Just a Quick Note…
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Hi readers.
This post isn’t really content as such: In fact you might look at it more like a small, out-of-sequence, Public Newsletter, if you like. The purpose of this note is threefold: -
So – Please don’t be afraid to comment on any article at any time. It’d be an idea to get a free Disqus account first; then you won’t get hassled so much for not having one. – You know it makes sense. OK; that’s just about it I think: End of mini-Public-Newsflash, or whatever you’d like to call it. Do please feel free to interact with this blog: I’m not an island; even though I’m a Brit and live on one. Tech success! – Enjoy the rest of the week. Sharron Field Owner and Creator of kkomp.com Follow me on Twitter: Find me on Friendfeed: On Facebook too:
Namaste’ |
Apology for Technical Fault
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Hi I thought it prudent just to write a quick note to apologise for the fact that this blog hasn’t been displaying the pictures within articles for around 24 hours. As you see; this problem has now been resolved: –
The issue was due to a file-permission change on this blog’s Ubuntu Linux server, which occurred for reasons unknown. The problem is now corrected and, hopefully, will not recur. I sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused. Sharron Field Owner and Creator of kkomp.com Follow me on Twitter: Find me on Friendfeed: On Facebook too: |
What is Meant by “32-Bit-Retardedness”?
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This article may or may not be interesting to my readers: It contains no information of any value as such from a technical point of view. It is simply intended to clear up a particular misunderstanding.
In the following post I will veer towards the very edge of the subject of technology, at a point where the fields of technology and literacy attempt to intersect. Sometimes the terminology and phraseology that I use is misunderstood. Here is one example of such an incident: - Recently, when commenting on another blog, I used the term “32-bit-retardedness” which was instantly taken out of context by the blog’s owner. The owner was saying in his article that in his opinion there was absolutely no need to move to a 64-bit operating system at this point in time, as 32-bit was still the standard. My reply was that holding back on the migration from 32 to 64-bits, (Which I paraphrased, possibly unwisely, as “32-bit-retardedness”.) would just lead to a slow development of more 64-bit drivers and applications, making the inevitable transition slow and painful. (Those weren’t the actual words used, but the same meaning was attempted to be conveyed.) Here is what I actually did say: -
Sharron Field says: No, no, no, no, no: Mr ***** you are encouraging 32-bit-retardedness; and if everybody thought the same way as you do then everybody would stick to 32-bit and no 64-bit apps will ever be developed: Just as happened with XP and Vista. It’s not about “getting a … boner” or whatever. (Not all geeks can get a boner anyway.) – It’s about progress rather than stagnation; it’s about taking that step beyond rather than standing still because it seems more convenient at the time. - Go forth, therefore; adopt 64-bit architecture and a 64-bit operating system: Leave the 32-bitters to their RAM-restrictions, technology of the past, and look towards the bright new horizons with confidence!
As it turned out, the guy who owned the blog seems to have decided that I accused him of being retarded, and said so publicly on PC Mech Live at 8PM EST on Wednesday 11th November 2009. In doing so he tried to stop me from presenting my case, and replied that the matter was closed, after I apologised if he read it that way and stated that I had said that he was “encouraging 32-bit-retardedness”.
- So what did this term actually mean? The word “retardedness” has several definitions; both as an adjective and as a verb. While the word “retard” is commonly-used in slang as an insult recently, the tern “retardedness” applied to someone or something doesn’t necessarily refer to that person or thing being retarded in a mental capacitative sense, as the slang insult form of the tern would convey.
http://en.wiktionary.org defines the term in numerous senses: -
Retardedness; to be retarded Adjectiveretarded
The word “retarded” can also be an adjective or a verb. In the term “32-bit retardation” it is meant to be conveyed as a verb: -
Verbretarded
Further examination of the first definition of retarded as a verb gives us the following: –
Adjectiveslow (comparative slower, superlative slowest) Positive
The term retarded’s meaning, as used in the phrase under examination, bears a comparative interpretation akin to #1 above:
“Taking a long time to move or go a short distance, or to perform an action; not quick in motion; proceeding at a low speed. “
- That is as in “Taking a long time to adapt or migrate from a 32-bit to a 64-bit environment; not being quick in doing so, proceeding at a low speed with regard to doing so”. What it does not mean is that the person who takes a long time to adapt or migrate from a 32-bit to a 64-bit environment is [mentally] retarded. – To read it as such would be to take the meaning totally out of context, possibly deliberately reading it in such a way in order to have an excuse to give an unfavourable reaction to the phrase. It was true that I was making the odd dig at him during the PC Mech Live show that evening because he had gone for 32-bit Windows 7 whereas I had gone for 64-bit Windows 7: But any such digs were meant in fun. After I’d jibed that a problem he was having with a program he was running might be due to the fact that 4GB RAM wasn’t enough for the task, he launched into a rather brisk counterattack and went off on one, saying that I’d accused him of being retarded because he’d chosen a 32-bit operating system, in front of an audience of over a hundred people. He then attempted to make it as black as it could be for me, saying that I was rude and that I’d never get anywhere in business with an attitude like that (Whatever business has to do with it.)…etc. Yes, I’ve written this post to cover my ass, and in order that I can direct any questions regarding the incident to this post as a reference, rather than launching into multiple copies explanations on a 1 to 1 basis. Also, if I ever use the term again, I can send anybody who starts getting into a mood to this blog post also. In addition, it pre-empts the grapevine’s possible coverage of the event; in that it gives a clear explanation that It’s not rudeness on my part, but the ignorance of third-parties, that is at issue here. - Now someone will accuse me of accusing someone of ignorance… Comments are invited if anyone wishes to do so.
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How to Create a Desktop Sound Mixer Icon in Windows 7
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Windows 7 has made using your computer much easier – but the on-screen volume controls are still a little elusive: Clicking the white speaker symbol in the taskbar pops up a single volume control, underneath which is a link to the audio mixer. But, saith I, that’s a little cumbersome; especially when you can have a decent-sized icon on your desktop which causes the mixer to pop-up on screen instantly with one click or double-click; depending upon how you have your settings set.
Advertisment:
We’re going to create a desktop icon which will call up the sound mixer. The procedure isn’t exactly rocket science: Right-click an empty area of the Windows 7 desktop and hover your cursor over “New”. In the list that appears, select “Shortcut” by clicking on it. In the text-input line below where it says “Type the location of the item:” enter “SndVol”. (Without the inverted commas.)
Press return on your keyboard. In the following text-input bar, below the words “Type a name for this shortcut”, ignore the highlighted “SndVol.exe” and type “Sound Mixer”. (Without the inverted commas.) : - Press return on your keyboard
You’ll now see that you have a brand new icon on your desktop with a picture, the contents of which include a screen with a picture of a loudspeaker on it. – OK I named it Sound Volume in the illustration, but no big deal:
Click that icon and the sound mixer will instantly appear, as if by magic.
… Which all goes to show that not only do I take you beyond the comfort-zone with this blog; I also actually improve your comfort-zone too. – All without having to find that elusive “any” key. A bit of Windows 7 hassle averted on Beyond: Hardware + Software + Practical Electronics. … And now; some adverts: -
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Reader Satisfaction Survey
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We start this week with a fairly short post: - I’m going to start off this first week in November by enquiring into how much you readers like this blog created by yours truly, Auntie Sharron here. Whether you love it, hate it, or are totally indifferent to it, I do encourage you to take the survey. I want to know whether I’m giving you readers the kind of value that I would like you to get from this blog; and if not then why not? Your answers will help me to improve on this matter. I’ll let you into a little secret: there’s a freebie waiting exclusively for all those who participate. – You’ll see the URL to it on the Thank You page. If you don’t visit that URL immediately, then please note it down, as you’ll never see it again once you’ve closed that page, and I wouldn’t want you to not get your thank-you gift. The survey service is by Survey Monkey on behalf of kkomp.com; and any answers that you give are between you and I in total confidence. You will not be personally identified in this survey. – Your privacy is virtually guaranteed. On that note I’ll ask you to click the link below and take the survey. Thank you.
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Expert Help to Boost Your Business – For Free!
Holy Crap, He’s Doing it Again…Just when I think Rich Schefren and Jay Abraham have topped themselves, they go and do something even more amazing… Go here to see what I’m talking about (you’re going to freak–I know I did)… Yeah, you read that right. More than 50 of the world’s most brilliant business and marketing minds. All in one place. And all ready to help you achieve the success of your dreams. For six unforgettable weeks, you’ll sit at the feet of the masters in a series of intimate panel settings, listening intently as they reveal their most closely hidden secrets for building a mega-profitable business. Seriously–this "Group Think Tank" process has the capability to increase your profits by up to 1,000%–or more–before the year is over. And the best part about it? The COST. Because, well….there is none. That’s right–you can get six weeks of in-depth mastermind training from the foremost experts on marketing and business building…for no charge. But you gotta hurry. Rich and Jay are only allowing a certain number of people inside. And since the entire industry is buzzing about this, those spots will fill up in a heartbeat. So go here NOW and grab yours. Sharron Field. P.S. I’m only scratching the surface on what you’ll get with "The League of Extraordinary Minds"… There’s TONS of powerful information inside, including: - How to successfully deal with sceptical/apprehensive prospects and buyers… - How to instantly build granite-like trust and credibility… - How to build a huge online loyal community… - Critical Keys to direct marketing success… - The formula for becoming the ultimate entrepreneur… - How to make big things happen – fast! - The one business system that works today… And on and on and on. - But you gotta go here right now to grab Rich and |
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Video
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Today there’s not-a-lot of a particularly technical nature to post: Rather, having spent the weekend setting up and testing various lighting and sound set-ups in the small amount of office space that I have, (That wasn’t an easy mission I can assure you: Finding the best positions for, first of all me, then the lights, the teleprompter screen, and the microphone was one thing; actually creating the room to put them in position was another.) then doing several takes of a promotional video, before editing and producing a final cut; I didn’t get any posts written, edited, and scheduled to go out this week. That’s not to say that there will be no posts this week: Indeed I intend to write some and post them as they are produced. – But; what with this setback as well as trying to get shazzalive.com running, I’ll probably only be producing around 3 posts a week, including the Friday newsletter. – In fact I think that once a week is currently a bit too regular for the newsletter – So in future, after this week, I’m only going to be producing a newsletter on a scheduled basis once a fortnight; bi-weekly in other words. I’ll still endeavour to post something every Friday all the same. OK then; so after my weekend as lighting technician, sound recorder, producer, presenter, production supervisor, video editor… and everything else associated with making a video; you’re probably itching to see the result. – Well it’s passable in my opinion, but it could do with a few tweaks; such as the camera being placed more in-front of the teleprompter screen, as well as another light placed just below bottom-right of the picture as you see it. This is in fact only my second video that I’ve actually produced and displayed publicly on the internet; so I’m not exactly well-practiced at the art of video-production. Recently I’ve listened to an audio-only interview that Gideon Shalwick did with Maria Andros over the phone; America-Australia. – The long-distance line held out fairly well all through.. This got me thinking, and I realised that I wasn’t putting enough content out there and that I wasn’t claiming enough real-estate on the internet, and my visitor numbers and search-engine ratings were suffering as a result. Now this step will eventually filter down to my blog; in that I’ll be including more self-made video-content on it eventually. Whilst I am fairly certain that many of you will like to have articles in audio/video format, I’m aware that some of you would prefer to read text-only. This blog’s been mainly text-only up until now, and has attracted many visitors – Therefore I’ll provide at least a basic transcript along with the video when I am able to do so. On that note, all that remains for me to do is to show the video, along with a transcript underneath it: -
Transcript: - “Hi, and welcome to this video. My name is Sharron Field, and I’m the owner and creator of kkomp.com. In this video I want to tell you about someone who has made it big in the field of internet marketing:-
This person started off blogging as a hobby, even before it was called “blogging”. He’s now one of the biggest internet marketing gurus online. His name is David Risley; and you may have heard of him yourself. Having himself made it, he wants to share his success with others. He has a number of major projects currently running; one of which is called 3-Day-Money.
3-Day-Money is an online business-training course. It’s called 3-Day-Money because it can be completed in 3 days; although you can take as long as you like to study it. 3-Day-Money goes through, in detail, all of the steps you’ll need in setting up your own successful internet business. 3-Day-Money discusses everything from setting up your own blog through to business-models and techniques that David himself uses to run a successful online business generating a six-figure income.
I’ve purchased the product myself, and since then I’ve had time to put it to the test: This product comes with my personal recommendation as a 3rd party.
I’m not going to rabbit on any further about it in this video though: I’ll let David do all of that himself. If you go to my blog at http://kkomp.com and scroll down the Welcome page, you’ll see a banner ad for 3-Day-Money. Just click on that and you can watch free videos, made by the product’s creator himself, which explain the course much better than I ever could. There’s also a free 5-page pdf document that I wrote myself on 3-Day-money advertised right underneath the banner ad: You can take a look at that if you like too.
Thank you for watching this video. While you’re on my blog; why not take the opportunity to join my mailing list and get extra free stuff delivered to your inbox?
Here’s to your success. I’m Sharron Field; owner and creator of kkomp.com.”
Download my FREE 5-page .pdf report on 3-Day Money
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Beyond – The Newsletter: 17th July 2009
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The time for another newsletter, Friday, has come round again; and as a result of the lack of created content over the past week there’s not a lot content-wise to report on. – So I’m not even going to bother listing and linking the two articles I’ve put out this last week. If you want to see them then look them up on the Blog Contents page. My primary focus this last week has been on de-cluttering the appearance of the blog: The first thing to go was a number of unimportant items on the Welcome page, including the comments, (Comments on a Welcome page eh? I know I was doing things a bit radically; but this was over the top.) followed by the background design of all pages and posts: Whilst the fancy artwork featuring a distorted block-diagram was rather eye-catching, it was that in its very nature that distracted the readers’ attention from the main content. – And when their eye did eventually attempt to wander back to the main text again, their vision encountered another distracting plethora of unimportant widgets and objects. The solution was, therefore, to some extent obvious: That being lose the junk; which turned out to be a bigger operation than at first anticipated. The background was fairly easy: I simply edited the background .png image in my theme’s images folder using Paint.net. – No problem there. Much of the text on the pages themselves was encapsulated in a double-border within a table. The function of the table is to prevent overflow of text into areas of the screen where it’s not wanted, as well as to divide up the page and precisely position images and text-blocks. – So the table(s) stayed, but the borders had to go. This was to be accomplished by changing a figure 1 to a 0 in a number of locations: In itself an extremely simple operation. – It was a matter of tracking down all the 1s that needed to be changed to 0s that was the hardest part. Perhaps I still haven’t done this with all of them, and missed a few; but for the main part everything appears to be in order.
The result so far seems to be good: Philip Langford, commenting from Facebook, said “It’s looking a lot cleaner and easier to read.” – So the changes appear to be having a positive influence. Onto another note; David Risley’s Blog Masters course, which I’ve been promoting recently as those on my mailing list will no doubt be aware, has now closed its doors for at least the rest of this year (2009). The take-up rate for this first run was pretty reasonable to say the least, and I can proudly claim that I, as a member, am one of hundreds of bloggers committed to taking their blog to the next level and beyond; with the goal of creating a full time income-stream from it and becoming a problogger.
You may be asking: “What does this mean for me as a reader and devoted follower? Are you going to attempt to fleece me with multiple internet-marketing campaigns advertising amateur-ish products that have no real value just for the sake of making a fast buck?” Let me reassure you that I’ll not be fleecing anyone: Anything advertised on this blog in the future will have been personally vetted by myself for quality, reliability, and for providing positive solid benefit to my readers and/or customers. Another thing is that there’s no obligation on you, as a reader or devoted follower, to purchase anything that you don’t feel entirely happy with, having clicked on the ad and read the sales letter. You may also be thinking “I suppose that, in the light of the above, you’ll stop creating valuable free quality content and put a price on everything.” Quite the opposite in fact: I’ll probably be providing even more valuable free quality content which will cost absolutely nothing to my readers. In addition to that I also invite you readers to send in your own articles. I’ll even reward anyone whose article I publish with the sum of $5USD or thereabouts. All I ask is that you send the content in a file with a .htm or .html extension. You can attach this to an email which you can send using the “Contact Shazza by email – Click here” link in the footer of every page and post on this blog. Include the article, and separately to that a brief 10-lines-or-less “about the author” piece, plus your PayPal email so that I can send you the $5 if I publish your work. Back to the subject at hand: Yes I do want to make money, obviously; who doesn’t? – So of course I want you to buy my products advertised herein: But only if you’re happy doing so. Yes there will be more adverts appearing on this blog. Yes there will be a lot more offers and promotions… But no there won’t be any loss of quality or value to you as a casual reader. At some point in the future I intend to open up a members only section of this blog; a section which will contain even more value and be of greater benefit to my readers. This will not be free however: I can’t just place everything from pearls to diamonds, precious rubys and emeralds, at your feet and say “Take it; it’s yours.” I’m already sharing a lot of valuable information for free and will continue to do so. – But there is a limit on how far I can go before I say “Hey wait a minute: This is extremely valuable and worth one heck of a lot. I can’t just throw this out onto the net for anyone to use as they see fit at any time they choose to do so.” OK, enough on that for the time being.
I have an offer currently running which gives you the chance to purchase not only a listing of free software that can replace many of the paid-for products which companies such as Adobe and Microsoft would charge an arm and a leg for, but also I’m adding my “Improve Your Existing Box” eBook, previously on sale for $7.99USD, as an extra for a total price of just $7.00USD. If you want to know more then do click this link that’ll take you straight to the sales letter page. Rabbit rabbit rabbit. – I think I’ve covered as much as time allows me to do right now. It just remains for me to wish you a happy and prosperous weekend. Enjoy.
Kind Regards Sharron. x
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Beyond – The Newsletter: 3rd July 2009
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We start this newsletter with a favourite subject of Brits: The weather. – And has it been a scorcher in the UK this week! Record temperatures, the like of which we haven’t seen since 2006; bringing back memories for me of sitting in that baking college classroom in front of a computer, sweltering hot with my blouse soaking wet from perspiration. Fortunately that blistering heat has moved into central Europe, and England has returned to average temperatures or just above for the time of year. It’s with this hot weather in mind that I wrote the following article: -
I imagined computers left running 24/7 in hot airless rooms while their owner was out. If only solid-state drives were cheaper and had more data-storage capacity: If that were the case I’d never use a standard spinning-platter disc again. I wrote an article about solid-state drives: –
If you’ve not enrolled on the Become A Blogger course then you’ve probably missed your chance by the time you read this. – However, if this is the case then there’s always a chance of being first in the queue next time round; so do click on the link anyway: You’ll find that the 10 free videos are still available, plus you can also register your interest in joining up next time.
There is, however, another course in the offing: David Risley’s Blog Masters Club will be launching on the 7th July 2009: Whilst this course is a little more advanced than Become A Blogger, in that it assumes, I believe, that you already have a blog set up and running; it will nevertheless enhance your blogging efforts, and teach you things that will give you the ability to blow your blog’s earning potential sky-high. David is one of my long-term online associates whom I have a lot of respect for. I know for a fact that he’s been compiling this course and getting it ready to run pretty much full-time for well over 6 months. – That tells you that this is no rush-job from David; and based upon the success of the sensational 3-Day-Money course, I know that this will not only be a winner in itself, but will also put you onto a winner if you enrol in it.
One thing I hope is that you’re not running Windows 7 beta software on the computer you’re reading this on. If you are then prepare to watch it automatically shut down before your eyes at some point within the next two hours. Also if you want to get a free copy of Windows 7 RC you’d better be quick, as there are only around 6 weeks left for you to do so: -
Microsoft are naughty: They’ve strategically positioned an advert aimed at the UK consumer on their website in order to increase the sales numbers for Vista. Whatever you do don’t buy Vista: Wait until 15th July and you can order Windows 7 for £50: -
On rare occasions the event of Windows XP crashing as it boots is due to hardware failure. This part of the series looks at the death of a motherboard: -
That’s it for this newsletter. If you missed any of the week’s articles then they’re all linked from here as you can see. If you didn’t or couldn’t make it for Become A Blogger then I do seriously suggest that you take a look at Blog Masters Club by clicking the link above.
Enjoy the weekend. Namaste’ Sharron Field Author and Creator of kkomp.com
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Beyond – The Newsletter: June 12th 2009
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Normally I begin a newsletter by rattling on about the British weather: That’s just an English thing, as our weather is so changeable that on rare occasions we can have literally all four seasons in one day. If you look at that from a positive note; that’s not bad value: Spring, Summer, Autumn (Fall), and Winter – All in 24 hours. A couple of the posts that I’ve made this last week also give you similarly good value: - This post was a brief introduction to the product called “WordPress on Crack”. – A course in which you can learn to write your own WordPress plugins in php. I found this a bit difficult to write in a way, as I’m certainly no php expert; which is why I simply introduced the subject matter and sent the reader to a page where the main vendor describes their course. This course is a bit similar to the British weather, in that you get not only the specified course itself, but also 4 complimentary bonus products in one package. – Once again, that’s not bad value at all. The next article I wanted to talk about is a review of a course by problogger and internet entrepreneur David Risley: - In a matter of just 72 hours you can learn powerful tried and tested marketing secrets, used by David Risley himself to generate a six-figure income, all for much less than a six-figure sum. I have purchased and studied this course myself: It is amazing value for money; but be prepared to spend a while downloading it, as there’s a lot of materials packed into it. Moving on… Apple, seemingly minus Steve Jobs (Jobsweh), appear to be at it again; in the United States at least: -
This has browned off a number of geeky US people, and no doubt they’ll try something similar over here in the UK too. That’s not the only thing that’s got my goat this week though. (Ooh I am a grumpy bitch at times. How on earth can this be? The plot thickens – Like my head. - And finally it’s back to Apple again: -
I believe, from reports that I’ve heard, that Microsoft have at last patched the Mac version of PowerPoint; but as far as I am aware, this vulnerability still remains, and this is solely up to Apple to sort out. There’s the usual Friday review of the reviews and posts for the week. This is Sharron Field, for kkomp.com, wishing you, as usual, a great weekend. Keep reading this blog for more revelations and facts about the technical world in which we live; geeks and non-geeks alike. Namaste’
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Why I Had to Stop Using Apture
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I was working on this blog on Monday 30th March 2009, having installed Apture on 28th March 2009, when suddenly I got a 404 error when I tried to go to a certain page. I checked the rest of the blog; which was initially for the most part working; but piece by piece started returning the same 404 error. It was as if my blog was being taken down piece by piece. I rang Fasthosts Customer Support to ask if they knew what was going on. I was informed that a ticket had just been raised on the matter a few minutes ago; and that my blog had been taken offline by the abuse department. I tried to enquire further; but was told that an email was being drafted by the misuse department as I spoke explaining the issue. All I could get from technical support was a brief overview of the situation. Ten minutes later I received the following email:
“Dear Sharron, Re: Your website – kkomp.com We have recently become aware that your website, kkomp.com, was causing performance problems on the shared webserver on which it was hosted. Our monitoring system detected a resource problem on the server and we are confident that that your site has been contributing to this issue. More details as to the nature of the problem will be found below.” It gives the impression that they’re still using 386s with 8MB RAM as servers. “As a result of this problem we have acted to move your website to our probation servers, these servers provide a separate hosting environment that we maintain specifically to allow our customers to diagnose and resolve performance issues with their sites. This action on our part gives you the opportunity to alter the site as required so that we can then consider moving it back to the standard hosting environment without affecting the performance of the other hosted sites. While your site is hosted on our probation servers you are likely to experience performance below the levels that we normally provide to our shared hosting customers. The move has meant that the IP address associated with your website has now changed to 2**.***.***.*** “ Thanks: I really needed that. ‘Much unappreciated! “The problem is: Your site was found running a number of php processes, using up excessive amounts of memory. At one point we suspected it on Sunday but were unable to gain sufficient evidence. However, today your site was caught running 5 php processes, each using up over 50MB of RAM and on a further check just now, we found 7 php processes using similar amounts of RAM each, plus a further 8 php processes using up around 28MB of RAM each.” WOW: 574 MBs of RAM: – Big Deal! That’s on a 64-bit quad-core Linux server serving 26 customers I believe. That means that if everyone was using the same amount of memory as me there’d be 14 GB RAM fitted to cope with the load. Assuming that you have 4 RAM slots with 4 GB DDR2 cards in each then that’s 16GB RAM in total… But you clearly don’t have 16 GB RAM fitted: Which means that you have 2GB sticks, fitted making a total of 8GB. I find it astonishing that you’re too tight to spend less than £100 on 4 x 4GB sticks and fit them so that I can use the server properly, considering the fact that you bring in over £250 a month from that server alone! Oh I almost forgot: It’s a British hosting company. What did I expect? Charity? Is this yet another example of rip-off Britain? “In a shared hosting environment, this sort of RAM consumption can cause severe performance problems.” It sounds a bit like British housing: We have 28 flats in your 20 x 12 metre-cubed tenement block, all sharing a single pipe. Since 45% of the residents are also geeks, please be considerate of the needs of others and don’t hog bandwidth or you’ll be disconnected. A limit of 1 GB per day at an expected speed of 512Kb/s is the maximum you should expect, despite the advertised 8Mb/s speeds. If you have any problem with this, RTFM including small-print. “Beyond the description of the symptoms given above we are unable to offer assistance in diagnosis or resolution of the problem. We cannot advise you on how your site should be changed to resolve the problem. If we have been able to identify a particular script responsible for the problem then this information has been included in the notes above. If there is no indication of a particular script that we believe is causing the problem then you should assume that we have not been able to identify one. We will not take any further action to diagnose this problem.” Ah I detect British Workman syndrome here: “We didn’t find exactly what the problem was as it was time to clock off. You sort it out yourself, as we’re not getting paid for overtime.” “While we recognise that this move may be inconvenient for you we would like to remind you that, when you opened your Fasthosts account, you agreed to be bound by our terms of service and to be responsible for the domains in your account. We feel that we have fulfilled our responsibility to you as a customer by providing this alternate hosting environment and giving you the opportunity to resolve the problem.” What a weird way of going about things. Why not just email me and say “There’s a problem with your site overusing server resources. WE can’t be bothered to work out exactly what the problem is as we’re clocking off shortly. Please do our diagnostics for us and then fix it, or we’ll remove your blog from our servers.” “We regret that we cannot allow your site to remain on the probation server for longer than 7 days. To prevent the suspension of your site you need to contact us within 7 days and tell us what steps you have taken to resolve the problem. If we do not hear from you within 7 days of the date of this email we will act to suspend your website and associated services including email. This step is not reversible and so it is imperative that you act quickly if you wish to continue to host your website with Fasthosts. Should you require us to remove any unacceptable data and related services in order to resolve this problem we will require your explicit authorisation to do so. On receipt of your reply, we will assess the situation again with the aim of moving your website back to the shared environment. Once we are confident that the problem has been resolved we will move your website back to the shared hosting environment. Any further performance issues caused by your website will result in the site being permanently disabled and so we strongly advise that, in future, you actively monitor the resources used by the domains that you host with us.” That seems a bit draconian! http://www.fasthosts.co.uk/companyinfo/termsofservice/ .
Bloody heck: What a palaver! Well it didn’t require a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist to guess what was causing the issue: Logically, since the Apture plugin was installed on Friday, and the issues had initially come to the fore on Sunday; just after I had configured a number of posts and pages to fully utilise the Apture plugin; it was logical to assume that the Apture plugin was the cause of the server memory usage issues. – So I removed it and rang up the host to check that the problem was resolved. There appeared to be no further problems, so the site went back onto the usual server. I was getting 404s still; so I also asked them to check that the site was getting out. It was, so I flushed my DNS cache and everything returned to normal.
Now then; I want your opinions readers please: - 1) Do you think my host is tight-fisted and draconian, or is this normal behaviour for a web-host in your opinion? 2) Do you think; in your honest opinion, that I should find a better web-host? 3) If yes to #2; who would you recommend? Please comment below. |
Basic Ohms’ Law/Electronic Circuit Design – Crash Course
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I started writing this with the intention of writing an e-book; but I simply don’t have the time or the patience to write the reams and reams of text to justify a full coverage of the subject: Therefore I’ve condensed some of what I wrote down into a rather large post. Some of the text isn’t quite as I’d like it to be; but overall it conveys the right message.
This article is written with a view to teaching a few of the basics of electronic circuit design using a number of equations from or based upon Ohms’ Law. It is aimed at the beginner-level student. Whilst knowledge of component function is assumed throughout, links to articles from other sources as well as kkomp.com have been included throughout in order that the reader can study and read up on the function of individual electronic components for the purpose of being able to better follow the basic tuition herein. Electronics is such a huge subject that it is impossible to cover every aspect in the required detail in a single article. Maybe a 1.5 terabyte hard drive would be large enough to store the knowledge of the average engineer, if it were zipped and otherwise compressed. We begin by looking at the basics of Ohms’ Law and go on to design of a very basic DC inverting amplifier stage using three resistors and a transistor. I have attempted to keep the material as light as is possible, given such an intense learning curve packed into such a small space. The main onus is left up to the reader, as near the end of the article I leave the reader with a conundrum to solve. The problem can be solved using only resistors, transistors, and a diode or maybe two. In solving the problem the reader will construct and solve many equations using Ohms’ Law; therefore putting into practice all that they have learned herein whilst at the same time developing their skills further. It’s short and concise. There’s a lot of study and knowledge packed into it, and I hope I’ve done the subject justice. Foreword Electronics is a vast and complicated field. There’s so much to learn, and that learning curve never stops. No matter how much you know; there’s always more to be known as new discoveries are constantly being made. For instance; forty years ago, nobody would have thought that the recently-invented transistor would be at the centre of technological advancement. It would have been thought of a a crazy notion that over sixty million transistors could be compacted into a device with the volume of a standard matchbox that is the central processing unit of a powerful personal computer.
In this article I’m not intending to describe in great detail the various functions of individual electronic components. Where this may be necessary I’ve linked to articles containing further information on this, should the reader require it. This article is mainly about calculation used in simple circuit design, brought about by the use of basic calculus, in part using Ohms’ Law. The publication is intended to be the first in an ongoing series of books covering the basic principles of electronics and electronic circuit design. A basic knowledge of component identification and function is assumed in the reader. If this happens to not be the case then the information provided at the destination of the links incorporated within the text should be a sufficient source of knowledge. The article that you’re now reading does not endeavour to go into digital electronics at this stage, and concentrates rather on basic analogue DC circuit principles, which should be learned as a forerunner to the discovery of digital circuitry. Electronics is a very intense subject; and one could devote one’s entire lifetime to the furtherance of knowledge in this field. However with the rate of new discoveries now being made it is extremely unlikely that one could ever learn everything there is to know about the subject in even a very long lifetime. This article is intended for the beginner class on levels 2 and 3. However, by utilising the links provided I feel even an absolute beginner on level 1 would be able to keep up, with much study, and maybe even progress a degree in doing so. One thing that has been the very basis of all electronic advancement, from the days of valves up until the present day, is a set of equations known as Ohm’s Law. In this article we’ll be taking a look at Ohm’s Law and showing how it is applicable to every aspect of electricity and electronics. Georg Simon Ohm was born in Germany on 16th March 1789, and lived until 6 July 1854. He became a physicist, and during his career determined that there is a direct proportionality between the voltage applied across a conductor and the resultant electric current flowing in the circuit. Further experimentation meant that eventually Ohm was able to define the relationships of voltage, current, and electrical resistance. _._ In this rather large article I’m going to be using circuit diagrams. For those not familiar with circuit diagrams I would suggest that you take a look at this link and/or here to familiarise yourself with some of the symbols used. You will notice that I don’t always stick to the usual format in a number of cases when I’m drawing my own circuit diagrams freehand or other than on the computer itself: For instance; when I’m drawing a resistor I use a diagonal zigzag line rather than a rectangular box. Also when drawing a transistor symbol I usually omit the circle around the device. This is for a number of purposes; the main ones being speed and neatness: If you’ve ever tried to draw a perfect circle without using a pair of compasses or a jar lid, you’ll know just how difficult it is. The symbol inside the circle is the same and unique whichever way round one draws it. The reason for the circle is to indicate that the device is a discreet device, meaning a single device in a package; as opposed to part of a multi-transistor chip or an integrated circuit. For this article we’ll just use the symbol without the circle where I’ve drawn the circuit diagrams myself: It’s a transistor and that’s it.
(The link shows only the symbols of a bipolar NPN and a PNP transistor, and also a phototransistor. There are many other types of transistor; such as the FET or Field Effect Transistor in its various different guises. (Which, incidentally, was not named after the author; Sharron Field. (Sadly.)) I commonly use a zigzag line as the symbol for a resistor; this was once the standard symbol for a resistor. It was abandoned for the sake of clarity because it looks too similar to the symbol for an inductor , the symbol of which has curves where the old resistor symbol has angles.
Whereas this is the modern standard symbol: I personally use the old zigzag line symbol because it’s vastly easier to draw and takes less than 1/4 of the time. If I try to draw a rectangular box I end up wishing I hadn’t. You’ll notice that the circuit diagrams that I’ve included were drawn with a pen or pencil on paper and scanned in: That’s the way things are currently. I don’t at the moment have either the software to draw exclusively on the computer nor the time and patience to learn how to use it. The situation may be different in the future; but right now that’s the way things stand.
The Basic Triangle So let’s look at the most basic bit of Ohm’s Law first; that being the relationship of Voltage to current to resistance in a DC (Direct Current) environment: - The relationship can be expressed in an easy-to-remember format thus: V I R Where V is Voltage in Volts, I is electric current in Amperes, and R is DC electrical resistance in Ohms From this simple illustration we can draw the following equations: - V / I = R V / R = I I x R = V If we were to substitute the figure 1 for all of the variables we would notice that the equations are all true and equal in their most basic form: If a single Ampere flowed through a resistance of a single ohm at a voltage of a single volt it would be the point of correlation between the three measurements. If, as happens in nearly all cases in a practical working environment, we were to increase or decrease the value to a number less than or greater than one for any or all of these variables, then that correlation vanishes; yet the equations still hold together. Let’s look at an example on the next page: - A current of 2 Amperes, or amps for short, is flowing through a resistance of 2 Ohms. In this case Ohm’s law tells us that the voltage present at the point where the current exits the 2 Ohm resistor is 4 Volts; as 2 amps x 2 Ohms = 4 Volts.
Another example: – An unspecified current is flowing through a resistance of 10 Ohms. The voltage at the point where the current exits the resistor is 5 Volts. Ohms’ Law reveals that the unspecified current must be 5 Volts / 10 Ohms = 1/2 amp.
A third example: - A current of 0.1 amps, or 100 milliamps, is outputting a resistor at a Voltage of 0.3 Volts, or 300 millivolts. Ohms’ Law informs us that the resistor’s value in Ohms is 0.3 Volts / 0.1 amps = 3 Ohms. Yes it really is that simple; at least at this stage in the proceedings.
Power The next denomination we introduce into the mix is electrical power, represented by the letter P; and which is measured in Watts. Here we introduce another law, that being Joule’s Law, which is named after the British physicist James Joule. Joules’ Law has 2 main equations for giving the relation of power, or wattage, to the integers that we’ve already introduced in Ohms’ Law: The following equations describe this relationship: - P = I x V 2 , P = V / IP = V squared / square root of I and 2 P = I R (P = I squared x R) (Please excuse the error in writing the equations as mathematical formulae: The text has cocked up beyond repair. Please read the words rather than the badly-printed equations.)) Let’s look at some examples of this: - 1) A lamp draws 1 amp of current at a voltage of 6 Volts. Joules’ Law combined with Ohms’ Law tells us that the lamp is burning 1 amp x 6 Volts = 6 Watts.
2) A DC circuit draws 2A of current, and has an overall resistance of 12 Ohms. Joules’ Law tells us that (2 x 2) amps of current x 12 Ohms = 48 Watts.
In Circuit So that’s the very simple bit out of the way and dealt with. let’s now take a look at connecting resistances in parallel and also in series, as well as working out the total resistance: - There are different equations for calculating parallel and series resistances. Let’s first take a look at series resistances: In the example above we have a circuit diagram of 2 resistances, R1 and R2, in series. To calculate the total resistance of the series pair we simply add up the sum of the values of the two resistors thus: –
Rt = R1 + R2 That was easy. When calculating the resistance of 2 resistors in parallel, however, things are slightly more complicated. The equation for calculating the total resistance of 2 resistors in parallel is: Rt = (R1 x R2) / (R1 + R2) Let’s look at an example of this: - In the diagram above we have a 2,200 Ohm (2.2 kilohms) resistor connected in parallel with a 1,100 Ohm (1.1 kilohms) resistor. The total resistance is given by
Rt = (1,100 x 2,200) / (1,100 + 2,200) Rt = 2,420,000 / 3300 Rt = 733.33 Ohms (0.73333 kilohms) Here’s a reminder of the resistor colour code and how to read the resistance value of the component. (This code also applies to some capacitors too.) : -
Introducing Semiconductors In this article I’m not going to be covering any other “passive” components, such as capacitors and inductors. – I’ll save that for you to learn elsewhere. Right now I’d like to move on to what are termed “active components”, or semiconductors. All the many types of transistor are classed as semiconductors, as are a range of components called diodes. There are also semiconductor components called thyristors which are used for DC power control, also triacs which are used in AC power control circuitry. High-current versions of these are probably utilised in the power supply of your computer, along with capacitors – large and small, resistors, diodes, power transistors, and inductors. Here we are starting to go beyond the scope of this article, however. Herein I’d rather stick, for now, with just resistors, diodes, and a single basic type of transistor known as a bipolar transistor. Very briefly; the diode in its raw form is a semiconductor device that only allows electricity to flow only one way through it. Click the hyperlink at the word “diode” above and discover more about it.
Yes you have seen these symbols before. They appear in the Foreword. I thought it prudent to place them here also to serve as a reminder of the point on circuit diagrammatic terminology touched upon therein, as well as to provide the circuit diagram symbol for a bipolar transistor. – No it’s not an electronic device with a mental condition. The name derives from its construction. See the link above for more information. The bipolar transistor comes in 2 ‘flavours’; those being NPN and PNP:
NPN PNP The meaning of these terms is described in detail in the Wikipedia article linked to above. This article isn’t written with an intention of dealing with the construction and function of electronic components. Foreknowledge in this area is assumed. Links to locations which detail this are provided for those who need to know, however. For the examples in this publication we’ll be using the NPN transistor. Throughput You will appreciate that every device has its limitations; therefore although there are expensive hi-current devices available that can handle several amps of power, most low-power, and small signal bipolar transistors can only deal with a fraction of an amp passing through them without burning out. With this fact in mind we have to ensure that the current supplied to the individual transistor will not overload it. This is accomplished by a resistor connected between the collector and the + supply rail (VS). This resistor is commonly referred to as the “collector load resistor”. the amount of current allowed by this resistor is calculated by means of Ohms’ Law: I=V/R
The main amount of current flowing through the device passes from collector to emitter. A smaller current is also required to be applied to the base connection, usually about 0.1 times or 10% (maximum) of the larger current. More Terminology In electronics terminology we refer to the current flowing between collector and emitter as Ice0, and the current flowing between the diode junction of the emitter and base as Ieb0. Similarly with respect to voltage, the terms Vce0 and Veb0 are used respectively. The terms Vb, Vc, and Ve, refer to the voltage present at the transistor’s base, collector , and emitter respectively. Similarly the terms Ib, Ic, and Ie, refer to the current present likewise. V+ usually refers to the supply voltage, otherwise referred to as VS or Vss.
Biasing the Base A bipolar transistor requires a voltage of 0.7 volts present at its base before it will allow any current to pass between collector and emitter. This is known as the “transconductance threshold” It is for this reason, particularly where the device is used under small signal conditions such as audio amplification that the base needs to be biased with a tiny current in proportion to the input signal, to a voltage of just under 0.7 volts. To achieve this, a pair of resistors connected in series across the supply rails is normally used as a potential divider. The resistances of each resistor are selected such that the voltage at the centre-tap to which the base is connected is just below 0.7 volts. In addition to this the resistances of the resistors are kept as high as is reasonably possible to ensure as little current as possible, and consequently as little wattage as possible, is wasted; as a potential divider will continue to burn the same amount of wattage whether or not an output is drawn from its centre point, due to it effectively being a resistance connected across the supply rails.
In the example above we use a 10 kilohm resistor as R1 and a 1.1 kilohm resistor as R2. The supply voltage, VS, is 7 volts. To calculate the voltage at the centre tap between the two resistors, to which the transistor’s base is connected, therefore the base voltage (Vb), we use the following equation:
Vb = VS X (R2 / R1 + R2) Therefore in this example: - Vb = 7 X (1100 / (10000 + 1100)) Vb = 7 X (1100 / 11100) Vb = 7 X (11 / 111) Vb = 7 X 0.099099 Vb = 0.6693693V
- Which puts the transistor right at the edge of the threshold of transconductance. A voltage of over 31 millivolts will flip the device over into transconductance and a proportionally equivalent current will flow between collector and emitter. Beta
No this doesn’t refer to a test-version of a new computer program: The beta of a transistor is the quantity giving the amplification factor of that transistor. There are two ways of looking at this; in-circuit and out-of-circuit. Out-of-circuit, as a standalone unused component, a given type of transistor has a maximum beta rating that it can be run at in-circuit. This can vary from around 20 or less for some power-transistors, to up to 1500 or more for some hi-gain amplifier transistors. Setting the beta of a transistor in-circuit is another part of circuit design. The in-circuit beta of a given transistor can be calculated by the proportion of Ib when Vb is above the transconductance threshold to the amount of current represented as Ice0. (Unless the transistor is connected in-circuit as a voltage amplifier rather than a current amplifier; in which case the beta is calculated by replacing the term Ib with Vb and Ice0 with Vce0. That is beyond the scope of this book, so we’ll stick to the current amplifier model for now.) For example; let’s assume that we have a transistor connected in circuit with a base voltage of 0.75 volts (Vb = 0V75), therefore biasing it into transconductance. The base current is set at 1 milliamp (1mA). The supply voltage (VS) is 10 volts, and the collector load resistor is 100 ohms:
Ic (collector current) = V / R Ic = 10 / 100 Ic = 0.1A (100mA) The in-circuit beta of that transistor can then be given as: b = Ic / Ib b = 100 / 1 b = 100
Provided that this doesn’t exceed the transistor’s out-of-circuit beta rating it’s perfectly safe to run the transistor at this beta and expect its amplification factor to be 100 X. (In most cases, though, such a large amplification factor in a single-transistor amplifier stage would give rise to signal distortion; especially in high-frequency AC amplifiers. For DC amplifiers such as we’re dealing with here, though, this beta rating is OK and won’t cause any distortion as there’s effectively nothing to distort in this example.) Let’s sum up and take a look at an example of what we’re trying to achieve here: In the circuit above we’re using the potential divider we mentioned earlier: R1 = 10K and R2 = 1K1 That’s great with a supply voltage of 7V as it biases the base just below the transconductance threshold as we saw earlier. - But we haven’t yet worked out Ib in this case. How do we do that? well the total current flowing in the potential divider will be: VS / (R1 + R2) 7 / 11100 in other words; which equates to 0.00063A, or 63 microamps. That’s pretty low but it’s OK. If we want to run the transistor at a beta of 100 then we’ll need to make the collector load resistor allow 63 X 100 microamps to flow as Ice0. So we want to arrive at a scenario where Ice0 = 6.3 mA. We know just how to do that using Ohms’ Law: -
If Ice0 = 6.3 mA and V=7 volts, then V / I = R: 7 / 0.0063 = 1111.1111 ohms - Is the value of resistor that we’re looking for. We look in the spares box and find that the nearest value of resistor that we have is 1100 ohms (1K1). only 11.1111 ohms out; which will make very little difference except that the beta will be a fraction over 100. That’s good enough. – So we choose 1K1 as the value for the collector load resistor.
Another Stage? That’s it then: We’ve designed a DC inverting amplifier with a beta of 100 (+/-1%) using a single transistor and 3 resistors. For clarity here’s a components list: – Transistor: Q1: BC108C (I chose this one as its quite ideal for the purpose.) Resistors: R1: 1K1 1/8Watt R2: 10K 1/8 watt R3: 1K1 1/8 watt If we were to apply a current of 1mV to the base, then the collector current (Ic) would drop by 100 mV. That’s a very basic medium-high gain inverting amplification stage we’ve just designed. Give yourself a pat on the back – That’s quite an achievement if you started reading this article without much, if any, idea of circuit design. What’s meant by an inverting amplification stage? Well basically the input is the opposite of the output: When the input voltage is zero the output voltage is equal to the supply rail voltage, and whatever voltage is applied to the input, the output drops by a factor proportional to the amplifier’s beta. For instance; if a DC voltage of 41mV was applied to the base of the transistor in this circuit, then the output would drop by 1.0 volts; from 7v to 6v. That means that if 101mV (0.101V) was applied to the input at the transistor’s base, the output at the transistor’s collector would drop from 7v to zero. – that’s a pretty sensitive circuit we’ve designed there. – But we want to design a non-inverting amplifier; one where if we apply 101mV to the input then the output rises from zero volts to 7 volts. Why does it behave like this? When there is no input, the transistor if switched off and current flows unopposed through R3 to the output. (Remember; a resistor gives resistance to current, not voltage; so although the collector current is regulated by R3, the voltage remains unchanged.) – Therefore the output is at 7v. As the input voltage rises and the transistor begins to switch on and allow current to flow through it to ground, the voltage at its collector falls proportionally. We could take resistor R3 out of the collector circuit and connect it between the transistor’s emitter and ground, taking the output from the emitter. That would work fine. – Then as the transistor begins to switch on the voltage at its emitter would rise from zero volts proportionally; but R3 as an emitter-load resistor would never allow the output voltage to rise as far as the 7 volts we require. Remember the transistor’s 0v7 transconductance threshold? That would affect the output so that it would never be able to rise above 6v3. What we need is some more circuitry added to what we’ve designed so far. Let’s get designing: We can modify our existing circuit by adding an output stage to it: - We have a condition at the output of our device we just designed where the output is at 7v with no input. The output drops by 0.1v with every millivolt above 31 mV applied to the input. Let’s ignore the 31mV for the time being, for the sake of simplicity. – But that idea of taking the output from the emitter can be used. First we’ll redesign the circuit: -
We’re now taking the output from the emitter. This type of circuit is called an “emitter-follower” for seemingly obvious reasons. We now design a second stage for this circuit to correct the error; or should I say YOU now design it. “But I’m no circuit designer!”
You know enough now to solve the problem.
‘Your Turn It’s tricky, but it can be done using only what you’ve already learned herein and by clicking on the links provided. You can use as many resistors and transistors as you wish, but remember, in the interests of cost efficiency you need to keep the number of components used as low as you can. If you manage to solve the problem using 64 transistors and 184 resistors then well done for solving it; but that’s far too many components. Keep the component-count low but keep trying. I ask two further things: The first is that you don’t modify the original emitter-follower circuit in any way. You can connect to it at any point you choose; however you must take the output from the emitter and you cannot change either the existing circuit configuration or the component values. You also cannot change the supply voltage. Good luck. You can refer to any electronics teaching media that you wish to use. However – here’s the second thing I ask of you – you cannot ask an electronics engineer or technician to solve the problem for you. This is your project. A qualified engineer will have no problem with it; but a qualified engineer doesn’t need to learn how to do it. Hopefully by the time you’ve solved it you’ll have learned how to do everything I’ve shown you off by heart and with ease. All the information you need is written above; but you can use whatever other media you wish. If you want to learn then this is a worthy project. if not then I hope you’ve found what you’ve learned edifying. If you happen to be a bit unsure of component function then click the links provided again and study the material. Several months’ basic electronics tuition has been crammed into this book to this point. It would be unrealistic to expect anyone to grasp it all in one reading; even if they did click every link and study the information there in full. After – word So you’ve decided you want to be an electronics engineer? Good choice. I’m not the one to teach you though: I’m only qualified as a technician. I am qualified to teach you the basics, though; and that’s a start if nothing else. I’m trying to limit what I teach herein to what I’m qualified to teach. What I know is more than I’m trained to know. Whilst I’m not up to engineer’s status in knowledge, I do have perhaps a bit more know-how than the average technician. Had I qualified at a higher level I could teach more and feel comfortable in doing so. The engineer’s course is 4 years long. I studied the equivalent of 2 years (‘Just over a years’ intensive training.) for my technician’s qualification. (City & Guilds 300, 301.) I’ve deliberately not tried to make this aritcle “pretty” or to give it extra appeal. What you see is what you get. Electronics is a cold hard emotionless science: There’s a lot of maths involved; on a much higher level than this article has delved. (Bode plots and Nyquist diagrams included.) What you see is the beginnings of elementary calculus and an opportunity to dip your toe into using Ohms’ Law for real. If this breif and basic look at electronics has whetted your appetite for more then you’re probably a natural to at least a certain extent. I suggest you glean as much of the elementary basics as you can from this source; following which you continue your studies both online and offline. Keep your eye on http://kkomp.com for any electronics titbits that I throw out to my readers. Take a home study course, night school, even go for it and take an electronics engineer’s degree if you like. This article only covers a few of the basics: I’ve barely touched on capacitors and inductors, no more than mentioned diodes and some other components, and I’ve only once or twice mentioned digital electronics. – With its logic gates, pulse-triggered flip-flops, Schmitt triggers… The material herein has barely scratched the surface of analogue electronics. There’s so much to learn; and you’ve hardly begun. If you’re intent on learning more, or even becoming qualified in electronics, then I wish you the very best of luck. If you found this heavy going and decided that the subject’s not for you then thank you for reading. At least you now have some idea of a subject that you don’t want to pursue any further. I hope you gained some enlightenment from your reading. Whatever you choose to do; I hope you get the very best from it. |
Tracing the Route
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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:\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] 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 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] 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:\Documents and Settings\Sharron>tracert kkomp.com Tracing route to kkomp.com [213.171.218.145] 1 19 ms 100 ms 99 ms BThomehub.home [192.168.1.254] 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. |
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Rebuilding a PC
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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.
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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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%. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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.) |
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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: |
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Pop the XP pro CD into the DVD-RW drive… Let’s get the HDD formatted: NTFS – A decent file-system. |
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Install Windows… |
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- Et voila mes amis. |
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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. |
Paganism – What is it?
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A large amount of the following material was written some years ago by myself, and I’ve attempted to join a number of partially-rewritten paragraphs together in this post, mixed with some newly-written sentences to make a more-in-depth article on this subject. Whilst I have covered a lot, both from writings I made several years ago and from new additions, I am unable to do full justice to this huge matter without writing a rather large book on the subject. |
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Whilst there is a lot of standard doctrine within Paganism; there is also a very deeply personal side which is unique to all Pagans individually. At this point I’d better mention that Paganism has nothing whatsoever to do with “Devil Worship”: The “Devil” concept is a myth of Christian origin; through which they attempted to discredit and demonise Pagan belief by colouring and utilising the image of the Horned God; partner of the Mother Goddess, as the archetypical representation of all evil within their own religion. – However this Devil character, referred to in the Christian Bible as Satan, is a relatively recent character in mythology, and has no relevance to original Pagan beliefs and doctrine; nor for that matter modern-day neo-Paganism. |
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No; it’s not “Devil worship”: This “Devil” is a Christian myth rather than a Pagan one – How can anyone worship something that they believe doesn’t exist? |
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So what would one do in order to become a Pagan? Of course there is no checklist. : My experience of becoming a Pagan is most likely different to others; as all things are naturally individual and unique. : Organised religion has attempted to unify and simplify understanding of the spiritual to such a vast extent that it is now neither proper understanding, nor is it really spiritual. Certain religions have succeeded in producing programmed clones carrying a payload of a few simple viruses of belief, with which they seek to infect others who don’t use the firewall of discernment, the anti-spyware of education, and the anti-virus of intelligence.
Firstly in becoming a Pagan one will come to develop the understanding that all natural things are unique, and that all life is sacred; human, animal, and vegetable. As a result of this understanding one will not be unnecessarily discriminatory of others, and will recognise the sanctity of all life, regardless of nationality, race, creed, gender, sexual orientation, or religion. There is no way of making oneself believe it, or forcing oneself to do so: Either you do or you don’t – But it’s no rigid doctrinal requisite though as such: There is no set structure that one has to adopt to the letter – All things are not equal just as all things are not deserving: Therefore favouritism can be an emotional outlet, but nevertheless favouritism in the light of recognising that no matter what one’s preferences may be, both the preferred and the partially-shunned are nevertheless unique and sacred |
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I personally found it helpful to study about, and often even to meet the deities; remembering that all spiritual deities are simply an aspect or sub-aspect of Divinity, whilst bearing in mind that Divinity is such an infinitely massive and supreme being – the union of all that exists, all that ever has and ever will exist, on this plane of existance as well as others, that it would be impossible to come to know all of Divinity in its entirety within a single lifetime; possibly even within infinity. (Imagine Divinity as a huge diamond with millions of different cut faces to it: Each deity is the aspect of each of those faces or aspects of the unfathomable whole of the one Divinity: This is where many err; seeing the entirety of Divinity as a single being with a single personality embodied in a master-god such as Yahweh. – (Who is a three-faceted god.) The fact is that Yahweh is a single aspect of Divinity rather than Divinity itself. (The idea of the Trinity was itself borrowed from the Sumerian Tri-Une Goddess legend.)
Whilst proceeding as above one will eventually and inevitably, as a result, at the same time as and by default, come to know oneself, and understand the personal unique individual nature of one’s own being, as well as seeking one’s own wills, desires, and aspirations. This requires a huge amount of individual honesty with oneself, as in doing so one must also confront and accept one’s own inadequacies and failings in addition to one’s assets and attributes, before seeking to deal with them. Once one has come to the understanding of who one is, as well as the true nature of one’s own individuality, one will respect oneself and others more, and also will reach a higher understanding of the reverence for the spiritual uniqueness of all things. |
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So what’s the best way to go about finding out more about Paganism? You want to know about Paganism and Witchcraft; therefore, quite logically, you go to Google and type “Witchcraft” into the search bar: Google presents you with thousands of websites; a lifetime’s worth of study; but you didn’t want to spend a lifetime studying it; you wanted to glean the basic truths and make a decision on whether it was a path you wanted to follow – So you start on page 1 with the first site; http://www.witchcraft.org/ – ‘Good site; but maybe this site is a little too, shall we say, commercial and glossy, for your current needs. So you proceed through the listings, selecting sites at random, and studying those that you feel comfortable doing so with. 100 or so sites later you have learned a number of conflicting views; all backed up by other sites, yet seemingly contradicted by still others: One site may tell you that Witchcraft/Paganism, is all about love, peace, dropping out and becoming a “fluffy bunny”, being at one with nature, and displaying unlimited love for all things, while another informs you that there is no need to change a thing, as the divine resides within you, and bringing that out will give you all you need. Yet another site tells you that you should adopt a moral code based upon your newly-found Pagan ethics; while yet another seems to indicate that no moral code is necessary by the words “‘An it harm none, do as ye will.” Following this you stumble upon a Christian-edited website regarding Paganism which tells you that all Pagans unknowingly or secretly worship the Christian “Devil” and have been cleverly duped away from the “One true path that leads to salvation.” – Supposedly the Christian path; although that path probably has as many or more variations than the individual paths of Paganism. Confused and mentally battered you ponder, and feel like giving up. So many sources and so much information; seemingly in disagreement with itself and each other depending upon its source. Which is the correct piece of information? Apart from the Christian view of Witchcraft; which is simply a method of gaining converts by denouncing any and all other paths, in a way they all are: Each individual has an individual understanding and path to Divinity which is in some way a variation of sorts upon others. |
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I’m going off the point here. The point I was trying to make is that one cannot use such a widely-defined search term as “Witchcraft” to find a single path within Paganism. There are many different “denominations” of Witches or Pagans. However unlike the case with regard to Christianity; nearly all, if not all, Pagans, interact peacefully with one another; whatever the denomination, whether Wiccan, Druid, Shaman, Buddhist, Hedge-Witch…Whatever. (Having said that though; there can be factious rivalries built up between male Pagans – The usual male sociality issues…) Uniting us are three major principles; firstly the universal Pagan belief that all paths lead to the same goal. : If you’re all climbing a mountain you all get to the identical summit eventually if you make it to the top, no matter which route you take. Second is the universal Pagan principle that all life is sacred and is a part of Divinity. Thirdly the Rule of Three, which is not exactly universal in its entirety, but appears in a similar form throughout Paganism; that being “Whatever you give out will be revisited upon you three times in this or future lifetimes.”(Similar to the Christian version; “What a person sows; this they shall also reap.”.) : So in short, then. : 1. We’re all going to the same objective “event”; that being ultimate enlightenment. 2. We don’t want to harm life, as life is sacred no matter whose life that is. 3. If we do harm others then we will get three times that harm back, yet if we do good to one another we get three times that good back. |
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What are the Paths up for choice as regards Paganism? Well there are many more than one could imagine; depending upon the individual who takes that path. The best path is the path that’s right for you. There are no “Book religions” in Paganism: (Genuine)Pagans are knowledgeable and responsible people as a whole, and we are fully aware that it is ours to bear the responsibility for every reaction resulting from our own actions. (That’s not saying that we never get it wrong or make major cock-ups.)
Auntie Sharron doesn’t have all the answers, and I’m speaking from my own personal experience of my own personal path at all times; although everything I write is in agreement with Pagan doctrine as far as I am aware. I’m not advising everyone to become a Pagan, unless it’s right for them. I have no insecure desire to “convert” people to my way of thinking. I’d just like people to start thinking; thinking for themselves, rather than blindly following blind halfwits like the proverbial sheep to the slaughter. When people have decided upon their path for themselves, using their own reasoning with a totally unbiased and fully open mind and without any coercion or brainwashing whatsoever, then their opinion is a valid one as far as that person is concerned at a personal level. |
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One is, once firmly rooted and studiously informed, ready for magick. (“Witches” who start off at the stage of magick, especially on a personal level and unguided by either human or spiritual help, often end up in somewhere like a Christian Fundamental church, or otherwise, terrified/confused, usually with angry spirits; annoyed at being messed around by some clueless know-it-all, chasing them. Here I will stress – and this is oh so important – before you try to run you must first go from crawling to walking. When one finds one’s spiritual legs, it does not automatically make one a magickal athlete endowed with wisdom.)
Having come to know and trust ones chosen gods, also they with one, and having come to understand one’s own true nature and individual attitudes, (This can even be the result of a lengthy reappraisal of one’s world-view, which may take years, as in my personal case.) one is able to see where one is coming from in a spiritual sense; one’s weaknesses and advantages, one’s true character both in the spiritual and in the natural seen from a spiritual and real perspective.
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Having gained this understanding one also gains perception of the energies and powers available to one, and learns over time in tandem with Spirit and deity how to use and manipulate those energies both for the good of others, of the earth, of the universe, as well as for the good of oneself. As a consequence of this one becomes empowered with true spiritual understanding, and receives one’s “awakening”; learning how to perceive using one’s third eye, gaining intuitive insight and perception of things both seen and unseen with one’s physical eyes: One therefore gains further knowledge and understanding, contributing to the overall enlightenment of the soul, deepening one’s understanding of all of the above; and from there is an upward spiral of enlightenment, with the added bonus of “sight beyond seeing”, (Which I actually asked for at an earlier stage, and was granted: Since I was at that time much more physically routed than in the spiritual, I saw the wiring under the board, the invisible structure, of modern society; and believe me it was pretty ugly, (I love these sensible oxymorons!) and shocked me to the core from the insight into the corruption, intrigue, mass subterfuge, and intrusion form virtually every facet of the politico-religious framework of the mass-hysteria we call a “free-society”. In fact a so-called “free society” is about as free as a high-security prisoner under 24-hour guard; but it could be worse, indeed it has been in certain places at certain times throughout history.) Coupled with the action and implementation of true positive wholesome magick within one’s life, and the knowledge, joy, peace, love, and understanding which flows from Divinity through deity to one, and returns to Divinity charged with the power of the circle, to flow out once again on its journey invigorating, empowering, renewing…Just a tiny part of the universal whole which is a mere dot within all of existance. – But that’s another story. Peace.
Namaste’ |
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Your beliefs are the building blocks of reality -
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Fire Your Computer Technician!A computer technician spills the beans and makes available the knowledge he has charged clients hundreds in service fees for. |
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Twitter: War On The iPhone – Military Logs
Starring:Sharron (Me)
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Blunder Telecommunications
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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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BT and the 150 Fuckwits
| Yesterday I made a bit of a boob: I was attempting to alter a Direct Debit to BT because I was paying too much, and to cut a long story short I ended up accidentally cancelling the Direct Debit instruction instead. With most companies this wouldn’t have caused too much of a problem; but this was BT: Incompetence unlimited. |
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| I called their Freephone 150 number on my BT line and was instantly put through to… India!”I am velly solly if you were kept waiting for a long time.” Came a voice. “I am Bruhpuhindasta Muszxhyfkjprtnfs [That sounds too Polish...OK whatever...] and you’re through to BT. How may I help you?”"Hi.” I replied “My name’s Sharron Field. Account number… and yesterday I accidentally cancelled my Direct Debit instruction…”"Can I have your account number please.” She interrupted.”I just gave you that” I retorted “Oh well, no points for observance. Here it is again…”"Thank you; and can I have the name on the account.” She continued.”Yes my name is…”
“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. |
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| I made a coffee and attempted to put the entire call out of my mind: “What a bunch of incompetent assholes.” I muttered; trying not to think about it, but without success.Charged with the gentle buzz of caffeine from a strong mug of coffee I picked up the phone again and dialled 150, listened to all the crap about calls being recorded, and pressed 1 to indicate that I was calling on the telephone which I was enquiring about. I eventually selected option 3 out of the list of sub-options from the sub-menu of the sub -main menu in the billing section of the main menu. It was now 35 minutes since I’d started the first call and progress was absolutely zero.”Hello. You’re through to BT. I’m solly if you were waiting a long time. Can I take your name and account number please?”Trying desperately not to swear I gave the requested details and explained the situation once again. The Indian operator asked me to hold a minute and ten seconds later a number-unobtainable tone sounded in the earpiece. |
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| I pretended to stay calm and cancelled the call from my end. Seeing red I went to BT.com ( http://www.bt.com ), logged in, and waded through their hundreds of helpful links; all of which were the links I didn’t need, going round in several circles several times. Eventually, somehow, I got to a link marked “Contact Us”, which had only taken 15 minutes to find. I clicked it and was sent to an electronic online bot who answered the question “Which account do I pay my bill to” with a link back to my account and instructions on setting up a Direct Debit. I found my way back to the “Contact Us” link and was this time sent to a massive FAQ page. Scrolling down past several miles of FAQs I found a link near the bottom of the page “Email Us”. This led me to several links: “Corporate”, “Business” and “Home”. Home led me to “Billing”, Billing led to “Payment Amount”, “Friends and Family”, and loads of other crap. Eventually I got to a blank email which also had spaces to input your life history in full detail, (Required) how many grains of sugar you had on last Wednesday’s breakfast cereal, (Required) and a 27-digit prime number in base 7. (Required). Having filled in all the required shite and written a scathing email about the Indian call-centre and it’s incompetent staff, the maze that BT calls its website, and the crappy phone service, I submitted it.I’m now expecting it to vanish, be ignored, or be returned with a note saying that it was sent to the wrong department. |
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| In all honesty, other than this, BT have always given me good telephone and internet services, and have even proved to be most helpful at times. Quite obviously following this fiasco my opinion of them has gone down by a huge margin. I’ve always been very wary of any of their so-called “money-saving” deals as they’re mostly all a huge con; giving you extra on one hand and taking twice that back on something else. For a corporate business their standard of ethicality and competence leaves a lot to be desired in many aspects, although I’ve learned how to work them to my advantage: Things such as use a BT line and use an internet discount phone company through that line saving huge amounts on calls – Such as 4.5p a minute for a weekend call to a mobile phone (Or 6p/min for a weekday call.) via 18185.co.uk by dialling the prefix 18185 before the call as opposed to BT’s 28p/min weekday rate. (You must register with 18185.co.uk before you can do this.) See http://kkomp.com/archives/173 for more on this moneysaver. I use BT because their quality with regard to call-clarity, line-quality, and internet-service in general is pretty good overall: They charge high prices for it so you’d expect them to give quality. I know a few ways round paying their high prices though, so I get a better deal. As we’ve seen though: Customer service-wise they are utterly crap; which makes it very difficult for the customer when things actually do go wrong. Their few internet outages usually apply to whole areas, so I generally let other affected parties phone India and complain with all the associated hassle. I’ve only once had their internet service go down for more than 24 hours: They insisted that it was my fault and the malfunction was in my equipment that time – So I asked them, via a different department, to upgrade my service from 2Mb/s to 8Mb/s as it tied in with the time when they were giving that upgrade for free – Low and behold my internet service suddenly started working as soon as the upgrade took effect, without me doing anything at my end. I also told them that I wanted 8mb/s at the same price I’d seen it offered for with a different company or I’d switch to that company since my contract with BT had run out. They cut the price of my service but couldn’t match the one I was on about, so I got them to send me a new digital cordless phone with caller-display to prevent me from switching. The buggers secured me to an 18-month contract in return, but I still have and use the phone they sent me years ago so it wasn’t that bad a deal. |
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‘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. |
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