Posts by Jeff Fox

DVLA: A licence to bill

Been happening for years

I got one of these 'fines' a couple of years ago for parking in an Aldi car park. This arrived (and was opened by my wife) while I was overseas on business and caused an immense amount of hassle for something which could have easily been checked and dismissed in moments. The problem is that these companies only have an interest in making money through sending out fines, anything else (such as checking the facts) is a cost.

Yet another example of the government selling our data without our permission and it should be stopped.

BBC fixes BT Home Hub auto-vomit bug

Wasn't just iplayer

I also had crashes on Steam games (Team Fortress 2 etc.) and GTA4 on the PS3 just wouldn't even connect to online games.

Got it sorted eventually when they sent me one of their new home hubs. My advice to anyone still getting these crashes is to just get a replacement

Google's Gmail verboten in Germany

Not working on T-mobile UK hotspot

I'm in a starbucks in somerset, trying to view my gmail account but I keep getting the verboten page. Additionally, every time I try to search or access google, it comes up with results in german (where possible) and it's starting to get a tad annoying! Only seems to be an issue with firefox 3 funnily enough.

BAA boots Vulture from T5 frequent flyer club

Ditto

My last flight to Chicago with BA was just rubbish, grumpy trolley-dolly, seats that didn't recline all the way, chewing gum on the handle, no magazine, frozen lasagne, rubbish pre-packed sandwich 'snack' - the list goes on.

I've been an exec club member for over 10 years and having built up my most recent miles to cover some hols in the US, I'll be looking elsewhere.

Next time I go anywhere, I'll try to get another airline I think.

7000 Leap Year Babies attack Steve Ballmer

I always lie

My birthday is in sept but I usually lie on those forms anyway. Seriously, what benefit does telling them your actual birthday give to you? Different case when money is involved otherwise it's lies, lies, lies!

UK's number one router open to VoIP hijacking

Great, so not only is it useless for gaming

it's also useless for security. I've got one of these and virtually every evening when I run Team Fortress 2, it resets the router. The more I hear about the hub, the less I like it.

The iPhone: Everything you needed to know

02 Shop Smoke & Mirrors

Went into the local O2 shop (Yeovil) and checked out 1 of the 10(!) iphones they had on display while my son looked up the hamster dance on youtube. Very nice phone and I was impressed at first with how quick it surfed the web then I twigged, they've set up hot spots in all the shops so you can't really experience the 2.5G patchy connectivity until you get it home.

Very nice gizmo but not worth anywhere near the money.

Reg Standards Soviet defines temperature and force

SI Unit for Offense?

Can I suggest that the unit of Thesp or Luvvie is used for offense? 1 Thesp is equivalent to the number of child actors with smudgy, dirty faces (pretending to be poor and / or war torn) that it takes to cause the viewer to shoot the telly? As this is bound to lead to some pretty small numbers for every day offense, I'd suggest another unit of the Luvvie, where 1 Luvvie is equal to 1 microThesp. (That way we can avoid the situation we get with Farads where we usually need to work with large multiples of tens in everday calculations)

Apple iPod Classic

Nice but ill be even better when v1.1 software is released...

I've just upgraded from a 20GB 3rd gen to a black 160GB classic, noticeably nicer UI and certainly got lots more room. Am using Sennheiser CX-300 headphones (black to match) and am really enjoying it.

My only complaints are more to do with the way that apple seem to do digital upgrades to their product lines without notice. I very nearly got stuck with an 80GB 5G which I'd bought in advance of my birthday but managed to take it back and get a classic from the apple store. (Also a slight issue with an email telling me that they'd dropped the price of my headphones by £20 received the day that mine arrived - nice apple refunded the difference though). Doesn't exactly encourage early adopters...