Well my one month sabbatical from tech blogging turned into two months in the blink of an eye.

It has been good to stop for a while and reflect a bit.

The things i like about tech blogging are numerous.

I love technology. I like talking and writing about it and in particular sharing knowledge.

I do appreciate the feedback (comments and e-mails) from the people who contact me.

Several people contacted me wondering if I was perchance trapped under something heavy and couldn’t get to a keyboard.

In reality I was waiting for something exciting to happen in technology…….

Above Left BOE GDP Projection November 2008        Above Right  BOE GDP Projection Feb 2009

The Bank of England’s revision to their published GDP projections between November 2008 and February 2009 seems to have hit in a rather busy news cycle.

I fear people are getting numb to yet even more bad news about the economy and haven’t quite taken on board what these projections are saying.

I’m not really qualified to talk of such lofty things but I do know what was bad is now worse.

Link: http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7883255.stm

I think I need to make a swift return to the world of Tech Blogging its a lot less depressing that the real world.

First of all thanks to all my Clients for their continued business in 2008.

Thanks to the site visitors here for leaving comments, feedback and helping document solutions to problems for the greater good of everyone.

Extra special thanks go to Chris for some of the design work on the site and for www.1steasy.com for being the best web host in the world ever.

2009 is going to be a radically different year and I suspect I wont be able to donate as much time for updating this site. However I will concentrate of sharing the most useful of information like problem solving tips or hands on reviews of equipment.

The big tech topic of 2009 will be Windows 7 and I will be both beta testing and writing about it.

Have a good 2009

Colin

I am encountering significant problems getting older wireless B & G wireless technologies playing happily with the newer wireless N equipment.

Case1) I have tried 2 Dell Draft N wireless cards (one internal/one external) and cannot get them to work with Draytek Vigor 2800 Routers. They connect but drop the connection. The same card works perfectly with say a Netgear router. So its a Dell Draft N and Draytek Vigor specific issue.

When I have a moment I will see if there is any firmware I can upgrade on the Draytek side.

Case2) BT’s new Home Hub 2.0 is capable of Wireless N, but can cause older B and G cards to not work. Specifically the most popular Intel Wireless ones.

Tech Tip1: On the BT Home Hub 2.0 change the wireless from B/G/N to B/G.

Tech Tip2: Is your BT Home Hub 2.0 is driving you mad the best place for peer support is here. Link: http://beta.bt.com/bta/forums/forum.jspa?forumID=128&start=0

A couple of weeks ago I was very enthusiastic about Google’s Internet browser Chrome.

You only get to know a product by using it and so far I haven’t regretted by move.

There are only some minor niggles from a user point of view.

1) Some fonts don’t render properly, not a biggie for me.

2) Doesn’t work with Pay Pal.

3) Some issues with you tube style flash video.

All of these I can live with.

The one reason I am sticking with Chrome is the ability to drag a browser tab onto another monitor. This feature alone will keep me a Chrome user.