* Posts by Andy Hards

259 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Apr 2007

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3 spectastic Lumias for price of 1 rival flagship: Microsoft sells biz on cheapie experience

Andy Hards

Re: wait, what?

The low light photos are fantastic on my 920 and the wife's 530 and I don't know where you are getting 30 second shutter delay.

For quite a while people who take a lot of photos have been buying Lumias for the simple reason that they take great shots.

However I think this will be my last one if they don't bring out a better flagship this year.

Phabba-dabba-do: Samsung hypes up Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge

Andy Hards

So, what was the big deal with the ad a few weeks back?

Was that because of the edge? And if so in what way?

'Revenge p0rn' kingpin Kevin Bollaert faces 20 years in jail

Andy Hards

Re: How can one

If you bother to read about any of those who fell victim to this type of scam, many had they home PC's hacked and scoured for photos. This site has given you a platform to show your ignorance and lack of basic spelling but that is not the same as posting your full name, address, phone number, place of work etc. A few saucy pics between consenting adults should not be used as a tool to extort money. Anyone featuring in the photos should have to give direct permission to be included.

Let me guess, you spend your time whacking off to these kind of sites and don't want to lose a potential stalking source?

Andy Hards

You are comparing this guy to Leica and Kodak?

Seriously, are you 12 years old? If not you need to grow up.

Andy Hards

Facebook doesn't post pictures that I don't want others to see, that I may have taken in private with a partner. And if a pic is posted that I don't like while linked to my name I can get it removed failry easily The fact that the partner may then post them is wrong and everyone knows it. To exploit this and make money out of misery is disgusting. It is not the same as posting to facebook and certainly not the same as a few dickheads in an office of the NSA sharing pictures. These were put up to humiliate people and shared publicly. Yeah the guys at the NSA shouldn't be doing it but they don't seem to be ruining the lives of those few pics they share around the office. Not the same at all and you know it. Hope he gets the book thrown at him.

Goes like the blazes: Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 late 2014 edition

Andy Hards

Richard Madeley writes bodice rippers?

WTF?

Google swallows SMARTSPOON manufacturer Lift Labs

Andy Hards

Great use of technology. There are plenty of little things that could help the lives of millions. Unfortunately medical supplies companies make huge profits at the expense of sick people who often have nowhere else to turn.

Quit drooling, fanbois - haven't you SEEN what the iPhone 6 costs?

Andy Hards

Re: @h4m0ny, re Capitalism

Not if they are all doing it. Just take a look at the variety of phones on offer at all the big and small network operators in the UK at the moment. Not much between them in terms of price or product. Tesco is having a great run as they already have people visiting their stores two or three times a week and can afford much lower margins. They also don't tend to be the first shop to be trying to sell the latest shiny iToy. They wait until the price drops off and normal people become interested.

We give Panasonic's new 5-inch Toughpad phablets a kicking

Andy Hards

Re: Water / splash proofing is so handy in so many countries

Why would anyone stand on their phone regardless of whether it's raining or not?

Andy Hards

Re: What I wan to know

What I wan to know

Is whether it can survive after being submerged in 1.5m of water for an hour or so?

Apple's ONE LESS THING: the iPod Classic disappears

Andy Hards

Re: On a cloudless day...

For the numerous times when I am in a place where there is no phone coverage I have a few playlists of offline music on my phone. Could never see the point of having a separate device anyway tbh and since 2005 when I got my first smartish phone I have always tried to have a device that could store music, take pictures, access the interweb and make calls and send texts. And there are also things called travel chargers which also come in handy when not in reach of a power socket for a few hours.

Actually I have even found that most travel adapters can plug into the shaver socket in airplane toilets, so as long as there is more than one toilet you can charge your phone for quite a while in the air before the queue gets too long and people start to kick the door in.

Apple's SNEAKY plan: COPY ANDROID. Hello iPhone 6, Watch

Andy Hards

Re: Square watches

Um ,I don't think he did say there was one that lasts for a month, he simply said it would be a nice thing to have, rather than a silly little screen that does the same as the other similar devices on the market. People were expecting to be wowed and filed with awe with a game changing bit of kit from the mighty Apple, not a crappy bit of iCatch-Up with a big knob on the side, and I don't mean Mr Ive boom tish!

Hello Moto... It's the Nokia Lumia 630

Andy Hards

Re: Even if you're into Windows phones, why buy one now?

Because some people need a phone NOW, and not next year.

Reg probe bombshell: How we HACKED mobile voicemail without a PIN

Andy Hards

My voicemail

If anyone wants to hear Flo down the road grumbling that she wants me to get her a pint of milk then they are welcome to that. The only other voicemail I get is from my missus asking where the fuh I am. The Sunday Sun are welcome to it too

Samsung's thumb-achingly ENORMO Galaxy Note Pro 12.2

Andy Hards

So what was the A3 sized monster tablet I saw someone using on the plane a few weeks back? (From Barcelona to Gatwick just after the MWC?

Raised £350bn in crowdsourced funding? Tell me about it (not)

Andy Hards

I heard Churl's banana cake recipe

was really rather good. But if Louis is still there then she's deffo not coming back!

BuzzGasm: 9 Incredible Things You Never Knew About PLIERS!

Andy Hards

Re: You've made me renew my subscription.

I think they're called Listicles acshully!

Three offers free US roaming, confirms stealth 4G rollout

Andy Hards

Re: Steelie Neelie still not optional

They have only been going since 2002, but I agree. Athough my mate has just signed up for Virgin's new £15 unlimited everything SIM ony deal.

I travel round Europe for a living and prices now, while still high are so much better than they used to be. The EU forced the networks to bring their prices down much further than they would have done on their own. They may have slowly competed against each other by dropping a few pence at a time but not as fast as they were forced to. Did it cause any of them to go tits up? Data cost is the next thing they should be forced to drastically reduce.

Company selling you out? You've been TUPE-ed

Andy Hards

Re: you stay at the end of the Tupe's salary protection period!

which is often what the company wants. They then offer you an immediate out of court settlement as they know you will win but who can wait for 2-5 years for the case to come to court as you have bills to pay in 30 days.

Andy Hards

My experience

Most of us were marginally better off on the new contracts we were bullied into, I mean offered (except for the loss of some great travel benefits) however there were 5 people who were offered new contracts losing around 10,000 per year for a one off 3,000 payment if they signed their 'new shiny' contracts but they declined and said they'd stick with their TUPE contracts. All were summarily dissmissed and then offered a 30grand payment now or the chance to fight it out in court ~(which they would have won but who can wait with no money coming in) so all took the money. This was 2008 when things really stared to get bad. All took about a year to get another job.

EasyJet wanted to fling me off flight for diss tweet, warns cyber-law buff

Andy Hards

Re: Optional

.......text saying something like "Annoying, toner-wasting adverts removed. Adverts can be printed in future for £10+VAT"

Yeah! That'll learn em!

Andy Hards

Re: A business model that's the envy of other industries...

And disruptive behavior has to be witnessed by other passengers in writing (and there are usually no end of volunteers for this when someone has been disruptive enough to get arrested for it). So unless you have any examples of the trumped up charges by airlines you wish to share...... And hitting a staff member when your plane is an hour late doesn't count.

Andy Hards

Re: Yeah right.

I'm with you here. It seems very unlikely that any of this was because of his tweet and far more likely that he was being a loud dick and was asked to calm down (or be refused boarding). And seriously, flashing some card that means nothing and means even less to someone who couldn't give a fcuk would not have been the magic bullet he seems to think it would be.

Andy Hards

Re: Fail

Seems like the headline is 'I wasn't denied boarding after tweeting'.

And seriously, do you really think a manager in Glasgow (one of the smallest easyJet bases) is gonna be spending all day checking for moany tweets from delayed passengers? Probably more like the guy was being a prick and was threatened with refusal cos he was making so much noise. If head office had seen it and called the Glasgow manager and sent him down there it would have been more likely that they would have been sent to placate, not wind up the annoyed tweeter.

The whole things sounds like a load of bull. I know easyJet and they wouldn't be able to react that quickly to a tweet.

There's ONE country that really likes the iPhone 5c as well as the 5s

Andy Hards

Staff in 3 stores have been given a 5c!

Passing the local 3 store the other day I saw lots of fruit bowls with apples in them (see what they did?) and after wandering in and speaking to one of the salespeople I noticed that each and every one of the actual sales people had been given a 5c. I asked if people had been buying them and the girl said yes but if every 3 employee in the uk got given one, that's a lot of 5c's.

Tesla tops $20bn as Elon Musk claims arm-wave design tech

Andy Hards
Happy

Re: Battery life

And I could claim I have a 12 inch cock. Doesn't make it true!

Samsung Mega 6.3: Enter the PHONDLESLAB

Andy Hards

Shoulder Holster?

I thought people only wore them ironically.

Sad shop-shelf-clinging BlackBerry Z10 AXED ... in price, contracts

Andy Hards

You might not have much of a choice if it goes tits up!

Moto X: It's listening to you. But can voice control finally take off?

Andy Hards
Meh

There were some accents too don't forget.

HALF of air passengers leave phones on ... yet STILL no DEATH PLUNGE

Andy Hards

How dare you tell me to turn off my phone. You're only the experienced pilot who flies day in and day out while I am a business man on my way to an important meeting and if I turn my phone off for even one minute I may miss something of vital importance because I AM IMPORTANT DAMMIT and you can't tell me what to do, so if one of the cabin crew asks me to turn my phone off I will either ignore them and tell them 'it's in flight mode' even though the announcements have specifically said to turn them off even if they have flight mode. Or I will just press the button on the top to put it in sleep mode, because being cabin crew they will not know that it is only in sleep mode and not actually turned off.

Andy Hards

Re: It's not about safety, it's about annoyance

On some planes I have worked on the overhead screens would retract into the ceiling if there was a phone on in the immediate vicinity. People would complain that they couldn't see the movie and I'd explain why, then a few minutes later someone would sheepishly turn off their phone and it would work fine.

Andy Hards
Happy

Re: Safety; what safety?

I had a similar passenger once who was really rude, did the same as you said with seat belt and baggage and then a few minutes after he left I found his passport in the seat pocket.

Andy Hards

Re: Not just radio signal safety

The announcement ask you to 'stop reading and suspend any conversations for the few shorts moments while the safety demonstration takes place'.

Andy Hards
WTF?

Re: Not just radio signal safety

The announcement at the airline where I work asks people to turn their phones completely off from when the doors close until the plane is in the air. This is so that people pay attention to the potentially life saving information of the safety announcement and in case of an emergency during one of the critical stages of flight. Many people don't listen to any of the announcements, as evidenced by the same questions being asked again and again but if they could just stop playing Angry Birds and typing just one more text then it may save their life in case of a fire or an emergency evacuation of some kind.

I put it to one of the pilots recently that it wasn't a big deal and he replied that they get lots of ghost readings and some could well be attributed to phones and as he is the one flying the thing I was not going to call bull shit. Can people really not go 10 minutes or so without playing with their phones?

Some people just don't like to be told what to do ever. They know best and they are the customer so therefore they can do what they like. Until the plane returns to the stand and they are escorted off by the police. Suddenly everyone else decides that it wasn't such an important game of Candy Crush after all.

John McAfee releases NSFW video on how to uninstall security code

Andy Hards

Re: Oh man

But MySpace was already on it's way out when Murdoch bought it. And how much did he pay for it?

Andy Hards
Thumb Up

Shirley I'm not the only one

Who couldn't see anyone but Kenny Everett's Marcel Wave?

Nokia Lumia 925: The best Windows Phone yet

Andy Hards
Thumb Up

I got mine about a month ago

Only problem is that you must enable the screen lock before putting it in your pocket or strange things happen. I have made a few calls to people I haven't spoken to in years and quite a few time the screen seems to have zoomed in by quite a lot with no way to zoom back out other than a restart.

Positives are the wireless charging, the camera and the Nokia Music mixes

Negatives - the music app seems to have a thousand screens but I can never find the one I want

Moist iPhone fanbois tempted with golden Apple shower offer

Andy Hards
Thumb Down

Re: My ancient Samsung had two

A few years ago my wife's Nokia was having sound problems. The volume rocker stopped working. I sent it off to 3 who sent it back within a week saying it was fixed. Unfortunately it may have been fixed but it would not now turn on so I sent it back again. This time I got a call saying that as the water indicator showed it had got wet it was no longer covered. I pointed out that they had not thought so a week earlier and that they had had it not me but they were having none of it.

The Man Who Fell to Earth: Plane plummet plod probe phone

Andy Hards
WTF?

Re: Could he have survived the flight?

I'm sure I have read of people who have survived it. One case in particular I remember because one survived but the other one (who was his brother IIRC) fell when the landing gear opened. That one was from The Gambia and that's a 5-6 hour flight.

Ofcom: Parents, here's how to keep grubby tots from buying Smurfberries

Andy Hards
Unhappy

Re: Can you no longer cap your call balance?

3 do offer a zero cap as I found out this morning. My wife (who is not very tech savvy) has just started an Open University course and when she logged in yesterday a pop up appeared which seemed to come from the OU asking her to complete a short survey about her access to the OU web site. The small print did mention that it was nothing to do with the OU however but failed to mention that putting in your phone number in the survey would sign you up to TextPlayWin which gives you the fantastic chance to win an iPhone or iPad every week for ONLY £4.50 per week. She very quickly realised she had fcuked up and so I had to try and stop it this morning. The phone company said as we had signed up for it they could not cancel it (surely they should be able to stop things being added to your bill!) but they did offer to sign me up to their zero cap feature. You can only enable this once though as I wanted to enable it for a few weeks and then take it off just so that TextPlayWin cannot bombard me with another 10 expensive texts along with a message saying it will take a week to cancel their service (which happened to a friend of mine who got signed up to a similar scam).

Florida fisherman bags two-headed MUTANT SHARK

Andy Hards
Unhappy

Why do they throw back the rest?

Because the fins are worth a small fortune and the rest isn't. Weight for weight they can get get way way more (that's an actual amount by the way) so why keep the rest? They have just cut the fins off, they don't really care about the thing, only the money they can make.

Nokia uncloaks Lumia 620: A 'budget' $249 Windows 8 mobe

Andy Hards
Pint

620 vs 920

Obviously. The piece also states that power users would be worried about the smaller battery! Power users would not be buying a phone for £150.

Windows Phone 8: Everything you need to know at a glance

Andy Hards
Stop

I thought you could..

..pick 3G if you wanted rather than only 4G. I was planning n doing just this. Will wait till it comes out to see cos I'm not going EE for anyone!

British judge: Say you're sorry Apple... this time like you MEAN it

Andy Hards
Gimp

Re: We Kpop now!

What about gamboling?

Nokia flings low-end Lumia at developing world

Andy Hards
Thumb Up

You pad £30 for a doorstop?

Next time you need one I'll sell you one for £29.99. That way we both win!

Japanese fanboy robbers empty shops of iPhone 5s ahead of launch

Andy Hards
Holmes

Re: Blacklist is a waste for the most part anyway

Surely if they say 'just send me out a new SIM and my teenager will have to use the crappy old one in the drawer' the network would not automatically take off the block from the IMEI would they? It would be very stupid of the network to just assume the phone that had been reported stolen or lost was now the phone being used without checking with the contract holder. Kind of defeats the whole point of having the list.

Shipping to one of the many many many countries not on the blacklist service is what most people would do. Many phones stolen in the UK end up in Dakar or Lagos and are sold as second hand (not stolen) and fetch a pretty good price. Junkies and pickpockets know the fences and know they will only get £20 for most phones but some get quite a bit more. There is one street in Dakar called Rue De Portable (not it's real name but that's what every one calls it) where hundreds of tables lined up on the street provide every unblocking service you could ever need, with repairs also carried out by skilled techs using a pc and range of kit specially for the purpose.

Samsung chucks 'free' Galaxy S III at dragon sketcher

Andy Hards
Thumb Up

I thought the Samsung Ad

taking the piss out of iSheep was quite funny in a advertising and not too offensive way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mo5pEAHPek

Can neighbours grab your sensitive package, asks Post Office

Andy Hards
Unhappy

Re: my neighbour? you sure about that?

You can bet he'd open the door when they deliver that important rush job you've had sent, then won't open the door to you to be able to get it back. Sounds like a knob. Call Agent Smith.

Andy Hards
Meh

Re: Alternative solution(s)

That would just be too sensible and easy to do, no-one would be making any money out of expensive trials and reports if it were that easy.

Atos IT workers threaten strike during Olympics over 'living wage'

Andy Hards

Re: Not surprised they're threatening to strike

A bus with 10 passengers on is far less hassle to drive than one that is packed to the rafters. People complain to the drivers about the most stupid of things and he/she has to sit there and be polite and listen while they fumble with their change and moan about the lateness of the bus while making it even later, crowded buses mean fights and rows and the driver is expected to sort these out, people staying on way after the stop they have paid for etc etc etc. They really don't just sit there and drive the buses you know. So yeah, the bosses will be getting huge bonuses so why not give the drivers a few hundred quid extra?

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