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• $55 Billion annual computer virus damages to U.S. businesses. [Encrypted files can not be infected by viruses].

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This was searched for on my blog: The temptation is just too great, and so, my 64-bit-fixation not yet retired to the back of my mind, I’ll answer it directly: -

Some people think it’s a sign of idiocy to answer a question with a question. Personally I don’t. – Although I myself don’t profess to be a Christian; according to the Christian Bible, Jesus Christ himself often answered a question with a question. Look at the number of followers he has, even after 2000+ years! ( – If only Twitter were around in His day.)

So in answer I’d ask the inquirer posing the question: -

‘Why aren’t new 16-bit, 8-bit, and 4-bit computers available any more?’

Do you remember the days of DOS, when 8MBs of RAM were considered a big-deal? 16-bit-processing was the standard, and DOS, which is still in a way a large part of the framework that Windows is constructed upon, was originally a 16-bit operating system. – Nobody much programs in DOS these days. I used to write the odd batch-file in Windows 98 to freak people out at college, much to my tutor’s displeasure; particularly in view of the fact that I was on an electronics course rather than a computer course – but I think that was the last time I used it.

(‘Remember Fortran and Cobol? – That’s another subject entirely. Going back even further; machine-code: It’s still at the heart of all computing, and is the original computing language… Kind of. ‘Remember that board with one of the first 1MHz processors on it, that you could only program in machine-code? (‘Around 1977/8-time if I remember correctly. – It cost about £600GBP!) – I knew someone who had one; but I still never learned to program in machine-code, to my discredit.)

Did you know you can build your own 4-bit analogue-to-digital/D – A converter from just 4 quad 2-input TTL NAND-gate chips? – Those were the days; eh?

Why does this person want a 32-bit new computer anyway? Do I hear “I have old peripheral hardware that won’t operate in a 64-bit environment.”?

- Run 32-bit XP Pro in a virtual machine inside 64-bit Windows 7. – That’s one way round it. – See this article. ( It was quite astounding to find out that I wrote that article as long ago as 25th June: It seems like only a couple of weeks ago!) – Better still; get new hardware, whatever.

It sounds like our enquirer needs something like an Atari, maybe? : That was actually a very good computer for its time.

Joking and sarcastic quips aside, though; progress rules: Technology moves ever onwards.

On that note I am, actually, looking forwards to the first 128-bit commercially-available operating system’s release. A few supercomputers are already using a 128-bit operating-system; so I very much doubt that it’ll stay in the ultra-geek-world only for that much longer.

Please do use that little-used comments-box and state your opinion.

- Oh and if you’re wondering why it’s so small, and why it asks you to log in: The reason is that I’m using the Disqus comment system – which gives comments a little more social ‘oomph’. – Join Disqus why not: It’s free, and there are many other bloggers using it as well as me.

Don’t be shy; and it’s quite safe.

In the same way that you should always make backups of your computer’s operating system as is, plus your files; so, in the same way you should back up your WordPress blog.

Backing-up your blog doesn’t mean just keeping a copy of the files that are immediately available via your blog’s FTP server though; those aren’t the only files that you should back-up. Although those files are important, there are other files that are equally if not more important: Those files are the files in your database.

Think of your database as a simile of the Windows Registry: All the files that appear on your blog’s FTP server have corresponding entries in the database, in any one or possibly more of a number of specific tables in the database.

I won’t get too technical here; but I’ll just say that without the correct database a WordPress blog on a Linux server doesn’t work. – So you need to back-up your database as well as your files. How do you do that?

Well there are several ways of doing that; but here’s the one, possibly most unorthodox, way of doing it that I find the easiest by far.

Before I go into backing up your database I thought that I’d have a word about database optimization. – You see everything that is ever a file on your blog itself gets an entry in the database, but if you remove a file from your blog the database entry corresponding to it remains in place. For instance, say that you start writing a post on WordPress itself, and after you’ve written a page you decide that what you’ve written isn’t a good enough standard of writing for publication. You therefore decide that you’re just not in the right frame of mind to do it right now, that you’ll delete the page you saved, and come back to it and start again later on. You delete the page, but its database entry remains. When you start again there’s another database entry, which you save half-way through writing it when you have a coffee-break; and that’s another database-entry. (No;  the saved page, silly, not the coffee-break.   )

So as time goes by, as you can imagine, the database gets cluttered with junk, in the form of entries for saved, revised pages, etc. One page may be saved and revised many times, each creates a database entry, though the only copy you actually want is the latest revision, in most cases. – Therefore you could find that the amount of space that your database takes up on your server’s hard-drive could almost equal the amount of space taken up by the other files eventually, even though most of it is occupied by unwanted junk-entries.

Optimise first

This is where database-optimisation comes into its own. Optimizing your database means clearing out all the unwanted crap that’s making it huge, and only keeping the entries that are needed. In the old days you had to learn MySQL, install and operate phpMyAdmin, etc, to do that. These days the geeks associated with WordPress have built a plugin so that you don’t have to.

The free plugin is called WP-Optimize, not surprisingly, and it does what it says on the tin: It automatically optimises (Yes I spelled it the English way that time.) your WP database. It’s exactly like any other plugin to set up, it goes into the plugins directory inside the WP-content folder, and you activate it via the plugins section of the WordPress user interface. You’ll find the settings configurations for it in the ‘Dashboard’ section.

This plugin will optimise your database so that it doesn’t become too huge; fat with unwanted junk, causing wasted time when you back it up.

- Which brings us back up to the subject of back-up: I’ll now tell you how to back-up your database pretty much totally automatically, with very little interaction, so that there’ll be a copy of the backup of your database files retained on your server, and also you’ll have one handy on your computer too, along with the files you back-up via FTP, should the worst come to the worst.

In a while I’ll tell you what I do to accomplish this: You might like to copy me, or you might like to adapt my method to suit yourself. Whatever is the case, you’ll first have to install another plugin: -

Database back-up

This time the free plugin’s called WP-DB-backup, and it once again avoids you having to learn MySQL and phpMyAdmin by automating the backup of your database.

Install and activate it in the usual way, and set it to back-up all your database tables to your server on a daily schedule. It’ll create a folder in WP-content called ‘Backup-oc879′, if I remember correctly. Inside that folder it’ll deposit a zipped backup of your database as an .sql.gz file on a daily basis as per your settings. You’ll find the settings for this plugin in the ‘Tools’ section of WP.

I’ll mention, at this point, that when your blog starts to get big like mine is, with over 500 posts, the backups are also rather large. – You only need the latest backup (+ the one before that, for ‘luck’.) – So every week I go into that folder and erase all but the last 2 backups, which are around 12MBs in size each in my case, because I find that they take a long time to download, and if there’s less of them, considering I really only want 2 of them, then getting rid of the trash makes a lighter load.

FTP it

OK – So your database now is backed up daily to your server, and you back-up all the files on your server on a daily-basis, manually, via FTP. – That way you’ve backed up everything, including your automatically-backed-up database too. (Unfortunately you will have to install and learn phpMyAdmin if you ever need to restore your database files; but at least you’ll have a backup or more to hand should the need arise.)

I have 9 backups at a time for reference purposes on my computer.

"NINE!?"

Yes, nine: ‘kkomp latest backup #1′, ‘kkomp latest backup #2′, ‘kkomp latest backup #3′… all inside a single folder. Whenever I need to make a new backup, I find the oldest backup and delete everything inside the folder, then I back-up the entire blog including database backup(s) to the empty folder via FTP. – That way, if I do something, try it out, and then decide that it was better the way it was x-days ago, I have a back-up of just that.

Yes, it’s a little extra work, (- And you have no idea how extremely slowly and laboriously each of those backups transfers across a LAN at an average speed of somewhere around 167KB/s. It also takes over an hour to FTP them up from the server too; but I just do something else while that’s going on.) but it’s all part of the job to me. I even copy a backup to another file after renaming it by adding the word ‘old’ to its title once in a while, just for posterity’s sake.

Anyway; that’s how it’s done in my case.

Enjoy the rest of the week.

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According to figures released by Net Applications on or around 5th November 2009, it would seem that Windows 7 had at that time already taken 3.67% of the operating system market; a 1.68% growth since its launch on 22nd October 2009.Most if not all of the figures released on 22nd October were related to the free release Candidate, but the increasing figures suggest that many users are upgrading their operating systems to Windows 7.

Despite this somewhat explosive growth; it appears also that Windows 7 installations, in the main, are simply replacing older Windows operating systems, rather than capturing market real-estate from competitors. From September to end of October 2009 the Mac’s market-share grew from 5.12% of the market to 5.27%; a rise of 0.15%. Did those users migrate over from Linux or Windows; or are they perhaps using Windows and Mac on separate computers? Maybe they’re new users? It appears that Windows 7 isn’t causing any Mac people to convert at this time.

The overall Windows market share in fact dropped slightly in October. Nevertheless, Windows accounts for 92.52% of the marketing total, according to available figures released on 5th November, compared to 92.77% in September. – It’s growth, then, for both Microsoft and Apple.

That fact could well be due to the timing of Apple’s release of Snow Leopard, as well as the factor of a good pricing policy on their part. The low price of Snow Leopard in comparison to Windows 7 is offset by the high price that Mac users initially paid for their machines; so all in all the cost of running either comes down to a similar figure at the end of the day.

Of course, the figures released by Net Applications quite obviously are more relevant to the USA than globally it would appear, although do correct me if I am wrong. The sales of Macs in America appear to be greater then their global sales figures; so the figures presented herein could paint more of a cloudy picture for Windows 7 than is actually the case.

Whatever the case; it appears that Microsoft have scored  rather well so far with their new operating system. It would be interesting to compare the difference in percentage terms between those Win 7 users who are installing the 64-bit version and those installing the 32-bit version. – I don’t have those figures available currently, but any significant increases in 64-bit usage is sure to increase speed of the heralding-in of the age of 64-bit computing.

Why is this so important? Because although a 64-bit operating system utilises more memory-space for its operation, with an increase in 64-bit computing comes an increase of both operating system and hardware-versatility: Gone is the up-to 4-megabyte memory limitation with 64-bit, and it’ll be a good few years before a motherboard is manufactured that can hold even a single exabyte of RAM. Also advantageous is the fact that 64-bit hardware is far more multi-application-flexible; therefore executing a number of different programs simultaneously puts less strain on the hardware and allows faster operation.

I’ve heard it said amongst certain geeks that standardisation of 64-bit software with regard to a Windows environment will be at least two years in coming: Personally I doubt that, and would estimate that figure to be one year at most. Without the 64-bit-adoption-statistics to hand, however, I can currently only speculate.

What’s your view?

Your friendly spammers

Occasionally, you may get an email that appears to have been sent by someone you know, or someone who seems to know you rather well, judging from the familiarity of the way the person is coming across and their seeming friendliness. Unfortunately this is a tactic of malware distributors, who spoof a sender’s email address and send people an email as a spam that appears to come from someone close, or to be related to an important matter, in the hope that you’ll click the link provided and open the floodgates to any malware they’d like to infest your computer with.

Is that supposedly friendly email genuine, or a spoof? Other than intuition, there are a number of ways of finding out for sure: The most risky of which is to click the link in the email and download the “holiday video” or the “free idea”. – Of course that’s going to lead to you getting a box crawling with malware; so what’s the least risky way of finding out?

That would be to check the message’s source. It looks something like the one below, and you can normally view it by jumping through a series of hoops, depending upon which email client you use.

Trace the truth

To trace the email’s source you read backwards from above the message’s content notation: – So in this case I start above where it says “This is a multi-part message in MIME format”.

The first content you’ll see, reading upwards, is the destination address, which was my personal email, up through any number of stages where the message has been relayed via various servers, (In this case just the one.), and finally at the top, the sender’s information, name of their computer, etc.

psiorac2x is the name of one of my machines, I use BT as an ISP, and the IP pool they’re using at that time is synonymous with the set of IP addresses they sometimes commonly use for dynamic IP assignment; so in this case I can see that I sent this email to myself on Tuesday 29th September 2009, using Microsoft Outlook Express.

(You’ll note that it’s not always possible to trace the exact IP of the sender if their ISP is dynamically assigning the sender an IP address; but the ISP themselves will know exactly which IP address corresponded to which user at what time. – Therefore, unless the IP is spoofed, you should be able to complain to the sender’s ISP if need be.)

You scratch my back; I’ll claw repeatedly at yours.

(No that wasn’t a sensual come-on line. )

Now I’m told that what I’m about to tell you isn’t documented anywhere; which, if true, makes it a rather valuable piece of information. At kkomp.com I like providing value to my readers; as it provides good content, and has the readers coming back for more.

OK – Having got that covered, here is the information promised: –

As a shortcut to view the displayed email’s source, when displayed in either Microsoft Outlook Express in XP, or Windows Live Mail in XP, (Vista), or Windows 7, simply press left shift and F3 simultaneously on your keyboard.

Is that trick really totally undocumented? I’m sceptical; but once again please comment and let me know.

Enjoy the coming week; and beware of “friendly” emails.

‘So Much Hardware!

You’ve no doubt noticed the frankly amazing rate at which new hardware, particularly motherboards, is being produced at these days: It’s like there’s a race on to produce better and better hardware. The leading players appear to be motherboards in first place, closely followed by graphics cards, and processors aren’t far behind.

When a new processor begins manufacture, every motherboard manufacturer makes a variety of motherboards initially to accommodate that processor and get the very best from it. They also utilise the latest chipset designs, many of which are purposely designed to operate in tandem with a particular type of processor. The production run continues with more specifically-designed boards, possibly utilising newer chipsets; tailing off as the processor in question, and/or its socket designation, becomes less utilised in favour of something newer.

Graphics cards are more in a league of their own; with the onus on the manufacturer to use one of the recently-introduced graphics chips from the graphics-chip manufacturers to give the best performance on screen in high resolutions and fast frame-rates, from complex multi-processor-core-utilising games software.

Unique Drivers

…And with each new hardware design comes a new set of software in the form of drivers; although having said that; recently companies such as Via Technologies, in the case of motherboard chipsets; and nVidia, in the case of graphics cards, have done fairly well in producing an all-in-one driver software package that fits pretty well all of their recent products. An example of this is Via Technologies’ site Viaarena; where a driver package of this sort, one-size-fits-all, cab be used to drive pretty much any recent Via chipset.

- But that’s not the case with every manufacturer; and even a number of the products manufactured by such companies as mentioned above are so particularly specialised that they have their own individual driver.

The good thing is that, in the case of motherboards and graphics cards, the manufacturer usually provides a CD or DVD with the product that has all the necessary drivers on it. When you install the board or card, you just simply install all the necessary other drivers from the disc. You’ll also find that the manufacturer provides a download for these drivers on their website also: This is a subject that we’ll be returning to later in this article, as there is something particularly important about that fact.

Motherboard drivers mainly relate to the chipset used on that particular type of board, as well as to the onboard soundcard and any other chipset-associated graphics-circuitry if included. Also the SATA and PATA controllers, and the RAM controllers, need a driver – as does the processor itself, in relation to the specific motherboard build as well as a unit in its own right too.

Windows in the Equation

Operating systems such as Windows, particularly Windows XP onwards, were designed to cater for drivers to some extent, and, when installed, attach a driver to each device to allow it to at least function something like correctly and identify itself, so that the operating system can be properly installed. – But that doesn’t always happen.

Windows XP was launched in 2001, and contained compatible drivers for most if not all of the technology in use in 2000. With a bit of forethought, Microsoft also created basic drivers that would at least run future hardware to some extent also. – But this doesn’t mean that Windows XP will install every driver necessary to run your system proficiently and optimally on install: As years have gone by, technologies have appeared which, although largely backwards-compatible with XP, are built for Windows Vista, or more recently Windows 7; which uses a very similar kernel to Vista anyway.

- So when you install no-frills Window XP and nothing else on your box, it runs. – Perhaps the functionality of a number of devices is impeded; for instance the graphics card is only able to work with a couple of screen resolutions, at a set monitor frequency, but nevertheless it runs. The reason for this is that it installs drivers to your devices that make them work with the XP kernel. These drivers, however, aren’t specially designed for the hardware that they’re driving in most cases, and they’re old.

-She’s Boasting Again…

I’ve just installed the RTM version of Windows 7 64-bit, after previously running the 64-bit RC version. – Both versions instantly recognised all of the hardware in my self-built computer, and so it should: the hardware I used was a Gigabyte motherboard that had been around a few months, as had the Gigabyte 256MB GDDR3 graphics card, the 8GBs of DDR2 800MHz RAM, the AMD triple-core Phenom processor, and so on. – All fully 64-bit capable, designed for use with Vista, and therefore Windows 7… – Except for two pieces of hardware in particular: The Realtek onboard sound-card needed a Realtek High-Definition Audio driver, which even Windows 7 didn’t carry in its arsenal: Result = no sound. Also there was no decent driver for the chipset: While Windows installed one that made it work, it didn’t have the necessary custom-designed driver that was required: The nVidia nForce System Management driver. – Both of these I had to install from the CD that came packed with the motherboard.

Soon Windows 7 will start initially installing only make-do drivers that allow the hardware to function very basically with the kernel. – The good thing about Windows 7 is that if it can’t immediately find a decent driver for a piece of hardware, then it will, after installing the best  driver it can find that works, go straight online to Windows Update to try to find a better driver there.

Another thing is that even Windows Update isn’t always that accurate: Yesterday, for instance, I was offered a replacement driver in Windows 7 for my Realtek ethernet connection as an optional update. The replacement driver was a year older than the one that was already installed, which was installed from the motherboard driver CD, and it didn’t work: result = no ethernet connection. I rolled back the driver and the ethernet port instantly started working again.

On that note; there are some automated driver-update services out there, which are supposed to always keep your computer up to date with the latest drivers. – These are also rather fallible: One of them that I used to use told me that my then Via chipset’s drivers were old, and it replaced them with Intel chipset drivers, so that it wouldn’t start. – ‘Not good.

In short; automated driver update services such as this, like most AI of this point in time time, occasionally have a brain-fart, and mess up big time.

(Windows XP will also go to Windows Update and find drivers; but not by default: You have to set the operating system to do this manually after installation; and even then XP will only chase down a better driver than the one already installed if you ask it to. If a piece of hardware doesn’t have a driver that isn’t available on the XP CD, or that piece of hardware has just been installed without a driver, XP will go to Windows Update to look for a better driver, sometimes automatically if set right; sometimes only if you prompt it to do so.)

Windows Update doesn’t have every type of hardware driver, though, so there’s a 50/50 chance that the operating system will have no luck there. Also, Windows Update doesn’t have all the latest versions of the drivers that it does have ready to be used: If it has a newer version of the driver that you have installed, then it’ll upgrade it; but just because it’s newer doesn’t mean that it’s the newest applicable driver.

‘Time for an Update?

This is where the manufacturer’s website that I mentioned earlier comes into play: –

If you look in Device Manager, then you’ll see details of the driver version that you currently have installed, who made the driver, the date that the driver was released, the hardware that it’s driving, who made the hardware, the hardware’s model number, etc.

Every now and then a hardware manufacturer’s research and development team will discover a flaw in a driver that was previously unnoticed. They’ll rewrite the driver to eradicate that flaw and improve performance of the product. – Either that or they’ll discover a security vulnerability in it and write it out. Having rewritten and tested the new driver version, they’ll release it to the public, so that their customers get better performance from their product.

Unless you keep a lookout for new drivers you could miss out on such performance-gains. – Which is where an occasional visit to a manufacturer’s website can be very helpful. If you rely on Microsoft Update then you’ll get the odd update; but it won’t be anything like new, and you’ll probably miss out on many new driver versions.

The above paragraph applies particularly to chipset drivers and graphics drivers; so keep a lookout for new versions of the drivers that you’re using especially in the case of those devices.

- So in the best geeky tradition, always keep your drivers up to date, and you’ll always get more from your box.

Have you checked your drivers recently? Do you keep an eye on your drivers?

I have been running Windows 7 64-bit RC since May on my other box. On the one I’m typing this on I’m running XP Professional 32-bit. Both boxes are capable of running Windows 7 64-bit and have multi-cored processors. – But I’m going to keep XP on this one for now; possibly right up to 2014 if the box lasts that long. – It should do as I built it, and the only ones I’ve ever had faults with that I built were a couple with a Shuttle mobo with a weak processor socket surround: Basically the AM2 cooler tensioniser lugs snapped off, and the cooler fell off the processor causing the machine to shut down when the CPU’s thermal trip activated. I RTM’d them and rebuilt. Also an AsRock mobo’s chipset died right in front of me as I booted up… This is going well off topic already.

There is a reason why I’m keeping XP for so long; which I’ll share with you further down.

For the time being; let’s take a look at Windows 7: -

When Windows 7 was subjected to benchmarking tests; the Office benchmark took more than 70% longer to complete with 7 than in Vista.

In the 2D multi-application test, this had a knock-on effect on the overall score. – Otherwise Windows 7 did prove faster than Vista – by around 2%. How, then, bearing that in mind, does this constitute a proper performance increase over Vista?

Windows Display Driver Model 1.1 is a new device in Windows 7 which allows multiple applications attempting to access screen-memory to draw and update their graphics at the same time. With the the 1.0 version in Vista only a single process could draw to the screen at any point in time, which was one of the reasons that Vista’s interface could sometimes seem uncooperative and sluggish.

Applications can update their windows as soon as you press a button in Windows 7,  Hence the system therefore appears to be much faster, while actual benchmarked performance is similar.

“But that doesn’t explain anything.”

In short, it’s all down to WDDM 1.1. : In Vista, display elements were stored in graphics RAM and system RAM at the same time. – Yet another waste of resources.

In Windows 7 with  WDDM 1.1 the data sets are stored in graphics RAM only. Therefore whilst this leaves more system memory free for applications, the down-side of it means that if the OS wants to draw graphics without going via the GPU, various data sets must be copied from video RAM to system RAM and back; thus wasting time.

This is the main downfall of Windows 7’s 2D performance in an office environment is actually worse than Vista’s, which we already know is slower than XP’s in that area. – Do you see where I’m going with this?

Everything else about Windows 7 is better, snappier, better laid-out and more functional with increased practicality. You’ll benefit from increased battery-life with 7 on your laptop or netbook. Yes even a netbook with 1GB RAM and a 1.6GHz Atom processor can run 7: It’s no gaming rig; but it does the business, and resuming from standby or hibernate is no longer a lottery as to whether it will actually start properly again when you do.

On your desktop, if you use 3D apps, games, memory-intensive processes, whatever, you’ll notice benefits immediately.. Office work, however, which I do a lot of on this particular box, pretty much to the exclusion of all else besides watching a video now and again, appears to have no benefits from 7, in fact quite the reverse by all accounts. – Which is way I’m keeping XP on this one.

What happens in 2014 when XPs extended product-lifecycle runs out? – Well if my calculations are correct we’re due another new OS around that time; so wait and see. I doubt this box will last that long in all honesty, talking from reality’s perspective: It’s in use one hell of a lot. – But even if it makes it to then; I’ll probably retire it on Linux, and build new for the next OS after 7.

Conclusion

So back to the question: Should I upgrade: –

Yes if possible; because Windows 7 has more snappiness and functionality than Vista or XP: It feels as if it’s working for and with you rather than begrudgingly for you as with XP, or against you as with Vista.

- But for your office computer; well there’s no rush. – Let’s leave it at that.

One thing for sure is that Microsoft have saved themselves from the looming pit of oblivion this time round.

Are you intending to upgrade to Windows 7? What machine do you have, and what is your current operating system?

Oh, and, when you upgrade, try to upgrade to the 64-bit version: There is just so much more to 64-bit computing – It really is “Life without walls”; such as not being restricted to 4GB RAM maximum for starters…

I used to be very disapproving of Apple under Steve Jobs, or “Jobsweh – the god of all things Apple.” as I referred to him in the past. I assumed that it was Jobsweh ’s greed that caused Apple to charge extortionate amounts for their products.

I do admit that Apple’s products are extremely well-made; which accounts for some of the extra cost. – That’s a fair point. But they seemed to be taking the real retail value of their products and doubling it before arriving at the actual RRP.

That was back in Jobsweh ‘s heyday. Eventually I came to the conclusion that if people were willing to pay a fortune for the Apple logo then that was their problem. I even considered buying a secondhand iPhone myself in time.

(I never did though. I still have my Samsung z750i, and I’ll be having it unlocked and transferred to Vodafone soon. Reason: 1) I can tweet on Vodafone in the UK. 2) 3 Networks, who I’m about to end contract with, are in short, crap. What’s more they operate a call-centre in India. – I’m not racial-prejudiced, but if I wanted to have a hard time in communicating with Indians over a bad-quality line then I’d invest in shares in the Bombay Telephone Exchange. Besides, I get enough of that bad shit with BT and their Indian call centre, who I spend hours in hell with getting nowhere every time I have a BT-related problem. I want to be able to escape from it using my mobile phone if need be, not have more of it!)

Back to Apple. I quote from the aforementioned article:

“Apple said today that the iPhone 3G S costs $199 (16GB) and $299 (32GB). But that’s the price only for new AT&T customers. The price if you’re already an AT&T customer and/or are upgrading from an iPhone 3G? Try $699 (32GB), $599 (16GB), and $499 (8GB). To quote Peter Ha: “HOLY SHIT.””

Yes; HOLY SHIT just about sums it up. I think Apple have shot themselves in the foot and blown their lower leg off. I now in a way look forward to watching Apple topple over. – And they thoroughly deserve it too. – Yes it might be the phone companies’ greed as much as Apple’s; but this is still inexcusable.

Can you imagine the conversation the phone companies and Apple people might have had in the recent past?

“Look we’re Apple Inc: We can charge as much as we like for our products, to a point, and some mug will still buy them. We’re giving you the chance to cash in along with us. – You scratch our backs and we’ll scratch yours.”

“I’m starting to like the sound of this: We cash in with you on the massive rip-off under the Apple logo; both of us make a fortune, and as a thank-you gesture we reduce the cost of iPhone calls at some point in the future. We’re still vastly in profit thanks to you guys, who have by then made enough to buy a small county. – OK count me in. We have a deal.”

Nothing would surprise me.

I can see them trying to pull something like that in the UK also; and after a week’s outcry the sheep will all follow the leader and start paying out for it too; before complaining about how they’ve been ripped off: .

“…But it’s Apple, so it must be worth it.”

Must it f—k! If I hear anyone say that, or I see it written anywhere, I will instantly start writing my criticisms and pour vitriol upon them. If anyone is gullible enough to believe that then they don’t deserve to have any money. – Sorry; but if I hereby step on anyone’s toes in saying that then tough. – ‘Live with it.

Apple have been conning their customers by using this cult image thing for years. – This time they’ve gone too far. It’s time people woke up and started boycotting them. – End of story.

If you have something to add then please comment.

  I have, in my arsenal, a power-supply tester: All I have to do is connect the 20 or 24-pin connector to the tester; and if all the green lights light up then the PSU is supposedly working. Is this right? Yes and no:

The power to the motherboard, not including the dedicated processor supply, is working if all the green lights light up. What it’s not testing is the power supplied to the other connectors; such as the dedicated CPU supply, (The ATX12V or the EPS12V connector.) the 4-pin Peripheral connectors, (AKA Molex plugs) the 4-pin Berg connector(s), the Serial ATA power connector(s), or any others. That renders my tester fairly useless; as if I’m not getting power to the PCIe graphics card; my tester could still read that there’s no problem.

- So I need a way of testing each individual output, individually, to see if the unit is working as it should.

A voltmeter seems a good place to start. – And where’s a good place to find one of those? On a multitester or multimeter no doubt.

OK so I have the (ATX) power-supply that I want to test on my test-bench in front of me, all wired up to the mains power and switched on. – But there’s absolutely no response – or possibly only the 5V rail is powered on. Why?

On an ATX power supply there’s a wire which goes to the motherboard which allows certain pieces of hardware, including the “Power on” button on the front of the case to bring the power-supply out of standby. Some PSUs go to +5V standby, where only the 5V rail remains powered up, others switch everything off. (Some of the much older PSUs would go to +12V standby; but not any recent models built within the last 5 years.)

That wire is the green wire on the P1 connector. (The 20 / 24-pin connector that plugs in to the motherboard.) To fire up the PSU it needs to be grounded. Fortunately the wire either side of it is a ground wire; so all you need to do is short out either way on the connector, (Short green and black.) using a short piece of wire or a paper-clip or something, and voila: Power-up has been achieved.

If it doesn’t happen; connect a DC voltmeter across green and black: Positive to green and negative to black. You should read 5V. If you don’t get a reading, or you read anything less than 2V, the PSU is faulty. Bin it.

*Power supplies can be fixed. I fixed one myself by cannibalising spare parts from 2 identical dead units. The drawbacks are:

1) It’s dangerous: there are extremely high voltages present in the circuitry when the power’s on.

2) You need to know what you’re doing; which can take up to 4 years training to achieve.

3) It’s very time-consuming: Even if you know what you’re doing; it can take hours to trace and diagnose multiple faults and repair them.

It’s easier and usually more cost-effective to bin the faulty unit and buy a new one.

Now, having powered up; check the voltages of all the connectors.

The pinouts are as follows:

(Image above from Wikipedia.org)

4-pin Peripheral

4-pin Berg

6-PIN AUX

ATX 4-pin Molex 12V P4:

Serial ATA

- And that’s how to check the voltages.

The above proceedure doesn’t test the PSU under load. In the followup article I’ll show you how to test the PSU’s voltages under full load; including a circuit that’ll fully load any PSU up to 350W

I’m getting a lot of enquiries with regard to this from the search-engines lately: It’s like there’s a rush suddenly developed to get rid of the things for whatever reason. In my personal opinion the Home Hub 2.0 upwards are quite sophisticated. – Much more so than their predecessors anyway; but each to their own. maybe the novelty’s worn off somewhat? Who knows?

Anyway; since I haven’t posted since Friday last; as I’ve been working flat out on other things to do with this blog, I thought it was worth an article all of its own: So voila: Here is the articulated article: – (~ Articulum Articulate’.)

It’s a bit of a conundrum to pin down exactly what people mean by “uninstalling” the Home Hub: ‘See the Home Hub (HH for short.) is never actually installed; hence the reason it doesn’t appear in Device Manager.

To be “installed” in the proper sense of the word; a device should be reliant on a certain standard of interaction and control by the computer’s processor: For instance; if I were to install a graphics card in a computer, the graphics card would interact with the north bridge of the chipset, the processor via the peripheral component interface controllers, (PCI/e to you and me.), the RAM, and the power supply or PSU possibly to a greater extent than any other component, depending on its power consumption requirements related to its performance.

A BT Home Hub, on the other hand, is a router; a glorified router true, but nevertheless a router. (A rose by any other name. – Shakespeare.) It’s essentially as installed in your computer as your uninterruptible power supply or UPS is. (If you don’t have a UPS I really do suggest you get one ASAP: My two have saved me from almost certain data loss, as well as possible hard-disk damage, three times in the last 12 months.) Your UPS connects to your computer; maybe even by means of a USB lead like my Belkin does. It even has related software installed on the computer. – But it’s not counted as an installed device. The software only enables the computer to understand its readout and user interface (UI). It doesn’t actually drive the device itself. That’s the difference: An installed device has a driver for it stored on the hard-disk, which loads up to the device in order for it to do its thing – Like a set of instructions,  when the system is activated. A non-installed device does not. Let me give you an example: –

I’m a human hardware device: I have limbs and a body. I know already how to move almost all parts of my body. My controller, the human CPU, wants me to perform a specific operation that I don’t have a clue how to perform. I know how to move, but I have no idea which moves to make in order to complete the task.

When the machine starts up and the human BIOS has asked me to identify myself so that she can report my status and characteristics to the processor, the human  CPU or processor sends me a set of instructions telling me a number of complex moves that I must execute in a certain way in response to specific commands. I obey, and although I have no idea myself exactly what I’m doing as such, I’m carrying out my role efficiently as a component in the human computer.

I hope that analogy gives you some idea of what it is that I’m getting at. here’s another way to put it: -

A router has its own processor and is a separate entity entirely from the computer. The router is a mini-computer in it’s own right. To say that a router is “installed” in a computer in the same way as one of the drives (A:, C:, D:, E:, etc.) is, for instance, is equivalent to saying that you are installed as part of me just like my arm is. It’s simply not true: We can communicate, we can interact. You might help me in some way if you feel like it; and vice-versa. – But I can’t instruct you to do exactly what I want and know that you’ll carry out my instructions to the letter every time I demand it; like my arm does, for instance, and like a computer’s installed component does too.

A router; on the other hand, is totally autonomous: It receives input from the source, processes it, and sends it to the computer. Likewise it receives input from the computer, processes it, and sends it to source. The computer can tell the router to slow down or “stop talking to me while I finish processing the last data”. It can even say “Shut up until I ask you to talk to me again” in a number of circumstances. If the processor fails inside the computer then the computer’s rendered useless; yet the router goes on sending data regardless.

In the same way, if I die you won’t die; but my arm which is installed will.

Have we laboured that point enough now?

OK; point made: So how do we uninstall the BT software that I installed when I started using the Home Hub?

You mean the Norton Security Suite – Ahem, err… With Difficulty. – But it can be done; using the Norton Uninstaller Tool from Symantec. Everything else, such as the Wireless Connection Manager, (Pointless software: Windows already has one and it’s much better with a decent UI too.) BT/Yahoo software, BT Broadband Desktop Help, and whatever else rubbish they provided, (I think even the Yahoo Toolbar, although it can be deactivated in the browser, comes under this category too.) can be uninstalled via Add/Remove Programs. Look for “BT” and uninstall everything that starts with it. (I hope I haven’t fallen behind the times; my original BT/Yahoo software was supplied around 5 years ago. – Yes I do get online updates.)

And that’s yer lot: It was worth writing for a few extra hits. I think BT and/or BT Home Hub must be one of the, if not THE, most popular subject on this blog. Enjoy your new router. – By the way; BT Home Hubs might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but there’s a lot worse out there. If you can; try before you buy.

Let me know how you get on BTW. See that empty box below? That’s for things called “comments”: You, my readers, have to make them for me. No you don’t need a degree in engineering to make a comment: Just type something, anything: Even tell me you love me if it makes you feel better. (Unfortunately I’m the Ice Maiden’s Boss; so you’ll almost definitely draw a blank.) Just comment; or am I all alone out here in this corner of cyberspace? 

In cyberspace; everyone can hear you scream. – It’s probably recorded on You Tube!

Sorry if this post appears a bit late: I’m watching the Darwin program on BBC4.

Having done so I’m finding it rather difficult to think of any suitable pictures other than the ones I’ve used already: I’ll come up with something eventually though no doubt.

“The Woork Handbook is a free eBook [by Antonio Lupetti, of woork.blogspot.com .] about CSS, HTML, AJAX, web programming, Moo Tools, Scriptaculous, and other topics about web design…”

That’s got to be good. I haven’t even looked at it yet; I’ve only just discovered it. Since it’s free, however, I reckon it’s worth a Digg, maybe subscribing to the RSS feed, even a contribution if you’re feeling generous why not? I simply have to blog it.

Please remember that the guy who wrote it doesn’t have English as his first language; so it may be a little confusing in places. : But it’s FREE – Who’s complaining?

This guy may not necessarily be a cunning linguist, but he seems to have a good amount of tech prowess; which can only be beneficial to take notice of. It would appear to be a good idea to bookmark his website.

You can download your free copy HERE.

It’s strange to note that this chap; having all that knowledge and experience, uses Google’s blogger rather than his own self-hosted blog. Maybe he has many other blogs; hosted and self-hosted? I have a blog on Posterous, as well as one on Windows Live: Both of which I hardly ever use these days.

Carrying on with that point: When I was working in the double-glazing industry, a lot of my colleagues had the worst windows I’d ever seen, in an unbelievably bad state, on their own homes; yet they were selling brand new double-glazed uPVC windows and doors etc to other homeowners. -  Have you ever noticed that with trades people? I know a builder whose house is a wreck. I know an electrician whose home wiring hasn’t been attended to for about 50 years… It’s quite uncanny in a way.

Anyway enough of this rabbit: Go forth and download your free copy; then do something nice like donating, bookmarking, adding to social media, etc.

If you like you could tell me what YOU think of the book. Please remember when you do that I’m not a programmer as such, I’m still a novice when it comes to php, css, and almost everything else too in that line, other than 1970’s Commodore BASIC. Also to a lesser extent; DOS, and HTML. Having said that you get the chance to go well beyond my understanding here. – So if you’d like to take the opportunity to ‘beat the author’ ; please feel free to indulge.

  – No I didn’t mean that kind of beating.

Pictured: The UK internet in its uphill battle for improvement.

This particular feather in the cap marries technology and politics: It’s no great discovery and it’s hardly rocket-science: In fact it’s glaringly obvious. However, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The British internet infrastructure is a fiasco. This time I have the backing of Ofcom; the UK telecoms regulator:-

A survey carried out for Ofcom indicated that the average UK customer typically gets only around 45% of the broadband speed advertised by their ISP that they’re paying for: Rip-off Britain in action. What do the ISP’s intend to do about it? As usual as little as possible: As long as the cash is coming in they’ll do their utmost to provide the minimum which they can get away with: i.e. Faster than dialup … Because they can’t possibly get away with anything less.

Researchers did 10 million tests in 1,500 homes in the UK over a period of 30 days. They found, not only that broadband speeds in rural areas were up to 15% less than those in urban environments, but also that the typical internet speed was an average of 3.6 Mb/s (Megabits per second.), despite the fact that the usual broadband speed currently advertised in the UK is 8Mb/s or more.

BT advertise 8Mb/s over their copper-wire telephone network, and Virgin Media advertise 20Mb/s over their fibre-optic network.

I’m a BT customer who lives within a few minutes walk of the BT exchange. A few years ago I was told that my internet speed was being increased from 2Mb/s to 8Mb/s for no extra charge. The 2Mb/s speed barely reached 1.5 Mb/s normally; and proportionally speaking the 8Mb/s service hardly ever gets above 6Mb/s. It’s normally at around 3 Mb/s. In fact, over the Christmas period last year (2008) it dropped to just below 1Mb/s.

That’s rip-off Britain for you: ‘Take all your wealth from you and give you shit in return.

It’s quite abysmal also that Virgin Media’s fibre-optic service; advertised at 20Mb/s, rarely gets up to a paltry 10Mb/s in most areas.

Having said that; when the faster service was first switched on; I clocked speeds of up to 7.3 Mb/s. This was short-lived, though. In addition to that my existing modem provided by BT was unable to cope with the faster internet and kept disconnecting until it eventually no longer worked at all. BT’s partially-English speaking Indian call-centre weren’t having any of it, and the person I had the displeasure of talking with gave me such grief that I ended up testing every bit of cable from my BT socket as well as the socket itself, through to my modem, then the patch lead from my modem to the computer. I then replaced the ADSL filter and still no internet. The Indian fascist on the other end of the phone told me that my computer was faulty and that I’d have to return it to the manufacturer. I informed him that I was the manufacturer, and that the line and modem didn’t work on any of my other computers either. I also informed him that he was a scare-mongering ignorant tele-thug who had no place in a call centre. I demanded to speak to his supervisor, who, it turned out, couldn’t understand a word of English. Eventually, after I managed to get to speak to someone who was a little more fluent, they agreed to send me a modem that was capable of handling the increased speed.

As I said in the past; BT is a rather reliable ISP; but when things do go wrong they’re hell to deal with.

As is the case with myself, millions of other internet customers are getting less than half the broadband speed they are paying for, restricting their ability to download music, film and games. It’s the stupid British people’s fault just as much as the ISP’s: They just grin and bear it; not daring to complain. I’ve complained about it before; but just got myself branded as a trouble-maker by BT and was ignored.

Here’s something: the download speed meter which is part of the BT Online Help software which they give you with their service, along with free Norton Security Centre (An outdated version.) and other useless bloatware, all of which I wouldn’t use even if they offered to pay me to use it, has a few lines of unchanging text underneath it, which says something to the effect of: -

"This speed is judged to be acceptable by BT for your connection, bearing in mind the time of day and the distance of your property from the BT exchange. Although BT do advertise a certain download speed, we are unable to maintain this at all times. Factors that can affect the speed of your connection include the distance of your computer from the telephone socket, the distance of your place of residence from the exchange, as well as the number of users currently using our services."

…And my age, the position of the sun relative to the galactic core, in addition to the effect of Jupiter’s gravitational pull on the Earth no doubt.

This message appears no matter what the download speed: I’d still get exactly the same message if it was 1 byte a year. It’s just another cop-out from BT.

There is something to do with the speeds pertaining to the time of day though: In the tests that were run; speeds were lowest between 5pm and 6pm on Sundays, when internet usage is at its peak. – Can’t you just hear the infrastructure creaking under the weight put upon it? Don’t you smell the stench of melting insulation as the copper wires heat up?!

…And still the politicians are talking about doing something about it in a future tense. UK businesses such as BT are holding back on doing anything about it until they can be sure that they’ll make instant vast profits.

David Cameron, leader of the Opposition, says "Elect the Tories at the next election and we’ll do something about it."

Meanwhile Gordon Brown is still thinking about doing something about it. Perhaps he’ll say: -

"No; elect the Labour Party at the next election and we’ll do even more about it."

…And then have a round of meetings to discuss it for another four years if he gets elected?

Don Foster, the Liberal Democrat culture, media and sport spokesman, said:

“This is yet more evidence that broadband providers are ripping off British consumers.”

– Quite obviously not much gets past him!

Jeremy Hunt, – which rhymes with "front", and "runt", – the Shadow Culture Secretary, is expected to voice his criticism today. In a speech to be delivered at Microsoft’s London offices, he will say:-

“The UK has some of the slowest broadband speeds in the developed world, coming 21st out of 30 countries in a survey by the US-based Information Technology & Innovation Foundation.” 

- To which Microsoft will probably quite rightly reply "If you can’t maintain your own country that you’re supposed to be looking after; we’re not going to do it for you. Sod off!"

The song lyrics "A little less conversation – A little more action" spring to mind.

One thing is that if we keep talking about it long enough we’ll eventually no doubt be welcomed warmly into the third-world; where we can learn to communicate by means of bongo-drums instead.

"That’s almost up to 30 kilobytes a second so far!"

Before we go into the fairly easy process of fitting a graphics card; Let’s look at why you’d want to do so in the first place:

Most if not all motherboards are equipped with onboard graphics: The Northbridge of the chipset gives them a limited graphics capability.

"Limited" is the operative word here; especially on lower-end motherboards: The low-end AMD motherboards that I tend to use more-than-not, (Customers who request a cheap computer for no more than office-type work get what they ask for. In fact; despite the motherboards in question being allegedly "low-end", they’re fairly versatile.) usually have a paltry 64MB of graphics capability; in addition to which they ‘steal’ the 64MB of memory for their operation from system RAM. – Yes they eat into the memory-sticks that you fit into the RAM – slots and gain priority to their full potential, whether or not they’re using it. Most other motherboards operate on a similar principle, to a varying extent. The top-end motherboards tend to be suitable for use with less attachments; However these motherboards are commonly used by gamer/overclocker-types; who add the latest of everything at the cutting-edge of technology anyway. – Just so that they can be proud geeks, until the following week when technological advancement moves on another notch.

How much difference, exactly, does this RAM-robbing by the onboard-graphics actually make? : In reality not one heck of a lot; especially if you fit a minimum of 2GB RAM to every computer like I do. RAM’s now fairly inexpensive; particularly if you’re using DDR2, which is dirt-cheap these days. Why the big fuss then? Well it’s not just the fact that the onboard graphics make 2GB – Nice round figure. – RAM, look like 1.94GB; it’s also that the graphics are really lousy with that tiny amount of memory. As we’ll go on to discuss; 64MB graphics blows at the best of times:

Any figure below 128MB of graphics RAM, (That is RAM or memory allocated exclusively for use with the graphics module.) will cause your graphics to suck big-time on a decent modern desktop or laptop. Oh you’ll without doubt get a great picture; a great still-picture that is. Anything moving at speed = fail. Try scrolling up or down fast: It’ll take the raster a fraction of a second to catch up with itself.

(It reminds me of those Looney Tunes cartoons; where characters run off at speed and their front-half almost disappears before their back-half starts moving. Imagine the inverse of that happening on your screen when you stop scrolling and you’ll have some idea of what I’m on about.)

…And if you mean to play any games…Well the Microsoft free games which have shipped with every M$ operating system since or before NT will probably run OK; but 2fps, if you’re lucky, won’t get you very far with Crysis or Doom. (Maybe a blue-screen?)

- So unless you’re intent on using Office and IM only; it’s always a good idea to upgrade the graphics capability with a graphics-card.

Most decent usable graphics-cards can cost anything from around £17 / $24 upwards. Unless you’re gaming with the latest games; a little above this price-range should suffice for low to middle-end systems. The exact card you choose will depend upon the operating system you’re running. – For instance, XP can’t run anything in Direct X 10; so it’s pointless having a Direct X 10-capable graphics card on an XP system: Unless you intend to upgrade to Vista or Windows 7 that is. (Check for hardware compatibility first.)

Most graphics-cards these days are PCIe cards.  (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express.); which is an active connection method that channels multiple serial-data-streams from the motherboard to the graphics-card; as opposed to its earlier counterparts, PCI, PCI-X, and AGP, which stream data in a parallel format as a single-channel.

There are all different types and sizes: Big ones, small ones, some as big as your…I’m not going into the particular types and sizes here as that is, really, beyond the scope of this article: For the purpose of which we’ll just keep it nice and simple; without referring to SLI…Oops!

I’m not going to write about VGA, DVI, RGB, etc, plugs/sockets either. Google is your friend; as are the links.

Screw that.

That’s the complicated part out of the way; in as simple terms as I am able to muster. Now the easy bit; fitting it: -

Everything you need to know is covered in the following article at this link.

Yes I am cheating. Yes it’s out of character for me. Yes I am behind schedule and almost out of time. It’s a good site anyway: It saves me taking pics or finding and snagging pics. It saves me writing loads more… OK I admit it’s probably better than I’m able to produce in the remaining time that I have scheduled. So go there to find out how to fit one. It’s certainly not rocket-science:

You’ll need a screwdriver, a screw that can be screwed in by the screwdriver and that fits the corresponding hole, (There’s my female technical terminology making its appearance again.) a PCIe graphics card, a computer with a PCIe x 16 socket to fit the card in, and about 5 minutes.

Go read it; and comment on this one before you do so. (Comment box is below.) (Why don’t they put a down-arrow key on keyboards? – Perhaps they could also put a f…  – File it! key on them also.)

Can you tell things aren’t quite going to plan?

Today, multi-core processors are quite the norm. In fact you’ll not see any new desktop computers, and very few laptops, on sale that have only single-core processors any longer. Why? Well multi-cored processors have just so many performance advantages over their single-cored counterparts that it would take far too much space to list them all here.

There are still quite a few computers out there, however, that are still running a single-core processor. If you own one of them you may have considered upgrading; but are a little unsure or hesitant about it.

Unless you’re fairly experienced and know what’s what you’re right to be such. In most cases there’ll be more work involved than simply removing the old processor and fitting a new one.

I’m not intending to do a "where is the processor located" paragraph. If you don’t know where your processor is located then I advise you to allow someone who knows what they’re doing to do the upgrade for you. I won’t be held responsible for someone pretending to know what they’re doing messing it up either: Get someone that you know is experienced with computer construction to help. Joe Bloggs from down the road may say they’re experienced with computers simply because they talk to their friends on Instant Messenger; but in reality they don’t have any more idea of what they’re doing than a seamstress has of rocket science. I’ll include some of the basics as a reminder, though.

There are a number of things you’ll need to do in preparation. The main thing is to find out all about your existing hardware first. The reason for that will become clear further on.

If you have an older computer with a single-core processor then you’ll probably need to upgrade the motherboard as well as the CPU to go multi-core. If it’s a particularly old computer then I’d suggest simply buying a new one with a multi-cored processor fitted from the word go.

What about upgrading your existing processor on your existing motherboard? It’s a possibility; but you’d have to take into account things such as motherboard’s capability, as well as its processor socket:

For instance; an AMD socket AM2 CPU will fit into a socket AM2+ motherboard; but not vice-versa: Therefore if your existing processor is, for example, a socket AM2 Athlon 64 single-cored device, which you want to upgrade; then, providing that your motherboard is capable of running a dual-cored CPU, (CPU=processor.) you’ll have no problems in replacing your existing CPU with a socket AM2 Athlon 64×2 dual-cored processor, providing that the motherboard’s chipset is capable of supporting the operating frequency of the new component. You’ll probably need to run a maintenance-reinstall of your operating system though; as a system configured for a single-cored processor probably won’t instantly recognize that the new processor has 2 cores, and will only run 1 of the cores unless it’s reconfigured.

Further to the above; if you want to upgrade from a single-core Athlon 64 to a quad-core Phenom, which is socket AM2+, you’ll need to upgrade the motherboard as well as the CPU, as a socket AM2+ CPU simply won’t fit into an AM2 socket. Also the motherboard with an AM2 socket probably won’t be capable of supporting more than a dual-core CPU.

That’s just one example. There will be many more similar situations cropping up, not only with AMD processors, where you’ll need to do some planning and forward thinking before even embarking upon your project.

Like I said; there’s a lot to consider; in addition to simply swapping the processor. If in doubt I suggest a motherboard and processor upgrade would be the best option, and do remember that certain motherboards go with certain processors: You can’t run an Intel socket 774 CPU on an AMD socket AM2 motherboard, for instance. (Also, don’t forget to install, and upgrade after getting the thing running, if possible, the new motherboard’s drivers.)

In my opinion, the best thing to do would be a total-rebuild (Strip everything out of the case and renew it with new and compatible parts, or ditch your old machine and build a new one.); after which you can install any really important files that you want to keep to your new hard-drive from a backup you took of your old system.

I can’t tell you exactly how to do it in every situation without writing a large and detailed e-book on the subject: That’s not something I intend doing at this moment in time. This guide simply informs you of some of the pitfalls and of some of the things you should consider first, before embarking on the project.

For your further convenience I’ll make a checklist of a number of the things you should take into account before attempting to upgrade a processor on an existing motherboard:

———————————————————————————————

CHECKLIST

Should you Upgrade the Processor on your Existing Motherboard?

If your motherboard is 5 years old or more then no.

If your motherboard was manufactured in the last 3 years than maybe; depending upon the following:

Is your motherboard’s processor socket the same as the socket designation of the processor that you want to replace your existing one with?

OR, in some rare circumstances:

Will the new part fit into and be fully accommodated by the existing motherboard’s processor socket?

If NO to both of the above you’ll need to replace the motherboard.

IF YES to either of the above:

Is your existing motherboard capable of running a multi-cored processor with the number of cores which the intended replacement has?

If NO to the above you’ll need to replace the motherboard.

If YES:

Is your existing motherboard capable of handling any increased power consumption due to the upgrade?

If NO to the above you’ll need to replace the motherboard.

If YES:

Are you aware that you’ll probably need to run a maintenance reinstall of the operating system? Are you able and clued up with doing this? Do you realise that there may be further problems associated with this operation that require a detailed knowledge of computer hardware, operation, and techniques?

If NO; I suggest seeking further expert advice before anything else.

IF YES, and you are satisfied that you’d be able to handle any ensuing situation, or are willing to take that risk, then proceed.

End of Checklist.

———————————————————————————————

*If you’re a geek then rebuilding a computer, even if it’s your first time, will be a great learning curve for you. Try not to mess it up. (I have ruined a computer before whilst learning, years ago,; so it does happen.)

If you do upgrade your processor from a single to a multi-core component, if it’s possible, you’ll notice a marked performance improvement. I suggest adding some more memory at the same time to make that improvement even greater.

Maybe you’ve already upgraded your processor from a single-core to a multi-cored component? What’s your experience of this? Don’t be afraid to comment. I know comments appear to be a bit sparse at present; but it would be good to break the mould.

If you’re Pagan; especially if you’re a techno-Pagan, interested in Paganism, or even just browsing, then please do visit this site. I very much doubt you’ll regret doing so.

What I am going to say is that I stumbled across it today; not for the first time, and had time to have a better look at it. I was quite amazed to be honest: So much so that I’m giving it a page of it’s own at no profit to myself whatsoever. – In fact I haven’t even notified the owner; who I have known online for a while, that I am doing so.

Why am I doing so? Because I like it: It’s a very good site in my opinion. I appreciate that you might not all be as enthralled with it as I was; but it’s well worth a visit.

This year I’ll be recommending a number of sites: Pagan, technology-oriented, individual; anything that really stands out to me. Some I’ll do for no profit: Some I’ll charge to recommend.

Feel free to submit your URL for consideration if you like. If I decide to review I’ll let you know along with my price, should I decide to charge. Drop me a line at urlsubmit at kustomkomputa dot co dot uk. if you want to submit your blog or a blog.

Have you ever wondered what route your internet activities are taking?

You’ve just visited kkomp.com from wherever you’re logging onto your computer or handheld device; but your download of the page you requested didn’t come straight from the server to you: Instead it went through a number of other servers, acting as relays, to get to you. You may be surprised how many of these it passed through en-route.

You can find out the identities of these servers with the Windows command "tracert". ("traceroute" on a Mac.)

- For instance; if I wanted to see which servers my communication passes through to kkomp.com’s server; I first open a command prompt in XP. (Start>Run, and type "cmd" in the dialogue-box. ¬) I get a DOS window with the following in it: -

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\Sharron>_

The _ is the command-prompt. At the command-prompt I type "tracert kkomp.com"; thus: -

C:\Documents and Settings\Sharron>tracert kkomp.com

The computer responds by pinging all the servers en-route and asking them to identify themselves: -

Tracing route to kkomp.com [213.171.218.145]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

The first stop is my BT Home Hub router: -

  1    19 ms   100 ms    99 ms  BThomehub.home [192.168.1.254]

Then the separate BT internet network switches. (Because I use BT internet in the UK, and BT have their own mini-web which connects to the real internet at various nodes. You’ll probably get something different, unless you’re a BT customer in the UK.):-

  2    25 ms    25 ms    24 ms  217.47.206.250
  3    23 ms    23 ms   104 ms  217.47.206.161
  4   197 ms   103 ms    31 ms  213.123.109.6
  5    25 ms    26 ms   192 ms  217.41.169.17
  6   144 ms    64 ms    24 ms  217.41.169.66
  7   109 ms   193 ms    97 ms  217.41.169.126
  8   217 ms    69 ms   103 ms  217.41.169.38
  9   158 ms    24 ms    94 ms  217.47.144.50
10   229 ms    25 ms    26 ms  core2-pos12-1.reading.ukcore.bt.net [194.72.0.213]

It’s made it to the big switch at Reading…

11   161 ms   102 ms    27 ms  core2-pos0-0-0-13.ilford.ukcore.bt.net [62.6.201.201]

Which passed it on to another big BT switch at Ilford… 

12   127 ms   123 ms   179 ms  core2-pos9-1.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [194.74.65.118]

Which sent it to the real internet…

13   125 ms   245 ms    40 ms  linx.bb-c.the.lon.gb.oneandone.net [195.66.224.98]
14   116 ms   248 ms   144 ms  88.208.255.61

It’s just about to hit Fasthosts’ main server…

15   222 ms    82 ms    64 ms  pc2.prt0.fhdis.fasthosts.net.uk [88.208.255.1]

Followed by one of their internal web-servers…

16    53 ms    32 ms    32 ms  213.171.217.3

…And to the individual hosting server.

17   176 ms   158 ms    61 ms  server213-171-218-145.livedns.org.uk [213.171.218.145]

Trace complete.

C:\Documents and Settings\Sharron>

Target neutralised.

Here’s the actual window’s content without my comments: -

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\Sharron>tracert kkomp.com

Tracing route to kkomp.com [213.171.218.145]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    19 ms   100 ms    99 ms  BThomehub.home [192.168.1.254]
  2    25 ms    25 ms    24 ms  217.47.206.250
  3    23 ms    23 ms   104 ms  217.47.206.161
  4   197 ms   103 ms    31 ms  213.123.109.6
  5    25 ms    26 ms   192 ms  217.41.169.17
  6   144 ms    64 ms    24 ms  217.41.169.66
  7   109 ms   193 ms    97 ms  217.41.169.126
  8   217 ms    69 ms   103 ms  217.41.169.38
  9   158 ms    24 ms    94 ms  217.47.144.50
10   229 ms    25 ms    26 ms  core2-pos12-1.reading.ukcore.bt.net [194.72.0.21
3]
11   161 ms   102 ms    27 ms  core2-pos0-0-0-13.ilford.ukcore.bt.net [62.6.201
.201]
12   127 ms   123 ms   179 ms  core2-pos9-1.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [194.74.65.
118]
13   125 ms   245 ms    40 ms  linx.bb-c.the.lon.gb.oneandone.net [195.66.224.9
8]
14   116 ms   248 ms   144 ms  88.208.255.61
15   222 ms    82 ms    64 ms  pc2.prt0.fhdis.fasthosts.net.uk [88.208.255.1]
16    53 ms    32 ms    32 ms  213.171.217.3
17   176 ms   158 ms    61 ms  server213-171-218-145.livedns.org.uk [213.171.21
8.145]

Trace complete.

C:\Documents and Settings\Sharron>

Try it for yourself: You can use any domain or IP address in place of kkomp.com .

Here you learn something new every day; even New Year’s Day. Happy New Year. May 2009 bring you much enlightenment.

Microsoft’s 30GB Zunes are failing on a colossal scale. Around 2AM, (In an American time-zone presumably. My source is indefinite as to which one.) 30GB Zunes that were switched on reset themselves. When they were switched on again they froze in the loading process, becoming totally unresponsive and practically useless.

Zune users have dubbed this crisis Z2K9; a parody of the Y2K bug. (Although the New Year hasn’t even started at time of writing. Reports of this problem are continually appearing across the internet.

It would seem that the bug lies within the latest firmware at this point; as many who failed to update their firmware seem to be unaffected.

The source material I used was unable to give a proper explanation as to why this was happening; and as yet I am none the wiser myself. I’m sure that an explanation will soon be forthcoming though.

It’s certainly one method of advertising; but probably not a good one.

Have you had similar problems? If so please do tell in the comments.

Addendum: Here’s the official fix: -

“Microsoft’s responded to the Zune 30GB failure, blaming a leap-year handling bug. And they’ve provided a fix. Which is to wait til New Years, when the bug will go away by itself…”

Read more…

British Telecommunications (BT) appear to have a good and fairly reliable standard of service with respect to their technology and technological services; such as internet, telephone, and the other technologies that they cover. I find that it’s pretty solid, made of sturdy stuff, and things rarely go wrong.

When they do go wrong, though, the flaws start to show. I’ve mentioned this a few times before, and I feel that it’s a subject that I should cover again, as despite my earlier posts, as well as the public’s experiences with their appalling customer-services regarding their foreign call-centres, combined with my reporting them for dodgy advertising practices and awful customer relations practices, nothing seems to have changed: They just nonchalantly carry on regardless.

Whenever I ring BT for whatever reason I get stress. They usually pass me around departments; each one of which interrogates me with the same stet spiel before passing me on to the next. Most are in India and I have to say everything in triplicate before they understand me anyway. As a bonus they appear to have been trained to think that no BT customer is intelligent enough to use a word of more than 2 syllables or to have any idea whatsoever of using a computer. When I do finally get through to the right department, I usually find that I’m talking to a fairly young Indian girl with an extremely strong Indian accent who appears to think she knows everything there is to know about everything, talks down to me in a patronising manner – slowly as if I was retarded – avoiding using technical terms, and despite my indicating that I build computers and install software + have qualifications in analogue and digital electronics, treating me as if I was a technophobe with an IQ of 10. If I ask to talk to her supervisor it takes about 10 minutes to get her supervisor on the line after 5 minutes of requesting; only for the supervisor to read from the same script that was earlier read to me, and tell me that she can’t help me any further than she already has, but if I’d like to pursue the matter further I should ring another of BT’s trillions of departments, (Probably in a room next door, or at the back of the call-centre in India.) on such-and-such a number. (When I do I find that I’m told that I’m speaking to the wrong department, and after being transferred through another X departments – undergoing identification interrogation at each of them, I find I end up speaking to the same Indian girl who offers to put me on hold while she transfers me yet again; after which the line goes dead.

Right BT: I’ve had enough. – As have millions of others who’ve switched their telephone service and/or ISP to another provider.

- They’re crafty bleeders too: Every time I phone them to get a better deal from them, (I must admit that they can be bargained and bartered with, and that’s a good thing. – But they’ll only drop a certain amount: If you push them too far they’ll just end the call.) I end up signing a 12 or 18-month contract in order to get what I want. That means that I spend over half the time tied to them.

A bit more on bartering with BT: If you feel that you’re not getting a fair deal, and/or you know that you can get a better deal elsewhere as regards price; ring their sales department – Which is at least partially located in the UK, ask to speak to someone in authority, and tell them exactly why you think you’re not getting a good deal from them.

Don’t lie: They may be incompetent but they’re not stupid. If you lie they’ll just politely tell you that they are unable to help you and end the call. Be honest with them and they’ll hopefully be fair with you. I can almost guarantee that they’ll tie you into a contract; but don’t be put off by that: If you’re properly self-aware then you’ll be able to negotiate further deals whilst under contract on the basis that you renew your contract for a full-term.

Snide Ba—rds!

OK back to the point: BT; you are getting to a point where you are going to shoot yourself in the foot if you squeeze any harder: That thing which you’re squeezing has become a trigger which will lead to your eventual self-destruction in the present economic climate. Either get your act together or prepare to slowly and tortuously go under.

I feel that the only reason why anyone would use BT’s internet services is because they’re less fault-prone than anyone else’s: That’s the positive side to them. They work and they work properly 99.99% of the time. – However, aside from their abysmal PR efforts, BT are rather expensive, also they’re neither the fastest ISP in the UK, nor are they future-proofed at the present moment. In fact Virgin Media are beginning to appear a nicer and nicer alternative as time goes by.

Virgin Media aren’t quite as reliable as BT in my opinion: They have got a lot better in this respect though, and they continue to do so. To anyone in a cabled area who’s thinking of changing ISP; I suggest Virgin Media as one of the best options. As for those in a non-cabled area; I suggest Virgin Media or BT – BT being the most reliable of the two for now, as two of the best options; whereas Virgin Media will probably have more chance of being the better of the two in the future. The choice is yours out of the two.

There is a single lower-cost provider who I would recommend to the same, even in some cases to a greater, extent than either of these two, though. More on that further down.

Other ISPs?

Other ISPs? Well I’m not too bothered about most other ISPs as far as landline communications are concerned. Mobile communications are a different matter and are outside the scope of this article. Most other ISPs probably use BT or Virgin Media’s equipment to carry their data, and probably buy up spare capacity in wholesale amounts; hence their pricing policies being discounted in some way. When something goes wrong, though, they have to check their own equipment first -The delay caused at this point can be anything between immediately and eternally. Following that, if they can’t find a fault, they have to ask their providers to check if there are any faults on the carrier equipment, which is requested but usually goes to the back of the queue. Some parts of some cheaper networks have been known to be down for weeks at a time in the past. – If you pay peanuts you get the services of monkeys.

BUT…

There is one that is cheap-er than BT, but is pretty reliable: That being the Utility Warehouse, who actually own a percentage of the network that they use, in addition to purchasing spare-capacity from other carriers. – Which is why I advertise them on this site. A FTSE-listed company that can win an award from Which? magazine must be worth considering as an option. I’ll say no more; but why not click on the ad and find out more about them? They’re a UK-only service currently, so I hope I haven’t wasted your time if you live outside the UK.

If there’s anything you’d like to add, contradict, or express an opinion on, then please do comment.

I wouldn’t describe building a PC as "easy"; but it’s not as difficult as one might imagine. Unlike constructing an electronic circuit, such as an amplifier, for example; there’s nothing extremely fiddly, such as soldering or quality engineering to worry about: That’s all been taken care of already by the component manufacturers.

It’s like putting a jigsaw together: Every piece fits in a certain configuration as a part of the whole. The pieces are already made, so you don’t have to make them yourself: you only need to fit them together in the correct fashion.

*At this point I’ll state that this article isn’t a comprehensive how-to: It’s just some notes from my recent rebuild experience.*

You may have heard that I recently had a computer die on me. I’d built it from scrap parts as a replacement for another one that went funny earlier. I have no idea exactly what caused the fault that killed it. It blue-screened and then just died a second later. Following on from that when I tried to restart it the BIOS couldn’t find the processor; so I assumed that the chipset had fried: ‘New motherboard required if this was the case.

There’s the old construction on the left. (Excuse the picture quality.) I’d already started taking it apart at that point, so it does look rather untidy. I’ve just rebuilt this machine; and I’m actually writing this article on it.

I stripped it down and started again; therefore I in essence built the machine from scratch. While doing so I took pics of a number of stages and of some of the parts, with a view to blogging the event. This blog has suffered from a lack of posts due to this project and other work, so I  thought it a good idea to use this project as subject matter.

First things first; a motherboard:

I purchased a fairly cheap Gigabyte motherboard for this project: It cost me about £38 at the time. I’d decided to use a socket AM2 AMD Athlon 64 x 2, 2.2GHz processor, as in my other working machine, for this one.

Some people have a low-opinion of AMD chips. Myself, I’ve always found them to be reliable and sturdy. Also they’re cheaper and the motherboards that run them cost less too. Since this was a rebuild that I didn’t want to spend too much on I was quite happy with my choice.

Of course I’d need a CPU cooler too, which consists of a heatsink and fan in order to prevent the processor from overheating. I had this one in stock and was going to use it. However I found that the original cooler was a better one, and surprisingly that it fitted onto a socket AM2 fitting perfectly; therefore having cleaned it up I used it instead.

I also invested in a new hard-drive. I could have used the old one; there was nothing wrong with it. – But I added the old one to my other machine and started this build with a brand new disk.

All-in-all the motherboard, processor, and hard-drive, cost me £108 Inc. VAT at 15%.

So to construction; and the pic on the right shows the case with the new motherboard fitted.

Always remember before starting out; earth thyself: Static electricity builds up in your body and on your clothes, and it kills computer components. personally I always wear an earthed wrist-strap when building computers, just to take any static safely to earth rather than letting it flow through the components I’m using and killing them.

After this point I got a buzz,  and I just ploughed on ahead with construction while not bothering to take any more pics of it.

In short, though, it was just a matter from here of fitting the PSU, connecting the appropriate power leads to the motherboard, inserting the processor into the socket on the motherboard, pulling the little lever while pressing down on it to seal it in the socket, smearing some heat-conducting grease on the top of it, fitting and aligning the cooler, and pulling down the lever on it to tighten it to the surface after clipping the clips onto the processor surround.

Installing the RAM: I inserted 2 x 1GB 667MHz DDR2 sticks into the memory slots and pushed down until they clicked into place.

Following that I connected up the front panel to the appropriate pins. I had problems with the sound jacks on the front as the connections didn’t match with the new motherboard at all. In the end I left the two front sound jacks unconnected, and only connected the 2 front USB ports, the HD activity LED, and the power-indicator LED, to the appropriate pins.

I popped the new HDD into a drive-bay, screwed it in, and connected it up to a SATA power lead from the PSU and to the motherboard’s SATA controller via a SATA connector lead. The same with the DVD-RW drive. (I used the existing DVD-RW as there was no point getting a new one. – Same with the existing floppy-drive.

"Floppy-drive! Why bother with a floppy?" You ask.

I like floppy-drives. I find them useful. I also still like CRT monitors and Outlook Express too. That’s just me: I don’t expect anyone to do similar if they don’t want to.)

So having put the thing together it was time for the initial power-up: Fingers crossed. Bingo: POST. I did take a pic of it, but it was so crappy I deleted it.

After a few minor adjustments to the BIOS, it’s time to install Windows XP:

Pop the XP pro CD into the DVD-RW drive… Let’s get the HDD formatted: NTFS – A decent file-system.

Install Windows…

- Et voila mes amis.

That wasn’t exactly the hardest thing on earth to do; although the construction is the easy, quick, and interesting part for me: It’s the 12 or so hours afterwards installing, optimising, and configuring, all the software that really gets my goat: That’s one reason I don’t do upgrades as a rule for customers: Even after spending 12 hours on it; they still moan about something: That’s why I just build the comp and install and optimise Windows and the motherboard drivers after a new build only, professionally. People can add their own software afterwards and screw up the operating system any way they like once the comp is delivered and paid for.

So that’s the rebuild; and it is a rather excellent job although I do say so myself.

Last month; October 2008, I reported on BT’s plans to create its own fibre-optic network in the UK, starting with Muswell Hill, London, and also Whitchurch, South Wales, (Not Whitchurch in Hampshire.) at a total cost of some 1.5 billion. Short-sighted shareholders, however have basically vetoed those plans for the time being. The shareholders expressed concerns about spending that much money in the current economic climate.

Chief executive Ian Livingston was better foresighted, and said that he still believes that BT should go ahead and make the investment, which he initially announced not long after becoming chief executive. Although he echoed the shareholders’ concerns, there appears little point in cutting back on investment, job creation, resources, and investment, simply because the media have decided that everything financial is doom and gloom. All that will do is aid the recession to deepen, and amplify its effect upon the company in question.

“‘But we need to have the environment in which our shareholders feel there is a good chance of us making a return,” Said Livingston. “If we cannot have that environment this is not the time to be taking on sure-fire losses.”

Also, last week, BT announced that it plans to lay off 4,000 of its own staff and also 6,000 contractors, in order to reduce operating costs by £1.25 billion.

That seems a rather silly move to my mind; but in the light of that move it can now fund all but 250 million for the above project. – It will not do so, however. – So where does the money end up? Probably it appears on the end-of-year profits so that the BT bosses can award themselves another pay-rise as a reward for increased productivity under "detrimental economic conditions": I wouldn’t be at all surprised; the greedy ba—-ds!

New research data from Point Topic, which details profiles of broadband DSL and ADSL services worldwide, indicates that the number of new broadband lines added to the UK’s infrastructure between July to September was a clear 20 per cent below previous forecasts.

"To keep on track Britain needed to add 390,000 broadband lines in the July to September quarter, said Tim Johnson, chief analyst at Point Topic. "We estimate that the actual number was only 313,000. That’s 20% down on the target". Point Topic also estimates that Virgin Media may have gained another 60,000 cable modem customers at the expense of BT and other smaller alternative broadband ISPs, who actually lost around 70,000 customers during this period.

Local loop unbundling – where ISPs such as Carphone Warehouse, Utility Warehouse, and Sky install their own equipment in BT‘s telephone exchanges – was found to be the main driver of continuing growth in broadband, adding 323,000 lines in the third quarter of 2008.

"By the end of 2009 there should be about 18.4 million broadband lines in Britain, 300,000 short of what was expected six months ago." Continued Johnson.

He predicts that this means that fewer people will switch from dial-up lines to broadband, and about 240,000 more homes will be without any kind of internet access by the end of 2009.

To my mind that is utterly diabolical: Nearly 1/4 million homes giving up internet access altogether! It underlines the tightfisted nature of the British consumer in general; slashing costs indiscriminately in the face of a shortage of beer-money or reserve cash for cosmetics, without a second thought for the effect on themselves caused from the denial of a principal technology. Of course this shortsighted approach is in the face of a financial assault by the money-grabbing profiteering UK ISPs who, as with most British business, will stop at nothing to rob the public of as much money as possible while at the same time delivering the minimum service that they can possibly get away with.

I honestly didn’t realise that there were so many people in the UK who still used dial-up! Why use dial-up? At the end of the day it costs more than a broadband connection, is far slower, and in some cases less reliable too.

I know that in America many people in far-flung reaches of the continent have no choice as there is as yet no broadband or cable service in their area. That’s possibly acceptable in such a huge country, at least temporarily so anyway. This is the UK though: This is a small group of overpopulated islands. Th4ere is no excuse whatsoever for there not to be a countrywide broadband service in the UK at this point in the 21st Century. If the powers that be would invest their profits rather than pocketing them, I’m quite sure that the task could be completed in a short time. The only thing standing in the way is British greed.

What do you think about this subject? Do you agree that the UK needs to pull its socks up, and fast?

Multinational British-based telecommunications company BT has chosen  around 15,000 homes/businesses in Muswell Hill, London, and in Whitchurch, South Wales, to be the launching-points for its new internet service  of its "Fibre-to-the-Cabinet" internet-delivery-system.

BT are claiming this service could give customers speeds of up to 40Mbps, and is scheduled to be in operation in the summer of 2009.

BT are unclear as to which ISPs will be using the scheme as yet, but have said that those ISPs will be setting the prices for their services once this matter has been further sorted out. Further details for the next stage of the operation, in which the service will be on offer on a larger (Nationwide?) scale, is to be announced in 2010.

According to David Campbell, director of next generation access at BT Openreach:-

"Services in these areas will be available to all UK communication providers on a wholesale basis. The sites were chosen in consultation with communications providers and took into account feedback from regional development agencies, devolved authorities and similar organisations."

"It was also necessary to take into account current network topology and our ability to run testing procedures in the chosen areas. We have a good mix of areas, allowing us to test our products in both urban and semi-rural environments."

What’s the big deal though? Is this all too little too late? In 1994/5, the then NTL cabled most of the more easily-accessible areas of the UK with its fibre-optic cables, on which, since the merge with Virgin Media, a 40Mbps internet connection has been available for quite some time.

It would appear that BT are intending to do exactly the same; thus giving the already-cabled areas a choice of hi-speed internet, while leaving the rural outlying areas with the paltry choice of slow-dial-up or expensive satellite internet services.

If the above paragraph is true, then nothing changes other than an increase in variety for the select recipients in more densely-populated areas; screw the rest of them.

Having areas of 40Mbps connection whilst continuing to have areas where, to keep costs down, customers opt for a 56Kbps dial-up connection, isn’t really going to be productive: The most vulnerable point in any chain is its weakest link; so if little Jenny, who has a 40Mbps connection, is sending her granny, who has a 56Kbps dial-up connection, a 500MB file of her favourite cartoons, then Jenny may as well have a 56Kbps dial-up connection also for all the time it’ll take to reach granny.

Maybe I’m being a bit melodramatic in the above paragraph; but unless everyone gets a decent deal out of a new development which affects society as a whole, then what is the point of it if it’s just going to produce bottlenecks? I mean what is the point of having a 10-lane motorway for 99% of the distance between towns A and B, if at the end of the motorway is a single-track winding lane making the final connection?

Meanwhile Thailand (Which isn’t exactly a technological superpower.) continues to have its hyperfast-internet which is available to almost everyone; and the traffic between Thailand and the UK is not a massive amount. I wonder why? Perhaps it’s because they get fed up with waiting for the British to receive their message? It leaves Thailand within the second; gets to the UK 3 seconds later, and reaches its final destination as a complete download later that week! Am I being melodramatic again? Not in all cases: I’ve known email from abroad to reach its UK destination 3 days later. In some cases even longer than that. When snail-mail becomes faster than the internet it’s clear that someone somewhere is doing something wrong.

So come on BT: I hope everyone, regardless of area, local population, and accessibility, is going to benefit from this: If they don’t it all seems pretty pointless and just another one of the UK’s famous postcode-lotteries.

Prologue Rabbit:

Quite some time ago – 2 years plus; I’m not exactly sure how long, I got an invite from a friend to join Facebook. I’d heard a lot about it but wasn’t really into social networking at that time: Times were good economically, and I was concentrating on getting a computer-building enterprise running. I wasn’t that fussed on spending hours posting my life online and getting chatted-up by lonely losers using the internet as a last-ditch attempt at getting a date with anyone they could find.

Anyway I eventually gave Facebook a try – And I found it so sucky at the time that after not long I closed down my account in protest. I kept a MySpace account going but abandoned it and forgot the login details.

More than two years later; having become a Twitter, FriendFeed, etc, user – I found that everyone and anyone was using Facebook. Yesterday I made up my mind to give them a second chance and opened an account: The new look Facebook is so much better, more user-friendly, and functional.

The Guts:

…And so to the purpose of this article; having released and dispensed with the drivel:-

I’m going to be honest and say that I’m not an iPhone owner or user. What? A geek without an iPhone?!: Dracula without fangs, a tree not made of wood! Well, approve or disapprove; I’m a Wintard and I use Windows Mobile on my mobile phone supplied by BT, and some Linux variant on my Sony Ericsson X750i, I think it is. I simply don’t see the point of buying an iPhone, and I have possible gripes with Apple – But that’s another story. Since I don’t own an iPhone I can’t tell you much about this App from experience: So I’m going to cheat and quote a little from TechCrunch.com:

“While previous releases of the Facebook application supported the News Feed feature, only mobile photo uploads and status updates were displayed. In version 2.0, the News Feed has been completely overhauled to match item-for-item with that of the site itself, throwing news posts, relationship and interest updates, and all photo uploads into the mix. Furthermore, users are now able to comment on any given bit of news, or limit the feed to only the categories they wish to peruse.”

Ah what the heck: Click the link below and read:

Facebook Rolls Out Version 2.0 of their iPhone Application

Yes; maybe it’s not standard practice to just hand over to another blog mid-story: A little deviation from the norm won’t hurt anyone nevertheless; plus I’ve done Michael Arrington, Greg Kumparak, and the rest of the TC crew a favour.

…And Finally…

Something else that’s hitting the headlines is the House of Representatives’  Web site – Which has been overwhelmed this week by a tidal-wave of visitors trying to e-mail their Congressperson and/or download George Bush’s Financial Bailout Bill that the House rejected. The site saw three to four times its normal traffic yesterday, 29th September,, according to Jeff Ventura, a spokesman for the House Chief Administrative Officer.

That’ll teach ‘em to vote “no”: DDOS ‘em as punishment, lol.

And now; Some advertising:

I know that I’ve spoken a number of times, here on this blog as well a in comments on other blogs, about the deplorable state of the internet infrastructure in a large percentage of the world – Particularly the UK.

A Post of Politics

In a proposed initiative announced earlier this week; British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is to unveil plans to allow low-income families in the UK to connect to the internet. The plan is to accomplish this by sending such families a voucher worth up to £700, (About $1350) depending upon the families’ means as assessed under the strange, outdated, and in places unfairly applied, British Law. These vouchers can be used to pay for broadband charges, software, technical support, or even computers themselves. This scheme is intended to be run over the next three years; and is primarily intended to assist poorer children and their parents to keep up with the recent use of computers in classrooms in UK schools which is seeing school reports, homework, and study materials being posted online at an ever-increasing rate.

“To ensure we are prepared for the times to come, the Government will fund one million more households to get online, enabling parents to link with the teachers at their children’s school and helping young people with their homework and coursework.” According to Brown.

It is also intended that the initiative will keep teachers and parents in constant touch with one another; rather than just by means of the three school reports per-year as under the old system.

Knowing the nature of rip-off Britain as I do; I foresee a lot of exploitation by British businesses in charging unacceptable prices for these services to the unwary possibly computer-illiterate bearers of these vouchers. I see larger companies capitalising upon this opportunity by offering their old stock in exchange for vouchers: Using this as a means to clear yesterday’s technology without any loss of revenue on the original marked-up price. I foresee amateur computer “technicians” taking advantage of this scenario; taking people’s computers to a professional repair shop, adding their own profit and charging the customer a fortune, then claiming vouchers as payment.

I foresee more of the following too:-

Part One (Above)                                       

       Part Two (Above)                                                      

This kind of behaviour by supposed “professionals” is utterly diabolical, completely unethical, and also totally illegal: Nevertheless it does happen – That was a real Channel 4 TV programme about a real con-artist operating in the UK some time ago. I have plans to do something towards preventing the British public from being ripped off; although unfortunately I currently have neither the resources not the ability to provide any sort of similar service to Mike Quigley (Above); despite the fact that my service would be totally ethical and not rip the public off as this cowboy did.

- And Queue Advertising…

As many of my readers may be aware; I build computers: I operate under the name of “Kustom Komputa” and have been trading as such in a rather limited capacity since early summer 2007; building computers for associates, friends, neighbours, and acquaintances mainly. I have several years experience in computers and also have qualifications in both analogue and digital electronics. I once again state that unfortunately I don’t offer a technical support service or a visiting computer repair service, other than a similar support service under the terms of the Kustom Komputa warranty to my customers where the customer has their faulty computer picked up by courier and returned to me for repair should any hardware component malfunction during the warranty period. I also only deliver to addresses in the UK currently.

Please do enquire with Kustom Komputa about a new PC if you find yourself on this scheme. I build each individual computer for the benefit of the customer that will own it. I will build tower-only or I will supply peripherals and/or operating system as part of the package. The website is overdue for an update; but please don’t let that put you off.

Alternatively; if you’re feeling adventurous, you might try this:

Enough advertising for the time being: Let’s get back to the issue of this proposed Government incentive. Despite being well-intentioned this is once again too little and too late; something that we in the UK have come to expect from any government in power at any time:

The Real Politics Part

Despite this bringing the possibility of allowing some of the less-well-off families in Britain access to the internet it neither answers the matter of limited broadband access nor does it answer the matter of substandard infrastructure throughout the UK: It is still the case that in many rural areas of the UK those with internet access have to rely on a dial-up service through their telephone lines at 56k on an old-fashioned dial-up modem simply because there is no alternative other than the expensive satellite broadband services. The reason for this is because the companies that deliver services such as cable have in their own immediate interests only wired up the urban and suburban areas to benefit from their services. BT themselves, despite being able to deliver broadband services of up to 8mbps to customers virtually on the doorstep of their exchanges, are nevertheless unable to offer decent connection speeds to anybody living more than about a mile-and-a-half or more from the exchanges. This means that over 40% of the population of the UK are still unable to benefit from speeds above 2mbps; with many unable to access anything faster than 56k dialup due to location and/or financial reasons.

The fact is that were this 1998 this would be acceptable; although barely so. In reality this is 2008 and the situation is totally unacceptable. It has been brought about by the failure of the current Government to address the matter of proper investment in technology and the infrastructure of the World Wide Web in the UK. At the risk of sounding like a politician; although hopefully without the echo-chamber effect of the hollow words of a politician; I feel that it is time for the British people to get up out of their comfort zone and lobby Parliament to gain and institute the necessary investment.

The British as a nation have become complacent and have lost all enthusiasm for keeping Britain great; in fact it appears that they’ve given up – Because the politicians that are supposed to be setting an example have also given up leading and have set about doing as little as possible for as much money as possible.

This has set the tone for rip-off Britain – because our politicians are leading by example; ripping off Britain in the first place.

The latest round of pay-rises in the House of Commons would themselves have partially paid for a renewed internet infrastructure rather than putting wealth into the pockets of the “elite” who are supposed to be running this country on our behalf; not on theirs.

Unless further investment occurs in this area soon; the UK could end up as a third-world nation! Is that what you want? Then get off your arse and do something about it: The politicians aren’t going to do it for you; all they care about is how fat their wallet or purse is: they make token gestures but fail to address the real issues. Nothing has ever been achieved better than by people power: Politician-power is artificial synthetic crapola that fails and fails again; yet tells you that it’s working.

A new Government would be a change; but we’ve surely learned over the last century that neither Labour nor Conservative are any good. How many times do they have to fail over and over again before someone gets this point? I’m not saying that any party has all the answers; but surely it’s a fallacy to keep doing the same old thing in the same old way and expect different results? – I thought that was the definition of insanity rather than the definition of politics! perhaps the two have become identical? What’s your take on it?

Yahoo is planning another redesign; and it’s already happening. In keeping with others such as social micro-blogging site Twitter – which started to implement a phased series of changes to its site design last week – Yahoo; allegedly the most heavily-trafficked site on the internet, is already moving ahead with redesigning its home page. The changes are to be initially tested on a small group of users in alpha form, and will eventually move on up through beta, to a full-scale overhaul at a later date.

Yahoo plans to invite a random sample of of around 1% of its audience to test the alpha upgrades. The tests will be conducted in Britain, France, India and the United States, according to a Yahoo executive.

Tapan Bhat; senior vice-president in charge of “front doors” – The main destinations at Yahoo, such as Yahoo.com. My Yahoo, and the Yahoo Toolbar – explained that the last redesign two years ago took six months to fully implement. Yahoo are aiming to deliver on past promises from around a year ago. “We are going to put what matters to you most at your fingertips” Explains Bhat.

The new Yahoo home page will feature a tab on the left hand column of the page with  links to the user’s favourite sites. It functions as an alternative to navigation methods such as bookmarks, link bars, and browser tabs.

“For the first time, we are going to marrying Yahoo.com and MyYahoo to take the best of both,” Bhat promises.

Yahoo is using a new technology it calls the Content Optimisation Knowledge Engine to enable its computers to determine what the most engaging content may be to a specific user, and to present that, combined with relevant advertising tied to users’ particular interests, to users, based on their prior surfing habits.

Yahoo is taking a rather cautious approach with this personalisation, in the knowledge that less than 15% of its current users subscribe to My Yahoo; its existing personalisation service.

Flickr, a Yahoo company, is already offering some of its pro users in the UK a beta of its new look homepage: This author is currently running the new look Flickr homepage on her Flickr profile.

- Also, as an incidental point, users in the UK subscribed to BT/Yahoo Broadband service are able to sign up for a pro account on Flickr free of charge, provided that, and for as long as, they continue to subscribe to their BT/Yahoo internet services. (That’ll at least partially make up for BT’s Home Hub 2.0 con in a manner of speaking perhaps?)

Have you started to trial Yahoo’s new designs; and if so what do you think of them?

Years ago back in 2002 I needed a new computer. At that time I wasn’t building computers; I was a software geekette, and I was still learning about hardware. My old 233MHz Cyrix processor on a PC Chips PC100 motherboard  was becoming  too slow even for Windows 98. I wanted to move up to Windows XP; but wasn’t happy about trying it on my existing system.

Like I said; I wasn’t a hardware geekette, but I knew what to look out for; so I did the usual British thing and headed for the PC World store.

I parked outside in their car park and entered the store through the plush sliding automatic doors; went to the back of the store, and started looking at what they had to offer. It wasn’t that bad; but I only had a choice of around 15 different computers; each with its own special deal.

I felt eyes on me and noticed a salesman hovering not far away pretending to dust a shelf. I wandered over to the pre-SP2 stacks of Windows XP Professional CDs: £99! – Extortion! I was going to have to cut a deal here.

To cut a long story short I left the store that day with a computer made by Medion, running a 2.8GHz 1st generation P4, (A cutting-edge processor at the time.) 512MB RAM, (Standard at the time was 250 to 512MB) and 32MB onboard graphics. (Again standard for the time 32-64MB) I also had a ton of crap freebie software thrown in, and the tower came with a wheel-mouse, reasonable stereo speakers, ( – Which I still posses.) OK keyboard, Canon inkjet printer – Which I got them to upgrade from the cheap-looking Hewlett-Packard printer that originally came with the deal, and a free Windows XP Professional CD.

How I got that free was a bit of a crafty deal: You see PC World stores in the UK make a huge percentage of their money selling warranties on their goods and earning from the commissions from that; and therefore the salesman wasn’t going to let me get away without buying one. (All their customers complain about the warranty that they’re virtually forced to buy with their new computer, and which usually costs around as much again; but still they keep going back to them like wasps to a jamjar.) I cut a deal in which I agreed to buy the 5-year-warranty that they were pushing on me on condition that they gave me a better printer than the one in the bundle, and that they threw in a free XP Professional CD. I was trying to get their top-price scanner free with the deal too; but I had to drop that in compromise.

I was happy at the time, except that the box was the wrong colour and I’d had to give up the chance of a model with 64MB onboard graphics to get the model with the printer in the bundle. 2 years later, and with the price of RAM still high, I wanted to upgrade to 1GB RAM and found that there were 2 x 250MB sticks already in the box; which meant I’d have to replace rather than fit 2 more as there were only 2 slots. I also wanted to upgrade to 128MB graphics and did that instead with a Radeon PCI graphics card. I also wanted to upgrade the CPU to the latest 3.06MB P4 with hyperthreading; but that was out of the question.

2006, and I’d just finished my electronics course and gained 2 certificates. I’d also killed two birds with one stone by messing about with computer hardware/software in the computer course classroom which was adjacent to the electronics lab; much to the tutor’s annoyance, as he had to keep coming over and getting me to attend his impromptu lectures. – You could therefore say that I was trained in computer hardware also; although without a certificate.

By this time my computer was in its old age and was starting to show it; although I’d kept it going reasonably well. I was in a mind to attempt my first full-build – I had the know-how; I just needed the parts. The immediate objective; though, was flashing the BIOS on my existing box: I’d done it before on that box, and I’d done it a number of times at college; all successfully. This BIOS flash didn’t go to plan however: A power-spike during the process – I was economising by not having a UPS in-circuit – fried the BIOS chip: All I got from it was a blank screen and a continuous beep…And it was a week before Christmas too! I phoned the warranty company and got a number unobtainable tone. PC World informed me that the warranty company had gone out of business and that the company that had taken over were now closed until the New Year. – I couldn’t wait until then for a computer. I know; I’ll build my own: I’d bought a book from PC Mech that covered everything. In case I’d missed something or did something wrong I’d have that concise manual to put me right. I need components. I’ll make a list: Just in case I’ve missed something there – It is my first full-build after all – I’ll check with the book I bought mail-order off the internet from PC Mech … Let’s have a look…Blimey they cover everything in here: Windows 95 to Windows XP, Linux, the lot… OK I have listed everything – Good. Now to order. Oh my god everywhere’s shut early for Xmas! PC World will be open but will charge me a fortune…

Panic mode: I grabbed the telephone directory and ordered a machine to be custom-built for me before Xmas from a firm I’d never heard of. I did that and the custom-built computer arrived in 2 days; it worked, and I used it until April – When the PSU exploded!

Fortunately I’d already made my first build by then; checking everything from the book I’d ordered from PC Mech just to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. I post-mortem’ d the blown PC and found that the company I’d employed had used all cheap components, the wrong components, (e.g. A 32-bit single-cored Sempron CPU rather than the 64-bit dual-cored Athlon I’d asked for…) and built it badly – so I started legal action against the fairly-local English bodger-company; but that’s a totally different story.

Actually to be honest I needn’t have bothered with the computer room at college had I ordered that book earlier: It was just like a computer course in its own right: In fact I’d go so far as to say that it was more concise than the college course, and everything was well written and easy to understand – Honestly even a beginner without any computer experience whatsoever could use it to teach them how to build their own.

That really pissed me off; because I’d seen it advertised, I think it was the year before I went to college; maybe even before that; but I’d thought ‘Oh; it’s just another American net-profits person flogging more cyber-junk’: I thought I’d find that’s part 1 which I’d bought at a discount, and I’d have to buy all subsequent parts and join a get-rich-quick scheme to continue to receive the other instalments: Oh how wrong I was! I so wish that I hadn’t been so pessimistic and that I’d bought it then and there. It would have saved me time, money, and hassle.

Well I did it all arse-about-face and I paid the price – Literally in some respects; all because I was too cynical and didn’t think that the book was worth buying – I mean it doesn’t exactly cost a fortune either; but Miss Tight here was just procrastinating to save a few £s; and yet it cost me a few £s more maybe: False economy.

I don’t want to say which book it is after all that: I mean if I do and you buy it then you could end up knowing as much as I do and that’ll put me at a disadvantage. Having said that; I kept my money to myself and ended up losing; so if I were to keep my knowledge to myself then would I end up losing also? Probably knowing my luck.

I’ve been churning it over in my mind for some time whether to let the cat out of the bag; but look what procrastination did before; see above.

Which company and/or its staff/owner have I mentioned more in this blog than any other? Apple. – Well almost; but in a slightly derogatory way. No; PC Mech. Why? Because I have experience of PC Mech and I know that I always get a good deal out of them: That’s why I have a membership with PC Mech, like quite a few others also do.

I’m in England; PC Mech are in America. If I were in any way dissatisfied with their service I’m hardly likely to be able to drive over to their office and have a go at them am I? – Oh believe me more than one English company has had a piece of my mind in the past. No; it’s a matter of trust. What more needs to be said?

So no further procrastination. If you make a fortune out of what I share with you then I want half; all right? Like I’ll get it eh? Well you’re going to find out one way or another; so I suppose ‘better from me than someone else. Scroll down.

Either you want to find out which book it is or you don’t. If you do then scroll down. Of course; if you don’t want to custom-build a PC for yourself – ever – then there’s no point: Thanks for reading.

– I’ve had to do some work typing this lot you know; so it’s not going to hurt you to do a tiny bit yourself. Keep scrolling…

Keep going; you’re authorized: Remember; it’s a matter of trust…

If you’ve bothered to scroll all the way down here then you’re either interested to know more or you’re as crazy as me. Whichever is the case you’re about to get what I said you’d get.

In fact I’m not only going to tell you the name of the book; I’m also going to give you a link to a bit more information and the point of purchase. I’ve procrastinated to this point, and now I’m no longer doing so: The knowledge can be yours.

- All you have to do is click on the ad, no more than that.

What; you’ve come all this way and you’re wondering whether you should? Oh give me a break!

OK; If you’re determined to make the same mistake as me and continue procrastinating until you miss your chance then this link will get you out of here.

– Otherwise there’s a square-ish bluey thing below to click on:-

Happy building!

If you’re a blogger and you missed IzeaFest you did yourself a big disservice. Maybe you couldn’t get to Florida; but it was streamed online – and it was well worth taking the time out to watch. If you did miss it then you missed out on a fantastic social opportunity; online or at the event. But all is not lost; it’s mostly all been recorded – The presentations that is, and you can view them all by clicking here.

IzeaFest – It was more blogger-centric admittedly – But since bloggers seem to be some of the only people with any sense these days we deserve it and we need it. Last century we, the Human Race, came close to destroying civilisation as we know it with our technology. This century let’s hope that we won’t make the same mistakes twice, and that we unite through our technologies; that our ideas and advancement become our language, a language understood universally.

Peace. Namaste’.

BT have messed up again! I tried to access this website via the normal ftp channel that I use to upload and download files, and the server returned an invalid address error. I checked my ftp settings on my Fasthosts account, which were correct; but still got the same result. I uninstalled and reinstalled my ftp client, FileZilla, inputted the correct settings – same result. I downloaded WS-FTP-LE , set it up, and got the same result with that too. I phoned Fasthosts who said that all BT customers had exactly the same problem since BT had introduced new  measures to combat spam and illegal downloading via P2P earlier.

What that means is that BT have introduced a new piece of equipment into the loop that looks for anything it doesn’t like and blocks it. It saw my ftp, which it passed to the server, the server responded but the BT equipment saw the response and blocked it. My ftp client didn’t get a response and assumed that there wasn’t one; hence its response.

This is all connected with this stupid illegal unworkable UK government initiative to kerb illegal downloads that I reported on earlier. http://kkomp.com/archives/629 I asked how long did they think it would take for the problem to be remedied. They said it should only take a few hours, that they were kicking and screaming at BT, and that BT had assigned some of their top technicians to the case.

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2 Hours later I phoned BT : After following through several stages of a complicated menu I was played the message

“Welcome to BT broadband…we’re closed…” in short. “…For faults only please ring…” I did.; I endured the boring drivel about how BT record all phone calls and that if I had a problem with the internet service I could visit their website…A bit like saying

“If your car won’t start why not drive round to our garage and we’ll have it fixed in no time at all.”

“…please phone 0800…” was the message before the phone went dead: I redialed again and endured the same drivellous messages before…

“Om-put-put-ding-ding saab. Welcomming to BT. Please be to how may I help you. Can I have your name and the first line of your address please thank you?”

Yes hello Ranjeet – Here we go again. I gave my name etc – Yes I am the account holder. (Stupid question to ask: “Are you the account holder? Why not just look at the details on your screen when you bring up the account?)

“I’m having problems with using ftp over the internet and am unable to access my server at my web-host.” I continued. “BT are aware of this matter and are working to resolve it. Would you tell me how much longer you expect the matter to take until it’s resolved please.”

“You can’t access the internet?” Came the reply.

I think I used the word pillock in what I said next before I repeated myself.

“It is a problem with your server.” Said the Indian

(I’ve edited out the next few lines to make this blog fit for publication.)

“I will find out for you. Please to be holding the line. What is ftp?”

“File Transfer Protocol” I replied; amazed at the lack of knowledge. “I thought you were trained? This is a technical helpline isn’t it? – It bloody well better be as it’s the only one that’s open!”

“I will find out for you.”

The line went silent for a while and then was hung up.

“‘Cheeky f—ing bleeders!” I hit the roof.

To cut a long story short; after partly-demolishing a door that I didn’t like, I went through all that again to be told by a very gently-mannered Indian woman that nobody had a clue as nobody had been informed of it.

“Fair comment.” I thought; thanked her for her time, and rang the BT Broadband Status line, which told me that there were no problems at all with BT Broadband. I tried to connect via ftp again and got the same result. I phoned Fasthosts again, who confirmed that BT were fully informed and working on it.

- An ISP that lies; both by telephone message and by half-baked computer-illiterate representative. An ISP that neglects to inform its staff of major issues so that they can be of any help to its customers. An ISP that promises a service and ruins the experience of that service for its customers; then lies about it, and keeps everyone in the dark.

You’re wondering “Since you’ve had all this trouble with BT lately; why don’t you change ISP?”

I’d love to; but they give me material for my blog as part of their excuse for a service, so it can’t be all bad.

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At 01:40GMT (02:40 BST) this morning the following email was delivered to my inbox. I’ve added my comments to it in regular Arial 12pt text:

“I’m sending you this note because you registered a mobile device
to work with Twitter over our UK number. I wanted to let you
know that we are making some changes to the way SMS works on
Twitter. There is some good news and some bad news.”

“I’ll start with the bad news. Beginning today, Twitter is no
longer delivering outbound SMS over our UK number. If you enjoy
receiving updates from Twitter via    +44 762 480 1423   , we are
recommending that you explore some suggested alternatives.
Note: You will still be able to UPDATE over our UK number.”

What this means is that UK telephone companies are refusing any concessions to Twitter in the interests of their own continued 100% profit; as if they needed to do so – The greedy money-grabbing penny-pinching slimeballs! Doing so might reduce their profits by a fraction of a percent; which might mean the Director will only get 5 paid-holidays and less than £500G a year or something equally ridiculous.

“Before I go into more detail, here’s a bit of good news: Twitter
will be introducing several new, local SMS numbers in countries
throughout Europe in the coming weeks and months. These new
numbers will make Twittering more accessible for you if you’ve
been using SMS to send long-distance updates from outside the UK.”

Note the absence of the word “free” or “Freephone”.

Fire Your Computer Guy or Girl!

A computer technician spills the beans and makes available the knowledge he has charged clients hundreds in service fees for.

Computer Secrets Unleashed

To find out more

CLICK HERE

BEWARNED: BT’s new Home Hub could cost you nearly twice as much as advertised as an existing BT customer; and you won’t know that you have to pay extra until after you receive the unit:-

Home Hub v2.0, released in July 2008

Last week I was looking at the BT website and I noticed that they had brought out a new model of the BT Home Hub router – a version 2.0. http://www.frequencycast.co.uk/homehub2.html It had a stylish curved polished black plastic design and 4 ethernet ports. I decided that I was going to have one, as the one I was currently using was white which clashed with the colour of the rest of my equipment, was chunky and fairly ugly in comparison, and I was using both ethernet ports out of the 2 available and would prefer an additional 2 ports for future expansion.

I rang BT and eventually managed to get the Indian at the other end of the phone to understand what I was saying and take my order. He said that I’d have to pay £44.99 for it, (About $90USD) which I thought was fair (That was half-price as an existing BT customer.): I’d had the existing BT Home Hub (V.1.1) free with the full package including VOIP phone, unlimited bandwidth, and their biggest and most expensive residential phone package. The VOIP phone uses a separate BT telephone number on the same line, and was channeled over the internet from the BT exchange; thus the cost of calls was allegedly cheaper. (As well as worse quality.)

(*Note: The recent BT Home Hubs; 2.0 and above, require a working voltage of 15 Volts. The older BT Home Hubs, before 2.0 require a working voltage of 9 Volts: Therefore if you’re replacing an old Home Hub with a new 2.0 or greater, you would probably have problems with it, if it works at all, if you don’t use the power adapter supplied with it and use the old one instead. (I don’t advise using the new adapter with an old Home Hub; although it may or may not work as a temporary measure. (Then again it might damage the old Home Hub due to over-voltage – I don’t know and I don’t intend to experiment in this area.)))

Today I received delivery of my new BT Home Hub; exactly as described in their advertising material. It was a snitch to set up; the only thing I had to do really was replace the old mains power adapter with the supplied adapter; as the new hub ran on a voltage of 15 Volts, whereas the old one ran on 9 Volts. I already had the required software installed, (I don’t use their free Norton security software as it’s ineffective resource-hogging crap. I only use the BT Desktop Help software.) and it picked up and worked a dream. I then realised that I hadn’t attached the VOIP handset’s cradle or configured it to work with my existing handset. The existing handset was white – Hmm; a new one would cost me so I decided I’d live with it until I had enough spare balance to buy a new black one.

I removed the cover from the cradle socket on the new hub and it suddenly hit me that there was no way that my old cradle was going to fit. I checked the package for a new cradle but none was supplied. I phoned BT. :

The Indian went all through the most stringent interrogation for identity verification; and then said he’d transfer me to the relevant department; who did it again. This time I was talking at last to a Brit – Yippee!.. But my happiness was short-lived:

The reply was that they don’t supply a new cradle separately; and that I’d have to buy one along with a new handset for £35.99 (About $70USD)> I said that this was a con: I already had a perfectly good handset; all I needed was a cradle which should have been supplied with the new hub: I’d like a free cradle by itself or I’d be taking the matter to the Office of Fair Trading. I’d also like BT to make it clear in their advertising that the new router would require a new cradle and handset BEFORE the customer chose to buy it; or I’d be taking that matter to Trading Standards as well.

To cut a long story short she wouldn’t budge; so rightly or wrongly I went ahead and ordered and told her that I’d be referring the matter to the relevant powers that be – Which I’m about to do.

If you’re a BT customer and you’d like a new BT Home Hub 2.0 with a usable cradle and phone included; the cost isn’t £44.99: That’s a con – You can’t use your existing handset as the cradle won’t fit. The true cost in total is £80.00 approximately. (Somewhere around $160USD.)

Another example of Bullshit Telecom’s dishonesty and unethical advertising.

They WILL be sorry: I’ll make sure of it!

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Here’s another moan about BT: The British face of Indian incompetence; or should that read the Indian face of British incompetence? :

BT, for those not in the know, are British Telecommunications; a multinational conglomerate which centres its’ operations here in the UK. Years ago BT took the British telephone network over from the Post Office Telecommunications department and had a monopoly for some years, until the rise of Mercury Communications in 1995 following deregulation of telecommunications services. Mercury tried to be as big as BT but cheaper from the off – And went bust. Following further deregulation and an independent enquiry from the Monopolies and Mergers Commission into unfair monopolisation and anti-competitiveness by BT, the telecommunications giant was forced to share its exchanges and equipment with other upcoming telecommunications companies; hence the many ISPs and phone services around in the UK today.

If you read the article “BT and the 150 Fuckwits“; you’ll realise that BT aren’t my favourite cup of tea right now. Nevertheless I still use BT as my ISP and phone-line* provider because things rarely go wrong, since in essence they built the modern UK telephone network and know it inside-out.

(* I use 18185.co.uk for calls.)

On the rare occasions that things do go wrong, however, it’s usually at the most inopportune moment and it’s nearly impossible to get any sense out of the Indian at a call-centre in India on the other end of the phone; unless you happen to get one who is experienced in speaking English and has a technical background: Unusual circumstances, but it has happened.

-So you can imagine how unbelievably pissed-off I was when right in the middle of a PC Mech online meeting, early this morning in the UK; my internet connection failed, and everything; pictures from Florida and IRC, vanished into a greyed-out window.

My BT Home Hub router was displaying signs that it wasn’t getting a signal. (The Broadband light was flashing fast orange while the Wireless and Power lights were a stable green.) I checked my own wiring between the BT phone socket and the computer – Which was all fine.

Forgetting the BT Broadband Desktop Help software I had installed I instead made the mistake of phoning BT: Ten minutes later when I had negotiated the series of complicated menus I was told that the team was available between the hours of … But if I needed technical assistance; phone 0800 800 …. After another puzzling set of menus I finally got through to … an Indian with a strong accent who spent the next 15 minutes verifying my identity:

Now to be helpful I always; within the first few sentences, state my name, account number, etc. This guy was a product of the job though; a biological answering machine: He asked me for all my details including name, account number, etc, again.

He then instructed me to bring up the router’s control panel by typing in the router’s ip address, which I did. We then went through every different way to try to make the router connect to something, without success. He then got me to check my wiring again; which I did with a continuity tester, and then he had me taking the BT socket apart and connecting directly to the phone line itself. Now I’m a geekette, and a computer-builder, as well as a blogger, so I always have a small flat-headed screwdriver lying around somewhere; but how many other people actually do same? Not a lot. He seemed to take it for granted, however, that all BT customers have a basic toolkit to hand at all times, and have at least some technical know-how….Anyway the result of this was that the situation stayed the same. He said he was going to test my line and would have to ring me on another line, so I gave him my business line number and as soon as I hung up I popped a new ADSL filter module in circuit just to be on the safe side.

I waited an hour and phoned again. This time a non-English-speaking technically-illiterate Indian picked up the phone, went all through the identity-verification process, asking me to repeat everything at least once, and tried to start the entire process of faultfinding from the very beginning again.

Eventually I got him to read the notes from the previous encounter, and he calmed down and said that a fault had been detected either on the line or at the exchange, and that my connection would be restored within the next 48 hours.

48 hours without internet! Just as I began to see red I remembered the BT Broadband Desktop Help software that I had installed on my computer and activated it while I was still trying to translate the representative’s further words into something intelligible and getting him to understand what I was saying.

The software said that I had no internet connection because the router needed resetting by pressing the reset button on the side of the hardware unit for 10 seconds and then releasing it. I told the Indian this but he wasn’t programmed to respond in that area and couldn’t understand what I was saying. He then denied that my software existed; even though it was provided by BT, following which he started repeating over and over that my connection would be restored within 48 hours. I fobbed the idiot off that he was 100% right and thanked him for his “help” before hanging up.

It was then that I did what I should have done in the first place: I held the reset button in for 10 seconds and released it, clicked the connect button that appeared on the screen, and… connection restored. Target neutralised.

It was now 5:35 AM, and I’d wasted sleeping time talking to incompetent idiots and tying to solve a fault their way that I eventually solved in less than a minute with the correct way.

- So BT users in the UK: If your internet dies suddenly, don’t phone BT, especially outside of office hours. Instead run the BT Broadband Desktop help module that you probably have installed on your computer: If you don’t have it installed you can download it HERE. Set it up while your computer and internet are running normally. – Yes I know the software used to be as much help as the Indian; but it’s now been vastly improved and is a great diagnostic tool for BT internet users only:

Use it; rather than the Indian pillock you’ll most likely get on the other end of the phone – It’ll save you much time and effort.

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If you happen to live in the UK and happen to use Virgin Media, BT, Sky, Carphone Warehouse, Orange, or Tiscali; then at some point you may be receiving a warning letter from your ISP saying that you’ve been making illegal downloads, and threatening to suspend or possibly terminate your internet service.

These ISPs are on a three-month trial scheme, instructed by the British government, clamping down on pirating software and music, and notifying suspected repeat offenders that their actions are under scrutiny.

It’s still a mystery exactly which people these “suspected repeat offenders” could be: No doubt the ones they’ll watch are people who use P2P: So if you use LimeWire, BearShare, or any of the other P2P software for whatever reason then watch out. You don’t really imagine that they’re actually going to monitor traffic do you? That would use huge resources and cost millions – A simple P2P signature will probably activate a printer to dispatch a letter to you automatically; guilty or not.

There are currently no plans of disconnecting those who persist. The ISPs are seeking a unified code of conduct on what to do with those who continue to do so in talks with Ofcom; the UK Telecoms Regulator. One of the proposed options is to disconnect someone after sending them 3 of these warning letters. My question is: Where’s the proof? You can’t punish someone on suspicion. Just imagine if the law behaved like that: Half of the world’s population would be in jail.

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UK business secretary John Hutton believes that this is an “intelligent approach”. The ISPs agreed to this trial following the warning from the UK government that it would impose legislation if they didn’t do something to discourage illegal filesharing. If the powers that be imagine for a second that this has any relationship whatsoever with intelligence then I think the UK Govt. should have a motion drafted against it for having none.

It is believed that six million people in the UK are involved in such activities. If they know this then why don’t they just issue six million warnings straight away? It would be so much easier and consume far less resources. Also I’m just wondering: What if you happen to be an innocent party who’s never done an illegal download in their life; and you get one of these letters – Then what? Do you phone the ISP and argue your case? I doubt they’ll even listen: You’re guilty because a computer decided that you should be sent a letter – End of story. No doubt after letter 1 you’ll be put on a “watch list”, and a computer will have no hesitation in deciding that you should receive letter No.2. Use your imagination from this point onwards.

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Addendum 01.08.08

It appears that something positive is happening about this matter, and that once again the fascist UK goverment has introduced an unworkable proposal that won’t stand up to European Law.

For more on this subject go here.

It won’t be long before sophisticated advanced computers are scrutinising your every move online – Just you wait and see if I’m not right.

As for the Carphone Warehouse; well it’s hardly “Your phone your way” is it?

More like “our service, our rules”.

“Is that the name on the account?” She asked.

“Well if it’s anything else I’ll get free telephone calls.” I replied.

“OK; and can I take your name please?” She asked.

“Oh for.. OK Listen very carefully: I shall say this only once.” I was starting to get annoyed. “My name is Sharron Field. MY account number is *********. The name on the account is my name. Capiche?”

“I am solly could you repeat that please.”

I checked my blood which was rising up from my body to my head. “No I won’t say it a third time.” I stated forcefully.

“I cannot help you unless I have your details.” She said.

“I can’t give you my details because you’re not listening.” I replied “Are you intending to pay me for my time that you’re wasting?”

“Hold on a minute please – Please be on the line – I am going to hand you over to my colleague.”

Another two minutes passed; I could hear a lot of Urdu being spoken. Eventually a different woman’s voice sounded:

“I am sorry about that.” She said. “My name is Bhruphiada Harinami [Another made-up Indian sounding name, but you honestly don't expect me to remember the real names do you?] and you are again through to BT. May I take your name please?”

I was starting to give up hope. “Please do me a favour and write this down.” I noticed the anxiety in my own voice. “I don’t care if I have to speak to everyone in India before someone understands me; but I don’t intend to answer the same questions every time. My name is Sharron Field: That’s Sharron with 2 “R”s.”

“How do you spell that please?” – I felt the words “Fuck” and “off” forming in my mouth, but somehow restrained myself.

I spelled out my name; in phonetics just to be on the safe side, as I knew the Indian staff were trained in phonetics by BT, and I also gave my account number again in an extremely pissed-off voice when asked. After 5 minutes I’d answered the same 2 questions 4 times and got nowhere. Progress was imminent or I was going to be ending the call and making a complaint I decided.

“How may I assist you today Miss Field?” She asked. YES! I was getting through at last!

I explained that I’d accidentally cancelled my Direct Debiting instruction and that to set it up again I needed the details of the account that I should pay in to.

“You want to set up a Direct Debit?” She asked. AARRRGH! I was becoming rapidly annoyed. I explained again.

“You want the details of your account?” She asked. I bit my tongue.

It was quite obvious that I wasn’t going to get anywhere like this; so I changed tack:

“No no no. Forget it.” I said “Start again. I’m now setting up a Direct Debit on my computer via Internet Banking, OK. I have all the details I need except that I need to know which account to pay in to.”

“I’m not sure.” Came the reply. “I will pass you on to our Finance Department…”

“You’ll do no such thing!” I interjected abruptly. “I’ll just try something. Don’t go away or pass me on to anyone. Wait a minute: Now I’m clicking Bill Payment and typing in BT; that should do the trick. OK I have been given account number GB 305*****. Is that the correct account?”

“That is a GB account yes? I don’t have any details of GB accounts available here.”

I was starting to lose it: “So you’re the public face of BT for the UK – In India of all places – And you have no idea as to which account UK customers pay their bills into?”

“Please wait. I will go and ask someone. Stay on the line please. I will not be long.”

I silently muttered several blasphemies mixed with Anglo-Saxon phraseology in the following 2 minutes until she returned:

“I am solly Miss Field but my call was cut off and I cannot get back through to the department I need to ask. You could always try to ring them yourself. I will give you their number. Do you have a pen?”

I considered this a good option as I badly needed a break and was rapidly approaching the end of my tether.

“I have a pen. Fire away.” I said.

“Hello Miss Field. Do you have a pen?”

“What’s up with you? I just told you I have a pen. What’s the number?” I replied

No answer: “Hello; can you hear me?” I asked.

Miss Field. Hello. Miss field are you there?”

“Hello I’m here. You obviously need to replace your hearing-aid battery.” I snapped.

“Miss Field I am sorry but I will have to terminate this call as you are not answering. I will suggest that you attempt to ring again on    0800 800 150   . Thank you. Goodbye.”

The Line went dead.

‘Watch BT if you do business with them: They’re very shrewd and snide: But they can be utilised in an overall cost-cutting strategy nevertheless.

So just in case you were wondering exactly what fancy equipment I use to produce this blog on I’ll give you a quick rundown:-

None of it is in fact that ultra-hot as in “Wow look at that!” It’s pretty bog-standard run-of-the-mill stuff:

My Computer

The computer that I’m editing this post on is in fact a Kustom Komputa INXPense which is one of the older models from the days when Kustom Komputa did baseline ranges. (OK there is currently the g1RL-p0W3R range: but that’s a limited promotional range.) What Kustom Komputa used to do is to offer several stet designs which were then “Kustomised” – Which means exactly the same as customised; the same word spelled with a “C” – to the individual customer’s specifications and their requirements based upon their usage data supplied on the Quotation Request form. These days Kustom Komputa gain only a preliminary basic set of data from that form, and follow that information up by communication with the customer by email to gain a more specific idea of the customer’s requirements and required specifications.

So the INXPense model that I built for myself (I actually run Kustom Komputa : http://www.kustomkomputa.co.uk) has a SATA 40GB Hitachi HDD containing the C: drive; a SATA 160GB Seagate HDD containing the removable D: drive in a plastic caddy, and also has a 500GB LaCie external HDD connected via USB. If you look at the picture you can see the INXPense computer in the background with the beige-coloured locking-caddy; which was what I had in stock at the time – It’s all built from new components but I cleared a bit of old stock by using it in the construction of this machine. The DVD drive I used was an IDE Samsung SH-S183A. These are in fact very nice drives and Samsung constantly upgrade the firmware and supply a program which automatically upgrades it for you as they release a new update. Moving inside to the guts of the box: It’s running a dual-core AMD Athlon 64 x 2 4200+ 2.2GHz CPU, utilising the standard AMD cooler supplied with the CPU, with 2GB 533MHz DDR2 RAM and a 256MB Asus nVidia graphics card driving a 17″ CRT from a VGA port. (I still prefer CRT monitors no matter what anyone says.) ‘ Not forgetting a fitted floppy drive: I still find a use for floppies to this day. It has 2 NICs; a gigabit ethernet NIC on the Asus motherboard and a second 10/100 card in a PCI slot. The keyboard is an older PS2 Microsoft Natural Keyboard and the mouse is an optical mouse run from USB. I’m using the onboard sound which is Realtek High definition Audio in 4 channel mode fed from the Front channel into a pair of stereo speakers and from the back channel into a 2.1 surround sound setup with a pair of stereo speakers and a very heavy bass speaker. (Music; when I ever get time to play it, sounds absolutely fantastic, as the speakers, despite being cheap, have really good performance.) I also have 2 webcams, a desk microphone, a bluetooth dongle, a  rather old Canoscan FB620U scanner, and a Samsung ML-2010 laser printer; all running from USB.

BT Home Hub – A VOIP Ripoff

What you see in the foreground is my BT Home Hub router complete with BT VOIP phone, which is good to use after work as it’s free between 6PM and Midnight, but the savings over and above a BT landline made during working hours are so negligible as to be ignored: Therefore for normal purposes I have a BT line routed through an external carrier that charges me a 5p connection fee for every UK landline call and nothing else no matter how long I stay on the line; therefore I can be on the phone for 2 hours and it’ll cost me only 5p: That’s about 11 cents US.

Money-Saver

I am going to tell you who this carrier is so that you too can make huge savings if you live in the UK: What you do is you go to

 http://www.18185.co.uk

in your browser, sign up using your Credit Card, Debit Card, or Direct Debiting mandate, specify the number(s) you want to register with the service, and as soon as you’ve been verified you’re away – It really is that simple. What you do after you’re registered is dial 18185 before every call you make to a landline or a mobile and benefit from zero pence a minute with a 5p connection charge for landline calls, and currently 4.5p a minute for calls to mobiles.

UPS

For business purposes I have a dedicated non-BT line…But that’s another matter. The router is sitting on top of one of my two UPS units: Basically this UPS feeds this computer box and the other (spare) computer box. The other UPS feeds everything else, such as router. monitor, external HDD, desk-light – Oh you’d be surprised how few people think to wire a light into a post-UPS circuit. My desk-light consists of an 11Watt PL-11 fluorescent, which uses so little current (4mA at 240V) it’ll even work after the UPS starts beeping out that it’s empty.

US UPS

(I often wonder about American UPS units: It follows that since the voltage used is half that used in the UK then the current drawn by a computer running on 120V would be twice that used by an identical computer running on 240V: Which means that an American UPS has to handle twice the current of an equivalent UK UPS and therefore must by necessity have double the rating; making it larger, bulkier, and hotter-running.)

The Other Comp

The next piccy is my “spare” or second comp: this is an even older baseline model; namely the first baseline model ever built by Kustom Komputa and known as “Exel”: Now this is so dated it actually has a single-core Athlon 64 3500+ CPU running at 2.2GHz, has a 10/100 NIC on the Shuttle motherboard; but all the same it still has 2GB 533MHz DDR2 RAM and also a 512MB Asus nVidia graphics card. It has a single 160GB HDD partitioned into 2 drives, it has a 2 DVD-RW drives; one is a Samsung SH-S182D, the other is some generic heap salvaged from the spares box. It also has a 7 drive card-reader. Also there’s an external floppy drive too. Currently I don’t even have a monitor connected to it; if I do use it I connect through the network and use the CRT screen to view it via my usual comp.

I Still Love CRTs

Finally here’s the old Orion CRT monitor: Which has a better picture than any TFT/LED screen I’ve ever seen, even in its 9th year of life. – No word if a lie; it was built December 1999 and has been working fully efficiently ever since. Beat that if you like/can. Oh sorry; there’s no picture of that, so instead here’s my Sony Ericsson z750i flip phone. (Below).

I’ll eventually try to get some better pics; but these will have to do for now.

Can a successful UK company advertise by word-of-mouth only and thrive? If the Utility Warehouse is anything to go by of this then the answer is YES.

Back in the 1980s a new business model was pioneered in the UK, at times by less-than-ethical entrepreneurs. It involved an interested party promoting a product through a tiered structure of affiliates, and became known as the pyramid scheme. Initially it usually involved new people in the “downline” purchasing a quantity of product and retailing this whilst at the same time building their own “downline”. Many unscrupulous types quickly cottoned on and used this method to retail cheap low quality products through their downlines with themselves at the top of the pyramid, raking in a fortune in exchange for very little work in return. The first sign of trouble, such as a trading standards officer sniffing around, or an investigation of any kind, and our shady character at the top would vanish into oblivion with their fortune and leave their downlines to carry the can. As people became wise to the recruiters offering unlimited income from this method, having either known others who had been stung as a customer or a downliner, so this type of business system developed a nasty reputation and went largely out of vogue. Eventually the British Government restricted and regulated this practice with legal constraints and enforcement to such an extent that it became impossible for unscrupulous traders to earn a fast buck from it, added to which the words “Pyramid Scheme” had virtually become a swearword. Certain more-ethical, sometimes reputable, entrepreneurs and businesspeople did try to continue to attempt to use the system, this time fully legally and ethically, under statutory regulation, even renaming it to Network Marketing; but it appeared that due to the bad reputation it had gained initially there was no future for it, and most of the schemes collapsed.

There was one man, though, who saw a massive potential in the regulated network marketplace; now “multi-level marketing”, and decided to take those ideas further despite the residual prejudice. This person was The Hon. Charles Wigoder:

The following quotations are taken from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoples_Phone)

Biography

“The son of The Right Honourable Lord Wigoder, QC PC^[1] (his children are entitled to use The Honourable title), Charles studied Accountancy and Law at University of Kent^[2].”

“Wigoder qualified as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG in 1984 and was subsequently employed by Kleinwort Securities as an investment analyst in the media and communication sectors – where he met Michael Green. Green later hired Wigoder in 1985 as head of corporate finance and development at television services company Carlton Communications, to accelerate growth of the organisation; whilst he was there, turnover grew from under £5m to over £200m. He subsequently moved to Sangers Photographic, a USM listed wholesaler of photographic equipment, where he spent a frenetic 9 months taking the business to a full stock market listing and expanding the group’s activities to include a wide range of photographic, video and communications services.”

Peoples Phone

“Wigoder left Quadrant to set up Cellular Communications in March 1988, initially providing a mobile phone service to business customers through both a direct sales team and third party distributors. Demonstrating great vision and foresight, he was the first entrepreneur in the industry to recognise how consumers would transform the market, successfully positioning his company to take advantage of this opportunity by creating the “Peoples Phone” brand and establishing his own national High Street retail presence (a model subsequently imitated by all the Network Operators). By opening over 180 showrooms in just 12 months, Wigoder helped drive the expansion in mobile phone usage within the United Kingdom, gaining around 10% of the UK market – the biggest non-network owned business in the industry and the UK’s first true Virtual Network Operator. Within 4 years he had a built a market leading position, having overtaken all the other independent resellers who had started several years prior to his entry into the market, including substantial multi-national companies such as Thorn-EMI, Granada, Nokia, Marconi, Phillips, and Motorola. The business was highly cash generative, however a decision to write off all customer acquisition costs directly against profits meant that the company reported a loss after taxation of £10.6m on turnover of £175m for the financial year ended 31 October 1995. Following a disagreement between the major shareholders on the future strategy for the Company, it was acquired by Vodafone in November 1996 for £77m; however Wigoder only collected £6.5M from the deal, as most of the company was owned by Venture Capital investors. Vodafone followed this deal with further acquisitions within the sector (namely Astec and Talkland in December 1996) giving it greater control over the customers using its network. According to Vodafone’s 1997 annual report and accounts, Peoples Phone made £4.1M in the period to end 1996. “

With a good and successful previous record under his belt; Charles Wigoder was certainly not lacking in either resources or experience in business. For the purpose of employing his new concepts in multi-level marketing he bought a recently-formed company called Telecom Plus in 1988; which has been going from strength to strength thereafter. Taking up the commentary from Wikipedia again:

Telecom Plus/Utility Warehouse

“Wigoder joined Telecom Plus in 1998, investing heavily and listing it as a Plc on the London Stock Exchange (ticker = TEP). Its initial flagship product was the Smart Box, a free gadget that plugged into a phone socket and hunted out the best telephone call rates^.”

“Wigoder believed that a low-cost route to market would prove to be a critical element in successfully promoting services to the residential market, and established a multi-level marketing system of agents across the United Kingdom. In just over 7 years, the business amassed over 200,000 domestic and small-business customers, 15,000 of whom were also Distributors, signing up new customers in return for a residual income and cheaper utilities themselves. Trading as the The Utility Warehouse, Telecom plus is a “virtual” retailer, with no shops and no advertising – just a highly effective Head Office with 200+ staff, most of whom are dedicated to providing award-winning customer service. Wigoder says: “The secret of our success has been our unique business model. We also have the ability to move quickly to take advantage of opportunities.””

“Low costs allow Telecom Plus to offer competitive tariffs to their customers, which has driven sales growth by an average of more than 20% pa over the years to 2007. Since 2003, the Company has been highly profitable and cash generative, although in November 2005, Telecom Plus warned that high energy prices had resulted in significant losses in its gas business. In February 2006, the Company entered into an agreement with npower under which they took responsibility for purchasing the energy used by UW customers although UW remain responsible for all customer management activities, such as billing, customer service, metering, debt collection and administration. As part of the arrangements, npower have an option to acquire the 29.9% of the equity held by the Board during 2009.”

“On 6 June 2006 the group said losses experienced in its gas business during the first two months of 2006 reached almost £8m, off-setting the profits of £5.5m achieved during the first half-year. As a result of the losses, the group posted an overall pre-tax loss for the year of £1.6m, compared with a £10.5m profit the previous year. Turnover rose 33% to £136.3m. For the following year to 31 March 2007, Telecom Plus reported turnover had increased to £175m, with record pre-tax profits of £11.5m, and cash balances of over £25m with no debt. The latest year to 31 March 2008 saw a further increase in pre-tax profits to over £16.5m with cash balances of over £30m.”

Telecom Plus/The Utility Warehouse has continued to go from strength to strength since Charles Wigoder’s takeover at the helm in 1988, despite a hiccup in 1996. (See above.) Although growth could at times be described as slow compared to some other PLC’s, the level of such growth has by no means been sporadic but rather a steady gain over time, despite prevailing national and world economic trends and recessions, indicating good leadership on the part of Charles Wigoder – who appears to have an ability to weather and rise above any economic turmoil whilst driving on towards the target of continued growth. According to Mr Wigoder in an internal communication “This strong performance is being fuelled by increasing numbers of consumers looking for better value on their utilities, as they see their energy bills from other suppliers increasing on a regular basis.”

As household utility prices in the UK continue to rise, the quality of a lot of suppliers’ customer service continues to fall due to their decision to use badly-trained cheap labour; staff based in call-centres on different continents. the Utility Warehouse understand that their customers have a choice and realise the importance of good customer service. Their excellent standard in customer service was recognised in the UK’s Consumer Association’s Which? magazine, in which they were runners-up for the award of “Best Broadband Supplier” in their 2008 consumer awards. This was quite an achievement on the whole, considering the number of such suppliers available in the UK market as a whole.

The Utility Warehouse still maintain the networking structure, with a continued growth in downliners, known as “Distributors” on a weekly basis according to an internal company source. These recruits are attracted by the company’s opportunity to build a secure residual income, paid on a monthly basis, in what amounts to a profit-sharing scheme between the company and its multi-level Distributors, in which these Distributors are rewarded with a percentage of the nett spend of any customer that they introduce to the company for as long as that person continues to remain as a customer. – That’s how the company advertises: No advertising budget required, no glossy magazine ads, no in-store demonstrations, nothing – Saving the company a fortune – Any such promotional work that a Distributor decides to do has to be approved by the company and funded by the distributor themselves – But it’s not really necessary to do that as it seems personal recommendation and word-of-mouth are much more effective tools in this company’s case. It really is a rather good system from the point of view of a Distributor as once a customer is introduced to and begins to do business with the company by purchasing their household utilities through the company, the introducing Distributor gets paid a percentage from that client’s spend for a considerable time thereafter, even maybe into infinity if they recruit a particularly loyal customer.

Distributor opportunities are available in the UK only, as is the same with the customer base. The great thing about it all is that unlike the case with the earlier networking structures of the Twentieth Century, there is no need to buy a supply of product to sell on: Rather than Distributors supplying the finished product to their customers, the central company themselves cater for that on the individual Distributor’s behalf, meaning that any necessary initial financial outlay is minimal. Basically the role of Distributors is as customer gatherers, although “Distributor” sounds somewhat more professional than “Customer Gatherer”, besides being a component in an automobile engine. There are at this time and for the foreseeable future no plans to extend this business on an international level as far as I am aware.

UK investors are also beginning to realise and appreciate the strength of the company’s business model, driving the share price on the UK FTSE generally upwards despite market analyst’s fears of a recession. Since the company allows its Distributors to purchase its shares, many such Distributors have seen their total financial value increase as a result. This is also good news for the long-term future of the business as a whole.

In addition to the above, which is what I refer to in a kindly manner as “sharemongering”, the company also rewards successful Distributors with holidays at company expense, share packages, and gift vouchers, among other awards. They hold training seminars at various venues throughout the UK and have regular company meetings to which Distributors are invited.

Overall this is a growing company with a successful business-model which is proven to be working. In light of the vision and foresight of its Chairman in turning a dying concept with a stinking reputation into a glowing business model that exudes success from the very pores of its being; it is my opinion that this company has proved its worth to all concerned; consumers, Distributors, and investors – The marketplace as a whole.

If you’re resident in the UK and would like to discover more about this company; from the angle of just looking at becoming a customer and saving money on your household utilities, or from the desire to become involved in the business end and make yourself extra income by recruiting customers and other Distributors as a Distributor yourself, then the following links will direct you to the company’s sponsored affiliate sites which will provide you with all the information you need.

I may as well state at this point that I am involved with this company, and I will benefit in a small way from any business which you decide to transact with them through the links which I have provided. I will also state that whichever alternate way in which you choose to go about transacting with the company, should you choose not to use the links provided, the same tiny percentage commission of any financial transaction you choose to undertake will go to somebody - Therefore since you heard about it all here first; it’s only fair that any such percentage goes to me, and you may as well use the links provided to save yourself time and effort anyway.

Oh yes I almost forgot – You also get your own online store if you sign up as a Distributor – No word of a lie – Selling everything from books  to electricals: I’m going to post quite a few banners below leading to many individual aspects of the business, so please do enjoy clicking on as many as you can if not all of them:

My apologies to anybody who has clicked all of them; I’ve just discovered myself that the amount of destination pages has “shrunk” and some of them go to exactly the same place. I wasn’t aware of the revised system that the company has instituted with regard to this.

(I really do apologise to my US and international readers that none of this is available outside of the UK. ‘Sorry; nevertheless I hope it inspires new ideas for you if nothing else.)

I had been intending to get in touch with The Utility Warehouse for their additional comments; but after thinking about it having completed this article I decided that it would just hold up publication as no  additional comment is really necessary in my opinion.

©KKomp 2008

If you were attracted to this post because you thought you’d find a scheme to make you an instant millionaire/ss overnight you’re out of luck: There is no such scheme; not from kkomp.com, nor from anywhere else. There are many schemes that claim to be such; but that’s utter piffle to get you and a few thousand others to part with your money so that the person who runs the scheme can vanish with it eventually: Yes it’s a one-person get-rich-quick scheme; and that one person aint you.

So why call this post “Get Rich Quick”? Is it a plan to attack Rich Menga of PC Mech? Is it a conspiracy to commit the ultimate cyber-crime? What is the point?

Options

The point is that you have 2 main “get-rich” options: The slowest of those being to work for someone else for less than 1% of their nett income whilst giving your complete mind, body, and soul to them for up to 8 hours or maybe more, at least 5 days a week, ad infinitum – aka “Get a job.”. How slow is that as a “get-rich” option? Very slow; and incredibly so: In fact it’ll most likely never happen. It pays the bills for as long as it lasts, yes. It’ll keep you ticking over, maybe it’ll even get you the occasional luxury, possibly you might even manage to save some of it up, but you’ll never get rich doing it: Your employer or your employer’s boss probably might well do so though; at least to a greater extent than you ever will.

That’s a complete non-starter then – But I did say there was another option. No there isn’t a guarantee with it – There’s not even a guarantee that you’ll be better off than with the first option initially; but if you’re prepared to stick at it in a positive and self-motivated way then the sky’s the limit – Allow me to restate that in a different light: You’re the limit: If you put only a little in you’ll get even less out of it – But if you put a lot in you’ll probably get even more out of it. (Notice I did say “probably”: There is no guarantee as I said; and there are losers – There have to be losers for there to be winners: Fact of life; yin and yang, swings and roundabouts, call it what you will, whatever, but the thing is with this method you have to be in it to win it.) What am I on about? Self-employment.

No Streets Paved With Gold Here

So all self-employed people are rich? No; but show me an employed person who is rich. Yes they might well be comfortably off and living well as long as they do their job and make someone else rich, but could they stop what they’re doing and stay that way? Can they decide when and for how long they take a break from the job? In short no – So they’re under the boss’ thumb and they’ll have problems if they don’t keep working to the boss’ dictates or they lose their comfortable salary: They’re not rich then.

What benefits will self-employment bring? You want the honest answer to that? Good; because that’s what you’re going to get, and I’m not going to give you any bull: If you’re totally serious about the self-employed venture and are wanting to go for it in a big way then the initial benefits are nothing, nil, zero, zilch, sweet FA: There aren’t any. In fact at first the opposite will be the effect: More going out than coming in, expenses appearing from places you maybe didn’t even know existed, and all the possible demotivating influences imaginable in your face. You’ll be seemingly investing all your time and money and reaping no result whatsoever other than losses at first: that’s the truth and that’s the major make-or-break time – Probably the biggest drain on your resources that you’ll ever experience; and pretty it is not. If you’re going to go under then that’s when it’s most likely to occur. If you’re serious about the venture then you’ll want to put all your resources into it; so before doing so you need to know that you have sufficient resources to weather the storm that you’re about to create for yourself. You’ll need:

1) Investment capital. This can be generated by either making (a) part-time, “on-the-side” venture(s) previous to going for the “big-one”; by working for someone else whilst living frugally, and saving every available penny over a period of time; by building up your assets from nothing gradually by investment and/or by partial enterprise over time, or by any combination of those.

2) Self-motivation, positive attitude, and determination. You’re lacking on any or all of these? Stay with the smaller side of enterprise for now in that case. In the meantime build up these personal qualities to a point where you’re confident that you can and you know you can. Self-doubt and a lack of motivation will kill your efforts off from the start otherwise. Believe in yourself: To do so you must grow self-confidence, you must like yourself, you must become your own best-friend:  You must believe totally in yourself and in your own abilities. Don’t bullshit yourself though: If you don’t have the necessary abilities first then you need to develop them before you go ahead and make an investment in them; otherwise you’d do far better giving your hard-earned investment capital to a charity.

3) A plan. I once needed an audio amplifier in a hurry when I was at college; so I switched on my soldering iron and I built one. It worked and it got me out of a tight spot. In doing so I wasted a large number of resources, mainly physical components, and I dismantled it afterwards; as it was, to be honest, an abomination to my eyes: Had I tried to get anyone else to buy it I’d have wasted my time – I probably couldn’t have even paid someone else to take it off me. Why? Am I that awful a technician? Not at all: The thing was I had no plans to build it to; and yes it worked for what I needed it to do right then and there, but other than that it was virtually useless. I later built a very similar amplifier to a plan as part of my City and Guilds exams and it helped me to pass them. The moral of this story: No plans = no good.

Draw up your business plans from day one and adjust them with the passage of time to accommodate current trends.

4) Goals. Especially good if your business is a soccer team, but realistically you must sit down and contemplate exactly what it is that you want to achieve. Example: Your ultimate goal is a million dollars/pounds. Your current status is what you have now. Define every stage between now and your ultimate goal and write it down in proposed chronological order. Having done that set yourself realistic targets of achievement leading up to and including the ultimate goal. Be positive, stick to the schedule, make sure you do it exactly as planned: Write your goals down: eg. I will make another $4000 by next Monday by such-and-such a method – Note the “I will” and make sure you do; by the deadline, to the plan with any necessary minor adjustments: Setting a goal involves knowing what you wish to achieve and when you wish to achieve it – Anything less just doesn’t work: “I will make another $4000″ without setting a deadline means you’ll still be making it for the rest of your life.

It’s hard, it’s tough, it’s mean, it’s a lifetime’s work, and it doesn’t always either go as you planned or work as well as you’d hoped, and sometimes both. At least it does (normally) make some kind of progress, towards not only enriching the individual’s character and resolve, but also enhancing one’s personal financial position, with varying results from case to case – Which is a hell of a lot further than a 9 to 5 job can ever get anyone.

And Finally…

Back to the title – Get Rich Quick: You might get temporarily wealthy quickly if you’re running a get-rich-quick scheme and you happen to attract enough gullible individuals. Let’s just hope you can vanish into exile even faster when the authorities pick up your scent. Other than that you can’t: As we’ve seen though, you can probably get somewhere or you can definitely get nowhere,depending upon which option you choose. Strangely most people would rather choose the latter; which is good for those who choose the former as it does reduce the level of competition to some extent, making it a bit easier to be a winner because there are people who are determined to lose, as well as those who don’t make it anyway try as they might.

Me? I haven’t made it yet; and I’m seemingly making steady, though not as fast as I’d like to, progress forwards… But I’m still alive so I’m still getting there. Can I make it? Yes. Will I make it? If I can – And if I can then what’s stopping you? Like me you were hopefully born with 2 arms, 2 legs, and 24 hours in each day. If so then you were born with everything I was born with: We started from the same starting line – In fact you were born with everything Bill Gates was born with too: Use it wisely.

To Bill Gates…Born like most of us with 2 arms, 2 legs, and 24 hours in each day…Who made it.

©KKomp 2008

Immediately after posting the Free Screensaver post I saw a link to this on Twitter; so I thought I’d have a look.

I haven’t tried any of the software he recommends yet at time of writing; but it sounds like good stuff: Here’s his video.

Of course I tweeted back to him via twitter to have a free screensaver on me; well one good deed deserves another. and since he presented himself so charismatically I included his vid on this blog.

(For some reason I’m not doing too well with the html on this entry; so rather than spend ages messing with it I’ll just republish with this apology included for any sloppiness in the design/layout of this post.)

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/kkomp