Plusnet - Broadband from Yorkshire. . . .

UPDATE: PLUSNET - THINGS TO WATCH OUT FOR

OK so I though things were too good to be true, things came apart when we moved house.

On moving house we rang plus net to say as much. And they insisted that there was no phone line at the new house we were moving to. . . . there was a phone line. Plusnet insisted that they needed to send out an engineer to install a line at a cost of £50. So based on this lot of mumbo jumbo we said we'ed cancel and move to BT.

Oh dear. Apparently we told the wrong person that we wanted too cancel, we would have to ring back and que for another half an hour and talk to some one else. Plusnet do not have the ability to communicate within there company it would seem.

So despite telling them we wanted to cancel we received a bill from a debt collection agency around 3 months later, for £277. Thanks a bunch. "Good HONEST broadband from yorkshire"?

Watch your step.

Plusnet Review - Reliability

Yorkshire Pudding, sin-ominous with Yorkshire (although probably manufactured in Italy nowadays) and of course . . . broadband.

Plusnet are quick to mention they are award winning, but in this day and age when you can print your own award using Microsoft publisher, perhaps we need little more than that.

6 months in and my Plusnet package has NEVER missed a beat, from time to time with AOL I used to get a loss of DSL connectivity, for maybe 1/2 hour a month. With Plusnet this does not happen ever.

The phoneline is just as reliable as BT, probably because it is the same phone line!

Plusnet Review - Customer Service

This is the best bit, you can go on Plusnet's contact page and actual find a telephone number, unlike BT's customer service number which takes hours to find, usually off of a third party website.

One set of choices (option 2), and then straight to an operator, who speaks good English . . . in fact wait a flipping minute . . they are English. With a northern accent and everything.

During my one call I managed to;

1. Find out what was causing a BT line fault.
2. Add call divert.
3. Add a Static IP
4. Upgrade usage allowance from 10 GB to 60GB.

This all took around 10 minutes, and 1 (yes 1) operator did all of it. No passing around to other people what so ever. Thanks David.

Plusnet Review - Price

When I ditched AOL I was paying £17 a month for broadband. With the extras I subscribe to , Plusnet is about the same price perhaps a few pounds more, but the reliability and customer service more than make up for it.

Well done please don't change.

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Desktop Study

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Boot a PC to Remote Desktop

Boot a PC to Remote Desktop - Concept / Reasoning

There are many reasons why you may wish to boot a PC to a remote desktop, you can share resources and software, make better use of you high spec PC from a low spec PC, or access you PC from remote locations. All of these are good reasons, but for me the main reason is to make use of old PCs which would otherwise go in the bin.

Step 1 - Build a Stripped down version of windows XP service pack 2 or 3.

You can skip this step if you want it is not necessary is you are using a fairly good PC as a client, but if you are using an old PC may be you should / might want to do it.

Use "n-lite" to strip down you copy of windows XP service pack 2 or 3, there are guides of how to do this on the n lite site.

Step 2 - Install your OS.

Install you OS on the PC you intend to use as a client. If you already have XP service pack 2 or 3 on there already save some time and maybe use that.

Step 3 - Learn your user and network setting.

You need to know your user name and passwords for your PC you intend to log on to (your "server" and the computers name.

Step 4 - Tinkering with the Registry.

Step 4.1 - mstsc.exe instead of explorer.exe

If you have got this far you probably know and accept the fact that messing about with the registry in windows can mess it up to the point where you have to reinstall . . . . .

First off we have to change the windows shell so it looks for mstsc.exe in stead of explorer.exe

type regedit in the run box and navigate to the following bit:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

Find this key () and right click > modify.

Change explorer.exe to mstsc.exe.

Step 4.2 - Change / Set Default User

You don't have to do this bit, but if you don't you will have to log in twice, once top the local client, and then again to the remote desktop.

In regedit:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon.

Edit Value : "DefaultUserName"

If this isn't present then create the value, put in the user name that you specified during installing you OS or "administrator". To create a value right click on empty window space in regedit, "new" will appear select "string value" and rename to "DefaultUserName"

Edit Value "DefaultPassword"

If this isn't present then create the value.

Step 5 - Reboot Client

With your fingers crossed reboot your client, make sure your server is on.

You should be presented with:


Type in the computers name you are using as a server. For a guide of home to find you server / computers name.

Click More Options and select features you would like to be available during you session, for a home network you should be able to switch on all of the "experience" features.


Click Connect and away you go.

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Sun Ray 1 and Windows

Sun Ray 1 - Overview

The sun ray is a thin client which you can buy on ebay for £10 / $20 and this made it a tempting buy for someone like me who enjoys experimenting with networking etc. It is dated nowadays and rather large. . but there we are.



Sun Ray 1 - Server 2008 R2

My end goal is to use a copy of server 2008 R2 to run three worksations using 2 x remote desktops (allowed under admin), and one user on the server itself. It would appear that the Sun Ray 1 WILL NOT WORK.

In order to boot the sun ray 1 to a windows desktop you need a server running a Solaris operating system, which then will direct the user to another server or virtual server running windows. I am not a pro and this I suppose will be obvious to some, but it was so obvious no one had written it down on the net, so I have.

Sun Ray 1 - Other Obstacles

Another obstacle is that you need a special kind of keyboard to go with you sun ray even to access the on client menu, "press shift +ops" to enter the config menu . . . . I DON'T have a OPS button.

Sun Ray 1 - Alternatives



If you are trying to boot to windows desktop you might try a HP T5530, with windows CE 5.0, or for that matter any thin client running Windows CE. This will enable you to get on to a remote desktop session on the server fairly easily without advanced tinkering.

If you are feeling brave there are some tweaks you can do to an old / legacy desktop PC get it is boot to a remote desktop which I will explain in my next post.

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