Roamer.com

Right, I’m probably right now writing one of my last blog entries via my absolutely terrible Virgin Media ADSL connection, and may I say that I will hopefully never look back

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.

Homeplug AV utilises the existing electrical wiring in a house to create a secure (128-bit AES encryption) network with a maximum data rate of up to 200 Mbps. The Solwise PL-200AV Push replaces the popular PL-200AV, which was awarded Editor’s Choice in Personal Computer World magazine in October 2007 due to its good performance in noisy environments and price. The main difference in the new model is the addition of a push button which allows new devices to be added to the network without the need for any setup software, or even a PC – handy for linux or mac users, or anyone just wanting to connect a games console to the internet. The good news is that (more…)

“Mobile internet finally becomes a reality”

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 (more…)

To celebrate the rebuilding of the WWII code breaking machine Colossus, the National Museum of Computing is running a challenge. During 15th and 16th November, historic Lorenz SZ42 ciphertext will be transmitted by radio amateurs at Heinz Nixdorf MuseumForum in Paderborn, Germany at the following times and frequencies preceded by a preamble in RTTY. The preamble message, which contains information needed to receive the SZ42 transmission is here. The ciphertext will be received by two teams of amateur codebreakers at Bletchley Park. The first will comprise members of the Milton Keynes Amateur Radio Society operating amateur radio station callsign GB2BP and using modern equipment. The second team will use the same type of equipment as used in the intercept (more…)

Sorry if you’re tired of hearing about ripoff Britain, but this has really got my goat!

In the USA you can now get (From Amazon.com) the PS3 40GB Spider-Man Movie Pack for only $399.99, where as on Amazon UK we can get the plain PS3 40GB console on it’s own for £299.99 – does this sound fair? I think not…..

If you do a currency conversion at the moment via xe.com/ucc you’ll find that the Dollar price converts to only £196.45 – compare this to the Amazon.co.uk price of £299.99 – now do you feel this is fair?

Why is it that constantly we get ripoff pricing in the UK? are we too small a player in the worldwide consumer electronics markets? I personally think not,  so why oh why oh why do we pay so much more – even now when the exchange rate is so high between GBP and USD….

Grrrrrrrr……… rant over.

-Roamer.

Last month PC Pro wrote a hands-on review of the Asustek Eee PC, which is their interpretation of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC).

On the 1st of November this year we will see RM start selling this ultra portable computer as the RM Asus miniBook in the UK.

Spec-wise they are very reasonable, it runs an Intel Celeron M ULV 900Mhz processor, a 7″ 800×480 display, 256MB or 512MB of memory, 2GB or 4GB of storage (more…)