Data charges on Meteor PAYG

So I've been with Meteor for about two years now but recently got hold of a 2G iPhone but up until now Meteor on Pay As You Go had no data bundles and each kB was charged at 2c, so just to load the front page of boards.ie could cost 4 euro!!

So today I noticed Meteor PAYG have introduced a 50MB data bundle for 99c a day which they only charge once you go over the first 2kB, not bad!

Not the best bargain in the world but it makes my iPhone usable on edge now :)

UTV Upgraded to 3MB

Due to Eircom Wholesales recent speed upgrades to upto 7.6MB my line was upgraded to 3MB last weekend :)

DownStream Connection Speed 3072 kbps
UpStream Connection Speed 384 kbps

Down Up
Line Attenuation 16 db 4 db
Noise Margin 27 db 19 db



Not bad :)

Going Green: Energy Monitoring

So myself and the fiancee recently moved into our new house and in a effort to save money in these hard times and help the environment I decided energy saving lightbulbs were the best way forward for the majority of the house.

While initially I would have loved to get solar panels the initial outlay cost was too great so I had to abandon the idea, anyway I looked into other methods to help save money and monitor costs.

One solution was a Efergy Electricity monitor, it cost me about 60e and took about 5min to setup with no wiring etc. I've been using it about a week now and I have to see its interesting to see what everything uses.

for example:
1 60W CFL bulb uses 3 times less power then a 40W standard bulb or I've found the 3 spotlights in our downstairs hallway uses more power then my computer (monitor, computer unit and 4 external drives combined).

Its a cheap and easy way to watch what you use and I'd recommend it to anyone, you'd be surprised what everything uses.

so far so good with UTV ADSL

So I got my username and password from UTV and setup my ADSL router when I got home but because I'm moving into a new house I haven't had much spare time on the net lately.

All is well and line is operating pretty good, pings are not as good as what I got with my old BT Business line or NTL 3MB service and of course as its a 2MB line its not as good as my old 3MB NTL connection but its a sight better then the 1MB connection I've been using the past 2 months on a temp basis.

Speed tests results ok too (see above), another benefit over other DSL providers is when using UTV's Northern Ireland proxy server on a UTV connection you can use BBC iPlayer which is very handy :)

Broadband enabled!

So during the weekend I connected up my ADSL router and noticed that my router was showing sync at 2MB/256K with pretty healthy looking noise margins so all looking good, unfortunately UTV support were closed Saturday & Sunday so I couldn't call them for my username & password.

I gave them a quick ring today and they said they hadn't received notification from Eircom yet that the service was active yet however they put me on hold then came back and advised it was and gave me my username & password and also e-mailed me the details, so far so good...I'll test it out this evening.

First Google Adsense Payment!

Finally I've reached $100 on my Google Adsense account and I will now get my first payment! I signed up for Google Adsense back in October 2007 and placed a number of adverts on a number of sites I host from the 1st November 2007, since then I've slowly watched the cents role in.

I've found the advert banners on the top of pages to be the most successful and the search box which you can see on this site hasn't earned me 1c all this time :(

None the less its money I wouldn't have made otherwise and it helps pay for my hosting package for all my sites which is good, it only took 116,492 Page impressions and 802 clicks. I guess I could improve on those click percentages by better advert placement any suggestions welcome.

Lets hope the next $100 doesn't take as long :)

Broadband Saga: Getting a telephone line...

So here we are again back to the start of what historically has been extremely painful, those that know me know that I've recently bought myself a house and that I've moved out of my apartment.

Well as part of the usual moving of stuff I now have to get myself a new broadband provider as I can't get NTL in the town I'm now going to be living in and its pretty limited provider wise in the area its basically an unknown wireless provider or a ADSL provider who operates one of Eircom Wholesales resold bit-stream products.

After much reviewing of websites I have decided to go with UTV's bundled 2MB package which includes a "unlimited" option for 5e extra a month so I won't be restricted by set caps that other providers like Eircom, BT or Perlico offer and overall it works out decent enough value at a total cost of 55e per month for phone & Broadband.

So as part of this move I've once again had to get myself an Eircom phone line, those that know me will know I've gone through this saga THREE times before and they I really hate Eircon..sorry Eircom at this stage.

The first time Eircom kept sending the bills to somebody else's address so it took me 3-4 months to get my a/c number as Eircom flat out refused to give it to me over the phone, fax it to me or e-mail it to me and I needed it to change to BT Business, the second time it took a month to get the a/c number and the third time also took weeks to get the a/c number so in the end I canceled the lot and went with NTL's 3MB package.

So here I am, I've just placed an on-line order for a telephone line and based on the details on the site the install "should" be free.

If your home has never had an eircom phoneline but all line work is in place, the connection will be FREE (normally €49.99** inc VAT).

While my house has never had a phoneline as its just been built it does have all the wiring and I can even get an engaged tone off a phone when its plugged in, the nearest install date Eircom would give me is 2nd July so we'll see how things go and I'll keep you all posted.

Fingers crossed.....

I love the Apple community!

So today I got myself a Nokia 5310, a few months ago I sold off my iPod Shuffle with the idea of buying a iPhone but plans changed and was then left without a MP3 player.

For years I've been using my trusty Nokia 6680 which has worked perfectly with iSync on my MacBook and its been a great phone but the mp3 player sucks and its pretty big so I've been looking to replace it this past week.

I finally decided to get myself a Nokia 5310 as it had a nice standard 3.5mm headphone jack with saves me messing about with adapters so I picked it up today brought it home only to discover it doesn't work with iSync...yes I'm well aware I should have checked!

Anyway a quick 1min search in google brings me this, basically somebody made a nice installation file for a plugin for the Nokia 5310, all works perfectly!!

Say bad things about letshost.ie and get shutdown!

So, one day you decided to host your website with letshost.ie, all is well although your not happy because you find your site is slow so you find yourself unhappy with your webhost.

So as your unhappy when somebody asks for a suggestion for a webhost you say the following on boards.ie, bearing in mind your post is anonymous except for your site listed in your sig:

Don't go with letshost.ie if the performance of your website is important to you. Their servers are US based and it is my experience that performance can be very sluggish.

After posting such comments you receive a phone call from letshost.ie in relation to your thread on boards.ie, later on you find your website is suspended and worse still when you query this with letshost.ie you get the following:

Hello,

I refer to your hosting account with us for woodentoys.ie and the terms and conditions of hosting which you have accepted:

http://www.letshost.ie/The_News/Late...ms_of_Service/

"Abuse:
Any attempts to undermine, slander, libel, threaten, or cause harm to a Lets Host server, customer, employee, or the company directly is strictly prohibited and is grounds for immediate termination without refund. In addition, we will pursue all attempts to the fullest extent of the law."

On this regard we have terminated your hosting account with us. We are seeking further legal advice on the matter. Your files/EPP transfer codes will be available for download at your request.

Regards...

Worrying eh?

This however isn't some made up story this appears to have actually happened....read all about it here

Further reading in relation to the apparent T&C's breach can be read here.


.

New York Times Leopard Advert

I guess everyone is familiar with the Mac & PC Apple Mac adverts that Apple have been running the past few years, well Apple have started using flash based adverts on some sites that are just very well thought out.

Here's the latest one...pure genius :)


EDIT
and here's a video of it