Posts by Scott Mckenzie 706 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Mar 2007
I've only just discovered this, but yes it's the one opposite the BP Garage on the ring road! Which is great news as i live inside the Ring Road... i can see where i'm heading this weekend!
Cracking news... though it's one hell of a drive to get the best cuppa to go with it mind....
No i don't, i quickly got fed up of the battery drain on the WM6 devices for sat nav, so sold my old WM6 device that i had previously used for £90 and bought the Garmin Nuvi 250 from Amazon for £79 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000OV16MQ?ie=UTF8&tag=spoavetstu-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=B000OV16MQ) - it has a longer battery life, starts up quicker, runs quicker and gives me the flexibility of a separate device. For any use where i don't have the sat nav with me, Google Maps is more than adequate.
If Garmin made a proper GPS navigation system for the iPhone i'd evaluate it and consider it... but i'm sure it would suffer a similar fate on the battery (which is why it doesn't exist at the moment in my opinion). However I don't like TomTom so would stick with my standalone unit anyway!
Like i said, for me it's perfect. (FWIW I have a 2G iPhone too so don't even have GPS, but am still more than happy with Google Maps for any use i have for it...)
...don't buy it.
I bought one and am perfectly happy, i really don't care about the type of browsers available, mobile safari is excellent. If Skype aren't too fussed then i'll use Truphone (who are bringing Skype calling in anyway)
I never understand these things... there is so much choice in the world that you can buy what you like to suit your needs, the iPhone is a fantastic product (as anyone who's actually *used* one will usually testify) but if you don't agree to it's T's&C's then go elsewhere. There is nothing I want to do on my iPhone that it doesn't do.... 6 other people in the office have since bought one too, and not one has ever complained about the fact it can't do something that they need, or that they feel that if it were a more open phone and they could install other applications (probably mostly shit) then it would enrich their lives. Strangely when many of them were using WM6 devices they never installed anything else on that either.... a lot of people are just happy with what they've got and don't feel the need to needlessly install a plethora of crap on the phone that doesn't really offer anything above what it came with.
It's really simple.
P.S. I don't care about Flash on the mobile device, it means pages load faster. I've never needed to use Copy and Paste and since having my iPhone unlocked to allow me to use my Orange SIM, the one Jailbroken app i've installed is SwirlyMMS to allow MMS... in the 18 months i've had it, i've received 3 and sent none. If i weren't in a contract with Orange i'd have moved to O2 and got a locked 3G one by now.
I had an old 'My World" and it was rubbish, twi failures that required new units to be supplied... but the stand alone drives are fantastic, i have 3 of them in various locations and they've been faultless!
The specs look good on this, I have to say.... but now i've built an HTPC i'll just buy the disc instead!
I would be interested to hear if anyone has any experience streaming to a PS3 though as the neighbours are after something similar!
....cos everyone has a fridge at work, therefore the great suggestion of buying the raw materials will work very well!
I recently started making my own sandwiches and it is cheaper and better... but it is more effort.
As for the suggestion of a cost of 15p to make the sandwich, yup that's great for the raw materials again, but unless they're going to make them on site and sell them fresh, i'm guessing there may be a bit of packaging, preparation, logistics etc involved.... i don't think it's expensive at all.... go to any sandwich shop who'd make it fresh for you and it'd be a quid.
...as the sales figures (that thing companies want to know about) suggest so.
A Touch HD whilst a good phone, is not a patch on an iPhone for useability - sure it does some good stuff and is better than many recent HTC offerings, crikey there isn't a sat nav that works properly on it yet as they use a strange screen res.
As always some real misconceptions about quality, target markets etc....
AppleTV is a great product, for doing what it was designed to do... sure a Netgear EVA or Popcorn Hour is a great product also, but neither can hold a candle to the UI and ease of sync/use of the AppleTV.... but the AppleTV isn't so hot at networked machine playback, cannot do 1080p files, no divx, mkv etc without hacking it... but again the AppleTV can do movie rentals.
It depends what you need really... but to call the AppleTV shite, useless etc is very naive and bordering on plain old Apple hating... i've recommended and setup several for friends now, as they want a simple interface, that doesn't require extensive setup. If you're techy then fine, but not everyone is.
As for Tom and his comments regarding TV's and monitors, may i suggest a visit to Specsavers if that is your true feeling as you've clearly got some eyesight issues going on... sure there are a lot of lousy TV's around, but for not a huge chunk of cash there are some cracking ones around too!
For the poster who stated about Bluetooth... go and find another device that uses Bluetooth as a remote.... when you've failed to find anything mainstream come back and let me know if you think Logitech should spend a great deal of time and money adding functionality for one two bit device, or if maybe Sony should've taken off the big boots a little when designing the remote?
If you *really* want to control your PS3 with a Harmony you can buy a USB IR dongle that gives basic functionality.... or you could just buy a decent Blu ray player!
You're clearly demonstrating a complete lack of something here, it's called your own observations... have you actually seen one of the LED TV's in action and compared it against the wonderful Panasonic Plasma you rave about?
Plasma gives a great picture, in the right environment... but the LED backlit displays are capable of true black, i.e. 0.00, no Plasma can do that, not even the G9 Pioneer Kuro's... so it's a touch harsh to dismiss the quality of the picture of these straight off.
Try factoring in the running cost of your Plasma too, you know the one with the 550w power supply... compared to the 230w of a comparable LCD (That's a Samsung 50" 559 Plasma vs the 656 LCD in the comparison)....
People want unlocked iPhones, why does everyone need to judge them? If you don't, fine, don't unlock one.
There are many reasons to do it, for me it was that work pay for my phone, we have a contract with Orange and you can't get the iPhone on Orange. I can't stand the Touch HTC versions (or many phones running Windows Mobile to be honest after the past 3-4 years experience with them) so i got an iPhone and unlocked it.
Now I'll be able to get a 3G one and unlock that too if i want... but until there is a decent turn by turn Sat Nav app for it, i won't bother.
.... i'm willing to bet that most of the issues were caused by third party add ons, which is why i hope Psystar etc don't get their way as the problem will increase - it's the main issue for Microsoft no doubt!
FWIW the httpmail plugin as had to updated to work with 10.5.6 so that is likely to have caused a fair few Mail.app issues!
Guy at work is running the trial with them, he connects at 50Mb, can sustain continuous connections downloading on Usenet at around 42Mb (seems to be limited by them not Virgin) there is no traffic management at all, speeds are consistent throughout the day, upload speed is around 2.3Mb which is pretty damn quick by comparison to other services.
How much all of that will change when it becomes public is a different story though... but for now, it looks good!
I bought the iPhone cos it's a great phone and does everything i want/need from it...
Not everyone buys something because they think it makes them look cool, that's really quite sad... clearly it affects you though, so maybe go take a lie down and worry less about what other people think of you,
The Bush player from Argos seems to be ok, if you have a 1080p/24 set... outside of that, spend the extra £50 and buy the Sony S350 from Amazon, it's a far superior set...
Herein lies the problem, a budget set finally appears and it's not great, or to clarify, it's not great for the likely target market - picture the scene a person who bought a 'HD Ready' set that runs at 720p spies a sub £100 BR player and buys it... it's crap at this point, support is handled by Argos so don't expect regular firmware updates or people with a clue and it uses off the shelf Broadcomm parts.... all in all the person now watching "HD" isn't going to see much of a difference and consequently the take up won't be great.
Cheap products isn't always the solution... a Sony BDP-S350 for £155 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001DN1SP4/202-3314281-8268652?ie=UTF8&tag=spoavetstu-21&linkCode=xm2&camp=1634&creativeASIN=B001DN1SP4) with 2 free discs is very good value, but many will assume that taking a Gary F's suggestion makes a quality BR player, when in reality it doesn't at all....
Guys if you don't understand, just accept, or go away and read.... people rant and rave about crap reviews on here and when someone actually posts information that is meaningful (i.e. sluggish response, bounce, natural etc...) they get slapped down!
Speaker cables do make a difference, accept it.
As for an Aego M comparison - a bit harsh.... whilst i agree the Aego M is absolutely stunning, a) it's not half the price and b) it's only a set of speakers, there is no DAB radio, no iPod dock etc... handy if you don't need them but not exactly an apples with apples comparison!!!
I hate the standard earbuds and love my Etymotic ER6i, so when the opportunity arose to combine the hands free calling and "remote" functionality of the standard earbuds with top notch audio i bought the HF2's... and whilst they ain't cheap, they are phenomenally good, only real issue is sound isolating headphones usually result in you taking either really loudly or really quietly as you can't hear your own voice!
Dual Driver ones will be interesting to hear though....
..it's highly unlikely to be 50Gb in size, it'll be compressed in some way, a 1080p compression using h.264 will come down to around 10Gb for your "typical" film... and if you've got a fast broadband connection (like Be for instance) then this will come down in less than 90 minutes
Shame all of this is US only :(
...this review is.
It's a BR player, therefore a given that it's 24fps and 1080p, there is nothing of substance whatsoever in the above other than to say the product is out....
It's a Profile 1.1 player, therefore will not have a memory card slot, it also has no Ethernet port so cannot be upgraded to a Profile 2.0 player either.
In short buy elsewhere.
Can we have a UK report pleased, i tried Google Translate and it struggled....
Some oddities, i personally love the Mac Keyboard, the keys are wonderful to type on - well ahead of anything else on the market... and the Mighty Mouse is absolutely fantastic - i have large hands and long fingers and the shape of it is far more comfortable for me to hold than any other mouse i've found, the wheel/ball does seem to suffer from some reliability issues mind, but the latest ones seem better (white side buttons not grey)
And some very dubious scores at times....
I have an earlier model and it's great... it broke recently (well out of warranty) and was repaired for the cost of return shipping to Germany.
EyeTV software is excellent indeed, you usually get a discount on upgrading to the latest version too - and each time they have bought significant improvements with each version.
....have clearly never developed for any other type of device.
It's a fantastic deal, 30% of revenue for free payment processing and handling, marketing, hosting etc... most places charge nearer 90% for just allowing you the privilege!
Sure at times the practice seems a little draconian, but most things eventually get resolved.... i'd rather they were over zealous in there efforts than let crap through.
And as for working more closely with Google/Microsoft etc - is this really a surprise... people expect to see things from these corporations on the phone, so i'm not at all surprised.
I can picture the uproar now when Garmin/TomTom or whomever Apple are blatantly working with to get a SatNav app working get exclusivity on this type of App.... but i welcome it wholly!
Well none of those laptops mentioned are as thin as the Macbook Air at it's thinnest edge... therefore, not as thin.
Sure there are ones that are thinner than the MBA at it's thickest edge and are uniform height, but basic maths/physics shows that the angled edge of the MBA is thinner overall....
God i'm sad, but i do love people who bash Apple not actually having a grasp of facts when slating them.
Oh no, they've had an advert banned for over stating the speed of it.... shock news, company overestimates in advertising!!! I bet you're the kind of person who has a go at car manufacturers when your car does 0-62 0.2 seconds slower, or never quite hits 50mpg aren't you?
I do bow to MS, they make a poor, buggy OS that has sold well as there is no viable alternative for many people - it's not the best OS at all, but then again it's quite specific really, if you want to run SQL based apps it probably is, if you want a straightforward easy to use OS that works well, buy OS X if you like fiddling with stuff but still like a solid OS buy Linux... buy for what suits.
I work with MS everyday, i also work with Apple everyday - and the Apple products are, generally speaking, far better than the MS ones.
The iPod is the best mp3 player, it's so incredibly easy to use, it has excellent quality DAC's on board, they have clever add on features - iPod Touch and Nano with Nike+ for instance. If you don't agree that's fair enough, but i'd love to see what is better? Sure it is quite linked to iTunes which isn't everyones cup of tea and the standard headphones are shite.... but i like iTunes and have my own headphones so not an issue.
Best browser - tough one, the fact they've never claimed that is probably immaterial to you? The claimed the fastest and i believe it is still... but based on what - who knows, or cares. I use it because i like it, i also Firefox because i like it, and Camino, and Lynx, and IE5, 5.5, 6 and 7.... as a web developer you have to you see and Safari is one of the most consistent products when it comes to adhering to web standards, firefox claims to be and whilst it's better than IE it's not as good as Safari.
As for Best Laptop - nothing touches the Macbooks for performance, style etc... yes you can buy cheaper, lighter, faster etc, but in one package... it is the best.
Thinnest laptop - argue all you like it is - not relevant in my life but it is the thinnest.
Greenest - again, it is... no other mainstream laptop is as eco-friendly based mostly on the fact that the vast majority are made of plastic!
I too jumped ship to Fusion, it's perfect for my needs - though likewise the latest version seems a little slower... however the most significant difference for me was that VMWare don't charge for version upgrades... v1.x to v2.x was free, Parallels charge each time you jump a version number!
Plus, lets be honest it's not as if VMWare are exactly donkeys in the Virtualisation horse race now is it...
If you are paying more than £15 per film you are being conned.... with very little searching it's easy to find latest releases for that kind of money, maybe not at HMV etc but still...
But if you're happy with DVD quality and price that's excellent news.... but why did you buy 2 BR players??
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