Category Archives: General

General posts from GEEK! Posts that don’t really belong to a category stay here.

The UK’s broadband REALLY needs to speed up!

It amazes me – how does the government of this country get away with having such poor internet technology in this country? We are a very rich country (even in the economic downturn), yet the government still think 8MB broadband is good for most people.

OK, well I was reading Speedtest.net‘s world average speeds. The UK is currently (at the time of writing) 40th in the world for download with an average 4.99MB/s across the country. 40th? Yes I was a bit shocked to when I read this. And then you read what is ahead of us – Germany, Latvia, Sweden and Bulgaria are just a few of them.

Our average upload speed is even worse – we are 56th place! Our average is 0.68MB/s which, when considering countries like Latvia and Romania are miles ahead of us, is pretty poor.

Come on Britain – we are supposed to be up to date with technology – not on ancient copper cabling.

Microsoft pulls in more features to Windows 7

Microsoft has today mentioned on their MSDN blog a long list of new features (27 to be precise) that will be added into the Release Candidate of Windows 7 when it arrives.

To see what they’ve come up with, click here.

From a quick skim through, I can see they have made a few improvements to the Control Panel –  I like the ‘recently used’ idea as I regularly use the display options when I use different monitors. Also, they’ve added multi-touch zoom support for Windows Explorer which will be great if you have a touchscreen monitor. And apparently, according to the blog, turning off the logoff and shutdown sounds can speed up shutdowns by up to 400ms. In Microsoft’s words, “Every little bit counts”.

In addition, the ‘Safely Remove Hardware’ feature that has been in many older versions of Windows has now been renamed to simply ‘Eject’ and Microsoft have also said they have added support for some firewire cameras which wouldn’t work in Windows 7 Beta.

They have also managed to shrink the page file in Windows 7 RC which means you’ll have a little bit of extra hard drive space to play with. And of course, Microsoft finished by saying they have enhanced the driver support in Windows 7 a little further.

All things to look forward to. You’ll be updated here on GEEK! as soon as any more news arrises.

WordPress 2.7 RC1 available for download

Finally, it’s here. Grab a copy from http://wordpress.org/development/2008/12/wordpress-27-release-candidate-1/ but remember to back up your blog first.

I’ve been having issues with widgets in 2.7 and 2.6.5 recently so GEEK! is still running the good old 2.6.2. I might pluck up the courage later to see if the issues from the betas have been fixed in RC1.

See what you think!

Oh and by the way according to WordPress.com the final release of 2.7 is due next week.

Update on the Freecom Network Drive

Well after an almost unbelievable 2 months and 3 contact attempts I finally have a return slip.

I contacted them for a third time today using their online returns form and to double check I rung them up after I’d sent the RMA request to be 100% sure they got it.

Finally, late aternoon yesterday, I got a response via email. They have finally sent me the return slip. After 2 months of contact attempts!

Anyhow, I checked the RMA to make sure its all correct. All good. Sadly, the terms and conditions weren’t so excititng. Firstly, I only have 14 days to get the ruddy thing to them or the request is void and I wont get a replacement. Kinda sad? But worst of all, I have to pay postage to get it to them! They refuse to pay the postage and packaging to get it to them so I had to pay £10 to get it over to them first class. 

So I’m still not really happy, but we’ll see what happens when the drive gets to them. I’ll be off to the Post Office today to send it over there.

Review: Nokia 3120 Classic on 3 (UK)

I recently bought myself a brand new Nokia 3120 from 3 (Three). Here is a review for the item and 3 itself.

Delivery was relatively good. No fuss. Ordered last Thursday and the phone arrived Saturday lunchtime in the post. Packaging was good and nothing was damaged.

When it arrived, I charged it up for a couple of hours and it was ready to go. Threw in my new SIM card and fired it up.

It’s easy to set up. The phone will ask about the date and time, and when you’ve done that call 444. They say the phone will be activated within 24 hours but mine was activated 5 minutes later. Once 3 have sent you the text confirming the account is active and your £10 introductory top-up had gone through, you are ready to do what you want.

The phone itself is fantastic for the money. I paid £80 at three.co.uk and I got free delivery, £10 free top-up, a free £10 accessories voucher which I used to buy a 2gb memory card (you must speak to the online customer service BEFORE ordering your phone to get the code required), free Windows Live Messenger to download and use as much as I liked, as well as free Skype (however this is not available on the 3120 yet – they say it will be in the near future). Update 3.2.09: I can now get Skype on my phone – I am not sure if it officially supported, but 3 let me download it and it works fine.

The only downside I can find with the phone is that the battery life isn’t fantastic. Bluetooth and 3G will drain the battery like a rocket. If you use a lot of mobile internet or bluetooth, you will only have enough juice to last a day or two. Less frequent users will get up to 1 week.

The flat12 tariff on three is very good. Calls and texts are 12p per min/each. Internet is £1 per MB unless you get an addon, TV and unadvertised radio is 49p per day (requires 3G coverage), and video calls are 50p per min (requires 3G coverage).

Verdict: Get the phone, it’s very good for £80 but watch out if you are a frequent user as battery life isn’t fantastic.