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May 19th, 2008

Read this over the weekend. It’s basically a new potential to SatNav. A system on the roads reports to the SatNav what the speed should be is and the SatNav yells at you to slow down if needed. On top of that they want the SatNav to actually make the car stick to the speed limits and not let you break them. Great idea really, get on it !

But think about it a second, it’s just like speed cameras or safety cameras or whatever they try to call them to make us like them ! These systems are only effective on one type of person, that’s the insurance paying, road tax paying and car registering public. So by following the law and being good you can get in more trouble. Fair enough some say. So what happens to those that don’t have insurance or those that don’t pay their road tax or those that don’t even register their cars, bikes etc ! Well if they ever get caught they get a ban and or a small fine. Why not pour the research into catching that lot and actually deterring them from being baddies in the first place ?

Yes I know that if they don’t pay their road tax their cars get crushed or if they don’t have insurance they get a ban. These type of people really don’t care about bans or crushed bangers. As if they did there’d be none of them left. Put in proper punishments that will make these people think again. Or better put some tech in place to remove them completely from society.

Rant over :)

Chris Life

Quick Cup Update (Review)

May 5th, 2008

So the Tefal QuickCup isn’t really as great as I first thought. After a few months of using it here’s a few issues -
a) Very noisy when in use.
b) Leaking filter / hole in the bottom – a puddle appears under the device
c) Just wont switch on sometimes. No matter how much the power button is pressed or how many times it gets reset sometimes it just wont power up at all. Leave it unplugged a few hours and suddenly it will be fine again.
d) Power use, because the power wont always come on we’ve started to leave it connected over use. Expecting it to not use any power when not in use but in the morning the top appears to be warm to the touch which is weird. So on went the power meter and it appears that over night it uses 0.01 kwH.
e) It moves around the kitchen top when it’s not got enough water in it. Not good as you normally leave it to fill the cup … great to come back with it having traveled across the counter and dumped a load of water elsewhere.
f) Nowhere near boiling water out of it really.
It so feels like a generation 1 product. Having said that we’re still using it.

Chris Life

Steve Wright Radio 2

May 5th, 2008

How on earth is this bloke still hanging around ! I heard his “Big Show” hah, on the radio the other day. What’s big about it and why on earth is it exactly the same as the show he did like 15 years ago on Radio 1 ? And why are their a bunch of idiots in the background all the time clapping and yelping ?

Time for him to move on me thinks.

Chris Life

BT 21 Century Network is CRAP

May 5th, 2008

Over the last few weeks out phone Exchange has been upgraded to the new BT 21C (21 Century Network). Since they’ve done that mess our ADSL is slowed down and sync takes 3 times as long. So here’s the stats of our home ADSL line.

We have 2 other ADSL lines and they’ve all had the same treatment. Each one now takes alot longer to sync and we’ve lost at least 1Mb of each line. The ISPs claim that it’s all to do with a new re-training of the line … what a load of rubbish. We’re over 3 weeks into the new exchange doofa and it’s not getting better. Just hope that this isn’t like this to stay ! !

Chris Internet

Tefal QuickCup Review

February 27th, 2008

Tefal QuickCupA bit of a werid post for my site but none the less here it comes :) . I work from home most days and thus get through about 7 or more cups of tea a day. Each cup requires a 2 or 3 minute boil of the kettle and at 3kW that’s an interesting hidden cost of a cuppa. Well looking to somehow cut our electric bill I’m using energy meters everywhere. In that process the kettle keeps coming up trumps as the big spender :) . So I spotted the Tefal QuickCup on the gadget show a few months ago and wondered if it was out yet. Well apparently it is and a quick check with Argos and 2 days later it’s here.

Simple review as it’s a simple product … it does exactly what it says on the tin. Very hot water out the top from cold in seconds. It holds about 6 good cup fulls and is easy to fill. Has a filter on it though I don’t really care about that and wonder if it will work without it, I assume it does.

It does however make a bit of a noise (sounds just like the hot water maker thingys in cafe’s) and it spits and splashes a little. The noise was a little off putting at first but then the ease of use and potentail energy savings speek for itself. 1 day in and you kinda don’t notice the noise anymore.

There should really even be a trade in of your old kettle to this new one under a potential “green” badge … marketing people you listening ? I hearby predict that the old kettle’s days are numbered. There’s completely no point in waiting for hot drinking water any more.

Chris Life

Magic RAM Back

February 14th, 2008

A few weeks ago I posted about missing RAM on an IBM x3650 server running Windows 2003 here. Apparently after a call open with MS for 3 weeks, they suggested doing this KB913568.

IT WORKED !!!

Hurrarr, just a megga pitty we lost a good customer in the time it took to get it sorted :( .

Chris Puters

Great Hosting

January 28th, 2008

For those who care, great hosting with -
Powered By Site5.com

Yup this is hosted there :) .

Chris Internet

More iFindaGroup Fraud

January 26th, 2008

It appears that the mess that was left as iFinda Group has now been recreated as Number 4 Life and What’s Local. Read about this on another site and then spotted this comment. I know one thing, they wont get a penny out of me ! I wonder if it has anything to do with Mr Dan Corby again ?

Of course if someone wants to point out that this is super wrong or whatever then let me know and I’ll remove / ammend it right away.

Chris Life

Vista SP1 Build 6001.18000

January 25th, 2008

Windows VistaI’ll say that Vista SP1 right now is not ready for release. One bug I’ve reported no fewer than 3 times now is still present in their latest build 18000 ! Windows Mobile Device Center not picking up devices when connected. Each time I log this I get told that it’s fixed in the next build but each time it isn’t.

So I’ve just logged a new fault again. Do fix this … don’t ship it with this problem !

Chris Puters

IBM x3650 7979 Where’s My RAM

January 25th, 2008

We have recently put in 2 IBM x3650 servers, and somehow a driver is somehow stealing 1Gb of RAM (missing 1Gb).

No it’s not a Windows x32 / x64 / 64bit thing. The BIOS reports 4Gb and Windows reports 4Gb but there’s only 3Gb avalible for use !

x3650RAM

See the free RAM up there … 2.9Gb on a clean Windows 2003 R2 x64 bit server with only MS Virtual Server installed. It’s happening on both boxes and IBM claim there are no hardware faults and have closed both calls we’ve logged with them. They say it’s Windows. Microsoft say it’s kernel level driver and point us at the server manufacture.

Now when building the box we used IBM’s Server Guide CD to assist in the driver install. So we’re assuming that something from there is causing the problem. We’ve tried installing all maner of new drivers, removed ones we think it could be and searched the web for anyone else on this planet that may be having this problem. But we’re drawing blanks everywhere we look !

We’re now about to install Windows in different flavours and a few different Linux’s to see if we can pin it down. Any suggestions greatly recieved.

!! Got to be said that there’s getting fewer and fewer reasons to bother buying IBM servers now !!

Chris Puters , , , ,