The BE Team's Top 10 of 2010

Here's a list of things that have been getting the office excited this year. We'd like to hear about yours too, so please leave a comment below if you've got something to add.

1. Ninite
Matthew our resident master of the machines uses Ninite, a clever little automated installer, to significantly cut down the amount of time he spends rebuilding PCs.

2. Spotify
Check out some of the tracks that have been gracing the BE house sound system with our BE 2009 playlist.

3. Shameless plug: BE Usergroup
There is some seriously useful technical guidance on here. Big love to the Usergroup for hosting the technical wiki, the IRC, F8lure and all the other things they do to help BE, It wouldn't be the same without you.

4. Steam
Valve digital distrubution platform, used to buy and download games, these guys have pretty much nailed it, simple, easy and quicker than waiting for the postman.

5. iPhone Apps
Louise’s favourite thing is the iPhone cinema app. It allows her to forget to plan.

6. Livedrive
We all really love Livedrive and not just because they’re our partner, offering our members 35% off. Log into your member centre to see details and the promotion code.

7. pfSense
Makes a nice powerfull firewall/router that even your nan (well, maybe Matt’s nan) can use and then making it free.

8. Fry and Laurie
Elizabeth has been watching old Fry and Laurie clips on YouTube for some reason. Here’s her fave: ‘Marjory is dead!’

9. Feedly
We get a load of our broadband related news from Feedly, a firefox plugin that takes RSS feeds and presents them in an easy-to-read format. It rocks.

10. Bike Snob
Mark recently bought a single speed bike and now reads this obligatory and hilarous blog. Although set in NYC, Mark swears it mirrors the Shoreditch ‘fixie’ scene.

11. uTest.com*

Beta test new products and releases coming out from tech companies daring enough to crowdsource their QA. Muck around and make some money if you happen to be good at pointing out bugs (which we know you are).

* I know we said Top 10, but we’re always trying to find ways of giving you more.

What is your Top 10 of 2010? Leave a comment below!

BE’s Cracking Christmas Social

Last Wednesday saw the fourth BE Social of 2009 and what a Christmas Cracker it turned out to be!



An eager crowd turned up at The Mitre for some Christmas cheer, looking back at what BE had been up to over the past year and giving the members that came along a sneak preview of upcoming activity in 2010.

We even managed to hold a light-hearted Christmas quiz devoted to all things broadband, with the BE Team facing off against BE Members over pints and mince pies. It was a tense affair, with the scores equal after the main questions and forcing the quiz down to the deciding ‘lolcat’ caption competition.

As you can see from the photo below, both entries were hilarious but there could be only one winner…



So congratulations to the BE Members for their win over the BE Team!

It’s been a lot of fun running the BE Socials this year, so we’re going to continue running them, with the first social in 2010 to be held in January at a location decided by the members. So keep your eyes on the member forum for news of the next BE Social and we’ll see you in the new year!

BE Broadband Supports WiFi Rollout to Local Community Projects

BE has announced that they will be supplying Freerunner, a free public WiFi service, with free broadband for local communities that are currently without existing connections.

46 communities have been selected across the UK to receive free WiFi for a minimum of three years regardless of the current connectivity in the area. The communities were selected as part of a competition launched by in September 2009 by Freerunner.

"We’re proud to be part of the Freerunner missions and agree that WiFi should be more widely available,” says Tom Williams, Head of Operations at BE Broadband. "Freerunner’s attitude reminds me of what BE did for broadband when we created the first UK ADSL 2+ network. Our members are more likely to hang out in independent shops and cafes, so we’re proud to hook up Freerunner communities with fast and unlimited broadband. "

Owen Geddes, CEO of Freerunner, added: “We are very excited to have BE on board as our first corporate partner. BE will be providing a broadband connection to those that don’t have any connection at all, completely free of charge as part of this project. It is incredible to think that a small piece of relatively low cost technology is going to fundamentally change nearly 50 communities across the UK.”

Freerunner is using BE Broadband alongside other technologies to connect underserved or remote communities that desperately need access to the internet.

For a full list of all the Freerunner competition winners, please visit www.freerunr.com/community

Sign up for the BE Christmas Social!

You’ve seen the blog posts. You’ve attended the Socials. Now it’s time for you lovely members to pit your wits against the knowledgeable BE team in our festive Geek Off!

Following on from our previous successful socials, this will be a light-hearted Christmas quiz devoted to all things broadband, with the BE Team facing off against BE members over pints and mince pies.

We’ll be holding it at from 6-8pm on Wednesday 16^th December at The Mitre (Nearest tube stations: Paddington / Lancaster Gate).

You can reservce your place at http://besocialchristmas.eventbrite.com/

If you haven’t yet signed up to one of our BE Socials, have a look at our previous events here and here, and come along for some festive fun.

And here's a few photos of what took place last year:

Looking forward to seeing you there!

- Everyone @ BE