Author: Christopher Roberts

Christopher's Author Bio: Founder and editor of Technology Bloggers, Christopher is passionate about sustainable technology and environmental initiatives. He wants to popularise critical thinking, promote responsible innovation, and excite you about the world around us.

Pay As You Go Vs Contract

9 Replies Christopher Roberts

With a mobile phone (or as my American friends call it, cell phone) you have two main options when choosing how to pay for your minutes, internet and texts. Either pay as you go, or contract.

Pay As You Go

There are various different people offering pay as you go tariffs and deals. Some pay as you go providers are targeted towards those who use their phone more for calling, whilst others focus on those who text a lot. Shop around and you can find a deal that suits you.

Pay As You Go is probably best for those people who use their phone less often. If you spend less than £10 a month on your phone, Pay As You Go is probably the cheaper option for you.

Contract

If you love to use your phone, and it rarely leaves your side then you probably have it on a contract. This means that you get a certain amount of minutes, texts and MB per month. If you are lucky you may even get unlimited on some of them. For this, you pay a fixed monthly fee.

Different mobile phone network providers - Virgin Mobile, Orange, Tesco Mobile, T-Mobile, Vodafone, 3, Talk MobileSometimes you can get a really good deal and get your phone chucked into free! A recent example of this is iPhone 4S contracts, if you take out a contract with some iPhones, you get the phone at a reduced price, or even for free.

Like with pay as you go SIMs, it can often pay to research all the deals on offer, as there are different contracts for different people. If you don’t mind an older model, but can’t stop talking, then there are contracts with unlimited minutes, but no freebies when it comes to the phone itself. Likewise if you really love having the latest model, there are contracts where you can get new phones as they come out, for free!

The only problem with contracts is that the more you want, unfortunately, often the more you have to pay. Yes you can have unlimited monthly calls, texts and internet usage, along with the latest phone, however it can cost you the earth!

It depends who you are as to which you think is best. Both pay as you go and contract deals have their merits, shop around and you are sure to get yourself a good deal that is right for you 🙂

The BOINC Home Network

10 Replies Christopher Roberts

A few months ago, I wrote about LHC@home 2.0, which is a project that you can get involved in that allows you to use your spare computing capacity to help ‘crunch’ scientific data from the Large Hadron Collider project.

Rather shamefully, at the time of writing the article, I hadn’t actually taken part in the project, however after buying a new PC, I thought that it was my duty to donate my spare processing power to help science!


I started off by going to the SETI@home website, where I worked out that in order to take part in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) project, I would need to download the ‘BOINC software’ – so I did. When I installed the software I was amazed with the amount of different projects that I was able to partake in.

The BOINC software is effectively a management tool which lets you choose which projects you want to help crunch data for. Then it sets about downloading, analysing and then uploading the data in the background.

The BIONIC LogoThere are so many great projects that people can get involved in, from looking for extraterrestrial life and the Higgs particle, to projects providing power to those who are doing vital research into malaria, cancers and other important global diseases, and even trying to work out how and why gravity works!

From finding new medicines to helping university students, there really is something for everyone to get involved in.

If you are worried that it may slow down your computer, then don’t be, you can set how much of your processor BIONIC can use, as well as the amount of hard disk space it can take up, and also how it uses your internet.

The BOINC software comes with an easy to follow interface, and gives you announces of important events and discoveries relating to @home projects.

The BOINC Manager Interface

The BOINC Manager Interface

Think where we would be in terms of scientific advancements, if everyone were to give just 10% of their PC to some of BOINC’s @home projects.

You can make a difference, and you can help science! Please go to the BOINC website to download the software today, and get stated with some of the brilliant projects they have on offer! I personally believe that the following projects are really worth a look at:

  • Poem@Home – investigating protein structures, how they determine protein function, how they interact with one another, etc.
  • LHC@home 1.0 – the Large Hadron Collider project – with some extra software, you can also take part in LHC@home 2.0
  • climateprediction.net – attempting to improve climate modelling, and predict the possible effects of climate change
  • Einstein@Home – searching through data from the LIGO detectors for evidence of continuous gravitational-wave sources, as well as searching radio telescope data from the Arecibo Observatory for radio pulsars
  • Cosmology@Home – comparing theoretical models of the universe in order to try to improve future technologies
  • malariacontrol.net – helping in the fight against malaria, via creating simulations and models of the history of Malaria
  • SETI@home – analysing data from outer space, to try and find extraterrestrial life

Unfortunately, I now have to give you a warning. Whilst I am sure that the software and projects are all 100% safe to participate in, some organisations would not want you to install them on their computers. You would be perfectly okay to install such projects on your home PC, however I wouldn’t advise that you do it at work or school, as there have been incidences in the past of firms pressing charges against people for increasing their internet usage and filling up there serves by unauthorised software like BOINC.

That aside, I really do urge you to download the BOINC manager today, any start helping science! If this makes the offer any more attractive, most projects have their own screensavers, many of which look pretty cool!

Install it and leave a comment below to let us know how you are getting on 🙂

Broadband speeds – are you getting what you pay for?

22 Replies Christopher Roberts

The comparison site uSwitch recently did a study into UK broadband speeds, and found that during peak times, internet speeds were on average 35% lower, than in off peak times.

The research was based on two million download tests, concluded that during peak surfing times, which are between 7 and 9 in the evening, speeds were the slowest than at any other time of the day. If you want super fast speeds, it is recommended that you go on between 2 and 3 in the morning.


The time differences were more/less extreme, depending on the region of the country. The average broadband speed in the UK is 6.2mbps at peak times and 9.6mbps in the early hours of the morning. However, this is much more extreme for some regions. For example, the difference in Weston-super-Mare was 64%! At off-peak speeds were around 9.5mbps, whilst at peak times they were just 3.4mbps, a massive difference.

Wadebridge, (Cornwall) saw a 48% difference in speeds, with an average of 4.1mbps at off-peak times and just 2.1mbps during peak times.

Broadband is becoming ever more important in our digital, globalised world, and such variation is seen as unacceptable by many in modern times. Broadband is very important for business, as well as luxuries, such as on-demand TV, and even potentially internet TVs.

Global broadband connections map

A connected world - super fast broadband, brought about by fiber optic connections has revolutionised telecommunications

Ofcom says that on average, UK consumers download around 17 gigabytes of data every month using their home connection. That is a fair amount, and to put the speed differences into context, were this all to be downloaded at off-peak times in Weston-super-Mare, it would take around 4 hours to download that data at off peak times, however it would take around 13 hours to download at peak times, a staggering difference!

Critics have said that consumers are being misled by the maximum speeds that internet service provides love to advertise, even though it is rare that anyone should ever get them. Because of this, as of April 2012, the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) will no longer allow firms to advertise maximum speeds unless at lease 10% of their users receive them.

For more information check out this article: Broadband speeds fall 35% at peak times.

This article is about the UK, but I am sure that it is the same all over the world.

What do you think, is this fair, or are we, the consumer, getting ripped off?

If Velcro wasn’t a rip off, broadband certainly is! Sorry, I couldn’t help it 😉