Posts by David Paul Morgan

Silver Surfer 'done us wrong'

I remember the dreadful silver Surfer ads which spoiled a lot of peoples expectations back in 2001. If they'd sold it as 'teletext on your phone' then we may not have been quite so disappointed. I read about the 11th September attacks on my Panasonic gd-93 when on holiday in Greece, waiting for the ferry in Kefalonika.

My Sony-Ericsson W880 serves me well as a 3G 'modem' on my laptop when out-and-about as does my htc-wizard/O2 XDA. I do pay the 7GBP O2 inclusive tariff and seem to be on facebook mobile daily - ho hum ;^)

I prefer the connector...

... 'sidesaddle'. I have a K850 and a W880 and I much prefer the headset adapter being on the side, as I feel that it's not 'squashing' the cable.

/If/ there was a general SE Docking station, then I agree that it should go on the bottom. Ideally, 3.5mm socket on the top and the mains/docking on the bottom. Pocket friendly and bedside friendly.

RegHardware should review...

... more of these Chinese phones.

Do a quick search for MP4 or dual-sim on eBay and there are piles of what look like very interesting models from totally unknown (to us!) manufacturers.

I'd love to know what they're like, as they don't stock them in the V***fone store, nor C**phone W***house.

As an aside, Douglas Adams used to joke about the High Street being taken over shoe-stores, but in my local shopping street, if you position yourself correctly, I reckon you could hit 7 mobile phone stores with a well-aimed handset!

TfL Users have forgotten...

what it's like for the rest of us! some journeys in south Wales can take up to 4 tickets and four service providers! I'm lucky as my monthly rail season ticket only costs £65 and gets me from cardiff to bridgend via mainline or via the airport (trains don't run late enough for some flights..!) and to the University and civic buildings and down to the bay.

However, I also have a top-up Oyster card as it's so convenient when I travel to London and never have to worry about the cost of hopping on and off whatever service I want to use!

Plus, you don't look like a bloody tourist! For business, I just print off my expenses a few days later.

Anyway - bendy buses are great - we have them in cardiff too - but they are more suited to straight roads. double deckers are only suited for the able-bodied!

Why is the...

... body text in Russian?

Looks like a good handset, though

Don't forget the book readers

I loved my htc wizard/o2 xda mini s and kept one when we added the K850 and the W880 to our home phones.

I like the fact that you can read/edit your word/excel documents on it, but I also like being able to use it as an e-book reader.

The great advantage of Windows Mobile family is that there are a lot of applications available for it and that it allows a proper choice of kit from candy-bar to sliding keyboard form-factor.

Put me down for the SE-X1 when that comes out - or whatever the next generation of HTC Touch is - but I really do like a slide-out qwerty keyboard as a 'must have' feature.

What I really want is an A5 touch screen like a Star Trek© data padd, or the slide-out screen like the video phones in "Earth Final conflict"

mines the anorak with LotR and STtNG patches

Why recycle..?

...when it's easier to sell them on?

Just having a quick total up and:

2 x Panasonic G520's - one went to my mother, then recycled by Vodafone, one sold on to a workmate.

2 x Panasonic GD93's - one kept and is my backup/backujp handset, one sold on to a work colleague (who then lost it in Sainsbury's)

2 x Panasonic GD87's - both sold on to workmates.

2 x SE-V800 3G's - one traded in at CEX, one sold on eBay

2 x O2 XDA mini S - one sold on eBay, one kept for the Wi-Fi browsing when abroad.

The mantra is reduce, re-use then recycle.

2 x new?

I bought one from Moby Memory last week - arrived Fri 4th.

I thought this capacity was well established.

Tend to use the M2's with the usb adaptor, but this adaptor looks really nice.

Oh, I paid £29.99 plus delivery.

Once Again, Douglas Adams had it right..?

FORD PREFECT:

Unfortunately I got stuck on the Earth for rather longer than I intended. I came for a week and was stranded for fifteen years.

ARTHUR DENT:

But how did you get there in the first place?!

FORD PREFECT:

Oh easy! I got a lift with a Teaser. You don’t know what a Teaser is, I - I’ll tell you. Teasers are usually rich kids with nothing to do. They cruise around looking for planets which haven’t made interstellar contact yet and buzz them.

ARTHUR DENT:

Ah. “Buzz them”?

FORD PREFECT:

Yeah. They find some isolated spot with very few people around, then land right by some poor unsuspecting soul, who no one’s ever going to believe, and then strut up and down in front of ‘em wearing silly antennae on their head and making “beep, beep” noises. Huh, rather childish really.

I've reached handset saturation

We are a two-adult household. We were very pleased with our HTC-Wizards (O2 brand) but held off changing handsets after 18 months were up last October. As we wanted a decent camera and telephone, we changed one handset to a K850 cybershot - which is great, because it also has internet/e-mail & Walkman. We sold on one of the Wizards. I took out a W880 as i was seduced by its steely slimness and it is also a Walkman/browser & e-mailer handset. Both Se handsets offer video calling & 3G too - occassionally usefule. I've kept one Wizard, as it's great in the house for armchair browsing on the sofa and it has my continental SIM for holidays. But i also have a crappy Nokia 6233 from work. I don't mind the 18month contract as handset features don't change that much. I think next time I will be going back to Windows Mobile, but O2 did not offer such a good deal on the pocket pc type handsets this time around. I'm quite happy with my inclusive talktime, txt & data allowances. I almost never use the handset for voice calls!

At the third stroke...

it will be "0x0000001E, KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED"

I disagree with Mr Grundy

In our household, we have a SE-K850 Cybershot phone - which is also a media player and a compact W880 'Walkman'.

Both are super mp3 players and we can cram a lot of albums into 4G sticks - yes I know that 8G is now available.

Whilst travelling on the train, I also like to browse the wap/web using Opera mini 4 for Facebook etc and i also catch up on simple e-mails. About the only thing I don't use my handet for is making voice calls.

however, nobody in their right mind would buy music off a 'phone company - that's what the data cable or the memory stick adaptor are for!

Stop this nonsense - fortunately there's a handset for everyone. (except the USA, probably and Japan, 'cos that's a whole other market!)

this explains it..?

I have installed the youtube clients for my SE-K850 and SE-W880 handsets. Whan I try to play a video-clip, then the youTube service says that my network speed is too slow.

Anyone actually using YouTube from their O2 3G handsets in this way?

Are they environmentally friendly?

As they are neutral or lighter than air, would modern Zeppelins be suitable for trans-atlantic cruising with a better passenger/fuel ratio than a jet plane or a cruise ship? Could run them on peanut diesel or hydrogen!?

Mine's the one with the 'oh the humanity' slogan on the back

all I know about Scientology...

... I learned from the now infamous 'closet' episode.

Oh, and trying to read LRH's books!

Black Helicopter, 'cos it could all be a double-bluff?

MiniDisc please

I had a MiniDisc recorder built into my Sony hi-fi and a one Sony & one Sharp portable MD plyer/recorders. The Sharp could take mike-in for recording interviews etc. I understand that the later netman MD recorders will let you rip your recordings from MD onto your personal computer via USB. shame this was not available earlier. I do have the usb to fibre-optic output adapter that would let you copy - in real time - mp3 to MD!.

Now, I'm using an XDA/HTC-Wizard with 2GB miniSD cards or my SE 'Walkman' K850 and W880 handsets with 4GB M2 cards! All of which sync seamlessly with Windows Media Player.

I only have one commercial MD album - I think it is by Reef. There must be a warehouse/landfill somewhere with millions of unsold commercial MD's!

Not in cars because...

... the motor manufacturers are global, so the ICE has to work globally.

You can't go from UK to France to Germany without having to change receiver technology!

I have one DAB in the house and a dinky Philips portable. However, the one in the house only gets used in the bathroom. Otherwise, we listen to audio-streams (radio programmes?) via the Virgin box or listen again via the BBC.

It is a shame that not all of the DABs have a timer-record to SD card/USB stick, so you could take your favourite shows with you and play in your Walkman-'phone.

This is uncanny

I'm just finishing off a report comparing running a major overhaul of our UPS vs. replacing it entirely - but one of my colleagues suggested running half the server-rack power supply off the dirty mains to save power!

(black helicopter, 'cos someone's been reading my f&p server docs)

We already have...

101 here in Cardiff and it has been very useful in filtering out the crap calls to 999. Very useful for reporting street gangs, prostitutes, petty vandalism etc. Unfortunately, the Westminster Govt. is now stopping the funding and the WAG (Wales Assembly Govt.) don't have a replacement funding stream yet.

You get out what you put in

I think that Facebook is what Friends Reunited wanted to be!

I like to think I'm an old hand at the social networking 'thing'. Anyone remember the CiX conferencing (AMEOL)? The only two social networking sites I stick with now are Facebook (with all the dead sheep switched off) and OutEveryWhere (for gay men & women). The main reason is that I can easily keep up with my geographically seperate friends (college, work), but the main reason is to organise social events and meet new people. Instant Messaging is too 'point to point' to be of any use. This is something that Out Everywhere is good at and I use Facebook in the same way. I also like the ability to quickly share photo-albums with people. Flickr, photobox etc are restrictive, in the sense that you have to be members or know your friends' e-mail addresses. My partner loves Scrabulous atm!

so, my precious,

is it Larry Ellison as Saruman and Bill Gates as Gandalf or vice-vera, in the lord of the databases!. Steve Jobs as Legolas, i think!

I'll get my mithril-silver shirt

Looks like the gadget in

"Earth: Final Conflict".

When they received a phone call, they slid the screen out and had a computerised web & video call. cool

Looks a bit like this - can't find a TV screenshot.

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/polymer-vision-screen-thin-as-paper-in-cellphones-someday-161890.php

nice idea...

... but my problem is that my S-VHS recorder failed and the inpependent repair shop would not repair it. Annoyingly, it was just after I'd put my S-VHS home movies in a pile ready to copy to DVD+RW, for editing on the computer!

I like it!

they look great! Are there any cellphones that take 'voice dictation' over bluetooth?

(Lt Uhuru - welll ahead of here time!)

why all the fuss?

I can do this standing at a bar with a £10 note and not one barman can see me!

Is this a joke?

no, seriously, is this a joke?

Tomorrows World Russian demo

Anyone remember the LASER TV demonstrated on TW many years ago?

It consisted of a disc of lasing crystals the were energised by a CRT scan from the back. The picture was always 'in focus' but the demo was only in sepia - diffferent colour lasing was not demonstrated. Or did I dream the whole thing.I think it was shortly after the Soviet Union collapsed.

US tax subsidies to Boeing

Actually, Boeing is subsidised by the US taxpayer as much as any military/aerospace company in Europe.

http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2006/february/tradoc_127479.pdf

They just do it in a different way.