Category: Uncategorized

I installed Ubuntu on my Toshiba laptop tonight. Unfortunately the DVD drive had broken, so I had to use PXE to network install from another server in my house. That went fairly smoothly, but once Ubuntu was installed the integrated Atheros wireless network card wasn’t working. To fix it I had to install some linux restricted kernel modules via:

sudo apt-get install linux-restricted-modules-2.6.17-11-generic

Except, replace 2.6.17-11-generic with the output of uname -r

Once that was installed it all started to work quite nicely.

I always like to make sure that my friends and family are getting the best deals for the communications services they use in their home, and so often they will ask me to go through the options available to them. Since I do this quite regularly, I thought it would be worthwhile publishing it on my blog.

Broadband and Phone
The purpose of this comparison is to compare the cheapest broadband + phone options from a variety of providers. In some cases I have picked components from different providers that work together well, such as broadband only from a cable operator + a free sip phone number from a VOIP provider. NB: Not all packages will be available to all UK residents, you will need to check with each service provider for their coverage.

Provider(s)	Speed	Package Name(s)	Price
Virgin Media + Sip Gate	2mbps	Virgin M Broadband + Sipgate Phone	£14.99
Andrews & Arnold	<= 8mbps	Max 1 (ADSL Max + Wholesale BT phone line)	£29.98
TalkTalk	<= 8mbps	Talk3 + Free Broadband	£19.99

Broadband + Basic TV + Phone (Triple Play)
In this example, my definition of Basic TV is digital TV that includes Sky One and Discovery Channel (both of which aren’t available on Free-to-air TV)

Provider(s)	Speed	Package Name(s)	Price
Virgin Media + Sip Gate	2mbps	VM: 2 for £20 M Broadband + LV + Sipgate Phone	£20
Sky + BT	2mbps	Sky: See Speak Surf 2 mixes + BT Line Rental	£26

On the 4th of July 2006, Virgin Mobile lost its independence as NTL completed a £962 million take over of the the mobile operator, and with that single stroke the combined company became the UK’s first quadruple play company offering television, phone, broadband and mobile services.

On the 8th of February 2007, NTL and Virgin Mobile complete a rebranding exercise which sees themselves emerge as Virgin Media.

Verdict so far

After looking around the newly launched Virgin Media site, my first impressions aren’t great; The entire site seems to be written in small print. There is a bewildering array of package options, with confusing add-ons and special offers. The package names are pretty naff “M, L, XL, Very Impressive, Very Impressive complete”. The prices are confusing (Q: how much does it cost to add sky movies and sports? A: £37, £31, £23.50 depending on the size of your TV package).

Value for money

Looking at the prices, if you wanted to go for the full triple play package of Sky with Movies and Sports + Phone + Broadband, then comparing Virgin to Sky:

Virgin Media – Full TV + Phone + Broadband = £61 per month*
Sky – Full TV + Phone + Broadband = £59.50
* based on 3 for £30 plus movies and sports package @ £31

So sky wins on this comparison. What I would really like to see is them doing something a little innovative. How about a mobile / sip hybrid product like BT’s Fusion phone, or even some IPTV.

One of my favourite features of Firefox 2 is that it has a built-in spell checker. This kicks in whenever you type into a text area, by simply underlining any incorrectly spelt words. It can’t yet correct bad grammar or bad content but it’s definitely a step in the right direction 🙂

So if, like me, you prefer to write in British English rather than American English, then you can install additional dictionaries with a few easy steps:

This is a textarea. You can test out your spell checker in here once it is installed.

1) Right click somewhere in the textarea field above.
2) Select Languages > Add Dictionaries.
3) This will take you to the Firefox dictionaries list.
4) Select your local language file and click on it.
5) Wait a few seconds, then click on the Install link.
6) Once it has completed installing, restart firefox.
7) Right click in a textarea and select your newly installed language from the Languages sub-menu.

A good friend of mine is an expert in the art of loft conversions, and so after a little encouragement he has decided to put his knowledge up on the web for all to read. I promised him a shameless plug for his new blog, so here it is! A loft conversion can add a considerable amount of value to your property if done correctly, and in general, could give up to a 50% return on the cost of its installation. So if you want to learn about things such party wall agreements, building regulations, rear dormers and what on earth a hip to gable is, then loftblog is the place to go.

From Snow Day!

We received our first serious drop of snow in years across the UK today, and you’re never too old to make the most of it! Anyway, meet Beryl our giant 7ft snow-woman.

Fon was one year old on Monday 5th of February, and now to celebrate they are giving away 10,000 free fonera routers. Once these have all gone, that will bring the total number of fon users around the world to over 80,000. An impressive feat for such a youngster.

So if you haven’t already, go get your free fon router!

Although Vodafone & co are still just about managing to add subscribers and revenue, the pace of growth in saturated markets such as the UK has slowed down to a mere trickle.

But what intrigues me the most is how the playing field will shape out over the next few years as innovative players in the wifi arena such as Fon, start to build a real free alternative to GSM and 3G networks for voice and data traffic.

Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s a big challenge, but if the rumours are true, and BT do get in bed with Fon, then in theory at least they could roll out a huge number of new fon hotspots (with over 3 million retail broadband customers).

In some respects, BT will be shooting themselves in the foot, as with all those fon hotspots about, why use BT’s fusion mobile when you could be using a skype wifi phone? Well the main problem for an all-skype solution is that you always need to be in range of a hotspot.

So where I think BT could be on to a winner is if they launch a hybrid fusion / skype phone that automatically switch between wifi and GSM networks for the skype and fusion accounts, effectively giving users both a skype and mobile number to be called on. If a potential caller is at their PC, or on another skype phone then they choose to route the call via skype, if not then they can fall back to the PSTN routed mobile number.

Of course BT will lose out on call revenue every time someone chooses to use skype over the PSTN, but BT should accept the fact that voice calls will eventually be free (ahead of their rivals) and just charge a flat rate for the convience of using skype on their hybrid network. Extra revenues could come through a tie up with Google to offer relevant geo located ads.

Whatever happens, the next few years will suck if you are a mobile operator who relies too heavily on voice revenues.

I was looking round the web this afternoon to see if I could find a function to convert from megabytes, kilobytes etc.. to bytes but all I could find were functions to go the other way. So I have written one, and I thought it might help a few people if I shared it on here:

function convert_to_bytes ($string) {
 if (preg_match('/([0-9\.]+) ?([a-z]*)/i', $string, $matches)) {
  $number = $matches[1];
  $suffix = $matches[2];
  $suffixes = array(""=> 0, "Bytes"=>0, "KB"=>1, "MB"=>2, "GB"=>3, "TB"=>4, "PB"=>5);
  if (isset($suffixes[$suffix])){
   $bytes = round($number * pow(1024, $suffixes[$suffix]));
   return $bytes;
  } else {
   return false;
  }
 } else {
  return false;
 }
}

// Convert 25.43 MB => 26665288 bytes 
echo convert_to_bytes ("25.43 MB");

OK I admit it. I really want a Wii. I have always been a Nintendo fan since the SNES went head to head with the MegaDrive and ultimately won (look who’s still making consoles!), but never before have I anticipated the launch of a new console so eagerly.

So I am going to pre order one, thus hopefully propelling me into the league of elite Nintendo fan boys who will be playing on their Wii on December 8th. The question is, where to get it? Well today apparently, Amazon UK sold out of their pre-order allocation within 5 minutes of it going online. I had also tried play.com’s preorder list a few weeks ago, but they wrote to me saying there was no chance they could honour the order with such a small allocation.

However, I have now heard a rumor that Argos has loads of them. Wish me luck.