Archive

Archive for 2005

Open Wireless Access Points

December 28th, 2005 No comments

On a short walk with my WiFi enabled Palm recently, I was amazed to find so many open wireless access points.
While some of these are in residential areas, most surprising was the number of businesses leaving themselves wide open. Whoever had set them up had gone as far as changing the SSID to the business name (making it even easier to see where the signal was coming from) but had failed to enable even simple security.
No doubt, these businesses will have a firewall on their internet connection, but having an open wireless access point is like leaving the back door to the shop open.

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Spirit of Sport

December 2nd, 2005 No comments

I drove past the new Spirit of Sport sculpture next to the Reebok Stadium this morning.

For something that’s supposed to be 21ft higher than the Angel of the North, it doesn’t look very tall, although the Angel of the North is raised up on a hill, rather than stuck in the middle of a roundabout.

Add to that the fact that this has cost over 300,000 pounds, not including the numerous times Bolton Council have dug up the surrounding road, changing the dual carriageway to three lanes and now back to two, causing traffic chaos and delays in the process. This, at a time when the council are whinging that they are 400,000 pounds short on the roads budget. No doubt, someone will point out that the money for the sculpture has come from some different pot, but it doesn’t solve the fact that money has been wasted on the surrounding roads for this.

Categories: Misc Tags: , , ,

Breathe Life into Old Computers

November 29th, 2005 No comments

Here’s an interesting article about using Damn Small Linux on an old laptop.

Not tried it yet but will soon.

Categories: Misc Tags:

Joker.com domains back up

November 28th, 2005 No comments

Just checked and all my joker.com websites have come back.

Read more…

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Joker.com update

November 28th, 2005 No comments

After further digging, it appears that this problem is a network issue:

Read more…

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joker.com down

November 27th, 2005 No comments

Today on joker.com’s website is the following:

Our Web site as well as our system will undergo a scheduled maintenace [sic] at 11.00 UTC on November, 27th. It will take approximately two (2) hours. Your domains will be resolvable as usual.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Your Joker.com team

So, I don’t know whether anything went wrong but none of the domains I have registered with joker.com will resolve to URLs to which they are forwarded. It looks like none of Joker’s servers are performing the URL forwarding.

Categories: Misc Tags:

Fog

November 21st, 2005 No comments

As John Keats once wrote, it is the Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness.

Yes, autumn is upon us, and today we had the first real spell of fog.

On the one hand you have the beauty of looking down from higher ground at the sun shining across the fog blanketing the lower lying ground, but on the other you have the idiots who don’t know how to drive in the fog.

I cannot believe the number of people driving with no lights at all. Are these people stupid?

At the other end of the scale you have the people who, at the slightest sign of mist, switch their rear fog lights on and dazzle all who follow, blotting out any hope of seeing their brake lights. Strangely, these people also tend to keep driving at 70-80mph on the motorway, presumably believing that by flicking that little switch they are protected, but resulting in a motorway pileup.

No doubt, on the drive home this evening, the fog will be gone, but these same drivers will still have their fog lights on from this morning.

Categories: Misc Tags: , ,

Emergency Exit

October 24th, 2005 No comments

While browsing Thinkgeek, looking for some interesting stuff, (but remembering that those nice people at DHL will so kindly declare it to Customs and Excise for me and thereby double the price), I found this T-Shirt.

Read more…

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Linksys Router RMA update

October 24th, 2005 No comments

Last week, after still receiving no further word from Linksys about the RMA procedure, I emailed to find out what was going on, but got no reply.

Last Friday, I got a note through the door saying that UPS had tried to make a delivery. I was confused by this, because they hadn’t even arranged to pick up my old defunct router. Did they really mean delivery, or did they mean to put pickup? If so, then I was still waiting for the address label to be emailed.

Two things then happened today:

  • I finally got an email from UPS containing a link to an electronic mailing label, which I needed to put on the old router.
  • UPS delivered a brand new shrink wrapped replacement router

Fortunately, this has given me a box to return the old router. Just got to get UPS to come out again to pick it up.

Categories: Misc Tags:

Linksys Router goes titsup

October 12th, 2005 No comments

I’ve had a Linksys WRT54G wireless router since 2003, but last Wednesday, it just died with no front panel lights.

The LED was still lit on the power pack, but nothing whatsoever from the router. I remembered reading somewhere that Linksys gear has a three year warranty, so I called the freephone number on the Linksys UK website. This connected through to the US, and although the line was bad, and the tech support guy’s accent was difficult to understand, he processed an RMA return. Unfortunately, I’m still waiting for an email telling me where to send the router for replacement.

In the meantime, expecting a long wait for a replacement, I ordered a new WRT54GS router from amazon.co.uk on Friday, which was despatched same day by Royal Mail ‘first class’, so you’d think I should have received it on Monday. Not so. It didn’t even come on Tuesday. It finally arrived today. Once again, Royal Mail have proved their inability to provide a decent service.

Categories: Misc Tags: ,