I have finally acquired a lovely new XBOX and have been having great fun enjoying the new XBOX Live Entertainment features which are packed into the new dashboard.

Before I jump into talking about the LOVEFiLM Movie app on the XBOX I’d like to mention some awesomeness, as an XBOX Ambassador, I have a rather discount code which will score all my readers 50% off your XBOX Gold Membership for 3 months. How to get it? Just comment on here and/or give me a follow on Twitter and send me a tweet.

A particular one that really tickles my fancy as a movie addict is LOVEFiLM which offers a great movie experience, particularly when coupled with the ridiculously cool voice control. I find myself constantly feeling like I’m in the future where I can effortlessly shout things at my XBOX and it responds accordingly.

The voice control is truly impressive, I find it just incredible that I can sit in bed and select a movie, play it and then control all aspects of movie play without even picking up a remote control. That’s just cool.

There is only one nagging point which is a little annoying with the LOVEFiLM app as well as the other apps on XBOX is that it seems search functions, such as searching for specific films on LOVEFiLM requires hand gestures or the game-pad controller to select the letters and doesn’t support voice search, this is something I am really hoping will be possible in the next upgrade and will be the cherry on top of a beautiful cake (which isn’t a lie).

I’ve already watched quite a few movies on the XBOX and had a great movie night with some friends and watched the awesome Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy which proved great fun, and voice commands quickly became a competition as to who could shout at my XBOX the loudest… Voice control is good, but it doesn’t like 5 people telling it to do things!

Overall this provides an awesome movie experience from your XBOX, with fantastic quality streaming with no buffering it’s a great addition to the XBOX.

So, what do you like about the new XBOX dashboard? Have you tried LOVEFiLM on the XBOX 360? Drop a comment below!

WordPress is now one of (if not the) biggest blogging platform on the web, with over 32.5 Million downloads of version 3.0¹ and over 20.3² Million WordPress blogs hosted on WordPress.com alone and an estimated 9.7 million active installations – we have an impressively large platform!

I was recently sent a copy of WordPress All-in-one for Dummies by Lisa Sabin-Wilson, Cory Miller, Kevin Palmer, Andrea Rennick and Michael Torbert.

After reading this I have been incredibly impressed with just how simple it makes getting to grips with WordPress.

The all-in-one book consists of 8 books rolled into one:

1. WordPress Basics
2. Setting up the WordPress Software
3. Exploring the WordPress Dashboard
4. Publishing your site with WordPress
5. Examining SEO and Social Media
6. Customising the look of your site
7. Using and Developing Plugins
8. Running Multiple Sites with WordPress

These books combined cover every conceivable thing you’d ever need to know, it really is as simple as that.

WordPress All-in-one for Dummies, led by Lisa Sabin-Wilson, provides a solid learning source, with writers who are active users and authorities voices in the blogging and social media community, each with a wealth of knowledge and skills

“WordPress All-in-One For Dummies gives users the more advanced information they need to go beyond the platform’s basic use by tapping some real experts from the field”

- Lisa Sabin-Wilson.

In my many years working with the Web, WordPress, Web Development and Web Hosting I have done a lot with WordPress and its great to see a resource which covers it all from installing your WordPress blog to customising and developing widgets to help you get the very most from this fantastic software.

I was a little disappointed with the quality of the hosts mentioned as personally I wouldn’t consider them to be them to be the most reliable and I’m sure I could have suggested some great plugins which everyone should use which wasn’t mentioned in the book, but we can’t have everything can we?

For more information on WordPress All-in-one for Dummies check out the Wiley.com website. (ISBN13: 978-0-470-87701-2)

This is a continuation from Why Webhosting.uk.com Sucks – Part 1

In this post I will be discussing and reviewing my biggest grievance with Webhosting UK Com Ltd.

When it came to cancelling my services with them I put in a request to cancel it and expected to have the remaining time (25 days out of 30 which had been pre-paid) to be refunded on a prorated basis. As per their terms of service.

Their terms state:

Refund requests after 30 days will be refunded on a prorated basis of any unused time.

 

I thoroughly checked terms and there is NO limitation on VPS services or any other clause. So I expected that I would have been able to get the remaining time refunded with no problem, particularly considering I was leaving due to their poor service.

However this ended up turning into a lengthy dispute with the company, directly with Jenna Strong (Company Sectary) and John Strong (Managing Director).

They argue that they only provide refunds on a monthly basis, and because I didn’t have a full month remaining I couldn’t get it refunded. This seemed very unfair and a break of the terms which I agreed to, and which was a key reason to why I initially signed up.

After numerous tickets back and forth with Jenna, I emailed John Strong the MD in an attempt for someone to recognise the error in judgement on their part, his response:

Hello Dan,
Thank you for your e-mail.
I was already aware of this matter and it was me who informed Jenna when this was brought up.
Our packages are sold on a monthly, semi-annually and annual basis. We don’t sell packages on a daily or weekly basis and we therefore don’t issue refunds for unused weeks or days. We don’t classify weeks or days as an unused period and we never have done. We apply the same policy to all customers and I’m unaware of any other previous complaints. Webhosting UK COM Ltd is one of the most flexible webhosting companies when it comes to terms and conditions, particularly refunds. We offer an unconditional 30 day money back guarantee within the first 30 days of purchase on all plans other than Dedicated Servers. If a customer has paid on an annual basis for any hosting plan, we will always refund the remaining months should a customer request to cancel.
To be perfectly honest, I think you are being very unreasonable. However, should you wish to forward your complaint and our subsequent communication to Trading Standards, you may feel free to do so. I’m very satisfied that our Terms & Conditions are amongst the fairest in the industry and I don’t feel the need to change our policy or make a special exception for you.
Kind Regards,
John Strong
Managing Director
Webhosting UK COM Ltd

I naturally responded to this pointing out the issues with the stance, such as the fact that there is NO limitations mentioned on the website or Terms of the monthly clause, and that the recognised business & legal definition of pro-rated is normally by day, not month unless otherwise stated (which is wasn’t).

It is also worth noting that the Bodhost Terms state VERY clearly the monthly limitation which they are also applying to Webhosting UK – which kind of disputes the fact the webhosting uk terms are satisfactory don’t you think? Why make it clear on one but not the other?

I also made an enquiry with Consumer Direct (Part of the Office of Fair Trading) who after reviewing my complaint & webhosting UK Com Ltd’s terms of service concluded:

Having viewed the companies website it does appear that they should offer a refund for any unused time according to section 8.1 of their terms of service.

The complaint was also forwarded to Trading Standards for their own information & investigative purposes. It should also be noted that it was advised if direct communication with them was unsuccessful in reaching a resolution (which it obviously wasn’t) I can take the issue to court, where I would likely win.

Unfortunately as satisfying it would be to take a dishonest company such as Webhosting UK Com Ltd to court, it is currently not worth the time and costs. After all, I do have a honest business to run…

Please take this as a warning, anyone looking to use Webhosting UK Ltd should be aware of the dishonest ways they do business. A company which cannot honour their terms of service, provide decent, honest support is not someone worth spending your hard earned time and money on.

I am not a fan of mindlessly bashing companies, but as those who have known me for more than a few minutes will know I can rant. A lot. And when it comes to companies or people not playing fair, or providing abysmal service it really winds me up.

Because of this I have decided to share my bad experiences and provide an honest review of the service I have received to hopefully provide an insight into how they treat their customers, this is not trolling. It is fact and backed up by chat logs and personal experience.

Part 1: Why Webhosting.uk.com is a dishonest company.

Over my time of using Webhosting.uk.com services I noticed many similarities between themselves and other (supposedly) separate companies, such as Eukhost, Bodhost and others.

This became particularly obvious when I noticed IP addresses & cPanel licenses were actually registered to Eukhost not Webhosting UK. When I initially questioned this it was said that they companies were separate, and have separate ownership but had a working relationship – yea, right.

I then noticed a few months back that my payments instead of going to Webhosting UK Com Ltd on PayPal were now being directed to Bodhost. This was obviously a little concerning and I decided to query this using the live chat facility on Webhosting.uk.com’s website.

Chat Log:
Austin: Hello Dan.
Austin: How may I assist you today ?
Dan: Hi, just querying, why are my subscription payments showing “bodhost” as the recipient ?

- Long period of no response -
Dan: Hello?
Austin: Can you please let me know your primary domain name or the email address with which you have registered with us, as per our billing records?
Dan: my@email.addr
Dan: i have a VPS
Austin: We have no account with email address my@email.addr
Dan: Well you do.
Dan: And you have had for years now.
Austin: Our record shows that there is no account with email address (my@email.addr) in our bodhost system.
Dan: Well yes, because Its with Webhosting uk.
Austin: Webhosting.uk has nothing to do with Bodhost
Dan: If you read what I first said I was querying why my WebHosting UK invoice paid via Paypal subscription was addressed to bodhost…
Dan: Well, obviously not, as if they had nothing to do with it you wouldnt have just checked the bodhost system on a Webhosting uk chat.
Austin: I request you to send in an email to us at billing@bodhost.com. We will have to check this with our Senior Admin.
Austin: As I am new to this firm.
Dan: I opened this sales chat from WebHosting.uk.com. If a group of companies is going to share live chat, it is probably advisable that you keep track of which company you are supposed to be working for when you then deny that you are connected.
Dan: Also, unless there are more than one Austin’s I spoken with you well over a year ago.

This is one of many examples of support ops providing details of other companies (such as telling me to email support@eukhost.com) and then denying any connection between them when questioned.

Now just to be clear, I have no problem with companies which own and operate under different brand names, many do it perfectly well and it’s a perfectly viable business strategy. What I object to is being lied to, and the dishonesty in the company which YOU are paying your hard earned money to can’t be honest with you.

Also note that John Strong is the Managing Director of BOTH Webhosting UK Com Ltd AND Bodhost Ltd, both companies also share directors – including Jenna Strong.

There is no doubt that (at the least) Webhosting UK Com Ltd and Bodhost Ltd are owned and operated by the same people, share the same support staff, PayPal and their “offices” are within walking distance – one of which appears to be a rent-a-desk job, likely purely for the separate mailing address. All to enable them to deny the connection?

Does this sound like people you should trust with your money?

Image courtesy of Expansys

As Sandy Bridge takes over as the top processor more desktop computers are coming out packing these, one of the latest and most powerful is the Palicomp Phoenix Hydro-X, a big beast aimed squarely at the hard-core gamer. The magic begins with its overclocked i7-2600K, which has been taken from 3.4 GHz up to a ridiculous 4.7 GHz. To give some idea of how fast that is light will have travelled only 4.5 cm in the time it takes this machine to do one clock cycle. That’s fast! It also means this is one of the most powerful desktop computers seen so far. As the name suggests the processor is cooled by a water cooler unit from Corsair, keeping the temperature from the overclocked performance under control.

The processor is only the beginning though, as for gaming, graphical power is the most important thing and again the Hydro-X takes it to the extreme with two AMD Radeon HD 6950 graphics cards twinned with CrossFireX. This kind of graphical power allows the machine to run even the mighty Crysis at 85 frames per second in 1920 by 1080 resolution with the highest settings. The cooling on the two cards is pretty noisy but most users will not notice when blitzing through the latest games.

All of this is backed up with 8 GB of RAM and a 64 GB SSD from Kingston making the machine highly responsive on start up and when loading programs. The SSD also has the advantage of being silent. Bulk data storage is also there in the form of a 1.5 terabyte hard drive. The Hydro-X has good connectivity with all of the standard connectors of desktop PCs – USB 2.0, PS/2 and eSATA along with USB 3.0 for high speed connections such as external hard drives, FireWire also for driving high speed peripherals and S/PDIF for high quality audio output. It also sports a Blu-Ray and DVD drive and full wireless-N data connectivity. The power supply is an impressive 750 watt unit with the machine capable of drawing up to 633 watts at peak power. It is also incredibly noisy compared to other desktop computers with the assorted cooling fans reaching maximum speed as the graphics cards heat up and the processor heads up to a maximum of 84 degrees Celsius.

The Palicomp Phoenix Hydro-X is one of the most powerful desktop PCs available and comes with a very competitive price at £1,499 including VAT. The price is only about one hundred pounds more than buying the parts individually and with the build quality and care that Palicomp have taken over this beast; among desktop PCs it is well worth the price. If you are a hard-core gamer looking for the best machine for upcoming games like Crysis 2 which can really benefit from enormous processing power this is a great choice. Just make sure you wear headphones so you don’t have to hear its fans while you play.

This is a sponsored post.

A little while ago I made a bit of a booboo, and moved my brothers XBOX Console… with his copy of Modern Warfare 2 in… least to say he wasn’t too happy – and neither was I. I love that game. The disc had been badly damaged, and had what appeared to be a pretty gruesome laser burn and a few scratches, but all was not lost!

I came across DiscsLikeNew.com who do XBOX 360 disc repair, it was surprisingly quick and easy simply put in the request had a prepaid disc postal wallet sent out, popped the disc in and sent it off, within a week the disc was delivered back shining. It looked like a brand new disc and played first time – even though my mum got at it first and “attempted” to repair it with crappy home repair kit… which only left it in a much worse state!

They seem like a very friendly company and offer a fantastic disc repair service, they can professionally repair the vast majority of damaged discs be it DVD, CD, data discs, XBOX, PS3, Wii, you name it they can probably fix it.

Throughout the whole process they were very helpful provided an easy high-quality service – which I am more than happy to recommend to anyone excellent results and great pricing too.

I now have a growing pile of previously discarded discs which I had all but retired to gathering dust, and they shall be getting a nice big order soon from me!

Check them out Discs Like New at DiscsLikeNew.com and don’t forget to give them a follow on Twitter too @DiscsLikeNew

For a while now I have been using Read It Later List, this is a simple and very useful way to bookmark or save links to read later which is particularly useful for people like me who seem to be constantly coming across links and thinking “I’d love to write a blog post on that”.

Read It Later was created by Nate Weiner who is “another dude with a lot to read, but not a lot of time”.

It has a lot of easy to use features and includes a couple of Google Chrome extensions, which enables you to easily add the page you are viewing to your Read It Later list and to quickly view them as well as web-based viewing and of course the iPhone and Android Apps to use the service on the go easily.

This is a simple idea which has been executed well, working with a variety of browsers, platforms and devices it makes it easy to save a link and “read it later”. Definitely worth checking out. ReadItLaterList.com

I was recently sent a copy of TrainSignal’s Exchange Server 2010 Training and asked for a “really honest review” as Exchange Server is one of the many things I want to learn more about, so I happily jumped at the chance!

Format:

The training series comes in a nice DVD case with 3 discs, these aren’t DVDs and instead run an auto-run exe once inserted which provides a basic navigation of the discs lessons and links to the instructors notes in PDF format which is the slides used in the video, which could help make notes for easy reference.

The lessons themselves open up in your web-browser and provides navigation links between lessons as well as some jump links which appear to try and use JavaScript to skip or seek to sections with in the video however this only works within Internet Explorer and doesn’t seem to function in Google Chrome or FireFox which is a little disappointing, although most likely unavoidable when using the Windows Media Player as the embedded player.

I also had a few issues with the codec of the video, and admittedly I didn’t spot the help link on all the lesson pages which links to the website where you can download a small exe which which installs the required codec in seconds which was rather useful.

Content:

I was extremely impressed with how the tutorial is done as it clearly explains everything in a way which was easy to follow without any prior knowledge of Exchange Server, or even Active Directory & Windows Server and nicely explains the set-up procedure from start to finish.

Being as I haven’t had detailed experience with the Windows Server environments I was expecting to struggle a little following the tutorial however I was pleased to find this was not the case, while I tried to create a lab set-up (I ordered myself a nice rack server off eBay, but that’s another story) I wasn’t able to get anything running so there may be a post later when I get my lab set-up fully running, but thanks to this tutorial I am confident that I can set-up Exchange Server from a small office to a large international corporation.

Example Demo:

This is a great tutorial series if you are a newbie to Exchange Server or just new to Exchange Server 2010, definitely recommend for anyone looking to use Exchange Server 2010 – Check it out at: trainsignal.com/Exchange-Server-2010-Training.aspx

Recently I have been looking at Bijk.com and testing it out to see how it holds up as a Server Monitoring solution.

The Bijk.com Server Monitoring interface is clean, feature packaged and rather sexy to look at. The dashboard combines most if not all of the stats into a nice place to view your servers status and see helpful charts which show things like CPU, Load, Memory and Traffic usage over a period of time. The best bit about this is you can easily change the graphs, simply click the change graphs button and you can drag and drop the graphs you want to see into the box. The software tracks a fantastic number of useful points about your servers right down to Disk Operations, CPU Per Process, file system usage and much more, there’s 50+ to choose from.

This comes with some great alert features too to inform you when things go wrong.

The easy to use interface makes it really simple to setup alerts for all aspects of the server, and depending on your subscription package it includes SMS Alerts. A fantastic option to keep the server admins in the know about when they need to get to work. This includes options to have SMS when it is back up, and you can also opt to have it resent the notifications at a set increment should it remain down. When I was testing this the SMS verification came through almost instantly and alerts seem to be prompt when there are issues. Fast notifications are a key benefit when keeping on top of servers, particularly if they are critical.

I also particularly like the refresh timer in the corner, it’s only a small point but its a great example of those little features which have been properly thought about and “just works”.

Overall the software has some very nifty features and looks brilliant, however there are a few downsides. I had some troubles with the server side program which collects the data to send back to them, it seemed to be eating up a load of server resources (150 – 180Mb) before being killed by the firewall automatically, this is quite a problem with running it on a VPS with only 768Mb and is a bit excessive for a monitoring software.

Unfortunately due to this I missed out on seeing the benefits of some of those really nifty stats and figures which would be very helpful. I have spoken with the guys at Bijk and it seems this is a bit of an anomaly and it normally only uses 20 – 30mb on their Debian & RedHat servers so hopefully I can work with them to reduce the resource imprint and can do a follow up review on that soon.

Support is good, but a little slow with responses however they have now added live chat support and are planning to provide US and UK phone numbers which will hopefully boost the support offered and bring this up to the same level as the service.

After providing some feedback it seems there are a lot of helpful tweaks and features on the way and I am looking forward to seeing this service develop as it really gets on its feet, to definitely worth checking it out.

Definitely worth checking out, Bijk.com they even give you a 2 week free trial!

I recently purchased the LG W2361V-PF LCD Widescreen monitor as a replacement for my previous 23” full HD monitor as I had to unfortunately return it due to a fault and couldn’t get a replacement.

The Specs:

• Aspect Ratio – 16:9
• Resolution - 1920 x 1080
• Brightness- 300 cd/m2
• Digital Fine Contrast Ratio- 50,000:1
• Response Time (GTG) – 2ms
• Viewing Angle – 170°/160°
• Surface Treatment- 3H, Anti-Glare

Initial Thoughts:

I mainly purchased the monitor based on price for the features I was looking for and the reviews I had read previously, as it came up pretty good in the reviews on eBuyer.

As with anything new and shiny I eagerly opened the box and have to admit I was a little disappointed, while it’s fantastic that this monitor includes both a VGA and DVI I was disappointed that they are extremely poor quality. I also found the buttons on the side appeared cheap and plasticy, but still perfectly bearable for minimal usage.

I both love and hate the clear droopy clear plastic bar on the base of the monitor which acts as the power button, this a “Live Sensor” which apparently recognises hands approaching the monitor and automatically turns on/off by proximity sensor. However in reality it seems a little unreliable and usually you have to touch the droopy area to get it to recognise, and seems to require a few seconds between turning on/off before you can turn it on/off again as it seems to not detect for a few seconds, which can be slightly irritating. This is a very cool little feature from a geek point of view, so kudos!

Functionality:

I do appreciate that this monitor (unlike my previous one) has a non-glossy finish which really helps with the keeping the colours and glare in check, it also majorly reduces a problem with my previous monitor where the slightest touch left dirty marks on the screen and it generally seemed to get dirty very easily, this one however seems to be holding up well.

This monitor includes 3 inputs, VGA/DVI/HDMI I have yet to test out the HDMI or VGA I am currently opting for the DVI option as main input. I  have briefly tested the VGA as a second input which worked well, you can switch between inputs via the forteManager software or the middle button on the side of the monitor.

Usability:

Generally I have to admit the software and inbuilt buttons and menus for the monitor aren’t as intuitive and easy to use as previous monitors I have and it can take a few minutes to figure out what you need to do with the software to change the colours to suit your preference. It is also slightly irritating that It seems I now have 3 pieces of software running in the tray constantly – forteManager which is used to control colours, contrast, colours and other monitor display controls – “ImageBooster” (still not sure what this does) and finally CinemaMode which while I am not 100% sure on it’s function it appears you click the icon and then select an area on screen and the screen adjusts to match, obviously intended when watching movies.

Movie Playback:

I have played a few movies on the new monitor ranging from DVD quality to full 1080 HD and it’s pretty damn good, the quality is what you would expect from a full HD LCD, a crisp clear picture and fantastic colours.

So should you buy it?

This monitor seems good for the price and is a good quality for most usage, good colours and a fairly reasonable price at the £150 mark especially considering the 3 input functionality which could make it an ideal solution for anyone wanting a nice HD monitor for their PC which can easily be used for the game system too – not being much of a gamer I can’t comment, but I can guarantee if I get my hands on an XBOX it’s going straight into the HDMI.

While the quality isn’t fantastic it has to be expected that there are compromises when getting some good features you unfortunately have to sacrifice the quality of the small things – cables, buttons and perhaps slightly user interface of software/menus – to keep the price low.

So far this seems a great buy for those on a budget and definitely a recommendation.

You can check it out on http://www.ebuyer.com/product/165288