Woke up before my alarm this morning, why? because I was thinking about my application, I know I flunked it but it’s the waiting for the letter that’s such a nightmare.
World Of Warcraft = Bloody Nightmare
Had a couple of days off work so yesterday I thought i’d make use of a 14 Day Trial for World Of Warcraft i’ve had sitting in a draw for months.
Boshed in the the dvd and it said i’d need 5 gig free HD space so I jigged some bits around and managed to scrape it together. Install from disk took aaaaages over an hour in fact. After was done had to reboot PC. I then setup an account on WOW. After logging in it said I needed to download an update patch all bloody 456 meg of it!. After doing that it said I needed another 1.7 gig free space so again I had to delete unwanted stuff. Thats it I thought now I can play but NO after doing that it said I needed to download another one at 697 meg!. After that was done it said I needed another 4 gig free. Well at this point I nearly lost it so knowing I couldn’t free up that much space I uninstalled the whole lot.
Today I re-installed it on a spare drive, I’ve downloaded both patches sat at my desk with lunch and a hot cup of tea expecting to kill something only to find I need to download ANOTHER FOOKIN PATCH this time at 529 meg. They’ve got to be having a giraffe, it’s times like these when I think I shouldn’t venture into the new era of gaming and instead stick with solitaire. RAH!
Virgin
2 guys turned up about half 12 and although the barely spoke any english they managed to install my service and get it working, I couldn’t get them out the door fast enough so I could pull it all apart. They installed the box behind the TV so i’ve had to run some CAT5 into the spare room where the router is. Everythings configured and seems to be working ok.
Much happier with that, means i’m paying £15 less p/m but getting 1 meg more lol
The wait begins
Yup virgin are due to install my broadband today between 8 and 1 so no doubt they’ll turn up around 4ish ha.
Transformers Movie
Went and saw this last night
Plot
A long time ago, far away on the planet of Cybertron, a war was being waged between the noble Autobots (led by the wise Optimus Prime) and the devious Decepticons (commanded by the dreaded Megatron) for control over the Allspark, a mystical talisman that would grant unlimited power to whoever possessed it. The Autobots managed to smuggle the Allspark off the planet, but Megatron blasted off in search of it. He eventually tracked it to the planet of Earth (circa 1850), but his reckless desire for power sent him right into the Arctic Ocean, and the sheer cold forced him into a paralyzed state. His body was later found by Captain Archibald Witwicky, and before going into a comatose state Megatron used the last of his energy to engrave a map, showing the location of the Allspark, into the Captain’s glasses, and send a transmission to Cybertron. He is then carted away by the Captain’s ship. A century later, Sam Witwicky, nicknamed Spike by his friends, buys his first car. To his shock, he discovers it to be Bumblebee, an Autobot in disguise who is to protect Spike, as he bears the Captain’s glasses and the map carved on them.
Evaluatuion
In word BRILLIANT!, SFX were awesome and you could almost have believed the robots were real. There’s a few scenes that get your pulses racing aided by a healthy soundtrack, as with any film there’s a splash of comedy tied in as well.
DON’T WAIT FOR THE DVD, GO TO THE CINEMA AND WATCH IT NOW!!!!
Virgin
Well just done another speedtest and got
Under 1 meg for £25 per month sucks balls so i’ve signed up with Virgin, bad move? probably but we’ll see.
Call to sales….
Me “I have a few quesitons about your service”
Virgin “OK”
Me “What’s the contention ratio?”
Virgin “What?”
Me “What’s the contention ratio?”
Virgin “err i’ll speak to my techy friend”
(music plays)
Virgin “There isn’t one”
Me “OK, your ad says upto 2 meg what speed will I get?”
Virgin “You’ll definatley get 2 meg as it doesn’t depend on how far away from the exchage you are like ADSL”
Me “Do you throttle bandwidth or have in place any bandwidth management?”
Virgin “Im sorry”
Me “Do you throttle bandwidth or have in place any bandwidth management?”
Virgin “Please Hold”
(more music)
Virgin “No”
Fishy Virgin
I phoned virgin media a few days ago to enquire about their £10 BB offer. Oviously I did my own research before hand but thought i’d put the sales guy to the test.
Me “Do you know what the conention ratio is?”
Virgin “Yes I do actually”
Me “Well what is it?”
Virgin “Please hold”
(Horrible music plays)
Virgin “There is no contention ratio you get all the bandwidth”
Me “Really, do you throttle your bandwidth at peak times?”
Virgin “No never”
Well fook me looks like virgin media are doing leased lines for £10 per month why hasn’t everyone got one? Either these chimps are not trained or they are told to lie through their teeth.
Last night I had a call from an area rep so I thought i’d test him.
Me “What’s the contention ratio?”
Virgin “What’s your current suppliers?”
Me “Errr 25:1”
Virgin “Similar to that”
Me “Similar?”
Virgin “Yes similar”
Me “Yours is actually 50:1 isn’t it!”
(Long silence)
Virgin “Who told you that?”
Me “Well that’s what it is isn’t it!”
Virgin “Yes similar”
Me “It’s not bloody similar it’s double what mine is now”
So i’ve spoken to two people and both have been very shifty about virgin’s service.
Broadband Hum
Had to raise a fault with Demon last week as my broadband went to snails pace….
Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
IP profile for your line is – 135 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 1824 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was – 67 kbps
As expected they told me it was a BT fault and raised a call with them.
Reply from Demon 19 July 2007 14:18:01
BT have adjusted the signal to noise ratio on your ADSL line and believe this
will stabilise the service. Please allow 24hrs for the process to complete. If
you are still experiencing intermittent synch after 24hrs, please contact us on
the usual number.
Modem shows
18/07/07
Output Power (dBm) up/down = 12 / 17
Attenuation (dB) up/down = 31 / 55
Noise Margin (dB) up/down = 19 / 10
Vendor Id (local/remote) = ALCB / TSTC
21/07/07
Output Power (dBm) up/down = 12.0 / 16.0
Attenuation (dB) up/down = 31.5 / 55.0
Noise Margin (dB) up/down = 19.0 / 12.0
Vendor Id (local/remote) = ALCB / TSTC
Just carried out a test @ http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest using Sprint and got 572 Kb/s down and 184 Kb/s up which sucks especially for £25 p/m. I’m currently considering going for Virgin’s 2mb £10 p/m service as cables just arrived in my area. I’ve read good and bad reviews on their service but they’re offering 30 day money back guarantee so during this time I will keep my ADSL running and if turns out to be rubbish i’ll just cancel it.
Domain Sales
Can money really be made from the sale of domain names? Well today I decided to put it to the test. I’ve registered 8 domains at the cost of £36.22 and tomorrow I will be listing them for sale. So we shall see….
36 Hours On
Well it’s 36 hours since my last smoke, what’s it like? well apart from the headache’s, nausea, furry mouth, cravings, and the fact that I woke up at 5 this morning not too bad 🙁 So far i’ve been doing it cold turkey ie no patches/gum etc, I’ve brought some patches but not too sure if i’m going to use them or not.