Posts by Fihart

T Mob PAYG has gone up too.

T Mob PAYG rate for texts rose from 10p to 12p on June 17. The companies have trouble calculating the cost of a text as it is so miniscule -- a 20% increase seems entirely out of order.

They are texting PAYG customers suggesting a switch to a £10 a month package with text, talk and internet -- not in itself a bad deal, but not what I want and much more than my current spend. Further, I've had problems with T Mob occasionally deducting the odd £1 from my balance for no reason that made sense -- so have disabled internet on my phone and am not confident about using it again with T Mobile.

The only thing that stops me leaving T Mob is the fuss/cost of having an oldish phone unlocked.

Some thickies probably think it's cheap......

.................until they discover they have to pay again next year.

Foresee big boost for Libre Office etc.

It's the Apple on Steve Ballmer's head.

It's not so much that Joe Public rejects the PC, more that they have been convinced (to quote one of my young neighbours) that "it's all about Apple, now".

In fact, of five neighbours, only myself and one other are still using Windows -- two having switched to Apple laptops since Xmas.

Among us three have iPhones ( the remainder BB, and Nokia) and there are two iPads.

In short, the dominating manufacturer is Apple.

But, I also suspect that (based on a friend's experience of buying a new Win8 laptop) word of mouth about its shortcomings is, at least, delaying some users from upgrading to a new PC.

Anyone noticed Flickr rants ?

Thousands of complaints after Yahoo messed with Flickr format.

US TV ads @Henry Wertz 1

Too right. Nobody I knew watched TV in the States.

We are rapidly approaching that situation here when ad breaks that used to be two per hour seem to be every 10 minutes now -- and last longer.

As someone said, the ads now reflect the fact that the only people watching them consume the kind of products that are advertised. So where UK ads used to be noted for their wit and style they now just bludgeon repeatedly.

Unsurprisingly there's preponderance of ads for sofas !

Surely Ireland has some say in this.

If Google claim that UK sales are entirely via Ireland, why do they employ people in UK to deal with customers when there is a large, well educated workforce in Ireland looking for work.

This is a matter as much for the Eire Government as for the UK. Google may be paying tax in Ireland but that seems to be minimised (perhaps in a similar sleight of hand). If Google are going to hide behind Irish tax law, they might at least employ a significant number of people there.

The home desktop PC.

I rely on the easy repair and upgrade aspects of the PC to keep vaguely in step with the technology without actually buying anything (at least not new as there are car boot sales for parts and PCs get dumped on the street around here).

But, every friend who has recently replaced a computer has bought a laptop -- some have added a tablet. Even I now have a fairly new laptop (repaired using found parts).

Much as I love my desktop, it's obvious they are any old iron these days.

Coffee with Steve Jobs ?

Of course the price would be higher -- and the temperature could be hotter.

So that's what they were smoking.

When they put self-destruct capacitors on motherboards, in monitor, subwoofers, flatscreen tellies.

On the plus side (no pun intended), the pavements round here have been host to decent sized monitors and tellies which I've fixed for the cost of a handful of caps.

"I am William Boot of the US Embassy of Ishmaelia......."

Nice to see the Reg's writers read Evelyn Waugh (Scoop 1938). Could better have used Graham Greene (Our Man in Havana 1958).

The generic £50 Android.

People in the emerging markets are the only ones buying basic handsets and they are, doubtless, tempted by unbranded Android models.

Good question as to where this leaves Nokia who rely on basics and don't have Android. But I think it will affect the global market pretty soon.

Aside from the fashion conscious, why would we not buy ZTE or Huawei -- they've been making OEMs for years and their branded offerings are looking good, not just good value. And after them, several other Chinese makers are becoming household brands in their home market.

"You'd be nuts to run your business using Office 365".

@ Mystic Megabyte

Too right, mate. It's common knowledge that even countries within the EU are aiming industrial espionage at each other. To store any commercially sensitive material in the cloud is just asking for it to be borrowed. Whatever assurances MS might offer, they are subject to US government control, formal and informal.

Take Sony back to its roots.

Sony was once pretty wonderful. My first tranny radio -- one of the first available in the UK. My first telly -- 9 inch monochrome which lasted nearly 20 years. Hi-fi components built like a tank. Invented the portable music player. The unique Walkman Pro. Excellent after sales support.

Now, they play second or third fiddle on portables having flirted with DRM on MP3 players, presumably due to the connection with Columbia record label. Laptops look nice but, apparently, have spotty technical support. Eclipsed in TV by Samsung. Also-ran in cellphones.

NO change, then.

........."LiveSafe will come preinstalled on Ultrabook devices and PCs from Dell starting on June 9. By contrast, a 12-month subscription for consumers' existing PCs and tablets will cost £79.99.......

......"All this is a big change from offering security software to consumers as part of a 30- or 90-day trial package"......................

No it isn't. They're still paying to add their stuff onto new machines which then have to be de-cluttered to perform properly. This idea that hardware mfrs can rent out space on our computers before we buy them damages our perception of the hardware and software brands.

I'm sure many people avoid McAfee or Norton products on principal because they have so annoyed them this way in the past.

Hope not more bloat....

I wonder if my experience is typical but recent Firefox versions seem slow, at least on on older machines. Opera now takes an age to load, but Google Chrome seems okay.

So, it's a free phone on contract !

Admittedly a 99% discount sounds dramatic but plenty more expensive phones are free if you are prepared to sign a contract. Given the idiotic amount of time some Facebook users waste checking their page, the phone company could be on to a good thing.

However, it's hard to see the need for a dedicated Facebook phone when so many already include an app built in -- and I think anyone buying the Facebook phone is, in effect, admitting that they are an idiot.

You're in a hole Steve.....

....so stop digging.

Office 365 will sink Microsoft deeper than the Win8, WinPhone and Surface cockups. No home user is going to willingly rent Word (because that's the only part of Office most use regularly) for serious money annually when they can go on using the version they already own or get an equivalent for free.

from the inventor of.....

.....the internet-connected, bluetooth-activated......................catflap.

Haven't learned Lesson One from Apple.

If the product is right, people will pay the price.

You don't have to waste capital and lose income churning out new models to fill every price point.

By all account the Win phones are pretty good but sales mainly rely on them being cheaper.

Boy Beard Ban, please !

IBM used to have (or allegedly had) a rule of no pipe smokers, no beardies. I think they assumed that both wasted a lot of time fiddling. Mrs Thatcher had a similar prejudice.

I can't quite understand why older men going grey (or white) would want to multiply the problem by growing grey/white facial hair. Presumably to make up for thinning on top. I'm wary of men who sport beards and heavy glasses -- clearly they are hiding behind these contrivances !

But maximum odium for young hipsters with wispy beards -- the sort who may also wear skinny trousers that hang around the crotch and beanie hats. I guess the sought effect is to look like one of Garibaldi's guerrillas, though this seems less than convincing when seen with iPad in manbag around coffee shops in Hoxton.

Full Circle.

In 1985 I and one other ad copywriter (that I was aware of, anyway) brought computers into our workplaces simply for word processing.

We could see the vast inefficiency of a pool typist trying to decipher handwriting and repeatedly retyping drafts (usually introducing errors) as they were modified by ourselves and clients.

We could see this, but management couldn't. So we bought the machines ourselves (Sirius and Apricot costing well over a thou, plus printer). Later his employers conceded that they would pay half the price of his next machine.

Soon enough creative depts all over London were sprouting personally bought Amstrad PCWs.

When management realised the benefits, everyone got a computer -- but they were networked and the only choice was between single brand PC (writers) and Apple (art directors). And no more bringing in your own software -- though I recall Doom or Quake soon got networked.

Deliberately misleading nonsense.

Seems that these days anyone offering a product which is moderately complex do their best to make it more so. Then they employ ad campaigns that appear to make it simple again -- best/worst example, the Orange campaign involving animals (Dolphin ? Raccoon ?) to represent different packages.

As an adman I have to say this goes against my instinct to try to communicate actually complex products (cars, hifi) in a comprehensible manner, though I refused to work on life insurance business because I found it so boring and confusing that I felt incapable of doing good work.

As revealed by the fact that PlusNet is just BT in drag, with the exception of Virgin, ALL these brands are selling essentially one product -- internet over BT's copper wires (whether via Fibre to the Cabinet or not).

Even Virgin sells this where it has no infrastructure. Actually, Virgin seems to have "lost" some of the cabling put in originally by the firms it took over -- in our street, every building has a small hatch in the pavement which accesses cable below, but Virgin resolutely deny that we can have fibre-optic internet.

As per energy tariffs, we need legislation to force internet and cellphone service suppliers (often the same companies) to clarify and simplify their offerings with no "free" phones or "half price for 6 months" or "unlimited" that isn't.

My, but it's warm in here...

...I'll just have to slip into something more comfortable !