I'd be tempted to get the Metro City Subway Pass one being a Final Fight fan although knowing my luck I'd end up in the ring with some big bloke called Sodom :-o
I wish my daughters were so enthusiastic, I got an old Speccy running the other day which I bought a couple of years ago off eBay, sadly the keyboard doesn't work otherwise I'd have fired up some of the classics (Jet Set Willy, Jetpack etc). At least my middle daughter seems interested in a Raspberry Pi so I'm hoping she'll do more than just play "Rainbow Dressup" games on the internet.
I remember getting a centronics cable for my CPC 464 (later putting it on the CPC 664) and also reading an article about how to build a cable to attach a 3.5" floppy drive to the CPC, sadly not on the CPC464 :-(
I also had a CPC464 with green screen monitor. Previous to that I'd had an Atari 65XE which failed, followed by another which failed, then a ZX Spectrum +3 for a week which also failed, so within a year we'd upgraded to the CPC (I think it was an ex-demo model).
I remember having so much fun with the good old CPC playing some of the great Codemasters budget games (Fruit Machine possibly being my favourite, never did get into Dizzy) or some of the Mastertronic stuff (Way of the Exploding Fist - okay I know Melbourne House, but I had the budget Ricochet version).
Eventually I started tinkering about with programming in Basic (I remember the manual being pretty good) and doing more serious things on it such as playing with Mini Office II printing to a Brother thermal printer, later a Star LC10 printer), a music program called EMU, a graphics package (can't remember the name of it) and a Datel Lightpen (with the aid of a MP-1 modulator).
Later on I upgraded to a CPC664 which was amazing (still with a green screen monitor though unless I used a combination of the modulator and monitor to power the disk drive - my dad didn't upgrade the modulator) and I spent many hours playing around with Logo (so when we started doing Logo in Maths lessons at secondary school I was way ahead of the others in the class drawing pretty pictures while the rest of the kids were struggling to draw lines and boxes).
I'll always fondly remember my CPC, and being jealous of a friend who had a CPC6128, I had some great fun with it before I eventually upgraded to an Atari ST.
This reminds me of the episode of The Simpsons where Marge is against Itchy and Scratchy, the mums campaign against Itchy and Scratchy and then decide to go onto the Statue of David. If these folks on 'mumsnet' get their own way they'll keep pushing until they have blocked everything that they don't like.
As a parent, I don't want my kids to see bad things, I don't let them go on Facebook yet (my daughters are nearly 12, just turned 10 and nearly 6) and I do give them a bit of freedom of what they access on the net but I do reguarly monitor what they do and I've implemented DansGuardian (okay not all parents have the knowhow on how to do this).
So if they want to do this, why can't they make it opt-in?
I mean, why can't they give customers the option to turn the filter on if they don't want little Johnny to see anything bad via a web control panel or a call to the ISP.
"How many times a day would I have to hear someone say: "My ribbon's gone. It's all turned into menus"
Juding from the users I support, lots, followed by cheers of joy that the god awful ribbon has gone. :-)
Personally I don't like the ribbon, but I can just about get on with it for the little bits I do actually do in Word and Excel but some of the users I support really moan about it, guess it's because the actually do more in Office than I do.
So while some of that kit is nice to look at, it doesn't half seem a bit pricey. I guess it's possibly not aimed at folks like me with kids and limited disposable income :-)
Saying that, I do have a PS3 (old 80GB fat model) and a Logitech Harmony remote (the 300 one, about 25 quid from PC World) which is a life saver for when we lose remotes (seems to happen often enough that I'm tempted to attach a bit of wire to the remote and then tie it to the sofa :-D).
I'm currently interested in getting some headphones but at £120 I think I'll look for something a bit cheaper, say around the £20 to £30 mark.
How about some guides on how to replicate some of these geeky things using bits that we might have lying around in sheds and garages.
It's a sad day for the fans of Comodore and Atari :-(
I was one of the Atari fans, getting an Atari 65XE in the late 80's. Although I'd previously had a ZX81 it was the Atari machine that really got me interested in computers properly. I still have fond memories of typing in listings from the old Atari magazines and the manuals, and then trying to work out how to write programs (although if I'm honest the majority of the time was spent playing games on the machine).
I remember really wanting an Atari ST when I had the 65XE and then telling my Uncle to get an Atari ST over an Amiga when he was looking at getting my cousins a computer for Christmas (to be fair thinking back they might have been better with the Amiga but I was a die hard Atari fan through and through and didn't know at the time that Jack originally formed Commodore). When they got the ST I was a tad jealous and eventually got a 520STFM of my own a couple of years later (which I then eventually screwed up and sold to buy an Amiga 500).
As a life long Atari fan I'll raise a glass to Jack in honour of the great computers his companies made. I'd say if it wasn't for my old Atari I probably would have ended up doing something less interesting with my life.
I fondly remember reading the Silica Systems calalogues about 1988 and thinking "I'd love to have an ST and the 520STM is fairly cheap". Of course I was about 10 at the time and didn't realise the value of money. Still having an Atari 65XE I often daydreamed about having an ST, until about 2 years later when I got a 520STFM :-)
I wouldn't be surprised if the 520STM are worth a few quid now being more rare than the STFM.
Can you post some links to this skirting board trunking? I'm serious, I want to run CAT6 cable round my house but my landlord wouldn't want extra trunking putting in so something like replacement skirting board which looks neat with a couple of wall sockets would be ideal.
Then I've just got to work out how to get CAT6 to the garage under the house (without drilling holes) and into the bedrooms (again without drilling holes) :-)
Doesn't running cable outside the wall also require some of that UV protected cable or is it possible to protect the cable with something like electrical tape?
I'd be interested IF it didn't have some sort of god awful locked down boot loader which only supported Windows 8 so I could install a supported flavour of Linux on the thing.
I'll stay hopeful that it'll be able to run Linux but I won't hold my breath. In the mean time I'm sure I can get another year or two out of my 3.5 year old Acer Aspire before I look to upgrade.
Hmm... online connectivity required? What about the poor folks who are on dialup? Will Sony be building in 3G connections for those without broadband or unreliable broadband? (like they have with the Vita?).
Guess it's too early to say at the moment.
Still it's good for AMD providing the CPU and GPU, doesn't that mean they now provide the GPU for all the next gen consoles?
My first phone was a Motorolla Flare which also had a credit card sized SIM (without the cut out bit). I vaguely remember hacking the SIM to pieces to fit into a newer Sagem phone which I purchased to replace the old Moto brick. Ahh great memories. :-)
Not so sure about these Micro SIMs though, they're like the new 5 pence pieces, too fiddly for us old people (okay technically I'm not THAT old at 33 :-D).
The extended warranty is run by an insurance company separate to Game/Gamestation. It should say on the paperwork who it is underwritten by. My daughter had a DS which a hinge broke on it, I claimed on the extended warranty and they sent a gift card for £40, luckily it arrived before they went into administration so I bought a pre-owned Wii. I'm not sure exactly where you'd stand as the gift cards are now worthless, maybe the insurance company would be able to offer some other sort of compensation (in my case they didn't offer a repair, just a gift card and we got to keep the broken DS).
Maybe give the insurance company a call and see what you do in the event of a fault.
This seemed to be a rule at Game, I had the same issue, about £1.50 of credit on my reward card. Gamestation were happy to take the £1.20 credit off my Gamestation reward card though the day after I bought a PSP.
I don't think I had any credit left on my Gamestation card, if I did it was probably only a couple of pence. I gather the Torquay Gamestation store has closed but the Torquay Game store is still open so I guess I'll pop down at the weekend and see what offers they have on and see if I can build up my Game reward card credit in case they start accepting it later on down the line.
I really do feel sorry for the poor folks who lost their jobs, I was in the same situation once, went into work (at a largish software retailer back in the late 90's/early 2000's) one day and the administrators were in. We had to do a stock check and then leave.
Actually the N64 was better hardware than the PS1, but was then surpassed by the Dreamcast and PS2. The only real big issue with the N64 was the fact it used cartridges (and that the 64DD was never released outside Japan AFAIK). Still had some pretty awesome games though.
The Gamecube was on par with the PS2 and XBOX, the Super NES/Super Famicom was better than the Megadrive, not so sure about the Master System and NES, they always seemed to be about on par to me (around the time they were around I was more interested in the ST and Amiga).
Now don't get me wrong, I'm no Apple fan and I think for what you get with the Mac Mini it's a little over priced... BUT...
I have a eMachines Nettop running as a media PC (as it happens it's running Mythbuntu and XBMC) and it's fine for my existing TV shows and films and any other media (it works as a PVR after all). Plus it doesn't have any sort of optical drive. What I do have on DVD is now ripped to my hard drive in XVID format.
Now I'm not saying that sort of setup would suit everyone, but not everyone is going to have a media PC, some folks might just use a PS3 or XBOX360 for their media playback (or maybe a Bluray player or even Apple TV).
Oh and "You obviously don't think a CD/DVD drive in 2012 is needed, but your wrong"... ahem.... You might want to check out this site... http://www.youryoure.com :-)
... that The New iPad doesn't seem to have as many people desperate for one as the Raspberry Pi :-)
I think if I was going to buy one (which I'm not, not interested in any tablet) I'd probably just buy the discounted iPad 2.
Surprisingly I haven't seen any updated from my Apple owning friends about buying the new iPad either, and they always buy the latest Apple stuff when it comes out.
Yep the practice of re-selling things second hand must be stopped... it's a nasty business buying a second hand car (or even 3rd, 4th, or 5th hand car even) when we can all go and buy new cars.
We're all evil for buying pre-owned.
Yeah right... I don't buy that many games, I very rarely buy new games, but if I do it'll usually be a sequel to a game I've bought pre-owned that I really want (for instance I bought Uncharted pre-owned when I got my new PS3, then bought Uncharted 2 new on Plantinum and then pre-ordered Uncharted 3). However with EA being such arseholes about it, I doubt I'll buy another EA game new (not that I really like that many EA games, the only one I do like is Burnout Paradise and I got that free with my XBOX 360 in a bundle, the only other game I've bought from EA was Mirrors Edge and that was crap (well okay, I liked the idea of the game but the controls were crap).
Where I live in Torquay we have a GameStation store and a few doors away Game too. I went and checked both this weekend and there were hardly any reasonable games available although I did pick up a couple of bargains (including a brand new sealed Fable 3 for my daughter's birthday which was sold as pre-owned). The next big down along, Newton Abbot had a Game and Gamestation store but they closed the Game store a few months ago.
What I am worried about is the fact I got my youngest daughter a DS last year and the hinge broke on it, I took out the GameCare extended warranty and they're sending a gift card. It'll be a race to see if the gift card arrives before the store goes under I think. To add insult to injury they didn't have any DS Lites or DS consoles in stock. Still I guess I could always get a PSP for myself and buy another DS for my daughter off eBay (or maybe even a DSi).
I'll be sad to see Game and Gamestation go. Does annoy me that they stopped doing Retro stuff in Gamestation but the biggest gripe I have is that Game and Gamestation pretty much killed the independent games stores in the area (I know of just one independent store now).
Not that easy finding machines with serial or parallel ports these days, where I work we have a few guys who have obscure old kit which requires serial and parallel ports. For the majority of the time a USB to Serial adaptor will work okay but to get round the missing parallel ports (on Lenovo T510/T520 notebooks) we've had to revert to getting an ExpressCard to Parallel port adaptor. It's not pretty but it does the job and I understand there is a serial version available too (I believe StarTech make them).
I'm looking at replacing my 4 year old notebook sometime this year, as much as I like the Ultrabooks that PC World have in stock (coupe of Asus, Toshiba and Acer models) they still seem a bit too pricey for my budget so maybe one of these cheaper machines might be just what I'm looking for (unless the prices drop considerably when the Ivy Bridge chips come out or when some of the manufacturers release some machines with AMD APUs).
Beer icon because I really do have a craving for a cold pint of beer at the moment (yep, it's been one of those mornings).
... not being an iPhone 4S owner but having spoken to other iPhone 4S owners I was lead to believe that Siri did work in the UK. Not that I'm bothered either way as I still have a year left on my contract for my existing phone (Galaxy S) and I've never really used any of the voice features on any of my previous phones.
Still I'm sure there are probably folks out there who have bought an iPhone 4S after seeing the Siri adverts (actually, I can think of two people who did).
Yep I agree. I had a look at the display in Sainsbury's yesterday evening. I'd like to get one for Uncharted but I'd be looking at £230 for the handheld itself (unless I go to say Asda and pick one up from there), plus another £30 quid for an 8GB memory card, and another £40 for Uncharted 3. That's nearly £300 to play one game!
I think I'll hang on for the inevitable price cut (not sure if that'll be a price cut within a couple of months like the 3DS or a year or so away). I know the hardware is pretty good, and I'm sure the OLED screen isn't that cheap but I think they could have at least bundled in a memory card and maybe one game for £230.
Interesting, this sort of machine would make a nice replacement to my 3.5 year old Acer Aspire 2920. As much as I'd love an Ultrabook I just can't afford £800 or so for a new machine, but at £350 this machine would be ideal, and probably just as quick as my existing Aspire.
Well looks good but I can't get the Anti-Theft stuff installed on my rooted Galaxy S. Googling it seems to suggest I need to remove some stuff from the system partition. Guess I'll be trying that tonight, after making a backup of course :-)
Seems to be a great app anyway and the firewall is handy to stop my kids 'borrowing' my phone to watch videos on the 3G connection rather than Wifi :-)
"Backside connections include a pair of HDMIs, Scart, component video and stereo audio, Ethernet, optical digital audio out and a PC D-Sub. These are bolstered by additional side-facing ports, comprising a third HDMI, USB, CI slot, headphone jack and some basic on-body controls."
One HDMI port on the side.
Although generally I do agree with you about the lack of ports. Before xmas I bought a 42" Full HD Panasonic plasma TV. Just a basic model (I think it was the cheapest Full HD plasma I could get). It only has 2 HDMI ports too. No VGA input either which was a shame.
As it happens though I managed to get an auto HDMI switch box for a fiver (I think from either Aria.co.uk or eBuyer.com) so I can switch between the devices I have plugged into the TV (Tivo, Media PC, PS3, XBOX 360). I still find I have to get up though to switch audio sources as I put everything through my AV decoder and the PS3 and Media PC audio won't go over the HDMI and out of the TV's optical digital connection (but it works fine on the XBOX360!). Guess the workaround for this would be for me to buy a HDMI AV receiver.
"That product will cost customers £20 a month. It will come with download speeds of up to 40Mbit/s and no usage caps. At launch BSkyB's is expecting to offer its cable service to around 30 per cent of UK homes."
But it's not a cable service though, it's over BT's Fibre To The Cabinet service. Still got to be good for those folks who either can't get (or don't want) Virgin cable :-)
I think it's a bit more than just TV listings. I've only had Tivo (from Virgin Media) for about 3 weeks and I can't remember much about the original Tivo having only seen it on sale in a shop when it first came out, but I gather part of the Tivo service is things like programme suggestions based on what you watch.
For instance, if I record Family Guy it'll suggest American Dad for me too. If I record Corrie it'll suggest Eastenders. I think it also will find things like films and TV programmes based on actors in shows that I've already recorded, similar shows and shows that 'Virgin' like (not sure if that is Virgin staff, Tivo staff or a back hander from a TV company).
I think I pay about £3 a month at the moment for the Tivo service as I've only got the basic M+ TV package, but for that it gives me a PVR with 3 tuners, a 500GB hard drive and HD capability (and other bells and whistles which I've yet to really play with). As it happens I also have a PC setup with MythTV and a couple of Freeview tuners, but for the non-technical it's not a bad service and from what I can tell better than Sky+/Sky + HD if you're in a cabled area.
"1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.
You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee."
So "You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy", doesn't specify how much. That could be a penny or <Dr Evil> 100 hundred million dollars</Dr Evil>.
What you can't do is stop anyone doing the same. So for instance, you may have really fast broadband, download some GPL software and then sell copies on CD for £5 a pop if you wish to other interested folks (maybe those still on dialup or something like that), and they can provide copies of the software for free or for a charge too.
I've got a Panasonic 42" plasma which I bought about 2 weeks ago when moving into a new place. It's got Viera Cast which I gather has Smart TV features but I doubt I'll use it much if at all. I'd rather have more control so I'll continue to use my Media PC (eMachines net top running MythTV & XBMC) and the kids will probably use our new Tivo box from Virgin.
I only bought the TV because I liked the look of it and the fact I needed one.
I had a similar quandry. I had a slimline but noisy PC in the front room for a while running Windows Media Center which died and I was looking at alternatives. At first I tried the XBOX 360 which wasn't that great due to the media I had, then I got a PS3 which worked reasonablly well but I found that to be too noisy.
In the end I picked up an eMachines ER1401 from eBuyer for about £130. Although it's a PC, it was so small I managed to wall mount it behind our TV (our TV is a 32" LCD wall mounted on an adjustable arm so the TV is about a foot off the wall and can be swiveled around.
At the moment my setup is a little bit messy cable wise, it has an SPDIF cable going from the eMachines box to a surround sound decoder and ethernet and power cables going to it too. I've managed to get a short HDMI cable to go to the TV which is cable tied to the arm so it isn't seen. The box is so quiet that I can't hear it when it's turned on and it plays back HD media perfectly well with VDPAU enabled (it's only got a 1.3GHz dual core CPU and 2GB Ram, so it's not a power house but ideal for web browsing, lower spec emulators and media playback via MythTV or XBMC).
I'm sure with some decent extension cables and some DIY it would be possible to hide one of these boxes out of the way somewhere (or maybe to the back of the TV if it's on a stand and has free vesa mounts) and with a wireless keyboard and mouse and media centre remote it should integrate reasonably well and at a reasonable cost.
If you can't find one of the eMachines boxes, I gather the Aspire Revo is reasonably similar (with an Atom rather than Athlon Neo CPU that the eMachines box has).
Failing that, could you loate the PC somewhere else and get a HDMI over CAT5 extender and wireless keyboard/mouse and remote?
It's legally possible on the XBOX 360, in fact it's been possible for a long while, even works on lower speeds such as 20Mbit cable, might even in fact work on slower connections too (I'm not sure what the minimum required speed for 1080p HD video is on the XBOX 360).
I find that on 50Mbit Virgin cable it takes at the lonest about 15 seconds of buffering and then it'll start playing, and I got the same results on 20Mbit cable too (can't remember about when I was on 7Mbit ADSL). Generally though if I watch any HD video on the XBOX (not very often, tends to just be episodes of The Guild) I will download them and watch them when they're finished downloading.
Now iPlayer on the other hand, that is a different story. I've found recently streaming standard definition video to my media PC running XBMC with the iPlayer 2 plugin it will buffer every minute. Not sure if it's due to the time of day or congestion in my area or what.
Of course don't let reading the article get in the way of commenting.
It disables add-ons that are installed when you install 3rd party applications (such as something like PDF Creator or a Java Update which insists on installing a search toolbar).
It then pops up when you start the browser asking if you'd like to re-enable these addons.
You're still able to download hundreds and thousands of other addons for Firefox just the same as you could before.
Jeez, some of these comments, makes me wonder why some folks bothered upgrading past Netscape Navigator 3?
I do agree on the majority of the comments about the new version every 6 weeks, that is annoying especially for the folks who create plugins which need updating every time (unless they set the maximum version number to something like 32767).
I have some fond memories of Lemmings. I believe it came out when I was about 13, around that time I went on a French exchange trip which was mind-numbingly boring. I spent most of the 10 days I was there reading my copy of ST Format and learning the names to the levels of Lemmings which I remember some of them having some really funny names.
I had Lemmings on the ST, then the Amiga, and eventually the PC and SNES. I tried to run the PC version of Lemmings on the RM Nimbus 186 PCs at school but got caught out because I found an account which didn't have a password which went straight to DOS, but it kept crashing (stupid SetPC application)so we had to reboot the computer and there were a load of un-logged out sessions. In the end I was caught and banned from the school network for 6 weeks (longest 6 weeks of my life probably, or at least at the time).
I recently introduced my 9 year old daughter to Lemmings on UAE, she too now enjoys the game although she's only just getting the hang of it.
Sadly I've had a bad experience buying a cooker from an online company a couple of years ago. Sure it was the cheapest price I found on the net but it took about 3 months for the damn thing to arrive!
I've now come to the conclusion that buying things like that (which cost over 500 quid) are probably best done on the credit card.
It's a shame about Best Buy, I read that they had some pretty good deals, but sadly couldn't be arsed to open a store south of Bristol (so any savings made would be spent on fuel/travelling time).
I looked into this for my Galaxy S, looks like there are call recorder applications but they only work on that particular model of phone anyway if you put the phone in speakerphone mode (otherwise it only records the local end, not the caller on the other end).
Doing a bit more Googling though it appears there is a modified phone app for the Galaxy S which allows call recording (presumably though you need to root your phone and I don't know if it's available for other Android phones).
Bit poor really considering my old Nokia something or other (6230i?) could do it.
"I have the weather as a tile, so it periodically updates with the current weather which I can see on the screen."
Of you could look out the window, here it's raining. Didn't even have to touch my phone to work that one out.
(Okay okay, I know what you're getting at, I guess it might be handy to know what the weather is like at home if you're at work so you have an idea of what sort of commute you're going to have home, where I work, little bit of rain everyone panics!).
I kinda like the idea of the tiles, does this come up on the lock screen too (assuming it has one)?
Well you can pick it up on the PS3 for about 13 quid at Game now. Doesn't seem too bad at that price (yes I've played it, thought it was okay what I did play, but certainly wouldn't have paid 40 quid for it).
What I'd like to try is getting some of my old friends together who I used to play Duke 3D with and try a multiplayer game, if it offers as much fun as Duke 3D did then I'd be a happy bunny.
Also does it on the Samsung Galaxy S with the Touchwiz interface (and I presume other Galaxy range phones, Ace, S2, W, etc etc which have Touchwiz).
I wouldn't say this is a bad article as such but as mentioned, it's comparing HTC Sense to IOS, Blackberry and Windows Phone. I'd have said it would be maybe more fair if it was comparing stock Android 2.3 to IOS, WP7.5, Blackberry etc.
When I was looking for a new phone to replace my Nokia e63 (Symbian S60) I looked at various devices that friends had (iPhone 3GS & iPhone 4 with IOS 4.something), BlackBerry, other Nokias, various Android phones and settled on the Galaxy S. I recently rooted my phone and tried Cyanogenmod and although it wasn't bad it was a bit too much of a jump for me to get things how I liked it. Might be because I'm used to Touchwiz now.
Still, it's interesting to see what the other phones offer. Yes I'd be the first to admit I'm an FLOSS-tard and a bit of an Android Fanboi but I'm actually interested in the Windows Phone offering, some of the interface looks quite nice. I probably wouldn't go out and buy one but it looks like a refreshing change.
Oh and there was one point of the article which I thought was missed, Android can have widgets for things like Facebook/Twitter. Okay might not be standard in the stock Android OS but then it wasn't a stock Android OS review.
Well lots of providers have put their prices up, even by just a quid or two a month, so Virgin aren't alone in this.
What Virgin have done though is reduce their prices on some of the packages, for instance when I signed up with Virgin (back in 2009) I was on their 20Mbit package, I couldn't afford the extra for 50Mbit. This year they dropped the price of the 50Mbit package and introduced the 30Mbit package. IIRC the 30Mbit package was actually cheaper than 20Mbit, but I opted to pay a fiver extra a month for 50Mbit (which generally I get near to 95% of the time).
I have noticed the line rental has gone up slightly, but it's one of those things I guess, my alternative would be much slower broadband over the BT line (either from BT or another provider) which I'd rather not opt for (especially as my area is fairly limited when it comes to LLU options).
As for the deals expiring after 12 months, well I dare say they would advise you how long the deals are for. When I signed up I got 6 months anytime calls to landlines, and sure enough after 6 months I started paying, it was hardly a surprise (although I didn't bother doing owt about it for another 6 months).
You may find that if you're out of contract and you're not happy with what you're paying giving them a call and threatening to leave might get you an offer (or they might also call your bluff).
Maybe they should make the folks who have these Blackberries and other bits of IT kit at least partially financially responsible if they go missing, such as paying an insurance excess of maybe £100 or something like that. Of course accidents happen and things will get lost or stolen but it might make the folks who are loosing phones etc a bit more cautious.
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488 posts • joined Tuesday 1st May 2007 12:24 GMT
Page:
They sell them at
... RetroGT.com
http://retrogt.com/shop/Card-Holders-11.cfm
I'd be tempted to get the Metro City Subway Pass one being a Final Fight fan although knowing my luck I'd end up in the ring with some big bloke called Sodom :-o
Rob
Re: CPC printer cables etc.
I wish my daughters were so enthusiastic, I got an old Speccy running the other day which I bought a couple of years ago off eBay, sadly the keyboard doesn't work otherwise I'd have fired up some of the classics (Jet Set Willy, Jetpack etc). At least my middle daughter seems interested in a Raspberry Pi so I'm hoping she'll do more than just play "Rainbow Dressup" games on the internet.
I remember getting a centronics cable for my CPC 464 (later putting it on the CPC 664) and also reading an article about how to build a cable to attach a 3.5" floppy drive to the CPC, sadly not on the CPC464 :-(
Rob
Ahh great memories
I also had a CPC464 with green screen monitor. Previous to that I'd had an Atari 65XE which failed, followed by another which failed, then a ZX Spectrum +3 for a week which also failed, so within a year we'd upgraded to the CPC (I think it was an ex-demo model).
I remember having so much fun with the good old CPC playing some of the great Codemasters budget games (Fruit Machine possibly being my favourite, never did get into Dizzy) or some of the Mastertronic stuff (Way of the Exploding Fist - okay I know Melbourne House, but I had the budget Ricochet version).
Eventually I started tinkering about with programming in Basic (I remember the manual being pretty good) and doing more serious things on it such as playing with Mini Office II printing to a Brother thermal printer, later a Star LC10 printer), a music program called EMU, a graphics package (can't remember the name of it) and a Datel Lightpen (with the aid of a MP-1 modulator).
Later on I upgraded to a CPC664 which was amazing (still with a green screen monitor though unless I used a combination of the modulator and monitor to power the disk drive - my dad didn't upgrade the modulator) and I spent many hours playing around with Logo (so when we started doing Logo in Maths lessons at secondary school I was way ahead of the others in the class drawing pretty pictures while the rest of the kids were struggling to draw lines and boxes).
I'll always fondly remember my CPC, and being jealous of a friend who had a CPC6128, I had some great fun with it before I eventually upgraded to an Atari ST.
Rob
Re: The good Mr Mueller...
Not sure why you got a downvote for that. Here's the link from Groklaw about it anyway...
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120419070127103
Now is there any chance that we'll stop getting articles about what Mr Mueller says since he seems to be spouting biased crap?
Guess I'll be downvoted for this too :-)
Rob
Opt-in?
This reminds me of the episode of The Simpsons where Marge is against Itchy and Scratchy, the mums campaign against Itchy and Scratchy and then decide to go onto the Statue of David. If these folks on 'mumsnet' get their own way they'll keep pushing until they have blocked everything that they don't like.
As a parent, I don't want my kids to see bad things, I don't let them go on Facebook yet (my daughters are nearly 12, just turned 10 and nearly 6) and I do give them a bit of freedom of what they access on the net but I do reguarly monitor what they do and I've implemented DansGuardian (okay not all parents have the knowhow on how to do this).
So if they want to do this, why can't they make it opt-in?
I mean, why can't they give customers the option to turn the filter on if they don't want little Johnny to see anything bad via a web control panel or a call to the ISP.
Rob
Re: Dear Microsoft...
"How many times a day would I have to hear someone say: "My ribbon's gone. It's all turned into menus"
Juding from the users I support, lots, followed by cheers of joy that the god awful ribbon has gone. :-)
Personally I don't like the ribbon, but I can just about get on with it for the little bits I do actually do in Word and Excel but some of the users I support really moan about it, guess it's because the actually do more in Office than I do.
Rob
Re: Headed Commodore and Atari yet forgotten
IIRC it was called GEOS. I remember a friend who had a C64 showing it to me, I remember it to be quite impressive for a humble basic C64.
Rob
Bit pricey
So while some of that kit is nice to look at, it doesn't half seem a bit pricey. I guess it's possibly not aimed at folks like me with kids and limited disposable income :-)
Saying that, I do have a PS3 (old 80GB fat model) and a Logitech Harmony remote (the 300 one, about 25 quid from PC World) which is a life saver for when we lose remotes (seems to happen often enough that I'm tempted to attach a bit of wire to the remote and then tie it to the sofa :-D).
I'm currently interested in getting some headphones but at £120 I think I'll look for something a bit cheaper, say around the £20 to £30 mark.
How about some guides on how to replicate some of these geeky things using bits that we might have lying around in sheds and garages.
Rob
RIP Jack
It's a sad day for the fans of Comodore and Atari :-(
I was one of the Atari fans, getting an Atari 65XE in the late 80's. Although I'd previously had a ZX81 it was the Atari machine that really got me interested in computers properly. I still have fond memories of typing in listings from the old Atari magazines and the manuals, and then trying to work out how to write programs (although if I'm honest the majority of the time was spent playing games on the machine).
I remember really wanting an Atari ST when I had the 65XE and then telling my Uncle to get an Atari ST over an Amiga when he was looking at getting my cousins a computer for Christmas (to be fair thinking back they might have been better with the Amiga but I was a die hard Atari fan through and through and didn't know at the time that Jack originally formed Commodore). When they got the ST I was a tad jealous and eventually got a 520STFM of my own a couple of years later (which I then eventually screwed up and sold to buy an Amiga 500).
As a life long Atari fan I'll raise a glass to Jack in honour of the great computers his companies made. I'd say if it wasn't for my old Atari I probably would have ended up doing something less interesting with my life.
Rob
Re: The ST was 32 bits
I fondly remember reading the Silica Systems calalogues about 1988 and thinking "I'd love to have an ST and the 520STM is fairly cheap". Of course I was about 10 at the time and didn't realise the value of money. Still having an Atari 65XE I often daydreamed about having an ST, until about 2 years later when I got a 520STFM :-)
I wouldn't be surprised if the 520STM are worth a few quid now being more rare than the STFM.
Rob
Re: When?
Can you post some links to this skirting board trunking? I'm serious, I want to run CAT6 cable round my house but my landlord wouldn't want extra trunking putting in so something like replacement skirting board which looks neat with a couple of wall sockets would be ideal.
Then I've just got to work out how to get CAT6 to the garage under the house (without drilling holes) and into the bedrooms (again without drilling holes) :-)
Doesn't running cable outside the wall also require some of that UV protected cable or is it possible to protect the cable with something like electrical tape?
Rob
Re: Please! Can! You! Drop! The! Exclamations! Now!
I! Say! Keep! The! Exclamations!
It's a sure fire way of knowing it's a Yahoo! Article!
Bit like how they put ....bitch on any Facebook article :-D
Rob
Re: Bahhhhhh....
Was covered back in 2002...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/11/22/man_burns_penis_with_laptop/
Rob
Locked down boot loader?
I'd be interested IF it didn't have some sort of god awful locked down boot loader which only supported Windows 8 so I could install a supported flavour of Linux on the thing.
I'll stay hopeful that it'll be able to run Linux but I won't hold my breath. In the mean time I'm sure I can get another year or two out of my 3.5 year old Acer Aspire before I look to upgrade.
Rob
Hmm... online connectivity required? What about the poor folks who are on dialup? Will Sony be building in 3G connections for those without broadband or unreliable broadband? (like they have with the Vita?).
Guess it's too early to say at the moment.
Still it's good for AMD providing the CPU and GPU, doesn't that mean they now provide the GPU for all the next gen consoles?
Rob
Re: What is it with the car stories?
Erm... didn't you see the clue in the article title?
"BMW recalls 1.3m motors over fire risk". They're hardly talking about laptops or cheese graters are they!
How about blocking stupid users from the internet? Nah, it'll never catch on.
Rob
Re: Thoughts
My first phone was a Motorolla Flare which also had a credit card sized SIM (without the cut out bit). I vaguely remember hacking the SIM to pieces to fit into a newer Sagem phone which I purchased to replace the old Moto brick. Ahh great memories. :-)
Not so sure about these Micro SIMs though, they're like the new 5 pence pieces, too fiddly for us old people (okay technically I'm not THAT old at 33 :-D).
Rob
Re: Suspension of Refunds, Exchanges?
The extended warranty is run by an insurance company separate to Game/Gamestation. It should say on the paperwork who it is underwritten by. My daughter had a DS which a hinge broke on it, I claimed on the extended warranty and they sent a gift card for £40, luckily it arrived before they went into administration so I bought a pre-owned Wii. I'm not sure exactly where you'd stand as the gift cards are now worthless, maybe the insurance company would be able to offer some other sort of compensation (in my case they didn't offer a repair, just a gift card and we got to keep the broken DS).
Maybe give the insurance company a call and see what you do in the event of a fault.
Rob
Re: That's why I
This seemed to be a rule at Game, I had the same issue, about £1.50 of credit on my reward card. Gamestation were happy to take the £1.20 credit off my Gamestation reward card though the day after I bought a PSP.
I don't think I had any credit left on my Gamestation card, if I did it was probably only a couple of pence. I gather the Torquay Gamestation store has closed but the Torquay Game store is still open so I guess I'll pop down at the weekend and see what offers they have on and see if I can build up my Game reward card credit in case they start accepting it later on down the line.
I really do feel sorry for the poor folks who lost their jobs, I was in the same situation once, went into work (at a largish software retailer back in the late 90's/early 2000's) one day and the administrators were in. We had to do a stock check and then leave.
Rob
Re: No change at Nintendo
Actually the N64 was better hardware than the PS1, but was then surpassed by the Dreamcast and PS2. The only real big issue with the N64 was the fact it used cartridges (and that the 64DD was never released outside Japan AFAIK). Still had some pretty awesome games though.
The Gamecube was on par with the PS2 and XBOX, the Super NES/Super Famicom was better than the Megadrive, not so sure about the Master System and NES, they always seemed to be about on par to me (around the time they were around I was more interested in the ST and Amiga).
Rob
Re: CD drive FFS
Now don't get me wrong, I'm no Apple fan and I think for what you get with the Mac Mini it's a little over priced... BUT...
I have a eMachines Nettop running as a media PC (as it happens it's running Mythbuntu and XBMC) and it's fine for my existing TV shows and films and any other media (it works as a PVR after all). Plus it doesn't have any sort of optical drive. What I do have on DVD is now ripped to my hard drive in XVID format.
Now I'm not saying that sort of setup would suit everyone, but not everyone is going to have a media PC, some folks might just use a PS3 or XBOX360 for their media playback (or maybe a Bluray player or even Apple TV).
Oh and "You obviously don't think a CD/DVD drive in 2012 is needed, but your wrong"... ahem.... You might want to check out this site... http://www.youryoure.com :-)
Rob
I find it amusing...
... that The New iPad doesn't seem to have as many people desperate for one as the Raspberry Pi :-)
I think if I was going to buy one (which I'm not, not interested in any tablet) I'd probably just buy the discounted iPad 2.
Surprisingly I haven't seen any updated from my Apple owning friends about buying the new iPad either, and they always buy the latest Apple stuff when it comes out.
Rob
Re: Game Devs must be laughing
Yep the practice of re-selling things second hand must be stopped... it's a nasty business buying a second hand car (or even 3rd, 4th, or 5th hand car even) when we can all go and buy new cars.
We're all evil for buying pre-owned.
Yeah right... I don't buy that many games, I very rarely buy new games, but if I do it'll usually be a sequel to a game I've bought pre-owned that I really want (for instance I bought Uncharted pre-owned when I got my new PS3, then bought Uncharted 2 new on Plantinum and then pre-ordered Uncharted 3). However with EA being such arseholes about it, I doubt I'll buy another EA game new (not that I really like that many EA games, the only one I do like is Burnout Paradise and I got that free with my XBOX 360 in a bundle, the only other game I've bought from EA was Mirrors Edge and that was crap (well okay, I liked the idea of the game but the controls were crap).
Rob
Where I live in Torquay we have a GameStation store and a few doors away Game too. I went and checked both this weekend and there were hardly any reasonable games available although I did pick up a couple of bargains (including a brand new sealed Fable 3 for my daughter's birthday which was sold as pre-owned). The next big down along, Newton Abbot had a Game and Gamestation store but they closed the Game store a few months ago.
What I am worried about is the fact I got my youngest daughter a DS last year and the hinge broke on it, I took out the GameCare extended warranty and they're sending a gift card. It'll be a race to see if the gift card arrives before the store goes under I think. To add insult to injury they didn't have any DS Lites or DS consoles in stock. Still I guess I could always get a PSP for myself and buy another DS for my daughter off eBay (or maybe even a DSi).
I'll be sad to see Game and Gamestation go. Does annoy me that they stopped doing Retro stuff in Gamestation but the biggest gripe I have is that Game and Gamestation pretty much killed the independent games stores in the area (I know of just one independent store now).
Rob
Not that easy finding machines with serial or parallel ports these days, where I work we have a few guys who have obscure old kit which requires serial and parallel ports. For the majority of the time a USB to Serial adaptor will work okay but to get round the missing parallel ports (on Lenovo T510/T520 notebooks) we've had to revert to getting an ExpressCard to Parallel port adaptor. It's not pretty but it does the job and I understand there is a serial version available too (I believe StarTech make them).
I'm looking at replacing my 4 year old notebook sometime this year, as much as I like the Ultrabooks that PC World have in stock (coupe of Asus, Toshiba and Acer models) they still seem a bit too pricey for my budget so maybe one of these cheaper machines might be just what I'm looking for (unless the prices drop considerably when the Ivy Bridge chips come out or when some of the manufacturers release some machines with AMD APUs).
Beer icon because I really do have a craving for a cold pint of beer at the moment (yep, it's been one of those mornings).
Rob
Actually...
... not being an iPhone 4S owner but having spoken to other iPhone 4S owners I was lead to believe that Siri did work in the UK. Not that I'm bothered either way as I still have a year left on my contract for my existing phone (Galaxy S) and I've never really used any of the voice features on any of my previous phones.
Still I'm sure there are probably folks out there who have bought an iPhone 4S after seeing the Siri adverts (actually, I can think of two people who did).
Rob
Re: £200 is a lot of money
Yep I agree. I had a look at the display in Sainsbury's yesterday evening. I'd like to get one for Uncharted but I'd be looking at £230 for the handheld itself (unless I go to say Asda and pick one up from there), plus another £30 quid for an 8GB memory card, and another £40 for Uncharted 3. That's nearly £300 to play one game!
I think I'll hang on for the inevitable price cut (not sure if that'll be a price cut within a couple of months like the 3DS or a year or so away). I know the hardware is pretty good, and I'm sure the OLED screen isn't that cheap but I think they could have at least bundled in a memory card and maybe one game for £230.
Rob
Interesting, this sort of machine would make a nice replacement to my 3.5 year old Acer Aspire 2920. As much as I'd love an Ultrabook I just can't afford £800 or so for a new machine, but at £350 this machine would be ideal, and probably just as quick as my existing Aspire.
Rob
Anti-Theft
Well looks good but I can't get the Anti-Theft stuff installed on my rooted Galaxy S. Googling it seems to suggest I need to remove some stuff from the system partition. Guess I'll be trying that tonight, after making a backup of course :-)
Seems to be a great app anyway and the firewall is handy to stop my kids 'borrowing' my phone to watch videos on the 3G connection rather than Wifi :-)
Rob
2 HDMI ports?
Nope, it's 3 HDMI ports...
"Backside connections include a pair of HDMIs, Scart, component video and stereo audio, Ethernet, optical digital audio out and a PC D-Sub. These are bolstered by additional side-facing ports, comprising a third HDMI, USB, CI slot, headphone jack and some basic on-body controls."
One HDMI port on the side.
Although generally I do agree with you about the lack of ports. Before xmas I bought a 42" Full HD Panasonic plasma TV. Just a basic model (I think it was the cheapest Full HD plasma I could get). It only has 2 HDMI ports too. No VGA input either which was a shame.
As it happens though I managed to get an auto HDMI switch box for a fiver (I think from either Aria.co.uk or eBuyer.com) so I can switch between the devices I have plugged into the TV (Tivo, Media PC, PS3, XBOX 360). I still find I have to get up though to switch audio sources as I put everything through my AV decoder and the PS3 and Media PC audio won't go over the HDMI and out of the TV's optical digital connection (but it works fine on the XBOX360!). Guess the workaround for this would be for me to buy a HDMI AV receiver.
Rob
Cable?
"That product will cost customers £20 a month. It will come with download speeds of up to 40Mbit/s and no usage caps. At launch BSkyB's is expecting to offer its cable service to around 30 per cent of UK homes."
But it's not a cable service though, it's over BT's Fibre To The Cabinet service. Still got to be good for those folks who either can't get (or don't want) Virgin cable :-)
Rob
Yes! it's! been! like! this! on! El! Reg! for! years!
I think it's a bit more than just TV listings. I've only had Tivo (from Virgin Media) for about 3 weeks and I can't remember much about the original Tivo having only seen it on sale in a shop when it first came out, but I gather part of the Tivo service is things like programme suggestions based on what you watch.
For instance, if I record Family Guy it'll suggest American Dad for me too. If I record Corrie it'll suggest Eastenders. I think it also will find things like films and TV programmes based on actors in shows that I've already recorded, similar shows and shows that 'Virgin' like (not sure if that is Virgin staff, Tivo staff or a back hander from a TV company).
I think I pay about £3 a month at the moment for the Tivo service as I've only got the basic M+ TV package, but for that it gives me a PVR with 3 tuners, a 500GB hard drive and HD capability (and other bells and whistles which I've yet to really play with). As it happens I also have a PC setup with MythTV and a couple of Freeview tuners, but for the non-technical it's not a bad service and from what I can tell better than Sky+/Sky + HD if you're in a cabled area.
Rob
GPL 2
Have you ever read the GPL 2 license?
Term 1:
"1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.
You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee."
So "You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy", doesn't specify how much. That could be a penny or <Dr Evil> 100 hundred million dollars</Dr Evil>.
What you can't do is stop anyone doing the same. So for instance, you may have really fast broadband, download some GPL software and then sell copies on CD for £5 a pop if you wish to other interested folks (maybe those still on dialup or something like that), and they can provide copies of the software for free or for a charge too.
Rob
I've got the Bubble Bobble music stuck in my head now, not that's a bad thing of course :-)
Rob
I've got a Panasonic 42" plasma which I bought about 2 weeks ago when moving into a new place. It's got Viera Cast which I gather has Smart TV features but I doubt I'll use it much if at all. I'd rather have more control so I'll continue to use my Media PC (eMachines net top running MythTV & XBMC) and the kids will probably use our new Tivo box from Virgin.
I only bought the TV because I liked the look of it and the fact I needed one.
Rob
Aspire Revo or eMachines net top
I had a similar quandry. I had a slimline but noisy PC in the front room for a while running Windows Media Center which died and I was looking at alternatives. At first I tried the XBOX 360 which wasn't that great due to the media I had, then I got a PS3 which worked reasonablly well but I found that to be too noisy.
In the end I picked up an eMachines ER1401 from eBuyer for about £130. Although it's a PC, it was so small I managed to wall mount it behind our TV (our TV is a 32" LCD wall mounted on an adjustable arm so the TV is about a foot off the wall and can be swiveled around.
At the moment my setup is a little bit messy cable wise, it has an SPDIF cable going from the eMachines box to a surround sound decoder and ethernet and power cables going to it too. I've managed to get a short HDMI cable to go to the TV which is cable tied to the arm so it isn't seen. The box is so quiet that I can't hear it when it's turned on and it plays back HD media perfectly well with VDPAU enabled (it's only got a 1.3GHz dual core CPU and 2GB Ram, so it's not a power house but ideal for web browsing, lower spec emulators and media playback via MythTV or XBMC).
I'm sure with some decent extension cables and some DIY it would be possible to hide one of these boxes out of the way somewhere (or maybe to the back of the TV if it's on a stand and has free vesa mounts) and with a wireless keyboard and mouse and media centre remote it should integrate reasonably well and at a reasonable cost.
If you can't find one of the eMachines boxes, I gather the Aspire Revo is reasonably similar (with an Atom rather than Athlon Neo CPU that the eMachines box has).
Failing that, could you loate the PC somewhere else and get a HDMI over CAT5 extender and wireless keyboard/mouse and remote?
Rob
d) iTunes is available to anyone with a computer
That is simply not true, I can't run iTunes on my VIC20 :-s
Rob
It's legally possible on the XBOX 360, in fact it's been possible for a long while, even works on lower speeds such as 20Mbit cable, might even in fact work on slower connections too (I'm not sure what the minimum required speed for 1080p HD video is on the XBOX 360).
I find that on 50Mbit Virgin cable it takes at the lonest about 15 seconds of buffering and then it'll start playing, and I got the same results on 20Mbit cable too (can't remember about when I was on 7Mbit ADSL). Generally though if I watch any HD video on the XBOX (not very often, tends to just be episodes of The Guild) I will download them and watch them when they're finished downloading.
Now iPlayer on the other hand, that is a different story. I've found recently streaming standard definition video to my media PC running XBMC with the iPlayer 2 plugin it will buffer every minute. Not sure if it's due to the time of day or congestion in my area or what.
Rob
Of course don't let reading the article get in the way of commenting.
It disables add-ons that are installed when you install 3rd party applications (such as something like PDF Creator or a Java Update which insists on installing a search toolbar).
It then pops up when you start the browser asking if you'd like to re-enable these addons.
You're still able to download hundreds and thousands of other addons for Firefox just the same as you could before.
Jeez, some of these comments, makes me wonder why some folks bothered upgrading past Netscape Navigator 3?
I do agree on the majority of the comments about the new version every 6 weeks, that is annoying especially for the folks who create plugins which need updating every time (unless they set the maximum version number to something like 32767).
Oh and let the downvotes commence.
Rob
I have some fond memories of Lemmings. I believe it came out when I was about 13, around that time I went on a French exchange trip which was mind-numbingly boring. I spent most of the 10 days I was there reading my copy of ST Format and learning the names to the levels of Lemmings which I remember some of them having some really funny names.
I had Lemmings on the ST, then the Amiga, and eventually the PC and SNES. I tried to run the PC version of Lemmings on the RM Nimbus 186 PCs at school but got caught out because I found an account which didn't have a password which went straight to DOS, but it kept crashing (stupid SetPC application)so we had to reboot the computer and there were a load of un-logged out sessions. In the end I was caught and banned from the school network for 6 weeks (longest 6 weeks of my life probably, or at least at the time).
I recently introduced my 9 year old daughter to Lemmings on UAE, she too now enjoys the game although she's only just getting the hang of it.
Rob
So how fast is it going? Anything near ludicrous speed?
Mine is the one with "Spaceballs the Toilet Roll" in the pocket.
Rob
Actually Lamborghini is now owned by Volkswagen Group (who own VW, Audi, and I believe Seat too).
Ferarri (and Maserati) are owned by FIAT.
Rob
Sadly I've had a bad experience buying a cooker from an online company a couple of years ago. Sure it was the cheapest price I found on the net but it took about 3 months for the damn thing to arrive!
I've now come to the conclusion that buying things like that (which cost over 500 quid) are probably best done on the credit card.
It's a shame about Best Buy, I read that they had some pretty good deals, but sadly couldn't be arsed to open a store south of Bristol (so any savings made would be spent on fuel/travelling time).
Rob
I looked into this for my Galaxy S, looks like there are call recorder applications but they only work on that particular model of phone anyway if you put the phone in speakerphone mode (otherwise it only records the local end, not the caller on the other end).
Doing a bit more Googling though it appears there is a modified phone app for the Galaxy S which allows call recording (presumably though you need to root your phone and I don't know if it's available for other Android phones).
Bit poor really considering my old Nokia something or other (6230i?) could do it.
Rob
"I have the weather as a tile, so it periodically updates with the current weather which I can see on the screen."
Of you could look out the window, here it's raining. Didn't even have to touch my phone to work that one out.
(Okay okay, I know what you're getting at, I guess it might be handy to know what the weather is like at home if you're at work so you have an idea of what sort of commute you're going to have home, where I work, little bit of rain everyone panics!).
I kinda like the idea of the tiles, does this come up on the lock screen too (assuming it has one)?
Rob
Well you can pick it up on the PS3 for about 13 quid at Game now. Doesn't seem too bad at that price (yes I've played it, thought it was okay what I did play, but certainly wouldn't have paid 40 quid for it).
What I'd like to try is getting some of my old friends together who I used to play Duke 3D with and try a multiplayer game, if it offers as much fun as Duke 3D did then I'd be a happy bunny.
Rob
Also does it on the Samsung Galaxy S with the Touchwiz interface (and I presume other Galaxy range phones, Ace, S2, W, etc etc which have Touchwiz).
I wouldn't say this is a bad article as such but as mentioned, it's comparing HTC Sense to IOS, Blackberry and Windows Phone. I'd have said it would be maybe more fair if it was comparing stock Android 2.3 to IOS, WP7.5, Blackberry etc.
When I was looking for a new phone to replace my Nokia e63 (Symbian S60) I looked at various devices that friends had (iPhone 3GS & iPhone 4 with IOS 4.something), BlackBerry, other Nokias, various Android phones and settled on the Galaxy S. I recently rooted my phone and tried Cyanogenmod and although it wasn't bad it was a bit too much of a jump for me to get things how I liked it. Might be because I'm used to Touchwiz now.
Still, it's interesting to see what the other phones offer. Yes I'd be the first to admit I'm an FLOSS-tard and a bit of an Android Fanboi but I'm actually interested in the Windows Phone offering, some of the interface looks quite nice. I probably wouldn't go out and buy one but it looks like a refreshing change.
Oh and there was one point of the article which I thought was missed, Android can have widgets for things like Facebook/Twitter. Okay might not be standard in the stock Android OS but then it wasn't a stock Android OS review.
Rob
Well lots of providers have put their prices up, even by just a quid or two a month, so Virgin aren't alone in this.
What Virgin have done though is reduce their prices on some of the packages, for instance when I signed up with Virgin (back in 2009) I was on their 20Mbit package, I couldn't afford the extra for 50Mbit. This year they dropped the price of the 50Mbit package and introduced the 30Mbit package. IIRC the 30Mbit package was actually cheaper than 20Mbit, but I opted to pay a fiver extra a month for 50Mbit (which generally I get near to 95% of the time).
I have noticed the line rental has gone up slightly, but it's one of those things I guess, my alternative would be much slower broadband over the BT line (either from BT or another provider) which I'd rather not opt for (especially as my area is fairly limited when it comes to LLU options).
As for the deals expiring after 12 months, well I dare say they would advise you how long the deals are for. When I signed up I got 6 months anytime calls to landlines, and sure enough after 6 months I started paying, it was hardly a surprise (although I didn't bother doing owt about it for another 6 months).
You may find that if you're out of contract and you're not happy with what you're paying giving them a call and threatening to leave might get you an offer (or they might also call your bluff).
Rob
Maybe they should make the folks who have these Blackberries and other bits of IT kit at least partially financially responsible if they go missing, such as paying an insurance excess of maybe £100 or something like that. Of course accidents happen and things will get lost or stolen but it might make the folks who are loosing phones etc a bit more cautious.
Rob
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