Category Archives: Rants

The problems with technology.

Orange really wind me up…

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So as you probably know, I recently built my own computer. It’s all going brilliantly. Except from one thing…

Orange are a little bit annoying sometimes. In fact, they aren’t what you’d call an A* ISP. Their router is a little shabby (it can’t decide whether it prefers English or French, and it often forgets that it has ever been turned on), and their customer service isn’t brilliant either.

However, the one thing that annoys me most of all is the poor management of bandwidth usage. It’s a pain. I know that Orange seem to provide 40GB of monthly usage but they give you no means whatsoever of monitoring how much bandwidth you have consumed in one month.

Then, they say that if you use more than 40GB a month they’ll send you a warning and then cut your speed to 512kbps!! What the hell? They won’t let you monitor your bandwidth but they’ll send you a letter if you go in the slightest over 40GB.

And then if you fail to lower your usage after that, they’ll cut your connection!

Frankly, I’d rather pay a little extra per month than have my speed throttled if I go over my usage. Doesn’t that seem like the more sensible thing to do from a company point of view? They make a little more money rather than loosing a customer.

Honestly I think Orange are making big mistakes and ripping us off. Bethere do unlimited 8MB broadband for £13.50 per month on a shorter contract (12 months, compared to Orange’s 18 months) and there’s no set limit on how much you can use per month!

Come on Orange, this is rubbish!

TAX to be added to 50p per month phone line TAX – confirmed

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Yes – it’s been confirmed – those annoying people we call government have decided that they are going to add VAT to the proposed 50p per month phone line tax. With the VAT rate about to rise back to 17.5%, that makes the tax 58.75p per month or £7.05 per year.

This is seriously frustrating. The government just wants to reel in the money. Has anyone realised that it is impossible to revolutionise UK broadband networks in under 10 years. Frankly, I’d call this idea more of a scam, and sadly it looks like it will become a reality.

I really think the government has no idea what it is talking about. How the hell does the goverment expect to upgrade 5000 exchanges (5600 exchanges in UK approximately) to next generation broadband in under 10 years. With our government, there isn’t a hope in hell.

The Treasury has said approximately £175 million per year with this tax and I suspect very little of it will actually get spent on upgrading our broadband.

It has also been confirmed that the tax has been given the “green light” so it looks like the government will be pickpocketing more money from us within the next few months.

Windows 7 security issues concerning…

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Well I have to say that after yesterday’s experience with Windows 7 I am slightly concerned about the security side of the new operating system.

I’m not the only one with concerns for Microsoft’s security. Sophos, a valued security organisation, has criticized Microsoft says Windows 7 is vulnerable to “8 out of 10 viruses” spreading round the world wide web at this time.

My concern isn’t really to do with viruses, but more down to anti-malware in general.

I was quite frankly astounded that a trojan had made it’s way onto my computer just 2 weeks after installing Windows 7. Now I am quite experienced with computers (not to boast about it!!) and I don’t go round downloading malicious software from the internet, so I was quite puzzled when my computer started acting up.

Windows was mysteriously minimizing Windows randomly – typical sort of thing with a trojan. It didn’t take long for me to work out something had infected my computer and Comodo Internet Security wasn’t reporting any type of threat, so I downloaded some other software and eventually dug it out.

After about half an hour of scanning, the threat was fished out of the Windows Registry and I managed to fix the issue rather easily, and the symptoms immediately stopped.

What puzzles me is how easily a trojan managed to make its way into my registry and start messing around with my computer. I thought Windows was supposed to dig out threats before they take control.

Well, whatever. But it is a concerning issue. Microsoft needs to do something about this, and fast – or Windows 7 could quickly end up with a poor reputation. And a poor reputation is the last thing Microsoft want right now – not after the outrage from Windows Vista.

Terminating my Facebook – the social networking stint ends here!

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Yes, I was a member of the social network world… from February this year in fact. But now, 8 months later, I have decided to pull it all apart.

Yes I’ve done the big thing. Made the definitive step. Thrown it in the bin.

It’s gone. I’ve killed my Facebook. And you know what, I don’t miss it at all. I was getting bored of people adding me as a friend just for the sake of another friend on their list.

And you know what – I don’t see what I’ve got out of it in the last 8 months. If someone asked me, I wouldn’t be able to think of much.

So I think I’ll definitely be happy to re-enter the real world of people rather than the distorted world of social networking.

Social networking is great, but just remember that nothing lasts forever. The world will get bored with it eventually!

50p phone line tax – what a waste of time!

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OK, so I was reading online that the government in the UK has decided that the 50p phone line tax may well take place after all. You may have heard that it was fought over a while back, but the government seems to have brought it back into the finance equation.

Anyway, if you don’t know already, the government is imposing that every fixed phone line payer in this country pays an extra 50p per month on their phone bill. With this the government aims to have 90% of homes/businesses in the UK on next generation broadband lines by 2017, or at least that is the target.

I, personally, have a large number of problems with this and have listed these below:

  • The government recons 90% of homes/businesses in the UK will be on next gen broadband by 2017 with the help of the tax. OK, so what about the remaining 10% of homes/businesses in the UK with phone lines. They are paying 50p per month (£6 per year) on something that won’t even reach them. So the government is, frankly, stealing £6 per year from 10% of fixed phone line bill payers in the UK and they get nothing in return. Isn’t that some sort of fraud?
  • Many elderly people do not broadband, and probably never will, so what benefit is this tax to them?
  • Low income families will find this tax difficult to pay.
  • By 2017 (that is 8 years time!) it is most likely 20MB broadband (or whatever they are considering next generation) will not be next generation. Internet (as a service) has come long way in the last 8 years, so in a further 8 years time what we consider now as next gen will most likely not be next gen.
  • I personally think this will encourage a lot of people to cancel their fixed phone lines and move to their mobiles. Think about it – this is a great opportunity for mobile contract broadband providers to start offering large amounts of minutes to customers for cheap prices, and that may well make people scrap their phone lines altogether.
  • There’s no guarantee that this 90% figure will be reached by 2017, so we might well end up paying even more tax.

I’m sorry Gordon, but this doesn’t make sense. However, if the government can get this tax on our bills before the next general election, we aren’t going to have much choice on whether we pay this tax or not.

The government really needs to get its act together on broadband – their plans to make our country “next generation” are just pretty pictures and unrealistic imaginations.

The government wastes too much of our money on stupid MP expenses so they’ve hardly got my trust in a brighter future for broadband.

This is a waste of time Gordon.