Posts by Sheddyone

Motorola bounds out the G8 with a harder, better, faster smartphone for the thrifty

Re: No NFC

NFC not on the Power either, but it is on the Plus, so that's the one I'll be getting later in the year (or more likely wait for the G9).

User filed fake trouble tickets to take helpful sysadmin to lunches

I ate all the pies

In the early 90s I worked for a SOP software and hardware seller as support.

We had one food manufacturer customer in the Black Country that made savouries (dead pigs went in one end of the factory and savoury delights came out of the other). Accounts had a 286 CP/M multi-user server with an DK511-8 (5 1/4" 80MB) as the HDD. As many older viewers will know, these were quote prone to going pop.

One month-end this happened again. I arrived mid afternoon on Friday to find the Hitachi drive had failed. The accounts manager was most upset that they couldn't generate invoices etc. Usually this meant new HDD and rebuild - approx a days work with tapes, discs config sheets etc. A colleague had told me after a previous rebuild that he'd got away with swapping the control PCB on the drive. I tried this and - miraculously - the system came back up.

The company was really grateful, and I was rewarded with 2 boxes of Steak & Kidney pies, Pork Pies, Scotch Eggs and a few other tasty treats. If I remember, the repair lasted about a year, which was pretty good going for the time.

The past is a foreign country.

Hell Desk's 800 number was perfect for horrible heavy-breathing harassment calls

Re: Just a short hop.

And of course there's this mix-up from a lady in my home town:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-36150328

Samsung eyeballs new Note

Re: 64GB of RAM?

At least the Guardian can get it right.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/02/samsungs-galaxy-note-7-is-waterproof-and-has-iris-scanning

"The Note 7 also features similar specifications to the Galaxy S7 Edge, including its IP68 rating making it waterproof to depths of 1.5m for 30 minutes, a 12-megapixel camera on the back, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, with a microSD card slot for adding more."

It goes on ...

"The phablet has a 5.7in quad HD screen, USB-C, and the integrated S-pen stylus, which is now waterproof and will work when the screen is wet."

Did I read that the S7 had some non-standard implementation of USB-C, ord did I imaging it? And does the Note have the same quirk?

Sheds.

Barclays.net Bank Holiday outage leaves firms unable to process payments

Unless there's been a shareholder revolt, I doubt whether the bank's directors will miss £10 per day, tbh. Even I could manage that!

Android users installed 2 BILLION data-stealing, backdooring apps

Agree about Samsung

Totally agree about Samsung. I bought my first and probably last Sammy, an S5, last year as a distress purchase, after my much loved HTC One M7 died in action.

While the screen is amazing and the battery life is good, everything else is rubbish; no FM radio, world's crappiest UI, world's cheapest looking phone (a £500 phone disguised as a £99 one), and so full of manufacturer crap that the 16GB RAM is full, so I have to keep uninstalling apps to add a new one. And now the long wait for Marshmallow.

I'll be hunting for a new phone this time next year and could do with some suggestions. Must have 5” + 1080 or QHD screen (ideally AMOLED), good camera, NFC, FM radio, light touch UI or vanilla Android, 32GB RAM, good battery life, USB-C. Ideally, I would also like waterproofing and SD card. Not fussed either way about removable battery or wireless charging.

The Xperia Z5 ticks many of these boxes currently. Hopefully I will have a few more options next spring. Sadly HTC seem to have lost the plot.