Currently, I use several Gmail accounts for photos, and my Office-365 cloud for RAW (as well as local HDD backups). But storage is filling up, and somewhat adhoc.

This looks very interesting, completely free/open source, and even has Android/Apple photo apps ...

https://immich.app/

Along with something like: 

https://kopia.io/

Out of the blue, I started getting an intermittent PROTECTION message on the LED screen, suggesting some sort of overload. The amp would switch off, but could be turned back on again and would work just fine (for a while longer).

The message doesn't appear in the manual, so it's unclear whether it was the INPUT signal that was too high, or something wrong with the OUTPUT to the speakers, or indeed something completely unrelated like overheating.

The tripping happened with various movies/TV, usually during the noisiest scenes, so turning down the sub seemed to help but not cure (LFE to -10 and sub to -5). Googling, there are all sorts of suggestions, including dry joints that might need soldering, and the addition of a new cable to bypass the protection circuit (clever! This series of amps still gets a lot of love).

ANYWAY, it turned out to be a very simple fix, that scarcely gets a mention online ...

A stray strand of copper cable on my FR speaker binding post was shorting. And I guess that vibrations from the sub had made the short during the loudest scenes!

So my amp lives on, hopefully for another couple of decades ...

A2 Hosting

for hosting these very forums (with a choice of servers in USA, Amsterdam, and Singapore). Their support is excellent and does not cost extra - instead of sending you to their help pages, they often just make the adjustment for you and let you know when it's done. 👍 

Siteground is excellent, but beware that it gets expensive after the initial offer period. Live support are quick and helpful, their custom cPanel slick and intuitive, and support docs are now excellent (after a complete overhaul a few years ago).

Help these forums by using these affiliate links to sign up.

TIPS

• For the best prices, sign up for an initial 2-3 years, preferably during the Black Friday period (every November) but most web hosts have offers throughout the year.
• When your renewal comes around, rather than accepting the default pricing, raise a support ticket and ask for a discount - you can try to get the equivalent Black Friday deal being offered to new subs.
• Sign-up for a trial/free site, and sign-up for host's mailing list - you might get "welcome back" or other exclusive offers.
• Check the wayback machine to see old versions of pricing/package pages.
• Check out the various host tiers - 'Shared', 'Cloud', 'VPS', 'Managed WP', etc.
• Check inclusions/extras: backups, cPanel, CDN, SSL, number of websites, limitations on GB of storage/bandwidth.
• 'Litespeed' servers (often marketed as 'boosted' or 'turbo') seem to get good reviews - faster, for little if any extra outlay.
• Best practice: have 2 separate companies for domain management and hosting.

This offer comes around periodically - currently it's a Digital Download only -
- get a £5 discount voucher by signing up at Argos (new email address)
- the Argos price occasionally drops from £75 down to £40-50,
- then you claim +3 months from MS (it's a bit fiddly, but stick with it).
- sometimes, you can turn recurring sub on/off to be offered extra month/s.

So currently that works out at £49 less £5 = £44 total, for 15mths sub, 6 people (each with 1TB cloud)

Comparing the cost of storage at dropbox and google, this is a bargain price.

Before I WEEEEE the DVD player and buy a more modern one, is there anything I might have missed?

Current hosting provider changed setup recently and now requires a mail box to be paid for

So looking for alternative options for domain hosting that allow a catch all email to forward. 

Recall that some on here did their own hosting at one point. Is that still going?

My Mum plays Words With Friends (*) and I can't believe what an absolute eye-sore it is! Not to mention the fullscreen video ads every couple of minutes!

So before she parts with a fiver to remove the ads, we've also tried:

- Wordfeud - looks much less busy, more like real Scrabble, and 

- Word Chums - I like it, but too cartoony for my Mum. Looks and plays very slick, though.

Both of these still have occasional fullscreen video ads in their free versions. Any others without ads at all?

(*) - looks like all players have been forced over to v2 of the game, a new app download. But for some reason we are unable to login (via FB) and all previous games and friend connections have been lost. Hence the reluctance to pay a fiver!

One thing they do love is the digibox and recording - very slick and reliable, and they watch the vast majority of content from recordings.

Has anyone else dropped SKY? What did you miss? And what hardware did you get for reliable recordings?

Can you get a new TV with a reliable recording system, for best ease-of-use? Or is it generally better to get a separate digibox ?

From what I remember, the SKY planner/recorder was always the best in the business, so it's gonna be a tricky experience to equal!

Would you say that Google was a must have for functionality and slickness, and more future-proof ? But doesn't it limit installation of many apps?

Or is Android perfectly decent for years to come, and maybe even better due to the unlimited PlayStore apps?