I've seen this in the UK. My wife had a phone with Virgin and when I started work for another phone company she took her number to my staff phone account. Her text messages started taking days to arrive, unless they were from the same network. My theory was a possible problem with routing; eg. the text going to Virgin and getting confused when being passed on to the new company. Problem was, I couldn't find anyone else who even understood the problem, let alone being in a position to fix it. (I was in sales) What hope has a normal customer got?
I used to have a 128k connection from NTL until january. I upgraded to it from a 56k modem, and the difference to me was a revelation. I know it's pretty low speed compared to most other broadband services, but it was much faster than my modem, always on and didn't tie up my phone line. In that sense, maybe it shouldn't be called "high speed" but "much higher speed than your modem" isn't a very snappy name.
As for the word broadband, I thought it referred to dividing a line up into multiple channels with frequency division... a cable modem definately does that, no matter what speed it is. So does ADSL (24 seperate channels agregated together) and in fact a 56k modem does too!
Whatever. NTL's service should be called broadband, and just marketed as "entry level broadband" or something.
As for me, I have just moved to the Netherlands and recently ordered a 256k ADSL line from XS4ALL. I'm sure it will be fast enough for me.
At least in the UK, you can't assign a landline number to a mobile.
Actually you can. Or at least you could when I lived there 3 months ago, I think you still can. Orange allows you to buy a landline (01/02) number from them and route it to your mobile. They charge you about £15 per month and £0.08 per minute for the privilege. They do the same thing with freephone numbers too.
star wars epsidose two was FILMED at 1920 x 1080 progressive.
That isn't really relevant, a DVD with PAL video would be 720 x 576 interlaced, so DVD just isn't good enough for cinema. Personally I won't be happy even with hi-def DVD for cinema, if I am paying money for a big screen film, I want it without mpeg compression artefacts.
I've had it happen both with my Toshiba and my Dell. I wonder if both eraser-head mice are made by the same manufacturer...
Not quite, but according to "Upgrading and repairing PCs" all pointers of this type are licensed from IBM and use their design. My IBM thinkpad does it too, and it's a shame because otherwise trackpoints are brilliant devices and cause me much less pain than a mouse would.
Race: group of people of common ancestry.
Racist: belief in superiority of particular race; antagonism towards members of different race based on this.
The people of France are a race. In hating the French, you are a racist. It's not hard to understand.
Permission? You do realise that international law requires that the Allies rebuild Iraq and manage the country in the best interests of the people of Iraq until such time as an Iraqi government is established, don't you? No, I suppose you didn't.
Yes, I did realise that. But international law does not mandate installing a government that likes the USA rather than an elected one. International law does not mandate privatising all the utilities - that's capitalist and american thinking. Democracy actually requires that the people can choose, and they have a right to choose government-run services as much as private ones.
GSM may be an an abbreviation for French words, but GSM is a global standard originally designed by a group of European companies and organisations. Loads of countries were involved, not just France.
This argument that French products shouldn't be used is racist. I know Americans like their country, but this is racism and xenephobia on a huge scale. Shame on you all.
Finally, who gave the USA permission to build this stuff? Privatising the services in Iraq doesn't benefit them, and definately isn't democracy - it's THEFT. The services and infrastructure belongs to Iraq and after they have a democratic elected government the choice of how to run public services belongs to them.
Please note that I am not against Americans in any way, but your government really pisses me off.
12:01 is very similar to groundhog day, (based on the same story?) but with a much more sci-fi story. And it had Helen Slater in it... mmmmm, Helen Slater...
It's a shame that it was a TV movie and was completely eclipsed by Groundhog day.
but you need to send half a dozen in order to say the same amount as you can in a one minute call
Ah, but no one ever thinks about that. A simple message like "meet you at the train station" can lead to dozens of messages discussing the exact details. People always underestimate how much information you can get into a one minute call and assume that the first message is all they need.
Would someone explain to the ignorant american how the hell a cable phone works?
Simple. Cable is a two - way connection. In the UK, when you sign up for cable you can get digital TV, broadband internet, and a phone line. All connected through the cable.
Actually, that's not quite correct, because the phone line goes on normal twisted pair back to the nearest kerbside box where it is connected in to the cable network.
With the International call rates I'm able to find often being well above $0.20 per minute
I don't know why the calls you found are so expensive. I'm in the Netherlands and I can call the UK or the USA for 3 euro cents per minute. I'm sure a big telemarketing company can get a better deal than I can on that.
If the backup is of data that must be archived and stored long term then it's worth sitting down and copying it onto a pile of DVD-R's or similar. They will still be readable when a hard disk will have long since siezed up.
On the other hand if the backup is simply to guard against those "what do you mean you typed rm -rf *" moments then a copy on removeable hard disks will be more than adequate.
Personally I think a combination of the two is probably best, optical / tape media for archiving, and HD's for everyday stuff. For example, I don't need all my MP3's on tape but my wife has a copy of her thesis on CD-R.
An earlier poster stated that his SGI Octane workstation kept up with his dual processor P4. That's quite impressive for an out of date machine.
The thing about SGI machines is their bus bandwidth. It's all very well having several gigahertz at your disposal along with a top of the range graphcis card, but a PC just does not have the ability to connect them at a fast enough rate. An SGI octane uses the same design as the supercomputers - a crossbar switch. The XIO bus in an Octane can have multiple 1.6GB/s streams. Add in the power of multiple MIPS processors and MXE graphics and you have a powerful setup.
Octanes are available second hand from lots of places, such as SGI themselves, Ebay and others.
My contract began last november - but I assume they enabled roaming when they enabled dialing abroad.
It's two seperate things. There is a bar on International calls and premium numbers, and there used to be a seperate bar on roaming. BTW, dialling abroad from Vodafone is quite expensive. Have you seen Just Dial?
Does that include if your phone is off/out of range?
Yes it does. The incoming call will go to the last known location before being diverted to answerphone, so the call will go to Greece first and then get diverted back to the UK when the phone is not found. Very pricey...
Actually, there's been some changes recently. Vodafone now enables roaming by default, unless the customer has bad credit. The theory is that more customers complained about their phone not working than complained about paying for their incoming calls.
I should warn against sending the caller to answerphone when roaming - you end up paying for the incoming call, then back to the answerphone in the UK, and then paying again to listen to your answerphone. So you pay for three international calls! The only way to avoid that is to divert all calls to the answerphone before you leave home, and then you only pay to listen to messages. The drarback is all callers talk to you via the answerphone, but if you are on holiday that probably isn't too big a problem.
BTW, £60 for 200 minutes seems a bit steep. Vodafone charges £29.50 for 200 cross network minutes, or £52.50 for 400. T-mobile and Orange aren't much different there.
What I want to know is why no one is making a DVD player, cable/terrestrial/satellite reciever and TV set where all the decoding is done in the TV. Money could be saved and quality preserved by having only one MPEG decoder in the tv itself and using it to decode streams from any device, which then wouldn't need a decoder. Other standards like MJPEG could be included to accept camcorder output through firewire at little extra cost.
no, it sounds like you get slightly less functionality than tivo, not more. does your software have settings to record an entire season of a show in one click? does it let you rate shows, and then offer viewing suggestions (good suggestions) based on your thumbs up/thumbs down ratings?
No, it doesn't offer those functions, and I would be the first to admit that. I would like the ability to set recording of a whole series and to get sugestions of shows to watch, and I expect these features to appear in future software versions. The extra functionality that I was refering too was the ability to play DVD's, CD's and MP3's on the same box that lets me record and pause live TV.
I can't afford a TiVo myself, although I would love one. I do have a software solution on a PC however.
I use Showshifter from http://www.showshifter.com to watch, record and pause tv. Add Digiguide from http://www.digiguide.co.uk to this, and you now have the option to click on a program and choose "record in showshifter". Using an ATI all-in-wonder 128 card I can output the whole lot to my TV, and showshifter can use my remote control. Showshifter can also play back DVD's, CD's and MP3's, although it does need some improvement.
The cost of this? Five pounds per year for digiguide. The main drawback is that this software is only available under windows, but I do most of my work on other computers running linux and irix, so it's not too big a problem.
All in all I get slightly more functionality than a TiVo, but at a cost of being more complicated and having far more wires. I also hate to think of the total cost including the PC, but I already had that. I think what I really want is not a TiVo, but a PC in a low profile black case that can sit on top of my video. Armed with showshifter and digiguide ported to linux, I would end up with a far more functional box. I think I have just given myself a project to work on, haven't I.....
The BBC has shown all of the farscape series to date. I know this because it's the only way I get to see it. I think the BBC may even be part financing the series.
In the UK, at least one operator (Vodafone) lets you have two SIM cards (that's your 'SMID card', SIMs are what they are usually card) on a single account and single phone number. This is meant to address exactly this problem. Not sure what happens on incoming calls, perhaps one is permanently the 'incoming' device.
I can answer that - on Vodafone this service is called MultiSIM and you can nominate which device recieves the calls by typing in a code. Both devices can make outgoing calls at the same time, but they can't call each other.
Unfortunately, it's quite expensive at 7.50 UKP per month for each extra SIM, and if you want a handset with anything but the first SIM then it costs you 100 UKP more than one with a standard connection. It is also not compatible with GPRS at the moment.
As an employee of a major UK phone company I have to counter this comment. Firstly, Vodafone has offered Internet access over GPRS for a couple of months now. Secondly, GPRS does run at pretty fast speeds, such that when I am web browsing on my laptop I find GPRS on my mobile to be faster than my 56K modem on a landline. (Admittedly the landline connection is about 46K)
I agree that we need a new low power standard. I have often thought that new homes should be built with a 12V socket next to every mains socket. Each home would then need only one 12V power supply next to the fuse box instead of all these ugly seperate wall-warts. All new electronic devices should use a standardised plug and convert the 12V into whatever they need.
I wonder if you couldn't do a cellular-handoff type thing, with the router closest to the client automatically handling as much traffic as it can, and have other towers within range pick up the folks they can in the event of an overload.
I think this idea of a cellular system is probably the best one so far. The trouble with this is that it relies on a central control centre. Hopefully 3G telecoms will solve the problem by providing high-speed net access run by the mobile phone company and negate the need for private networks.
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I've seen this in the UK. My wife had a phone with Virgin and when I started work for another phone company she took her number to my staff phone account. Her text messages started taking days to arrive, unless they were from the same network. My theory was a possible problem with routing; eg. the text going to Virgin and getting confused when being passed on to the new company. Problem was, I couldn't find anyone else who even understood the problem, let alone being in a position to fix it. (I was in sales) What hope has a normal customer got?
Steve.
I used to have a 128k connection from NTL until january. I upgraded to it from a 56k modem, and the difference to me was a revelation. I know it's pretty low speed compared to most other broadband services, but it was much faster than my modem, always on and didn't tie up my phone line. In that sense, maybe it shouldn't be called "high speed" but "much higher speed than your modem" isn't a very snappy name.
As for the word broadband, I thought it referred to dividing a line up into multiple channels with frequency division... a cable modem definately does that, no matter what speed it is. So does ADSL (24 seperate channels agregated together) and in fact a 56k modem does too!
Whatever. NTL's service should be called broadband, and just marketed as "entry level broadband" or something.
As for me, I have just moved to the Netherlands and recently ordered a 256k ADSL line from XS4ALL. I'm sure it will be fast enough for me.
Actually you can. Or at least you could when I lived there 3 months ago, I think you still can.
Orange allows you to buy a landline (01/02) number from them and route it to your mobile. They charge you about £15 per month and £0.08 per minute for the privilege. They do the same thing with freephone numbers too.
That isn't really relevant, a DVD with PAL video would be 720 x 576 interlaced, so DVD just isn't good enough for cinema. Personally I won't be happy even with hi-def DVD for cinema, if I am paying money for a big screen film, I want it without mpeg compression artefacts.
Not quite, but according to "Upgrading and repairing PCs" all pointers of this type are licensed from IBM and use their design. My IBM thinkpad does it too, and it's a shame because otherwise trackpoints are brilliant devices and cause me much less pain than a mouse would.
Yes.
The people of France are a race. In hating the French, you are a racist. It's not hard to understand.Yes, I did realise that. But international law does not mandate installing a government that likes the USA rather than an elected one. International law does not mandate privatising all the utilities - that's capitalist and american thinking. Democracy actually requires that the people can choose, and they have a right to choose government-run services as much as private ones.
GSM may be an an abbreviation for French words, but GSM is a global standard originally designed by a group of European companies and organisations. Loads of countries were involved, not just France.
This argument that French products shouldn't be used is racist. I know Americans like their country, but this is racism and xenephobia on a huge scale. Shame on you all.
Finally, who gave the USA permission to build this stuff? Privatising the services in Iraq doesn't benefit them, and definately isn't democracy - it's THEFT. The services and infrastructure belongs to Iraq and after they have a democratic elected government the choice of how to run public services belongs to them.
Please note that I am not against Americans in any way, but your government really pisses me off.
12:01 is very similar to groundhog day, (based on the same story?) but with a much more sci-fi story. And it had Helen Slater in it... mmmmm, Helen Slater...
It's a shame that it was a TV movie and was completely eclipsed by Groundhog day.
Oh well.
Ah, but no one ever thinks about that. A simple message like "meet you at the train station" can lead to dozens of messages discussing the exact details. People always underestimate how much information you can get into a one minute call and assume that the first message is all they need.
Oh, I don't think that will matter. After all, American laws apply to the whole world, don't they?
Simple. Cable is a two - way connection. In the UK, when you sign up for cable you can get digital TV, broadband internet, and a phone line. All connected through the cable.
Actually, that's not quite correct, because the phone line goes on normal twisted pair back to the nearest kerbside box where it is connected in to the cable network.
Steve.
I don't know why the calls you found are so expensive. I'm in the Netherlands and I can call the UK or the USA for 3 euro cents per minute. I'm sure a big telemarketing company can get a better deal than I can on that.
Steve.
I think most people have missed the point here.
If the backup is of data that must be archived and stored long term then it's worth sitting down and copying it onto a pile of DVD-R's or similar. They will still be readable when a hard disk will have long since siezed up.
On the other hand if the backup is simply to guard against those "what do you mean you typed rm -rf *" moments then a copy on removeable hard disks will be more than adequate.
Personally I think a combination of the two is probably best, optical / tape media for archiving, and HD's for everyday stuff. For example, I don't need all my MP3's on tape but my wife has a copy of her thesis on CD-R.
Steve.
I recommend going for a second user SGI system.
An earlier poster stated that his SGI Octane workstation kept up with his dual processor P4. That's quite impressive for an out of date machine.
The thing about SGI machines is their bus bandwidth. It's all very well having several gigahertz at your disposal along with a top of the range graphcis card, but a PC just does not have the ability to connect them at a fast enough rate. An SGI octane uses the same design as the supercomputers - a crossbar switch. The XIO bus in an Octane can have multiple 1.6GB/s streams. Add in the power of multiple MIPS processors and MXE graphics and you have a powerful setup.
Octanes are available second hand from lots of places, such as SGI themselves, Ebay and others.
Steve.
My contract began last november - but I assume they enabled roaming when they enabled dialing abroad.
It's two seperate things. There is a bar on International calls and premium numbers, and there used to be a seperate bar on roaming. BTW, dialling abroad from Vodafone is quite expensive. Have you seen Just Dial?
Does that include if your phone is off/out of range?
Yes it does. The incoming call will go to the last known location before being diverted to answerphone, so the call will go to Greece first and then get diverted back to the UK when the phone is not found. Very pricey...
2 months line rental == £59
Fair enough.
Actually, there's been some changes recently. Vodafone now enables roaming by default, unless the customer has bad credit. The theory is that more customers complained about their phone not working than complained about paying for their incoming calls.
I should warn against sending the caller to answerphone when roaming - you end up paying for the incoming call, then back to the answerphone in the UK, and then paying again to listen to your answerphone. So you pay for three international calls! The only way to avoid that is to divert all calls to the answerphone before you leave home, and then you only pay to listen to messages. The drarback is all callers talk to you via the answerphone, but if you are on holiday that probably isn't too big a problem.
BTW, £60 for 200 minutes seems a bit steep. Vodafone charges £29.50 for 200 cross network minutes, or £52.50 for 400. T-mobile and Orange aren't much different there.
Steve.
Actually, the phone number is a UK national rate number. (0870) Uk mobiles begin with 07.
Steve.
What I want to know is why no one is making a DVD player, cable/terrestrial/satellite reciever and TV set where all the decoding is done in the TV. Money could be saved and quality preserved by having only one MPEG decoder in the tv itself and using it to decode streams from any device, which then wouldn't need a decoder. Other standards like MJPEG could be included to accept camcorder output through firewire at little extra cost.
Makes sense to me.
Steve.
No, it doesn't offer those functions, and I would be the first to admit that. I would like the ability to set recording of a whole series and to get sugestions of shows to watch, and I expect these features to appear in future software versions. The extra functionality that I was refering too was the ability to play DVD's, CD's and MP3's on the same box that lets me record and pause live TV.
Steve.
I can't afford a TiVo myself, although I would love one. I do have a software solution on a PC however.
I use Showshifter from http://www.showshifter.com to watch, record and pause tv. Add Digiguide from http://www.digiguide.co.uk to this, and you now have the option to click on a program and choose "record in showshifter". Using an ATI all-in-wonder 128 card I can output the whole lot to my TV, and showshifter can use my remote control. Showshifter can also play back DVD's, CD's and MP3's, although it does need some improvement.
The cost of this? Five pounds per year for digiguide. The main drawback is that this software is only available under windows, but I do most of my work on other computers running linux and irix, so it's not too big a problem.
All in all I get slightly more functionality than a TiVo, but at a cost of being more complicated and having far more wires. I also hate to think of the total cost including the PC, but I already had that. I think what I really want is not a TiVo, but a PC in a low profile black case that can sit on top of my video. Armed with showshifter and digiguide ported to linux, I would end up with a far more functional box. I think I have just given myself a project to work on, haven't I.....
Steve.
The BBC has shown all of the farscape series to date. I know this because it's the only way I get to see it. I think the BBC may even be part financing the series.
Steve.
I can answer that - on Vodafone this service is called MultiSIM and you can nominate which device recieves the calls by typing in a code. Both devices can make outgoing calls at the same time, but they can't call each other.
Unfortunately, it's quite expensive at 7.50 UKP per month for each extra SIM, and if you want a handset with anything but the first SIM then it costs you 100 UKP more than one with a standard connection. It is also not compatible with GPRS at the moment.
Hope that's helpful.
Steve.
As an employee of a major UK phone company I have to counter this comment. Firstly, Vodafone has offered Internet access over GPRS for a couple of months now. Secondly, GPRS does run at pretty fast speeds, such that when I am web browsing on my laptop I find GPRS on my mobile to be faster than my 56K modem on a landline. (Admittedly the landline connection is about 46K)
Steve.
I agree that we need a new low power standard. I have often thought that new homes should be built with a 12V socket next to every mains socket. Each home would then need only one 12V power supply next to the fuse box instead of all these ugly seperate wall-warts. All new electronic devices should use a standardised plug and convert the 12V into whatever they need.
Steve.
I think this idea of a cellular system is probably the best one so far. The trouble with this is that it relies on a central control centre. Hopefully 3G telecoms will solve the problem by providing high-speed net access run by the mobile phone company and negate the need for private networks.
Steve.