threegee

If your data is more valuable than the hardware often there's no alternative. Particularly true of a pocket machine which is near certain to take a drop at some point in time. Also uses a lot less power, has no spool-up time, and is in most cases faster - particularly for reading. This hybrid is not that much dearer than a regular hard drive, so it might just catch on in the mass market. We'll see if other HD manufacturers bring out similar.

The problem is getting worse by the week. The lousy and uneven milled edge is the give-away, with the cross on the edge often missing or poorly marked. And when you turn them between your thumb and index finger the faces of the fakes seldom line-up with each other. Many of the fakes are poorly stamped - way off center, and not at all distinct. And the lettering on the edge is often in a PLAIN typeface that has no SERIF, and is just too sharp.

Too silly! The boot loader isn't really part of the o/s at all; it's just a way of getting to it; been and gone in a few seconds. You can use any boot loader you want with any Linux - even Microsoft's lousy effort if you can figure the limited poxy documentation. If grub fails you either haven't got your hard drive partitioned properly; haven't told Grub about where the bootable partitions are properly; or you have bad hardware. Grub is very flexible because to accommodate lots of o/s' and lots of different hardware and file systems it needs to be. This really isn't a problem to the average user because they get a simple menu, and a few seconds is all they ever see of it. But if you start playing on with partitioning and multiple o/s', and don't know what you are doing - well - you'd better find someone who does! WTH is ninja? There's no comparison between Linux and Windows XP on this machine, and I alternate between them regularly on the same hardware. At the moment if I boot XP it gobbles all available (1.25GB) of very expensive micro-SIMM RAM, takes an age to boot (and I've removed loads of crap and optimised the boot sequence), and IE goes away for ages and often becomes totaly unresponsive on heavy JavaScript pages. Running Linux - as I am at the moment - it is showing 370MB (30%) of that 1.25GB in use, with lots of stuff loaded, four active desktops, and listening to BBC iPlayer as I type. Also Firefox is really responsive and a pleasure to use. This is a 1GH/z ultra low voltage Pentium CPU that's now over six years old!

Ed to quit? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/7908683/Ed-Balls-considers-quitting-Labour-leadership-race-after-union-snub.html But, does he have enough of them to go through with it? So... it's either Milliband or Milliband then. My money is on Milliband!

Well that's obviously not true, because we've already found an offer that they haven't! And, I think you'd be silly to ask for more than you need and are going to use yourself. Networks must keep a tally of how many sent to a specific address, and maybe log how many of those actually get activated. So when you go back for another one, or someone else a your address does, the request will be ignored.

Straight from the FT: Well, times are tough! And... I think the Financial Times means Channel Five.

Orange: http://freesim.orange.co.uk/6?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=PPC&sissr=1

Not so! With my 3 PAYG I earn free minutes which nearly always expire before they get used, and 0800 etc.. doesn't generally count for deduction from your allowance. It depends entirely of your phone company, so you need to check the tariff. But it's certainly not going to cost you more - so there's no point knocking it! And that's another money saving tip: shop around and see if your tariff is the most suitable one for your usage. Millions don't, and the phone companies make millions in extra profits because of this. Consider carrying multiple SIMs to get the best deal at all times. An unlocked phone allows you to keep multiple SIMs and swap networks to optimise your usage, and also to take advantage of special offers. Locked phones on contracts generally work out a lot more expensive in the long-run than simply going to a shop and buying an unlocked one, and then selecting the network yourself. And, at the end of the contract, you could get charged extra to unlock it too - so you've got to add that to the cost of ownership. Locked phones are worth less on the second hand market too, so you're not going to pass that cost on to someone else. Compare the cost of buying the phone on credit with the cost of signing the contract, and disregard all the free minutes you realistically know you will never use. It's unlikely you are going to change your usage pattern significanly, so learn from yourself! Also take into account that you might want to change the phone, or the tariff, before the contract runs out. Don't be pushed into signing; take your time and do your homework before you agree to a contract. Generally speaking contracts are not the best option - unless someone else is paying the bill! And.. if your contract has expired take the thing straight to a phone shop and get it unlocked, even if you have no immediate intention to change networks. Inertia makes money for phone networks. And here's something else you should consider before signing a contract: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10185221 With PAYG when the credit is out the credit is out, until you chose to renew it.

U can bun if you want tu, but after downloading several current Linux distros there's clearly one that's head and shoulders above the rest. A superb install; no hardware problems; instant recognition of everything on this ancient netbook; access to huge application repos; and a really really good feeling environment, without clutter. There are several Live CDs available to try SUSE without installing it permanently, in fact they encourage you to author your own live CD. You can, of course, also install to a hard drive from a live CD - just don't make the mistake of downloading and burning the full 4GB+ DVD, as the YaST thingie can grab all the extras you require in no time. It only took an hour or so to convince me to do a full install. Only problem I had was that I installed it over the top of another Linux that had already been installed on top of Ubuntu. At that point previous incarnations of the Grub loader had been overwritten, and so the boot sequence had lost all track of Windys XP. Solution was to add Windys manually to the /boot/brub/menu.lst file and now I've got a multi-boot machine again. Didn't want to go anywhere near Microsoft's >fixmbr which has been disastrous in the past. SUSE automatically mounts the Windows NTFS partitions as windows/C and windows/D, so there are no problems accessing existing data. If only Windows was as friendly towards ext3 and ext4 partitions! There's also built-in recognition of the Windows network. Bluetooth is "simply there" too; I've never found it so easy to connect a Bluetooth mouse through a third party BT dongle before: you move the Bluetooth mouse, an O/S dialogue pops up telling you that it wants to access the machine, you hit the mouse's BT reset button, and so complete the permanent connection. No disks, no drivers, no even thinking about having to configure the dongle first - simples! A WiFi connection is established with the same ease. http://www.opensuse.org/en/ SuSe is an 18 year-old fraulein from Nuremberg, and you won't regret taking her out!

Yup, Tony did the deal for the release, and Jack Straw told the folk North of the border what to do. The truth about that will come out - because the present lot want it to! The truth about Megrahi and the CIA won't come out until no one gives a damn about it anymore, if ever! Why did he have to withdraw his appeal before they agreed to release him? The only logical explanation for that is that they knew they were going to have to release him anyway, so better to get something for it (a mega oil deal) and remove an upcoming major embarrassment at the same time. Win-win and the truth go hang!

Of course I read the "disclaimer"! Which is why I inserted the link to full details. Whatever way you use the service it still saves you money if using a *mobile* phone - the purpose of the post. Where's your helpful money saving idea?

Else you pay! Instructions for free calls: Dial 01224 39 0800Enter the 0800, 0808, or 0500 number you want to phonePress # to start the call Put this access number on your mobile right now. Full details: http://www.0800buster.co.uk/

'Course he's still alive! He's in the sun, with his family, and not rotting in some dark, damp, Scottish dungeon. He's also still innocent (whatever else he got up to for Gaddafi) of planting the Pan-Am bomb. The CIA know this because they framed him - helped an awful lot by the Scottish "justice"system. Senior officials know this, everyone knows this. Except... the idiots who believe that, where the machinations of various secret services are at work, it's possible to get at the real truth. It wasn't even Libya that planned it!

Really neat idea: a combined Hard Drive and Solid-State Drive (4GB). http://www.dabs.com/...4948244#filters Monitors the hard drive usage and stuffs the really frequently used stuff in SSD. For a frequent on-off cycler of a netbook this would obviously be the boot sectors, most of the operating system and the most often used apps - like the e-mail client. Would be even neater if there was a utility to include/exclude files or sectors. Careful selection would also render the machine still bootable after a nasty drop. I'm assuming the SSD mirrors and not completely replaces the HD data. Would order one instantly, except my two most frequently used netbooks use IDE drives, and aren't modern enough to have SATAs. One day soon'ish!

Now a Samsung 2TB for under £80! http://www.dabs.com/products/samsung-2tb-spinpoint-hd203wi-3-5--sata-300-5400rpm-32mb-cache-6L7F.html < £4 for 100GB!

You really couldn't make this up! Screencap from engadget.com of recruitment ad's posted just after the fading signal reports became widespread. Ring, ring... personnel ... "CEO here. Sack that idiot ????? and hire three RF engineers who know what the %^% they are doing. NOW!"

Spot the ever-so-subtle knocking copy from Motorola's ad agency:

Thread title corrected: the moderators here are a cut above the rest!

Apparently not the only time he'd asked for help and was refused. That £4M would have paid for a lot of help, and lives would not have been lost. Some similarities with the Derrick Bird shootings here. A guy who couldn't cope by himself being put-upon and ignored. It seems that social services were completely hung-up on "protecting" the kids, and failed to see the broader picture.

...and independent engineering tests confirm that this is a real hardware problem. http://blogs.consume...etwork-gsm.html Read just some of what Apple have removed from their discussion boards here: http://cc.bingj.com/...fddb6d,f506f19b

...and they will be fully compatible with your PC! http://www.product-r...se-date-update/ Likely not too many of them will require you to dump all your data and ship them back to the factory for a new battery either.

The overpaid civil "servants" at the MOT have known about these for going on for ten years, yet they've sat on their a£$£s and done nothing. What the hell are they paid for! Now the overwhelming evidence from other countries is that they are fine, all they have to do is create a "Compact Pedestrian Assister" or some such category; say they can't occupy more than so much pavement space, and exceed a certain speed. (Bearing in mind the current specs, and to prevent people using highly modded ones in public.) It's not a great leap in imagination, but clearly beyond the Jobsworths! It's like the UK existed in some sort of separate universe with different physical laws from the rest of mankind. Or maybe it's our civil servants who do?

Just about every other civilised country encourages them and legalises them as an environmentally friendly method of transport, but our MOT knows differently. http://www.telegraph...in-Britain.html Maybe that's because they are NOT road vehicles! Try using your eyes, and the half of your brain that you've still got left Jobsworth!

"No John, you've made this mistake before! The RED one is the Taser, the YELLOW one is your wife's cooker igniter!"

Absolutely agree with you Malc. A totally disproportionate response to a guy who was always going to commit suicide when found. In the old days a hand full of coppers would have patiently handled it and tried to talk him out of it. Compare and contrast the Sun Inn Murders. And, for all the so-called specialists, highly-paid experts, and endless "assessments" we have these days, they still let a suicidal revenge-seeker out of clink! I can't believe you are serious about kids playing games around the street corner Vic. Fingerprints and DNA samples - how dumb is that? A complete lack of common sense reigns these days. The UK kids you are referring to were likely killed by being in the wrong place at the wrong time or by accidents with parents legally held weapons that weren't properly secured; they didn't get killed playing kids games. Here's another little tale of Northumbria Police: Guy doing our garden comes to me in obvious shock. "I'm being been shot at!". You can't be serious, says an almost unbelieving me. He opens his hand and shows me a couple of .22 pellets he'd picked up off the concrete path. Have you been hit? "Yes, here and here". I immediately go and ring Northumbria Police to report this. Nothing more happens. Later we ring to ask what's happening. Put in touch with a junior copper who reluctantly tells us that he's looked into it, but he daren't take the matter further as the guy who was firing the gun was a relation of his police sergeant, and so it would be best to let the matter rest! In all my years experience this is on far too many occasions a most unprofessional police force. I believe the reason for this is near total lack of accountability at the local level.