It appears as though the top up tv anytime box I paid £80 back in january has finally decided to work.
This box feels like the like an alpha version rather than an end user product, essentially the box crashes constantly, loses channels whilst you are watching them and fails to record anything.
Today a new firmware has been released and now the box works, sort of. Once it is on it works, but if it goes into standby its 50/50 if its going to come back on properly. The solution to this is to leave the box on, forever, but I don't think the hippies would agree.
The box is also noisy, it has a whiny fan that stays on when it is off so you can't sleep with it in the room.
I hope they one day fix this box for good, before I fix it with a hammer.
Thursday, 27 March 2008
Friday, 14 March 2008
Anonymity and the internet
Why oh why do people seem to think that just because it is the internet that they can be rude to everyone else?
I post on a variety of different forums, on of which is particular to a certain product. Now there is a longstanding member who peoples rude messages into any thread that has a complaint regarding the product.
On several occasions he has been proven wrong by users in the thread after rudely stating some armchair fact that has no bearing on reality, only to dissapear and wait for the next opportunity to be an abusive penis.
I did wonder if he worked for the company in question, but his stated location doesn't match in which case he would appear to be just another keyboard warrior.
I post on a variety of different forums, on of which is particular to a certain product. Now there is a longstanding member who peoples rude messages into any thread that has a complaint regarding the product.
On several occasions he has been proven wrong by users in the thread after rudely stating some armchair fact that has no bearing on reality, only to dissapear and wait for the next opportunity to be an abusive penis.
I did wonder if he worked for the company in question, but his stated location doesn't match in which case he would appear to be just another keyboard warrior.
Thursday, 13 March 2008
Stupid adverts!
Who honestly texts all these stupid services who 'put you in contact with the guy/girl of your dreams?'
How desperate do you have to be to spend £1.50 per text to get in contact with a most likely fake person?
If you phone a sex chat line at least you get to hear someones voice, and it doesn't particularly matter that they might not be the person that they say they are. With these text services you spend £1.50 to receive messages (probably from a computer) and end up with low res soft porn pictures of women you could find for free on the net!
The worst part of it is BENT chat, they have been advertising druing late night Scrubs recently, what are they trying to say about people who watch Scrubs???
How desperate do you have to be to spend £1.50 per text to get in contact with a most likely fake person?
If you phone a sex chat line at least you get to hear someones voice, and it doesn't particularly matter that they might not be the person that they say they are. With these text services you spend £1.50 to receive messages (probably from a computer) and end up with low res soft porn pictures of women you could find for free on the net!
The worst part of it is BENT chat, they have been advertising druing late night Scrubs recently, what are they trying to say about people who watch Scrubs???
Finally Finished Mario
Well I finally finished Mario Galaxy after months of inactivity. I started it the day it came out but got caught up in essays for university, and then had to do my dissertation.
My Mario-ing was also interrupted by PGR4 and CoD4 on the 360, so I finally picked up last sunday on 50 stars and set about finishing the game. By monday I was at 100 stars so decided to take a break.
Today was mostly spent sat around doing nothing until midnight when I decided to take on Bowser, didn't take long but it was fun regardless.
Galaxy was a real return to Mario form, I could not stand to finish Sunshine, because the whole cleaning thing bored me, and I was worried I wouldn't enjoy this one either. But the short levels and the light hearted funness of the whole game kept me playing and enjoying it.
It's really one in the eye for all those people who need the latest games to have the best graphics, when you think about it graphics don't equal success or there would have been an original Xbox in every household.
On a side note about Xbox's, am I the only one with a working launch 360 left?
My Mario-ing was also interrupted by PGR4 and CoD4 on the 360, so I finally picked up last sunday on 50 stars and set about finishing the game. By monday I was at 100 stars so decided to take a break.
Today was mostly spent sat around doing nothing until midnight when I decided to take on Bowser, didn't take long but it was fun regardless.
Galaxy was a real return to Mario form, I could not stand to finish Sunshine, because the whole cleaning thing bored me, and I was worried I wouldn't enjoy this one either. But the short levels and the light hearted funness of the whole game kept me playing and enjoying it.
It's really one in the eye for all those people who need the latest games to have the best graphics, when you think about it graphics don't equal success or there would have been an original Xbox in every household.
On a side note about Xbox's, am I the only one with a working launch 360 left?
First ever post
This is the first blog post I have ever made, so I wouldn't get your hopes up that it will be any good.
So today I am mostly being annoyed by Phorm. For some reason my ISP has decided that it will be a very good idea if it sells my information to a third party marketing company in order to make a little extra cash on the side.
My rights to prevent this from happening are enshrined in law, but these cheeky chappies have a cunning way to sidestep the whole problem, instead of opting in to the service you have to opt out with a cookie. Now this prevents a slight problem, everytime you clear your cookies you have to remember to opt out of the service again, so if you forget (or someone else in the family deletes their browsing history) then you are automatically stuck back into their system.
I say stuck back into the system as if there is any way to stay out of it, there isn't. Regardless of your preferences your data will still get sent to the analysing machine, the cookie merely tells it to leave the data alone. Whats the problem with that I hear you cry, well aside from the fact that this company have an extremely shady past and shouldn't be trusted to look after a rock, because the data still enters the system all it would take would be a 'technical glitch' for it all to be used anyway. More dangerously a disgruntled employee could potentially use it to view credit card numbers and steal your identity!
No its not scare mongering, its true. Despite the companies reassurances to the contrary the technology could feasibly be used to view such information which is why this ridiculous opting out system is not any protection at all.
I still don't understand why my ISP believe this is their data to sell. BT don't listen in on my phonecalls in order to determine what telemarketing to send me, and I sure as hell hope Royal Mail don't open my post and read through that to better target leaflets at me. The internet is just another form of data delivery no different to that of a telephone line or a traditional mail service and my information is still my information regardless of whose network it passes through.
Personally I see an end to my contract with Virgin Media, although Phorm say they are expanding everywhere so how long I can jump providers for to maintain my privacy is anyones guess.
See here for more info: http://www.badphorm.co.uk/page.php?2
So today I am mostly being annoyed by Phorm. For some reason my ISP has decided that it will be a very good idea if it sells my information to a third party marketing company in order to make a little extra cash on the side.
My rights to prevent this from happening are enshrined in law, but these cheeky chappies have a cunning way to sidestep the whole problem, instead of opting in to the service you have to opt out with a cookie. Now this prevents a slight problem, everytime you clear your cookies you have to remember to opt out of the service again, so if you forget (or someone else in the family deletes their browsing history) then you are automatically stuck back into their system.
I say stuck back into the system as if there is any way to stay out of it, there isn't. Regardless of your preferences your data will still get sent to the analysing machine, the cookie merely tells it to leave the data alone. Whats the problem with that I hear you cry, well aside from the fact that this company have an extremely shady past and shouldn't be trusted to look after a rock, because the data still enters the system all it would take would be a 'technical glitch' for it all to be used anyway. More dangerously a disgruntled employee could potentially use it to view credit card numbers and steal your identity!
No its not scare mongering, its true. Despite the companies reassurances to the contrary the technology could feasibly be used to view such information which is why this ridiculous opting out system is not any protection at all.
I still don't understand why my ISP believe this is their data to sell. BT don't listen in on my phonecalls in order to determine what telemarketing to send me, and I sure as hell hope Royal Mail don't open my post and read through that to better target leaflets at me. The internet is just another form of data delivery no different to that of a telephone line or a traditional mail service and my information is still my information regardless of whose network it passes through.
Personally I see an end to my contract with Virgin Media, although Phorm say they are expanding everywhere so how long I can jump providers for to maintain my privacy is anyones guess.
See here for more info: http://www.badphorm.co.uk/page.php?2
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