Posts by Leigh Geary

Apple: Our stores are your 'town square' and a $1,000 iPhone is your 'future'

Re: Apple copying Microsoft?

Indeed. They've effectively added some go-faster stickers on the iPhone 7 and called it the iPhone 8. Trouble is, the iPhone 8 is effectively now the iPhone SE for 2017. Full-on Apple fans won't really want it. It's the "make do" phone. They'll want the iPhone X, and best of all, Apple has cranked up the price on that. Insane genius marketing. You have to hand it to them.

I did some tappy-tappy thing on the keyboard about it all here - http://www.coolsmartphone.com/2017/09/13/the-apple-launch-just-like-that-the-iphone-8-became-the-iphone-se/

Virgin Media mulls ditching 1 in 3 UK facilities, starts £20m spend audit

Is it just me, or is the "TV" aspect of every offering getting a bit "meh" now?

Virgin called me recently (I'm a customer) and asked what my favourite channels were. I'll be honest, I really don't have one.

I'm hoping that I can get their "Business Broadband" package, kill off my phone line and just have broadband plus Freesat soon enough

M6 crowned crappiest motorway for 4G signal

Re: Fun fact. -The toll road is useful

It'll be £5.90 in two weeks, so if you use it to work and back (on main tolls) you can kiss goodbye to nearly £12 daily. Dunno about you, but £59 a week is pretty much another tank of petrol.

UK's Virgin Media subscribers suffer fresh email blocking misery

Long time Google Apps / G Suite user here. $5 per month for no spam and email on my proper domain everywhere, plus no hefty mail downloading and shifting around etc. Didn't think I'd gel with it but never have any email issues.

BT issues formal whinge to Ofcom over Sky dominance in pay telly

Sky don't own or operate the satellites as far as I'm aware - Astra do. However, Sky control how the channels are listed on the Sky boxes, which (if I remember correctly) the various channels need to pay a fee to be listed on and be receivable by Sky customers.

Worst broadband notspots in the UK named and shamed

Proper pro-tip

I've got my broadband with a dedicated business ISP. Sure, there's no bundled TV / phone package but you wouldn't BELIEVE how empty their pipes are after 6PM :)

Minicam movie pirate gets record-breaking five years in prison

I took my son to see Rise Of The Guardians at the local Odean. There were three showings of the 3D version and only one showing of the 2D version. I paid 21 quid (with the glasses) for tickets, nearly 3 quid to park and then got 8 quid lifted out of my wallet for a hot dog and a small water. I can't see how these pirates managed to keep copying the films myself :) It's an expensive business!

UK is first class for train Wi-Fi in Europe

To be honest the Virgin trains normally have GSM boosters so you get reliable calls and your dongle remains satisfied for the journey.

As for the point about working too many hours, I heartily agree. Those extra hours are never paid and, the more you do, the more you're expected to do.

Oh, and usually I'm sat on a non-Virgin train in one of the 3 "standard class" carriages (why the hell are there dozens of empty first class ones?!).

I'm the guy sat next to the person frantically re-dialling his friend / colleague and losing the call again 5 minutes later.... It goes something like this...

"Hello? Yeah, I'm on the train now.... Hello? Hello?"

(Redial)

"Yeah sorry, I'm on the train... I know Yeah.. Crap isn't it.... Hello? Hello?"

(Redial)

"Yeah sorry. So you were saying what? Oh yeah.... About 6 million mate.. Yeah yeah.... Wait... Hello ? Hello Hello?"

Repeat that for 2 hours solid...

Sysadmins: Your best tale of woe wins a PRIZE

Re: Our VPN box...

That smells like a badly configured Virtual Server mate. I've had VM's doing that in the past.

Google's self-driving car snags first-ever license in Nevada

Actually...

How about a slimmed-down version here in the UK? Remove the overly stupid thing on the roof and restrict these to just the hard-shoulder of Britains motorways and BOOM, you've got a moving bed.

Imagine, you drive yourself to the motorway, flick a switch and an alarm wakes you up when you reach the right junction.

I've got an even cheaper solution involving a lasso and a Polish truck.

T-Mobile's Full Monty speed 'capped at 1Mb/s'

It gets more interesting

Hi, we actually broke this story last week. Since then we've found that customers on "normal" T-Mobile and Orange contracts are topping out at 2Mb/s whilst Full Monty customers continue to get 1Mb/s.

There's a bit more info here, including the results of our tests..

http://www.coolsmartphone.com/2012/02/06/on-the-full-monty-plan-send-us-your-speed-tests/

http://www.coolsmartphone.com/2012/02/06/speed-are-you-getting-throttled/

http://www.coolsmartphone.com/2012/02/03/t-mobile-full-monty-shocking-speed-cap/

Schools IT supplier RM swings to full year loss after sales dive

I used to work for them way back in 2000 down in Didcot. They were a great company to work for and treated staff extremely well - we had family days out and it was a relaxed casual atmosphere. ! Few contracts down the line I found out how much schools were paying for the PC's and I was utterly gobsmacked. Even with all the parental control / webmail and other "value added" stuff it was far, far too much. Still, it's something lots have companies have done with public sectorf companies over the years. I think everyone out there has two calculators...

Cost + Markup = Private sector price

Cost + Markup x 10 = Public sector price

HTC’s Diamond iPhone rival unwrapped

No MicroSD slot

Despite what the article above states, there's no microSD slot on this device.