Um, the Brits would go apeshit if the US put marrines anywhere near Sealand.
Let me make this totally clear: Sealand is an independent nation entirely surrounded by waters jointly claimed by Sealand and the United Kingdom.
There are lots of places in the world which have jointly claimed waters. The UK and France share miles and miles of jointly claimed waters and I'm sure the USA and Canada do too.
In order for ANY armed group to approach Sealand, they would have to pass through waters claimed by Sealand and the United Kingdom.
There is no fucking way ever, full stop/period, that the UK would allow anyone with guns anywhere near Sealand unless they are part of the UK navy or Sealand government.
I don't understand the whole attitude on this page.
SEALAND AND THE UK ARE NOT PART OF THE USA.
Get it into your head!
US rules and regulations DO NOT APPLY in the UK and Sealand any more than UK/Sealand laws apply in the USA.
The US are nothing more than another bunch of FOREIGNERS as far as we are concerned.
US law is NOT world law. Your rules do not apply. Why the fuck do Americans have such a problem understanding this? Do you spend your whole lives in stuck your country or what? You need to get out more!
Sorry but I don't like the idea of some foriegn government (particularly the US) having control over my articles.
Given that what I write on Usenet is *MY* copyright (by default under the Berne convention- I don't have to put "Copyright 2001 Andrew Oakley" on my articles, just put my name), I presume I can deny the US government the right to use my works.
SpunkJunkie: software blocking access to the holocaust museum because it mentions the Nazis
Blimey, only a few posts in and already this discussion is officially declared dead by Godwin's Law
Look, this whole discussion is bollocks.
Different countries have a right to censor their little patch of the net any which way they like. As techies, we all know it's pointless, but we aren't going to change any minds, so why not just let them get on with it and discover that it's pointless for themselves?
From what I've gathered on this forum, it seems like some kind of discount *after* you've bought an item, operated mostly in the USA (certainly I've never heard of such schemes in the UK).
I must admit, if I'm understanding correctly, they stike me as incredibly daft, and probably illegal under EU trading laws (confusion marketting, unfair pricing etc).
Can someone explain what they are and why they're a good idea? Or, if they're a bad idea, why you lot put up with them?
I'm getting mightily pissed off with these kinds of scare-stories.
I know this may come as a shock to a lot of US readers, but many countries OUTSIDE THE USA are ALSO DEMOCRACIES. This includes the UK.
There is simply no fucking way any political party wishing to stay or get in to government would be able to sustain this kind of policy.
Not to mention that the UK's second house, the House of Lords (now made up of life-service-award politicans of previous democratically elected governments- the old hereditary system went out last year), would never allow such bollocks laws through.
This is absolutely no big deal- in fact I see it as a good thing.
For starters, DNA is not the solver-of-all-crimes it is put up to be.
DNA tests can simply say who has touched an object, NOT WHEN.
All it is used for is to whittle down a list of suspects.
In other words, DNA tests are used to EXCLUDE people from crimes, not include them.
I look forward to the day when DNA samples are taken at birth and I can happily forget all my passwords and keys.
I reckon the UK govt should offer prize money (as per the Longitude Prize for an ocean-going clock a few hundred years ago) to the first people to invent a DNA testing machine that fits inside a shoe box, can identify accurate to 1 in 100 million people, can outwit most forgery (eg. dead limbs), and can provide results in under 10 seconds.
Such a magic box could replace all locks, signatures and passwords.
Slashdoter: It's things like this that make me thankful for the right to own firearms.
At least with a DNA database we'll be aiming our non-existent guns at the right person, rather than just going on random killing sprees that you seem to prefer over there.
How come even a small part of the USA can't last for five years on the kind of regulations most European countries have been subject to for the last 20 years?
Us Europeans don't get blackouts or brownouts. Pull yourself together! Sort it out!
It doesn't need a load of discussion. Somebody in California just needs a damn good slap round the head. Stop pissing about!
And why are these regulations only applicable to California? Sure the whole of the USA should be subject to environmental controls? Environmental controls only work if they are worldwide.
Background: I worked as a programmer on the Royal Bank of Scotland's credit system for 3 years
In the UK we have the Data Protection Act. It allows anyone to request any company to give them a copy of ALL data held about them for a nominal fee (under US$20).
The best bit, however, is that you can legally demand that they correct any inaccuracies- be they factually incorrect, or merely misleading.
Once you track down the company giving you a dodgy credit rating, you do a DPA request on them and if they're telling porkies, demand that they correct it.
If they company can prove that their data is correct they can continue supplying it, but in that case you have the option of demanding that they supply a short written statement prepared by you every time they supply the data you believe to be misleading (eg. mitigating circumstances).
I actually had to code a program that would display "bad" creditors' prepared statements- the bank was legally obliged to display these statements on-screen to whoever requested credit data about such people.
Okay so it doesn't solve every problem but it definitely does help.
I've been very impressed by my Technics CD player and tape deck, less so by my Technics amp (although it does have the advantage that I can use one remote for everything). And of course Technics rule vinyl decks.
Denon have very clean sounding amps. For speakers, Missions will deliver on budget.
AlexBurke wrote: Thousand million == 000 000 000 == billion
Million million == 000 000 000 000 == trillion
Thousand million million == 000 000 000 000 000 == quadrillion
Is the correct answer. England and indeed the whole of the UK and EC/EU standardised on these in the early 70's as part of the Standard Units / Metric system.
Some old fogies still use British Billion (and ounces and gallons, for fuck's sake...) but anyone aged under 30 will have been taught ONLY Standard Units / Metric at school.
What a shame the US can't get its act together and teach ONLY SU/Metric at THIER schools, eh?:-)
Don't go looking for another job unless you really want to move.
I've tried this tactic twice in the past and both times I've ended up moving.
Of course, it could be that I'm crap at my job and they're happy to see me go.:-) My personal opinion is that some fuckwit managers decide that you're due for a promotion, and their mind is made up- if you challenge the assumptions of fuckwit managers, they see this as rebellion and are happy to let you go.
Luckily I've always been able to find a better job all round every time.
There ARE good managers out there. Sometimes things like this don't happen.
I live near Cheltenham and know several people who have worked or are currently working at GCHQ. Obviously they never go into details, and I wouldn't want them to, but the issue of unfocused data trawling often comes up and is always laughed at.
In my opinion- and I do not work at GCHQ and nobody there would ever say anything as direct as this- GCHQ neither wants nor needs the ability to search archives of all emails ever sent.
GCHQ have never and will never get involved in an unfocused trawling excercise. Why?
Firstly, because it is impractical and will always remain impractical. Even with GCHQ's massive supercomputing power, the amount of data created in a day will always far exceed any processing ability to trawl it with any accuracy.
Secondly, because such unfocused trawls produce a very poor signal to noise ratio. GCHQ quite frankly don't have the time to investigate if you've had an affair with your wife's sister, or avoided a parking ticket, or made a boring first post to Slashdot. Neither do they care. They have far more important things to be doing.
What GCHQ and the police do want and already have is the ability to monitor particular network junction points for specific traffic to/from known individuals- namely those they have a reasonable suspicion are involved in terrorism, warmongering, child porn and economic warfare. For this they can already get a wiretap order signed by the Home Secretary.
If GCHQ have a good reason to want to read your email, they will pop a tap on your connection and be done with it. Maybe they might catch a few conversations between uninvolved people in the same premises, but that's it.
GCHQ do not wish to be forced to trawl through several billion useless emails to get to half a dozen important messages. If you're under the spotlight, they just want your messages, not everybody else's. No change in law is required to enable such focused wiretapping.
Every so often, some slack-jawed nanny civil servant puts forward the idea of unfocused data trawling. Every so often, GCHQ tell the annoying little squirts that they have far better things to be doing with their CPU cycles.
SYRiNX wrote: Would someone please bother to explain what GSM service is?
GSM is Global System for Mobiles. It is a digital standard for cellular telephones which runs at between 9600bits/sec and 14.4bits/sec.
There are two particularly popular features of GSM:
Roaming - you can use transmitters owned by companies other than the company you pay your bill to. For instance, you can go to a foreign country and your cellphone will work automatically (but you usually pay a surcharge on calls).
I can take my Nokia 7110 mobile phone to virtually anywhere in Europe and it works. No hassle.
SMS, WAP and ISDN - a whole raft of digital data protocols are supported as standard. These include text messaging (SMS Short Message Service), scaled-down web browsing (WAP Wireless Application Protocol) and data telephone calls (ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network).
There are, of course, some downsides. Biggest of these is that the transmitters have to be much closer together than analogue transmitters to ensure consistent coverage.
This isn't a problem in densely populated continents such as Europe or Asia. In the UK for instance, there is near 100% coverage of landmass, even in rural areas- I have strong mobile phone reception at my home in Gloucestershire, UK despite being so rural that I don't have mains sewerage! In the Americas however, with large blobs of population concentrated in small areas with vast inbetween areas of little or no population, this requirement for so many transmitters could be considered uneconomic.
To be quite honest though, us Europeans consider the USA's lack of GSM coverage as frankly a frightening concept. I can't imagine what it would be like to drive somewhere and my phone not working. To me, that is as unacceptable as my watch not working.
Can someone moderate the previous comment up please- some VERY valid points from someone who actually lives in rural Canada and has experience of bandwidth issues. Cheers.
Guido del Confuso wrote: If people feel it is too expensive they take their business elsewhere
You're presuming not only that there is competition, but that there is any company willing to supply at all.
In rural areas such as Canada, the initial logistical expense means that buying the service from a truly free market would be unaffordable.
Discriminating against rural areas is as unacceptable as discriminating against, say, hispanic areas or native american areas. Now that isn't a problem for corporations who only want to make profit, but it is a problem for governments who want to be re-elected.
The standard way to get around this is to set minimum levels of availability, typically as part of a company's licence to trade.
For seconds, it doesn't even have a CD-ROM let alone a DVD drive (the prospect of adding more weight to this beast is... unwelcome).
And finally, the thought of having to move this hulk out of my study, downstairs to the lounge, frankly fills me (and my back) with dread. Anything with a bright yellow sticker saying "CAUTION! DO NOT ATTEMPT TO LIFT THIS GREAT BIG FSKING HUMP OF METAL ON YOUR OWN, MATEY, YOU'LL REGRET IT REAL SOON" (anyone remember the exact words?) is something that, like cast iron cooking ranges, should be put in place FIRST and the building constructed around it AFTERWARDS.
My mum queued up in WH Smiths (UK newsagent chain) on the day the ZX81 came out to buy one; ready assembled. I must admit that before I saw this article on Slashdot I was confident that only the earlier white ZX80 was supplied in kit form; but seeing the other posts here, especially those mentioning a ten pounds price difference between assembled and kit, does stir some kind of vague memory.
I sold my ZX81 to buy a hard drive for my Atari ST (having gone through a C=64 on the way). Luckily I was recently given a replacement ZX81 complete with 16k wobblepack which now sits proudly on the black and white TV in my computer room (I'm colour blind so quite handily I already had an ancient UHF B&W telly).
My important question is: can you save ZX81 programs to.AU or.WAV files? Or even MP3s?
tuxedo-steve wrote: the Internet-2 network wasn't ever destined to become a public network - access would be restricted to academic bodies and such
Erm, isn't that The Grid not Internet2? Or am I talking arse? If so then what is the difference between The Grid and Internet2?
As I understood it Internet2 was a set of protocols for a new high-speed backwards-compatible internet for use by anyone would could afford to hook up, whereas The Grid was an entirely seperate new high-speed network which was strictly for accademic/millitary use.
WhiteWash wrote: FreeServe offer their deal through the use of BT's SurfTime service, ergo, it is still being controlled by BT
Sorry matey but that's a bunch of arse. Freeserve do offer an off-peak unmetered scheme via BT Surftime (limited to weekends and 6pm-8am) but their peak/off-peak (ie. any time of day) unmetered scheme is via Energis.
With Unlimited Freeserve Time (the Energis service) you pay a minimum of 10 pounds per month. As well as getting unlimited Internet usage, you can also make long distance voice/fax calls at a discount up to your 10 quid (if you want to make more, you can, but you pay extra).
Unlimited Freeserve Time has the following restrictions:
All internet calls via this service are disconnected after 2 hours even if you're in the middle of a huge download. Which is what the godess created resumable download managers for. You can redial and get straight back on instantly, but you'll have a new dynamic IP address.
It's for modems and 64kbps ISDN only. You can't multilink devices, so if you're using ISDN you can't use 128kbps (you can't even multilink one unmetered 64kbps channel to another pay-per-minute 64kbps channel). Multilink was originally supported, but was dropped last month.
You must have a BT phone/ISDN line (even though the call routing is via Energis- but you don't need a SurfTime upgraded exchange, any exchange will do).
Yup, I'd hardly call that "unlimited" either, but it's good enough for me- my 'phone bill has gone down from 80 quid a month + rental to 10 quid + rental in one fell swoop. Neat.
Slashdot Mirror
Um, the Brits would go apeshit if the US put marrines anywhere near Sealand.
Let me make this totally clear: Sealand is an independent nation entirely surrounded by waters jointly claimed by Sealand and the United Kingdom.
There are lots of places in the world which have jointly claimed waters. The UK and France share miles and miles of jointly claimed waters and I'm sure the USA and Canada do too.
In order for ANY armed group to approach Sealand, they would have to pass through waters claimed by Sealand and the United Kingdom.
There is no fucking way ever, full stop/period, that the UK would allow anyone with guns anywhere near Sealand unless they are part of the UK navy or Sealand government.
I don't understand the whole attitude on this page.
SEALAND AND THE UK ARE NOT PART OF THE USA.
Get it into your head!
US rules and regulations DO NOT APPLY in the UK and Sealand any more than UK/Sealand laws apply in the USA.
The US are nothing more than another bunch of FOREIGNERS as far as we are concerned.
US law is NOT world law. Your rules do not apply. Why the fuck do Americans have such a problem understanding this? Do you spend your whole lives in stuck your country or what? You need to get out more!
--
There is no copyright law in Sealand. Sealand is not a member of the Bern Convention and it does not have a copyright law of it's own.
The only intellectual property law in Sealand is that child pornography is illegal.
--
Given that what I write on Usenet is *MY* copyright (by default under the Berne convention- I don't have to put "Copyright 2001 Andrew Oakley" on my articles, just put my name), I presume I can deny the US government the right to use my works.
--
Blimey, only a few posts in and already this discussion is officially declared dead by Godwin's Law
Look, this whole discussion is bollocks.
Different countries have a right to censor their little patch of the net any which way they like. As techies, we all know it's pointless, but we aren't going to change any minds, so why not just let them get on with it and discover that it's pointless for themselves?
--
Um, what the bloody hell is a rebate?
From what I've gathered on this forum, it seems like some kind of discount *after* you've bought an item, operated mostly in the USA (certainly I've never heard of such schemes in the UK).
I must admit, if I'm understanding correctly, they stike me as incredibly daft, and probably illegal under EU trading laws (confusion marketting, unfair pricing etc).
Can someone explain what they are and why they're a good idea? Or, if they're a bad idea, why you lot put up with them?
--
I'm getting mightily pissed off with these kinds of scare-stories.
I know this may come as a shock to a lot of US readers, but many countries OUTSIDE THE USA are ALSO DEMOCRACIES. This includes the UK.
There is simply no fucking way any political party wishing to stay or get in to government would be able to sustain this kind of policy.
Not to mention that the UK's second house, the House of Lords (now made up of life-service-award politicans of previous democratically elected governments- the old hereditary system went out last year), would never allow such bollocks laws through.
--
This is absolutely no big deal- in fact I see it as a good thing.
For starters, DNA is not the solver-of-all-crimes it is put up to be.
DNA tests can simply say who has touched an object, NOT WHEN.
All it is used for is to whittle down a list of suspects.
In other words, DNA tests are used to EXCLUDE people from crimes, not include them.
I look forward to the day when DNA samples are taken at birth and I can happily forget all my passwords and keys.
I reckon the UK govt should offer prize money (as per the Longitude Prize for an ocean-going clock a few hundred years ago) to the first people to invent a DNA testing machine that fits inside a shoe box, can identify accurate to 1 in 100 million people, can outwit most forgery (eg. dead limbs), and can provide results in under 10 seconds.
Such a magic box could replace all locks, signatures and passwords.
--
Fancy a laugh?
Under the Data Protection Act in England&Wales (and Scotland IIRC), you have the right to a copy of any data held about you by a company.
This include security firms.
This includes CCTV cameras.
If you walk past a security camera, you can legally demand a copy of the tape every time you walk past.
--
Slashdoter: It's things like this that make me thankful for the right to own firearms.
At least with a DNA database we'll be aiming our non-existent guns at the right person, rather than just going on random killing sprees that you seem to prefer over there.
--
How come even a small part of the USA can't last for five years on the kind of regulations most European countries have been subject to for the last 20 years?
Us Europeans don't get blackouts or brownouts. Pull yourself together! Sort it out!
It doesn't need a load of discussion. Somebody in California just needs a damn good slap round the head. Stop pissing about!
And why are these regulations only applicable to California? Sure the whole of the USA should be subject to environmental controls? Environmental controls only work if they are worldwide.
--
Background: I worked as a programmer on the Royal Bank of Scotland's credit system for 3 years
In the UK we have the Data Protection Act. It allows anyone to request any company to give them a copy of ALL data held about them for a nominal fee (under US$20).
The best bit, however, is that you can legally demand that they correct any inaccuracies- be they factually incorrect, or merely misleading.
Once you track down the company giving you a dodgy credit rating, you do a DPA request on them and if they're telling porkies, demand that they correct it.
If they company can prove that their data is correct they can continue supplying it, but in that case you have the option of demanding that they supply a short written statement prepared by you every time they supply the data you believe to be misleading (eg. mitigating circumstances).
I actually had to code a program that would display "bad" creditors' prepared statements- the bank was legally obliged to display these statements on-screen to whoever requested credit data about such people.
Okay so it doesn't solve every problem but it definitely does help.
--
I've been very impressed by my Technics CD player and tape deck, less so by my Technics amp (although it does have the advantage that I can use one remote for everything). And of course Technics rule vinyl decks.
Denon have very clean sounding amps. For speakers, Missions will deliver on budget.
If you were in the UK, I'd recommend Richer Sounds.
--
Okay, IT will revolutionise society, require cities to be retro-fitted, may breach existing regulations, and the inventor is a helicopter nut.
My guess? IT is a personal aviation device (eg. helicopter or jetpack) which is manportable, easy to use, safe, reliable and has a useful range.
The car won't be obsolete overnight; we'll still use the car for cargo (shopping etc). But that'll be about it.
--
Because Turing was gay, and The Establishment won't allow gay people to be perceived as heroes.
Any homophobe who uses a computer is a hypocrite.
--
Thousand million == 000 000 000 == billion
Million million == 000 000 000 000 == trillion
Thousand million million == 000 000 000 000 000 == quadrillion
Is the correct answer. England and indeed the whole of the UK and EC/EU standardised on these in the early 70's as part of the Standard Units / Metric system.
Some old fogies still use British Billion (and ounces and gallons, for fuck's sake...) but anyone aged under 30 will have been taught ONLY Standard Units / Metric at school.
What a shame the US can't get its act together and teach ONLY SU/Metric at THIER schools, eh? :-)
Speaking as a 29 year old Brit.
--
I've tried this tactic twice in the past and both times I've ended up moving.
Of course, it could be that I'm crap at my job and they're happy to see me go. :-) My personal opinion is that some fuckwit managers decide that you're due for a promotion, and their mind is made up- if you challenge the assumptions of fuckwit managers, they see this as rebellion and are happy to let you go.
Luckily I've always been able to find a better job all round every time.
There ARE good managers out there. Sometimes things like this don't happen.
--
--
I live near Cheltenham and know several people who have worked or are currently working at GCHQ. Obviously they never go into details, and I wouldn't want them to, but the issue of unfocused data trawling often comes up and is always laughed at.
In my opinion- and I do not work at GCHQ and nobody there would ever say anything as direct as this- GCHQ neither wants nor needs the ability to search archives of all emails ever sent.
GCHQ have never and will never get involved in an unfocused trawling excercise. Why?
What GCHQ and the police do want and already have is the ability to monitor particular network junction points for specific traffic to/from known individuals- namely those they have a reasonable suspicion are involved in terrorism, warmongering, child porn and economic warfare. For this they can already get a wiretap order signed by the Home Secretary.
If GCHQ have a good reason to want to read your email, they will pop a tap on your connection and be done with it. Maybe they might catch a few conversations between uninvolved people in the same premises, but that's it.
GCHQ do not wish to be forced to trawl through several billion useless emails to get to half a dozen important messages. If you're under the spotlight, they just want your messages, not everybody else's. No change in law is required to enable such focused wiretapping.
Every so often, some slack-jawed nanny civil servant puts forward the idea of unfocused data trawling. Every so often, GCHQ tell the annoying little squirts that they have far better things to be doing with their CPU cycles.
--
GSM is Global System for Mobiles. It is a digital standard for cellular telephones which runs at between 9600bits/sec and 14.4bits/sec.
There are two particularly popular features of GSM:
I can take my Nokia 7110 mobile phone to virtually anywhere in Europe and it works. No hassle.
There are, of course, some downsides. Biggest of these is that the transmitters have to be much closer together than analogue transmitters to ensure consistent coverage.
This isn't a problem in densely populated continents such as Europe or Asia. In the UK for instance, there is near 100% coverage of landmass, even in rural areas- I have strong mobile phone reception at my home in Gloucestershire, UK despite being so rural that I don't have mains sewerage! In the Americas however, with large blobs of population concentrated in small areas with vast inbetween areas of little or no population, this requirement for so many transmitters could be considered uneconomic.
To be quite honest though, us Europeans consider the USA's lack of GSM coverage as frankly a frightening concept. I can't imagine what it would be like to drive somewhere and my phone not working. To me, that is as unacceptable as my watch not working.
--
--
You're presuming not only that there is competition, but that there is any company willing to supply at all.
In rural areas such as Canada, the initial logistical expense means that buying the service from a truly free market would be unaffordable.
Discriminating against rural areas is as unacceptable as discriminating against, say, hispanic areas or native american areas. Now that isn't a problem for corporations who only want to make profit, but it is a problem for governments who want to be re-elected.
The standard way to get around this is to set minimum levels of availability, typically as part of a company's licence to trade.
For instance, I live here (as my wife points out) in the Cotswolds.
There is NO WAY any teleco is going to be able to supply my house with digital comms for a profit for less than, I'd imagine, US$500 a month.
Yet I have unmetered dual channel ISDN for US$90 a month (plus ISP fees of US$35).
This is because British Telecom is forced to supply ISDN to my house as part of their licence to trade across the UK.
--
I doubt I'll be using my IBM Model 80 PS/2 for DVDs.
For starters, it's a 386.
For seconds, it doesn't even have a CD-ROM let alone a DVD drive (the prospect of adding more weight to this beast is... unwelcome).
And finally, the thought of having to move this hulk out of my study, downstairs to the lounge, frankly fills me (and my back) with dread. Anything with a bright yellow sticker saying "CAUTION! DO NOT ATTEMPT TO LIFT THIS GREAT BIG FSKING HUMP OF METAL ON YOUR OWN, MATEY, YOU'LL REGRET IT REAL SOON" (anyone remember the exact words?) is something that, like cast iron cooking ranges, should be put in place FIRST and the building constructed around it AFTERWARDS.
More and more on the great beasts.
(mind you, it plays Doom like a bastard so I can see how people could confuse it with a console)
--
My mum queued up in WH Smiths (UK newsagent chain) on the day the ZX81 came out to buy one; ready assembled. I must admit that before I saw this article on Slashdot I was confident that only the earlier white ZX80 was supplied in kit form; but seeing the other posts here, especially those mentioning a ten pounds price difference between assembled and kit, does stir some kind of vague memory.
I sold my ZX81 to buy a hard drive for my Atari ST (having gone through a C=64 on the way). Luckily I was recently given a replacement ZX81 complete with 16k wobblepack which now sits proudly on the black and white TV in my computer room (I'm colour blind so quite handily I already had an ancient UHF B&W telly).
My important question is: can you save ZX81 programs to .AU or .WAV files? Or even MP3s?
--
tuxedo-steve wrote: the Internet-2 network wasn't ever destined to become a public network - access would be restricted to academic bodies and such
Erm, isn't that The Grid not Internet2? Or am I talking arse? If so then what is the difference between The Grid and Internet2?
As I understood it Internet2 was a set of protocols for a new high-speed backwards-compatible internet for use by anyone would could afford to hook up, whereas The Grid was an entirely seperate new high-speed network which was strictly for accademic/millitary use.
--
Sorry matey but that's a bunch of arse. Freeserve do offer an off-peak unmetered scheme via BT Surftime (limited to weekends and 6pm-8am) but their peak/off-peak (ie. any time of day) unmetered scheme is via Energis.
With Unlimited Freeserve Time (the Energis service) you pay a minimum of 10 pounds per month. As well as getting unlimited Internet usage, you can also make long distance voice/fax calls at a discount up to your 10 quid (if you want to make more, you can, but you pay extra).
Unlimited Freeserve Time has the following restrictions:
Yup, I'd hardly call that "unlimited" either, but it's good enough for me- my 'phone bill has gone down from 80 quid a month + rental to 10 quid + rental in one fell swoop. Neat.
Combine a 64kbps ISDN line, Unlimited Freeserve Time, auto-redialling software and a dynamic domain name plus a bit of socket/port wizardry and you too can remote control your PC from the office or run FTP/web servers etc.
Readers might like to know that the NTL offering, unlike Freeserve, doesn't support ISDN at all, not even 64kbps.
Find out more on freeserve.help.isdn .
--