Having fun with VirginMedia

I have to say that I am not impressed with VirginMedia's broadband service at the mo. I recently upgraded from a 2Mbps line to 4Mbps. Unfortunately, the "improved" service has been running dog slow; slower in fact than my old 2Mbps connection. I've even visited a couple of speed test sites and the results were shocking to say the least. I, of course, contacted VM who informed me that:

"We have done a check on your connection and found that there may be a problem on your connection and more diagnostics need to be done to find the cause. Unfortunately, in order for us to help resolve these issues we will need to speak with you directly. Please call broadband technical support on 0906 212 1111, (lines open 24hrs a day 7 days a week - Calls cost 25ppm from a Virgin phone plus 10 to connect. Mobiles and other networks may vary) where an agent will be happy to help you."

I am not surprised that they would be happy for me to ring at 25ppm when the fault is undoubtedly with them. I haven't changed my network hardware in 3 years and I know it works fine. However, VM have reassured me that:
"You have nothing to worry about by us bringing in this line, as the
policy will be that if you contact us on this number, and the cause of
any problem you have contacted us about is due to a fault with our
service, we  will  refund you the cost of the call to yourself in full."
So, I guess I will be ringing their broadband support line and we will see what diagnostics they run and the outcome of this sorry saga. In the meantime, I am still suffering with an insufferably slow BB connection. "C'est la vie" with VM...

Open Microsoft?

Well, well, well ... Not content with dominating the office suite world, M$ are now attempting to get their new MS Office file format (OpenXML) approved by the ISO as an "open" standard so that it can beat of the challenge by the already open and OASIS approved OpenOffice.org file format. M$ are trying to force this approval through in a matter of months, whereas the OOO format took nearly 5 years to be approved ...! Hmm ... wonder why M$ are in such a hurry? Perhaps they don't want the ISO to look too closely at the file format specification, because if they did they would find all sorts of proprietary and patent-encumbered jiggery-pokery in there. Hardly what is required in a supposedly "open" file format. ;-)

Anyway, so that you can form your own opinions here are some relevant links to look at:

Microsoft's perspective

MS OpenXML developer's opinion

E-week's article on MS response to the ODFA

E-week article on ISO approval of ODF

Linux-watch article on MS tactics

Sam Hiser's analysis of the OpenXML license

Chris Samuel's summary of Sam Hiser's analysis

Infoworld article on OASIS push for OpenDocument adoption

Groklaw's ODF and OpenXML format comparison

FFII's Workgroup on Open Standards

There you go! That should keep you all quiet! Have fun reading and let me know what you think ...

The Joys of Bittorrent and Linux

Have been (re)discovering the delights of Bittorrent transfers ... So much quicker than trying to download directly from a server. Have now downloaded the ISOs for Kubuntu and Ubuntu Linux (live and install CDs). Looking forward to trying out Ubuntu and the updated Gnome window manager. One wonders what effect Cairo will have on the user experience? It will also be interesting to compare these distros to my current favourite distro which is Mepis Linux. Apart from the need to have Windows for compatibility with work I would have completely moved over to Linux by now. If you have never given Linux a try then I can recommend either of Mepis, Ubuntu or Kubuntu - they all have "Live CDs" which means that you can run the entire operating system from the CD, trying all the software out without having to partition or install anything to your hard-disk. If you find that you like them you can then take the plunge and do a full install. Go on, give it a whirl. You know you want to! ;-)

First Entry

Hey! Not very interesting but a first post nonetheless ...

Spoke to my friend Jenny tonight. She and her partner (my mate Andy) are moving back to Basel, Switzerland for 12 months from the beginning of October. Major bag packing now in progress! Furthermore, Andy's mum is having a hip-replacement operation tomorrow. She managed to break her hip by falling over the hoover. C'est la vie. Hopefully, everything will go well.

That's it for now. More blogs to come in the future.