* Posts by Fihart

1150 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Jun 2008

Not cool, Adobe: Give the Ninite guys a job, not the middle finger

Fihart

Adobe=Malware

Yes, I was shocked that Adobe tried to stick me with McAfee when I updated. Presumably part of the aim of updates is to improve security and performance, which does not in my book include stuffing unrelated, unwanted, material onto my hard disk.

In short, Adobe products should be regarded as potential malware until they clean up their act.

As for McAfee -- I guess the only way they can get their products to be used is by paying other people to sneak it onto our computers. Hardly a recommendation.

Yahoo! tries! to! tempt! TV! crowd! with! tiny! dick!

Fihart

Yahoo trying to force users to upgrade, again.

Forget adding features, Yahoo users aren't interested -- e.g. the site's sad attempt to create a social hub. Cue tumbleweeds !

Yahoo should stick to its email and news core and leave its customers in peace.

A few years back Yahoo launches an allegedly new and improved email service and was greeted by silence by existing customers who stayed resolutely with Yahoo "classic" -- so much so that Yahoo seemingly shelved plans to force users onto the new service.

Now they're at it again -- I recently received a message that Yahoo users would have to move to a new Yahoo service in June.

I have no such plans, so we we'll see who blinks first.

T-Mobile UK punters break for freedom in inflation-busting bill row

Fihart

Re: My problem with T-Mobile contracts is

@dazed and confused ".........why doesn't either T-Mobile of EE's customer service departmental have an email address! Don't they want to join the 20th century yet?......."

Simple, they want you to ring them.

A solution is to obtain the e-mail address of the CEO Olaf Swantee (see EE website) and ask him to forward your email to the department or staff member concerned.

Alternatively write snail mail to Board Member responsible for customer service, MsJackie O'Leary asking her to take the matter up.

My guess is once enough people start taking up the time of these exec's personal assistants, EE will be more aware of customers' issues -- and make it easier to contact the lower paid guys who are supposed to deal with complaints.

T-mobile US in invisible handset handcuff contract smackdown

Fihart

first step, transparency

Once customers can see the real cost of phone and airtime they should be able to make more informed choices. The present confusion-marketing business model will end, if not through consumer choice then via legislation.

The incentive to upgrade to a "free" new phone may diminish as the technology matures and most phones on contract are smartphones regardless of price -- witness the proliferation of £100 Android and new Winokia models.

Crackdown looming on premium-rate phone number internet ads

Fihart

Re: This is good news

Slightly off topic, but do all respond to nuisance commercial callers by pressing 5 (or whatever they ask) "to speak to one of our agents". Then walk away and have a cup of tea. Eventually your phone will emit a piercing tone to tell you that the other end has hung up. Wastes their time, costs them money. You may then receive fewer calls of that type.

Report: Apple returned 8M shoddy iPhones to Foxconn

Fihart

Trouble, predictable.

Didn't reports surface fairly early on that the new iPhone was proving difficult to build.

Based on my experience of dismantling iPods (thin ribbon cable attached to a plug that's hard to unhook, result unhappiness) -- I avoid fixing Apple products.

Also Foxconn -- little or no end user support on their site, bulging capacitors on a couple of mobos I've seen.

Microsoft betting on smaller Windows 8 devices and subscriptions

Fihart

Re: Win8/Office365 driving customers away fromMicrosoft.

@ El Andy

You are right, I was hasty. But judging by the upvotes I'm not the only one who feels something is wrong with Win8 compared to the relative ease with which one moved to XP (or in my brief experience) to Win7.

Incidentally, 5 minutes ago received message from another friend -- in Upstate New York -- saying she had returned her new Sony Ultrabook which she otherwise loved to the retailer due to user issues with Windows 8.

Fihart

Re: Win8/Office365 driving customers away fromMicrosoft.

@ Matt Evans

You are wrong and unnecessarily rude.

The very fact that you use terms like "charm bar" (whatever that is) and effectively admit that I (who have used PC since 1985 starting with MSDOS) may have become confused says all one needs to know about the misguided piece of software that Win8 is.

I don't use Win7 regularly but that was far less of a culture shock and I'm not sure that even had I used Win7 more I would have been comfortable with Win8.

Sure, given a longer spell with Win8 I would probably get the hang of it, driven by my curiosity about such things. But I'm not talking about people like us, my friend is far more typical of the average user.

Fihart

Win8/Office365 driving customers away fromMicrosoft.

Just spent an afternoon with a friend after she called me to help with her new Win8 laptop as she was suffering what she described as tears of rage trying to navigate Win8.

The "swipe" action I inadvertently executed while using the touchpad kept producing a black border and a box containing the time/date and frequently replaced Internet Explorer on screen with something else -- luckily I discovered that pressing Esc key took me back.

I couldn't find My Computer or Windows Explorer but after identifying a taskbar icon as representing folders I stumbled across a screen called (something) Assist which is basically My Computer under another name and style.

Pointless. Bonkers.

Next she wanted my advice on why, when trying to open a Word document, she had been whisked off to an offer to rent (not buy) Windows Office 365 for over £70 per year !!

I steered her instead to the Open Office site.

So a customer infuriated by Win8 turning her experience of her new computer into a struggle. And a potential application sale lost.

Do Microsoft seriously think companies are going to adopt Win8 if it produces this kind of reaction, multiplied across dozens or hundreds of staff ?

Samsung: Posting of fake HTC hate was 'unfortunate'

Fihart

Re: Samsung are deceptively putting other manufacturer's sub-par panels in their TV's

Yeah, it's called second sourcing. Most manufacturers use components from a range of suppliers -- often from rivals, most obviously when they don't themselves make a suitable component. Hard drives are a good example -- where a manufacturer didn't make a drive of a particular size they'd add one from a rival (and probably the rival did the same).

Malware and domain-squatters target Boston Marathon bombing

Fihart

Crackers, Crackers or just crackers!

"Then crackers claiming to be from Anonymous appeared to have taken over the Facebook page of the WBC.....

Tham thar cult members themsels already count as Crackers in both traditional meanings of the word. Hicks from Paddidilysquach, Kansas -- or simply bonkers.

Wales slams Amazon over lack of Kindle support

Fihart

Re: The welsh lobby

I'm ancient enough to remember when the only thing on BBC telly on (I think it was) Saturday mornings was Welsh language programmes form BBC Cymru . As a Londoner I was irritated and puzzled as to why we were being subjected to this -- later I learned about Political Correctness.

Windows 7 'security' patch knocks out PCs, knackers antivirus tools

Fihart

Pity about the fire....

Nice Windows 7 installation you got there. Pity if something terrible happened to it. On the other hand we have Windows 8 that might interest you.

Movie review: Oblivion

Fihart

Proof Reader !

"....another cockpit-only model chucking Cruise and Kurylenko around on a gimble."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimbal

Facebook Home gets SMACKDOWN from irate users

Fihart

Pretty much as expected.

Their record shows that anything Facebook is going to be invasive. I don't condemn Facebook outright -- it's useful to me as an effortless way of keeping in contact with friends/family overseas. I can see that people much younger than me use it to organise their social lives -- particularly as this generation seems more group-oriented and less concerned about privacy. Where I differ is the cost -- I avoid using the mobile phone unnecessarily, let alone paying inflated data costs for something as marginal to me as Facebook. My teenage lifestyle may not have been quite so frantically mobile -- but we managed to organise ourselves even before we could afford a landline.

Vinyl sales reach 15 year high, Blighty becomes No. 3 music buyer

Fihart

@ bag o' spanners

You'd probably enjoy early Motown UK pressings (by EMI). I have mono copies of early Supremes LP in appalling condition. But the rather few, short songs (poorish value was the norm with pop LPs) mean high cutting levels and any noise just gets lost in the deliriously wonderful music.

Also adore early Decca stereo pressings circa 1958 -- a range of fabulous sounding classical pieces with quaint cover art. Boomy bass, rather overcompressed perhaps, but warm valve/tube sound. There's a website in S. Korea devoted to British Decca discs of the period.

Fihart

Re: I salute -- a decent record player

@ SirDigalot

"I am looking for a decent affordable LP player to move some of the ageing discs to digital."

You can't go far wrong with a used classic Thorens turntable. The belt drive and soft suspension isn't ideal for cueing up but offers good isolation, thus better sound. Modestly priced Thorens TD160 and 166 usually have decent arms fitted. The top of the range TD125 and later successors are easier to cue and sound great.

For convenience, the Technics SL12 (favoured disco deck) and later versions of direct drive model have instant start and non-wobbly suspension. Arm and isolation not great and they are still £200 upwards secondhand.

For a new turntable see Project range. Avoid turntables with USB output -- most are of lightweight construction and brands have no hifi provenance.

Fihart

Re: Have you seen the price of used vinyl ?

@ CherylWillBounceBack

And what are these My Bloody Valentine and Suede of which you speak ?

Popular beat combos, I'll wager !

Fihart

Have you seen the price of used vinyl ?

In that temple of old tat *, your local charity shop, the price of LPs varies wildly between £1 and £4+

Often more expensive than CDs. And I'm impressed by the keen types (dealers ?) who riffle through the LP stacks. ignoring the , to me, more attractive titles on CD. All of which suggests there's a strong collector market for vinyl. By contrast I only buy music I want to listen to, in whatever format -- and though I own four high quality turntables -- I prefer CD for convenience.

*can you believe so many people once owned Max Bygraves LPs

Another 170,000 Freeview homes to be freed from reality TV - possibly

Fihart

Totally Incompetent.

Freeview only changed again quite recently, to add more pointless/vacuous channels, forcing people to buy new hardware and retune twice.

And, somehow they let 4G be introduced on frequency so close that it may or may not interfere. And they're wasting £millions to find out if people have to faff around again.

Suggest complete incompetence.

Mozilla's Persona beta adds password-free Yahoo! logins

Fihart

Another data gathering exercise ?

I already get invitations from my e-mail provider to give them my mobile phone number in case I lose my password -- or so they can sell on my number to marketing pests.

Here the risk presumably is that more sites get to know your email address, so they could sell it on.

Seoul plans anti-GPS jamming system to thwart NORKS

Fihart

@ Soruk Re: 'The Mouse That Roared' (film 1955)

Don't give away the ending !

If cunning plan succeed, half of the US not already owned by Samsung will soon belong Beloved Leader.

Fihart

'The Mouse That Roared' (film 1955)

"The tiny (three miles by five miles) European Duchy of Grand Fenwick, supposedly located in the Alps between Switzerland and France, proudly retains a pre-industrial economy, dependent almost entirely on making Pinot Grand Fenwick wine. However, an American winery makes a knockoff version, "Pinot Grand Enwick", putting the country on the verge of bankruptcy.

The prime minister decides that their only course of action is to declare war on the United States. Expecting a quick and total defeat (since their standing army is tiny and equipped with bows and arrows), the country confidently expects to rebuild itself through the generous largesse that the United States bestows on all its vanquished enemies (as it did for Germany through the Marshall Plan at the end of World War II)."

Source: Wikipedia

Microsoft's telly-over-the-net tech gobbled by Ericsson for mobes

Fihart

Proof reader !!

"For a long time IPTV was considered the reserve of the ISP"

Preserve of the ISP would be correct.

GE shows off tank-tough tech

Fihart

$100 Hammer ?

From the home of the defence procurement cost-plus-contract.

Operators look on in horror as Facebook takes mobe users Home

Fihart

@ Capt Scarlet Re: I wouldnt want any

If you get unexpected charges, complain. Preferably to the CEO of the phone operator by letter. I've done this three times now in the space of 18 months and obtained a refund each time.

The bottom line is they don't want to lose customers/mugs and it costs them more to field your complaint than the money you've been ripped.

Once you get their attention -- forget ringing (and I notice that the relevant company's complaints dept doesn't disclose its email address) -- the companies are not quite so evil seeming as we tend to assume.

Mozilla devs plotting to put a stake in <blink> tag – at last

Fihart

just as annoying.

Don't suppose this is the end of those stupid ads with an image that shakes.

Sure, you notice the ad -- despise whoever perpetrated it and instantly forget the message.

MoneySupermarket: Google never warned us about payday loan AD BAN

Fihart

I'm with Google on loan sharks.

And a pity Faceborg don't follow their example.

Facebook ads include one suggesting you convert your pension to pay off debt. These firms steal much of any yield in "fees" and then the taxman canes you, leaving little or nothing to pay off debt. And no pension when you retire.

Android FOUND ON TABLETS inscribed with WORD OF GOD

Fihart

I see a crack in this scheme.

The last time I went to church (like before the dawn of time) I remember sitting down on the hymn book with some alarm. How long before one of these doubtless broad bummed ladies and gents suffers the same indignity with a glass fronted tablet.

News Corp prez threatens to pull Fox TV off the air

Fihart

"The end of free TV ?"

To steal Yahoo's headline, the threat from Fox and other majors to foil Aereo may prove the death of off-the-air broadcasting. To be replaced by a subscription model or the new technologies.

Given the poor TV reception in many areas of US, given content aimed at people who respond to the fast food and beer ads the programmes are riddled with, the wider public has already given up on TV.

Even twenty years ago when I lived there, almost nobody I knew even switched on TV. The trend has now reached the UK. The overdose of ads, particularly on secondary channels that appeared with the advent of Freeview, is killing the medium.

Office for Mac 2008 support umbilical chopped off

Fihart

@ Colin Ritchgie Re: However....

I'm trying to decide whether (as you suggest) Mac users are the last people who would wish to pay MS a sub OR whether they are so milked by Apple that they may be the people most likely to accept this nonsense.

Freeview telly test suggests 4G interference may not be a big deal

Fihart

@Kevin Johnston Re: I wish...

When my bro was posted to Geneva his home was the wrong side of the lake for cable. Solution, unofficial Sky dish erector who was coining it from the English speaking business and diplo community. And some shenanigans from me pretending to be him phoning Sky to activate the account.

In fact any Sky box (get pal to car boot one) and dish will receive Freeview without an account.

Google cofounder Brin sighted in Tesla batmobile

Fihart

What not to do to your car.

see above

Microsoft: 'Facebook Home just copies Windows Phone'

Fihart

BS

As in "Your" M&S (Marks & Spencer stores are clearly not mine or I would be relaxing on a yacht in Monaco).

'Put Profits First' seems more consistent with MS history, though recent track record suggests they are burning through past profits at quite a rate.

As for FaceBorg, I spent a happy 10 minutes hiding ads on my home page, including (disgracefully) one inviting me to convert my pension to pay off a debt. A sure recipe for disaster as these firms steal much of any yield in "fees" and then the taxman canes you, leaving little or nothing to pay off debt. And no pension when you retire. That's People for you.

‘Unstoppable WEEE Tsunami’ staunched by PPP plan

Fihart

@ Irongut Re: Two (sorry three, sorry four, five) main villains

The requirements for Vista, 7 and 8 may be identical (according to you, anyway) but they are significantly greater than that for XP which so many people still use for that and other reasons ( and for which Microsoft has withdrawn support).

Fihart

Two (sorry three, sorry four, five) main villains

Microsoft's ever upward processing power requirements encouraging users to dump otherwise viable computers. Desktop and laptop makers for selling machines with substandard components that fail prematurely (power supply fans, motherboard caps*). Cellphone networks for offering "free" phone upgrades. Phone, camera makers for specifying otherwise identical power cube and batteries that are incompatible between models, let alone between brands.

Small changes, practical in most of the above could save a vast amount of waste (as per EU ruling on phone chargers).

* This is particularly maddening given that forty year old hifi components still work perfectly.

Card skimmers targeting more than ATMs, says EU

Fihart

Re: The only safe way.

@ the many downvoters

I did mention that my approach was only for pocket cash. For larger/unexpected transactions and abroad I keep a credit card handy. I just steer clear of ATMs.

Fihart

The only safe way.

If enough people boycotted ATM and other card machines the skimmers would have to find another scam. Hopefully the banks would also take security more seriously than (for example) the PIN system which was revealed as defective even before it was introduced. PIN was used by the banks to try to place the onus for fraud on customers by claiming that it was uncrackable without negligence by customers.

I have never used an ATM and manage my pocket cash needs by leaving cash in an instant access account with a book which I must produce to make withdrawals. It's slightly inconvenient but less so than having money stolen.

Facebook prepares to dominate Android

Fihart

Re: "Would you like to tell me and the rest of my family how ..... the birth of my first child is?"

Rather like my conversation with my (richer, younger) brother.

When he announced his wife was pregnant, I remarked that the last thing the world needs is more people.

He replied, "well, it needs more people like us".

Smartphone running 'Facebook OS' said to debut this week

Fihart

Another brick in the walled garden.

Didn't this kind of approach sink AOL as a popular ISP ?

Despite the efforts of other anachronistic regimes -- China etc -- it soon becomes obvious to users that the point of the internet (and of phones) is universal access, regardless of device, provider, location.

There was a time when AOL and Compuserve were dominant. The early cellphone internet services were severely restricted. And soon gone once universal internet access became available.

The other potential mishap is the strong likelihood that FB will trawl users contact lists (as it seems to do judging by the obscure "Friend" requests I get) and start pestering non-FB phone users. This viral approach would find any buyers of FB branded phone ostracised and forced to ditch FB, or ditch the phone.

Motorola minimum-wage sheriffs ride in to SAVE the HIGH STREET

Fihart

Maplins better than nothing.

But their prices ? Jeez !

If in northwest London see instead: http://www.cricklewoodelectronics.com/Cricklewood/home.php

No, I'm just a customer sad to see so many other hobby electronics shops disappear.

Torygraph and Currant Bun stand by to repel freeloaders

Fihart

Paywall not the way to go.

Most papers with paywalls concede that the casual browser can scope the main stories for free. This suits the short-attention-span mindset that most internet users adopt. If they try to stop that, the majority will simply drop them and go to the many free sites remaining (and others will doubtless spring up in response).

In London there are now three free (physical) newspapers daily and one weekly magazine -- plus the Indie which sells for just 20p. This would seem to be the future.

Swedish linguists nix new word after row with Google

Fihart

Watch out when you talk about hoovering with that Dyson.

IP lawyers are listening and they have time on their hands.

In my wasted youth I worked for a firm which made toys. All our press releases carried a bold type statement that our Matchbox brand could only be spelled with a capital M followed by the circled r symbol (for registered trade mark).

Did anyone take any notice of that ?

Course not.

Oz shop slaps browsers with $5 just looking fee

Fihart

A vast step backwards in retailing.

Seems bonkers now, but historically this is how some early stores operated. Thus the signs, still visible in Edwardian (?) photos of emporia, that encouraged shoppers with the promise that admission was free -- and open to all classes.

Can't think charging admission is a good way to go today, given the vast choice of outlets for most products. In fact, high street stores like Currys/PC World have leveraged their presence by offering internet prices with the convenience/instant gratification of collecting in-store. That's a constructive way to deal with change.

Wireless charging on the Galaxy S4: Samsung goes VHS not Betamax

Fihart

Why so slow to go with this technology.

I'm guessing this is the same technology that electric toothbrushes have had for yonks. So calling it wireless charging is a little misleading -- isn't inductive a better word ?

My impression is that it's rather like a transformer where a coil is in proximity with another coil and power is transferred from one to the other.

Facebook to filter angry comments in site tweak

Fihart

Commercial Nonsense

The concept of "liking" commercial pages is largely ridiculous.

Having commercial pages at all shows just what a cynical operation Facebook has become.