Posts by thesykes 556 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Feb 2010
@SundogUK... "Paper and ink are dirt cheap; proofreaders and marketing teams aren't"
Fair enough. How does he explain examples like this:
Grapes Of Wrath. Kindle price £7.99, paperback £6.89
No proofreading, no marketing. All that was done in the 1930's
There are costs to be recouped on sales on new books, that is understandable. Books written over 70 years ago have no such costs to recoup. That is pure profiteering.
This was mentioned on Top Gear a couple of years ago. May and Clarkson were driving some of the oldest working cars, and one of them was the first British car with that arrangement. They also mentioned the name of the American car it was copied from. Can't remember the name of either.
Stil, it may be on Youtube, or just watch Dave for a couple weeks, it's bound to be repeated at some point.
Of course you get downvoted for praising it.
Didn't you know? No matter how good the phone is, how well made, how stylish, what features it has, all of that is irrelevant, it's a Windows phone. That is enough for the rabid 'nix and Apple Fanbois to downvote anything faintly praiseworthy. Individual opinion, taste and thought is not allowed.
And no, I don't own a Windows phone.
I do, however, appreciate that competition is good for all phone users, regardless of their personal choice in handset.
Got a Nexus 7 wi-fi, then picked up a brand new mi-fi off eBay (looked like T-mobile had been giving them out like sweets, judging by how many were for sale at the time), only cost me £23. Couple of quid for an unlock code. Job done.
Now got 3G when I need it, and can hook up a laptop, phones etc., which is useful when the phone 3G signal is hopeless and the mi-fi network is stronger.
Don't have the mi-fi with me? Just tether the phone, one widget press, thanks to Widgetsoid.
Why is it vulnerable? I have downloaded apps from Amazon and yet, my phone and tablet still have the option to allow installations from other sources unticked.
How? Well, it's called unticking it when Amazon prompts me to, then ticking it again when the app is installed.
Hardly rocket science.
which bit don't they support? The Amazon App store and normal Amazon app both work perfectly fine on my Nexus 7.
Still prefer to get apps from Google Play though, as then you get notified of updates. Having to open the Amazon app, go to my apps and then updates... no thanks.
The worry for all of us is that on the next phone you buy, this piece of cr-app might be pre-installed on the phone. Combine that with a waz to prevent people rooting their phones and what are you going to do?
Easy... don't buy it. If manufacturers or operators see that Facebook-riddled phones don't sell, they won't stock any more.
This is tempting. My current phone is Android, and I like Android. But,I've just thought about what I actually use it for, and, to be honest the OS is fairly irrelevant.
A couple of games to kill time, email, calendar, make phone calls, check my bank balance and a bit of web browsing. All this can be done on WinPhone. My bank has an app on the Windows market, so, this ticks all the boxes.
I find I use my phone far less now I have a tablet, so, a limited number of apps doesn't bother me. Seems all the ones I do use on my phone are available on Windows Phone.
Oh, and less than £100 really appeals too.
My 6-year-old daughter loves playing Day Of The Tentacle on my Nexus. Maybe it's the cartoon graphics, the lack of time limits or just being able to wander around at your own pace, but something appeals to her.
Shame that games these days demand split-second timing, loud irritating "music" and minimal puzzle-solving. The imagination needed to create DOTT, Sam n Max etc is sorely missed.
So, a quick test to see if I can ditch TVCatchup and use the "players" from the various broadcaster (Should they actually broadcast anything worth watching).
This is on the relatively obscure device known as a Nexus 7, some of you may have heard of it.
BBC iPlayer. Crashes the instant I click on play, on anything, video or radio
ITV Player. Not compatible, in fact they list 5 devices that are. Surely the only people on Earth who make SkyGo look comprehensively supported
4OD. No Live stream
Demand 5. No mobile player? Certainly can't see an Android one. Not really a problem, as 5 does broadcast some crap.
Sky. Sky Go. What can I say? A handful of devices supported on a limited number of versions of Android. Recent support for the Nexus 4 & 7 failed after a minor OS upgrade, Sky took two weeks to fix. Oh, and won't support rooted devices. The Sky Go On Android message board makes entertaining reading, if only as an example of how an incompetent company deals with customers.
So, it seems that a relatively small company, with limited resources can produce a service that is far superior to those of the major broadcasting companies.
Who'd have thought that?
So, some analyst somewhere produces a report that says Android is fragmented, it's this, it's that.
Of course, all these analysts only give the world the benefit of their immense wisdom as a favour to us all, as in reality, they're all multi-billionaires following their shrewd investments over the years on the technology trends they are so brilliant at forecasting.
It's not like they pluck numbers and thoughts out of their arses and try and be controversial or stick Google/Android/Microsoft/Apple in their article titles to just get clicks, is it?
It may not have been that good, but, my favourite keyboard was on my first computer. I was still at school and the schools computers comprised a BBC B, Apple IIe, a couple of Sharp MZ-80Ks and a scattering of Spectrums.
None of them could match the keyboard on my TI-99/4a.
Perfect size keyboard for my hands at the time.
NFC is more than pay by bonk.
Look at Sony Smart Tags. Program your phone to do all sorts of things when it comes into contact with one. Turn bluetooth on or off, mute the ringer, turn an alarm on...
How about having a NFC reader in your car? Put your phone on it, bluetooth comes on and pairs with the car, and the car recognises you as the driver and sets your mirrors, seat etc to your preferences.
Get to work, quick wave and the phone mutes, vibrate is on
Use it to pay for stuff? Security? no thanks... but to switch phone settings depending on location, yes please.
think this was "proved" by the Gadget Show. Recorded a new tune on an iPad and promised it would be the theme tune from then on. New series started, the tune was still there, but, the iPad recorded version was binned and a better version was in place. Of course, the tune they used was terrible anyway, but the iPad version made it even worse.
No idea if they are still using the tune, as I stopped watching after the first episode of the new format.
By the time they've finished telling me that their name is Bob, in a heavy Indian accent, I'm already walking down the hall, ready to hold the phone up to the smoke alarm and press the test button. Then I can add the number to the call barring function in my phone, thanks for that feature, Panasonic. Of course, not being a BT customer means I get caller ID free.
"The killer will be that either Apple/Google or the Mobile Operators will want a chunk of change from the airlines for each boarding pass sent to a customer."
What?
Several airlines already have apps available that provide passengers with electronic board passes. All they need to do is change those apps to use the NFC chip and that's that.
All NFC is is a short-distance wireless protocol, and it is free to be used by whatever app wants to use it, just as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are. Just because it's currently being used for making payments doesn't mean that every NFC transfer involves money. Android Beam uses NFC and that doesn't cost anything to use.
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