Sage 2012

Sage Line 50 2012

We have been using the Beta copy of the software and also attended the Sage dEvent that provided an overview of what’s new and changed in the 2012 version.

Although Sage haven’t changed the underlying file system they have made changes to how Sage caches data and tried to improve the locking mechanisms so that some operations will no longer lock out all the other users.

Our initial speed tests show no overall difference (possibly a bit slower) on straight speed but the record locking and caching may make day-to-day operations less prone to other users being locked out and support higher levels of concurrency.

The cosmetic screen appearance has been updated to make it more contemporary and various processes modified to give the user more feedback that Sage is actually doing something (rather than having them reboot the machine because nothing is apparently happening and thus corrupting data).

Data can now also be “locked” so that transactions can’t be posted to a previous period which should keep the accountants happy. This is set via User Rights although the default is to allow it which seems a bit perverse.

The Help -> About screen now provides far more diagnostic information and they also seem to have sneaked in a remote control option for Sage Support technicians.

Internally there are changes to the way the SDK works in some areas so developers will need to make code changes in various areas including Net Value Discounts (which was absurdly difficult to do previously), Customer Discounts and Invoice Auto Numbering.

The Transaction Post has also been updated to perform more checks on the data such as making sure the specified nominal code is correct for the type of transaction (not a Bank Account if posting an SI for example).

Installation has been streamlined and made more straightforward for network configuration.

There are various UI enhancements including new Quick Search Options and a Quick Print button.

Data checking has been speeded up and offers more selective repair options than the previous blanket “Fix” button.

The existing SData Service will be available to developers in Beta format. Essentially it is a web interface which sits on top of the SDO to enable low volume web based interrogation and update of Sage data. (You would for example only perform an action on a single account rather than a bulk process)

Overall it’s the same (very) old file system that they have tried to wring a bit more performance out of it by doing things that they should have done years ago but now seem to be taking a bit more seriously. I guess the cash cow needed a bit of feeding.

Let’s hope there isn’t the usual “oops” moment in the first live release. As usual wait and see before upgrading.

Developers Program Changes

Sage are also planning to introduce a Certification program for third party applications.

This will be an annual test priced at around £600 per product.

We certainly won’t be pursuing this option as it would push our Sage fees up to well over £5000 per year. We’re confident in our products and the level of support we provide without entering into essentially what is an expensive box ticking Certification exercise.

Incidentally Sage say they have around 600 Sage 50 registered developers which on current fees I would calculate is generating them around 1 million pounds a year in revenue and must be very profitable already.

Emailing Sage documents

This is something I have never really looked into but a client wanted to do this and so necessitated a bit of investigation.

Short story is that it is possible and very simple to use but a bit less than obvious to set up and of course different depending on the version of Sage you have.

Essentially you need to use the Report Designer to set up the Email Settings which will create a default Email configuration for all reports set to send via Email.

If you are using Outlook choose MAPI otherwise choose SMTP and enter your ISP Mail Server details. There is also an Outlook option that is apparently only relevant for Outlook 2010 on a 64 bit system.

Then for individual reports you set up the email options (such as setting the email address to be picked up from the Sales Account Email field and Subject text etc)

Once set up you can just select the Invoices in the Invoicing Module and click on the Email button (in Sage versions prior to 2011 it is a bit more long winded)

There is a Sage Knowledge Base article 12659 that provides some information. The independent Sage Forum also has a succinct How to on setting up Invoices to Email.

On Windows 7/Sage 2012 at least the SMTP mail configuration appears to be stored in ProgramData\Sage\SMTP\SMTPConfiguration.xml and includes the username and password in clear text, which might not be the most secure way to do things.

Autoglass - Don't

Against my better judgement I recently got Autoglass to fix a small chip on the passenger side of my windscreen.

Nothing wrong with the service or the repair - in fact it was beyond reproach. What I couldn't work out is how this could be "free".

Now I know.

The adverts tell you it won't affect your no claim discount. What they don't tell you is that it counts as a claim on your insurance.

Mine went up by £200 as a result.

And I don't expect it will go down again any time soon.

So it is a scam.

Autoglass get x pounds from the Insurance company who then up your premium with no risk to themselves.

Don't do it.

By the way I have complained to the ASA, but I'm not holding my breath.

SMB2 or how to corrupt your data without really trying

I don't think Microsoft have ever really got the hang of the idea that people might use computers for applications that just might require data integrity.

Deep down they are just a desktop company, bit of Office, nothing serious, mostly works if you are lucky. Good job Dave Cutler came along. Clearly real world issues aren't high on the list probably because they're too busy counting the money and coming up with the next ill concieved way to screw something up.

SMB2 - Microsoft have previous on this whole area but as far as I can see SMB2 will corrupt just about every application that uses file sharing due to caching and metadata issues. Perhaps there should be a new 4 letter word at Microsoft called "TEST". "Think" might also be good. Or just stop "fixing" things that mostly work (or at least we have got used to and know how to workaround).

We are moving into ill considered areas now. What happens when your Cloud evaporates?

There is so much data recovery is almost impossible.

The same applies to large scale systems - the HMRC system is broken and I can't see how it will ever be fixed. It's a live system that we know is wrong that we are adding data to every day. So at best it will be an approximation of our affairs and it will be up to the end user to spot the more obvious errors whilst being told "the computer says no".

Meanwhile all our data is being hacked because even large companies (never mind the small ones) we hand over all bank details to have apparently never heard of the idea of encrypting passwords.

There seems to be a blind assumption by everybody that all this stuff actually works.

It doesn't.

Sage and Windows 7

Following on from our Sage 50 and Vista testing we have now had the time to carry out Windows 7 performance tests.

The good news is it doesn't seem to have the performance sapping cache effect of Vista and performance is much the same as XP (even though it's running on an iCore-5 as against XP on a Pentium P4 2.8ghz. Oh well).

Interestingly, swapping from 100mbit Ethernet to 1gb made almost no difference to our Sage performance test results although a straight 25mb file copy was around 4 times faster.

Sage 50 and Vista - slower than a slow thing

Ok, I know Vista is now water under the bridge but there are still a lot of these misbegotton systems about.

Recently I have been investigating the use of NAS devices with Sage Line 50 and spending a lot ot time analysing the performance using our Sage testing tool, Transfix.

What was strange was that the first run of the test was quite fast, but each subsequent run became slower and slower until it botommed out at about 3 times slower than the initial test.

Odd.

To cut a long story short the problem is with Vista caching the data to RAM.

On the first run, all the data (in this case a 30mb Sage file) is read across the network. Each subsequent run loads more of this data in the Cache until eventually there is no network traffic at all when the file is read ; it all comes from the cache. You can observe this by monitoring the NIC Status and using Task Manager to see the cache grow.

Sadly the Sage SDO is around 2.5 times (60 seconds vs 150 seconds) slower reading directly from RAM than from the network.

The file is only cleared from cache when a process causes the the file to be updated which then restores normal performance until the file becomes cached again. There does not appear to be any way of controlling this behaviour.

I have no idea if this affects other programs but certainly Sage doesn't like it.

XP doesn't have this problem and I haven't got around to testing Windows 7 yet.

Does nobody test this stuff?

Let's go serfing now

I've developed an unfortunate habit over the last month or two.

It may not make hairs grow where they shouldn't but is sadly compulsive and ultimately very annonying.

It's reading the BBC blogs, in particular Mr. Peston and Ms. Flanders.

I should hasten to add it's not so much the aforementioned who cause my difficulty but the responses to their comments.

Some of the comments are quite enlightening, some are clearly written by political stooges and others by dogmatists. and a few by the plainly deluded.

What is more of a problem is that it is such a pointless exercise on several levels.

At the lowest level it's a waste of time when I could be doing something more useful like checking the fluff in my navel.

It's futile because you're extremely unlikely to change another persons point of view.

It's sad because it would appear that of all the people in the country only an extremely small minority are even interested to comment.

It's dangerous because you are self identifying yourself to the Authorities.

But most of all it's depressing because it brings home to you the realities of the world.

At the top we have the people who do the telling. These can change over time (Monarchs/Religion/Emperors/Bankers) but are essentially the same (money and power)

Then we have the Goverment / Establishment who largely do as they are told.

Then there are the rest of us, the serfs, who just get done.

Nothing changes.

Even if the serfs revolt all we achieve is shuffling around our masters. Strangely we stay serfs.

Which kind of makes the debate a complete and utter waste of time.

(See bankers/bonuses/Government/tax/etc)

Windows Messenger Service (or Not)

For reasons that are too boring to go into I recently needed to have a simple way of sending a message to all the users on a network.



Aha I thought, simples, just use the Windows Messenger Service that uses Mailslots. Dead easy to code, job done....



Nope.



Microsoft in their infinite wisdom removed this from Vista (and presumably Win 7). Buggar. This is not just annoying, it's MS annoying...



Much googling later I've found a free (but you should donate) download for Vista that allows it to receive mailslot (net send) messages.



http://www.winsentmessenger.com/

Restore in Virtual PC

To save you reading a whole lot of me ranting the short answer is that if you want to restore a bkf file to a Microsoft Virtual PC the file cannot be bigger than 4gb if you are accessing it via a share (you will get an error that the file is inconsistent)

If the file is bigger than 4 gb you need to access via the network e.g. a UNC path or a mapped drive. Note that you can map a drive to a share on the Host PC. My 37gb restore took less than 3 hours using this method and worked pretty much first time although I had to re-activate XP with Microsoft.

Also note that despite what is says on the tin Acronis cannot convert an image to a bootable virtual pc (vhd file) and that bloody microsoft have made xp bkf files incompatable with Vista and Windows 7. There's a workaround for Vista which may work for Windows 7 as well.

The sysinternals Disk2vhd v1.3 tool that in theory can create a bootable vhd file from a running system on the fly can't currently cope with any bad sectors at all (they say a future version will) and the Acronis Sector copy method had the same problem. This after I'd spent 5 hours running checkdisk which didn't find any bad sectors...

Update - version 1.4 of Disk2Vhd (1st Dec 2009) claims to be able to now skip bad sectors but I haven't tried it yet.

To sum up, if you wan't to create a Virtual PC of your current XP machine, run a Windows Backup, then restore it in the XP VM using a network connection. I told the Restore to replace existing files if the backup contained newer versions which seemed to work. Make sure you install the VM Additions (my mouse wouldn't work until I did)

If you're upgrading XP to Windows 7, you'll have to do a clean install. The XP bkf files are not compatable with Vista / Windows 7 so make sure you copied all your data somewhere else first...

Keyloggers and why you should be afraid

Ever reluctantly, I decided to have a little look to see just how difficult it is to capture everything someone types in on a computer.


Simples.


Worringly simples and all but impossible to detect.


Even using a high level language like VB it's pretty simple to hook into the keyboard and see every keystroke typed in every application.


Getting the application being used is trivial as well. So all we have to do is either capture everything and send it somewhere via email or http (also easy) or just wait until we see a sequence of numbers that look like a credit card.


It took me about a day to research this and have something working in a half arsed sort of way.


Good job I'm so honest...

Honest.

BBC iPlayer on Sony Xperia

Ever since updating the ROM on the "not very good as a phone" X1 it's been unable to play iPlayer live with sound.



There doesn't seem to be a fix available and the Vodafone web site is not particulary helpful.



What does seem to be a solution is to download the SkyFire browser. This has some annoying features like a reluctance to save bookmarks but will play iPlayer with sound.



The only caveat is that you have to make sure it connects via a Server in the UK. If it doesn't iPlayer will not let you connect as it will think you are outside the UK.



If you get this problem after installing Skyfire, check the Server it is connected to by Menu -> Help -> About -> More Info.



If the Server address starts with 10.110 it has connected to a UK server and iPlayer should work.



If it is anything else it has connected via the US and iPlayer won't work. To fix this you need to delete the Prefs file in Application Data \ Skyfire and reconnect and repeat this process until it connects via a UK Server.



Once this has happened it should always use the UK server unless it is unavailable.



I'd recommend taking a copy of the Prefs file just in case.



BTW, one you have started Skyfire, IE and Opera won't work until you exit Skyfire and force the data connection to Disconnect.

Windows 7 (Yawn)

A new version of Windows, gosh.

Now my only interest in this is whether my applications are still going to work.

I'd be very surprised if this isn't also the view of several million other users.

As threatened by Google Chrome OS all we want is something that "just works".

As far I'm concerned that was mostly Windows 2000 but I'll concede XP has a few useful features and of course enforces Microsofts licensing model.

So far we have downloaded the Release Candidate and installed it to a Windows XP VM running under Vista.

Much to my surprise this actually worked. Runs like a crippled slug though.

However, there is no upgrade path from XP to Windows 7. You have to do a clean install and then re-install all your applications.

Why would anybody want to do this?

On first impressions its just another annoyingly modified version of windows which means I've got to spend ages trying to find where Microsoft have hidden or disguised everything we are used to and work out what hoops we have to jump through in order to get our apps to function as expected.

For our next trick we will be installing Sage 50 and our applications to see if it all works...

Just as well there's a credit crunch...

Idiots.

Sage Performance and the Grocery Store

There’s nothing very mysterious about why some applications such as Sage Line 50 can run slowly, you just need to understand what the program is doing and it’ll soon be obvious where the problem lies.

Too many people babble on about Client / Server, databases, flat files, caching et al without really having the slightest idea what they are talking about.

What’s needed is to know what these terms actually mean and more importantly how they affect your systems.

To make an analogy we’re going to compare what happens in a program like Sage with checking to see if you have all the ingredients necessary to make a recipe.

(For the professionals amongst you this is not intended as a precise comparison, just to indicate the general way in which things work)

Lets say you are seated comfortably in the lounge with your cook book and all the potential ingredients are in the kitchen.

The recipe calls for a bag of sugar. You get up from your chair, go to the kitchen, look for a bag of sugar in the cupboard and return to the lounge. The next ingredient is an egg, so it’s back off to the kitchen, check the cupboard and return. You repeat this process for every ingredient. It’s not very efficient and takes a long time.

This is what happens when you run a computer program. It has to trot off to the kitchen (hard drive) to retrieve every piece of data it requires.

In a Client Server application by contrast, the client (you) shouts through to the kitchen to the wife (the server) and asks “hey, have we got eggs, sugar etc?” (cooking’s not my strong point). The Server checks in the cupboard and yells back the answer. In the meantime, if you can multitask (apparently impossible for males), you can get on with something really important like drinking beer and watching the TV.

Result is a single interaction without you having to go backwards and forwards to check every single item. Much faster if a little annoying to the wife who may have been doing something else.

There’s a little twist to this scenario called caching which is how computers seek to speed up this backwards and forwards process. Using a cache, the first time you go to the kitchen, you keep a list of everything you found and take it back to the lounge. Then instead of going back to the kitchen for every subsequent item you just look on the list.

This is obviously much quicker, but runs the risk that in the meantime someone has used one of your eggs (changed the data) in which case you have to go back to the kitchen and rewrite your list. This is what is generally called opportunistic locking and works as long as someone tells you they’ve nicked an egg which as in life isn’t always the case.

In a Client Server application, local caching doesn’t really matter as the Server is doing all the work, but caching still has a role to play on the Server itself as it only in turn has to look in the kitchen cupboard once rather than checking each item individually before shouting back the answer.

Now on a single computer the Client Server thing doesn’t really apply as there is only one of you doing all the work but it comes into its own on a network.

With a network you no longer have a kitchen cupboard. All your ingredients are in the grocery shop.

So instead of a short trot to the kitchen you have now got to get in your car, drive to the store, and see if they have the sugar in stock.

Then you drive home

Then you drive back again to see if they have the eggs.

Repeat.

Takes a lot of time.

In a client server program you drive to the store, hand over your shopping list and they (the server) delivers the items to your home (it’s an old fashioned store). Result is only one round trip to the store with them doing all the work instead of you so you can carry on with those important things (drinking more beer) again in the meantime.

Now if the store does caching as well, they will have kept a list of the things you need to buy and they’ll only have to search all the aisles once (unless of course someone else buys something on your list) so even without client server applications, caching on the server speeds up the time taken to find your groceries and deliver them to you.

Unfortunately it all goes horribly wrong when the Store Detective starts work.

They want to check everybody (including store employees) every time someone walks down an aisle and possibly when you park the car and walk in the door.

The more mature detectives can be told to use common sense and just check certain people and aisles but the new brigade (mini filters) are having nothing of this. They check everything on their list even if you’re a valued customer just to make sure your not on the list so every single item you look for will be examined by the detective. Have a nice day sir.

And if the new brigade are in a really bad mood they’ll tear up your list (so we can’t use the cache) each time you visit the aisle.

The bottom line is that Sage and many other non Client Server applications can be quite network intensive for operations that involve searching though large amounts of data.

If the Store Detective (Anti Virus) is too intrusive this can seriously degrade performance.

Keep in mind that if you have 100,000 transactions some processes may involve 100,000 trips to the store, 100,000 conversations with the detective, 100,000 tearing ups of shopping lists (not using the cache) and will quickly compound in performance terms.

You can’t avoid the trips to the store until Sage bring out their new version in 2010 based on MySQL but you can make sure you have a well behaved Store Detective.

In our experience, the number 1 cause of poor Sage 50 performance is Anti Virus software.

For more information see www.sbslimited.co.uk/sageslow.htm

Safe as Houses?

After months of staring at Rightmove and trekking backwards and forwards we've finally made an offer on a house...

We paid 15K less than the semi realistic asking price (it was being sold in part exchange for a new house) and I'm hoping we're not going to lose money but I'm not holding my breath.

An identical house around the corner (with an extra parking space and a slightly better view) but no conservatory has just gone on the market for 40K more than we paid, which I'd like to take comfort from, but I think they're being hopelessly optimistic.

There's some evidence in our chosen area (alright, my wife's chosen area) that houses are selling at sensible prices so maybe we're near the bottom of the market now (or that dead cat is bouncing again).

The only downside is the neighbours appear to have kids, but then I've got 3 classic Hondas and a pair of Tannoy Ardens...

Back to the future

After another exciting day viewing property it's becoming apparent that asking prices have dropped around 15% in the last 6 weeks or so and, in the areas we are looking at, pretty much back to 2001 levels.

A few of the houses we've seen have actually sold now and I suspect the price achieved is probably less than the advertised reduced price. The agents tell me that sales are picking up which is probably true but only for houses that have very realistic prices.

It'll be interesting to see the Land Registry information for these sold houses to see the actual price they got.

In the face of a worsening economc situation I can't any reason for prices to increase any time soon. If you're buying now it's a 50/50 chance as to whether you'll have paid too much.

I'd say it's a cast iron certainty that interest rates will rise soon which will depress prices still further.

A useful web site I've just found is www.mouseprice.com

Another Reason to hate Estate Agents (and Bankers)

There seems to be the emergence of a nice little scam by the Estate Agents and their mates...

(This is first hand experience and not an anecdotal tale by the way)

A modern 4 bedroom house appears on Rightmove at a good price at the weekend.

The next day we ring the agent who a) is very offhand b) fails to mention it's repossesed c) can't possibly arrange a viewing until Saturday despite having the keys.

Now, apart from anything else, I find it extremely improbable that an agent is so busy they can't arrange a viewing until the weekend.

On late Friday afternoon the agent rings and tells us that they have had an offer which has been accepted and solicitors instructed so we are wasting our time unless we can offer more and are in a position to proceed...

Now as it happens we have the required dosh sat in the bank and we had already made appointments to see other property in the area so we said we'd view anyway....

Which must have been a surprise as they then had to reschedule the appointment.

Smells a bit to me.

Just might be they have a mate who has been been tipped the wink?

Everybody is happy except the original owner who's going to be liable for any shortfall.

And me of course.

Xperia Update

An update on the Xperia (literally)

With the customary reluctance I decided I might as well experience the upgrade the phone process....

It's a bit more long winded than you might like. First off you go to the Sony Ericcson site and download the Update Service to your PC.

This describes what you need to do, the first step of which is to back up your phone as the update destroys all your settings, downloaded programs etc. i.e. it returns it back to the state when you took it out of the box (but with the new firmware).

What it doesn't tell you is how to back up your phone...

The Xperia doesn't include any back up software so a quick trawl around the net found a couple of solutions. But before you can use these you need to install the ActiveSync software from the CD that comes with the Xperia.

I decided to try out the Sprite Backup software (10 day free trial). This seemed to back up to the PC OK (but note it does shut down the phone while it does it so you won't be getting any calls).

Before running the Update Service you need to make sure the phone is fully charged, remove the sim from the phone and turn off the wireless connection.

Then run the Update Service. It decided that new software was available for the X1 with a name of X1i vfe uk cdf 1215 0285. It appears to detect which supplier you are using and select the appropriate download. You then follow the instructions to reboot the phone ready for the update. This involves holding down 2 buttons which I fund a bit of a faff.

The Update then downloads the file from the web which took around 15 minutes, then uploads it to the phone (during this part of the process a progess bar is displayed on the X1).

The phone then reboots and you have to align the screen and set the date and time. It then installs the software updates which takes a few minutes (couple of new games etc).

After this, you need to close down and re-insert the Sim. The Rom is now shown as R2AA 007.

The next step was to restore the backup which sadly didn't want to play. As there wasn't much set up on the phone I couldn't be bothered to pursue this but I think in future I'd buy a memory card and make sure everything is saved to that instead.

Incidentally the wireless still doesn't work...

By the way the Tweak for the Xperia solved the irritating "backlight going off during a call" problem http://www.cliffords.nu . You can also download Remote Desktop for the X1 from http://andrewblock.net/?p=85 . Thanks guys.

Sony Xperia X1

Reluctantly (obviously) I decided to upgrade my venerable Nokia Communicator because 1. it's falling apart and 2. it's a free upgrade.

Having got used to having a keyboard I went for the Sony Xperia.

Apart from the dubious battery life it's not too bad. Internet access (which is a big must) is good, Wireless essentially doesn't work (it connects but won't use the connection), GPS and Google Maps is pretty neat and saves me having to buy a sat nav. Remote Desktop (which isn't there as standard but can be downloaded) is excellent.

But for a phone it's bloody annoying.

In normal use you're going to leave the phone locked.

So you get an incoming call, Screen lights up and you can answer the call. So far so good.

But let's say you want to put the caller on hold or use the touch tone key pad?

By now the screen back light has gone out (it only stays on a few seconds and there seems to be no obvious way of changing this for the phone) and the phone is still locked.

So you need to press the power button to illuminate the screen, then 2 buttons to unlock the phone, then you can finally use the key pad.

A masterpiece of design.

Footnote : I have since found a download that lets you modify this setting and others at http://www.cliffords.nu/ . I'll let you know if it works..

Gordon Brown - A False Economy?

So what happens next?

In reality inflation is already streaking ahead despite the official figures.

Food prices continue upwards and not surprisingly business has said that prices for imported goods (i.e. just about everything) will increase substantially due to the 30% drop in the value of the pound.

Just in case you don't get it, if the importer has to pay 30% more for the product he MUST put up the price you pay by a similiar amount or loose money on everything they sell (why would you do that? You're better selling nothing than selling at a loss).

You will have noticed if you've been paying attention that there are very few adverts for consumer goods now (like big screen TV's).

So unless you work in the public sector this is what you have to look forward to

Reduced wages, if you are lucky enough to keep your job.

Increased prices (up to 30%) for all imported goods.

Increased Council Tax (obviously)

Increased fuel bills (again)

Substantial interest rate rises very soon. GB needs to borrow so much foreign investors will need a strong incentive to lend to us. Expect to see a reduction in UK Credit rating.

Update : The Treasury failed to flog off all the Gilts offered at Auction today...

Increased Taxation. Tax is the only way the Government can pay back the money it is borrowing, especially since they have pretty much run out of things they can sell (gas, electricity, railways, nuclear power, post office, railways, PFI etc). At the same time Tax revenues from business have dropped like a stone, Banks won't be paying any tax any time soon, and the cost of unemployment benefits is rising.

House Prices continuing to fall because of reduction in real income and fear factor.

Private Pension values continue to throw themselves off a cliff.

Gordon Brown borrowing even more money in a desparate attempt to cling to power.

If you do work in the public sector, please don't complain. It really annoys the rest of us.

Get out the flares, it's back to the 70s.

(Just so you know the average wage for a nurse will be £31,974, a police constable £29,144 and a teacher £35,929)

(No) jobs for the boys

According to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, 35,430 non EU IT workers were granted work permits last year.

I don't believe for one second that there aren't sufficient skilled IT staff in the UK ; they're just not at the price that employers want to pay.

The Reluctant House Buyer

The Reluctant Developer now finds himself to be also a reluctant housebuyer...

Due to family circumstances (i.e. the wife said so) we are now trying to buy a house somewhere in the South of England, well at least south of the Watford Gap....

We are in the strange position of being a cash buyer which every single person you meet tells you is a good position to be in, but I have my doubts.

Firstly there is the fear that whatever you buy now may be a worth a lot less in the future. Or alternatively, the market has bottomed and if you don't buy soon all the promised lending by the the Northern Rock and HSBC (otherwise known as pre-election bribes by Gordon Brown) will soon start pushing prices back up or at least stop them going down.

Then there's what do you offer? In a normal market we know there is a unwritten protocol where the vendor asks for a bit more than they expect to get, you offer a bit less and agree on a price in the middle.

Honour is satisfied all round.

Now it is all more complex. Fear of falling prices means that I'm tempted to offer very low ; say £200K on a £250K price and I'm nervous that is still too much. Many properties we have seen have already been reduced by similiar amounts and still aren't selling.

Viewing modern houses in areas like Swindon is overwhelming. There are hundreds of them, not to mention the unsold new build, and they all look just the same. It gets down to trying to find the one that has slightly more parking space, or a garden just a little bigger than a postage stamp.

I'm also in danger of getting in trouble with the RSPCA since using a cat as a measuring device is causing them quite a lot of injuries (but at least you get 9 goes with each cat).

Out in the more rural areas prices are still in the "you've got to be kidding" territory. We've seen a concrete prefab bungalow on a reasonable plot but next to a main road in a not particulary attractive village that is on the market for £210K reduced from £250K and all you could do with it would be to knock it down and build something else.

This is apparently what happened to the neighbouring bungalow which now has a quite nice bungalow built at a cost of £150K, on the market at £420k reduced from £460K but isn't selling either.

My guess is the average house price will drop to around 120K providing Gordon doesn't totally bankrupt us by attempting to re-inflate house prices so I think at least another 20% needs to come off current prices.

The house now on at 200K needs to be more like 160K, 250K down to 200K etc.

I'll keep you posted...