canberra_lad

I'm taking my 12 year old daughter to London for three months and need to figure out how best to accommodate ourselves.

The most important aspect is that it should feel like a home, not a hotel. A studio might be okay, but I've found two places with mezzanine bedrooms or small single rooms off a main studio that are going for around £4000 for the duration.

We need somewhere furnished and with its own kitchen as I couldn't cope without being able to cook our own meals for that length of time. Unfortunately many places set up for two people have only one bed, we need two, although we could tolerate one of them being a sofa bed.

Location is not extremely important, but ready access to creative (theatrical) communities would be great, so I'm concentrating on areas in the east and west ends, or places with a direct tube link to them.

Any advice on finding the right place gratefully received.

I'm looking for a positive descriptor for a person who is extremely ordered and likes routine.

Outlook seems to have decided that compact view wasn't working for me, so it changed to the old-fashioned column view for the email list pane. I can't find any option to change it back.

Some online forums seem to imply that it automatically selects this mode when the reading pane is set to the right, so I changed it to display the reading pane at the bottom and then changed it back, but that has failed.

Any help appreciated.

Wanting to get our kids mp3 players for an upcoming road trip, we found that we could get mp4 players almost as cheaply. The thing is, we've never downloaded or ripped video before. Can anyone tell us a good source of videos (paid or free) and whether DVDs can be ripped as easily as CDs?

Some time ago, a fraudulent Ebay seller tried to scam some money out of me. We avoided any loss, but in the last week, I have received an email from someone claiming to be from the police in Mannheim, Germany, asking questions about the transaction. I can't see anything that makes me think this is fraudulent, and they're not asking for information that would allow them to take anything, so I'm wondering whether anyone can tell me the domain for German police addresses and whether it is possible that a German police officer would contact me directly, rather than through our local force in Australia?

I'm planning to take my kids to Disneyland in March, and I've found 3 day tickets on Ebay for $65, which sounds great but leaves me suspicious. Does anyone know how they do this?

I'd like to know the precise antipode (can it be singular?) of my home; is there a website or something that can give you the precise opposite side of the planet from any point on the planet?

I am bringing my family to Las Vegas next year, but I'm finding it rather difficult to identify a hotel that can accommodate five in one room. Most seem to have a maximum of four, even though they say they're family friendly.

The bigger complication is that a room that has two queen size beds would be fine for us, but most of these hotels have issues with the number of occupants; do you think we'd be alright just booking a quad room and turning up with five?

Any suggestions would be welcome, especially from families who've been there!

I'm taking my family from Sydney to Los Angeles next year, and Delta's fares are far below everyone else's. We are travelling with small children, though, and I want to make sure we'll be looked after. Has anyone flown across the Pacific on Delta, and can you tell me about their inflight service, entertainment, and reliability?

I am going to Wellington for a conference in November. I will be in Wellington for four days, then I have three days before I have to fly home, and I plan to hire a car, but I don't know whether to drive north and fly home from Auckland, or go south and fly home from Christchurch.

So which should I do?

I have to provide a light lunch for ten. I need to be able to get it out after a session without much preparation time, and would prefer something cold.

With the recent heatwave, I noticed some different parking patterns in some of the carparks I use regularly for work, so I was wondering:

Do many people change their parking habits when the weather is warmer?

and

How much further from your destination would you be willing to park your car just to be able to park it in the shade?

I have a few broccoli plants that have gone to seed; they've been through the pretty phase with all the yellow flowers and now have pods all over them. I now want to use the bed they're in to plant tomatoes, but I want to be able to use the seeds next season. How do I harvest the seeds so that I can use them again?

Counting down through the calendar, I count that the final of Australian Idol should be on 23 November. Am I right?

I want to schedule something on 30 November, but I don't want it to clash with Idol or no one will come!

Counting down through the calendar, I count that the final of Australian Idol should be on 23 November. Am I right?

I want to schedule something on 30 November, but I don't want it to clash with Idol or no one will come!

I need to cook for three kids and I have:

Cauliflower

Mushrooms

Capsicum (Americans call them peppers)

Frozen Mashed Potato (with nothing added)

Carrots

Eggs

Ham (just a little bit, and it's a good quality one)

Fetta Cheese

Tasty Cheese

Parmesan Cheese

Mozarella Cheese (yes, we like cheese)

Tomato Puree

Garlic

Onion

I have been told that .jpg files lose data each time they're opened, and I've seen photos I have uploaded to Facebook deteriorate as people view them.

Why are they set up this way?

Does burning the files to a CD halt the deterioration?

I don't seem to have a setting on my (Canon Powershot S3) camera to change the format images are saved in; is there another place to change such a setting?

Is there any software that will automatically convert all the .jpg files in my folder system (I have thousands of family photos from 1891 to the present archived in a heirarchy of folders) to another format?

What format would you recommend?

We usually keep ours on the bench, but we seem to have a glut of them at the moment; is it worth putting them into the fridge? Can they be frozen?

It's insane!

We spend all this energy avoiding using 'scratchy' cleaning things like steel wool or scrubbing brushes, when there is stuff stuck to it! If stuff is stuck to it, surely it is not a non-stick pan; it's a sticky pan.

So why do we do it? Why?!?! I ask you!

You know when you just sound the notes of the melody line with something like "do-di-do, do-di", because something's stuck in your head: what is that called?