Posts by Lee Sexton

Apple offers free iPods, upgrades MacBook

Makes me laugh

the old apple vs pc debate flies off again. Personally speaking, the mac is just a pc now, it uses the same parts as a pc and uses a unix based os. Shove a good linux distro on a pc and you have much the same but better specced and half the price. Your paying for a brand, wish people would realise it, apple is no better or worse than a pc (although the apple is using older and cheaper parts which probably do run slower than a pc you can buy right now off the shelf).

@simon gardener: I think you mean if you are thinking about buying a macbook then this is the way to go, if you want a free ipod then I think your cheaper just buying one :p

@John Tuffen: If your xp pc is taking this long to boot I think you might want to take a look at it, I've never had a pc (windows xp or vista or anything else) that takes longer than a minute to boot unless of course its filled with spyware/viruses. Maybe time for a cleanup? :)

Police force eBay scammer to cough up ill-gotten gains

Typical

Nice of the Crown to think of the victims in this one, £927 set aside for them and the rest of the £102k goes to the State? Lovely......

Intel to appeal EU fine

Here we go again

Every single large company does this, the UK is full of it, I work in Engineering, backhanders galore folks. This country and most others are built on backhanders, just the way it is.

With this though, lets say for arguments sake Intel across the 9 years of this behaviour (are we really thinking it's only been going on 9 years? :p) made sale of £1.5billion per year, £500m of that was profit, times that by 9 years = £4.5b profit with a fine of £1b. This equals huge market share, almost wiping the competition out and disabling it so much that it no longer can compete anyway, very little damage to the Intel brand being named and shamed and still making big profits. Seems worth it to me, I'd be doing the same win win for Intel regardless of the fine. When the EU and other govts start taking anti-competitive laws seriously and dishing out the fines to justify even wasting time on these matters then I'll be interested. The fine should have been the operating profit for the whole of the time it was found guilty of these practises.

Another bark without bite. Of course we all know that politicians have a vested interest, I'm sure some are large shareholders in Intel and probably sitting somewhere on the board at some level.

Oh well, time to get back to my own brand of backhanders, not quite on the same scale but hey this is what business is all about unfortunately. Anyone want a case of JD? You'll have to buy stuff from me though :p

Virgin Media to add 500k homes to cable network

@Anonymous coward

Living in Dundee I can tell you this, FTTH H20 network arent an isp, all they are doing is laying the cables (which they are still doing, still no sign of mine), they are then opening it up to providers to supply the internet, so of course VM can compete, they are more than likely going to be bidding for the opportunity to provide the service across FTTH.

So there you go :)

BT cuts phone charges for prisoners

@Anonymous

I'm fed up with this ill informed argument about charges on students. We have a DEFERRED payment for fees not free. When the coalition government happened with Labour (in favour of keeping student fees upfront) and Lib Dems (in favour of scrapping) they came to a comprimise and have decided for good publicity to fool people like you into believing its free, peerhaps next time you should do your homework?

BBC Trust moots new licence laws to cope with net

roll on the day

when the bbc put their money where thier mouths are and encrypt the bbc and make it a subscription based service, they claim nobody minds paying for it, so prove it. When the digital switchover takes place they have no excuses, encrypt the bbc and stop this absolutely philestine tax (window tax anyone).......

The Top Ten 3G iPhone beaters

HTC TytnII

Is a fantastic piece of kit, 100% customiseable. I have flashed mine many times trying different flavours of WM6 and 6.1, the cube is customiseable too. Have to say for me it beats the iphone because of this.

Should have been top of the list. The touch dual shouldnt have been in it, theres no wifi which is why I didnt buy it.....

Heaviest Virgin Media downloaders face new daytime go-slow

Jesus

Just to add to earlier, I have downloaded absolutely nothing today, got home from work, got on phone and had a moan to VM, downgraded from tomorrow to 2mbit. Went to download a documentary, wtf, getting 5mbit exactly. I ALWAYS get 20mbit full speed. What the hells going on? So they are lying, they are throttling at times not by download amount. I have never had this happen to me. Always got 20mbit full speed as I never go beyond anything above 2gb in a day..........Fekkers, everyone check their speeds :)

Seems they are not wanting their customers to leave

Here we go, "you are in a legal contract sir", yes one that has been changed beyond recognition from the one I signed!!

I am not a happy bunny, I dont use (and probably never will) the download enough to reach this restriction, but thats not the point, the point is this is unfair. I can pick up a cracked modem for £30, I was always taught honesty was the best policy, it seems this is not the case at all. I am now paying for people with hacked modems who have probably signed up to the lowest speed possible and uncapped their service.....Not on. Let me leave please.

They arent having it, downgraded to 2mbit, hit them where it hurts, their pockets.

I cant be arsed with a legal fight, it's too costly and I dont want debt collectors letters in the meantime and blacklistings (why can a company blacklist you immediately with just their say so anyway?)

ISP reporting network to pierce bandwidth smokescreens

@Andy ORourke

Little known fact, BT are chancing their arms with the £125 install for moving home. I moved recently and BT tried this with me, I kicked up a stink and the fee suddenly changed to half price, I then told them the gf works for bt in the home movers department (which is a lie she works in the business number port team!) and that she trold me the home move does not have a charge. It was dropped after a few days, by then I had gone to cable out of sheer frustration. But it seems BT are just chancing their arms, the fee can and should be waived. I suppose you have already paid it though which is a shame.

Govt doing nothing

I am STILL awaiting an official response from the minister of communication (totally ironic due to the lack of communication) 1 year on, yes 1 YEAR on. He has been written to numerous times by my local SNP office. Still no response. But in the meantime (shameless plug) please sign my petition http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/broadbandripoff/

This petition is almost a year old, sadly it only got coverage in PC Pro, the other one (crystal clear or something) got more coverage due to being a magazine and sadly didnt really highlight any issues for me, if people are too stupid to know that adsl is distance dependant and depends on copper/allu wiring and they cant use bt's own telephone checker to see how far away they are and let them know what speeds they are likely to receive, well........

Mine was always about throttling. I dont mind paying extra for my connection, I understand ISP's have to make money but at least give us the option of having an "elite" service without throttling. Of course they make more money getting as many people onto pipes as possible so they'll never do it........

OFCOM, dont make me laugh, their answer is to complain to your isp. What all 30 million of us? Talk about washing your hands.......

Alienware ships 'most powerful' 15in laptop to Brits

The most basic

Is absolutely rubbish!. I know gaming laptops are expensive but just buying a half decent gaming setup on this laptop is ridiculously expensive. Priced me out for sure :)

HP pulls memory Missing Link from bottle of beer

Isnt this the same as?

MRAM? This is the same, fast boot, remembers whats stored etc etc....and surely as it has been under development for far longer it is cheaper?

Discoverer of LSD dead at 102

@Anonymous Coward

As anonymous coward put it, we abused and hijacked his creation and he didn't approve. And? Lifes full of synthetic drugs we have used and abused, thats part of it, he shouldn't have opened his mouth and said he had a pleasant journey on it should he? Or was it a case of he wanted to exploit this to gain publicity for his drug? Then isn't it a 2 way street?

We used to do acid every weekend until e's came on the scene in 89. Black Dragon, Red Dragon, Purple Ohms, Buddhas, microdots (always the best and strongest) etc etc. Fantastic times, going to the under 18's tripping out our nuts and then going home after and trying to act sober in the living room in front of parent for 10 mins then going to bedroom (to show I wasnt drunk lol).

Sadly one bad trip (on mushrooms) has ruined the experience now (tried in 94 again on daffy ducks). But I had fantastic times when I was younger and would recommend taking to anyone wanting to expand their consciousness.

Rest in peace my friend and enjoy your journey, hopefully it's like the best trip ever :)

BBC iPlayer continues platform sluttiness with Virgin Media launch

Bah!

Iplayer schmyplayer. I just want to see the bbc put their money where their mouth is when they claim that the bbc is oh so popular. When the digital switchover happens theres absolutely *NO EXCUSE WHATSOEVER* for having the bbc encrypt their signal and go to subscription based viewing instead of taxing people who actually think the bbc has degraded in quality so much (so much that even the news is ridiculously biased) as to not be worth watching, even though I'm having to pay for it. I've looked at iplayer, and theres absolutely feck all worth watching!!.

Get rid of the license fee BBC and show us how popular the beeb really is, it might also give you lot a jolt up the arse and actually have to put something decent on the telly or you get no money instead of having money no matter what s*ite you put on.

AT&T to slash 3G iPhone price to beat unlockers?

Forgive me.....

if I am wrong?

Weren't the network operators saying they could not afford to subsidise the iphone? Whats changed? Have they made so much cash from the last batch that they can now afford to do so?

Or is it really a case that the phone has not sold as well as expected (and no wonder it's a pile of rubbish, HTC's phones are superior, just buy a bloody touch ipod if your so interested in having music on the go and looking stylish, even if you are stuck with a proprietary device which is pretty useless in reality!. Can anyone tell I dont like apples stylish but old hat technology?!).

Harmful waste sign because apple products and fanbois are indeed hazardous waste. :)

Vista SP1 customers get free support

I think....

All these problems are the 32 bit version. I uninstalled this from my laptop, far too unreliable, on my desktop dual boot vista x64 and havent had 1 crash, no problems, no problem installing and running sp1 either. Think people should get themselves this version, got to say I really like it, hated the 32bit version, thats just a joke!!!

Why I downgraded from Vista to XP

Contacted MS

About getting a refund, nothing they can do for OEM, it is the manufacturers responsibility, end of story as far as they are concerned.......I did have a rant at him and said you guys are getting a bad name for Vista because 90% of the laptops and pc's that are coming with Vista pre-installed are simply not capable of handling the software, your not shifting any retail copies of Vista due to this issue (among others of course) and that doesnt concern you? Basically you are saying that the manufacturers are responsible for the software as it is OEM, but they drag your name through the dirt and put people off buying and it's not up to M$ to jump in and do something about your reputation?.

Like speaking to a brick wall of course.

I removed Vista from my underpowered laptop, it had 1gb of ram which isn't nearly enough to run it, it was slow out of the box. XP is great on it. But in their defence, I have vista x64 ultimate on the desktop (I wanted DX10 and have over 4gb of ram), dual booted with XP and have no issues at all, stable as a rock.

Capita buys way into ComputerLand

@Mick

Are you opffering your services? I have a lot to say :p

Expect to see....

Computerland start to fail then!. Everything Capita touches turns to a disaster, not only that, because of the "close ties" (read donation scandal here if you like) with Labour this company keeps receiving contracts, despite being an absolute joke and failing at everything!.

I'd like to see this company go bust to be honest.

Ofcom to clamp down on 'unfair' charges

Not Just BT

As mentioned above, it isn't just bt doing this, most companies are doing it. Lets be honest here, Direct Debit sucks eggs, it supposedly has guarantees for us, but lets face it, they take first then you have to ask questions, far too many times I have had bank charges due to companies having total control over your bank account(lets be honest this is what Direct Debit is).

Thery have taken cash on the wrong date, leaving me with a bank charge, they have taken too much money (virgin media you are guilty of this on far too many occasions) and another payment has then become rejected leading to a bank charge. I don;t mind but £39 a pop is a lot of money for me.

I hate direct debit and I'm sure many others do, lets not turn this into a "yuou should manage your finances better" argument when we have rogue companies (who are supposedly the big guns) taking whatever amount of money they like.

I'd like to see direct debit reformed not just companies charging you to pay by alternative methods.

Saving trees? Dont think so, just handing control over to whoever wants your cash and whenever they like.

Shrek studio looks to Toshiba to untie HD DVD bond

Maybe I'm missing something

But surely admitting that you gave money to another company to only sell your product is against competition law? While Intel and M$ etc etc are all tied in legal battles over this very same issue, one company has just admitted they received a bribe. Surely they should now both be taken to task?

I have no doubt Sony have done the same, but you wont see them admitting it.....

QVC debuts Venturer HD DVD player

@Colony

Nope, your not the only one!!!

Well, thats a lie, there is a difference, but there isnt a huge difference and certainly not enough to justify a move. There were clear differences when dvd came out compared to vhs/beta and thats why it took off so well, here we have something that the industry is TELLING us is much more superior when in actual fact the difference isn't actually living up to the hype.

I am a sad adopter, I bought into the whole skyhd rubbish and have watched a few "hd" films on pc and tv and I can honestly say, hand on heart, it isn't worth it.

Sure if the prices of disks fall to that of dvds (and the players) then why not, but at this moment in time I feel that consumers arent really that bothered, and quite right too.