Category Archives: Rants

The problems with technology.

Where can you buy music by SMS?

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It actually would be really good if more music providers allowed purchasing music by SMS. I think it’s a great idea that’s brilliant if you can’t be bothered to use credit cards (or don’t have them).

The only company that I know which offers this service seems to be 7digital but a) they are not cheap for SMS purchases of tracks (£1.50 per track is very expensive for a song – £1 is justifiable but £1.50!) and b) the £1.50 cost only covers tracks up to 99p. That means a 51p surcharge for using SMS – rip off!

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone knows any other music by SMS services, that work either in the US or the UK.

Any ideas?

I wish companies would realise the potential of this – think of all the kids who could legally be buying music by SMS without a credit card!

ISPs should just tell us the bandwidth limit, and not claim “unlimited”

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Following up from my investigation into which ISPs actually provide unlimited broadband, I am beginning to wonder why some ISPs advertise “unlimited” broadband when it clearly isn’t.

It confuses me – why can’t ISPs just advertise the amount of bandwidth that you are actually allowed to use rather than advertising a service that isn’t correct? Isn’t that some sort of fraud? I mean if I went out and bought five pints of beer and only got three, I’d be a little annoyed (honestly, I’m not like that – I don’t drink!, it’s just a scenario). It’s a similar sort of service.

Unlimited means something that has no limit. We all know that. So why are ISPs telling us a lie?

It just doesn’t make business sense to me. If you are an ISP, why do you want to tell customers they can download as much as they like when they really can’t? It just creates hassle – if users download more than you want them you have to send them a letter complaining that they are downloading too much, then another letter if they don’t have a reaction to your first letter, then threatening warnings about legal action, then court cases – it goes on and costs money!

Wouldn’t it just be simpler if ISPs just made it absolutely clear how much you can download per month without having to go through endless “fair use policies” that often don’t claim the usage allowances anyway? Aghh! This one is very frustrating.

National rate numbers – I don’t get them.

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I’ve never seen the point in national rate numbers. If you want to have a free phone service, you use an 0800 or local rate number. If you want to charge for a phone service, you use a premium rate number. Yes I know, apparently national rate numbers are shared cost, but what’s the point in that?

More than that, it bugs me why customer service lines are always 0870 or 0871 numbers. My webhosting company has one, many enquiry lines have them, and it just drives me mad.

I use Skype for most of my paid calls, mainly because it is easier for me as I already have a broadband connection supplied where I live, and Skype calls are much cheaper (in most cases) than BT calls. I have my own online number with Skype (which costs about £8 every quarter) and the unlimited country package which gives me unlimited UK calls to landlines (costing me about £3.50 per month). But that, of course, does not include 0870 numbers or any national rate numbers.

Believe it or not, it costs almost as much on Skype to call a national rate number than it does to call a mobile in the UK. What a pain in the backside. At the time of writing, mobile calls cost 16.6p per minute and calls to 0871 cost 14.8p per minute!

But that’s going off the point. What really gets to me is when business put in big bold letters “FREE 24/7 PHONE SUPPORT” or similar, when they are lying! They give you an 0871 number that costs me nearly 15p per minute to call! What a joke! It’s really frustrating!

And yes, I know we have sites like “saynoto0870” which might be brilliant for some people, but they don’t have all the numbers in the book and I’ve never managed to find a local number that corresponds to a national rate one.

In real honesty, I wish Ofcom would ban 0871 numbers and the likes, because I find them really annoying and I waste so much money every year calling them. They should make it simpler – we already have 0845 numbers and stuff like that, why do we need more?

We just need one band of numbers for freephone, one for shared cost, and one for premium. The end.

Will you be getting the new PS3 or PSP on launch?

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I won’t be – I’ve never invested in games consoles. I find they are a waste of money when I have perfectly capable PCs that cope with gaming very well.

If you have a PS3 or a PSP, will you be upgrading? Shortly we have the PSP Go coming out that features a design makeover and onboard memory, and on the 1st of September the new PS3 Slim model with a new slimmer design and better energy efficiency.

It all looks very interesting, but Sony will have lots of work to do if they want me to upgrade. I find they are just far too expensive for what they do. I’d much rather have my iPod Touch which does everything I want it to – email, music, video, games, photos, reminders – the lot!

So sorry Sony, you won’t be reaching into my pocket! Will they be reaching into yours?