Posts by Mark Jan

Comet in bad way after big losses

Pay and retain good staff!

Just think how many TVs, PCs etc they could sell if only they developed a reputation for knowing what they were talking about and offering a great deal with great service, ie meeting needs/expectations!

I stopped going for anything other than a "distress purchase" because I know that the staff will:

a) not have a clue what they're talking about and I'll just become frustrated at their ineptitude

b) may have a slight clue what they're talking about but will still try and rip me off

c) not be at all interested but if there's a whiff of an extended warranty sale, may just feign it

Mink coat thief conceals booty down knickers

Urgh!

So, some US plod visually checked the rear end of the miscreant and decided that a front end check wasn't necessary.

Looking at the mug shot, I can understand why...

TomTom Start 20 satnav

Just use your phone.

I was just thinking the same!

My N8 (OK, I'm ready for apple flambe!) is always in my pocket and whether I'm in the UK or abroad, quickly gets me to my location. Free map updates although admittedly, no TMC.

Whilst the N8 costs more than the TomTom, like AC said, there are Nokia phones with the same sat nav functionality for the same price as the Smart 20.

I'd have thought that the days of standalone sat navs must surely be numbered...as are probably the days of Nokia phones once MS has eaten them up and spat them out...

Metro Bank in schoolboy email error snafu

Not a Schoolboy Error!

How many children would commit such an error having grown up with email and the internet?!

Nokia finally gives Ovi brand a mercy bullet

Epitath

"And the execution - as with anything software-related at Nokia - was abysmal."

Nokia's Epitaph.

RIP Noika

Five amazing computers for under £100

I Still Use my Psion 3a!

I still use my Psion Series 3a on just about a daily basis.

"Data" & "Agenda" are the most used functions.

Psion really should have become the sum of Nokia & Apple but being a British tech company, never stood a chance I guess...

Good article!

Microsoft inks Nokia deal with phones set to fly in 2012

It's also been said before...in court...

Seven years ago, The Register reported this:

Sendo accused Microsoft of maintaining a "secret plan... to plunder the small company of its proprietary information, technical expertise, market knowledge, customers and prospective customers... Microsoft gained Sendo's trust and confidence through false promises that Sendo would be its 'go-to-market-partner'."

Now, just substitute Nokia for Sendo (or any other number of companies MS has shafted over the years). Nokia is already dead.

Microsoft reveals WinPhone 7 'Mango' details

Almost As Good As...

So, the next release of Winphone will be great on battery life, offer true multi-tasking and will enable developers to work with basic items like users' contacts.

So, apart from bricking phones when updating, almost as good as what Nokia have now then?

Yuri Gagarin in triumphant return to London

Selective Memory?

Did the USA fight with the Germans until 1941?

Did the USA join WW2 after the Germans attacked them and only then, decide to join the Allied effort?

If the answer to both these questions is yes, then you have a point and in your world, apples taste the same as oranges.

If the answer to these questions is no, then your flawed logic results in a flawed understanding.

The Cold War is over, the statue is a nice one, but your reasoning is still flawed.

Selective Memory

"Russia and the UK have much in common, not only as allies during the Second World War, and victory gained through sacrifice..."

Hmmm, only when Germany turned on Russia in 1941 did Russia become part of the allied effort, and even then, it was only for their own gain. In 1939 they were quite happy to invade Poland from the east a week or two after Germany had done the same from the west, and subsequently carve out a new world for themselves as part of the Axis, leading to the Cold War which effectively lasted half a century.

Come on Vitaly Davydov, you maybe the State Secretary and Deputy Head of Roscosmos, but only 5/10 for your attempts at revisionist hisory.

Dixons whacked by profit warning

Why Are Dixons Even Surprised?

I don't know why these warnings come as any surprise to anyone who has the misfortune to need to actually go in and buy anything from Dixons. It has to be a "distress" purchase on a Sunday afternoon...

Invariably overpriced, often old stock, their products are lamentable with staff who rarely know their arses from their elbows. Watching anyone in store asking a member of staff about anything generally becomes a "voyage of discovery" for both the customer and the staff member.

Don't know about their "Tech Guys" but can't see them being much better.

Play.com: Only customer emails lost in data breach

But Play.com Tell the Customer to be Careful

I received one of the Play.com emails this morning, so assume my email address has been harvested.

OK, these things happen, but why oh why does Play.com then end their email with the following "advice", as if the customer is in any at fault...!

Customer Advice

Please do be vigilant with your email and personal information when using the internet.

Sexy eco-bulb wins Design of the Year

And it'll Still Give Off a Shit Light

OK, so they've polished the turd that is the CFL and in doing so have made it a more "curvaceous" turd, but as far as quality of light output is concerned, it still is shit.

The fact that you're supposed to look at it whilst the light is ON and be able to admire the turd's shape is testimony that in it's primary role as a light source, it's shit, otherwise how (and why?) would you want to look at it?

Form over function, arty-farty nonsense over real world application.

We'll look back in a few years time on the CFL non-sense the eco-do-gooders imposed on the world and wonder how we let them get away with it...

Asus Eee Pad Slider

What Psion Would be Making - it's a 2011 Psion 5!

It's the sort of thing that Psion would be making if:

a) they hadn't pissed about with Motorola then got stung

b) they hadn't pissed about generally for so long and got left behind after showing such early brilliance and design flair

c) Psion wasn't British! (or Finish or European for that matter!)

d) if David Potter had met Steve Jobs!

Microsoft 'paid Nokia $1bn' for WinPho 7 deal

But You Need Great Engineering Companies as Well!

Nokia was visionary. It saw the smartphone market coming, just didn't execute it on it properly.

I still don't understand how it managed to drop the ball, it had years' on everyone else.

And Nokia CERTAINLY wouldn't have produced the iPhone4. The one with the antenna on the outside which can't make calls under certain conditions - who other than Apple could have made a phone like that?!

A One $Billion Turd...

...is still a turd.

What sealed Nokia's fate?

Why do people always confuse OS and UI?!

Symbian is custom built from the ground up as an efficient, purpose built OS for handhelds.

The OS has never been the issue.

People complain about Symbian v3 on the N8 for example, about how individual widgets can't be moved around or such other nonsense. However, download an "app" for £25 and the UI is transformed. Amazingly transformed. If a third party can so effectively skin the N8, then why can't Nokia at least give users the option of a sleeker UI for those who don't necessarily want the standard Nokia offering?

It's staggering how Nokia saw the future 10+ years ago and began catering to it. They began to offer products ahead of their time. They saw the threat from MS and formed an alliance. And despite all that, it's equally staggering how they managed to cock it all up.

Global warming will not cause 'permanent El Niño'

You've found a paper that agrees with your point of view...

...as opposed to those papers published by the University of East Anglia which won't even release their unadjusted raw data. There's good science for you, based on "adjusted" figures as opposed to empirical data. How can such papers be properly peer reviewed without the empirical data being made available?

Nokia's developers wait and wait for Windows Phone

Just what were / are Nokia thinking?

A few months (days ago) ago, it would be hard to imagine Nokia's management being any more incompetent than they have been over the past decade or so.

Developing / using what they've got: Symbian, Meego, Qt, Navteq etc and NOT pissing off partners would seem to be the way to go. Skinned, the N8 is a cool phone. Meego has lots of promise. Ovi isn't half bad now and has some very good stuff on it, without the 5000 iPhone fart apps. Symbian is a good OS. Just develop the UI Nokia - you don't need to sell your soul to MS!

However, it just goes to show what a poor imagination I must have!

Nice article by the way.

Microsoft's IE9: Don't believe the hype

IE6 and Banks

Well said on that one!

I even emailed and phoned my bank to ask how on earth they only supported IE(6) when it was demonstrably the most insecure browser on the market. I questioned how they could be "serious about security" whilst only supporting the Swiss cheese of browsers! I was left incredulous when even their IT bods didn't really know what I was talking about. It took them about 2 years to offer support to their browsers.

Intel defends MeeGo after Nokia defection

Getting into Bed...?

"But who knows? Stranger things have happened – such as Nokia getting in bed with a company that it had been battling for 15 years. ®"

More like bending over as far as they could and getting 12" of Redmond's best right where the sun don't shine!

WTF? icon because Nokia has.

Grief and disbelief greet Elop's Nokia revolution

Management by Committee

This is a sad day.

I loved the old Psion products. Way ahead of their time made by a small British company showing how great form and software could meld to produce a world beating product.

Nokia, manufacturers of great solid hardware but in need of a lean OS, saw the threat from MS and joined forces with Psion.

Even Bill Gates saw this as a world beating strategy.

And it all went wrong...

Just goes to show how management by committee doesn't work...

You need that visionary, that leader with a fire in his belly, who instinctively knows what the future is and caters to it. Psion, Nokia et al once upon a time had that and they threw it all away.

It's a sad, sad day.

It's official: Nokia bets on Microsoft for smartphones

Shame Nokia Wasted Everything!

It's all just a crying shame.

Nokia could have had the world if only they had developed Symbian AND a great UI to go with it.

Instead, after that visionary collaboration with Psion, Motorola and Ericsson, Nokia pissed about for years, in the process pissing off their other partners.

Psion was just as bad, getting into bed with Motorola...

Year 2011: Remember Psion, that once great British company. Once lean and visionary, they used to produce hand helds way ahead of their time. They dared to take on (and should have won against) MS. Now they're just a MS bitch.

Year 2015: Remember Nokia, that once great global company. Once lean and visionary, they used to produce mobiles way ahead of their time. They dared to take on (and should have won against) MS. Now they're just a MS bitch.

Management consultancies being employed by incompetent committee style boardrooms who then listen to their recommendations = FAIL, FAIL, FAIL!

Indian courts 'rule astrology is a science'

Ah yes, science by concensus

You're all right. We are correct in being "righteous" about the scientific method, and how it should be rigorously applied to science. That's how good science works.

We would never for example, withhold empirical data and release "adjusted" figures so that our methodology couldn't be scrutinised.

We would never then make predictions based on such methodologies no matter how "sophisticated" our computer models were because we know that fudged data in = rubbish out.

Maybe astrology and some of our "science" has a lot in common after all...or maybe not. Astrologists look to the stars to explain events, our New Age scientists dismiss our closest star!

Android's on top – will Nokia and RIM let it in?

It's not the OS

The average man in the street doesn't care less about the OS.

All they care about is the user experience - ease of use, nice icons, etc.

Symbian is a custom designed OS. Absolutely fit for purpose software.

It's the UI which has let Nokia down every time.

I own a N8. Great hardware, shit UI. Skin it with SPB's UI and the phone is transformed.

If a 3rd party can integrate a fantastic UI, then why can't Nokia?

Nokia should be hiring creative software guys who can design "with bling" and fire the middle managers who stifle creativity.

UK police crime map website: Who's the victim here?

Government Wake Up

I don't care what flavour of government we have, government departments and IT just don't mix.

Generally speaking, government departments spending big money on big projects just don't mix.

Why they don't mix is because they're not spending their own cash, which by definition wasn't earned by them in the first place.

So, instead of sensibly defining, scoping, budgeting, evolving etc a system fit for purpose, we generally get a committee of incompetents spending an ever ready stream of tax-cash on a half baked idea which someone thought was a good one at the time.

No accountability means no lessons are ever learned either...

Nokia C7 smartphone

Faster Processors...?

You forget that Symbian is a largely purpose built, optimised from the ground up mobile OS. Developed when chips didn't have the horsepower they do now and memory was expensive.

As such it (still) doesn't require the speeds of other OSs and is both processor and power efficient.

It's their pretty dire UIs that I take Nokia to task over and they should be ashamed that a third party can skin the N8, make it smoother, give it greater functionality as well as that "wow" factor.

Their hardware is first rate, so why can't Nokia engineers make a matching UI?

But I want a more attractive user interface too.

Go to the Ovi store and search for SPB Mobile Shell for the N8.

It's available for a free trial before you buy.

You will be stunned by the transformation.

The UI finally matches the hardware.

SPB

I've been running SPB for about a month on the S^3 Nokia N8.

Absolutely no problems. Beautiful and far more usable UI, additional functionality, smoother operation and no problems with battery life whatsoever.

I could have had the iPhone or any flavour Android but chose the N8.

The SPB UI completes the top notch hardware.

If SPB can do it, why can't Nokia?

Isn't it the GUI not the OS you should be moaning about?

I have the Nokia N8 and think it's great. Out of the box, it is a bit, well clunky, but that's the GUI, not the OS.

I've also downloaded the SPB GUI app and it transforms the phone. Literally transforms it.

Up to 5 homescreens, individually movable widgets, far smoother scrolling. It is like having a totally different phone.

If a third party can deliver such a stunning interface, why can't Nokia?

At about £25 it's an expensive app, but worth it.

It shouldn't though, require an app...

Dixons warns on crap Christmas

Extended Warranty

"...but spend another £9 sir and we'll extend that warranty for a total of 3 years because USB cables have a nasty habit of breaking down when you least expect it!"

Twats.

Symbian Foundation shuts up (virtual) shop

Sigh on and on

Psion spawned yet deprived Symbian of the oxygen it needed.

Deprived of oxygen, Nokia slowly killed it by feeding it the wrong formula as well.

Psion should have been Nokia, Blackberry and Apple combined as it had the attributes of all 3 companies. Sadly this was never going to happen as Psion was a British tech company.

Maybe its choice of wrong bed fellow in Motorola was the beginning of the end but you can't help but feel that Psion and Symbian should have been so much more. Yeah I know that Symbian is in gazzilions of mobiles but so what. It doesn't matter that your grandma's phone is easy to use, that isn't where the action is or will be.

Such a shame.

iPhone 4: the best built smartphone...

Plot a Different Graph

It would also be interesting to plot "breakages or lost phones" against new model releases. I bet there'd be a spike around such a time against all models, but particularly the iPhone.

Nokia N8 smartphone

Blue N8

@Andrew Orlowski

Is the blue one really that bad looking?

I especially ordered a blue one even though I've got to wait an extra 3 or 4 weeks.

Obviously, I haven't seen it in the metal but based on all the pics I've seen, the blue N8 looks really cool!

Pamela Anderson gets her kit off for Nokia

And she looks happy as well

Maybe she wouldn't look that happy if it wasn't for the N8 vibrate function as well...

NHS Online consult service to live on: Calls go to 111

The Ill-Educated instead of the Ill Educated

@ Jimbo6

I didn't say that most of the population need to be medically qualified professionals, nor do I blame Labour for such a situation. To extrapolate such a spurious conclusion based on what I had actually posted is part of the problem I was trying to highlight. The ill-educated having "branes" as opposed to the ill educated with brains. A hyphen makes all the difference to the ill educated but is clearly lost in today's text speak.

To reiterate in simpler terms, what I do blame New Labour for is for spawning an extremely well qualified generation who cannot spell, reason or understand. A generation who have demands and rights but take little personal responsibility - the state will provide. Hence the ill-educated generation who will phone on a whim NHS Direct for a sniffle, ache or pain.

Sadly, this generation is itself having children. Since this generation clearly doesn't know what function a hyphen performs, a small thing like a hymen needs to be got rid of as soon as possible as well. Hence children having children!

Study after study shows that NHS Direct doesn't provide the best value service, which is the real reason it's being scrapped. It's being scrapped because you can do a better job.

Sorting NHS Direct out is easy, the rest of the Labour legacy will take a lot more time.

NHS Direct - the service for the Ill-Educated!

New Labour has spawned a generation of the ill-educated, who believe they are merely the ill educated.

NHS Direct merely panders to the whims (or perhaps demands) of the ill-educated.

The ill educated know where, and perhaps more importantly when to get real medical help.

IT engineer fights spider with improvised flamethrower

Inhaled Fumes

I think the daft twat meant to say "inhaled flames" and not "inhaled fumes".

The former is potentially fatal, the latter in this case probably only harmful to the spider.

Tesco touts budget textaholic SIM-only deal

Good Luck With Getting Your Cashback

@cmg Good luck in getting any more than a month or two of your 23 months worth of cash back!

700,000 Saudi BlackBerrys go silent noisy

Hot Off The Press

"New laws in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will require that every Blackberry user dress their phone a miniature burqa and face veil. ‘The Blackberry burqa means that people can still use their phones,’ said a Saudi government official, ‘but the tiny niqab that covers the screen will stop them from reading emails or accessing the Internet.’ The introduction of the burqa is intended to conceal the Blackberry from unwanted attention. "

RFID chips snooped from 66 metres

BacoFoil Shares Worth Buying?

Aluminium foil - not just for turkeys!

Samsung UE46C8000 3D TV

Scam?

@ Mike Brown

Thanks for pointing me in the direction of Ofcom and the ASA regarding "unlimited" broadband and your claim the situation there is similar to LED TV backlighting in being, "a scam".

This is what I found: "The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is currently undertaking a review of the way broadband speeds are advertised, and Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards has called for stricter rules." (27/07/10)

So, not much of a scam there apart from the broadband providers marketing depts trying to get away with as much as they can.

Beauty as they say, is in the eye of the beholder, so if your TV is as good as you say, I'm sure you're also right in that regard.

Re: LED=SCAM

@ Mike Brown

Whilst I would agree that TV manufacturers have been / are guilty of milking the various TV format / display technologies over the past few years, it's a step too far to call LED backlighting technology a scam.

Whilst it is true to say that, "LED tv's arnt [sic] LED tvs at all. They have LED backlighting, but still use LCD....." the ASA has said that it does not object to the use of the term (LED TV) but does require it to be clarified in any advertising.

Whilst the panel in this Samsung may not be a hypothetical true LED display, or an OLED display, no one is saying this.

In terms of the technology itself and depending on the type of LED used, this method of backlighting does offer considerable benefits, eg a wider colour gamut, higher dynamic contrast ratios, higher brightness, etc over traditional CCFL backlit TVs.

Since the the main barrier to the wide use of LED backlighting on LCD televisions is cost, your C750 TV may well have been "half the price" and "left your wallet fatter" but to claim it is "just as good" is cleary wishful thinking!

T-Mobile UK pumps out the iPhone 4

Hope The Tariffs Stay Shit

T-Mobile have a decent data connection most of the time so hopefully their shit iPhone tariffs will dissuade most fanbois from choosing the T-Mobile network hence keeping the network speed decent for the rest of us.

Since it can't reliably be used as a phone, what else but buggering up the data network will the iPhoneFlaw be used for?

iPhone 4 fix to centre on software, negate need for recall

Software Able To Fix Hardware Faults?

Apple software can fix hardware faults?

Jobs really can perform miracles.

Pressure mounts on Apple to recall iPhone 4

And Regardless of the Faults, People Aren't Not Bothered!

Title more or less sums it up! Unbelievable mentality.

Questions such as: "have people not got anything better to do than keep picking up their phone and prodding the antenna or squeezing the phone?" sums up the mentality.

Don't pick up the phone just worship from afar! How much more of a fanbois can one become?!

New from Apple, the i(don't)Phone.

iPhone 4 Day: pre-orders and pregnancy cut no ice with 02

This is a joke - right?!

It's gotta be a joke - you can't really be married, therefore once having had a girlfriend whom you subsequently married and ADMIT to queueing up at 6am to buy a phone!

Nice one!

iPhone 4: Perfect for everyone, except humans

This Changes Everything - Again!

Yes, a mobile phone which you can't hold to your head to make a call - really does change everything!

Not even sure there'll be an app for that.

Come on fanbois, time to tell us how holding the iPhone in a contorted fashion is a wonderful Apple idea designed to prevent arthritic fingers in old age or to prevent radiation frying from your brain.

Form over function - never would have believed it of Apple! ;)

Contest offers $100,000 for smartphone, browser hacks

Opera

Good reason to carry on using Opera then!

Philips 40PFL9704 40in LED backlit TV

@ RotaCyclic

I would respectfully disagree, but each to their own.

Buying a new TV now, (say this one for pushing £2K) and then in a couple of months time buying a tuner, meaning another box and remote just doesn't make sense to me, especially when you know what's just around the corner.

Avoid the TV manufacturer merry-go-round as well as the instant gratification!

But as I said, each to their own.