* Posts by Dave Williams

2 publicly visible posts • joined 29 Jun 2007

Virgin Media network collapses nationwide

Dave Williams

Little Alternative

Bracknell was down from 09:30 till I went to bed 23:00. Again 192.168.10.x leases being dished out every 14 seconds for first 2 hours and then nothing.

Several commentators have suggested an alt service with better SLA's. Yes I have static IP ADSL (with Demon) but needed a backup to replace the excellent Wireless DSL I used to have that was supplied by Pipex (nee Liberty, nee Tele2) until they strangely pulled out of the market last year :-(

The only way I could go was cable where there is zero choice. Although Tiscali (as part of Virgin) said they could provide a business service technically they said they couldnt bill me! - I did offer to take the service for nothing.........

Waste computer edict finally hits UK

Dave Williams

In practice it is too difficult

Having had some 50 HP PC's to dispose of (as a private individual) ranging from Pentium 166MHz to P2 500MHz - all in full working condition and configured ready to run with Linux (with the dual benefit of not only making best use of modest hardware but also obviating any proprietary software licensing issues) - I have found it almost impossible to donate.

Even on Freecycle (a collection of Yahoo recycling groups) I had a success rate of less than 20%. Monitors seem particularly difficult to dispose of in the UK. Nobody seems to want them now that LCD's are the in thing. Whilst I welcome the initiative, more needs to be done to make donating easy at the point of disposal.