Category: Uncategorized

Seems I’ve not posted for a while!!

I’ve now been running the SamKnows Broadband Performance monitoring software for over 3 months, that’s long enough to see that there is a very good pattern of consistency to the speed (and other aspects) that BT is delivering to this part of Reading through their Infinity network.

It’s still below what they advertise and I think they could deliver, but that’s a discussion that I have had with them that I don’t think is ever going to change. Considering that this is for non-fibre optic connection to their nearest Infinity distribution box, I suppose can’t expect more, after all a pair of copper cables can only do so much.

Anyway, here is the latest snapshot of the SamKnows dashboard, I’ve run this from start date, May 15th through to today. Lets hope this quality continues for the future.

Broadband Speed

As my January BT-ISP Broadband speed figures show it was a steady month with no outages and a steady 33MB download speed.

Lets hope that steady state continues.

BT Cloud

With regards to BT Cloud, a new service from BT to compete with the likes of on-line storage from Dropbox, Google, & Amazon. It seems that BT need to get their marketing act together.

Last week I received an email from BT inviting me to sign up to BT Cloud. Had a look and found that it implied that as a BT Infinity 2 user I was able to have 50GB as part of my contract – you can add further storage capacity if required after you sign up.

So signed up and connected my account to BT Cloud. Today received an email telling me that I now had 2GB of stage ready to use. After uploading some test files and checking the status, it did in fact say that I was using .001 % of my 2GB!

So went back and checked the BT web pages & emails and sure enough everywhere you look it says that BT Infinity 2 users can have 50GB of storage. When I tried to add more storage to my GB, it then told me that I already had 50GB inclusive with BT Infinity2!

So off to the phones, without dragging this out, after six calls to BT Sales & Technical (who did not even know what BT Cloud was!) I finally arrived at person in sales who told me to get the 50GB of storage, you had to renew your BT contract for a further 12 months. Nothing is stated about this on any of the related BT  Cloud web pages/emails.

On a technical point, when I received the initial email with the link to BT Cloud, I was asked to install BT Cloud on my PC. Stopping that download and fishing around I soon came across the Web interface through the new BT Services page, once you have logged in.

It certainly seems strange that BT would not have their ‘message’ completely sorted out before launching their product. To have to spend 30 minutes on the phone to find that I have to renew my contract is really a bit of a con! Lets se what happens with my feedback calls.

With the demise of Comet, Jessop’s and now doubts hanging over HMV, have high street gift cards & vouchers had their day?

Luckily I had spent my HMV gift vouchers in the week after Christmas. However, what about the people that had delayed their spend?

One friend who had received over £500.00 in Jessop’s vouchers from family & friends towards a high-end camera found to his dismay that once the problems with Jessop’s were announced, vouchers & gift card were immediately voided. The same has happened with HMV vouchers. Comet on the other hand did give a few days notice.

Listening to TV pundits, there may be a number of ways of getting some money back through the Credit card companies, though not if they were purchased with a Debit card. It’s been a costly experience for many high street customers which will make many think that they will not use gift cards again. I for one won’t.

Whilst we may have our issues about useless vouchers, we must not forget that with the demise of these stores, the hardest hit will be the staff who will find it very hard to find new jobs in a continually shrinking high street.

I had to go to Reading station on Friday to drop someone off for a train. They are certainly coming along with the development and say it’s on target for completion at the end of Spring 2013.

One thing I hope they do improve is the passenger drop-off zones. I don’t think I know another station in the UK where they seem to go out of the way to make it as difficult to drop people off at a station as Reading does.

Lets hope for better results after the changes are completed.

Well it seems after a number of warnings the Snow finally arrived, though I must say not a lot of it. But for while until it started to melt it did look rather picturesque.

Let’s hope that it won’t last much longer as I need to get back out on my bike and start getting my miles back on the clock. After tearing my hamstring two days before Christmas, it has been a slow process to heal it and get ready for riding again. Maybe out tomorrow!

Time to report the December 2012 Broadband speed results, seems that it was a good month with a steady climb in the performance. Nothing else to report really.

But have noticed a number of cable companies (Virgin etc.) digging up around my road location. Lets hope that won’t cause any problems.

Another year has arrived and what has that brought?

Well until tonight I would have said a break from the rain, but that seems to have been short-lived. I wonder how long it will be into the year before the water companies begin to lay the foundations for the Summer hose-pipe bans they will aim to introduce.

At least there is some good TV to look forward to over the coming weeks and I have now managed to use some spare time to get through the backlog of our ‘Humax’ files courtesy of my share of the family Christmas virus variations. 3 weeks of a bad cough and sore throat… But I shouldn’t moan!!

Tonight saw the return of #bbcstargazing, perhaps that’s the reason that its decided to rain tonight! Still there were some good items on it, but I still can’t decide if Dara O’Brian is the right person to present this program, but I do think that his Science Club is a excellent program.

Talking of Space, we recently lost Patrick Moore, I remember the first time I met him many years ago at one of his open-house evenings at his house on Selsey Bill. A fantastic bloke and certainly increased my interest in astronomy. He will be badly missed by many people.

Really need to look into a new Desktop PC this year. Mine current PC is about to give up the ghost and with sales of them in the decline, there should be some good bargains around, the question is; to build my own again or not. I’ll have to have a good look around and post on what I find.

Figures pretty much back to normal after the October hiccup.

It seems that there was a glitch at some point in October with a drop down to 25Mb download. However after a few days we see a jump back up to the 33Mb mark and a possible slow climb further up.

Will we get to 35 Mb this month. Only time will tell.

Took this lovely picture of my dwarf Acer tree in my back garden last week. A very good colour this year