* Posts by rhydian

424 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Aug 2008

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SPUDS ON A PLANE! Boeing boosts in-flight Wi-Fi with tater tech

rhydian
Coat

And if the spuds start sizzling...

They know the power's too high....

Dr Alex Moulton: 'An inspiration for generations of engineers'

rhydian

Slight correction: Early metros had the front units individualised and the rear units connected accross the car. Later metros and 100s had the proper setup (connected front to back) with extra dampers only fitted to GTis.

How can the BBC be saved from itself without destroying it?

rhydian

That bloody licence...

My problem with the BBC/TV licence is that even if I'm watching international broadcasts via satellite I have to, by. law, pay £145 for the privilige. The BBC does make good programmes on occasion, but so do sky/ITV/C4,, who I can choose to support or not.

Ailing Comet at last prayers: Cawing of accountants and VCs fills air

rhydian

Hands up who's actually bought anything from comet?

I was looking for a washing machine for my new place. Neither comet or currys could beat the price I paid at my local indie electrical shop, and that included free saturday morning delivery!

Oh dear: Apple kicks out South Korea boss

rhydian

Re: Is it surprising?

"But they all work for Samsung, work for a company that supplies Samsumg or have a family member that works for Samsung."

And that's the thing. Most non-UK countries will doggedly support their domestic firms, especially when they produce competitive products.

rhydian
Black Helicopters

Is it surprising?

Samsung = HUGE south Korean company, everything from cars to fridges

Apple = US company suing Korean company

South Korean consumer not happy about the latter...

Unprofessional job adverts

rhydian

Best I saw was a job advert for a marketing manager and system manager. The job spec was written as if to do the job you either had to be two people (one with marketing quals, one with sysadmin experience) or that the firm had their perfect candidate internally but still had to advertise.

Copper-obsessed BT means UK misses out on ultrafast fibre gold

rhydian

Re: Shame the Gov doesnt still own BT...

The reason BT was sold off in the early 80s was mainly because the government didn't want to cough up the money to upgrade all BT's old mechanical exchanges to the then new system X and system Y units. Do you really think that the government would spend any more money on telecoms if they owned the company? They'd probably just milk the profits out to cover holes in other budgets before putting a "content filter" on the system...

TalkTalk's YouView: Why no Wi-Fi?

rhydian

Re: My main bugbear about set top boxes.

Raydon's software update for the Humax foxsat HDR lets you load up the mediatomb DLNA media seriver and you can then stream recorded videos over your network (apart from HD, as it seems to be copy protected).

PLT chair: UK Radio Society is 'living in a dream world'

rhydian

Re: If a HAM radio enthusiast

Considering I have to get my TV sat fed I don't think it's an issue...

rhydian

Re: If a HAM radio enthusiast

Yes plaster can be re-done (and the paint/wallpaper) but how likely is it your going to gouge out your wall to run a Cat5 when you can buy PLT adaptors that work fine (as far as your concerned) for less than the cost of the cable? Add to that the fact that your average person has no interest in learning to terminate cat5 and buying the kit and PLT makes sense. Tearing in to my walls to run cat5 from a router to a TV/PVR that may not be in the same places in six months is simply impractical.

When I talked my folks in to putting cat5 in to their re-wired living room I let the "competent" electrical contractor do the job. Queue one two-point faceplace at one end and two single points at the PC desk and TV. Thing was the electrician had used one cable from the twin-plate to the first socket, then wired from the first socket to the second, telephone style. Good job I checked the cables before they put the plasterboards up!

rhydian

Re: If a HAM radio enthusiast

The difference is of course the mains wiring is allready there (and in most places plastered over) so it's invisible.

And I was under the impression that running phone/data cable and 240v cable next to each other was a big no-no for safety reasons?

rhydian

Re: Erm... exactly why do we need PLT anyway?

"How did people cope before wifi or pwerline network devices?"

Its only in the last 5 years that VOD directly to your TV/STB took off, not to mention the explosion in smartphones/fodleslabs and the like.

And in my case running a cat5 would have involved either going through newly painted walls or around a fireplace (and AFAIK they don't make cat5 that matches the colour of victorian brick) back to a router who's position is not yet fixed.

And before you say run cables under the carpet, i have hardwood floors.

rhydian

Re: "untill recently wifi bandwidth and reliability wern't a patch on PLT"

Its also part of physics that a cable/wire connection will be more reliable than wireless.

rhydian

Re: "i bet most house wiring is inspected ressonably regularly"

Thing is, for fixed wiring "reaonsably regularly" can be every 10 years. On average I bet the average house has some electrical work done that often so any really bad problems will be spotted.

rhydian

Re: Does it even work ?

I've run PLT to a barn 100m away from the router on a really rubbish cable with little packet loss. The only thing that really kills it is surge protectors and emf from fridges etc.

Also i bet most house wiring is inspected ressonably regularly, especially since part P came in.

rhydian

Re: Erm... exactly why do we need PLT anyway?

Too lazy to install cat5? More likely running cat5 would involve drilling though and running cable inside walls. A messy, expensivee business. Add to that the fact that a lot of electrical contractors aren't very good at network wiring and you have your answer. Pick up two PLT units and your away in minutes, and any sheds/garages on the same supply can be hooked up too.

Regarding Wifi:it is fine when you have a new build house with plasterboard walls. Try getting a wifi signal through one or two chunky stone internal walls and get back to me. Also untill recently wifi bandwidth and reliability wern't a patch on PLT

Hong Kong has fastest broadband on the planet

rhydian

Re: Stop this nonsense

Facts like this also skip the fact that the UK has a telephone infrastructure that stretches back 100+ years. I bet South Korea's main networks are 40 years old at worst.

'O2 customers could try switching their phones off and on again'

rhydian

Re: Switching it off and on again...

The fault was apparently down to phones not being able to register on to the network. Asking a user to turn the phone off and on again is probably easier than explaining that to them and asking them to force their phone to re-register...

£575m school IT bonanza showers Capita, RM, 16 others

rhydian

Re: RM

RM weren't even that cheap for kit when i was a school tech.

Who killed ITV Digital? Rupert Murdoch - but not the way you think

rhydian

Re: Content is one thing, coverage is quite another....

Much easier than getting a full set of DTT muliplexes pre-switchover I'm sure!

rhydian

Content is one thing, coverage is quite another....

OnDigital's main failing was it didn't provide the universal coverage that satellite could. OK, most urban areas with a service direct from a main transmitter site could get everything but for the rest of the country DTT was patchy at best. A dish nailed to the side of your house gave you a full service from Lerwick to Lewes.

Satnav mishap misery cure promised at confab

rhydian

@ChrisC

The problem is that not all width/height restrictions are dual signed in imperial and metric measurements. Your average Eastern European wagon driver hasn't a clue what 6' 6" on a sign means, but will understand 2.0 m.

Nissan Leaf battery powered electric car

rhydian

What's the range like if its not flat?

Did you see a big drop in range going over the pennines or other non-flat bits of the world? I'm interested how much of an effect gradients have on the range of electric cars, as they all seem to be just about usable for my 25 mile each way commute, but I do live in mid wales, a part of the world where flat bits aren't that common.

Renault Scenic Bose Edition 1.6 130dCi

rhydian

£800 resistor

The resistor pack itself was probably £50 (rover ones that fail like clockwork are about that). The other £750 was probably the 6 months it took to remove the dash to get at it...

rhydian

Renault + complexity = oh heck...

While this car does seem to be a better bet than some rivals I simply can't see myself spending real money on a renault for one reason: build quality.

Many family members and friends have bought renaults and the difference between reliability on what should be near identical models is amazing. Some have no probs while others suffered major fuel system and mechanical maladies on cars of a similar age and condition. Add to that the 1.9 DCi's tendency to lidderally blow itself up and you get a range of cars id never consider.

Slow broadband blackspots mostly in south, not north

rhydian

interesting that tregaron's there

While most of the other sites can be blamed on contention Tregaron is a tiny rural town in the middle of west wales. I'd be willing to bet their slow speeds are down to long, poor quality copper rather than traffic, especially since BT Wholesale seem able to deal with contention better than the LLU crew.

White Space: The Next Big Thing in networks

rhydian

@"Do you have mountains in England?"

I don't live in England (I live in Wales). There are mountains, but this test is being done in Cambridge, which is geographically similar to Northern France or the low countries i.e. flatter than a flat thing.

rhydian

BT, The seventh circle of hell

BT tried a similar trick up near Wrexham. They'd said that a certain village outside the town that broadband would cost a few grand for each house, so the villagers got together and started to look in to their own wireless install with guaranteed decent speed (5mbit or more). Once BT got wind of this they offered to connect all the houses to another exchange for £200 with 1mbit and a new phone number...

BT know full well they've got a monopoly outside urban areas for everything (voice and data). Even if you go for another supplier your still going to be passing some of that cash through to BT wholesale. They don't even have to try and win custom.

rhydian

very interesting...

This will be a very handy technology for rural (or indeed suburban) data comms. It'll be interesting to see how it handles more rugged terrain than pool table flat fenland

Boffins brew up formula for consummate cuppa

rhydian

Au contraire...

Considering that 80%+ of tea drunk in the UK is in teabag form, the process for creating the >20% of loose tea must be seriously wasteful to provide enough "scrapings" for all those teabags. That, or you are talking rubbish.

Give me a properly brewed MUG of good, solid breakfast tea, with a dash of milk. No more, no less.

Go SMS Pro

rhydian

Tried it, but....

... It still suffers from the most annoying of android features.That feature is that you can't see a message's SENT time, only the time the phone received it. If, like me, you turn your phone off overnight or spent a lot of time out of coverage you end up with a slew of messages with no clue as to their relevancy.

HTC Desire S Android smartphone

rhydian

@non existant spec

3.5 Inch jack? don't you mean 3.5mm?

UK's oldest working telly up for sale

rhydian

@ "Does it get digital"...

Well, all you'd need is a Freeview/Freesat/whatever STB, a 625/405 line standards converter (can be run from a laptop IIRC) and then a VHF modulator tuned up to whatever frequency the set is designed to recieve on. Simple*

*The above statement may not be true.

The Professionals set to abseil into cinema

rhydian

A title is needed, so here be one...

BL's Press department would apparently not lend out cars for extended periods, so continuity was a real pain with BL sending a yellow TR for one week's shooting and a blue one for another...

There are plenty of british made cars that are suitable. Jaguar, Land Rover, Lotus...

Woman sentenced for breaching former employer's PCs

rhydian

It's not the physical value of the data that's the problem....

...it's the value of that data to the company. For example a copy of a text file containing an innocuous list of part numbers isn't worth as much as a copy of a text file containing customer details and their order details.

Australian utility evaluates EV charging kit

rhydian

"expensive and lean German engines"

I think that part of the reason that the australians like their big sixes and bent eights is that when you want to cover long distances in empty outbacks you don't really want to be stuck with some expensive and lean German engine that throws a pollution management fault in the middle of nowhere and that can't be fixed without the full gamut of dealer electronic diagnosis kit.

Orange customers squeezed out of Facebook

rhydian

Facebook just gives a "blocked IP" Message

Sounds like FB's spotted a load of traffic coming from the orange network and has tagged it as spam. Relaxing to know it's not my new android handset at fault.

BBC new media boss defends iPlayer Flash, slaps Microsoft

rhydian

Hammer: Meet nail-head...

That is the one advantage of flash in the real world. 90%+ of consumer systems can use it with no issues. Until HTML5 is an agreed standard flash will remain on top.

How an ancient printer can spill your most intimate secrets

rhydian

Bitch all you want about "old tech"...

But you can still buy Epson LX-300s new. OK, a £30 inkjet printer would knock the socks off it for quality and speed but an LX-300 will noisily bang away until the end of time itself. Perfect for logging jobs.

Council urges army drinkers to break the law

rhydian

"They need a license and just like the rest of us they are obliged by law to carry it. "

I don't think carrying your licence with you is a requirement by law. IIRC the law states that if you get pulled over and you don't have your licence you are given a "producer", also known as the "seven day wonder" which gives you a week to produce your licence, MOT and insurance docs at your local cop shop. Your photocard driving licence isn't valid without the paper countapart anyways.I do carry my licence around with me usually, but that is out of habit/needing ID.

Vauxhall Ampera extended range e-car

rhydian

Modren diesels may sound better than old ones, but its a tradeoff...

Modern diesels are a world away from the 1980s/1990s van engines of old BUT they have traded reliability for performance and refinement. Modern commonrail diesels have a lot of injection and emissions kit that fails in spectacular and expensive ways.

Bluetooth: wireless wonder or digital dead end?

rhydian

Bluetooth: Quietly gets on with it

A few years back I needed to fit a new radio to my car and chose one of the early bluetooth enabled units. It is the perfect case of it "just works" technology. My handset and the radio paired up straight away and have worked fine since. I also use bluetooth for file transfer between my phone and my laptop, but the transfer speed is rather low and if I have a large number of files to transfer I tend to dig out the USB cable. It is perfect for short-range peripheral interconnects with minimal fuss and bother.

BT staff to down tools tomorrow

rhydian

You could just ask the chap not to park on the pavement....

Why not just ask him not to do it?

BT betters pay offer under strike threat

rhydian

Lucky enough?

"fact that you were lucky enough to flag down an openreach engineer, who took the time to go to the exchange and correct your faulty line is fantastic"

OK, so we managed to get the line activated eventually, but your missing the point that we wouldn't have had to do that if BT had done the job right in the first place and instructed the engineer themselves to do the job on time. This line was for a festival, and was one of several booked to be ADSL enabled for a two week period.Our line was activated, I can't remember if our wireless mesh suppliers' lines (2 of) or the TV company (1of) were ever activated. One was given an activation date of the 16th of June, very handy when everything had to be de-rigged and off site by the sixth...

Fact is BT still act like they're a monopoly, which to be fair in most of the country they still are. They get away with their 1980s SLA (Voice and fax/dialup is all they legally have to supply, if their lines are faulty or they've multiplexed you with next door and you can't get ADSL then tough) while knowing full well if they bugger it up totally then the government will have to bail them out.

rhydian

A clarification

I've nothing against the call centre STAFF, rather the SYSTEMS they're a part of. I work with BT nearly every day covering offices over a wide area, each one connected using BT wholesale supplied broadband and using BT phone switches and ISDN lines. When you get bounced from one call centre to the other for a simple query because business faults aren't dealt with by xyz call centre but rather centre 123, who pass you over to ISDN faults which is 456 and so on it does get demoralising. By the time you've got hold of someone with authority to dispatch an engineer your phone switch is so old sales are trying to sell you a new one...

And broadband being a switch of a button? How is it then that when we had a go-live date of the 20th of may for our ADSL line it still didn't work four days later but worked 10 minutes after we flagged down a passing BT van and asked the chap to punch the pair up to the right connection strip at the exchange?

rhydian

A strike at BT? Who'd notice?

BT openworld chaps with vans are a bloody handy lot in fairness. Unfortunately BT's impenetrable customer dis-service operations mean you can't get hold of them for love nor money. I doubt the strike will be noticed, just a lengthening of the usual support wait from two weeks to four...

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