COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[Big Kev]

[Tripps]

All meters read - and done in full sunshine. Same number of units used as last November. and the direct debit has been reduced, without prompting, by nearly £20 due to iron self discipline during the Autumn.

gas reading.JPG

[Whyperion]

Ahh, the kneeler , just as the vicar comes round and wonders why the prayer to the deity of power and the offerings of coinage made to them

[Tizer]

The road and pavement around our house are repeatedly being dug up by various utilities, especially the fibre installation workers. When our current broadband package ends next summer we'll ditch the phone landline and go to full fibre (or earlier if they force us to change).

That has made us think about how the fibre line will enter our house and the implications for our current TP-Link Powerline set up. We're in a conventional 1970s house and our present phone line first appears in the hallway and must come in under or in the concrete floor. There's no sign of it elsewhere. Our house is on a corner facing the main street and BT's workers have dug and filled a trench across the end of the side street with a branch going to the bit of garden at the corner of our house. We weren't consulted, it was done without our knowledge and I suppose that's going to be where they will want to pass it into the house. However that's the wall of our lounge and the opposite end to where the hallway is.

Mrs Tiz is concerned by the experiences of some of her friends who've ended up with routers placed where they least want something with a `forever on' light or where they get poor wi-fi. We have PCs in two rooms upstairs at the front of the house and TV in a downstairs room at the back. Currently our router is in the small spare room upstairs at the opposite end of the house to where that trench reaches our property. Mrs Tiz hates having `forever on' lights so we'd prefer to have it remain in that room.

OG members have probably already gone through the full change to fibre and might have advice to give us. For instance, would it be possible to have a cable run from that trench up the outside wall of the house and along to the spare room at the other end? Or do they force you to have it close to the entry point.

All advice welcome!

[Stanley]

Peter, all I can tell you is that BT were very efficient and the Powerline connection functions exactly the same.

[PanBiker]

The outer Open Reach fibre box is on the outside wall by our back door. The inside bits of kit that are powered and convert from fibre to CAT5/6 are in the kitchen, near a convenient ring main socket. From there I have a Cat 5 cable through to where we have the router, basically downstairs by the desktop computer which is roughly in the middle of the house. I have a cable connection to a switch that runs all the TV bits and a power line adaptors from the computer position up into our loft for the PC in my radio station most of that CAT 5 infrastructure was already installed when we were on 20Mb broadband before we upgraded to fibre. Everything else, more TV bits, phones and tablets are all running on WiFi.

The light on my Talk Talk router is just a small white led on the front which indicates the status of the fibre link to the exchange, I suppose you could just stick a bit of black tape over it if it offends you. The powered kit in the kitchen also has link status led's, the router also has a VOIP socket for a land line phone. I sill have that connected but I cancelled our free UK calls package. It still functions on standard tariff but we only use it for incoming calls as we both have mobiles with free calls.

[Tizer]

Ian, thanks for all that information. I guess that your fibre comes from a pole rather than underground if it comes in by your back door? If the Open Reach box is fitted on the corner of our house where the trench ends it would have the inside box in the far corner of our lounge which is the worst place for us because most of our kit needing a connection is at the other end of the house. Also wifi is unreliable which is why we use powerline adapters. There's no way we could put a cable from that corner of the lounge to where our router presently lies, upstairs at the opposite end of the house. I think I'm right that someone from Open Reach or BT visits in advance to discuss the layout etc?

[PanBiker]

Not with me, the Open Reach Engineers and fibre expert Sophie sorted it on the day. I laid all my own internal infrastructure, (CAT 5 etc, some already there). The internal powered kit confirms the connection to the exchange, its the equivalent in Open Reach terms to the old telephone Master Socket. You are correct in that it comes from a pole about 30M away. Surprisingly it involved a Simon Snorkel to connect the fibre run to the house OR don't seem to do ladders any more.
The armoured external fibre is loose around our flat kitchen roof as the Snorkel wouldn't reach so far from the street and they would not stand on the roof to clip it round which is double layer fibreglass and resin and perfectly safe, our window cleaner doesn't have a problem with it!

[Tizer]

I guess it's going to be a case of waiting for them to come on the day then telling them where we want the router, then them saying no can do and trying to work out the least worst plan for us. We could end up like some of Mrs Tiz's friends who are now not happy with what they've got.

[Stanley]

Or, in best case Peter, you could get a good engineer and a perfect installation. I hope that is the case.

[Cathy]

Hi, just moving my question of ‘How do you find out how many times an image has been viewed?’ From Lights in the Sky.
I’ve hovered several times over photos, but it hasn’t worked. Without a Mouse , is there another way?
Does the Gallery record how many times a photo is viewed that I could get into? Thanks.

[Wendyf]

Hi, just moving my question of ‘How do you find out how many times an image has been viewed?’ From Lights in the Sky.
I’ve hovered several times over photos, but it hasn’t worked. Without a Mouse , is there another way?
Does the Gallery record how many times a photo is viewed that I could get into? Thanks.

If you look at a photo in the gallery you can see how many times it has been viewed in the information underneath, but photos posted as attachments aren't in the gallery.

[Cathy]

I’m confused, how are pics posted into a topic if they aren’t attachments?
Tripps said my Cathy’s Santa was viewed 123 times, I attached it in my post; just like I always do.

[PanBiker]

Upload to the Gallery then use the image insertion Icon in the post editor to copy the image URL from the Gallery.

[Cathy]

Oh OK , I’ve never done that. Thanks.

[Stanley]

This is garbled text from a topic I am following on Youtube. I think it has happened because AI is being used.
Or can you think of another reason?

[PanBiker]

Sorry Cathy, I should have explained a bit better. I should have said, copy the image URL from the Gallery then use the image insertion Icon in the post editor to insert the copied URL into your post.

[Cathy]

.

[Tizer]

We still don't have full fibre to our house but we have a Plusnet contract until June. Our plan is to change ISP then if we've got FTTH and probably to Jurassic Fibre who have been responsible for much of the fibre work here in the SouthWest. However in the meantime Jurassic has become part of the ISP called Cuckoo. It has a good reputation so we'll probably be heading in their direction. Cuckoo

[Tripps]

I also have a conract with Plusnet until June for abput £27 pcm, from which I could not escape without large cost. I have however switched to full fibre with Gigaclear, who had a deal in which they would not charge me until the Plusnet contract expired.

Gigaclear send me a monthly invoice for £0.00 , and from June, they will charge me £22 pcm. I just need to remember to cancel Plusnet in May.
Smart eh? It must be said however that despite the speed numbers being a lot faster - in practice I have not noticed a lot of difference.

The main improvement is that the range has been extended and I can now get wifi in the bedroom at the back of the house. So during the night whilst waiting for SCG's words of wisdom - using my Roberts radio, and a controlling it with an Android phone program called UNDOK - I can resume my career in radio monitoring. The number of stations available worldwide is amazing. Currently I get a talk show on current affairs from Minneapolis MN and 1960's music from Perth Australia. Sometimes it a shame to have to go back to sleep.

[Gloria]

IMG_7054.png

I need help please, I’ve got this when I go into Facebook. I clicked on something , and now I can’t get rid of it. It’s the same on my iPhone and iPad. It comes up every time I go on Facebook. I’ve tried deleting and then putting it back on, but it’s still there, can’t get any further.

[Tizer]

Gloria, I'll leave this for others to offer help. I don't use Facebook and I'm on an Android phone so I'm not qualified to help.

I also have a conract with Plusnet until June for abput £27 pcm, from which I could not escape without large cost. I have however switched to full fibre with Gigaclear, who had a deal in which they would not charge me until the Plusnet contract expired.
Gigaclear send me a monthly invoice for £0.00 , and from June, they will charge me £22 pcm. I just need to remember to cancel Plusnet in May.
Smart eh? It must be said however that despite the speed numbers being a lot faster - in practice I have not noticed a lot of difference.

That sounds like a good deal and I hope it works out well for you. We're now getting spam emails which we've rarely had before. I looked on the Plusnet forums and there are plenty of angry posts there from people suffering spam which they never had before. The techie ones say it's probably related to Plusnet outsourcing its email functions to a company called Greenby.

We have the problem that there's no sign yet of us getting full fibre (FTTH or FTTP or whatever they call it). But I discovered an odd fact yesterday when I found an OpenReach map online that shows which houses in Taunton have full fibre. We're close to the town centre and most of the town has it except us - a few streets amid a residential estate of ordinary 1970s/80s houses. It stands out like an island in the ocean! As far as I know there's nothing different from the rest of the estate that can account for us being left out. The OpenReach web site tags such areas as `Will be reached by the end of 2026'. There's no explanation of why we are segregated from the rest!

[PanBiker]

Its a Meta (Facebook thing) platform specific. I think I got that last week. Just followed it through, job done.

[Gloria]

Its a Meta (Facebook thing) platform specific. I think I got that last week. Just followed it through, job done.

Thanks Ian, I was worried I’d clicked on something I shouldn’t.

[PanBiker]

I think they are obliged under new legislation to ask about advertising on their platforms.