Posts by Richard Malin

FIREFOX REGULARLY LOSES MY BOOKMARKS Arrrgghh!!!

Is it just me or do other Firefox users find that they suffer a complete loss of bookmarks? Suddenly my bookmark folder is empty and I have to laboriously rebuild it from the automatic back-ups that are hidden away in the murky depths of Windows Explorer. I have noticed this happen on several occassions, the most recent being after my PC automatically restarted itself after an automatic windows Vista update had been installed. I fear I may go back to IE7 as I have never lost a 'favourite' in all the time I have been using it.

I love a good debate!

Hi all you sad people (like me) who are trying to get on with their jobs in between reading all the forums about the demise of Evesham. My experiences of the big E over the years were thankfully somewhat better than Pali's. However, his problems (or some of them) may be similar to my problems with a recent PC I have had installed at work. (A Dell by the way.) Windows Vista is creating all sorts of issues - in a similar way to how things were when XP first came out around 2001-2002. (About the time Pali bought his PC from Evesham.) I feel that the software/OS manufacturers (in this case Microsoft) are always hell bent on getting their latest incarnation of Windows onto the market before the PC and component manufacturers (not to mention other software suppliers) are fully ready.

For example, my new Vista PC refuses to run some very recent photo software. The gadget side-bar (or whatever MS call it) that runs down the right hand side of the Vista desktop sometimes dissapears for days and then re-appears! Most annoyingly, a goodly number of my desktop icons never appear in the same place twice after re-booting. (I've tried selecting 'aline to grid' or not, makes no difference) Very annoying as I use a lot of file icons in my daily work. I also get quite a lot of unexplained 'hanging' when I start a program. It's all very tiresome for what is or should be a very stable operating system. XP was actually a lot more reliable and consistent than my experience so far with Vista. The fact you need three mouse clicks to select the onscreen 'off' button is a joke!

So while Pali may indeed have had legitimate issues and gripes with Evesham (I am sure they didn't always get things right for every customer) some of the problems may just have been symptomatic of a product made up from so many different 'generations' of component design and software/hardware compatibility. Is there another product in the whole world more full of idiosyncrasies (that spelling doesn't look right!) than a PC? I think not, they are pain in the arse at the best of times!

Richard Malin

Just another sign of the times!

How sad to hear of Evesham's financial difficulties. Whether or not this is all down to the demise of the HCI initiative or just bad management we may never know. What is certain is that as with Dell's recent financial problems, it must all stem from a lack of profitability. The market dictates that we can buy a fully spec'd PC with a 22" wide screen monitor for less than £600. I just have! 15 years ago I bought a 486 PC with a 12" monitor and a 40mb (yes, MB!) hard drive for £1200! So what chance do any of the mainstream PC manufacturers stand when they are left making probably less than £50 per machine sold? Why should we be able to pay so little for so much when we are all earning far more than we were 15 years ago? The same thing has happened to the shoe industry and the car market. At the risk of shooting myself in the foot (pardon the pun) I am guilty of buying (Imported) leather shoes from Asda for £14 a pair when I should be buying British ones for nearer £50 a pair. As with new cars, the market is dictating prices and leaving the manufacturers and retailers no choice but to lower prices in a never ending downward spiral of reducing profitability. Eventually all the shoe factories closed (bar a few specialists), most large volume car plants have dissapeared, and it looks like we may lose a major British computer manufaturer if Evesham should go the same way. Let's hope Evesham can turn things around. I buy PC's and TV's from them, for both work and home and I have always found the products reliable and the company a pleasure to deal with. I fear a lack of public confidence will already have had an affect on their already precarious business. I wish them well in their recovery and will remain a loyal customer as long as they are there.