Posts by Joff

Invest in the manufacturers, not sell to the end users

The problem is people don't know or really care why they need digital radio in their lives. Their cars don't have it so why should their alarm clock or kitchen radio have it?

Instead of pushing it down consumer's throats with marketing or scare tactics, the government should invest in the manufacturers of the devices to get them to wind down the production of analogue in favour of cheaper digital devices.

Once people start buying them it will soon become the norm to just tune into a DAB broadcast.

Piracy isn't the problem, cinemas are!

Isn't it about time that the film industry scraps the whole cinema release and instead goes straight to DVD? I watched The Simpsons this weekend at a Showcase Cinema and I could honestly say I would have rather downloaded it and watched it on my PC at home.

The seats were uncomfortable, the audience was noisy, the room was cold, the volume was too loud, the picture has artifacts and the refreshments overpriced.

All that for £7 a ticket!

And the films have the cheek to do their "say no to piracy" bit by showing how "bad" a pirate copy is... I'm sorry but I don't think people WANT to go to the cinema any more as the experience is so bad.

As home cinema setups become better more people are going to shun the cinema in favour of on-demand content from Sky, Virgin, BT, etc.

As good as it sounds?

Has it been confirmed that the Elite will feature the second GPU heatsink which is said to fix the problems associated with overheating?

Are they going to be releasing a range of matt-black accessories to suit the Elite's case? I don't fancy having a wishy washy grey HD-DVD drive next to my svelte black 360 unit.

Lost my wallet

So, I've lost my wallet and need to log onto the Barclays website to request a new card (ok so that's a lie, everyone knows you need to catch the 32 into town or pay £20 in parking to queue on a Saturday behind hordes of people waiting for a cashier to become available and no I'm not paying in cheques...).

I've got my account number, password and memorable word (written on a post-it note stuck on my monitor, backwards, for security of course) and now I need to swipe my card to get access so I reach for my wallet....