Posts by Fihart

Be a nuisance back.

When these robots call they usually urge one to press 5 to speak to an operative. Doing that while switching on an intruder alarm siren (loud enough for me to don ear protectors) obviously had an effect on the PPI pests. The next call I had offered to delist my number. When I ignored that, the calls dried up anyway.

word is getting out

Even my least techie friends seem to know that the persistent invitations to upgrade to Win10 are best ignored.

Yahoo getting worse.

Been with their webmail for probably 18 years and it was reliable for, say, a dozen of those. Not so much recently. Frequent apologies for downtime. Odd stuff like attachments falling off the end of mails. Links in mails are live when opened in Hotmail but not in Yahoo.

As for this adblocker nonsense, pushing users towards the exit.

Needless wireless already with us.

My otherwise charming neighbours have no notion of anything technical -- witness the fact that when they are present the wireless router we share is registering a multiplicity of phones, iPads and laptops, though the devices can't all be using the internet at once. Even when neighbours are not at home, snoozing devices are still reporting to the router.

Already some years ago I was noting people with desktop computers parked next to their routers but using wireless -- an ethernet cable is in the box with the router and is faster/more reliable than wireless.

The other pest is routers (all routers nowadays) which default to automatic channel selection -- which means that if I am using channel 6 to feed a laptop some distance from the router and next door's router is closer, when it randomly decides to switch to 6 or any channels adjacent, my internet slows down.

Mechanical birds nest.

Don't know about Betamax as machines were rare outside the media professions, but a peek inside a VHS machine guaranteed that I would avoid. Affordable DVD player/recorder well worth waiting for.

Price.

Blackberry's current products already addressed many of the niggles I have about my 4 yr-old 9800 qwerty slider. The Priv seems like another good move to curb desertions. Except that price.

In a world where you can pick up a decent Android for £150, asking 4x that for the (real) advantage of a qwerty keyboard almost guarantees failure.

While I don't like on-screen keyboards, well-executed ones (Apple) and larger screens (HTC Sony etc) are a sensible compromise.

Dampner ?

Surely, Damper or Dampener.

Not just confusion marketing. Confusion.

Listening to Talk Talk's boss on Radio 4 this morning she sounded shaken, and appeared more so in later TV interviews.

There seems a perverse kind of justice here -- I've wasted hours trying to tie down the actual cost of selecting various ISPs due to the confusing and incomplete pricing displayed in ads and on websites. Talk Talk's current offer seems terrific value (e.g. free internet for 12 months) but averages out over an 18 month contract at about the same as competitors, once you add in charges for "phone packages" Can't quite see why I'd pay for the ability to use a phone line when it has to be there anyway, while also being charged for calls.

I'm almost inclined to call their sales people while this debacle unfolds on the assumption that they won't be too busy and may be begging to do a deal, any deal.

Poor value, poor keyboard.

Not impressed with paying $100 for a keyboard that's no better than the one on a $300 laptop (and by the sounds of it perhaps worse).

Even small writing jobs are better done on a full sized keyboard -- for example the IBM PS/2.

And by contrast with author's Apple keyboard that died, the IBM I'm typing this on was built (in Scotland from girders) in 1990 and bought at a flea market.

Great picture.

Just to remind you, Windows 3.1 came on 7 floppies.

Not too bad....

Let's hope Avast learns the right lesson from this and user reaction curbs any temptation to follow AVG.

Avast isn't particularly intrusive, popups have been getting bigger and more frequent but they're easy to brush away. Annual renewal of the free product is actually simpler than it used to be.

I won't be switching to Gaming Mode just yet as I find it reassuring when Avast occasionally issues hazard warnings.

"Under penalty of....

....(something or other) it is illegal to remove this label". Commonly found on mattresses in USA. Strikes fear into law-abiding householders, but actually aimed at retailers to ensure consumers know something or other about content or fire-proofing, or whatever.

I frequently remove labels from inside Levi jeans due to their bulk and scratchiness. I suspect there to indicate authenticity against fakes. As for washing instructions, worth laundering new jeans turned inside out to avoid random creases showing up as pale lines on the denim. But I tend to ignore most -- too many manufacturers try to cover themselves by recommending dry cleaning of items which may or may not be harmed by normal washing.

Ah those days...

Slot Car Racing (please don't call it Scalextric as there were other, better brands) was my teen introduction to soldering and re-winding electric motors (they usually caught fire).

Though we graduated to Revell and more exotic cars, never had more fun than with the cheapest brand Airfix whose track we continued to use as it was smoother than the Scalex polythene stuff.

Unmistakable irony here.

Given that large corporations take as long to change course as an oil tanker, will they be diving for Microsoft's lost mojo at some point in the future.

To return to IT.

My brother had a Fujitsu/Siemens desktop from the late unlamented Comet Warehouse. After nearly a year it started going funny so he asked me to look at it. But, he pointed out, a seal on it says breaking that invalidates warranty.

As it was still within the notional 12 month warranty period (which is merely an arrangement between mfr and retailer) he decided to let Comet sort it out. Their response was that they'd have to wait for the Fuj/Siem engineer to make his rounds -- up to three weeks away. My brother decided he could wait three weeks.

When a month or so later the computer was returned, working, he was told that the issue had merely been carpet fluff in a fan causing the CPU to overheat.

I think this qualifies as an Ikabai fuckup on the grounds that my bro could have easily analysed and fixed the problem in fifteen minutes max had it not been for the dumb sticker.

The sticker had no business being on a device such as an IBM-type PC which was deliberately designed to be opened in order to add network cards etc (hint; the PSU is in a separate enclosure).

Everyone's fingers burnt with Everything Everywhere

EE's PAYG charges render voice calls unaffordable -- and 12p for texts is scandalous given that they cost so little to the provider that they can't even calculate how little.

False alarms ?

Don't know about Yahoo, but ads on The Register site were triggering alarms from Avast yesterday.

Now I can say no.

Granted, recent versions of Windows have been more reliable and included useful drivers. But, as other commentators have said, Linux is pretty viable now. In the past, every version I tried fell down on graphics or sound issues. Doubtless drivers could be found but usually not on the manufacturers' sites.

Installed the very slim Peppermint Linux this year and everything worked on both the machines I put it on -- amazingly, including wifi. Still looking for scanner software and a better screengrab application. But ease of use, speed, pain-free updates and seeming stability means I can now look at making Linux my main OS. It's already preferable for internet access just because it boots much faster.

Any Windows' improvements are not enough to justify the faff of installing and learning a vast new OS and its (doubtless) vast updates to fix the screwups inevitable in something so big

I suspect that if they could step outside the feature-led marketing approach and produce a slimline version of Windows, Microsoft would actually gain some friends among the tech community.

Word Free

The "urban myth" that MS let Word get pirated seems more plausible when you consider that Microsoft Press did a roaring trade in an overpriced guide to using Word which more than replaced the printed manual that accompanied legitimate copies of the appplication.

look and learn

Before they start adding more pointless electronic complexity to their cars, Chrysler/GM/Ford should study German cars that are safe and durable, Japanese cars for reliability, Italians for style and performance.

With few exceptions (Studebaker Avanti, 1964 Buick Riviera, 1964 Mustang, 1970 Plymouth Barracuda, Corvair) most post-war American cars have been hideous and as horrible mechanically as they look.

Of course, US drivers expect to buy cars cheaper than almost anywhere in the world and they get what they pay for.

It's just business. Nothing personal. Again.

Think of something that's free or cheap and try to get people to pay a premium for it.

Isn't that the MS way ?