The BT iPlate is of potential use to broadband customers [...]]]> I’ve been writing just recently about slow broadband connections and discussing common methods used to improve line speeds.  This week I was pointed in the direction of a little device which claims to potentially increase the speed of your broadband connection for just under £7.

The BT iPlate is of potential use to broadband customers that have more than one telephone socket in their home.  It consists of a small plate which is installed in to the master socket and works by attempting to reduce interference picked up by any extension wiring in your home.

It works by cutting out the ‘bell wire’ cable on your line; originally this would have been used by older telephones to allow a physical bell to ring however modern day handsets have a ring feature built in and, as such, it is now redundant.  Ideally, (but somewhat impractically) the bell wire would be removed from your home by a BT engineer as it now only serves as a conduit for line interference.

By using the iPlate the bell wire is choked, therefore potentially improving the signal to noise ratio (SNR) of your connection which in turn should have a knock-on effect on the line speed.

The iPlate is only suitable for customers who have the most common BT NTE5 style master socket; these consist of a split face plate with a single phone connection.   The bottom section can be unscrewed independently from the top of the socket which should have the BT logo embossed on it.

It is NOT suitable for master sockets which display the BT OpenReach logo, have two phone connections, or don’t have a split in the faceplate.  Also, ensure that you are examining the master socket and not one of the extension sockets.

Installation is simple; you unscrew and remove the lower section of the master socket, install the iPlate in its place, then reinstall the lower section of the master socket on top of the iPlate.  From start to finish this process will take no more than a couple of minutes.

Before installation I would recommend performing a speed test using a website such as www.speedtest.net as this will allow you to gauge whether or not there has been any marked improvement.  Leave a couple of days before testing the line post installation as it can take up to 72 hours for the exchange to acknowledge that your potential speed is faster.  This limiting factor is referred to as a ‘bRAS profile’ and is designed to stop traffic bottle necking at the exchange as a result of it attempting to transmit data faster than your line can physically handle.

Fortunately our home doesn’t have a bell-wire or any extensions as we ripped out the old line when we bought the house and a single socket was then installed in a different location with none of the redundant bell wire reconnected.  As such, I have been unable to test it personally but the general independent consensus is that although it doesn’t make a difference in all home installations, there is the potential for many users to make quite considerable speed gains with 1.5mbps increases proving relatively common.

As I said, the theory is sound and for £6.63 including delivery (www.shop.bt.com) or free if you’re a BT Total Broadband customer (visit www.bt.com to order), the iPlate has got to be worth a punt.  Of course, if your wiring isn’t a factor that is influencing your line speed and you achieve nothing then simply pass the device on to a friend.

It is undeniable that Broadband take-up in the UK has been huge; the majority of the public now access the Internet via a [...]]]> There is a new breed of superfast broadband approaching which will be welcome news to the majority of the British public that are currently stuck with a maximum top speed of 8Mbps.

It is undeniable that Broadband take-up in the UK has been huge; the majority of the public now access the Internet via a broadband connection rather than a conventional dial up modem. A few weeks back I talked about broadband packages which made Internet access either free or incredibly cheap meaning that even occasional Internet users would be financially better off with a broadband connection.

Although the prices have been tumbling, a ceiling limit on the speeds obtainable has been reached and this needs to be broken through; although 8Mbps is a comfortable speed which will suit the majority of users we are lagging well behind many other parts of the world. A limited number of users in built up areas in Japan for example are currently able to receive blisteringly fast 1000Mbps speeds.

At present, the UK broadband provider for choice when it comes to the speed of connection is Virgin Media who have been offering 20Mbps for years now and have just introduced 50Mbps across the UK. Clearly the speed difference between the Virgin offering and standard ADSL which comes through your conventional phone line is huge.

The difference in speed is due to the type of cable employed for carrying the signal. Virgin uses a relatively new and advanced fibre optic system – this explains why you do have to live in a Virgin cabled area (formally Telewest and NTL) to receive the service. Other broadband products transmitted through your conventional phone line rely on old copper cables; these were originally designed for carrying voice calls and as such there is a limit to the speed that data can be transmitted along them.

Although 50Mbps will be more than enough for the majority of Internet users, Virgin are currently trialling a 200Mbps broadband service in Kent. If the service were to be unveiled across the UK it would give Virgin Media customers one of the fastest broadband services in the world.

Unfortunately only 12.6 million homes are in a Virgin Media cabled area which is why many have to ADSL broadband though their conventional phone line. In order to increase the speeds available to these users BT is currently upgrading exchanges across the UK to ADSL 2+ which will offer up to 20Mbps. Although Torbay hasn’t yet been switched over the exchanges should be upgraded by summer of next year which will result in an approximate doubling of speed at, most likely, no extra cost.

After the ADSL 2+ rollout it would be fair to say that we would have pretty much reached the theoretical maximum speed that you can transfer data down a copper cable. In order to overcome this, BT has began rolling out its own fibre optic broadband across the country however current plans will seen only 40% of UK households covered by 2012 and it is unlikely that they will cover Torbay in this initial phase.

At present, your best bet for the fastest broadband in Torbay is to check if you are in a Virgin covered area (check availability at www.virginmedia.com). Alternatively, if you are not covered, sit back and wait for the ADSL 2+ rollout; unfortunately this will more than likely have to suffice until we have a nationwide rollout of fibre optic technology across the UK.

Starting off with Vista; those of you with this Operating System would be advised to download the Service Pack from www.microsoft.com or via Windows Update as along with fixing hundreds of little bugs [...]]]> We have two things to discuss today; Vista Service Pack 2 and cheap broadband.

Starting off with Vista; those of you with this Operating System would be advised to download the Service Pack from www.microsoft.com or via Windows Update as along with fixing hundreds of little bugs and glitches it also adds a number of new features. Most notable changes include support for Via Technologies new Nano 64-Bit CPU, support for Bluetooth 2.1, BluRay writing directly from the Operating System and improved performance for WiFi connections.

This update is 348mb in size meaning that you would really need to be on a broadband connection to consider the download; this leads me neatly on to my next point.

I was contacted this week by a reader who was still using a dial up connection. I had assumed that this hardcore group of users had disbanded and joined the 21^st century but it appears that I was mistaken. Try as I might, I cannot rationalise in my own head why someone would still be using dial-up; it’s slow, temperamental, ties up your phone line, and if you use it for more than a handful of minutes a week it can actually work out quite costly.

In order to reach out to these users (and indeed anyone currently on an overpriced broadband package) I thought it prudent to overview the cheapest broadband packages on the market; these represent a perfect stepping stone from dial-up. The following recommendations are suited primarily to light Internet users and as such I would not recommend them for intensive use such as gaming or heavy downloading.

Sky TV – Sky TV customers can get free 2Mbps Broadband with a 2GB usage limit when they also subscribe to Sky Talk (the most basic of which is free) for the phone calls. Of course you still have to pay your line rental to BT, as you would with dial up. While 2GB isn’t a particularly large bandwidth limit it will satisfy most home users and is in excess of what could be feasibly downloaded via dial-up in a month.

Talk Talk – Talk Talk is £6.49 a month in addition to your usual line rental and includes 8GB Broadband, a 40GB usage limit, free local calls and free national weekend and evening calls. The company has had a fair amount of bad press over the last couple of years mainly due to its unprecedented growth since its incorporation in 2003 but things seemed to have improved of late. If the planned merger with Tiscali goes ahead, Talk Talk will have become the largest residential broadband provider in the UK.

Tiscali – For £14.99 a month including your monthly line rental you can get up to 8GB broadband and unlimited free weekend calls. As BT would usually charge you around £12 for your line rental you are essentially getting a capable broadband package for less than £3 a month.

PlusNet – If you don’t fancy the idea of having your telephone calls handled by your broadband provider, the PlusNet Value package at £5.99 a month is an extremely competitive standalone package. With speeds up to 8Mbps, a 10GB daily download limit and an unlimited evening download limit the PlusNet deal is also surprisingly fully featured.

Before committing to a broadband package it might be an idea to first check out www.moneysupermarket.com to compare a number of other deals on the market. Most Internet Service Providers (ISPs) don’t levy a set of charge all of them will provide the equipment you require and many of them will even chuck in a free wireless router; there really is no reason to stick with dial-up.

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This week, regular reader Ian McMillan wrote to me noting a website which until now I haven’t mentioned. I have printed his letter below as I thought it would be of interest to anyone who regularly uses video sharing websites such as YouTube.

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At the moment, my experience of high definition television and camcorders is confined to watching demonstrations in the shops and so I was interested to come across the website Vimeo (www.vimeo.com). There are many video sharing websites (YouTube being the best known) but Vimeo if different in the fact that it has online videos in high definition.

A standard YouTube video has a picture of 320 by 240 pixels and mono sound whereas the videos on the Vimeo HD Channel are 1280 by 720 pixels (widescreen) and have stereo sound. As a demonstration of the difference, take a look at the video of San Francisco at http://www.vimeo.com/844044 – as you can see it is clearly far sharper than a YouTube video. Whilst there has been talk of YouTube launching its own HD service, Vimeo is currently the only provider with true HD videos on the web.

As with Joost and the BBC’s iPlayer, there is a move towards streaming television over the Internet. This has led to concerns that ISPs are groaning under the weight of the bandwidth required. Internet connections based on copper wires are not ideal for online videos, and it would be more efficient to use fibre optic cables for this purpose.

Something to consider is that online HD video will stretch any current computer and Internet connection to its limits. To receive it properly you will need a reliable broadband connection of 2Mbps or more, and a modern computer. It is also worth bearing in mind that if you currently have a cap set by your ISP of a few gigabytes a month then this will soon be used up when downloading online videos. In the future, people may be able to go to the Internet and download the latest Hollywood movie in HD format in a few minutes, but we are still a long way off achieving this under real world conditions.

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Whilst those that are used to ‘full’ HD resolutions of 1920 x 1080 will most likely be disappointed by the quality of Vimeo videos, it is undeniable that they are of a much higher quality and at a faster download speed than those on YouTube.

It is unlikely that this website will pose any real threat for Youtube as there are several fundamental differences between the two. Vimeo has gained a reputation for attracting the more artistic viewer as a result of the high quality of videos and the fact that only user created videos are allowed. Whilst YouTube state that they don’t allow copyrighted material, in reality the situation is quite different with the service being awash with TV shows, music videos and movie excerpts.

I am surprised that after spending $1.65 billion on purchasing YouTube just over a year ago that Google have done so little improving it; the servers are slower than ever, the videos are still of a poor quality and often both the content and the comments remain completely uncensored. Whilst Vimeo have chosen not to compete directly and may not be the ones to steal the YouTube crown, they certainly show the way things can be done.

One of the biggest stories in the computer world recently [...]]]> This week has been pretty hectic for me, so for todays Click article I’m going to hand over to my most avid contributor, Ian McMillan, for a few updates on the IT industry as he sees it.

One of the biggest stories in the computer world recently has been the fuss that is being made over Google’s plans to introduce an online storage scheme. The media pounced on this story after notes from a Google company meeting were inadvertently published on the internet, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4782108.stm. The only actual surprise here is that such a fuss has been made – there is currently no shortage of online storage facilities, with Streamload (www.streamload.com) being a popular free service with paid upgrades. The fuss may be due to Google’s size and the fact that it already has encyclopaedic knowledge about its users’ computer habits.

In the news as well lately comes the revelation that many people now spend more time online than they do watching the television, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4784518.stm. This fits me to a tee since I spend very little time watching Coronation Street compared with using my broadband connection!

Also from BBC news, an old e-mail hoax has resurfaced. There have been rumours that free webmail services like Hotmail and Yahoo! are about to stop being free and start charging a fee for their services, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4778046.stm. There is a bit of truth in this, as there are plans to introduce “premium” e-mail services which guarantee rapid delivery and a receipt confirmation. This could indeed be useful for business users who do not want their inboxes to be bogged down with adverts for fake Viagra and get rich quick schemes. However, free webmail supported by advertising looks completely safe for the time being.

A big row has broken out over Microsoft’s decision to include support for Adobe’s PDF (Portable Document Format) format in Office 2007. It looks like Office 2007 will not have PDF saving included in its default options due to licensing issues, but there are a couple of free alternatives anyway. OpenOffice, which Chris reviewed some time back, allows documents to be saved in PDF format as one of its default options and has done for some time. Also, a piece of freeware called PrimoPDF at http://www.primopdf.com allows any printable document to be saved in PDF format. There are various other “free” PDF converters that contain watermarks and advertisements, but PrimoPDF has neither and is completely free.

Recently the BBC did a feature on the security of information stored in USB memory sticks and similar devices. This is undoubtedly more of a problem now that external memory is so popular, and people should think carefully before placing confidential material on removable media as they are often lost or stolen. There are, however, several ways to make removable media more secure. One is to use a password protected ZIP or RAR file, and another is to use standalone encryption software. There is unfortunately a lack of really good free encryption software available for download, but give Remora USB Disk Guard a go by heading to http://www.richskills.com/products/7/freeversion.asp. This is a free demo version which can encrypt files of unlimited size, but the interface is a bit basic.

A quick news note is that Windows Vista is now scheduled for launch in early 2007 having been originally scheduled for September 2006 and then Christmas 2006.

Ian MacMillan, via e-mail.

The big story in the computer world this week is the fuss that has been made [...]]]> It’s time once again for me to hand over to one of my regular readers who has a few handy nuggets of information he would like to pass along to us.

The big story in the computer world this week is the fuss that has been made over Google’s plans to introduce an online storage scheme. This came out in the media after notes from a Google company meeting were inadvertently published on the internet, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4782108.stm . The only surprise here is the fuss because there is currently no shortage of online storage facilities, with Streamload www.streamload.com being a popular free service with paid upgrades. The fuss may be due to Google’s size and the fact that it already has encyclopaedic knowledge about its users’ computer habits.

Also in the news this week comes the revelation that many people now spend more time online than they do watching the television, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4784518.stm. This fits me to a tee since I spend very little time watching Coronation Street etc compared to using my broadband connection.

Also from BBC news, an old e-mail hoax has resurfaced. There have been rumours that free webmail services like Hotmail and Yahoo! are about to end and charge a fee for their services, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4778046.stm. There is a bit of truth in this since there are plans to introduce “premium” e-mail services which guarantee rapid delivery and a receipt confirmation, which could be useful for business users who do not want their inboxes to be bogged down with adverts for fake Viagra and get rich quick schemes. However, free webmail supported by advertising looks safe for the time being.

Finally, you can always learn something new while computing and a while back I learnt that you can use animated GIFs as desktop wallpaper – It certainly makes a change!

Finally, someone gave me a business card the other day that said on the reverse “Business cards are FREE at www.vistaprint.co.uk” and obviously being interested in all new computer things I checked out the website. The Vistaprint website contains a set of free templates for business cards and it allows you to create your own card online. There is one downside in the fact that you do have to pay £3.62 for post and packing but for 250 cards printed in colour this cost is certainly still reasonable.

Ian MacMillan

Once again another really useful contribution from Ian and a few websites for you guys to check out when you have a minute. I have seen a sample of the business cards that Ian bought into the shop and they are of a good enough quality although the VistaPrint advert does have to be on the back of the business card but for personal users this really shouldn’t be a problem. Remember that I welcome contributions and suggestions from all readers so if you have any tips of your own to pass along then please don’t hesitate to let me know.

Google Web Accelerator [...]]]> After spending last week look at a dial up Internet accelerator which wasn’t recommended for broadband I thought this week that I’d do the opposite and take a look at a similar piece of software designed for broadband but not dial up connections.

Google Web Accelerator although still in Beta format is an interesting piece of free software designed by the same team that have bought us so many other useful pieces of software over the past year. The idea is that you install a small piece of software which then makes use of Googles global network to improve the speed your pages load in several ways.

Such tactics include sending your page request through a dedicated network of machines designed for Google accelerator traffic, storing copies of recently viewed pages, downloading only the changed material in a page since the last time you viewed it, prefetching certain pages, managing your Internet connection and compressing data before it is sent to your computer.

Google accelerator takes literally seconds to install by visiting http://webaccelerator.google.com and once installed it will automatically keep itself up to date. I must be honest in saying that I didn’t notice a huge speed increase when I installed the software however I am currently sat on a 4mb/s Broadband connection so pages tend to load instantly anyway.

Once installed there are several settings that you can play around with to customise how the software works:

Internet connection: Google automatically assume that your connection is below 1mb/s however if it is above this then you should specify this here.

Prefetching: One of the things Google does to speed up your connection is to prefetch pages before you actually click the link. Then if you click a link the information is already on your computer so it doesn’t need to be downloaded. Obviously if you only have a limited download limit every month you’re not going to want to blow it all on Google prefetching pages that you might then not necessary read.

Clear your history: This deletes files stored in your web accelerator cache to clear your surfing history.

Don’t accelerate these sites: This option allows you to turn off Google accelerator for viewing specific sites which is useful if you have a problem with using the software on incompatible pages. You can also choose to temporarily disable Google web accelerator for whatever reason at any point.

The software includes a counter that supposedly shows you how much time you have saved waiting for pages to load whilst using the software although how accurate this counter is I have no idea. As mentioned at the start of this article the software is currently in beta test (unfinished) format and so independent tests on speed gain claims are unavailable at present.

One of the primary concerns with using this software is to do with privacy as the Google team will be able to see all requests for all unencrypted pages along with your IP address. If you fill in a form on such a page Google could also theoretically see personal details although it is worth bearing in mind that this is no more information than your usual ISP can see anyway although understandably this does worry some users. In reality a company such as Google would not ever use this data in any way so you should feel safe and additionally it doesn’t attempt to accelerate any secure websites so online shopping security isn’t compromised.

I would recommend giving the software a run though especially if you have a broadband connection which verges on the slow end of the market. I would appreciate any comments that you may have regarding this software and then perhaps we can do a follow up article when it comes out of the testing period.

One of the biggest growth areas in the computing industry of late has been the proliferation of Voice over IP packages and the resulting popularity of them amongst Internet users. For those of you unsure exactly what this technology is all about, keep reading as I could be about to save you a fortune.

The Internet is handy as it allows us to carry data into other countries pretty much free of charge; you can instantly e-mail to a friend in America for example rather than writing a letter which would take days. This is fair enough but often e-mail just isn’t suitable for a number of reasons – Perhaps you want a more personal touch or if the call is of a business nature you may need to discuss ideas which would be a lengthy process over e-mail. Using Voice over IP software allows us to carry our voices across the Internet in order to call someone using similar software on their machine or even to call them on their regular home telephone.

Let’s say that you want to call a business colleague in France and you do this using a normal BT phone line. Looking at the BT website I believe that the standard daytime call rate is 17p per minute so a one hour phone call would cost you around £10 although this could obviously be cheaper if you were on one of their International calling plans. Using a free program called Skype (www.skype.com) you would be able to call this person completely free of charge if he were also using the software or alternatively if he doesn’t have access to a computer or the Internet you can call his normal phone number for just 1.1p per minute (66p for the whole hour compared with £10 on BT).

Getting set up is relatively hassle free; the download is a fairly small 6.4mb which will take no time at all to download on a broadband connection and it’s then just a case of signing up with a user name and password. If you only ever call other Skype users you never pay a penny for the service and the software also includes features such as Instant Messaging and file transfers. Only when you want to call regular phones are you required to deposit money into your account to fund the call and the rate is 1.1p for all the most popular destinations.

The software is easy to use and the call quality is generally good although not up to the quality of a regular landline phone call but when you consider the huge saving I’m sure this is something that many people will be able to cope with. You have the option to conference call and there are security protocols in place to ensure all calls you make are kept private.

Skype can be used on pretty much any Internet connection although the quality of your calls will be far superior if you are using broadband. With broadband prices now starting around the £15 a month level there really is no reason not to make the move as I would now only recommend dial up access for those who have the very lightest Internet usage.

Give it a go by heading to www.skype.com; the worst that can happen is that you don’t get along with the idea of Voice over IP but on the flipside you could potentially save yourself a fortune!

It is very rare that BT does something to impress me but this week has been an exception. For some time now I have been worried about what were to happen if my computer were to fail; I’ve made the occasional backup onto DVD-R but apart from that I’m pretty [...]]]>

It is very rare that BT does something to impress me but this week has been an exception. For some time now I have been worried about what were to happen if my computer were to fail; I’ve made the occasional backup onto DVD-R but apart from that I’m pretty much unprotected should my computer crash, were stolen or destroyed. Backing up onto physical media such as a CD/DVD or tape has a number of drawbacks, most notably that if the physical media is kept in the same location as the computer itself then should the building be burnt down or ransacked by a burglar then you’d still be in exactly the same position as if you hadn’t have bothered making any backups at all. With three years of accounts on the machine, to say that I would be displeased if such an event were to occur would be a slight understatement.

The thought entered my head around 6 months ago that with a broadband connection I should be able to back up my files onto an online server but I was never able to find one cheap enough and easy enough to use. This morning someone informed me of BT Netbackup (www.btnetbackup.com) that starts from £3.99 per month for 300mg of space which should be more than enough for most users to back up their critical files. The principle is incredibly simple; BT has a number of servers which have an amount of space allocated to each user which you can use as your own personal backup space.

The first time you wish to make a backup you will be required to download a small piece of software and enter in a number of codes provided to you for security reasons and then this software will then log into your account so you can use your 300mg of space to backup files from your computers hard disk. Should you need to restore your backup for any reason you simply log back in to the server and download any of the files that are required. The advantages of backing up online are easy to understand; even if every computer and physical backup in Devon were destroyed you would still have your data intact on the online server should you need to get at it.

The backup program also has a number of other useful features. For example, all data is compressed when being transmitted across the Internet which reduces the amount of time the transfer takes and also the amount of your allocated space that is occupied. In addition, the software only uploads the parts of files that have actually changed; should you have a 50mg accounting package that is backed up every even, only the modified parts of this file would have to be send rather than starting the whole backup from scratch every evening. Schedules can also be set so that the software can backup specified folders at certain intervals (for example, overnight).

Another useful feature is if you are travelling and you don’t want to have to install the BT backup software you can still get access to any backed up files using a secure connection through a standard Internet browser. This could also be useful for allowing you to access home files at work and vice versa.

Of course, everything is quite secure and BT aren’t able to actually look at any of the files that you have stored in their systems so it is quite safe to backup confidential information on to them. All in all, although I’ve only been using this for around 24 hours now, I’m quite impressed and for the sake of £3.99 a month (£6.99 for the 600mg storage allowance) it could certainly save you a lot of headaches if something were to happen. For me personally, even if I don’t ever need to use the backups I would consider it money well spent just for the peace of mind aspect.