Slooowly coming back

Well, maybe I'm finally ready to start with my eccentric musings again after a long old break. Did you miss me dear reader(s)? Well, I moved house just before Xmas and of course, being a man-bloke, my priorities were clear: LCD telly, Internet, food, beer ... then everything else.

So, all the other stuff got sorted nicely. Then came the internet. Now my need for the internet is similar to most people's need for oxygen, Kerry Katona's need for Iceland ads or George Bush's need for an 'I used to be the president' bumper sticker. So imagine my joy when my 'super-fast broadband' kit arrived from BT. Where I lived previously, I'd enjoyed mega-fast 10mb speed with Virgin via a nice little cable buried beneath the pansies in the garden. Now I wasn't expecting anything as speedy as that, using ye olde copper phone lines. However, I was expecting, er, a connection.

I set up the whole thing and fired up my browser (Firefox in case you care) and waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited.

The page loaded!

Then the internet died.

I re-installed everything, re-set the wireless modem and tried again.

It couldn't find the network I'd just created. Bugger.

I re-installed everything, re-set the wireless modem and tried again. Again.

It didn't like the password I entered. This is the password it gave me to enter. The one in writing on a card that told me to use the password when prompted. No luck.

Then one day I struck lucky and the whole setup sort of shuffled, like an ancient Tibetan monk climbing a hill, to some sort of working state. I decided to run an online speed test to see how fast my broadband really was. Now this may be rather boring and tedious dear reader, but the following bit is actually quite impressive reading.

When I had my Virgin broadband, my average Internet speed was 9.8mb. That's 9,800kb (or kilobits) line speed. When I tested my BT broadband I got .................. 9kb. Yes, that's 9. To put that in some persepective, the age-old ;dial-up' way of connecting to the Internet, that no sane human uses anymore, had a line speed of 56kb. My 'broadband' was over 5 times slower than dial-up. I cried tears of techno-woe.

Over several days, I did many things including connecting the modem directly to my Mac with an (if you care ... ethernet) cable. That is, the modem was connected - by a wire, physically - to my computer. Couldn't see it. What? That's like punching someone in the face and them not being aware of the massive physical impact you've just made on their cranium. I was a little hacked off by now as you can possibly sense.

So I rang the little man at BT - in Lahore, which it appears, is my local point of contact for the East Midlands of England. Anyway, he was a marvel and despite my deeply non-festive mumblings about 'narrowband' and 'worse than dial-up' he did me proud and sorted the problem. It was all to do with the 'channel' on which my modem was set or something. Anyway, the result is that I now average 3mb-4.5mb line speed which is wholly marvellous and sufficient for my needs. So I'm a happy, web-connected bunny at last.

And I can receive all that lovely spam again too....

Virgin in the house

It was a bold step for me, but I knew I had to do it. I now have a Virgin in the house. Yes, BT were fine but expensive and slow. My internet is my lifeline and Virgin could give me what BT just couldn't. I'm talking broadband of course.

Well the chaps from Virgin took less than 90 minutes to install our shiny new Virgin phone line and broadband and everything worked perfectly, straight away. During the installation and being the type of person I am, I got chatting to them and discovered that being a Virgin installation bod can be quite exciting and even dangerous.

They told me that in some dodgy areas, large groups of kids follow their vans and then assemble en mass, waiting for any opportunity to avail themselves of the contents of their vehicles. Sometimes, the contents are just not enough for these young n'er-do-wells. Oh no. The Virgin chaps told me about a colleague of theirs who was on his own in his van when he got car-jacked (yeah I know it was a van, but that's the terminology) when he stopped at some traffic lights. They jumped in, booted him out and that was that. This was at 1.30 in the afternoon.

They also told me about this old grandad who made his grandson, aged six, crawl under the floorboards, for the length of the house in order to drag the Virgin cable to where the computer was. He made the poor little sod crawl through all the filth, spiders and general detritus you would expect to find under the floorboards, because he didn't want the cable running along his skirting boards and spoiling the decor. Needless to say, the little lad was crying as he tunnelled his way along, beneath his grandad's feet. I can't believe it. It's like the bloody 18th century when kids were made to clean chimneys for one shilling a year.

Well anyway, my new set-up is all working just beautifully and is twice as fast (4mb) as my old BT set-up. Even better, the speed is being increased to 10mb soon which is fantastic news for all of us who have Virgin broadband.

Even 'mole-boy' will be smiling again.

Ups and downs

We all have our ups and downs and despite being a blogging legend, I too can feel the force of life's highs and lows. Winter doesn't help. Especially the miserable sodding affair that is the British winter. Rain, rain and more rain. It's enough to depress Mr Happy Hap McHappy from Happytown in Happyshire.

Nonetheless, us Brits are used to cack weather and so find ways and means of distracting ourselves during the long, dark winter months. One of these ways is to talk about the weather. Whilst meteorology is a fascinating subject, you can have too much of it, particularly when you've been getting soaked, blown and frozen by it for weeks on end. So I don't talk about the weather much between November and March.

Instead I prefer to revel in the joys of films, my Xbox 360, football, my iMac, food, shiny electrical objects of desire and my wife. Obviously this list is written in reverse order. So when confronted by a really crappy winter's day, I cheer myself with an hour or two of high definition machine-gunning and grenade-lobbing, followed by a joyous time in the kitchen, preparing my latest tuna-based culinary delight and topped off with a cracking film starring Sandra Bullock or that woman out of that film with the hair and eyes.

Suffice to say I have plenty of ammo in happy-happy-joy-joy arsenal to keep the winter blues at bay. However, talking of 'blues' - Birmingham lost today which has put me in a foul mood so I'm going to bed.

Winter my arse.

Un-social Networking? Update

Brilliant! As you'll see below I mention a made-up website. Well guess what? It actually exists - and it really made me titter. So I don't spoil the surprise, I won't name the site here. The best thing to do is read the posting below and then click on the title of this posting to take you to the site.

It's a funny place the Tinterwebnet

Un-social Networking?

Whether it's a fad or a phenomenon, 'social networking' is certainly hugely, globally popular. Personally, I hate the phrase but I can't deny it's success. Websites such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo have attracted millions of users who have discovered a whole new way of socialising in a virtual world.

If you've no idea what I'm talking about then here is how Wikipedia explains it: "A social network service focuses on the building and verifying of online social networks for communities of people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others, and which necessitates the use of software".

It's essentially an online meeting place for friends. A place where your identity, life, interests and activities are shared amongst those people you deem to be your friends. You can share photos, movies, messages and even throw virtual cakes, join a common interest group or draw a pretty picture. One of the most popular features on Facebook, is the ability to let your friends know what you are doing by 'posting' what you're up to at any given time.

So who uses these sites? We're told that it's mainly people under 25, but that may be changing. Where I work, a few people joined Facebook a while ago. Now there are roughly 25-30 people who have a 'profile' on Facebook. Many of them are over 25 and some of them are not even regular computer/internet users. The reason they joined was because once you join, you gain 'friends' with whom you begin to communicate and share. And it's this communicating and sharing that people find appealing and rewarding.

We all love to have friends but many of us lose touch with our chumsover time. Furthermore, we make many acquaintances over the years and although these people would never be classed as friends, some of these acquaintances are still people we'd like to be able to stay in contact with. Social networking sites let you do this but without the need to make any sustained commitment to the friendship. So you can just drop your friends and acquaintances whenever you like, with no apparent consequences. Thus Facebook is, essentially faceless.

And that does make me think. How social are social networking sites? I have to admit that I have a Facebook account and according to my details, I have 103 friends. This is ridiculous because of these 103 'friends' only about 15 or so are people I would ever, in the real world, have regular contact with and whom I would be able to call real, proper, actual friends. So I have to, unfortunately, be selective.

Social networking sites allow you to 'dip' in and out of friendships without any need for the usual social etiquette. If you don't fancy contacting someone, you can just ignore them. I actually have one or two people in my 'friends' list whom I've never contacted. That's just crazy.

So yes, online social gatherings are good in the sense that you can make contact with people you may otherwise have lost touch with altogether. However, paradoxically, it's easy to end up with a huge list of 'friends' with whom you are certain to have little or no contact for the very reason that there are just too many people in that list. These people are then, actively ignored. And they all know this.

So, are social networking sites actually un-social? Yes, I think they may be because every time I log on to Facebook, I'm confronted with many requests, messages and invitations (most of which I just have to delete or pretend don't exist) which is in itself, un-sociable. I'm actually forced to ignore my friends. Now that can't be right can it?

So the paradox continues and I now ignore more friends and acquaintances than I have ever done because I have more 'friends' than I can cope with. The weird thing is that I know that everyone else is in the same boat. For me it's like trying to juggle 103 balls at once, whilst smiling and chatting to every single ball as it passes through my hands. I just can't do it but I wish I could. So I've decided that there's only one feasible answer. A new website which allows you to have an online presence but without the pressure of social networking. No-one can be your friend, send you messages or throw virual tripe at you. It has a name:

www.ihavenofriends.com Sorted.

Second Life

No, I'm not talking about the return of Jesus or my alternative, weekend persona - Cassandra. I'm talking about that oh so bizarre phenomenon that is the online, virtual 3D world with over a million 'residents,. I've heard a lot about it in recent weeks and was intrigued to find out what all the fuss was aboutand I took my first tentative steps into this other world today.

It's actually quite an overwhelming experience. Yeah, I know that sounds a bit odd/dramatic/geeky but it's true. The first thing I must say is that Second Life (SL) is NOT a game. It's a whole 'world' filled with virtual people who are created by real people. You can choose to look however you like (200 tweaks can be made) and you can change your appearance whenever you wish. So what do you actually do there? Chat, communicate, share experiences, fly (yes you can fly), build homes, set up businesses - anyting you can do in the real world and a whole lot more.

What's really amazing is that although everything in SL is virtual, there's plenty of real money involved. I haven't learnt all the details yet but I do know that in SL is a virtual currency called the Linden dollar. You can buy virtual dollars with real-world cash. You use this money to buy and rent land, build property and a myriad other services. There are even real-life companies existing in SL. Companies such as Adidas, Dell (you can buy a real PC there), MTV, Reuters, Toyota and the BBC who recreated the 2006 One Big Weekend event on a 64 acre virtual island! Just to demonstrate how big this whole SL thing is, in September 06 the Second Life economy generated US$3,596,674 in economic activity and as of September 2006 Second Life was reported to have a GDP of $64 Million. However, I'm not interested in any of that right now.

I'm just trying to get my hair colour right.

Top 5 websites

I was asked to suggest my top 5 websites for a magazine the other day. I had to write 100 words on each site and why I liked it. I thought it would be easy but, surprisingly, it was much harder than I had expected. You see, in reality, my favourite websites are mostly technology or news-related sites and I thought it would come across a bit narrow-minded if my top 5 were all in the same vein. The other problem was suggesting sites that are really obvious or bog-standard ones like the BBC website. Mind you, I did choose a couple of very well-known sites but hopefully I managed to give a different perspective on them. Gosh, isn't this serious and grown-up?

So what did I choose? Well, I resisted the urge to mention YBATYD which I thought was extremely modest of me. The ones I did choose were: Stuff (gadgets & tech); Google (not the search engine bit - things like Gmail, Reader and docs); Apple (not just Mac's - movie trailers too); Fuel of Britain (Pot Noodle game! 2D platform game where a fat Welsh miner digs fro Pot Noodles); YouTube (yeah I know, but it's a Web 2.0 site so therefore, socially important. Er..)

www.pantswithgravy.com didn't make the cut. Sadly.