I may be back.

Perhaps it's time I started blogging again. A lot has happened since my last post.

Stop me if you've heard this...

I think I've already mentioned my opinion on the communication skills of communication companies - they don't seem to have any. I just noticed BBC News running a story entitled Orange branches out from mobiles about them offering landlines and broadband as well as mobiles.

I use Orange for mobile phones at work. A few weeks ago I filled out a enquiry form about landlines on the Orange web site (it's gone now) expecting a reply with some information or perhaps a phone call form a salesman. I got an e-mail containing a phone number for me to call.

I phoned the number. It connected me to a nice lady in a call centre who asked me lots of questions. Being an existing Orange customer I am used to them knowing all about me as soon as I give them my phone number. But this call centre was not part of Orange so I had to go through loads of stuff that Orange already know.

A few days later I received a call from the Orange sales team. Unfortunately they called me on my mobile phone so I didn't get the call and had to listen to the answerphone message. She didn't seem to know that we are already Orange customers and was calling to discuss land and mobile phones. She left a mobile phone number for me to call back.

Calling her number put me through to her message service where I left a landline number for her to get me on. Unfortunately she called back while I was out (she probably would have got me on the mobile then!) and had to leave a message. This time she told me all about the problems she was having with her mobile phone and how I would probably would not get her if I called! She did leave an e-mail address.

I sent her an e-mail saying I was back at my desk and asking her to call back. The call never came. I can't be bothered to call back again.

I got bored last night.

This desk belongs to my colleague, Will.















He won't be back in the office for a few days.









And our office is all open plan.








So I thought I'd give him some privacy.

Aaagh! We're all going to die! Or maybe not.

Aren’t these “precautions” against bird flu just a case of “arse covering”? A dead swan with bird flu (as yet exact strain unconfirmed” has been found in Scotland. Apparently the EU procedure is to set up a 1.9 mile (the UK hasn’t converted to kilometres yet and, hopefully, won’t) protection zone where people are supposed to keep their birds indoors and a 6.2 mile (49.7 furlong) surveillance zone. What is this supposed to achieve?

Surely the swan came from further afield – somewhere where the flu is already established. And it probably didn’t come alone. Other infected birds must be elsewhere in the UK or on their way and will land outside the zone. Or maybe they expect the flu to turn the dead swan into a zombie that will only be able to strut two miles or so?

Don’t swans and other birds die all the time? Surely, they’re not all found and tested. There could be poisonous pigeons and toxic tits all over the place! Surely, if there really is a way of protecting birds, they would all need locking up now (or several weeks ago) anywhere that migrating wild birds from infected areas may visit. But this sounds incredibly impractical. I think it’s heading worldwide and the overlords are just making the right noises so that when it’s established they can say, “we followed all the advice at the time so it’s not our fault.”

Perhaps we should start adding Beecham’s powders to the chicken feed now.

I know where all the water is going.

The recent announcement that the water board in Kent was enforcing the metering of water was a worry to me. There's five of us in our house so both the washing machine and dishwasher are on every day. During the summer the paddling pool is filled and emptied frequently. The children do their bit to save water by not washing, not flushing the toilet when they've used it, stockpiling dirty clothes in their room etc. But nevertheless I think a meter would hit us hard and I hope this compulsory metering doesn't spread.

I think one of the reasons for the looming shortage has not yet been commented on in public - at least not loud enough that I have noticed. The reason is the introduction of recycling of household waste.

Our council provides us with three wheelie bins: Blue for recyclable materials, Brown for compostables and black for everything else. This is great - recycling is good and I wholeheartedly support it. The trouble is the blue bin which is for plastic, metal, paper, etc. So that's most packaging materials, tin cans, yoghurt pots etc. But the problem is: they want the stuff clean! So gallons of water is being wasted by households across the country to wash their rubbish. This must account for a huge increase in water usage as recycling has been introduced.

I'm not sure what the solution is because I'm not sure why the stuff needs to be so clean in the first place. Surely a tin can will melt down as well with traces of baked bean inside as it does clean. If the stuff has to be cleaned then maybe it would waste less water to do it in bulk at the recycling plant. Perhaps this would make a good subject for research if we can find some university bods not currently looking at such important topics as "Will Humans Swim Faster or Slower in Syrup?"

A change of ISP V - The temporal Tennis Match

It seems that in order to transfer a domain from one registrar to another you have to persuade the current holder to remove a lock on the domain so that the newcomer can take control. It’s very sensible that you should have to instruct your current holder that you want them to release it and to whom. I’ve heard some horror stories about hijacking and disputes over domain ownership so precautions against this seem sensible.

When I asked Demon to unlock our domain they sent me an intimidating looking form to fill out the gist of was that since we’d decided to leave we had 30 days to get out before our bags would be thrown into the front garden and the locks changed. I duly returned it (with my own amendment saying that nothing was cancelled until I told them) and told BUSCit.

There then started what seemed like this strange slanging match where, having told Demon to unlock, BUSCit tell me it’s not unlocked. I complaint to Demon who say they'll unlock today. The next dat BUSCit say it not unlocked so I go back to Demon who say, “Oh yes it is unlocked” which I pass back to BUSCit who then find it unlocked and say they’ll do the transfer.

A few days later Demon complains that the transfer hasn’t happened yet and if we don’t get a move on they’re going to go into a proper strop. I pass this on to BUSCit who come back straight away saying the transfer has happened. I pass this on to Demon who promptly come back confirming that the transfer has occurred.

It just seems that I’m in some sort of quantum experiment where noting happens until someone claims it hasn’t – then I have to query it causing it to have been happened anyway.

At least everyone is using e-mail and answering fairly promptly. I hate to think what state I would be in if I was having to do this with hour long phone calls.

A Change of ISP - IV

Things are moving apace; it’s only taken week, two faxes and half a dozen e-mails to get Demon to unlock our domain. Perhaps if I find a really good magician or an extremely big stick I may be able to get the transfer of DNS data (which will affect the e-mail and web routing) to happen when I’m ready for it. Hmm.

Technology is turning against me

At the same time that I'm having to muck about with the heating, I switch on the lights in the porch and get nothing but a blue flash. Naturally I think the fuse has gone and change it. Still no light - than I notice that the two halogen lights I have in there have exploded.

These lights are exterior grade security lights with halogen tubes so the cold shouldn't have affected them and they're in the dry. There's no way I could have fed more than the 240V mains power to them and I know not to handle them with bare hands when installing. So how do both of them explode when I throw the switch?

I've bought a fluorescent tube fitting. Another job for the weekend.

Heating Horrors

The central heating packed up last week. Thinking back we had plenty of warning but, because it came on gradually, we didn’t notice it. Last week it changed from some radiators being a bit cold to none of the downstairs ones working at all.

My first thought was that the pump had packed up. I consulted my next door neighbour Albert, who used to be a plumber and, not only did he agree with my diagnosis, he gave me a brand new pump! Unfortunately fitting it made no difference.

So the system is sludged up. Off to town for a £25 bottle of sludge remover and stick it in. It was left running for about three days but the pipes continued to cool.

There are people who will come round with a pump and pump the sludge out of your system but they want £300 for the job. So yesterday I took the afternoon off, went to the hire shop and rented a pump for £35. It took about five hours to connect pump and restore the system to operation but it seems to have done it! It was actually quite good fun although I’m knackered today. Not actually much physical strain – the pump does all the hard work - but a lot of bending down, spannering and adjusting that my body isn’t used to.

I’ll put the anti- corrosion stuff in on the weekend and that’ll be it for another fifteen years.

A Change of ISP - III

Why is it that communications companies are always the most difficult to talk to? I remember, some years ago, spending several hours phoning various departments in BT trying to find out where to buy a cartridge for one of their fax machines. It was one of the most soul destroying, tedious, frustrating, annoying tasks I have ever undertaken. Well, I’m beginning to have similar feelings about switching ISPs.

Things have moved along since my last post; the D-Link USB network card was a joy, I just plugged it in, pointed the New Hardware wizard at the CD and away I went – brilliant. The ZyXEL router worked straight out of the box as well. We got this from our new BUSCit (the ISP we’re moving to) so I could ask them about configuration and they supplied pre-configured with our username and password. However the configuration was not what I ordered. It takes three phone calls and another week to sort out the configuration due to a combination of BUSCit giving me the wrong address block and me entering it incorrectly.

I’m now happy that everything works as it should with the new connection up. Now this is what I mean about communication companies; whilst sorting out the configuration problems I notice that my helpful sounding contact at BUSCit has stopped answering his mail. In fact, the support engineer that gave me the wrong IP addresses invited me to get back to him by e-mail but didn’t reply to me when I did. I finally got my contact on his mobile. Next stage is to ask Demon to unlock the domain (I wish he’d said this a few weeks ago) so e-mail and fax to them – with no reply.

Comment Spam

I've had my first spam comments! A site flogging contact lenses added a couple of comments to one of my posts on the subject with links to their site. I've deleted them and turned on word verification. At least some bots are reading this!

A change of ISP - II

So far so good.

Last week the BT engineer installed the new line. He go it done in one visit and only managed to disconnect our existing connection for an hour or so so I regard that as a huge triumph. I don't think I ever recall BT getting anything done in one visit Berea. Mind you, I don't know for sure that it actually works yet.

We couldn't connect up last week because the ISP hasn't got any of the routers they were supposed to send us in stock until I asked them why they hadn't sent it. Hmm.

This evening I was supposed to connect us up by sticking another network card into our communications server and configuring it all to work alongside our old connection. Unfortunately my certainty that we had a spare PCI slot in the server was completely wrong. We have some ISA slots but all the old ISA cards we have are so old that I couldn't get any working. Abandoned until I can get a USB network card.

It's sort of refreshing to have the opportunity to cock something up myself rather than leaving it to BT.

Whilst sorting out the HQ pictures I found this one taken of Tikka. My mother-in-law�s pet chicken. Yes, that�s pet as in house-pet. It lives in the house and will happily eat from your hand or grumpily peck you if you stop stroking it. It�s the only thing I know that can make my daughter sit still.

In the background is my darling wife Tracey. Just behind Tikka is Tracey�s grandmother Doris.
 

HQ. Looking ahead to the right. 

HQ. Looking ahead to the left. 

HQ

Most of the time I work at home from my "spare room" (soon to move to the garage - but that's another, long story) but every couple of weeks or so I have to come to Headquarters in North West London to do stuff I can't do remotely.

I'm at HQ now, I've done what I can this evening towards getting the new ISP up and running (more later) and I'm sitting here feeling fairly relaxed and listening to comedy on BBC Radio 7, which I can highly recommend.

I thought (probably because I'm getting a bit too relaxed) that you might like to see what it looks like form my desk in London. The two pictures that follow show what it looks like from my desk. Thrilling, eh?

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.