Engine oil is an amazingly under-appreciated element of a car. Many believe you can wait until this gets low to top it up, or wait for your next service. This simply isn’t the case. Once your engine oil gets low the top of the engine WILL be incurring higher wear and tear, with higher friction. I recommend never letting your oil get to the half full point, keep it topped up to minimise the wear on your motor!

This guide aims to give you a simple step by step guide to topping up your engine oil, and is based on the Peugeot 206.

Source your Engine Oil

I’ve bought mine from EuroCarParts in the past, but you can get engine oil in petrol stations, or any car parts store (e.g. Halfords). Car parts stores will be able to tell you the right oil for your vehicle, your car manual will also show this. The key details you need is the viscosity (e.g. “10W40″) and the type (e.g. “Synthetic”).

It is vital to get the correct oil for your engine. A shop may recommend a slightly different oil to the manual… this isn’t an issue, the point is that it will be similar to that recommended. I use a 10W40 Synthetic oil for my Peugeot 206. For awareness, the viscosity is the thickness of the oil, the two numbers represent the thickness of the oil at low and high temperatures.

Topping up your engine oil on a Peugeot 206

It is generally recommended to topup oil on a warm engine (having used the car, but having left it for 10 mins to cool a little). This said, I topup on a cold engine sometimes, but I don’t go for a complete fill if the engine is cool, as I believe the oil may expand in a warm engine).

Not my usual topic, but I’ve just come across a couple of expired Tesco clubcard vouchers in my drawer, and a quick search of the Internet suggested Tesco will NOT renew such vouchers.

Having just expired in the last month, I thought I’d call them to give it a go. I explained I was saving up for a specific item under their scheme and that I had noticed a couple had expired, was this an issue?… err, yes it is Sir.

This all said, the chap explained that expired vouchers can be reissued IF they are still on the system, but that they disappear from the system quickly. I couldn’t see them in my online account, but he could! So I’ve been told to destroy the vouchers, and he has arranged so I will get new ones in the New Year to replace them!

Worth checking your vouchers folks and ringing Tesco if they’ve expired. I’d recommend you explain that you were saving them for one of their clubcard deals, as Tesco make money on them, so they’re probably more likely to be nice to you that way!!

Worth mentioning you can get in-date vouchers reissued anytime, so if you are saving up for something and getting close on date for the vouchers, get them to reissue them so you have another 2 years without the risk of expiry!

Once they’ve dropped off the Tesco system, they’re worthless, so check your vouchers today… it’s use it, or lose it!

It seems it has never been easier to get yourself into debt. Debt is however a vicious circle for many, particularly when having children. This post aims to look at the basics of financial management to help those in-debt find a way to get out of it, or at least to minimise the impact of their debt.

First and foremost, don’t panic; don’t bury your head in the sand either though! The mere fact that you are looking at this post shows that you are looking to get control of your financial situation, and that means you have motivation and discipline, you need to focus these to improve your financial situation.

Here’s a simple guide to improving your situation.

Read around and document the key steps – There’s loads of financial advice out there. Don’t read this guide alone. Read several others, and make sure you actually document the key steps you feel will help improve your situation most. This is YOUR financial plan to independence. Place it on your fridge, noticeboard or wall to make sure you are regularly reminded of your plan and focuses.

Document what you spend – Document everything. You HAVE to understand your incomings and outgoings if you are to have any chance of getting control of your debt. Some people choose to manage budgets within a spreadsheet, though I suspect many will find this tedious and soon give it up. Either way, you need to find a way of working out what you spend today. Look back over the last month at minimum and document everything you spent money on, grouping these into key areas e.g. “Grocery Shopping”, “Clothes”, “Nights out”. This includes everything… shopping, drinks in a coffee shop, a Mars bar in the office, charity donations, takeaways, mortgages etc…

Be realistic – don’t pretend to yourself that you only spend £10 a week on coffee’s if it’s really £20. This whole exercise is a waste of time if you don’t apply real figures.

Allow for unusual/infrequent expenses – Don’t forget replacement of tyres for the car, any house repair work, or charity giving that you like to do when friends want to be sponsored. For infrequent expenses, apply an appropriate proportion to your outgoings list (i.e. if you need new 2 new tyres every 2 years, apply 1/12 of a tyre cost per month.

Document interest rates – For expenses where an interest rate applies, like a mortgage, or credit card debt, document the interest rate alongside the expense so you can see a clear picture of the rates available to you, and whether debt is in the best place available to you.

Document what you earn – Ensure you document your NET pay, i.e. after tax. You need to be thinking about the amount of cash that hits your bank balance in a month.

Compare the two lists you have created – what you earn vs what you spend – Hopefully you are earning more than you are spending. If not, you now have a clear picture of the problem, and can start looking at where costs can be reduced to balance the equation.

Free up cash – cutback on costs
Take a long hard look at your expenses/outgoings. Can you do without any of these? or reduce these? ANY costs you can reduce will make cumulative benefit against your debts (that is, £10 paid off, saves the £10, but also the interest that would be payable on that £10 the next month (say £11); and saves the interest on the £11 the following month…).
Common targets:
1. Change frequency of expenses – can your hair last another week between haircuts? Beware of doing this for safety items like new tyres.
2. Change shopping brands – Do you need to buy brnaded items? You may want to try a cheaper brand for some products, and see if they are just as good. This method can save £100′s in a year!
3. Holiday locally – Do you really need to go abroad for a holiday? How about staying with family for some family fun, and a less expensive holiday? This doesn’t have to be forever, just save the odd holiday and you may have £100′s to payoff debts.

Relocate your debt
Review the interest rates you’re paying, and where your debt lies. It’s not uncommon at all to find that debt is in some of the worst interest rates available to that person (often credit cards). If you have a mortgage, you can look at options to take a “payment holiday”, so you can put that money to better use paying off other debts. Otherwise look at options available between your current debts, or even new credit cards. Some new credit cards offer 0% on “balance transfers” (transferred debts). Beware however that this is offered for a reason…. their interest rates will be very high once they kick in. To use these, you need to have a plan to payoff the debt before the interest rate kicks in. Also be careful not to use the card for daily spending, as balance transfer cards pay off the 0% debt first.

Prioritise debts
Now you’ve found the best layout for your debts, you need to prioritise paying them off. This means ensuring you’re paying off the most costly, and that you are not breaking credit rules and risking court action/repossession. Ensure you know the order of debt payoffs, and the limit of each for a month.

Have a clear spending plan
I don’t personally recommend to have a spreadsheet showing how much you can spend on toothpaste this week, but DO ensure you know how much you can afford when going shopping, and challenge yourself to spend less, to place the rest against your debts for the month.

Remember…
1. Motivate yourself – it’s easy to lose motivation and go back to old habits… e.g. motivate yourself by ploting your planned debt reduction on a basic graph (showing debt coming down hopefully).
2. Congratulate yourself – take time to acknowledge improvements you’ve made, and give yourself a pat on the back (avoid congratulating yourself by buying something obviously!)

All the very best in your aim to rid your of personal debt. Feel free to comment if you feel there are other items that should be included in this post.

Today there are an obscene number of sites and articles on the Internet dedicated to the topic of how to make money online. My concern is that all of those I’ve ever read are completely wrong, and serve a single purpose: to help the AUTHOR make money, disguised as articles to help the reader financially.

If you’re looking to earn money online, I’m happy to try and assist in this post, though my main aim is to warn you away from false items.

1. Don’t be fooled by guides from the rich and successful
It never ceases to amaze me how many sites there out there that offer an ebook or mentoring to make people rich. The sites often talk about the huge success the person has had with “the same method” of earning money as they are offering to teach for a small fee to purchase an ebook or similar.

I don’t believe a single one of these sites is real. For a start, isn’t it strange that someone who is earning large money (and has expensive cars and houses according to the photos on some of these sites) is wasting their time selling a few ebooks on the side?

One of my more amusing finds on this topic this year was the house of a site owner. I hasten to add that I wasn’t hunting for it! I was delivering leaflets as part of supporting a friend standing for local elections and came across a branded up car. I’m not a car person, so I can’t remember quite what it was, but think fast and fancy, and you won’t be far off. This car was lovely, except for the fact that it was branded quite heavily with the URL of just one such site. Amusingly, it turns out that it was owned (or leased) by the owner/tenant of a house in quite a rough area. This goes to show, these sites are created for show, they are meant to make you think these people are hugely successful, but in reality, if you earned a huge salary, would you bother to setup a site and write an ebook to help others do the same? Probably not, I imagine.

2. Don’t be fooled by “too good to be true” investments/schemes
A common topic of “get rich quick” posts is “Forex” (Foreign Exchange based schemes) or other “investment” schemes which offer quite amazing interest rates (these can vary from 5% per month, to 200% per day). These schemes work on one of two methods:
a. Someone using method b or the Forex market, and honestly believing they can use other peoples money to “invest” in other schemes/Forex to earn money. Sharing some with their “investors”, and pocketing the rest for themselves, for a nice profit (I might point at this profit never materialises).
b. Someone out to encourage people to “invest” in a scheme that doesn’t work. They will either just steal money that is sent to them for “investment”, or they will payout a first group of users to get positive feedback on forums that review such schemes, this is done to encourage a wider and faster “investment” rate, such that the final total stolen is large. Many of these schemes can be traced (where possible) back to the same persistent offenders. One of the reasons for this is that “investors” don’t have a legal system to naturally go to to report such sites, as they are not registered financial organisations.

3. Don’t be fooled by “paid to read” schemes
These schemes are another popular topic for those looking to make money. I’ve in-fact joined some myself in the past to see how much money can be made this way. It really isn’t a lot!! Joining 5 in parallel, I could expect to earn $1 to $2 per month. The real way to get these earning any kind of money, is to refer others into the schemes, as referral fees can enable you to enable pennies/cents without constant effort from yourself. This all said, you will still be talking less than $1 per week, unless you have a very large number of referrals.

4. DO something you enjoy
So I’ve run everything down… what is the secret answer to earning money online? Well if I’m honest, I’m not going to say I have a huge secret here… I don’t live in a mansion, and I don’t drive a luxury car, but…
a. In my experience, money on the Internet lies in advertising. You can make money advertising things on behalf of companies, either using schemes like Google Adwords (I have done this and earned well from it in the past), or more commonly you can advertise using advertising networks like Google Adsense on sites you own/maintain. This can earn well, but don’t expect to live from the advertising revenue of 1 site! Unless you setup the next Facebook, you’ll need to run something like 50-100 sites to earn a living in my view.
b. Do something you have a passion for, and this will generate true interest from real people. This may mean setting up a site based on a hobby or interest, writing articles on a favourite topic, or maybe selling items you know something about on ebay. Whatever way you choose to display your passion, don’t mislead your audience… people aren’t stupid, and you’ll simply find you are unsuccessful if you attempt to appear an expert in something you aren’t, or simply try to do something for the money.

Final Note:
I feel I should be clear that, although some are very successful with Internet, most who try are not, and either lose a lot of money, or use any “income” to suppliment the income of a “normal” job. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you can make a fortune… be happy in what you do and are in life, and if you really fancy having a go at business on the Internet, do something you love, and something true and honest. You should be able to make money, and you can use advertising to enhance this (if that isn’t your entire business!), but don’t expect to have a passive income that allows you to earn £30k+ with a few hours work a day.

I like to think of myself as a supporter of environmental change, i.e. greener solutions.

I think climate change, and the general reduction of supply of fossil fuels means energy costs are only going to go one way, and there is an ever improving financial reason therefore to utilise produce our own electric, so I’m honestly looking at solar and wind power for home energy, and have considered an electric car (though it doesn’t suit my current needs, and I’m keen to see which technology becomes the future standard before making such an investment).

This weeks Global Climate Talks have been something I was really looking forward to, as it takes real global effort to move us all towards a greener way of living. I have however been shocked by the complete waste of money of sending a load of highly paid people to a conference where all they seemed to agree to, was to come to an agreement in the future!

Am I missing something here, or did we just miss an opportunity to actually MAKE that agreement?

Trade Barriers
If I’m brutally honest, I think countries will never all agree. The easiest way forward is for a country to set the example, and place trade barriers (a thing of the past these days) on imports from countries deemed less green than a set figure. Tough as this may seem, so long as it was backed up using formal stats on the output of countries, it would quickly apply pressure to those “on the fence”, and give financial benefit to nations moving towards a more environmental position.

Of course Trade Barriers have been long fought against because they discrimate, and remove the benefits of free trade. I’m not silly enough to realise that such a move would be strongly opposed by many, and with good reason. I just struggle to see how the world can really all agree on a matter like environment change, when the costs of imposing changes are so high on governments. Democracy is a great thing, but it does bring a short term perspective from governments, keen to look good and stay in power for another term. This flies in the face of environment change which is all about thinking 50-100 years in the future if the maths is to add up in any way.

I’d certainly like to see a country try with some basic low trade barriers to the most polluting nations, to see the impact this might have on viewpoints, and the motivation this might give to other nations, and particularly to those with high polluting habits.

What do I really want to see?
It’s not too unreasonable a question to ask what I really expected from the global climate talks then. The answer is pretty simple really, investment in technologies that will bring about change. It isn’t about banning petrol cars etc… it’s about supporting the industry that makes these technologies, to make them a real potential option for people.

When it comes to cars, I fell for The Lightening Car from the moment I first saw it. Styled like an Aston Martin, and with the speed of a super car (0-60mph in 4 seconds), this isn’t the milkfloat that people think of when they think of electric powered vehicles.

The trouble with green technologies is that they are still relatively expensive given low volume of sales, and therefore no mass manufacturing. They are also early products, and won’t all survive. In fact, my personal view is that hydrogen is far more likely to succeed as a fuel of the future, as you can “fill up” your vehicle quickly rather than charging heavy batteries all the time. These industries need global investment and effort to find the best options for the future, enable mass manufacturing of them, and then people will naturally head in a greener direction. It does however require investment, something this weeks Global Climate talk sadly missed.

I buy my pet food at zooplus.co.uk, and as they offer the chance to refer a 10% discount to a friend, I’d thought I’d offer this to our blog readers. Just let me know if you’re interested… I’ll need your first name, last name and e-mail address, and I’ll refer you such that you should get a voucher for a 10% discount on your first order.

This post came from an assumption that the standard “generic” bulbs I was buying meant I was possibly sacrificing visibility, and therefore safety in my bulb choice. Particularly having seen the claims of market leader Osram with their “up to 90% more light” “up to 10% whiter light”, and up to 35 metres more visibility, for the Night Breaker Plus bulb. I thought I had to give these a go, particularly as they are a direct replacement for standard bulbs i.e. they require NO modificaton to your headlamps to install.

Pricing for high performance bulbs

I bought mine from EuroCarParts initially, and then took then straight back, when I got home and found them for half that price online! Current Amazon pricing is below.

Note: When buying, be sure to check what fitting you need (H1, H4, H7…). My Peugeot 206 needed the H7 version. The fitting type is generic across bulb manufacturers, so find out what fitting type your car takes at this Phillips website, then search Amazon for suitable bulbs:http://www.pal-guide.com

(See below Amazon info for my experience of using Osram Nightbreaker Plus Bulbs)

My experience

Pros:

Cons:

So theorically more pros than cons, but the cons are major, i.e. I bought these for increased visibility, and I don’t appear to have gained that at all! I’ve sent an email to Osram to ask them to backup their claim. I assume they will state that the increase is most noticeable in full beam… but frankly, so 35 metres extra on full beam I would expect to notice *something* on dipped beam!

This all said, I probably will buy again if price remains good, and lifetime is at least 1 year. As this will make them comparable life to cheap bulbs, but with a smarter look!

Having changed my pollen filter again, it reminds me how hard it seemed to be to find a guide for doing this, so I’ve disappeared out in the rain to take some photos to create a quick guide to replacing the cabin pollen filter on a Peugeot 206.

Be aware: The cabin pollen filter is in a tight space, so don’t be surprised if you get your hands on it, but seem to be struggling to work out how to get it out! It is literally sitting in the top of a metal duct, so you “just” need to lift it up and out. I find I have to loosen the edges, and then lift the front, and pull the right hand side out first (basically lift and pull the pointed right end side out). Hopefully the photos below will help. It’s well worth doing yourself rather than paying an expensive garage fee.

Pricing for pollen filters

I’ve bought mine from GSF and EuroCarParts in the past, but actually Amazon now looks to have the best price, at about £2 less than EuroCarParts and GSF at the time of writing (EuroCarParts: £7.29 versus Amazon: £5.42 with free delivery).

Replacing the cabin pollen filter on a Peugeot 206

With some maintenance going on one of my local TV masts over the last week, I’ve only been able to get “group 1″ digital TV (mainly BBC channels, no ITV, Channel 4, E4, Channel 5…). After some frustration at this, and several attempts to tune into other masts (using manual search based on UHF channel info from ukfree.tv), to no avail, I went hunting online for a streaming option.

Be very careful with free online streaming, as there are some very dodgy TV sites out there from which my neighbour has caught several viruses.

TVCatchup.com however isn’t dodgy, and so far as I can tell, is completely legal (for use only by those living within the UK and paying for a TV license). It enables streaming of live TV, and having checked it out, I’m very impressed, an advert at the start, and then straight into “live” TV, which appears to be about 10 seconds behind my digital signal here. I should mention that it supports most of the free freeview channels – full list.

What’s more, with a bit of playing around, I put it through my TV, so it was as though the mast issues weren’t there!

How I did it

1. Connected laptop to TV via audio cable (headphones out on laptop to Red and White audio inputs on TV)
2. Connected laptop to TV via S-Video cable (S-Video out on laptop to S-Video input on TV) – Note: There are other options, I’ve done S-Video on laptop to Yellow Video socket before too.
3. Changed laptop display settings to display on laptop and via S-Video using IBM Presentation Director (for IBM/Lenovo laptops)
4. Opened TVCatchup.com – signed in with free id, and selected channel required
5. When streaming started, I selected full scene option in the bottom menu (only appears when you hover the mouse at the bottom of the screen)

Quality

Really very impressive, similarly to the BBC iPlayer on normal setting I think. It is noticable on the screen that its streamed, as it’s slightly slower frame rate, and colours aren’t clean and perfect, but you don’t notice after a while, and it’s more than enough to see quite fine detail. Well worth having in-place for those occasions when you need it.

Having been given a neighbours laptop that has been attacked by viruses, I found that the main issue was a Win32/Patched.FM and Win32/Patched.FL which had infected explorer.exe and winlogon.exe.

The issue with these viruses is that they “patch” Windows files to include themselves. This means critical system files like explorer.exe are infected, making removal more difficult.

After some thinking through, I ran AVG in Windows Safe mode. This however deleted infected files, and left the system unable to boot. I considered options to place the missing files back, but in the end used the AVG Rescue Disk to replace the files from the Virus Vault (still infected), to give access to Windows back, and used a very good, and free, rootkit infection remover called Combofix to remove the issue. Combofix is available from bleepingcomputer.com, and removes critical files, replacing them from ServicePack backups, and hence leaving the system operable.

Hope this helps others with these and other critical system infections.