Disqus - Latest Comments for mattinx

Re: The big big case for the MIR tech equipment

mattinx — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 10:25:36 -0000

Two of my friends spent a couple of months rafting in Canada, the US and Mexico and used the small Peli cases to carry their valuables whilst out on the water - which included an Eee PC. They came back singing praises of the little cases which apparently performed their task admirably, despite getting a real soaking in the canoes/kayaks/rafts

Re: I can't believe how bollocks HSBC's credit card fraud system is

mattinx — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:55:39 -0000

My wife ran into the same issue with out bank a couple of years back at christmas trying to order books from amazon.co.uk on her Canadian card; and because amazon process card transactions at an odd time of day (from a Canadian bank's perspective) they kept blocking the transaction. Then again, we didn't have any issues using cards from that bank actually in the UK having told them we were going on vacation :)

I'm still surprised I've not had any problem with my Barclaycard (very rarely is it used in the UK, despite still having a UK billing address) yet the odd transaction I put through on it here goes through every time.

Re: United! You broke my Taylor Guitar!

mattinx — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:50:52 -0000

Took a while for you to pick up on this - it was on the Today show 2 weeks ago or so :&)

Re: For my friends in Boston and the States

mattinx — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:20:53 -0000

Features plenty in the book I'm currently reading - although several chapters previously to where I am now - "An Utterly Impartial History of Britain or 2000 Years of Upper-class Idiots in Charge" - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Utt... - well worth a read if you have even a passing interest in British history

Re: Use TubeExits to beat the London Underground crowds

mattinx — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:42:21 -0000

When I was regularly taking the subway in Toronto I ran across the "TTC Subway Rider Efficiency Guide" at http://www.ttcrider.ca/ which is basically the paper version of this app. Given that TO's subway system is quite a bit smaller than the tube it prints nicely into a creditcard sized booklet which you can keep in your wallet.

Re: Sky+ HD box = kaput. Now what?

mattinx — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 18:44:16 -0000

Well if it's a Samsung drive inside that Samsung box, I'm not surprised. Samsung drives are a waste of space - I've been burned a couple of times with them, and I've known plenty of other people to have serious problems with them as well.

Re: Top 10 tell tale signs your phone is on the way out

mattinx — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:13:12 -0000

Not to be a pedant, but pinhole cameras actually take remarkable good photographs, so long as there's no motion involved (due to the long exposures involved). There's no lens to screw with the optics, and you're not enlarging the negative at all. Just so long as you get the exposure right so you don't end up over or under-exposing the image - having to push and pull the developing of the paper does affect the quality somewhat.

Re: UK’s Mobile Phone register will require passport to buy PAYG handset

mattinx — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 22:44:25 -0000

Usually, I find myself reading MIR and thinking "if I were back in the UK...", for here in Canada, the mobile industry's main purpose appears to be to extract as much money from the users as possible, whilst providing a minimal number of features. However reading an article like this really just gives the impression that the country is going down the tubes and I left at about the right time.

I'm really not sure what they think they'll accomplish with such big brotherish schemes - there are always ways for the bad guys to sneak through and all it serves to do is encroach on the rights of the law abiding individual and generally make life difficult. *sighs*

Oh, and for the record, no, I didn't vote for the current government :&)

Re: Mobile Industry Review Show – Episode 26

mattinx — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:54:18 -0000

Did he say "N95 8 gigabit"?

On another note - how much are we thinking Rogers are going to extort the Canadian public to use the Ovi services then?

Re: Mobile Industry Review Show – Episode 25

mattinx — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 17:20:43 -0000

Hey - I thought it might be useful :)

Re: Mobile Industry Review Show – Episode 25

mattinx — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:17:16 -0000

Just a quick word on batteries, and *why* these things tell you to charge them before use.
Rechargeable batteries (no matter what technology) all suffer from something called "self-discharge", which basically means that if you charge them, and leave them on the shelf, not connected to anything, they will still slowly discharge. The rate at which this happens varies a lot from battery to battery, but generally, manufacturers recommend a full charge every 12 months that a battery is in storage in order to keep it healthy. When people ship you hardware with rechargeable batteries included, you've no way of telling how long the battery has been sitting on a shelf and consequently how much of it's original charge it contains.
Basically, in order to keep the battery healthy, and to make sure you maintain it's full capacity for future use, you need to give it a full charge before use.

Personally, I like to give these things a full charge the first time, then run it completely flat, then give it another full charge - just to keep the battery happy. I guess you already learned the lesson not to skip the seemingly innocuous step of not fully charging the battery before use :)

Just be grateful it's not one of those devices that takes 18 hours to perform a full charge.

Re: E62 internet USB/bluetooth question

mattinx — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:03:45 -0000

Alas it would appear that Fido (or as the case probably is, Rogers, given that they own Fido) requested that IP Passthrough be disabled - so it's not even possible.

Take a read of the thread here: http://www.howardforums.com...

I have to say that I agree with their comments on the time it takes to open an SMS - it's one of the things that annoys me on a daily basis - I click on my Inbox and it takes 3 seconds to open Messaging - Inbox, then I click on a message and it takes 5 or 6 seconds to open the message.

This is really making me think more seriously about upgrading to a newer device that's not been modified at the request of a provider.

Re: E62 internet USB/bluetooth question

mattinx — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:16:03 -0000

Ahha - thanks muchly sir - I shall have to give that a try
I'd figured it *ought* to be possible, even if it was going to take a little hackery.
I'll let you know how I make out

Re: We’ve just sent an iPhone to our 16 year old intern

mattinx — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:51:01 -0000

5A's, 5A*s - but none of that really matters once you're in the real world when all they want is relevant experience.

Re: If you could have any international country code… what would it be?

mattinx — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 20:37:49 -0000

According to wikipedia, it was originally largely geographic, with North America getting +1, Africa getting +2, Europe getting +3 and +4, Mexico, Central and South America getting +5, Southeast Asia and Oceana getting +6, Russia and Kazakhstan getting +7, East Asia getting +8, and West, South and Central Asia and the Middle East getting +9.

North America got +1 as the existing area code numbering system assigns area codes that are unique within the whole North American Numbering Plan Area, the other zones were given 2 and 3 digit codes, with larger countries getting two digit codes to allow for longer domestic numbers.

More recently, things have of course become a little less defined, fitting in new countries, islands that gain telephone service, special services, etc.

According to http://www.wtng.info/wtng-h..., the UK was listed with the area code +44 in the 1960 CCITT red book, with North America getting +1 in the later 1964 CCITT blue book.

So there.