Was nosing through some old CDs and came across some of the development discs for Yoper. Found 2.0, a core version of 2.2 (command line only stuff!) and a 2.2 pre release dev version.
Decided to spin them up in a Virtualbox VM for old times. Probably not the core version - it won't be terribly interesting these days to try to develop scripts and so on to fix non working things!
The first thing which hits me is how dire the actual installing is by comparison to todays distros. It certainly works, but very much text based and with a less than intuitive partitioning system.Compared to say Xubuntu or PCLOS, it isn't easy to follow - but of course, this Yoper was from 2005 - and I don't recall many distros being easy on the new user back then!
My first VM install was of the old 2.0 version of Yoper - which is what got me interested in working on the distro. It brought back some old memories of fun (and frustrating!) times, trying to get things which should have been simple enough - like getting a dial up modem to "just work" or setting up Samba!
We were quite lucky with Yoper because the original developer, Andreas, had made the decision to use the Knoppix hardware detecting tools - so most things did work straight away - but being 2005, there were still lots of dreadful WinModems etc to bring a user to tears!
No great issues getting 2.0 up and running on VB - and it looked lovely! The classic old KDE 3.x interface, still miles better than the 4.x version IMHO - especially when tweaked a little as the Yoper version was.
No updates available really of course - this is purely a nostalgia hit. I could, I suppose, install something from my old RPM builds. I left some old Yoper RPMs on my server, so I suppose they will work as long as they don't need anything from the main repos which no longer exist.
Personally, I think it was a mistake to move away from the 2.x Yoper version and all the development which had gone into it, however, the guy who took over the reins, Tobias, decided to take a new route with Yoper 3.x, with a new package manager, new build system etc.
I can understand why he did it, but it wasn't really my thing, and, with health issues and so on, I found myself unable to continue playing a part with the distro.
A shame really, because I really enjoyed my time with the Yoper team and I am sure we all expanded our Linux understanding during the development time.
2.2 seems a little - well, ugly is perhaps an unkind word, so lets call it "less attractive than v2.0!"
No separate password for root either.
I didn't get the networking to work either - but that may be the fickle nature of the VM (but it DID work with 2.0 and other distros....)!
Anyway, have spent a pleasant time messing with these discs. Hope to find the final 2.2.0-x at some point - think it was release 6
Saturday, March 07, 2015
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Transcribe this!
As someone who transcribes the occasional parish record for the benefit of myself and others, I have come across some of the most "interesting" pages over the years - with difficult writing, creased pages etc but these ones are probably the worst yet!
Mostly a hole, with smudged ink surrounding it! And that isn't the worst record I have in this particular set.
Afraid anyone after those particular baptism records is going to be disappointed!
Mostly a hole, with smudged ink surrounding it! And that isn't the worst record I have in this particular set.
Afraid anyone after those particular baptism records is going to be disappointed!
Monday, February 09, 2015
Useful little add on
Owing to circumstances beyond my control (the death of my laptop), I am back to using my old desktop. No real issue - I have been using this machine for years without any real problems.
Of course, I have never upgraded Firefox on here (or on my old laptop to be honest) and Gmail (and FamilySearch too as it happens) complain about the browser being old and not compatible. Bull - of course it is compatible, just that you lot don't like folks using older stuff.
On the laptop. I had managed to block the message in Forefox, but forgot how I did it. So, when the error appeared in FamilySearch recently, I had no idea that I could soon block that too!
So this is the answer to those - and probably many other irritating "elements" which get added to webpages to try to make you upgrade stuff.
Firstly, you need AdBlock Plus - but frankly, if you are not using that to stop advers cramming onto your screen ,you shouldn't be using a computer!
The added goodie is something called Element Hiding Helper for AdBlock Plus, and can be downloaded from -
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
Once installed, simply open ABP and you should have a new option called "Select Element to Hide". Do as it says - select the irritating message or whatever and hide it. Note that it may take a few seconds - don't get impatient!
Once it has been hidden you are free!
Of course, I have never upgraded Firefox on here (or on my old laptop to be honest) and Gmail (and FamilySearch too as it happens) complain about the browser being old and not compatible. Bull - of course it is compatible, just that you lot don't like folks using older stuff.
On the laptop. I had managed to block the message in Forefox, but forgot how I did it. So, when the error appeared in FamilySearch recently, I had no idea that I could soon block that too!
So this is the answer to those - and probably many other irritating "elements" which get added to webpages to try to make you upgrade stuff.
Firstly, you need AdBlock Plus - but frankly, if you are not using that to stop advers cramming onto your screen ,you shouldn't be using a computer!
The added goodie is something called Element Hiding Helper for AdBlock Plus, and can be downloaded from -
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
Once installed, simply open ABP and you should have a new option called "Select Element to Hide". Do as it says - select the irritating message or whatever and hide it. Note that it may take a few seconds - don't get impatient!
Once it has been hidden you are free!
Saturday, February 07, 2015
A marriage made in Hell
So.... BT are buying EE? Good. Two totally useless outfits become one.
My views on both of these companies have been posted on the blog before, so no need to rant on again.
Sufficient to say that I am never ever going to go back to EE - even though, for the time I was with them they were a pretty reliable mobile network. But nobody ups their prices and then sends a message to their users basically stating "tough"
I stood by my comments and ditched them as soon as my contract ended. Wonder how many others did? Lots of ranting at the time on forums etc yet I haven't seen any news about people leaving EE in their droves....
My views on both of these companies have been posted on the blog before, so no need to rant on again.
Sufficient to say that I am never ever going to go back to EE - even though, for the time I was with them they were a pretty reliable mobile network. But nobody ups their prices and then sends a message to their users basically stating "tough"
I stood by my comments and ditched them as soon as my contract ended. Wonder how many others did? Lots of ranting at the time on forums etc yet I haven't seen any news about people leaving EE in their droves....
Tuesday, February 03, 2015
Wrong path?
Well, great news today for us Raspberry Pi fans! A new Pi has been released - with quad core processor and double the RAM of the older models. All still the same lovely small size format too!
But..... on the downside, the article I read stated that the foundation intend to allow Windows 10 to run on the Pi - and Microsoft have been working with the Raspberry Pi foundation to make this reality.
Whilst I personally do not use MS products, the thing which worries me the most is that, due to its popularity, Windows may well end up as the official and perhaps only operating system for the Pi before long.
That is exactly what happened with the EeePC. The original 701 EeePC ran a very modified Linux version. Not my cup of tea and I soon installed other distros. But, within a short time, Microsoft, presumably worried about the (at the time) phenomenal sales of these netbook computers, started offering a cut down XP to the manufacturers and soon Windows was the default OS on netbooks.
I suppose the average punter prefers what they know, but it wasn't as though the Linux installed on these things was complex - it was very similar to the latest Windows versions with big buttons to click with fairly self explanatory names on them.
Well, I will not be installing Windows on any Pi of mine!
But..... on the downside, the article I read stated that the foundation intend to allow Windows 10 to run on the Pi - and Microsoft have been working with the Raspberry Pi foundation to make this reality.
Whilst I personally do not use MS products, the thing which worries me the most is that, due to its popularity, Windows may well end up as the official and perhaps only operating system for the Pi before long.
That is exactly what happened with the EeePC. The original 701 EeePC ran a very modified Linux version. Not my cup of tea and I soon installed other distros. But, within a short time, Microsoft, presumably worried about the (at the time) phenomenal sales of these netbook computers, started offering a cut down XP to the manufacturers and soon Windows was the default OS on netbooks.
I suppose the average punter prefers what they know, but it wasn't as though the Linux installed on these things was complex - it was very similar to the latest Windows versions with big buttons to click with fairly self explanatory names on them.
Well, I will not be installing Windows on any Pi of mine!
Monday, January 26, 2015
Useful tool!
In my role as a Cornwall Online Parish Clerk (Genealogy), I do a fair bit of transcribing old records. These I like to place online - which has always been a bit of a pain in the rear.
Being a bit of a saddo, I like my webpages to comply with the W3C rules for web design - but this has always been a problem. Because my transcripts are done in a spreadsheet, any conversion to html ends up with unwanted tags in it - specifically SDVAL and SDNUM tags. Stripping those out is a real pain even using regex.
Because I upload these files to be incorporated into the OPC database, I create .csv files.
Until recently, I have never found a practical way to make those .csv files turn into html and, as we already know, as soon as you tun them into spreadsheets and convert to html, they fill up with crap SDVAL etc stuff.
But I discovered a rather super little command line tool to convert csv to html!
Oddly enough, it is called csv2html!
https://github.com/dbohdan/csv2html
Once you have had a couple of plays around with this tool, I guarantee you will be impressed if you need to convert csv to html files. It does exactly what it says - nothing more, nothing less.
Very useful
Being a bit of a saddo, I like my webpages to comply with the W3C rules for web design - but this has always been a problem. Because my transcripts are done in a spreadsheet, any conversion to html ends up with unwanted tags in it - specifically SDVAL and SDNUM tags. Stripping those out is a real pain even using regex.
Because I upload these files to be incorporated into the OPC database, I create .csv files.
Until recently, I have never found a practical way to make those .csv files turn into html and, as we already know, as soon as you tun them into spreadsheets and convert to html, they fill up with crap SDVAL etc stuff.
But I discovered a rather super little command line tool to convert csv to html!
Oddly enough, it is called csv2html!
https://github.com/dbohdan/csv2html
Once you have had a couple of plays around with this tool, I guarantee you will be impressed if you need to convert csv to html files. It does exactly what it says - nothing more, nothing less.
Very useful
Friday, December 26, 2014
Sony - another useless bunch!
Firstly, just to note that I don't own a Sony product - I stopped using their stuff on the back of the rootkits they installed into their stuff years ago.
Anyway, for Christmas, my eldest daughter received a Shine health/fitness monitoring thingy from a company called Misfit.
My wife and other daughter already own a Shine each, so they knew the eldest would enjoy it.
One of the cool things is that the Shine syncs to the mobile phone app. In my wifes case, to her Moto G, and the youngest to her iPhone 5.
The eldest has a Sony Xperia M which, we assumed, would work just as well.
Wrong!!
Apparently these devices use something called BLE - Bluetooth Low Emission or something.
So, we went to the Play Store on the Xperia to download the app for the Shine - only to receive a message telling us that the phone didn't support the app. What!!!
No problem - maybe it needs updating? A slow tedious (see my previous rants about BT and my broadband speeds!) download later and we can now see the app in the Play store! Download app - only to find it still reckons the phone isn't supported.
Some google research later, and I find that Sony were going to update the software on the phone, but, just before it was due, they pulled support and didn't bother.
Total ba****ds!
More google suggests a few things which may work - the most obvious to me is to install Cyanogen Mod. Sony apparently kindly allow you to unlock the bootloader on their phones - so over to their website to check if the Xperia M is in their list of phones which can obtain the unlock key.
Hurray!
The Xperia M shows up - so I get the code and begin setting up my laptop to unlock. Using an Ubuntu derivative, I can get the fastboot software straight from Synaptic - this is all looking great and simple!
Hold down the volume up button and connect phone to laptop - we get a successful connection with the blue light showing me we are in fastboot mode!
Enter the first lot of commands to check - and get a positive result. Now all I have to do is issue the unlock command!
Bugger!!
Failure!!
Failed:
What? Seems that not all Xperia M phones can be unlocked. The daughters has a flag set to prevent the unlocking which can be seen by issuing a load of hashes and stars to get into hidden bits of the stupid thing (I got the actual command from a website)
OK - we can try another route to solve the issue.
This one was much more fun - lets root the thing!
The easiest option seemed to be using a rooting tool called Towelroot by Geohot - a name which will be familiar to those who use a jailbroken iPhone I expect.
Anyway, downloaded this tool, ran it, clicked the button marked Let it Ra1n - and away we go.
Now to sort out the BLE issue.
Sony's support forum has a pretty lengthy discussion on the BLE problem with the M, and, on page 8, post number 72 has a pretty good answer!
https://talk.sonymobile.com/t5/Xperia-M-M-dual/Does-Xperia-M-support-Bluetooth-BLE/td-p/673259/page/8
It is a simple case of installing a xml file which "allows" the BLE to be enabled.
Yes - the hardware is all there - just that Sony can't be arsed to write a couple of lines of code which could be rolled out really easily.
It comes down to a kind soul to give the code needed and a clue how to install it.
As it happens, in my case it was much easier to install than the poster makes out.
I simply downloaded the code and then, using ES File Explorer with the Edit as Root option enabled, simply copied and pasted to the Permissions folder. Rebooted the phone and ....
Success!!
So Sony, why the hell couldn't you have just enabled this BLE in the first place?
Or at least had the decency to let folks know how to fix it (assuming the user has root and a basic knowledge of commands).
I will NEVER buy a Sony product as long as I live - and will advise all my contacts not to do so if they can avoid it.
Anyway, for Christmas, my eldest daughter received a Shine health/fitness monitoring thingy from a company called Misfit.
My wife and other daughter already own a Shine each, so they knew the eldest would enjoy it.
One of the cool things is that the Shine syncs to the mobile phone app. In my wifes case, to her Moto G, and the youngest to her iPhone 5.
The eldest has a Sony Xperia M which, we assumed, would work just as well.
Wrong!!
Apparently these devices use something called BLE - Bluetooth Low Emission or something.
So, we went to the Play Store on the Xperia to download the app for the Shine - only to receive a message telling us that the phone didn't support the app. What!!!
No problem - maybe it needs updating? A slow tedious (see my previous rants about BT and my broadband speeds!) download later and we can now see the app in the Play store! Download app - only to find it still reckons the phone isn't supported.
Some google research later, and I find that Sony were going to update the software on the phone, but, just before it was due, they pulled support and didn't bother.
Total ba****ds!
More google suggests a few things which may work - the most obvious to me is to install Cyanogen Mod. Sony apparently kindly allow you to unlock the bootloader on their phones - so over to their website to check if the Xperia M is in their list of phones which can obtain the unlock key.
Hurray!
The Xperia M shows up - so I get the code and begin setting up my laptop to unlock. Using an Ubuntu derivative, I can get the fastboot software straight from Synaptic - this is all looking great and simple!
Hold down the volume up button and connect phone to laptop - we get a successful connection with the blue light showing me we are in fastboot mode!
Enter the first lot of commands to check - and get a positive result. Now all I have to do is issue the unlock command!
Bugger!!
Failure!!
Failed:
What? Seems that not all Xperia M phones can be unlocked. The daughters has a flag set to prevent the unlocking which can be seen by issuing a load of hashes and stars to get into hidden bits of the stupid thing (I got the actual command from a website)
OK - we can try another route to solve the issue.
This one was much more fun - lets root the thing!
The easiest option seemed to be using a rooting tool called Towelroot by Geohot - a name which will be familiar to those who use a jailbroken iPhone I expect.
Anyway, downloaded this tool, ran it, clicked the button marked Let it Ra1n - and away we go.
Now to sort out the BLE issue.
Sony's support forum has a pretty lengthy discussion on the BLE problem with the M, and, on page 8, post number 72 has a pretty good answer!
https://talk.sonymobile.com/t5/Xperia-M-M-dual/Does-Xperia-M-support-Bluetooth-BLE/td-p/673259/page/8
It is a simple case of installing a xml file which "allows" the BLE to be enabled.
Yes - the hardware is all there - just that Sony can't be arsed to write a couple of lines of code which could be rolled out really easily.
It comes down to a kind soul to give the code needed and a clue how to install it.
As it happens, in my case it was much easier to install than the poster makes out.
I simply downloaded the code and then, using ES File Explorer with the Edit as Root option enabled, simply copied and pasted to the Permissions folder. Rebooted the phone and ....
Success!!
So Sony, why the hell couldn't you have just enabled this BLE in the first place?
Or at least had the decency to let folks know how to fix it (assuming the user has root and a basic knowledge of commands).
I will NEVER buy a Sony product as long as I live - and will advise all my contacts not to do so if they can avoid it.
Saturday, November 22, 2014
You useless bunch of maggots, BT!
So, today I get a script kiddie attack looking for vulnerable phpMyAdmin installs on servers.
I collect the details and discover that it is a BT customer. As BT are likely to do something (as opposed to the many, many attacks from certain other countries), I drop an email to the abuse contact address on the whois lookup with all the details.
A couple of minutes later, I get a response from an automated system explaining that due to high numbers of emails, I need to complete a "webform" to give the relevant details. A bit frustrating, but yep, OK.
So I go to the link provided - only to be sent to a page explaining what phishing is. Really? I bloody know what that is you morons.
Never mind, I decide to use their main website to report the attack AND their shitty pointless link.
Find the Contact Us bit on site, then follow the Report a scam/phishing/abuse linky - which gives an "email us" link. At last!
Buuuuuuut.............. clicking on that link takes you to the stupid page about bloody phishing again!
If they can't get their own bloody website to work, its no wonder my internet connection and phone line are piss poor.
You really are total crap BT.
I collect the details and discover that it is a BT customer. As BT are likely to do something (as opposed to the many, many attacks from certain other countries), I drop an email to the abuse contact address on the whois lookup with all the details.
A couple of minutes later, I get a response from an automated system explaining that due to high numbers of emails, I need to complete a "webform" to give the relevant details. A bit frustrating, but yep, OK.
So I go to the link provided - only to be sent to a page explaining what phishing is. Really? I bloody know what that is you morons.
Never mind, I decide to use their main website to report the attack AND their shitty pointless link.
Find the Contact Us bit on site, then follow the Report a scam/phishing/abuse linky - which gives an "email us" link. At last!
Buuuuuuut.............. clicking on that link takes you to the stupid page about bloody phishing again!
If they can't get their own bloody website to work, its no wonder my internet connection and phone line are piss poor.
You really are total crap BT.
Dear Google - Noooo!
Google have apparently been trying out a method to avoid ads by paying ..
Sorry, but I avoid ads by using AdBlock or by other techie methods such as modified hosts files.
Do I object to advertising? Yes I bloody well do. I pay for internet access each month via my shite ISP - so I don't expect to pay any more.
Simple, no flashy, non scrolly ads I don't mind too much, but the current situation if I remove my AdBlock is pretty awful!
I shall not pay to remove ads - and will continue to block flash and other animated advertising.
Just like on the telly (which I no longer have), I am not influenced by adverts, so don't waste millions trying to get me to buy whatever crap you are promoting.
K thx bye
Sorry, but I avoid ads by using AdBlock or by other techie methods such as modified hosts files.
Do I object to advertising? Yes I bloody well do. I pay for internet access each month via my shite ISP - so I don't expect to pay any more.
Simple, no flashy, non scrolly ads I don't mind too much, but the current situation if I remove my AdBlock is pretty awful!
I shall not pay to remove ads - and will continue to block flash and other animated advertising.
Just like on the telly (which I no longer have), I am not influenced by adverts, so don't waste millions trying to get me to buy whatever crap you are promoting.
K thx bye
Saturday, November 01, 2014
Same old...same old....
Isn't it funny how the same old topics crop up in my (and many other peoples) blog?
This one is about .... Gmail again.
In the last few days, every time I open Gmail, I get a yellow banner across the top telling me that my browser is out of date and that I should use a newer one. It gives me two options - to get a new version or to dismiss the banner. I dismiss it - but every bloody time I open Gmail in a browser, I get the stupid banner again.
Now, Mr Gmail, I *know* my browser is "out of date" - it is specifically that way. I hate the new look firefox and when it came out, I made the mistake of allowing Xubuntu to download and install it for me. It was dire - so I reinstalled the older version whilst I had a chance and then pinned it in my package manager (if you don't understand, it just means that I locked the version so a new one can't replace it).
So, I don't want the new Firefox. Please stop this sort of dictatorship, Google! Every time the Gmail folks have too much LSD and come up with another wacky change to the UI, we all have to install it - they give us no choice. And now this crap....
Think I might just go to using Gmail via my mail program - see how Google like that! Losing their ad revenue (although I don't actually allow ads - but still!)
This one is about .... Gmail again.
In the last few days, every time I open Gmail, I get a yellow banner across the top telling me that my browser is out of date and that I should use a newer one. It gives me two options - to get a new version or to dismiss the banner. I dismiss it - but every bloody time I open Gmail in a browser, I get the stupid banner again.
Now, Mr Gmail, I *know* my browser is "out of date" - it is specifically that way. I hate the new look firefox and when it came out, I made the mistake of allowing Xubuntu to download and install it for me. It was dire - so I reinstalled the older version whilst I had a chance and then pinned it in my package manager (if you don't understand, it just means that I locked the version so a new one can't replace it).
So, I don't want the new Firefox. Please stop this sort of dictatorship, Google! Every time the Gmail folks have too much LSD and come up with another wacky change to the UI, we all have to install it - they give us no choice. And now this crap....
Think I might just go to using Gmail via my mail program - see how Google like that! Losing their ad revenue (although I don't actually allow ads - but still!)
Saturday, October 11, 2014
Thunderbolt and lightning.....
Well, more thunderstorm with quite a lot of lightning.
After the storm, all my computers and gadgets were fine - except the EeePC I use as my weather station data collecting/ftp to server box. That, I spotted after a while, was down. No obvious reason, so went through the checks and it appeared that the power supply had been knocked out. As I have several of these machines around, I grabbed another power supply and plugged the EeePC into that. Success!
Of course, I then had to wait whilst Debian ran through all the fsck checks as the machine hadn't been shut down correctly. Tedious, but at least nothing gets lost (usually!). Then I had to restart all the various things which run on it, plus change permissions on the USB port where my serial to USB adapter plugs in to interface with the weather station console.....
Odd that only that one power supply went bang. It was a cheapo replacement for the original EeePC supply which was chewed by our old cat. Guess there is the problem - lower spec parts?
Anyway, almost a year of uptime ruined by the lightning. But at least it shows the stability of Debian in this kind of environment.
After the storm, all my computers and gadgets were fine - except the EeePC I use as my weather station data collecting/ftp to server box. That, I spotted after a while, was down. No obvious reason, so went through the checks and it appeared that the power supply had been knocked out. As I have several of these machines around, I grabbed another power supply and plugged the EeePC into that. Success!
Of course, I then had to wait whilst Debian ran through all the fsck checks as the machine hadn't been shut down correctly. Tedious, but at least nothing gets lost (usually!). Then I had to restart all the various things which run on it, plus change permissions on the USB port where my serial to USB adapter plugs in to interface with the weather station console.....
Odd that only that one power supply went bang. It was a cheapo replacement for the original EeePC supply which was chewed by our old cat. Guess there is the problem - lower spec parts?
Anyway, almost a year of uptime ruined by the lightning. But at least it shows the stability of Debian in this kind of environment.
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Virtual machine time!
Back in my Yoper days, I spent hours using virtual machines to run test installs and fiddle with buggy stuff etc.
I ran all the available VMs on and off but the most useful was generally the VirtualBox. Yes, its not "free" as in open source, but it is easier to use than the others and the features which it has by default make it so much easier than the hours of tweaking which some VMs need.
Anyway, I have just installed VirtualBox on my laptop to play around with some distros - and today I am installing Crunchbang Waldorf.
I was well impressed with this minimalistic distro when I installed it on the wifes EeePC a week or so ago, so a VM seems the perfect opportunity for me to have some time with it!
Installation of CB seems to be straight forward enough - I went with the defaults for the VM with regards to memory and virtual hard drive space. I didn't touch any of the other settings at all.
I went with the Debian choice from the VirtualBox menu - CB is a Debian system with a few tweaks.
The dvd with my CB installed was spotted and I selected to Install.
No problems - all went as expected, chose to install Grub to the virtual hard drive and everything went fine.
Rebooted the VM, removing the dvd and I am now looking at my Crunchbang virtual machine!
Awesome - and really really easy. Off to play now!
I ran all the available VMs on and off but the most useful was generally the VirtualBox. Yes, its not "free" as in open source, but it is easier to use than the others and the features which it has by default make it so much easier than the hours of tweaking which some VMs need.
Anyway, I have just installed VirtualBox on my laptop to play around with some distros - and today I am installing Crunchbang Waldorf.
I was well impressed with this minimalistic distro when I installed it on the wifes EeePC a week or so ago, so a VM seems the perfect opportunity for me to have some time with it!
Installation of CB seems to be straight forward enough - I went with the defaults for the VM with regards to memory and virtual hard drive space. I didn't touch any of the other settings at all.
I went with the Debian choice from the VirtualBox menu - CB is a Debian system with a few tweaks.
The dvd with my CB installed was spotted and I selected to Install.
No problems - all went as expected, chose to install Grub to the virtual hard drive and everything went fine.
Rebooted the VM, removing the dvd and I am now looking at my Crunchbang virtual machine!
Awesome - and really really easy. Off to play now!
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Three and tethering
Three, who provide my mobile connection, allow new customers to use their phones as "hotspots" - i.e tethering - up to a gig or two per month.
Customers on their older (i.e around a year or so ago) contracts have to
purchase an "add-on" for a fiver to get a gig of tethering.
Back at Christmas, I was in Nottingham for a couple of days and could have done with this ability - but I am no way paying extra!
There is a - technically not allowed option I have available to me using an app on my jailbroken iPhone - but I decided to be fair and ask Three about it.
The reasonable response I got basically said that tethering wasn't allowed on my contract but Three listen and may change this soon.
Fair enough - it is now 9 months later, so I head over to the Three website to check if things are different.
Still the same - my contract requires me to pay if I want to use a pathetic gig or so of my unlimited download ability as a hotspot.
I fired off another email to Three.....
Today they have offered me the option to move to one of the new contracts - with unlimited data, unlimited texts and an extra 100 minutes talk time per month - plus free 0800 numbers (which mobiles usually charge for) and of course 2Gb of tethering - all for an extra £2 per month - and my contract period isn't affected.
Sounds quite tempting, but the tethering would only be a very very rare thing and is it worth paying out more for what I don't actually use now?
Never got even within half of my talk time - I usually manage to use 30 minutes if lucky!
Likewise the texts - probably half a dozen, thanks to WhatsApp etc.
Shall I go for it? Maybe... may be not....
Will decide soon!
Customers on their older (i.e around a year or so ago) contracts have to
purchase an "add-on" for a fiver to get a gig of tethering.
Back at Christmas, I was in Nottingham for a couple of days and could have done with this ability - but I am no way paying extra!
There is a - technically not allowed option I have available to me using an app on my jailbroken iPhone - but I decided to be fair and ask Three about it.
The reasonable response I got basically said that tethering wasn't allowed on my contract but Three listen and may change this soon.
Fair enough - it is now 9 months later, so I head over to the Three website to check if things are different.
Still the same - my contract requires me to pay if I want to use a pathetic gig or so of my unlimited download ability as a hotspot.
I fired off another email to Three.....
Today they have offered me the option to move to one of the new contracts - with unlimited data, unlimited texts and an extra 100 minutes talk time per month - plus free 0800 numbers (which mobiles usually charge for) and of course 2Gb of tethering - all for an extra £2 per month - and my contract period isn't affected.
Sounds quite tempting, but the tethering would only be a very very rare thing and is it worth paying out more for what I don't actually use now?
Never got even within half of my talk time - I usually manage to use 30 minutes if lucky!
Likewise the texts - probably half a dozen, thanks to WhatsApp etc.
Shall I go for it? Maybe... may be not....
Will decide soon!
Bee Tee yet again!
I seem to bang on about the crap service from BT on a regular basis looking back through my blog!
Anyway, this week they have dropped me a letter to ask me to consider taking a 12 month contract out with them. Normally, I would have thrown it straight into the bin, but they are offering UNLIMITED downloads (although our speed limits us anyway!), plus the usual free calls evenings and weekends etc for half what I pay now....
Interested, but BT have screwed me over so much that I really don't feel I can take any more of them.
Got a while to decide anyway - and, bearing in mind their price increases looming, I am pretty reluctant.
Anyway, this week they have dropped me a letter to ask me to consider taking a 12 month contract out with them. Normally, I would have thrown it straight into the bin, but they are offering UNLIMITED downloads (although our speed limits us anyway!), plus the usual free calls evenings and weekends etc for half what I pay now....
Interested, but BT have screwed me over so much that I really don't feel I can take any more of them.
Got a while to decide anyway - and, bearing in mind their price increases looming, I am pretty reluctant.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Interesting distro!
Whilst looking for a suitable distro to install on my wife's EeePC 701, I came across Crunchbang. Not a distro I have looked at before but I was very impressed. Minimalistic, yet really useable. Some minimal distros are simply too cut down and make your life a misery, yet CB contains most of the stuff you need to run a modern compter system, but with a lean mean Openbox front.
Had trouble getting it to run from a USB key (and even from a DVD) on my laptop (ended up fiddling for hours!) but on the EeePC - once I realised it would just install once I corrected a Debian bug with the installer - it installed beautifully onto an SD card, leaving the original Xandros OS installed on the SSD (the wife likes the speed of that).
Will doubtless be reporting more on this distro later
Had trouble getting it to run from a USB key (and even from a DVD) on my laptop (ended up fiddling for hours!) but on the EeePC - once I realised it would just install once I corrected a Debian bug with the installer - it installed beautifully onto an SD card, leaving the original Xandros OS installed on the SSD (the wife likes the speed of that).
Will doubtless be reporting more on this distro later
Monday, September 01, 2014
F--- BT
Seriously? I was away from home for a couple of days - so the internet goes down and I can't check things are all OK at home?
Then, after a rather stressful day, having a tumour removed, I spend an evening trying to get the shitty HomeHub to reconnect....
Sorry but I pay a load of cash each month for this crap - and you intend to increase the price?
Just spent a couple of days aways - as mentioned - at my daughters' flat - with 50 meg internet - no way am I getting a decent service here. BT - you will be dumped come December (or earlier if I have my way!)
Totally unacceptable
Then, after a rather stressful day, having a tumour removed, I spend an evening trying to get the shitty HomeHub to reconnect....
Sorry but I pay a load of cash each month for this crap - and you intend to increase the price?
Just spent a couple of days aways - as mentioned - at my daughters' flat - with 50 meg internet - no way am I getting a decent service here. BT - you will be dumped come December (or earlier if I have my way!)
Totally unacceptable
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
My friends at BT again!
So, my dear chums at BT have announced a price hike for later in the year.
How can they have the cheek?
My sub one Meg internet isn't fit for purpose, the phone line is crackly and often unusable and they make me pay a fortune per month for this supposed service and a line rental charge which is really high.
Most people can simply ring their nearest cable or fibre provider and move, or perhaps contact another ISP who supply a service on copper lines. Here, the choice is much more restricted.
No cable, no fibre and even many of the alternative ISPs such as Primus don't operate here.
So the choice is basically BT or their subsidiary PlusNet, or some other equally terrible and overpriced outfit such as Talk Talk.
I use my mobile phone when I need to download anything - at least that gets a decent 3G speed here, but it isn't really practical on a day to day basis, plus my provider won't allow me to tether it unless I pay extra and even then there is a really low limit of a couple of gigs per month which would be pretty useless as my main connection (imagine the data used by my daughter watching TV programmes online as we don't have a TV)
I will need to do some serious thinking about whether to ditch the broadband altogether. Expensive and poor quality service which I am not happy about.
How can they have the cheek?
My sub one Meg internet isn't fit for purpose, the phone line is crackly and often unusable and they make me pay a fortune per month for this supposed service and a line rental charge which is really high.
Most people can simply ring their nearest cable or fibre provider and move, or perhaps contact another ISP who supply a service on copper lines. Here, the choice is much more restricted.
No cable, no fibre and even many of the alternative ISPs such as Primus don't operate here.
So the choice is basically BT or their subsidiary PlusNet, or some other equally terrible and overpriced outfit such as Talk Talk.
I use my mobile phone when I need to download anything - at least that gets a decent 3G speed here, but it isn't really practical on a day to day basis, plus my provider won't allow me to tether it unless I pay extra and even then there is a really low limit of a couple of gigs per month which would be pretty useless as my main connection (imagine the data used by my daughter watching TV programmes online as we don't have a TV)
I will need to do some serious thinking about whether to ditch the broadband altogether. Expensive and poor quality service which I am not happy about.
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
All roads....
Originally, this was going to be a post about the fun I have been having with my two Raspberry Pis, but now I have another ramble on my mind!
Linux distros.....
So, I was looking today at Distrowatch (a website which claims to show the popularity of various distros - but I know it can be manipulated (legally) by a distro asking its users to do certain things!)
Anyway, this is tied in to the (what seems to be certain) demise of my old distro, Yoper (and my later distro PCLinuxOS).
If you look at the top distros based on page rankings, Yoper has vanished (as indeed it is now dead, then I expected this). However, other distros seem to be limping along, dispite no updates for a long time (check out Mandriva for example, whose last (official, stable) release was August 2011 - yet they are still there at number 69!)
A look at the top few suggests that Mint is the most popular distro - and has been for some time.
Presumably this is because the Ubuntu family split their vote with the various variants they have? I personally use Xubuntu for many of my machines (although I am a PCLinuxOS XFCE fan myself).
Some of the choices are really odd - several of the Linux distros in the top 100 are either dead or pretty much so! Others are old, specialist distros which are ancient too!
I have never been a fan of Distrowatch - it is very easy to manipulate the results and doesn't reflect what I see on users machines in general..
From my own experience, the top distros are all Debian based. So the -buntu family, Mint and indeed the original Debian itself.
Amusing to see dear old Puppy still hovering around the top 10 - and Knoppix still in the top 60 (and Knoppix is quite aged now!)
I am downloading the latest live version of my favourite current distro - PCLinuxOS at the moment. Sadly their XFCE version is currently sleeping, but the KDE variant is updated and this is what I am grabbing for various testings. I prefer the XFCE desktop for my machines, but still prefer their KDE version to Ubuntu for example! (I use Xubuntu currently on most of my machines, but not all!)
Linux distros.....
So, I was looking today at Distrowatch (a website which claims to show the popularity of various distros - but I know it can be manipulated (legally) by a distro asking its users to do certain things!)
Anyway, this is tied in to the (what seems to be certain) demise of my old distro, Yoper (and my later distro PCLinuxOS).
If you look at the top distros based on page rankings, Yoper has vanished (as indeed it is now dead, then I expected this). However, other distros seem to be limping along, dispite no updates for a long time (check out Mandriva for example, whose last (official, stable) release was August 2011 - yet they are still there at number 69!)
A look at the top few suggests that Mint is the most popular distro - and has been for some time.
Presumably this is because the Ubuntu family split their vote with the various variants they have? I personally use Xubuntu for many of my machines (although I am a PCLinuxOS XFCE fan myself).
Some of the choices are really odd - several of the Linux distros in the top 100 are either dead or pretty much so! Others are old, specialist distros which are ancient too!
I have never been a fan of Distrowatch - it is very easy to manipulate the results and doesn't reflect what I see on users machines in general..
From my own experience, the top distros are all Debian based. So the -buntu family, Mint and indeed the original Debian itself.
Amusing to see dear old Puppy still hovering around the top 10 - and Knoppix still in the top 60 (and Knoppix is quite aged now!)
I am downloading the latest live version of my favourite current distro - PCLinuxOS at the moment. Sadly their XFCE version is currently sleeping, but the KDE variant is updated and this is what I am grabbing for various testings. I prefer the XFCE desktop for my machines, but still prefer their KDE version to Ubuntu for example! (I use Xubuntu currently on most of my machines, but not all!)
Thursday, July 24, 2014
More broadband speed ramblings!
So on Tuesday, I had to go to the local village doctors surgery. It is held in our village hall, which is next door to the house of some well known local people.
Whilst I was there, I noticed that I was connected to a BT wifi hotspot through my phone. Interesting I thought - I wonder how fast the local people internet must be.
Now BT encourage their members to opt in to their wifi hotspot deal - also was known as Fon - where you share a small percentage of your broadband to those who might be in your general area, in exchange for obviously being able to use other peoples shared wifi.
Bear in mind that only a small percentage of the bandwidth is shared - with less shared if you - as the main account holder are using the connection to its max - so I was interested to see what sort of shared speed I would get from their wifi
A swift Speedtest later and I find that the "shared" speed is 4.5Mb/s (later I got over 5) - so goodness knows what they get themselves!
I get 800kb/s to 1Mb/s as my main connection - not as a small shared wifi hotspot!
Then BT wonder why I hate the fact that they dumped all the 4G trialists to remain on this crap whilst using 4G to make little or no difference to city dwelling yuppies.
Whilst I was there, I noticed that I was connected to a BT wifi hotspot through my phone. Interesting I thought - I wonder how fast the local people internet must be.
Now BT encourage their members to opt in to their wifi hotspot deal - also was known as Fon - where you share a small percentage of your broadband to those who might be in your general area, in exchange for obviously being able to use other peoples shared wifi.
Bear in mind that only a small percentage of the bandwidth is shared - with less shared if you - as the main account holder are using the connection to its max - so I was interested to see what sort of shared speed I would get from their wifi
A swift Speedtest later and I find that the "shared" speed is 4.5Mb/s (later I got over 5) - so goodness knows what they get themselves!
I get 800kb/s to 1Mb/s as my main connection - not as a small shared wifi hotspot!
Then BT wonder why I hate the fact that they dumped all the 4G trialists to remain on this crap whilst using 4G to make little or no difference to city dwelling yuppies.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
BT where are you
Soooo..... where was the call from the BT minion I was promised? Seems they don't want to talk to those people who ask awkward questions which deviate from their basic crib sheet.
Shame on you BT. The main UK provider of telecoms, but absolutely shit useless at dealing with questions.
The only reason I still pay you useless feckers - and indeed the only reason I have an internet connection at all - is that my wife and daughter won't let me cancel as yet. I will cancel as soon as I can though - believe me!
Shame on you BT. The main UK provider of telecoms, but absolutely shit useless at dealing with questions.
The only reason I still pay you useless feckers - and indeed the only reason I have an internet connection at all - is that my wife and daughter won't let me cancel as yet. I will cancel as soon as I can though - believe me!
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