BinaryJam

I’ve been running with Mozy now for quite a while.  I had big intentions of testing it logged in as various users and not logged in etc etc and seeing how it works in different scenarios.

Well I haven’t had time for any of that.  But then I have had no trouble with Mozy since installing it that would have made me make the effort.

It just sits there.  So long as I leave the machine on now and again it will back-up the changes.  I made some initial tests of downloading and comparing files and they were fine.

It works underneath Family Safety Software so no problems there. As I tend to stay logged in I can’t say I became worried about it working when logged off, and we tend to use the switch user capabilities, this can send it a bit funny but log every one out  and it sorts itself out again.  Which I tend to do as I don’t have enough memory in the lappy to leave lots of sessions running.

Whilst I have all the goodness of auto backups now it does effect how you do everything else.

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For those unaware, we had a little earthquake, 5.2.  Largest in the UK for 25 years.  So for those of us who are not used to these geological events it was bad enough.

Bad enough when you live an a house only 8 years old made of paper, or seemingly so, I certainly felt every bounce and wobble, if that’s what earthquakes do. Whilst in my house, the effect felt amplified by the banging of the mirror against the wall in time with the wobbles.  It lasted 10 seconds they say, I say it lasted a lot longer, as the mirror continued to bang as the lesser quake ripples continued for another 20 seconds or so.

I wasn’t sure if we were in for a second larger quake or what, not being used to quakes, it was only my third after all.  I wondered whether or not to wake the kids and go wait it out in the car, well it was dark and late I was tired and a little worried to say the least.

The last thing on my mind was to remember to pick up the external USB disk drive that holds my backups, or the pack of dvd’s holding an older set of backups.  No, leaving was on my mind.

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Well done to eBay.

They have got the feedback system correct. Well better for buyers anyway.

I recently purchased a product from a seller on ebay and the item arrived damaged and not from the location listed, I would not have purchased an item from china due to import taxes and delivery times etc, unless I really could not get it elsewhere for a similar price. 

But due to the fear of negative feedback I dared not give a bad review, considering I paid immediately by pay pal, how could I be a bad buyer ?  I admit I gave the seller no chance for reparation, as I was not getting into the whole sending back to china thing, too much hassle.  So I Neutral responded.  This was a lie.  I wanted to say Item damaged, seller not in UK, he’s a damn liar.  Lets face it its the only thing we can do if we choose to cos ebay do bugger all to help with liars when you report it. (based on my experience).

So now, we can give the seller the bad feedback they deserve when they lie and cheat and steal, as well as any legal reparations paypal may offer.

It’s evident in the feedback of my bad seller as people learn about it, the seller in question I dealt with now has more than double the amount of negative reviews in the last month and we are only half way through.  So as not to be totally biased about this chap here, he does have 98.4% rating, I’m just going to be interested to see how that changes when people learn about the policy.

I thought I’d raise the profile of this petition.  Now personally I’m not sure it’s the correct solution but it could be used to raise awareness of the issue. 

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/fibretothehome/sign

Pass this link about if you agree with it, if you think an alternative is required then avoid creating another petition and diluting the subject and still sign it, there is no way the government is going to pay BT money to do what they should have started doing ages ago with all the profits off the back of our taxes, I’m ranting again.

Please sign it and e-mail your colleagues and families to do similar hopefully it can beat the road pricing petition in numbers and it just might wake ofcom up from its slumber.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7114642.stm

In a wonderful piece of incite Ofcom have announced they have no vision.

“We need significant evidence that such a network is required and I don’t think it exists yet”

Really ?

The reason you cannot see why a network is required is that currently any business model that requires a high speed network is constrained by our existing infrastructure.  Are you just blinded by the sheer cost of putting in fibre? Yes it’s expensive but, the network is as important an infrastructure as our roads and rail.  It needs a strong kick to send it where the country needs, and Ofcom, as usual, are fumbling with the ball.

But if you really need a reason, 

“First company to offer me fast broadband at the right price get’s my business.”

So, Oi Virgin, take the hint, if BT won’t cable, get your ar*e in gear and lay some more wires damn you, I’ll switch in a heartbeat.

And someone kick the dullards at Ofcom.

It’s not often that something grabs me on the internet nowadays, obviously Silverlight did and the amazing capabilities for design and interface it offers whilst having a programming model that I am familiar with.  Bog standard html/css well I’ve seen it all haven’t I ?  You can’t do anything else to surprise me, can you ?

Well actually you can.  Perhaps its been around for ages, perhaps it’s a new tilt on something that’s very common and I’ve had my head so deep in RSS to notice.

MS just released the MIX ‘08 site.  I’d love to go but I’m from the UK so will have to wait for some poor cousin affair in London, with none of the same speakers and some blueberry muffins scattered about to placate us.  Hardly the Vegas equivalent.  Perhaps they could do it in Blackpool in a new super-casino, if they ever get built.  But I digress, again.

There is something about this site just so simple and so elegant, and it occurs in the top two inches of the page, the rest of the page is the usual stuff but I had not seen such an elegant header before that allows the content underneath to scroll under it, but its a window scroll not a Div scroll that threw me.

It took a little digging in the css but I discovered an attribute I had not seen before 

position:fixed

Absolute and Relative sure, but when did fixed appear ?  Has it been there a while and I just missed it and been server coding so long.

Well combined with a transparent png it is used to great effect.

Shame that the Silverlight panel is not set as a windowless control so gets its own window and doesn’t slide under the header.