The Old Man

It's pretty cool and offers a lot for the price. You definitely get more value from it if you have a Amazon Prime. In hindsight, I probably would have got the version with voice control, but when you get used to selecting a few letters in the search box, you find it autocomplete your search words so you don't have to type the whole word or sentence out. I bought one primarily to watch the Grand Tour series but I really like it for the YouTube app on it as I don't have a smart TV. I had an email to advise there's a software update for it which ads new functionally so I should try it out.

Yes, I'm just using the free version. They do nag you with emails with ever increasing discounts to upgrade to the paid Home but you really don't have to. You can set scheduled backups (weekly, monthly etc) of multiple types, run them manually and if your PC isn't on it can catch up next time. I use it to back up to seperate hard drives, but ideally for extra resilience you should back up to an portable external hard drive that you don't leave connected or the Cloud like Dropbox if you have space. We've all done it and sometimes regret not doing so but 100% always make a backup of your data, whether it's just your files, your system or everything. Hard drives aren’t that expensive these days, and the process is often painless. A once-a-week backup is more than enough for most people. But if anything happens, you’ll be glad you have it.

They often drop the KB part of the reference for some reason. For example, KB976902 and 976902 are the same. They recommend Windows Update as the best way to get Service Pack 1 because it is a smaller, quicker install. It works out which files it needs for your particular computer to save time and bandwidth. Honestly, you seem to be over thinking and over analysing all this! You likely have Service Pack 1 already installed. Could you please check to make sure Windows Update is set to preferably Automatic but at minimum to notify you of updates, in your Control Panel? Then let it run or run it manually. It should check your computer first in the background for what you already have, then download or at least tell you of all necessary updates and patches for you if you haven't already got them, including if necessary the Service Pack 1, Windows Platform Update and the relevant patch to protect you from the WannaCry worm. Once up to date, it will find more updates as they often come in a set order, or it will say something like no updates available if you try to check for windows updates. You only need to download the updates manually if Windows Update somehow isn't working or your computer is offline. Get rid of Windows Security Essentials, replace it with the free version of Avast for home use and if you want Malware Bytes. Don't take this the wrong way, but you need to prioritise! Make sure your computer is up to date and secure first! Yes, video encoding will take up almost all of your CPU resources especially on older machines. Modern CPUs burn through it and have multiple cores to do it more efficiently. Again, you are overthinking this! Windows 10 is a really good operating system like Windows 7 was. If you can use Windows 7, you can certainly use Windows 10. You can do anything you want to do with Win 10 that you could do with Windows 7. Sure, not all programs are compatible, but in most cases you'll find the companies have released updated compatible versions of the good, popular programs. I'm pretty sure you won't lose all your music! Windows 10 has Groove as default music app, but also has Windows Media Player too so you can use either or a third part one like Winamp. Besides, like your photos! docs! videos etc you should have it backed up anyway, and a great tip is to make use of Google Music and Google Photos for photos which are both free! https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-10-specifications

I'm halfway through Season 2 binge watch of Fortitude, this series just keeps getting better and more and more creepy! It has a Thing/X-Files feel to it. Season 2 is brilliant so far. Brilliant acting, great writing, stunningly shot, hugely atmospheric, oh and really scary polar bears. What's not to like?! I have to record them all, another one of those addictive shows where one episode a week is torture.

Not seen it yet but noticed it's available on Amazon Prime (I occasionally one of those Firesticks), so I added it to my watch list a few months back.

Enjoying this, thank you and congrats to both of you. I'm at page 10, it has a Prophecy feel to it, love those movies.

Hi, No problem, I was almost asleep when I responded so have edited this post, this morning. Having back ups is always recommended. I am currently using: http://www.todo-backup.com/products/home/free-backup-software.htm It's also a good idea to make use of Restore Points, so you can reset your Windows system back to an earlier time without it affecting on your documents, files, photos etc. You can create them any time you want, but Windows also creates them automatically when it needs to. KB976932 is the Microsoft Knowledge Base reference number of the first Service Pack that became available for Win7. You should have this installed by the Windows Update service as its been available for years. So I would check Windows Update first as it should be offering you all these updates automatically, or at least telling you they are available depending on your Windows Update settings. If it's saying you are up to date, something is wrong if you haven't got these updates installed, in which case we have to fix/reset Windows Update and download all of the Updates again. KB2670838 is the reference number of the Platform update, that you install after Service Pack is installed, if not already. It was not really big enough to be called Service Pack 2 but is a fairly necessary update. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2670838/platform-update-for-windows-7-sp1-and-windows-server-2008-r2-sp x64 files are for Windows 64 bit versions. (If your computer has more 4GB of memory you should ideally be running the 64 bit versions of Windows as they can see and utilise more than 3.5GB of memory). x86 files are for the 32 bit versions of Windows, the number refers to that generation of processors. Regards, Graham

Happy Birthday @ENGINECOMICS !!! Hope you are having a wonderful day. Have a delicious beer on me, Barry! Mmm, Blue Moon, my favourite beer! If you need me, I'll be in the fridge!

Cool, I missed this thread somehow!

Hi Earthnut, I have just read your email. Happy to help if I can. The Platform Update was not for Windows 10, it was definitely for Windows 7, so you do need it for compatibility with some programs like Rainmeter. Further more, it may be a precursor for Windows 10, but installing it doesn't mean your computer will upgrade to Windows 10, the Platform Update was released a long time ago on February 26, 2013, years before Windows 10 was released. Basically, if you are running Windows 7, you need to have that update from Microsoft installed in order for Rainmeter to work. It uses the changes made to Windows's DirectX routines with that update in order to display the graphics on your screen. If you remove Windows 7 Platform Update, then Rainmeter would certainly stop working, because it must have those updated Windows files to function. This page on the first line of the Rainmeter docs says that: "Rainmeter will run on Windows 7 (Service Pack 1 and Platform Update required) and above.":- https://docs.rainmeter.net/manual/installing-rainmeter/ So if it was me, I would reinstall the Platform update. Windows Update should take care of that if you run it. But you can install it manually from Microsoft (use the link above to get it). If you haven't got Service Pack 1 installed, install that first. If you are not sure if you have these installed, just look at the System tool in the Windows 7 Control Panel, and it will tell you which version of Windows 7 is running. (I think CCleaner would tell you too.) Once reinstalled, restart your computer and then you should be able to reinstall Rainmeter. (Go for v4.0, I haven't yet tested the gadgets on 4.1 but I think they should be okay). Remember, if you don't have the Windows Platform update installed, it won't let you install Rainmeter, which is what you have been experiencing. Once installed, get rid of the usual welcome gadgets you don't want, and double click on the Millennium Gadget Pack to completely reinstall them. Then in theory you are good to go. Picking out a few of your questions/points... "Since it was my first time using CCleaner, I didn't change any of the settings and also didn't see Rainmeter on the list it displayed before scanning, so I didn't worry about it, or think I had to exit the program." That's all good, CCleaner in my experience doesn't do any harm to your computer and as they said in the email, it doesn't uninstall any programs including Rainmeter unless you specifically ask it to via CCleaner's Uninstall tool (handy when the program doesn't uninstall using the usual Control Panel option). I'm honestly not sure why your Platform Update was seemingly uninstalled thereby preventing Rainmeter from running, and you obviously must have had it installed before because you were using Rainmeter just fine previously. CCleaner wouldn't normally uninstall a Windows Update, it removes left over temporary files after installing Windows Updates. As above, install Windows 7 Platform Update first, then Rainmeter. If you want to keep using CCleaner, that's fine or reinstall it. The world-wide hack won't have any bearing on this. I doubt it has any bearing on Walkabout's tech problems either. If you unsure if you have the necessary security patch installed, you can read more here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4013550/windows-protect-your-pc-from-ransomware This page it links to tells you the Security Update KB Reference number in the left column of the long table, depending in which version of Windows you have, so you can double check in your Windows Update History. https://technet.microsoft.com/library/security/ms17-010.aspx Example: This shows for my version of Windows 10, that I need to have patch KB4013429 installed:- If I look in my Windows Update history, I see that patch was installed on 16th March:- All up to date versions of Avast Antivirus protect you from Wanna as well. The problem with Malware Bytes is, it only protects you from new attacks with real-time protection if you have paid for the full featured version. If you have the free version of Malware Bytes after the initial paid version trial has run out, it only protects you from infestations it finds if you run a scan (eg that you already have). The ones shown in my screen shot apply to my PC because I have those things installed or available on my particular PC. You may not see them. It allows me optionally to select them to remove the temporary files associated with Windows Store, and NVidia driver updates etc. If you delete your browser's history every time you close your browser, that's really not good! Every time you re-visit a website it will be like its for the first time so it will have to re-download everything that makes up the web page (CSS, HTML, Javascripts, fonts, Jquery library etc) from scratch, making browsing much slower. You will also find you have to log in repeatedly on sites like TIWWA, because the history/cookies are missing. It may also affect functionality. Do it once every 3 months if you really need to. Modern computers are so fast, and have massive storage, so this is isn't as important as it used to be. I just checked and I see what you mean. CCleaner shows a task bar icon by the clock saying it is monitoring, so it tells you when it recommends a clean out of crapola! You can switch it off here and tell it not to load when Windows Starts in Cleaner's options here: This is just an observation, but you seem a very security conscious user and use a VPN etc, so it confuses me a little as to why you would opt to stick with Windows 7 instead of upgrading to Windows 10 (when it was free and if your computer is compatible). Ultimately they will completely stop supporting Windows 7 (great OS as it was!), and you will be left in a more vulnerable state without security patches.

Hi Earthnut, Hope you don't mind but I've split this off into a new topic. Sorry to hear this. I don't think it will be Rainmeter or the gadgets that are causing that high CPU usage, but I've seen this many times and its always down to some confused Service hogging too many resources like the Windows Search Index, Windows Media Player, or some malware/adware that is doing it. CCleaner is to be fair actually a very reputable, recommended product, as is Rainmeter itself. CCleaner is a handy program to have to clear the clutter out occasionally, but its not really a tool to resolve high CPU usage. I've been using the free version for years without any issue but more importantly, it has never had any impact on Rainmeter or the Millennium Gadgets. So I've had a look at mine to see if there is anything obvious that could have caused this. I can't see any specific mention of Rainmeter in CCleaner. Rainmeter isn't listed as one of the apps it offers to clean for you (of temp files etc). Here's a screenshot of my CCleaner options in the Applications tab: Here's a screenshot of what CCleaner would remove if I ran it (I used the Analyse option), which doesn't mention Rainmeter:- I think this is probably why I can run it and my gadgets don't disappear and Rainmeter doesn't become broken, it doesn't seem to do anything to Rainmeter, so I think something else has happened. Rainmeter is definitely not installed then, so something has physically uninstalled it. CCleaner wouldn't do that unless you specifically asked it to, and you would probably remember doing it as you would have to go to Tools, Uninstall, select Rainmeter from the list of apps in CCleaner, then click to confirm you want to uninstall it. Hhhm, this is interesting, you were running it fine before but now you can't reinstall Rainmeter because Windows 7 hasn't got that update pack installed, so something must have removed that as well, which is even more odd because that probably wouldn't be straight forward either. Its almost like you have restored Windows to a previous much older Restore Point. Assuming you have no recent backup to restore, what you could do is: Perform a full virus scan and malware scan. Reinstall the Windows 7 Platform update, making sure Windows Update is showing no available updates. Reinstall Rainmeter. Reinstall the Millennium Gadgets pack. Windows 7 Platform update is an update for Windows 7 Service Pack 1 that is normally installed by Windows Update automatically. Try Windows Update and see if it offers it for you, perhaps after you have installed any other preceding updates To install it manually, just Google for Windows 7 Platform Update, and it find it for your region. When I do it, Google offers me the English UK rather than US version. Once installed, restart your computer and then when it has finally settled down after rebooting a couple of times, you could try downloading and reinstalling Rainmeter 4.0 again. Once Rainmeter is installed, double click on the Millennium Gadgets download to install them, if they are not there already. Going back to the high CPU usage, I think that is something you may struggle to track down, but a good start is always to take a look at the Task Manager in Windows to find out what is causing it, because you can sort the programs and services by order of CPU usage, and then learn more about the one that may be causing it. (Ignore System Idle Process because that is a false positive and is supposed to show often the most usage, meaning its not using anything!). https://www.howtogeek.com/169823/beginner-geek-what-every-windows-user-needs-to-know-about-using-the-windows-task-manager/ https://www.howtogeek.com/school/using-windows-admin-tools-like-a-pro/lesson6/all/ If you find its one of the several schhost.exe processes that is using all your CPU and running away like a startled horse, grab a copy of svchost.exe Lookup Tool 1.6.0, which will tell you more about what it is so you can work out whether to remove it or how to fix it.

This entry is about our TIWWA Community Suite 4.2 release. It is a new feature available to all registered members. TIWWA's Community Suite software has long had a reputation system; first we had a simple up/down number-based system, later updated to introduce a Likes system, tied in with our reputation system. We're pleased to introduce the latest updates to the reputation system, which we think you'll love: Reactions. Quite simply, reactions allow users to offer more fine-grained sentiments towards posted content than a simple 'like'. Reactions are now in common use on many popular social networks, and so users may expect to be able to be more nuanced in their response to something they see here at TIWWA. A little more interesting than simply 'liking' a post, blog entry, gallery image, download review or comment; but of course, 'like' is still an option! Let's see how they work in an example forum post, and then cover the options you'll have available:- At first glance it may look a little confusing but what you see above is a looping animation showing the default Reactions setup, below a post or comment. First it shows the logged-in user clicking on the React feature's 'Like' blue love button (he he - Love is blue - see what I did there?! ). Then it shows the user clicking on it again to see the other available react options in case they want to change from 'Like' to a different one, then selecting 'Confused'. Then it shows the user removing their chosen reaction to the post completely with the X (Remove) button. The gif then loops around to show you again. The software includes 5 reactions by default, but we can add more of our own, tailored to Millennium and our members: Like Thanks Confused Sad Haha Will we still see a total summary for all our posts/comments like the current reputation? A user's total reputation count is still shown alongside their content and in their profile, of course. Can we see who reacted to a post, similar to how we can currently see who 'liked' our posts/comments? As you'd expect, you can click individual reaction counts (or the overall reputation score, if we enable that setting) to view who reacted to the content in a small pop-up window. (On touch devices, on-hover functionality is not suitable, and so for these devices the reactions UI looks slightly different, but works the same). Where can we use Reactions? You'll be able to use reactions anywhere on our site where you can currently like a post, comment or any other price of content. Reactions play well with all areas of the suite, including the new Recommended Replies: ...and see them in activity streams... We hope you're looking forward to this new feature. It's already been a hit on the developer's internal testing site, and we're looking forward to seeing how we can customise it for use on our own community. More to come soon on what we'll be seeing later this summer!

We are happy to introduce the next major feature that will be available at This Is Who We Are - Clubs. Clubs are a brand new way of supporting fun, on or off-topic sub-communities within our site, in other words, providing new improved 'social group' functionality. Let's take a look at the concept with a few demo example screenshots from the software developer's beta test site, and then go over what Clubs are capable of doing! (Above: The Club directory. This is similar to the main forum index page) (Above: A Club homepage, essentially what a specific Club will look like) (Above: Club member listing, showing a particular Club's creators and also the members of this social group.) (Above: Example of content within a club; topics, in this case.) There's a lot to digest there! Let's go over the basic functionality... Club Types Four types of club are available, we may enable some or all here at TIWWA:- Public clubs Clubs that anyone can see and participate in without joining. Open club Clubs that anyone can see and join. Closed club Clubs that anyone can see in the directory, but joining must be approved by a Club Leader or Club Moderator. Non-club-members who view the club will only see the member list - not the recent activity or content areas. Private club Clubs that do not show in public, and users must be invited by a Club Leader or Club Moderator As the site staff, we can of course configure which club types can be created and by whom. We could, for example, enables members to create public and open clubs, but allow a "VIP" group to also create Closed and Private clubs. Obviously we need to give this thought and see how things develop. Club Users Each club has three levels of user: Leader A leader has all of the permissions of a moderator, and can add other moderators. They can also add content areas (see below). The club owner is automatically a leader. Moderators Moderators, as the name implies, have the ability to moderate content posted within the club. We can define which moderator tools can be used. We could, for example, prevent any content being deleted from clubs, but allow it to be hidden. Moderators can also remove members from a club. Users Anyone else that joins the club. TIWWA's staff (Elder administrator and moderator groups), are able to moderate content in any Club regardless of whether they are a member of it. Clubs can be created by any TIWWA user who has permission. As you would expect, this is controlled by our regular member group permission settings, so we may make available Club creation facilities to Patrons, or other specific groups. For closed clubs, there's an approval process. Users can request to join and the request must be approved by the Club's leader. Leaders get a notification when a user requests to join; the user gets a notification when their request is approved or denied. (Above: Approving and declining join requests.) Club Content Club Leaders can add a variety of content areas to their club - forums, calendars, blogs and so on. It's important to note that these content areas are fully functional just as if they existed as a top-level admin created area. They will appear in search results, activity streams, users can follow them, embed links to them, and so on. If a user has permission to see a forum (for example) within a club it will behave exactly like other forums they see - and the same for all other kinds of content. Each content area a leader adds can have a custom title, and will appear in the club navigation. This means, for example, that you can have multiple forums within a club, and give each a different name. (Above: Adding content areas to a Club.) Club Custom Fields Clubs also support custom fields. Custom fields are defined by the site administrator and can be filled in by Club Owners. The values they enter are shown (along with the club description) on the club homepage. (Above: Custom fields in a car-themed club.) On the Club Directory page, users can filter the list of clubs by the custom club fields if they want to. (Above: Filtering clubs.) Club Locations Clubs have built-in support for Google Maps, allowing users to specify an optional physical location for their club. Let's say we run a community for car enthusiasts; each club might be tied to a particular region's meetup. The Club Owner specifies the location when setting up the club, and clubs are then shown on map on the directory page: (Above: Club locations.) And within a club, the location is shown too: Club Display We offer two ways to display club headers within the club - the standard way, shown in the screenshots you've seen up to this point, but we also have a sidebar option. This is something the admin sets globally for the whole TIWWA site, rather than per-club. This is useful if our site design doesn't facilitate another horizontal banner taking up valuable screen real-estate; moving the club banner to the sidebar alleviates this pressure on vertical space. Using Clubs There's a lot of scope for using clubs beyond allowing TIWWA's members to create their own groups. We do not even have to call them "clubs" if that does not suit our case. For example, we could rename Clubs to "Social Groups". This would allow each social group to have its own community, with its own forums, gallery, file sharing and so on, private and separate from other social groups. We could use Clubs for special events or as a home for project teams, like our TIWWA Black Coats community volunteers. The first that occurred to me is that Members will be able to expand on specific aspects of Millennium that interests them, perhaps the bahavioural science and criminology aspects, or Legion, Angels, or perhaps an expanded Mark Snow themed area. Secondly, I can see huge potential for off-topic content, expanding further on some of the existing themes in our off-topic forums... A club for The Donut Hole, a club for Lucy's Pantry, or a TV and Movie Club. You may be inspired to create a club for The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, perhaps a club for the weather, or great 80's TV shows, or a club for horror movies or any other movie genre or sub-genre, cult television series, or for a favourite actor, artist, writer or musician. Like the idea of clubs? Inspired to create one? Let us know... And of course, you don't need to bother with Clubs if you don't want to!

This entry is about our TIWWA Community Suite 4.2 release. It is a new feature available to all registered members. Our Community Suite comes with a default profile photo which is used when members have not set a profile photo for their account. While this model has served the software well for years, our software developers IPS felt it was time for an update to the software to keep pace with current internet trends. This has led to one of the latest changes you can expect to see with version 4.2: letter profile photos. The colors are not set for each letter. You will notice in the screenshot that each "A" letter photo has a different color. They are chosen randomly when generated. More TIWWA 4.2 feature details coming soon. 4.2 will be available this summer.

Ooh, not heard about that one. Will have to read up on it. Thanks Randee!