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  • O2 Broadband – I'm online!

    Today was the today my broadband was changed from the excellent, but expensive, Zen to the incredibly cheap O2.

    And so far, it’s worked like a dream.

    As I mentioned previously, they supply their own router but I intended to use my own. As soon as I was swapped over (and they emailed and texted me to make sure I knew!) I rang them up – on a freephone number – for technical support. They couldn’t have been more helpful (you’d think they’d be less impressed with the fact that I was only ringing them because I was using my own router rather than the ones they went to great expense to send me!).

    For the record, for a Netgear DG834G, here are the changes…

    Basic Settings

    Does Your Internet Connection Require A Login? No
    Account Name: (leave blank)
    Domain Name: (leave blank)
    Internet IP Address: Get Dynamically From ISP
    Domain Name Server (DNS) Address: Get Automatically From ISP
    NAT (Network Address Translation): Enable
    Router MAC Address: Use Default Address

    ADSL Settings

    Multiplexing Method: LLC-BASED
    VPI: 0
    VCI: 101
    DSL Mode: Auto (Multi-mode)

    In preparation I’ve been running some timing tests using a combination of 8 different online speed test sites (Broadbandmax, ZDNet, InternetFrog, thinkbroadband, Alkin and Zen). I picked these as they all appeared to be using different timing methods (many sites use the same code so will product similar, if not identical, results).

    Whilst at Zen my average download speed was 1982Kbps and upload was 374Kbps. The lowest speed was around 4:20pm a few days ago (when you’d expect it be quite busy) which averaged a download of 1517Kbps.

    At the same time today (4:20pm) I tested my new O2 broadband. This averaged at 3386Kbps download and 929Kbps upload – that’s an impressive 70% quicker download and 148% faster upload, the latter of which is fabulous. However, as I’m sure we’re all well aware, the first 10 days (is it 10?) is when the line gets tested and stabilised, so all this may change. Naturally, I’ll let you know how it goes.

  • And the feeds are back!

    FeedBurner is no more (to be perfectly honest, it was being just a touch flaky since Google took over. Not only that but it kept complaining that my feeds were too big). Long live raw, in the flesh, naked feeds.

    In other words, if you previously subscribed via FeedBurner, please re-subscribe. I promise to make it worth your while 😉

  • Ninety-Freakin'-One Percent!

    That’s my YSlow rating for the BMTG website.

    It’s taken me a year but I’ve done it. The only thing missing – that elusive 9% – is a CDN. But I’m not going to have that so I now have the highest rating I can achieve.

    Once this site is at its new host, I’ll start looking at the same thing (restrictions on the .htaccess file, amongst other things, prevents me at the moment).

    To put this in perspective, Amazon.co.uk and Apple.com both have a score of 63%, Microsoft.com a score of 94% and PC Pro a score of 52%. Google, not surprisingly, scores 99%. What is surprising, though, is that Yahoo – the people who originated this scoring system – gets 82%.

  • Running Kubuntu under VirtualBox

    I’ve written a number of times on this topic, but thought I’d bring it all up to date and draw all the various, disparate posts together.

    I use Kubuntu, not as my main OS, but for web development testing, which means I need a broad cross-section of Linux browsers. Therefore I run Kubuntu for it’s KDE interface (and, hence, Konqueror). I do this under VirtualBox – the virtual machine that I’ve found to be the best.

    So, here’s my def. guide to creating a web development build of Kubuntu (for the layman, but assuming you can find your way around an OS and VirtualBox a bit). Ok, here goes…

    Installing Kubuntu

    1. Download the Kubuntu ISO (I’m using the 32-bit addition) and save on your computer.
    2. If you’ve not already creating a guest machine on VirtualBox, do so. I find an 8GB hard drive, 256MB base memory and 12MB graphics memory is sufficient. I also enable the 3D acceleration and VT-x/AMD-v options.
    3. Attach the previously saved ISO as a mounted CD and boot. This will run through the installation – install this onto the previous created virtual hard drive.
    4. Reboot after the install.

    Ok, now you have Kubuntu. Start it up again and we’ll configure it.

    Automatic Login

    1. Go into System Settings.
    2. Click on the Advanced Tab and select “Login Manager”
    3. Click on the Convenience tab.
    4. Click on Enable Auto-login and select the user from the drop-down list.
    5. Apply these changes

    This has set Kubuntu to automatically log you in each time – a handy time-saver.

    Switch off Screen Saver

    1. Go into System Settings
    2. Click on Desktop
    3. Click on the Screen Saver option
    4. Untick “Start automatically”
    5. Apply these changes

    Update Build

    The next thing I do is to go into the Adept Manager and install any pending updates. This ensures your build is as up-to-date as possible.

    Now restart the system.

    Installing Linux Additions

    Linux Additions is software which improves the interactivity between your host machine and your guest machine – in my case, between Windows XP and Kubuntu.

    1. Start Kubuntu. At the top of the VirtualBox window, select Devices and then click on “Install Guest Additions”
    2. Open up Konsole and run the following…
      sudo aptitude install build-essential linux headers-`uname -r`
    3. Once complete, run the following commands…
      cd /media/cdrom
      sudo sh ./VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run
    4. Once complete you’ll be prompted to restart the system, which you should do.

    Once the system has restarted you’ll notice that you’ll be able to cleanly interact with the Kubuntu system via your mouse, without having to click in the window and use a “hot key” to return back to Windows. It will also give you extra video facilities which leads onto…

    Improving Screen Size

    I don’t know if it’s the same with your build but up until the point I installed the Linux Additions, Kubuntu was displaying in a 800×600 pixel window. However, now it’s gone to 1152×864, which is a lot better. Personally, I’m going to change it, so here’s how to do it…

    1. Go into System Settings
    2. Click on Display
    3. By default the Size and Orientation option should be selected
    4. You should see an option to set the size – change this via the drop-down
    5. Apply these changes

    The screen then proceeded to corrupt and I had to reboot the Kubuntu session to get it back – this worked however and my resolution is as I set it.

    Installing Browsers

    Kubuntu comes with Konqueror. The two further browsers I wish to install are Firefox and Opera.

    First of all, Firefox…

    1. Go into Adept Installer
    2. Search for & install Firefox

    A simple one that! Now for Opera…

    1. Browse to http://www.opera.com/download/ and download the latest version to your desktop (it should be a .deb file)
    2. Right click and select “Open With” followed by “GDebi Package Installer”

    And that should be it. All done. However, each update to Kubuntu normally brings along changes to the above (e.g. with 8.10 I lost the ability to easily specify my monitor and video card hardware).

    The plan now is to keep this post up-to-date (I’ll add appropriate comments to highlight where changes are made). In time I’m going to add a selection of FAQ pages to the site, and I’m sure this will become one of them.

    Good luck and if you have any problems, please drop me a comment.

  • Upgrading Kubuntu

    So, I started up my copy of Kubuntu, running under VirtualBox. For ages it’s been saying that there are no updates available for it, which is odd, so I ran it manually. This time I found a version update available – updating to 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex). So I ran it.

    Now, in the past when I’ve tried to do updates of the OS it’s failed. This time it worked. Until I rebooted. Then the GUI failed and everything was command line <sigh>

    Rather than try and fix this I thought it best simply to do another install. I downloaded the latest 8.10 ISO, but grabbed the 64-bit version instead. The latest version of VirtualBox will allow you to run 64-bit guests on a 32-bit host.

    However, I do seem to keep getting a “Incomplete language support” error box. Running the requested installation doesn’t seem to fix it. Or generally do anything. On top of that I seem to have got in an infinite loop of installing updates – they appear to download and install but are then pending again. Hmmm. I also built the 32-bit version at the same time (as you do) and that too had the same issues.

    On the plus side, KDE is looking nice, with desktop gadgets (which I turned off) and lots of neat graphical touches. Although I am, for one, not a fan of “style over substance”, whether it’s Linux or the latest Apple product. If Linux is going to make it to the populace, it’s going to have to do better than this.

    In fact, in the end I stopped using the 64-bit version and moved over to the 32-bit copy I had. I’m not going to blame Kubuntu in this case – it was slow and buggy, but I suspect this is down to the Beta nature of the 64-bit support in VirtualBox. Oh well, it was definately worth a try.