Unhappy Thread

[zwilnik]

I have my laptop hooked up to BackBlaze. It's a permanent backup that works in the background. It costs me $130 for two years (yes, it's in US Dollars). It has unlimited capacity.

I also use Backblaze on all my computers. Stupidly cheap for what it does and quite literally fire and forget.

Do you recall who put me onto them...?

Thanks fella.

FYI, Office 365 which includes the One Drive functionality is AU$90 /yr about US$60. same thing I just set and forget.

One Drive is more of a straight Cloud Drive rather than a constant backup. So it will only keep whatever you put on it, whereas BackBlaze backs up everything on your computer (unless you say otherwise). Also if you suffer a complete disaster, not only can you recover your data online from BackBlaze, you even have the option for them to send you your data on a physical hard drive.

[Bealman]

42 degrees C in my back garden today. 

[Platy767]

39 degrees C here today and an aircon that has already had 2 attempts to be fixed. Never again will I do a fully ducted system that has single points of failure. I will start with a split in the lounge and decide what else is needed after that.

[Bealman]

Apart from fully ducted, I'm not really sure what the rest means, but I sympathise. We never had air con for years and when we did finally get it, couldn't work out why we hadn't done it earlier. A bit like an automatic garage door, actually, which is relatively new at Chez Bealman.

Anyway the air conditioner wasn't working great, but I dragged the instructions out (I actually kept em), and cleaned the filters.

Good as new!

[dannyboy]

42 degrees C in my back garden today. 

6 degrees here ... and grey ... and drizzle

[Webbo]

We recently fitted a garage roller door too and I agree with your comment totally with regards to this device. As for the installation of AC, it was a bit like the transition between BC and AD in historical terms. With AC, summers were no longer a time of year to be feared in our house.

Webbo

[cmason]

So when I was in Switzerland a year or so back, as is my wont when on business trips I visited a couple of model shops to get myself some souvenirs. Not really bargain hunting and not things necessarily in line with my own modelling themes.

On that trip I got a second hand short rake of 4 Arnold Rheingold coaches with a full brake - very nice - and a new Kato Re 620 - carrying the name "Linthal" in the SBB-Cargo X-Rail alliance livery. All very nice models. The Re620 is actually produced by Kato for distribution by Lemke in Gemrany.

However when I got me back home here to Japan I discovered that one of the buffers on the Re620 had fallen off. They are not secured, just a push fit. And subsequently another fell off and bounced away to be eaten by the carpet monsters.

What to do? I know I thought - a visit to Mr Kato's fine emporium up in Tokyo ( https://www.hobbycenterkato.com/ ) - and so, this week I was up in town - a rarity since the start of the pandemic (historically I would have been up a few times in a week - recently more like once a month if that... ) - and I popped in.

And now my Grrrrrr.... unlike for regular Kato, they don't carry the spares for the Lemke models  for retail in Japan - they make them here in Japan ( and do actually sell them here ) but to get the buffers I would have to bring the model in and it would then be sent away for "repair" - just to have a couple of buffers plugged in...

Anyway I am not doing that - seems more likely that I will order the spares from Lemke and have them shipped *back* to Japan....

Ahhh well...such larks... plus side was I go to look round the Kato centre where amongst other things you can see Peco streamline at outrageous import prices - although one thing I am very happy they distribute is Peco flexitrack which is a bit difficult to sensibly ship by post so I am happy to pay their distribution premium for that  - the other UK origin products they are distributing here are the Deluxe Materials range which from observation they now appear to have made available through quite a few Japanese retailers - again quite useful as the liquids would probably cause issues when sent by ordinary parcel services.

Anyway time to contact Lemke,

Colin.

[Browning 9mm]

I've stopped buying from the UK now because of import duties. It makes an expensive hobby even more expensive.

I was looking at something on ebay yesterday. Purchase price was about £20, postage and duties was £50+ on top  .

@dannyboy
is there any advantage in having orders sent to a recidivist mate in uk, who then would post on, at cost, to you as a 'gift' ?

[dannyboy]

@Browning 9mm
Thanks for the thought Alan.  . I do have a brother and sister in the UK, so, if I wanted something in particular from the UK, I could always use one of them as a 'forwarding agent'  . I do not know if it is just the sort of stuff I am looking at or not, but 'eBay' does seem to be getting expensive these days. 'Amazon' is quite often better value and the thing with 'Amazon' is that the price I pay at the checkout is it - nothing else is added - the UK VAT is deducted, then Irish VAT added and, being a Prime member, usually there is no postage to pay. One of the main problems with eBay is that a lot of sellers now use the Global Shipping service, which is always expensive! On 3 or 4 occasions, I have bought through eBay and paid the cost, including the Irish VAT. The item arrives in Ireland and I get a bill from Customs!  . I tell them I have already paid but get a standard reply that there was 'something wrong' with the paperwork, so I have to pay. I then have the faff of getting the VAT/Duty back from eBay, which can take weeks.

[Browning 9mm]

no probs, it was just a thought.
regards
alan

[Mito]

Unfortunately gifts are subject to duty here in Spain. My sister-in-law sent my wife a gift and the duty was more than the item cost in the UK! The only way I think is for somebody to bring things out in their luggage but that could be problematical too.

[dannyboy]

Last week I transferred some money, electronically, from an external account to a savings account I have with another bank. After three days the external bank rang me to say that it was an "unauthorised transaction", so the money had been returned to them. They were very nice about it and explained that there probably were restrictions on the amounts that could be transferred. Today I rang the bank that has my savings account, just to ask if there were any such restrictions. I was told that I could only transfer a maximum of €1,000 per month, but there were no restrictions on transferring to my current account. No problem, I will transfer the money from the external account, to my current account and then do an internal transfer to the savings account. Fortunately there is no rush to get the transfer done. What puts this in the 'Unhappy' thread is the fact that it is so long since I opened the accounts, I had forgotten about any restrictions - so unhappy with myself. But the main reason we are in this thread is that the telephone call took ten minutes and fifty four, (54), keyboard presses just to get to speak to a real person.  . The hoops we have to jump through to speak to a human being these days is absolutely reedikulus! 

[Newportnobby]

And I still haven't received the dosh!

[dannyboy]

And I still haven't received the dosh!

I will be trying again tomorrow Mick - but don't hold your breath!

[Trainfish]

You're sending Mick in excess of €1,000 ?