Posts by Allan 1

I dispute this statement that debt collectors are good people.

I had a collections agency pursue me for over 3 years over a debt that wasn't mine. It started off with a telephone call asking for a name who has never lived here (I've lived here for 40+ years), then they asked my name "for our records to show who we spoke to", that sounded reasonable, so I gave it.

All of a sudden they were pursuing the same debt, but with my name instead. It took a year of lawyers letters being exchanged before they admitted they were pursuing the wrong person, and dropped it.

Well, I learned from watching a certain youtube channels based on demolition and ranches, that combat shotguns normally shoot solid slugs, not shot.

Re: Have some Mint instead!

Apparently LTT did an in depth review of this model NUC, and specifically looked into the thermals, and in their opinion, they have done a really excellent job of managing thermals and dispersing the excess heat.

Re: 2FA

Halifax Bank are taking the exact same approach. No cellphone? No online banking for you!

At least, that was the case until I sent them a nastygram citing the disability discrimination act (I'm deaf so can't use phones, therefore don't have a phone, of any kind). I then got sent a document to sign absolving them of any liability should my account be hacked as a result of not having a cellphone to send an SMS code to.

Personally, I feel it to be safer anyway, with the rise in SIM swap fraud.

Re: @steelpillow and ImAlrightJack

Not only that, my parents actually had to attend a face to face interview with the GPO in what is now known as DIAL House in Manchester, and actually JUSTIFY to a GPO worker, why they needed a telephone.

Re: Sometimes it's the customers fault

Not anymore. Since being taken over by liberty global, they can no longer negotiate on the price.

I recently phoned to see if I could get a better price for my 100mbps/tv (which has never worked and they don't wanna fix it)/phone line, which currently costs just shy of £60 a month after this years price rises.

I was told that they can no longer negotiate a new price, that ability has been removed from them. When I asked about removing the tv package as its never worked, I was told it'd break the package bundle I am on, and would end up actually costing me more. So I complained about the tv package never working, they just transferred me to technical support in india, whom I could no longer understand, and gave up.

Re: F/A 18 Interceptor

I have a distant memory, that as a child my father took me to a block of offices just behind Central Library, Manchester, that were full of computers of all kinds. I learned later that this had been the first headquarters of Ocean Software (now defunct). Oh how I wish I could remember that visit more clearly.

Re: Imprisonment would be fair, I think

I have a TV, linked to an old PC running Linux and Kodi. As it was a gift, its "tuned" to digital TV, but its not connected to any external aerial of any kind. TV Inspector told me that because its "tuned" and there is an aerial available for it even though its not connected, I need a licence. The only way I wouldn't need a licence is if I was to "de-tune" it, and pull the aerial and all cabling for it down and that he was going to refer me to court.

Still waiting to hear my court date, 3 years on.

Re: Streisand effect in 3..2...1...

Their retail desk is closed except for saturdays, for essential renovations. Or was a week or two ago when I needed a new SDD. Their mail order business is open as normal.

As an amature photographer, I would rather deal with Jessops, or LCE, who have bricks and mortar outlets, than take a risk buying a £2000 camera from Amazon, and having the delivery scally steal it. Plus if you keep an eye on Jessops sales, you can quite often get good kit, very cheaply.

Re: Opt Out?

I believe that European law specifically states quite clearly, that a contract cannot and will not revoke your legal protections, and that if a contract tries, the entire contract is void.

We already know about it, and have for a while. They beefed up security a fair bit.

Or maybe the user was just tired of being passed from desk to desk.

Stay away from the DailyMail/MailonSunday sites then. Every story has a video player, that not only autoplays, but slides out, and slides off to the side, and won't let you kill it until its played 30 seconds of commercials.

Thanfully I found a very simple uBlock Origins filter sniplet, that kills the flyout mechanism for it.

Re: Still not happening

Can be done even cheaper, with a Chinese copy known as an Orange Pi. I made mine for under £20.

They want everyone on Shub3 to reduce support scope, and hence, reduce support costs. They will try and charge you for the upgrade, but if you keep refusing, they will offer it for free.

Sorry, but I've bought a couple of high end laptops from PC World, and are quite satisified with the spec and the price. Not happy with the way they really push hard to get you to buy McAffee, Microsoft Office, Knowhow Cloud, and Knowhow Setup though. A polite "No thank you" is not enough. You need multiple "No thank you. I said no. I am sorry but what use is mcrosoft office to me when I use libre office? NO!"

Re: Delete your account

Most people THINK they have deleted their accounts, when all they have actually done is deactivated it.

The ONLY people who will benefit from these meters in the long run, are the power companies. Time based pricing organized to cost the most when you use the most, no need for meter readers, etc.

Re: Devops

"Even my Logitech keyboard supports macros. Is that a cheat too ?" - Using the logic Blizzard apply to world of warcraft, yes. If a keyboard can execute more than one commend per keypress, then yes, its a bot , and its a hack, and its bannable.

Re: I don't get it

Maybe by knowing the sequence the adverts are playing, and the time, they can figure out what show you were watching, and hence, your interests?

Re: Training required and Twitter suspensions

It is important to realize that not all pavements are public property. Some can actually be the property of nearby businesses. As a bunch of photographers found out when they were arrested for photographing the Shard in London. Turns out that The Shard also owns the "public" pavement outside.

Re: Security Updates

Sony phones are great, but their screens seem unusually fragile. I have a friend with a Z3, who dropped it less than 2 inches onto a carpeted floor, and the screen literally exploded into fragments. Other than that minor inconvenience, they are great phones.

It's my understanding that they are legally required to retain ex-customer details for a number of years after that customer leaves, in case the authorities need to investigate fraud / crime.

Unfortunately, installing cyanogenmod will completely invalidate my Samsung warranty on my S6

How do I swap out a spare battery in my Galaxy S6 Edge? It's a completely sealed unit.

Re: Checks for people running activities in community hall

Essentially, yes. The onus is now on you to make an official CRB check request directly with the police yourself, and pay for it, yourself. You can no longer place the onus on the other person.

Re: Shock news!

Apple and defenestration... I don't think Apple uses windows.

Re: Time to fix.

VirginMedia sadly don't give you a choice. They forcefully push out the firmware updates, and you cannot opt out of them.

Re: Just under the clickey button...

Also excludes self employed, disabled and unemployed people from entering:

Required* Your Organization.

I'll get my chocolate from Tesco.

Re: Look and say AAAHHH!

'Burner passwords' would probably leave you open to a charge of wilful destruction of evidence, sadly.

Re: In other words, Auntie doesn't like Aussies

" iPlayer downloads can only be played in the place they were downloaded to, and are time limited."

LOL

get_iplayer FTW

Re: I call shenanigans

Indeed. I had multiple Logitech gaming mice over the years and one gaming keyboard.

All the mice failed in exactly the same way, an internal break in the USB cable, probably because they are shipped with the cable folded up so tightly in the packaging that the cable's already damaged before you get to even use it. Assumably to make the packaging smaller.

The keyboard, just stopped responding one day. I swapped to Roccat products and not had any issues since.

Re: Retrieval

Not 100% sure here, but isn't it the case that when a company goes bankrupt, any equipment in their possession becomes the property of the administrators, even if the bankrupt company wasn't the owner of the property to begin with. Possession being 9/10ths of the law and all that.

I remember when a large photographic chain went kaput, people who had placed orders and paid for equipment, lost out heavily. The administrators took both the money and auctioned the equipment to pay the creditors.

If the case is similar here, I fear for people trying to recover their equipment that was in for repair.

Re: Opt Out more likely

Thanks for the heads-up. I logged in to my vm account on a hunch after reading your post, to find they had kindly activated this rubbish for me too, without even having the manners to tell me. I went to settings and got greeted by:

"Because its your first time here, we have activated all settings for you, to protect..."

There was a radio button control to turn it off but no save settings button. When clicked on to change it to "Turn Off", I got greeted by a nice red dialog warning of death, doom and destruction, obviously designed to frighten those whom are less technologically literate.

It had better stay turned off. I'll be checking it periodically. While I don't do porn, I want it off because it should be my choice, not theirs.

Re: Cheltenham again?

Yeah, I'm not buying the "failure" excuse either. Happened too soon after BT had an identical "failure".

Re: The article keeps changing

Once published, the article should be static except for spelling corrections ofc. Error correction should be via a strikethrough, so any comments made don't suddenly look weird as the part they were commenting about is suddenly missing.

Its not print, but it is press.