* Posts by kevjs

64 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Jul 2009

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Fitbit fitness fans furious following flummoxing flawed firmware float, fleeting feedback, failed fixes

kevjs

The update finally fixed syncing on the Zip which had been totally broken since Pie came out (i.e. I've not been able to sync on my pixel 2 for a year), not 100% reliable but reasonably so. Shows 200,000+steps occasionally but fixes that when a sync completes.

Who's behind the Kodi TV streaming stick crackdown?

kevjs

Give me the ability to download content DRM free and I'm in. I generally buy a DVD for around 1p (+postage) from Amazon or a £1 from the pound shops (Replay DVD usually), then once it's delivered rip it to my NAS Drive and never see the disk again - how much of the money I have paid has got to the studio/actors - sod all but this way of acquiring media is somehow more legal (depending on whether or not we are allowed to format shift this year) than torrents for some reason...

Ripping to my NAS drive means it's present through the same UI as broadcast TV (Freeview and Freesat) and PVR recordings made via my DVB-T2/DVB-S2 tuners and no need to piss around with half a dozen apps and constant switching of AV Input. I'm also able to transfer content to my tablet (a service which EE offered in a cackhanded way for about a week before the tv channels cried foul) to watch when I've no internet connection (i.e. on East Midlands trains).

As other commentators have also said offering a streaming service with a decent range of content would be useful - having to individually search Now TV, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Google Play Movies, 4od, Demand 5, ITV Hub, BBC iPlayer (etc etc) to try and find one particular show (which is inevitably unavailable) is a total ball ache, and even though Roku try it doesn't work reliably - search for a film, yay I can watch on Amazon prime, select it - go to Amazon's home page (why not the film?!), manually search for it and Amazon can't find it - wtaf?

Chinese electronics biz recalls webcams at heart of botnet DDoS woes

kevjs

Re: Router Rules

That's what ntl: used to do, Inevitably the password chosen was "password".... And that was the modem directly connected to a PC - the Router was a separate device back then that required extra configuration, a job I ended up doing for plenty of my, IT, course mates at uni (hence why I knew the modems password was password!) :(

At least Virgin have a "random" password on there routers nowadays.

Barclaycard axes bonking payments bracelet

kevjs

And with chip and sign the identification signature is on the card you hand over and which is promptly ignored by the cashier....

Landlines: The tech that just won't die

kevjs

Re: Slightly Surprised

We have that in Nottinghamshire, alas the cost/speed/unlimited data isn't too competative (iPlayer/4od/YouTube/Free view connect eat through 300gb/month!).. Then again if I wasn't so near the exchange / FTTC cab the £30 for unlimited 20 Mbps down / 5 up would be good... - currently 80 down 20 up although the down speed at peak times caps out at 50mbps)

Does seem popular on the new build estates, as is TooWay...

Four tuner frenzy: The all-you-can-EEat TV Freeview PVR

kevjs

Re: Mythtv

You'd need 6 DVB-T tuners for all the services here, and a third DVB-T2 one in parts of Northern Ireland...

The EE TV box works fine for SD content but has too many audio issues with the HD channels (playing recordings only) and long you tube videos. Shame replay TV is so limited, have access to ask those channels via the now TV box, recoding Dave and Notts tv would be more useful...

Mom and daughter SUE Comcast for 'smuggling' public Wi-Fi hotspot into their home

kevjs

Re: completely nuts!

If it's anything like the BTWifi-with-Fon hot spots on BT customer routers in the uk then the "public" side of it will have a very restricted bandwidth (1mbps here IIRC) which depending on your package and line sync speed will have no effect on your own connection speed regardless of how well used it is.

Google extends app refund window to two hours

kevjs

Finally! When I first got android the window was larger and I was willing to give paid apps a chance to see if they did what I wanted (invariably they did) with the safety net of a refund if they didn't - since the reduction to 15 minutes I've been less willing to try (especially when that 15 minutes seems to consist of downloading and installing the app) - now it's been extended again it will encourage me to try some of these paid apps again.

Insecure AVG search tool shoved down users' throats, says US CERT

kevjs

paint.net

Try downloading Paint.NET - a programme which itself doesn't come with this crap - but trying to download it on a browser without ad-blockers pretty much guarantees you'll either download some crap or end up on the mirrors website (even when you know how bad the site is).

London cabbies to offer EVEN WORSE service in protest against Uber

kevjs

"Union bosses claimed the use of Uber is tantamount to installing a taximeter – which is illegal in minicabs."

Is that just a London thing? Round here all the "private hire" taxis have meters in them...

It's not you, it's EE: UK mobile network goes titsup, blames gremlins

kevjs

Re: Testing customer service and corporate attitude

Indeed - even my local bus operator is able to simultaneously update Facebook, Twitter, and their website - if they can do it why can't the UK's largest mobile phone operator?

Analogue radio will CONTINUE in Blighty as Minister of Fun dodges D-Day death sentence

kevjs

Urm, Digital 1 is kinda congested.

"even though the existing Arqiva-owned commercial multiplex Digital 1 is hardly congested." - Really? It's currently bursting at the seems with a shed loads of mono-only stations because there isn't the space to run them in stereo.

Google tells EFF: Android 4.3's privacy tool was a MISTAKE, we've yanked it

kevjs

Re: Some creepy apps out there

Well Air Droid claims it can send and receive SMS from the web browser so that will be the reason it needs SMS access.

This is where more granular permissions are a benefit.

e.g. Air Droid NEEDS permissions X, Y and Z to function - if you don't like that tough you can't use Airdroid. It would also like "SMS Send/Receive permissions to allow you to send and receive SMSes from your browser" - I don't want to allow that - okay I'll hide that function in the app for you!

Apps requiring internet access for adverts only could be mitigated so some degree by adding a sandboxed framework - i.e. the advertising providers plugin app gets the internet and location (Which I can switch between "country", "course", "gps") and the actual app itself gets the basic permissions needed.

GIMP flees SourceForge over dodgy ads and installer

kevjs
Unhappy

Not just sourceforge - trying to download Paint.NET is a right pain - even though I know how bad it is it's far too easy to end up clicking on the wrong Download link or ending up at the Mirror's homepage - put's me off recommending what is an otherwise decent piece of software to others. :(

EU move to standardise phone chargers is bad news for Apple

kevjs

not Ericsson either

Since the 1990s Sony Erricsson have only had three charger types - the old Erricsson one used by the t68, my brother's late 90s Ericsson, and the p800; the fast port charger used by the d750 (iirc), k800, k810, c905 and loads of phones of the same era, then the micro usb on the Xperias

Behind the candelabra: Power cut sends Britain’s boxes back to the '70s

kevjs

Re: Indeed...

My weather station has the sensor in the outside temperature gauge - rather handy as it means I get the time (alas it needs to be set to the German time signal as the UK one is too unreliable for it (i.e. 1 bar vs 4 on the German one)).

Now I've just got to get the Pi reading it :)

Wow, the future is HERE: Charge your phone (wirelessly) in your CAR

kevjs

Re: Navigation/Ease of Use

Wireless charger built into the phone holder would be brilliant. Could then run the cable a bit more sensibly rather than having to unplug it to change the CD...

Google goes dark for 2 minutes, kills 40% of world's net traffic

kevjs

Re: Explanation

Floppies bit me too, ended up having to get the bus home, copy the files onto another disk then bus back into down and just made the hand in!

After that I got into the habit of emailing my NTHell world account and hoping Eudora would pull it down before I busted my mailbox limit (or the dial up connection dropped) :(

For my final year I got into the habit of emailing my final year project to myself every time I was about to shut my laptop down - came in rather handy when I deleted a completed section and didn't notice for a week, and when Office decided it was going to corrupt the document because I'd had the audacity of editing in Office XP and Office 2003.

One copy on my laptop - a more often than daily copy in my Google Mail account* - and then Eudora pulling those to my desktop at home, and back to my laptop as I went along :)

* handily activated just in time for my final year to start.

Typical! Google's wonder-dongle is a solution looking for a problem

kevjs

If only it did proper screen mirroring it would be perfect... No need to worry about what apps the dongle supports - as long as I can see it on my phone I can get on the TV.

If services like iPlayer leverage ChromeCast then even better, but if they don't it's still pretty usable.

Screen mirroring is the real killer feature that Apple TV has (IME that's what people do with that anyway - they know how to do it on there iPads and just beam it to the TV - iPlayer, LoveFilm, Sky Go etc), the others are nice to have but a bit less useful.

Smart TVs riddled with DUMB security holes

kevjs
FAIL

Re: So putting an internet connected PC inside a TV set is not a very good idea.

I always find it odd that dedicated hardware is now so rubbish and PCs running open source software perform so much better (it was the reverse ten years ago).

My TV takes forever to change channel (wtf does it take 3 seconds to change DVB channel (4 seconds for analogue, and a further 2 before NICAM kicked in) and 7 seconds to switch from SCART to HDMI?) but my media centre is instant (same multiplex) and near instant (cross multiplex). Little slower when the channel is cross multiplex on DSAT (about a 1.5 seconds at worse when switching cross multiplex and cross satellite (e.g. RTL to Chart Show Dance) but still pretty quick (and sound comes in even faster).

My PVR takes about 15 minutes from booting (from standby) to being usable (two minutes for the picture to come out then it's really unresponsive while it loads the EPG from disk) - My media centre on the other hand takes less than 2 minutes to boot up (from cold) and the TV is usable within a further 30 seconds. when left on, but no video running, it still draws less power than my PVR does in standby so I just leave it on (i.e. it's instant) and it's a darn sight more flexible (Freeview, Freesat, and the German channels (i.e. RTL for the F1) all in one EPG :) ).

Stand aside, Wi-Fi - these boffins are doing 40Gbps over the air

kevjs
IT Angle

Re: Where's the advantage over free space optics?

Plenty of unused spectrum space for Point to point links - the local wireless broadband supplier mounts the antennas needed for there service on the pole used for your TV aerial and simply runs an Ethernet cable into the house from where a standard router is connected. Doesn't matter that the signal doesn't get through walls as the antenna is on the roof.

As for dirt - that might be more of a problem!

Rules, shmules: Fliers leaving devices switched on in droves

kevjs

It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if at least half those who claimed they had turned them off hadn't done so properly. Doing phone support for smartphone users the only way I can be certain they have really turned them off is to get them to remove the battery. Which is annoying when people have a Samsung iPhone.... (iPhone being a generic term for smart phone).

ISPs: Get ready to slurp streams from Murdoch's fat pipe

kevjs
Megaphone

Re: I'm leaving

Sounds like my experience.

After going for the cheapest possible provider (Tesco) while at uni I joined Freedom2Surf - When Tiscalli took over I then ran for the hills; Migrated to ADSL24 (EntaNet reseller) and was happy with the service until a number of day long outages in quick succession (seriously one fibre run from Nottingham to Sheffield which kept getting half inched :( ) to BeThere - already left those as I will not give a penny to Murdoch if I can help it but alas they managed to cancel the phone line before my migration to EE was complete therefore OpenReach decided to cancel my fibre install - damn, and then on migration day Be decided to terminate the ADSL as there was no active phone line for it to run on top of.

After deciding to go for EE due to the price/availability/offerthey had on (and the realisation that any indy will be gobbled up by one of the borgs sooner rather than later) I was dreading dealing with there legendary customer services, but so far they have been brilliant and got the phone line working within minutes and less than 24 hours later a new fibre broadband order is booked and in hand! Hopefully it will all go as planned this time (time will tell of course). Thankfully the EE 3G network improvements means I can make use for my T-Mobile full-monty tethering at a reasonable speed until land line service is resumed.

Londoners in mass test of telly tech savvy as 4G filters mailed out

kevjs
Mushroom

The amplifier will be amplifying all frequencies coming into it and if the 4G base-station is nearby this has the potential to overload the amplifier (TETRA at the other end of the band can have the same issues - indeed it screwed BBC ONE East Midlands from the Nottingham transmitter for me a few years ago - alas an amplifier was needed for Freeview back then - but as Freeview was fine I didn't care analogue BBC ONE was unwatchable).

Alas here in the East Midlands (Waltham transmitter) we need to use Wideband aerials instead of the old C/D aerials and anyone using either an old C/D aerial or wideband antenna is going to be in the "we'll try doubly hard to screw your reception group" - as the 4G signals will be right where analogue ITV-1 and BBC TWO used to be.

For once I'm hoping mobile reception remains marginal (from masts around 90' to the aerial too) and the local TV multiplex is strong enough (just outside predicted coverage - and when I say just, the other end of the 600meter long street is inside coverage as is the next street over and it's not like it's hilly) to allow us to continue with just passive f-connector splitters! Still have a box full of the half dozen signal boosters we used pre-DSO.

Weren't the previous tests done in another Group A area too?

Smartphone users prefer LOVELY apps to fiddly mobe websites

kevjs
Pint

Apps FTW

The best thing about apps is the content is available when you open it - no need to wait for the pages to slowly drift in via GRPS. Shame so many don't have offline mode working properly :(

White Van Man could become a rolling radio relay

kevjs
Alert

Re: Why bother putting the relays on vehicles?

Round here with the council turning lights off overnight I can hardly see them willing to pay a few extra quid for the electric for a network relay... They would probably wire it up so it's only one when it's dark and before midnight...

Airline leaves customer on hold for 15 hours

kevjs

Re: EDF Suck

Which he just pointed out is a pain in the arse, and if you have used lead than the estimate it rejects the revised reading anyway....

Europe's prang-phone-in-every-car to cost €5m per life saved

kevjs

reduce false positives...

When triggered why not have it call the car itself first, if there is no answer within 30 seconds or they say help! It dials 112, otherwise it just sends a text to a non emergency number (for catching hit and runs for example), presumably you would want the 112 operator to talk to the person if possible to attain the appropriate response

FolderSync

kevjs
Go

This is a brilliant bit of software - seams to handle the syncs quicker and more reliably than the official apps while using less resources.

The big boon is synching with my NaS drive via SSH - get home, plug the phone in and the photos are immediately backed up :) , while the files I wish to share between the NaS drive and phone are set to sync over the air.

Now if only there was an equally awesome equivalent for the desktop.

Google Drive stalls on LAUNCH DAY

kevjs
Go

I put in the request to be notified last night and was about two hours later. :)

Alas, it's like Drop Box and wants you to put your files in a specific folder, and doesn't appear to have the ability to upload automatically from my Android. Looks like I'll be sticking with Sugar Sync for now.

Punters want BBC iPlayer in TVs, not 3D

kevjs
Angel

Re: My perfect telly!

Loads of HDMI ports would be neat - now there is HDMI Ethernet and CEC all we need now some way for boxes to add channels to the EPG (e.g. plug in a DVB-T2 tuner box and the HD channels on your pre-Freeview HD tv just appear the proper numbers) and for there to be power over HDMI (e.g. in five years time Lovefilm could roll out a new movie service using MPEG-5 over LTE2 and simply plugging a matchbox sized box into my TV with a HDMI cable would add that to the TV's on-demand menu)

'As seen on TV' claims can't be made about unbranded props

kevjs
FAIL

And there was me thinking that "As Seen On TV" meant it had featured on Watchdog and should be avoided...

ISP Be admits crippling iPlayer demand burst its pipes

kevjs
Go

Looks like it's PingPlotter Pro (at the bottom of the images shown!)

Formula 1 revs engines through Virgin Media

kevjs
Stop

Alas, the original contract still had a few years to run - 2015 IIRC, certainly wasn't the 2012 season!

And the other option which the beeb didn't entertain was to share with Channel 4 which would have left it all FTA.

kevjs
Angel

You don't even need TNTSat - just get a multi-feed dish and a HD box - TF1 Suisse is FTA on 9'E (not HD but needs DVB-S2) :)

RTL + TF1 = FTA F1 and you can channel hop round the ads!

Amazon welcomes Microsoft files into Kindle cloud

kevjs
Happy

Neat

Been looking for something like this for a while!

It's ideal for printing receipts and the like - especially for those of use that prefer Google Mail to a full blown email client (i.e. Send to Email doesn't work on Windows) - Works very quick too - no need to faff around converting into a format Calibier supports then converting to AZW and then connecting the USB cable - just right click on the file, hit Send to Kindle and it appears around 30 seconds later.

Shame you can't set it to prompt you to login each time - bit rubbish when you are on a shared PC!

The simplicity of it all means I can now read those long documents/webpages on my Kindle rather than resorting to dead trees :)

As iPhone 4S battery suckage spreads, fixes appear

kevjs

k 800i browser

It certainly did have a browser, although it was a bit rubbish! I used opera mini for the life of that phone, worked well, as did the email - not as Nicely as my x10 though (but at least the battery would last a day!)

Gas bill climbed £13,000 after correct online reading given

kevjs
FAIL

So Southern go round the clock - not sure if that's better or worse than and EDF which says something along the lines of "there was a problem processing this reading" - all I was trying to do was knock about 5 units off each bill! When you ring up you find that you can't submit a lower reading online.

Apple outs iPhone micro USB adaptor

kevjs
Alert

Micro USB breaks the cable, Mini USB breaks the device.

On Mini-USB when extra strain is placed on the connector the result is the socket on the device breaks - the Micro-USB connector was apparently designed so that the plug on the cable itself would be the first to fail (after all it's cheaper to replace a £3 cable than a £500 smart phone). With our fleet of smart phones used by our field staff this seams to stack up - never had to replace a mini-USB cable (apart from ones cats have eaten) but have seen around 10% of our fleet of mini-USB devices have the connector fail. On the micro-USB side I have yet to see a connector fail on the device, but have seen around 15% of cables fail.

Also not all mini-USB chargers charge all mini-USB devices, but fortunately micro-USB ones do

We7 morphs from jukebox into a radio station

kevjs
Mushroom

Noooo.....

Not another one, first Last.FM, then Spotify and now We7.

The days of legal freeloading on demand music look to be over :(

End of UK local dialling in sight as numbers run out

kevjs
Stop

Nice idea, except

01200 is used in Clitheroe

01204 is used in Bolton

01205 is used in Boston

01206 is used in Colchester

01207 is used in Consett

01208 is used in Bodmin

01209 is used in Redruth...

The funny thing here is that Bournemouth originally had 0(1)201 and 0(1)202....

kevjs
Go

Its quite simple really - it saves businesses in the area a lot of money and confusion.

For example, at the moment Bournemouth University has the number 01202 524111 - under OFCOM's Bournemouth will get around 200,000 new numbers and therefore the University will not need to make any changes to letterhead, signage, websites or anything else. The only difference is that people in Bournemouth will now need to call 01202 524111 instead of 524111.

If on the other hand Bournemouth was to get a new code the number would change to 023 2524111 nationally and 2524111 locally (for example) requiring significant expense of all business in the Bournemouth area.

All I can say is that I am glad all the numbers on our phone system at work include the area code should this change come nationally.

kevjs

The number of numbers beginning 1 are used for stuff qute early in the number preventing use - e.g. anything starting 100 is out because of the operator, 101 for NHS direct, 112 for emergency calls, 118 for directory enquiries and god only knows what other short codes the operators use!

kevjs
Mushroom

The ones we have at work (for SDSL) have "(0115) 0" numbers attached to them already... These being used as you can't dial them locally! (Not that it really matters too much as only "(0115) 9" and "(0115) 8" are used anyway!)

'Satnavs are definitely not doomed', insists TomTom man

kevjs
Go

Erm, No!

On my phone I have a satnav which has maps stored on it, therefore doesn't require cellular coverage and doesn't cost me a penny after installation - this Co Pilot live application is even from a "real" sat nav manufacturer! A single payment of £20 was all that was required IIRC.

Oh, and Google caches your route so if you follow the instructions it doesn't matter if you lose cellular coverage.

The only issues I've had are:-

1) The pathetic volume level on my Xperia X10 - can't hear the directions unless I mute the radio (fortunately I generally know my route so this is a minor issue, and when I am in an unfamiliar area of the main roads I tend to lower the volume anyway)

2) When you end up actually needing it (Wakefield town centre signage I'm looking at you) sods law dictates you'll be on the phone (via the bluetooth system) and unable to see the sat nav screen or get the audio from it!

3) Androids "Don't Lock the screen while charging" setting is awesome as it means the satnav stays on screen, but once the battery is fully charged it stops charging and starts locking the screen - argh!!! (I wish it was smart enough to not lock the screen when the charger is connected). Fortunately it does pop up on screen when you are 1km from the next turning and stays on screen until you more than 1km from the next turning.

Even with those issues for a reactively light user like me mobile phone based sat nav works fine.

IDLENESS sees Brits haemorrhage cash to mobe firms

kevjs
FAIL

Using a courier why?

So you can sit in all day to find that when you needed the loo the courier came and you now have to trek to some industrial estate miles away at the arse end of nowhere to pick up a box containing your phone which looks like it's been sat in Gaddafi's compound for the last week...

At least when you go into a store you can actually see it working there and then and start using it too.

And some of us stick with the same network as they actually have some, admittedly rubbish, coverage where we live (in one of the UK's core cities)....

Microsoft unveils file-move changes in Windows 8

kevjs
Facepalm

Vista does that already

Vista already does that - giving you the option to "Try Again", "Retry" or "Cancel", rather handy when Windows Media Player has decided it wants to keep a video open, again.

Murdoch muscles BBC out of Formula One driving seat

kevjs
Devil

£400 per annum...

So £400 per year to the morally bankrupt News International for nothing more than the F1, or pop down to Maplin, spend £40 on a b-grade FTA satellite system to watch RTL and listen to the excellent five live commentary...

Channel VAT loophole shrunk, not shut

kevjs

insert title.

Which lical music store shall I support, Asda, HMV, or Tesco? The indies are long gone here in one of the uks biggest cities....

Standard smartphone charger to dominate in two years

kevjs

micro usb. ..

Micro usb has supposadly been designed so the plug on the cheap cable takes all the strain and eventually breaks, and not the socket on the expensive device like mini usb.

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