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Some time ago now I mentioned that I was leaving Tiscali’s awful broadband service behind and joining Plus.Net on a 90-day trial instead and at that time I promised to give my thoughts on my new ISP after a few weeks. Well I’m coming to the end of my second full month with Plus.Net so figured my review was overdue (and I know people are dying to find out what I think of Plus.Net).

Summary
Speed: “Up to” 8Mb/s
Usage: 8GB 15GB (plus unlimited usage from 00:00 to 08:00 every day)

Plus.Net and their Service

Overall I’m quite pleased with the service. The first month went off swimmingly; my broadband speed ended up somewhere around 6,000 kb/s download and 375kb/s upload according to SpeedTest.net. My ADSL modem says it’s synced at about 8,000KB/s so everything’s looking good. I’ve been pleased with the speeds, haven’t noticed any service interruptions and billing seems to have been hassle-free.

Overall I like the company too. I like the reassurance I get from knowing I can contact them without using a rip-off 0870/0871 number like Tiscali’s if I can’t quickly resolve any matter that might arise by using their forums. I also like the fact that they don’t use scummy Tiscali/BT-type marketing of “From £4.99 a month” with tiny small-print hidden away somewhere informing you that that only applies to the first 3 months of an 18-month contract!

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I’ve just upgraded a Wordpress blog to the latest version 2.3.2 and when I went to write a new post I realised all my categories had disappeared. They were still in the database but the list to the right of where you type your posts was empty. As well as this, I noticed that adding new comments was giving a 404 error in the middle of the page. This second issue was reminiscent of another one I had (and solved) upgrading to 2.2 – the errors were actually 403 errors, but redirecting to 404 error pages because there was no 403 error page defined (i.e. the 404 was happening when the server looked for the 403 page).

I noticed a file called error_log (no extension) in the wp-admin directory and had a look. Apparently some database tables (‘wp_term_taxonomy’ and ‘.wp_terms’) were missing. After reading this support thread I investigated the possibility that my database was out of date. I followed MichaelH’s suggestion of navigating to /wp-admin/upgrade.php, which informed me that my database was up to date. I didn’t believe this to be true though; certainly not after learning that tables were missing. At a hunch, I guessed that when I’d been upgrading through Fantastico, I must have run out of space (a semi-regular occurrence) so the database upgrade was probably left half finished. Assuming that Wordpress would determine whether or not I needed to upgrade based on a single configuration or database field I soon found the wp_option.db_version field, which was set 6124.

The Solution

As I suspected, 6124 is the db_version value for Wordpress 2.3. I changed this field’s value back from 6124 to 5183 (the db_version value in Wordpress 2.2) and hit the upgrade.php page again. This time it told me to upgrade, I did, and the categories are back.  Adding new categories still caused 403 and 404 errors, but that was because I’d deleted the .htaccess file created previously when trying to fix the first problem! Recreate that and we’re cooking with gas again.

With all the furore over Manhunt and the subsequent UK ban of Manhunt 2, I got very interested in having a crack at the original Manhunt on PS2 (also available on XBox and PC). When I signed up for a trial with LoveFilm.com it seemed like an obvious candidate to rent.

Unfortunately I was very disappointed. The “gruesome” graphics aren’t that realistic looking (certainly compared to the standards of graphics in some other games) and the game gets very repetitive very quickly as you roam from one fenced in location to another, sneaking up behind bad guys and smashing them with a baseball bat or whatever one of the limited weapons you have.

Not only that, but it the lead character isn’t one I found it easy to identify with; there didn’t seem to be enough plot. Basically you’re spared from execution by a bit of cloak and dagger, but the guy who sneaked you out lets you loose in a yard populated by violent gangs, whom you’re directed to kill in order to escape. The point being that he intends to film the violence and release a snuff film. Unfortunately the series of yards seems endless and repetitive – and I only played about half a dozen levels!

Unfortunately the average graphics, poor game play and absence of much plot makes this a rather boring play. I only kept it for about a week and sent it back, so I’ve switched to Metal Gear Solid 2 instead.

This is my message: Avoid paying for things using PayPal or Google Checkout.  It’s always a good idea to pay for anything you buy online by credit card, so you get protection under the Consumer Credit Act if anything goes wrong.

I won’t pretend to like ebay (owners of PayPal) but I do have a soft spot for Google. Nevertheless, there are very good reasons why you should avoid using Google Checkout and even more to avoid using PayPal.

The main one is that they are middle-men, adding another layer of complexity to your transaction. For an example, look at dabs.com, now owned by BT (and with the poor customer service you’d expect of a BT company),  or ebuyer.com, online computer & electronics retailers . They both accept payment via PayPal, Google Checkout and their own checkout.

When you pay directly by credit card (ie using the company’s own checkout) the company requests the money from whoever handles their credit card payments, who request it from your bank.

When you pay by PayPal, PayPal request the money from whoever handles their credit card payments, who request it from your bank and then pass it on to the retailer. This has 2 implications; it could lead to higher prices in the long term, and it’s riskier for you in the immediate term.

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Shareaza, a popular file-sharing application that allows users to access Gnutella, Gnutella 2, ED2K (eDonkey) and BitTorrent networks has been hijacked by a company aiming to spread malware throughout the internet. The Shareaza.com site had been down since 22nd October 2007, however since 20th December, the domain has been hosting a scam site. Straight away you can tell something fishy is going on by the copyright notice on Shareaza.com:

© 1999-2008 Discordia Ltd. All rights reserved. See our Privacy Policy & License Agreement.

Users should be aware that Shareaza was always an open-source community project and so no company should have copyright to the web site and certainly “all rights reserved” looks out of place. Worst of all, the bastards changed the flag on the English language icon from a Union Jack to an American flag!

Shareaza Client Compromised – ShareazaV4.exe

It’s not just the web site that’s been compromised though. Somehow this Discordia crowd, who may (or may not) be a front for the French equivalent of the RIAA, have managed to use their ownership of the Shareaza.com domain to manipulate the update notification feature of Shareaza so that on opening the client users of Shareaza 2.3.0.0 and below are advised that a new version has been released and given the option to upgrade to version 4. Cleverly the message advises users to check the hijacked Shareaza.com site for further information. This version 4 (ShareazaV4.exe) is not a new version of Shareaza and should not be downloaded under any circumstances. Instead, users should upgrade to 2.3.0.1 from the real Shareaza site on Sourceforge (the filename is Shareaza_2.3.1.0_Win32.exe, though a x64 version is also available on the project site). This new version eliminates the aforementioned upgrade notice.

the software on offer from the hijacked site although labeled “ShareazaV4.exe”, is not Shareaza at all but likely a clone of the new malware infested iMesh/Bearshare client and should not be downloaded under any circumstances. Once installed, the software wants to install a search bar and make contact with a central server.
“Wildcard”

Breaking the Law

It turns out the owner of the Shareaza.com domain sold it to New York-based Discordia ltd who are using it to promote a file-sharing application that installs all sorts of other applications (including third-party ones) on an infected system. There have been claims that the Discordia software hosted at Shareaza.com is illegal and breaks the terms of the GPL, the licence under which genuine versions of Shareaza are released, as well as violating the United States’ Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

Hopefully the Shareaza community can win their legal challenge, however they are loose-knit and may find it difficult to organise. Initially I wondered if they should give up and rebrand altogether, possibly the path of least resistance. Doing that, however, would not only be allowing the vermin at Discordia to walk all over them, but it could also leave them open to the same action again. Incidentally, Discordia is the Roman goddess of strife. I’m sure that’s not a coincidence.

I just hope this post helps spread the word. See also the forum discussions by Shareaza users on the Shareaza.com Takeover over at ShareazaSecurity.be.

On Wednesday 12th December I placed an order with OddsNPods.co.uk, whom I’d come across during a price comparison using Google. That was my first mistake. The item was a Christmas present for my girlfriend and I believed that by ordering almost 2 weeks before Christmas I was giving them plenty of time to dispatch before the last posting date (they say they post at the latest the end of the next working day).

By Friday I was starting to get worried that my order was still “Awaiting Dispatch” so sent a message via their contact form (ticking the “Urgent” box). On Monday morning still nothing so I called the number on their web site to be greeted by a foreign-sounding lady.

“Hello?” she said. Puzzled by the lack of a company-branded welcome, I went on to say I was calling about an order that hadn’t been dispatched to find out what was going on.

“What company are you calling?” she asked.

Getting suspicious now I asked her “What company is this?”

“I can’t tell you that information.”

WHAT?! Alarm bells were ringing now. I asked if this was OddsNPods and she said “No, it’s a different company,” although it didn’t sound like a company at all.

A quick google search revealed that OddsNPods were related to DataKits.co.uk, a company with whom some people had previously had problems (despite a supposedly good rating on Kelkoo). The WHOIS for OddsNPods revealed they were indeed part of DataKits but had hidden their phone number from the whois results because “The registrant is a non-trading individual who has opted to have their address omitted from the WHOIS service.”

I fired off an email to their email address (bypassing the online form this time), telling them if I’d heard nothing by the end of today I’d be taking matters up with my credit-card company, and then fired another email off to Nominet telling them to update their WHOIS entry (they’ve since done this and now show the address of OddsNPods.co.uk as: 9 Frensham Road, Southsea, Hampshire, PO4 8AD, which seems to be a residential address to me).

As of11:53 their web site seems to be down.

Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket ‘/var/tmp/mysql.sock’ (11) in /home/oddsnpod/public_html/includes/functions/database.php on line 19
Unable to connect to database server!

Not reassuring!

Anyway, come Tuesday afternoon (pretty much a week after I placed the order) I finally heard back and they asked if I still wanted it. I said if they could send it out first class the following day to go ahead with the order and they did. It arrived on Friday, safely in time for Christmas. It seems it’s not a scam after all but this “company” has serious customer service issues. Despite their good prices I’d think twice.

I was treated to a Buffalo Linktheater Wireless A & G (that’s the version with no DVD player, I think that was a US-only thing) media streamer by my wonderful girlfriend for Christmas. I’ll post a review (hopefully) in the near future, but first I need to get it set up properly. I successfully streamed some video files to it while at my parents’ house for Christmas week. I finally got round to setting it up in my own house tonight to discover a few kinks.

I have been using Windows Media Player 11 (as it’s already built in to Vista, it’s also a free download for XP) as the server to stream from. The problem is that when I tried to browse a particular folder the Linktheater seems to freeze for a while before opening it, and then showing it as empty. When I checked my PC an error message had appeared informing me that “Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service has stopped working”. On clicking “search online” for more information Windows informed me that:

This problem was caused by DivX Codec. DivX Codec was created by DivX, Inc..
DivX, Inc. is aware of this problem and working as quickly as possible to make a solution available.

The Application Event Log contains an entry for each crash with Event ID 1000 and Task Category 100 and a description something along the lines of:

Faulting application wmpnetwk.exe, version 11.0.6000.6324, time stamp 0×4549b540, faulting module divxdec.ax, version 6.8.0.0, time stamp 0×47547cff, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0×0005c021, process id 0xe1c, application start time 0×01c84be4834cb5f8.

which doesn’t really help much.

Workaround

I split the folder in two, and one of the new ones worked fine. I continued like this until I had narrowed the culprit down to be one of two files. However at this stage the folders all displayed their contents fine, including the one containing only the suspects. Now they just wouldn’t play.

After a lot of moving files and much more crashing and restarting of the Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service, I narrowed the culprit down to a particular video file. I’m not sure what the problem was as it had worked fine when streamed from an XP computer also using Windows Media Player 11; in fact it was watched start to finish without any problems. It may be an issue specific to Vista or the DivX 6.8 codec, either way I’m happy it’s sorted.

If anyone finds out any more about the cause of this kind of problem or a quicker solution, please do let me know. Meanwhile I hope the above helps someone. Oh and the Buffalo Linktheater Wireless A & G is available from Dabs for about £95.