Posts by David Beck

Microsoft releases Symbian Communicator

Does Andrew Orlowski do any research before writing an article?

Given that this article was ostensibly about products available to integrate Nokia and MS, a fairly limited brief, why does it have so many errors. I hope it's incompetence as the other alternative is Andrew is a shill and El Reg need to act. Why don't we ask Andrew where he got his (mis)information?

As a new Nokia E52 user I can attest to the accuracy of the commentors regarding errors in Andrew's article. I did the research before buying the E52 and clearly El Reg would have not helped at all in this, good thing I take the articles here with a large pinch of salt.

Mystic Met closed Europe with computer model

Hurricane Hunters?

I'd agree with this post except the NOAA (and US Navy and Air Force) still fly real airplanes into real hurricanes to gather real info to validate the information provided by satellites, ground radars and models. I suspect these flights are not particularly "safe".

I also suspect the Met Office felt it was doing so well with the climate change model (no controversy there) the ash dispersion model was a "doddle".

Brits are HD TV numpties

I get jitter on HD anyway

If I connect my Sky+HD box to my Sony Bravia TV using the HDMI cable I get jitter on the HD channels. So I use a SCART connection until either Sky or Sony can tell me how to get rid of the jitter. So far Sky 0, Sony 0, Jitter 1.

Radio lobby 'hides' 2m analogue receiver sales

News?

Since I generally listen to radio for news, esp. local news, I doubt a "podcast" is going to be of much use.

Running costs?

Those are just the replacement costs. With DAB requiring a bucket full of power you need to consider the running costs. You need to budget in at least a quad multiplier for batteries for the portable units (not much chance we will see an iPhone with a DAB chip in it, unless Apple make a special one with a car battery attached).

Are we watching the death of a medium? If I lose local news and traffic (including TMC) I won't have much need of any "radio" DAB or otherwise. I certainly would not buy DAB today given the poor reception here in Oxfordshire (loose talk in the pub) and lack of a local station anyway, but if they can match the content, the quality and the power consumption of FM I'd certainly give it a chance.

Orange days from major tariff refresh

Just copy the T-M tariffs

Why can't they just copy the T-M tariffs? No animals just minutes, texts and data in various combinations with add-on special usage.

If the T-Orange monster ends up with Orange style tariffs I can see it becoming the 3rd largest UK carrier in 18 months.

Brown creates one UK.gov website to rule them all

How does this differ from the "government gateway"?

I use the single sign-on "government gateway" on a regular basis for VAT, pension and tax access and have for the past several years. Can anyone describe what differs?

Irate Aussies go after US website

Neon is a bit confused

Freedom of speech is not tolerance. Tolerance is what you need if you do not have freedom of speech.

"Holocaust denial" is not a crime in the US, only in Europe. Opinion like this is offensive but protected by the first amendment. Nor is it a crime in the UK but subject to civil action which without a constitutional protection would likely prevail.

BT boss urges fines for filesharing customers

raises an interesting question

ISP connections are not often personal, infringement is. Can someone explain how the law reconciles this difference? Is the person that signed the contract responsible for all usage? What about universities, corporates or government connections? If I infringe while using a free wifi in a corporate office (or McDonalds) will the ISP disconnect them, if not why not? Just asking. BTW, is there any free wifi at number 10?

Skype first to scrap Windows Mobile

iSkoot client available for Skype Lite replacement

For those wanting to replace Skype Lite, iSkoot is still offering their version for WM (and lots of other handsets). I think SL was a rebadged iSkoot anyway.

Vodafone Ireland admits pocketing dormant PAYG cash

Buy a Tracfone

I have used Tracfones in the US for the past 5 years (ignore the noise on the internet about how bad the company is, those days are over and I never experienced it anyway). The phones are available in most "drug" stores/Walmart/Target as are airtime cards (or on the net). The phones roam on GSM in the US and appear to work about everywhere. You can setup 10 x 800 numbers to call Europe for the same prices as a US call (I know this works and well as I've used it for the past 2-3 years). I buy a $100 airtime card once a year to get a year's use and add minutes of airtime as I need them. The minutes cards come with days of use too (90 days is the smallest) and these accumulate to the existing expiry date in the phone. My phone (a Nokia 1100) currently expires in May 2011 and has 1200 minutes in the tank.

You have to use the phone once a year to keep it active but can reactivate for about a year after that..

Don't lose the phone, all this stuff is stored in the phone and is gone if you lose it.

They do SMS and data as well if the phone supports it.

Apple iPhone tops 2009 smartphone sales

Now you do

The first thing I buy to go with a new phone is a spare battery, charge it and stick it into my backpack in a plastic bag. A modern battery will keep at least half the charge for a few months so I swap the batteries about twice a year. I have used the spare a few times and definitely glad it was there.

BTW, the second thing I buy is an SD card of the appropriate format to hold media files, maps and some file space.

1.3 million phones found down back of the sofa in UK

Samsung Mobile Tracker

My old Samsung z720 (lovely phone) had the option to send SMS messages to designated numbers if the SIM was changed. Unfortunately the option was protected by the phone password, so it would only catch the culprit that changed the SIM before breaking the password.

Windows Phone Classic to coexist with Windows Phone 7

There's an app for that, not.

no explanation necessary

Voda goes ultra-cheap with handsets for the developing world

Tracfone used 1100's

I have a few old Tracfone branded GSM Nokia 1100s that I bought for $20 each including 60 minutes air time. I use a couple for US trips, buy a one year card each year and get about 600 minutes with it for $99. This is in preference to the £2/min for use of my UK phone. Tracfone provide for UK calling via a dial through number or up to 10 international numbers tied to 800 numbers to do it automatically. Tracfone took a lot of hassle initially with a totally trash CS but now seems okay (and I've used it). No 1100's any more though.

IBM super is Met Office's 'chief weapon against British cynicism'

"...many people don't really understand percentage chance"

And never will if the Met continues to ignore it. In the US it is commonly used and understood by the vast majority as you described your third choice. It is never in the interest of the general public to hide information because the expert does not believe that it will be understood.

Huh?

I don't know where "breakfast" resides but here in Oxfordshire the Met office forecasts for the pre-Christmas weather were pretty far off, AccuWeather were much closer and I am now following them (as well as the Met office). I look forward to a third source so I can use a majority voting system.

Next from Apple: The Pocket iPad

@damn: That would be an N900

no one here today

'Domestic extremism' police called in on climate hack

Carefully Hand Picked?

There were thousands of mails released. The only thing carefully hand picked at CRU was the data.

Nokia posts proposal for next year's smartphone UI

What's wrong with buttons?

While I accept that Nokia think they need to produce an iPhone knock-off, I hope this doesn't mean that they will give up on the keyboard. I'd hate be stuck with only RIM as a choice.

On the up side it looks like new "feature" phones will offer all of the necessary functions without the lipstick/mascara/blusher (cosmetics) of the touchpad UIs, so it will still be possible to buy a handset designed to be a phone rather than a design accessory.

Palm fishes for devs with $1m lure

You've been lucky

I too have had a series of Palm products and still use a Centro for my phone, but you've been lucky with the TX. These are notorious for the plastic digitiser and it's lack of stability. I've been through three and now have decided that when I move to my next phone (non-PalmOS) I'll have to spend the money for a glass digitiser for the TX in the drawer as it will be the repository of all of the legacy PalmOS apps I need to keep around.

I am leaning toward a Nokia feature phone (say 6700) to use in conjunction with the TX as this combination now looks better than any of the "smartphones" I have touched. I have limited goals for the devices and none of them involve being trendy.

Doing the maths on Copenhagen

peer-review

Having read the leaked emails, it would appear that "peer-review" is now discredited as a measure of validity since it was manipulated at least as much as the data by the grant seekers.

Gulf Stream

the geological record (that's rocks to those of you will little hard science), clearly shows some interesting major events having occurred without the assistance of man. The drastic shifts of the currents in the north Atlantic is one, the reversal of the magnetic poles is another. Both of these were well documented in the literature before it was unfashionable to do so.

climate change does not equal man made

It takes an arrogance only found in grant seekers to assume that all of the geological evidence for climate changes in the past millennia mean nothing when there is some one to blame and some grant money to be found (for without blame the grants are few and far between)

One in three kids believe Google measures truthiness

What about "popularity" ranking?

Google ranking -

relevance - how can you judge relevance when the search criteria are one or two words?

adwords - separately displayed results and blocked in some cases

popularity - measured by inward links, best for Google as it presents the most popular results first and therefore is guaranteed to satisfy the most users.

Google does not attempt completeness so you can only safely use it to find things that you know when you've found, you supply the completeness.

So, was "popularity" on the list of answers the kids gave?

Google Voice invites callers

I don't get the interest in the Google offering

Just to go contra to the Vonage flow -

I've been a Vonage customer since 2005 and use the following for about $30 per month -

- up to 6 number simu-ring including to international numbers (handy when I'm using a US or French SIM)

- normal forwarding allows international numbers too

- up to 500 minutes of calls to US numbers no matter where you and your adapter are (I'm in the UK a lot)

- a London number that rings the same Vonage line as the US number

- voice mail delivered via email

- decent rates for international calling (not the best and certainly, as you can guess from the above, not the reason I subscribe)

One problem in 2007 when I got deactivated due to a long period of disconnection, but a note was put on my records and it hasn't happen since.

Mind you I have never tried to cancel the service or spent much time talking to the CS.

When you compare that service to one that is not even offered outside the US I have difficulty understanding why there is such interest, except the brand of course.

Peugeot preps 4WD diesel hybrid

Toyota Highlander?

Why do I read this and think of an unpowered Toyota Highlander Hybrid? (not sold in the UK)

T-Mobile lays ground for embedded SIMs

Seems okay for non-mobile devices

Assuming this is only for non-mobile devices, a gas meter for example, then why not? If it is intended for anything mobile, a car for example for maintenance, then it's a bad idea since the device could moved to a location not serviced by the carrier, say France.

Bet then even T-Mobile would not be that stupid, would they?

Peugeot's on-road, off-road ‘leccy ATV

Health and Safety

The chances of this vehicle meeting any of the safety criteria for a "car" are minimal. Triple the weight for protection of the occupant (air bags, crumple zone, etc), add real mirrors and bumpers, and you might have something, of course the range dropped to 30 miles, and the top speed to 35 mph.

Beck

Sling to offer £25 discount on new Slingbox

Screwing the customer

Sling now hard at work screwing the customer.

I don't mind screwing the iPhone folks but I might want one of the future products that requires a new (read different) box. They've not been very successful in even getting users to use the version 2 PC slingplayer, having removed bits of useful functionality.

They have tied the new player to a set of US only functions and changed the box addressing method to allow them much greater visibility into what the user is watching, always a bad sign.

Hava here I come.

PS. the discount means the box is only slightly more expensive than at Amazon.

AT&T mistakes netbook for phone, sells with service plan

Looks awfully familar to me

If Rik wants to see what it looks like after a couple years he should look at the UK market were this model has be in operation by all of the major operators for quite a while (before the arrival of netbooks in some cases).

As someone who doesn't even buy a contract phone (for the cellularly challenged, here in the UK you can buy a SIM only contract for monthy billing as well as pre-pay (PAYG)), I am unlikely to buy a netbook from a telco.

I'm waiting for the SIM only contracts to be discovered by the US telcos.

3 and T-Mobile announce site provider

Will they standardise products too?

Will this mean a standardisation of T-Mobile and 3 products? Today I can buy data from 3 at £1 per GB but T-Mobile costs £4 per GB and doesn't allow Skype. If the networks are identical why would I keep my T-Mobile data SIM?

Looks to me like 3 has boosted its products in terms of innovation (Skypephone, data, ...) and value for money to make up for a weaker network. If it has the same network as the T-Mobile and keeps it's current product portfolio wont it have an advantage?

Sling shoots AppleTV rival into UK stores

A case study in product management

A couple years ago Slingmedia said we'll build a box to pair with a Slingbox to show the output on a TV as an alternative to using a PC. That box would have cost maybe £40 or £50 and they would have sold one to about half the Slingbox users. But then someone said we need to add network sources (UTube, iPlayer,...) so they added a pile of software (and some additional hardware to hold it), while that was being done someone said we need to add local storage to hold the net content (for replay), so the added USB ports, while that was underway someone said we are a year late on this thing so we might as well add the HD stuff, well you get the idea. Two years late and 4 times the price point.

Lesson, make a plan, stick to it and ignore all of the "someones".

Beck

BMW readies 7-series hybrid

You'd think ..

with all that experience the Germans had in building diesel electrics in the '40's they would be able to do better now. Mind you these are a bit smaller.

T-Mobile joins 3 UK in prepaid mobile broadband race

@Pink Pole (what a guy)

I have a T-Mobile PAYG Mobile Broadband SIM that I got by asking for a free PAYG SIM from the T-Mobile site (or maybe a store), rang T-Mobile CS and asked to convert the SIM to the (at the time) WebnWalk Plus Daily plan, they said sure, I topped up and have been using it occasionally ever since. No dongle purchase involved. They have just changed me automagically from the old £4 per day rate to the new £2 per day rate. Given that I use it about twice a month (=£4 now) and I'm allowed to use 3GB per calendar month (that would be 1.5GB per usage in my normal case) I'm pretty happy. I do have a grandfathered 30 day contract SIM for voice with the old 1GB WnW add-on too, all for the princely sum of £15/mon.

The 3 contract rates do look better since the unlimited cap (oxymoron) is 5GB for roughly the same money as 3GB on T-M.

None of this improves T-M and 3 coverage.

iPhone users get BBC radio downloads

I don't understand

I have been listening to and watching the BBC iPlayer output all year using my Nokia N800. What am I doing wrong?

Sky drops download limit and tops satisfaction poll

To those forecasting doom to Sky's network

Just a reminder to all of those that are forecasting the collapse of Sky's network due to the massive downloads by all those switching to the unlimited Max accounts. Sky sells broadband to Sky TV customers, no one else. So you better be prepared to become a Sat TV customer to do the downloads. Personally I've never had a problem but then I suspect I've never broken 100GB in a month, and that mostly MSDN and various Linux distros for testing, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

Group Test: Wireless music streamers

Roku in Pinnacle disguise too

You can get a down market version of the Roku SoundBridge in Pinnacle clothing. DLNA compliant, I use a Buffalo NAS with a UPnP server built in. I generally use the web interface for all set-up as it's much easier than the remote, much better way to set up the radio streams. The Pinnacle version has an SD card slot for a local music library too.

US noses past Western Europe in 3G stakes

This has nothing to do with usage, it's about owning a 3G handset

If you read the press release what they say is there are a large number of 3G handsets in the US. Since the only handsets in the US are supplied by the carriers and they can supply what they like, I'm not surprised. It does not say they are using the 3G aspects of the handsets, and given the coverage, they are not. They could have just as easily written that millions of US phone users are downloading Java applications, possible but unlikely.Or any of the dozen other things of which my handset is capable.

Vodafone says termination rate clampdown would hit the poor

@Johnny FireBlade

While I agree with Johnny's comparison of the US and UK markets for mobile and broadband, best take another look at digitial TV. The analogue cut-off in the US is Feb 2009. Makes you look a bit stupid eh Johnny?

Mobile broadband: What's it for?

@John - PAYG options

I'm not sure where John has looked but I use a PAYG SIM from T-Mobile on the following terms, £4 per day of use ( 12 to 12, not 24 hours from first use), max usage measured on the calendar month of 3GB, must use it at least once every 180 days.

I converted a free PAYG SIM to the "Mobile Broadband Plus Daily" plan by ringing 150 and asking to convert the SIM plan. You do not need a monthly plan to use this option. I use the SIM in a T-Mobile PCMCIA card off eBay (for a fiver) and get anywhere from 300 to 900 kbps on average, I have seen 1.2mbs but that's not a regular event.

Obviously I don't use it too often, once or twice a month when I'm in London working but it's perfect for my purposes.

T-Mobile has a selection of other PAYG plans for Web n Walk but all of those have low limits for the day (but cheaper daily rates).

I have noticed that with the 3 tie up the 3G coverage is better.

Wireless browsers shut out of the Olympics

Who travels and doesn't have a Slingbox or HAVA?

£50 or so and your TV goes with you.

My Slingbox has a Freeview tuner and a connection the Sky box. Other than a fuzzy picture it works a treat. Even the picture is pretty good on the Palm but I don't use 3G streaming.

Geo restrictions are a way for content suppliers (IOC in this case) to drive up the revenue (resale of old rope). I say f**k'm, the IOC in particular are know to be at the trough more than an EU commissioner and that's saying something.

American man too fat for execution

Send in the Guardian readers

Let them bore him to death. If that fails send in a few vegans.

Nokia 6220 Classic candybar phone

Will it synch with Google Calendar?

I'm more interested in where I'm supposed be than where I am. It would be nice to know if the PIM functions work with anything other than a proprietary Nokia windows only suite.

RSA domain glitch derails UK online retailers

@gordon pryra

Is "boaring" some sort of hunting activity?

Oyster system failure causes travel misery

@Karl H

If you go back 20 years the buses will have conductors, no waiting for the passenger to find change. It's the current system with three payments methods in use and no conductors that keeps the bus in the stop while the passenger, sorry, customer, explains that (a) the ticket machine is broken, (b) they don't have any thing smaller, or (c) this is a Cheshire county OAP bus pass and is good for use in London since April.

BTW, as a side note, can someone explain why my "Freedom Pass" (I know, parasite ) cannot have a PAYG included for those "out of hours" journeys?

Public sector faces hefty fines for data breaches

@Aodhhan

From the article I read -

'On 10 July 2008, Walport conceded that, in the case of public bodies, fines would involve taxpayers' money moving from one organisation to another. But he told GC News: "An organisation that hasn't got the right procedures (and is fined) will be in trouble at the top. A fine isn't everything, but it sends a pretty bad signal."'

That sounds like fining the taxpayer to me. How do you read it?

"trouble at the top"? Sounds like "payoff, 7 figure pension pot, CBE" to me, I've seen the results of those "bad signals" before.

Dualit DAB Lite radio

EU plug?

Does it come with a map of the regions where there is a DAB signal too? Handy that is has a receiver for real radio built in, there won't be any problems finding FM stations.

If it were satellite based you could even listen to your favourite UK station. But it isn't and you can't, and never will be able to. Looks like the content creeps got their way, no pan European transmission system because they can't/won't license content for pan-European distribution.

Force listeners onto DAB by killing FM

DAB in Europe?

How well does my new DAB car radio work in France? Does the TMC work so I can get traffic reports on my TomTom? How about the RDS? I'm sure all of this has be carefully thought out and organised in the new joined up Europe.

Heathrow T5 security tackles Transformers t-shirt threat

contacting BAA

I've just sent two mails to BAA -

One to the media centre asking for a list of banned images

and one to the careers office asking if there is a specific t-shirt checker job and what the requirements are.

I took the opportunity to congratulate them on keeping BAA in the news.

How can we possible trust these people with the security when they clearly have no idea what they are doing.