Posts by Rob Beard
536 posts • joined Tuesday 1st May 2007 12:24 GMT
Re: ITV
I'd guess going on my Facebook feed, the sort of people who watch ITV are the sort of people who put "YOUR" when they really mean you're :-)
Rob
O2 prices going up?
My mum was an O2 customer for broadband, took a phone service from BT and TV from Sky, in the end switching from O2 (on the top tier package) to Sky she is now saving about £10 a month on the broadband service alone. Only issue is the speed has dropped by about 2 to 3Mbit/sec to 13Mbit... but she's happy.
I do agree with you though about lining Rupert Murdoch's pockets, in the end I figured with my mum since she's a Sky customer anyway it might make life easier for her to have one bill, and she did get £20 of M&S vouchers and £50 cashback from Topcashback too which was a nice bonus for her.
Rob
Re: Reliable 5Mbps is good enough for most
Depends on the consumer, yeah I'd agree for someone who doesn't use it much, who maybe just wants to watch a single stream then 5mbit/sec will be fine... but some folks might have families with multiple devices who want to do different things on the net (in my case I'm a single dad with two nearly teenage daughters... they enjoy the benefits of being able to stream two Netflix streams at once while their little sister hogs the big telly to watch something else on Lovefilm). Still I guess those who feel the need for a 1Gbit service can pay the extra if they want.
As another poster said, why can't Google buy BT :-)
(I wonder if this will be a bit like the situation in the UK with cable in the 90s, lots of little companies running fibre and then Google coming along and buying all the companies up).
Rob
Posted in Ubuntu support periods slashed
Re: This will only effect the terminally stupid
I've just gone the other way, replaced an install of Ubuntu 12.04 with Debian Squeeze. I'd been running Ubuntu on my server since 6.06 but well, it just doesn't fit my needs anymore.
I guess it's not so bad what they did, I mean if I install Linux Mint (derieved from Ubuntu) on machines for anyone I'll tend to go for the LTS releases (as these folks are the type who may still be running Windows XP SP2, heck one I did yesterday was running Windows XP SP1!). On my own personal machine I'll run the normal versions and just upgrade or reinstall every 6 or 7 months (I guess that's the tinkerer in me).
Rob
Re: @another coward Huh.
I'd suggest finding a LUG and joining up. In the UK there is a list of UK based LUGs at www.lug.org.uk and outside the UK, well I guess do a search for "Location" + "Linux User Group" in your favorite search engine :-)
In the early days of using Linux I found it frustrating, I referred to books (this was when I only had Internet access at work at a college), then I referred to the Internet itself at home and then eventually I joined a LUG. I can only base my experiences of being a member of my local LUG, but I'd say that there are a variety of folks with varying skill sets from new users to really experienced users who know their stuff. The majority of the time the users help each other out and seem to be pretty good at explaining how to do things.
As for double clicking to install things, yeah you can do that, for instance on Linux Mint you can double click on a .deb package (which I guess in the Windows world would be like an MSI file) and in most cases it will install it, or you could look in the Software Manager and usually find a version that can be installed with a couple of clicks (or maybe if you try the .deb version it might find an alternative supported version... it does this for me when I install Skype, it asks me if I want to use an older supported version rather than the lastest version).
Rob
Re: Because Canonical have never made a profit, ever
Or anyone who cares can use one of the many other Linux distros out there. For me that tends to be Linux Mint but I have also started playing with Debian a bit more too and I'm always open to giving something else a try.
Rob
Re: Limited Expansion
Erm, it's fibre to the cabinet, not to the premises. Good old coax from the cabnet to the house (and a separate phone connection).
Rob
3 Meg?
3 Meg? Ahh that's luxury!
One of our sites at work is in a lovely rural location but is lucky to get 1 Meg, I'm just hoping it's not in the 10%.
Hopefully when they start putting more FTTC in that will make a real difference, and then lead to a reasonably easy (and hopefully not too expensive) upgrade to FTTP in the future.
Rob
I'm not so sure every child would want one. But it might spur some kids into playing with them, who knows, maybe one or two kids might get their hands on them at school and want to know more.
I'm starting to get the impression from your posts that you're maybe a little closed minded to it all? That's okay, there's plenty of us who aren't :-)
Rob
Well I kinda agree about the Ubuntu thing, but how many schools would allow Ubuntu or Linux in general near their desktop PCs?
The Pis also have GPIO connections on them so the kids can attach things to them. My daughter who is nearly 13 was facinated by the Raspberry Pi Ladder Game, it was reasonably simple, at least simple enough for her to put together herself and she can play around with it to her hearts content at home (not sure about school, I know the IT teacher has mentioned the Raspberry Pi, Linux and Ubuntu in her IT lessons and she was the only one to raise her hand about knowing about all three) and she could also possibly learn to integrate the Pi into the simple things she's learning in her Technology lessons (or whatever they call them these days).
I dare say the same thing could be done with an Arduino and a PC too, but at home the Pi is plug in and play pretty much (no having to install IDEs etc on a PC, not something I'd be too worried about doing, but some folks might not want to attempt it).
Rob
So basically, you don't know much about the Wii U but you still feel the need to put it down? Hmm...
As a Wii U owner with kids I can tell you the Wii U gamepad is a great idea. At the moment the console only supports the one Wii U gamepad, but out of the games I've tried (albeit a limited amount as there isn't really much out there right now) it works well, feels a little bit like playing on a big DS in some of the games.
It also works with existing Wii controllers (I bought a couple of compatible motion plus controllers as my original Wii controller was pre-motion plus). You can transfer saves and downloaded games, the Wii store has an app available which downloads your content to an SD card (doesn't need to be a massive one, 2GB would probably do) and then transfer them to the Wii U to play in Wii mode, although you can't keep content on the old Wii, it's moved rather than copied. I've only briefly looked at the Wii mode and it's a little clearer over HDMI from the Wii U to the TV (42" Panasonic Plasma) than the Wii to the same TV using component video (and some rather cheap phono extension cables).
I've got Nintendo Land as I bought the premium console, it's not a bad game, has a few Nintendo themed mini games in it. I wouldn't pay £45 or whatever it is for it but as a freebie with the console I couldn't complain. I also bought Mario Bros U and I'm enjoying that, and so are the kids. It can be played on the TV or on the game pad in single player mode or with other players on a Wiimote.
Other than that the new Rayman game looks interesting and makes good use of the gamepad, and Little Inferno is well worth a look (and on sale in the Nintendo shop).
As for your idea of using an Android tablet as a controller over Bluetooth? Wouldn't have worked, Bluetooth is just too slow. Wifi maybe, but then you've got the faffing around downloading an app, support costs for Nintendo if it doesn't work on a specific device and all that.
While you may not see the appeal of the Wii U (despite not having tried by the sounds of things) others do, I personally like the idea of being able to play on the Gamepad, I can either let the kids play games on it while I'm maybe watching TV or playing on one of my other consoles (PS3/XBOX360 or even my old PS2 or Wii) or I can be playing on the Wii U on the gamepad alone, or we can be watching something on LoveFilm or Netflix... whatever, it's stopped some arguements in the house and means I don't need to run a long HDMI cable from my consoles to my desktop monitor.
Oh and for me, Pikmin 3 is the killer app :-)
Maybe considering this loss and poor sales Nintendo might even drop the price a bit like they did with the 3DS.
Rob
Re: Netflix, Lovefilm, Blinkbox
There isn't a lock in contract, you can cancel it at any time you want.
I've got a Netflix subscription which I share amongst the family (IIRC you can have two concurrent streams at once, keeps the kids quiet, one watches on the Wii U and another on the PS3) and there is enough content on there for me to warrant spending the 6 quid a month. I can cancel at any time, but that 6 quid a month gets me TV shows which I haven't seen (Life on Mars for instance), shows which I have seen but aren't available on iPlayer (Red Dwarf which I'm watching with the kids - okay granted we could watch it on Dave, but we'd have to wait for them to come back on again, on Netflix we can watch them in order) and things in HD that I have DVD box sets for but aren't available on Bluray (24 seasons 1 to 7 for instance). There's also exclusive content like Arrested Development which I'm a big fan of, and a fair few movies to keep the kids entertained, and some movies that I'd not normally get to watch.
If I went down the Blinkbox route for Red Dwarf I'd be paying about £5 to buy a series or £1.99 per episode. That's great but I have DVD box sets that I rarely watch, that £5 per series could just pay for a Netflix or Love Film subscription for a month.
Still YMMV, it's good to have the choice, just wish there was native Linux support (I find Netflix on Wine is a bit pants on my machines) and it would be nice to intergrate the services with XBMC on Linux, but well until that happens I'll just carry on using it on the consoles. Oh and great tip from the others on here about the DNS thing, I signed up for a trial, considering it's only £3 a month, it doesn't break the bank :-)
Rob
Re: installation disc?
Try this link :-)
You can download the ISOs from Digital River, you just need a legit key to be able to use them and they aren't limited to just Dell machines. If you Google it you can find out all sorts about reinstalling Windows with a manufacturer key and certificate, it's a great way of doing a clean install of Windows without all the extra stuff that the manufacturers install.
Rob
Re: Web fads and video games
Why not exactly?
Malcolm Evans went from being an electronics engineer to a games programmer, and I'm sure another programmer from the 80's went from working as a TV repair man to making games (was it Jon Ritman?).
Just because someone works as a tool maker doesn't mean they can't re-train. Of course they might not want to.
Rob
Posted in Valve taps testers for Linux Steam
Re: Ah yeh, this will be good...
Well you can login to Steam via the browser, there is also an Android app too, not sure about IOS or other mobile devices though.
I just hope they send an e-mail to let me know I have a message on my Steam account :-P
Rob
Re: @AC 13:56
"Compare with Sth Korea where the government pumped in a relatively paltry few billion but also guaranteed loans of around $20bn for investment.
Net result - some of the best broadband in the world, at very little actual cost to the public.
It wouldn't happen here - not because of the financials, but because the critical question for UK pols is always 'How can I use this to make money for myself and my school chums?"
Erm... there is that, but also South Korea is densely populated with quite a few residents having fibre to a block of appartments and then Ethernet from there.
Might work well in some areas but what about the rural areas where there would be the need to run one piece of fibre for miles to a property?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not on BT or Virgin's side. BT seem to me to mainly roll out FTTC to the areas already covered by Virgin... and Virgin don't cover all areas of where I live... I'm one of the lucky ones that has been cabled up so I can get Virgin cable or ADSL (not FTTC/FTTP for the forseeable future though) and some areas are left pretty much with the equivalent of wet string :-/
Rob
Posted in XBMC coders acquire TVonics brand
Re: XBMC on a set-top box?
Technically already possible for about 45 quid (Raspberry Pi, SD Card, PSU and case). Even works with CEC so you can control it with your TV remote :-)
Rob
Posted in Jam today: Raspberry Pi Ram doubled
Re: Incremental upgrades
The thing is, they have kept the price the same as it was before. I'm guessing the memory prices have come down enough that they can do this, or they're ordering enough volume to do this.
To me it's a bit like when the Speccy got an incremental upgrade going from 16K ram to 48K, apart from the fact in this case it's not really possible to upgrade the memory on existing Pis (well I'm guessing it's not unless you have some pretty specialist equipment at your disposal).
I don't think they'd go as far as adding solid stage storage, a display etc. If you want that, buy a tablet or PC.
Rob
Re: I bet d***s against c***s
I'm going to make that my new job title :-)
Rob
Good luck getting a replacement SIM!
I'd say good luck to anyone trying to get a replacement SIM. Both my daughters are on Giffgaff, my eldest daughter had problems with her SIM so we ordered her a new one, in fact we tried about 6 times ordering one and every time they don't come through. We've got spare SIMs that my other daughter has to give out but we can't use them and transfer the number across.
So for now Giffgaff has lost at least 12 months of credit (probably around 10 to 15 quid a month) because they can't seem to deliver a SIM (every time we get the same thing, we're sending another one, you'll get it within 5 days). Yes they're cheap but my god the service is pretty crappy!
Rob
Re: People forget why noone uses Lynux
Actually you'll be surprised, I've met some pretty smart teenage kids who know more than I did when I was a teenager (and I was considered a bit of a geeky boffin amongst my peers back then). I quite honestly don't see why a gamer should know the difference between say SCO Unix and Ubuntu Linux, Linux distros are getting easier to install and keep up to date and most have decent package managers or even newbie friendly 'app store' like programs (for instance the Ubuntu Software Centre which packages both free and non-free/commercial software).
As for your rant about problems with Steam, and Linux in general... could you be trying to cover up your lack of knowledge? Perhaps you'd be much better suited to a games console? :-)
Rob
Re: Steam Ubuntu only?
I gather at the moment it's running on Ubuntu, but no doubt they'll release packages for the popular distros and their offshoots.
Rob
Well dunno about 30 quid but they pay more than their Windows counterparts anyway...
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/06/14/humble-indie-bundle-5-closes-at-over-5-1-million-most-successf/
Quote from article:
"According to the promotion's website, Humble Indie Bundle 5 was purchased by 598,794 individuals, with an average purchase price of $8.53. Broken down by platform, Linux users paid more than anyone else at an average of $12.51 per transaction, while Windows users paid the least, averaging $7.97 per bundle."
So Linux gamers paid an average of $4.50 more per game. Remember, the Humble Bundle is a bundle of games where you pay what you want. I'm sure many Linux gamers would pay 30 quid for the latest title.
Okay, the copies on Linux didn't sell as many as on Windows but you have to remember it's a chicken and egg situation, lots of companies haven't yet released games for Linux so a lot of gamers will just run games on Windows. Valve are taking a punt on Linux and if it pays off for them then it could possibly lead to other big developers and publishers looking at porting to Linux too... and if that happens, well maybe more gamers who just use Windows for games will look at Linux too...
Personally not being much of a gamer I tend to play console games and I mainly buy pre-owned or budget games (I just can't justify spending so much when I have kids to feed, bills to pay etc) but maybe once or twice a year I'll pre-order a game (last year it was Uncharted 3 on PS3, not sure about any games this year). As a Linux user, if and when Steam comes to Linux I'll look into upgrading the graphics card on my desktop to something a little better (not anything like a 500 quid graphics card but maybe around the £100 mark) and pick up a couple of titles on steam.
Rob
Re: Microsoft Suicide
"Now everyone owns a console and a Mac"
Yes, I have a Sega Megadrive with Mega CD 2 and an iMac G3.
Your point being?
Rob
Re: Playground stuff again
"Arguing about some evidence that the judge has repeatedly said can't be used. Then Samsung leaks it to the press to hopefully influence the court case, that's contempt of court."
But... Jurors aren't supposed to be investigating the case, they are supposed to make their mind up on what they hear in court.
As for the leaks to the press, Apple have been spouting 'Samsung copied Apple' to the press for the past couple of years, surely the jury could have heard that before.
Anyway, whatever happens, it sure is an interesting read on Groklaw anyway who seems to be a little less biased that the articles on El Reg.
Rob
Re: Excellent stuff
XBMC is already available natively, I gather it goes under the name RaspBMC.
Not tried it myself, but I'm sure for an in-car PC with a infrared remote (or maybe even a USB controller of some sort) it would do the trick. In fact I keep meaning to try something like that myself with my Pi and an old portable DVD player with composite video inputs.
Rob
Re: Prosperity
"Not sure that there's much evidence to suggest that broad band has any effect on prosperity. It provides convenience for some things but buying a book via a Web Site instead of a local shop doesn't make us richer, for example."
It does, compare Amazon's prices to WH Smiths :-)
If I save 5 quid on a book I'm 5 quid richer than I would have been going to WH Smiths (not to mention the cost of fuel, parking in town, the time and effort of getting dressed rather than sitting on my laptop in my boxer shorts). :-)
Okay, seriously, I do see your point. I do enjoy going browsing the shops and looking at physical products before making a purchase (sometimes in the store, sometimes online).
Rob
Re: Why oh why
Not everyone has had bad experiences. I have the 500GB Tivo Box, Super Hub and 30Mbit broadband and I don't have any issues. Granted, I did have some issues with an old Super Hub when I was living elsewhere but overall this past 8 months since I've moved into my new place it's been fine. I just wish I could increase the storage on the Tivo box.
Not sure if the areas make a difference as I'm in an ex-Eurobell/Telewest area.
Now BT on the other hand... god awful BT Vision box, billing problems... but again I might have been one of the unlucky ones.
Rob
Re: "Radeon"
The Dell Inspirion 1501 is a notebook. :-)
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3359&review=Dell+Inspiron+1501
NVidia wasn't that great though... remember Bumpgate?
Rob
Re: I see what you did there!
Well with some other apps (take Skype for instance) they support the popular distros (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora) which also covers some of the other distros based on the popular distros (yes, I'm aware Ubuntu is based on Debian :-D) and for other distros they can supply a .tar.gz with with statically linked binaries with all the libs compiled on or non-statically compiled maybe with the libs in the archive.
I think for a lot of gamers ditching Windows for Linux they'd probably go for one of the more popular distros anyway (maybe Ubuntu, Fedora etc) and for others on officially unsupported distros they might well know enough to make it work anyway.
I'm not really a PC gamer myself, but I think that might change judging by the prices in the Steam sale. Take Left 4 Dead 2 for instance, I was looking at getting that for the XBOX360 and it's about a quarter of the pre-owned price (from Game) on Steam in the Steam sale. The savings I could make could pay for a better graphics card (currently got some cheapo AMD Radeon card from around 2008 ish).
Rob
Sorry I stopped reading at the word synergy.
Rob
Teach kids programming
"The National Museum of Computing will use the money raised to buy laptops to teach youngsters programming. Bletchley Park Trust will spend the cash on laptops for hands-on code-breaking and cipher classes for the 8,000 schoolchildren who visit site every year as well as historical research sessions and collaborative university projects."
Laptops? I dare say they won't get many laptops for £20k... wouldn't they be better off buying Raspberry Pis?
Or better still, how about they dig out a few Speccys, C64's, CPCs and Beebs from the museum and teach kids programming on them? I vaguely remember a C tutorial in an old issue of Amstrad Action once, so it's not as if it's not available. Failing that a few Amigas and Atari STs running some sort of C programming language. :-)
Oh and I love the beer sponsorship idea... might try that :-)
Rob
Posted in Valve to raise Steam for Ubuntu
Re: Other distros
Ubuntu 12.04 is a LONG TERM SUPPORT release. That is, it's supported for 5 YEARS on the desktop and server (used to be 3 years on the desktop for previous LTS releases) so it's good until April 2017.
The next release of Ubuntu (12.10 in October) will be supported until April 2014).
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases
RHEL6 is supported until November 30th 2020 (and by the looks of things general support seems to end around Q2 2017).
https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata/
Surely most people would probably upgrade their hardware and distros every 4 or 5 years.
Rob
Posted in Valve to raise Steam for Ubuntu
Re: Other distros
Yeah that would be awesome running Left 4 Dead 2 on your corporate Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktops :-)
Seriously though, according to the blog they'll look at supporting other distros in the future too but they want to get it stable on one distro first (and that's an Ubuntu distro with long term support for 5 years on the desktop, so the goal posts aren't likely to move). No doubt when it's officially released it'll support other mainstream distros, and who knows, maybe they'll supply a tar ball of binaries (even statically linked binaries) for the not so mainstream distros.
I'm not a fan of Ubuntu on the desktop since they introduced Unity, but I can understand why they've chosen Ubuntu due to it's popularity. Personally I use Mint 12 and Mint Debian Edition so who knows when they'll be officially (or unofficially) supported :-)
Rob
Re: Mobile Software Upgrade Strategy rankings
Officially my Samsung Galaxy S doesn't support ICS according to Samsung anyway. Doesn't stop me rooting the phone and installing it. Heck ICS runs on the G1 phone (1st gen Android phone with a 528MHz CPU and 192MB Ram)...
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-57327393-264/first-generation-phone-runs-fourth-generation-android/
I'd say that in that case ICS should in theory run on other budget Android phones too albeit maybe a little more slowly.
As for WP 7.8, how long will that be supported for with apps? With no official upgrade path past WP 7.8 it leaves the owners pretty screwed (although I also found that some developers are working on getting Android running on the Nokia Lumia, considering the spec of the phone I'm sure if they could do it the hardware would handle ICS pretty well).
Rob
Re: Promised ICS
They may not run vanilla Android by default but chances are they can run a custom rom of some sort which is fairly close. I'm running CyanogenMod 9 on my Galaxy S (I think it's ICS 4.0.4, not entirely sure without digging it out and checking it) and I gather there is a Jellybean port underway although it's running it isn't exactly usable as a phone (from what I read on the XDA forums things like callling doesn't work at the moment).
Still I'm fairly hopeful that JB will eventually make it's way to the i9000, albeit un-officially. As for TouchWiz, I thought I'd miss it but actually I'm not.
I do wonder though when it will get to the point where the latest Android will run so slowly on my phone like running Windows XP on a Pentium II with 128MB RAM :-) (in which case I guess it'll be time to upgrade, hopefully to a LTE capable phone if I can hold out long enough).
Rob
Re: Is this really, actually happening?
I too disabled the Facebook contacts syncing. It annoyed the hell out of me when I first got my Galaxy S about 18 months ago, so much so that I wiped the phone and started from scratch again, so now whenever I do wipe the phone or upgrade the version of Android (such as CM9 which I installed last week) I make sure the Facebook app doesn't sync.
I think most of my Facebook friends don't bother updating their mobile numbers and contact information on Facebook anyway when they get new phones etc (hardly any of them port their numbers, they just change their phones and send out lots of texts to friends saying... "here's my new number").
I presume this is also related to Facebook changing saved e-mail addresses on Facebook to @facebook.com e-mail addresses recently. Oh well, the 2 or 3 contacts I have e-mail addresses stored for are okay.
Mine's the one with the little black book of numbers in the pocket.
Rob
Re: Wow
Ahh in that case Apple should sue Nokia... I was going to buy an iPhone for my daughter but since they were so damned expensive I bought a Nokia Lumia 710 instead for about a quarter of the pay as you go price. Shameful Nokia selling your Windows Phones so cheaply.
Rob
Re: IT People
I wonder if some of the poor staff they laid off a few months ago will come back in as consultants to fix the issue at something like £10000 a day rates :-)
Still really feel bad for the poor folks who are Natwest customers, I guess screw ups like this could happen to any bank too. :-s
Rob
Re: £2 a day
I understand from my two younger daughters (aged 10 and 6) that their school meals are crap. So much so that my eldest daughter has gone onto packed lunches. Taking into consideration the £2 a day it was cosing for school dinners too it's saving us some money and she gets a much better variety of stuff.
I'm not sure if it's just me, but I remember school dinners when I was in Primary school (25 years ago) to be pretty reasonable.
Rob
Posted in Ten... pieces of tat for Apple fanboys
Re: Marketing clothes to fanbois
You Sir win 1,000,000 internets. Can I have a new keyboard please? I spat out coke all over it when I read the bit about T-Shirt v2) :-D
Rob
I agree, I happen to have a Smart TV, I didn't buy it for the smart features, it was just part of the spec. I don't have the patience to faff around with it though, I just use a PC attached to the TV for any media playback (or maybe my PS3 and occasionally my XBOX 360 for Netflix).
It wouldn't be so bad if there was support on my TV for updating the firmware over the internet but nope, I have to wait for it to be broadcast on Freeview, which won't work as I don't have it connected to the terestrial connection.
Beer because I really fancy a nice pint at the moemnt.
Rob
Re: Peasants
Ahh I have good memories of the AMD 486s. Around that time I was working in a computer shop (my first real job) and I was literally chomping at the bit to get one. IIRC eventually I plumped for the inferior Cyrix 5x86 chip which didn't last. Also remember various other DX4 chips from lots of different companies... IBM, UMC, Cyrix... I never was sure if they were just re-badged Cyrix chips.
I also remember from around that time (or possibly a few months earlier) that AMD released a great advert for their 486DX4/100, I think it was 100 reasons why an AMD 486DX4 100 was better than a Pentium 66, and one of the digs was that it could do floating point stuff properly without any errors.
I'd love to get a copy of that advert, I think it was in PC Magazine, alas I've not been able to find a copy :-)
Ahh great memories. I think I might install Doom on my PCs at home this weekend and teach my daughters the joys of having a Doom death match :-)
Rob
Re: "Phone 7 users won't be able to upgrade to Windows 8"
I bought a Lumia 710 on PAYG for my daughter... it was cheap, it does the job and she likes it. Heck, it's even growing on me too (and I'm a die hard Fandroid).
I gather though that the the bright sparks over at XDA Developers are plugging away at getting Android running on the Lumia phones, not sure if they'll manage it or not (maybe they will?) but not having an upgrade to WP8 isn't the end of the world for my daughter. I dare say it'll last her a couple of years and then she might want something a bit newer with more bells and whistles, and eventually she'll get to the age where she'll be able to afford to buy whatever phone she wants.
Rob
Posted in Nokia after the purge: It's so unfair
Re: Sad
Well I bought a Lumia 710 for my daughter. She was after a phone for her 12th birthday and looking at what was available it was about the best device for the money. Granted it's not got an SD card slot (although I gather this could be a limitation with WP rather than the Lumias in general) but it's got 8GB of storage (I think about 6GB is actually usable) and the interface isn't too bad when you get used to it.
For about the £130 I paid for it I was fairly impressed and it keeps her quiet. Of course when I come to upgrade my phone I'll probably go for another Android (Galaxy S3 if I can get one, otherwise maybe a Galaxy S2 to replace my 18 month old Galaxy S) but for what my daughter needs (a phone for making/reciving calls and texts) and wants (music/video player, Facebook, Camera, Spotify and Angry Birds) it does the job pretty well. I just wish I didn't have to use that god awful Zune software! :-s
Rob
Ahh you mean like Netflix on the PS3 and XBOX 360?
Rob
Re: Utopia
You have a VCR? :-D
Seriously though, I know what you mean, for me, as a work around I use a HDMI switch box. It's smart enough to auto switch between devices and for the one remote I use a Logitech Harmony (a cheaper one in the range but I understand if you have money to burn you can get one with a touch screen and extra features).
As for media, well I have a Media PC running XBMC on Linux, I just wish I could somehow integrate it with the Virgin Media Tivo, that would be awesome having everything via one UI. Failing that I wish Virgin would allow 3rd party tuner cards on their network.
Rob
They sell them at
... RetroGT.com
http://retrogt.com/shop/Card-Holders-11.cfm
I'd be tempted to get the Metro City Subway Pass one being a Final Fight fan although knowing my luck I'd end up in the ring with some big bloke called Sodom :-o
Rob
Posted in Twelve... classic 1980s 8-bit micros
Re: CPC printer cables etc.
I wish my daughters were so enthusiastic, I got an old Speccy running the other day which I bought a couple of years ago off eBay, sadly the keyboard doesn't work otherwise I'd have fired up some of the classics (Jet Set Willy, Jetpack etc). At least my middle daughter seems interested in a Raspberry Pi so I'm hoping she'll do more than just play "Rainbow Dressup" games on the internet.
I remember getting a centronics cable for my CPC 464 (later putting it on the CPC 664) and also reading an article about how to build a cable to attach a 3.5" floppy drive to the CPC, sadly not on the CPC464 :-(
Rob
