Continue reading »]]> You may well have got yourself a brand new phone this Christmas, which is always a nice present now-a-days. I, myself, got a brand new HTC Sensation XE for Christmas (technically it was an early Christmas present – or at least part of it was!) – which I adore.

But it does beg the question, what happens to the old phone? Mine always seem to end up sitting in boxes until they’re no use to anyone at all. This time I thought I’d sent it off to a recycling company. There’s method in the madness – people will pay you to recycle your old phone, but you have to be careful when you do so. So here are some top tips for recycling your old phone:

• Shop around – find the best price. You’d normally see that phrase when buying a gadget, but it does also applying to selling gadgets too. Just because a phone recycling company advertises on TV, doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll give you the best price. In fact, there’s actually quite a lot of mobile phone recycling companies around – so you’re more than likely to find a better price if you do some hunting. Take a look at sellmymobile.com - just type in your make/model and it’ll do the rest for you.
• Check the price you’re getting is consistent. Make sure you read the terms & conditions carefully when you’re selling the phone. Some buyers will only offer you a certain payment within a number of days – after which point they can lower that offer by a substantial amount. Also make sure that you’re not under any contractual obligation – it’s your phone,  you can change your mind if you want.
• Make sure you’ve backed up anything you want to keep… If you want to keep anything (like camera shots, contacts or messages), make sure you’ve got a copy safely stored on your computer or on another phone. Once you’ve sent off your phone, you may not get it back (and if you do, it may well have been flashed to remove all content). Most recent phones include software to back up content on your phone – so make use of it!
• …and deleted anything you don’t want to keep. Make sure to ‘restore factory settings’ on the phone before handing it over. You don’t want any of your personal details (or friends’ personal details) to end up in someone else’s hands. Restoring factory settings will put the phone back to how it was when you first got it, and should delete any content that was once there.
• Remove any accessories that you aren’t required to hand over. As already mentioned, you may not get your phone back – even if you request it. So make sure you remove any accessories you don’t have to hand over (perhaps accessories that you bought yourself) like memory cards, cases and spare batteries. Memory cards may well come in handy on new phones, and if not they’re a handy portable storage medium.

There you have it. Five tips to make the most of phone recycling companies. It’s debatable as to whether you’re better off auctioning your phones on sites like eBay – but if you just can’t be bothered with the hassle, you’re quickest way to get some cash is to hand it over to one of these companies. Just make sure you’re not being ripped off!

Continue reading »]]> Orange has decided that it will revamp it’s broadband packages in just over a week. This is probably an attempt to try and regain some of it’s lost customers following the company’s shameful performance over the last few months.

Customers have become fed up of the poor customer service and vague fair use policy. As a result, Orange has been loosing customers to other ISPs with better deals and clearer agreeements.

The new plans will replace the current plans and hopefully make the deals a little simpler.

However, ISPReview says that the “unlimited” packages will remain. So, unless Orange do something about their bizarre fair use policy, they won’t get anywhere. In addition, new packages won’t resolve any problems with customer service.

We’ll have to wait and see what the new plans bring. I don’t think they’ll be much to be excited about – long contracts, stupid policies, cheap routers and awful speeds. Surprise me, Orange.

(Source: ISPReview)

Continue reading »]]> Google Chrome was recently updated to it’s latest version – version 6.0. The new version includes a few minor updates.

The interface has been cleaned up a little since 5.0, with the main navigation controls looking slightly more seamless. In addition, the address bar no longer shows the “http://” part of the URL. At first I thought this would be annoying, but there are exceptions to this rule which make it more practical.

• If you copy and paste a link from the address bar, Chrome automatically replaces the “http://” in the URL. This avoids any problems with using URLs in social networks or placing them in IM conversations.
• If you go to a secure site, Chrome replaces the “https://” in the URL. This avoids any user confusion when purchasing products online.

With exception to those minor new features, there isn’t much to know. There is a new form feature which allows you to save personal details into the browser, so that you can sign up and pay for products with ease.

In addition, Google claims that there are javascript improvements with the new version together with extension sync (similar to bookmark sync but for extensions).

It is also worth noting that Chrome is now 2 years old. Happy Birthday Chrome. It was actually launched on September 2nd, 2008. I can remember trying the first Chrome beta and immediately switching from Firefox.  I haven’t gone back since!

You can grab the version by going to google.com/chrome or heading to “About Google Chrome” from within the browser.

Continue reading »]]> 3 UK, the network which claims to have the best 3G coverage in the UK, has recently announced that it will start offering the iPhone 4 from June 24th.

There’s no news on pricing as yet, but 3 have said that they’re aiming to announce tariffs on June 15th.

I’m personally very pleased with the idea. Despite the fact that I left 3 earlier this year, it’s good that 3 are finally offering one of the most popular smartphones around. And it could be perfect time, as O2 are cutting their mobile internet down later this month, coinciding with the iPhone 4 launch.

With their extensive 3G coverage in the UK, this could see a lot of customers moving from other networks to 3 for the brand new iPhone, which claims to have a bucket-load of new features that will interest a wide range of smartphone users.

Continue reading »]]> Spotify has today launched a new go-between package, presumably to try and increase the amount of paying customers.

The new package sells at £4.99 per month. It includes unlimited streaming (see Free package below), abroad usage for more than 2 weeks and no advertising. However, it lacks the offline syncing and mobile use. I actually think that this is a clever idea – not everybody has a phone or device that works with the mobile system so it makes sense to have a cheaper PC only package.

The £9.99 Premium package remains unchanged. However, Spotify have now introduced a new free package that doesn’t require an invite. You essentially get the same as the old free package, but you are limited to 20 hours streaming per month. You also don’t get the Spotify radio mode, but I don’t believe that many people use it.

Overall, I’m pretty pleased. It won’t really affect me, but for those who don’t have a compatible mobile device it makes sense to just go for the cheaper option.

Continue reading »]]> Is Ovi set to take over the world? OK maybe that’s overreacting a little…

Nokia PC Suite today notified me that a new update was available, so I checked it up and realised that a final version of Ovi Suite is now available.

The new Ovi Suite brings a brand new interface that seems to work really well.

It replaces the rather tired and limited interface from Nokia PC Suite, and seems to bring a couple of new features that work well.

For example, it now fully integrates with Ovi accounts and synchronises your photos, contacts and messages instantly.

So far, I really like it. It brings a new tidy look to my phone management, and seems to be fully compatible with Windows 7.

You can go ahead and download it from here, or do an update check from PC Suite and it should come up.

Continue reading »]]> Just browsing through the various tech news going round at the moment – with CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) dominating posts, I noticed that companies are aiming to have 2TB memory cards on the shelves in the next 2 years.

Now when you think that the most common hard disk size at this moment in time is 250-500GB, it makes you realise how quickly memory cards are growing in size and how quickly they could take over hard drives.

At the moment the biggest memory card you’ll find on the shelves is about 32GB – at most 64GB – but recent technology has enabled companies to rapidly expand the amount of storage on one memory card.

Obviously there are some factors will slow down the use of these bigger cards – cost being the biggest. It’s unclear how much these supersize cards will cost and therefore hard drives will probably continue to dominate the market for the next 24 months, at least.

However, with the larger cards now available, it opens up opportunity for Linux builders to start optimizing their operating system for memory cards  – so computers without hard drives can boot and run their operating systems with ease.

In addition, it will hopefully expand the netbook even further as the small memory cards will help to free up space for better batteries that last longer. It also solves the annoying problem of the lack of memory space in some netbooks.

So overall, the new memory cards coming in the next 12-24 months will hopefully bring new hope to computer users as they are much more convenient than big, bulky hard drives.

Continue reading »]]> Well, after many months of wanting to do it, I have finally built myself my own computer. It was great fun – for a tech nerd like me – and it also saved me a lot of money!

Here’s what I bought myself:

• An AMD Entry Level Barebones PC kit costing £140 – that includes the case, motherboard, a dual core AMD processor and 2GB RAM
• A 512MB Gigabyte HD4550 graphics card costing about £35
• A 250GB hard drive costing about £25
• A DVDRW drive costing £18
• A 19″ LG monitor costing £92
• A Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse set costing £17

That was it. If my calculations are right that comes to £327 and in my opinion that is a bargain. I’ve got a really good spec PC and a nice monitor and keyboard/mouse set to go with it. Perfect!

It does go to show how much cheaper it can be to go for the build your own PC option. It is much cheaper so is perfect if you’re on a tight budget, plus it can be really good fun if you enjoy working with computers.

I wouldn’t recommend this way of getting your hands on a nice new PC if you consider yourself a novice with computers. You do have to be careful – put the wrong component in the wrong place and you’ll be adding costs for replacements. Also, make absolutely sure that you have some sort of anti-static kit for your hands. Static electricity and internal computer components do not mix!

If you like a challenge and have a few hundred pounds to spare give this a go! You might be really pleased you bothered!

Continue reading »]]> Sony, a worldwide leader in technology (best known for the PlayStation format and common consumer electronics) has announced upcoming production of a 2 terabyte memory stick, dubbed part of the “Memory Stick XC” range.

It will be the same shape and size as the current “Memory Stick Pro” format, so perhaps there may be some backward compatibility meaning that PSP and Sony digital camera users could be in for a big boost on memory. GEEK! can’t find a lot of information regarding backward compatibility but it would be nice (although who would need 2 terabytes of storage on their PSP?).

Not a lot of word on pricing yet but word on the internet is that we might see it available in the next few years.

It looks good – but why would I want a memory stick that has several times the capacity of my hard drive? I mean the idea sounds pretty awesome, but honestly – is there a limit to how much storage we need (or can afford)? My concern would be that Sony might be “biting off a bit more than they can chew”, if you get my drift – I don’t see who is going to want to shed out hundreds (more likely thousands) of pounds on a memory stick.

In the mean time, it looks like Sony is going to concentrate on slowly increasing the capacity of the Memory Stick range. We already have 16GB and 32GB memory sticks, so maybe in the short term we will begin to see 64GB and 128GB. This will mean that Sony can slowly start to reach that maximum capacity of 2TB.

Continue reading »]]> It’s good to know that USB 3.0 is expected to start arriving on PCs and laptops from the end of this year.

The new Superspeed USB means that transfer speeds will rise from 480mbps to a whopping 5gbps. That means that if you are constantly transferring big files to USB drives, you’re in luck.

It’s being predicted that the new USB format will start shipping towards the end of the year, with it being available in a few high-end PCs. From 2010, it’s expected that about 26 million PCs will ship with USB 3.0. And by 2012, it’s expected that the number of PCs with USB 3.0 will be way over 300 million.

I’m very excited by the news, but it does mean that my laptop and PC will probably need upgrading. I can probably just upgrade the motherboard in the PC, but in the laptop it will be a bit more difficult. In addition, all of my USB 2.0 devices will seem horribly slow after USB 3.0 arrives.

Ah well, no worries for now. But you know, it’s a bit of a pain when you have so many outdated USB devices that transfer really slowly. Never mind.