Posts by Nerf Herder

BT Vision throws Microsoft Mediaroom under a bus for Linux

UK's Version of T-Box?

Telstra T-Box - available in Australia to Telstra BigPond customers - a twin-tuner, 200GB, DVR/STB with IPTV/VoD built in. Nice interface, great idea and looks good on paper. But that's the good part. The bad? It's &#^@$%^ frustrating to own and operate (excuse the muffled expletive, but I can't communicate my true meaning without it)! Many of them, including mine, are as unreliable as hell - the EPG drops programs regularly, only partly re-loads itself, and sometimes stops updating altogether, which means scheduled recordings just stop - with no ^%*!%@ warning. Then there's the unresponsive remote, system freezes, soft reboots, hard reboots and sometimes a mandatory manual reboot to get it back to working order. How often, you ask? With my system, something happens every ^#$&*@^ day!! Oh, sure, customer service is there to "help you through the problem", but that's not going to fix the firmware is it? As someone on Whirlpool put it, when they asked for advice on what to try next with their faulty remote, "Shove it sideways up a certain Telstra product manager's ****!"

Maybe part of the blame lies with NetGem, who made the underlying Linux box, or maybe it's the application developer, or something else. In any event, I sincerely hope that the BT box turns out a hell of a lot more reliable than the T-Box.

PS: I love Linux and have used it for many years, but that doesn't mean that everything that runs on Linux is good.

Google finally admits it wants to OWN YOU

Use a Second Browser

+1 for using NoScript in Firefox for Google search (I've been using it for a couple of years and haven'y had any issues save the Google search home page looking slightly different). To still use Google's other products (that require javascript) us a second browser, which may as well be Chrome seeing as it's Google's products we're talking about.

I had been using Epiphany (in Linux) as the second browser but am in the process of switching to Chrome for that function.

BigPond customers targeted by phishers

And the rest

Telstra are also calling customers, but the call comes from an 08 (Western Australia) number belonging to an associated marketing sub-contractor, even though the caller says they're Telstra from (your city).

The problem is that the caller doesn't clearly identify what the call is about and the first thing the caller asks for is your date of birth, right after there's been a big privacy breach. I even asked if it was related to the privacy breach and was told "no" it's a "line issue" and "we need to confirm your details". After much investigation, it turned out to be legitimate, but, at the time, it was indistinguishable from a scam call.

At the very least, it's a lousy way to go about this business. IMHO, typical bloody Telstra!

Dragonriders of Pern author Anne McCaffrey dies

Very Sad

I have been an Anne McCaffrey fan since childhood. I loved her stories, quirks 'n' all. The Pern series, Decision at Doona and The Ship Who Sang were my favourites. She will indeed be sadly missed.

A bright light has gone out of the world.

Which actor should play Steve in upcoming biopic?

I'm a Mac ...

... and Justin Long would be ideal for the young Jobs. (He was also in Die Hard 4 for those with short memories).

Bo Peep insures jubs for $1m

One word ...

Spanish.