Here’s hoping that they are able to pull the service back together soon, and when they so, please follow us @roamerdotcom

Update as of 16:19 BST

Twitter is current under a denial of service attack, their last update on the Twitter status page suggests that the site is back up, but currently I’m still unable to get any response in Tweetdeck or their main website.

Update as of 17:10 BST

It looks as if Twitter has returned, although if they are still under a ddos attack we could lose service anytime, but for the moment it’s back, and I’ve got Tweetdeck back and functioning well.

-Roamer

They state the the site will cease trading on friday 30th May 2008, the last date for listing items will be the 9th May, and the last day to bid and buy items will be the 19th May.

Now although I have had a qxl account for many years I have never actually bought or sold anything due to the fact that i’ve found eBay to be much better as far buyers are concerned.

What are peoples thoughts? Are you going to miss QXL? Thoughts on why etc are all welcome

- Roamer

Ok, after a long time of debating this, I’m finally at a point where, in a few days, I want a few people to beta test a new piece of software, and hopefully a lot of people out there who use Amazon’s astore offering will like the sound of it.

As we all know, ever since Amazon launched astore, the problem has always been how to make the store appear on an actual domain instead of the normal http://astore.amazon.com/blah-20 or http://astore.amazon.co.uk/blah-21 domain. Alot of people use the iFrame method, which – although it allows you to integrate it successfully – doesn’t allow search engines to traverse your store at all, thus you will never get any traffic from search engines. also you can’t integrate any advertising systems into the astore to generate extra revenue.

These are some major hang-ups to people making money without having to have the technical know how to write their own solution, or having to pay $99 for a product such as Associate-o-Matic – In itself a very good product – but what if you could “domain-ize” your Amazon astore for a much smaller outlay? sound good? then read on

I have developed a piece of software, which is still in alpha testing, but soon to be released to a small beta group. This software will allow you to have your Amazon astore on your own domain, have advertising units to generate extra income, and all for much less than any other system out there right now. This will give you a fully crawlable store, so that with a bit of extra content per section – which it will also let you put it, you should get some good search engine results

So, I’d like to offer this software out to the first 5 people who comment for free as long as I get some good user feedback, and of course I’ll give the 5 people full support to get them up and running

So please, if you’re interested in it, comment below with an email address and the first 5 will definately be the beta testers, oh, and if anyone can come up with a name for the product, the person who comes up with the best name will get a copy free of charge once it’s released, and of course we’ll use your suggestion as the product name

-Roamer.

Today on my searches round Google today i came across Scribe a blogging client written for PyS60 (Python for Symbian S60). Now, currently I’m writing this post on my Nokia N95 and i’m feeling quite happy about using Scribe right now. It doesn’t have any way of being able to upload images as far as i’ve seen, but this maybe a limitation of the interface used to communicate with Wordpress.

I’m going to continue using Scribe and see how it goes over the coming days and weeks whilst I’m out and about, and will keep posting about it as I go.

it would be great to get comments from any other Symbian bloggers who are using Scribe or any other blogging tools which i haven’t come across yet

-Roamer.

A friends HP desktop machine had mysteriously lost it’s cdrom and cd burner, they were there, listed in device manager, but marked as having problems – so I did the first thing we all try, uninstall them, reboot and let XP do it’s magic and bring them back again – but this time no joy… so I did a bit of searching…

It’s been a while since someone had brought me this problem, mainly it happened when people got SP2, but still, these things always raise their ugly heads when you least expect, but today I was on top googling form and found the solution I was looking for to make the little beggers come back from the dead.

The solution is actually very simple, as follows:

1. Start Registry Editor (Start, Run and type in regedit then click)
2. Find “UpperFilters” and “LowerFilters” (and “UpperFilters.bak” “LowerFilters.bak“, if they exist) value under the following key in the registry, and delete it: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
3. Quit Registry Editor.
4. Reboot.

You might have to re-install your CD burning software after the reboot, but this should bring your CD drives back to life, if it doesn’t, well don’t come running to me, I can’t claim to know everything out there, but a good google session normally can find you the solution to anything

-Roamer

After balling about them back in October about their worse than useless latency and bandwidth, I’ve done lots of research into other providers.  PlusNet were one of the front runners, but one of my friends has since been having problems with latency of VOIP across their network resulting in >1 second delays etc, so I had to put them to one side.  I searched alot, and read huge amounts of peoples comments, reviews, babblings etc and after cutting the wheat from the chaff I think I’ve stumbled upon the solution which will work best for me.

The solution is that I have found a wholesale internet provider, one who gives good support, who keep there outbound link bandwidth in line with their customer base so that you don’t find yourself being severely bottle-necked during the so-called “Busy” evening periods, and also doesn’t require a long contract term – in fact, nothing more than a 30 day notice, no hidden charges, no migration fees – pretty much the ideal provider – apart from one thing, you can’t, as a normal customer, go up to them and open an account, migrate your service and be happy, thats because they are a wholesale internet provider, meaning that they only deal with companies, companies who’s aim is to sell their service onto end consumers like you or I…..

So, after discussions with people behind the scenes here @Roamer.com I decided that my company would endeavour to register as a partner with the wholesale internet provider, and so we have, now we are waiting until 23:43 on the 12th of Feb to see that our service does indeed go live as stated, and that the service is all it’s cracked up to be.

Once we have made sure that we are indeed happy, and that there are no pitfalls I haven’t yet seen, I will then be releasing an ADSL service to the general public, one which provides very fair packages and fair prices, and gives a quality service to all customers – but more about that as it happens in the future

If you would possibly be interested in a new reliable service – especially you Virgin Media ADSL customers out there, please join the site and leave a comment, I’ll then be able to update you when the service goes live for all.

I’ll post a follow up to this article as soon as I’ve been able to connect with my new adsl details, here’s hoping

-Roamer.

We tested the PL-200AV Push by connecting a pair of units to provide internet access from a router in the study to a PC in the living room of a self-contained cottage built onto the end of the house. A direct route would send the signal through a total of 7 rooms including the study and the living room, over a distance of 23m (75ft), although following the electrical wiring system the signal path may be longer. The signal path also goes through a total of two RCD fuseboxes to exit the house and enter the cottage. DECT cordless phones and WiFi have been tried over this route, but no signal was received in the living room. On plugging in the two Homeplug units, the powerline activity LED illuminated amber, indicating a connection rate of between 40 and 105 Mbps. The full ADSL speed from the router (around 5 Mbps here) was instantly available, and latency across the connection was in the region of 2ms, which should please gamers. An ftp file transfer across the connection went at an average speed of 25Mbps, not bad for a situation where WiFi doesn’t work at all. The connection has been in use for several days now and has been completely stable and reliable. The PL-200AV Push is available from Amazon UK.

That’s the claim of Datawind, manufacturers of the Pocketsurfer2.

Pocketsurfer2 is a handheld device that delivers the full power and original graphic intensity of the internet rapidly and wirelessly to the palm of your hand. The PocketSurfer 2 has its own in-built GPRS antenna and SIM card which means it can connect itself straight to the mobile network to get you online immediately, you don’t need any other bits and pieces at all, just get it out of the box and go! You are not dependent on WIFI access and no Bluetooth connection with a mobile phone is needed either.

The PocketSurfer2 allows you to browse the web in its original HTML layout, with full graphics, Java support and other complex web functionality on a 640 x 240 colour widescreen display. An integrated mouse pointer and a full format, backlit QWERTY keyboard must make it one of the most usable hand-held web device around. The rich user experience of the PocketSurfer2 offers a real alternative to consumers tired of the limited functionality, unfamiliar content and small screens on mobile phones or Smartphone’s.

It doesn’t hang about either, with page-load times of under seven seconds over GPRS thanks to over GPRS thanks to Datawind’s compression technology, you’ll be flying around the web just as you would at your desk. Comparative devices regularly take up to two minutes to download similar web pages.

The Pocketsurfer has 5 hours battery life for active usage, and 5 days standby, so you can actively manage your time surfing the net while you are on the road. It has a built in-high performance antenna, so it will pick up signal strength whilst you are an receiveable areas.

It also has a transreflective backlit display, which you allow you to use the Pocketsurfer later on at night, whether you are using whilst travelling home on the train at night or just at home in the evening.

For the first year you receive 20 hours per month usage free of charge so you can use it out-of-the-box for 12 months without paying a penny and to use it for the next year will cost as little as £40! For users that need more usage you can upgrade to an unlimited usage plan for £5.99 per month.

DataWind’s free-usage model eliminates the complexity of purchasing mobile web devices by eliminating lengthy contractual payments, activation fees and credit checks. With the PocketSurfer2, you pay for the device not the usage. The PocketSurfer2 can be activated by the user right out of the box and is ready to use shortly thereafter. Best of all, for the average user, there are no monthly fees. Free usage for the PocketSurfer2 is available everywhere your mobile phone works.

So if you want to keep yourself up to date with all the latest news, emails and social networking sites then try it out for yourself, it will keep yourself occupied on the way home from your daily commute or if you are out and about and you can’t bear to be away from it at all, the Pocketsurfer opens the door to the World Wide Web for you!

The Datawind PocketSurfer2 – Portable Internet Device is available at Amazon for a price of £173.98 which considering this includes 20 hours per month usage could offer mobile internet users a worthwhile saving.

Tech Spec:

Quad Band GPRS 850/900/1800/1900 Mhz

Internal high performance antenna

Transreflective backlit display

Mini USB charging port

Mouse pointer

Full Qwerty backlit display

Rechargeable Lithium Polymer battery

Weight – 174g

5 Hours active usage – 5 days standby

Size – 152 x 75 x 15mm

GPS location information

Ability to load web pages in under 7 seconds