Not Quite Dead Yet!

Hi Guys,

Thought it was about time that I dropped back onto here to leave a note to let you all know that I am not quite dead yet!  Just been so busy with the family and the new business to breath or do anything constructive.  I am hoping that soon I will be back to normal and firing on all cylinders!

Anyway in the meantime check out www.it-mk.co.uk and www.miltonkeynessatellite.co.uk and let me know what you think.

Remember for great IT support in Milton Keynes contact www.it-mk.co.uk

IT-MK Limited

Well as most of you will know, I finally left Network Support Services.  A decision which was a little helped by various factors.  I have now established my own IT Support company with in Milton Keynes called IT-MK Limited.  We have become a vital resource for small businesses in and around Milton Keynes and Northampton providing day-to-day support and also custom solutions for special problems involving High Availability, VoIP routing and traffic shaping.  Have a look at the link section and browse our corporate website.  Don’t forget customers can save 10% in the month of December simply by quoting “Jingle Bells” when placing orders.  Give us a go, and you may be surprised as we offer excellent customer service and great value for money.

 

Remember for great IT support in Milton Keynes contact www.it-mk.co.uk

The Final Curtain ….

Well my friends prepare, yourself for a Shock…

I am leaving the employ of Network Support Services on the 31st August 2009.  To pursue other things, more to follow….

Not Much To Report

Hi guys, not Much To report today. I am currently sat at the dentist writing on my tosh phone, tosh by name, tosh by nature!!! my temporary fillings fell out so i have to have replacements ready for italia on monday yay, looking forward to having all that NiCe food and maybe meeting Jerry Scotty or one of the veline! will try and post a pic or two in a couple of weeks!

Linux is changing the world Bit by Bit

Linux is slowly taking over from where Microsoft can’t, at least thats the oppinion of the New York Stock Exchange who have now made the jump across to Linux based systems.  I have been saying for some time that this Linux thing is worth a look, and now it would seem that it is coming true as more and more companies are making the break to Linux.

I have now been running Fedora 9 on my Sony Vaio VGN-C1Z for some time and it seems to be working very well, I have had no issues of any kind, appart from the usual where is this and how do I do that!  But no spyware no Viruses and no crashes which means all in all I will not be making the change back to Microsoft ever!!!  I am planning the upgrade to Fedora 9 on all of the Tkat servers, and also planning to take advantage of the distributed platform as I will be moving the server’s to three independant locations so that the Tkat network and website should stay up.  I will also of course be making the change to hosting WordPress on a local sever and finally ditching Microsh@ft Exchange, which so far this year has spent more time down than up :-$.

Anyway will keep you all posted and will post the pictures once I get the server room looking ship shape again

Seti Going Strong!

My SETI Project Stats

Bella Amore!

Just wanted to take a second out to say thank you to someone who not only puts up with me, but who can make me laugh when I am down, and always makes sure I get to where I am suppose to be when I am suppose to be there.   That someone is “Mio Bella Amore” Yle.

Looking after me is not an easy job I know, more of a challenge not for the faint hearted!  Well this young lady came along and now I can’t imagine not having her around.  I just wanted to say thank you to one of the best things in my life.

ps. And she is pretty cool with a camera, thats her handy work above (site image header) thank you hun x

Truth Happens!

Asus Has Rocked My World

Asus Proves Linux is both mainstream and Sexy

Asus - Linux can be sexy!

As most of you will know, I work in I.T. now this involves a fair amount of traveling mainly into London on the train. Now a while ago I bought myself the flagship of Windows Sub-Notebooks, the Sony Vaio TZ32, which it has to be said is the best laptop ever made no questions. However I have found it increasingly useful to also carry with me a Linux box, now until now I have been using my trusty Vaio C1Z, which used to be my Vista box. Well on Thursday that all changed when I finally bought my Asus Eee PC 900, which came complete with 20Gb SSD Disk and 1Gb RAM. The Asus for those who do not know is a handbag sized laptop, which rocks Linux, all-be-it with an idiot proof front end!!!

That took at least two minutes to blow away and your left with a full on KDE version of Linux, some repositories added later and hey presto you now have all the tools you need to grab all your favorite linux goodies. For me the essentials are:

DNSUnils
Telnet
Whois
The Gimp

These took another 3 minutes to install. It gives about 6 hours between charges and can actually fit n the silly table that railways in Britain deem adequate. It has an SD card slot, audio out and mic inputs, monitor outputs, 3 x USB 2 sockets and on-board wifi and RJ45 based NIC. The screen is good, and the whole thing is under 300 quid!

Anyway I think its cool and has certainly filled the gap I had without breaking either my back or the bank.

How Many Council Work Personel Does It Take To…

Far be it for me to cast dispersions about Milton Keynes Council and their ability to waste both time and money in fruitless exercises.  Not to mention how they seem to employ only people who have how can I say less than a basic city and guilds in customer communications?

We live in a council flat, in I think what is fair to be said the rough end of town, our neighbour seems to sell lots of small brown envelopes for what seems to be considerably more than what the post office get for them!  However he does us no injustice and the people that buy them are all old enough to know the price of a small brown envelope, even if they are unsure what day it actually is.

However the council seem to treat us as second class citizens, someimes we feel like we are interupting their 8 hour lunch break with tedious things such as graffiti, we are here because of various factors however we both have now extremely good jobs, we are clean, tidy, and sober, we claim no benefits, our flat is tidy, freshly decorated, and we pay our rent before the due date, we pay council tax, and by the reaction I got when I did buy a TV license (see post about Italian TV) we are the only ones round who have one!!!  So why is it when we phone the council they see fit to treat us with what has to be said utter contempt.

Our housing officer is a prime example, she is brass, crude, and her position in the council in no way reflect her ability to get the job done, infact I am certain that when they had the interviews she must have been in the wrong place and no one else turned up, so before she knew it she was a housing officer.  But this aside it has to be said that after being passed to what is a seemingly endless array of departments we do eventually get the job done.

The end of our guttering down-pipe fell off or was kicked or stolen when our flat was empty and before my partner had taken possession of the flat.  This was noted on the initial form which was signed when she took the flat on,  That was an impressive 14 months ago.  Here is the saga so far…

My partner took on the flat with the down-pipe fault noted on the initial paperwork, with many assurances that this work would be completed within two weeks.  Two weeks elapsed and nothing had happened, except the flat had become damp as a resultant of the water gushing down the wall, which in turn, turned green on the outside.  My partner phoned up yet again and was assured this was being given top priority.  Another 12 months elapsed with many more assurances, at this point we thought that enough was enough and something had to be done, almost daily e-mails started, we noted to them with pictures what needed to be done, I am fairly good at repairs as I am a fairly practical sort and could see that this job should take about 6 minutes assuming there is a cup of tea involved. 

We finally get an e-mail stating that the scaffolder would be with us in the next few days, now bear in mind we are talking about the bottom section of down-pipe that goes into the drainage located at the bottom of the wall near our patio, why on earth do they need scaffold?  We sent them an e-mail again with pictures stating that the uppermost part where it had broken was literally 3ft(1m) from Terra Firma, we received a reply stating that this job had been checked by a professional who deemed it would be working at height and as such would require a scaffold to be built.  The scaffolder turned up with what has to be said a rather impressive array of scaffold, he took a quick look finished his tea and left, we then get a phone call from the contractor asking why we had not had the scaffold put up and that the job could not continue without it as it would not be considered safe to do so.  Well either something has gone wrong here or they employ 2ft um-per lumpas!    After much debarkle now involving us, the contractor, the council and the scaffolder, we persuade the contractor to send out someone to re-examine the job, also could he bring a bit of down-pipe, and a hacksaw on the off chance we might be right. Great next morning we are about to leave or work when what I can only describe as a 5ft umper lumpa turns up with a lump of downpipe, he has a quick look a cup of tea, and then realises he forgot his hacksaw which is in the van! Well hey presto 10 minutes later we have a new down-pipe fitted without any scaffolding and he was able to contain the vertigo when he had to stand upright to fit it, it should be noted that special council approved training is required for council employees to stand upright on two legs, our housing officer is testament to that, one day she will have that certificate. 

The upshot is, well we did get the job done, well almost, the umper lumpa forgot his clips and drill and screws so the next downpour the pipe fell off.  But we are almost there, umper lumpa is coming back to put the clips on and we are assured that once the scaffolding is in place this will be complete :-S  The moral of the story here is just private rent or buy, you will save in the long run I promise you, and thats just on Anadin

A Poem About Upstairs!

Its not one of my best but I just felt like I had to write something, smoke and smash his face in, so two out of three seemed to be a fair middle of the road!  As for the fags, I will be giving them up again tommorrow, its back on the patches and crunchy gum

 

My neighbour

 

A flat we got as our own space,

A fantastic large and open place,

Just one thing that is a little blight,

Our neighbor one day us did fright.

 

A little challenged I think its fair to say,

He’s like a little child, he really loves to play,

At night he loves to scream and shout,

A proper annoying angry lager lout.

 

His poor quiet girlfriend he often does beat,

We should know we got the ring side seat!

He shouts, slams and stamps all around,

He has a lovely dog, that poor little hound.

 

Tried it on with us one day he did,

He threw a complete and total little flid,

We phoned up the cops and out they came

They said don’t worry, its all in his brain!

 

Well known to them that’s what they said,

Some crazy stuff, goes on inside his head,

As far as we know your not at any risk,

But please for god sake don’t dare take the….. Michael!

 

To be safe approach him you must not,

If he attacks you, away you must trot,

This country that used to be great really is a sham,

The people here just really don’t give a damn!

 

So now we are here we have to log and write,

Our neighbor soon will get the biggest fright,

The games a foot and we’ve been covert,

Serves him right the retarded little berk!

 

Finally the red tape cogs they do turn,

The system soon, him it will burn,

He’s had it easy and not had to work,

At home he does nothing but lurk.

 

Well my friend its time for us you to sort,

Your gravy boat well it is leaving port,

Setting sail and its going west,

Soon you’ll see its really for the best.

 

To you reign of terror soon will come an end,

Time for you, and your ways to mend

Then one day you’ll work hard and you’ll have a job,

I really hope you move in right next to a yob.

 

 

Then you’ll see it from the outside in,

A fragile little life that’s almost made of tin,

Then you’ll know just what it is like,

When your neighbor gives you the fright!

One Phone Is Never Enough! Its Noki-Tastic!

The N95 has Finally Landed! Well I have been considering paying the £300 to get one of these for some time, when T-moble contacted me about an Upgrade and asked which phone would you really like for you to sty with T-mobile.  I imediately said the N95 please, to my amazement some tapping of keys down the phone later a new N95 was winging its way to me as fast as the courier could go!!! Well I thought after all the hype I was sure to be dissappointed,but hell no, I thought nothing would top the Toshiba, great Windows based for add-on applications and pretty much everything I thought I wanted, but the N95 has shown me the errors of my ways.  It has all the grea features and GPS thrown in.  That said its true to say the battery life is prety abismal.  Which is why they throw in the car charger free!  As I am never more than 10 minutes from either my car or a power socket this is no great shakes for me.  But the unit feels solid and has more than enough features and twiddly bits to keep even me amused!   Specifications for the Nokia N95
Band	GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz, UMTS 2100MHz
Data	GPRS/WCDMA/HSDPA/WiFi
Size	99mm x 53mm x 19mm (4.0″ x 2.0″ x 0.7″)
Weight	120g (4.2oz)
Battery Life	8.75 days standby time
	2.5/3.5 hours talk time (GSM/UMTS)
Main Display	2.6″ 16M color TFT, 240×320 resolution
Sub-Display	N/A
Camera	Yes, 5 megapixel w/ Carl Zeiss optics
Video	VGA capture/playback at 30fps
Messaging	MMS/EMS/SMS
Email	Yes, POP/IMAP4/SMTP
Bluetooth	Yes, A2DP
Infrared	Yes
	Yes
Polyphonics	Yes
Memory	160MB, microSD memory slot
Availability	Q1 2007 (manufacturer’s estimate)
Other	MP3/AAC/W4A/WMA music player, FM radio, dedicated music keys, speakerphone

Toshiba Update :-)

Well as some of you know for some time now I have been battling with Toshiba over the G900 phone that I purchased some time ago which is fair to be said was faulty out of the box.  Well they final put everything right.  I got a call from the European CEO, he offered a new phone to be dispatched to me free of charge, however they had no stock, so one was assigned from the next batch to land in the country.  This took a week but was finally delivered in perfect working order, and with 10 yes Ten! 512Mb Mini-SD cards and a new spare batter as compensation.  So thumbs up to Toshiba, officially thank you.

2.5″ is enough!

I have been pondering for a while as to a storage solution for when I am out and about, I have tried various key fob type USB sticks, and to be honest the limits on there size is a big issue for me, I know there are massive amounts of external hard disks out there and indeed I had a 60Gb external drive for a long time in a belkin enclosure which worked ok, but being a ig 3.5″ IDE hard disk it had to have mains power to spin it up.  So I had a look round and I knew I did not want to break the bank so turned to one my companies supplies to see what they could offer.  They turned up the Trancend 2.5″ enclosure for around £10 this is an impressive little aluminium box with a single blue LED at one end, all you do is select the disk you want and stick it in.  I my case I bought a Maxtor DiamondMax 21 160GB SATA-II 3.5″ Hard Drive 7200RPM 2MB Buffer example.  Two screws to flipopen the enclosure slide in the drive, bolt the end back on and presto a 160Gb External Drive which is powered from the USB socket of your laptop.  By chance I had an old Playstation Portable Leather case kicking around into which slides comfortably the Trancend box and the USB cable, so all in all a superneat job and it cost less than £50!  What a bargin.

 

English Law and Italian TV :-S

OK here is the deal, as some of  you will know my partner is Italian, and I am it would be fair to say rapidly learning the language.  So we made a decision when we moved to only have Italian TV, which we get via satellite.  Our TV is not tuned in, in fact we have no antenna at all, just a dish, the only connection to the TV is via HDMI cable from the Hi Def satellite receiver which you got it only gets Italian (also French and German, Russian and Polish) TV!

It turns out that we still have to have a UK TV License, as although the money goes directly to the BBC I quote “you pay your license to license the Television receiving equipment for use in the UK” so even though we only watch Italian TV we still have to have a UK license, how dense is that, but our government is not just after our cash any way it can is it???

Anyway the Italian TV comes via the Hotbird 6 Satellite which is just to the lower right of the Astra Satellite where all of our sky dishes point, so if your sky subscription runs out, don’t despair, get yourselfa box with a CAM slot from Maplin and tweak your dish to the right an down a bit (13 degrees) and you will get about 1600 European channels

 

 

 

Striscia – This is like the Italian version of have I got news for you.  These two (Below) are jut two random dancers that dance at the beginning and at the end of the show, there is no pretence about what they are there for as there is on many UK shows, they are simply there to dance and look good, that’s it!

Melissa Satta (the one on the left) shares my Birthday 7th February, however she was born in 1986!!! Which makes her 8 years younger Not fair I wish I was young again!!!!

 

Toss-hiba

As some of you may know I have been having a bit of a barney with Toshiba over their “flagship” phone (the Portage G900)  which I bought some time ago.  The thing was a much use as a £400 door stop pretty much out the box.  I sent it in to be fixed, and they sent it back with a note saying that they thought it looked like water damage and as such not covered. 

Well I took a bit of an exception to this as this as far as I can work out was not the case.  I took it out the box used it for a month and had such a bad experience I put it back in the box and sent it off for repair!  Well this arguent has been raging for the best part of 2 months, after several promises of calls back from what it has to be said is the useless complaints department, I finally found a small ray of light in the form of a woman who works on the complaints desk called Alena, who was extremely helpful and e-mailed me back with two hours.  She passed my case onto her boss, who as it turns out happened to be the CEO for Europe, he explained that Toshiba are in the middle of trying to change who is doing their repairs as this is being farmed out to a third party who are causing more problems that they are worth.  The upshot of it is, he has personally dispatched a new phone to me which should be here in the next few days…  We shal see, but at least a promising step in the right direction.

So at lest they are finaly getting their act together.

New Laptop :)

I finally bit the bullet and put Linux (Kubuntu 8.04 onto my faithful old VGN-C1Z, which means I had to buy a new Vista notebook, I opted for Sony’s flagship the VGN-TZ32VN:

Specs:

Intel® Centrino® processor technology with Intel® Core™2 Duo Mobile Processor U7700 (1.33 GHz and 533 MHz FSB) and Intel® PRO/Wireless 802.11a/b/g/n

Windows Vista® Business (English version)

64 GB SSD flash drive

2 GB DDR2-533-SDRAM ( 1 x 2048 MB )

11.1″ WXGA ( 1366 x 768 ) X-black LCD with LED technology

Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 with Total Available Graphics Memory of 256 MB

DVD±RW/±R DL/RAM drive

Built-in “Motion Eye” Digital Camera (max. 30 frames per second, 0.3 Mega Pixels) with Motion Picture Function (max. resolution (pixels) VGA/640*480)

Full security: Finger print recognition and TCG Ver. 1.2 compliant Trusted Platform Module (TPM)

Integrated 3G Mobile Broadband technology

Wireless LAN IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n; Bluetooth® technology

2 Hi-Speed USB 2.0 ports

Trusted Reviews Awards 2008

“One must only look at the notebooks that have missed out to understand how competitive the Notebook category was this year. However, that there was never any doubt which machine would win says everything about our winner, the Sony VAIO VGN-TZ11MN. Beautifully designed and executed, it’s the epitome of what we expect of an ultra-portable notebook.

Expensive it may be but it justifies the price. As a design it’s near flawless, with every element oozing quality and refinement and making you just want it. It’ll make you the envy of your friends and makes friends of your enemies, provided they don’t try to destroy it out of jealousy first. Its 11.1in LED backlit screen is simply stunning, bringing videos and photos to life through vibrant colours and superb black levels. It has a great keyboard that belies the actual size of the machine; while it has all connectivity one could realistically need in a notebook this size.

Utilising Intel’s latest Ultra-Low Voltage dual core CPU it can last well in excess of six hours between charges, ensuring that you can take it out for a whole day without carrying a charger or an extra battery. It’s also exceedingly light, weighing just 1.19kg while the lid is just 4mm thick and the whole chassis is as little as 22.5mm thick. Unlike some other ultra-portables we’ve seen, Sony even managed to find space for an optical drive, reducing the number of peripherals you might need to carry around with you.

To surmise then, it’s sexy, highly portable, versatile and fantastic to use. It addresses the requirements of an ultra-portable perfectly, in fact it defines them. If ultra-portables are the most desirable notebook you can buy, then the Sony TZ is the most desirable notebook on earth and a worthy winner of Best Notebook 2008.“

Dark Angel – Jessica Alba

 

If you have managed to miss this then download it or buy the two series on DVD.  Jessica Alba a.k.a Max a transgenic being created in a lab sets off about the world kicking butt along the way.  We have been hooked since the first episode   Despite the sounds of it, it has a plausable story and is set in the not too distant future.

Neighbours at War …. (My First Rant!)

Neighbours (Rant)

I think that it is fair to say that my neighbor is one of those people who is so incredibly backwards he still thinks digital watches are the height of the electronic generation.  He owns one CD which he plays in his flat (the one above oursL) at high volume over and over again.  When he is not doing this he is presumably out stealing or involved in one of his other two favorite pastimes, either clubbing his girlfriend over the head and dragging her back to their cave or more likely beating her up so that she does not leave the cave in the first place.

The man is quite unable to speak, let alone reason, to be frank the fact he remembers to breath amazes me most days.  He not surprising does not work, the mere mention of this word to close to him and he has to have a little lye down someplace dark.  Him and his stereotypical girlfriend live in a council flat with no aspirations of achievement beyond getting next weeks gyro.  You guessed the next part; we are paying for this bozo and his girlfriend and his dog.

Now for the amazing part, firstly when we moved in I parked slightly too far into my drive onto a patch of mud, all hell broke loose as this was his mud :-S in fact this “Grassed area” (mud) is communal and therefore fair game.  However not knowing better we moved and thought nothing more of it, until a few days later when there is yobbo the unemployed and looser the not pregnant YET girlfriend complete with their friends and dog under our car port having a BBQ!  Stereo blaring out the window, in fact it was so loud we had little choice but to go out.  The loud music is something we have to tollerate as the council are re-fusing to do anything.

We decided to have a shower fitted and contacted the council with a plan of action which was accepted, we booked and paid for out plumber and electrician to fit the shower we had purchased a few weeks before.  The plumber turned up at 8:30am Wednesday morning had some tea and set about routing cables and pipe work through the wall.  For this some drilling was necessary, I had to take my partner to work.  On leaving the flat we were greeted by greebo the intellectually challenged obviously fresh from his pit, stating well mumbling in amongst swear words that we could not start work till 9am as it was disturbing him, he was going to call the council.  We told him to go ahead knowing that we were in the right as we had already done a lot of research on the web and ascertained that in fact a builder can start work at 8am, as do in fact our local council.  Anyway to cut a long storey short, were phoned by the council stating that a complaint had been made about the noise!!! 

Get a job you lazy layabout stop taking our hard earned tax and acturally work then decent hard working people can go about their busness without worring about disturbing your day.  For god sake what is this country coming to?  Why am I working for everything I earn when I have to pay for myself and enough in tax to keep these wretches who then complain about me when I try and better myself. 

Needless to say this doughnut is top of the list, by which I mean that we are recording all of his antics by anymeans possible to show the council in the hope that they will eventually see that this guy is a joke and throw this sorry thieving  good for nothing lazy useless ill educated unemployed retard back where he belongs, in the gutter!

I take solice in the fact that the flat for us is a stop gap on the way to better things and that we may be called, and probably are a few things but even if we try our very hardest we could never be that useless to society.