Posts by JimmyPage 3225 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Mar 2010
So ?
Make sure the *next* phone you get suits your requirements. If enough of us did it, the networks and operators would have to accommodate us. But why bother ? There are plenty of ways to get a non-network phone in the UK. AFAICS the only reason to use a network is to get a contract phone you couldn't otherwise afford.
Bingo !
One of the key reasons I chose it.
The HTC my wife used, I did root (have to practice somewhere) but it caused no end of trouble. Updating the ROM is certainly not a beginners task.
I want MY phone to be MINE. With only software I choose. I have yet to see a branded phone without a significant amount of unremovable (and unremarkable) cruft.
I have oft-recounted how - thanks to network locks - I found myself with 12 fully working phones, not one of which could be pressed into service. After that I vowed I will never buy a network branded or locked phone again.
(p.s. thanks to the PP for the Axon heads up - I'm off WileyFox due to their non-existent customer service).
(I appreciate I may have to retract this ....)
but right now, giving the market a slap is probably a good thing. MrsJP has had 2 Android phones that were doomed to obsolescence the day they were shipped, thanks to a rapacious alignment between Motorola/HTC and Tesco. As a hardware platform, the phones were both perfectly adequate. But as for updates ... unless I rooted them and did all sorts of monkey business, that's how they stuck.
(Compare and contrast with my Wileyfox which has been updated via CyanogenMod several times since Jan 2016).
Not sure of the downvotes ? I've just worked on a project which has created a Hyperledger application which only releases information when predetermined criteria embedded in the blockchain are met, and which can revoke that permission at any time, if the right criteria are submitted.
Already the Australian government is sniffing around, with an eye to using such ability to state-sanction (and by implication un-sanction) commercial contracts.
quite aside from the amateur "our prototype wasn't compatible with the real world" excuse.
If these ever see the light of day, I suggest they are not sold in the same shop as Gummi Bears
Or are these startups so fresh they forget 15-year old research ?
capitalism can benefit the little man.
In this case, the desperate behind the scenes "you pay for it" "no you pay for it" between the various profit-oriented players has meant such a woeful investment that failure was the *only* option. Coupled with the desire of the manufacturers to try and make everything proprietary and disincentives open standards.
(I will admit that I have no evidence for that last statement But I bet it's true anyway).
For some reason I am reminded of the really crappy music/sat-nav system in my Citroen, which they wanted £800 for, and which is out performed by a basic Moto G.
but the point is that with an ECJ ruling like this, no EU country would ever do business with a non-EU UK anyway.
And there's nothing the UK can do about it - the EU27 countries will act as one, so no chance for any sneaky behind the scenes deals (a la Nissan).
Dead right. Now try and fix it.
Encrypted and verified email would probably kill 99% of scams dead. But given how few *businesses* bother, you are never going to get the end punter to manage.
Be aware that it's stories like this, which go to support a whole "it's better the government run the internet" sort of movement.
Also, the dirty little secret, is a lot of scams rely on peoples naked greed - either by "saving the <insert local equivalent of VAT>", or promising something for nothing. And then there are the "victims" who - despite all the Daily Mail Sad Face - would would not have been victims if they had followed their banks instructions to start with. I am particularly reminded of a journalist who managed to write a 2-page story about an "incredibly sophisticated scam" which relied on said journalist GIVING THEIR PIN to the scammers. Remind me again about Bank Card Security 101 ????
You can't protect people from their own stupidity or greed. Just can't be done. I'd rather we devoted out efforts to improving the lot of people who aren't greedy - as Einstein observed, there's little that can be done about human stupidity.
I refer you to my previous observation that criminals are rarely the brightest tools in the box. They really are thick as pigshit, and the only saving grace is that the police tasked to catch them - generally - are only marginally less thick.
I did hear of a junior barrister who made the mistake of challenging a detective when his clients intelligence was questioned, demanding to know how the policeman was qualified to judge his clients intelligence ...
"Well, your honour; " replied the detective. "The accused did steal a Purdey shotgun, and saw the barrels off to rob a bank of a few thousand pounds".
(This was in the 80s, and I often wondered if it was this story which sparked "Lock, Stock ...")
I seem to recall that the US generally has a more diverse consumer protection landscape which permits manufacturers to sell cheap, whereas the UKs consumer legislation requires a higher price to cover it.
Remember, most goods should be covered by a 6-year presumption of quality. SOMEONE has to pay for that ....
One advantage - often derided by the youngsters - of being an old git is having lived long enough to see patterns and understand (a bit better) how things work. (The cruel irony being that by this stage you are saddled with obligations and a lifetime of baggage which prevents you doing much with your insight).
Smartwatches are still in the "But what do they DO ??????" phase as far as Joe Public is concerned. And while it may be mildly amusing to denigrate the masses in the echo chamber that is El Reg, it doesn't change the underlying argument.
(I am the reason Pebble failed, by the way. Not single handed. But I have had a Pebble in my Amazon wishlist for 18 months. Not on my wrist. In my wishlist).
We're been here before ... long before the iPhone, there was the PSION II. It was innovative. It was hi-tech. It was featured on TV (a lot). And ... it died. And it died to a chorus of "But what does it DO ???". It wasn't that it didn't do anything - quite the reverse (it was the 80s). It was that the mass market had no point of reference, so could not grasp the underlying concept. The general attitude being "I may as well keep my filofax" (Especially when you factor in the price of the PSION - or in this case, the Pebble).
Can someone tell me how, please ?
When moving phones, one reason to not change numbers is the inability to forward on SMS. Redirecting voice calls is trivial - the network can simply forward calls (with CLI details) invisibly.
I had to carry two phones for over year because it wasn't possible to redirect SMS,
(I know there are "apps" that claim to do this - but even if they were a solution, they don't forward the CLI details. So you have no idea where the SMS came from.)
If your starting point is systems are inherently insecure, then unless you can prove otherwise (think about it) it's a valid assertion.
So the focus should be on ensuring data breaches can't be of use to hackers. Encryption at rest seems a good start.
Otherwise you are just aping the moronic HMG "can't happen here" stance. Which is scary.
Surely this bill must make the UK impossible as a location for IT provision to elsewhere in the world ? How many countries have laws requiring their companies to protect citizens data which means they now cannot use UK based suppliers ?
Along with Hard Brexit and a seeming determination to rip up established treaties, this is a clear signal that the UK is closing down for business.
I still think WP8 pisses all over android - I've liked WP since the 6.5 incarnation. But the lack of apps finally drove me to Android, which had admittedly got much less sucky since KitKat.
If MS were serious about WP (and that's a bit if - they never acted as if they were) they should have noted how being the best (Betamax) isn't the be all and end all when competing with platforms (e.g VHS - who sewed up the rentals market, and froze Betamax to a slow death).
I refer you to my original point. If your attitude to your enfranchisement is to simply say "I'm a Labour voter" without actually taking the time and trouble to understand what that means, then you - dear fellow citizen - are part of the problem.
If *voters* used their minds, there would not be any such thing as a "safe" seat.
Right now, given the perfect shitstorm headed our way, it's hard to support universal suffrage. And it's hard to avoid the sense in the observation - from before our times:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”
The working man disenfranchised themselves by persistently - and deliberately - ignoring the chances to have their say when they were enfranchised.
The cruel tragedy is, the 30% who never vote in General Elections (closer to 60% in local elections) have a pulling down effect on the 30% above them who *do* vote.
feel pleased at electing a candidate supported by the Ku Klux Klan ?
I level the same accusation at the morons who voted Trump, as I do at the Cretins who voted Brexit.
I don't give a rats arse about your protestations of "not being a racist". If you keep voting company with racists, you need to think long and hard about what you are doing.
And then not vote.
It's that simple.
I can only pray that the US doesn't experience the same upswing in racism the UK has since June 23 (*). These guys have guns. Lots of them.
(*)And just for the record, my stating that isn't hyperbole. Sporting a European surname, I grew up with "clever" digs (and just plain old "fuck off home"). Haven't heard them in over a quarter of a century, until my wife mentioned she'd been told to "go home" a few weeks back. It was a shock for her. But then her maiden name is WASP approved.
Oh how true !
I worked for a small (<10 employee) company a few years back. A newer recruit was heard to grumble that additional office furniture was from a "dodgy bloke in town" rather than an overpriced "corporate" supplier. I, and some colleagues were grateful, and said so.
"I'd rather the money went into my bonus than a sofa" was the attitude.
that is being used to try and shut people up, rather than reasoned debate needs to bear this in mind:
"A democracy that cannot change it's mind has ceased to be a democracy"
This is a very important point, and one BOTH sides would do well to understand.
I was wowed by the Regs Swift review last year, so a Swift was my Chrimbo present from Mrs Page.
Really cannot fault the phone. The only niggle I might have is the quirk that it doesn't allow it's own number to be set in the OS - apparently a Cyanogen thing. It hasn't stopped me doing anything - that I know of.
However, the companys support seems to be run by the primary school the Keystone Cops went to. When I got the phone, I tried to register - as advised - which proved impossible due to a clunky website. Eventually, after waiting a couple of weeks (website wasn't fixed and claimed I hadn't entered my email address) I managed to get through to someone who made it plain this was a man+dog operation.
Fast forward 11 months and (1) I am still being spammed by Wileyfox and (2) I am still waiting for the free screen protector I was supposed to get when I registered.
All of that said, I do like the look of the plus. If it's as good as the Swift I've had for a year, it deserves great things.
if I look that up in my dictionary of management-speak, it translates as :
"Since we can't find anyone to fill a vacancy requiring a high level of skills, experience and *judgement* for the pittance we are paying, there must be a skills crisis"
Know what. They're right. There's even an unskills crisis too. I have advertised for someone to cut my grass, and when I advertised the rate as £5 for the job, no one applied. I managed to get some replies by not mentioning the rate, but as soon as I told the caller what it was, they hung up.
So there must be a shortage of unskilled labour.
Now, where's my grant ?
Not just the current "older generation" but the also current generations who will get older.
Every reading of the runes I have done results in the conclusion that there will HAVE to be changes which allow people to continue using their iShinys with older eyes, fingers and ears.
Which is great news for the less able amongst us too.
that is a little bit <insert open mouth emoji> that there are people who can afford to throw £150,000 with what seems like abandon in the same country where I heard a story where a street canvasser, asking about town centre developments in a northern town was faced with an upset to the point of tears pensioner who was afraid the local £1 shop might close.
<- something desperately wrong in Britain.
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