Because geek is cool and clever

Is the affair over before it even began? February 17, 2009

Somewhere lurking in a dark corner of this net we call ‘Inter’ is my venom-enraged report on the experiences I one encountered with NTL and their cable modem service. They managed to provide me with a level of service that was so breathtakingly inept it will stay with me until my dying day.

But those days have followed NTL into oblivion – or so I believed. NTL were purchased lock, stock and smirking barrel by VirginMedia. When you Google VirginMedia you find all sorts of horror stories about their crapness but that’s probably the same about most companies on internet forums, right?

Add to that the fact that VirginMedia has a 100% monopoly of cable in this country and the fact that I need cable if I’m to attain better internet connection speeds than the paltry offering from my ADSL line, it’s embrace VM or move to Sweden.

Despite being rather partial to the odd spot of gravalax, I’m not quite ready to turn Scandanavian so last week I went against all my better instincts and signed up to Virgin.

They immediately told me that they couldn’t install my line on the date I’d asked for and instead promised February 17th which, by a swift glance at the calendar, turns out to be today.

So, at almost 7pm am I now sitting enjoying 20Mb connection speeds on my new line?

Am I buggery.

The gits didn’t show up. At 5.30 I called and asked ‘que passa?’ I was told that the engineers had rescheduled the installation to NEXT WEDNESDAY. Not only that but they weren’t even prepared to guarantee that date, suggesting that I phone them a day before and make sure we were still on. What about them phoning me!

I lost the plot with the woman on the phone and told her to cancel the whole thing before putting the phone down.

Half an hour later I called back, spoke to the same woman and reinstated the installation. I’ve now got to wait another bloody week. Argh!

Concerns over Facebook privacy February 17, 2009

Social networking mega-site, Facebook, has reached an astonishing 175 million active users.

It’s an enormous number by anyone’s standards but will it see a decline after the publicity surrounding its new Terms of Service (ToS).

Usually such things are barely noticed as we tick the acceptance box but Facebook are now laying claim to any and all the content you put onto the site, to use as they see wish – even if you ‘remove’ your account.

Founder Mark Zuckerberg says there is nothing sinister in the ToS but many users are expressing privacy concerns.

Whose Tube is it anyway? February 17, 2009

A question I seem to get asked more than others is the one about downloading videos from YouTube. Can it be done? If so, how?

I rarely find the need to download YouTube content as I simply mark something interesting or entertaining as a favourite on my account and play it back from the site.

However, there have been occasions when an earmarked video has suddenly been ‘removed by user’ or disappeared for other reasons (yes, OK, copyright violation) so I can understand when it might be prudent to grab a local copy.

Search Google for ‘download youtube video’ and you’ll be hit with hundreds of results for software and Firefox extensions written to do just that. Some undoubtedly work better than others but it turns out that all of them are under threat since Google announced this week that it is to crack down on such applications.

Why is Google, the owner of YouTube, suddenly so keen to stop us downloading its content?

It’s no coincidence that this comes at the same time as the company offering paid-for downloads of some videos.
YouTube is attempting to make money by allowing partners to charge for downloads. In this test initiative, selected partners can offer their videos for a fee which is paid through Google Checkout.

Clearly not many people would pay for something that was simple enough to get for nothing.

For now, most traditional methods of downloading videos still appear to be working. My personal favourite (still operational at the time of writing) is pwnyoutube.com. When you find a video on YouTube that you would like to keep, simply add the ‘pwn’ to the front of the address and you will be offered the clip in various formats.