Posts by Greg 16
117 posts • joined Saturday 10th July 2010 13:31 GMT
Re: Not good
3 is the worst company ever to try and cancel with. Pro tip to save time - be aggressive and abusive from the start, because that is where it will end anyway! Even then it will take a minimum of 30 minutes before they will let you cancel.
Re: Carpe diem
It could "ruin" a few years, but it could only ruin "the rest of your life" if you let it. And don't forget that one good business decision can also make you for life.
It's hard to see a bad business decision without the benefit of hindsight, and even if things go "tits up", the experience invariably leads to other things.
For Free?
Seems pretty nuts to me, especially as they're doing it for free. All the kidz buy Blackberrys for BBM and nothing else.
Will many people buy a Blackberry just to have a keyboard?
"Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation and other one-time charges rose from £376.5m last year to £398.5m.
"Virgin Media boss Neil Berkett, who will exit the telco with £42m"
So after Virgin pay their taxes and other costs, the boss will be taking almost 20% of the entire comapnies profit. Nice work if you can get it.
Re: Not sure about dumping.....
"Oh, and the kit is good. While Ericsson and NSN sat on their hands, the Chinese learned how to build a first class 3G/4G network."
Yes, but did they teach themselves?
Re: Audi drivers
So in your worldview, anyone with a nice car is an arse.
The main reason that some people with nice cars are arses, is that they think that their car defines them in some way - and it appears that you are just like them.
Potential downsides
Risky drivers who have an increased chance of crashing might pay more for their insurance?
Is that a downside?
Re: @ JetSetJim
"You seem to be equating "popular" with "good"."
Erm no, I'm equating "good" with "subjective".
Re: Satellite or Cable?
"Satellite is precarious."
Is it really any more precarious than terrestrial TV?
@ JetSetJim
You mean removed from your view.
The programs you mention are some of the most popular shows in the country. Are you hoping that other people can't watch them, purely because you prefer not to watch them?
And what's your problem with "commercial TV"? I'm pretty sure that you'll find that all the "commercial" shows that you hate so much have all be quickly copied by the BBC - but funded from their TV tax whether you like it or not.
Commercial TV will die when people stop watching. The BBC has no such concerns due to "the unique way" they are funded.
Posted in Mega launches with mega FAIL
Re: Why Bother?
He said himself that it's basically a competitor to dropbox - it's not a new megaupload. I can't see how this can be touched legally, because you could only share files if you shared the account login.
The terms and conditions are pretty much standard for any service like this (FWIW I'm also pretty sure that megaupload had similar T&C's)
Why use it?..... 50GB free storage, or up to 4TB for 30 euros a month.
Why's it slow right now?.... Massive publicity, 50GB free storage, or up to 4TB for 30 euros a month!
Good luck to him.
Posted in Ten gaming headsets
Plantronics GameCom for me
I've gone through several expensive gaming headsets over the years - they always fall apart. Now I use the Plantronics GameCom, which are cheap (£15 on fleabay) and built like a tank. I haven't noticed any difference in sound quality over the much more expensive sets either.
Re: 3 for good data? Really?
3 do all you can eat data for £12.90.
If you want to use mobile data, you don't want to go near O2 (or Giff Gaff which runs on O2) . Obviously you'll get a few people with bad experiences on 3, just like every other network, but overall it's by far the best network for data.
Kobo?
"Amazon has, at last, some very strong competition on its hands."
Kobo's are pretty popular in the UK - no where near as popular as kindles, but their products compare very well.
I use a HTPC which is total overkill, but mainly because the little boxes like this Sony haven't quite reached the same level yet on certain important features. The thing is that they are now getting very close and where they mainly fall down is lack of apps. With the massive boom in android tablets, I think that the tablet apps will crossover to these TV boxes and fill the gaps.
Posted in New MPEG format paves the way for UHDTV
Maybe this will allow FreeView HD to fit in more than the pitiful five HD channels they currently have space for. This would be far more use to customers than an 8k TV, which would require a house sized TV to be useful.
The YouView minimum spec (which is actually pretty high) is almost identical to the new FreeSat spec, so I imagine that we'll see it on those boxes in a couple of years. In fact I think we'll see a shaky start to YouView, but then suddenly see it turning up built into new TV's etc, as they almost all have enough spec for it already due to all their 'Smart TV' features.
The idea behind Youview is definitely the future (remember that FreeViewHD only has the bandwidth for 5 HD channels) - but I think YouView will look A LOT different in 5 years time.
Competition isn't always good.
Surely the answer is to make them all sell their towers and frequencies and create a single Network Rail type organisation. It would remove duplication and would see new technology introduced much quicker. The same goes for fixed line telecommunications - in fact it could be the same organisation which would then lead to even more benefits.
Re: Threats of physical violence ARE against the law.
True, but just like the recent twitter airport case it has to be a realistic threat and common sense is needed.
It's pretty obvious that this guy was not going to kill Tom and the threat was around the level of a parent telling their child 'I'll kill you"
Basically this guys been arrested for being a bit mean, which personally I find a bit worrying.
Posted in Ten monster tellies to suit all budgets
Re: Sony?
I've not seen the Sony, but the Panasonic thoroughly deserves it's great reviews.
Posted in Ten monster tellies to suit all budgets
Re: I feel spoilt
For a no brand TV, I've seen similar spec for around £500 in the UK, so you're not saving much.
Posted in Ten monster tellies to suit all budgets
Re: "all budgets"
£600 for a 'monster tellie' isn't bad.
If you're really skint go second hand - Recently I picked up a high spec almost new 50" Panasonic for £375 and my HTPC gives me all the 'Smart' I need.
Re: Sounds good
I'm just about to leave contract on my San Fran, so I'm half looking too. This Sony looks great - a nice tweak to a San Fran - but at the end of the day I'm still really happy with my San Fran and it has great community support so I can't think of a really good reason to change!
Re: That and...
They're greedy, but they charge what the market is willing to pay.
I hate paying their fees, but it's still worth using ebay because of the high prices that customers are willing to pay for my listings. Whats the alternative - Gumtree? Cash Converters? You will make far less money on either of these options even when fees are considered.
What we really need is some true competition for ebay.
Re: I have a sports bar with 22 plasmas
I'm a big fan of plasma, but if I was running 22 TV's for 100 hours pw in a sports bar, I think that I'd go for LCD just for the energy savings.
The YouView and HbbTV standards are very similar. If a TV can support HbbTV, then it should also be able to support HbbTV.
So what's the point of YouView? It's all about control and ensuring that the BBC doesn't face too much competition. Youview will just end up as another UI for HbbTV.
Posted in Ten budget inkjet printers
Kodak?
I know that these printers aren't expected to last too long, but it's reasonably likely that the Kodak printers will outlast the company itself, meaning possible cartridge supply issues (they aren't exactly a massively popular brand of printer)
Anyway inkjet are for mugs - laser is well worth the extra money and nowadays they're pretty close to the cost of the inkjets.
Posted in YouView launches with pricey premium DVR
Re: Ahah
The YouView boxes have a pretty high minimum spec, so as long as HbbTV is fairly open, theres no reason that the YV boxes couldn't get a firmware update.
I doubt that YouView will survive and stay as it is, but whatever wins will look very much like it and the boxes could probably be updated to the winning solution.
"Given that the Fair Labor Association’s initial investigation into conditions at Foxconn factories took four times as long to complete, sceptics would be justified in thinking Telstra’s decision is primarily commercially motivated."
I'm not disputing the general theme of the article, but how big is Vtech compared to Foxconn? I suspect that Foxconn is at the very least four times bigger.
Posted in YouView launches with pricey premium DVR
"Most people don't actually own a DVR"
10 million homes have Sky's PVR, Virgin have a few million and then theres a few million with FreeSat and FreeView boxes (Not all with PVR, but alot of them will).
I think I'm right in saying that theres around 25 million homes in the UK, so I would guess that at least 50% of homes now have a PVR.
Posted in LG 55LM960V 55in Smart TV
Daul screen sounds pretty cool for gaming, but how do you get your console to output to it? Does it just capture the split screen, and then split them and zoom to full screen?
Ahem
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2111132/The-TV-revolution-Britains-glasses-free-3D-television-goes-sale--eye-popping-price-7-000.html
It might not allow watching 3DTV upside down (if thats what floats your boat), but it is glasses free 3D.
I dream of the break up of the UK and hope for an English Parliament, so the last thing I want to do is become more entangled with the clusterfuck that is the EU!
I can't really understand why anyone would want less sovereignty and diluted democracy.
Re: Been wrong before
LCD is the biggest seller, but Panasonic pitched itself at the higher end of the market where Plasma is popular due to the better quality picture, so I wouldn't judge them as being wrong.
Fighting Samsung in the low end LCD market is probably a fight that Panasonic would have lost.
I think that the biggest driver in sales is probably size and 3D. Go to Currys nowadays and a 42" screen looks like a portable alongside all the 70" screens that can be picked up for ever cheaper prices. I recently bought a new TV, which was bigger than my old one, but after a lot of thought, I didn't go for 3D as it isn't established enough right now and there's very limited content available.
If they manufacturers really want a sales boom they need to develop mainstream glasses free 3D.
Re: Oligopoly is a great word
It's alot easier and safer to set up a cartel when there's only 2 players - I wouldn't be at all surprised if we see a court case in 5 years time (but the ripped off customers never get a refund do they!)
That's because you was paying too much before the floods! I was picking up 1Tb Samsung drives for a touch over £40 delivered. Nowhere is selling quality drives for anywhere near that right now. I'm also gutted that Samsung have stopped making drives, because they were the best drives available imo.
Posted in UK mobile broadband carriers compared
Re: Orange is crap
Orange customer service used to be excellent, but has gone massively downhill over the last couple of years. When my contract ends, Gifgaf here I come!
Posted in Bang & Olufsen Beolit 12
Re: titles are for toffs.
I know about 'audio equipment and B&O's place in the market' - and this is a rip off.
How much is each Facebook user worth? $100+?
The only way to break the Social Network monopoly now, is to pay people. $10 for joining and $2.50 for each invite that joins would soon bump up their numbers and once that kick starts the numbers it would naturally snowball from there. They could even use it to popularise Google checkout, and use that as a validation technique for people joining the network.
Re: You have to laugh.
"On a $1.5Trillion (to the US alone) project that is a hell of a lot of money. You can keep your bollox F-18 arguments, the UK needs its $225billion export orders over the next 50 years"
You seem like a clever chap. Want to work for me? I'll pay you £1 million pa. But you have to pay me £1.5 million pa in costs.
Posted in WTF is... Intel's Ivy Bridge
Re: power consumption
If you google 'review' together with the name of the component you are thinking of buying, on the first page of results you will usually find several very indepth reviews of the component with a whole page dedicated to power consumption. It's really not that hard.
Posted in WTF is... Intel's Ivy Bridge
If you want to do serious gaming with the latest games at high resolutions, then you will still need a graphics card
Posted in Philips HMP2000 HD Media Player
Re: Pass!
If it was streaming your own content then yeah wireless probably wouldn't be fast enough - but netfix is pretty low bandwidth so it should work fine.
The £52.6m marketing spend added 21 000 customers - and they consider it to have paid off?
I'd hate to see what package those new customers are on!
When he went into the bookshop and looked at the book, it missed out the part where an Amazon ad pops up offering it for half the price.
The link between Tibetan's and military contractors, seems a little too obvious to me. I'm sure that China grabs any intelligence opportunity that it sees, but so does every other developed country!
If another country was responsible for the attacks and wanted to implicate China, then adding Tibetans to the target list would probably be the first thing I would do.
Re: if they are good then they don't go on BBC4!
You mean like tonight's BBC4 documentary on....documentaries? Followed by a 1 hour interview with...Terry Wogan.
You can convince yourself that you are some kind of intellectual for watching that shite, but really you're basically a train-spotter (and boy, does BBC4 cater to train-spotters ffs)
For what it's worth I quite like documentaries, but BBC4 documentaries do not have depth - they're just extremely 'specialized' meaning no one gives a fuck them, despite them paying for it.
Sure, he has a point about some of the material having rights issues, but personally I think that it would only actually affect a tiny proportion of the total archive.
Re: License Fee
Why is everyone so obsessed with making sure that EVERYONE pays for it - I DONT WATCH OR LISTEN TO THE BBC. I own a TV for watching my own films and yet I'm forced to pay for 'your' BBC.
What is the problem with introducing set top boxes with viewing cards for those who want the BBC? The technology is there, and it's not particularly expensive, especially when compared with the current costs of licence fee collection and enforcement.
