More Messenger Mayhem!
I reinstalled XP today which is something I’d been meaning to do for a long time because there is only so much crap that defrag tools can move around and registry cleaners can “clean”. After successfully installing XP SP3 and Messenger (which is a job in itself – see here), I ran Messenger and was amazed at the amount of clutter in the interface with tabs and adverts everywhere.
A quick search on Google came up with http://www.mess.be and they host an online java patch which effectively hacks messenger to remove all of the advertising! It’s called Mess Patch Lite and can be found at http://www.mess.be. Well worth a try.
Honest Customer Service!
I recently complained to my ISP that the router I was sent as part of the connection setup was quite frankly – crap and the one I bought myself was much more stable. Their response:
Thank you for your update. Your router is a higher category router and itis normal to provide more reliable connection. Even we send you a new BeBox, most probably it will perform the same way. Regards, **** Be*team
I guess at least they are honest!
SanDisk Cruzer U3 Utility Removal
A great article for removing the built-in U3 software supplied with SanDisk’s Cruzer Micro line of USB memory sticks: http://www.blogtext.org/andy/article/7287.html
Draytek 2820
As I mentioned in a previous post, because of numerous crashes, resyncs and resets, I replaced the router originally supplied by my ISP (a Thomson TG585V7) with a Draytek. I started using Draytek routers back in 2003 when BT’s terms and conditions stated that you could only connect to the ADSL network using their supplied Speedtouch modem. Draytek worked around this by creating the 2200 USB which was essentially a router with a USB port that you plugged your Speedtouch modem into thus working around BT’s pointless restrictions.
Five years later, I’m connected at 20Mb downstream, 2.31Mb upstream with the Draytek’s latest and greatest SOHO offering – the 2820N. I have to say that I’m quite impressed. They’ve completely overhauled the case and black wedge doorstop looks have been replaced with a white rack-mountable chassis (additional accessory) with front mounted Ethernet, USB and RJ11 sockets. There are five Ethernet ports in total, one is a gigabit port for connecting to servers (apparently) and one is designated as a WAN2 port which I’ll discuss later. There are nine LED’s arranged in three rows of three to provide at a glance status information but it looks to me more like a tic-tac-toe game board. Cosmetically at least, this router is going to be a marmite affair – you either love it or hate it.
The 2820’s feature-set builds on that of previous models such as the 2800 and includes LAN2LAN and teleworker VPN support, URL filtering, UPNP, Bandwidth Management, QoS, Web and P2P content filtering and more. One of the new innovative features worth of a mention is the concept of multiple WAN connections. This can be either another router connected to the WAN2 Ethernet port or a 3G modem connected to the USB port and the router can be configured to either switch over to the secondary connection in the event of primary failure or perhaps more impressively, load balance between the ports – something that may come in handy in environments where Internet connectivity is essential. The 2820N features support for the 802.11N draft 2.0 and although I haven’t really played with this yet, it does seem quite impressive support for multiple SSID’s and the ability to rate limit bandwidth with each SSID.
Perhaps the most important thing to me is stability and the 2820 hasn’t let me down yet. It’s only been a week but the connection hasn’t dropped out once and downloads are extremely quick so all in all, a highly recommended product which is slightly more expensive than the competition but rock solid and can be bought for a bargain if you get lucky on eBay (hint hint).
Note for BE* Users
My initial sync rate was 2-3 Mb lower that Be’s own branded router but since they switched my ADSL profile from interleaved to FASTPATH, I’ve had a rock steady and lightning fast connection.
Mortgage Mayhem!
Helen sat me down the other week and told me that it was time to get the mortgage sorted. We are currently on a discounted rate that expires in the next few months. Given predicted interest rate rises and worries about inflation, it seemed like a good idea. So we settle down and enter a new world of arrangement fees, booking fees, legal fees and lots of other phrases ending in fees and after seeing what was out there, we thought we would try and fix for a decent term while we still could. Helen makes a few calls and eventually, one lender calls us back on the Monday. The conversation went along the lines of “We’ve put our rates up but because you phoned over the weekend, we’ll honour the pre-rise rates” – Great!
Helen spends an hour talking to some woman who takes down all our details, financial information and spending habits (I’m surprised she didn’t ask for my inside leg measurements) and then tells us what deals are available. We tell her what we want and she says that one of their advisors will call back on Wednesday to complete the application. The annointed hour arrives and the phone duly rings. Helen answers and speaks to the “advisor” who after taking down all of the information that was given on the previous occasion, tells her that the mortgage we were after had been booked incorrectly. In short – we could have the one they’d booked incorrectly or not bother but please could we make a decision quickly because the “advisor” was going home in ten minutes. Understandly – we weren’t too impressed.
Anyhoo, I decide to give them a call back and speak to a really nice lady who apologises for the trouble and says she’ll see what she can do. Thursday comes and goes and there is no call back. It gets to Friday and Helen gets a message from this woman with some good news. She’s been working tirelessly and managed to secure the original mortgage product for us at the term we wanted at the pre-increase rate. Bonus! Another “Advisor” will call us on Monday to work through the application.
Monday arrives and the phone rings. Helen speaks to the advisor for an hour and ten minutes and it seems that we have an agreement in principle subject to valuation. I guess the moral of the story is that if you do get jerked around – call ‘em back and make a stink. Touch wood, its worked for us! 
