Woohoo!

Let’s just hope it’s stable :) It seems to be ok so far – way to go Mailbox!

According the BT checking thingummy I could soon have 8Mbps ADSL:

For Telephone Number xxxx on Exchange EARLS COURT

Your exchange will have Max ADSL broadband by 30th November 2005.

Our initial test on your line indicates that your line should be able to support a potential broadband line rate of 5Mbps up to 8Mbps.

The actual line rate supportable will be determined during the first 10 days of use, after which time the highest stable rate possible will be set.

How rather exciting – I get my ADSL through Mailbox Internet. Fingers crossed they’ll be offering the service at a reasonable price!

A gigabit connected 802.11g WAP with room for a huge hard drive and the ability to add more storage via USB? And all for $169? What trickery is this?!

[Originally from Engadget]

The solution to all my backup and storage needs:

1TB (RAID0) of external USB & Firewire goodness. You can get your sticky mitts on it from December for about £700. I’ll take two.

[Originally from C|NET]

Windows Sharepoint Services SP2 & Sharepoint Portal Server 2003 SP2 have been released today. You need to install WSS SP2 first and then SPS SP2 on top of that. SP2 includes the fixes from SP1 as well.

Good luck downloading them – download.microsoft.com has been dreadfully slow this side of the pond of late…

I’m really, really fed up of comment spam on my blogs now.

MT 3.2 was supposed to kill it once and for all, but it really hasn’t worked out like that. This morning I woke up to 50+ email notifications of "unapproved" (but not junked) comments.

So, I’ve enabled CAPTCHAs using the SCode plugin. If you’re using screen reading or other accessibility software, then you won’t be able to input the CAPTCHA properly, but don’t worry. Your comment won’t be lost – just drop me a mail and I’ll recover it out of the junk pile for you

As an interim release between Beta 1 & Beta 2, Build 5231 is now up on MSDN for subscribers (both 32bit & 64bit).

It contains Windows Media Player 11, a new version of IE7 and a few other bits and pieces – some more screenshots to follow tomorrow once I’ve installed it.

Little did I know that you could get a wireless xbox controller. Now I can watch stuff through XBox Media Centre and all that lovely goodness without wires.

No XBox owner should be without.

This is the little lot you need to study for an MCSE these days.

 To save you scrabbling for an Amazon search engine, it’s these:

MCSA/MCSE Windows XP Professional Study Guide (Exam 70-270)
MCSE: Windows® Server 2003 Certification Kit (Exams 70-290, 70-291, 70-293, 70-294)
MCSE Windows Server 2003 Active Directory and Network Infrastructure Design Study Guide (Exam 70-297)
MCSA/MCSE: Exchange Server 2003 Implementation and Management Study Guide (Exam 70-284)

Another nip and tuck in Office 2003 SP2; smart tags are out, "person tags" are in. These replace the outdated Windows Messenger look and feel with an Office Communicator one. Of course, it integrates with your Communicator & Live Communications Server setup as well.

New person tag showing the sender as "In a meeting".

Same old options screen, just rebranded with person tags and a new icon.