Has Althea UK Ltd. gone bust? (aka Bathrooms Italia / Period Bathrooms)

Note: This is a non-technical post that I'm making to see if anyone else is searching for information regarding any outstanding bathroom orders - if so, please leave a comment so we can pool our collective wisdom!

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We placed an order through Bathrooms Italia for a new bath back in January and after repeated phone calls inquiring about the whereabouts of the bath we have found this morning that the site appears to not be avilable anymore and they are not answering their phone - 01845 577 432.

After a little digging about it appears that Period Bathrooms are also not answering their phone - 01274 660 770. Both of these companies seem to be public consumer websites for Althea UK Ltd., their number is the same as Bathrooms Italia - 01845 577 432 which is never answered.

A quick search on Credit Gate shows the following suspect activity:

• REGISTERED OFFICE CHANGED ON 22/01/08 FROM:KC HOUSE, BRETTON STREET DEWSBURY WEST YORKSHIRE WF12 9BJ


• SECRETARY'S PARTICULARS CHANGED ON 21/01/2008

Due to this I've already contacted my credit card company to report they I've paid for an item that I expect to never receive!

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Update: I've just had a call from Clearwater (a supplier to Althea) that they have been advised that Althea and therefore their derivatives have gone into receivership!

Technorati Tags: Althea, Bathrooms Italia, Period Bathrooms, Andrew Beacock

My Scan UK Search Plugin for Firefox 2 & IE 7

When I was researching PC components back in September I spent a lot of time on Scan's excellent website looking up prices, specs, etc. A few weeks ago I stumbled upon a page describing how to create OpenSearch plugins for Firefox (which can also work in IE7).

It didn't look that hard so I picked Scan's website as my target. Here is the result:



This has been tested on Firefox2 and IE7 on WinXP and Firefox2 on Ubuntu. I would be very interested to know if it works on any other browsers or platforms...

More search engines can also be found at on the Firefox Search Engines page and at searchplugins.net.

Technorati Tags: OpenSearch, Firefox, IE7, Scan, Search, Plugins, Andrew Beacock

Dead broadband routers & fantastic customer service from 3Com!

My 3Com wireless broadband router decided to stop working last week leaving us without any internet at home. It was a 3Com OfficeConnect ADSL Wireless 11g Firewall Router, a rather excellent piece of kit that I purchased from Amazon.co.uk when my Linksys WAG54G started playing games with the wired lan ports.
I bought it in January and it's been rock-solid ever since, very easy to setup, and the only downside was that it shipped with extremely old firmware but that was easily solved with a visit to the 3Com support website.

It stopped working in the afternoon last Wednesday (5th July) whilst I was at work. The ADSL and wireless didn't work any more, and I couldn't get into the administration interface. I fished out my old Linksys router as that had working wireless and internet and got onto the 3Com support site late that evening. It comes with a 3 year warranty (I've had it 6 months) so I managed to submit an RMA (returns) request.

The next morning was an email informing me that they were going to send an "Advance Replacement" which means they send you a replacement first before you send the defective unit back. That lunchtime I had an email informing me that my replacement router had been shipped! It was shipped from 3Com in Germany and so it took a few days to get to me, but the fully-working replacement arrived yesterday (Monday 10th July) - a total of 5 days.

I've got it all up and running again now and I've been extremely impressed with the quality of the service that 3Com have offered. It's a quality piece of kit at a great price (I paid about £50 for mine) with superb customer service to boot! I will be recommending this router and 3Com as a networking provider to anyone who will listen!

Technorati Tags: 3Com, OfficeConnect, ADSL, Wireless, Router, Andrew Beacock

Digiana Audiax II - an excellent car FM transmitter for your MP3 player

I recently bought a new car which didn't have a tape deck so I couldn't plug my MP3 player into the car so that I could listen to my latest podcasts. I couldn't live with it like this so I started to research into FM transmitters for my player.

I had heard mixed reviews regarding these FM transmitters, quite a lot of people were reporting that although they were ok, but a large amount of interference was received when travelling in built up towns and cities. Most of these transmitters can only be configured for one, four, or maybe eight different frequencies, meaning that the choice you have is severely limited.



After quite a bit of surfing I managed to stumble upon the Digiana Audiax II. It supports tuning to around 200 different frequencies which covers the full UK radio range, it's really small and comes with a car charger and a battery.

It's incredibly easy to setup and tune, I have mine tuned to 106FM as there is very little around in that frequency range in my area. I've been using it now for about two weeks and it's brilliant, the sound quality is great and it's so small and neat - I can't fault it.

I bought mine from IntoMusic.co.uk for £28.95, I placed the order at lunchtime one day, it was sat waiting for me when I got home the next! Great price and fantastic delivery.

If you want to get you MP3 player working in your car (or anyone vehicle for that matter) then I think that this is the way to do it. I showed it to a colleague, and he bought one that very afternoon - what more can I say?

Technorati Tags: FM Transmitter, Digiana, Audiax, Andrew Beacock