trefor.net - Page 29 of 92 - Insider comments from the world of internet communications

RightMove, wrong data?

Broadband speed data used by Estate Agents to sell houses needs keeping up to date.

To an ever-increasing number of us, broadband is pretty darn important. So much so, that access to it (or not) can affect major life decisions. Such as where to have a coffee, or even which house to buy or rent.

If you are trying to run a business from home, broadband is essential. If you are a farmer, you need a decent connection for all the online cow passport, animal movement, SFP etc forms. If you are of school age, you need to study and upload homework. If you are isolated, it can give you access to friends, family, and the world generally. Basically, it is the 4th utility which many of us cannot live without and many people are catching up with this reality.

Tags broadband, estate agents, house values, pointtopic, rightmove

Business net neutrality ofcom piracy Regs

The Copyright Enforcement Enigma

Post author By Peter Farmer
Post date Saturday, 8 March, 2014
No Comments on The Copyright Enforcement Enigma

When I was on a panel at the Eight Parliament and Internet Conference last year, I was approached afterwards by an academic – Monica Horten. We had a chat about a few things regulatory (notably ITSPA’s work in the field of Net Neutrality) and she mentioned she had written a book on copyright, called the Copyright Enforcement Enigma.

I eventually sourced a copy and then eventually read it (it took a while as there were quite a few on my bookcase I hadn’t read that had military hardware on the cover, you see). It’s quite an excellent romp through the beginnings of copyright, from printing presses and State censorship all the way through to recent European pronouncements on piracy and counteracting it, along with comparing and contrasting different national approaches to intellectual property.

I’ve always found that the view on copyright, intellectual property and piracy generally correlates strongly with political views. These range from “you can’t own an idea” on one end of the scale through to basic property and contract rights saying you should have the right to protect and exploit your creations. Obviously the debate around piracy tracks the political leanings with the preferred sanction often generally correlating with that political niche’s view on criminal sanctions and it is good to read a balanced and non-partisan approach to the topic; if it raises its head again I would suggest this book as a good refresher.

In any event, the primary legislation focusing on this issue today in the UK is the Digital Economy Act 2010, which covers the obligations on Internet Service Providers to restrict access of (or even disconnect) some users or some content depending on the will of the court at the time in the face of an army of barristers from various large entertainment companies. BT and TalkTalk sought a judicial review of the legislation as it had been accelerated through Parliament as a general election had been called, but lost. Then lost the Appeal. So there we have it, Ofcom are now front and centre in managing a lot of this stuff.

There’s one out though; if you are an Internet Service Provider with less than 400,000 subscribers, as it stands, you are not in scope for much of the legislation. I am surprised that so far this gaping loophole has not been exploited; after all, surely you could charge a substantial premium for Napster Broadband? A high bandwidth service that guarantees it will never exceed 399,999 subscribers? I am sure the regulator would soon move to close the loophole, but that takes time. And on that note, I am off to find some seed capital 😉

Google+ Peter Farmer

Tags copyright, piracy

eleanor cross End User

Eleanor Cross statue project – choosing the stone with artist Alan Ward #lincolneleanor

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Saturday, 8 March, 2014
No Comments on Eleanor Cross statue project – choosing the stone with artist Alan Ward #lincolneleanor

Choosing the stone for the new Eleanor Cross for Lincoln project at the CDS quarry in Metheringham Heath.

Last week we covered the launch event for the new Eleanor Cross project for Lincoln. It’s been quite a wait to get the right piece of rock to start carving the statue. The quarry is only digging out new rock on a few days a month and often the pieces that come out are not of a suitable size or shape.

Moreover whilst the giant digging equipment that is occasionally brought can handle them the larger “lumps” are difficult to move using the quarry’s onsite kit and have to be carefully drilled to facilitate cutting into manageable sizes.

This first candidate on the right had already been moved into the main quarry working area. It might

Tags Cross, Eleanor, Lincoln

End User fun stuff

Lincoln 10K – Gear

Our first ever program on Siren FM was called The Reading Room, it went against the grain in trying to make a radio program about books and creative writing that was accessible – no oxbridge language here, I worked in a factory and read popular fiction. Lots of my colleagues read popular fiction too. So we made a program to appeal to them. It achieved some success that I wont embarrass you with now.

In our current program, Lincoln A to Z, we’ve acknowledged one of the few rules that Siren FM insist on – that every live program should have some ‘What’s On’ listings. We’ve gone about this a little differently too. We call it ‘City / Suburbs’, Jonny the programs esteemed producer, who lives in and loves the city, reads out the events that he fancies going to himself, and I a recent resident of the suburbs gives a largely fictional account of my slow acclimatisation to that way of life. One act of rebellion I regularly take part in is

bitcoin End User

Buying a Bitcoin next week

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Friday, 7 March, 2014
2 Comments on Buying a Bitcoin next week

Planning to buy a Bitcoin next week. The guys in the next room to us have a Bitcoin business. Dan Hewitt wrote a post a few days ago.

The process in the UK is not particularly straightforward as UK banks don’t currently support Bitcoin. All will be revealed next week.

Stay tuned…

How to buy a Bitcoin – Part1

Engineer internet ipv6

Lightning fast IPv6

Sometimes the world presents you with random facts that you just can’t quite get your head around. Then you talk to more people about the same thing and they say they see the same thing too but thought it was just them. The final stage is a NANOG conference panel about that topic because it seems to be happening to every one… (actually stage three might be different depending on what the topic is).

The fact is that it appears as if IPv6 gives you a boost in terms of performance compared to IPv4, not just in the lab but in the wild. A number of ISPs and researchers have been tracking the performance over the last couple of years, not as an explicit test to see if its faster/better but rather to make sure that their deployments aren’t broken or to measure to see how widespread deployment is.

Their key findings…

2% of end users are using IPv6 globally
IPv4 with a single NAT performs 20% worse than native IPv6
IPv6 connections fail 10x more than IPv4 connections (0.2% as compared to 2%)
Between 2012 and 2013 there has been an increase in the difference in performance
Both latency and throughput are better on IPv6
IPv6 tunnels are bad

So everyone should get out there and make sure their ISP is going to support IPv6 so we can all benefit. As with most of the NANOG presentations you can watch it online (and its really very interesting if you have 4omins free at some point today)

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ftoy2tp4kDM?rel=0]

More on IPv6
IPv6 hits 2% of traffic on Google
UK IPv6 usage lagging behind global competitors

Business fun stuff

One kiss or two kisses – mwa or mwa mwa?

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Friday, 7 March, 2014
6 Comments on One kiss or two kisses – mwa or mwa mwa?

Was at the trefor.net Exec Dinner on Tuesday night. Great time, as usual. If you’ve never been you want to think about coming.

We had one female attendee, Sally Fuller who is Director of Products at KCOM and a top industry person. Now when I meet a woman for the first time I usually shake their hand but if I’ve met them a few times and am starting to get to know them it’s usually a peck on the cheek.

The problem is sometimes a girl will expect one peck but sometimes two – one on each cheek. Being from the shires I’m not totally sure of the etiquette here. It doesn’t seem to be based on how well you know them. It might be a north south thing¹.

Readers of this blog would probably like to know the answer. It’s been quite some time since some engineers have even seen a girl. I’m not counting the one that works at the kebab shop. As they work their way up the technical ladder and perhaps one day even make it to an Exec Dinner the aspiring engineer will need to larn.

Help 🙂

¹ actually in some parts of the north it’s just a full on smack on the lips – ya southern woossies :))

End User fun stuff

Google maps captures commercial jet trying to land in Russell Square

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 6 March, 2014
6 Comments on Google maps captures commercial jet trying to land in Russell Square

What’s going on? A plane trying to land on Russell Square? Surely not? If it needed an emergency landing there are better places nearby to do this. Hyde Park for example.

Probably wouldn’t have gone down well with the Royal Family. I’m sure we would have heard about this on the news. It would have hit global headlines. Unless the news was suppressed…

Makes you think doesn’t it? Wasn’t Russell Square closed off for refurbishment for a few weeks one summer? Can’t quite remember. Maybe it was whilst they were repairing the damage to the plants and removing the wreckage, bodies etc. It’s possible…

Maybe there wasn’t a crash. Perhaps the pilot came in low to wave to his mum or girlfriend or someone else. It’s possible. Although I’m not an expert on this sort of thing I don’t think this plane is on a standard flight path so he would have taken a risk to do this. Would have got told off by his boss when he got back to the office.

Before anyone says anything I doubt whether this photo has been photoshopped. Google just don’t od that sort of thing, I think. I certainly haven’t photoshopped it myself.

I have to say I don’t know. I just don’t know what’s going on here. If anyone else has any thoughts on this puzzling pic I’d be glad to hear them.

Thanks to Dan Winfield for pointing this out. He was trying to find out where my hotel was and out popped the plane! 🙂

Android DECT VoIP phone from Gigaset and the all new R630 waterproof handset

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 5 March, 2014
2 Comments on Android DECT VoIP phone from Gigaset and the all new R630 waterproof handset

Android DECT VoIP phone by Gigaset is impressive piece of kit

Probably spent more time on the Gigaset stand than any other. Party because I kept bumping into people I know there and partly because they had a couple of great products being demo’d.

The first video is a demo of an Android DECT VoIP phone. It’s basically a tablet mounted on hardware that turns it into an useable telephony device with a DECT handset on the side. There is a wired version available.

The phone costs £500 but you have to consider this in relation to the cost of a high end business phone together with the functionality on offer.

Business UC voip

Report from Connected Business show

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 5 March, 2014
No Comments on Report from Connected Business show

Went along with Dan Winfield of Voxhub to Connected Business – the show formerly known as UC Expo. UC is so yesterday isn’t it? Trouble is all they have done is change the name. The content was much the same as ever. Things don’t move particularly quickly in the connected business game (there were a few interesting toys which I will expound on in a later post).

I suspect what will happen is that one day we will look up and the whole world will have changed. A gradual process that we will only be able to observe when looking back, or browsing through an internet archive somewhere (if you have time to do that kind of thing – loser).

Getting the important things out of the way first below is a picture of me and Dan with “the girls”.

End User webrtc

uber cool WebRTC app – appear.in

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 5 March, 2014
No Comments on uber cool WebRTC app – appear.in

Sat in the lobby of the Hilton Metropole yesterday waiting for UC Exec Dinner special guest Alan Johnston when I hear a voice from afar. “Hey Tref wot you doing here?”.

It was Nominet’s Ray Bellis up on the balcony. He popped down and we chewed the fat for a while. Explaining why I was hanging round Ray mentioned a new WebRTC service called appear.in. This is a WebRTC video conference facility free for up to 8 guests.

You might say to yourself so what? This can already be done through the likes of Google Hangouts. Appear.in though is a brilliant ad hoc service that you can fire up in seconds with anyone anywhere through a browser. The site allows you to generate an instant conference room or reuse one you “made earlier”. I’ve bagsed /tref obv.

It just worked. We used Ray’s laptop and my Droid and were up and running. Looked a bit daft me getting up and chatting to Ray from a few yards away. Had to to it to avoid the feedback He was using the hotel WiFi. I had 4G on O2.

I got into a bit of a fluster when my cellular device actually rang whilst we were in the middle of the WebRTC session but hey… Modern day problems eh?

I’d give Appear.in a go if I were you. Let me know how you get on or drop me a note and we can conference in.

Ciao (bebe).

IETF London Wednesday Agenda

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 5 March, 2014
No Comments on IETF London Wednesday Agenda

Popped in to the IETF meeting at the Hilton Metropole on Edgeware Road yesterday. I was meeting Alan Johnston in advance of heading over to the trefor.net UC Exec dinner. If you weren’t there you missed a great night. Some of the attendees already knew Alan by reputation and it was good to be able to hook them up.

The great thing about the IETF meetings is the opportunity to chat with people in the game. Yesterday I bumped into no end of people I knew.

End User media

Not So Madchester

I’ve just caught up with the inaugural BBC Radio 6 Music Festival, held last weekend at Victoria Warehouse in Manchester, a city that is to music, what London is to making money.

I hope that next year they hold it somewhere else because something didn’t work and it wasn’t the bands. It was the audience. They didn’t turn up. Not that it was empty, just that those that were there appeared to be stood around in a contemplative stance with folded arms. Was this really the city that inspired rave culture?

You might argue that this is

Business business applications

How intelligent are your employees? Do they need managing? Shirley

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Tuesday, 4 March, 2014
No Comments on How intelligent are your employees? Do they need managing? Shirley

The question is whether this van belongs to a company that manages intelligent employees or is it into managing employees intelligently? I’m not sure. Were I the thinking man I could look it up on their website – address prominently displayed (and proudly no doubt) on their van. Nah.

There is a supplementary question and that is at which point does an employee rate as having sufficient intelligence to qualify ~~for~~ ~~management~~ ¹ to be managed. Or is this a red herring? Presumably all employees must have some degree of intelligence.

This could be a tool for HR departments to improve morale. If they were to tell everyone that they were intelligent and were therefore employing methods for managing intelligent employees it might give everyone a boost. Mightn’t it? Even those staff without PhDs. Yes even if the sum of proof of your intelligence is your Cubs Scout 25m swim badge (freestyle) you could start to feel good about it. Yes master.

One does hope that in the course of managing intelligent employees it is done

End User food and drink fun stuff

Best topping for a pancake

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Tuesday, 4 March, 2014
3 Comments on Best topping for a pancake

Best toppings for pancakes on Shrove Tuesday.

Some things are more important than all things technical. Beer for example. Bacon with brown sauce, especially after a night out on the beer.

Then there are pancakes. Pancakes are important. You have to make them yourselves because when bought in a cafe or restaurant they are not as good. Thinner usually. Although there are many recipes for batter mix it doesn’t seem to matter what proportions you use for your eggs, flour and milk. It all turns out ok usually, as long as you use a non stick pan and have it heated to a high enough temperature. The first one is never as good because of the temperature issue.

The most important and thing about the pancake is the topping. This is also what starts more debates. I am happy to inform that the correct topping for a pancake is butter, lemon juice and sugar. No debate.

See below for useful images to help with your topping selection. Usually it would be a Jiff lemon but there is no culinary or scientific reason why this is so. Time was you could only get Jiff. I’m not sure the implied health benefits of this particular brand of lemon juice are any more applicable than any other brand. Freshly squeezed is probably best.

That is all.

HMRC gives green light to Bitcoin business?

Post author By Dan Howitt
Post date Monday, 3 March, 2014
1 Comment on HMRC gives green light to Bitcoin business?

The Telegraph has reported that HMRC will announce that it is to remove the 20% VAT from the sale and trading of Bitcoin in the UK.

Until now Bitcoin has been classified as an electronically supplied service or electronic voucher (depending on which perimeter officer received the query) which meant buying from or trading with a business incurred VAT. This effectively made Bitcoin 20% more expensive in the UK than elsewhere, eliminating any chance for UK businesses to operate in this area.

UK businesses now have the ability to sell bitcoins directly to customers without passing on the 20% VAT charge, making the UK with its financial status probably the most advantageous jurisdiction in the EU to operate a Bitcoin related business. Unfortunately, UK banks have shown very little interest in operating with Bitcoin businesses without specific regulation. They are very risk averse and if the government doesn’t tackle the issue, it may mean the Bitcoin economy will flourish elsewhere at the expense of the UK.

For users of exchanges it is important to note that VAT is being scrapped on all aspects of Bitcoin trading. When you buy or sell Bitcoin on a UK exchange the exchange takes a small fee to facilitate the trade. These fees will now be VAT zero rated, meaning there should be a potential 20% saving on fees for customers and no VAT liability for UK businesses operating trading services.

As a Bitcoin startup we welcome this news and have been pushing for this for nearly 9 months. We met with our local MP Karl McCartney who raised our concerns on this issue in parliament and wrote to the Treasury and HMRC on our behalf. We have also written to members of the cabinet and directly to HMRC ourselves. Hopefully our input alongside the many others who have had similar contacts has raised this issue to the level it deserves.

In all this is great news for the Bitcoin community and we expect to see an influx of startups buying and selling Bitcoins in the UK. The recognition by a UK government agency is an important step towards mainstream adoption and we are now looking to the Financial Conduct Authority to provide UK banks with the regulatory comfort they need to support this fledgling industry.

Bitcoin in the news again – no VAT & school dinners

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 3 March, 2014
No Comments on Bitcoin in the news again – no VAT & school dinners

In the news again, Bitcoin. This time HMRC have decided not to charge VAT on transactions. Seems reasonable.

Made me think about coins. In our house when I get in I empty my pockets onto the kitchen worktop (near the radio). The next morning the pile of coins is substantially smaller, reduced by demands for bus fares and miscellaneous youthful expenses.

The kids no longer need dinner money. We pay that directly into an account each of them has at school and each day a relevant amount is debited at the point of sale. Not good to admit perhap but I have no idea how much cash they burn through in this way. I’m sure someone has a handle on it (will that be the usual lobster thermidor or are we going for the steak and chips today son?).

We also pay their pocket money by direct debit into their bank accounts.

What made me think about all this was the

Tags Bitcoin

eleanor cross End User

New Eleanor Cross for Lincoln – a project of national significance

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Saturday, 1 March, 2014
No Comments on New Eleanor Cross for Lincoln – a project of national significance

New Eleanor Cross for Lincoln – a project of national significance with exclusive coverage at the weekends on trefor.net.

Eleanor of Castile, wife of King Edward I of England died in 1290 in Harby in Nottinghamshire. Her body was taken to the Gibertine Priory at St Catherines in Lincoln where it was embalmed and the viscera remove to nearby Lincoln Cathedral.

After four days and nights in Lincoln the body was removed, accompanied by the King and his retinue to London, a journey that took twelve days. Following the burial in London King Edward commissioned a cross to be erected at each overnight stopping point.

Most of the crosses were destroyed by the Roundheads during the English Civil War. A fragment of the original Lincoln cross remains inside Lincoln Castle. A new cross has been commissioned to be erected outside St Catherine’s Church, the starting point in Lincoln of the journey.

In December a meeting was held at St Catherine’s church at South Common to launch the project. The two videos below were recorded at the launch event. The first is with artist Alan Ward and the second is with the parish priest Father Ian who offers some particularly interesting insights into the history of the Eleanor Cross.

Tune in every weekend for updates on this project. Coverage was initially planned for philosopherontap.com but this is interesting enough to merit the wider readership that trefor.net offers.

End User fun stuff

1st daffs of year out on St David’s Day & bandwidth drivers in cafes

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Saturday, 1 March, 2014
1 Comment on 1st daffs of year out on St David’s Day & bandwidth drivers in cafes

It’s St David’s Day and I am pleased to announce that the first daffodils of the year are out in the garden. Loads more threatening to bloom but not quite there yet. It’s also a fine day so we may see more before day is out.

This morning, it being a nice day and having no jobs list I went for a stroll into Lincoln’s Bailgate. It’s my custom and practice on occasion to record videos which I normally only share with the family. I do this once the vid is uploaded to Google+.

This morning I recorded one such video in front of the Cathedral in Lincoln and then went to the @BookStopCafe for a cuppa. As I was sat there relaxing to Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor (a particular fave of mine) and a pot of lemon tea the video uploaded to Goole+ over the caff’s WiFi.

Occurs to me that they don’t need many customers to be doing this to rack up big bandwidth usage. My 26 second video will have been a few tens of megs. It won’t take long for cafes to need unlimited data bundles on their broadband connections. I’d like to bet that most such establishments currently go for a low end package to save on costs.

The changing business landscape…

PS it wasn’t the Farmer’s Market. It was a craft market which for me doesn’t hold as much interest:)

End User fun stuff

Lincoln 10K – Finish Line

Post author By Paul Tyler
Post date Saturday, 1 March, 2014
No Comments on Lincoln 10K – Finish Line

During this or any previous bout of running, I have always had a physical finish line during training, previously it was a bridge, currently its a sign post. I decided on this after my first ever training run as you know when to stop and helps you beat ‘the wall’.

This means that I plot my route backwards, previously I used a paper map, a piece of string ,a ruler and few choice words. A truly frustrating experience, with one too many calculations for me to be comfortable with. I’ve now discovered Mapometer.com. This simple, user friendly website even lets you plot ‘off piste’. A really useful tool as I’m sure most runners like parks. The phrase ‘off piste’ , wasn’t just thrown in there as you can select cross-country skiing as the sport your taking part in too.

The finish line is just one of the ways I have tried to overcome the mind over matter of distance running. A few years ago I read the best book about running there is – What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami. This is a memoir about running and writing that instils the reader with the mantra that “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional”. This phrase is the most useful six words anyone has written or will ever write about running.

You will be in pain, but its up to you how you react to it, your body is capable of far more than your mind thinks it is.

As well as that incredible quote, the book also digs deep into how the running is of a huge help to Murakami’s writing. I’m finding that since ditching the MP3 player that my time spent running is valuable creative time, this helps me not only with my radio and writing work but keeps my mind from acknowledging that my knees are killing me and my face has invented a new shade of red. My imaginary finish line is helping this too, one less running question my brain has to think about, helping the creative process get to work.

I only intended to be temporary jogger – up to and including the 10k I told myself. But with the positive effects on my work, as well as seeing off the last of the Christmas weight I like to add at winter time, I might just carry on past this ‘mind-created’ finish line.

Paul Tyler is the presenter of Lincoln A to Z on Siren FM – Mondays 9pm

@lincolnatoz

Tags 10k, jogging, Lincoln, running

ecommerce Engineer security

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.