Posts by Danny Roberts 1
46 posts • joined Thursday 5th November 2009 14:49 GMT
Re: like they say though...
The £50 installation fee has been dropped for self installations, I got my box about a month ago for free, haven't got round to plugging it in yet as I don't have a decent aerial.
Re: @Norman Hartnell
Then I suggest you start writing in American English, why support more than one way of spelling, very inefficient, having to maintain more than one language on a spell checker. I also suggest you don't take a holiday or attempt to broaden your horizons in any way just in case you become offended.
Re: If Talk Talk say they are so good...
Another happy TalkTalk customer here, live about 600m from the exchange and used to get solid 18-20Mb/s, now a solid 65Mb/s on fibre.
Thanks to Google Drive being a pile of crap, I consumed ~500GB last month and they didn't bat an eyelid.
Top tip: If you need customer service, use the TT forums. I used them to change my profile before I had fibre and throughput went from 14-18Mb/s in a number of steps with full monitoring to ensure the line remained stable. Admittedly, actually calling them is an excercise in futility.
Posted in Google inflates infrastructure cloud
Google's cloud needs some work.
I like most of Google's offerings but Google Drive Sync is absolutely not ready for market and should still be in beta. It works OK for the free offering where only a small amount of files are synced but for everything else it's useless.
I bought 400GB space and uploaded around 200B of user files, pictures etc. I then bought a new PC, even though I already had a copy of the files offline, Google Sync client cannot use a folder that already has files in it and insists on downloading everything again. Just to compound the issue, it can't be left to go and get everything overnight or it will use too much RAM and crash (I have 16GB RAM on this machine). I had to select 3-4 folders for download and let it complete them before selecting more.
I eventually had the 200GB downloaded and synced up again. Shortly after this, I bought a larger SSD to use as my Windows drive. I cloned the original drive (after closing the sync client) but on the new drive the database is corrupt. Google's answer: disconnect the account and download everything again.
Posted in ITV catches up with TVCatchup
I gave up on TVCatchup
I stopped using TVC about 8 months ago, the amount of advertising made it unusable. It would play two 30s adverts and then fail to start the stream forcing a refresh and the same two 30s adverts.
Has it got any better recently?
Re: So Google want to patent "HUDs"
I would say the level of detail given in this application is similar to the detail given in Star Trek anyway;
---"a laser or LED source and scanning system could be used to draw a raster display directly onto the retina of one or more of the user's eyes."
Is this possible with todays technology or are Google patenting something that may be possible in the future?
---"Other possibilities exist as well."
Does this not count as 'overly broad'?'
Re: Apple's own prior art
That is exactly how Stanza works, as well as being able to 'flip' a page all the way over.
Re: complete nonsense
I'm part of the overwhelmingly British readership just back from Florida and I can attest to the stupidity of some of the drivers! Bundling down I95 into a thunderstorm, the wipers on max can't clear the windscreen and instead of slowing down and moving farther apart, everyone seems to catch up with the car in front and sit on it's tail so they can at least SEE what they are about to smash into!
I75 instead of I95 but you get the idea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9mMH0ES4sI
Re: Longer USB cables = FAIL
I have my media PC in the attic with USB / HDMI / optical cables running down the chimney to the TV in the living room. I have two 5m USB cables connected by a USB repeater connected to the hub mounted on the back of the TV. This works fine for the webcam / IR receiver / keyboard & mouse if required but will not work with the USB DVD drive.
Full screen - dual monitors
I love Flashblock, I love seeing little grey boxes where the annoying adverts would have been. Can easily add iPlayer / Sky player to a whitelist. I noticed the upgrade when full screen video kept moving to the main monitor. For years I've had a hack which allows flash video to stay full screen on one of the secondary monitors while I work on the others.
Currently disabled the latest version under 'plugins' until this monitor issue can be hacked again.
Re: Well their site sucked for me
Agreed; the video stream (and matching animation) were flawless but the thumbnail image page was practically dead.
Re: Subhead ambiguity
It's still too early, I was wondering what it was like to work for schoolgirls!
Posted in Skype launches in-call ads
Re: We interrupt this conversation...
I think you mean Google Voice which is only available in the US due to the 'pay to receive' architecture.
Google Talk does have voice & video chat and is available outside the US and works very well. It will allow me to call landlines(with credit) or other GTalk users. Works very well with Android ICS as well :-)
Posted in Microsoft unveils paid SkyDrive options
Re: UK Prices
If you haven't used the service before, you can't get free 25GB, it's for *existing* users only.
Makes a nice change to see the $ > £ conversion being fair for a change, well done to MS for that!
Posted in Ten... Kitchen Gadget Treats
Re: "Airfryer"
My wife bought one of these (for less than £204 I should add) and I admit I thought it was just another health food fad. After trying it, I am a convert though, the food that comes out on the whole tastes like it's been deep fried provided it's not overloaded. Fantastic for those late night nuggets :-)
It is missing something with plain chips though, they come out crisp but a bit bland, they're not picking up any taste as they usually would from the oil.
So I have no idea what's different between this and a fan oven but there is something!
Android Bug
It appears Google can't help anyway;
http://www.google.co.uk/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?tid=627eed11de37ecba&hl=en
Posted in The seven types of commentard
Re: Type N: Non-posts by those who read but don't post.
How about a new group;
NN - Those who don't read or post (or even visit). If we can work out how to advertise to them, we'll make a fortune!
Posted in Jabra Halo 2 Bluetooth headset
The difference between these and the Jabra Halo (1)?
I have a Jabra Halo (1st version) and I love it. Having said that, it's definitely worth mentioning that these headphones don't have a dedicated Play/Pause button and previous/next buttons are actually double tapping the touch sensitive corners.
Android ICS has some issues my headphones, after using the single physical button for any reason, the phone must be restarted to reconnect the stereo audio. I haven't tried any other headphones so it may be an ICS issue, compounded by missing the play/pause button.
Any information on the difference between v1 & v2?
Legal methods...
I know this is the situation on the American side of the pond but it seemed appropriate;
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones
Posted in 2011's Best... DVRs and Media Streamers
Interface
I'd love to see a streamer with a decent interface that can pick up the metadata from my library. Being able to pick an episode from a series and see the synopsis is a godsend!
Liked it
I did play with one of these (while waiting for the Galaxy Nexus). It is blazingly fast, everything is very smooth but it is still a take it or leave it phone, I struggled to see how much of the interface can be customised.
Nope, a moped which can be driven at 16 must be limited but a 125cc bike, driven at 17 after a CBT is not speed limited, only power.
Posted in BBC iPlayer to require TV licence
Good Value
The BBC is still good value and this won't make any difference to the vast majority that already pay their TV license.
No other company will send 4 camera teams to the Arctic for 4 months to get the shots needed for something like 'Frozen Planet'. The Beeb may (and hopefully) will make a profit by selling the programme to other networks abroad but I can't see any other production company risking that sort of cash. Most things made by for profit companies seem to appeal to the lowest common denominator and are designed for a quick turnaround and to make some quick cash.
Posted in E-book maker speeds E Ink Pearl tech
Battery Life
How does video affect battery life, would each frame of video count as one of the ~5000 page turns the battery can do? (or part of one as it's not updating the entire screen)
Posted in JP Morgan has a Playmobil moment
I'd love to have the bank 'loose' money on me, they can 'loose' money all over me if they want!
PS: Thanks for the optional titles!
Posted in Ten... gaming headsets
Shouldn't need a title in a reply!
I still have a pair of Speedlink Medusa's, now stored somewhere in the attic. Good sound for the price but they picked up too much interference. I would have to go round switching off all the mobiles in the house if I ever wanted to use them!
Posted in TalkTalk drags arse in Ofcom ISP survey
+1 for the online forums.
I'm the first to moan about poor service but also believe good service should be made public.
Since getting TalkTalk ~3 years ago I've had no problems at all. I live about 500 metres from the exchange and get a rock solid 21Mbit all day/all night. The only filtering TalkTalk admit to is P2P traffic during busy times. This means at 5-8pm, my FTP downloads run at 2.3MBytes/sec and my torrents are running at 1.3Mbytes/sec.
I went through the forums to have my profile changed based on my SNR ratios which gained me an extra 3-4Mbit/sec speed.
My only complaint is that it is very difficult to move once a line has been unbundled. I could be tempted by Sky as I now have a new Anytime+ box that will only download new stuff from a Sky broadband line. To go to Sky, I have to go back through BT.
This is in a heavily oversubscribed Virgin area where I would get ~20Mbit at night and less than 500k during the day! Virgin monkeys blaming everything under the sun apart from oversubscription.
Posted in X-COM UFO: Enemy Unknown
Excellent game...
Anyone else make the mistake of renaming your soldiers, becoming quite attached to them and getting very upset if they died. I seem to remember if you killed the PC quickly enough after your best guy was shot, it wouldn't save and you could restart the mission!
I'm off to book a couple of days leave and fire up Steam! :-)
RE: @blehhh or whatever @AC
Absolutely agree with AC above, some things are more expensive in the country and some are more expensive in the cities, it should even out. Otherwise, why should I pay for your traffic lights, I can travel the 15 miles to work without seeing or needing any! :-)
Minor quibble, there are no pumps required to get the water from Mid-Wales to Brum because of some very clever engineering: http://www.elanvalley.org.uk/dams-reservoirs/history-of-the-dams/
Posted in Duke Nukem Forever rocks up on shelves
CPU Limited
Is anyone else finding DNF horribly CPU limited? Yes I'm running on a slightly elderly C2D 2.66GHz CPU but I'm getting lousy frame rates both in 5000x1200 Eyefinity or 1024x768 low quality. :-(
PC is well within both minimum and recommended specs so I've asked for a refund and removal of the game from my account, I'm not too hopeful :-(
Posted in Dirt 3
Eyefinity
Loved Dirt2, will definitely be picking this up for the PC.
Logitech MOMO wheel/pedals and triple monitor Eyefinity makes Dirt2 a really immersive experience, hoping Dirt3 will be similar!
don't forget
that the farmer then adds the cost of building walls around his land to the 'damage' done by the trespasser!
Posted in Crucial M4 256GB Sata 3 SSD
Smaller sizes = Slower writes
Please note that the 64GB versions of these drives can only write at 'up to' ~95MB/sec, it's always difficult to find decent reviews and 4k random write speeds of the smaller sized SSD's.
Posted in 2011 Ford Focus
5%
Excellent, with skill you can get into a space 5% larger than the car....
Then have to hang around until someone leaves to get it out again! :-)
Posted in Seven... SSD sizzlers
Couple of tips...
I bought a 40GB SSDNow about 18 months ago, best/biggest I could afford without various TRIM and stuttering issues. Promptly installed Windows 7 on it and it really will transform your computer!
Bear in mind, by default, Windows will create a swap file and a hibernate file the same size as the RAM in your PC, in my case, it created 2x 8GB files, that is instantly 16GB of the 37GB available plus Windows itself. Add in Apple and Chrome creating all their data files on the C partition without asking and you will run out of space very, very fast!
I've made my swap file 512MB, switched off hibernate and system restore and used 'mklink' to create junction points to move things like Apples backups to the spinning disks. Happy enough at the moment but currently looking at drives around the 120GB mark. It's also worth noting that many controllers perform much worse with smaller drives so if you are comparing performance figures, it must be on the size of the drive you are considering.
Versions?
The linked list just mentions 'Microsoft - v1.6502'. Is this MS Security Essentials which is currently v1.97 or some other MS product?
Posted in Nintendo details 3DS roll-out
$/£ <= Is not a valid title!
OK, I know that US prices are quoted sans sales tax (usually around 7 or 8%, not our 20%) but even so, as usual the price comparison is lousy!
Check my maths for me, I'm assuming the £230 price quoted is including VAT;
$250 = ~£156 OK...
$250 + 8% Sales Tax = $270 = ~£168 <= Price that should be used for comparison!
£156 + 20% Sales Tax (VAT) = £187 <= The difference in tax rates accounts for £19 (£187 - £168)
So how can they account for the other £43 ([£230 - £156] + £19) price difference. It doesn't cost that much to ship a single DS from the US, even assuming they were shipped to the US from China/Taiwan and then back to the UK!
SSD Failure
I would be interested to hear from anyone who has been using an SSD nearing the end of its life as a Windows boot drive. Does the drive start throwing read errors much like a traditional spinning disk or do you see the capacity slowly decreasing as the controller marks more and more of the drive as unusable?
Posted in BBC One HD to go live tonight
Agreed...
Even if I set a bunch of 'Favourites' in order to exclude the duplicate SD channels, it's still in the wrong order on my Sky+ HD box.
I think whoever out of VM and Sky could get the interface sorted would make a killing, both are slow, unresponsive and really need some more customisation.
Posted in Premium rate rants plummet again
Say No...
I'm in the same boat, one of the most used websites on my phone is www.saynoto0870.com
Can the bar staff know...
"In a situation where a soldier, without other forms of ID, entered a licenced premise (and where there were no other factors of drunkenness or unruly behaviour), we would consider enforcement action against the premises owner for allowing military ID to be used, to be inappropriate and disproportionate."
So do the bar staff know on entry who is going to become drunk and unruly? If not, then the safest thing is to refuse to serve and stick to the conditions of the license.
Agreed with the AC above that the bars should stick to the law, the laws should have been properly thought out in the first place. Yes, I feel sorry for the soldiers but they should be making a complaint and getting publicity to get the law changed as well.
That document is awful! Random blobs of colour, random fonts and margins!
Credited (on the penultimate page) to Host Universal, an ethical brand development agency.
Posted in eBay shill bidder gets £5,000 fine
yes but how often
does your wife bid on items that you are selling?
Optical output
I'm still looking for a decent media player, I love the WMC interface, combined with something like MyMovies to get film/tv episode synopsis and cover art but I don't want another full blown PC running!
So, any ideas? Nice interface, got to handle tv series properly, HDMI and optical out and .MKV support?
It seems to me... (that a title shouldn't be required on a reply)
The web page these people were visiting was 'sending a new page request every 1 to 6 seconds' and a seperate function was sending 404 requests.
For it to be a true 'go slow' protest, each of the people involved should be visiting the targeted website directly (and hitting refresh if they want). By visiting a website that then sends malformed requests to the target, thay are started a DOS attack. Just because this is a DOS attack started by many people does not stop it being a deliberate attack.
A go slow protest on the roads involve lots of people with normal cars or trucks. This is the equivalent of each driver being able to set multiple automatic vehicles driving slowly down the road.
I agree that is does make DDOS attacks from pwned computers look more trivial though.
Comments Pages
Add me to the requests for the comments pages! Not neccessarily to add comments but to read them.
Although Gordo Reg (love it!) does work well on the new Opera Mobile 10.
