On the instability of reality

Over the years, I've noticed that IT equipment has a habit of simply disappearing.  When you absolutely know you had several power adaptors, spare memory chips and patch cables in the cupboard, and yet the most diligent search doesn't reveal anything more than a dusty old graphics card or 300MB HDD, then you become aware of the essential fragility of nature.

I'm not sure about the power strips or memory, but I do know why the network cables go.  Anyone who has worked with a patch panel and network infrastructure very quickly becomes aware that network cables inevitably become tangled.  You can leave things as neat and well-laid out as you like, but once you close the server room door and turn the lights off, those cables start to squirm and wriggle, and eventually end up in a state that makes a bird's nest look like a rigidly formatted mathematical progression.  There's a Nobel prize waiting for the first person to invent tangle-proof patch cables.

Eventually, the cables reach a state of complete instability - the knots are so complex and topologically impossible that reality can no longer support their existence.  And poof - no more network cable.  Note that this only happens to cables that are not in use - there must be some extra dose of stability introduced by the passage of TCP/IP packets up and down the line, something that helps the cable keep a tenuous grip on existence.  But for those wires left on the side, or simply attached to dead port switches there's no hope.  Eventually they will pass over the edge of normality and there's a small collapse of matter in that region.  It must be small, because no energy is released - possibly because it's all taken up in maintaining the complexity of the knots.  And so, when you come to look for spare cables for that essential new link, and you remember buying a dozen or so 1 metre patches just a month ago, but none are there, then you have proof that matter can destroyed without trace.

Either that, or one of your co-workers has nabbed them for another site.

YAMNMP

This blog is rapidly becoming a clearing house for Microsoft Network Monitor problems.  The latest is an issue with Firefox - if you're trying to download add-ons or extensions for Firefox, and receive a "Download Error -228" in place of the desired coloured tabs or whatever, just disconnect MNM from the network settings and try again.

The acronym?  Yet Another Microsoft Network Monitor Problem.

The solution?  Works for me (which is an acceptable bugfix resolution code as far as I'm concerned).

How to handle a file

Occasionally, I come across a problem that, while annoying, isn't really going to be any kind of a show stopper.  I'll work at it for a while, then eventually decide that it's too much trouble, put it on one side and forget completely about it.  Until I notice that whatever it was still hasn't been resolved, then I'll start worrying at the bit for a while again... and so on and so on.

One of these problems is the inordinate number of file handles that one of my system processes seems to use up over time.  I'm referring to a process called 'audiodg', which is apparently associated with removing the DRM data that may be attached to various audio files before permitting other processes to play the file.  It's another puny attempt to control access to data.  (Hint to MS and various music publishers - someone, somewhere WILL crack whatever protections you use, and then it's all downhill from there on.  Why waste your time, our resources and everyone's patience chasing a goal that's unobtainable?)

Audiodg is run as a protected process, to stop all those nasty hackers from breaking whatever DRM the publishers have added (see above).  This means you can't easily see what it is up to.  However, when it is listed as holding in excess of 4 million file handles after a day or so running, I think questions of exactly what it is up to become irrelevant: what interests me is how to stop it.

Fortunately, the cure is very simple - stop and restart the audiosrv service.  This kills and recreates the audiodg process, with a nice clean no-handle instantiation.  It doesn't stay that way, but it does at least work reproducibly.

Give the nature of the beast, info is not easy to find.  I can't see anyone else complaining about this problem elsewhere, so perhaps there's something odd in my setup.  I had put it down to the SoundMAX audio driver, but I'm not so confidant that this is the real culprit - surely if that were the case someone else would have seen and reported this.  In the meantime, having just restarted the service, I'll probably forget all about the issue - until I notice the system running slowly and chewing up memory like there's no tomorrow again.

I learn something every week

Two little snippets of knowledge picked up this week, both in answer to some issues that have been troubling me for some time.  I offer them here on the offchance that they will be picked up by whatever search engines happen to come across these pages, and will prove of use to others seeking answers.

1) Microsoft Network Monitor 3.1 can be a right pain.  There's some kind of problem between MNM and the Intel wireless network card in some laptops (specifically, in my case, a Dell Precision) which results in a runaway state on boot-up where the SYSTEM process chews up CPU time and memory usage goes up and up.  Eventually, various peripherals such as a USB mouse and even the keyboard stop working and it's BRB (Big Red Button) time.  Re-booting sometimes works, but equally often just allows the same thing to happen.  I've had up to five reboots before I end up with a usable system.  The trick (once you do manage to get logged in) is to disable to Network Monitor Driver in the adaptor network properties.  All seems to work nicely then

2) Vista does nasty things to some 'shared' files.  I have to report a very unusual source for this snippet - although we've been actively using Vista for over a year now, I hadn't seen either the problem or the solution until recently.  The nature of the issue is that supposedly shared files aren't always - they can disappear when another user logs on to the local system.  This is because Vista tries to virtualise data wherever possible, moving it from the normal 'Program Files' area to a hidden folder in the user's individual 'Local' tree.  (There's one oddity which explains why we haven't seen this before - disabling UAC apparently prevents this behaviour.  Although Microsoft would probably disapprove, this is exactly what we do as soon as we get hold of a Vista PC.)  Where did I come across this?  In Usenet, of all places in the uk.rec.motorcycling group, a source of knowledge that is unequalled anywhere else on the 'Net.

That's it for this week.  If anything else of interest comes up, you can read it here - assuming the search engines do manage to find this.

I've been given the sack

Not quite a 'gadget', but |I've just taken delivery of a new rucksack.  Hardly earth-shaking, but it looks like it will resolve a couple of problems.  I've been looking for a reasonably discrete way of carrying both a laptop and my camera gear round, and the Lowepro Fastpack 250 fills the bill.  It holds a 15.4" widescreen laptop (Dell - tick), a large camera (translate - Nikon plus battery pack - tick), extra lenses, memory cards, something termed 'personal accessories', etc.  About the only area where I'd take issue with the description is that the bag is intended to hold a flash unit - so far, I haven't been able to find a way of fitting my SB-600 in without straining the zips unmercifully.  So it stays out for the time being.

The rucksack has a waist strap, and fully loaded is relatively comfortable when worn properly.  Lots of pockets and little hideaways for, well, hiding things away.

The nice bit about it is that it's a side-loader, i.e. by swinging the bag around on the left shoulder you can remove the camera without taking the bag off completely.  Whilst this is helpful in that you don't need to shrug the bag off completely, I'm thinking it will take some time to get the hang of it to get to the stage where it's much quicker.

The bag is described as meeting airline restrictions for carry-on luggage, and while I'd think it was stretching the limits a bit, it's certainly nowhere near the size of some bags I've seen being slung into an overhead locker.  I seriously wonder how the passengers involved can think these are reasonable - I swear I saw one the size of a cricket bag (that's the luggage, not the passenger) once.

Conclusion - looks like I'm going to recommend this.  Of course, it will have to stand up to the wear and tear of daily trips, probably not always fully loaded with gear, but my bags tend to either fail early, or make the grade over extended use.  By all reports, the Lowepro's are reasonably well-made and don't seem to suffer from poor workmanship.  Some of the zips seems a little small for the loads they are expected to take, but perhaps that's just because I always try to cram more in than the bag is designed to take.  Time will tell.

It's high time

About 25 metres high, if the kite lines stretch to that.  Yes, time to invest in some new nylon and string in the form of another power kite.  Having taken the 3 m2 one out last weekend, and only just got it airborne due to lack of sufficient wind, a larger model is clearly necessary.

OK, this is me getting 'need' and 'want' mixed up again, but it's in a good cause.  Really!  Kite flying is just about the most exercise you can have without actually have to get up and do something strenuous.  Yes, it's really good for you, promotes health (if not wealth).  You're concentrating on what that sheet of fabric is doing (or, if you're better at it than I am, what it is about to do) so much that you don't realise until after half an hour or so just what strain this has been putting on your arms.  But at that point it's brought home with startling clarity just what a strain it has been - the forearm muscles are screaming with cramp, the shoulders ache, and you have a crick in the neck from trying to watch where the kite is, your feet are, and what that horrible little dog is about to do just down the beach - although with a little bit of practice, you can sweep the kite low enough and fast enough to give the dog enough of a fright that it ends up doing whatever it was a long way further down the beach.

So I'm now wondering what to move up to - a kite with sufficient lift to start jumping?  Or something with even more traction for pulling me along the ground (scudding)?  The thought of trying kite-powered buggying is also attractive, albeit even more expensive.  That would suggest the lift option is less likely - but the whole idea of grabbing air just seems to say go for it.  Then the idea of the damage I'm likely to do to my knees says "no way".  I'll probably settle for a 5 or possibly 7 metre intermediate kite - nothing too basic, but not a sports model.  Although kites used to be a kid's game, I suspect the extreme powerkites  have not matured quite enough to be suited to my advanced years.

Coincidence? I don't think so

As mentioned here before, I'm looking at ways of communicating, partly out of academic interest, and partly because there may be some merit in some new systems for work.  My foray into Twitter didn't really take off - I guess I can't find anything valuable enough to say which isn't equally valuable to keep private.  Not being one to let such a simple matter put me off, I recently signed up to the identi.ca service, thinking that not only would this let me stake yet another claim to the 'pemur' tag, but it would also open up the world of openID - which again may have some use ion the future.

Two days or so later, I start getting people following me on Twitter.  Now bear in mind that I haven't updated Twitter for over 50 days - what is the chance that I'll get new followers now?

What's really interesting is the complex way that the various openID sites seem to be integrated: I thought I had a fairly good and simple subscription to one, only to find that it gets difficult to navigate all the possible sibling sites, not to mention those which use openID for authentication.  I now seem to have at least three openIDs, but they are all the same, if you see what I mean.  And if anyone does see what I mean, can you please explain it to me?

We are approaching normality

There are about fifty applications or tools installed on this PC.  That's quite a bunch to recover from just about a standing start.  And ensuring that everything is up-to-date and taking as many measures as possible to ensure that the sources are clean means a lot of work.

Even so, there are some oddities: Whisper, used for password management, at first refused to install.  It seems that I have about four different variants lying about.  I eventually found one that does at least install, but it's windows behaviour deviates from the norm - the minimize and maximise buttons are weird, and the frame certainly doesn't meet Vista expectations.  Forte Agent wouldn't recognise my legitimate key at first, but a downloaded version of the same files suddenly decides to work.

On the other hand, reinstalling does seem to have fixed some problems.  For six months now, the network configuration wouldn't automatically connect to my wifi link.  All the settings were perfectly OK, and manually forcing the connection worked 75% of the time (the remaining one time out of four, I'd have to delete and recreate the security settings).  Now it just connects each and every time, without problems, so I have no fears about rebooting.

It will probably take a month or so to get the box bedded in again, and get rid of the occasional crash or other hiccup.  It's clear that PCs do require a running in period from a new install of software - I don't know what it is, it's not hardware related at all, but any system will eventually settle down and become more reliable after a few weeks.  Of course, that's just before it goes over the other end of the graph and starts to fail, indicating another rebuild is necessary.

And I thought yesterday was bad!

The day didn't start well.  The desktop system, which had been running relatively well for six months, started to throw up odd errors.  If I was any more suspicious than I am, I'd think there had been a recent update that was causing problems here and at work, but there's been nothing recently.

So I thought I'd rebuild.  Got all the data off on to a spare portable drive, got updated copies of all the software etc.  Initially, it looked good - I remembered the problems about multiple disks and RAM limitations, put the Intel RAID drivers on as part of the OS install, and got a quick Vista install up and running in no time.  Then I added the extra RAM - still OK - and the extra disk.  Ah, that was a mistake.  Vista couldn't see the disk at all.  The BIOS knew it was there, Intel's RAID tool knew it was there, Vista said "what disk?".

Unfortunately, the resolution to this seems to be to run the SATA disks in IDE mode, losing all that performance from AHCI.  I'm still unhappy about this, but having built the box with separate drives (not crossing the RAID systems as I did last time - RAID 0 and RAID 1 on the same disks.  Weird but it worked), I reckon I can rebuild it later if and when I find an answer.  Right now, I need an Internet fix.

Most of the software has gone back on OK, but I am having some problems with software configuration, in particular with Forte's Agent usenet reader software.  I have a legitimate licence, but I think it expired with version 2, and I cannot source a copy that old from anywhere.  I do remember declining to update (at extra cost) to the newer versions, because the increased emphasis on email and HTML wasn't what I wanted.  I enjoy the simple text presentation of the older product, and have alternative email programs.  Unfortunately, nothing else seems to come near to Agent's completely intuitive thread handling.   The upshot of all this is that my version 2 key won't do to activate the version 3 software which is all I have at present.  I could stick with the Free Agent version, but this lacks one or two extras that I've come to depend on.

I suspect this will be the pattern of the next few days.  I've already had a an argument with my Azureus install - it keeps on trying to run some sort of Web 2.0 interface, offering video downloads.  I want the old version back.  In fact, I want my old PC setup back - this has to be the biggest change in the computing environment (application-wise) that I've suffered for years.

Not one of my better days...

I guess I should have known when I got to work without my keys - had to wait to be let into the office by a co-worker.  However, I thought I'd make up time, because the laptop was only in sleep mode last night - no need for the long and occasionally laborious wait for it to boot, find the network and sort out downloading my ballooning profile.  No way.  It started fine, opened Outlook, and then stopped dead.

Despite all the IT support jokes, very often the best way of dealing with this sort of thing really is to reboot, which I dutifully did.  And the machine hung again.  And then a third time.

Now it may have just been coincidence, but it was only yesterday that I wiped my previous system, which had a vanilla XP install with no software now.  Who says computers don't have a sense of humour?

So I was simultaneously trying to pull together enough software to make the desktop system usable, while going through all the repair steps I could to get the laptop back to life, and still handling internal and external support questions.  Nothing worked on the laptop until I went for the full reinstall.  Dell reinstallation CDs are good, but apparently not good enough. I was left without drivers for half the hardware, and of course most of the software I'd spent the last week carefully collecting and installing had gone.  Definitely downhill.

Suffice it to say that it's just about back together now.  And it looks as though it may have been prophetic.  I'm trying to look on it as a dry run, getting up to speed for rebuilding the home desktop, because the bad news is that this latter system is now showing signs of imminent failure.  It's just been one of those days.

You never really forget

Every once in a while I get the urge to try my hand at a racing game, and there's not been one that I've found which beats the old Colin McRae Rally 2.0.  The later versions just didn't do it for me, and the DiRT demo just completely failed to load, so I never took that one any further.

What's really interesting is the 'upgrade' path within the game.  There are several four-wheel drive cars available to start with, and you open new options once you win championships at whatever level.  However, I usually stop trying after getting the novice rally championship - because that's what unlocks the Ford Escort Mk 1.

Rear wheel drive excellence - my first car was an Escort (I can still remember the registration number!), and it slowly metamorphosed into an uncomfortable road rally vehicle.  I think it was the Granada rear springs that did it in the end - CD8's, if I recall correctly.  Made it corner as though on rails, even if the rear end didn't always follow exactly in the tracks of the front - I always knew exactly where it was and what it was doing.

And it looks as though I haven't lost the knack - I'm slowly demolishing my own four-wheel drive lap records and section times in Rally 2.0 with the relatively underpowered Escort.  Get it set up right and it's only the ultra-fast, straight sections where it doesn't dominate.

Wish they made an car like the old Escort nowadays...

They're all out to get me

It's clearly a conspiracy.  Summer's here, or at least what passes for summer in Scotland - the occasional sunny minute between the rainstorms.  My wife is talking about finishing work, with the result that I won't have to drive her in every day.  I've been looking in the garage, wondering what to do about clearing things up.  Petrol price rises show no sign of slowing down.  And my colleague at work has given up the car for the time being for a more convenient mode of transport.

I'm going to have to get back on two wheels.  Maybe not the 1 litre bike that's currently languishing in the back of the garage, maybe look for a 250 or 400 cc supermoto or similar (I rate manoeuvrability way beyond top speed, especially with all the cash-generators, sorry, speed cameras around).  There used to be some superb models in this range, but now it seems to go from 125's straight to the 750/1 litre sports-tourers without much inbetween.  I'm not sure I want something of the weight of the KLV/V-Strom type, but the old Yamaha DT400 would have been ideal.

Perhaps not this year, the finances are not that flexible.  But a winter project of fixing up the KLV to make it saleable again, followed by a tour around the local dealers for a used, mid-range bike , may be on the cards.

KB940510

Quote from Dave T on the Vistaheads forum:

"So can I assume that if I am not running pirate software I don't need this, and if I am running pirate software I don't want this?"

Absolutely typically paranoid update from MS, of no value to anyone - yet they term it 'important'.  Must be another difference in the English language as spoken by our trans-Atlantic cousins.

How not to do it

I've mentioned O2 support here before, with mixed feelings. It seems that it's a case of 'the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak' generally, and my recent experiences support this.

Some months ago, I swapped my mobile phone (a dysfunctional XDA Exec) for a nice new Orbit2. This had all the functionality I might want, after I paid for extra Internet access, right down to reading email etc via a VPN link back in to not only my own work servers, but also connecting to our clients' systems.

After a couple of weeks, it stopped working. Knowing that I'd hacked things unmercifully, I didn't worry too much about this for a while. Then, this week, we've had need to prove the connections once more, so I set about fixing the phone links. Everything looks perfect, we know the server end works, but the phone would not connect. Having seen problems with a phone purchased from Three, who were able to confirm that they didn't support VPN (and who got the phone and contract back in very short order), I decided to check with O2 to see if they had any ideas. Their reply astonished me:

"You won't be able to set up a VPN link from your O2 Xda. to your company network. This is because this facility is available to our business customers. As you're our (sic) offline customer, you won't be able to create a VPN link."

Hold on - this used to work, it still does work for one colleague with an O2 (non-business) phone, and it was clearly specified when I ordered the phone. Now I'm happy to work with O2 to resolve this, but what gets my ire is their insistence on sending boilerplate replies to my emails, just reiterating the above. So far, I've been told twice that the subject will be passed on to specialist advisors, but I still get the same emails. Do these people have any idea of customer service? Do they realise that no-way will I be returning to an O2 contract if there is not even an attempt to manage this problem?

It's clearly not a technical issue, more a bureaucratic one. This suggests at least one solution (no, not firing all the support desk people - they do a hard enough job), but I'm going to let O2 find it. Or not, as the case may be, in which case they go down another step and lose even more future custom.

Don't go there...

As the old joke goes, if it hurts, you shouldn't do it.

So why did I keep going back to the WRC home page?  Especially when the browser just crashed every time?

Because I'd just loaded Firefox 3, the real thing, after all the betas and all the hype, and wanted to see how it worked out.  And every time I tried the link back to the home page of www.wrc.com,  the entire application just disappeared from the screen (taking all and any other tabs I might have opened en route), asking me if I wanted to send a report to the Firefox team.  If this sort of thing is happening to even a small percentage of the downloads (3 million or so in the first four hours, according to Wikipedia, although I can't find confirmation of this figure on the spreadfirefox site itself), then they are going to be one very busy bunch of developers.

The WRC site looked like a good test - not entirely straightforward, lots of internal links, and video.  It plays like a dream on IE, but Firefox won't recognise or play half the videos, and keeps on crashing.  I had been having a similar problem with IE, but eventually tracked it down to injudicious use of the pre-fetch function in IEPro, something I've now given up.  However, I can't find a similar reason in Firefox, and I'm reluctant to switch back to the pretender unless something concrete turns up.  IE has been growing on me recently - I'm no fan of a monoculture from a security point of view, but the integration and just pure and simple ease of use and dependability are too good to pass up just on a point of principle.

Anyone want to buy a slightly tatty, one owner only, copy of Firefox 3?

A good cause

Joyce and Suzanne completed the Race For Life at Scone on Sunday - between them, they have raised in excess of £400 for Cancer Research.  That's all that needs to be said by me, but I'll give Joyce the last word:

 

Integrate or divide?

Mash or mesh?

Two interesting ideas crossed the desk today - Intel's Mash Maker and Microsoft's Live Mesh. The one allows you to collate different information on one platform, the other allows central information to be spread across different platforms.

Ah, but if only it were that easy... I struggled with Mash Maker for a while, without successfully implementing any useful combinations at all. And Mesh simply isn't available to anyone outside the US yet - although even if it were, it seems to be restricted at present to Vista or XP only. So, no progress on either front. But as both are really just beta's right now, I'm not too disappointed: past experience shows that by the time they are ready for the mainstream, there will be sufficient info and support out there make them usable: they need that sort of help to succeed, given the increasingly diverse and complex information environment out there. It's not that there are particularly new or high barriers to implementing new ideas, it's just that there are so many of them hitting us on a frequent basis that only those which can be grasped easily seem to take off.

It's easy to come up with a lot of examples of successful products or concepts - in communication, blogging and Twitter represent just how easy it can be to get ideas across. In commerce, PayPal and eBay showed how simple ideas can succeed. In contrast, the complex and difficult to understand stuff is at best relegated to backwaters and niche markets: just look at the relative popularity of Lotus Notes/Domino versus SQL Server or (and here's where the ton of bricks come flying at me) Linux versus Windows. Sorry, Open Source fans - but if Linux had been as simple as Windows to get going several years ago, it's likely that it would have had a better foothold than it has yet achieved; I'm not saying it won't eventually become at least as prevalent as it's more commercial competitors, but I feel it still has some way to go before it can be classed as equally popular. The whole concept of Microsoft Windows is keeping it (relatively)simple, at least as far as an OS can be: when it fails, it may be both spectacular and expensive, but I still recall with absolute clarity my first battles with Linux (an early Mandrake distro), and the problems I had writing my own graphics routines just to get X11 working.

I suppose Apple has taken the perceived simplicity to the extreme, enabled by the near-absolute control over hardware - and look how popular that is with the fans. The rest of us are inhibited by the price of Apple's products, from which I take that there must be more under the bonnet than is immediately apparent, but we can't deny that it is both neat and effective. A one button mouse is all it needs - just try running Windows like that (yes, I know, you can do nearly everything with the keyboard, but who remembers all the complex key combinations? Point made, I think).

So I'll watch the mash and mesh over the next few months, see what if anything develops - and then see how much we're going to be charged to for the right to manage the appearance and location of data again. Because there's one thing both systems have in common - they both want some sort of central control over your data, be it as communal mashups, or central data storage - and the idea is that we'll willingly pay someone to take that load off our minds.

The chattering classes

I'm wondering if to use Twitter, and if so, how best to use it. Whilst it looks as though it might be of some value, right now I'm frankly unable to put it into any kind of meaningful sense.

Is it a blog replacement?  Clearly not - there's no way to develop an argument or include much more than the stripped down basic text.  Where would this post have been if I'd been limited to 140 characters?  (OK, count them - right in the middle of 'unable' which is a fair measure of my ability to make posts that succinct).

Is it an IM replacement? On this, I'm a little more ambiguous.  Given the right clients, it can do most of the direct communication tied up in Messenger, for instance.  But then I'm forced to ask 'why?'.  What's the advantage of Twitter over Messenger?  Both have PC and mobile clients.  Is Twitter simpler to use than IM?  Maybe, but it also has a big potential disadvantage of being too open.  Sometimes I want my conversations to be relatively private.

The basic idea of Twitter - type what you are doing right now - strikes a wrong chord in my old-fashioned mind.  There may be a new generation coming along who don't have either an expectation of privacy, or the general desire for it, and this group may well grasp Twitter and its like with open and unrestricted enthusiasm.  And I'll admit, there's absolutely nothing to force anyone to keep it updated constantly. But you run the risk of disappearing off the radar if you don't update; you'll lose followers if you don't have anything interesting to say; so there's a social pressure to keep it active, and as stimulating as you can.

I suspect eventually, that much of the excitement will die down and, having found that it's largely hype, a lot of the userbase will just drop it, moving on to the next big thing in communication.  And I think we're already halfway there - isn't Youtube accepting live video input?  Helmet cams will be the next big fashion accessory, and we'll all be able to see what the contributors are up to, instead of relying on hearsay.  And that is scary.

(Pete - on Twitter as @pemur)

Quick update

Whilst I'm online, here's another success story - the broadband connection: whilst I can't say it's been absolutely reliable, it has now lasted seven whole days with only two disconnects in between.  Unfortunately, I rebooted the PC the other day, but still have some details of the line stats.  They show an interesting picture, clearly indicating over two days between resets. 

The SNR had actually dropped to 4 occasionally without killing the line - the figures I have show resets occurring while the SNR was of the order of 8 or so, so I'm glad I didn't let O2 support persuade me to alter the threshold.

All in all, a lot better than six resets per hour, so kudos to O2 Support.  Even if I did have to argue with them on at least three separate occasions to get the firmware update.

Now, can I have the .3 upgrade, see if that improves speed as well as reliability?

It's dark in here, isn't it?

Well, not really.  But it might have been.

Despite all the fears to the contrary, I have a working system.  Took the plunge and loaded SP1 onto the main workstation's Vista.

I know, I wasn't going to do it unless forced.  But I got bored, and there's nothing like living dangerously.  Also, it seemed best to try this out on a non-critical device first.  My flush of success in re-animating the laptop, for however brief a period it might turn out to be, gave me confidence to go ahead on the desktop system.  After all, if it all went to pot, I'd at least have the laptop to fall back on and be able to access Internet resources to see who to blame.

But against all expectation, the process was smooth as anything, albeit a bit slow.  I hate to think how long this would take on a lesser machine - this isn't the greatest box ever built, but with a quad core processor, enough RAM to sink a 32 bit OS, and RAID disks it's quicker than most.  Yet it still seemed to take an age to complete the download, then the install, then the three-stage reboot.  But I have that coveted little addition on my system properties page now - SP1.

Hope I won't regret this

Another step into the great wide world out there, that's all the comm tools installed on the laptop.  Or, more correctly, installed on what's left of the laptop.

It's taken me over two hours tonight to get this into some sort of usable state, a job I've had to do because I have as yet failed miserably in getting hold of any mobile computing tools from work, and I have an important business trip due in two days.  However, I have no great confidence in this system keeping up the pace - just hope it lasts the next 72 hours...

Kiss of death

After a couple of months of far too frequent disconnections, I finally snapped last night.  During the space of one hour, the DSL connection was dropped no less than six times.  Now, O2 support are very good at answering the phone, and will always take the time to find out what is happening.  However, on the previous two occasions that I've been forced to contact them, I was promised both times that they'd update the firmware on the router.  Being the patient sort that I am (the rest of you can stop laughing now), I waited.  And waited.  And had even more line drops, but no updated firmware for the router.

So this time it was an update or I'd walk.  I'd be loathe to lose the connection, but as it was becoming increasingly unreliable it seemed a reasonable decision to make.  Anyway, after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, which included the standard "we'll raise your SNRM" and my usual response "no you won't", I got my update while still on the line.  Version 6.2.27.1 was replaced by, wait for it, 6.2.27.2.

OK, not a massive jump.  Not even a second point update.  But (and this is where the post title becomes relevant) it hasn't dropped the line so far, in 24 hours.

Not if, but when

I've steadfastly avoided even looking at the beta releases.  As may have been apparent from the time it took to get the system together in the first place, rebuilding the PC is something that I rather want to avoid if at all possible.  There's also the question of whether it brings any real benefit to the table as well.  On consideration, the balance of risk versus benefit didn't make it an attractive proposition at all.  However, I may not have the choice for all that much longer.

The subject of this diversion?  Vista Service Pack 1.  It's out, and all we have to ask is whether it was released too early, is it properly rehabilitated and ready to make a positive contribution to society, or will it bring it all crashing down.

Strangely, the jury is still out as far as I can tell - whilst there are reports of failed systems (mainly sounding as though they won't restart after the patches are applied), it's only natural for affected users to complain vociferously.  What I've been unable to find so far is a balanced review of whether SP1 is a) safe and b) worth the risk.

I may not have the choice for much longer anyway - sooner or later something is going to demand that I get the SP loaded - or maybe OneCare will go ahead and set it up behind my back: that would be a very bad move and earn someone a black mark, but there's no guarantee that it won't happen.

So all the organisations who were waiting until SP1 came out before taking the Vista plunge must still feel hesitant: are we all now going to wait for the patched service pack (remember NT SP4!)?  Long gone are the days when I would rush to get the very latest releases and drivers - been burnt too often to plunge into things too quickly.  However, there's enough pressure building up to maybe force me to go down this route: I only hope I can hold out long enough to get a large enough external drive to grab a full data backup before things go wrong.

Weather report

The British are said to have an obsession with the weather.  No-one seems particularly interested in the climate, but the daily weather is a dependable topic of conversation.  Occasionally, it may slip over to more general issues ('we don't get hot summers like we used to', or 'there was virtually no snow this winter'), but it's always in the context of what's going on outside today.

With that in mind, I've become aware that we're in the middle of a drought.  Never mind the depressing rain outside, there have been no new gadgets for a month or so.  This is obviously a critical climate warning, and is something that we should sit up and take notice of.  We don't need any scientific papers, think tank meetings, or UN conferences, but instead should insist on immediate decisive action.

Our team of experts have browsed the websites, read the blogs and researched the online catalogues of nearly every vendor on the Internet without reaching a conclusion.  Oh, there have been odd suggestions - get a USB disk drive, buy a new video camera, even (shock horror) download a new piece of software.  But there's a growing realisation that I don't really need anything new.

My colleague at work brought a new toy in today - a R/C helicopter simulator, complete with control and software to represent all sorts of different types of flying machines.  And yes, it looks interesting - but I didn't get that 'must have' feeling. 

We've had a series of new servers and similar technologies delivered at work for configuration recently, but these are just standard bits of kit now, no reason to get excited.  Even a new group of network routers hasn't got me interested.

Perhaps there's no hope: the climate has tipped over into a gadget-free zone, and we're going to drift slowly into a new Ice Age, characterised by long inert periods spent on the sofa watching TV.  Don't you think it's a bit cold for this time of year?

Newsgator part 3

Just so I don't leave it hanging, I got a reply from the Newsgator support group about the imminent demise of my free account.  Apparently, the only thing I'll lose will be the 'helpful personal email support'.  Considering the only time I used this was to ask about what happens come May, when the account expires, I doubt I'll miss it much.  I'm still left feeling there's something not quite right, but we'll see in May.  Having got different feeds running to home, work and the PDA phone, I wouldn't object to losing the synchronisation options, but it still looks very much as though having an actual, paid up, account is a pre-requisite to configuring any of the applications.

Filler

Nothing more, nothing less.

I'm aware that I haven't added anything significant to these ramblings for a while.  It's not because there's nothing going on - quite the opposite, in fact.  However, much of what's happening is too homely to be of any possible interest, and the remainder remains too closely associated with work - about which I will not write in any detail.  If I told you, there are too many people out there for me to kill.

Face it, not everyone's life is a soap opera: dramatic happenings with little or no gaps between.  Some of us work 9 to 5, with family events filling the evenings and weekends.

Thinking of soaps, it always amazes me how anyone could live in somewhere like Albert Square - too many criminals carrying out too many crimes to be any sort of reflection on real life.  What's the hook in these programmes?  Misery piled upon despair loaded with lowlifes and steeped in madness.  Is there a single normal character in any TV soap?  No, because that would make it normal, and normality isn't what people want.

I can understand the attraction of something like Dynasty - how the other half lives, something to aspire to (albeit every bit as despicable as Corrie or East Enders).  But what is at all attractive about Emmerdale and its ilk?  All out to do each other down, never a bit of real effort or real neighbourly feeling.  I have a theory that all the soaps are really written from one script, with just regional accents differing.  The story lines seem to follow the same patterns, the situations (always based around some drinking establishment, be it the Queen's Head, Rover's Return or the Woolpack), and similar characters in each.  Even when an individual character is written out, they are replaced by someone very similar, maintaining the standard cast across all the variants.

Still, I suppose it means that you only need watch one programme per night to keep up with all the stories - leaving more time for work and family, so we must all be grateful.  Imagine having to keep up with three or four different storylines?  There'd be even less time for blogging - but no more to write about.

Hey, new toy!

Continuing the saga of PDA developments, it's just been brought to my attention that I can blog straight from the phone. My main worry with this is the security - it seems to be dependent on obscurity if you want instant dissemination, not very good.
Ah well, I can always delete any posts I later regret, sorry - any posts I never made.

Newsgator part 2

Followup to yesterday's post - just had a battle with Newsgator on the PDA, and it came close to winning.  For some reason, all my selected feeds went AWOL from the device.  The web-based central management bit was untouched, yes, all selected feeds would be synchronised, but the device just didn't want to know.

Under these circumstances, I've found the best route is to deinstall and reinstall.  But the application has a really firm grip - "I'm on your PDA, and I'm not letting go".  It won't deinstall.  And therefore, it won't reinstall.  Eventually fixed by going into File Manager and deleting the entire folder, but it's not nice.  Yes, the feeds came back, but I think there's something seriously wrong with this concept.

I am seriously going off Newsgator.

Newsgator

Some years ago, I got the RSS bug.  I've been an avid collector of info for a long time, starting with the old Compuserve forums, moving on to Usenet and now collecting RSS feeds as though they are going out of fashion.  It's amazing what a store of knowledge and ideas there is out there, and I find it inspiring to see multiple points of view on single topics.

My tool of choice for blogs and other feeds was FeedDemon - and it was with some misgivings that I heard that Nick Bradbury, the author of this excellent application, had sold it on to Newsgator.  I fully understand Nick's reasoning, explained at the time, that it gave him the opportunity to do more with than he had as a one-man band, but there's something about Newsgator's approach to integration and management of feeds that I just don't get.  On more than one occasion, I've come close to wiping out my entire set of URL's, which would be a disaster.

It makes sense to keep a central record of the set of feeds, tracking just which posts had been read on different systems, and allowing for overlap of selections between machines.  Obviously, I want to read different feeds at work from home (although there are some common elements - who'd want to risk missing the latest Slashdot assault on good taste and sense?), but every time I try to tune this selection, I lose feeds, in some cases almost everything on a given install of FeedDemon.

Now it's got worse - Newsgator do a mobile reader, for PDA's, so I just had to have it on the phone.  And something's gone very wrong - at the moment, I have no feeds at all on the phone, despite a properly completed configuration on the Newsgator central web site.  At least the local PC set seems ok, but I'm not risking anything - time to generate a new OPML list.

One other slightly worrying thing - when FeedDemon was incorporated into Newsgator's stable, part of the deal was that paid up users got a free Newsgator subscription.  Use of this system doesn't seem to be optional - and my subscription runs out in May.  I hope I'm not going to lose the use of the package across all platforms - I'd gladly go back to manual management of the feeds, but it doesn't seem possible to set things up without a login account.  Watch this space.

Gadget warning

If you don't want to be tempted, don't read any further.

The drought is officially over - a new phone has entered the local domain.  After over a year fighting with the XDA Exec (and losing usually), then another year in the wilds with a Jet - which makes an admirable phone, but doesn't cut it in terms of extra functionality - I bit the bullet and plumped for the latest addition to the O2 stable, the Orbit2.  Although this is just a HTC Touch Cruise under another name, the terms of my contract with O2 made this irresistible, especially as they give me 'unlimited' web access as part of the deal.  I don't want to tempt fate by testing what they mean by 'unlimited', but I'm fairly sure it doesn't match either my definition, or the OED's.  However, if I ever do reach the limit, I'm quite sure O2 will tell me.  Probably in quite definite and terminal terms.

It's a very nice piece of kit, and having spent a few minutes of my time (plus a lot of everyone else's around me - we still don't have a formal procedure for setting up Exchange synchronisation on these PDAs), it's now not only easy to use, but pleasant to look at - if you like black.  Strange how we insist on colour screens and yet the clearest, most desired colour scheme is almost monochrome.

Lots of nice additions over the old WM5 interface on the Exec, but really that wouldn't matter - the Exec was an interesting diversion, but really too much packed into too early a chassis, and I had nothing but problems with the models I owned.  The Jet was just a phone - nothing else was worth even trying, though the almost enforced lack of email made me take up texting to a slightly greater degree than before.  Now I have the full functionality of the network again, complete with the ability to select between 3G, wifi and Bluetooth.  Not everything works transparently - one day, I'll understand why they don't allow syncing of contacts etc over wifi, and why I can't sync my Exchange email when the phone is plugged in to a USB cable attached to my home PC, but take it back out (after charging) and lo and behold, everything just picks up via the 3G link.

Writes of passage

I hate documentation.

Spent nearly the whole day today trying to sort out documentation for a work project.  Since I tend to get so easily distracted in the office, I thought I'd try to work at home.  It all started OK, got some spreadsheet updates done in between the early morning email pleas for help, then after a short break for a site visit to fix a printer (which was a saga in its own right and took way longer than it should have), it started going downhill.

On reflection, I think this because things were too quiet.  When there's no interruptions or jobs to persuade me to get up and stretch my legs, the adrenaline levels drop to a point where continued concentration becomes untenable.  It's not uncommon to stare at a word or paragraph and feel convinced that it's wrong - yet be unable to find anything to change.  The linguistic skills (poor though they are to start with) desert me, and it's a downward cycle from there on.  Because I'm working at home, I refuse to indulge in those odd sidetrack opportunities that crop up in a normal day (usually technical or gadget queries that just have to be answered); it just doesn't seem right to get diverted that way when I'm on my honour to work the full day.

As we reach the end of the day, I can look back and say that I've done what I set out to do.  There are some areas in the documents that will require further work, but that's mainly because I don't have the info immediately to hand - for instance, I'm not sure exactly where one of the telephone points terminates, so will have to get visual confirmation of that.  Other areas now need input from other people, and I'm going to have to bargain to get that done.

However, it will be a while before I want to try this again.  No matter how stressed the daily panic makes me, I think it's preferable to the frustration of looking at a page and thinking "Just what am I going to do with this"?

Worthwhile cause

For anyone who happens to pass by this site, you might like to consider helping a worthy cause:

http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/joycemurray

 

Joyce is taking part in the annual Race For Life, to raise funds for cancer research, this page gives you the chance to help.  Any and all donations will be welcome.

Long time no see

Ten days without an update?  Don't want to slip back into the bad old ways.

It certainly hasn't been a quiet ten days - as well as changing my home broadband connection, we've gone through the pain of a new ISP at work as well.  That didn't go as smoothly as I'd have liked, despite setting up as much as I could beforehand.  Various links broke, and we were only able to reconnect to some sites by dint of efforts from all sides.

However, the update did fix the bits that I wanted to get done.  Apart from yielding a markedly quicker connection - at the cost of ensuring the large downloads get done out of office hours - it also meant the return of encrypted packets.  All the VPN and secure links started working again, proving beyond reasonable doubt that the cause of our previous issues lay with Eclipse.

We did see a few hiccups, where unrelated problems were interpreted as being down to the network change, but that's par for the course.  Basically, I'm happy with the outcome.  The firewall configuration file is a lot smaller, we know that things will work without some of the more complex and probably completely unnecessary workarounds that had been included: this means I can have more confidence in changes and managing the system,  We will also be able to play with multiple incoming secure connections - not being restricted to a single IP address any longer, I can start to use L2TP for the RAS connections, making everyone happier.  Did I say something about the firewall being simpler?  Ah well, can't have everything.

Rant of the day

It is getting a bit like that, isn't it?

Today's target, for once, is Microsoft.  Or maybe Ahead's Nero.  Or just possibly nVidia.

Today's problem, however, is clearcut enough - Vista loses the ability to open the control panel, run standard applications such as telnet, and change the screen properties.  Kind of like an unlicensed version... which should really have led me to the solution a lot faster than was the case.

I depend on telnet - nearly as much as I used to need serial connections.  Telnet is the toolkit that accesses nigh on any network component worth its salt.  So when I type the command in, I expect to see a nice 'telnet' prompt.  Not another C:/>

OK, to control panel to check I have got the components installed.  No control panel - beyond a fraction of a second's glimpse of something that might or might not have been an opening window.  Select from the Start menu?  Not a chance - 'Empty'.  Now I'm approaching panic, a situation that doesn't get any better when direct application to the .cpl files also fails, various other tools either fail catastrophically or simply hide under the sheets until the problems gone away (Sysinternal's RootkitRevealer - yes, I said I was panicking - displays in some hidden mode that needed several CTL-ALT-DELs to get at).

Google once again to the rescue.  After a brief false start getting drawn into a discussion about the merits or otherwise of nVidia drivers, which were suggested as the cause, I finally found it.  The Software Licensing service - restart it and lo and behold, functionality returns.

This is where the story gets ugly.  Further references indicate the problem may lie in the Nero InCD service, which upsets something when there's no CD in the drive; for the first time since the box was built, my CD drive was empty today.  There is a hotfix somewhere: start at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936686/en-us and follow the sordid tale.

So let this be a warning - don't use unlicensed copies of Vista, the functionality is appalling.  In fact, I'm starting to think that using any version of Vista comes under the heading of 'a bad idea', but it's something that we have to do to clear up the problems before everyone else wants a copy.

Now how much do I charge Microsoft for my work as a beta tester?

Why I hate Vista (almost)

Repeat after me:

netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=disabled

netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=disabled

netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=disabled

...until Vista gets it right.

The symptom: a Vista PC can't make network connections, copy files efficiently or simply run normal applications.  I got caught out with Firefox previously, and now with Live Messenger.

The cause: a change in the way Vista handles network packets, and an inability of certain routers to cope with it. Receive Window Auto-Tuning allows Vista to change the size of packets it sends, according to the network capacity and performance.  Only trouble is not all routers support this behaviour properly, particularly ones with a stateful firewall (listening, Cisco?).  Of course, it worked flawlessly with my Cisco 837, and so I forgot about it - until Messenger started failing after I began to use the Netgear yesterday.  I didn't think about this, blaming everything on the router, until I realised that the other PC here (which runs XP) has continued to work just fine.  OK, what's specific to Vista?  The window tuning...

I'm really not sure whether or not this is allowed behaviour.  For some reason, I seem to recall a RFC specifically authorising this sort of trick, but it escapes me now (comments, please).  Since everything worked fine with XP, I'll blame the OS for now and suggest that this default behaviour be amended to work with the rest of the world.  So far, from what I remember, only Internet Explorer is specifically configured to take proper advantage of the change.

So now I have to backtrack, removing all the diagnostic firewall entries and other dross, until I have once again reduced things to the minimum and regained the scintillating (for me - don't forget, I've been used to what seems like a 128 kbit/s connection) performance.

I'm back...

But only just.

Eclipse, bless their little cotton socks, decided to terminate my DSL connection with extreme prejudice, but unfortunately without any notice.  Half past ten last night, the lights went out on the modem.  It took me a couple of minutes to figure out what had happened, because the Cisco box still showed an active DSL connection, but no login and no data.

No matter, I thought O2 would come through, and they did - at 9.30 this morning, I got a text saying my line was live.

Rush back, plug the new wireless box in, go through the start up - and no phone connection.  After the sulks and tantrums passed, I got on to the O2 support line: full marks, guys - an 0800 number and nigh on instant connection, knowledgeable, polite and helpful support staff, passed me to second line without demur - and we agreed the router was faulty.

No matter, thinks I - I have a DG834 sitting upstairs.  Maybe I won't get the full benefit of a NTE5 connection and wireless networking, but I should be able to get something working.

The DG834 got a 4000+ kbps link, and could send packets, but nothing came back down the line.  This time, I didn't throw anything against the wall, but called O2 support again.  Again, kudos to them - they took the fact that I was using an unsupported router without a murmur, worked through as many possibilities as they could come up with, but to no avail.  Since neither they nor I know anything worth knowing about this router, and since I couldn't get at t'Internets to find owt out, we were at an impasse and I resigned myself to waiting for the replacement router to arrive.  Nearly ninety minutes on the phone and no connection.

Five minutes later - a DNS query worked, and it all came to life.  Don't ask - I don't know.  We'd been through every variant of the settings possible, and nothing had worked before.  However, something must have clicked and I now have a nice, fairly stable (SNR permitting) connection.  Hard-wired maybe, but at least it works and I'm no longer isolated, lonely and cut off from what passes for civilisation nowadays.

It's just not cricket

Just to prove there's more to life than sitting at a keyboard, I went on to a rugby match today.  My son-in-law, Alan, is a keen Leicester Tigers supporter, and they were drawn in the Heineken Cup against Edinburgh Rugby.  We went to see today's match at Murrayfield stadium, accompanied by my five year old grandson, Rian.

The match wasn't one to set the pitch on fire.  In fact, had it been, we might all have been somewhat warmer.  We should have known when we had to break the ice off the seats before sitting down.  I don't think Rian has ever been so cold - he ended up wrapped in double socks, hats, scarf, gloves with heating pads and still looked frozen.

In front of a definitely unpacked stadium, the Tigers lost.  I reckon this was all down to missing support from Rian and Alan - each time they left their seats to get a drink (or simply to warm up), Edinburgh scored a try and conversion.  Leicester's penalty kicks just weren't enough to win.

In truth, the better team won, but it would have been difficult to congratulate either.  Perhaps it was the cold - there were certainly enough slips on the pitch, and falling on ground that hard couldn't have been easy to do without hesitation - but there just seemed to be too many mistakes and no flow in the play at all.

However, it's reminded me why I used to go to watch Bradford matches in my earlier days - when it can get even a totally uncommitted spectator like me shouting enough to be hoarse, there has to be some fun.

If only they played in the summer.  I can't see getting quite as worked up over cricket.

Just to be fair...

Using a variety of tools, and eventually resorting to the event log (which, with hindsight, would have been a very good place to start), I tracked down the virus reports - they referred to a very old read-only archive of emails (pre-2004) that originally resided on the server (hence no previous record of infection), an archive that included some interesting emails received during my tenure as security manager (Data Integrity Manager, even!) at a prior employer.  We were being subjected to a very amateur pen test, and one of the methods used was to send in keylogger software in the guise of an 'important security update from the CIO'.

Needless to say, this failed on several counts: no way was I going to let executables in via email, the AV scanner picked it up anyway, the source address was so obviously false, and I hope I'd educated everyone enough so they wouldn't run executables (though that latter is always questionable).

Anyway, I should give OneCare full marks for finding this stuff, long after I'd forgotten it.  But I won't, because of the travails I had to go through to  actually identify the problem files.

Live OneCare

Continuing the foray into uncharted territory, I decided that I'd make a break from Symantec's increasingly intrusive antivirus solutions and set up a trial of Live OneCare, Microsoft's all in one AV/firewall/tuning solution.  I know it doesn't have the greatest reputation out there, but I thought I'd see what it did.

Now, I can't remember the last time I picked up a virus on my system - so either Symantec got compromised a long time ago, or I've been lucky/careful (strike out as appropriate).  Since building the new system, neither my incoming email nor browsing habits have changed markedly.

However, the first full pass of OneCare identified not one, but two infections - and wasn't able to quarantine either.  Nor was it able to give me any good details about the files involved.  I like my AV programs to put big popup windows on the screen, the sort of thing that screams at you so even the least involved user has to recognise that there's an issue here,and has enough information to make a sensible report to the support team.

Trojan/Format.CY was the easier to define - depending on who you believe, there's either an 18 byte bat file that will wipe your C drive, or a somewhat larger exe with an instantly recognisable and unique name.  Despite full disk searches, neither variant turned up on the PC.  I don't think this one is stealthy enough to evade the kind of checks I made.

The other bit of malware was supposed to be a worm, W32/Frethem-L.  This is carried by an email with a password recovery program.  Now I may look stupid, but never ever have I opened an executable from an email.  It simply isn't going to happen.

So why did OneCare create these reports?  I have no idea - the application itself is of no real help, especially if it refuses to tell me why it couldn't quarantine the files (probably because they were never there in the first place?).  Searches for similar reports don't seem to have turned up any answers.  I'll keep looking, and run further checks across the whole PC (an operation that seems to take far too long, given the performance of this system overall), but I suspect OneCare has a very short life expectancy on this box.

The game's afoot

Moving on, as promised we now turn to the Internet connection.

You'd have thought, living in an urban environment, especially (though I say it myself) the posh part of town, that the broadband provision would be good.

Far from it.  It seems that we live so far from the exchange that the best I can expect on an ADSLMax connection is 1 Mbit/s.

This isn't good enough.  I want more.  So I've taken the plunge and accepted a 12 month LLU ADSL2+ contract with O2.  We're not out of the woods yet - the best I can expect from them is a 8 Mbit/s connection, and they're extremely cagey about whether we'll reach that.  I suspect it will come in somewhere between 3 and 5 Mbit/s, which is still an improvement on 1 Mbit/s I suppose.

The nice bit is the price - given the discount for being a monthly O2 phone subscriber, this starts at £7.50 per month, with an additional £4.99 for the static IP address.  Now the server and Exchange is no more, this isn't strictly necessary, but I like to know where I am.

Eclipse did come back with the MAC, just inside the five day period, so I can't complain there.  Since I've already used it,. I don't think I'll be hearing any more from them, but I must remember to make sure the payment is cancelled.  I've heard nasty rumours about how they go on extracting funds despite no longer providing a service, and I'll work with them to make sure it doesn't happen this time.

Next stage

Having got the PC built (though not registered yet - still unsure whether to rebuild without the RAID1 in place), the next step would be to swap my ISP connection.  I'm getting a bit tired of slow and occasionally unreliable connections, but the real deal-breaker is the insistence on port throttling.  I've paid for a connection, not for whatever the ISP thinks it's reasonable to pass.  I've also had support telling me that they didn't throttle anything, when it was quite evident that they did.  Mistakes are one thing, out and out lies are another.

Hence the search.  ADSL2+ probably isn't a starter, given the location here: the best I would get on MAX is only 2 Mb/s, so there's little point in going for 24 Mb/s given the other restrictions that are in place from O2 or Be (don't even think of suggesting Sky!).

Requirements include a fixed IP, relatively high limits (been known to move >60 Gb per month on my current 1 Mb/s line) and NO BANDWITH MANAGEMENT.  Hear that, Eclipse?