Simon Perry

PlusNet: 700Gb Of Mail Deleted: Sorry
UK ISP PlusNet has issued an official ‘sorry’ after having lost 700Gb of their subscribers email and not succeeding recovered it.
The problem was initially reported on Sunday 9 July where it was reported that their “network engineers are currently investigating an issue where customers are not seeing any email displayed in their mailboxes.” We suspect that caused a collective sharp intake of breath at their offices.
PlusNet tell us that the problem took place during an upgrade of the email server. The engineer upgrading the servers NAS (Network Attached Storage) made the mistake of thinking that the mirrored drive that he was working on was the backup drive – it was in fact the live drive. By repartitioning the drive, this was then mirrored to the backup drive. Argh!
When they realised the problem, they stopped it double quick. By then the 700Gb of email had been lost. Within 3 hours they’d shipped the NAS to the data recovery specialist.
We feel sorry for the engineer who did this … we really do. They must have had many, many nightmares about this since and probably shake when they get close to a systems keyboard.
PlusNet say that their analysis shows that half of the lost mail was marked as spam, 48% of the mail had already been read, with only 1-2% not having been looked at. 1-2% doesn’t sound too much, but when it’s 700Gb of data that’s been lost, that is still 7Gb – 14Gb of loss.
To put this in perspective, the flow of email for any ISP is considerable with PlusNet getting 1.5 million ’email writes’ a day. They estimate that 700Gb of email takes about 3 days to build up. With this flow of data backing up to tape simply isn’t practical.
PlusNet proudly say on their home page that they ‘”top uSwitch.com customer satisfaction survey with 92%,” perhaps this will have dropped slightly – they said their customers have been “disappointed” – but given how open they’ve been during the process, we suspect their customer will at least know they’re honest – important in our view.
At the end of last year PlusNet bought MetroNet to add to their other ISPs.
Thanks to the story tip from Urban75
PlusNet
3 August, 2006
DVD Recorders Drop Below £50
It’s amazing to watch the price reduction of consumer goods. First we saw the free fall of the VHS machines, then DVD players which got to the ridiculous level of £19.99 – with 10 DVD’s.
Now, of course, it’s DVD recorders. Three years ago DVD recorders were costing around £400. Today we were stunned to see that DVD recorders have already got to under £50.
OK, we’ve never heard of the manufacturer, Cello, but what do you expect for that sort of money. We’ve also got no idea what the quality of it is like, or how long it will last. That’s not the point. Here’s something that will let you backup your video material to DVD – either from your video camera, or other Firewire equipped equipment; from S-Video and if you’re really desperate, composite video, or TV.
Product Details
Features
Recording Format
– DVD+RW, DVD+R
Recording Time
– HQ-1 Hr.; SP-2 Hr.; LP-3 Hr. EP-4 Hr.
Playback Format
– DVD±RW, DVD±R, DVD-Video, VCD, CD, MP3, CD-R, CD-RW.
TV Tuner
– For PAL I 05 Modulator Output: CH.21 ~ CH.69
- Variable Speed & Zoom with Real-Time Playback
- IEEE1394 (DV Input) for Camcorder, S-Video, CVBS (AV Input)
Rear I/O: Input
– Video: Composite Video, S-Video, TV Tuner Audio: R/L Stereo Output: Video: Composite Video, S-Video, YUV / P-SCAN, Audio: 2-CH, Coaxial One Key Recording
IR Remote Control
– 53 keys, 3V infrared Panel keys: Power, Record, Source, CH up, CH down, Play, Stop, Open / Close
- NTSC & PAL Playback
- 21-Pin Full Scart Socket with RGB Output x 1 15 21-Pin Scart Socket Input x 1
See the Cello R100B DVD Recorder for £48.99 at SavaStore
2 August, 2006
BT Change From Per Second To Per Minute Billing
As of today BT is reshuffling its phone pricing structure. In a typical move of a power-crazed ex-monopoly, it’s giving with one hand and taking away with another.
The ability to get going on this was given by Ofcom when they lifted restrictions on BT’s UK landline pricing structure.
The ‘giving’
BT hasn’t had the take-up with its bundled packages that it had hoped. From today, subscribers of its Option 2 & 3 package will receive around a third price cut. The included-evening/weekend calls to landline packages will move to £3.95 & the all landline calls to £9.95. This is the packages that they’re trumpeting – shame that most people won’t benefit from it isn’t it?
The other part BT is drawing attention to, is the reduction in price of calls to 0870 and 0845 numbers – the sort of numbers most people have been forced to call to speak to their banks. Oh … and they tell us that they’ve reduced the price of calls to mobile phones.
Almost to add insult to injury, BT is offering all of their 16m subscribes 25p off their monthly line rental at the end of the year- TWENTY FIVE PENCE! We’ve just wasted that typing this. Of course, much to our distress, most broadband services (supplied by BT Wholesale) need to pay the line rental. Why should we? and how much longer can this be allowed to continue? Come on Ofcom.
The ‘taking’
The majority of BT’s 16m customers pay per call on the Option 1 scheme. Sadly for them, things won’t be such a bargain. BT is changing their standard charging unit from per second to per minute – not something that we’ve seen since the wild-west days of early mobile phone companies, where the cowboy operators tried to extract the maximum amount of money from the ~~suckers~~ customers.
We think it more than sneaky that BT have given people Call Minder, their free phone answering service, then charge people a fixed fee (3p) or ‘setting up’ the call, then charging whole minutes. When many people get an answer phone, they hang-up because they don’t want to leave a message, or to try to call their mobile – in the meantime BT will collect the setup fee PLUS a whole minute charge, for a couple of seconds.
As to how much the minute will be – we don’t know. We’ve looked, really we have, pretty hard too – we’ve even tried to use their price list search – but to no avail. Isn’t it a bit of a give away that if you need a search engine for your price list, you’re possibly going to be confusing the customer.
Interestingly, for the first time, BT have listed Skype on their pricing structure on the press release. Welcome to the future BT.
If you’ve got a couple of hours to spare, and fancy trying to extract pricing information, you can have a look at the BT Together site.
1 August, 2006
Vodafone 3G On Apple MacBook Via USB
Well they got there finally, Vodafone UK have announced that they’re releasing the less than catchy named Vodafone Mobile Connect USB Modem in the Autumn. It will support their 3G data service and, surprise, surprise, connect to computers using a USB lead. Rather neatly the software disks aren’t needed, as they’re installed directly from the modem.
This advance will broaden out the service to any machine that doesn’t have a full sized PCMCIA/PC Card slot because it’s too old, or it’s too modern, like the some of the new laptops which only support the smaller ExpressCard, or their Apple Macintosh’s that might not support either.
Connection to the HSDPA network, in optimum conditions, will be a healthy 1.4Mbps receive and 384Kbps transmit. Currently Vodafone high-speed 3G network covers the major conurbations in the UK, but not the whole of the UK. Their stated plans are 75% of the population by summer 2007.
There will be a suggested limit of 1Gb of data transfered a month. Those who do not comply “may be asked to moderate their usage,” and persistent usage in excess of the limit “may also result in suspension or termination of the customer’s service.”
1 August, 2006
Megabit 2006
31.Jul – 6.Aug.2006 The approach to Megabit is super casual. It’s made by the people who attend, for the people attending. Sounds fun. They describe it like this …
Megabit is an open air network event unlike any other event. We try to combine interesting lectures on new technologies, security and other interesing stuff with hanging out with people you would otherwise probably only meet online. Quite some things are organized by participants, including this website.
Amsterdam, Holland http://www.megabit.nl
31 July, 2006
Kazaa Owners Settle Lawsuits Globally
Sharman Networks, the company that distributed the file-sharing software, Kazaa, has finally come to an agreement with the media companies that have been chasing them for years throughout courts around the globe.
The details of the settlement was covered by secrecy clauses, but the Associated Press is reporting the settlement figure as $115m, which they say has mostly been paid by Sharman already. The media companies will drop all of their law suits.
As part of the settlement, Sharman has agreed to discourage online privacy using ”all reasonable means.’ How this is be achieved is unclear. Kazaa was specificaly designed to be distributed, making it’s very hard to have any control over the network. It’s design would make the use of filtering software, which would remove or block copyright material, difficult.
Being upbeat Nikki Hemming, CEO of Sharman Networks, enthused, “This settlement marks the dawn of a new age of cooperation between P2P technology and content industries which will promise an exciting future for online distribution in general and Kazaa users in particular.”
It’s understood that the settlement doesn’t require the media companies to provide their content to Kazaa, but equally it doesn’t forbid Kazza carrying copyrighted material, if done ‘legitimately.’
Given the software has been downloaded over 398 million times to date, the media companies could well see the benefit utilising the P2P network.
There was some shock in November last year when Grokster, who like Sharman made software for distributed file-sharing networks, changed their minds and closed down their service.
28 July, 2006
Win A Copy Of The Long Tail Book
We’ve just published a review of The Long Tail, Chris Anderson’s new book
The Long Tail is an important manual for the new economics of the Internet and digital culture. As well as demystifying the numbers it provides an essential guide to how to navigate a world where everything is available, all the time.
High praise and we think that it’s a sufficiently important book that you should have your own copy.
We chatted to the lovely people at Random House and they’ve kindly furnished us with five copies.
All you need to do is run through our Readers survey, which should only take on 5-7 minutes of clicking.
We will of course also be so very grateful – which should give you a lovely glow inside.
28 July, 2006
AOL’s Steve Case Sorry for Time Warner Deal
Steve Case, co-founder of AOL, now ex-chairman of AOL-Time Warner, has said he was sorry for the merger between AOL and Time Warner. It is widely regarded as a deal that didn’t go very well, leading to internal wrangling and huge amounts of money being knocked of share values.
In an interview with well known US journalist, Charlie Rose, Case said he still believed the ‘idea’ of bringing together Time Warners content and broadband infrastructure, RoadRunner, with AOL digital expertise was right.
He resolved that “Ultimately it comes down to execution,” and that in this case that hadn’t been successful. Case said he missed the ‘power’ to execute what he thought was right.
When questioned further about it, Case then refered to his current company, Revolution, saying that they will only enter into agreements where they have a controlling interest, so they can “Take a long term view.” We take this as implying that this wasn’t the case when dealing with Time Warner.
When Rose asked him straight, “Was it a good idea, or not?”, Case gave a half smile and then laughed, trying to avoid a direct answer.
When pushed, Case said from the point of shareholders of the two companies, employees & customers – it didn’t go as he’d hoped, it had been a disappointment and a source for frustration. Given the wide range of those included by Case, we don’t know who else might be disappointed who wasn’t included.
Given the stark choice of, “Sorry, Yes or No?”, Case said, “Yes I’m sorry I did it.”
Watch the video. The section relevant to this story starts at 30 minutes in.
27 July, 2006
Google Video: Advertising Sponsorship
Google Video has been serving videos to the Internet population for over a year and a half now, both paid download via their Video Store.
Today, when researching a story, we noticed that they’ve also brought in a third model – sponsored playback, a new one to us. Never let it be said that given an opportunity to raise advertising dollars, Google aren’t at the forefront.
Above the video being played back is a banner containing the logo of the advertiser (in this case HP), a couple of lines of advertising copy and a couple of links.
How the financial on this works isn’t clear, but we’d assume that the owner of the contact will receive some payment from the sponsor, via gogole, for each video that is watched, in a similar way that the record companies get paid a small number of pennies when a people play their artists music on a monthly music subscription service.
One interesting feature is that the video is still available for purchase, as the version that is shown is at a lower quality than the for-sale version. Google call the for-free version Preview, although for our purposes, retrieving information from the programme, this is all that we’d need. You could see that other types of programs would benefit from higher resolution.
Clicking on Watch their Ad link opens a new browser session and plays the video advert from … Google Video. All very neat.
It is interesting to note that the cost from Google, in this case 99c, is significantly less than the price when purchased from Charlie Rose’s own site, which is available on DVD or VHS at at least $30.
What is powerful about this rendition of advertising with video content is that the brand is associated with the content, in our case a well known and respected US journalist, and the viewer is given the opportunity of watching the content. They aren’t forced to watch it, as we commented about at the end of the recent review of GoTuit, and are they given the opportunity to stop watching it whenever they feel like it.
Example of Google Video being sponsored by an advertiser.
26 July, 2006
Live Traffic Updates Added To Google Maps For Mobile
The ever-expanding selection of Google features just grew by one as they announce that they’re providing Live Traffic updates to mobile phones in 30 US cities and partial information in many others.
The traffic-concious will be able to fire their mobile phones up, look at Google Maps For Mobile (or GMM as those in the trade call it) and see the masses of traffic jams appear before their very eyes.
The most up-to-date traffic information will be sent directly to the users’ call phone, showing the severity of the delays on commuter routes using red, yellow, and green overlays. The amount of time the travelers are likely to be delayed is also shown on the mobile.
Google are slightly playing catchup with Yahoo on this one, as they been plotting live traffic on Yahoo Maps since March 2005.
Back in November 2005 we broke the story about the existence of GPS-using code in Google Local For Mobile, but this has yet to be officially enabled.
On the back of the Mobile Maps news, Google also announced that users now have the ability to customize the content that appears on the mobile version of their Personalized Homepage, making it even easier for mobile phone users to quickly get the information they need when away from their computers.
Google Maps For Mobile
25 July, 2006