* Posts by Andrew Jones 2

836 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Sep 2009

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Mummy, mummy, there's a nuclear monster!

Andrew Jones 2
WTF?

a title

Oh I see...... the only possible downside to a nuclear accident is death??

So you don't consider the fact that hundreds of thousands have been evacuated and many more are due to be when the exclusion zone is extended over the next month to be any sort of a problem at all?

You do realise that if this had happened at Doonray nuclear power station in Scotland - the proposed new exclusion zone would mean all of Edinburgh and quite a substantial area of Fife would have to be evacuated? According to Wikipedia the population of Edinburgh is 477,660 people.

I am sorry - I guess I just wasn't aware that "experts" measure the scale of a problem in deaths. In that case 9/11 in America obviously wasn't that big a deal - sure some people died - but many millions of people did not - phew!

HTC Desire S Android smartphone

Andrew Jones 2

re: Original Desire.

I still have the Original Desire - I still love the Original Desire.

Yes it has the volume lowering when you pick the phone up - and silencing when you flip it over.

The camera is actually not that bad.

Runs whatever I have thrown at it so far.

My biggest gripe is that even with Froyo, internal space is limited and runs out quickly - but this would be easily overcome if the two biggest apps (facebook and twitter) would allow "Move to SD" instead they sit there consuming upto 20mb of application data which is a pain.

Also a pain is that MOST of the Google apps cannot be installed to SD either!.

What happens next with my phone will depend on what happens when Gingerbread arrives in a few weeks, there are rumours it further reduces the amount of space left in the phone - might be time to root after that.

I am on Three, I love their Network and I got the phone early enough that they had not had a chance to brand it :)

However - my next Android phone WILL be a HTC - but I have another year to go on this contract yet. UNLIMITED DATA + FREE TETHERING - how can anyone not love that? and I am in the middle of the Scottish Borders but I still get HSPDA at 7(ish)mbs woooooo

Teens who listen to music a lot are at high risk of depression

Andrew Jones 2
FAIL

what a load of tosh.

I both read and listened to music when I was growing up - though not at the same time - I like to get deep into a book with no distractions.

I still (at age 29) do both.

I know from my point of view - if I was depressed I used to listen to Savage Garden (wooooooooo) and somehow that made me less depressed.

But I (and a lot of people I know) use music as a way of escaping - that is true - housework is much less boring with the music on and turned up - Elbow, Snow Patrol, Coldplay, Travis, Amy McDonald, Manic Street Preachers, Bruno Mars, Journey, Bon Jovi, Aerosmith - turn the volume up and really let go while doing the housework - that's amazing and leaves you feeling really alive.

The question is - like smoking to relieve stress - is the depression caused by a lack of music to which I am essentially addicted? Is the depression caused by the silence when there is no music playing? (Maybe the participants - like me - cannot stand the silence?)

In any case as already stated - I read as a kid, still read now - and yet am still depressed ( think people misunderestimate how much debt has to do depression ) - so maybe this research is about as useful as the one that states that everyone in their participation group ate chips as children and now have cancer - ergo Chips Cause Cancer.

Still it would be nice if reading was a simple way to defeat depression - free Kindles on the NHS?

In fact maybe the NHS could do a study and give everyone with depression a free Kindle and monitor the results. Mind you I suspect if that were to happen - there would suddenly be a massive spike in the number of cases of depression.

Apple bashes 'gay cure' app

Andrew Jones 2
Grenade

is it over though?

I notice a quick Google for Exodus International takes me to their homepage where they are now running a big campaign stating that they are in the right. Calling for people to contact Apple and ask them to re-instate the app.

Exodus International are only different to Uganda in that (as far as I know) Exodus International are not currently pushing for the death penalty for homosexuals. Otherwise they are just as dangerous.

I long for the day when religions are happy to be who they are without worrying about "converting" other people to their religion.

Radioactive Tokyo tapwater HARMS BABIES ... if drunk for a year

Andrew Jones 2
Unhappy

One has to wonder....

One does have to wonder though...... why does the author even care?

This is supposed to be a largely tech related site.

Yet the author has over the last week quite literally gone out of their way to spurt and endless tirade of "Nuclear Is Safe" articles.

Tell us once and move on, tell us twice if you really must.

Tell us continuously day after day after day - and we start to wonder whether you have some sort of agenda?

If you really must endlessly rant on about the pro's of nuclear and how we must all worship the tech - setup a blog and point those people who are interested in it's direction.

But please STOP dragging this site into it.

Those of us mere mortals who don't know a lot about nuclear but don't trust it - are not going to change our minds simply because you tell us to.

Fukushima's toxic legacy: Ignorance and fear

Andrew Jones 2

re: Incident?

So..... am I the only one who happened to see the Tepco conference on Sky News - 2 night's ago shortly before Midnight (UK Time) - where not only did Tepco admit to their failure with regards to safety checks at the nuclear plant - but they also admitted that they had been dealing with a constant radiation leak at the plant for at least 3-4 days before the quake hit??

Funny that I have yet to see any of the "experts" on the "news" touch that?

Wonder why that might be? Could it have something to do with - oh I don't know - radiation leakage happening BEFORE the quake hit?

I suppose they might try and argue negligence and pig headedness are 1 in 100 or 1 in 1000 year events too?

And "experts" and pro-nuclear folk wonder why the rest of us are terrified of nuclear?

"It's safe"

"nothing bad can happen"

"no no there are systems in place to protect against that"

"oh we never thought of that, but it's fine we will design the new reactors so that cannot happen again".

---

"No it's safe now, we changed the design slightly"

"Trust us it won't happen again"

"oh.... we never thought about that, but it's fine we will redesign the new reactors so that cannot happen again"

And from this current incident all we have heard from the experts is that it won't be that bad, it can't get any worse, it won't cause any real damage to the public.

And for a period of a week - every day it got worse, every day it caused more problems - we are still being told that it will be all fine - despite Sky News scrolling across the screen that Iodine levels in the the water near the plant are now 2x the safe limit for infants.

Sure the media might not make the situation any better - but then neither do the nuclear experts - the way the "experts" speak nuclear is completely safe and there is no risk to anyone, anywhere, ever. (obviously that is an exaggeration - but I am suggesting that is how you come across)

How to slay a cellphone with a single text

Andrew Jones 2

Older phones....

The older Sony Ericsson and Siemens phones were a doddle to crash - they used to allow you to insert pictures and sounds into normal text messages which were in reality simple placeholders like: "%SND04" which the receiving phone would simply substitute with whatever soundfile was sitting at index 04.

Unfortunately for some strange reason the phone didn't seem to check if it actually had a picture or soundfile at the index specified and went off to fetch it anyway, but in the event the file did not exist - it never returned from it's fetching routine. The slightly better phones would allow you to recover from the situation by restarting the phone and deleting the offending message. Unfortunately the earlier models used to only offer the option to delete the message AFTER opening and scrolling down the bottom of the message.

The funny thing about it all was though - when you inserted the built in picture or sound into your message it didn't actually add it to the message - just it's placeholder - which ANYONE could change, and as the range for sounds was something like 1-9 and pictures 1-20 then anyone who was just the tiniest bit curious could crash someones phone without even intending to.

Bloke with hammer fixes London's Olympic clock

Andrew Jones 2
WTF?

re: overcomplicated?

I still don't understand this - and I reckon we should demand a detailed technical explanation as to what exactly happened we did after all pay for the bloody thing / will pay for the bloody thing.

As a programmer I can only see 2 things that could of gone wrong.

1) it crashed.... Christ knows why it would - but it could of.

2) the function that stops the clock from counting down when it reaches 0 so we don't see negative numbers has a glitch / misplaced comma / alcohol induced lazy arsed coding error.

I would however like to know WHY the clock stopped and what they have done to stop it from doing so in future.

I'd also quite like to know what the point of it is in the first place too - but I guess we won't get a satisfactory answer to that one. They will probably say something like "it is to remind you" yeah - because with the amount of news it will be taking up in the coming months - it will be SO easy to forget.

Fukushima reactor shell ruptured?

Andrew Jones 2

re: lack of information.

The Japanese government are at it too -

the other morning at 1:02am GMT there was an earthquake (confirmed as it was felt by people over a 200 mile radius) the USGS listed it as a 5.8 I believe. But the guy who speaks on the TV who I gather is some sort of country leader but is incredibly irritating (almost as much as the very computerised sounding translator voices we have to listen to everyday) stated it was NOT an earthquake but a landslide......

If you are interested - here are the stats on the Earthquakes in Japan:

http://www.bordersweather.co.uk/wxjapan.php

Also note that since the Japan earthquake - Alaska, Hawaii, Northern California, Puerto Rico and Mexico are becoming quite active - and I don't expect this to be over for a long time.

Twitter ad play chokes third-party devs

Andrew Jones 2

re: official apps

I don't really know about iPhone but I do know that Twitter are working on getting push notifications implemented into the official Android app.

Once C2DM is enabled and @mentions and DM's start arriving in realtime - a lot of people will probably migrate back to the official app for both convenience and the better battery life it will offer.

(no need to poll the mentions feed or messages feed every x minutes looking for tweets - only poll once each time it gets a push notification telling it to)

As for desktop??? Twitter don't make a desktop app so they cannot have a say there?

Make streaming a felony: Obama

Andrew Jones 2

re: iPlayer etc?

I wonder if this will be extended so that people gaining unauthorised access to streaming networks will be said to be breaking the law too?

eg - tricking iPlayer into believing you are in the UK when you are not - and tricking Hulu to believe that you are in the states - when you are not.

Also - I am thoroughly enjoying watching Ghost Whisperer on <a_streaming_site> since Sky removed Channel One from freeview - it is now the only place I can get it.

and I enjoy watching Brothers and Sisters on <a_streaming_site> about 25 minutes after it has aired in the states - with some 78 links available to watch it on - and no hope in hell of Channel 4 actually running it.

Whitehall to puff punters: 'Hide your fags'

Andrew Jones 2
Stop

Here we go again...

It amazes me how many people are using the same arguments time and time again.

Check what the health warnings say on packets of cigarettes before you start spouting please!

There is *NO* scientific agreement that smoking causes cancer - the closest they have got is that it *MAY* cause cancer. But what does it really matter? Do you use WiFi - there is constant research being done to see if these low powered microwave frequencies are actually detrimental to our health and one study completes and claims yes it will cause brain tumours and another study finishes and claims WiFi is safe. The exact same thing goes for mobile phones.

It causes me no end of annoyance this nanny state that we are turning into - I mean Christ they are going on too much salt being bad for you. Well guess what - it's bollocks - sure if you never sweat and never do anything physical for your entire life than the recommended allowance might do you just fine - but I know in my case certainly I sweat a lot through my hands and feet and if I stick to the recommended allowance and don't ADD salt to my food then by day 3 I am not feeling very good at all, by day 4 I feel tired, lacking energy and light headed.

The truth about cancer (in my opinion anyway) is fairly simple - the magnetic field around the earth is supposed to stop harmful (as in causes harm) radiation from the sun affecting the surface of the planet - the majority of this being (xrays and gamma rays) which shock of shocks HAS been proven to destroy DNA and cause mutation leading to cancer.

However pop onto the net (Google is your friend) and do a bit research about the state of our magnetic field - you will find that 1) it has a very large hole in it and 2) the strength of it is weakening. Now what do you suppose these things mean? (on a side note - isn't it interesting that as the field gets weaker and breaks down the planet is apparently getting warmer)

Finally - let's assume smoking was banned tomorrow and that 1/3 of people who have smoked throughout their lives develops cancer. If we cost the NHS £5billion a year, you do realise that the NHS would still have to cope with 3 generations worth of smokers at £5billion a year whilst the government would not be getting the £10-12billion a year in smoking tax to help cover the cost.

Andrew Jones 2

re: Why do these things take so long to implement?

Re your comment about why smaller shops have longer to complete the change.

I shall speak from experience - we live in a small village in the Scottish Borders, we both smoke.

When we pop to the shop for fags, we quite often buy some biscuits or something else while we are there. We do not go into the shop looking for an impulse buy and then happen to buy cigarettes because they are staring us in the face.

In Scotland they have another stupid idea too - about removing alcohol from display too - because apparently we are more likely to buy alcohol at the same time as buying cigarettes - it's funny because I can honestly say if I go to a shop and buy cigarettes it is because I specifically went to the shop to buy cigarettes. If I go to a shop and buy alcohol it is because that was my intention in going to the shop in the first place. If I go to the shop and buy cigarettes AND alcohol it is because I wanted to buy both - not because I saw one or the other behind the counter and thought hey I don't need either but f**k it eh I'll get both.

In answer to your question - if our shopping habits reflect the way other smokers shop too - then it wouldn't take long for the shop owner to see a massive drop in takings as we simply would have no need to go to the shop to buy anything.

The same is obviously not true of a supermarket as people tend to go to Tesco/Asda etc for food shopping and buy cigarettes while they are there (they tend to be cheaper than the local shop).

In response to someone further up who stated the government don't really want us to stop - I understand what you are saying re half measures etc. The thing that I find very odd was that in many cases the cost of buying "light" cigarettes is the same and in some cases (marlboro) MORE than buying full strength. I did sort of think hmm surely the lighter cigarettes should cost less to encourage people onto a lower strength hence helping to make it easier to stop?

Binatone HomeSurf 7 Android tablet

Andrew Jones 2

£100 for an always on web device.

This sort of thing could be just what I need to display stills from my webcam and weather data from my station.

Could definitely get in to Android programming at this price and it'll be faster than the emulator!

Google and Apple locked horns over iPhone location data

Andrew Jones 2
Megaphone

FYI

I haven't used an iPhone so I cannot comment on it - but I do have a HTC Desire and can quite happily inform you that Android at least has an option to switch off both GPS and WiFi Location.

Obviously apps that depend on your location data to work will complain and be next to useless but other than that if you switch location data off - it stays off until you switch it back on again.

As I said I haven't used an "i" device but I suspect it too probably features an option to switch off Location data.

Finnish regulator calls for iPhone refunds

Andrew Jones 2
Alert

retailer refunds....

If lot's of people end up getting refunds from whoever they got the phone from in the first place - which I assume to be the mobile carrier -

I rather suspect that said mobile carrier may refuse to do business with Apple in the future....

I agree with some points raised here -

Whether the phone WORKS below 0'C is not the point - the point is whether Apple refuse to honour the warranty because the phone has been taken outside of it's specified operating range.

The second point is "Winters of southern Finland (average day time temperature is below 0 °C/32 °F) are usually 4 months long, and the snow typically covers the land from middle of December to early April." (taken from Wikipedia) clearly if the climate means the phone should not be used outside for 4 months of the year - it is not fit for the purpose for which it was designed.

Clearly Apple could get very smart arsey here and point out that a mobile phone is a portable phone - but there are no guarantees either implied or otherwise about the phones ability to work in an outside environment. But of course that would open a whole new can of worms in that they would effectively be admitting that the iPhone is only built to work in a normal indoor environment.

Guess we just wait and see what magical and well thought response they come out with for this one...... (it could after all be a feature..... to stop you going outside in silly temperatures and either freezing or suffering heat exhaustion........)

Shocked mum muzzles foul-mouthed toy mutt

Andrew Jones 2
Thumb Up

re: Tesco

If we are talking about things "that just have to be done" in Tesco -

there is nothing more satisfying that wandering into Tesco with a "TV B Gone" in your pocket (needs to be a coat pocket so it is thin enough to allow the infra red to pass through......

and switching off the bank of TV's in the electronics department :)

Even more funny when people are browsing the TV's to see which they'd like to buy and as they are approaching them they are switching off.

Also - shops that have a demo games console - switching off the TV as someone is playing the console is great fun.

Sorry - I guess it's a case of "simple things" here :)

Facebook suspends personal data-sharing feature

Andrew Jones 2
FAIL

Biggest issue here -

Having come across "rogue" apps before on facebook and clicked report (and indeed the same with groups etc) I am no longer entirely surprised to see that the app is still sitting there a week later having no been removed yet.

The stats for facebook reckon that there are up to 250million active users in any day - going on the basis of how many people on my list fall for the stupid "copy and paste this status update to your status" bollocks I'd estimate a good 50-80 million a day will therefore be stupid enough to fall for apps requesting access to your private info. But even if it was much lower maybe 5 million a day?

Even if the app gets reported and is up and running for 48 hours before it is pulled - that's a *LOT* of stolen information.

The thing that concerns me most is that I have no idea why a genuine app would want this information anyway? most websites allow me to create an account using the "facebook connect" and if they need more information from me than facebook gives them by default - that's fine I will give more information if it is needed but I would rather be the one in charge of that decision.

Farmville was mentioned above - this is the same issue Android has - an app tells you what permissions it needs to work without telling you either why it needs those permissions (eg what it intends to do). A better system would be for an app to work on basic permissions (eg yes allow this to app to run) - if you try to do some something which requires the app to need more permissions then it can ask you and you can either grant or deny.

FWIW Farmville requires access to your pics in order to post screenshots of your farm to your pictures album (to gain one of the badges) but the app will function perfectly fine without having access to your pictures - but it is not an option.

I understand the Microsoft UAC issue but the problem is not the Microsoft kept popping up a box asking you to allow whatever action to take place - the problem was uneducated users. I still VERY firmly take the attitude that if a user gets a virus or their identify stolen because they wander around blindly clicking "Allow" on every box that pops up - maybe they will learn an important life lesson very quickly? But "dumbing down" doesn't solve the primary problem - while it might make facebook easier - it isn't going to stop the user clicking on the link in that email from the Nigerian President or whoever asking you to help them transfer $100million for a cut of the money.

Galileo euro-satnav 'driven by French military', says sacked CEO

Andrew Jones 2

have to wonder.....

Will "our" system also have a feature to degrade accuracy over specific areas of the world? Might not seem a lot of point with the number of other services there will be - but it might not hurt to design it in....

Steve Jobs takes 'medical leave of absence' from Apple

Andrew Jones 2
WTF?

as I have written elsewhere....

I admit I am not a fan of Apple (in particular the way Apple do things) but there is no denying that Android simply could not have happened (or rather it wouldn't be where it is today) if the iPhone had not been marketed as a smartphone for the general user (as opposed to just the rich business types).

As for Steve - regardless of what is wrong with him - I really can't understand why people are not being more compassionate?

Online sync'n'store services

Andrew Jones 2
Go

re: Dropbox

Also worth noting that once Dropbox has a copy of your file (eg - Latest Word Document, but works with any file type) only CHANGES to the file are subsequently - be that mp3s, exe, zip, doc etc.

Thus HUGE saving on upload bandwidth and for however many machines the files are being synced on - they only have to download small bits of data instead of the whole file.

US government could challenge Google's ITA travel plans

Andrew Jones 2
Thumb Up

re: API to access the stolen wi-fi data....

1) the data wasn't stolen - anybody with a wireless data could have accessed the data - if people are stupid enough to be transmitting data wireless with no encryption or security on it at all that's their fault.

2) Google did not provide access to "stolen wifi data" in the search box either

However - Google did / do provide access to an API that allows you to present a list of wireless access points mac addresses and receive an approximate GPS coordinate (using the data obtained from the Google Street view vans)

Andrew Jones 2
Stop

Seems a bit silly?

If Microsoft were proposing the takeover I could understand it - but as it is Google they would be 99% likely to provide an API interface to the new data allowing anyone to use the information for free??

Ask yourselves what mine of data do Google have access to that they HAVE NOT provided an easy way to access by means of the search box AND an API?

as far as I know nobody actually has to pay Google to use any of their data?

Google scarfs up ebook tech firm

Andrew Jones 2
Go

el reg - research?

A quick look around the site reveals in the support > downloads section mention of a USB driver for the ETI-2 a quick google on this pulls up this website: http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/EBookwise-1150 which shows an image of the device in question.....

Hope this helps for your article :)

Apple refuses frozen iPhone repair

Andrew Jones 2

Makes you wonder....

It does make you wonder -

Someone suggested 0-35 is the normal operating range of solid state electronics.......

Does this mean we should not attempt to use our car radio when the ambient temperature drops below freezing?

What about the car clock which switches on automatically anyway?

The exterior temperature display?

Are these not all solid state electronics that we quite rightly expect will continue to work just fine after the car has been subjected to stupidly low temperatures?

I know in our case a 2 litre bottle of water and 2 bottles of fanta have regularly froze solid in our car since November......

but the computer that runs the car, the clock, the radio, the entire digital dashboard, the window switches, the immobiliser, the GPS tracking unit under the bonnet and all the relays that control switching the interior lighting on and off when doors open and close has continue to operate as expected even down to -15.4'C

We do not expect ANY PART of our car to go wrong because it got a bit too cold for it - as has been pointed out above - surely it is not a unreasonable expectation that our phones should continue to operate in an outdoor environment with both the temperature and humidity ranges that any outdoor environment can bring?

I feel it must also be pointed out that any electronic device that is powered on is generating it's own source of heat particularly so if that electronic device is transmitting radio waves!

We have an outdoor Panasonic network camera that is part of the BordersWeather website which has been outside since 2006, I have not checked the manual to see what the specifications are for it's operating variables - but I rightly assumed that as an outdoor camera being sold in the UK it should both work under normal conditions and have a tolerance for the slightly more extreme weather conditions it may have to deal with - the camera is still continuing to operate and the motor that enables the pan and tilt is still working - and worked perfectly even when it was -15.4'C outside.

Andrew Jones 2

Hmmm

So if you use it in the rain and the little bit of water sensitive paper gets damp (inside the headphone jack) warranty is void, if you use it outside when it is below 0 warranty is void (which according to my climate data for the Scottish Borders is currently running at 5 months of the year where this is possible) if you use it inside you get reduced signal strength due to walls / metals etc.

This is rapidly reducing the available times you can actually use your iphone!

I wonder how long it will be until it can only be used on certain days of the week?

BT network goes titsup up north

Andrew Jones 2
FAIL

down here too...

Broadband has been up and down since about 9am here.....

01361 exchange.

Started with loss of connection for roughly 5-10 seconds at a time - moving to several minutes at a time - then a full hour or so outage and now back to intermittent up and down......

Thank god for Three MiFi devices!

ICO U-turns on Street View

Andrew Jones 2
Alert

Still don't see what the big deal is?

I am still unsure what the big deal is with all of this?

Personally I find Street View very useful - as well as a bit of recreational fun....

Now the last time I checked the information Google have collected was available to all?

The images you can see on Google Street view are the same images one can see if one visits a place and gazes upon it using their eyes.....

As for the wireless information which was collected accidentally or on purpose - it is again available to anyone - you do not need a license to transmit or receive 2.4GHz wireless transmissions and what people are broadcasting via the frequency is available to all.

As far as I understand it - Google did not actively attempt to access computer networks which were broadcasting unencrypted wireless packets - they simply captured the packets. With a bit of luck the whole situation might have encouraged people to switch on the encryption on their networks!

Now don't get me wrong - Google are capable of doing things which I do not agree with - but in general I find a lot of the things people get upset about are not that big a deal.

So to sum up - until they are caught actively attempting to decrypt protected wireless transmissions - they are not breaking the law.

L'Orange and T'Mobile: Together at last

Andrew Jones 2

and.....

and apparently also the name of a travel blog which is the first result google returns on the new name....

Google screws Scroogle

Andrew Jones 2
Alert

well obviously...

Bad example - as your name is on the list - and the number that is written on the voting ballot is added to the list next to your name as you are handed it - then no - your vote is NOT private.....

It is not strictly public either - as in the whole world cannot see who you voted for - but the information could probably used in the future.

Small and mobile ISPs may avoid new filesharing laws

Andrew Jones 2
Coffee/keyboard

As an internet cafe owner.....

As an internet cafe owner with currently only 2 terminals - but possibly going back up to 4 again if the year is good to us -

how does the new Act affect us?

I know I am not the only Internet Cafe in the area who is worrying what this new legislation will mean?

Currently Downloading anything other than Document Files is not permitted, software is not allowed to be installed (without permission) and all our traffic goes via the PublicIP server system.

There does not appear to be any guidelines anywhere as to how the new rules will affect us, as we currently require absolutely no personal information what-so-ever to use the system (all users are expected to accept the T&C's of using the system)

Met launches net café spy operation

Andrew Jones 2
Grenade

As an internet cafe owner.....

As an internet cafe owner in the Scottish Borders,

If they expect me to put posters up for them - they can pay for the privilege - the space that their posters take up - is space we could be advertising our upcoming events in the theatre.

If they expect me to install their screen savers - they can quite frankly get stuffed - again we use the screen savers for advertising upcoming events.

As we are also a coffee bar and a theatre - if they expect me to wonder about keeping an eye on what people are doing they can get stuffed - I have better things to do with my time, if they think someone deserves watching - they can do that themselves can't they? Not the first time we have had the police in for a cup of coffee.....

Femtocells wilt under attack

Andrew Jones 2
Alert

Nice idea but....

While the theory of planting an exploited femtocell within a business is a nice futuristic idea... as the femotcell requires access to the internet, one would hope that in order to keep the computer network as secure as possible - the DHCP server would only be giving out IP Addresses to those devices whose MAC addresses have been whitelisted!

Additionally why bother going to the hassle and expense of hiding a femotcell, when one can simply purchase one of the hundreds of "innocent" looking devices on the market which harbour a GSM SIM card which you simply call from anywhere you have a mobile signal and either listen to the conversation or with the more advanced models listen and watch!

If you are able to hide somewhere close to the device then the older style of a plug adapter with a microphone and an fm transmitter inside will be sufficient.

Andy

Tesco store bans shopping in pyjamas

Andrew Jones 2
Go

Time to dress back....

Group on facebook has been set-up to gather members who are outraged at this: http://bit.ly/bnA0Ey

Twitter topic is #shoppinginyourpjs

The intention will be to organise a mass UK event where members go to Tesco in the Pyjamas at a set time countrywide...

Any

BT extends trials of boondocks broadband

Andrew Jones 2
FAIL

Um... something seriously missing here....

Ok. let me get this straight......

BT want people / businesses / local authorities to pay £3k per line to broadband enable people who cannot currently get broadband - this part I get.

in 2012 BT hope to be switched over / switching over to their "21CN" which essentialy means they expect everyone to have a broadband line down which they intend to deliver their normal telephone services digitally?

So - if I am understanding this all correctly.....

BT want to introduce the UK to their new "all singing, all dancing" next generation digital network, but expect someone else will pay £3k per line to add the other 2-3 million lines to it??

if they actually succeed with this one - they may just be about as successful as another large company that charges people a monthly fee to record & playback television programmes

In which case....... FAIL!

Disconnection phone scam targets UK consumers

Andrew Jones 2

CSH 2 Mins??

I don't know where people are getting this figure of 2 minutes from before the call is automatically disconnected??

We recieved quite a number of "prank" calls not too long ago - presumably from a mobile to a landline (judging by call quality).

It was a lot of people talking and laughing and background music, quite clearly there was no-one there to actually speak to.

Hanging up did not clear the line, and pulling the RJ11 did not clear the line either.

In total our line was "open" and unusable for around 3 hours....

The phone was left on the hook for just over an hour (thinking that might be a magic number) and then picked up to find the line was still open!

Shame we didn't know about the Redial button trick - but maybe its time to impose a time limit on this undocumented feature....

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