As you may have noticed, I have not posted a great deal this past week, mainly because Alex is over here on holiday, and so I used that as an excuse to take a short vacation from the normal daily postings. Hope my loyal readers don’t mind, and that any newcomers will have considered coming back to check for new info…
Anyway, Alex’s luggage was somewhat weighed down by a new router/modem/wi-fi access point. I originally had two, which did not make sense at the time, as I was on dial up access to the internet since moving to Kazakhstan. So, my Mum got one of them for her place (apart from anything else, it is easier to trouble shoot a piece of hardware when you have actually used one before 😉 ), and the other one went to the in-laws, so they could use their PDA downstairs to browse the web. It might never happen, but I liked to give them the choice in the future.
Anyway, the Netgear DG834PN that I ordered seems to do the job, and has a few more toys for me to learn how to use.
Oh, and the little blue flashing LEDs help 😉
Jul 02 2007
Goodies From Home
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Jun 13 2007
Impressive Either Way
Today is a good day – our (highly localised & monopolistic) ISP has finally added a data unlimited package to their ADSL deals.
Previously, we were paying $110 for just 700 megabytes per month. We still only have a 256Kbit/sec connection, and the cost for this new package is more than before, but now there is no limit on how much I can download. Before the change over, every 10 megs I downloaded over the 700Mb limit cost another dollar seventy five!
Why the long winded explanation? Well I decided to check out a few random clips on YouTube during a break today, and came across this gem.
First time you watch it, the accuracy of the throwing is amazing. Then you start to notice a few things, that indicate the video was edited, however, even so the quality is pretty impressive and realistic. Check it out for yourself…
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Jun 04 2007
Tiscali – Still A Bad Idea
Way back when, I worked for an ISP (Affinity – the first company to go bankrupt and owe me wages) that fronted the technical support, customer service, and in some cases, network hardware for many ISPs in Britain. For a while, we provided support for Tiscali customers. You often found them to be a little less eloquent that other ISP’s customers – they would get very annoyed if we asked for more information than simply stating “it don’t work”. That said, I’d never wish their current levels of service on anyone, not even the worst of the moaners we had.
According to the Register, Tiscali have clarified their provided e-mail service to customers – It is free, so stop moaning if it doesn’t work!!! Even during the worst days at Affinity we didn’t use that sort of line on customers…
With the company attempting to ensure customers stay with them for the minimum length of their contract, and not use e-mails disappearing as an ‘excuse’ to leave, and their public relations approach on forums, I’m glad I never recommended them to anyone.
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May 05 2007
I’ve Been Joost!
Owen from the PPP forums kindly sent me an invite for the Joost application, from the people that bought us Skype.
The idea behind Joost is to enable the transmission of full screen quality video, over the internet in real time.
Quite a lofty ideal, and the interface is quite well layed out. Unfortunately, in the few feeds I’ve selected so far, my little 256KBit connection hasn’t quite been fast enough to keep the stream from skipping, but one day I’ll get a 1Mbit unmetered connection over here, then I’ll be putting Joost to full use.
The main difference between Joost and ‘normal’ TV is that you can choose what to watch and when.
I’ll be posting more details after I’ve tested it a little further.
This post isn’t sponsored at all, I’ve just written it to say thanks to Owen for the invite needed to download the beta application, and to Skype for producing the application 🙂
Now all I need is for a decent broadband infrastructure to be created in this country, and I’m good to go 🙂
Mar 16 2007
The End Is Nigh…
Unfortunately, since I ended up re-installing XP just prior to getting my ADSL connection working & therefore downloading a lot of updates, I’ve used up my 700 meg quota this month, so I’m back to dial up for the rest of the month 🙁
Not many UK friends seem to be reading this blog right now anyway, judging from the IP addresses of visitors, so you’ll probably only end up asking my why I disappeared the next time I’m on-line in Messenger, but it was worth a shot.
Before I forget, if anyone knows :
a) Where Windows Update downloads are stored, and if you can simply copy them across from one install of XP to another, to save downloading them all over again
and/or
b) Why I’m unable to remember a simple list of two things whilst typing out the first
then PLEASE leave a comment below….
Finally, thank you to the random blokes from Britain who kept me & Ira entertained last night on Skype – I’d just used the ‘Skype-Me’ mode for the first time, and they were looking for people on-line from strange countries to talk to. I’m apparently 46% chav & 31% emo, according to the questionnaires they sent links for!
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Mar 01 2007
ADSL arrived and We, The Undersigned Petition
Found a link to a UK Government beta web site that held a petition on the price of Windows Vista, compared to USA prices.
This next caught my eye – …..petition the Prime Minister to Recognize Borat As The Leader Of Kazakhstan (!)
This petition should be of interest to AlexC.
This petition will be of interest to John as it concerns proposed legislation on taking photos in a public place.
Here we have a petition that publicly funded (UK) software should be released under a free licence, so the whole nation may reap benefits.
This one came as news to me
Fingerprinting is being introduced in thousands of UK Primary Schools as part of a subsidised library package called Junior Librarian that they have purchased, encouraged by central government. New schools are joining the scheme at the rate of around 20 a week. To date, more than 3500 schools and nurseries (manufacturer’s official figure, given to the Daily Mirror) have fingerprinted and photographed 3/4 million children, ranging in age from 3 to 11; impressionable, trusting and naive. Involved companies have given premier partners with access to their SQL database AND a commercial arrangement for the reselling or endorsement or their products.
This is always done without explicit parental consent, and even in some cases, without parental knowledge.
Schools strongly resist sending parents the opt-in consent slips that are used for just about everything else. Some parents only find out AFTERWARDS
Finally, we have a petition for Seb & any other schmokers out there…
Oh yes, and we finally have ADSL installed at home. I’m going to have to use the internet LESS than I did on dial up, as we only get 700 megabytes per month (up AND download :< ), but it means I can do my work in the daytime, so I'm really chuffed that it has arrived.
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Nov 30 2006
Astana / Kazakhstan Has Internet Access Once More
For the last couple of hours there was no http transfer, at first e-mail still worked, and Skype was working fine, but web sites and Messenger didn’t work.
Then e-mail dropped out.
It may have just been flaky DNS servers, as nothing was resolving, but I’m thinking it was a little closer to the back bone servers than a simple Kazakh Telecom dial up servers though, as K-Cell’s GPRS service had the same problems. Unless K-Cell use the same DNS servers as Kazakh Telecom !??
I’m guessing not a large amount of other people will have noticed, as the problems took place approximately between 2 and 4am…
Oct 16 2006
Pretty Good Weekend
We took our kitten home, from the in laws, today. Not yet named her, the proposals are Pippa, Socks and a word I’ve forgotten already (Karra?) that means black in Kazakh. Anyone else think of anything? It needs to be easily pronounced by Russian and English tongues, be feminine, and be shortened easily…
The last one was suggested by KZBlog owner’s wife; we met up at the Chelsea (an ‘English’ ‘pub’) again Saturday night. Had a good time, ate a little, drank a little more, and talked a lot, their prices are definitely higher than the average bar, but the selection of food is good for wimpy westerners like me, and I tend to feel a little freer talking about life over here than I would normally…
FINALLY the PC Hardware was all fitted. For the last 5 months, I’ve been waiting (we’ll get the stock next week, next week, next week, oh we had it, but sold it to someone else etc. etc.) for a Graphics Card upgrade (nVidia 7600GT>7900GT) and a replacement 320 Gig Seagate SATA hard drive; for the last week and a half, Ucon (the PC shop in question) has PROMISED to visit our flat and deliver them (to make up for the delays) . Each day, they didn’t turn up, and each day they didn’t bother to call and let us know they couldn’t make it. Sadly, this isn’t exactly unheard of, in respect of customer service levels, here in Kazakhstan. We gave up in the end, and went back to the original plan, so we took the PC to the shop and dropped the printer off to be repaired. They laughed at the amount of programs I have running (what’s the point in a well specced machine if you don’t fully utilize it’s resources), and the lights I had fitted. Had being the operative word, they took it all out, fitted the hardware, then put it all in a bag for me. Also caught the shop assistant trying to copy some of my games. 1) Don’t do it without asking, it is rude 2) Don’t be stupid, simply copying the directory the game is installed into onto their machine will not likely result in a working application, and oh yeah 3) Copyright theft is bad hmmm. Well offered to copy my installation DVDs (only for Public Domain games, obviously…), and they could have it when we came to pick up the repaired printer. Hoping that is enough motivation to see the printer back soon…
I now have just over 850 Gigabytes of storage space, so shan’t be running out anytime soon. Especially not downloading via dial up access to the internet. Irina’s mum had ADSL installed in the last week, so I’m hoping we’ll either get that or WiMax sorted soon….
Continue reading “Pretty Good Weekend”
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Oct 13 2006
It is 9.45am
I’ve been working for 3 hours, and the final shock…. I’ve already had a full nights sleep!!!
Looks like there is hope for me eventually going to bed the same time as most people around me, and getting up before midday :>
It will, however, mean that I’m not online with Messenger when my friends in the UK are, other than weekends…
Irina’s Mum now has ADSL, at a whopping 128Kbit ! We’re still waiting for WiMax to progress out of it’s testing phase, or if that fails, for our phone line to be transferred out of the clutches of our flat’s maintenance/telecommunications over-charging company, so we can get ADSL as well.
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