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UK TV, Broadband and Phone Comparison Resources

2012-01-13T06:51:00.000-08:00

Comparison

1. http://www.cable.co.uk/
2. http://www.broadbandgenie.co.uk/

Pas as You Go TV

1. http://www.topuptv.com

2011-08-31T08:59:00.000-07:00

[Reference: ContractorCalculator.co.uk]

A guide to UK tax codes

Introduction

What does your tax code mean and how does it effect how much tax you pay?

This article explains what each code means and how it is used to calculate your tax.

Where does my tax code come from?

Your tax code is issued by HMRC to your employer, so that the right amount of income tax (PAYE) that can be deducted each month from your salary.

Here are some examples of tax codes:

474L
474P, 475V, 382Y
384T
K384
BR, OT, DO, NT

Except for the last few, the majority of tax codes are a combination of numbers and letters.

The numbers are used to work out how much income should be taxed. The letter is used to determine how the income is taxed.

What the number means

The number is used to work out your tax allowance as follows:

Tax allowance = Number X 10 + 9.

For example, if you earn £20,000 per annum and your tax code is 475L then your tax allowance would be 4759. This is then deducted from your salary to determine your taxable income. For this example, the taxable income is £15,241.

Note: If your tax code is a letter ‘K’ followed by a number, it means that the total allowances in your code are less than the total deductions to be taken away from your allowances. In this case the number is added rather than deducted to determine the taxable income. For someone earning £20,000 with a tax code of K475 the taxable income would be £24,759.

For a personal calculation of your own income tax (PAYE) and National Insurance (NI) contributions use our PAYE/NI Net Salary Tax Calculator.

What the letters mean

Tax code L

Indicates a basic personal allowance and is the most common code.

Tax codes P, V and Y

Indicate higher personal allowances for those aged over 65.

Tax code T

Indicates there are items requiring review by your Inspector of Taxes.

Tax code K

The amount of allowances is less than total deductions. An example could be if you have a company car, private medical benefit and other taxable expenses and benefits in kind which exceed the amount of the personal allowance.

Tax code BR

Stands for “Basic Rate” and indicates that all of your income is to be subjected to the basic rate of tax at the current rate. You will therefore receive no personal allowances but you will not be subjected to higher rates of tax.

A BR tax code is often issued to a consultant who sets up his own limited company, having just left a previous employment.

This is because HMRC may believe that the new company is a second source of income prior to your form P45 filtering through the system, indicating that you have left the previous employment. As soon as HMRC realise that the new limited company is your only source of income, they will usually issue an appropriate “L” tax code as above. A letter from your accountant to the Payroll Inspector for the new limited company can often speed up this process.

Tax code OT

Indicates that you have no personal allowances and all income is subject to basic and higher rates of tax.

Tax code DO

Indicates all of your income is subject to the higher rate of tax.

Tax code NT

Indicates that no tax is to be deducted on your income – the tax code we would all like to have!

Adding Automatically Updating Chapter Name to Header in Office Word

2011-06-18T12:35:00.000-07:00

1. Better not to have any 'Section Breaks'. Otherwise we will have to edit header for each section separately.
2. The Chapter title text (like Prologue and Chapter 1) in the content must have same style applied to it. Let's say all chapter titles are having style 'Heading 1'.
3. (This method is for Office Word 2007, for 2003 and others go to 'Edit->Header and Footer') Double click on 'Header'. Put the cursor where you want the Chapter title to appear.
4. (This method is for Office Word 2007, for 2003 and others go to 'Insert->Field') In 'Header & Footer Tools', go to 'Quick Parts -> Field'.
5. Select 'StyleRef' from 'Field Names'.
6. On right side, from the 'Style name list', select the style you have used for the chapter title (in our case it is 'Heading 1' as we did in step 2).
7. Check more options if needed.
8. Click 'OK'.

Android localhost/127.0.0.1 alias

2011-03-05T14:40:00.001-08:00

If your android application accesses localhost while being run in the emulator use the alias "10.0.2.2" instead of "localhost" or "127.0.0.1".

Pakistan Broadband Price/Speed Comaprison

2011-02-20T10:55:00.000-08:00

Lowest Price

Price/month (Rs)

Speed (kbps)

Limit (GB)

Activation

Activation (per Month)

Security

Website

PTCL

1199

1024

Unlimited

Link

Wateen

499

256

100

Link

Wi-Tribe

650

256

500

650

Link

Qubee

750

512

1000

Link

Micronet

749

128

Unlimited

2750

Link

Best Speed

Price/month (Rs)

Speed (kbps)

Limit (GB)

Activation

Activation (per Month)

Security

Website

PTCL

6999

8192

Unlimited

Link

Wateen

1399

1024

Unlimited

100

Link

Wi-Tribe

2400

1536

Unlimited

1500

2400

Link

Qubee

1500

1024

Unlimited

2000

Link

Micronet

1499

1024

Unlimited

5050

Link

R.drawable R cannot be resolved Android

2011-02-14T10:15:00.001-08:00

If you get this error out of many other reasons one can be that some of your images in the "res" folder have a "-" in their name. Android doesn't like that :)

Twitter, Facebook, Chat Abbreviations

2010-12-14T07:38:00.000-08:00

Abbreviation	Meaning
<3	heart
404	I haven't a clue
A3	Anyplace, anywhere, anytime
ADN	Any day now
AFAIK	As far as I know
AFK	Away from keyboard
ARE	Acronym-rich environment
ASAP	As soon as possible
A/S/L?	Age/sex/location?
B4N	Bye for now
BAK	Back at the keyboard
BAS	Big a** smile
BBIAB	Be back in a bit
BBL	Be back later
BBN	Bye bye now
BBS	Be back soon
BEG	Big evil grin
BF	Boy friend
BFD	Big f***ing deal
BFN	Bye for now
BG	Big grin
BIBO	Beer in, beer out
BIOYIOP	Blow it out your I/O port
BL	Belly laughing

BMGWL	Busting my gut with laughter
BOTEC	Back-of-the-envelope calculation
BRB	Be right back
BTA	But then again...
BTDT	Been there, done that
BTW	By the way
BWL	Bursting with laughter
BWTHDIK	But what the heck do I know...?
CICO	Coffee in, coffee out
C&G	Chuckle and grin
CNP	Continued in next post
CRB	Come right back
CRBT	Crying real big tears
CU	See you
CUL	See you later
CUL8ER	See you later
CYA	See ya
CYA	Cover your ass
CYO	See you online
DBA	Doing business as
DFLA	Disenhanced four-letter acronym (that is, a TLA)
DL	Dead link
DLTBBB	Don't let the bed bugs bite
DIKU	Do I know you?
DITYID	Did I tell you I'm distressed?
DOM	Dirty old man
DOS	Dozing off soon
DQMOT	Don't quote me on this
DTRT	Do the right thing
DWB	Don't write back
E2E	exchange to exchange
E2E	e-business to e-business
E2E	employee to employee
E2E	end to end
EG	Evil grin
EMFBI	Excuse me for butting in
EMSG	E-mail message
EOM	End of message
EOT	End of thread (meaning: end of discussion)
ESAD	Eat s**t and die
ETLA	Extended three-letter acronym (that is, an FLA)
EWG	evil wicked grin
F2F	Face to face
FAQ	Frequently-ask question(s)
FC	Fingers crossed
FISH	First in, still here
FLA	Four-letter acronym
FMTYEWTK	Far more than you ever wanted to know
FOMCL	Falling off my chair laughing
FTBOMH	From the bottom of my heart
FUBAR	F***ed up beyond all repair or recognition
FUD	Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt
FWIW	For what it's worth
FYI	For your information
G	Grin
GA	Go ahead
GAL	Get a life
GIGO	Garbage in, garbage out
GD&R	Grinning, ducking, and running
GF	Girlfriend
GFN	Gone for now
GGP	Gotta go pee
GIWIST	Gee, I wish I'd said that
GL	Good luck
GMAB	Give me a break
GMTA	Great minds think alike
GOL	Giggling out loud
GTRM	Going to read mail
GTSY	Glad to see you
H&K	Hug and kiss
HAGN	Have a good night
HAND	Have a nice day
HHIS	Hanging head in shame
HIG	How's it going
HT	Hi there
HTH	Hope this helps
HUB	Head up butt
IAC	In any case
IAE	In any event
IANAL	I am not a lawyer (but)
IAW	I agree with or In accordance with
IC	I see
IGP	I gotta pee
IHA	I hate acronyms
IHU	I hear you
IIRC	If I recall/remember/recollect correctly
ILU or ILY	I love you
IM	Immediate message
IMCO	In my considered opinion
IMHO	In my humble opinion
IMing	Chatting with someone online usually while doing other things such as playing trivia or other interactive game
IMNSHO	In my not so humble opinion
IMO	In my opinion
IMS	I am sorry
IOW	In other words
IPN	I'm posting naked
IRL	In real life (that is, when not chatting)
ITA	I totally agree
ITIGBS	I think I'm going to be sick
IWALU	I will always love you
IYSWIM	If you see what I mean
J4G	Just for grins
JBOD	Just a bunch of disks (like redundant array of independent disks, etc.)
JIC	Just in case
JK or j/k	Just kidding
JMO	Just my opinion
JTLYK	Just to let you know
k	ok
KISS	Keep it simple stupid
KIT	Keep in touch
KOTC	Kiss on the cheek
KOTL	Kiss on the lips
KWIM?	Know what I mean?
L8R	Later
L8R G8R	Later gator
LD	Later, dude
LDR	Long-distance relationship
LHO	Laughing head off
LLTA	Lots and lots of thunderous applause
LMAFO	Laughing my fking a off
LMAO	Laughing my a** off
LMSO	Laughing my socks off
LOL	Laughing out loud
LRF	Little Rubber Feet (the little pads on the bottom of displays and other equipment)
LSHMBH	Laughing so hard my belly hurts
LTM	Laugh to myself
LTNS	Long time no see
LTR	Long-term relationship
LULAB	Love you like a brother
LULAS	Love you like a sister
LUWAMH	Love you with all my heart
LY	Love ya
LY4E	Love ya forever
MorF	Male or female
MOSS	Member of the same sex
MOTOS	Member of the opposite sex
MTF	More to follow
MUSM	Miss you so much
NADT	Not a darn thing
NFG	No f*****g good
NFW	No feasible way or no f*****g way
NIFOC	Naked in front of computer
NP or N/P	No problem
NRN	No response necessary
OIC	Oh, I see
OLL	Online love
OMG	Oh my God
OTF	Off the floor
OTOH	On the other hand
OTTOMH	Off the top of my head
PANS	Pretty awesome new stuff (as opposed to "POTS")
PAW	Parents are watching
PCMCIA	People can't master computer industry acronyms
PDA	Public display of affection
PEBCAK	Problem exists between chair and keyboard
PIBKAC	Problem is between keyboard and chair
PITA	Pain in the ass
PM	Private message
PMFJIB	Pardon me for jumping in but...
POAHF	Put on a happy face
::POOF::	Goodbye (leaving the room)
POTS	Plain old telephone service
PU	That stinks!
QT	Cutie
RL	Real life (that is, when not chatting)
ROR	Raffing out roud (Engrish for "laughing out loud")
ROTFL	Rolling on the floor laughing
ROTFLMAO	Rolling on the floor laughing my a** off
ROTFLMAOWPIMP	Rolling on the floor laughing my a** off while peeing in my pants
ROTFLMBO	Rolling on the floor laughing my butt off
RPG	Role-playing games
RSN	Real soon now
RT	Real time
RTFM	Read the f***ing manual
RYO	Roll your own (write your own program; derived from cigarettes rolled yourself with tobacco and paper)
S^	S'up - what's up
S4L	Spam for life (what you may get when you become someone's customer or client)
SHCOON	Shoot hot coffee out of nose
SEG	S***-eating grin
SETE	Smiling ear to ear
SF	Surfer-friendly (low-graphics Web site)
SHID	Slaps head in disgust
SNAFU	Situation normal, all f***ed up
SO	Significant other
SOL	Smilling out loud or sh*t out of luck
SOMY	Sick of me yet?
SOT	Short on time
SOTMG	Short on time must go
STFU	Shut the f**k up
STFW	Search the f*****g Web
STW	Search the Web
SU	Shut up
SUAKM	Shut up and kiss me
SUP	What's up
SWAG	Stupid wild-a** guess
SWAK	Sealed with a kiss
SWL	Screaming with laughter
SYS	See you soon
TA	Thanks again
TAFN	That's all for now
TANSTAAFL	There ain't no such thing as a free lunch
TCOY	Take care of yourself
TFH	Thread from hell (a discussion that just won't die and is often irrelevant to the purpose of the forum or group)
TGIF	Thank God it's Friday
THX	Thanks
TIA	Thanks in advance (used if you post a question and are expecting a helpful reply)
TILII	Tell it like it is
TLA	Three-letter acronym
TLK2UL8R	Talk to you later
TB4U	Too bad for you
TMI	Too much information
TNT	Till next time
TOPCA	Til our paths cross again (early Celtic chat term)
TOY	Thinking of you
TPTB	The powers that be
TTFN	Ta-Ta for now
TTT	Thought that, too (when someone types in what you were about to type)
TTYL	Talk to you later
TU	Thank you
TY	Thank you
TYVM	Thank you very much
UAPITA	You're a pain in the ass
UAF	Until further notice
UW	You're welcome
VBG	Very big grin
VBSEG	Very big s***-eating grin
WAG	Wild a** guess
WAYD	What are you doing
WB	Welcome back
WBS	Write back soon
WDALYIC	Who died and left you in charge?
WEG	Wicked evil grin
WFM	Works for me
WIBNI	Wouldn't it be nice if
WT?	What/who the ?
WTF	What the F***!
WTFO	What the F***! Over!
WTG	Way to go!
WTGP?	Want to go private?
WU?	What's up?
WYSITWIRL	What you see is TOTALLY WORTHLESS IN REAL LIFE!
WUF?	Where are you from?
WYSIWYG	What you see is what you get
YBS	You'll be sorry
YGBSM	You gotta be s***tin' me!
YMMV	Your mileage may vary.
YW	You're welcome

Add Free Push Windows Live Hotmail to iPhone Mail

2010-12-07T19:41:00.000-08:00

Open Settings on the iPhone Home screen.
Select Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
Choose Add Account… under Accounts.
Tap Microsoft® Exchange.
Enter your full Windows Live Hotmail address ("example@live.com", for example) underEmail.
Enter the full address (including "@live.com" or "@hotmail.com", for instance) again underUsername.

You can copy and paste the address from Email to save typing, of course.

Tap your Windows Live Hotmail password under Password.
Type "Windows Live Hotmail" under Description.

You can also use any other name that will help you recognize the account, of course, such as "Work" — or the email address.

Tap Next.
Wait for the Server field to appear (after Verifying is done).
Enter "m.hotmail.com" (not including the quotation marks) under Server.
Tap Next again.
Make sure Mail is ON.

Turn Contacts and Calendars ON as well to synchronize your iPhone contacts with Windows Live Hotmail and get your calendar pushed to the iPhone, respectively, as well.

Tap Save.

Reference: email.com

Find All Unread Messages in Gmail

2010-10-23T16:23:00.000-07:00

Reference: [About.com]

To view all (and only) unread messages in your Gmail account:

Type "is:unread" (not including the quotation marks) in the Gmail search field.
Click Search Mail.

If you do this search repeatedly or generally appreciate brevity, you can use "l:unread" or even "l:^u" instead of "is:unread" (or "label:unread").

Of course, you can combine the quest for unread messages with others:

"l:^u from:tim" finds all unread messages from "tim",
"l:^u l:^t" finds all unread starred mail, and
"l:^u l:^k subject:hi" finds all unread messages with "hi" in the subject that are in the Trash.

The PRK Laser Eye Surgery Monolog

2010-10-11T13:28:00.000-07:00

There is a lot of literature on the net for PRK surgery, so if you are looking for technicalities of the surgery this text is not the right reference. However, when I opted for the surgery I was looking for personal experiences which if is what you are hunting for you may find it useful.

I had myopic vision since birth and wanted to get rid of the glasses all along. However, right or wrong, I was always told by my optician that I have to wait till my body passes through growth age. It doesn't has to be true that's only what I was told and could have easily been an avoidance plan by my dad and doctor as they were friends :).

Surgery setup and Cost:
I had PRK surgery done on my eyes at 12 hours notice in a private clinic in Rawalpindi, Pakistan (Amanat Eye Hospital) and it costed me 26,300 (approx. 310 USD). There was no pre-surgery treatment although I was asked if had wore contact lenses in past 6 months, which I hadn't. There were a series of 4 different tests on different apparatus to judge suitability of eyes for operation and I was told "all is well".

Surgery:
Surgery was a 4-6 min process in which the doctor kept chatting with me. He was a real nice gentleman and was competent at what he did. During or after surgery I did not feel anything but only the smell of burnt skin (I must clarify nothing was burnt :P there are different explanations to the source of the smell as I don't know which one is correct I will skip all). I was asked to focus at a beam and do nothing else. Eye lids were fixated with something so I couldn't blink, however, not moving the eyeball was still my responsibility. I walked out on my own, was told to go home with special care of avoiding sunlight and rest. Pretty much did that.

Post Surgery:
Post surgery I had bandage lenses on the corneas and I was told

- not to rub eyes or put any water for 4 days after which lenses would be removed.
- I may feel uncomfortable and level of discomfort can vary from minor itch to major pain (I felt a minor itch similar to a misplaced contact lense feeling and it faded away every passing day)
- a combination of 2 eye drops were given to use for first 12 days with decreasing frequency, don't remember their names.

After 4 days, the lenses were removed and I couldn't even see as much as I used to without glasses prior to surgery. It ran shivers through my soul as I was never told it was expected. To add to my misery the guy who had the surgery the same day as me told me, after his lense removal, that his vision is 6/6 now (which was most probably a placibo affect as it is not even possible with PRK to recover in 4 days).

The journey then onwards demands patience, I had to put drops in the eyes (a different one) 4 times a day for 4 months with 1x dropping each month i.e. in 4th month its only 1 time per day.

As for the vision it kept improving. I was told the more I rest the faster it will get better, which I couldn't due to work nature. However, I felt that improvement continued till about 12 weeks, after which it has stayed the same so far (which is a year since surgery).

Result
The final improved vision is quite good, to a personal perception level I feel its the same as it was with glasses if not better. Although, I must admit that due to the fear of getting disappointed I have never got it checked by an optician.

I can play sports, read road signs at distances I couldn't before. So it is going good so far but my personal research says the surgery effect remains for about 6-8 years which if true is still pretty good I would say.

In short, it is more than I expected. So I feel content.

Side Effects
You can google and find a whole lot, I will only mention the ones I felt

1. Dry Eyes: At times I would wake up and my eye lid would be stuck to eye ball forcing to open eye would cause pain and watering. Rose water or moisturizer drops before sleeping helped. It used to occur on average twice a week for first 5 months and then disappeared.

2. Sun Sensitivity: Eyes remain sensitive to sunlight, sadly, I enjoyed this side effect as it forced me to wear sunglasses one of my childhood wishes :). The sensitivity has faded however a little is still there one year after the surgery, although it doesn't bother at all.

3. Halos: At times the vision gets blurry and you need to blink once to recover from it. This has also faded, however, occasionally it still happens.

Alternatives:

PRK is perhaps the oldest method of vision repair surgery. Newer ones are LASIK, LASEK and another recent one, a variant of PRK.

All the alternatives are more accurate than PRK
All the alternatives are riskier than PRK for whatever little risk is there

All alternatives offer quicker recovery than PRK, in fact INSTANT.
One of the two LASIK or LASEK, don't know which one, is more painful than PRK

All alternatives are also much more expensive than PRK

I hope any of this helps your decision and I wish you all the best if you decide to go ahead and get a surgery and if you don't, don't worry you will still do good :)

==============
February 10, 2012
==============

It has been 2 years and 6 months since my PRK eye surgery. The feelings are still good about the procedure, I haven't had the guts to go to an optician and see how correct they are but there is no problem in doing daily life activities without glasses.

The dry eyes side effect has completely vanished, no more dry eyes since the first 6 months. The halos and occasional blurring that goes away after blinking has persisted and I think it will if it hasn't disappeared till now. It happens most often in mornings but it can happen anytime, however, a mere blink get rids of it so it doesn't bother much at all.

On the feeling note, I have played two cricket seasons with PRK eyes and I have a feeling that my reflexes have slightly slowed due to the surgery. I am not sure if the two have any relation but I feel this slightly.

Bottom line, given another chance I will do it again as it is much nicer without glasses even with some side effects.

Twitter App for Java/J2ME/INQ1 Mobile

2010-09-15T08:07:00.000-07:00

TWIM is a decent twitter app for INQ1 social mobile phone which has been left stranded by its manufacturers when it came to giving it a twitter app.

JibJib is another app that supposedly works on INQ1, however, I haven't tried it.

Fn Key on Keyboard Always On

2010-08-16T17:07:00.001-07:00

Symptom: Fn key is always on and to input non-Fn element of the key you have to use Fn. e.g. if you press key P it reads - and if you press Fn+p it reads p

Solution: Hold the Ctrl and Fn key down together and press the Ins(Num LK) key. This should revert the keys back as normal.

Virgin Remote Control Volume Settings for your TV

2010-06-27T14:44:00.000-07:00

To set up the volume control on your Telewest remote control, to be able to change the TV volume, please follow the instructions below.
1. Using the table below find your make of TV and the code which matches it.
2. Press and hold down Volume + and mute on your remote control at the same time for at least three seconds, until the green light in the top right-hand corner of your remote control flashes twice.
3. Release the buttons and enter the first four digit code from the table below. (You must do this within ten seconds).
4. As you enter the first three digits the green light on your remote control will give a short blink.
5. As you enter the fourth digit, the green light will flash twice to confirm that the volume is set.
If setting the volume is not successful, please repeat the above steps with the second or third codes from the table below.

TV brand Code
Akai 0236, 0544, 0630
Alba 0037, 0065, 0246
Amstrad 0205, 0440, 0065
Bush 0246, 0263, 0377
Decca 0064, 0100, 0544
Ferguson 0101, 0363, 0221
Fidelity 0244, 0221, 0460
Finlandia 0374, 0387, 0236
Goodmans 0065, 0064, 0100
Granada 0379, 0387, 0391
Grundig 0563, 0582, 0515
Hinari 0037, 0064, 0065
Hitachi 0253, 0384, 0377
JVC 0681, 0081, 0122
Matsui 0263, 0205, 0037
Mitsubishi 0136, 0382, 0064
NEI 0065, 0365, 0459
Nokia 0508, 0501, 0576
Panasonic 0678, 0254, 0278
Philips 0584, 0065, 0040
Saisho 0039, 0205, 0263
Samsung 0065, 0584, 0037
Sanyo 0236, 0073, 0100
Sharp 0121, 0064, 0065
Sony 0533, 0038, 0039
Tatung 0065, 0100, 0544
Thomson 0363, 0653, 0137
Toshiba 0536, 0063, 0271

If the make of your TV in the table above,

1. Press to go to the Home Screen.
2. Choose Telewest Services.
3. Choose Technical Assistance.
4. Choose TV Control Codes.
5. A full list of TV brand codes will appear.

If the volume control is still not working after trying all the codes for your TV model, or your TV model is not listed, then your TV is not compatible with virgin remote control and you will need to use your TV remote to control the volume as normal.

Phones that support Fring

2009-06-15T14:55:00.000-07:00

Nokia

3250

5320

5500

5630

5700

5730

5800

6110

6120

6210

6220

6290

6630

6650 ---

6680

6681

6682

6710

6720

E 50,51,55,60,61,61i,63,65,66,70,71,75,90

N 70,71,72,73,75,76,77,78,79,80,810,82,85,86,90,91,92,93,95,96,97

In case you are looking for ...

UK TV, Broadband and Phone Comparison Resources

[Reference: ContractorCalculator.co.uk]

A guide to UK tax codes

Introduction

Where does my tax code come from?

What the number means

What the letters mean

Adding Automatically Updating Chapter Name to Header in Office Word

Android localhost/127.0.0.1 alias

Pakistan Broadband Price/Speed Comaprison

R.drawable *R cannot be resolved* Android

Twitter, Facebook, Chat Abbreviations

Add Free Push Windows Live Hotmail to iPhone Mail

Find All Unread Messages in Gmail

The PRK Laser Eye Surgery Monolog

Twitter App for Java/J2ME/INQ1 Mobile

Fn Key on Keyboard Always On

Virgin Remote Control Volume Settings for your TV

Phones that support Fring

R.drawable R cannot be resolved Android