Posts by Kevin Kenny

One chance download

Just be careful. The site asks you to enter your device serial number then after accepting their license terms you are shown a page with a download link.

I started to download then realised my download manager wasn't started. I cancelled the download and went to try again, but this time with the download manager, and the site says -

"We are sorry! Our records indicate this device has already received its copy of this download. If you believe you are receiving this message in error, please contact Palm's customer support in your region.

For Support, click here"

How f*cking stupid is that. They might at least warn you in big red letters of this daft one-shot download.

I called support which was an utterly futile task and littered with all sorts of blind alley options to discourage you from getting to speak to an actual human. Support raised a trouble ticket and escalated, but my confidence in them actually doing anything about it is rather low given that the bod on the other end of the phone suggested I would have a better chance sending an email directly to their escalations email addy.

Kev

Wrong type of....

...leaves on the cables?

Freeloaders

"The BBC says its content partners will not allow it to distribute shows over the internet without Microsoft DRM."

So why don't these freeloaders go and picket the production companies instead. Hell, the damn i-thingy is only a beta.

DRM sucks, but the beeb are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

Kev

Barclays FUD

We don't use Protx but we were also told by our payment processor (SecPay - they're pretty good and solid and very crossplatform and dev friendly) that the deadline for 3D secure for Maestro cards was the end of June 2007. So after rushing around and implementing the change we find out that Barclays aren't actually finishing off their end until early 2008 - grrr.

Protx probably shoulda done better with their upgrade, but Barclays should've come clean about the 'actual' schedule they were running with.

Don't moan at the beeb, moan at the content providers

Blimey, give the beeb a break. If you took the time to look at the credits at the end of lots of BBC content on yer telly, you'll find that it's come from outside production companies.

It's not the BBC that's forcing DRM down our necks but the content owners and the whole repeat fee thing that actors (rightly or wrong) demand for each rendering of their mugs on the box.

So go moan at Kudos who do Spooks for example.

As someone mentioned earlier, the BBC are damned if they do and damned if they don't. Personally I still think the license fee is still great value for money when you consider the rich variety of TV and Radio broadcasting the BBC do. Look at BBC 4 this week and can you imagine C4 or ITV or Sky commissioning programmes such as Absolute Zero or Atom. Three whole hours worth of excellent viewing and not a single bloody advert. Then go look around the amount of commercial free radio content that's archived on the BBC radio sites.

Quit yer moaning, go and protest at the independant production companies who are the real bad guys.

And to the folks who doth protest about paying a license fee and want to see the BBC funded by commercials, then go tune into Fox or CNN or Sky 1/2/3 and take a look at the sh*te being shovelled to the lowest common denominator, it's scary.

And one more thing, yeah ok the BBC have announced iPlayer, and yeah it's a beta, big deal. Hell after nearly 15 years, that Linux bollocks still feels like a rolling Beta.

Kev

As techies we all know that...

...low level technical information woulda been far more interesting.

High Level sounds like a brochure and power point slide:

-- Formula One Car Executive Summary --

1. Colour - Red

2. Wheels - Four

3. Engine - One

4. Stickers - lots

5. Speed - woo fast!

6. Uses Petrol

Any questions?

It kinda took a while, actually...

Karl,

"I do subscribe to the belief that the universe is too complex to have just happened, ..."

Not that I'm accusing you of being a theist or deist but this is one of the most common misrepresentations about how our (present - but let's leave that for another fun discussion) universe got here today. The whole 'just happened' thing is where people really don't have any concept of how much time the universe actually had to get to it's present state.

The universe didn't 'just happen', it took somewhere around 14 billion years which is a bloody long time and way too much for most of our million year old evolved monkey brains to comprehend. Even just two minutes of thinking about it gives me the Total Perspective Vortex willies.

Kev

Sharing logins

When I worked at Intelligent Finance (part of HBoS) their IT team took 5 weeks to assign me a login and so to get anything done I had use my managers login!.

In the meantime I'd had my security and anti fraud awareness training which specifically forbade login sharing.

Funnily enough I quit IF on the 6th week when they finally pulled their finger out and went to work for a company that actually got stuff done.

A mate who's started on a contract at HBoS IT centre in Edinburgh has been there for a month now, still no further forward with getting a login or any relevant development tools and is having use someone else's credentials.

It's endemic is these big organisations.

Record industry shoots self in foot again but still doesn't notice

Yet another reason why I've stopped buying CD's and TV series DVD's for that matter. I used to spend roughly 60-100 quid a month on music, and feel quite ripped off when you get home to find out that most of that product is maybe two or three decent tunes per CD padded out with cruft knocked up in the studio over tea break.

It's plainly clear that the 'global market place' is only global if you're the corporates. No wonder these G7/8 type summits attract violent protests, the ballot box is no use when trying to get politicians, who are already in the pockets of the companies, to protect worker and consumer rights.

Recently I wrote an email to Sonos pointing out that even after import duty and VAT and carriage, their UK product still far exceeded the equivalent dollar price. This was their excuse:

Dear Kevin,

First of all thank you for your interest in our product.

As you state correctly there is a price difference between the US and

Europe.

This however is our price policy and is mostly due to the cost of doing

business in Europe. Of course we will always try to improve our product

and its price.

Hope this answers your question, if there is anything else you want to

know please don't hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards,

Mark Vellinga

Sonos Europe B.V.

What a load of bollocks, why not let me order their product from their US site, pay in dollars and ship it on a 7-15 day air freight, but no and as is usual with many US companies, you gotta have a US address to complete the order form.

It's all just one big rip off to protect the already fat and greasy corporate bottom line.

Kev

One less pile of brain rotting crap to wait your life on

I have Sky unfortunately because there's no freeview or cable alternative and I like my news channels and BBC4.

Oddly though, not a single Sky offering is on my favourites filter because it's just brain rotting twaddle.

Good on Virgin taking on these tossers. I also find it galling that I have to pay Sky a small fortune to get Freesat just so I can get free to air channels but the b*stards still withhold More 4.

To add insult to injury, when Sky get their paws on all these so called hit TV series', the 20 minutes of ad padding makes them unbearable to watch (can't say E4 are much better). No wonder folk hit the torrents.

Sky have become an unhealthy monopoly and it's time this is scrutinised a bit more by Ofcom and the government. In fact the so called 'choice' that is we're supposed to have frankly doesn't exist if you live in areas without Freeview or cable, or if cable is available then often the choice to have a dish isn't there because of planning restrictions. Isn't it about time that satellite broadcast access is brought into line with that of telephony and the other utilities where we can actually choose who we want to buy channels from over a third party managed access media.