Hi,
We will be at Internet World this Thursday 3rd May. Not exhibiting, but taking a look a look around at what’s hot. There will be Duncan, Andy, Rich, and Darren - if anyone wants to meet up, just send an email to duncan@eurofasthost.com and we’ll catch up. And, because it’s such a long way from Yorkshire, we’ll be staying over on Thursday night and enjoying a night on the town 
Duncan
For some reason my laptop (Advent 7093) recently stopped working. After some investigation it appeared that it would only boot up if just one of the SODIMMs was installed. With two, it wouldn’t boot at all. Bit odd, but there you go.
The laptop came with two 512MB SODIMMs so with only one, it was trying to run Vista Business with just 512MB ram, and it was painful to say the least… so bad it was practically unusable, It improved slightly after running the system optimiser to get a new “Windows Experience Index”. But still, it wasn’t really useable without a lot of patience.
So, I got a new 1GB SODIMM and installed that, and it’s back to being a pleasure to use. But it seems 1GB is the minimum to get decent performance from Vista.
Given my recent phone bill (following the trip to Tenerife) I thought it would be worth calling T-Mobile to see if I could get a phone upgrade (despite it being less than 12 months since the last one). The answer was yes, and I could have pretty much any phone.
So, despite having the MDA Vario Pro (and being very happy with it, especially the Push E-mail, which is fantastic), I ordered a Nokia N95.
My main requirement for a phone is for email - I am really not bothered by playing MP3s, videos etc. I also liked the idea of the built in sat-nav. And, I also liked the idea of the 5MP camera - I know I wont really use it, but its nice to think I might. And of course the high speed 3g (HSDPA) is great when using the phone for internet access on the laptop as I do quite regularly.
So how is it? Well, physically its great - a nice size, and the sliding front reveals a decent keypad (which makes a change from the touch-screen of the MDA). The keys are easy to use, and as usual with Nokias, fairly intuitive. It does however feel a little flimsy, and the front is liable to slide open when being placed into a pocket.
The camera is great, and takes really good pictures. I don’t really use this facility much, but it’s nice to have and I may well use it more frequently now I always have a decent camera with me. Haven’t used the video camera facility since there isn’t enough storage space in the phone memory. I need to get a memory card for it (since Nokia doesn’t supply one in the box), then I’ll have a play.
The built in GPS is nice - looks a bit like Google Earth, but you need to pay (about £40 iirc) to get full voice navigation instructions. This can all be done from the handset with a credit card. I used the navigation in earnest for the first time a couple of days ago to find a location in Leeds. So I programmed it in South Cave and it quickly planned a route. In the car, the front was slid open to activate the GPS, and this took a few minutes before it found the satellites (although it was low down in the car, since I don’t have a cradle yet). It all worked really well until the M1 into Leeds when the phone decided to reboot for no apparent reason). There was nowhere to pull over, so by the time the phone had re-booted, opened the navigation software, re-found the satellites etc, I was well into Leeds and improvising on the route until the phone was back up to speed. That said, once it was running the navigation was easy to follow and worked a treat. And, the speakers on the Nokia N95 are first class - how they get such good quality sound out of such small speakers is a wonder.
The only real problem I have with it, is the very slow email access. I have setup an IMAP account, and when logging on to retrieve headers, it is *very* slow. It can take a couple of minutes just to download and display the headers. I have no idea why this is, but I hope a firmware update improves it. I also tried getting the phone to stay connected permanently so there is no need to logon for headers. This works, but it makes the otherwise excellent battery life very short.
Given that email is one of the main uses for my phone, it’s a bit disappointing, but at least it does work and you can send and receive emails. But, I was spoiled by the superb push email on the MDA Pro.
So, do I revert to the MDA Pro or stick with the Nokia N95? I’m not sure yet, but I’ll give the Nokia a few more days to see. It’s certainly much better as a phone, much more compact, and has better battery life. Nokia says its what computers have become, but it will be some time yet before the mobile comes close to PC functionality.
I was recently lucky enough to have a few days in Tenerife enjoying some pre-summer sunshine. As always, I took the laptop and mobile so I can stay in touch whilst away.
The setup was the latptop connecting via bluetooth to the phone, then using 3g to access the internet. As usual, this was no problem and all worked quite well. Can even VPN and connect to Exchange server, so it’s just like being in the office really.
But the big problem is cost. I already knew it was going to be £8 per MB - an extortionate amount, but needs must and if you’re careful, it shouldnt cost too much for a few days. So, I made sure not to download any large attachments, and keep web browsing to the essentials.
When I got back to the UK and my next phone bill arrived, I was a little shocked to see it was £1051! Now, I was sure I hadn’t downloaded as much as that.
But, I didn’t take Vista into account. I stupidly went to bed one night and left the laptop with the screen up (ie not in standby mode) and bluetooth enabled on the phone. And Vista decided it was the time to download an update of about 131MB… all over bluetooth / 3g and at £8 per MB 
So, the phone bill was more than the entire trip to Tenerife. The moral of the story is…. Switch off the laptop and bluetooth!
Due to the very high levels of spam entering our network, we are now refusing to accept mail from remote hosts that do not have a reverse DNS entry. This cuts out a huge amount of spam from hitting our newtork and follows common accepted internet practise. This should not cause any problem to the vast majority of customers, but please let us know if you regularly receive email from a host with no reverse DNS entry.
In this scenario, the best option is to educate the sender into obtaining reverse DNS since their emails will be bouncing from other hosts. However, in exception cicrumstances we can allow particular hosts to send email without reverse DNS - this is done on a case by case basis.
Thanks,
Duncan
Hi,
Further to previous emails sent out to dedicated server customers, we have now implemented the new firewall and access rules. If you find you are unable to access your server via Terminal Services, or cannot access a SQL server via Enterprise Manager, please contact us so that your IP address can be added to the access list.
Thanks.
Duncan