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sqwibble.com
Posted by David on Sep 26, 2008 in Uncategorized
Now I have (limited) broadband, I can actually start to work on my website here and there…
Erm… That’s about it :o)
I finally got broadband sorted…Yayyy!
Posted by David on Sep 26, 2008 in Uncategorized
Broadband yes, but highly regulated since I’m having to pay £25 a month for mobile broadband as the building I moved into still hasn’t had BT in to fit the phone lines. Bit rubbish really since I have a shiny new Be Broadband box (that I really should send back) and a nice letter from BT informing me that I have a telephone number allocated to me. Just a shame everytime I rang them, they wouldn’t accept that I knew what I was talking about when they sent out no less than 3 engineers (the first one told me what the problem was). The other annoying thing was when I’m being told that they’d run a line test. Fine, by all means do it but I’m having to spend 40-50 minutes a time on the phone to them from my mobile to an 0800 number which is anything but FREE! *sighs*
So anyway, Vodafone mobile broadband it is for the time being… Just I can’t go over 5GB a month else it’s an extra £15 per GB… Nice!
The English Premier League “Monopoly”…
Well what a week it’s been so far. Manchester City’s “shock” hijack of the Chelsea bid to bring Robinho to the Premier League.
What a way to announce the new owners to the World of Football that was.
Now to clear things up, I’m a Leicester City supporter, as well as an Arsenal supporter. Even before the news this week, I have always favoured Man. City to Man. United. So when I read that Man. City’s new owners had commented on a bid for Cristiano Ronaldo of around $240m (or £135m seen elsewhere). I have to admit, I had a chuckle about the upset of power going on between Man. United’s and Chelsea’s dominance in the transfer market.
But is this really good for the fans? For the smaller clubs? Especially since today, England dropped one place to 15th in the World rankings. I’m an Arsenal supporter granted and me saying the influx of foriegn talent in place of recruiting English players could be laughed at. But Arsene Wenger has never gone out of his way to buy established players. Rather prefering to nurture raw talent which up until recently meant, overseas players.
Where do things stand in the Premier League now?
Arab owners at Man. City, Glaziers at Man. United and ‘Red’ Rom at Chelsea all prepared to spend big money. Even Liverpools owners, Hicks and Gillett haven’t been shy with their wallets, but! There’s always a but, have they started to feel like the ‘Monopoly’ Premier League edition isn’t as much fun? They’ve even put on hold, their prized sweetner, the new stadium on hold. Claiming that old chestnut, the credit crunch.
Personally, I suspect a 3rd and 4th place finish in the premier league and Man. City’s new sugar daddies, have unsettled the apple cart. Man. City will almost certainly finish top 5 this season. Arsenals board are long term owners, (mostly) British and they understand the English Leagues. A 5th place finish will hurt Arsenal, but for Liverpool’s owners, it could mean a quick sale without the riches of a good Champions League cup run to bring in some much needed revenue…
All that’s left to see now, is who will be on the move come January!
No I don’t mean players, Managers…
Mark Hughes was a great player and an impressive manager. “With great power, comes great responsibility”. I’m sure he’ll do well.
Wenger will stay, whatever happens…
Benitez will stay, Hicks and Gillett, who knows…
Fergie will stay, although he’s due to retire. Will he really want to be seen to be ducking out now…?
Scolari, I don’t know! I feel he came to win at an cost, but Robinho’s transfer showed there is a limit. No doubting he’s a great manager, but like the ‘Special One’ Morinho, he’ll only be around as long as the money is available. For too long, they’ve been unmatched in spending. Getting who they want, no matter the cost. Now to have been beaten to a potential transfer because of money, is something they’ve never considered before.
Please feel free to leave comments 
Wordpress 2.6.* doesn’t like the N95
Posted by David on Aug 29, 2008 in All About Me, Freeware & Open Source Software, Geek-ness, Internet, My Website News
Pain in the butt!
Since I upgraded my Wordpress installation to 2.6.* I’ve not been able to add posts. For some unknow reason, it keeps crashing.
Now I’m using my N95 to write this post. Simple reason for this, is that I’m using Opera Mini 4.1. I’m still getting used to it, as I’ve been using and I’m now used to the inbuilt Nokia browser after a years use. I’m sure it’s a great browser, but until I get used to it. I’ll be sticking to the Nokia browser and using Opera Mini 4.1 as a backup plan when things don’t work. At least Windows gives us a “blue screen of death” on the PC. Nokia’s attempt just frustrates me by putting me back on the main screen, leaving me to find my way back to where I was rudely kicked off the internet…
Another thing that annoys me is the message telling me I’ve run out of memory. No idea if Opera Mini 4.1 will suffer the same problems, or will have better memory management.
One last gripe - no Copy & Paste for when I write long messages that get lost when the website I’m posting to times out.
Why Not Include it!?
It’s such a useful tool that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves…
UK Broadband providers - Who’s the best? Who do you use?
Posted by David on Aug 2, 2008 in All About Me, Internet
Hi, thought I’d start this one up. I’m in the UK so this isn’t going to be of much use to anyone from outside the UK.
I’ve been looking into who to use for my broadband. I was on NTL/Virgin Media before I moved. But they annoyed me by continuing to bill me for 4 months since I wasn’t getting my mail delivered properly, I didn’t notice the extra £37 a month going from my account.
I’ve considered trying them again though as a part from that, I didn’t have too many problems in the 4 years I was with them.
Next up is “Be” broadband with their bold claims of 24mb broadband, no download limits, no bottle necking. If you don’t know what that means, it means no limiting of the download speeds during peak periods. A static IP too which would be handy for starting up my own webserver (unlikely) or for playing games online…
Then of course there is Sky with their, pay for TV, get broadband. But I’d probably pay more for a better speed, but then not sure about their traffic limiting during peek times…
Plenty more out there…
So, any suggestions?
The Noise & The Beast From Hell…!
Posted by David on Jul 29, 2008 in All About Me
My apartment Headaches on the 28th July…
It was a summers evening after a lovely warm day. The birds had gone to sleep and all seemed well in David’s flat.
David was engrossed into what he was watching on TV and took no notice of the light making way for darkness outside of his window. For of course, he was in no way aware of what terrors were to come.
It was about 1am, when he first heard a noise. Fearing who could possibly be in the hallway, he sat back for a moment trying to evaluate everything through his mind. Was the noise coming from outside? Was the noise coming from next door, where as far as he knew. Were the only other people to have moved in so far. Then the noise stopped not long after starting so he put it down to hearing things and thought nothing of it. It sounded like a bag rustling, so just imagined it was maybe a bag falling over in the spare bedroom. Then around 15 minutes later, he heard the noise again and once again thought, there is definitely something in the hall. I’m not hearing things this time. So he turned down the TV, walked over to the door and swung it open, half expecting to see somebody stud there, half expecting it to be nothing more than a plastic bag moving around, like plastic bags have a habit of doing…
BUT…
Nothing, nothing there, nobody to be seen and no idea where the noise came from. Having looked around, he could not see anybody and the front door was locked so he had no idea. He put it down to paranoia and went back to watch TV. This time, about 30 minutes passed before he heard the noise again. He didn’t wait to make sure he could hear the noise further, he threw himself off of the sofa and flung the door open to reveal…!!!
NOTHING…!
Yep, nothing! He decided to investigate anyway and found a small packet of complimentary biscuits had moved into the bathroom and the packet had been ripped open slightly, with crumbs around the packet. It was then the penny dropped!
It was not the Beast From Hell! That he expected to find. It was in fact, probably a mouse coming in and out from the bathroom.
The End!
Anyway, shoved loads of bleach on some toilet tissue and blocked up the hole. If it decides to nibble through, it’ll no doubt have clean teeth and fresh breath or be in an early grave :p
World of…World of Wacraft
The latest World of Warcraft game will let a player play a player who is playing World of Warcraft. Sound weird? Well I’d be inclined to agree too
Facebook Fan Page & Group…
Well as I’m sat here bored, I thought I’d create my own Fan Page on Facebook…
Current Fan Numbers: 0 [edit: 2 now, me and a friend]
Expected Number of Fans: 1 (If I can actually make myself a fan as well as an Admin :p )
I have now decided to make a group up as well and so far, 4 out of 119 friends I’ve invited have joined…
WooHoo :p
Still no internet connection as yet, but then I’m still looking for a job so I’m thinking until I sort a job out. Might be best I don’t get an internet connection just yet as it’ll be an excuse to not look for a job :p
University doesn’t start again till late September so I think a job is in order before I get into bad habits, sleep in till midday and not want to do much beyond watching afternoon TV. Hang on, I think I’m mixing up student life and what is happening already :p
In case you’re reading this and you’re on Facebook, why not add yourself 
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=24964135425
http://www.facebook.com/pages/FriedGreenKidneyBeancom/21655062134
Posting from my phone. Why? Why not? :p
Yep, logged in on my phone n making a post. Wasn’t sure it would, infact I hadn’t even thought whether it would or not. I’m moving Thursday so I’m going to be without the internet for a while. Been thinking up ways to revamp my whole website. I think I’m going to probably do it all on my local server whilest I’m waiting for my new internet connection. Should keep me from getting bored I figure…
Spam Spam Spam…
From the BBC Technology news:
“Surfing the web unprotected will leave the average web user with 70 spam messages each day, according to an experiment by security firm McAfee.
It invited 50 people from around the world, including five from the UK, to surf without spam filters.
The experiment revealed that UK residents are most likely to be targeted by the infamous Nigerian e-mails and “adult” spam.
One UK participant received 5,414 spam e-mails during the month-long trial.
But the US still tops the global spam league.
Participants in the US received a total of 23,233 spam e-mails during the course of the experiment compared to 15,856 for the second most spammed country - Brazil.
In the UK, the five participants racked up 11,965 spam messages during the course of the experiment. Germany attracted the least spam, with just 2,331 junk messages.
GLOBAL SPAM LEAGUE
- US - 23,233
- Brazil - 15,856
- Italy - 15,610
- Mexico - 12,229
- UK - 11,965
- Australia - 9,214
- The Netherlands - 6,378
- Spain - 5,419
- France - 2,597
- Germany - 2,331
Data supplied by McAfee
TOP TEN MOST POPULAR SPAM CATEGORIES
- Advertisements
- Financial
- Health and medicine
- Adult services
- Free stuff
- Education
- IT related
- Money making
- Credit cards
- Watch adverts
Data supplied by McAfee
You can read the full story on the BBC Technology News website