Peteamania » Tech

New Optimus Pete Blog

Pete — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 10:30:01 +0000

I have started a new blog where I will be discussing my love of programming, technology and what I get up to at work. The blog is called Optimus Pete (I felt it was a catchier name than Pete’s Tech blog) check it out.

This means that I shall no longer be posting technology based articles on this blog so hopefully people will stop “Nerd Alerting” me, it also means that this blog will be purely for banter!

Pete Graham xXx

Welcome to Blog.PeteGraham.co.uk

Pete — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 10:56:20 +0000

I moved my blog from petegraham.wordpress.com to this address last night. All future posts will be to this address unless something goes horrifically wrong!

I will be customising the blog and adding generally exciting stuff to the site in general over the next few weeks. Enjoy!

I will be posting a proper blog around lunchtime today.

Pete Graham xXx

Why you shouldn’t get broadband with oneTel

petegraham — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 16:30:34 +0000

On November 21st I called up oneTel to request they transfer my broadband connection from my house in Ironbridge to my parents house, at the time I was informed that this would take up to 21 days. Today is 19th December almost a whole month later and the broadband has not been transferred here is a list of reasons why oneTel are shit and you shouldn’t buy broadband from them:

They sent me an email on the 16th December (3 days ago) claiming the broadband had been successfully switched over
When I rung them this morning they claimed to have no record of a request to transfer the broadband ever having been made
Their “TalkTalk/Onetel Technical Advisor” number 0870 818 8179 doesn’t work
Their “Internet Technical Support” number 0845 818 0096 doesn’t work
Their “Customer Support” number 0845 818 0505 seems to be permenantly engaged
The only number which seems to work is 0845 818 8000 and if you use that you guaranteed to be forwarded through at least 3 departments
I have now been informed that I have to wait 48 hours while they “look into” why the broadband hasn’t been transferred
They appear to be utterly unable to handle the concept that someone might want to move house
If you are joining oneTel you get forwarded to a UK based call-centre, once they’ve “trapped you” as a customer you get forwarded to India
They use some god-awful hold music I think its Katie Melua but I could be wrong
They use the same song on repeat for their hold music

The really disappointing thing is once you’ve got Broadband set-up with them they offer a pretty good service but its such a pain getting it set-up its really not worth it.

Pete Graham xXx

Back in the Bridge

petegraham — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 16:52:19 +0000

So I’m very happy to be back in Ironbridge for Christmas however I’m not very happy with oneTel. I requested that they transferred my broadband from my house in Ironbridge (which is now being rented out) to my parents house. I also requested that they send me a new installation CD as the one they originally sent was knackered. They’ve not sent me the CD so I am sitting here writing this using dial-up Internet like a man from the past.

I’ve managed to find the drivers online for my broadband modem but its taking absolutely forever to download them on dial-up. When the drivers finally download I’ll be able to see if they actually have swapped the broadband over.

I’ll write a proper blog later if I manage to get the broadband hooked up. I have some great pictures from the Bavarian Beerhouse on Saturday night that need to go up.

Pete Graham xXx

I just wii-ed my pants

petegraham — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 15:02:45 +0000

I’ve watched a few videos about the new Nintendo Wii console online and it looks very exciting, I think I’ll probably buy one in the new year. The consoles name is pronounced “We” incase you didn’t get the amazing Pun in the title of this blog.

Apparently the demand for the console is absolutely huge and many shops are struggling to get their grubby hands on enough consoles to satisfy the Wii-crazy Great British public. Other Wii related news some spackers* have been getting too excited and letting go of the remote while playing and smashing their TV’s hahahah!

Pete Graham xXx

* spacker is used here in the context of the playground insult and is not a reference to actual spastics

Prepare for Futuristic Robotic Penetration!

petegraham — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 13:10:51 +0000

Crazy dog eating South Koreans are predicting 100% market penetration for robots in the home between 2015 and 2020. Heres the full story over at Engadet.

Here are my top 7 robots:

Soundwave from Transformers
The Terminator
R2D2
R.O.B by Nintendo
C3PO
Razor from Robot Wars
Those Sony robot dogs that Michael Jackson likes

Pete Graham xXx

Gmail crashes Firefox 2.0!

petegraham — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 09:50:44 +0000

Yesterday I wrote about how I thought Firefox 2.0 was rubbish because it keeps crashing. Today I have noticed a trend that it seems to crash when Gmail is loading. I remember someone mentioning that Firefox 2.0 didn’t cope very well with large Ajax applications, unfortunately I can’t find where I read this .

This seems a bit odd since Google Services and Firefox normally play pretty nicely together, I hope this gets sorted out soon.

My colleague and Internet entrepreneur George Black is going to the Firefox 2.0 Celebration party in London tonight, maybe he can cause some controversy by telling people that its rubbish!

Pete xXx

FireFox 2.0 is Rubbish!

petegraham — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 09:40:15 +0000

Now don’t get me wrong I’m a big fan of Firefox especially the extensions, but I have been finding version 2.0 pretty unstable, its crashed on me 6 times already this week, where as I always found versions 1-1.5 incredibly reliable.

Each time it crashed I did have a large number of tabs open, probably 12+ but I wouldn’t expect that to crash the browser.

I’m running on Windows XP with these extensions:

ColorZilla
DOM Inspector
FireBug
Google Toolbar
Live HTTP Headers
MeasureIt
Talkback
Tamper Data
Web Developer
X-Ray

Has anyone else experienced similar problems with the browser? I’d be interested to hear. Also I never used Opera before but have been using it for testing purposes recently, I find it quite nice.

Pete xXx

Key Remapping Maniacs!!!

petegraham — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 14:52:23 +0000

So last night I wrote a post about a few of buttons of the keyboard that annoy me. To be honest I thought the subject was a little geeky and not many people would read it, turns out its been the most popular post on my blog ever!

A few other keys have been mentioned that other people find annoying if you want to replace other keys on your board (without ripping them off) then try these out:

Easy to Use Key Mapping Utility
If your more of a geek you can map the keys yourself by hacking the windows registry

Below is a ground breaking new keyboard which has been designed for scouser usability in mind:

Pete xXx

Death to Caps Locks!

petegraham — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 22:13:15 +0000

FACT The Caps Lock key is officially rubbish who actually uses it? I know I never do.

Here’s a handy little utility that will turn the Caps Lock key into a 3rd “Ctrl” key, this is especially useful if you use the Vim text editor heavily, which I have been for the past few weeks.

While I’m at whats the “Alt Gr” key supposed to be for? I’m pressing it now! I’m pressing it.. I’m hitting the key like a crazy man and it’s doing bugger all! Rubbish!!!

I’m not entirely convinced by the separate numeric keys on the right of the board either but think I’ve probably talked about Keyboards for long enough now people are probably getting worried.

Pete xXx