Eighteen today!

Eighteen thousand visits to this here blog. The magic number came from someone surfing from this post on Aethelread's blog - in which I'm commenting something geeky.

And speaky of geeky...my visitor stopped by at 2053 on Oct 25, lives in or near London, runs Firefox on XP, with Javascript 1.5 and a monitor set to 1600x1200 at 32 bit colour depth. They use this hitherto unknown ISP and, erm, apparantly stayed zero seconds.

13 comments:

  1. Eighteen thousand visits and you can't be bothered to offer us tea and biscuits?

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  2. Okay Mr Geeky... can you also tell us what your visitor had for breakfast? :-)

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  3. @MJ:

    I made you a tea and biscuits...but I ated them.


    @Anonymous Female:

    If they're anything like me, they had tea and biscuits.


    @Aethelreadtheunread:

    Thank you. You're welcome to tea and biscuits anytime.

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  4. Bethere is also known as BE - not, as you think an unknown ISP.

    They're actually a very highly rated. One of the first in the UK to offer (up to) an unmetered 24meg service for a flat £24 when they launched.

    They have a VERY good reputation.

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  5. I stand suitably corrected.

    I know someone who's desperate to change their ISP from Orange, who've been steadily decreasing connection speed and customer service. I'll add BE to the shortlist of BT and Virgin as alternatives.

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  6. Oh, good gawd - don't even THINK about BT! They really are the worst choice possible and should only ever be considered in the absence of any alternatives.

    Virgin: Great service, when it works - although they have a pretty draconian traffic management policy in operation during the evenings.

    BE: I'd HIGHLY recommend them, as well as O2 Broadband (not the mobile broadband veriety, I might add.

    I'd consider a FIRST port of call for advice and real gritty, down to earth reviews to be the ThinkBroadband site - which you can find at http://www.thinkbroadband.com or direct to the forums (which are stuffed to the gills with genuine user experiences/reviews - just scroll down the page until you see the provider of interest) at http://forums.thinkbroadband.com.

    I hope that helps a bit.

    We're with Virgin, by the way - on their 50meg XXL service which is superb. Apart from Customer Service which is absolutely useless.

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  7. I just realised I criticised Virgin, then went on to say that we're with them.

    If I may explain...

    Virgin's 10 and 20 meg services are on what is known as Docsis 1.1 (these make up the vast majority of Virgin customers and are very heavily contended as a result) and have 'traffic management' in place to slow down those considered heavy users - sadly, there's a knock-on effect for those sharing an area connection.

    The 50 meg, on the other hand (the one we're on) is on what is known as 'Docsis 3.0 and has NO traffic management policy.

    As it's also Virgin's most expensive offering, there's hardly anyone subscribed to it - which is great for anyone who is subscribed.

    I liken it to having the entire motorway to yourself at 4am and with no speed cameras! Seriously worth considering, especially if multimedia downloads are your thing.

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  8. @Tiggy and Pazzy:
    Oh, good gawd - don't even THINK about BT!

    Well, I'm on BT. The connection is mostly reliable, the customer service..mostly adequate but not good, but they've started issuing speed limits at peak times to increasing numbers of customers.

    I've dealt with Virgin before. As you say, it either works well or not at all, and their customer service is astonishingly unhelpful. Several times the service has gone down without explanation, the helpline feigned complete ignorance after waiting 20 minutes to answer...then service came back.

    Not had experience with O2 or TB.

    Seeing as you recommend Virgin, and seeing as my experience with them was 18 months ago, and seeing as my friend is basically just desperate to get away from Orange, I'll suggest Virgin. You seem to know rather more about it than me.

    Orange have introduced a speed limit of 5mbps in some areas - unusably slow. And their helpline requires several hours worth of patience - 30 minutes of waiting, then 90+ of being bounced around departments.

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  9. PS. You've blogrolled me!

    That's like rickrolling but wittier. Unless that prickstrolling I'm thinking of. Thinking about that quite a lot.

    ANYWAY (f..., um, yes). I'd better blogroll you back.

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  10. You're lucky they only Blogrolled you.

    Piggy could have "pebbledashed" you.

    See his comment over on IVD's Oct.27 posting.

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  11. Congratulations!

    18! Now you're old enough to buy a gun, drink, gamble, and rent a whore!

    And vote!

    I've dealt with Virgin before. As you say, it either works well or not at all...

    Well, they're virgins. What else did you expect? It isn't always fun and easy the first time; but practice makes perfect!

    Not had experience with O2 or TB.

    O2, or Oxygen, is a safe and necessary air to breathe. It's also flammable so just be careful.

    You don't want TB, because you'll end up either quarantined with a bad cough and be stuck taking meds for the rest of life to keep from hacking out a lung.

    I hope all your rainbow needs have been met!

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  12. 18! Now you're old enough to buy a gun, drink, gamble, and rent a whore!

    You mean I'm not underage anymore? D'oh! It's no fun now!

    O2, or Oxygen, is a safe and necessary air to breathe.

    Indeed, but O3 - trioxygen, or "Ozone" as he's know to his friends - is decidedly unsafe. Like so many of us, he's toxic when he's low, but essential when he's high.

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