After almost 3 months without, I once again have the internet. In other news I also bought myself an xbox 360 as a present!
I’ll try to post more here another time, but for now I’m going to bed.
This is slightly old news now, but Virgin Media have started capping broadband speeds during peak times. If you go over the limit (which varies depending on package) between 4pm and midnight then you’ll have your download capactity at least halved, with upload similarly crippled.
I’m on their 4Mb service, which means that if I download over 750MB between those times, my download is halved to 2Mb and upload set to 192Kb for four hours. What’s annoying is that the four hours doesn’t end at midnight, so if you hit the limit at 11:55PM, you’ll be capped until 3:55AM. What annoys me about this scenario is that it isn’t so much a means of traffic management, more a punishment for exceeding their limits.
A further annoyance is that it doesnt take into account how much you use on other days. I am almost certainly within what they’d consider to be the top 5% for usage, however if I was just using the service one night to download a large file, and merely checking my email on other occasions, then I would be at a disadvantage because of this.
I suppose ultimately it doesn’t matter - nothing I download is of that great an importance that I need it instantly. I just found it frustrating that my download speed halved last night while downloading stuff from their newsgroups.
Continue reading ‘Virgin Media Broadband Speed Caps’
I’ve been using WordPress for a couple of years, and have intended to learn how to make plugins properly for just about as long. I’m not quite there yet though, since whenever anything comes along which requires some form of thought and understanding, I convince myself that it doesn’t really need to be done at all and discard the idea. I can, however, spend 10 minutes editing a few php files and that’s what this hack involves. In the coming days and weeks, I intend to have a real attempt at making a WordPress plugin properly, so I’ll try to make a couple of simple ones and see if it is possible to implement the below hack as a plugin.
When someone registers on a WordPress site, they ordinarily have to enter a username and e-mail address, then WordPress generates a password and e-mails it to them. This hack allows the user to choose their own password when they register, rather than changing it later. Of course, this means that they don’t have to give a valid e-mail address anymore, since they needed one to receive their password. In addition, some may argue that letting users choose their own password is a security flaw, but if they can change their password anyway then I don’t see how that is so different, and it doesn’t really concern me anyway since I’m the only one who will have access to post on this blog.
When I wanted to do this, I Googled but all I found was an out of date file following from a discussion on the WordPress forums. My attempt involves editing wp-login.php directly, basically copying lines from some other files which dealt with the user changing their password. Since this involves editing a core WordPress file, it is probably not a good idea and could cause problems, but it does the job for me. Also, whenever you upgrade WordPress, wp-login.php will be overwritten, and you’ll have to make the changes again. The changes described are for WordPress 2.2.
Continue reading ‘WordPress Hack: Users Choose Their Own Password’
Since I’ve been using BitTorrent for years, and usually play nice by seeding fully, I’ve got a few invites to some of the sites I use. If anyone wants an invite for any of these sites then let me know (either comment, msn or email):
- Underground-Gamer (5) - Retro games, up to and including the PSX.
- Oink (0) - The best site in the world for music.
- Demonoid (?) - Lots of stuff.
Just now they’re going unused, so anyone that won’t get me banned is welcome to one. Anyone who has previously been banned on any of these sites need not apply. I also have invites to an e-learning torrent site, which I best not name, available to people I know and two invites to Joost (the TV thing from the people behind Skype) if anyone wants one of those.
Update: If I don’t know you, then please also tell me how you found this post, and give me a link to a screenshot of a site where you have a decent ratio or, failing that, a screenshot of your total upload/download stats in your torrent client.
In other news, Strung Out are playing King Tuts on June 28th. I would very much like to go to this.
I decided to install WordPress, add a pretty theme and try this whole blog thing again. I’m not sure how long that will last this time.
My plan is just to occasionally post stuff that amuses me, rather than anything actually about me. That doesn’t actually matter though, since no one will read it anyway.
