Well, I tried to send a parcel with them. The first time didn’t work: once I’d figured out the tracking number they email you won’t work on their site (you have to manually truncate it so that ‘PBNS1034160001′ becomes ‘NS1034160′ which you can then paste into the tracking page) I realised that Parcelforce had wrongly marked my package as accepted and picked up. Which of course it wasn’t as it was still sitting on my floor.

I emailed them to complain, and they were reasonably responsive, though I had to threaten a credit card chargeback to get the refund, which duly arrived.

Second time more lucky: placed the order in the morning, and later that afternoon the parcelforce man came to pick up the package. You can see the signature on the parcelforce website, and it was cheap (£11.50).

It seems senditnow, royal mail and parcelforce are all joined up, and while there are other ‘parcelforce resellers’, senditnow appears to be closer to parcelforce (who do all the work) than others. Why my delivery failed the first time I don’t know, it could just be the driver didn’t feel like picking it up and ticked the accepted box fraudulently.

Also, the website gives you no idea when they might come to pick it up, and they don’t call or email to confirm. So you’ve just got to cross your fingers and hope. Good luck!

But at £10.50 for up to 30kg you won’t find much better value.

I was hoping to create a bootable iso disk using these seemingly excellent instructions but for some reason I get an error when ‘Unloading the Box’, which I guess is the operation to extract the setup files from the .box file type.

Exactly one third of the way through the operation this error pops up: “An error was encountered. Unspecified error”. Image attached.

I gather I’m not the only one having this issue. But it looks like it’s a bad idea to keep downloading the files from Digital River because after 12 attempts that’s it. Which would be bad news.

I’ll post here when I find a solution.

YES! Go to www.entropay.com, sign up for an account. Here’s how it works: you charge up your account from an existing credit/debit card, then they give you ‘virtual’ VISA card details. They charge 4.9% of any top ups to your Entropay account. The beauty of Entropay is that you can trick Ryanair into thinking your virtual card is a VISA electron card, thus saving a load of cash on credit card fees.

For example, for return flights @ £1 each for two people, £4 total, Ryanair will try to shaft you for £20 in fees. With Entropay you only lose 4.9% of £4. Bargain or what?

This trick seems to work for Windows XP. So you’ve spent ages getting Internet Connection Sharing to work, and then suddenly it stops working. No amount of fiddling or restarting Windows seems to help.

Well, this works for me: restart the “Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)” service.

1. Go to Start Menu
2. Click Run…
3. Type in “services.msc” without the quotation marks, obviously
4. Navigate down to “Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)”
5. Click on ‘Restart the service’

Hey presto! It works for me. Let me know if it works: info@nottinghamjazz.co.uk

Brought to you by Nottingham Jazz

You need to download the latest version of “EOS Camera Movie Record” from http://valexvir.narod.ru. I’m using version 0.1.4

You’ll also find the installation file on this Sourceforge Page, and project details here.

You’ll also need to have installed the Canon USB drivers so that your camera can talk to your PC. I’d advise exiting Canon’s EOS Utility (in the preferences you can tell it not to run every time you connect the 450D) before running “EOS Camera Movie Record”, which should appear in your start menu.

Now then, assuming your camera is on, and connected to USB, when you run “EOS Camera Movie Record” you should hear the familiar sound of the EOS 450D’s shutter popping up, just as it does during Live View mode. A few seconds later you should see the real time video feed in the program window, which ought to look something like this:

• The resolution is 848 x 560, at somewhere around 20 frames per second, depending.
• If you have a ‘cannot initialize’ error, take our your memory card
• To change the default file location, click on the … icon
• To alter the camera’s aperture, first click the ‘DOF’ button, then once its depressed you can selected your desired f-number
• When ready to record, hit ‘Write!’
• I’m not sure what the maximum file size is yet, but i suspect it can’t go beyond 8gb because of Windows
• To ease the load on your CPU, deselect the ‘Show captured image’ button. Make sure your camera’s in focus though!

TOP TIP!

Now, some folks will have you believe that you can’t access any of the camera’s functions once the program has started. NOT TRUE!

Assuming you have Live View enabled, once EOS Camera Movie Record is running, just hit your normal Live View button. You should see Live View on the camera screen, AND on the PC. Now you can adjust: exposure, aperture, WB, ISO, and you can even engage autofocus (depending on which Live View focus mode you have set in the camera’s custom options).

You can even engage the 5x zoom mode, and it transfers across to PC. For some reason 10X doesn’t work. With a telephoto lens, you can use this tip to get some seriously zoomed footage, and record it to video. This lets you use the full power of your sensor and lens.

This will invalidate your warranty, so follow only AT YOUR OWN RISK.

I’ve tested this on my own Nokia 5800 (UK Red model) from the Carphone Warehouse, and it works, so now I can get the latest updates, free from Nokia’s regrettable bastardisation of my original product code.




1. Download JAF 1.98.62.exe
http://support.phone-tools.cn/files/JAF_Main_Software/JAFSetup_1.98.62.exe

This above link is slow,  the quicker way is to register at http://dailymobile.se and then download the rar files from the bottom of the first post here

2. 2. Download JAF PKEY Emulator v5.0
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QYR4571O

3. Install JAF 1.98.62

4. Extract JAF PKEY Emulator v5.0 to desktop

5. Connect Nokia 5800 and select PC Suite mode on your Nokia 5800. ENSURE PC SUITE IS CLOSED ON HOST COMPUTER

6. Now run JAF PKEY v5.0.exe (on desktop) and click on the GO button. It will come up with error: box driver not installed –> so click ok and now JAF v1.98 will run.

7. Select BB5 tab –> tick Prod. Manager –> then click the service button –> click the Read Values button.

8. Now you can enter yourproduct code and press the Write Values button. I used the generic UK product code 0552438 - this allows me to get update 20.0.012 from 11.0.009. For a list of possible product codes visit this site

use this modifcation at your own risk

PS :for all  windows vista users follow these steps to get JAF tool to work
first use jaf key emulator v4 from here
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ANG6RHPQ

- right hand click jaf 1.98 and “run as administrator” and do the installation
- then right hand click jaf pkey emualtor v4.0 and run as administrator.

note -Vista 64-Bit is not supported

Adrian Chandler, violin
Gareth Deats, cello
Robert Howarth, harpsichord

VIVALDI Sonata per Monsieur Pisendel in C minor RV6
ALBINONI Sonata composta per il Signor Pisendel in B flat, So 32
PISENDEL Sonata in D for violin and continuo
ALBINONI Sonata in G minor for violin and continuo, So 33
PISENDEL Sonata in E minor for violin and continuo
VIVALDI Sonata per Monsieur Pisendel in C, RV2

First impressions: a few minutes before the gig’s scheduled start, the trio saunter through the auditorium to their warm up room, evidently returning from dinner or perhaps a trip to the pub. Most artists go round the back, so that the audience don’t actually see them until their act begins. Not this lot. A refreshing attitude, if perhaps a little underwhelming. ‘But it’s jazz, you see, so these things don’t matter.’

Second impressions: my word these guys are laid back: jeans, super scruffy shirts etc. But still, you say, it’s jazz, so that’s OK.

On the charisma score I’m afraid these guys score very poorly. Poor chat, a few half-hearted naff jokes, shoddy patter.

Music: I first saw Julian Arguelles a couple of years ago on Islay, at the jazz festival there. He’s a superb player, with a rock solid command of his tenor sax. Last night he played some marvellous jazz, and I thought he was great. But throughout the night he was always playing second fiddle to drummer Ton Rainey, who, by dint of the rather bright acoustic in Lakeside’s Recital Hall, consistently overpowered the other two musicians. This is a shame, but I’ve come to expect it in that venue. The only drummer I’ve ever witnessed turn the place to his advantage was Jarle Vespestad, but that’s another story.

They were playing a bunch of original stuff, some of which was interesting, but most of which was forgettable. The sax/drums/bass configuration worked pretty well, but on many occasions I was yearning for the harmonic depth of a pianist or guitarist. But that’s just me I suppose.