Continue reading »]]> Spotify have just sent me an email which did get me rather overexcited. Check this one out!

I really would love to believe that you could buy 100 tracks for £1.15 – I guarantee you it would be a bestseller! Sadly, when you actually go Spotify’s site, the actual price of the package is £50. Slightly disappointed, I have to admit.

On a more general thought though, it does make me think of the amount of poorly written emails we get these days. You’d think, for a company of that size, they’d at least have someone to check over emails before they send them.

Rant over!

Continue reading »]]> I’ve been a fan of Skype for many years now – as it seems to be the most reliable and practical way to keep in touch with friends on the phone for free. I was a user of the Skype “subscriptions” for many months and was very impressed with the value for money and quality of the service.

However, it has come to my attention that the newer versions of Skype seem to be using extortionate amounts of RAM – even when the client is in idle mode.

Above is a screenshot of my Task Manager in Windows 7 32-bit on my netbook. As you can see, it’s using well over 80MB of RAM in idle mode. If you go into a call, this will trickle up to over 100MB.

I find this a little excessive – especially since the program is only trying to keep a login alive whilst in idle mode. Do something about it, Skype!

Continue reading »]]> Whilst Atari thought they had the launch of the eagerly awaited Test Drive Unlimited 2 safely in the bag, sadly they obviously didn’t prepare well enough.

Test Drive Unlimited 2 (the successor of the very popular TDU1 released in 2006) was launched earlier this week around the world. However, Atari is clearly suffering from regular server problems which are upsetting the gaming community.

All platforms (PC, Xbox 360 and PC) are currently suffering from regular server downtimes which make the game unplayable – as it relies so heavily on the internet to function.

The TDU twitter feed is currently being inundated with tweets from frustrated users – and the official forum is taking quite a battering too!

I think Atari owes a lot of frustrated users one hell of an apology!

Continue reading »]]> Despite loving mobile broadband, I have to say that the cost of maintaining it is still very high. Even with 3′s very competitive rates, it is still very expensive. At £10 per single GB, that’s a very high rate. Of course, you can get multiple GBs at cheaper rates, but you still have the annoying 30 day limit with most networks. If you don’t use the data within 30 days, you loose it.

Mobile broadband has been around a fair old while now. It took off when networks starting giving birth to 3.5G services (or HSDPA) which offered speeds that were comparable to home broadband speeds. The USB dongle brought easy connectivity to the mobile networks, whilst in more recent months the Mi-Fi dongle has made mobile internet much more convenient.

I really do think it’s about time mobile networks started offering cheaper data rates for mobile broadband. The cost of providing bandwidth is falling and networks should start passing these savings onto customers.

Continue reading »]]> Many customers of Hutchison 3G in the UK have expressed their anger at the upcoming changes to pay as you go prices on the company’s blog.

The company recently proposed changes to the price plans starting April 22nd. The changes will include a charge for voicemail and slightly more expensive calls for people on the 3Pay plan.

I am one of the people who complained, and as a result I have now got my PAC code from the company.

I’ve just spotted the network Giffgaff and have ordered a FREE SIM from them. They look brilliant as they are totally community based – just what a phone network needs to be. Anyhow, I’ll review them when I’ve got my SIM.

I’ll be sad to leave 3 as they used to be fantastic. I have been with them for over 18 months on PAYG and loved them up until the price change. However, if they are going to rip us off with unfair charges, I’ll just walk away.

3 should have thought their plans through a bit more carefully. I think they’ll regret making a move like that so quickly.

Continue reading »]]> 3 to join Vodafone? I hope not…

I am outraged at this news story I’ve just read on the internet. It claims that Vodafone are looking to do a merger with 3 after Orange’s merger with T-Mobile has been approved with the EU.

If that happens, I will be the first person to leave 3! Vodafone suck – full stop.

The whole reason I went to 3 in the first place was because Vodafone and Orange had rubbish network coverage – especially in terms of 3G. 3 has fantastic network coverage across the UK and that’s what makes it great.

If the filth that is Vodafone takes over 3 in the UK, 3 will go downhill horribly quickly. 3 is great as it is – keep it that way! Super cheap calls and texts, fantastic mobile broadband, great coverage – 3 has it all.

Will the senior people at 3 UK please think very carefully if a merger is offered with Vodafone – it could be a big mistake!

Continue reading »]]> At the end of November 2009, I wrote a blog post about how public internet hotspots (commonly known as wi-fi hotspots) may be coming to a premature end thanks to the government.

Four months on, and it doesn’t look like circumstances have improved. According to ISPReview, the government is still hinting that hotspot owners will be responsible for what their customers do on the internet. This could be disastrous for many public buildings – such as pubs, restaurants, train stations and shops. It may put them out of business if they are judged as guilty for something unlawful that their customers have done online.

If the new laws do go ahead, you may find that most wi-fi hotspots are shutting down. It is far too much of a risk for hotspot owners – a couple of illegal MP3 downloads and they could be out of business.

So if I were you, I’d look your last at the free wi-fi you have at your local pub. In a matter of months, it could disappear.

Continue reading »]]> It doesn’t bite – why is everyone panicking?

Last night I watched a programme on BBC Two called “The Virtual Revolution”, which was based on the “cost” of free facilities on the internet. It can be watched here (in the UK) on BBC iPlayer until next Saturday.

Basically it was talking about how we pay for free facilities on the internet (such as Google, YouTube, Facebook etc) with our identity rather than our hard earned cash. The programme was explaining to us how companies make vast amounts of money by providing services on the internet for free.

I believe that the main point that the programme was trying to put through was that the internet follows us and that it makes money from whatever information we feed into it. However, in some respects, I fail to see their argument.

With advertising, for example – they were talking about web sites using “cookies” to track what our interests are and to use them to follow all the details of our lives and stalk our personalities. However, that just isn’t true. None of the information collected by these sites is personally identifiable – websites aren’t allowed to collect data that might be identifiable to us without our permission. All the “cookies” do is make sure that what gets advertised to us is more of what we like. Besides, if you don’t like the idea of websites storing data about our interests – well then just turn “cookies” off. You can do that in all browsers and it will stop any data being collected.

I do, on the other hand, understand what they mean about this data problem in terms of social networking. People don’t understand what information they are putting on the internet – their photos, their interests, their friends. By posting this data on the internet, it is being archived for life – and possibly any longer. Social networking sites, such as Facebook, can keep personal data on their servers for as long as they want (I’m pretty sure, anyway) – unless people such as the Police or any other respectable authority deems otherwise. However, I totally agree with what Stephen Fry said – that we try to control the risks and use the free facilities to our advantages.

Nevertheless, I do think that people are overreacting to the internet. Internet advertising is something that has to be done for people to make money and using “cookies” to make advertising that little more pleasant is not a crime.

And the argument about “personal recommendations” just makes me laugh! I often walk into a shop and think, “wow, I wish this shop was a bit more suited to my taste”. With the internet, that can be done for me. I can log onto Amazon and have the website how I want it to be – with my stuff that I buy. Not the bestsellers or the hits – I just want the shop my way. I don’t care what everyone else buys.

So in summary, I think people should calm down a bit and realise how useful the internet is. Yes – there are a few risks with it – but as long as we understand the risks then there isn’t any problem. It’s like saying “I won’t drive my car because there’s a risk I might crash” – but you still drive it.

Continue reading »]]> What’s up with Windows 7 standby?

I have a real problem with Windows 7 at this point in time. It has a really annoying bug that drives me insane!

It seems to be an issue that occurs with ATI drivers - and since I have an ATI Radeon HD 4550, I get the issue.

When you standby your computer, the system goes into standby as normal. However, when you wake the system the Aero glass interface mysteriously disappears. For some reason, the DWM (desktop window manager), which deals with the Aero management, crashes. The only resolution to the problem is to reboot the PC – you cant fix it any other way.

It slightly defeats the point of using standby on Windows. The problem doesn’t seem to occur if you hibernate the system, but it’s still very annoying.

I tried contacting ATI but their customer support didn’t seem to understand the issue.

Is it just me or is the problem common with other systems as well?

Continue reading »]]> So as you probably know, I recently built my own computer. It’s all going brilliantly. Except from one thing…

Orange are a little bit annoying sometimes. In fact, they aren’t what you’d call an A* ISP. Their router is a little shabby (it can’t decide whether it prefers English or French, and it often forgets that it has ever been turned on), and their customer service isn’t brilliant either.

However, the one thing that annoys me most of all is the poor management of bandwidth usage. It’s a pain. I know that Orange seem to provide 40GB of monthly usage but they give you no means whatsoever of monitoring how much bandwidth you have consumed in one month.

Then, they say that if you use more than 40GB a month they’ll send you a warning and then cut your speed to 512kbps!! What the hell? They won’t let you monitor your bandwidth but they’ll send you a letter if you go in the slightest over 40GB.

And then if you fail to lower your usage after that, they’ll cut your connection!

Frankly, I’d rather pay a little extra per month than have my speed throttled if I go over my usage. Doesn’t that seem like the more sensible thing to do from a company point of view? They make a little more money rather than loosing a customer.

Honestly I think Orange are making big mistakes and ripping us off. Bethere do unlimited 8MB broadband for £13.50 per month on a shorter contract (12 months, compared to Orange’s 18 months) and there’s no set limit on how much you can use per month!

Come on Orange, this is rubbish!