So there goes Christmas.

Spoilt a bit by a tummy bug which swept through the family (I had originally written this piece going into a lot more detail about this – including a bit about keeping sick children home even if they are upset – but have decided to skip it) but fun nevertheless. Lot’s of time with the family is the best bit but I could have done with a bit more in the pub chatting with friends. But there’s nothing unusual about that.

Never mind. I should make up for things by spending New Year’s Eve with my brother and his family at Ludham out in the Norfolk Broads. We went there last year for the big fireworks display that’s put on in the churchyard at midnight and it was great fun.

I just hope everyone else enjoys themselves as much as I intend to.

A change of ISP

One of my responsibilities at work is to look after our network and its Internet connection. I’ve been unhappy with our current supplier, Demon, for some time now.

It started when we found out they’d been overcharging us – at least that’s how I see it. They would say that they reduced the cost of our service but did not automatically reduce our charges as it is their policy not to make reductions for existing customers until asked to do so. I know this because they told me when I complained. I decided then to look for an alternative ISP. I didn’t find anything suitable straight away.

Recently we’ve been having a lot of problems with our router. It’s a BT supplied box and comes with the service from Demon. The line keeps dropping and the usual thing that works to get it back is to cycle the power on the router. If that fails then logging the router on to the BT test address then back to our normal connection works.

Naturally I’ve become fed up having to do this mucking about a couple of times a week and tried to get the router replaced. First of all I called the support line which sounded like it had moved offshore. After about half an hour explaining myself to the chap on the other end, who had to put me on hold and check stuff every couple of questions, I thought I was coming to a satisfactory end (I think he was going to report it to BT as a fault) when the line went dead. Not being able to face another phone call I decided to e-mail in the request – but Demon seem to have removed all their support e-mail addresses.

So I thought I’d try out their web chat thingy. That was a laugh; it’s essentially an instant messenger application running in a small browser window. In order to keep the screen up to date it is constantly refreshing making some nice flickering to distract you from any work you might want to do while waiting for a reply from the support guy. Now I said I thought the phone support had gone offshore well this chap was off planet! The replies took about ten minutes each and, although he seemed to know what he was talking about, I wasn’t getting anywhere so I asked if we could speak by phone. No he didn’t have access to the phone. Could I get back to the chap I was speaking to earlier? No he couldn’t help there either. So I went back to explaining myself in the messenger.

By now I’d been on this messenger thing for over an hour. Between messages I was trying to get on with other stuff (despite the constant flashing) and sometimes didn’t reply immediately. When I ask a question the support chap says that he thought I’d gone away. I told him I was still here but was doing other stuff as well. He didn’t reply to my question so I re-sent it and got the reply that he’d logged off. I decided to look again into changing our ISP.

This time I found an outfit called BISCit who seem to have an SDSL offering that has all the features we need so we’re going with them. Unfortunately we have to rely on BT for the physical installation and they always seem to have boundless creativity for finding new and exciting ways to cock thing up. Already I’ve found that they don’t do SDSL installations in the afternoon which really narrows down the times when they can get access.

I’ll let you know how it goes. Now, I’ve got to get Demon to lower our TTL. Oh bol…

That didn't last long

Blogger for Word didn’t last long. It caused too may problems with Outlook and the Hidden Data Removal Tool.

And I wish I could get more than one picture per post using this Hello form Picas thing that Blogger recommend. And it stripped out the link I put in for the Buffy's brewery.

And really enjoyed myself.
 

I was drinking mainly Buffys Norwegian Blue.
 

They don�t do any food themselves but positively encourage you to fetch in food from the great chippie next door or the Chinese up the road.
 

I had a great time last Saturday at the Greyhound in Botesdale.
 

Frustrating Frontpage

This is my first post using Blogger for Word so if something is wrong that’s what I’m blaming.

Yesterday I revamped the company Intranet. I’m not a natural web designer. I lack any artistic ability at all. So when I originally designed the site I just used MS FrontPage (2000 probably) and chucked together a simple, functional site. I got the hang of frames and tables and everything worked well enough. Using the hover buttons was a mistake, but I didn’t know it at the time.

Now I make everyone use FireFox and the Intranet doesn’t always load properly. Those hover buttons give me gyp so I decided to revamp the site using standard buttons.

Nowadays I have Frontpage 2003 installed so I thought I’d use that. I have even used it to produce another web site from scratch that I am very pleased with. So, having curved my learning once a mere reworking of an existing site should be simple.

Maybe this version of Frontpage just isn’t very friendly but I just couldn’t get on with it. I eventually figured out how the automatic navigation widget works but I can’t get different settings for different pages. I expect it’s not supposed to do that. And I find positioning things very complicated. When it was frames I had no trouble but they seem to be old hat and there’s some strange new mechanism to do this.

Maybe it’s Frontpage and I should find something that works better and learn how to use it properly. Maybe I’m just getting old.

There are some bargains to be had out there.

As a grossly underpaid laky I often find myself rummaging through the “Reduced to Clear” section in my local supermarket. Usually unless I find something at least pretty close to what’s on my shopping list the reduction won’t be enough to make me pick it up. But very occasionally someone gets let loose with the pricing gun that really wants to shift the stuff and tonight I hit the jackpot.

I’m happy to say that I got a huge slab of gammon marked down from £14.75 to £2.91 (no I haven’t mistyped that – really £2.91), a selection of king prawn thingies that normally go for £8 for £1.40 and a citrus seafood roulade that normally shifts at £13 for £2.40. We normally get some sort of whole ham for Christmas so that’s now covered. We routinely buy prawns (although not usually the “Finest” stuff like this) so all will get used for lunch tomorrow - and if we don’t like any of it then who cares.

It’s just so nice to have some good fortune to report, especially so early on. It seems that it’s not often that such happy, positive events get blogged. For instance, tonight there’ll be a post from a Tesco employee bemoaning the fact that all the stuff she’d concealed right down the bottom of the reduced section had disappeared by the time she went off shift.

Now, do I glaze the gammon with marmalade or stud it with cloves?

Why Eric?

Being naturally dull, stupid and unimaginative whenever I'm asked to think of a name for something the first thing that usually occurs to me is Eric. This is a Monty Python reference - Eric the Half a Bee - and others. Consequently all my pets, children, possessions, and anything else I have been called on to name are called Eric. Actually it saves a lot of confusion - except when naming networked computers. That's a problem.

The only other exception to this is the yellow Labrador we used to have that I wanted to call Spot.

Contact Lenses

I have been wearing contact lenses for many years now. It took a lot of time and patience to find a system of lenses and cleaners that worked for me. Sadly, I can't use the disposables - my eyes are too wonky and they don't make them to fit. Mine are gas-permeable hard lenses which are made to order to fit the shape of my eyeball.

I use the "old fashioned", two-part, hydrogen peroxide sterilising solution. I'm quite happy about this. Firstly it's the only type we found would work for me, secondly it's quick - I can clean, sterilise and neutralise my lenses ready to wear again in twenty minutes if I need to. Thirdly my optician and my own research make me think that this is the safest way of sterilising lenses (with an overnight soak not a twenty minute turn around).

The current fashion is towards all-in-one cleaning and sterilising solutions that appear to be easier to use (one bottle instead of three) but sacrifices some safety for the perceived convenience. So much so that some months ago, the company that had been providing my lenses and solutions decided they would no longer supply the solutions I use. The official line was that I should switch to the "better" all-in-one type despite the fact that we had spent weeks proving that they would not work for me. So I switched to a supermarket own brand, saving a few bob in the process, and have been very happy since.

I was prompted to write this today because, yet again, I have managed to swap my lenses between eyes. I'm not sure how I manage this but I do fairly often. The last time I may have done it deliberately - feeling that both lenses were uncomfortable and thinking they were in the wrong eyes I swapped them a few days ago. Today they were really uncomfortable so I tool them out, cleaned them and checked for the "handling spot" the right lens carries. When I put them back in I could them be sure they were the right way round. There must be a better way than this tiny spot to identify the lenses - perhaps tinting them different colours.

Or perhaps it's time to go back to full time glasses for a while?

Hello

I've tried to keep a diary before and I've never kept it up. Maybe this will work better.