Author Archive: Callam McMillan

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On the search for better internet. Part 1

08/04/2012 0 Comments

Let me answer a couple of questions about the internet. Is the internet a human right? No. Should it be? Not really. Would I become a raving lunatic if the internet was taken away from me? Probably! The reason I say this is that I have had enough of ADSL, it’s crap and that is putting it mildly. We have two ADSL lines coming into the house. Measurements taken at 1240 on a Sunday afternoon reveal that the main BT Business broadband connection manages a pathetic 3.15Mbps down and 0.38Mbps up with a 19ms ping through a Cisco 1841 router….
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IT, Personal

Want a high-performance workstation? Step away from the Mac Pro

01/04/2012 0 Comments

The other day I was engaging in a spot of Apple bashing with some fellow IT professionals and our thoughts turned to the subject of full sized performance workstations, namely the Mac Pro. We agreed that they are generally stupid, they use old technology and overcharge massively for the privilege. I decided to prove this by doing a rather unscientific but simple exercise. As part of this exercise I have built two Mac Pro systems, a mid-range model and a high end model. I am then going to build a PC equivalent of the Mac model on specification in order…
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IT

Why Linux and LibreOffice suck!

01/04/2012 8 Comments

Having written articles on small issues such as politics and religion, I now feel ready to once again stick my boot into a much larger topic. Why Linux is a steaming pile of Cow Turd! First, I will explain, the article you should have been reading at this very moment is about those who aim to disrupt the Olympics, but thanks to Linux and the LibreOffice suite, you get this instead. It started with me writing an article on my fully updated Ubuntu 11.04 powered netbook, having written most of the article the previous evening I decided to finish it…
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IT

Back to school: The start of 6.002x

06/03/2012 0 Comments

As I mentioned a couple of weeks back, I signed up for a free online self-study course in Circuits and Electronics, run by MIT under the MITx programme. Today the course started and I wish to say one thing should my Electronics teachers ever see this (David Brooker or Paul Abbot) half of what the course covers I have never seen before. When it comes to pure maths, my skills are pretty week, fortunately Google has been able to help me answer some of the questions, which so far concern looking at discrete abstractions based on the V-I relationship. From…
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Personal, Random

Your Search Queries 20/02/2012 – 26/02/2012

01/03/2012 0 Comments

One of the great things about Google Analytics is the vast wealth of information it makes available to me. I can see for instance what search queries I am getting listed for, and some of them I can give a simple answer for, so here goes! Last week you searched for: 2nd Week: 01234 765093 / Computer virus phone scams See my article here 2nd Week: Raspberry Pi <something> Finally, some news, they have released the model B which is available to pre-order from RS and Farnell depending on where you live with deliveries starting soon. Also, the model A…
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Your Search Queries 13/02/2012 – 19/02/2012

22/02/2012 0 Comments

One of the great things about Google Analytics is the vast wealth of information it makes available to me. I can see for instance what search queries I am getting listed for, and some of them I can give a simple answer for, so here goes! Last week you searched for: 01234 765093 / Computer virus phone scams STOP! It’s a scammers phone number. They will call you up claiming to be from Microsoft or someone, they’ll con you into installing a back door for them to get onto your system before compromising it and holding it to ransom –…
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Updated: MIT to launch free online study courses

14/02/2012 0 Comments

According to the BBC, next month, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) will begin offering a free online course in 6.002x: Circuits and Electronics through its fully automated MITx programme. From the looks of it, it’ll be free to join from anywhere in the world, and those that complete it successfully will receive a certificate, while MIT students can complete the course as part of their degree. Apparently there are plans to offer more courses in a wide range of subjects once this initial trial has completed. They say that there are no formal entry requirements for the course other than…
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Personal, Random

Fail: Telephone “Computer Virus” Scam

09/02/2012 2 Comments

The other day I received a phone call from 01234 765093. If you get a call from them, unless you have experience with computers and you fancy wasting their time, then you should ignore them and under no circumstances do what they suggest. Failure to heed this advice is likely to lead to your computer being held ransom pending payment of a large amount of money. Others have reported this as being close to £200 GBP. First you will get a phone call, claiming to be from somebody like Microsoft, or another big company. Lets get one thing straight, they…
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Security

Fail: Action Pad Advert

01/02/2012 1 Comment

When I was in Taiwan, I saw this advert for an Android Tablet and was so amazed by the tastelessness of it that I burst out laughing. Of course the tablet is going to be rubbish, but I like it for their advertising campaign featuring Steve Job’s angel! So here it is on YouTube. What can you say except bizarre?

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Products, Random

HowTo: Secure a Cisco Router

26/12/2011 0 Comments

With a normal Home / Small Office type router, once you have got it connected, you set a password to log into the web interface and that’s about it for security. But what about with a Cisco Router. This guide covers how to protect a router from unauthorised modification or access to the settings. What it does not cover is securing the connections, which is a topic for another guide. This guide assumes that you are running a fairly current router and IOS and that it supports encryption. On my desk, I have a little Netgear router that I got…
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Networking, Security