Music Meme

[coalescent]

The history and geography of my music collection, via greengolux. I'd do the 'your name in images.google' meme as well except that the most interesting results for Niall and Coalescent are actually me (or me-related).

An example artist for each decade or country.

History

'00s: Elbow
'90s: The Bluetones
'80s: The Stone Roses
'70s: Van Morrison (and Stillwater!)
'60s: The Beach Boys
'50s: Nothing
'40s: Nothing
'30s: Nothing
'20s: Gershwin

Geography

America: REM
Australia: The Avalanches
England: Badly Drawn Boy
New Zealand: Crowded House
Northern Ireland: Ash
Norway: Kings of Convenience
Scotland: The Delgadoes
Sweden: The Cardigans
Wales: Catatonia

Not doing too great, there. This is one meme that certainly gives you a sense of your own narrow-mindedness. I excluded bands that I only own 'best of' compilations for, since that seemed a little like cheating.

In other news, following the advice of gagravarr and others I got in touch with my flat's previous occupants, got the old phone number, and called BT back. And now I have a working phone line, hurrah!

Next step: Internet connection. I think that unless anyone comes up with a compelling reason in the next few hours for me not to, I'm going to follow fba's recommendation and go with Zen. Then I need to make sure snowking brings his wireless goodies at the weekend, and I need to order some kind of wireless ethernet card (recommendations on this front would be appreciated.)

So, getting somewhere. Thanks for the advice, everyone.

Comments

[snowking.livejournal.com]

No, you need a wireless PCMCIA card. Dabs cheapest one is just over £15 and will probably do just as well as a more expensive one.

[fba.livejournal.com]

I dunno - I'd be a little bit warey of unbranded wireless cards becuase the drivers can be so flakey.

Expansys have a Netgear card and a D Link card - both at reasonable prices.

Don't get Belkin though - they are really unreliable :/

[zihuatenejo.livejournal.com]

I've found the D-link wireless kit really flakey. I could just have had a bad couple of cards but you might be happier with netgear.

[fba.livejournal.com]

Odd - I've got a Dlink PCI card in the windows box downstairs and it works like a dream. Did you get it before or after they were aquired by Cisco?

[snowking.livejournal.com]

I got my Dad an unbranded one for £20 from dabs last year and it works fine.

I heard there's something like only 4 chip manufacturers in the world for 802.11b stuff so unbranded will often have the exact same stuff under the hood.

[fba.livejournal.com]

Out of interest - was it with the built in XP drivers? I've not used XP's wireless stuff - but it is supposed to be one of the few good things about XP. I've had all sorts of problems with cruddy wireless drivers for 9x and 2000...... Looks like I'm going to have to give back the Cisco wireless I was using last time I was on call - which is a bugger as it is very good :/

[snowking.livejournal.com]

Ah now that I think about it, it was. I thik Niall's using 98SE, I've got no idea what wireless support on that will be like really.

And boo to werk for taking Cisco.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Yep, Win98 here. Not sure what you mean, though; surely the software to make the wireless device work would come with whatever wireless device I buy?

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

I have a D-link wireless card and have had no problems so far (touch wood).

[snowking.livejournal.com]

Yes but it might not be the nicest, friendliest experience ever. XP has support for wireless integrated and it all went pretty smoothly.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Ah. Well, worst comes to the worst I'll take Stewart up on his offer of tech support. Then watch over his shoulder to make sure he doesn't install linux when I'm not looking.

Have now placed an order. And when you folks have finished debating what other bits I need, I'll order one of those, too. :-)

[fba.livejournal.com]

IME wireless drivers can be of variable quality - and you also need a utility to configure them - which again are of variable quality. tomburnell bought the D-Link on my recommendation and I haven't had any negative feedback from him - you might want to drop him a text or something.

[majuran.livejournal.com]

Personally I went with PIPEX (www.xtreme.pipex.net), been using them for nearly 2 years now and have got a top class connection for a mere £24 a month :)