Warning, this post might have turned in to a bit of a BT rant. ;-)

If you have been to a “geek” event that had flaky wifi and I was present you may well know about “ClosedZone”. It is a small and portable wifi access point I have been taking with me that shares any wired, wifi, or 3G connectivity we can get.

Well, last weekend a sad thing happened. The access point (a Linksys WRT64GC) failed completely. Like most Linksys equipment the AP worked very very well, but at BarCampNorthEast3 the PSU died (also like most Linksys equipment I have ever owned). The replacement PSUs are comparatively costly are cumbersome so this might well be the end of ClosedZone as we know it.

Now the ranting… The history of ClosedZone name all started with bit of a BT OpenZone cock-up at BarCampLondon2. This was held at BT HQ in London. You would have thought that a large telecommunications company would have been able to supply a good guest wifi service in the HQ, but sadly not. The wifi was a set of OpenZone hotspots and a nightmare, and when we got a good connection we only had access to OpenZone for 24 hours of the 2 day event without paying. There second PR fail of the event.

Then BT installed the wifi at Hackday London 2007. This was a large community coding event where access to the Internet was essential, and it just did not work. The venue was wired for OpenZone and for the first day it was as good as dead. We were given many reasons for this, but at least one of them was just rubbish. The second day was better once connected, but getting on was unreliable to the extreme.

Now a year passes and we end up at the same venue as Hackday London 2007 for Mashed. In fairness the wifi did work this time, mostly. The one big problem is that many of the 24 hour passes finishing early, including mine, and we could only use one device each. This is when ClosedZone was fist used in anger.

Since then it has been used on many occasions coping with wifi that either did just not work, did not work well, or was secured beyond practical usability.

I perhaps should also mention the UK Maker Faire 2010 where we stupidly did not bring ClosedZone with us. Extra connectivity was installed by BT for the event and they succeeded in completely screwing the events wifi, and the venues normal wifi. This ended in a Twitter campaign to @btcare (who will not follow me for some reason) to try and get something done as BT were essentially not answering the phone. You should know when you need a twitter campaign (including directors of a leading UK science centre) is needed to lodge an urgent support call you have a problem.

We also had our problems at BarCampNorthEast3 with the same wifi at the same venue, but this is one of the times I can not really blame BT. We installed our backup ClosedZone system quickly, but within hours the lights went out and it was no more. :-(

So lets all have two seconds of silence for ClosedZone. You served us well.

Now some good news. First I am going to stop ranting about BT for a few minutes. They have some good people working for them now and I feel when the people stopping progress retire it will have a much better future. Second I have invested in some new wifi access points supporting MIMO and can create one large virtual network for simultaneously serving over 250 devices. If you need a smallish geek event networking then they are available. Finally, if you know where I can get a small 3.3V 2A UK power adapter as a sensible cost then let me know so ClosedZone can live again.

The answer is simple. They will not let me.

As you know I like to take photographs. Some are what you might call “Artistic” and others are more of a documentation of history. Personally I love looking at old images form when I was younger, or of places before I knew them in the past. Because of this I take pictures of the here and now for people to look back on in the future.

As the an Apple store opening is something that draws the crowds I thought this was something I should look at capturing on (virtual) film. Before I did this I emailed Apple and asked if there was a problem with me doing this out of politeness.

Sadly Apple responded stating that they have a policy of no photography in the stores and would not be able to mane an exception for the launch. They did say that if I queued up and only took a couple of pictures then there “shouldn’t be a problem”. Not overly happy with being told that I am not allowed to take a picture, but almost saying that I could get away with taking a couple, I pushed for a definitive Yes or No. I was not surprised to get back a polite No.

In the end I decided not bother going down to capture the day and I suspect there will be plenty of pictures taken by camera phones. Most of the phones were probably iPhones so the image quality will be low and the pictures out of focus, but at least we have some records of the day. :-P

So, I have had my rant, and Apple have dropped a long way in my estimation of customer relations. In the interests of neutrality I feel it important to point out I did not ask for permission to photograph inside the Sony Shop, but Ikea have said yes (and that is bizarrely true).

I was writing a long post about Freecycle and where it is going in the UK at the moment, but then realised the guardian had already written what I was going to say.

All I want to add is that I have always like the concept of Freecycle and am on the whole pleased it exists, but have always been disappointed by the heavy handed approach dictated by the central organisation. I find the way they threaten legal action against people using the word Freecycle for exchanges not moderated by them disgraceful. Lets hope that the now independent truly community driven versions are a success.

Update: The UK Freecycle groups that have left Freecycle, that to me looks like most of them, have now got together and branded themselves Freegle.

I would also like to give my support to Ema Wright who Freecycle have threatened legal action against on there web site. I believe such comments were a knee-jerk reaction, but still shockingly unprofeciaonal.

Prepare for a mini rant and waffle…

I received a call last night from an automated service asking “where are you?”. No, it is not the next generating of Twitter, but what appeared to be a service that translates text messages to voice for land lines.

A similar service caused havoc at our office when it kept calling back, then stopping, then calling back, and stopping, calling back, stopping, etc, etc. This was caused by a customer sending a media message to our land line by mistake and a bug in the BT system at the time.

The first thing I did was call the phone company at 1:30am to have it disabled, and they transform me somewhere, and then again, and then to BT faults despite me not being a BT customer and there was not actually being a fault. Fortunately they had the instructions to hand.

The magic instructions were to, and you may want to do this now, call the automated service on 0800 587 5252 and follow the instructions. You can restrict the times it will call you, or disable it completely.

While disabling the service I discovered I should not be called in the middle of the nigh with the default settings. Considering the number I was supposed to call to cancel the service (according to the message) was an 07 number I am presuming it was from another telephone company, or more likely a scam to get me to call that number and charge me a fortune (some 07 numbers are still premium rate).

Update: The originator has not been tracked down! Apparently the message was sent in error, with the aid of alcohol, from a Virgin mobile.

Let’s be honest about this, it takes a silly amount of time to clear a cheque with today’s technology, but we have come to expect that. One thing I have relied on is that all cheques take the same time to clear, so if I pay in a cheque and wait a couple of days, it will clear before any cheques I write are drawn.

I know that people say that the money leaves my account instantly and the bank holds on to it for a while, but it has worked for me until I tried to pay the tax man. I received a letter from the bank yesterday informing me of a £39 charge for bouncing my cheque. After calling up it appears that organisations such as Revenue and Customs, and customer who pay extra, can have cheques cleared quicker.

I politely told the bank that they will be refunding this charge, and they did.