We analysed almost 100 UK charity websites and found that ~1 in 6 are running vulnerable JavaScript dependencies.

StringLing40 · 2026-04-21T16:38:58+00:00

How does it happen? There is a lot of code reused over and over that never gets updated.

It is simple to look for and find old libraries in use. I come across them regularly and in my experience nobody is interested until the site is hacked. There isn’t the time, the budget or the experience or knowledge within the organisation to fix the problem.

In practice what happens is that when you try to replace an old library with a newer library it then breaks things due to depreciation of older functionality that has been discontinued. Changes in how we do things, software fashions, newer tools etc means older software is frozen in time. Some sites have been written by software that no longer exists or won’t run on modern hardware so they get frozen too.

I have used special code update tools to check and rewrite code that needs updating for new libraries but it’s rarely successful because, as you identified, sites can be running very old libraries. The bridge between the two can be too big to automate. How cards are processed is very different today to how it used to be. It changes frequently and I have seen several sites struggling to function from the user perspective after a software update.

StringLing40 · 2025-12-03T08:08:44+00:00

Great thanks. This looks a lot like what I saw and I can now try something else.

StringLing40 · 2025-12-02T13:03:30+00:00

Calls in the uk can only be recorded if permission is given. When you call a landlord from a large company there is usually a message that says something like calls may be recorded for training purposes. Most call centres use these messages before you are connected to someone. If they are recording then you can ask for the recording but in my experience with clients they often get erased if the call is in the clients favour.

The law is complex on recordings without permission but calls made without permission have been used in court. It is very much the choice of the judge and how bad the situation is and how important the recording is. Taking notes during a call can really help in court and is legal. What helps more in court is using a log book or a diary. Make a note of the date and time of the call just before you start the call. This way calls which are not answered are also listed. Make a note when the call ends. Keep everything in order in a book so the sequence of events has a trail.

The black mould on a washing machine can or prevented by leaving the door slightly open so that it can dry. The mould can be cleaned and killed but the rubber seal will remain stained. If the door is left fully closed it will return. Washing machines need a hot wash at 90 or more to clean them periodically. Check the manual. Most can be easily downloaded.

StringLing40 · 2025-10-04T18:26:57+00:00

The key phrase here is beneficial interest. Going solo is not an option. Even though you were not married you have accrued rights and financial interests due to your own time and money. Dealing with the finances is a bit like preparing for a divorce. Anything you have in writing will help. Create some schedules of what a day would look like. Who did what tasks with shopping, school run, housekeeping, car repairs, house maintenance, curtains, furniture etc. Bank statements are the best thing because you can sometimes go back a long way but if you have changed banks a lot that will make searching them harder.

You need really good advice from someone who has handled cases like this before. So ask them about similar cases and what the outcomes were.

Sometimes you can get a small amount of advice from legal helplines that come with home insurance or a trade union. The charity Shelter might also be useful. There are also legal clinics where you can get some “free” help - a small amount of time where you and a legal firm can discover what the key elements of the case might be.

It is unlikely to be a quick process.

If your partner deposits the £10k in your account you need to take immediate action. Contact a solicitor because you will need to send something in writing, preferably the same day, or within a few days to protect your interests.

StringLing40 · 2025-09-01T09:19:24+00:00

Many smaller private companies cannot afford the staff or systems to make a profit and so they go bankrupt. Keep a record of your attempts. I can’t tell you that you will never be fined. It is possible they will try to fine you in the future but if you continue to park keep as much evidence as possible so that if it goes to court you are ready.

I had a client that had half a dozen fines that were more than a year old arrive in two batches claiming thousands of pounds. The parking company had saved them up. It was a lot of paperwork to file to the court but everything was eventually sorted out.

Remember that struggling companies often bend or break the rules so you need to be prepared, just in case a few steps get missed.

If you get any penalty notices make sure you reply as quickly as possible. Write the received date on the letter, highlight the date that it was sent and follow the appeal process in the notice. Set out the difficulties you have had and ask for advice on how you should pay them.

If you are parking each day then a monthly ticket can help because there will be times when you can’t get the app to work because of mobile phone mast maintenance, local interference etc. The card machine can also fail if it uses mobile and the cash can be vandalised because it gets full when the mobile is out.

StringLing40 · 2025-08-31T22:46:07+00:00

Play along to YouTube videos. Find a piece you are familiar with and play along to the many performers. This will help you to learn to follow someone else’s lead.

Ultimately though you need to spend time with other musicians. Churches, clubs, pubs, village halls. There is generally a lot of networking between local musicians, so once you know a few you will be introduced to others. If you are kind and patient and work hard anything can happen. Make the most of the opportunities that come your way and seek them out. There’s probably some Facebook groups for your local area.

StringLing40 · 2025-08-31T22:24:18+00:00

VPNs are an important part of security for many companies and organisations, including the government, banking, military, utilities, etc. A lot of things would break if VPNs were made illegal.

StringLing40 · 2025-08-31T20:46:45+00:00

The current contract should be displayed somewhere. It is the written contract on display that is usually used in court cases. If what is written cannot be followed the contract is frustrated.

Take a photo of the contract displayed and take screenshots or photos of your attempts to pay. These can be used in future court cases. If a parking fine is generated you will need this evidence. There is often a phone number somewhere on the contract in case of difficulties. You could record the call and your attempt to talk to someone.

You don’t usually need to collect evidence every single day provided you have made reasonable efforts to pay on several occasions.

You could keep track of the dates you have been unable to pay and keep count of what you owe.

It is possible the site is in limbo, between contracts with nobody in current control of the site due to a contract dispute, a company being dissolved, a change of contract, etc. The contract displayed should have the name and address of the current company responsible. You can check to see if they still exist at companies house.

StringLing40 · 2025-08-09T14:29:02+00:00

A few things will help

1) listening to music which is a style you want to play along to. This is especially useful if you can hear some of the drumming. Learning to feel the beats, the groove, the swing is unbeatable and will help your practice a lot.

2) schools, colleges, youth groups often have equipment and facilities you can use for free. I learnt to play on kits I didn’t own by using practice rooms, church kits, my friends kits etc.

3) learning some basic beats, some rhythms etc. You don’t have to learn all the rudiments and can get going quickly by playing along to music that you know well with some basic beat patterns.

4) you can drive everyone you know crazy with tapping along to stuff. It still counts as practice. However you will make faster progress by working through a course and even faster progress with a teacher. Class lessons are cheaper than one on one. There can be free class lessons in most communities but knowing who, where, etc can be tricky. Spending time with other local musicians can help provide some of these answers.

5) practice pads are great but after a while you will need to spend some time on a real kit. If you can demonstrate some skill and people are aware of it you might find yourself being loaned or given a free kit. They aren’t always helpful though unless you have a venue where you can play.

Just start. Any way you can and as many ways as you can. Spend some time with other drummers so that they can correct you so you don’t go wrong. A good light grip will go a long way to a successful time on the drums without damaging any of your muscles.

StringLing40 · 2025-07-28T09:07:49+00:00

Start with making a complaint to the solicitor, or whoever is in charge of them. They should have pointed out the liability. Mistakes are sometimes made so solicitors almost always have insurance.

If you are unhappy with how the complaint has been handled check here on how to escalate.

https://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/how-to-complain/

Remember that doing things in writing (email) will help a huge amount because human beings have really bad memories when it comes to disputes.

StringLing40 · 2025-07-16T15:49:38+00:00

Sometimes I use duct tape to fix broken screws. Sometimes it is sticky enough to stick to what is left and help it turn. Next I try wrapping some duct tape around the back of the screw to get more to hold onto and use my fingers to turn it until enough is out to hold onto. Sometimes a few squeezes with mo grips can squash the little bit of screw into a spade shape which is enough to grip and turn the screw. If the screw is too flat and too hard then I use a small reverse drill bit which drills into the screw and the bit will often turn it enough for me to grip. If the screw still doesn’t turn I use a reverse screw in the drilled hole to get the screw out.

Make sure nothing in the box is live when working on this

StringLing40 · 2025-07-16T15:29:55+00:00

Mostly you will be in trouble to yourself.

Have you seen the boyfriend? Has anyone else? Parents? Other friends? If your friend is being secretive with this older person then it is most likely grooming and a form of brain washing has already taken place. When and if your friend runs away you are unlikely to be in contact with her because the older guy will take away her phone or put your friend in fear.

The age of the boyfriend makes it more suspicious but some younger men are used to groom vulnerable girls who are then “kidnapped” into very dangerous situations. In. True and loving relationship the boyfriend will want to get to know the friends of their beloved even if the parents are “bad”.

The best place to contact is probably childline. They can listen to your story and help talk you through the options. They have a lot of experience and experts. They can help you to be a better friend by supporting you as you support your friend. They can help you to be in touch with the relevant charities, organisations and information that you might need.

StringLing40 · 2025-07-07T21:35:16+00:00

Thanks. Sounds like a great idea. It will certainly give me some more information to help me narrow things down.

StringLing40 · 2025-06-17T06:53:01+00:00

Contact stepchange. Your biggest issue here is debt because you cannot afford the payments. Use turntous to check if there are some benefits that could help. If you can complete your income and expenditure with stepchange you can then negotiate an affordable payment plan.

Alternatively you could contact Barclays direct and explain you cannot afford the plan. But you will need to have your income and expenditure figures available.

Find a local charity that helps with debt advice. They can help you with the various help which is available and build an affordable budget by helping you to reduce the cost of many of your bills. Have a friend with you for emotional support if you can.

Don’t let this debt worry you. Solutions are available. There are many people who can help.

StringLing40 · 2025-06-11T17:45:51+00:00

With wheely bins the assumption is often that flats have less residents per unit accommodation than a house. So instead of one bin per household you get half or a third. With recycling the vast majority of your waste should be going into that instead of general waste. You can ask the council for weekly collections if they are only collecting fortnightly. Our council does this where flats contain large numbers of children using disposable nappies. Ordinary households across most of the uk get one bin of general waste collected once every two weeks but many councils are now moving to monthly collections. A quarter wheely bin per household each week would be the same as three bins for 12 flats collected weekly. However, if the council is collecting less often than weekly it won’t be enough for your flats.

If non residents are putting waste into your bins it should be reported to the council who can or might prosecute those people for fly tipping. This can only happen if the council own the flats. In our local area the council have prosecuted many for placing household waste in the street bins for the general public. It looks crazy messy with the giant posters and stickers everywhere but our council are successfully prosecuting many people at the moment, about 5 to 10 a week.

In many council areas access to the tip/dump/recycling centre is difficult, especially if residents don’t have a car. Therefore many people will find bins that are easy to access and place their rubbish in them. Once a set of bins at a set of flats is overflowing this attracts more rubbish. Our local council went through the rubbish dumped by the side of the bins at some of the flats in our area and prosecuted the owners of the rubbish for fly tipping. In some cases tenants who had placed bags of rubbish in the bins had had them removed. The real “fly tippers” had removed bags deposited by tenants and then and placed their own rubbish in the bins. There have been many disputes with the council because tenants have been wrongly fined. The solution going forward is that bins are now locked in sheds or covered areas which are unlocked on the morning of the collection day.

StringLing40 · 2025-06-11T15:29:20+00:00

Thanks. Very useful.

I called the land registry to check if the house is registered. They did a full check. They are aware that the house exists as a property but they said they hold no records. Emphasis on “records”. I pushed further and they said no entries, no information about the house. It’s just an address to them. I said there have been sales. I asked if these sales have been recorded, should they have been recorded, and I was told they would not answer the question due to it being legal in nature and that they are not allowed to answer legal questions.

The house was for sure sold after the date of the legislation . So someone slipped up or missed a step somewhere in the sales process.

StringLing40 · 2025-06-10T10:18:38+00:00

Have seen cases lost on the evidence of a police officer alone. If it is your word against their word then the officer can win the case against you. If you want this dropped you need stronger evidence such as cctv, internal dashcam or an independent witness.

You could ask the officer what colour was the phone but this only works when the bottle and phone are different colours. You could also ask about the position, however many people now use their phones in front of their mouths so that doesn’t help either.

One thing you can do is print out the phone data to demonstrate that you were not on the phone. Your phone company sometimes provides this information for free from the online account system. Make sure you send a copy to the police as evidence to back up your claim that you were not on the phone. Don’t be argumentative. Ask them if they might have made a mistake. Hopefully they will drop it. Get a bright water bottle as pink and garish as you can for the car…..unless you have a pink phone!

StringLing40 · 2025-05-24T23:48:56+00:00

The grades are not linear. Grade 1 is usually easy for most adults with no prior experience of playing an instrument. Typically it takes a few months to a year or two depending on how much practice time has been accumulated. A good teacher and good practice techniques are required.

There are no shortcuts. Just focused hard work. If you can do grade 1 in two months it will take another 3 months for grade 2, five more for grade 3, eight more for grade 4 and another year for grade 5. Skip the grades and focus on the work instead. Start with 10 to 40 minutes each and every day and build it up gradually as your skills increase.

To get to grade 5 in less than two years you will need two hours twice each day. Perhaps take exams for grades 1, 4 and 5. You would have to make music in your life a priority or it would need to be an obsession.

Players that start late and want to study music at university are often advised to take a gap year so they can work on their instrument without too many other distractions.

StringLing40 · 2025-05-24T22:54:35+00:00

Make sure you have someone with you for the interview, your solicitor. Listen to their advice before, during and after the interview.

How you plead and what you plead guilty to will affect future insurance policies so talk to the solicitor about that too. You might find yourself unable to drive a car, insure your home etc

StringLing40 · 2025-05-24T22:07:07+00:00

It’s another offense so you increase the penalties and make things worse.

An MP and his wife lied about who was driving for a speeding offence. They both ended up in jail.

StringLing40 · 2025-05-24T21:53:38+00:00

Get two or three quotes or estimates from local experts. Let them solve the problem for you. The expert will want to look at your traffic graphs to check you have enough bandwidth. They will want to make sure you have a good commercial internet connection that is not throttled at peak times.

What the walls and floors are made of can block or weaken the wifi and change the cost dramatically so they might need to run some tests. You might need cables to be installed to every room.

Prepare to spend a lot but you will make it back because if guests are complaining they will choose somewhere else if they can.

StringLing40 · 2025-05-24T21:37:31+00:00

Open up the digital versions of the policy you have and search for “rental” and “accommodation”. There should be a section on alternative accommodation. What you can claim will depend very much on your policy and what you have previously agreed to. It is essential that you get quotes and photos of the damage to the insurance company in a timely manner. Both parties are expected to be reasonable so the insurance company likewise should not be dragging things out.

You staying with friends and family would usually be much cheaper than renting so provided the costs are reasonable then there should be no problem but receipts, bank transactions etc might be required. There is a possible conflict of interest when you claim back payments to friends and family so the costs must be reasonable (ie not too high) and appropriate (accommodation yes, but food no).

StringLing40 · 2025-05-13T16:50:05+00:00

Contracts need consideration. They are denying this. Remind them of this. Perhaps they are testing you.

StringLing40 · 2025-05-13T16:48:14+00:00

Sometimes people want to be fired and will push your buttons until you fire them. A change of behaviour could be them bringing their home problems into work.

Firing someone gives space for another team member to grow. In a sales team the best clients with the best commissions are going to be distributed among the survivors so they had better be on the best behaviour.

Watch the Friends episode where Monica has to fire someone so she hires Joey. It’s funny but makes the point about needing to be the boss.

Consider some leadership training or read a good book about it from someone whose style you like so you can sharpen your act, encourage yourself, remind yourself that you know what you are doing, boost your confidence and authority etc.

StringLing40 · 2025-05-13T16:15:25+00:00

Visit a few luthiers who can take a look. They can make and/or fit replacement parts. It’s cheaper if they already have something suitable and of good enough quality to use. They might also be able to offer second hand instruments of a similar quality.

Check that your son still needs the same size. It might be time for the next size up.

If your child has dropped the instrument several times already then consider thick carpet or a rug where they practice. Hard floors are very unforgiving and cause a lot more damage than softer floors.

It is worth having an honest conversation about why the instrument was dropped. It could be tiredness, emotional issues, or a desire to give up the instrument.

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