Robski Plus Net Equals Love.

What light through yonder window breaks? It is the internet and Plusnet is the sun!

Over dramatic? maybe...

Finding that ISP can be an interesting journey into the black mists of poor service, its something I know about. My first ISP that wasn't Freeserve dial-up, happened to be NTL (now Virgin Media). For those who might stumble across this strange bloggy place of a slightly deranged English man, who do not know our English ISPs, NTL had a nick name... N T HELL. Some people have connection drop issues with their ISP's, constantly up and down up and down. To akin NTL to the workings of a yo-yo would insult the yo-yo. Actually comparing NTL's service to a dead goat, would also insult the corpse of the ex-Capra aegagrus hircus.

Moving bravely forward, and breaking free of NTL via a house move, I stumbled upon Pipex. They were wonderful, for the first few years our love blossomed. In the years I was with them (which was over 4) I think I lost connection about twice. So what went wrong? Homecall went wrong. They "merged", then they fleeced me.

Angry with no answers from Pipex Homecall, I was looking for a new ISP. A Friend of mine also frustrated with the excellently poor customer service from Pipex started looking for a new ISP opportunity. We shared a mutual friend, who kept banging on about this ISP that was so good, some company called Plusnet.

Looking into Plusnet, my first reaction was eek! usage limits! Pro Gamer package, 10gb a month?! Do these guys know what gamers do?! I had no experience of usage limits in the past, Pipex did not have one, well unless you tried to download the internet, then they objected screaming "unfair usage!!!".

Moving on I asked more probing questions of my friend, who I figured was just trying to win a shopping trip to NYC. And after knowing how much he hammered his connection , and being surprised he was only on 10gb a month I started to lower the walls.

I heard about the overnight free usage and the optimised traffic, depending on who you are and how you "surf". Being a gamer I was interested to see their concern towards our breed, and ping worries. Also the 1 month rolling contract, so I can escape if needed! I was so angry with Pipex, I just went for it.

I can't tell you how well the change over went! I had no down time and even though my connection was a fixed 2Mb by my last provider, it was working much better already. So I was settling in to my new ISP, when the friend pops up in MSN window asking me if I had "Maxed" my connection yet.

Pardon?

Maxing my connection, the process of allowing Plusnet to get personal with your phone line and fixing you at the fastest but most reliable speed for your line. It takes about a week or so for it to really take effect, but lets just say I went from 2Mb to 7Mb...

Happy Bunnies so far!

But then, disaster! Surely! Its only mid month and my usage is nearly gone! If you read the iPlayer post you will see what happened. I fired a question to Plusnet via their online help centre and something strange happened, something I have only experienced in dreams, THEY REPLIED! Yea, a few days latter I hear you cynically scoff, forget days and try minuets! Obviously in my case, they were probably wondering what the hell I was on about, as it wasn't their fault that iPlayer was draining my soul. But persistently they replied to my confused ramblings.

I figured out it was iPlayer with about 100mbs of usage to spare, oh no, I'm going down. My worst fear was going to be realised, no internet. But would my new love do that to me? No. Never. I expected to be cut off, I had reached my limit, that was that, game over. But like a rope thrown out to a bloke hanging off a cliff I was rescued. Because when you run out of usage for the month, Plusnet keep you online! They slip you to a reduced rate of about 128kbs (ISDN country for those that remember them days).

So I have to have a reduced service because of the evil iPlayer, so what! I have a service! For browsing, checking emails and essential stuff, its fine... and if I want, I could add another 1GB on for a £ if I wanted to kick it back to full speed.

Plusnet I salute you. If you are looking for an ISP, Plusnet wont disappoint.

BBC iPlayer

So this month my usage limit was shafted by iPlayer.

For those who don't know, iPlayer is a brilliant new service from the BBC that allows you to watch programmes you have missed. Yes I did use the word brilliant, because I think it is - even though it kinda hurt this month...

There are 2 sides to iPlayer. Its first manifestation resides in a flash embedded media player, that will stream content to you of a very high quality. This side of things is not an issue, and works exceptionally. Its other persona is a wolf in sheeps clothing, for those on a capped monthly usage limit.

On the web you have the option to stream the media or download it and watch later. If you take the second option and choose to download the media, it works via a P2P network. This again, isn't an issue - but what is an issue is when after your download has finished, and iPlayer is innocently sitting and waiting for you to watch your newly acquired media, it is feeding the rest of the iPlayer audience as a seed for others to download the programmes, eating away at your cap at a frightening speed.

My ISP has a brilliant online usage tracking service, allowing you to see what you have used and when. I have 20gb of high-speed usage per month, I find it hard to reach 13gb most months, but as I sit writing this now I have about 30mbs left. It took me a good few days of wondering what was going on to realise that iPlayer was the culprit, mainly because in my usage statement it was registering as "Streaming" and not P2P. In hindsight I realise that being that iPlayer is primarily a media streaming service that it would make sense for it to be displayed as streaming.

I think it would be polite for the BBC to give warning about this as most ISP's offer capped deals. I get free usage between Midnight and 8am, so a scheduler for downloading and general net activities would be a great feature for iPlayer, and not to hard to implement.

So the lesson I have learnt from this incident? Just stream it when you want to watch it, or you will be giving away far too much data usage... if you see yours going down the drain, check you haven't fallen victim to the data vampire that is iPlayer.

BBC iPlayer

Skype 3 Phone

Recently I lost my mobile, not in the conventional way of leaving it on the bus, dropping it down the toilet or giving it a free ride in the washing machine. No. I lost my phone via work ending the contract.

This was an issue for me, because I don't really do phones. The problem was suddenly I was placed in the position of having to find a new one. The other nightmare was contract or PAYG. I used to be PAYG, but would need a new handset and did not want to pay for something ridiculously fancy, then again I did not want something that held 5 text messages before you had to empty the inbox.

So I was stuck. I could not justify the average-ish price of about £30 per month that contracts seem to be, but also did not want to fork out about £60 for a decent phone.

Until now.

I had recently reinstalled Skype, I used to use it along time ago but had gotten rid via a system format. I was browsing the Skype website to see what business solutions they offered, and I was confronted with the revelation of the 3 Skype phone.

With a little digging I found out that it was a mere £12 a month on contract, but within this contract you could get 100 free texts or mins a month and 300 mins to other 3 users. This was great, but reading on I found that I could use Skype for FREE. Not only that I could use MSN Messenger for FREE as well! (as well as a plethora of other planet 3 features)

I purchased it that same day, and as was promised it arrived next day at around 9:45am.

Opening the bag, I was greeted by a nice small 3 box and a loose 512mb memory card. I did not realise but that was another freebie that they had dropped in! On opening the 3 box you see the handset, it was much smaller than I had originally imagined, nice and slim, and also very light! Also in the box you get a good few instruction books, a nice 20% off 2gb Scandisk memory cards, charger and standard USB connection. A hands free earphone kit is also provided.

The phone connects using the same USB connection as most cameras do, which is useful if you need to buy a second one, meaning its not going to cost the earth.

Putting the phone together was easy, although I must admit I was quite concerned about the battery cover being able to slide off too easily. It is magnetically sealed after you slide it into place, and unlike most other phones, when you want to get it off it comes off very easily. I thought that this could be an issue when taking the phone out of my pocket, but so far it has held fast and actually has not budged.

The display is bright and clear with a very sharp colour screen. After waiting a few hours for my 3g net connection to become active I was able to quickly download and install MSN messenger, and log into Skype. MSN Messenger works well enough, its a Java based application so not the smoothest application in the world. It does the job though, and its free.

The integration of Skype into the phone is almost flawless. It prioritises Skype as highly as normal network calls. The application runs smoothly and the sound quality on the calls I have made to other Skype uses has been near perfect. You can not use Skypeout, which is the service that you can use on your computer to call other phone devices via Skype's cheap call rates, but it does allow you to call and be called by any Skype user for free, anywhere in the world. This also applies to other mobile phones using Skype. Skype can also double up as an instant messenger, so between Skype users on phones or computers you will be able to receive messages.

The phone itself comes with a 2 mega pixel camera, full 3 mobile net access with selected pages free to browse. Other 3 services also include TV channel rental, which I have not tried, but if the free media examples are anything to go by, it will be great. You can receive channels, like BBC1, BBC3, ITV1, and many more. The prices charged by the network for the services are very reasonable as well.

Blue tooth is the main means of communication between hardware, which is a good feature as it would be almost pointless to have a phone these days without it. There is also a nice media player that will arrange your MP3's into categories automatically. Other tools that you have are:

• Alarm - Setting 3 different times
• Calculator
• Calendar - Supporting alerts for events and to do's
• Notepad
• PC Sync
• World time
• Stopwatch
• Games and Applications - available via 3
• Email Access

Its a great little package to get, with the contract deals on 3 starting from £12 a month and Pay as you go deals at £10 a month. I would recommend anyone to get this phone, for a pleasant sleek and stylish mobile solution.

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LEGO Electric Chair... SHOCKING!

Not sure if this is real or not, but it made me laugh! Not exactly the most politically correct play thing, but hey!

Truly shocking ;)

Unreal Tournament 3 - Small Review

Unreal has personified graphical beauty in each and every release, created real worlds that make your machine sweat under the pressure. Unreal Tournament 3 does not fail to deliver. After you have found you way through the slick sliding menu sections and into the game for the first time, you will be pleased to know that each and every one of your "ooww" and "ahhh" glands will be satisfied, that is unless your PC is up to the pressure...

In this latest instalment you get the inevitable single player fight a load of bots mode, and the awesome and chaotic multiplayer mayhem. UT3 has six different ways to cause blood to splatter. Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Duel are all played on the same rotation of maps - small and deadly. Deathmatch is the obvious manic every man for himself set-up. Team Deathmatch is well, deathmatch in teams... Duel is the new contender here, joining a Duelling server you will be confronted with a scenario not dissimilar to Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy. Its 1 on 1 with everyone else spectating, this can be most entertaining at LAN events as the laughter and banter can really help with making the game.

There are of course the bigger maps. Onslaught is back where you are driving big vehicles over big maps trying to take big bases', and capture the flag makes a welcome appearance. A new variation to the CTF rules adds vehicles into the mix, basically its CTF over a larger map using vehicles to traverse it (think Tribes 2, if you can remember that far back). If that was not enough, or you felt a little claustrophobic on the larger maps of Onslaught, never fear! Warfare is now the largest game mode you can play in the UT series, it adds larger maps with more vehicles, what more could you need?

The weapons are again classic UT, true to the series and satisfying to fire, which is important! Shield gun has been replaced with the impact hammer and you have a standard side arm starting weapon - but that won’t be around long as you will find all your favourite weapons around quickly. For me the most important thing was probably the legendary rocket launcher, it still locks and charges the devastating triple-rocket hit, and my does it looks good. The redeemer is back, and the bio shock rifle gue has had a drastic makeover. The weapons do respond a little differently, but nothing a few games wont sort out. Any changes to the overall feel and play of the weaponry, is minor.

Environments are gorgeous; there is a real sense of depth and mood captured. Whether you are inside or out, UT3 holds the look so well you could almost smell burning grass, and damp musky interiors. In the few maps that have running water, it is extremely well done. The sound also pulls the experience together, with the traditional announcer proclaiming your victories, awesome weapon sounds and explosions and nicely remixed UT music. Graphically it really lives up to the awe that past Unreal games have created, it’s a masterpiece, eye candy at its sweetest.

The game play feels just like a UT game should feel, smooth fast and manic. There are some small changes from UT2004, you can no long collect adrenaline, for a boost of a special ability, and double jumping/dodging seems to have changed a little. This does not affect the feel of the game really, but there is something that does. The hoverboard, it is a great solution to the problem of big maps to people who don’t really like vehicles. Using your hoverboard you can gain a good bit of speed, and if you feel like it, you can catch some air and pull some board grabs. The hoverboard opens up the larger maps to people like me, who would rather just jump in with rockets firing.

UT3 is a very worthy new generation of the brilliant Unreal series. Designed around the same formula as the last, it’s a game that really brings satisfaction to the player. The only thing that really is frustrating for me is how people in mainland Europe seem to get so much better than I am, so quickly. I suppose some things never do change!

Game play: 8/10 - It’s good, there is no denying - but if I'm honest, I had more fun in TF2.

Graphics: 10/10 - Brilliant up and down the complex spectrum of PC systems.

Sound: 9/10 - Announcer, music and explosions... need I say more?

Lifespan: 8/10 - A game you will keep coming back for a good blast.

R.E.M. -- "Supernatural Superserious" Premiere

Stream the new R.E.M. single. - Its awesome :D


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The Top 7 Most Annoying Video Game Enemies

Personally - I would have Lakitu at No. 1...

Go!

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