Crosskase Solar

That appears to be a re-branding of the Infinit Solar backpack I bought last year.

The quality was terrible. One of the interior zips wouldn't close (the zipper moved, but the zip stayed open.), several of the seams have come apart and the solar cell was rubbish.

The battery would charge up, but would be flat again in less than a day. It seemed like the solar cell was draining it. I added adaptors to charge my PowerMonkey from the solar cell (It holds it charge perfectly well, normally) and that was flat a day later.

So I'd recommend you avoid this like the plague.

On the other hand, we bought a Wenger backpack for our accountant's birthday, a year ago and that is still a fantastic piece of kit. I think that'll be my next choice.

That has got to be a candidate for the best ElReg headline of all time. :)

In other news, you owe me a new keyboard. :)

Toshiba? No.

I'll never buy a Toshiba after the rubbish design of my P100-429 which had hinges so bad that they tore themselves to pieces (and the lid too) in normal use.

Congratulations!

Makes one proud to be British, and a geek.

"impossibly-hard-to-kill vampire slayer"

I seem to recall that she was killed twice.

Although she came back on both occasions, despite being buried for a while the second time.

Mine's the one with the box set in the pocket.

So...

...this isn't about the Information Commissioner's Office and rebuilding a war-time computer?

Colour me disappointed.

I'll believe it when I see it

A few years ago I signed on, on-line. They were meant to call me back to check the details, and I was asked for a time period (morning or afternoon iirc) when they could call me.

They didn't.

I called them, and got to go through the entire form again, answering all the questions I'd already filled in.

Then I had to go to the real Job Centre.

Where one of the "advisors" printed out a copy of my form, asked me all the questions on it again and typed it (slowly) into her computer.

I'd like to think it's improved now, but this is the Job Centre we're talking about. They'll probably expect you to answer all the questions on the form four times now.

I don't see this working.

Firstly, if you fork it, you need to hire the developers to maintain your fork.

Secondly, you then have a version of Android which is different to everyone else's and more than likely incompatible. So you'll have to create and maintain your own app store.

Thirdly, what sort of a market share do these manufacturers have for their Android phones? Combined, they're a force to be reckoned with, individually, the costs will out weigh the advantages of controlling the OS.

The big problem with Android is that the handset manufacturers already tinker with the OS before they send it to the networks who then tinker more which means that any update from Google has to be tweaked by both before it can be installed.

I doubt an HTC Phone 7 handset will have much of a problem with installing MS updates, but a Desire? Took about a year after 2.2 came out before I got O2's 2.2 update to mine.

And yet you don't mention the location of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott's original wooden prototype

In the gateway of the Royal Academy, since you ask.