With Gnomedex going full-pelt in Seattle in the USA I am baffled as to the seeming total lack of interest in, even knowledge of, the Web 2.0 phenomenon in the UK. All this antiquated “stiff upper lip” crap and resistance to change, coupled with general lethargy and a lack of motivation, is a hindrance to progress.

From what I’ve heard the general perception is that the UK is ahead of the USA technologically to a certain extent; in which case why oh why can I get no public wireless signal anywhere along the line on the train travelling from Warminster in Wiltshire to London? Why is it that, when I go to a place called Wilton which used to be the capital of Wessex, I have to stand at a particular point on a particular road to get a GSM 900 signal and GSM 1800 signals are virtually non-existent.

Why the heck do we have 2 different frequencies here? (In USA they all use GSM 1900.) As for Wifi; (In Wilton, as well as in most places outside the city centres – Even in London itself, apart from the City Centre.) unless I am within close proximity of any one of a small number of dwellings, and the owners of those individual properties happen to have their BT Home Hub routers switched on at the time, there is no Wifi signal. As for anywhere rural; forget it: Usually no Wifi at all, and perhaps a fluctuating poor-quality GSM900 3G signal that’s as good as useless for anything other than making an interrupted phone-call on the Vodafone network. Even if I owned a house any distance out of town I’d probably not even be able to use anything other than dial-up or satellite to connect to the internet: That’s not technologically advanced; that’s third-world!

The sad fact is that the UK is or seems to be a third-world country as far as the internet is concerned; and the future of the UK will be affected by that inasmuch as it could well become a third-world country bearing in mind that the future world-economy will depend upon internet communication and usage. Despite boastings from government officials and companies such as Virgin Mobile that they have expanded the internet service and are continually developing it, the truth is that only populated areas close to a telephone exchange, and some other sub-urban areas as far as cable-internet is concerned, are able to get anything on a wired service greater than 5.6K dial-up.

This situation is slowly improving; but at a rate which is far too slow. Honestly in most rural areas I’ve been to I am unable to get any Wifi or mobile telephone signal whatsoever.

As a geek I’m quite ashamed in a way to be British – But the Wifi and 3G signals, or lack thereof, aren’t half of the problem: The attitude, bad attitude, or complacency/lethargy of a lot of the British public, but moreso the “ruling classes”, is a major factor.

Gnomedex in its original format could never happen in the UK. Why? There is nothing even remotely like Gnomedex in the UK outside of private corporate functions that are for internal company personnel only currently, and attitudes are so different here. There seems to be very few in the way of dedicated internet entrepreneurs in the UK. Why? Because the Government does its utmost to make it impossible to be such. Also there appears to be an overall work-ethic-dependency-culture amongst the population. I blame Government yet again: The bullshit that the UK Govt., in association with what the UK media spew forth, is unbelievable and it soaks everybody in crap: The negative deprecating content of it encourages a controlled tiered society; with the masters – the bosses – controlling their highly-paid understudies, who in turn regulate the multi-tiered workforce consisting of managers, Sub-Managers, Assistant Managers, Supervisors, and General Dogsbodies: Like ‘The Victorian age meets Communism’ under a negatively-oriented right-wing political system.

The UK Government provides you with the incentive to stay within this aged, stuffy, culture, by taxing anyone who decides to go it alone extremely heavily: As a “drone” or “worker” subservient to the work-ethic-based culture they tax a person at between 10 and 15%, I think it is, of their gross income. Attempt to break free from the dominant suppression, however, and that person can be taxed anywhere up to 50%. (Yes; half of their gross income!)

For the Owner/Director of a large successful company whose gross (personal) income can be anything up to £1 million pounds a year, it presents no problem whatsoever. For anyone trying to break free from the work-ethic culture, however, it means that essentially they have no option but to stay working at least at a part-time job until their income from self-employment matches up to double their gross earnings from their j-o-b in order for them to be able to maintain the lifestyle that they are used to. – Is it any wonder that people in the UK lack the motivation to go outside of the job-dependency-culture as it would mean leaving their comfort-zone: Something which the average British worker can’t even imagine doing for that very reason: It’s a vicious circle.

So there seemingly can never be true freedom within the political control-society of the UK; and this is one aspect where the USA is truly “The Land of the Free”. There is the other side of the coin though - Health: The British NHS is funded by involuntary contributions from this dominated-work-ethic-culture, and without it there’d be no National Health Service, no free medicine, no healthcare for all. People’s health would be dependant on their ability to pay for healthcare and for medical insurance. There’d also be no state-funded retirement income for the elderly, (SERPS – the State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme.) and those too old or too ill to work would have to rely on a private pension scheme or a welfare-handout system such as that currently running in the USA.

It all boils down to the old adage “There is no such thing as a free lunch” : What you gain on the swings you lose on the roundabouts. The British system has its faults; many of them – But so does the US system. The difference is that the US system is founded upon the concept of personal freedom; whereas the British system is founded upon subservience to State and to the class-system. Both work in their own way; but the US system works best as far as the concept of Web 2.0, co-working, and internet-dependency is concerned.

So what is the solution if there is one? The best I can come up with at present under the UK system is, as I mentioned previously, to stay in a job of some kind under the work-ethic-based system whilst at the same time building up an online enterprise. That solution is more difficult than it might at first sound. It requires twice the work for half the profit initially: One has to hold down a j-o-b and at the same time build an internet business. The j-o-b will pay peanuts (Enough to save you from bankruptcy – exactly as all such employment does.); around the same amount of peanuts as far as consistency is concerned; but nevertheless peanuts. The internet business will slowly take off and eventually equal the income from the j-o-b. (2 x peanuts.) When it does so perhaps it’s time to do the j-o-b part-time so that you can concentrate more on the internet business. Your income may stay static while the workload increases perhaps; but stick at it, as when the income from the internet business doubles you’re making as much as you were previously in your j-o-b. – Go for the gamble at this point: Say goodbye to the job.

You’ve made it: You’re working for yourself and your income no longer depends upon working 9 to 5, 5 days a week – Rather it depends upon your own efforts and actions: You’re now your own boss and your destiny is in your hands. Remember, though, you’re paying up to 50% of your income to the UK Government still.

You now have a choice: Stay in the UK and benefit from “free” healthcare + receive the pittance the state will pay you from SERPS when you reach retirement age AND continue earning from your internet business while paying up to 50% of that to the UK Govt. OR Move to America and become a US Citizen, and continue to control your own destiny.

Freedom at Last!?

What would I do? I’m working on it. When I’ve researched this properly I’ll come up with a proper, stage-by-stage, formula for making a success of Web 2.0 starting in the UK (Maybe even completely in the UK.): It’s a tough one, so I won’t have all the answers tomorrow, next week, maybe not even this year. When I do I’ll publish the final article as a paid-for work:  First as a prospective untested how-to; then, when I’ve done it myself, as a “How I Did It” article, again for a price. Watch this space – or somewhere near it – for more, at some point.

I want to be doing what they’re doing at Gnomedex. I want to make money online; and use some of that wealth to change the world for the better in whatever way I can in tandem with the people from the USA at Gnomedex. I’m going to do it too; but starting from the UK as I will inevitably have to do, I first have to work out a strategy as I stated in the last paragraph; and I’m going to do that too. Then I’m going to share it as I said.

If you have any ideas, insights, opinions, expertise, comments, whatever; then post them below. If you wish to dialogue or have any spontaneous input then I welcome it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I will find out for you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Home Hub v2.0, released in July 2008

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click Here

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

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

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

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

“I am solly could you repeat that please.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I have a pen. Fire away.” I said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Line went dead.

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