Posts by Paul Boocock (UK)

WinPho 8 fans now able to order HTC handsets

Available on EE

The Lumia 920 is available on EE now. £19.99 for the device on a £46p/m contract.

Should be available in stores on Friday too.

BT to fibre up another 163 exchanges, coy on exactly where

Re: And the rest of us?

Try the Post Office. I'm in a limited up to 8mbps area (No LLU) but get unlimited downloads and a decent router from them!

The Great Smartphone OS Shoot-out

Not a bad view of the 4 platforms. Its interesting to see how some platforms top some areas but are lacking in others.

One thing though, WP7.5 does have a quick jump feature in contacts, you just need to tap the current letter and you can quickly jump to another one.

It would have been nice to have a look at the social network integration which is on offer on the various platforms too. Concentrating on the built in social functions rather than the 3rd party apps. I have a sneaky feeling WP7.5 would have come out miles ahead in this category.

HTC Titan WinPho 7.5 smartphone

Only 75%?

There's very few negative comments in this review. So how does it score so much less than the iPhone 4S? Is the screen resolution worth 20%?

Personally, I prefer the Titan hardware over most other phones at the moment but I still think I'm going to end up with the Nokia Lumia 800, its just too damn pretty.

Netflix announces UK debut

New Films

All they have to do, is offer a film for streaming at the same time as the DVD is released and I'm there.

Lovefilms streaming selection is very poor and contains hardly any new films. I cancelled my subscription, it just wasn't worth it. I hope Netflix is a vast improvement on this but I'm not holding me breath.

Motorola sharpens smartphones with revamped Razr

Going by Motorola's usual update time frames, early 2012 will be June and it will only roll out to 3 countries to start with, followed by the rest of the world around 4 months later. It will be full of bugs, whether the skin it or not. If they skin it, expect even more bugs. Maybe even some random reboots.

People need to leave Motorola well alone now. Buy a Samsung, HTC or Sony phone. Intact, buy anything that isn't from Motorola.

I'm not bitter or anything...

Sony brings Skype to Bravia HD TVs

How?

How does this work? My TV doesnt have a mic or a webcam. Its going to be an awfully one sided conversation.

Can the mic and webcam in my laptop be used?

Mobile Bing comes over all HTML5

Five-o

Hawaii Five-o has been full of Windows Phone 7 placement since the very start of the new series. As much as I'm fan of Windows Phone 7, I still cringe a little at the extremely obvious product placement. I don't mind a little product placement in TV shows, but sometimes it goes a too far.

Windows Phone 7 gets cut'n'paste, other tweaks in update

Good news!

Its nice to see MS rolling out the update to all handsets at the same time, a problem which has plagued Android and leaves a lot of users frustrated, however its still a shame that it relies so heavily on operators to actually release the update to our phones. Thats one thing Apple have got right.

Still, I'll take what I can get whenever I can get it. The marketplace bugs are the biggest issue for me at the moment and NoDo seems to fix those. So I'll be happy once Orange get around to rolling it out.

Mozilla to ship Firefox 4 on 22 March

Has some catching up to do

I think the tables have just turned back in Microsofts favour with the two latest releases. IE9 is very nice and very quick whilst FF4 still feels like a slow old dog.

I'm even trying IE9 as my main browser for a while instead of Chrome. I do miss the Google Instant feature from Chrome though but then IE9 makes up for it with Pinned Sites. Either way, Firefox 4 doesn't really bring anything new to the table besides an attempt to catch up with the other browsers.

Developer Tools in IE9

IE9 actually has some useful dev tools now, just press F12.

Microsoft lands big handbag on Google's copy kisser

Bing Relevance

I must admit, that whilst I haven't been a big fan of Bing in the past, I have noticed that results are a lot more relevant recently. Good job since I'm almost forced to used Bing on Windows Phone 7.

Google is still my homepage for now however.

Ten... wireless keyboards

Couldn't agree more

I had a Logitech diNovo Edge and it was an amazing keyboard and worth every penny. Shame I spilt coke all over it (It still worked, it was a little sticky though).

However, now I'm using the Logitech Solar K750 and I love it. The keys aren't quite as good as the diNovo but it was half the price and its solar powered (Charge has never gone below 97%). There's something strangely fun about watching the power bar go up and down as you move your hands over the solar panels.

Horror AVG update ballsup bricks Windows 7

Couldn't agree more

NOD32 is an amazing product and doesn't get mentioned enough when discussing AV solutions.

I've installed it on mine and all my families computers and I've never had any problems from anyone since upgrading them to NOD32. You don't even notice its there, its doing its job in the background without bugging me, exactly what I want my AV to do.

No wonder CompSci grads are unemployed

No problem here

Another student here who has had the opportunity to learn plenty of different languages and algorithms.

I won't deny, we did do some Java in our first semester of Level 1 but by second semester we were already deep into C/C++. We're currently coding on Playstation 2 Linux and next week begin Low Level programming on them (Roll on the frustration). The only Java I've seen in the last three years was during my brief flirtation with Android last summer.

I have no complaints and neither did my employer during my internship. Seems like Staffordshire is doing a good job then.

BSkyB mulls UK Online closure

Re: Damn!

Try Bethere.co.uk. Now owned by O2 and offering unlimited broadband (yes, its actually unlimited).

8mb is £13.79 and 24mb is £17.88.

If you have an O2 phone contract, you might find its worth going with O2 for your broadband, same network after all and it's a little bit cheaper.

Microsoft starts Office Web Apps roll out

Its Free!

It's free at the moment and I don't think they will charge, they have to compete with Google Docs.

It's very good too. Nice to have a good alternative to Google Docs.

Time will tell which service I end up using more.

HTC Desire

Better Android Battery Life

Download JuiceDefender from the Market. It does wonders for your battery life.

If I only use my Motorola Milestone lightly with JuiceDefender turned on, I can get almost double the usual battery life. I'm sure it would have a similar effect on the HTC Desire.

The heavier you use your device, the less effect JuiceDefender has. It saves battery by doing clever (magic?) things whilst your not using your phone.

First Android 2.0 smartphone arrives in UK

Order Mine

Had mine on order for a couple of days now, just waiting for it to be shipped (Tomorrow according to Expansys' website).

There are two main software differences between this and the DROID (The US version). That is, the UK doesn't get Google Maps Navigation (yet) as that is US only and the MILESTONE has Multitouch capabilities in the browser (Great news for UK buyers!)

I'm pretty excited about getting this, the only thing I don't like is the Physical keyboard. It looks rather flat but I should get used to it.