Archive for the 'A bit of a rant' Category

Not so smart now, eh?

Posted by on March 11th 2011 in A bit of a rant, Bargains, Discounts, Shiny new kit

Virgin Mobile are doing free smartphones on discounted tariffs for Virgin Media customers so I decided to get me a HTC Wildfire. Ordered yesterday, delivered today, everything was looking good...

I got the old and the new phones into Bluetooth mode so as to get the contacts and calendar entries shuffled across, they do connect but the data wouldn't transfer due to some incompatibility thing. First fail. No worries, I thought, I can set it up for connection to the laptop and for transfer of contacts and calendar entries...

Second fail was on page 4 of the quick-start guide - "Please make sure to copy HTCDriver.exe from your phone's microSD card and install it to your computer". Easy enough, you'd think, but said file wasn't there. After some effing and blinding I found out that things have moved on since the guide was printed, and the file needed from the card is now HTC Sync_3.0 5422.exe so I started to install that only to be told to temporarily disable all anti-virus software. WTF? That's got to be a bad thing these days. I class it as the third fail. Needless to say it was necessary, so I risked it and managed to get away without letting any nasties.

Then the lappy was suddenly running the HTC Sync software in readyness for the USB connection to the Wildfire. Looking good again.

So I connected the phone and it installed but wouldn't connect to HTC Sync. More effing and blinding until I Googled and found out that "USB Debugging" had to be enabled in the phone. Amazingly, there's nothing in the guide or the handbook about the need to do that. Fourth fail.

Eventually it connected, and I told it to transfer contacts and calendar details from my Outlook 2000 installation, which I'd recently synced with the old phone.

No dice. "Unable to copy contacts from PIM" was the message. Oh, FFS! Fifth fail.

Next option was to export from Outlook to a .csv file, import that into gmail and then use the Wildfire to read-in the info. I fired up Outlook and went through the export routine only to be informed that the import/export facility hadn't been installed and that I'd need the Office 2000 installation disk. Fail six. Took me over an hour to find that, I was beginning to lose the will to live.

Eventually I did the export, I even set up a gmail account, I even got as far as doing the read-in using the phone but it's all gone tits-up - the data looks like it's been chucked in from a distance by a blind troll, hardly any of the names have the correct numbers or email addresses. Fail seven.

The phone may well be smart, but the software's shite and the ensuing jumping-through-of-hoops has led me to the conclusion that most of my free time tomorrow will be spent doing manual entry of data for the 237 contacts in my address book.

Arse!

Oh, and it occurs to me that I won't be out of the woods even then - Chris and Anna both got new smartphones too, and it's Muggins here who'll have to do all the setting up for them.

Impaired egress

Posted by on February 4th 2011 in A bit of a rant, Driveway-blocking feckwits and piss-poor parkers

Here's a big sarcastic "WELL DONE" to Jackie - mobile hairdresser and inconsiderate parker of Suzuki Ignis, registration number Y847GDU.

Please note that the next time you park either partially or wholly across the entry/exit of our driveway, I'll be reporting you to the police, and I'll be telling them just how often you block us in/out. That might make you consider apologising for making my wife late for work, rather than just walking off in a care-free manner and saying nowt.

No opinion of his own

Posted by on January 26th 2011 in A bit of a rant, In the News

Further to my post-election rant, here's a new prime example of why I won't ever vote for my current MP.  He's just not capable of ever giving his own opinion, if he ever does respond he always relays back the opinions of others. He used the same spineless tactic when I emailed him about the wildcamping petition.

How he can claim to properly represent his constituents I'll never know. FFS, he can't even represent himself:

I long for the day when we have an electoral system that will allow us to vote them out as well as in:

Articulated trailer

Posted by on January 9th 2011 in A bit of a rant, LMAO!, On the box

Another Beeb Boob...

Just finished watching the original Planet of the Apes movie and then flicked over to one of the BBC channels see what was on offer. There was one of those "on next" screen-shots informing us that Bruce Parry's latest adventure was next up.

According to the screenshot, it's called... "Artic" [sic].

I kid you not.

EBC1

Posted by on December 27th 2010 in A bit of a rant

11:40–13:40 EastEnders Omnibus Part 1: Will Max and Ryan be able to save Stacey as Janine carries out her final act of revenge?

13:55–15:25 EastEnders Omnibus Part 2: Will Max and Ryan be able to save Stacey as Janine carries out her final act of revenge?

20:00–20:30 EastEnders 27/12/2010: Jean struggles to cope without Stacey, while Pat turns her back on Janine for good.

FFS, that's 4 hours out of 8 hours & 50 minutes of Bank Holiday broadcasting. Why don't they just cut to the chase, rename the channel "EastEnders Broadcasting Channel 1" and have done with it? At least I'd know that I'd never need to look there again in search of anything decent to watch.

Cutty’s Ark

Posted by on October 19th 2010 in A bit of a rant, In the News
Tags: , , , ,

 

Harrier landing on HMS Ark Royal (source)

 

Where the hell is the sense in scrapping the Ark Royal AND scrapping all of the Harriers? This leaves Britain without a viable platform for dealing with remote conflict where we don't have access to a land-base, and it'll take ten years to get out of that hole (ten years during which anything could happen, not least the possibility that the two replacement carriers will be cancelled by future Governments). True, we have other carriers, but how effective would they be without the Harriers? The choppers that they carry are good but they just aren't suited to the same work.

In major conflicts, air-superiority has long been a necessary precursor to the success of land-based forces. Does nobody appreciate the fact that we'd probably never have set foot back on the Falklands without the Harriers that routed the invader's Air Force? Even Hitler knew that without knocking out the RAF, Operation Sea Lion was a non-starter. Times were hard during WWII, but can you imagine life here now if Churchill had scrapped the Spitfires and the Hurricanes?

OK, times are hard now and cuts have to be made, but let's be sensible. If the Ark Royal really has to go (and it's a moot-point), I'd have thought that it would be more sensible for it be sold rather than scrapped, and the Harriers redeployed or at the worst mothballed but capable of being recommissioned in times of need. Who knows what new conflict will arise in the near future? This Government doesn't, and clearly it doesn't give a 5h1t about the consequences if/when it happens.

On the subject of hard times and the National Debt, the question has to be asked - just how bad is it? As I understand it, most of the ND is because of gilts issued by successive Governments to raise money for whatever. This isn't a new thing though - the country has been running in a similar manner for many a year - the Bank of England has been exchanging banknotes for hard currency since it was set up in July 1694 in order to supply the King and Government with £1.2m to turn Britain, reeling from a defeat inflicted by the French, into a major global power. It's a system that works - folk invest in Britain because it's a sound investment and promises a decent financial return.

Bearing this in mind, surely we'll only really be in the crap when large numbers of those gilts have to be bought back or when it's time for the holders to cash them in and/or claim their coupons. I mean, if I was to lend you a tenner in the pub it's true to say that you'd be in debt to me, but we wouldn't be in financial crisis unless I needed it back and you couldn't stump up. So the next question has to be... is there really a long queue of gilt-holders taking their turns rapping on the door of Number 11 demanding financial reconciliation? If so, maybe the Government should consider keeping those Harriers for its own defence!
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