• Modelling home finances

    I’ve just uploaded a rough-and-ready program for modelling mortgage offsetting.  Mortgage offset accounts are like savings accounts linked to a mortgage, but instead of earning interest they reduce the interest charged by offsetting the loan amount.

  • Epson Stylus Photo 1270 versus pencil

    from Kith-Kin (via things magazine)

  • Fibrecity

    The town where I live is going to be the first “Fibrecity” in the UK, apparently.  I’ve been asked for permission to connect fibre-optic cabling capable of speeds in excess of 100Mbps to my house, at no cost. I’m usually quite skeptical about no-cost offers like this, but this one does seem like it might…

  • Monitoring bandwidth during peak hours

    Like many ISPs in Britain, mine allows me unlimited downloads during off-peak hours but has a monthly restriction on downloads during peak hours.  Peak currently means 6pm until midnight, although next month it will be changing to 9am until 11pm.  I thought it would be a good idea to monitor how close to my quota…

  • Things wrong with HPLIP’s systray applet

    I’m not even sure where to start. In HPLIP-2.8.5 there is a new ‘hp-systray’ program which is meant to be started at login. Its purpose is to ask the user for a fax number when it receives a D-Bus signal from the hpfax backend. That’s all — so why does it sit there with a…