for a few days.  Straight forward enough, but the problem I have is that the van has to be a five seater.  The likes of a Vauxhall (Opel) Movano Double Cab would be ideal, but I can't find one anywhere for hire. http://www.vanman.co.uk/newvans/van-606.htm

Is anyone familiar with vans and could recommend a few options for me to look into?  My main requirement is a medium sized fiver seater van.

Having listened to recent media coverage regarding the NI housing market, including the most recent feature on this morning's Radio Ulster show where their banner headline described 'dramatic' house price reductions.  The actual detail then reported that NI house prices were down on average £20K. 

All a matter of opinion, I wouldn't describe a £20K reduction over a 6 months period as being dramatic.  Now if they had said a £70K - £80K average reduction, I would agree that this was 'dramatic'.

Obviously everyone has an agenda i.e. house owners who want to keep prices on the increase, those aspiring to get onto the ladder and want to see prices drop big time.  As for the media, I think they are just trying to hype a story for the sake of it.

The major driver has to be low wages and very modest wage increases.  When combined with estate agents and builders hyping prices beyond belief over the last two years, surely things could not have been sustained.  A question for builders....how much have the raw material actually gone up in cost i.e. bricks, blocks, sand etc.

The outlook, accordinging to a Bank of Ireland expert, is that by mid year, the market should see a return to stability.  To put it into perspective, average NI house price:

Jan 2007 £197K
July 2007 £250K
Jan 2008 £231K

P.S. posted as a home owner 

Anyone bought the iPHONE?  Have heard mixed reviews about it.

Looks like Samsung are releasing a phone in February to take on the iPHONE:

http://www.phonesreview.co.uk/2008/01/10/samsung-f490-officially-unveiled-releases-in-feb-plus-main-specifications/

Anyone any idea how AOL can give away free laptops if you take out broadband with them for £19.99 a month??

http://myaolbroadband.co.uk/broadband/broadband.adp

Maybe some of those more technically minded could help me with this please?

I have been using my laptop with a data projector for some time now with no issues.  As long as the data projector is connected before booting the laptop, the laptop always recognised the projector with no issues. 

However, I now have a problem.  Upon booting up the laptop, the projector kicks in as normal and shows the windows XP startup etc., however whenever it gets as far as going to the desktop, the projector then goes blue screen and says 'No Input'.

I've tried inputs 1 & 2 with the same problem.  I cannot get the projector to display anything beyond the startup stuff.  I've done the usual FN / F4 toggle, with no success.

Since this started, I've noticed that when the projector is displaying the windows startup, there are a few lines jumping across the screen almost the same as interference on a TV. 

I'm wondering has a video card or graphics card or something else packed in on the laptop. 

Would anyone have any ideas?  Currently trying to get the use of a second laptop to see if it works.

Thanks in advance!

[2336 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)]

I believe my broadband connection is not performing to what it should, generally slow download speeds all round.

My router was showing a download bandwidth of approx. 460kbps on what should be a 1Meg line.  So I complained to BT, and eventually they sent out an engineer today.  He said that the line outside was going via a poor standard of cable, so he replaced the cable.  The router is now showing a download speed of 2336kbps, I thought this was strange as I don't know how I have over 2Meg in what should only be a 1Meg line.

Anyway, even though the download is showing over 2Meg, my actual download times are very poor.  I noticed when I did the BT speedtest via their website, I am only getting an IP throughput of 79kbps.  This seems low to my untrained eye.  Anybody got any ideas what this should be approx?

My line test results are below:


Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test:  -provides background information.
    IP profile for your line is - 135 kbps
    DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM)  2336 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
    Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 79 kbps

What are the things to look out for when buying an LCD or Plasma TV.  Currently considering buying an LCD TV in the region of 37".

But, from a technical perspective, what are the things to look out for apart from being HD ready?  Any recommendations, makes, current special offers etc?

Ah, they don't make them like this anymore!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCbuRA_D3KU

Having read the 'Worst Lyrics Ever' thread, we might as well have a 'Best Lyrics Ever' thread also......

To start it off:

And you dare to call me a terrorist
While you look down your gun
When I think of all the deeds that you have done
You have plundered many nations
Divided many lands
You have terrorised their peoples
You ruled with an iron hand
And you brought this reign of terror to my land!

Chorus of 'Joe McDonnell' - The Wolfe Tones

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFkUGpo_2tc

I need to get a new Irish passport for a child asap and was wondering what the current wait time would be before the passport would arrive in the post?  Or is there any way of fast tracking the process?

Thanks.

I just found out yesterday that if I send a letter first class from the north to the republic, that it takes a minimum of 3 days to reach its destination, in most cases 4 or 5 days.

Apparently all first class mail goes automatically by airmail, so it is flown to the England, then onwards to Dublin, at which point it heads off by road.

I always thought they had a cross border mail link between the north and south, but according to the post office yesterday this no longer exists!

Talk about inefficiency!

Does anyone have any experience of under floor heating?  What is you opinion of it so far?

Also, anyone looked into the geothermal heating system...you know the one where you dig down about 150 metres to heat up the water, and then pump it through the house.

Thanks in advance.

Not being up to speed on PC's, can anyone help me with this:

I want to put an additional 256M of SD RAM into a PC.  The current 256M is marked as PC100, CL2.  However, I can only find 256M PC130 on the market.

If I insert a further 256M PC130, will this be able to operate alongside the PC100 RAM? 

Many thanks in advance for any help.