Nice People Thread No. 14, all Nice and Proper

zagubov

michaels wrote: »

This is getting stupid, I have just switched energy tariff again, second time in a month and third time this year, keeping same supplier but rolling on to their latest 1 year fix so no switching fee payable, saving about 60 quid each time.

Are you with the Energy Club? I changed tariffs in quick succession a while back but stayed with the same company. Made sense, but I feel it could get wearisome.

zagubov

silvercar wrote: »

So this proves to your son that your ex isn't the only idiot in the world. Did you have a chance to reply to the guy? Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I would have loved it if you had told the guy that he needs to improve his chat up lines.

Or that he must have mistaken you for someone who could give a flying **** what he thinks.

In fairness that decision is best made by somebody who's there to judge the situation.:o

silvercar

michaels wrote: »

This is getting stupid, I have just switched energy tariff again, second time in a month and third time this year, keeping same supplier but rolling on to their latest 1 year fix so no switching fee payable, saving about 60 quid each time.

SO annoying when you think you have followed the money saving rules, moved on to the cheapest tariff. Convince yourself that it is the best deal around because it is the MSE collective switch..

...then along comes some clever clog who switches again!

SingleSue

silvercar wrote: »

So this proves to your son that your ex isn't the only idiot in the world. Did you have a chance to reply to the guy? Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I would have loved it if you had told the guy that he needs to improve his chat up lines.

I did reply, very politely if I must say so bearing in mind how annoyed I was, that we had been talking, had been having intelligent conversation, that he was very employable and that the electronic devices are used in my family as discussion points (as in, one of the boys or myself will scan the news etc, find a topic and then we discuss as a family - it was my way of getting them to expand their knowledge and not just 'do' the normal teenage discussion of X Factor, latest soaps etc).

What I should have said was that it was none of his business, or that I decline to discuss it with a stranger and walked away or even one of the many brilliant come backs I have thought of since but then hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Very late dinner last night, youngest decided to upgrade his case for his PC and because his room is so tiny and without the physical space to fit two large cases, we took the whole lot to down to my parent's house. Took him almost 4 hours to swap everything over and test it out but that also included removing them from the old case, cleaning them up and then installing them in the new case....with mum and dad going in every now and again asking about the process and youngest doing his technical speak explanations until they understood, he was amazingly patient with them.

At the end his back was killing him and he said in a rare moment of empathy "I now know what you live with all the time"

kabayiri

michaels wrote: »

This is getting stupid, I have just switched energy tariff again, second time in a month and third time this year, keeping same supplier but rolling on to their latest 1 year fix so no switching fee payable, saving about 60 quid each time.

I'm too slow to change. What prompted the change? Can I ask which supplier?

kabayiri

SingleSue wrote: »

...
Very late dinner last night, youngest decided to upgrade his case for his PC and because his room is so tiny and without the physical space to fit two large cases, we took the whole lot to down to my parent's house. Took him almost 4 hours to swap everything over and test it out but that also included removing them from the old case, cleaning them up and then installing them in the new case....with mum and dad going in every now and again asking about the process and youngest doing his technical speak explanations until they understood, he was amazingly patient with them.

At the end his back was killing him and he said in a rare moment of empathy "I now know what you live with all the time"

Ah yes. PCs and physical toils. I ruined a few suit trousers when I agreed to upgrade PCs and servers.

I used to have 3 big PCs running as test servers in the study, but I just got fed up with them, especially carrying them on to sites.

This sort of thing is much neater

http://global.shuttle.com/main/productsList?categoryId=19

The size of 2 shoe boxes for a fully capable mini server !

SingleSue

Not sure his graphics card would fit in one of them, his primary reason for upgrading the case was the lack of space inside for all his components and the fact that when he upgrades his graphics card again, there would be no space to do so.

The new case has plenty of room for an even bigger graphics card and an upgraded water cooler (plus other stuff that I sort of zoned out a bit when he was talking - naughty mummy!)

The new case looks so much more neater inside, cable management, extra space for bits or double of bits and allowing more air flow (mummy was listening at this point!) to increase the cooling capacity to prevent overheating (erm, I think, my attention wandered again)

Don't ask me to list his components though, beggered if I can remember now but it is a mid point gaming PC that took 3 years of saving, selling bits and pieces and doing repairs for others to pay for rather than a run of a mill PC.

kabayiri

SingleSue wrote: »

Not sure his graphics card would fit in one of them, his primary reason for upgrading the case was the lack of space inside for all his components and the fact that when he upgrades his graphics card again, there would be no space to do so.
...

Probably not.

The Shuttles do get used as portable gaming rigs, but since I don't own a single game I'm not someone who keeps up to date with graphics. I do know people who commit what seem like insane amounts of money on changing the graphics card every 6 months!

PCs are business support tools for me, nothing more. I wouldn't even bother with Windows OS, apart from the fact that it's commonplace in the work environment.

michaels

kabayiri wrote: »

I'm too slow to change. What prompted the change? Can I ask which supplier?

Went with first utility on a one year fix when my last fix ran out in the spring. Have checked tariff a few times since, at first prices were higher but then about a month ago I could have switched to a new supplied and save about 90 quid but paid a 60 quid early exit panatly or switch to a new tariff with first utility and save 60 quid and no exit penalty (they don't charge the exit penalty if you switch to another of their tariffs) then in this weeks MSE email it mentioned a new best buty tariff and a quick comparison site searched showed that for me there was a new best tariff - with my current supplier - so again a same supplier switch so no exit penalty to pay and another £60 off the annual bill. It is also a highe standing charge lower unit cost tariff which makes sense over the winter months, espically as my soalr pv means I have a large seasonal variation on both gas and electric....

SingleSue wrote: »

Not sure his graphics card would fit in one of them, his primary reason for upgrading the case was the lack of space inside for all his components and the fact that when he upgrades his graphics card again, there would be no space to do so.

The new case has plenty of room for an even bigger graphics card and an upgraded water cooler (plus other stuff that I sort of zoned out a bit when he was talking - naughty mummy!)

The new case looks so much more neater inside, cable management, extra space for bits or double of bits and allowing more air flow (mummy was listening at this point!) to increase the cooling capacity to prevent overheating (erm, I think, my attention wandered again)

Don't ask me to list his components though, beggered if I can remember now but it is a mid point gaming PC that took 3 years of saving, selling bits and pieces and doing repairs for others to pay for rather than a run of a mill PC.

More importantly does it have a large perspex window so you can see the wonders inside, fans with leds that change colour depending on their speed and some neon strips that you can set to pulse with the sounds/music the pc is making?

SingleSue

kabayiri wrote: »

Probably not.

The Shuttles do get used as portable gaming rigs, but since I don't own a single game I'm not someone who keeps up to date with graphics. I do know people who commit what seem like insane amounts of money on changing the graphics card every 6 months!

PCs are business support tools for me, nothing more. I wouldn't even bother with Windows OS, apart from the fact that it's commonplace in the work environment.

Thankfully youngest is not the sort to change a graphics card every six months...well he might but he cannot afford it!

He started off with a second hand one purchased for £60 from one of James' friends (stonker of a deal, at the time you couldn't get them anywhere else second hand for less than £150, the friend thought it was faulty as one of the fans didn't work....it worked perfectly for youngest), then when he had saved up enough, he upgraded it to his current one, which is bigger and better and more able to run the stuff he wants to run.