Posts by Fred 21

BT! dumps! Yahoo! after! 10! long! years! together!

Talk21 anyone?

This looks like the final push for me to move everything over to Gmail, when I say move I mean redirect ;)

I have my email set up as following : various domains, with specific company names (as Lee D describes above) for email address (i.e. [e-mail], [e-mail]). I then point these to my Talk21 email address, which actually goes to Yahoo! I still pay for POP3 access (pennies & using port 25) but I only use Yahoo! for occassionally logging into Flickr & occassionally to check my spam folder. To be fair, all my spam seems to get caught by the spam folder and IMO has actually improved recently (not sure if thats down to Yahoo! or other factors).

If BT are going to their own portal then I won't be going along, I don't need *another* portal to log in to just check my email when I don't use any of their other services.

Lawyers of Mordor menace Hobbit boozer

I cant believe ..

That this has brought up this level of discussion - have you even looked at their website? Its a blatant LoTR \ The Hobbit rip off. They use Elijah Woods image on loyalty cards, have LoTR drinks and even admit to being a LoTR 'Theme Pub' (which, incidentally, is the first time I've heard of this pub being called that).

I'm from the area but I have no sympathy for them, you can't make a profit using someone elses work without permission, what's so difficult about that?

The business I do feel sorry for in this heavy handed approach, is the owner of the "Hungry Hobbit" in Birmingham, they've also been contacted and told to change their name by SCZ. They aren't a theme cafe, the name is just a nod to Tolkien as he grew up in the area - totally different situation to the pub imo.

Microsoft 'yanked optical drive from Xbox 720'

Second hand games

Not so sure about this, recently newer games come with a one time code to enable you to play multiplayer, if the game has been traded in the user has to purchase a new code. Assassins Creed Revelations & Battlefield 3 do for instance. From what I've seen, the price of these are nearly full game prices. I've already seen this put off customers in GAME.

I'm not so sure about the download only, the XBox for instance has Indie & arcade games which were download only - MS have recently launched several via discs in order to maximise sales. I already have a few download only games (along with avatar items etc) which I'm quite happy with, although I have heard of problems whereby the publisher pulls the game \ avatar item from the market place which means I can no longer access an item I have paid for.

Xbox 720 to double-up as a DVR

Media won't be recorded on hard drive

I'm not even sure the writer who produced the article read the patent or uses an Xbox for that matter!

The patent states that users "users can record media content while playing games. Alternatively, users can record content when the gaming console is turned off" this implies that the recording is not being made on your hard drive but - probably - in the cloud (elements of which were added to the Xbox on the last update). I'd hazard a guess that this would then mean you would stream the recorded content to your Xbox in the same way as 4oD, 5oD do on the current Xbox.

So this: "it could potentially put off content providers, who might be unhappy about their programmes being recorded to a hard drive." won't happen.

I just hope MS sort the media interface out, the music player is very frustrating when trying to navigate through lots of albums\tracks\artists stored on my NAS.

Hero dev writes the CODE that COULD SAVE THE WORLD

""asteroid collision with Earth could now be less likely"

How exactly? Does this code shift the Earth a few million miles to the left for a bit while said asteroid whizzes past?"

FTFA

""if a potential future collision were to be identified many years in advance, space probes could carry out steps to tweak the path of the NEO and deflect the collision," the NOAO cheerily noted."

Why are some of you not getting this?

Virgin Media preps firmware update for glitchy SuperHub

Automatically

As far as I know its pushed automatically, same as the firmware for the TV box. The only way I think you could possibly block it is by turning your router off overnight as this is when they tend to push the updates, however when you reconnect it may just try and update itself.

Paintball round pops Bulgarian airbag

Chest armour?

The last time I went paintballing (a couple of months ago) my missus was required to wear extra body armour (a huge chest plate) to protect her 'boobs'. This was mandatory for all females playing any of the games, while men on the other hand had the choice to wear a box or not.

I'm guessing the lady in this story either wasn't wearing body armour or she was and was simply really, really unlucky in getting hit.

NASA Legonauts set for Jupiter voyage

Cost of the mini-figs

What the article doesn't mention is that the cost of the aluminium figures is being absorbed by LEGO themselves, so the the American taxpayer doesn't have to fork out the extra money. I'm sure there will be some cost for affixing the figure to the craft but as I understand it this is in addition to the $15k.

The idea behind all this is to bring younger people into the space industry - you can follow it all here http://www.legospace.com

EA angers fans over Battlefield 3 pre-order exclusives

*Exclusive* pre-orders

While I don't agree with this, I suspect the items will only be *exclusive* for a little while. It's the way most games (esp on XBox) are going. Take 'LA Noire' from Rockstar, there were various pre-order exclusives depending on where you bought the game. Less than a month after release these pre-order bonuses became available for purchase via the Marketplace.

The year's best... console games

Meh

This year I have bought TWO 360's (one for me and t'other for the missus) as well as being a great bit of kit (links upto my media center, streams films, Sky etc who needs BluRay?) it was mainly for us to join friends etc playing MW2 online. Great fun, however if it had been BlackOps I don't think I would have bothered buying a 360. While I mostly enjoy playing BlackOps its just not as good as MW2.

Red Dead however is a game I would buy a console for, coupled with the undead DLC its pretty much my favourite game at the moment. I have Bad Company 2 but have yet to even unwrap it yet, so can't comment.

One of the best gaming items I've bought this year is the Kinect, it's a great bit of kit it just needs a killer game (come on THQ!) - Dance Central is fun but I cant see many teenage boys playing it!

US forces drop dead drug-poison killer mice from helicopters

Not quite

No the mice doesn't have to be alive, hence why you can buy frozen chicks \ pinkies \ mice for warming up and feeding to your pet snake or reptile. In the UK theres legislation that prevents you from feeding live food to your pet snake \ reptile unless its a last resort and plenty of people keep them as pets!

Orange customers squeezed out of Facebook

4 hour fix time?

Had this all day, it appears to have started (for me) around sometime between 4:00-6:00. Heard nothing from Orange (until now via this article) but Googling finds plenty of people who reported this to Orange and were told it had been identified and would be fixed within 4 hours ... the customers were told this around 9:00 this morning....

Steve Jobs carried 'ninja throwing stars' in hand luggage

Why can't he

Just use his iPad to order some off the internet like everyone else does?

Yemeni assassin hits York man with spam death threat

Just reply back with

The simple -

"Sure, I'll give you a cheque for 100k you take your 50k and then transfer the remainder into this bank account " ....

Orange coughs to data network failure

Also now working

In the hub of business activity that is Chippenham.

I've been with Orange for years and don't really have much to complain about. I agree with you, these things do happen - although a bit of communication from Orange wouldn't go a miss.

Google blames Wi-Fi snooping on rogue engineer

Says more about their coding standards

So there's no code reviews, peer reviews, unit testing or final testing at Google then? In my clients organisation this scenario would be impossible, no code goes into the product without going through at least two levels of code & peer review!

I smell bs and a (virtual?) scapegoat...

Manchester ID staff suffer isolation as new dawn fades

ID'ed for Lemsip Plus

Thats nothing, I *recently got challenged for ID to prove I was over 16 so I could buy some Lemsip (Max Plus). I am clearly over 16 and (at the time) clearly suffering from a cold but they refused to sell them to me. I had to get my missus to buy them (she looks younger than my 30 years but she had ID).

I hadn't even realised there was a age limit to buy Lemsip!

* Morrisons