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* Posts by Ben Boyle

56 posts • joined Friday 11th May 2007 10:44 GMT

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Ben Boyle
Thumb Up

Re: Meh

Yup, and my educational SkyDrive account just got a bump to 7GB so I won't be jumping ship just yet

Ben Boyle
Happy

I read that as "well suited to dong"... no idea why

Ben Boyle
Thumb Down

Amazon here too

I've had mail to the account I only use for Amazon... but have bought from Pixmania through Amazon. Lucky I didn't send the big A that snarky email yesterday, then!

If it continues I guess I just create a new address for Amazon and block the old one.

Ben Boyle
Terminator

Title

You're thinking of Borders. As far as I know B&N is ticking along alright, albeit not in the rudest of health.

Ben Boyle
FAIL

Facebook account security settings

Those will be the ones that magically reset themselves to OFF every couple of weeks. You have to keep an eye on the address bar as it's the only indication that you're using the SSL encrypted connection to failbook's servers.

Ben Boyle
Boffin

Thump it a couple of times

Ah, the old "percussive maintenance routine"

Ben Boyle
Go

FB Contacts

You can link facebook to your contacts and get the images... at least on AT&T's Galaxy S variant (Captivate). Bring up the menu in your contacts app and select "Get Friends", add your facebook account and it will download your facebook contacts and link them where the names are the same. You can manually link the ones where there are differences (e.g I have a contact named "Angie" on my phone but she's "Angela" on facebook) and if you only want the linked contacts to display in the list then turn off facebook in the display options.

Simples. And really quite effective.

The captivate has a dedicate search button too.

Ben Boyle
Stop

meh

it's a rebadged Fuji Instax Mini 7 (and Fuji Instax Mini film) with a different colour scheme and a higher price.

Buy the Fuji and save yourselves some money.

Ben Boyle
Go

Purdah

Purdah as lifted last Wednesday (12th May) - at least for some of us.

Ben Boyle
Megaphone

Of course...

... the personal apology will be created by simply replying to "All" and sending everyone the mailing list all over again ;)

Ben Boyle
Thumb Up

So...

... when can we expect to see these hit the market? I'd LOVE to be able to pack my carry on and laptop cases with these rather than having to fudge the current plugs in.

Ben Boyle
Stop

Title goes here

My GP's surgery sent letters out to all their patients including opt-out forms and suggesting that people fill them in and return forthwith. Surprisingly, it was also accompanied by an intelligent fact sheet discussing pros and cons, with very little bias in the information.

Ben Boyle

@Matt K

My understanding is that it's predicated on two concepts - the first that you always have your phone with you and the second that you already have a billing relationship with your phone provider. I seem to recall that early trials were based on adding the cost of the item you're purchasing to your phone bill but I may well be wrong.

The whole concept always struck me as flawed anyway.

Ben Boyle

Title goes here

Which is fine, but most people running office on their home PC aren't necessarily using it for group collaboration, are they?

Ben Boyle
Stop

No mention of the dark side?

A piece on mail clients and not one mention of Outlook? OK, it's a Microsoft product and you have to buy *cough* Office to get it but it's not just for exchange. I've been (relatively) happily running my email with it for YEARS and so long as you keep your pst files down to sensible sizes (I archive year on year) it's perfectly good - and has calendaring, tasks, etc. built in.

It's not everyone's cup of tea but for it to be left off the list is, frankly, inexcusable.

Ben Boyle
Stop

@John 186 - Two rules of law

One for us, one for them

Ben Boyle
Joke

One wonders

just how she knows that $5 is cheap for a blowjob....

Ben Boyle
Stop

Of course

Palm are pissing of the non-Pre iTunes user too, because we keep getting update notifications every time Apple release a new build to block them.

Ben Boyle
Thumb Up

Title goes here

My Hero has been updated - but not with the Orange firmware. Never know what additional crap they see fit to foist on you.

Now the lag has been sorted, it's the phone it should have been at release.

Ben Boyle
FAIL

Hero on Orange...

.... can't download from HTC, it reckons it's not valid for my serial number.

Thankfully, MoDaCo to the rescue and my hero is now the whizzy lag free device it always should have been. Fringe benefit is the lack of additional crap that orange install for you ;)

Fail - because operator specific firmware is a pain in the ass.

Ben Boyle
Joke

"Use to try"

"DRM systems are what music and film companies TRY TO USE to stop people illegally copying CDs and DVDs."

There... fixed that for you ;)

Ben Boyle
Thumb Down

If this becomes available...

...on Orange before the HTC Hero (still waiting, Orange!) then I will be incredibly pissed off.

Ben Boyle
Black Helicopters

Of course

...terrorist cells would never think to circumvent this technology by using short range radios... that would be FAR too obvious (and would give the ACPO no excuse to appropriate the technology once it was in place)

Ben Boyle
Go

@Debaser

Another chance? No! Follow through and leave the phuckers, dropping the scheme now is no excuse for past actions.

Go... because that's what all their subscribers should do

Ben Boyle
Stop

3 strikes,..

... would be workable if, and only if, the user has been properly found guilty by a court of law, not by some idiot in the music industry pointing fingers.

Ben Boyle
Thumb Up

And surprisingly for a hybrid

it's not totally fugly

Ben Boyle

@James Pickett

"Polished Code" should of course read "polished turd"

Ben Boyle
Joke

Hello?

i'm in Wendy's house! Stealing the DVD Player!

Ben Boyle
Stop

Public confidence?

"serving officers who are beginning to spot the pattern and are very worried about what all this is doing to public confidence"

I think they should have started worrying about that a long time ago. Mind you, it's not necessarily the fault of the officer on the street, more to do with government mandates that have them spending more time filling in paperwork and acting on media led initiatives of the day than actually being involved in effective policing.

Ben Boyle
Thumb Down

@Andy O'Rourke

My contract just came to an end too and I told them to go phuck themselves ;)

Oddly enough the gyuy I spoke to knew exactly what "WebWise" was and didn't argue at all apart from asking whether price was a phactor.

Ben Boyle
Thumb Up

Kudos to Apple

Kudos for adding these missing and much whined-about features, in the same way that any other OS builder adds functonality the users want. I'm not a huge fan of either Apple or the iPhone but I do think it's a positive move from Cupertino and removes a couple of my bug bears with the device.

Still won't buy one though, I'm not a fan of the whole closed system for apps and development. For now I'll stick with WinMo, and cope with its quirks and oddities.

Ben Boyle
Coat

Leaving....

...on a jet plane - just as soon as I can manage it.

This country is going to the dogs, led most ably by our fear mongering, thought policing, movement controlling government, reactionary NIMBYs and their allies in the media.

Ben Boyle
Pirate

Meanwhile...

... Her Majesty's Royal Navy are looking to classic alternatives - the spud gun.

I would imagine that if the yanks can get it right, it won't be too long before we see (or don't see, as the case may be) similar tech ending up in orbit

Ben Boyle
Coat

"plays to the public fears..."

"plays to the MEDIA DRIVEN public fears whipped up by the incumbent government to justfy orwellian data retention"

There, fixed that for ya!

Ben Boyle
Joke

Hmmmmm

.... and will they be sneaking this one onto people's PCs via Apple Software Updater too?

Ben Boyle
Go

Jesus wept!

Leaders of the free world? Ha! Not bloody likely.

Not sure the US is any better but the rot that set in with Nu-Labour is a major factor in my current plans to depart this "Sceptred Isle"

"Go", because that's what anyone with any sense should be planning on doing.

Would the last sane, non-PC, non-NIMBY, non-Draconian person to least please turn out the light?

Ben Boyle
Stop

Goodbye BT

Anyone know where I can find a list of "decent" ISPs that don't plan to Pharm my browsing habits?

Ben Boyle
Dead Vulture

First...

...they came for usenet, aNd I said nothing...

Ben Boyle
Stop

Prince Charles

One assumes he's paying fuel tax on the wine he's using to run his vehicles?

Ben Boyle
Coat

Non existent set of ports...

"The specification, like the brand, of the third machine remains a mystery, and its non-existent set of ports suggests it's a prototype rather than a system that's ready to roll."

Much like the MacBook Air then?

Ben Boyle
Stop

If only...

... we COULD desert UK.GOV, sadly we're a captive audience to the shambles that is HMG data management

Ben Boyle
Coat

Jumpers for goalposts

I suspect the woeful state of play areas in this country may have something to do with the "lack" of kids playing too... it's hard to use jumpers for goalposts when the local authorities keep selling off playing fields to property developers.

Well that and the fact that the little scrotes seem to prefer hanging around town centres smoking, drinking and intimidating OAPs :p

Ben Boyle
Thumb Up

Jesus mobe inversion syndrome?

Surely that should be "insertion"?

Ben Boyle
Stop

WHat we're of course missing..

... is that national road pricing also gives our friends in Whitehall and the local constabulary the ability to track what we're doing and where we're going on an almost real time basis. This government has shown time and again that they want this ability and they'll get it by any means necessary.

Ben Boyle

Club 18-30 anyone?

Almost like Club 18-30's brilliant yet short lived advertising from some years ago... "Wake up at the crack of Dawn..."

Ben Boyle

"Thought to be outside the USA"??

And perhaps this information would be provided by the same people that "thought" that WMD were in Iraq next to all that lovely oil?

Ben Boyle

Data charges

Yes, but are they getting raped for data charges in the same way that we are? I just took a quick look at T-Mobile and their "unlimited" web and walk package in the US is $5.99.

Admittedly it's a small sample, but I'm lazy and don't want to upset myself by finding out how little the Yanks are getting charged,

Ben Boyle

Nice - more bloatware

Considering the impact the ads have in Live Messenger, I for one am not willing to accept them in anything other software.

For instance, after I "upgraded" to live messenger due to the constant nagging, I noticed a jump in memory utilization... with Live Mess open on screen it consumes some 80Mb (for an IM client?!), minimise it and it drops to six (6).

More of the same in M$' already bloated and resource hungry applications? I don't think so. Maybe it's time I started looking seriously at other packages - maybe other OSes while I'm at it. That MacBook Pro is looking exceedingly attractive...

Ben Boyle

Touchscreen?

Innovative??

*cough*HP Jornada*cough*

*cough*Sony Ericsson Pxxx*cough*

Ben Boyle

No eBay ads on Google?

Does that mean that the first three pages of my search results when hunting for consumer items won't be links to eBay any more? if so then it's the best thing that Google have ever done.

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