Making the Most of a Minimal Budget. Contact me at: skintsailor@yahoo.co.uk or on Twitter: @skintsailor

Tuesday 21 March 2017

Lidl Oil Pump

For those of you out there with sludge-filled iron lumps in the bilges that have never had an oil change because it's been too difficult, Lidl are stocking a 12v electric oil extraction pump.

It's part of the automotive special offer on Thursday the 23rd:

https://www.lidl.co.uk/en/Non-Food-Offers.htm?id=140&ar=2&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NL2013&utm_content=CarCare

The price is £12.99, lots cheaper than marine equivalents and it should do the job.

Don't sue me if it doesn't though.

Friday 17 March 2017

eBay Update

Well, the ad blocker has made a real difference.  So much so, the difference between browsing on my computer and someone else's is now very obvious.

I'd recommend if you're using Google Chrome as a browser to look at the add-on's and down load an adblocker. There are a few available on the Chrome add-on list. They all work in the same way so I can't say which is best.

It doesn't only speed up eBay either. the local newspaper website is 40% news, 60% adverts. It's made a HUGE difference on that website too.

I would say try it and see if there is any difference. I recommend it.

I will get back to sailing related stuff soon, I promise! But making the browsing experience better for those of you searching for the ideal low-cost yacht has to be a good thing.

Sunday 5 March 2017

eBay Woes (Slow Response)

Is it just me, or is anyone else getting ever slower response times from eBay?

When trying to bag a bargain, you have to cast the net wide on your searches to make sure you trawl up the mis-spelled, the mis-placed or the generally badly advertised listings. The classic way to find the items no-one else can.

That means to drag up a lot of dross and you get into a rythm of quickly scrolling down the listings and filtering the gold from the poo.

But I'm finding it ever more difficult to do this, as the time it takes eBay to redraw a page is taking absolutely ages.

It's not my "up to 8Gb" connection either, the same massive slow-down occurs at work (during lunch break and for scientific purposes only, you understand).

I'm at a loss to explain it. Unless the adverts that eBay attach to every page have recently become massive and pre-load a huge video every time you click on to a new page. Maybe they're collecting mega amounts of meta-data, every page logging my activity in minute detail.

The fan on my laptop goes bonkers every time it displays a new page too, then quietens down after a couple of minutes (the time it takes to be able to scroll a page smoothly).

All very strange and totally frustrating. So much so I'm looking at alternative sites now in order to bag bargains.

Bye Bye eBay, you're no longer the useful site you used to be.

UPDATE:

Deleting all my browsing history didn't do much good.

However, adding a advert blocker to Chrome seems to have had an effect. I'll report back after I've had a few days running in the new configuration.