Category: End User

End User

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End User fun stuff

The Harrison H4 timepiece and other historical nautical memorabilia (the Cutty Sark)

Sometimes you get the opportunity to see something totally historic – like the Olympics for example. On Saturday I saw two things in the same afternoon that were in the same league. First of all the Cutty Sark was hugely impressive. Then we went to the Royal Observatory and saw the Harrison H4 timepiece. It was a lot smaller than I had imagined and a fraction of the size of its H1 – H3 predecessors. I could have stood there a lot longer than the impatience of offspring allowed.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about look em up. Here are some photos – slightly different perspective to normal:

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End User fun stuff

Facebook promoted posts – uh?

Facebook promoted posts screenshotI linked to that last post on why I want my Samsung Galaxy S3 back from Facebook. I wanted to make sure that none of my friends missed the post otherwise no-one might read it:).

For the first time ever I got this popup/toast/whatever they call it suggesting I might want to pay to promote my post.  I could “move my important news, links and photos higher in the news feed” and the post “will be marked as sponsored”.

payment options for Facebook Promoted postsI’ve never seen this before and certainly wouldn’t dream of giving money to Facebook for the “privilege” of them promoting my post. What’s more there is no mention of how long the promotion will last, what position it will have in the feed, basically nothing that specifies what I get for the cash.

I clicked through as if I was going to buy and found that they wanted £3.47 for this privilege. It was almost tempting to pay theFacebook promoted posts cause a bit of a stir - on Facebook money to find out what happens but I’m sure that most of my friends would think I was off my trolley if I did this.

In an attempt to find out what I would get for my money I searched Facebook for “promoted posts” but it only came up with a few user groups protesting about the fact that Facebook was now offering promoted posts.

Frankly who cares? I guess some businesses might want to sign up but Facebook haven’t exactly done a good job of selling it – at least not to me.

Ciao…

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End User phones

Looking forward to getting my Samsung Galaxy S3 back

Sandown Park panorama taken with Samsung Galaxy S3Quick brain dump. I’ve been using the HTC One S for just over a week now. You may recall I’ve had to send the Samsung Galaxy S3 off for a new screen.

The keyboard keys on the One S are smaller than I’m used to and I have to be very careful when typing things in not to get it completely wrong. The User Interface seems not to be quite as slick – more button presses than required for the S3. This might be totally wrong and I don’t have a specific example, particularly as I haven’t got both phones side by side to compare, but that’s what it feels right.

The smaller form factor of the One S is good except that it means that things are smaller on screen (ref keyboard above). I also like the “ring pull” feature you use to activate the screen but this in itself is not a major reason to buy.

I guess the One S must be cheaper than the S3 which is probably how it is positioned and sold and in reality it does have a great many of the benefits of Android ICS. The One S doesn’t have an SD card slot so I haven’t swapped my music across although I suppose I could have done it via cable – it does have 32GB on-board memory. I don’t listen to music often enough for me to have bothered.

Also I don’t like the zoom function on the camera. “pinching” the screen doesn’t work. You have to use the +/- slider to zoom in and out. The One S doesn’t seem to have the panorama feature though the burst mode of the S3 is there by default – you just hold the shutter button down and it just happens. The header photo is reused from a previous post – notionally to show off the panorama feature of the S3 but in reality so that I can “pin” the blog on Pinterest – it won’t let you do it without a photo (yes I know I’m a tart).

I don’t know whether these features also apply to the HTC One X but I’m not going to find out. Bring back my Galaxy S3 – as soon as possible – I will try and be more careful with you in future (strokes an imaginary phone lovingly) 🙂

That’s all folks…

PS I realise I have to be careful here. I don’t want to appear too much like an Apple fanboi. Samsung fanboi? Nah.

PPS this post is for Jonathan – he will understand.

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End User travel

…the train has stopped…

…the train has stopped and there is no cellular data coverage…

The Internet has gone to sleep. Around the world power stations idle and time stops. Life is not so efficient – things take longer to happen. Children go out to play and people sink gracefully into old age not categorised as “digitally excluded”. Families begin to talk, rediscovering relationships previously unseen in the light of day.

The clock on the mantelpiece counts its interminable seconds; tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock…

…eventually the journey continues, time speeds up and normal service is resumed…

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End User security

Payment Protection Insurance – are you eligible for £7,500 compensation?

Just had a phone call from an Indian sounding gent called Harry Connor. Actually he wasn’t totally sure what his name was because when I asked him again at the end of the call he said it was Sean Connor (not sure how he spells Sean – could be Shaun or Shawn – sorry). Perhaps he flips between both names without thinking – kind of split personality.

He was calling me about my Payment Protection Insurance and said I was eligible for £7,500 compensation.  It was all above board because he said the Ministry of Justice was behind it.

I like to make sure I’m dealing with reputable folk when being asked about financial stuff so I asked for the name of his company (ukfinancial.com) and their phone number (020 881 907 01). He said they were headquartered in London but had an office in Manchester.

Unfortunately I must have mistyped both the name of the company and the phone number and now not only can I not ring him back but I can’t even track down his website.

Ah well – another opportunity to make a fast buck lost. Never mind. I dare say he or one of his colleagues will call back. They have already called about 6 times.

I realise that the Telephone Preference Service doesn’t work overseas but someone needs to come up with a solution for this problem.

Listen to the phone call by clicking on the image of the phone below:

Image in the video is courtesy of Wikipedia

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broken gear End User

Apple iPhone faults

An apple - grown in my back garden at homeWe have an excellent team in our logistics1 department. Phillipa has efficiently found me a temporary HTC One S whilst my trusty Galaxy S3 is sent back for a new screen. This time it wasn’t a fault of Samsung – the last two times were faulty headset socket and a faulty connector that meant the phone wasn’t charging, or at least only intermittently.

This time the phone was accidentally dropped on a hard floor and unfortunately the display smashed. Ok s*&t happens. It’s gone off to the menders for a week or so and in the meantime I have a temporary HTC One S.  The One S is ok but smaller than the Galaxy S3 so I keep hitting the wrong keys. It’s also not quite as high a spec but hey, I only have it for a week or so.

Setting up the One S was very simple, as for all Android phones though I note that with Samsung all the apps I have previously downloaded are re-installed on a new phone whereas this hasn’t happened with HTC. This is probably a Samsung service that might well be replicated by HTC but I clearly haven’t signed up for it.

Anyway when I handed the S3 in to Phillipa in logistics1

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End User media

@TomAndThat presents – conservation appeal on behalf of the liberal democrats & zane lowe interview

Because I have complete editorial control over this blog I can publish anything I like. I take responsibility for the content. On this occasion I am doing the proud dad thing and offer a couple of vids published by the Davies heir. Enjoy…

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End User Regs surveillance & privacy

Draft Comms Data Bill written submissions #CCDP #commsdata

portcullisThe written evidence submitted to the Joint Select committee on the Draft Communications Data Bill amounts to 448 pages and is a surprisingly interesting read. Some of you may not have the inclination to plough through the whole lot so just for you I’m going to jot down  few choice bits in a number of posts over the next few days.

In case you didn’t remember the Draft Comms Data Bill is what was labelled the “snooper’s charter” and which caused an outcry a few months ago. There were 91 written submissions in response to the call for evidence. Trawling through them I’d say that 10 were supportive, 69 were out and out against the Bill with most of the remainder having some sort of reservation.

Those for included organisations such as the Home Office, HMRC (they want your money), The Serious Organised Crime Agency and the UK Border Agency. All quite understandable. The Local Government Agency was also supportive but complained that the scope needed to be extended to include them.

The 69 opposing submissions included many from private individuals and also the following organisations:

JANET, Just West Yorkshire, Liberty, LINX , The Newspaper Society, Open Rights Group, Society of Editors, Timico Ltd, The Tor Project, Wikimedia UK, Equality & Human Rights Commission, The Coalition for a Digital Economy, The Bar Council of England and Wales, Privacy International, Big Brother Watch, JUSTICE, The foundation for Information Policy Research.

Many large organisations take a supportive stance when it comes to helping to prevent crime. The larger UK ISPs have a technique whereby they

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Categories
End User events

The all round good guys go first but there is room for a free thinker

Bar at London's Phoenix Artist ClubThat’s “All round good guys”, “VIP exclusives” and “Champagne drinkers” sold out with only 6 each of “Free thinkers” and “Party animals” left.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about you’re probably not planning on coming. It was interesting to see that the good guys went first closely followed by the VIPs. I think that free thinkers and party animals are a good match – I suspect they are one and the same though there is always the odd exception.

Once they’re gone they’re gone though if you have already had a person invite and not got your name down don’t worry – just remind me and I’ll stick you on the list at the door. That’s it for now.

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Apps ecommerce End User

How to avoid giving Apple credit card details for iTunes setup

peel castle from fenella beach car parkOne of my beefs with Apple has been that you have to give them your credit card details when setting up an iTunes account. For the uninitiated, the independent of mind majority, you need to sign up to iTunes to be able to download apps onto your iPad/Pod/Phone, even if the apps themselves are free.

The signup process involves filling in payment method details which I have always objected to.

Last weekend my dad acquired an iPad at the tender age of 78. He understandably didn’t trust Apple with his credit card details. We set him up without iTunes but it was clear that he would need to install some apps to make full use of the device – Facebook, Google+ and Skype in particular.

The www told me it should be possible to not to have to provide the card details but none of the instructions seemed to match what I could see on the sign up screen.

In the end

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competitions End User

Caption competition winner is Stuart James

The caption competition got some great entries but someone has to win. I’ve run it past the editorial committee and after long deliberation (oo at least half a second on each entry) I have chosen the winner who is Stuart James. His excellent effort can be found here.

Stuart I will be in touch to give you details of your terrific prize which is a six month’s membership of the fabulous Spirit Health Club in Aylesbury.

Well done… 🙂

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End User fun stuff

letter from 1975

looking out to sea from Peel breakwater in the Isle of ManJust visiting my folks on the Isle of Man for the weekend and mam showed me a letter I’d written to dad dated 2nd March 1975. We were in the process of moving to the island from Caernarfon. Dad had gone on ahead whilst we finished the school term.

The letter was written in formal schoolboy Welsh and I note that my handwriting is still as bad as it was then!

I guess my observation is that I had to write dad a letter in those days. He was living in rented accommodation with no telephone. It was before the days of mobile telephony and tinterweb. That’s unimaginable for a kid these days.

I recall that at the end of that spring term in Ysgol Segontium, Caernarfon we had exams. When I arrived at Ballakermeen High School in Douglas they were about to have exams! A serious bummer for a 13 year old kid. I sat the exams and fwiw came 3rd in class without having done the syllabus (breathes on fingernails and polishes them on lapel). It all went downhill from there:).

The photo is a panoramic view gazing out to sea from the breakwater in Peel, Isle of Man. Paradise on earth and one of my favourite places.

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End User fun stuff

Amazing story from Hampton Court

panoramic view of Hampton Court Maze taken from the back of the Kings Arms Hotel

Story for you. Years ago I worked on a bid to develop an analogue chip for a company in London. It was a very big contract and we had tried to get the Purchasing Director out for a beer or eight during the process (just to better get to know him-he was a nice guy). He would have none of it but when we were eventually awarded the deal he set up a kick off dinner somewhere in Kingstson.

Our sales guy, Tony Myers, and I stayed at a pub at the entrance to Bushy Park and opposite the gates to Hampton Court. We had a bit of time to kill so we wandered around the wonderful grounds of the Palace and eventually we paid to go into the maze.

That was where we went wrong. After some time we made it into the middle but then found ourselves with only five minutes to go before the taxi was due to pick us up to take us to the restaurant. Uhoh!

Tony, however, had the solution. If you turn left at every opportunity you eventually get out. It took a lot of left turns and we practically had to run through the maze but we made it.

Of course these days I’d just get my trusty Samsung Galaxy S3 out and use Google Maps to get out – amazing detail of the maze here.

I was down for an Exec dinner on the 3rd October and then to visit Convergence Summit South at Sandown Park Racecourse. Photo of the racetrack below.

Sandown Park panorama taken with Samsung Galaxy S3

 

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End User phones

iOS5 versus iOS6

An apple - grown in my back garden at homeOk lads and lasses. My wife has an iPhone4S. Should she upgrade it to iOS6? Pros and cons? Answers on a postcard or in the comment box.

PS she is desperate to have a navigational tool in her car. This should be a consideration in the discussion.

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End User social networking

And then there were four… quiet house

Calgary Bay Isle of MullHere in the Davies house all is calm. The Sunday roast is ready to go in the oven, the veg prepared and the fireplace cleaned out in anticipation of coal being bought from the garage at the end of Burton Road.

Two kids are now away at their respective Universities with two left at home. It’s strange having a family of four where most of the time it has been six.  The most noticeable difference is the noise, or lack of it. Even though when at home they are rarely all in the same room at the same time the decibel level seems to shoot up when they are all here.

In the summer of 2011 I went camping on Mull with one of the kids.  We visited a place called Calgary Bay. This is a beautiful bay from which settlers left to go to Canada, hence, presumably Calgary. In those days it was a much bigger thing for someone to leave home. That was mostly it. Very little further contact.

Nowadays Facebook makes a huge difference. I still have a bit of banter with my Funkypancake  friend Dave despite the fact that he is now in New Zealand. I often chat with my son Tom at Warwick University online and now Hannah is established in Durham I have my lifeline to her though my plans to provide her with a hotspot for her room have been thwarted by the fact that her internet connection requires a browser login.

In time (a long, long time away in a far-away galaxy) when I become old and even more shrivelled than I am today the internet really will make the family seem close by. It is a shame that there is a community of older people today who have never had access to the web and who are probably too old to make the change. There are lots of people who would benefit from using Facebook to stay in touch with family and friends.

In time the number of internet impoverished people will become fewer and fewer because, being blunt about it, they won’t be around any more. I would be surprised if there was a single person leaving school now who doesn’t have a Facebook account, at least here in the UK. The mix will inevitably change.

It’s quite likely that what is deemed acceptable from a privacy perspective will also change things for the older generation. Many of the information requests made to telcos by the police force are for details of mobile phone location information of missing kids and folk with Alzheimers who have wandered off. I must give my login details for SamsungDive to my wife, if only so she can track which pub to come and get me from when I am no longer able to walk home (due to age and infirmity).

Right, time to put the pork in the oven. I’ve gone on enough.

PS I still don’t trust Facebook though.

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End User fun stuff

A big thank you to Sam

Took the family to Zizzi in Lincoln last night to celebrate daughter’s last night at home before heading to University for the first time. Food was good though they seemed to be a little understaffed.

Anyway in the multi-storey car park next to the restaurant, on the Brayford in Lincoln for those who know the place, I dug out some coins for the pay and display machine. I needed £2.50 and blow me down if I didn’t only have £2.30.

As I was stood there, staring at coins in outstretched hand, (I’m painting a picture here) considering my options along came a chap with his girlfriend off on a night out.

Without my having said anything he asked how much we were short and promptly came up with the twenty pence. “I’ve been in the same situation myself” he said. His name was Sam.

Sam, thanks very much for being a great bloke. If I can ever do anything to help you I hope I can do it before you have to ask.

Categories
Apps End User gaming internet

Electronic Arts infrastructure fails under weight of demand for FIFA2013

I had to pop into town yesterday to buy FIFA 2013 for my 12 year old. It was the price I had to pay for his cooperation with the BT case study filming when he got back from school. It cost an arm and a leg – somewhere in the region of £85 including 5,000 Microsoft points.

There would have been a lot of people getting around town without arms and legs because there must have been hundreds of the games  piled up behind the counter at Game Station, all on pre-order. In fact if you hadn’t pre-ordered it  you would have been out of luck as they were all spoken for.

My lad got home from school and immediately got down to business with the XBox. That’s when things started to go wrong. He traded 3,200 Microsoft points for 5,200 FIFA points. However the FIFA points did not appear. These are expensive virtual tokens (massive gross margin I’d imagine) and whilst I was sure that we would resolve the issue – @EA support has been great in the past – on this occasion the support was totally unobtainable.

I began to tweet my dissatisfaction – that’s usually a good way of getting a response (unless you are @eastcoastuk). Every minute I spent on hold I tweeted the fact with increasing levels of annoyance. Looking at the @EA twitter account I could see they had over 1 million followers. I gave up after 20 minutes.

Later the lad found out online that EA had had to switch off their points system because it had been overwhelmed. This was another Olympic ticketing/Ticketmaster moment. The next morning the system is still down for maintenance.

It surprises me that in this day and age of scalable online computing resources that businesses let themselves down like this. I often hear complaints in our house that the FIFA servers are down or too busy.

As I write the @EA twitter follower count is down to 999,901 – clearly a few disgruntled folks out there.

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agricultural End User

Next time you eat a kebab…

I just had a meeting with a local farmer. He told me, and I have no idea how a conversation on Unified Communications got on to this,  that a single ram is expected to serve a hundred ewes. Worra life. It’s a short window of enjoyment because farmers want all the lambs to arrive around the same time so the ram spends the rests of the year away from the ewes, eating grass with the lads.

The downside is that when the ram’s useful life is over it gets shot and sold to the kebab manufacturing industry. Next time you eat a kebab…

Categories
broken gear End User phones

Galaxy S3 mended under warranty – faulty USB socket

Y’all will recall that I had to send my GalaxyS3 back because it wasn’t charging. Well I’ve got it back and they have mended it under warranty. The USB socket was faulty so all is now well. If it had been water damage I would have been cross.It wasn’t water damage.

That’s all…

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End User fun stuff

School governors and giving something back to society

We are extremely fortunate with the school our kids go to. It has served the first two well and the next two are having a great time the youngest having just been elected as vice representative of his class. Starting a bit young I thought but hey…

The school is a user of modern technology. There is a portal that can be used to check on kids progress and letters to parents come via email.

I received one such letter yesterday informing me of the opportunity to become a Governor at the school. I have to admit that this is the one public function for which I shall never put myself forward. This stems from the time when the kids were at primary school and my wife asked if I’d help the school out by being a Governor. This was to me a matter of personal pleasure. Of course I’d be happy to help.

Then one day I found that I had come third and last in the election behind two mums.  Total humiliation. I didn’t even know there was a competition. Whilst I was happy to be a Governor it wasn’t something I “wanted” badly enough to compete for against women in the playground.

So there you go. I won’t be putting my name forward on this occasion. I am too busy:)

Categories
competitions End User

grand TNMOC caption competition – win fantastic 6 month membership of luxury spa worth £300

valves, valves and more valves at TNMOC

Phil Hayes stands in front of Colossus at TMNOCThis week we have a fantastic membership of the Spirit Health Club in Aylesbury to be won. The Spirit Health Club is one of the top fitness destinations in the South East and whether you live in the area or just pass through occasionally on your way to a data centre in Docklands this is the prize for you.

All you need to do is provide a caption for the photo on the right. The picture is of  Phil Hayes (Colossus Rebuild Engineer) stood in front of the Colossus computer at The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park.

commodore calculator on display at TNMOC The photo was taken at the IPCortex 10th birthday fundraiser for TNMOC last week which brought in a couple of grand for the museum.

The prize has been donated by the Spirit Health Club Aylesbury1. Club facilities include fitness suite, swimming pool, a wide variety of studio classes, sauna, steam room, and spa pool. Lifestyle consultants provide a personal touch by giving one to one guidance to help members achieve their fitness goals. Services available on site (but at additional charge) include beauty treatments, personal training, physiotherapy, massages and reflexology.

All sounds great doesn’t it. Good luck with the caption competition – just leave your entry as a comment. You can have until the end of this week to enter.

The second photo is of the Commodore Calculator on display at TNMOC. It was the first and only calculator I ever owned and I used it extensively around the time I was studying for my O’Levels. I still have it in the attic somewhere though it long ago stopped working 🙁

1Please note that the membership is valid for the Aylesbury branch only – Weston Turville, HP22 5QT.

Categories
End User phones

Super dooper Blackberry upgrade offer

My oldest boy Tom who is a good lad and is at Warwick University is coming up to contract renewal time on his mobile phone. He currently has an iPhone4 (I know very impressionable these youngsters) and is pondering an iPhone5 but a) it is more than he really wants to pay (good boy) and b) he can’t get 4G where he lives anyway.

His current phone would actually do him were it not for the fact that the connector socket is not working properly and he wants to stream stuff onto his TV.

His mobile phone company just rang to tempt him with a free handset upgrade if he renews his contract. He was offered a BlackBerry! I know not which one. What do readers think he should do? Should he accept the offer as a great deal or should he bide his time?

Suggestions in the usual way…

Categories
Apps End User google mobile apps

plot lost with sat nav plotted route?

Timico logo on fleeceI’ve been driving around the country a fair bit recently although by and large it is still easier to catch the train. I’ve even been using the Google Navigation on my Galaxy S3 so I must be visiting places I’ve never been before.

The funny thing is I’ve found that when I’m in the car I have started talking to the sat nav person. When he says “turn left now” I say ok got that thanks!!! I even do it when I’m not on my own in the car!!! Am I losing the plot or is this normal behaviour? My friends need to tell me though I’m not sure there is a cure.

When I’m out and about I also usually wear a Timico polo shirt or fleece. I’ve found that staff at the coffee counter think I’m driving a truck. I quite like this. The romantic notion of the freedom of the road.

When I were a lad I hitchhiked from Greece to London. One lorry gave me a lift the whole way. I was very lucky. He even got me signed on the ferry as a co driver. The guy behind the desk was very suspicious & didn’t believe him. I had a goatee beard, a collarless shirt and wore a leather hat. I still got onboard and even had a free driver’s meal. Happy days.

That’s all folks.

Categories
Cloud End User google

Dropbox or Google+

I’ve noticed I keep being given free space extensions in Dropbox. I’ve just realised all my photos are being uploaded there. That means I’m uploading to both Google+ and Dropbox, using wifi only.

I don’t mind this as long as Dropbox keeps extending the space. I’m not aware they provide unlimited storage aka G+ but hey. I did find a real use for Dropbox recently when my S3 battery stopped charging. The USB port was only intermittently visible & I couldn’t move files across the the laptop.  I shifted some “important” stuff into Dropbox before the battery finally went and I now still have those files. I also used Google Drive.

It probably doesn’t make sense to use both but for the moment it’s easy enough to do and I haven’t hit any problems.

That’s all…

Categories
4g End User

iPhone5 availability with 4G LTE & beginning of the end for Orange and TMobile?

Just spoke with an Orange customer service representative. They sent me an email asking if I’d like to sign up for an iPhone5. Here’s the rub. Nobody has a date for availability of LTE yet. Moreover Orange and TMobile won’t be offering it. You will have to go to a brand new company known as EE to get the service.

I’m thinking this is likely to be the beginning of the end for the Orange and TMobile brands. In time all services will be 4G and according to this logic existing Orange and TMobile customers will have mostly migrated to EE. Quite clever.

The Orange person was unable to give me a date for when EE would be up and running or when one would be able to sign up for 4G though anyone buying an iphone5 from them now could be migrated in due course.

Categories
broadband End User media

Why We Will All Need 1Gbps FTTP – 20/20 Vision – Conversations with Nat Morris

gigabit broadband conversation with Nat Morris

Nat Morris in conversation with Trefor Davies (pic taken by Umar Bajwa)

Gigabit broadband is the way forward.

Met with Nat Morris (Google him) last week. We discussed life, networks and Ultra High Definition TV. Ultra High Definition TV will dispel any doubts you ever had about why broadband networks need to get faster and faster. Gigabit broadband is the future.

Developed by Japanese national broadcaster NHK in conjunction with the BBC, Super Hi Vision has sixteen times as many pixels as HDTV. Frames have 7680 pixels across by 4320 pixels down – roughly the equivalent of a 32Mpixel photo.

It’s going to be a while before this becomes mainstream. There are only three cameras in the world capable of filming in this format (known as 8k) and the footage has to be shown on a 145-inch (3.7 metre) prototype display co-developed with Panasonic.

TV makers are currently focusing efforts on launching 4K enabled devices offering a quarter of the resolution. This is the format currently used by most digital cinema cameras. LG recently unveiled the biggest 4K television set to date  – an 84 inch screen costing more than $22,000 (I won’t be buying one). Manufacturers are likely to want to offer 8K screens by 2020 when NHK aims to begin its first experimental broadcasts in the standard.

Now this is all very well and good but what will it mean for us men in the street? Well the amount of digital bandwidth needed to stream 8k video is around 350Mbps. If we assume that households will want to have multiple streams so that people can watch Big Brother, Coronation Street, Eastenders and the footy simultaneously in different rooms whilst sharing the experience with their friends via Telepresence it isn’t difficult to imagine a world where several Gigabits per second is required to the home.

Much more info together with pics can be found at the links below. V interesting stuff that is not only going to drive broadband speeds but also memory sizes and processor power.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/researchanddevelopment/2012/08/the-olympics-in-super-hi-visio.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2012/07/super_hi_vision_ultra_hd.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19370582

Follow Nat at @natmorris .

Categories
4g End User mobile connectivity phones

iPhone5 – why would you want to buy it? #4G #LTE

The iPhone5 est arrive. This year has seen a long list of major events come and go. Now it’s the turn of the iPhone5. Ordinarily this would do nothing for me. From what I can see the spec, in the main, is no better than the Samsung GalaxyS3. I’m not a zombie fanboi, activated by keywords in Apple marketing material, programmed to obey unquestioningly, asking only how much money to profer on the altar of the fruit.

The one feature that the iPhone5 has that makes me think about getting it is support for 1,800MHz. This is a massive coup for EE (eh?). We don’t have a real list of LTE alternative handsets yet. All the main manufacturers are on the list. I don’t want two S3s (my current phone is an S3 on O2) and I don’t see a compelling enough reason to go Lumia.

My attitude to Lumia might change when Windows8 is properly launched but for the moment it aint. So it looks like iPhone5 then.

I’m not totally convinced. Do I really want to toss my principles aside for the sake of using a LTE service that won’t work in my home town using a handset that won’t roam on any other network?

Categories
End User olympics

Three cheers for us – Olympics Paralympics

I’ve been in the car on the way to Slough (I must have been a naughty boy when i was a kid) and listening to the Olympic/Paralympic parade. I had to force back the tears. Even the hardest of cynics must surely have been bowled over with the last month’s sport.

This summer has been totally emotionally exhausting.  I didn’t think it could get more inspiring than the Olympics but the Paralympics have taken that inspiration to a new high. If we can aspire to a fraction of the achievement levels of every single competitor we will be doing well.

In the meantime we as a nation deserve to bask in our own success. Drop that traditional British reserve and congratulate ourselves.  Hip Hip Hooray :))

Categories
End User phones

Samsung Galaxy S3 factory reset – phone not charging battery

Samsung Galaxy S3 reset to factory settings for sending back to, you guessed it, the factory. Hasta la vista baby. I’ve given it 24 hours to fix itself but it is still only charging the battery when it feels like it. The symptoms are identical to those I had with the Galaxy S2 – PC doesn’t recognise USB device and can only see it intermittently.

The new phone is plugged in and charging. Rather than waiting for the full charge I’ve switched it on and it is set up to go whilst still charging. It started reloading the 98 apps at 09.51 and it finished at  10ish. It’s now doing a firmware upgrade. Not taking long.

There restore doesn’t go to the extent of organising the “desktop” or whatever the equivalent is in mobile terminology but it is still easy going.

It’s all very well having great software but there is no excuse for having unreliable hardware in this day and age, especially at the volumes that Samsung is shipping the S3.

Stay tuned…

Categories
broken gear End User phones

Samsung Galaxy S3 not charging problem

Samsung Galaxy S2 water damageShort news bulletin to inform you that this morning my Samsung Galaxy S3 is not charging. This follows on from the same problem I had with the Galaxy S2.

The diagnosis for the S2 was water damage despite my assertion signed affidavit that it has never been anywhere near water.

It looks as if I’m going to have to get the S3 sent away for repair/analysis. Not good. All I can say is if the same diagnosis comes back  as for the S2 I’m going to be hounding Samsung. It’s too much of a coincidence or at the very least poor reliability in the design. Note this is already my second Galaxy S3 – the first had a headset connector problem.

The header photo is the “water” damage on the old Galaxy S2. Stay tuned for updates on this hot news item.

PS to make it easy for those who are interested I’ve pasted links to all the other posts that talk aboutSamsung Galaxy S2 and S3 problems:

http://www.trefor.net/2012/09/07/samsung-galaxy-s3-factory-reset-phone-not-charging-battery/
http://www.trefor.net/2012/06/17/headset-socket-on-my-samsung-galaxy-s3-is-not-working-audio-problem/
http://www.trefor.net/2012/07/06/water-water-everywhere-mobile-phone-water-damage-samsung-galaxy-s2-s3/
http://www.trefor.net/2012/09/26/galaxy-s3-mended-under-warranty-faulty-usb-socket/