Updates from February, 2010

  • Ven 6:00 pm on February 23, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Broadband, Broadband Tax, ISP, Tax, UK   

    UK Broadband Tax branded Unfair – rightly so 

    The BBC, among others, are reporting today that a proposed tax of 50p (0.5 GBP) per month to be levied against any (presumably residential) fixed telephone line has been deemed unfair by MPs.

    Oddly it seems the MPs have gotten this one right, in my opinion at least.  This tax would be used to fund ‘ultra-fast’ broadband along the lines that is already seen in more technologically advanced countries.  Problem is that ISPs, along with all communications companies operating in the UK, are lazy and greedy.  Why shell out for better infrastructure when they can still sell poor quality horrifyingly limited connections over copper-wire?

    Better communications infrastructure is badly needed in the UK but tax is not the way to pay for it.  Government intervention is needed to kick the ISPs up their ethernet and force them to pay to for the upgraded.  ”BUT”  I hear you cry “then they’ll pass on the charges to us!” – quite right!  Problem is this:  if the Government via tax were to foot the bill they’d still charge us more for their “improved and faster service, because we care about providing the best facilities possible”.  So anyone paying for their internet connections will be stung – but if improvements were to be funded by tax we’d be stung twice >__<

    Comments, thoughts?

     
  • Ven 12:56 pm on January 7, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: email, environment, hard drives   

    Save the planet, don’t print your email! Um… wut? 

    I get a lot of emails with long-winded speeches in the footer about how terrible it is to print the email that’s just been sent – think of the trees wasted!  There’s two problems with this (ignoring that wasting paper is actually good for the environment – higher demand for paper = more trees planted to meet demand):

    Firstly that adding all this at the bottom of the email wastes more paper in the event that the message *is* printed.

    Secondly that adding all this to the base of each email adds to the amount of hard drive space required to store the message on mail servers.  Hard drives use power to run, the more data there is to be stored the more hard drives are required.  The more hard drives that are required the more power will be used.

    On a side point all this including the body of the email you’re replying to has the same impact.

    I know it seems petty but if people are going whine about printing emails at least be brief about it!

    Thoughts, comments?

     
  • Ven 11:24 am on November 14, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Big-screen Shiny 

    My housemate got a shiny 42″ HD tellybob. Originally we were going to go halves then two things happened: his parents offered to put towards as Christmas pressy and I got all nay-sayer about HD.

    Thing is… now it’s here… and it’s a bit shiny. Still got my awesome Sony trinitron old-style telly in the lounge for my Wii and when I want to watch a DVD & The Shiny is in use (& because in a house with two gamer geeks being able to fire up more than one console at a time Is worthwhile). The Xbox 360 looks immediately better – suddenly there’s details before unseen *gasp*. DVD up-scaler does a fine job of making standard-deff video looks very good and there’s still a plot to hook my lappy up to it ;)

    May have to dig up the HD version of Transformers movie for a watch… Could see that being pretty nice.

    So, in short, I deal myself a slice of Humble Pie and admit that it is’ in fact, pretty good stuff this HD lark.

    Posted by Wordmobi

     
  • Ven 11:11 am on August 20, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Bookmark Sync, Chrome, Chromium, Google   

    Shiny Shiny Google Chrome Stuffs 

    Simon Says 'Use Google Chrome'

    Simon Says 'Use Google Chrome'

    So here I was, minding my own business, when thought I’d have a poke around with a Twitter search or two. First off I figured I’d search for Chrome so see if anything interesting had been spotted about Google’s shiny browser. Turns out very shiny things had happened, very shiny indeed.

    Namely the feature I’ve been waiting for… bookmark synchronisation! Great days :D I eagerly downloaded the dev version (up to version 4 already, crickey) and with great gusto I hammered in my login details and waited with baited (is that even the right spelling in this context? meh) breath for my Google Bookmarks to stream down.

    And I waited.

    And waited.

    Waited some more…

    Nothing. Oh. Suppose it must just sync between chrome and other instances of chrome. That’s still cool but was a bit of an anticlimax. But wait… the story doesn’t end here!

    Enter @chronarion! The fellow seemed to be interested in tails of bookmark fail, being involved in Chrome development an’ all. His words of wisdom told me that sadly Chrome does not sync with Google Bookmarks (which kinda makes sense – Google Bookmarks sucks.. sorry Google, it’s true). Oh woe was me, for how will I now access my bookmarks when not on one my own machines?! FEAR NOT, said @chronarion (disclaimer: not actually a quote), FOR SALVATION… is at hand. Turns out your Chrome bookmarks are also synced up rather nicely to Google Docs for web-based access where-ever you are.

    Well pleased. So export my Google Bookmarks I did, import them to Chrome I continues, and gasped I concluded as I watched with glee at my Google Docs as it filled up with my bookmarks.

    The only real down-side I’ve found so far is that you cannot edit your bookmarks within Google Docs but given the highly beta nature of the Chrome dev branch I really don’t feel like complaining about it.

    On a side point Chrome (well, Chromium to be accurate) for Mac is feeling more and more stable – I’m now using it side by side with Firefox as my two main browsers. Bookmark sync isn’t enabled in the Mac version at the moment but expect it’ll appear soon.

    Keep up the good work Google ^_^

    Note: to enable bookmark sync under Windows make sure you’re on at least version 4 of Chrome (FileHippo are always up to date) then follow the easy instructions here. Enjoy!

     
  • Ven 6:39 pm on August 17, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: gadgets, iphone, rant, tomtom   

    One device or many? 

    Lots of gadgets make for disaster-proofing

    Lots of gadgets make for disaster-proofing

    The Tomtom app for the iPhone appears to have appeared in Americaland for $99.99. Tomtom app for the iPhone (or any GPS enabled phone for that matter) seems like an obvious win in terms of usefulness and carting around less clutter but the price point seems… well a little out of sync with my idea of reality. That said my idea of reality is far removed from that of the iPhone Brigade. For me having one all singing all dancing does *everything* device is great… but ultimately a fail. So there you are, merrily chattering away on your iPhone (in the event that the call actually connected), uploading your freshly shot videos to youtube, geotagging your auto-focused snaps, emailing your friends, Twittering to everyone else, now using the Tomtom app to get to wherever it is your going when DONK…

    …the unthinkable…

    it a) breaks b) runs out of battery c) you foolishly destroy it escaping from a hoard of rampaging chickens who have momentarily mistaken your for the Hero of Time.

    Well now you’re screwed. How will you take photos of this exciting place you’ve come to? How will you tell people on twitter how awesome it is? More importantly… how will you get home??

    I have my man-bag, laden with many exciting colourful badges as it is, in which I cart around work iPhone, personal Sony Ericsson phone, digi cam, sat nav, occasionally an EeePC, MP3 player, USB pen drive – none of these things are crazy heavy or excessively bulky but it does pretty much guarantee that at no point am I truly knacked by one device keeling over.

    On a side thought $99.99 is far too much for a Tomtom app for iPhone – for the benefit of everything in one device I can see the temptation but for the issue of battery life (without car charger of course), risk of one device failure and that Tomtom have zero hardware cost and next to nothing distribution cost it all smacks of taking advantage of the iPhone crowd’s “oooh look at me and what the walled garden of my iPhone can do” attitude.

     

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