We’ve got about the best internet connection you can have short of fibre optic cabling, which is just awesome. It makes you not consider just how much you’re downloading, because usually it’s so damn fast. We do go through a UK ISP, however we don’t use BT or one of the bigger companies. I think that’s why we pay less, because our company is smaller and therefore has to use a cheaper price as a draw card.

We don’t have one of those business broadband and ADSL lease lines, though it’s pretty much the same in terms of download, just slower upload. We also use a VoIP service so our phone works through our modem, which I’ve always liked, but you do have to be aware that in case of power outage it won’t work. A lot of businesses are setting up their telephones online now days, but even with the higher demand it’s still much cheaper than regular phone lines. I have to say, though, I want a fancier phone, ours is still bugging me with it’s ultra quiet ring volume. One of these digital dect cordless phones would do the trick, I think.

Anyway, back to what I’d wanted to talk about in the first place! We’ve recently been buying movies online and downloading them, iTunes and another site offer this for good prices, and it’s always so tempting because you can set it up and a few hours later you’ve got a bunch of movies! Without having to go anywhere! I also like that you can get HD films like this. We have a download limit of 50 gig per month, and we’ve got about 1 gig left for the rest of the month! That’s ten days! Oh noes… @_@ Hehehe

Okay now for a knitting pattern. This is just a cute little Christmas Tree Ornament that would be a good stash buster, which is always handy!

First off, let me just say, I’m back! Yep, I was all sick and stuffed up for the last two weeks, and couldn’t bring myself to do much of anything, but in the last few days I’ve started feeling great! I’m even doing some very belated Spring Cleaning! Well, I figure it’s spring on the other side of the world, so it’s all good.

Now, not this weekend just past but the one before that I noticed a rather alarming slow-down in my internet connection. I say alarming because my fiance and I have been playing a new MMORPG, Aion, and we’ve been freaking loving it! More on that story later – yes that was a Dead Ringers reference. It’s been slowing down to the point that we thought we had used up all our allotted downloads, and were in fact now on dial-up speed. We checked, and though we were close to our limit – from downloading Aion in the first week of the month – we weren’t over it, and after an hour or so our connection seemed okay again. During the week I called and upped our download limit so we won’t run out of MB before the end of the month, and I plan to just take it back down to normal the month after that.

The same thing happened this weekend, so I checked online thinking there was no way we would have reached our quota – now at 50 gig per month from 25 gig – and I found that we were dreadfully close to 25 gig, and that the service hadn’t been changed… even though I ordered it on Monday and here it was Saturday afternoon…

So I called the company again! Now, this is my phone, cable TV, and internet all rolled into one. So I was on hold for 20 minutes, and their hold music is incredibly loud and offensive rock type crap that was so loud, I had to turn my phone down to almost the lowest volume setting. When I finally got to talk to someone, they were so friendly and chipper that I felt rather bad for being as hostile as I had been on the phone. They checked our line and found some irregularities, so they were going to send someone out to fix it on the Tuesday, and they sorted out the downloads being upped. It’s enough to make me want a damn SDSL internet connection, but I’ll stick to what I’ve got, because I can’t afford anything else, and heck, cable broadband should be good enough!

I went with this company because they weren’t one of the mega telecoms companies, thinking I’d get better service, and it was that way for years, but since they were bought by a new company, they haven’t been as good. They’re probably a subsidiary of BT by now, and I really didn’t want any of the BT home phones packages. I’m not saying they’re bad just because they are a big company, just saying I thought the customer service on a smaller one would be better.

I’ve become so anti-social that I have having a telephone system at all, but I suppose it’s necessary so I’ll keep it, but goodness I just want a quiet weekend where everything continues to work!

Okay pattern for today has to be electrical inspired… Captain Capacitor is the right way to go, I reckon!

It’s an interesting notion, as he goes on to talk about the internet being like a blank piece of paper, that we can draw or write what we choose, and largely with impunity… In some ways, I can understand this, but in others, I disagree. He says that certain uses of the internet need to be policed, but that governments and companies should be limited in their powers.

I think that certain aspects of surveillance and security have been fought by the public, but have then been accepted. When CCTV first came around, there were numerous scare-stories about the systems being used illegally, or inappropriately. But then it came to be accepted, and now we see so many crimes being solved because of CCTV system footage of the perpetrator. As long as these systems are kept out of bathrooms and changing rooms, I don’t care where they are implemented, because people who don’t have anything to hide don’t hide anything, but they are still entitled to privacy. That’s not to say that I think these systems should have full audio, I am talking visuals only.

Security companies are flourishing these days, because people don’t want to put up with anything they don’t have to any more, at least that’s my take on things. I have to say, though, that I am not a strong advocate of call logging. If someone is suspicious, sure, tap their phone lines. If they aren’t talking about anything that’s of concern, then those monitoring the phone calls need to drop the line.

Here’s a little personal anecdote. I once worked for a major company doing over the phone tech support. This job was… well it sucked. Imagine being stuck to a phone for 8 hours straight, trying to help people with their computer issues, and being harassed by your boss for how long it takes, and also being harassed if you don’t fix enough issues. When I worked at this place, my team leader repeated something back to me that my fiancé had said on the phone to me, when I was talking to him during one of my breaks. He had been listening in on my calls, not unusual as that was how they made sure we were doing okay with our jobs, but I wasn’t on the job, I was on a break. I was furious with this team leader, and promptly found in the regulations set out for such matters that this person had indeed broken the rules in what they had done. The team leader took it well, but nonetheless, I was furious. I quit the job not that long after all that, because as I said, it was a terrible job, and then managed to walk into a really good job two weeks later!

Okay today’s knitting pattern has to be something nice and cozy… how about a Longcat Scarf!? It is such a laugh that someone turned Long Cat into a knitting pattern!