Posts by Pie

Inventor lobs spherical, throwable camera

Re: Cricket? Fires?

Thanks, I wouldn't want to offend you any more so I will stop posting.

Confirmed: Driverless cars to hit actual British roads by end of year

Re: They've been on the road for years

Rover beat Nissan in that respect with the Metro

Korean doctors: Smartphones really ARE doing your head in

Re: TBH

you forgot to add that as they get older their quick reflexes are a real bonus for bits of games you can't do...

Apple reveals payouts for parents of in-app purchase nippers

Re: My Experience

Report your card lost every 6 months, or sooner if you want. It's a free service stops the card being used, especially useful in a case like this where you forgot you had it linked, it's also good incase your card has been cloned. You need more than one card for this to be ok, but they tend to come within 5 days as the company want you to keep spending.

SUPERSIZE my CLOUD - Microsoft plans $677m data centre embiggening

Re: Some where to put all those fake hotmail / live / outlook accounts...

Gaming websites are reporting this as being for Xbox live growth, which could be the same as Azure growth.

Can Microsoft's U-turn stop the Xbox 360 becoming another XP?

Re: PS4 all the way for me. There are still too many problems with the Xbone

They announced that games on the Xbox One would not be region locked.

Nokia Lumia 925: The best Windows Phone yet

I wouldn't describe the ellipses as arbitrary they are always in the bottom right of the screen. If there is another screen to swipe to then a small part of that is shown on the RHS of the current screen, although some third party apps seem to break this rule. The main screen, this was taken away as it was considered to be a waste of real estate.

Re: I love mine but..

Sounds a great picture any chance of a link to it?

Robbing a bank? Carberp toolkit now available for just $5k

5Gb seems very large

Out of interest does anyone know what would get it to be that size?

Sneaky new Android Trojan is WORST yet discovered

No such problems on my windows 8 phone

Mainly because there are only 5 users in the world so it's not worth targeting...

Microsoft caves to Google, pulls YouTube app from WinPhone Store

Re: New Youtube app is optional at the moment.

Thanks for pointing that out, I'll get one tomorrow ;)

New Youtube app is optional at the moment.

At the moment the update isn't forced on you so I am still running the better version. Not sure if they will force me to update ever. I just have to remember not to update all.

Microsoft reveals Xbox One, the console that can read your heartbeat

Re: XBox One vs PS4

One the Xbox One the whole game is loaded to the hard disk from the physical disk, you can then put the disk away never to get it out again.

MYSTERY Nokia Lumia with gazillion-pixel camera 'spotted'

Re: NOW will you try Windows Phone 8?

The offical BBC iPlayer app has just been launched.

Review: Sony Xperia SP

If only it came with

WIndows Phone 8 as the OS ;)

That $1,000 the lad in Lagos needed? Just email it with Google Wallet

Re: If you must use this...

I have done the same, I have my 'fun' account where all the money I can spend on myself goes, or a few quid like you say...

Review: Samsung Galaxy S4

Are the 32Gb or 64Gb version available yet?

Not seen any for sale only the 16Gb seems to be available at the moment, and you can't load apps to the sd card....

But looking at the phone it appears to have a great screen, and feels good in the hand to me...

Vodafone slurps MEELLLIONS for redirecting police hotline calls

Useful number to remember

I used it to call the local police when on the way to the airport to report a car that I had seen in an 'odd' place. It didn't warrant a 999 call but being able to tell the local police about it was just what I needed, especially as I didn't know who the local police would be as I was out of my area.. The only draw back is that if you had no credit/contract I presume you wouldn't be able to call...

Apple: You thought Google dodged taxes? Get a load of THIS

Re: Eh?

It's comments like this that keeps me reading, thanks.

iPhone 5 totters at the top as Samsung thrusts up UK mobe chart

Re: Back from the brink?

It seems have a good product at the right price helps :)

Canadian TV station wails: NFC bonking... it's not SAFE

You don't need NFC, just a good memory.

I was in a cafe a few weeks ago and a woman was ordering something via her mobile, she clearly stated name, address, card number, expiry and cvc number for all to hear... As I said to my children, practise remembering 16 digit numbers and you will never need to go short....

Virgin Media: SO SORRY we fined your dead dad £10 for unpaid bill

Re: Missing part....

They didn't know because the 'system' at Virgin didn't pick up the Deceased part of the DD not being paid as significant. If they hadn't of printed Deceased on the bill then this would of been sorted with a phone call, but the automated system didn't pick it up....

O2 to turn your innocent nipper into Silicon Roundabout hipster

Re: URL?

It's implied in the article that it's run through Young Enterprise http://www.young-enterprise.org.uk/ , so you would need to contact them in your local area to see if there is anything your kids could do.

Thanks Stuart for giving children like my son the opportunity to do something constructive with their time. My son loves his electronic 'toys' but he also really enjoys scouting, as you say there is so much more to it than 'fending for yourself'. It is certainly helping his growth as a person and he is all the better for it.

As to O2 well....

Eric Schmidt defends Google's teeny UK tax payouts - again

Re: Can anyone explain what ES thinks he might be saying here:

I have been wondering about this as well. Perhaps he is saying without the power of Google adverts all the new UK start ups would fail, but as they can pay Google money to advertise they all flourish and pay tax until they get big enough to work out how not to pay tax...

Hmm, looking at it like that perhaps the government should pay Google to be here...

The gloves are on: Nokia emits super-sensitive £99 Windows Phone

Re: Perfect phone

Check out the free games from Miniclip at the moment, and get AlphaJax as well...

IT contractors lose thousands as 2e2 collapse hits recruiter

A quick look at this companies figures

Even in abridged form the accounts didn't make for good reading. I am no expert, but if you have debtors of 1.8 million up from 700k the year before yet your worth is only 50k and that didn't increase from the year before then it isn't going to take much to wipe you out. Especially as you are only filing small accounts so have a turn over of less than 5 million, indicating your debtors owe for longer than 100 days...

Sony promises PC-based PlayStation 4 for Christmas

Re: Price...

Why would you need an upgradable graphics card? Sony are not going to want to dilute the market by having haves and have nots? Developers are not going to want to limit games only to people who have upgraded? It would just add confusion and dilution.

Apple: iOS 6.1 network overload caused by our Exchange SYNC OF DOOM

This isn't unique to IOS 6.1

Previous IOS's would exhibit some sync rage with exchange, filling up log files and draining batteries in a couple of hours. Switching turning off push email would fix it...

Nokia's Elopocalypse two years on: Has Microsoft kept its side of the bargain?

Re: That's no "power user"

Unfortunately the Reinstall app is no longer working.

Psst, wanna block nuisance calls? BT'll do it... for a price

Re: Alternatively

There is another way of dealing like this especially for particularly irritating frequent callers.

Say oh you need to ring back on another number and talk to 'Mr X' the number is 0871 xxxxxxxxx

If you are a company with a phone system it isn't difficult to get a free 0871 number with you taking a share of the calls, then have that set to an answer phone for 'Mr X' and your frequent nuisance calls are reduced at no cost to your business (you could probably do this privately as well)

Space Shuttle Columbia disaster remembered 10 years on

I read in the paper today that NASA chose not to tell the Astronauts that the damage was so severe that the wing wouldn't survive the descent, as there was no option to rescue them before the oxygen ran out...

Microsoft: Old Internet Explorer is terrible and 'we want to help'

Re: "You have to sign in with your facebook account to activate the trial."?

You only need a facebook account to activate the free browserstack cross browser trial, not to use the rest of the site.

Nokia tries its luck with a sub-£150 Win Phone 8: The Lumia 620

Re: Bargain

It has micro sd support up to 64Gb.

My lumia 710, cost £90 and it's been a good phone, this price point looks like it is as aggressive as that. Hopefully it will drop a bit more soon and I may pick one up.

Wii-U boat torpedoes Nintendo's '¥20bn profit' into ¥20bn loss

Re: Not a great time for consoles anyway...

It's a bit of both, it's primary function is a controller, which can be used to display information to just the player using it, so you can have 4v1 battles. Only one of these controllers at a time is supported at the moment there may be a case for two in the future but not at the moment.

For some games you can also switch the game from the tv to be played on the controller, you need to be within range of the wii-u and it needs to be turned on (it's doing the processing) but for some gamers this being able to continue to play when the other half's tv program has started is a useful feature.

I don't know anyone with a Wii-U, kids haven't asked for one, or even mentioned them. I had a go with one in a shop for 15 mins, some sort of platform game. The second screen could be good, but they used it in this game so you had to keep switching between the main screen and the secondary screen, my old eyes didn't like that and the game was certainly less immersive and less enjoyable as a result.

As others have said the home Wii has long been packed away as it was just gathering dust, my mum still uses hers a bit but she hasn't purchased a game for it in over two years...

Nintendo may be able to make the Wii-U sell but they are going to have to come out with another killer app for it.

Review: Intel 335 240GB SSD

Re: no rating?

I like the buy it, maybe buy it, don't buy it sort of ratings.

Broadband ESSENTIAL to life, titsup ISPs must cough up - court

Thinking of wiring smoke detectors to cut the internet

Would get a much faster response time in my household than the annoying alarm sound...

Have Brits fallen for Netflix, or do they still LoveFilm?

Re: Use Netflix..

That was going to be my tip as well.

Dotcom's Mega smacks back: Our crypto's not crap

Re: Could it genuinely not be for file sharing?

Once a file is uploaded, clicking on it gives you the option of getting a link to that file, visiting the url offers you the chance of downloading the file or importing it (I presume to your own mega account)

Ofcom: You like to make CALLS, yeah? Tell us what you want from mobiles

I know there are reasons to not use them, but I find giffgaff.com cheap for what they offer, unlimited data for £12 a month is good, you get 250 mins as well and unlimited texts. They are based on the O2 network and have had some issues, but down time has been in the hours for me in the last 7 months and the offer is a good one.

You can't tether with that offer, if they do a £10 1Gb data 250 mins and unlimited calls that you can tether.

Mega launches with mega FAIL

Signed up fine about 8am

Email came through very quickly, logged in ok, but trying to upload a file is going very slowly. 2.1k/s at the moment, and that has sped up...

Overall it seems like they have nailed the how to launch a new website without enough resources to a T.

Cybercrooks send in Bouncer to guide marks to phishing sites

Re: Interesting...

I think you are being a little harsh on some of the people who are being caught out. A lot of people use the internet as a tool that they know very little if anything about, they view an email from their bank/paypal as a legitimate form of communication and one that they may be used to seeing. So when it says there has been a problem they believe it and act on it quickly... I have friends who have spoken to me about emails they recieved which they say looked legitimate, I point out the holes in the emails and they understand, but to them on first viewing they were correct.

So it should be up to us to help educate our friends and family about these pitfalls, make sure they understand how valuable their data is and how to keep it safe.

Review: Google Nexus 4

Re: Battery life...

The problem being that as soon as someone makes a thicker phone everyone shouts Oh noes this phone is too thick....

Perhaps with bigger screens will come more battery space, but 4G etc will soon eat up what is left over...

Managed to get one for my daughter for Christmas. She loves it, but it does need charging every day, it is slippery (got a case as well for it). But for the price there is nothing to touch it. There again the rumours that LG have stopped making them for something new, may make this review redundant... There hasn't been any stock on the play store since early December and no sign of any coming.

Is this possibly the worst broadband in the world?

Probably not, it didn't work on a talktalk line I was trying to check, worth trying, if you do get a crackle on the line it is worth reporting to your phone line provider so they can do something about it as it will affect your broadband.

Do a quiet line test, get a normal wired phone plug it in to your master socket. If you can unscrew the face plate of the socket which will disconect any internal wiring you have. Then Dial 17070, press option 2 (quiet line test) you should hear nothing, no crackles hums or anything. If you do then report it to BT as a line fault don't mention broadband problems, they will fix that hopefully and your broadband will improve.

Oh you can also do distance from the exchange (copied and pasted)

Distance From Exchange

Dial the same line test number as the quiet line test (17070). Then press option 3 (fast test) then press option 1 (to say you are authorised, don't worry about 'not being officially authorised'). The press option 2 (ring back test). Then put the phone down.

You will get called back by the test facility within about 10 seconds, one of the bits of information given will be distance from exchange (in kilometres).

*The distance result may not be accurate if you have a 'DACs' fitted. It is not 100% accurate but does serve as a guide.

O2 refuses to deny plans to offload home broadband product

Re: Disaster

Have you tried zen.co.uk? They are more expensive than O2, but they are good to deal with, offer static IP as standard and will install onto any phone line.

Just left BE as they no public FTTC plans

Shame as they have provided me with an excellent service, speed is king, especially when you have demanding teenage users...