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Owned. I’ve left BT over their illegal privacy invading Phorm system. I will not have my privacy invaded to increase the bonuses of overpaid BT executives and shareholders - I suggest others do the same.

Anyway, you should expect to get around 2mbit/sec from your mobile broadband if your modem for it supports 3.6mbit rate or higher. However, I have heard complaints from some that they are getting extremely slow internet.

If your Mobile Broadband Access Program (e.g Vodafone Mobile Connect) is showing GPRS connection, then you are on the 2G standard of mobile internet access, giving you a speed similar to that of a dial up modem. GPRS is the “fallback connection”, when there is not enough signal for a relibable 3G or better connection.

Therefore, to get a faster speed, you need to get a better signal. The best way to do this is to relocate your modem. Many MBB modems now are based off USB, so you can buy an inexpensive USB Extension cable to move your modem to a better location. If indoors, try moving the modem to a windowsil. Do not put it outside at all, no matter what you wrap it in!

You can also look (in the UK) at SiteFinder, the UK’s database of Mobile Phone towers. You can then see where your local tower is and position the modem best.

Hopefully these steps will help you to get a faster speed - enjoy!

Now, I wouldn’t want it on anyway (and it’s quite bad apparently) so how could I enable it just for this customer?

The answer? .htaccess . I have always thought .htaccess as just a file that controls access, not an entire config. Adding the following line

php_flag magic_quotes_gpc on

Turns Magic Quotes on for that user. Awesome.

There is a lot more that can also be configured via the .htaccess too, such as extension handling and more. Have a look into it if you’re intested.

I’ll write more when i’ve got some spare time in which i’m not playing it…

In Prop Hunt, there are two teams, Hunters and Props. The job of the Props is to become a prop (by pressing E while looking at it) then blend in somewhere. Hunters have to find these false imposter props and kill them. However, they loose 5HP for every real prop they shoot, so make sure you know what you’re shooting. The latest update allowed props to say a series of taunts to tease those (sometimes dumb) hunters!

The map is still just cs_office as I think this has the best number of props and is small enough so that you can actually find the props (sometime).

So, if you’ve got Garrys Mod, come join the fun at 193.200.158.235:27028. If you’ve got any suggestions relating to the server, let me know.

The solution to this is to have a Secondary MX (Mail Exchanger). This is another email server that will also accept email for your domain and keep trying to forward it to your Primary MX, forever. So, when my server comes back up, the email gets sent and not lost.

For a while, i’ve been using DNS Made Easy for my Secondary DNS and MX (don’t forget a secondary DNS, otherwise they can’t find out about your Secondary MX if your Primary DNS is down!). It worked, but not very well and recently i’ve noticed that i’ve been loosing email. DNS Made Easy have no information about their service status either, you have to trust that it’s working.

So, after searching for a while, I came across RollerNet. They provide many serivces, Primary/Secondary DNS/MX etc. I got a free account with them and was amazed at their quality of service. Most importantly, they give detailed logs of your MX status, such as mail received, mail in queue and the option to force-initiate a transfer of mail to your Primary MX. On top of that, they have all the usual spam filtering using the major blacklists, so no false-positives. Unfortunately, their free account has a limit of 50 messages a day (and many spammers target the Secondary MXes) so i’m now exceeding my message limit. No harm done though, i’m really impressed by their quality of service and going to take out a proper subscription. Good job RollerNet!

First of all, from the customer side, Google Checkout is much simpler to use and offers a lot more control over payment history. We’ve had a few customers who have had a bad experience with PayPal and refused to use it. However, unlike PayPal, Google Checkout can only accept a Credit/Debit card as a funding source, so you can’t pay using existing funds or a bank account. However, we found that most people used a Credit or Debit card anyway.

On our side however, it’s even better. While we have to hand-process each order (charging the card etc) the way is done is very good. Plus, we also get a lot more control over the order and like it is for the user side, the history is excellent. There is also the added benefit of having the Google Checkout badge on your AdSense results, which helps make your ad stand out.

One major factor that many might consider is fees. PayPal’s base rate is 0.25p + 4%. This can quickly mount up, with a £24 payment having over £1 in fees, and if you have micropayments it gets even worse. Google Checkout however has 0.15p + 1.5%, faw lower. It doesn’t stop there however, if you advertise using their AdWords service you get £10 worth of sales processed for free for every £1 in advertising you spend. So say you spend £10 on AdWords a month, that gives you £100 of sales processed for free (note: not £100 worth of fees). So the savings are even greater! (More lower prices I can pass on to users)

Perhaps the most interesting bit for us however is that payments are initated to our bank account daily. Unlike PayPal, where you have to get £50 first before you can withdraw. That’s upto £50 that you are not earning interest on and is completely under PayPal’s control.

I will however keep offering PayPal, while Google Checkout is far better when you compare it it has the disadvantage of being unfamiliar to users and not supporting Bank Account funding, so as not to alienate parts of my userbase i’m running both but reccomending Google Checkout.

Update: Got an email the other day from Google saying that I didn’t qualify to have the Google Checkout badge on my AdWords adverts. Apparently, they couldn’t find the badge, so they must just quickly check through. I emailed them back and they checked again and found it (you have to fill out an order form). While the AdWords badge isn’t particually important, it helps you stand out from competitors.

This tutorial is aimed at Windows users, those that use other operating systems will probably be able to follow these instructions with a bit of alteration.

First thing is to select your FTP client, which enables you to connect to the FTP server. While most operating systems have one, it’s quite lacking - it works but you’re going to have fun getting it to do that. Therefore, I recommend FileZilla, a free FTP client that works on most operating systems (Windows / Mac / Linux). I use FileZilla and hence it’s going to be the basis of this tutorial. Download it here. I’m going to assume you know how to use an installer.

Once installed, simply run FileZilla. On Windows, you will find it in Start > All Programs > FileZilla FTP Client > FileZilla. You should then be presented with the following screen;

Lets go over the basic functionality of this screen. The boxes at the top that read “Host”, “Username”, “Password” and “Port” are where you enter the details of the FTP server you want to connect to, then click QuickConnect to connect to it.

The currently empty box under this will show you the status of the FTP, the messages it shows might not be understandable by you, but if you’re having problems with your FTP, the host will need to see this to help with your problem.

The box on the left shows your local files, on your computer. When connected, the box on the right will show the contents of the remote server.

Finally, the box at the bottom will show you the progress of your transfers, if you have any.

So, enter in the FTP information that your host gave you and click quickconnect. You can leave the port box blank unless your host has told you to use a port other than 21.

So, you’ve now connected, the box on the right is now filled with the contents of the remote server, if you’ve just got FTP access there might not be anything there - hence you have to upload files. The screenshot above shows me connecting to the FTP site for this blog, hence all the blog files are seen on the right side.

Now, I want to upload a picture, so I simply browse to the location of the picture on my computer on the left and drag the file I want to transfer over to the remote site on the right. Now at the bottom you can see that there is a progress bar showing how the transfer is going, along with an estimated time. If you transfer multiple files, then you will see multiple file transfers reported.

It is that simple, and the process can work in reverse too, you can copy files from remote to local. FileZilla has many other features too, such as detecting when a local file is changed and prompts you to upload it. No matter what your needs, FileZilla can probably fufill them, plus it’s free!

I highly recommend FileZilla over any other solution, while others might have better features such as Synchronisation, they are not exactly free. If you’re currently using your operating system’s inbuilt FTP or another client which isn’t working for you, get FileZilla now.

Or not. It is possible to make money from PTC, and i’ll go into that later. However, for the most part, you’ll be earning small cash and wasting a lot of time. Mostly, there is a minimum view time requirement and you have to enter spambot-style picture codes to prove that you’re not a robot. At best, you’ll be earning $10 a month for a couple of hours work, even burger flippers earn more!

There are 2 ways to make money in PTC, the secret being to get someone else to do the work for you, i’m talking about referrals. Almost every PTC scheme has a referral program, you get a percentage of your referral’s earnings, and some even go down several levels. So, you can potentially earn money for doing nothing, get a few referrals and let them click away, and encourage them in turn to refer users. Now, this isn’t simple, but there are systems out there to help you. Forums such as Get Paid Forum have threads where you join using the referrer’s address above you, then post your own and people sign up under you and so on, this is a great way to start building your referral tree. From then on, it’s your own responsibility to get people to sign up under you, think of a few innovative ways to get people to do things for you.

Personally, I gave up on PTC, building a referral tree isn’t easy and while I was getting paid, it was peanuts, especially when those referrals under me also gave up and the money stopped coming in. Sure, I could have got more, but it was more work than I was prepared to do. I might retry it though, talking to this person has made me think about trying PTC again and test a few ideas i’ve got floating around to get lots of referrals.

There is however one “get paid for doing nothing on the internet” scheme that’s done well for me, and also has a minimum of effort. It’s the Gomez Peer, the concept is that you get paid for running a program on your computer. If the alarm bells are ringing at this point, turn them off. It’s not spyware, adware nor does it impact your system performance. The company that makes Gomez Peer, Gomez, are a large website testing service. They test the websites of big companies such as Microsoft, Google etc to see how they perform from many different internet connection types all over the world. While Gomez could buy computers and situate them around the world, it makes much more sense for them to get real people to do this and give them a little bit of money, Gomez saves money and people earn some, not bad I say.

So, if you want to try it out, click here to sign up. Once you’ve signed up, you’ll be asked to download the program, it’s 20mb. Once installed, it will start testing websites. You will not earn money until Gomez “approves” your account. This takes around 1-2 weeks, they use this period to see how committed you are going to be, they see how long your PC is on and when and if it matches their ideals, you’ll be accepted and start getting paid. I get paid around $10 per month just for running the program, plus in June they are going to start paying people 60% more - excellent. You can install the program on multiple programs to help increase your earnings.

So, if you want to make money for nothing, I strongly recommend the Gomez Peer. It might take time for them to approve your account, but they’ve always paid me on time and the right amount, plus i’ve done no work to earn it! Not bad at all I say. Also, they have quite a few methods of paying you, including PayPal.

And if you want proof, have a look below. This is screenshot form the account section of Gomez. As you can see, so far i’ve got $56.41 out of them, for doing nothing. I’d also post the PayPal payment as proof, but I can’t find it, next time I get paid I will update this post with the proof.

Gomez Peer Lifetime Earnings

(Oh, all the links in this post are referral links in case you didn’t notice. If you sign up for Gomez Peer and get accepted, I get $1. If you don’t want to give me this (doesn’t cost you anything remember) then simply remove the referrer bit from the URL)

Normally, CSRSS uses less than 1% of total CPU, and Hardware Interrupts only uses a lot of CPU if there is a problem (such as your disk drive being put into PIO mode). I adjusted the affinity of CSRSS so that it only used one core, and all of the hardware interrupts also happened then on that core. CSRSS was defiantly at fault here.

A quick bit of Googling lead me to MS KB 934330. This describes an instance where CSRSS uses more than 50% of CPU resources when connected via remote desktop, which is the problem I was experiencing (i’m assuming they are using just the 1 core). While there is no official patch, they have a hotfix available, and recently Microsoft have started being a bit more generous with Hotfixes, you don’t have to contact support any more - just get it sent straight to your email.

I applied the hotfix, rebooted and the problem had gone away - no more CSRSS using lots of CPU. If you also have this problem i’d reccomend applying the hotfix rather than let CSRSS waste your CPU cycles.

Oh, if you’re wondering how I viewed Hardware Interrupt CPU usage, I use Process Explorer - an excellent replacement for task manager, showing CPU to 2 decimal places, and lots of other handy features. Plus it’s regularly updated and free.