* Posts by zxcvbnm

52 publicly visible posts • joined 17 May 2007

Page:

Openreach hacks full-fibre broadband prices for developers... Property developers, that is

zxcvbnm

My brother gets 12mbps adsl for £15, I get 30mpbs for £20 basic fibre, including line rental. If no copper wire then FTTP starts at £40 a month. No wonder Bt wants fibre only houses. Personally I'm prepared to wait a few years.

Smart burglar alarms: Look who just tossed their hat into the ring ... It's, er, Ring

zxcvbnm

I don't have a serviced alarm because thats what the insurance company require. What it actually does is relevant.

That said I'm tempted by the £50 digoo ones from china for my garden shed...

IBM CEO Ginni flouts £75 travel crackdown, rides Big Blue chopper

zxcvbnm

The iphone did less than most other smartphones (no 3g or gps or unapproved software). But it was very simple to set up. Put in a sim card and at worst an apn, username and password and your were done.

Ever tried configuring the internet on a windows mobile htc kaiser? With multiple locations and bit its almost impossible even with a walk though. Tried getting a psion to connect to the internet though your phones irda port? Nightmare.

In short there were lots of people with more capable phones prepared to pay for a data plan but almost nobody could get it to work before the iphone.

'A-Team'-style tactics: Legit tool welded to kitchen sink to make off-the-shelf snoop kit

zxcvbnm

I don't know much about this or nirsoft but they are an absolute godsend to relatives who don't know they even have passwords.

God bless them

Why does Uber keep its drivers' pay so low? Ex-CFO: 'Cos we can'

zxcvbnm

Opposite day?

"the percentage of earnings going to capital, versus labour, has decreased over the last 35 years."

"employees – drivers – get between twenty and twenty five per cent of the fare. And the thought was if we could raise that to twenty five to thirty per cent [...] our margins would go up"

Am I tired and misreading this? This seems to say that labour is getting an increasing amount of money than capital and uber is trying to increase its drivers wages? And yet the article seems to be implying the opposite while stating this?

Microsoft takes on Chromebook with low-cost Windows laptops

zxcvbnm

Six to ten years ago I was buying basic desktops for about £200 (no monitor). Now they are up to at least £300? Often more than a basic laptop. Yet here we have £150 laptops. So where is my basic £150 desktop? They are not selling cheap windows desktops because everyone has abandoned competing in the market and dell bankrupted all the small producers.

Steelie Neelie finds phone calls are cheaper in Latvia than in Luxembourg

zxcvbnm

On giffgaff its cheaper to call abroad than for a local call. (3p to the usa 10p within the UK.) Its just weird.

Broadband rivals 'pleased' over Ofcom's market shake-up plans. Maybe too pleased

zxcvbnm

It sounds like a step in the right direction. It is hard to get a short term contract these days to just try an isp for a month or two and keep your options open. This should allow more of them to let you cheaply join on a monthly contract without bit sign up fees which would be great.

What would be even better would be to end the market system for exchanges. It annoying that the person five miles away in town pays half the price for the same broadband. I'm not convinced my higher price is really achieving anything.

BT! dumps! Yahoo! after! 10! long! years! together!

zxcvbnm

Please a proper smtp server

Oh for a standard smtp server. They must be the only isp that stops you sending email from any address other than bt (or a domain registered in your name). Its a nightmare and the reason I never use them as an isp.

(Oh and six months ago they migrated all their business home office users to a new email system and I did have to go and change login details as it all stopped working).

Jammy b*stards: Admen flog chocolate bars with 'Wi-Fi-free' zones

zxcvbnm

Oh come one

It doesn't say anything about wifi jamming at all, isn't this taking things a bit too seriously? Everyone under the sun is advertising free wifi so they are saying free no wifi. Its a joke. Free wifi is now so common that not having it is worth mentioning. Ho Ho such humorous alternative thinking. A poor joke but hardly worth getting so worked up about.

HP Spectre XT 13in Ivy Bridge Ultrabook review

zxcvbnm

It may be ssd but still rather a titchy hard disc. Once you have windows, the bundled software and office you will probably have less space than your memory stick.

Amazon crimps free Kindle 3G surfing

zxcvbnm

Users paying for amazons stupidity

I mean come on why is it getting full colour pages for a grayscale device anyway? They should have fed all the web through a proxy that turned it into grayscale and then their bandwidth would have been vastly reduced, the users browsing speed increased and tethering rendered pointless. Surely it is the obvious answer, it always amazed me that tething showed the full internet was there.

Ten budget inkjet printers

zxcvbnm

When easily refillable canon died I went through this search. Ended up getting a £50 brother as it uses unchipped cartridges easily available as generics for a pound each with no fuss. Its an average plasticy printer but basically works. Even if it clogs and dies after one set of compatibles you are still financially ahead....

AT&T to allow unlocking of out-of-contract iPhones

zxcvbnm

What about all the people who where refused unlocking when their contract ended and left at&t to go abroad. They now have no account with at&t and a useless locked iphone. Will they finally be able to get unlocked?

T-Mobile boasts budget smartphone for less than £100

zxcvbnm

San francisco ii

Surely its just their version of the san francisco 2/ zte something? Same company as orange now sharing the same phones.

Where are all the decent handheld scribbling tools?

zxcvbnm

ipad and external keyboard case

Looking around seating areas an ipad and a prop up case with a built in keyboard seems to work for most people. Not as good as the ideal but good enough to scare off the competition.

Foxconn churns out '150,000' iPhone 5s a day

zxcvbnm

No queue yet

Rob Shoesmith say's he is not going to start camping out until the phone is announced in a key note. He "can't imagine" how people got the idea he was already there.

Ten... budget Android tablets

zxcvbnm

Screen size?

God forbid you should tell us the screen size. Even the andy pad website won't obviously admit to it.

BBC crowdsourced mobile map: A bit quirky, but useful

zxcvbnm

Coverack?

3g reception in Coverack, cornwall apparently. Rather dubious considering there is zero mobile reception of any kind in the village. Interesting otherwise though. Completely sparse outside cities mind.

Google nabs patents from defunct mini-phone maker

zxcvbnm

Suspiciously light

Wow, I think my actual credit card weighs more than 1.5g

Library e-books to become too tatty to lend

zxcvbnm

Library payment system

In the UK the author gets about 6p every time you take a physical book out of the library (7 million pounds divided by total books loans).

If you take out an ebook the author gets NOTHING because it is not a printed book. The legislation is there for ebooks to get payments in the digital economy act but the government has not chosen to do it yet.

Almost all Libraries with proper ebooks use the overdrive system from overdrive of Ohio because they are the only people to really organize all the rights issues. (They also provide ebooks for WHsmith and Waterstones).

So Harpercollins idea is in efffect not that different from what the UK does with regular books, though twice as expensive and unclear how much goes to the author.

It would be nice if libraries were just given the books for free and then charged 10p a loan or something. Mind you its a worry in these tight times that lots of money will be poured into ebook collections whose drm will be obsolete in ten years and they will have to start again. Sensible libraries join together and run a joint overdrive ebook library sharing the cost.

Google whacks link farms

zxcvbnm

Doesn't work

Thanks for trying but site:ink.co.uk just searches the ink.co.uk website. I'm trying to search other websites/message boards for mentions for ink.co.uk. So far I can't do it. All I get it thousands of sites called things like best-ink.co.uk or great-ink.co.uk. When I just want ink.co.uk on its own.

zxcvbnm

Can never get it to search for url names properly

Yes if I want reviews of the website ink.co.uk I search for it but get thousands of sites that just have "ink" mentioned in their name? How can I make google look for just ink with .co.uk stuck on it? I've tried inverted commas but no luck. Grr..

How I went from punting PCs to betting a quarter billion on Betfair

zxcvbnm

Why so many gambling stories?

I'm sure its completely unrelated to the very lucrative amounts gambling sites spend on their google adds that appear on the articles.

Whats the odds that next months theme is suing for damages from abestos related diseases?

The Mac that saved Apple (and Steve Jobs)

zxcvbnm

Was a bestseller

It was a bestselling computer of its time simply because no other manufacturer tried selling the same model for several years. Think about it, dell sold many more desktops but changed the model numbers every few months so they could say it was the newest, latest and greatest. Apple just had its one imac for ages clocking up sales to anyone to wanted to replace their cheap mac.

WTF is... up with e-book pricing?

zxcvbnm

Not sure about the VAT

Don't you pay the VAT of the eu country you buy the book from? ie luxenburg for kindle books, not the uk vat. I could be wrong but it looks like it. Though why we don't buy all our ebooks from Guernsy?

The 99p mobile phone: What's the catch?

zxcvbnm

I wouldn't

But who wants a phone locked to virgin for £11?

If you use a cashback site like quidco you can get an unlocked basic nokia for about £7 including a ten pound sim card from lots of places like mobiles.co.uk . I've had several cheap phones in the past for visitors and not paid more than ten quid.

(I used to be on virgin payg but left when they were charging me 30p a minute for mobile to mobile calls, went to asda for 8p a minute, much better for my usage)

zxcvbnm

Actually

Now that I actually look mobiles.co.uk (owned by the carphone warehouse bizarrely) will do you this phone for 90p with a choice of you £10 top up provider and you can get £6 cashback from a cashback site makeing £4.90

No wonder CompSci grads are unemployed

zxcvbnm

Possibly not the best benchmark

I can answer all those questions and I'm unemployed . (No idea about any computer programming stuff). Just saying.

Asus Eee PC 1215N 12in netbook

zxcvbnm

Size?

Would be nice to see photos/comparison with how the size differs from 10" netbook if at all. Size being the main reason people buy netbooks, isn't it?

Odd you read several reviews of the latest netbooks having usb3 yet user reviews of owners always say its missing. Either reviewer models are different or the cynic in me wonders if "comes with 3 usb ports" is getting turned into "comes with usb3" by over excited people.

Sunny Spain suspends solar subsidy scam

zxcvbnm

Better yet

Better were the stories that Spain did not notice it was paying for Solar power generated at night. Presumably with the help of a diesel generator.

Millions wasted on IT: PAC chair parting shot

zxcvbnm

Rather a relief

Thank god for that. I was afraid it was billions.

Student racks up £8000 mobile broadband bill

zxcvbnm

Completly unreasonable

To have a product charged at £15 a month that results in an £8000 bill should be illegal under the "reasonable terms" part of the sale of goods act.

Orange is a french company so his "roaming" was probably on their french network which cost them the same if not less than if he was using it in the uk. So they are basically getting £4000 free. They really must be laughing all the way to the bank.

PsiXpda pocket computer

zxcvbnm

Anyone tried toshiba g910?

My family has a drawer of deadish psion 5mx's. When the screen cable breaks you can get it fixed but then the power seems to go and batteries drain away and the keyboards start to become stiff. All in all I think they are all reaching the end of their lifespan

I have been looking at the tosiba portegeeg g910 which is described as the worlds worst mobile phone but a reasonable pda with the best keyboard and available second hand for under a £100. Has anyone tried this or found a decent alternative? My mother now has a nc10 netbook but its still not something you can easily open on a bus and make a few notes.

GSHP: The green tech even carbon sceptics will like

zxcvbnm

Hmm not convinced

Sounds lovely and its hard to get a plumber round here whose not busy putting them in. However you here few stories about them being wonderful in practice and too many bad stories of people who find it takes alot more electricity to get the heat than they were expecting, not to mention installation and maintenance. its hard enough keeping our central heating going smoothly.

iPhone app transforms speech to text

zxcvbnm

Too low processor?

Dragon dictate on a 486 with dos, a good soundcard and microphone could get in the high ninety percent recognition fifteen years ago. Its not much better now really. I don't see why the iphone shouldn't be powerful enough.

Orange declares mobile broadband price war

zxcvbnm

Barely cheaper

Can't help think that Vodaphones £15 for 1gb which never expires would work out cheaper for most light users that paying a fiver every month.

802.11n Wi-Fi to be standardised... at last

zxcvbnm

Isn't it greater speeds at the same range?

Really greater range? Whenever I look into this the small print says faster speeds at the SAME range not wider range than 802.11g.

It's the "most advanced" bt homehub 2 scam. People sign a new 18 month contract to get one to solve their connection issues then they find that a) it only runs at 801.11g because that's what their clients are using and b) when they do have 802.11n it does not penetrate obstacles any better so they still have range problems. Most people already connect faster than their internet connection but want the signal to reach their bedroom, which this does not help with. Prove me wrong.

Science-boosting thickie questionnaire backfires

zxcvbnm

Confused by evolution

So if we didn't evolve from something around when the dinosaurs were around were did it come from? Aliens?

Man threatens lawsuit after negative eBay feedback

zxcvbnm

Uk feedback page lets you click on feedback

Why not link to the uk feedback page where you can click on the bad feedback and see it all instantly? It is a uk seller after all. Don't know why america does not get this feature.

http://feedback.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=onsalexuk

Its good that the buyer got a refund but I suspect it did not include postage both ways? He deserved at least neutral feedback for the hassle he put the buyer though. You bid to get the goods as described in a timely manner.

CherryPal out sweetens Apple with 2W, ultra-cheap PC

zxcvbnm

Sounds like a lot of things

Most low end pdas or gps devices on the market now have a 400mhz arm risc processor and a sd card slot for gbs of memory. Sounds identical to this with less ports. Boots in seconds running windows ce. So unless this is extremIy cheap I can't really see the originality.

Sony: world PS3 sales pass 12.8m consoles

zxcvbnm

sales of 55.5m units globally for the year

Maybe sales of 55.5 million ever but not in one year. And if true and 800,000 more than last year thats implying 100 million sold in last two years alone. Someone is confused.

QXL.co.uk shuts up shop

zxcvbnm

Thank God

Maybe they will finally stop emailing me. I forget why I registered ten years ago but nothing on gods earth stopped the email. They clearly decided there was no money in auctions so they just sent out advertising. It is bizzare how they never improved their site, ever, even when they had millions of pounds.

(Oh incidentally http://www.auctionlotwatch.co.uk/ used to search multiple auction sites but people quickly learnt that there was only ever anything on ebay anyway...)

Mr. and Mrs. Boring sue Google over Street View pics

zxcvbnm

£80,000 for a house

Yes ok its a bit of a dump but still it is still a swimming pool and a house for £80,000 pounds.

Coastguard, plods swoop on fake Facebook yachtmaster

zxcvbnm

Be fair

Presumably she paid with a credit card and possibly even told them her name and address. While its all very well to say police should be focusing on serious crimes it would be annoying if they refused to act in a case as simple as this wouldn't it?

GMail shakes IMAP out of coma

zxcvbnm

Really imap or another trick like pop3

You only get real pop3 if you do your username as recent:username@gmail.com and even then only for the last 30 days or so of email. If you use their regular pop3 it resets every time you download email or look at your account. So look at your email via the web and then come home and try and download into thunderbird and it will only download the messages since you looked at it over the web. No using two offline email softwares together either. This is not how regular pop3 works and is a a total pain as the recent tag is hidden. Read the discussion groups and people trying to download their latest email is a total gamble.

If you use the recent tag and download at least once a month then you can make it work with thunderbird but also filter out any email sent via gmail because you get a copy of every sent email back. But coexisting web use and an offline email client was a complete pain to setup and no thanks to google. Maybe imap will be better, I hope so but I wouldn't bet against it having a secret google way of working like their pop.

Cops pull plugs on TV-links, claim 'facilitation of infringement'

zxcvbnm

Title

So when the guardian linked to it and alluc and so on was it facilitating piracy?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguide/features/story/0,,2018909,00.html

it certainly encouraged it.

And how about me linking to them linking to it not to mention the register hosting this depravity?

Gates loses 'World's richest' crown

zxcvbnm

$13 trillion?

$13 is not 8% of the usa economy. More like $1 trillion. Otherwise you are suggesting the usa economy is $100 trillion. Does this really seem likely?

Six Wiis sold for every PS3 purchased in Japan

zxcvbnm

How many ps2's

So how many ps2's were sold? They started out outselling everbody. Would be nice to know if they have cooled yet.

Day-of-silence protest hits Net radio

zxcvbnm

Title

Its not 0.0019 per song its per song per user so a thousand listener station in your example would pay a maximum of 332,000 dollars a year which is rather allot for a thousand listeners.

Page: