My free iPhone bumper arrived last week – Finally! I ordered it near the end of August, so it’s taken a good month to arrive…
The bumper itself is pretty good. It’s well made and pretty sturdy (as you’d expect from any apple product hopefully!). It does also protect the back of the iPhone, as the rubber bit slightly raises it off the desk when you put it down to prevent scratches to the back.
I returned from my holiday a few weeks ago and noticed that my Slingbox Solo was no longer connecting to the network.
The power light was lit, but the network light was blinking with a dim light every 5 seconds or so.
It turns out that my power supply had died. Luckily the box is still under the 2 year warranty (Thanks for the EU – Only 1 year in the US!). So I called Sling support and they agreed to send out a free replacement.
A week went by and still no replacement power adapter. I called again and asked them to chase the order. And unsurprisingly 2 days later the power supply arrived.
But this wasn’t the end. It turns out the replacement adapter was ALSO dead!! Sling Media obviously haven’t heard of something called ‘Quality Control’ – you know, where they test it to make sure it works before giving it to the consumer…
Another phone call later, and they agreed to send me out another adapter… We’re still waiting for that one.
UPDATE: the new supply arrived, and all works fine. I wonder how long this one will last?!
Cable & Wireless have recently increased the upload speed for Sure Broadband users to 384 kbps. This is an increase of 128 kbps from the previous speed.
Although it appears only a small increase, it will be welcomed by many, especially users running devices such as Slingboxes, which rely on fast upload speeds to serve video content. Also people with Home Servers or uploading videos may see an increase in speed.
However, all of this upgrading appears to be having an effect on the C&W network: Download speeds are now frequently in the 3.5 Mbps range, and actual upload speeds appear to be no quicker than around 330 kbps.
It seems odd that although internet speeds are still very slow compared to UK standards (in their ‘up to’ speeds, at least), the network is already starting to show its toll in terms of contention and available bandwidth to end users. I hate to think what might happen if Sure switch to a universal 8 Mbps service. This could see actual internet speeds running a lot slower than advertised.
I hear about people having Telefonica woes all the time. And I fear that I may be becoming one of those people!
It has been 11 days since my ADSL upgrade appeared on their website. And still absolutely nothing has happened. The customer services person said the whole thing should take 10 days. But on my order status page, it simply shows that my order is ‘in progress’. Well, it’s been like that ever since I ordered it by e-mail.
What is more infuriating, is that they won’t do the upgrade until they have sent me out a new ADSL router. However, I already own an ADSL2+ capable router, so it’s pointless that I have to rely on their postal system. I even emailed them to just do the upgrade (how hard can pressing a few buttons on a keyboard in Madrid be?), but they won’t do it for some reason.
It’s becoming more annoying by the day. I keep checking their website, but still nothing happens and no router arrives in the post…
In my last post I talked about how I was trying to increase the speed of my ADSL here in Mallorca.
Unfortunately I got an email from Telefonica saying the 10 Mbps speed upgrade wasn’t available in my area (unsurprising really, though it was either that or no upgrade at all, according to their website, www.movistar.es)
Instead of calling their customer service (which is pretty much all in Spanish), I decided to email them. I used an online text translator (Actually Google Translate), then copied and pasted the translated text asking to upgrade into their Online “Contact Us” form.
It turns out, after only a brief email exchange with some Spanish customer services person, that I could get 3 Mbps in my area for LESS money than my current 1 Mbps service,
So just this morning, it appeared on my Movistar.es control panel that an upgrade was in progress.
Also, according to their website, it says I am being moved to their ADSL2+ service as well…. Not sure if this will benefit me or not as my line attenuation is around 60dB.
It hasn’t happened yet, but hopefully should happen fairly soon.
We have a house in Mallorca (Spain), and for the past 3 years have had Telefonica’s ‘Basic ADSL’ with speeds of up to 1 mbps.
However, it is very slow to do anything with downloading or using it with other people at the same time. So for the past week I have been trying to upgrade the line on their website, Movistar.es.
After creating an account and registering it to my line, I tried to upgrade online. Their website is impossible to use, and it wasn’t because it was in spanish. The only option was to upgrade to their 10mbps line, which I’m not even sure is available where we are (would need ADSL2+)
I have waited nearly 4 days for anything to happen. I got my email confirmation the instant I hit ‘Upgrade’, but since then nothing has happened, and on their website it appears as though nothing has happened on my Account page.
We’ll have to wait and see…
[UPDATE: As in my more recent post, it turned out this upgrade wasn’t possible]
I finally decided to get a new mac as my old 2008 model has suffered the fatal Nvidia graphics card failure. The screen just went black, and now it won’t turn on, though you can still use Target disk mode and it makes the startup chime; just no video! Hopefully it will be covered under apple’s extended warranty.
Back to my new one then. I went for the 15″, Core i7, with High res antiglare display. The choice of display was a tough one: I couldn’t decide, like so many others, which one to get. Glossy or Anti-Glare? Well, I can now announce that A-G is definitely worth it. The colour is WAY better than my ’08 A-G display and it has good blacks still. But, NO nasty glare. Also, the silver bezel looks a lot more professional than the black glass border. Plus, less fingerprints..
Other thoughts? Well, the front edge of the mac is really sharp with the bare metal. My wrists are getting slightly red from typing, though maybe it’s just bad posture? Anyhow I hope the metal wears slightly as I use it. Another issue I discovered was opening the lid. I have to apply a lot of force in order to overcome the magnet which holds the lid down. It’s almost too strong, as it lifts the front of the laptop slightly off the desk by a few millimetres until the lid opens.
Other than that, so far, so good. It’s a great machine to work on, really fast and it’s lighter and thinner than the old models.
I just checked on Speedtest.net, and my connection is now 4 Mbps! The upgrade wasn’t meant to happen until 1st May, so either it’s early, or Sure are just testing the network. Lets hope it’s the first one.
Update @ 7pm: I have run a few more Speedtests, and have discovered that speeds have dropped to about 3.2 Mbps. It appears that although the speeds have been bumped up, the 40:1 contention ratio is causing slowdowns during those peak evening periods. As speeds get higher, users will probably notice larger variations in Internet speed at different times of day, dependent on network load.
Leave comments if you are experiencing the same in your area of Guernsey
With less than a month to go until the 4 Mbps upgrade for Guernsey broadband customers, Sure has posted new pricing plans on their website.
The current Anytime plan stays at £24.99 pm and has been rebranded “Sure Broadband”, with the speed being bumped up to 4 Mbps. However, to my disappointment, the upload speed remains fixed at 256 kbps. I was hoping for a bump to at least 512 kbps so that my home Slingbox will work better abroad.
Sure have scrapped the two tier Pro Broadband plans in favour of one plan, now called “Broadband Pro”. It offers the same 8 Mbps download and 768 kbps upload, but with a price of £49.99. This, in my opinion, is still massively overpriced, but it is a reduction nonetheless.
So, overall, slightly disappointing. I was rather hoping that the Pro broadband would be set at or under a £40 price point, but it is still too pricey for home users having to pay out nearly £600 a year for what many in the UK would consider expensive for the speed you are getting.
I hope the pricing gets cheaper if/when sure introduce ADSL2+ services.
I’m not particularly enthralled about Apple’s oversized iPod, but I thought I’d mark the occasion nonetheless
Now Apple, when are you going to update your Mac’s??