U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007

Wow

clipped from epw.senate.gov U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007 Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called "consensus" on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.   The new report issued by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s office of the GOP Ranking Member details the views of the scientists, the overwhelming majority of whom spoke out in 2007.

Far more important than computer faults.

Impeach Bush & Cheney Now...

Take a look at the above video. If you agree that Bush and Cheney should be impeached immediately, click here to write a letter to your Congressional Representatives. It's easy.

It's time to bring and end to the Bush administration's madness. Write letters to congress now. They may not have a spine, but with your support, they'll understand what they need to do. Please spread the word.

Vista reports Internet Explorer incompatible with Vista?

I powered up my main destop computer which is running Microsoft Vista Home Premium tonight to be greeted with a message from Interactive Services. Usually these messages are to warn me about problems with AVG Updater (to be fair i've not had one for over a month so I presume Grisoft have resolved the issue) but this one was different. Instead of the usual message I was shown this:

Apparently Internet Explorer 7 is not fully compatible with Vista and I should contact the program manufacturer for more information. I wonder exactly where that would get me?

Xbox 360 Autumn Update Details?

Apparently details of the Autumn Xbox Firmware update have been leaked on the net. Quite how accurate the details are is as yet unknown but the following where posted (and later removed) from the Xbox360 forums:

• Compatibility with 3rd party wireless controllers
• Compatibility with messenger pad
• Xbox Live Vision firmware upgrade, sharper image filtering
• Many more Vision Cam settings
• Screensaver settings - when away from Xbox 360, screensaver will play for optional time, before screen goes dark
• Xbox Live Arcade blade - where you can download, play and learn about Xbox Live Arcade
• Brand “web based adver-games” flash games which aren’t downloaded, but are playable bite sized games, accessed via Xbox Live Arcade Blade
• Screensaver option in Themes and Gamer Pics option in Marketplace blade
• Functionality with Messenger, works with chatpad
• XNA Game Launcher for those that have the program, options
• Language, time and date settings
• “advertising opportunities” in gameplay
• Xvid support
• “favourites” option via Xbox Live Arcade, can rate according to preference
• IPTV Functionality - support for TiVo like PVR options. Will be able to record TV direct. Options include source by channel, director, actor and distributor
• Filter friends list, will be able to filter friends via games
• Clan support - will be able to launch clan games direct from dashboard, can “fold” friends into clan category in friends list
• Better translations in settings and other options for Japanese, German and Spanish languages
• quick option to delete via X Button in memory viewer.
• Option for having downloadable In-game content not inform when completed download
• Option for having video content not inform when completed download
• Faster settings for viewing unfinished video content downloads
• Option in Games tab - beta and others, will be launcher for MMO and multiplayer betas
• Option in Marketplace Games tab, search by letter, can be inputted via text pad or console
• Smarter game settings - you can be messaged via publishers about in-game content for your games
• Picture in picture functionality for DVD Drive and some other updated settings
• Improved USB Keyboard settings
• Improved voice chat settings in game and from dashboard
• Faster response times to Redeem Code settings
• Option to play a Redeemed Code game straight after redeeming code
• Console will now recognise low Hard Drive space, will inform you immediately if can’t download current item, will automatically download next available that is able.
• Increased space size for gamerpics and dashboard themes
• Themes can now be animated
• Themes may now have sound effects
• Better slideshow capabilities, options added. sound effects and integration with Hard Drive/ PC music capable.
• Estimated timer for downloads, informing how long download will expect to take

iPhone - some facts before you buy

Over here in the UK I guess we're meant to be really anticipating the release of the Apple iPhone. But I'm starting to wonder if it's all it's cracked up to be. As with any Apple product it's going to sell by the truck load, but are the people who rush out to purchase it going to end up with an inferior product? Sure it might look the part, but if it doesn't do even the most basic functions that we've come to expect from a mobile phone then what's the point of parting with the money?

I found this image on 1nf0rmat10n.com which sums things up pretty well:

Microsoft updates Windows without users' consent

Scott Dunn over at WindowsSecrects.com has reported that Microsoft have started patching files on both XP and Vista without users consent: You can read the full article here.

Microsoft has begun patching files on Windows XP and Vista without users' knowledge, even when the users have turned off auto-updates.

Many companies require testing of patches before they are widely installed, and businesses in this situation are objecting to the stealth patching.

Files changed with no notice to users

In recent days, Windows Update (WU) started altering files on users' systems without displaying any dialog box to request permission. The only files that have been reportedly altered to date are nine small executables on XP and nine on Vista that are used by WU itself. Microsoft is patching these files silently, even if auto-updates have been disabled on a particular PC.

You can read the full article here.

Why has my Xbox Live stopped auto connecting.

As you know my Xbox console bit the dust recently with the Ring-Of-Death problem. Being impatient and more than a little lazy in sending it off for repair I decided to pick up an Elite system. I was a bit stuck when it came to transferring my profile and save games from the old HDD to the new 120gb drive so I decided that whilst I'm waiting for my free transfer cable, i'd just plug my old HDD in to the new system. I really didn't have the patience for transferring it all via memory card.

So I'm up and running with all my game saves in tact but there's two strange quirks. The first is that my Xbox Live account no longer signs in automatically. My profile loads up immediately, but I'm left with the option to 'connect to Xbox Live'. I'm really not sure why this has happened. Is there something stored on the drive that identifies the console it belongs to? I know it's only one click on the controller, but like most things in life that don't do what they should it's bugging the hell out of me.

The second quirk is the time. I'm in the UK and when I set up the console I obviously set the correct time, location and switched on the 'day light saving' option. Now though, my console is constantly showing the time as one hour behind the actual time. What more weird is that when I select the option to reset it, it's grayed out! The only way to change the time is to sign out of my profile, change the time and log back in. Unfortunately the change is untimately reversed. I'm not sure if it's after a given amount of time or when the console is next powered on.

If anybody has any answers or suggestions about these issues, i'd appreciate some help. I've Googled them both and have found a couple of people with the same problems, but it seems neither forum users or Microsoft CS have a clue as to what is happening (Microsoft seem to blame peoples Internet connections).

There was good news today regarding my broken console; after just 6 days with Microsoft it's apparently on it's way back to me. The estimate for UPS to actually get it back to me is longer than the reapir took at 7 days but fingers crossed it'll be here in the next couple of days. I was going to sell it on it's return but I decided to purchase a new 37" Samsung 1080p for my new Elite console so I've hooked up my old 32" Samsung in my bedroom with a space underneath for the reapaired console to sit.

How to restore Windows Vista Recycle Bin & other desktop icons

I had a customer call today with a problem restoring his Windows Vista recycle bin icon. He'd deleted it without thought because he didn't like the look of the glass icon. It was only once it'd gone that he realised it was a pain in the backside to check it's contents and restore or permanently delete files from it.

He'd managed somehow to put a recycle bin icon back on the desktop and although it was working, the empty/full images were not refreshing until the machine was rebooted.

Anyway, here's how to restore the recycle bin (or any other standard desktop icons) in Vista:

Firstly right-click on the desktop and select Personalize (you can also pull this up from the Control Panel). In the top right-hand corner of the window that appears you will see the link 'Change desktop icons'. Click this.


You will now be shown a new dialog box:

Simply check the Recycle Bin box and click OK or Apply and your Recycle Bin will be restored as normal.

An Honest Review of Bio Shock

There's no doubting that Bio Shock is a great game, looks fabulous, plays great. Disappointing though that it's so easy to complete. I honestly don't remember the last time I managed to finish a game, perhaps it was Oddworld on the Xbox, but Bio Shock was real easy, in fact so easy that I was quite upset when I got to the end inside 2 days of what i'd consider fairly casual play. Anyway, i stumbled upon this great video review on Game Trailers today which just about sums it all up in a very amusing way:

Microsoft Announce Vista Service Pack 1 and XP Service Pack 3

The wait is finally over for the much anticipated Windows Vista Service Pack 1. Also announced is the legendary Internet rumour; XP Service Pack 3. Vista SP1 will be released shortly in Beta form to a limited audience. Apparently it will address reliability issues with third party drivers & applications to cut the number of blue screen errors and also add business-level improvements.

The download is to be somewhere in the region of 50mb and should be available in the first quarter of 2008.

Not much to excitement regarding XP SP3 though. After months of leaks about it's existence and even people claiming to have the beta for download (why would anybody download a beta version of a service pack?) it seems that it might be no more than a roll-up of the security updates that have been available to download through Windows Update over the years.

The only addition is to be the introduction of Network Access Protection, which is a Vista feature being ported back to the XP operating system to allow connection to Server 2008 which is scheduled for Feb 27th 2008.

Are Microsoft the last ones to hear of the Xbox 360 discount?

It's been a whole 6 days that we here in the UK have been able to take advantage of the XBox 360 price cut. You can now pick up a 360 Premium for £249.99 and the Core system for £179.99. That is unless you visit the Microsoft website where they're still advertising the system at the old price of £279.99. You'd think that Microsoft of all people would get their own pricing right? I've check many other web sites, some quite small outfits, and everybody seems to be advertising the correct pricing.

You can see the page here: http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/hardware/family101.htm

Game Station Manager Gets Upset At Returned Broken XBox 360 Elite

A friend called me yesterday to tell me that they’d finally upgraded their Xbox to an Xbox 360. Turns out that she’d made the decision just as the Elite was released in the UK and that the nice guy’s at Game Station had convinced her that all Xbox 360’s are a bit crap but that the Elite is a different machine altogether.

Now I’m not too sure if there is much of a difference between the two except for the HDMI socket and the 120gb HDD but still, I was impressed that she’d gone and bought a 360 at last and hadn’t tried to save money by walking away with a core system.

The only thing that didn’t impress her was that she’d paid £325 in total as she wanted Bio Shock and after leaving the store and crossing the road to GAME (a shop I dislike enormously and yes I know Game Station is now owned by GAME) and had see the same deal for £309. Anyway, she gritted her teeth and picked up a used copy of Burnout Revenge and Oblivion at £20 each and made her way home to set it all up. I got the call, firstly to boast about the Elite and secondly to ask why her picture looked crap compared to the one my ‘still-broken’ Premium showed.

After explaining that she has a HD Ready TV with a spare HDMI socket, and that’s what the extra cable in the box was for, she was really happy to be an independent HD 360 owner.

Fast forward 3 hours… After 2 hours of Bio Shock, Burnout Revenge is popped in and off she goes for a bit of road rage. I in the mean time have popped over to my local GAME and picked up the £309 deal for an Elite and Bio Shock. My Premium system is still sitting on the side whilst I get my act together and send it back to have the Ring Of Death extracted. Anyway, I wasn’t going to be out-done and figured that I could persuade her to set up Xbox Live so we could go head-to-head online.

As I get home my mobile rings and I hear ‘My Xbox has frozen… When I turn it off and on again, I sometimes get 3 red lights on the front’. Wow, after 3 hours of playing the brand new Elite has the Ring Of Death! What the hell? Anyway, I popped over to see it and sure enough by the time I get there there’s no picture at all, just 3 red lights.

Now it gets really frustrating; we pop it all back in to the box and I suggest that she should go back to Game Station and get it replaced. Its 6pm on a bank holiday so it’ll have to wait for tomorrow which gives her time to think about the offer I got in GAME and so she decides she’ll go back to Game Station, get a refund and pick up the £309 deal.

As you can bet Game Station were not happy. Sales assistant takes one look at it and this is what happens:

Sales Assistant: No problem, we’ll replace it.

Friend: No. I’d like my money back thanks.

Sales Assistant: But we don’t normally do that.

Friend: Yeah ok, I’d like my money back because it’s faulty.

Sales Assistant: But we’ll give you an unopened replacement.

Friend: No thanks, I’d just like my money back.

Sales Assistant: I’ll just get the manager.

Manager: Hi, how can I help you?

Friend: I’d like a refund on my Elite that I bought yesterday; it’s faulty.

Manager: I’m sorry, but we can only really replace it for you.

Friend: No, you can give me a refund; you have to if I ask for one and the item I’m returning is faulty.

…

At this point the manager is actually looking angry and the queue is building up. My friend says once more that she wants a refund because the 360 is faulty and she’s firm enough let him know that she doesn’t want a replacement. Then the manager says something quite amazing in front of a store full of customers. ‘Well all Xbox 360’s are faulty. Everybody knows that’… What? My jaw hit the floor. You could see the amazement on the faces of the hardcore gamers in the shop.

The obvious reply to this, and the one my friend used, was ‘well why the hell would I want a replacement then?’ At this point she got her refund and we left the store. He's lost our business, I was very loyal to his store, spending about £2,000 there this year alone.

The story doesn’t have a happy ending either, we’d spent the best part of 20 minutes in Game Station and my friend was on her lunch break. Being as impatient as me she rushed in to GAME only to come out with Blue Dragon instead of Bio Shock because they’d sold out. The manager has told her she can do a straight swap when Bio comes back in but I reckon that’ll be one hell of a battle…

Little Big Planet; This is surely a reason to buy the PS3?

I've had my PS3 sitting idle for months now. The only game I own is Motorstorm which whilst great looking certainly isn't in the same league as Burnout (Roll on September and Paradise). It's such a shame that it's probably going to be a year from launch before the PS3 gets the first game that shows us what the PS3 really can do. If you've been on another planet for the last 6 months, here's a collection of Little Big Planet videos:

Yet Another Nigerian 911 Scam

Legal Attorney And Solicitor


From : The Principal Attorney
Royal Chambers & Associates.
(Legal Practitioners).
45 Rue Boulevard
Lome-Togo
Tel: 00 228-093 8468
Email: lawfirmtg-1@lawyer.com (I like his domain name!)



Dear Mike,

I have decided to contact you due to the urgency of this matter.Let me start by introducing myself properly to you.

I am Barrister Bolan Kodjo , Personal Attorney to your late uncle Engr.J C. xxxxxxxxx(Snr) a contractor with the Federal Government of lome-togo,until his death last three years ago in political crisis in Abidjan capital of Cote d'Ivoire,He Banked with ECOBANK SARL ,lome-togo and had a closing balance as at the end of September, 2003 worth US$20.5,000,000.00(Twenty Million Five Hundred Thousand United States
Dollars).

The Bank now expects the Next of Kin to come forward as Beneficiary.Efforts has been made by the ECOBANK SARL of lome-togo to get in touch with any of the Deceased Family Relatives,but they have met with no success.

As the deceased being a foreigner,that was why I decided to contact you so that you can put claim on this fund as you bear the same last name with him. Now the management under the influence of the bank Chairman and Members of the Board of directors, that arrangement has been made for the fund to be declared Unclaimed In order to avert this negative development, it is my duty to contact you so that you can stand as the next of kin to his properties.

All documents and proof to enable you get this fund will be carefully worked out by me for this claim.

I have secured from the probate an order of Mandamus to locate any of the deceased beneficiaries,and more so I am assuring you that this claim is 100% risk free.

Now it is left for you to deceide on what you will give me as my percentage for assisting you in this claim.I hope to hear from you soon or call me immediately you receive this mail.

I want to let you know that this trasaction have to be done legitimately and confidential Please Kindly forward to me the following information for easier communication on this regards .

1.Your private telephone/Fax-(if available)
2.Private email address...

I await your kind attention as quickly as possible for more information and directives .

Yours in Service,

Signed.......
Barr. Bolan Kodjo (Esq)


Royal Chambers & Associates.
(Legal Practitioners).
45 Rue Boulevard
Lome-Togo
Tel:00 228-093 8468
Email: lawfirmtg-1@lawyer.com

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 - is this the start?

There is a lot of talk at the moment regarding release Microsoft Vista Service Pack 1 and perhaps we’re a step closer today as a couple of updates have been made available for standalone download from the Microsoft website. Nobody is saying when these will be available through Windows Update, but I imagine it’ll be next Tuesday 16^th.

According to MS the issues addressed have all been reported by users using the Error Reporting service or Microsoft Customer Support Services.

This update resolves issues that may affect some Windows Vista-based computers. These issues have been reported by customers who are using the Error Reporting service or Microsoft Customer Support Services.

By applying this update, you can achieve better performance and responsiveness in various scenarios. This update also improves the reliability of Windows Vista.

I personally think the most important part of these patches is the improvement to the appalling file copy system we’ve been stuck with since the release of Vista. You’ve probable seen the extraordinary time it takes to copy large amounts of file. How many times have you stared at the screen for minutes on end whilst your P4 with 2 gig of Ram calculates the remaining time?

Anyway, the patches can be downloaded from the links below for both 32bit and 64bit versions of Vista. You will need to validate your installation of Vista before you’re given access to the file downloads.

Performance and Reliability Update: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938979/en-us

Compatibility and Reliability Update: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938194/en-us

Guess What! Forza Probably Did Brick My Xbox 360

Well, I went and bought Forza Motorsport 2 a few weeks ago even though I knew not to. It was on sale in Asda for £29.99, so I couldn't resist. Anyway, I had a few games in the first week and then took a couple of weeks without playing. I decided to pop it in last Friday and try out a couple of laps. On Saturday, I noticed that my Xbox Dashboard kept randomly freezing but thought no more of it. Most of the time a quick reset was all that was needed to get back up and running. I was really getting in to Bomberman Live and didn't go near Forza again. Then I downloaded the xbox dashboard update last night. After the system rebooted I was greeted with the Ring Of Death!

I'm really not sure that it was caused by Forza, I know lots of people tend to blame the updates for wrecking things, but I have a feeling that Forza might just have pushed it over the edge. Then again it is a release-system so it's lasted a fair time compared to others.

It was probably a stupid thing to do I know and hopefully the extended Microsoft warranty will cover a repair.

Xbox 360 Bricked by Forza Motorsport

Could Surge Protection be the Xbox 360s nemesis?

There are rumours circulating that the reason so many Xbox 360s are dying with the ‘Red Ring of Death’ might be that they’re plugged in to a surge protectors. Many gamers who have returned their consoles for repair have been told by customer services that surge protectors may be causing the failure. As odd as this might sound apparently 90% of returned Xbox consoles have been plugged in to a surge protector. But this isn’t really surprising; with the amount of money people have invested in their multimedia systems it seems obvious that most sane people will have spent something on a decent power strip? So perhaps the 90% is pretty near the norm for the tech savvy people who’ll own a 360.

Either way it seems that there is a serious fault with the Xbox hardware regardless. Just be grateful that Microsoft has had the decency to extend their warranty to 3 years even if that does only cover the ‘Red Ring of Death’ faults.

Seems the launch of the iPhone has been plagued by problems caused by AT&T. I’ll bet Steve Jobs isn’t too happy after a relatively smooth distribution in the US. People are reporting having difficulty in activating their shinny new phones on to the AT&T network.

Many owners are reporting one of the following two errors:

We’re sorry, AT&T has determined that your current account cannot be used with the iPhone.

or

Your activation requires additional time to complete.

Apparently you can still use the phone to transfer music and pictures, but hey, most iPhone users will already own a standard iPod with their music library’s already installed and won’t be impressed. First thing I’d be wanting to do is call through my contacts and boast about my new gadget.

Customers are being told by AT&T support that there are issues and that they should retry activation every 30 minutes or so. Quite how a company the size of AT&T could botch such an important launch is amazing. Or maybe not? Either way I guess Apple won’t be best pleased.

You can read more over at the Macrumors Forum.

Hopefully the UK launch will go a lot smoother, but then our own providers have been equally inept at times in the past.

Forza Motorsport 2 Bricking XBox 360 consoles?

Seems like there are more problems with the Xbox 360 hardware. Apparently people playing the new Forza Motorsport 2 game are experiencing their consoles regularly freezing. Some are even ending up with the ‘3 red lights’ and having to send their 360s in for repair.


With the amount of 360 failures that are being reported at the moment it seems like another nail in the coffin of the current hardware setup. Something is obviously very wrong and I doubt Microsoft be able to continue to deny that there is a problem.

I am a big fan of the Xbox 360, my release model has been working fine for 18 months now. Although I do have a desire to play Forza, I won’t be tempting fate until there is some resolution to this issue whether that be an update for the game or some guarantee from Microsoft that a bricked console will be fixed free of charge regardless of age.

You can view people's experiences over at this thread.

Internet Explorer will not display HTTPS (Secure) pages

Just spent the last 2 hours trying to resolve a problem for a customer who could not log in to his Hotmail account. When I first looked at the machine which is running Windows XP SP2 and fully patched it was obvious that the problem was that IE could not display secure pages (those addresses that start with HTTPS://).

After a fruitless search for a solution, all of which suggested variations on clearing temporary Internet files and restoring all settings to their default state, I still had no luck. The last suggestion was to create a new user account and try accessing Hotmail from that... again no luck, same error message.

Finally I decided to check that Windows Update had been run recently, the customer had assured me that he did this religiously, and I was soon greeted with the error number 0x800b0001 and the usual nonsense from Microsoft which gives no indication as to what has gone wrong. After searching Google for 0x800b001 I found an article that suggested the following:

Register the following files with these steps:

Click on Start, Run and type "REGSVR32 SOFTPUB.DLL" (w/o the quotes). You should see a popup message that this process succeeded.

Click on Start, Run and type "REGSVR32 INITPKI.DLL" (w/o the quotes). You should see a popup message that this process succeeded.

Click on Start, Run and type "REGSVR32 MSSIP32.DLL" (w/o the quotes). You should see a popup message that this process succeeded.

Click on Start, Run and type "REGSVR32 WINTRUST.DLL (w/o the quotes). You should see a popup message that this process succeeded.

The first thing I noticed was that registering INITPKI.DLL took over 3 minutes to come back with the success message. But on completion of the above, Windows Update ran successfully. The bonus of this was that the above solution had also resolved the original issue of viewing secure Internet pages.

I'm really not sure why the above solved the problem, but I'm sure glad it did. I found it strange that not one of the sites we searched, Microsoft's included, did not mention any of the above as a potential resolution to our original problem?

Think your computer is running slow?

Then perhaps your security software is to blame. Most people will have read the stories of Norton Internet Security 2007 crippling machines but I'd not known the full extent of the problem. It's an absolute shame when you see people using McAfee or Norton to protect themselves simply because it came pre-installed on their Dell computer or they'd been told it was a must have by the helpful staff PC World. Again, profit before quality/customer satisfaction.

Trawling around for some figures I stumbled upon the blog of Jeff Atwood who has a nice article on security software and it's implications. It's amazing to see just how much these security suites actually degrade the performance of your machine:

	Percent slower
	Boot	CPU	Disk
Norton Internet Security 2006	46%	20%	2369%
McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8	7%	20%	2246%
Norton Internet Security 2007	45%	8%	1515%
Trend Micro PC-cillin AV 2006	2%	0%	1288%
ZoneAlarm ISS	16%	0%	992%
Norton Antivirus 2002	11%	8%	658%
Windows Live OneCare	11%	8%	512%
Webroot Spy Sweeper	6%	8%	369%
Nod32 v2.5	7%	8%	177%
avast! 4.7 Home	4%	8%	115%
Windows Defender	5%	8%	54%
Panda Antivirus 2007	20%	4%	15%
AVG 7.1 Free	15%	0%	19%

I've always liked AVG Free myself. Quite often it's picked up infections on computers that Norton has supposedly been protecting but has the added benefit of being totally free. Obviously you'd need a seperate firewall installed, but there are a couple of very good free products out there.

BT Tech Support Nightmare

Just had the most frustrating call to the BT (British Telecommunications) Tech Support people in India.A customer had phoned me because he was experiencing difficulty setting up his new BT Home Hub. He estimated that over the past 2 days he'd spent more than 4 1/2 hours on the phone trying to resolve the problem. As usual he was paying for the premium calls, was refused a free-phone number and still had no solution. Each time that he called he'd give them his reference number and although his record was showing that he'd called previously and which steps he'd completed in search of a solution, he'd be taken back to the start.
When I arrived, I uninstalled the BT software, unplugged the Hub and started over. The instruction sheet you receive with the Hub is really well set out. Large, lots of pictures and little room for error. I went through the steps as shown:

• Unpack and check the contents
• Connect the power cable Hub
• Connect the ADSL cable to the Hub
• Plug the ADSL cable in to the microfilter and connect to the phone socket
  
• Plug the mains adapter in to a socket and switch on

Now that's straight forward, but it's as far as I got. The next step tells you to wait for 4 lights to illuminate (Power, Broadband, Internet & Wireless). After 2 minutes it's obvious that there is a problem because we only have the power and wireless lights on. You know straight away there is a phone line problem and the best course of action is to check the filters and cables inside the house. After replacing these the Hub is still only showing the two lights so I figure the line is not digital and ask the customer if BT have checked his line. No.

So he gets on the phone to BT again, we're on hold for 10+ minutes and are finally through to an operator. The customer tells the BT woman that he wants her to talk to me about the problem. I don't think at this point he could go through with the conversation and keep his cool. I explain the problem we're having and ask if they could check the line? No. She wants to go back to the start so I humor her. Again we get two lights illuminated.

Now this is the part that gets ridiculous. Up to now the instructions have not told us to switch the computer on, not even told us to connect the router to the computer. The operator asks me to switch the PC on. Apparently I have to click START->RUN and type CMD then press ENTER. As I'm being told to type in P... I... N... G... I stop and ask the operator what it is I am going to PING? Ignoring me she continues to give me the IP address of the router. I type it in and happily watch the No Response messages come back on screen.

Finally I get a chance to tell her that we've not got the ethernet cable plugged in and I am scolded and promptly connect the computer to the Hub. Of course this time, we get a response from the routers IP address and we move on to ping the microsoft.com IP address. No response.

Now to cut a long and frustrating story short, we spend a further 20 minutes going around in circles trying to connect to the internet. Finally the operator says that I'm going to be put on hold whilst she does a line check! Finally... another 5 minutes on hold and she comes back to inform me that there IS a fault on the line and it's been raised with the engineers.

Within 24 hours the customer is happy, the fault has been resolved and he's browsing away to his hearts content.

What I don't understand is:

• Why can't operators review customers records when several calls are required to find a solution? Why do they like to treat each call as if it's the first?
• When you have a problem and there's even the remotest possibility of a line fault can't they simply check your line?
• Why can't they give you a free-phone number at the end of the first call? Or is this where they make some of their massive profits?
• Why can't the operators be trained to have some manners and listen to customers? Sometimes you may as well be listening to a recorded message.
• When a customer has been off-line for 2 days and made multiple calls to get a resolution, can't it be flagged up as urgent and BT take the initiative to contact the customer?

The good news is that BT have promised to refund the cost of the calls although I imagine this will not be a straightforward process. I wish I could run a business were my customers paid for me to resolve my mistakes.

PSAPI.DLL error with BT Home Hub

People choosing to switch to or upgrade their BT Broadband accounts are being given the BT Home Hub (above) wireless router as standard now. It seems some users who have upraded to Internet Explorer 7 and then install the Home Hub via the CD supplied in the pack are likely to receive the following error message:

"MotiveSB.exe Entry Point Not Found
The procedure entry point GetProcessImageFileNameW could not be located in the dynamic link library PSAPI.DLL"

Motive seems to be a program for communicating Internet issues and errors over a network rather than the Internet. However the version distributed to BT customers on the installation CD is not fully compatible with IE 7. Although your connection will be working fine, it's annoying to receive an error each and every time you start your computer up.

Resolving the issues is relatively straight forward:

• Open up Windows Explorer [Windows Key + E]
• Navigate to the C:\PROGRAM FILES\BT BROADBAND DESKTOP HELP\SMARTBRIDGE directory
• Right-Click on the PSAPI.DLL file (note: If you computer is not set to display file extensions you may not see the .DLL part)
• Select Rename from the context menu
• Rename to PSAPIOLD.DLL

Restart the computer and the message should be gone. Quite why BT have not updated their installation system yet is a mystery but then so is the reasoning behind so many people switching to BT Broadband in the first place.

Blu-ray Disc Rot

There's a thread running over at the AVS Forums in which people are discussing the problem of what's been termed 'Blu-ray disc rot'. Seems many people are seeing mold-like markings appear on their Blu-ray discs, most notably The Prestige. I'd wonder if this is mearly a manufacturing glitch or something that is going to turn out to be more widespread? Hopefully the former, at £20+ a disc people aren't going to be too happy when their movie collections disintegrate within 12 months. It reminds me of the horror stories that floated around during the late 80's about music CDs that were oxidising and would be useless after a decade or so. Thankfully that turned out to be a false alarm.

I guess fans of HD-DVD may be getting a kick out of this at the moment?

Windows XP reporting the wrong wireless security mode

I was called out to help a friend today who was experiencing problems with a brand new Dell Inspiron 1501. Within the two days that she’d had the laptop, and barely used, the Windows XP installation had gotten totally messed up. The desktop had switched to classic view, clicked icons would not run and certain control panel items had no contents. Anyway, instead of chasing the cause of the problem I re-installed Windows from the supplied Dell CD.

Everything was fine and back up and running until I tried to connect to the wireless network that had been installed 2 years back. Sensing that the Dell Network Assistant might be causing problems I uninstalled it and switch to Wireless Zero Configuration. Again, I couldn’t connect to the network which was showing fine in the list of available wireless networks and flagged as having WPA security. After a few tries I asked a couple of questions and was told that the network was configured with WEP security on a shared key. Changing this over immediately gave a connection and we were up and running again.

Quite why Windows XP was reporting that the network was WPA and not WEP I’m not sure but if anybody has any ideas I’d sure be glad to hear them.

Vista CD Hidden Holographic Images

After reading the story on digg.com about the image of the three guys hidden in a holographic image we decided to dig out our Intel Play microscope and have a closer look. We managed to find a further 3 images. These are taken at 200x zoom. The CD we looked at was a UK Vista Home Premium OEM. The lighting conditions aren't great, we'll try and get better shots tomorrow in daylight.