A quick google finds this 50 million texts an hour sent in the UK:

The real contention starts when BT wholesale pass feed it into the retail ISPs - such as BT retail who have a grossly overloaded network.

But you get what you pay for. I pay for a business service and get 8Mb in and 800Kb out 24/7.

BT are many companies - BT retail - the ISP in this case is just one of over 100 ISPs who use the BT Wholesale network.

The BT wholesale network is actually relatively good - it's when BTW hand the data over to the retail ISP that things go wrong. BT retail in this case are a very large ISP, therefore have a lot of clout. They also have a grossly overloaded network.

So just pick another ISP that uses the BT wholesale network and you'll get an almost instantly better service.

In my case, I'm using software and configurations I first used in the early 90's - the underlying hardware has changed, buy my desktop still looks the same, email client is the same and so on... Sure, updated versions of them as the years have gone on, but it's essentially the same computer as far as I'm concerned.

Just like my great grandfathers axe - passed down the generations - over the years it's had a new shaft and head, but it's still my great grandfathers old axe...

Pints are 20 oz where I am. Pounds are 16. Remind me to never order a pint of beer in your country.

I currently use the on-board "BIOS" to PXE boot them first time round which I then use to write the image to the compact-flash card, so keeping that around is handy.

However, I can live with the boot time of my units - little Linux/Asterisk boxes. They boot fast enough for this purpose, ta!

I build little embedded(ish) systems myself - AMD Geode boxards (ALIX) and my custom compiled kernel boots in 1.08 seconds (according to kernel output) If I didn't compile in networking and USB, I'm sure it would be under a second.

The biggest time is the boards BIOS (5 seconds), then loading the image off flash then the kernel uncompressed and boots - 1.08 seconds.

If I had more access to the board and had 4MB of flash ram as part of the memory map, then I could eliminate the long BIOS + Load times and jump into kernel on cycle 0. That's where the trick is, I guess - a fast load of the kernel into RAM, or keep it in FLASH that's part of the memory map.

After the kernel is loaded it's just userspace - I run a cut-down system, but it still takes another 15-20 seconds or so to get time, dns, networking, apache, etc. going. You're probably not doing that with an in-car device or a camera, etc.

So it's not really hard to make a kernel boot fast and possibly even launch one application - the big savings are going to be on the hardware when you can eliminate BIOS and load times, and the amount of userland you then have to load - which is the real difference between "embedded" and general purpose (e.g. desktop)

I have a copy of the original "red book" with hand-written notes on shape tables, etc. I also had a plethora of other sources of information - the Wozpack, Disk Doctor, early copies of call-apple and coutless others which were hard to come-by in the UK at the time.

Kids of today, get off my lawn, etc.

So what we have now are "appliances" and lawyers.

And as they say; If you can't open it, you don't own it.

Sadly, yes. See: http://www.phys-astro.sonoma.edu/people/faculty/tenn/SpellingChequer.html

Now I wish I had a better spell chequer than a teacher shouting at me when I was growing up. (Dyslexia hadn't been invented back then) Trying to write Clackmannanshire as part of my address was bothersome!

Other local towns include Sauchie (Pronounced Sawki) Tullibody and Tillicoultry. The local big hill is Dumyat (Dum eye at)

I want my cheaper words!!!

The BT Wholesale network is actually rather good. BT Retail is just one of 130 ISPs who use the BT wholesale network, and they're a particularly bad example.

It's vitally important to not confuse the two, and do not let BT tell you otherwise. I have BT copper to my home/office, I pay BT the minimum amount a month for this copper, but my Internet access is through the BT wholesale network, via another ISP, not BT.

Like the new compression stuff. Compressed kernel under 1MB again - First time I've seen that for a while.

Now to try it on my Acer Aspire One...