Posts by Martin Simpson

Warrington first to get Virgin Media 50Mb/s

Bunch of grannies, the lot of you.

I've had a number of different ISP's in my time, and i can say that VM although their CC sucks their broadband doesn't.

I am one of the "heavy users" (well, at least i was) and i regularly download around 10GB/day (5 x 500GB HDD's RAID5 thankyouverymuch!). I find their capping although annoying to be relatively fair, i schedule my downloads for off-peak hours like early morning and just before noon and i never have a problem. I've been with NTL/Virgin for umpteen years ( i think 7 ) and their service has always been excellent. I experience very little downtime, when it is down they bring it back up very quickly and the speed is always a constant 19.6Mbps.

Now, i recently went to India (and i'm still here), i've been trying to get my Internet line put in and finally managed it yesterday. What did it take?

20 phonecalls after the engineers promised 5 different dates, another 5 to get the ADSL line activated and then another 3 to get the speed upgraded to something usable. Right now i'm stuck on a 512kbps line which is unreliable at best. I would give anything to go back to Virgin Media's "unfair" "slow" and "crappy" sevice. Just count yourselves lucky and quit moaning :)

Activist coders aim to deafen Phorm with white noise

I've said it before

As soon as they sign, all my traffic is being routed over an encrypted VPN tunnel to Amsterdam (where i have a server). Anyone wanting to jump on board is more than welcome.

US auto parts store spills data to hackers

@James O'Brien

I think you missed the sarcasm is Kain's post....

Maybe now is the time to dismount your Microsoft High Horse :)

Dear ISP, I am not a target market

My solution.

I am a current customer of Virgin, and i do not like this one single bit.

From here on in, all data sent over the internet will be first encrypted then sent to a server in amsterdam (which i own). The latency is around 20 seconds, and worth it as far as i am concerned.

Sign-ups are welcome ;)

IFPI wins Danish block on Pirate Bay

Or...

These people in question could just change their DNS server?

I wonder who thought of this way to rid the world of piracy, as i'd like to mock them.

Downing Street's website, the e-petitions hit tart

IT angle?

On a side note...

The design for that website is absolutely awful!

http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page13621.asp

What sort of URL is that? I hope to god they haven't coded each asp page individually! It seems they also have a lack of RESTful understanding.

*sigh*

This is the UK Government afterall!

*gets coat*

'Suspicious looking' man hauled off translatlantic flight

Get that man a drink

Unlikely they'd have questioned him if he was caucasian

By Lee Turner

Posted Thursday 12th July 2007 15:35 GMT

but then again, there haven't been that many caucasian suicide bombers either....

May i just say, that's the best response i've seen all day.

Apple plugs 25 security holes

Hehe gotta love 'em

What strikes me is the way Mac fanboys repond so bitterly.

"Boy you must be a security analyst." - Was there really need for sarcasm.

I'm not being smug, but I'll bet that Mac users will shut up about security when their systems become unusable due to spyware and adware. - Yes, you are

"Well if you can get through the wall of fire, the mote filled with alligators, and the 25 foot thick steel door, clipping a hole in the chain link fence shouldn't be too tough." - A bit of an exaggeration dont you think?

What i'm trying to say is that every system has it's flaws. I use a mixture of Windows XP / 2K server / Linux / Unix. My windows XP machine has been running now for about 6 months, and it's still as fast as the day i installed it. Not becuase windows is great, but because i take care of my system and i install what i need, not random crap from the internet.

Mac systems are no better, the people just take better care of them. Personally i like Mac's but all in all they're just pretty toys that everyone puts on a pedestal for no reason. Anyway, if you want to argue the point about securty, give OpenBSD a try.

Mac's are just like Windows in respect to the fact they're just another Operating System, they have flaws.. the only difference is a different user base.

"Macs dont get viruses or spyware" i've heard people say. This is becuase you dont get script kiddies on Mac's (or *nix for that fact!) so quit the "Macs are the best" crap.

Thanks.