Posts by Graham

EU threatens 'formal action' against UK.gov on Phorm

Could get interesting...

Ive been following the debacle for a while now and what Im wondering is this: Does the EU actually have any powers over the UK government when it comes to issues like this?

The reason Im thinking like this is that the UK government has had 3 seperate occassions to fess up about this little "agreement" they have had with BT regarding these trails, but they have refused to bother, nevermind having the audacity to refuse FOI requests too.

What Im worried about it that the EU will kick up and fuss and then do what ? Nothing more than likely ?

Orange sees broadband subscriber exodus

Just like most...

ISP's its a case of cost cutting in the wrong areas resulting in an complete failure to deliver any sort of coherent service.

Drive-by download attacks menace UK.gov

The funny thing is....

You would think a savvy bunch of folks from a technologically capable country like good old blighty would have fixed this issue by now. It makes the mind spin to think that our own government and retail websites are still being subject to this sort of attack.

I'd love to see a system which names and shames the owners of these sites in order to get a bit of urgency injected into the minds of the webmasters so they can pull their collective fingers out and actually do some work.

True I understand that implementing such fixes aren't that straightforward, especially with larger sites, but when you pair it up with the potential loss of customer or trust which the company/organization will have to suffer, I think its worth a few bent noses on the way if the ends justify the means.

Dangerous mobe chargers flood UK

@Antony Riley

Mobile phone shops aren't as much of a rip off as you might think actually. Now considering I actually work in one and know the amount of margin we make off them. Manufacturer chargers cost between £20 - £25, now you may think that is prohibatively expensive but when you consider that I regularly book handsets in for repair due to damaged charger ports due to cheap knock-offs it makes sense just to buy legitimately. Also as i said in a previous comment, these chargers aren't very good at maintaining a constant voltage or current which results in your snazzy mobile phone going up in smoke or exploding your battery. Now consider the repair cost for such an incident ranges from £45 to £150 dependant on the device, forking out £25 doesn't seem too bad after all.

I personally don't care what people do, however I do take particular satisfaction in having customers return with a cooked handset after preaching days earlier that they can get it much cheaper around the corner in the market. I guess it all depends on how much you value your belongings and weather you can justify paying a little over the odds for safety, reliability and oh I forgot A WARRANTY on the charger.

All too familiar...

Im afraid this problem is indeed quite common. Working in a mobile phone retailer we often see customers moaning over the price of chargers, but despite making it clear that the reason for the price is for safety and reliability we still see a fair amount of people prefering to pop down to the market to pick up cheap chargers.

The most amusing result is when we get customers in a few days later complaining that their phones no longer charge, mainly due to the charger either simply packing in, or in a recent case actually popped the charging module on their phone so spectacularly that their phone had to be written off.

So if you wanna buy cheap, expect shoddy quality. Oh and dont come in whining at the sales consultant because of your own cheapness :)

O2 starts 3G iPhone stampede - and runs away

LOL

Well working for one of the multiples which sell the iPhone, I can assure you that ordering over the website is just silly to be honest. Firsty all o2 and CPW stores will be opening at 07:02am on Friday to serve the unclean masses their "Jesus 2.0 phone".

Seriously though all this website rubbish can easily be avoided by getting off your arse and going to the shop and getting one over the counter, with the added benefit that the phone will be working from the moment you leave the shop.

As far as the tariffs are concerned, the unlimited data is subject to a fair usage which is being whispered at 3gb a month. If you run over then they can technically cut your 3g access off forcing you to use EDGE or GPRS. However dont quote me on that though because its subject to change as is everything to do with pricing in the mobile industry

Is it safe to download al Qaeda manuals yet?

Cookbooks

What ever happened to the good old "Jolly Rogers Cookbook", if there was ever a manual which would be practical for wrongdoing how come this literature hasnt landed countless teenagers in trouble for blowing up the garden shed ?

At the end of the day, you dont need Al Qaeda training manuals or Terrorist Handbooks to gain the knowledge you need to become a "terrorist". All you need is an internet connection and a few choice search words and you have all the knowledge you need to take down a small country if you looked hard enough.

The ruling is just in my opinion, although the fact she was in such close proximity to airliners does raise some eyebrows. But then again you could say the same thing about child molesters living near schools....

Phorm failed to mention 'illegal' trials at Home Office meeting in 2007

Zeitgeist

Call me a paraniod conspiracy theorist but it is becoming much clearer as things progress...

What with our fundamental rights being tossed away flippantly, faceless companies treating our personal data like tissue paper and a mindless government with little or no connection to modern day life. It appears that we as a people are heading into a dark era ahead.

Its already fact that our day to day lives in the UK are monitored through thousands of CCTV cameras, your personal details are shared between vast databases (and lost) and you can be "tagged" as "different" and monitored without your knowledge.

Its this kind of intrusion into our lives which, if gone unchallenged, will end up with each of us living in ignorant bliss while all our rights as people are whittered away and barted to the highest bidder.

I think Phorm should give up with what little fake PR status they have left and go crawl under the rock they came from. As for BT they should be for the high jump aswell, but what with Ofcom being as limp wristed as it is, I cant see it happening to be honest.

The iPhone - yours for €1

@Richard

Coming from industry sources the 8GB iPhone will be selling for around £300 pay as you go, no mention of a 16GB version yet. But as stated it will be about £99 on a standard £35p/m tariff or free on £45p/m.

The tariffs come with the usual unlimited data allowance and free access to The Cloud.

Interestingly enough they are also removing the post-activation process which allowed the original to be jail broken so easily. So from now on all iPhones will have to be activated in store. How this will work for direct sales is unknown at this point.

Another side note is that iPhone users bandwidth is apparently uncapped, its only standard data usage from other phones which is limited to 128kbps. Considering this isnt even enough to stream media from iTunes or YouTube I think o2 are in for tough times with bandwidth throttles and such in the near future as the iPhone kiddies start streaming pr0n to their "Jesus 2.0" phones.

@ KazR

They are deliberatey making the iPhone prohibitively expense to prevent "box breakers" from jail breaking the handset.

Our outlet saw something like a 500% increase in sales once that iPhone was reduced from £269 to £169

We sold out within a week and I doubt very much many got activated as Apple instructed.