My current internet connection is normally rated at 128kbit/sec. They have the cheek to advertise this as unlimited broadband. For starters, an internet connection that is no fast than dual channel ISDN, and isn’t capable of playing many online radios does not seem so broad to me. Secondly, their definition of unlimited somehow equates to 10Gb of down or uploads in one month. Once you pass that gargantuan (LMAO) amount, the internet connection is further throttled down to 32 kbit/sec. That is worse than most old 56k dial up connections! All this makes getting the good jobs quite difficult online, as those with faster connections are able to reserve jobs before this PC’s browser has even opened up the initial page.
All said though, we do at least have ADSL here now, I remember when we first arrived it was strictly dial up only, and the large phone bills that would follow a few late nights online. The WiMax trial that was mentioned some 18 months ago was never completed in this area of town, so the only hope really is that the ISP will get a little more realistic in both terms of speed, and also monthly bandwidth caps.

The ISP we now have our internet connection with is called Megaline. Unfortunately, since swapping to their service, everyday sees some downtime for connectivity. Even when all is apparently working, packets are often lost, and I can no longer as open as many simultaneous pages, without time outs occurring. That said, it is a lot cheaper, and although only 1/2 the speed, I do get an allowance of 10Gb/month before they throttle me down to 32Kbit/sec, from 128Kbit/sec.
Anyway, we first have a report on the UK’s lagginess (puns will stop now, sorry), when it comes to very fast internet connection availability. This is no great surprise really, given our history with BT’s (formerly part of the GPO) previous monopoly at nearly all stages of communications. Great investment will be needed to push beyond the current 24Mbps ceiling, and even that sort of connection is only really possibly if you live on top of your local exchange. Until we drop twisted pair copper lines as acceptable, the days of fibre optics into every home are a long way off, unless someone like Richard Branson decides that it is economically viable in areas when other Cable TV operators have avoided.

On a more positive note, here we have an article detailing how broadband internet connectivity (even if it isn’t globally breath-takingly fast) has rapidly become the preferred speed, compared to just four years ago, when most people considered dial up speeds acceptable. No pretty table to illustrate the point this time, sorry.

Finally, on a semi-related matter, the BBC News site had details on how some European nation’s citizens are rejecting land lines altogether, in favour of mobile phones. Although this may sound surprising at first, if you take into account that some of the nations, that were unable to develop as quickly under USSR rule, never had high rates for phone lines into every house, and how competitive some mobile phone network companies are in these markets, to try and get, then keep loyal customers, you can begin to see why having no land line number is becoming more common in some areas. Whether these figures include those that only use phone lines for internet usage, and use mobiles for cheaper evening calls etc, I couldn’t ascertain.

Rather than a crappy MC name, Megaline is the name of the company that now has the responsibility of providing our internet connection. Anyway, 20-something hours after being told that our new connection was live, and the new connection details, we eventually had an IP address once more. Changing from an internet network arrangement that utilized some servers before getting to the real ISP in use, to a simpler PPPoE connection had given me some hope in that there would be less packet loss, as less hardware in the chain generally means less to go wrong. Sadly, this has not been the case, with complete loss of data throughput occurring a couple of times today already. Although this only occurred when opening around 30 pages in FireFox at the same time as a torrent downloading, to see a decrease in network stability was not what I hoped for. I will be monitoring the connection over the next few days, to see if problems only occur under such ‘heavy’ usage, or if this is a regular occurrence. If this does happen often, there is probably not much I can do about it - even less that back in Britain in fact, as I can’t see much action being taken once any fault is reported.
Anyway, I now get an extra 3Gb per month before being throttled, the price is around four times cheaper, so I can’t really complain. But watch this space for further efforts of me trying my best anyway

OK, melodramatic post title, but in case it flew right over your head, I’m referring to The King Is Dead, Long Live The King! (or Le Roi est mort. Vive le Roi! (yes, I wikied before posting to make sure I had the correct words ))

Anyway, our current internet connection is over priced, under powered, and has a relatively low data allowance per month. This is on an ‘unlimited’ connection. It is currently 256Kbps, which drops to 64Kbps after 7Gb has been downloaded. The new connection will be through Megaline, almost 80% cheaper, and have a monthly allowance of 10Gb. Unfortunately, they only offer 128Kbps on their unlimited packages, and after those 10Gb, the connection is throttled to just 32Kbps - worse than dial up! However, with the money saved, and the extra 3Gb per month, I think we made the right choice.

I’m posting this now in case there is a problem, and we do not get the new connection working once the old one has been terminated - if I don’t post for a while, you know why.

All American content, but still interesting to see just how unsporting sportsmen and women can be.

The video itself is quite large (around 12.5Mb), and although not of the highest quality, seems to use a lot of bandwidth, so if your internet connection is too slow to watch the clip smoothly, one tip I make use of is to simply lower the volume to nothing, let the whole clip play jerkily on another tab, then once it has completed, re-play the video, and watch the clip again then, once it has been cached.

This application is specifically for PDAs (Windows based) with WiFi capabilities - be it built in or, as in my case, a Compact Flash card. Although there are several WiFi detection applications already available, this one caught my eyes with its combination of simplicity and versatility. OK, and the fact that you get a geeky looking radar as one possible view swung my vote as well If you combine WiFiFoFum with a GPS unit, the accuracy of where the WiFi access point (AP) is located is a lot more accurate. So why should you care? Well if you are in a town without your own private internet connection, it is useful to know where there are unencrypted WiFi signals you can use to access the web. When there are multiple possibilities, it makes sense to use the strongest signal, and in the case of Amsterdam, to know you can relax in a cafe somewhere, rather than be perched on a bench, exposed to the elements.
I’ve not been able to test the GPS functionality just yet over here in Kazakhstan, but once more, I’ll make a more in depth review around October time hopefully.

One of the problems with starting your own business, ESPECIALLY an online business is the complications and difficulties many banks place in your way, until you are an established business. One such example is that you need the ability to accept credit cards to ensure high sales, only being able to only take PayPal will put off many potential customers, unfortunately.

The CardServiceSales website aims to help you and your business out by easily enabling you to start taking credit cards as a form of payment from your customers. Of special interest to those who are relatively new to running their own business is the approach this firm takes - the whole sign up process is geared to allow you to start making more money quickly. The services are not just limited to taking credit cards on your own static web site - if your business is mobile, then you will love the fact that anywhere you have an internet connection can be used as your sales desk!

If you sell services, rather than specific products, then please do still check the site out - if you check the details for the e-commerce section, you will note that your customers can easily setup a recurring payment scheme from their credit cards, so they will not need to repeatedly pay one-off charges. Your customers will have the reassurance of using SSL connections, so all data is encrypted throughout the transaction.

Should the need every arise, the technical support team is available 24 hours a day, every day. The customer service representatives have around 140 languages between them, so if English is not your preferred or primary language, you will still be reassured that your needs and questions can be clearly understood.

If you would prefer to speak to a human on the phone, then you can choose to setup an account with them that way, instead of doing this online.

If you currently send large attachments with your e-mails, I am sure you have suffered the problem of having your SMTP server time out on you, or if you use web mail, have simply been presented with an error message stating the file is too large.
In either case, if you are on a data-limited internet connection, such mistakes can easily eat away into your monthly allowance.

As I have a few web sites, one possibility I can use is to upload the file to one of my servers, and include a link in the e-mail to point to the file. However, there are two problems with this method… 1) I then use up my server’s bandwidth allowance 2) Unless you already own a site of your own, getting access to a server USED to be difficult.

So, Driveway have come up with a solution - Online File Sharing. Check out the site, and see just how easy it is to upload a file (up to 500 megabytes in size!), and then simply include it’s address in your e-mail. You do not need to register, and when I tried out the service, the servers were able to receive my test file at the maximum my PC could send it.
Of course you can use the links you create outside of e-mails, should you blog for example, you can use it there.

I remember many years ago, when phones had to have a little green triangle on the packaging, to show they had been officially approved. You could buy cheaper phones and modems, but if they didn’t have the sticker, you were officially breaking the law! All the interesting hardware was often imported from Asia, with no approval having been paid for. One of the get out clauses used by an ISP I worked at, was that if a customer’s phones and modems did not have the BT approved triangle, that was the reason their internet connection was slow (back in the days of 56k dial up). Obviously some customers actually believed this and went and bought new hardware. Sadly, in the majority of cases, the internet connection did not improve. Having said that, I can’t remember the last time I saw anyone questioning the REN (ringer equivalency number) of a person with telecommunications difficulties. Anyone know if the limit has been raised from 4?

Anyway, since the time of green triangles and grey imports, having a phone actually branded as BT (British Telecom) has often been seen as a mark of quality.
However, thanks to PMC Telecom, you can have the best of both worlds - high quality BT phones, at prices that all can afford.

The site itself is well laid out, with all the major brands/types of telecommunications equipment stocked and linked to.
If there was one thing I would like to be considered, re. the design of the site, it would be sub-categories. Given that PMC have a wide range of phone related hardware for sale, the ability to filter, for example, the BT phones further down into BT cordless phones would save a little time.
Overall, it seems to be worth spending a few minutes checking through the whole list, to see if they have what you need, as the price often beats other retailers.