Posts by Matthew Collier

@RE:Tube

"Contrary to your research notes, Evil Auditor, the vast majority of the London Underground is actually OVERGROUND. So are the depots. And how were the staff to get to work?"

Vast majority, surely not? ;) The staff are supposed to get to work, presumably, 'cos the Tube isn't running, by other methods, like other people who would usually rely on public transport.

Trouble is, it would appear that nobody down here in the South has any ability to drive, especially in the snow, even though it's only 4-8 inches deep.

I'll bet our European cousins, are once again, laughing at how incompetent we are!

Matt (southern shandy drinker, like the rest of us ;) )

All good here...

...in a small-ish Market Town in East Herts :)

I am on O2, and the average ping time for the last half hour, (21:00-21:30), 17.9ms. Can't say I've seen any performance issues at all, since joining the service.

Also , a big thumbs up for the call centre chaps (in Glasgow) who gave me some good advice about what the service would and would not offer me if I were to take it up, and they were spot on (mostly, advice about the smtp port 25 outbound blocking stuff).

Other friends on O2 have had fantastic service also, and a real 6-8Mb so far at all times, for only £12.50 a month.

Highly recommended! :)

Matt.

P.S. @Secret DNS Server guy, I personally recommend pointing DNS at OpenDNS anyway, who always have a very speedy service, and have never yet had any service impacting problems that I've spotted, unlike most ISPs I've ever had!

@R Callan RE: apt-get

"Umm they have. Try AptGet. It informs me when updates are available by changing a number from zero to a number saying how many updates are available. This does not annoy the crap out of me. It is then my choice as to when I download the updates, if at all.

I've also never had to restart my computer after updating, although some updates to running processes do ask for them to be restarted."

To be fair, a couple of times per year, the kernel updates do indeed require a reboot. Mind you, like you said, you can choose not to take them, if you really want. One of the factors that drove me to Linux, we the endless updates from MS, that always required a reboot (not very handy on a media server! ;) ). I liked it so much, I moved wholesale and didn't look back :)

Now, I can't really remember what the boot process, or logon screen looks like...

Obviously, there are pros and cons to the Windows vs Linux-repo update model, but on balance, I far prefer the Linux one. I guess, the model would matter less if you didn't have to reboot for every update in Windowsland, but I still can't bear the Windows model, where you have umpteen process running, all trying to keep "their" app, up to date.

How old is Mother Hen, really? Just one of the kids?

I wonder, because, the quality of English, specifically punctuation, seems to be on about the same level ability as the target audience.

My five year old has a better command of grammer and punctuation for crying out loud!

Quack, quack ;)

@Sooty

"Ever ripped a cd to your ipod? if so then you're guilty of copyright infringement, as there are no fair use laws. ditto for videotaping your favourite soap and not destroying the recording immediately after."

But Copyright infringement is a Civil, not Criminal offence, at least here in Blighty, right?

"If you've ever watched porn, then you've probably broken some law or another."

Probably :(

GetSafeOnline.org

Ironically, the GetSafeOnline.org quiz to see how safe you are, requires an insecure version of Flash! Obviously, this was bound to happen, as these kind of things are never up-to-date for long. As they bothered to create a non-Flash version of their quiz, why bother with the Flash one...?

It's a bit silly if you ask me.

Ordered mine today from Books Etc.

I went to Waterstones in the City (Leadenhall) today at lunchtime, and they thought they could get it, but when they phoned round (including their two distributors, apparently), they can't.

However, Books Etc. (Broadgate Circle) have it (but reserved for people who have ordered), and took my order.  Lead time of up to 14 days...

I too hadn't heard about it, but it sounded interesting, and also because of the fact it has been pulled by Amazon, made me also decide to buy it, where previously, I probably would have not.

Cost...

"it’s been rumoured online that the phone will cost between $250 and $375 (£250-375/€250-375)"

There, fixed it for you!