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Listed below are comments made by The_Old_Boar between Tuesday, 2nd December 2008 and Tuesday, 16th December 2008.

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Is it safe to Explore? 5:10pm on 16 Dec 2008 Since ALL browsers are full of security holes (and that includes people's beloved Firefox), I would suggest this bit of added security:

NEVER use a computer with administrator privileges!

Always set your computer up with users who have restricted privileges, and leave the "administrator" for installing software or making major changes.

If you are using older MS software like windows 2000, make sure you set it so that you HAVE to press ctrl+alt+del to log in.

This way, if someone does hack in as you, then they are limited to what they can do.
Virgin: some 50 Meg questions 09:34am on 16 Dec 2008 I tried an interesting experiment the other day.

I did a speed test with thinkbroadband and got download of about 17Mbps

Then I tried an American test (speakeasy) and tried two of their servers - New York and Seattle.

That gave me 11Mbps and 5 Mbps respectively

No particular surprise. But when I was with BT and my speed was about 6Mbps, I was still getting 5Mbps to Seattle.

So, even if I was on Virgin's "Superfast" cable, I would not see it's benefit for many websites round the world.

So, the conclusion?

If you need high speed AND you tend to connect to local sites in your country, then forking out for higher speeds may be of benefit (though still a luxury)

If your browsing habits are outside of your country local zone, then you may not see any benefit at all.
Virgin: some 50 Meg questions 11:20pm on 15 Dec 2008 My partners mother lives in Milton Keynes.

She has had really bad TV reception from the hole in her wall. Particularly disappointing since she has paid a monthly fee to NTL/Virgin for the pleasure.

Her complaints were met with "it must be your equipment."

Eventually she gave up and a chap came to fit an aerial. He looked at her connection and asked "where is your box?"

"What box?"

She, and a few of her neighbours, it turns out, have never been supplied with the conversion box that comes with the connection. THe fact that she got any reception was down to shadowing on the line.

Virgin have refunded her money, but it is interesting to note that they themselves have NEVER asked whether she had a box or not - they only help out when people complain ....
Virgin: some 50 Meg questions 9:36pm on 15 Dec 2008 eek!Amoose wrote:

"...and you will get 50Mbps - although if you are running a wireless network, you are bound to lose some speed."

I've never heard anything like this. Why would my home network setup affect my broadband speed? Would you clarify this please.

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I imagine they are referring to the fact that most wireless networks run at considerably slower speeds than people expect.

BT's ads for the speed of their hub are very clever. In the original TV ad they carefully showed the wireless station in the forground and the chap with the lap top in the background.

Basically, you can only expect decent speeds if you have line of sight with the wireless station.

In my house, my router is upstairs in the office and I only get around 12mbps, or sometimes none at all (allowing for interference from unshielded domestic appliances) downstairs in the main part of the house. So I run fixed cables.

Virgin may be running 50 to your router, but many people will be getting significantly less on their wireless.

Unless you HAVE to have wireless, it is much easier and faster to run with cables. My computers are networked at a 1000mbps - just a tad faster than your average wireless and one heck of a lot cheaper!

(PS, I am a composer and need lightning speeds - a 100mbps Ethernet is fine for most people)
Broadband Britain - slowly getting faster? 5:18pm on 15 Dec 2008 The far east is often flagged up as the ultimate broadband zone, with city customers being offered 100mb on fibre at relatively low costs. But there is a problem.

I work on an online game and we have several far eastern players with fast links - when they are working. They lose connection far more frequently than anyone else and generally speaking have a very poor service.

This is repeated throughout the world.

My BE connection works happily at around 18mbps (with uploads at about 2.1mbps) - but the hassles I have with Be's dns servers is impossible, and I now use openDNS.

Although I need a fast connection for my work (I am a composer), when it comes to other, domestic uses, I have seen no great advantage to higher speed. The biggest difference I noticed was moving from 512 to 2mbps. The increments above that have meant little.

Most websites still load slowly not because I am slow but because their server is slow.
A mysterious arrest 12:05pm on 03 Dec 2008 If I were a PR consultant for MPs at the moment, I would be telling them to shut up at the moment.

MPs are outraged that police should be able to search (with a warrant) their offices.

They say they are concerned about confidentiality with their constituents. What a load of rubbish!

Doctors can be investigated
Lawyers can be investigated
Even Catholic Priests.

And the people holding the most confidential information on anyone are probably the police in the first place!

This is yet another example of the Arrogance of our parliament. They are NOT above us, they should enjoy no more rights than us. They are simply employed by us to do a job - and we kick them out if they do it badly.

This is just like their expenses - they are ever so humble untill either their power or their income is at risk - then it is every MP for themselves, and to hell what the rest of us think.

If the police have got this one wrong - fine. Let Green complain like everyone else.

He does NOT get to waste valuable parliamentary time debating it!
In retreat 10:52am on 03 Dec 2008 The arrogance spilling out from Westminster is unbelievable.

MPs up in arms over police being allowed in

Distaste at the idea that police can question them and get warrants ...

Oh, come on. The public's opinions of MPs is that they really do rank rather low in society. They represent US not themselves.

They do not require or deserve special favour.

If something needs to be investigated, the police have my complete blessing, as a tax payer, to search as many MPs offices as required.

Tough. Welcome to the real world
In retreat 4:35pm on 02 Dec 2008 I still think politicians are basically loving this and don't care a damn that it is our democracy not theirs.

I want police to be able to arrest and question any politician on the same basis as they do the rest of us.

I want politicians complaints about it to be as ineffectual as ours would be.

And if the police have made a mistake? Fine, rather that than have their hands tied.

The MP will get over it - about time the rest of you did too.
Monday, 1 December, 2008 4:26pm on 02 Dec 2008 I have an underlying worry about the whole way the Baby P tragedy is being handled.

I can hear the words Scape Goat rattling through my head as people resign or are sacked.

What perturbs me is that 2 weeks ago, SIXTY doctors signed a letter in support of Shoestring. That is a lot of people who are on the ground and know what they are talking about.

As opposed to a bunch of inspectors who have been told to find someone to blame

We have a blame mentality.

"Must find a senior person to shoot"

Which is the best way I can think of to get rid of capable, well respected people - like shoestring.

"This must never happen again" is the rallying cry of the thickhead politician.

Well, bad news. It will happen again. And again, and again, and again. And you will never EVER stop it.

The best you can hope to do is reduce the numbers dramatically.

And you know what? Social Services have been absolutely brilliant at doing just that every year for years.

How many children die in such circumstances? Too many for the public or political stomach, but far far less than it might be.

Not one single selfish politician or journalist has asked the people involved in this terrible case how they feel. They are far too busy at appearing to be strong and condemning for the sake of their public image. Sickening.
BBC Digital Services: Branding Changes 09:58am on 02 Dec 2008 eitrem wrote:

Why not multiply your sales-staff by ?wrapping? the regular email in an interactive letterhead?

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Oh, no, no, no, no!

Those of us who are security concious and have our email clients properly set to not open images etc automatically on emails would strike!

Just nice, fast, easy to read, plain text please!

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On branding, one of the biggest mistakes the BBC has made over the years is playing round the edges with their Branding.

You continuously "split" your brand which is one of the biggest marketing No-nos I can think of.

So, making it all part of the normal BBC is the correct thing to do, at last. The world of online information should no longer be treated as some exciting new toy. When the BBC starts a new online service, they often forget they are only replicating what has been done many years before by others and therefore is nothing new. In fact, the BBC tends to be behind the times.

Your biggest remaining problem is formatting.

When the BBC site was first started, you were heavily criticised by industry experts for not templating correctly. The result was that the site was terribly narrow on the average monitor and the stories hard to read. What kept people coming back was the reputation of BBC News rather than nice site design.

Unfortunately, this templating issue was roundly dismissed by management, and now you have different parts of the site, and even different news stories all appearing in different shapes and sizes.

If you are trying to work towards consistent branding, making the way the site operates consistent is vital.

It should be dead easy, since the whole lot it in a database. But for some reason, the way your site has been written over the years has been extremely over engineered.

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