* Posts by Chris Leuty

17 publicly visible posts • joined 22 May 2007

Citroën lifts lid on looming diesel hybrid

Chris Leuty

What's "road tax" when it's at home?

Road tax was abolished over 70 years ago. I think you mean Vehicle Excise Duty, or car tax if you must.

Nokia unwraps its cheapest 3G candybar

Chris Leuty

"Not exactly a mobile-data centric spec..."

Maybe not but apparently you can also use 3G to make phone calls. At home, I get better 3G coverage than 2G.

Mac market share slips worldwide

Chris Leuty

Steve Jobs ain't worried…

Market share != Profits.

Flash finally finagled onto iPhone

Chris Leuty
WTF?

YouTube?

"…so you're not going to be browsing YouTube just yet."

Er, doesn't it come with an app for that?

Vodafone upsets customers with upgrade downgrade

Chris Leuty

Not 2.2 apparently

I'm a Desire owner but not with Vodafone. The comments I've read from users here:

http://androidforums.com/htc-desire/140467-odafone-customers-beware.html

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=743865

indicate that this is an update to 2.1 that adds the Vodafone crap to the Desire. Of course, users rushed to install the update thinking it was 2.2.

Would Vodafone does this to the iPhone....?

Mandy quango says Apple, Amazon are too obscure

Chris Leuty

No DRM on iTunes music

fuzz/adam payne: iTunes doesn't have any music with DRM now. Everything is in iTunes+ format - 256kbps DRM-free AAC - and has been for very nearly a year.

Philips GoGear Spark MP3 player

Chris Leuty
Thumb Down

Hmm, no AAC

Yet another music player that doesn't support AAC. If I've got an iTunes library full of CDs ripped to AAC and/or DRM-free songs from the iTunes store, there's no point me looking at this. Do these companies not even want to try to tempt potential buyers away from Apple's products? OK, I suppose I could convert the tracks to MP3 but I really shouldn't have to.

'Bart Simpson' punts Church of Scientology

Chris Leuty

Oh yeah?

"Cartwright, 51, became a Scientologist in 1989, and attributes much of her subsequent success to the church". So, nothing at all to do with working on a long-running animated sitcom that started in 1989 then?

EC will force users to pick a Windows browser, says Microsoft

Chris Leuty

Re: Not so easy to avoid safari

R Cox says "It is not so easy to avoid safari on Macs." FWIW, I maintain several Macs and they've all used Firefox as the default browser for years with no mysterious switching back to Safari. On some I still use Safari as a secondary browser and if it wanted to change the default on the sly it would have plenty of opportunity to do so, but it doesn't happen. I also don't see Safari entwined with MacOS like you do.

As for Windows Update requiring IE, why not use the Automatic Updates control panel and bypass IE?

Microsoft plague threatens 30GB Zune extinction

Chris Leuty

Phew!

At least the fact that it's a Zune limits the number of people affected.

Sony Ericsson HBH-IS800 Bluetooth stereo headphones

Chris Leuty
Flame

They're as wireless as they can be

Hey Bassey! Nice rant about wireless with wires. The wire-less part is the connection between mobile and headphones which makes sense when you think about it. If it was truly wire-less how are you going to get stereo if you don't have a physical wire connecting the two earbuds? I suppose you could have a Bluetooth receiver in each one that decodes just left or right but you'd need a battery and a charger connector in each one too. So that doubles the price. And what about a microphone for when someone phones you up? You haven't thought this through.

I've got the SE HBH-DS220 which has a Bluetooth receiver with a clip which has the distinct advantage of allowing you to plug in any headphones of your own choosing if you don't like the in-ear canal ones supplied. Plus you can replace them when the cable inevitably gets damaged. And they're a lot cheaper too.

Nintendo introduces redesigned DS

Chris Leuty

Still WEP...

...or will it have WPA?

Ryanair dial into mid-air mobile calls

Chris Leuty

Someone has to say it so it

I suppose as it's Ryanair, any call or text won't actually reach the intended recipient but someone about 50 miles away....

Yorkshire police head off pillow fight anarchy

Chris Leuty

A pedant writes...

It does say "40,000 odd people who occasionally turn up". The last 2 games at Elland Rd had attendances of 38256 and 36297, which is closer enough to 40000 than 25000.

Whichever way you look at it, it's not bad for a team languishing in the third level of English football, with an average attendance higher than 6 of the Premier League clubs...

O2 lacking Apple focus

Chris Leuty

Works for me

I recently finished an O2 contract and I could access online billing using Firefox on both MacOS X 10.3 and 10.4 with no problems for the whole 12 month period.

Surprisingly, I can still log in so have a look at this screenshot taken today (Firefox 2.0.0.4, MacOS X 10.3.9):

http://aycu13.webshots.com/image/22332/2001864889061661712_rs.jpg

Chris Leuty

One more thing...

I forgot to add that Safari definitely doesn't work on 10.3.9 though; I can't even log in.

Virgin Media still claiming no usage limits

Chris Leuty

To be pedantic...

...there is no download cap because you can still download as much as you like, albeit at a reduced speed, so you just can't download the same amount of stuff as you used to. I'm sure that would be their answer. However, you're right about the transparency and they ought to make it clear that there are certain restrictions with their broadband service even if there isn't a 'traditional' monthly usage cap as other providers might have.

As a VM customer, I am still waiting for the email from them to inform me of this change...