Journal Entries
And so that was Christmas
Posted Jan 7, 2004
All over again for another year.
Still, this one was memorable for a few reasons.
1. It was my first Christmas living alone in my own house 
2. Therefore it was the first Christmas when I actually visited my parents for Christmas dinner
3. I had mice in my attic - Wee sleekit cowerin' tim'rous beasties!
4. I made my first serious effort at singlehandedly decorating a Christmas tree, and succeeded, by and large
5. I got really annoyed by little bits of tinsel on my floor ("I just swept that five minutes ago!!")
6. It was my first Christmas living alone in my own house 
Anyway, the tree is packed away, the cards are gone, and the living room looks very bare. I really must get some pointless items of furniture to fill those awkward little spaces in the corners.
I could have done with another week off work to recover!
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Latest reply: Jan 7, 2004
Hooray!
Posted Dec 22, 2003
So I've been playing around with this ADSL thing for about a week and a half. The changeover was relatively painless, and even gave me a handy excuse to insist on at least a half day off work (one of those was long overdue!) Wonder of wonders, I managed to get the entire day off, how amazing is that? (very amazing, considering the project so far!)
For the first week or so, I felt that the speed wasn't quite up to snuff, with a downstream speed varying from anything between 76Kbps (kiloBITS per second... yes, really!) up to a maximum of about 330Kbps. I was expecting something more around 430+Kbps, so I was a bit worried. The maximum dowsnload speed was around 39KBps (yeah, kiloBYTES per second, this whole thing can appear a bit confusing! Try not to panic!)
Anyway, things are much better now, and I'm consistently downloading stuff at around 55KBps, give or take a couple of KB, which is much better. Online gaming is absolutely blazing now too... I can see myself wasting, er, I mean losing a lot of time at that in the future!!
If only I could work out why my father is getting disconnected so often... still, his connection is better than it was at the start too, when he couldn't connect at all!
Teething troubles...
Merry Christmas!
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Latest reply: Dec 22, 2003
ADSL
Posted Nov 25, 2003
Well, the order is in to convert the ISDN line to analogue and activate the broadband connection (fingers crossed that I'm not too far from the exchange)
Being an optimistic and impatient soul, I've already got an ADSL router, so I *really* hope that my line will support ADSL.
While I was at it, I made sure that the router handled wireless networking, so I can play around with 802.11g (when I find some more money - looks like the only presents I'll be buying this Christmas will be for myself!!)
Still, assuming all goes well, my vague hand-wavy and optimistic calculations lead me to believe that I will actually save quite a bit of money by going for ADSL. Here's hoping, I could use a few extra quid at the end of each month...
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Latest reply: Nov 25, 2003
Broadband
Posted Sep 13, 2003
Now, after all this waiting, apparently my exchange will be enabled for ADSL Broadband by 3rd December.
Woohoo... or so I would have reacted a couple of months ago. Now I'm sitting with a 12 month contract on an ISDN line and the prospect of handing over another big wodge of cash to have it converted back to analogue before the broadband can be enabled.
So not only did I have to pay to get the original analogue line connected in my new house, I had to immediately pay to have that line converted to ISDN, and I will have to pay all over again to have the line converted back to analogue (plus whatever the broadband connection fee is at the time)
It's an expensive job being a computer geek, maybe I should find a new hobby/career/life...
Sure if I didn't have the phone company to moan about, I'd have to be a grumpy sod to everyone else! 
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Latest reply: Sep 13, 2003
Bloody Telco...
Posted Aug 20, 2003
Naming no names, but after waiting until the very last possible moment to get my phone line transferred to the new house, and with lots of unencouraging comments about trigger levels and the lack of demand for ADSL in my idyllic rural exchange area, I finally gave in to the inevitable and ordered an ISDN line as the next best option for a decent net connection.
Bearing in mind that this locks me into a 12 month minimum contract with the phone company for this line, and that it can't support ADSL without being reconverted back to an analogue line, how long do you think it took them to announce a Broadband trigger level for the exchange?
Go on, have a guess...
Four weeks...
...just my bloody luck! 
I wonder how long it will take to reach the trigger level...?
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Latest reply: Aug 20, 2003
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Jynnan Tonnyx (-2+7-9+0!+invtan(1) =42)
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