Posts by Vlad

Bouncing Cows

My favoutite is the Bouncing Cows screensaver: A Cow. A Trampoline. Together, they fight crime.

Uma Thurman?

Am I the only one who misread the title and saw the name of the Kill Bill actress?

That garden needs some work....

and I don't know why the Spacehopper is apparently so happy.

Jarre - a blast from the past

Is JMJ still churning out albums? I liked his early stuff but grew tired of buying the (expensive at the time) CDs - only to find that each one was more disappointing than the previous one. I won't be bothering with this.

Are these drives lighter?

Has anyone weighed them to check that they ARE filled with Helium?

Has anybody thought about the sound?

I was recently thinking about a full HD TV and went to a few shops. They all had very thin bezels and none of them had forward-facing speakers. The salesman couldn't understand why my wife asked about the speakers facing the wall rather than the viewer. Aparently you now need to buy a 'soundbar' (which costs as much as the TV) if you actually want to hear what's going on. And most of them have a remote control that's separate to the TV for the volume. Is this progress?

I recently tried to buy a song that I heard on the radio.....

and found that it would be available to purchase in two months time! So the artist lost a sale as I used 'Freemake Youtube to MP3 Boom' to make a...ahem....'backup' copy until such time as I could legally make a purchase. In the meantime I got sick of that song. That record company lost a sale as they hoped that people would hear it on the radio many times and then purchase en block when it became available - pushing the title to the top of the 'Hit Parade' (or whatever it's now called). If I hear something I like I want to buy it immediately. Full stop (Period, in Merkin).

And no mention of Sky cancellations?....Until now

Nobody has commented so far on cancelling a Sky TV subscription?

It 'only' took me about 45 minutes and four disconnected calls. I had researched doing a cancellation by registered post but, oh noooo, you can't do that! The reps were very polite, though.

I'm very happy with the zero subscription costs of my YouView HD PVR.

Free advertising

Isn't it funny how they release this on the busiest Internet shopping day of the year? Just to get the name AMAZON into everyones brains a little more. Just like all of those pop stars and book authors who appear on TV at this time of year - and they just happen to have something to sell for the Christmas market. Cynical, moi?

Fembots

Is it only me that thinks of Austin Powers fembots whenever I read 'femto'?

What would we call them?

Pancresticles?

Sony Ericsson Spiro battery life

My wife has had a Spiro for a few months and she has to charge it every other day. She suspects that it's the screen lighting-up frequently when it's in her handbag that drains the battery. She has the keylock activated but of course the display comes on whenever any button is pressed.

Nobel prize for Moon-bomber!

How ironic that Brrrrack Obama was awarded a Nobel peace prize on the same day that his country bombed the moon. What has the moon ever done to them? Perhaps the 'searching for water' story is just a cover-up - they're really looking for oil.

I don't trust German-made rubber

Years ago I used to repair audio equipment such as tape recorders. The drive belts in the Grundig (German manufacturer) ones always used to get really cracked, and eventually broke. In comparison, I rarely needed to replace drive belts in units made by manufacturers from other countries. Also the rubber feet on the really old reel-to-reel Grundig recorders went all sticky. No German rubber for me, thanks!

Acrobat reader alternative?

I agree with AC's comments on Acrobat Reader bloat. I'm also sick of getting pop-up reminders about updates every time I open a PDF (and that's with a recent version of the program). Fair enough, it's good to know that they're offering updates to improve security, but as far as I know it's not possible to set the program to check for updates only once a month or so. I'm going to give an alternative - PDF Xchange Viewer a try.

I dread the helpdesk calls that this one might generate!

User: Hello, is that the Helpdesk? I've got a problem with my concrete-jet printer. I've tried printing the Concert Hall job five times but it keeps going wrong! Your engineer might need to bring a sledge hammer along with them.

High frequency audio causing headaches?

A possible explanation for the (slightly off-topic) discussion from Adam and Sean above would be high frequency audio emissions from switched-mode power supplies and CRT-only TV sets. I used to repair TVs and could hear the scan coils emitting sound at 15.625KHz. 15 years of listening to Dance music has put paid to that, though!

Maybe some people are susceptible to high frequency audio and are blaming radiation instead?