Author: Trefor Davies

Liver of life, father of four, CTO of trefor.net, writer, poet, philosopherontap.com

New Joules shop opens – queue remains calm, Bruce Schneier signs book

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 27 February, 2014
1 Comment on New Joules shop opens – queue remains calm, Bruce Schneier signs book

Could hardly contain my excitement walking to work this morning. A new shop has opened on Lincoln High Street!

I wouldn’t have notice were it not for the fact that a woman got in my way trying to take a photo of the queue. I too like to take photos (of queues) so I reversed in my tracks, whipped out my journalistic photo device and took two pics just to be on the safe side. David Bailey would have been confident with only taking one.

It’s unlikely I will be visiting this shop. It sells

Business mobile connectivity phones social networking spam

1951 exhibitors at #MWC2014

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 27 February, 2014
No Comments on 1951 exhibitors at #MWC2014

Yesterday when I signed in for Cloud Expo Europe the guy handing out the badges pointed out a “win an iPhone 5s free draw” for visiting the Telehouse (might have been Telecity – I no longer have the card) stand. All I had to do was take a scratchcard along and see if I’d won.

I duly scratched off the silver scratchey off bit and found a number between 1 and 9,999. Looked like a pretty low chance of winning. In exchange for almost certainly not winning an iPad I was probably going to have to let them scan my badge and stick me on a spam list. Considering also I am not an iPhone fanboi I declined the offer and didn’t specifically head for their stand. It’s a problem, getting people interested in looking at your stuff as opposed to someone else’s.

This morning I wondered whether Mobile World Congress had finished. After the flurry of “exciting” product launches (the Samsung Galaxy S5 and the, erm…) things have gone quiet.

Today is the last day, apparently. At MWC2014 there are 1,951 exhibitors. One thousand nine hundred and fifty one!!! How on earth do you stand out amongst that lot? There must be a much easier way of getting seen.

The web is the only answer. These big shows have to be replaced by website interaction. Ok I hear the argument that says the benefit of going to a trade show is the networking. That can easily be done at specific networking events over a glass of lemonade and a canape. Not too many canapes of course – you will want to do your own fair share of talking:)

Trefor Davies, trefor.net, not in Barcelona.

PS I hear that half the SGS5 RAM is taken up by its Android firmware load!

End User nuisance calls and messages piracy

How to complain about nuisance calls and messages

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 26 February, 2014
3 Comments on How to complain about nuisance calls and messages

The blog is getting a lot of visits to posts about nuisance calls and messages. There are clearly a lot of pests out there.

If you suffer from this you can report incidents to the Information Commissioner’s Office at this site here.

Feel free to leave a comment with any progress or otherwise.

Particularly active numbers are 08000641087 (post here) and 01616626518 (post here)

End User fun stuff

Nice picture of croci near Embankment tube station

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 26 February, 2014
No Comments on Nice picture of croci near Embankment tube station

I have total editorial control over this blog. What I say goes ok? Below is a nice picture of some flowers – crocuses (croci) seen growing in the gardens near the Embankment tube station this morning. Nice eh?

If any readers have nice photos of flowers they would like to share please let me know. Spring is in the air:)

I’m a big softie really. Innit?

More lovely phlower fotos inc a ladybird here.

Business Cloud hosting

Chelsea Pensioners take cloud mainstream at Cloud Expo Europe

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 26 February, 2014
No Comments on Chelsea Pensioners take cloud mainstream at Cloud Expo Europe

This morning I went to meet @natmorris at Cloud Expo at ExCel. More of what he is up to anon but a few things struck me about the exhibition.

First of all “cloud” has become seriously mainstream. It must have if three Chelsea Pensioners thought it worth a trip. Unless they thought they were going to something else? “Might as well take a look now that were ‘ere Albert”.

Secondly I was amazed by

End User events Regs

Larging it up in London – the NLC and American Bar at the Savoy

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 26 February, 2014
2 Comments on Larging it up in London – the NLC and American Bar at the Savoy

Night on the tiles last night. Dinner with Julian Huppert at the National Liberal Club followed by cocktails at London’s oldest cocktail bar – the American Bar at the Savoy Hotel.

I was thinking of using the American Bar for last year’s Xmas bash. Ended up not doing so because the capacity was only 78 persons, you couldn’t book it and a cocktail was around fifteen quid a go.

I’ve only been there once before. That was after my first year in Uni in 1981. Out on the town with my London based cousins we passed the Savoy and popped in for a swift one. It was very swift. Two halves of lager and a bourbon were £4.50. This was when a pint in my local was forty pence!

Last night seven drinks came to

Engineer internet

Miniscule WiFi data bandwidth allowance

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Tuesday, 25 February, 2014
6 Comments on Miniscule WiFi data bandwidth allowance

Staying at the Strand Palace Hotel tonight. Handy for town and free WiFi to boot (I paid to stay here obv).

I’m not using the hotel WiFi. Rarely do as 4G is usually faster. On this occasion I’m getting 8Mbps down over EE4G (MiFi) but whilst the hotel allows unlimited bandwidth it is only giving me 7mbps. Worse than dial up. What’s more the data transfer allowance per session is only half a bit. How does that work? Quicker to walk.

Perhaps there is a mistake. You can check it out for yourselves in the pic of the instructions they gave me.

See other high profile mistakes of this nature here.

bitcoin Business online safety piracy

Bitcoin bet or bubble bursting?

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Tuesday, 25 February, 2014
2 Comments on Bitcoin bet or bubble bursting?

Mt Gox is dead. Apparently. More than 750,000 Bitcoins missing, so they say. Rumour mill an’ all.

Careless that, or criminal. Either way someone has lost a lot of Bitcoin (Mt Gox has previous – see here from 2011).

Now could be a good time to invest in Bitcoin. The price has dropped considerably. Mind you anytime could be a bad time to invest in Bitcoin, unless you make a living being successful at roulette.

I’m thinking of buying one. Just the one. Just so’s I can feel part of the action. It won’t be a big investment. I once knew a bookie in my local pub. He had a pitch at Market Rasen races and at one race meet I put a two pound bet on a horse with him. He accused me of trying to manipulate the odds with heavy betting 🙂

Current price is £295 or so (it was earlier this pm – changed already by the time of publication – gotta move faster – see preev.com). That’s a new washing machine, or simlar. Mrs Davies would say that a new washing machine would be more useful and not depreciate quite as quickly as Bitcoin has over the last 24 hours.

Wives just don’t understand do they?

I’d like to bet that many of the readers of this blog are multi-millionaires thanks to Bitcoin and here’s me still trying to hack out a living writing blog posts. It could be the answer.

Mind you I do occasionally buy a lottery ticket and I honestly can’t remember the last time I got a single number right. I think there is something going on there. Must be.

I’ll keep you posted.

~~Mt Gox is dead. Long live Mt Gox.~~

PS I realise I’m taking a risk publishing a picture of a two pence piece but I think it is in the public interest to do so. The two pence photographed is worth two pence and will be used as part of a transaction to buy something – box of matches¹ etc. It may not be possible to do this with a bitcoin.

¹ can you actually buy anything for two pence anymore?

Tags Bitcoin

Business net neutrality Regs

Farm regs and navigating around London

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Tuesday, 25 February, 2014
1 Comment on Farm regs and navigating around London

I’m on the way to Laandan and just took a look on my phone downloads for the best way of getting to the Strand. I keep a downloaded tube map on the dog and bone for occasions such as this where the train connectivity is rubbish and it makes more sense to have a local copy.

Imagine my total surprise when the first doc I came across in the downloads section was a report of a farm regulation task force. Don’t ask me how I downloaded this (I can probably find out when).

It’s not that I’m not interested in farm regulations I’m not really interested in farm regulations though I imagine thats situation would change if I was ever thinking of buying a farm. Or going on holiday to a farm. In the case of the latter there could be rules about letting dogs off leashes or not bringing your own sheep. Things you’d need to know.

I’m not sure if my document covers that sort of thing though. I haven’t read it. If anyone wants a copy let me know and I’ll email it to them. I’m not going to host it on this site. People might think it was an offical trefor.net farm reg doc or that I supported the conclusions of the report. I couldn’t tell you one way or another in respect of that because as I said I haven’t read it. Yet.

The fact that I have no idea how I came to download this report is an example of how easy it would be to pick up malware. I do have McAfee on the phone. I have no idea if it is effective. All it ever seems to warn me about are sms messages from WIlliam Hill which it rightly considers to be dodgy.

As far as getting to The Strand goes I’m going to take the Piccadilly Line from Kings Cross to Covent Garden and walk from there. If I didn’t have my bag I’d walk the whole way. It isn’t that far. Unless it’s chucking it down in which case I’ll take a taxi.

That’s how to get around Laandan for ya gor blimey Guvner, would you Adam and Eve it, ruby murray, frog and toad.

@Cyberdoyle’s first fibre network down on the farm here

Pete Farmer on Net Neutrality here

Rapidly becoming an agricultural blog this.

Business mobile connectivity

Twitter highlights international nature of #MWC2014

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Tuesday, 25 February, 2014
2 Comments on Twitter highlights international nature of #MWC2014

Although we are engrossed in our own language version of life the one thing that has struck me regarding #MWC2014 is the totally international nature of it. We see all the reporting through the websites we use to access such things. However it’s only when you look at the twitter stream for the #MWC2014 hashtag that you really get to see the global nature of the event.

The tweets below represent about a seconds worth of the #MWC2014 stream. Lots of different languages and even more countries. The only thing that is missing here is a real time google translate function within twitter. The sites linked to would be easy as you could invoke the translation for each one as you landed on it.

End User phones

Samsung Galaxy S5 feature list examined

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 24 February, 2014
2 Comments on Samsung Galaxy S5 feature list examined

They are getting excited, the easily excitable. Supposedly the Samsung Galaxy S5 is being launched tonight at MWC2014 (see previous post for acronym explanation). The Telegraph ¹ is calling it one of the most anticipated phone launches of the year and goes on to fuel the rumour mill with a description of expected features. The Telegraph is one of the many sites that gets excited but there again they seem to pander far more successfully to the desires of Joe Public than does this blog – they have quite a few more visitors.

In the interest of trying to get excited I’ve looked at the expected features to see which ones I like.

16Megapixel camera. The camera is one of the features I use the most.

4g Business mobile connectivity social networking

Report from #MWC2014 – Mark Zuckerberg and the death of the Personal Computer

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 24 February, 2014
4 Comments on Report from #MWC2014 – Mark Zuckerberg and the death of the Personal Computer

I see Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook) is in Barca (short for Barcelona – common usage by the mobile “in” people) for MWC 2014 (Mobile World Congress two thousand and fourteen).

It’s the trendy place to be. You get to be part of the hype, the frenzy. In the run up you casually ask others whether they are going so that they can see that you are going. Affirmative responses result in knowing nods, comparisons of favourite bars and restaurants and complaints about all the walking that you have to put up with because the show is so large. To those that respond in the negative everything is left unsaid.

I’ve been to Barcelona. Spent a great few days there with my daughter last summer. We stayed in a nice hotel slap bang in the middle of the city, could walk everywhere and were able to easily retire to the rooftop bar for late afternoon relaxation when we had had enough of the touristy bits.

I years gone by I’ve known one or two of our sales people have to travel in by train from ~~miles~~ kilometres away because accommodation was unavailable in Barcelona itself. Almost as bad as the old days of Telecom Geneva where people would have to commute from Heathrow to Switzerland because hotels were totally sold out for hundreds of miles around (ish) the show.

Mr Zuckerberg is in town because mobile is

Business obsolescence

Yellow pages officially declared dead

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Sunday, 23 February, 2014
1 Comment on Yellow pages officially declared dead

The powers that run the Davies household (ie Mrs Davies) have officially declared both the Yellow Pages and the BT Telephone Directory dead.

The two tomes, grown increasingly lightweight in recent years, now reside in the log basket next the fireplace in readiness for further processing as the scrunched up bits of paper you use to start lighting a fire.

No remorse, no wistful gazing over the shoulder as we leave the room. The publications served a purpose and enjoyed their long day. Now they are of no use to us. Technology has consigned the printing press to a museum curiosity. What would Gutenberg have to say? “Alle Dinge geschehen, eh?”.

Whomsoever decideth where to deliver these publications have my permission to remove the Davies’ from their list and save the trees. They are no longer required.

Read here about “Yellow Pages Shock“.

Thank you and goodnight… the sound of the telephone going dead at the other end of the line…

agricultural End User

Lumberjack weekend special & trailer maintenance tips

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Sunday, 23 February, 2014
No Comments on Lumberjack weekend special & trailer maintenance tips

This weekend sees a lumberjack special on trefor.net. All internet and no sawing doesn’t light the fire.

Costs five or six quid for a net of logs from the local garage. We could get a ton delivered for around £80 though have only ever done it once. Kept meaning to order more. Cousin Steffan has a gleaning license from the local forestry commission allowing him to “harvest” fallen trees. After this winter’s storms there are plenty of them. On Saturday the trailer was hitched up and we set off for Osgoodby woods north of Market Rasen.

Bit of a tip. Thought I’d check the tyre pressures on the car before going. With an expected load of wood I figured it had better have the right amount of air in it. What I hadn’t thought of was the tyre pressure on the trailer. After I got back from the Tesco garage I looked at the trailer tyres and they looked a bit low.

I also happened to notice Anne’s car had a puncture so I called the AA out. The AA man turned up promptly (50 mins), sorted the puncture and in exchange for a cup of tea did the air on the trailer tyres.

That trailer is 10 years old this year and in that time I’ve not topped up the air once. They were meant to be at 35psi. They were at 20psi! Good job we checked innit?

Now there are only two things you need to know about a gleaning license. The first is that you aren’t allowed to use mechanical tools to cut up the wood. The second is that you can’t take vehicles onto the land so everything you cut (by hand) has to be carried to the car at the edge of the wood.

This is quite sensible really as it limits the amount of wood you can take. It makes it very hard work. That stuff is heavy and the floor of the wood is boggy and covered in brambles.

Steff used to be a forrester before a knee accident cut short his career. Having a professional in tow (though reality was he was towing me) was quite handy. He picked out the best wood, ie the stuff that had already dried out, and we set to with our saws.

Steff pointed out an interesting oak tree with what looked like two trunks. This tree was around hundred years old and be the pollarded regrowth of one felled for pit props during the first world war. Innerestin

I’m going to let the photos and video tell you the rest. Bloody hard work mind you. We were at it for three hours and when we got back to the house ate half a baguette each!

The last pic is my share of the take from the afternoon’s work. The video is a video.

Read about “the technical business of trees and the art of netting a boy”

PS v poor mob sig in woods fwiw.

End User fun stuff

How to walk up a Steep Hill and be sixty pounds lighter by the time you get to the top

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Saturday, 22 February, 2014
4 Comments on How to walk up a Steep Hill and be sixty pounds lighter by the time you get to the top

Last night I walked up steep hill and was sixty pounds lighter by the time I go to the top. Another exciting episode in the life of Trefor Davies.

Yesterday morning I walked to work and passed the Harlequin Antiquarian Bookshop as I went down Steep Hill. I’ve been meaning to go in there because I found that when Reader’s Rest closed the Oxford History books that I had been meaning to go in and buy but hadn’t got round to it had been passed up the road to the Harlequin. The shop didn’t open until 11am (why would you) but I noted the closing time of 5 – 5.30 (ish).

Up until yesterday my collection of Oxford History of England books had looked like this:

Engineer peering

Call for peering posts

Hi All

Going to have a peering week, or few days anyway, to coincide with the Euro-IX Forum in Leeds on 17th and 18th March.

This being the case I’m looking for contributions of a peering and networks related nature. If you are a member of an IX and have a good idea please drop me a line to my trefor.net email.

Atb

Tref

Business events UC webrtc

4th trefor.net UC Industry Executive Dinner

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 20 February, 2014
No Comments on 4th trefor.net UC Industry Executive Dinner

Online Ticketing for 4th trefor.net UC Industry Exec Dinner – WebRTC with Prof Alan Johnston powered by Eventbrite

Business UC voip

Connected Business – the buzzword formerly known as UC Expo?

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 20 February, 2014
No Comments on Connected Business – the buzzword formerly known as UC Expo?

The UC Expo trade show is now called Connected Business. My complaint with the former name, Unified Communications Expo, was that it was a bit of a trendy bland catch all for something that used to be known as VoIP.

I’ve been waiting for the new buzzword to come along for a while. However I can’t for the life of me believe that “Connected Business” is this new buzzword. We don’t even really need a buzzword. Marketing departments around the country will now be shouting “oh yes we do – we get paid loads to come up with buzzwords”.

The show has for the last few years just been a place to go and meet mates. There has been very little to differentiate vendors of UC systems and solutions, certainly in the feature sets. These feature sets have been built up over decades.

You might ask yourselves, other than the source of a physical get together for a beer, why bother going? Why bother exhibiting? Everything is done online nowadays. Even the selling. In my recent experience businesses exhibit at these shows because they need to be seen to be in the game – if all their competitors are there but they are not that sends out the wrong signals.

I’ll be surprised if I learn anything but I’m going to go anyway. See ya there.

Connected Business – the show formerly known as ~~Prince~~ UC Expo.

Read previous notes re UC Expo here.

Engineer internet

Internet routing pedestrian style – OSPPF

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 20 February, 2014
No Comments on Internet routing pedestrian style – OSPPF

I walk to work. Takes me half an hour, give or take. Doesn’t seem to matter which route, in the great scheme of things. Depends whether I dawdle in shop windows or not.

I like to vary my way in. This morning I had decided to take the shortest route. It is mostly busy main road, down Lindum Hill if you know Lincoln, and is certainly the noisiest route but it is probably the easiest and certainly the most direct, Google recommended way to go.

This morning I got to the traffic lights at the Peacock Pub – you know, the junction of Greetwell Gate and the A15. Up until then it was all plain sailing. I managed to cross the road before getting to the lights whilst the traffic was queuing on red. This saved me time because the lights will have changed by the time I got to them and I’d have had to wait.

When I got to the lights they were

Business online safety Regs

To decapitate or not to decapitate – a political bet? Vodafone filter

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 19 February, 2014
4 Comments on To decapitate or not to decapitate – a political bet? Vodafone filter

An eagle eyed reader spotted this little piece of bemusement from Vodafone.

His newsfeed this morning had an interesting enough looking headline “Labour to launch decapitation strategy against Clegg” meaning that they were going to have a go at unseating him in the next general election.

Interest piqued, the reader clicked on the link only to come up against Vodafone’s content filter.

What was the content one wonders that made the Vodafone filter kick in? The reference to decapitation? Or did it find the politics of the host blog politicalbetting offensive.

Points arise:

Business security spam UC

Selling your contact information – who does it?

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 19 February, 2014
2 Comments on Selling your contact information – who does it?

One of the things I’ve been looking forward to in life post Timico is having a cleaner inbox. I don’t get spam using Gmail and the platform very kindly filters most commercial mails in to a tab called “Promotions”.

This I love. I do look occasionally and note that the mails are typically from rewards membership accounts and their ilk. I am ok with this.

My Timico mailbox, RIP, used to get tons of unwanted rubbish from companies I had no interest in and who

End User fun stuff

Breakfast at Silva’s

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. I present here a picture of what I had for breakfast this morning.

Silva’s, Shaftesbury Avenue. Nuff said.

Read all about how to cook breakfast using a George Foreman Grill here.

Engineer internet

Manbag for a network engineer

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 17 February, 2014
3 Comments on Manbag for a network engineer

Ever wanted a manbag? Something cool you can sling over your arm when you’re on your way to the data centre? Something that will attract the attention of your fellow engineers?

Look no further. Here for your delight and delectation is an original GPO engineer’s kitbag.

Original real leather with handy compartments for tools and spare relays/connectors the GPO manbag of 2014 is suitable for carrying a laptop together with your jimjams for that overnight stay in the Docklands Travelodge.

This superb retro man accessory is modelled by BT’s biggest fan, Adrian Kennard of AAISP. Click on the image to see the lad looking super cool.

Want one? Ask Adrian. They are probably like rocking horse poo but I’m sure Adrian will let you have a go at holding his. He’s just that kind of guy.

Engineer peering

Offline and LINX84

Suppose it doesn’t do any harm to be offline for a while. I’m on a short flight back from the Isle of Man to London City Airport and LINX84. The offline state seems a little strange when compared with the highly connected nature that is the whole purpose of LINX.

At every LINX meeting they report the vital statistics. Increase in membership, port count, usage. In my offline state all I can report is the number of pages read in my book. This is not very many. I bought the book, “Exile On An Island” by Don N.L.Giovannelli, TS in a the second hand bookshop in Peel. I’ve quickly lost interest in it tbh. Ah well. No idea what the TS stands for. Some Italian title perhaps. Can’t look it up. I’m offline.

It’s amazing how much we use the internet without realising it these days. Even my eighty year old dad, when we were talking about the takeaway menu at the local Chinese, said “just look it up on the internet”. I already had of course 🙂

They are always the same anyway, Chinese takeaway menus. It is expected. Annoys me when I got to an Indian restaurant to only find out that it does “designer” meals – tandoori lobster or venison. All I want from an indian restaurant is a familiar menu cooked well. Simples.

Anyway I can write the first LINX84 related post for you from the airplane. I looked up the stats this morning. Peak traffic is up to 1.981Tbps, membership numbers are up by 7 already in 2014 to 501. All good stuff. Onwards and upwards. Downwards actually. We are 15 minutes from landing and have to put away our laptops.

Ciao bebe.

Posted from the London City Airport DLR platform at 14.15 courtesy of EE4G.

End User phones

Exclusive images of new Samsung Galaxy S5 logo

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Sunday, 16 February, 2014
3 Comments on Exclusive images of new Samsung Galaxy S5 logo

Exclusive images of new Samsung Galaxy S5 logo leaked.

Just came across a link to a blog post with photos of the supposed casing to the iPhone 6. Whoopeedee. Don’t get me wrong here. This isn’t a rant about the presumably forthcoming iPhone 6. It’s an “I think we have overdosed on new phone introductions” rant.

It’s a bit like we have too many Ashes cricket series’. We must have because the Aussies won the last one, as I recall.

I’ve got a Samsung Galaxy S4. I had the S3 and the S2. I assume there must have been an S as well – can’t remember that far back (3 years?!). Or it wasn’t on my radar at the time. The Samsung Galaxy S5 interests me not one little bit. The marketing machines have run out of ideas as far as I am concerned. They are firing blanks. Sack em all.

We can’t be that far off the time when phone hardware becomes the same for us all anyway. Look at cars. The all look the same, give or take a grill and light fitting. It’s now all about the software. The frills. I’m assuming here that one bit of faux leather interior is much the same as another bit of faux leather interior.

So there must come a time when the

Tags SGS5

End User piracy

Stolen Oyster Card frozen

Had my Oyster card stolen yesterday. No idea how. Might have dropped it but I don’t know. I only found out last night. Tried logging online but couldn’t get in to the account and because it used an old timico email address I couldn’t do a reset.

This morning I tried again and hey presto got the username and password combo right. I’ve changed both. The fact that I could guess the password was no good.

I noted that the b”£$%^d who stole the card had used around ten quid’s worth of credit. Fortunately there is no means for them to automatically top up the card and I’ve locked it now anyway.

I could get the stolen credit reimbursed but

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