What's on this week's PC Pro podcast?

sizzling

"Hot Hardware of the Week" 140W TDP. LOL.

By c6ten on 20 Aug 2009

The Sonos is cool, but...

I want to pick upon something you mentioned in your HHotW segment of the podcast. You guys should look at some of the iPhone Apps that already exist. If you don't mind using iTunes, the REMOTE app is awesome. I think to give this a mention as a direct competitor to the Sonos is only fair. I have a multi-room iTunes system running through my media centre, NAS and have ported music all over my house with Apple Airport express, http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/
This in tandem with the iPhone app means my girlfriend and I have access to all our music everywhere in the house from our phones. (Without the cost of Sonos gear!) Awesome eh?

S

By urbanaught on 28 Aug 2009

please speak up

A tongue in cheek suggestion for Hot Hardware of The Week - an amplifier for Mr Fearon's voice. I've listened to the podcast for just over a year now and he is incredibly difficult to hear whereas everyone else comes in loud and clear.

By Fraz_pro on 24 Sep 2009

Audio

I don't know if you've started using a new encoder, but for the last week or two the podcast has been virtually unseekable on my Sansa mp3 player. Seeking backwards or forwards seems like random access now.

By The_Scrote on 27 Sep 2009

We did indeed switch encoders. Thanks for the feedback - I should be able to fix this for next week!

By DarienGS on 30 Sep 2009

Guidelines for linux

There are in fact guidelines for the common linux desktops - GNOME and KDE. The GNOME Human Interface Guidelines are at http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/

And the sign up process to leave a comment is terrible - can you allow openID or something. Horrible form, tell you one thing is wrong and give you the form back with things deleted so you forget them, then refill in things, then get told you can't have spaces in a field ... grrr

By HamishD on 30 Sep 2009

pure evoke flow

where is podcast # 75? doesn't appear in my Pure generated list.

cheers

By floppyowl on 10 Oct 2009

PC Pro iPod podcast

Hi, I downloaded the latest podcast (78) on my PC, however the latest download for my iTunes subscription us still showing as 77. Will 78 be available for iTunes soon?

Thank you.

By cooloox on 16 Oct 2009

iTunes

There does seem to be a problem with the itunes feed as I also still only have last weeks and not the most recent.

By ainsley001 on 16 Oct 2009

Podcast feed fixed

Apologies all for the problems with iTunes feed. Should be fixed now.

By Barry_Collins on 16 Oct 2009

Podcast Problems

I'm subscribed to your excellent podcast through Zencast, until last week the cast downloaded no problems. Last weeks dated the 14th didn't appear till later in the week. This weeks has not yet appeared, except by going direct to your web pages. I presume it may be a similar problem to the ITunes problem.

By bloke1960 on 22 Oct 2009

No podcast so far

Hmm seems to be another problem with the podcast not loading in iTunes

By Moorezo on 22 Oct 2009

Podcast problems

There's no issue with the feed link this week. We've re-pinged iTunes and can only apologise for the delay, but it's out of our hands, I'm afraid.

Barry Collins
Online Editor

By Barry_Collins on 22 Oct 2009

"...yes but..."

"...yes but I've seem actual books!!!"


lol

By retpyrc on 30 Oct 2009

iPhone worms

Just listened to this weeks podcast. For the iPhone worms to affect your phone, you need to install OpenSSH which has to be done by the user. It is not something done by the jailbreaking process. If it is not installed, the worm can't infect the phone.

By james016 on 12 Nov 2009

Thanks for the clarification - I was under the impression the SSH server was exposed as a standard part of the jailbreak process, but I see that you're correct. (I wouldn't know myself, you see... being a good boy I haven't jailbroken my own phone!)

By DarienGS on 12 Nov 2009

Glad to help :)
I do agree with what was said on the podcast though even if I haven't been a good boy. There are some genuinely useful apps on the Cydia store that I would love to see in Apple's App Store.

By james016 on 13 Nov 2009

Dial-up

I'm not sure I agree with Darien re dial-up internet being OK for some functions. It is easy to forget how slow it is, and easy to forget the amount of bling on todays webpages that wasn't used 10 years or so ago. Recently I tried using dial-up to purchase something on my father-in-laws machine. Wow - what a chore. Some webpages took an age to load up simply because of all the gucci coding no-doubt behind them. To get to the point where I actually stuck my details in (which admittedly isn't too bad in itself) I had a couple of time outs. Interestingly using Chrome made the experience a bit better.

By Nodule on 3 Dec 2009

Canoncan

re: podcast 86 10dec and ink cartridges.
Where do you get the idea that Canon cartridges are cheap? Prices quoted in your printer reviews are also cheaper than I can see advertised. For instance, a set of 5 genuine Canon ink tanks for a pixma 4500 are around 50 quid on Amazon, chipped compatibles go for around 12.
I have noticed newer printers appear fussier about the ink quality. I ran an epson 600 for years on compatibles, no real problems. The Canon started blocking days after using a compatible. No permanent damage, genuine ink cleared the heads. Maybe it was a duff brand - time for a comparison test?

By davidwxxx on 10 Dec 2009

The inflatable sheep!

By anthonysjones on 23 Dec 2009

solution to audio levels

Why don't the podcast crew run the podcast wav file through the Levelater 2 to bump up the audio of "soft" voices. I've tested and it is quite impressive.

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/01/08/levelator-
2-0-automagically-makes-your-podcast-sound-better/

By dyagetme1 on 14 Jan 2010

The Levelator

Looks interesting - I'll investigate it for next week. Thanks for the suggestion.

By DarienGS on 15 Jan 2010

Incomplete podcast?

Either my podcast software (DoggCatcher on Android) is playing up or this week's edition (#92) is incomplete - it's only 20MB and it cuts off after 21 minutes :(

By nelviticus on 28 Jan 2010

Same here, only getting the first 20 mins or so.

By james016 on 28 Jan 2010

Incomplete for me as well. I thought it was my iPod at first but listened in my browser and got the same.

About broadband speeds, my parents' house has a terrible connection too. It's always under 1mbps but they live in a built up area, however it's about 3 miles from the exchange. I can't understand the goverments plans fibre when people in this country are still on a connection that can't even stream SD video.

By JBaker on 28 Jan 2010

Incomplete for me as well. I thought it was my iPod at first but listened in my browser and got the same.

About broadband speeds, my parents' house has a terrible connection too. It's always under 1mbps but they live in a built up area, however it's about 3 miles from the exchange. I can't understand the goverments plans fibre when people in this country are still on a connection that can't even stream SD video.

By JBaker on 28 Jan 2010

Podcast 92 terminates after 21 mins!

As per above users. Both via iTunes and your site.

By amh15 on 28 Jan 2010

Just re-downloaded it through iTunes. Now getting the full 36min podcast.

By james016 on 28 Jan 2010

Podcast problems

Apologies for the problems with the podcast. The feed is now fixed, although it may take some time for that to work through the iTunes cogs. You can use the direct link above to download the full show.

Barry Collins
Online Editor

By Barry_Collins on 28 Jan 2010

Comments section suggestion

Seems a bit daft having to scroll to the bottom of the page for the most recent comments, any chance of having reversing the listing of comments so most recent are at the top? Or better would be to have different sections for different shows? Or only comments for the most recent show displayed?

Or am I just being picky?

By mviracca on 30 Jan 2010

nits...

I quite like reading the comments chronologically. i'm still looking around for a way to pick up the podcasts automatically on my blackberry, but i'm such a podcast newbie right now so i'll get there in the end (whilst listening to this podcast).

By khellan on 11 Feb 2010

Dantonitis / Comment comments / Zed

When Mr Danton says "it could very easily become intuitive" (ish), I conclude it is anything but!

I'm surprised even Darien didn't perk-up at that one...

I agree with mviracca but suspect it's to do with being a doddle to append an item but not to insert.

Big, Big fan of the podcast by the way. Never miss one.

A very, very small fan of social networking...

I really like the look of the Dell Latitude Z
Series.

It looks "hewn from solid" as they say, but come on Dell, let's get more realistic about the size and price, eh?

By rip_tractorboy on 18 Feb 2010

Anti IE8 Bias

I love the podcast and have been listening to it for years but I feel moved to comment on your constant denigration of IE. As a Windows developer of >15 years I consider myself to be a "technical person" and I am quite happy with IE8. I have evaluated Firefox, Chrome and Opera for a month each and found them lacking and always end up back with IE.
Firefox is slow to load(for the first time) and has problems with many sites that IE doesn't, plus it looks old fashioned.
Chrome does not have enough features - how do you email a link to someone?, and is not significantly faster in normal use.
Opera is too quirky and again is slower to load.
IE8 cover all the bases for me and I see no reason to change away from it, so maybe you guys should try it again and tell me exactly what is wrong with it?

Keep up the good work!

By Chris_M on 27 Feb 2010

How dare you slag off Google Street View!

Chaps, Google Street View is amazing and incredibly useful. I don't know what you are complaining about.

In G. maps I entered "Odeon Kensington High Street", which you mentioned, and was taken straight to the correct place with a correct street view link. Moving along streets is much quicker than it used to be if you double click the ellipse around the place you want to view. And it's all free. C'mon guys...

By amh15 on 4 Mar 2010

AMD Vision explained + mini review

AMD Vision

http://sites.amd.com/us/vision/what-is-vision/Page
s/what-is-vision.aspx

Mini Review

I purchased the DM3 because on paper it ticked all of the boxes. It has proved to be an astute purchase. It is slim, attractive, the keyboard is peerless and it is fast for web browsing HD video playback.

Before purchasing I was worried about the heat generated by the Athlon Neo x2 processor and the trackpad.

The bottom left of the base does heat up but it isn't uncomfortable. The trackpad is the main bugbear. You really have to play around with the settings to find the correct sensitivity. It supports gestures but the trackpad is too small to properly utilise them.

However, these small grievances in no way detract from a good laptop.

The DM3 is a rare example of a fair deal for the consumer.

By dyagetme1 on 4 Mar 2010

Keyboard function keys

Odd coincidence. I recently made my quarterly visit to our office (I'm an anti-commute remote worker) and had to LogMeIn to my home machine. It was then I realised just how much I needed the special keys on my MS keyboard to open Outlook, IE etc. And that night the podcast said how no-one used them. Beg to differ lads.

BTW, congrats on the podcasts - intelligent and worth listening to. Only problem is that it makes reading the News section of the Mag seem like de ja vous (sp?).

Regards, Kev

By RosslynDad on 12 Mar 2010

IE 9 talk...

I noticed that you guys didn't mention the biggest change in IE9, the use of DirectX for rendering graphic images (see my rough benchmarking in the comments on the IE9 news article).

This, more than its current standard of standard compliance, is what got my attention and shows Microsoft are "thinking outside the box", in terms of browser development.

All the other browser developers have concentrated on JavaScript performance and page loading speeds, but the smoothing effects of DirectX, along with the offloading of the CPU for animation etc. makes a huge difference.

Given how long DirectX has been around, same with OpenGL on Windows and other platforms, it is amazing that no other browser developer has thought to use it, until now. IE9s multi-threading also makes a big difference.

Firefox could hold performance with IE9 in the test, it was a little jerky, but kept pace. But the interesting thing was watching the performance, whilst Firefox was driving a core between 90 and 100% on all tests, IE rarely got over 10%, apart from the falling balls, where it ran 3 cores at 20%.

That has huge implications for netbooks, with DX compatible graphics and for people who run dozens of tabs at the same time - one of the reasons I run a Flash blocker in my browsers; it can cripple even a semi-decent machine, if you have 30+ tabs open, each trying to run dozens of Flash elements...

By big_D on 18 Mar 2010

Hot Hardware of the Century

Nikon Coolpix

By simonmartin3 on 25 Mar 2010

Hot Hardware

iPod nano 4th generation

By miltosvk on 25 Mar 2010

Hot Hardware

Samsung NC 10

By WebmasterG on 25 Mar 2010

Hot Hardware

HTC Hero

By Woudenberg on 25 Mar 2010

HotHardware

The Nano with the ability to display video and photos and play audio in a slick and slim design is pretty impressive on not only a technology standpoint but on a usability standpoint. Pretty Hot!

By mikalis on 25 Mar 2010

Hot Hardware of the week competition

Ipod Nano 4th Gen

x

By Connor on 25 Mar 2010

HHotC

Nikon Coolpix for combining two useful tools in one place. I wonder if the Princess has found Ben yet using one?

The Samsung NC10 would have made it if it'd be easier to get OSX86 up and running on it. Good luck w. the sale. ;)

Also, can I echo the Podcast > iTunes connection is lousy. It'd be nice to have these on the move on the release day.

S

By urbanaught on 25 Mar 2010

Hot Hardware of the Century

Samsung NC10

By Microleaves on 25 Mar 2010

Hot Hardware Comp

HTC Hero; the functionality of an Apple product without the restrictions of one.

By Jaffo on 25 Mar 2010

Hot Hardware of the Century

Gotta be the HTC Hero from the 4.

By JBaker on 25 Mar 2010

Hot Hardware

Definitely Samsung. I just so like the idea of a netbook :)

By Josefov on 25 Mar 2010

HHotC

It's got to be the 4G Nano for me...

By renhoek on 25 Mar 2010

Samsung NC 10

The first netbook after the original eee that I really wanted to own, up until I met the Toshiba last year (and ended up buying a CULV instead anyway).
I still say their "silver nano" tech should be mandatory in all hotdesk environments.

By simbr on 25 Mar 2010

NC10

I use mine constantly (often browsing whilst watching telly - who needs an ipad?). You can still get refurbs from Laptops Direct for around £210 but I bought 2 from the Argos Clearance store on ebay for £165 each for my kids. Cracking little machine.

By KevPartner on 25 Mar 2010

Hot Hardware of the Century

iPod nano 4th generation

By henry20012 on 25 Mar 2010

NC10

Tough one between NC10 and HTC Hero - as someone who occasionally travels, the former just plumps it in the end as it has transformed the way I work away from home.

By Nodule on 25 Mar 2010

Samsung NC 10

I think this was the first time we saw an evolution of the netbook from cheap and cheerful, to "secondary machine".

I think it kept netbooks on the computing map.

By khellan on 25 Mar 2010

HTC Hero

Having just upgrade to this phone it's just a great piece of kit.

By alistairfielden on 25 Mar 2010

Samsung NC 10

Just the best and longest lasting little netbook that helped to solidify the netbook market as a serious sector with genuinely useful products. Led the way for months. My fave.

By WilberBeast on 25 Mar 2010

iPhone - Hot Hardware of the Century

Actually my vote goes to

iPod Nano or just the iPod in general

Just take a look at the ipod market share compare to other music player.

By felixluk on 26 Mar 2010

NC10 - HH of the C

Use it every day. Win7/Ubuntu 9.10.
Great for music and messing about on the train.

By caulfiek on 26 Mar 2010

Hot Hardware of the Century

Samsung NC10

as I am using a similiar netbook to leave this comment.

of course we all know it is the IPhone, A simple to use, beautifully marketed powerful enough smartphone in almost everyones pocket or wishlist.

By tanere on 27 Mar 2010

HHotC

Got to be the iPod nano

By Andrew_C on 27 Mar 2010

HH of the Century...

Is the iPhone, obviously.

PCPro's anti-Apple stance never ceases, does it?? Still, I'm sure it keeps the teenage boys with long lists of computer components in their forum sigs amused...

By petermillard1 on 27 Mar 2010

Hot Hardware

HTC Hero

By Woody55uk on 27 Mar 2010

Hot Hardware of the Century

It's got to be the HTC Hero!

By Linux_User on 28 Mar 2010

Hardware of the century: Nikon Coolpix

The Nikon Coolpix.

It's neither my favourite on the list, nor the one I'm most likely to get, but it's the most innovative. The others are all "same but better" products, while this is something new.

Thanks for the podcast!

By fishynews on 28 Mar 2010

Hot Hardware Of The Century

iPod Nano 4th Gen

By C0NTi on 28 Mar 2010

HHotC

iPod Nano

(I understand that that 32GB SD card might cost nearly as much as its own weight in gold. Can you confirm? It can't be worth MORE than that, surely...)

By searsmat on 29 Mar 2010

Hot Hardware Of The Century

ipod nano. A landmark product.

By username_simon on 29 Mar 2010

Hot Hardware

Samsung NC10

A fantastic piece of kit for basic functions. I use mine on a daily basis.

By mystic_dan on 29 Mar 2010

Hot Hardware

Samsung NC10

A fantastic piece of kit for basic functions. I use mine on a daily basis.

By mystic_dan on 29 Mar 2010

Samsung NC10

Brilliant laptop, great battery life, goes everywhere where we go!

By martinnut on 30 Mar 2010

Hot Hardware of the Century

HTC Hero - great design, features and O/S. Loads of apps and so much cheaper than an iPhone.

By AndrewL on 30 Mar 2010

H H/W

HTC Hero - just like the podcast, I don't own one, but I've used on... it's great :o)

By Sercul on 30 Mar 2010

Hot Hardware of the Century

Ipod Nano - Great product backed by brilliant business strategy. There's a lot to be learned from this product in terms of technicality and business.

By isaac12345 on 31 Mar 2010

HTC Hero

Anything that helps to break up the Apple monopoly on smart phones, and brings some freedom in for good measure gets my vote. Good choice Tim!

By bgp00 on 31 Mar 2010

HTC Hero

HTC Hero, its all in the name.

By Tim_Wn on 1 Apr 2010

Hot Hardware

Samsung NC10
(although I own an EEE PC 901 - blush)

By shaunb on 1 Apr 2010

Voting now closed

Thanks to all who took part in the voting. To find out which product won, and which commenter takes the prize of a year's subscription, listen to the podcast that went up to today...

Tim Danton
Editor, PC Pro

By TimDanton on 1 Apr 2010

THIS PAGE IS HARD TO FIND

The link to it is buried in with all the other news items. I normally have to use the search to find it.

That is probably why you don't get many comments on the podcast. Plus you have to scroll all the way to the bottom to get thge latest posts.

Why not open up the discussions on the podcast to the wider world and start a Forum section on it? I think you would get a lot more feedback and people coming to the site than you do currently.

Thanks again for one of my favourite podcasts.

By Chris_M on 25 May 2010

Playing back podcast

When I listen to the podcast on my Creative Zen and rewind, it doesn't take me to the expected place - it normally takes me to a fair bit earlier in the podcast.
This doesn't happen with any other podcasts I listen to.

Thanks for the podcast.

By Calum on 25 May 2010

Hamish

If you're worried about the security of google searches then you can use scroogle - a google scraper. It has https by default and doesn't keep logs.

It sends your search to google and gives you the results back. As far as google is concerned, everyone using scroogle is one person, so your searches will be lost amongst all the other people using scroogle.

By HamishD on 27 May 2010

Glass House People Throwing Stones?

Just loved the comment Tim in your behavioural adverts piece - 'you go to some websites now and they are so horribly crowded and so horribly designed that you cant actually read the story'.

I have to say the biggest culprit here is your very own PC Pro site. Of all the technology sites I read, this is the worst by far and so ultimately is the one I spend less time on.

Will you now be looking to put your own house in order I wonder?

By Fraz_pro on 27 May 2010

Link not working?

The link doesn't seem to be working to today's podcast!

By Grunthos on 3 Jun 2010

My issue, sorry

Sorry, I had a router issue.

By Grunthos on 3 Jun 2010

Single off mechanism

One other potential benefit of USB powered monitors is the ability to have your monitor fully turned off and then back on again in tandem with the main PC.

By Fraz_pro on 3 Jun 2010

Glaring errors!!

I enjoy the podcast and can normally forigve the ill informed mistakes you make, but this weeks podcast had 2 glaring errors.

1. The tablets at Computex are running Windows 7 EMBEDDED, this is a thin client platform that will run fine on low spec hardware. XP Embedded has been around for year and served as a fuller featured CE platform. Comparing Embedded with the full version is ludicrous, one of the main uses for Embedded is accessing Terminal Services which brings me onto...

2. Goggle dropping Windows is probably a non story, I guess they are having OSX & Linux Desktops, with Windows available via Terminal Services. As you stated this was triggered by the problems in China with out of date desktop software. Switching to TS is a logical choice when a business can't control their desktop computers.

End of rant.

Look forward to next week with Tim in the chair for a bit of Sanity.

By madasachip on 3 Jun 2010

Pedant of the week award ?

2 to the power of 5 is 32, not 64...

Do I win ?

!!

By fussy_joe on 4 Jun 2010

Swearing

Was there really any reason to swear on this podcast? Please refrain from doing so, keep it clean, keep it decent, otherwise it will not be worth listening to.

By kingdavid7 on 7 Jun 2010

More Audio Feedback

I've got to agree with 'Fraz_pro'. Mr Fearon's voice can really be difficult to hear, especially when he goes off on a tangent and rambles a bit. The bass of his voice just isn't audible.

By BPerry on 8 Jun 2010

Link broken

The link the RSS feed uses is broken, it has an extra 'http//' in it. I think it's the link on the Wordpress page.

By nelviticus on 10 Jun 2010

Feed fixed

Thanks for the tip-off nelviticus - RSS feed link now fixed.

Barry Collins
Online Editor

By Barry_Collins on 10 Jun 2010

Arc90 Readability

Great podcast as usual.

No one mentioned Readability during the discussion of the new Apple Safari Reader feature,

Had you come across Readability? It is a bookmarklet which similarly makes web page articles easier to read.

I have found it very useful on occasion. Not so much to get rid of ads but when the web designer has forgotten to provide enough of a contrast between text and background.

Made by Arc90 it is available here: http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/

Share and Enjoy.

By ahernp on 10 Jun 2010

Pedant of the week....

Going from zero gyroscopes to one isnt a 100% better, its an infinite improvement percentage wise…

By fussy_joe on 11 Jun 2010

Swearing?

kingdavid7 - what swearing? Apart from the occasional "damn" or "crap" I can't recall any swearing. If you're going to make stuff up or get offended by such words perhaps stopping listening is the only way forward, along with being on the internet, watching telly, listening to people etc

By Nodule on 24 Jun 2010

Dell recommends... (113)

I think it was in Podcast 113, where you mentioned about Dell and them no longer promoting Ubuntu so much as they said they do not want to promote one OS over another. And yet their advertising always states something like "Dell recommends Windows 7". They have been doing it since at least Windows XP.

By kingdavid7 on 25 Jun 2010

112

Sorry, I meant 112, not 113. I notice that although the newest podcast (113) is linked to and described, the date at the top of the page is from last week (17 June) which confused me.

By kingdavid7 on 25 Jun 2010

A couple of comments about iPhone 4. First off you did not look too hard, Tesco, 12 month contract TCO £589.

And, I think ALL iP4 suffer from the antenna issue, if you don't see it, then you are in a high signal area.

Having said that, its still the best phone by a mile :-)

By kevwright on 4 Jul 2010

@PCPRO - COULD YOU PLEEEAASE SEND THE NEWSLETTER ONLY WHEN THE PODCAST PAGE IS UPDATED?? THERE HAVE BEEN SO MANY INSTANCES WHERE I CLICK ON THE NEWSLETTER LINK TO THE PODCAST AROUND 8 IN THE MORNING AND IT DIRECTS ME TO THE PREVIOUS WEEK'S PODCAST PAGE.

By isaac12345 on 8 Jul 2010

iPhone download problem

Hi,

FYI I am unable to download the new podcast directly using an iOS4 iphone. Error reported - 'PC Pro Podcast 115 cannot be played on this iPhone'.

Looks like a general iOS 4 issue rather than something specifically with the podcast:

More details here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID
=11769720

Cheers

By nzh999 on 8 Jul 2010

iOS4 problem

We've managed to download it on two iOS4 phones here. Are you still having a problem nzh999?

Barry Collins
Online Editor

By Barry_Collins on 8 Jul 2010

Re: iPhone download problem

Hi Barry,

After a bit of further testing the error only appears when I'm connected via Wifi to my workplace network. We think it's something to do with ISA/Proxy authentication confusing the iPhone Itunes app. It's weird as I can get to the download page (i.e. wi-fi/proxy working ok at this point), but just can't download the file.

I don't recall ever seeing the error when on iOS3.x and as far as I am aware nothing has changed on our wi-fi/lan setup.

No matter - I will download it at home later today.

Cheers,
Neil.

By nzh999 on 8 Jul 2010

Re: iPhone download problem

Hi Barry,

After a bit of further testing the error only appears when I'm connected via Wifi to my workplace network. We think it's something to do with ISA/Proxy authentication confusing the iPhone Itunes app. It's weird as I can get to the download page (i.e. wi-fi/proxy working ok at this point), but just can't download the file.

I don't recall ever seeing the error when on iOS3.x and as far as I am aware nothing has changed on our wi-fi/lan setup.

No matter - I will download it at home later today.

Cheers,
Neil.

By nzh999 on 8 Jul 2010

Kitchen computers

Chaps

Further to your comments about computers in the kitchen I thought Scott Adams' (creator of the Dilbert cartoons) latest blog might be of interest. I know it is pro Apple but at least he feels guilty about it!

http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_amazingness_of_i
nstant/

Cheers

By RichardT on 14 Jul 2010

On the point about Google not 'assisting' the legal purchasing of music, I searched for Kylie Minogue Aphrodite and Amazon was on the 2nd page - the top result was Wiki, her official site second which had links to purchase and the rest of the first page was a mixture of news and reviews.

I tried the same with the new album Recovery by Eminem and iTunes and Amazon were on the front page, no torrents, so gotta say I think the argument is flawed.

By Deano on 15 Jul 2010

What happened to issue 116 in iTunes?

issue 116 does not show up in iTunes. What happened to it?

By Chris_M on 22 Jul 2010

Podcast 116 on iTunes

We've no idea why podcast 116 has suddenly vanished from iTunes - it was there last week and remains on the feed.

We'll investigate. In the meantime, you can download the show directly from: http://video.pcpro.co.uk/pcpro/podcast/pcpro_podca
st_116.mp3

Thanks.

Barry Collins
Online Editor

By Barry_Collins on 22 Jul 2010

Swift Key

http://www.swiftkey.net/
Is this the keyboard app you were talking about? It is available in the Android Market place - I've just installed it on my HTC Hero - I've had it for about 15 minutes, but so far very very impressed!

By davepidgeon on 29 Jul 2010

Err...

I'm sorry, I seem to have stumbled into the MacUser podcast.

By ktillyer on 6 Aug 2010

date wrong?

It is now the 12 August, the latest podcast is 120, yet the date at the top of the page still shows as 22 Jul 2010.

By kingdavid7 on 12 Aug 2010

Podcast 121 - Times.co.uk paywall

I think it would have helped if any of the panellists had done some basic research before commenting on the Times paywall.

I have and have paid for an issue of the Times and then the Sunday Times. It is no different in principle from buying a copy of the newspaper from a newsagent, with the slight drawback that there's nothing to line the cat's litter with afterwards.

They have also done a superb job of layout and navigation and I felt that the experience was worthwhile. Also there was compelling content and as journalists you must know the difference between good writing and bad. The Times have done a good job.

Having said that I stopped taking a newspaper years ago, and just would not become a regular subscriber to the Times. However, it is a bit of stretch to say the a paywall in itself is not going to work, as your panel said unanimously.

Also I think that the idea of paying for news has its attractions, not least that there is some accountability. If a newspaper is answerable to its' real customers, rather than some marketing executives at an ad agency, that must be in the interests of the reader.

As for the sharing issue, this is a bit of a red-herring. This is quite easy to circumvent, while not strictly legal, I'm sure everyone's done it for select friends.

By c6ten on 19 Aug 2010

Old Link

Link for podcast121 is incorrect. It links to last weeks podast, 120

Jon

By jjma10 on 19 Aug 2010

@jjma10

Should be working now, thanks.

Nicole Kobie
News Editor

By Nicole_Kobie on 19 Aug 2010

Hot Hardware of the Week

Any hope of just being able to see a list of all of the HHotW? I'd like to reflect on some of the details whilst listening to the Podcast, but haven't had much luck with your search engine.

By urbanaught on 19 Aug 2010

date still wrong

the date on this page has not been updated since 22 July 2010, even though the podcasts are being updated each week.

By kingdavid7 on 20 Aug 2010

move on, please

I am a fan of both the PC Pro magazine and the podcast. I have listened to the podcast every week for more than a year because it usually contains useful information. But I do wish you guys did not flog almost every topic to death, repeat points already made or ramble off topic. I believe that the podcast would be even better if you conveyed the same information in about half the time.

By paschke1 on 24 Aug 2010

move on, please

I am a fan of both the PC Pro magazine and the podcast. I have listened to the podcast every week for more than a year because it usually contains useful information. But I do wish you guys did not flog almost every topic to death, repeat points already made or ramble off topic. I believe that the podcast would be even better if you conveyed the same information in about half the time.

By paschke1 on 25 Aug 2010

Podcast 122

I'm afraid I have to disagree with paschke1: I like the informal nature of the podcast, though I do wish you'd incorperate a 'feedback' section with users e-mails and such, that'd be good.

On the new Firefox tabs front, Opera has been group tabs for YEARS, see the following link: http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/2010/08/05/tab-gr
ouping.

Please support Opera as well as Firefox so we can knock down the mighty IE behemoth!

By Gledster on 27 Aug 2010

GMail Free calls to US

I was catching up on your fab podcasts in the car yesterday, and I heard the comment about free US calls if GMAIL thinks you are in the US. There was a comment about the costs for Amazon, but of course, it won't cost them any more, as the transport to their US Gateways will be over the Internet. Essentially free on-net traffic. Good cost saving if you are in the UK, but not and cost to Amazon.

David

By DJ2003 on 9 Sep 2010

Listening on the go

Great show as usual guys but is there any chance you could not pan the different voices on the podcast as hard when your mastering it. I commute a lot and like to listen on the go. Since you all speak at slightly different volumes and there's different people panned to each ear it can be difficult to get a comfortable volume when listening on headphones on a noisy train. Keep up all the good work,

Sean

By sean_g on 13 Sep 2010

In the bit about Windows Phone 7, several of the team praised it and Android for having back buttons to return to the previous application when one (such as a Twitter app) takes you to a web browser.

Nobody bothered to mention something about iOS 4 that overcomes the limitation of Apple's devices having only one button for navigation.

You don't need to go back to the Home screen at all. Double-press the Home button to call up the task switcher and the last app you were in is the first icon in the task switcher. An extra step than just pressing a physical button but hardly the major fuss that moving between apps is made out to be. This has been around for months now, but I guess old habits die hard (and some people are still using pre-3GS handsets).

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By huijhioj on 18 Oct 2010

Multiple Podcast Downloads

Hi,
Really like the podcast but not so much I want two copies downloaded. I use Juice and it gets copies from:
http://video.pcpro.co.uk/pcpro/podcast/pcpro_podca
st_130.mp3
and
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/pcpropodcast/~5/pjY
noU5cgas/pcpro_podcast_130.mp3

Happens most episodes (not 127) don't know why. And no I won't be putting that horrendous itunes rubbish on my machine.

By nicholbb1 on 20 Oct 2010

Feed not updated

The latest podcast works as a manual download but doesn't appear in your feedburner feed (or the iTunes one for that matter).

Maybe I'm just impatient!

By nelviticus on 3 Nov 2010

Is it me or does Dave Fearon sound increasingly prickly and over-defensive each podcast?

By Nodule on 11 Nov 2010

MacBook Air

Objectivity Mr. Fearon?

OK, it's pretty - if you like two slabs of grey metal hinged together.
In ten years, I'll bet this will look as dated as an iBook G3 does now

By greemble on 13 Nov 2010

Hot Hardware of the week

Sorry guys but not sure about the video transmitter as hot.

Why spend £150 on a wireless device to connect a laptop video output to a TV? Just plug the laptop to the TV via HDMI or even VGA and leave it by the TV. Then spend £30 on a wireless keyboard and mouse to control it.

By wlm42 on 25 Nov 2010

HHOTW

Jeez, never thought I'd agree with Darien G-S, but this VeeBeam thing sounds terrible. Can't believe you gave the AppleTV such a hard time when it's cheaper than this thing, far more front-room friendly, and does much the same job; except of course, the ATV can stream from any PC in the house, not just in the same room. Seriously, if the laptop has to be

By petermillard1 on 25 Nov 2010

Shepherds in the Scottish Highlands

I am writing on behalf of my friend Roger from the Scottish Highlands.

He feels compelled to respond to DarienGS's "shepherds in the Highlands" quips made during podcast 137.

Whilst his shepherd only logs on to stare at Mary and her little lambs, Roger eweses the interweb daily on his uPad.

Every morning Roger checks the markets on "The Wool Street Journal" site. When he's not flocking he goes shopping online for baagains, wastes time watching eweTube or indulges in a little bit of online gambling, particularly Woolette.

High speed broadband, particularly fibre to the cabaanet, is essential to Roger and his ewe friends Dolly 1, Dolly 2, Dolly 3, Dolly 4, Dolly 5, Dolly, Dolly7, Dolly 8 and Dolly 9.

Regards
Roger the sheep (pp)

PS I assume ewe know why Scottish shepherds like to wear kilts?

By roy_tait on 9 Dec 2010

What is the singular of premises?

It is premises, not premise, a word that means something else.

Also it is slippery not splippy.

By cliffxdavis on 10 Dec 2010

Podcast File Size

I fail to understand why the PC Pro Podcast needs to be around 40Mb in size for what is basically a 30 minute chat show, especially as the BBC does the same thing for about 12Mb. I'm sure that you expect all of your tech-savvy readers to have fast broadband on tap, as I do when I am at home in the UK (in the Scottish Highlands btw, but we'll leave that one for now) However, when I'm at work out here in the sticks in sub-Saharan Africa, we are lucky to hit more than a few Kb/sec, so downloading the podcast can be a real pain. How about PC Pro compressing their podcast a wee bit more, or offering an alternative lower quality download for those of us who really need it?

By Ebocha on 12 Jan 2011

podcast icon

The podcast feed image is a Wordpress logo for me. I guess my podcatcher doesn't recognise the itunes:image tag (which is the correct image). Can you fix the image tag at the top of the feed please? Ta.

By amh15 on 15 Jan 2011

Podcast 143:Lack of Content

Was quite enjoying Discussion untilit cut-out mid word!! Pity it was less than 14mins

By JoFrances on 31 Jan 2011

Goodbye Tim, sorry to hear you won't be involved in the podcasts anymore, will miss your arguments with Darien.

:)

By Deano on 24 Feb 2011

Goodbye & Good-Luck Tim!
Deano's right Will miss those "set-tos"

By JoFrances on 3 Mar 2011

Making podcasts better

Just scanned through the comments on the podcasts and I am amazed to see the negative ones. PCPro wins my vote for the best podcast series ever: they are informative, informal, funny, eminently listenable to, and the audio quality is brilliant.
I was led to comment after listening to podcast 147, about Apple upgrading audio to 24-bit, and the interjection from one of your team that you record the PCPro podcast at high quality to cater for some editing and balancing of the audio levels before finally publishing. I go through a similar process for my church, recording the sermon and then editing before publishing at www.bethelmacclesfield.org.uk. I do not want to publish anything of a quality that would annoy me if I were downloading and listening to the programme. Of course, I do download and listen to the podcasts that I publish, as a means of checking my own work.
I am struck by just how many poor recordings there are on the web, even programmes published by the BBC. If I load them into Audacity, the problem is immediately obvious: many published recordings only use a fraction of the available audio levels. Just think how much longer the batteries in our media players would last, if only the publishers would pump up the volume before uploading to the Internet! I often listen to podcasts through an FM transmitter in the car: one which takes a USB memory stick and has no volume control. For bad podcasts I have to turn the car radio up to maximum and it is a very poor listening experience.
To add to the problem, some publishers try to be informal and funny like the PCPro podcast, but the general audio level is very low until the team burst into laughter, which breaks my eardrums when I have turned the volume up to max.
Podcasts are a brilliant product of the Internet age – like the BBC sometimes say, you can download them and keep them forever. But my real issue is, how can programme-makers be persuaded to make proper use of a mixing desk, or post-process the recording using software like Audacity before publishing on the Internet? Scope for a feature in a future edition of PCPro here?

By steelworks on 16 Mar 2011

Pure Digital isn't Pure..

Pure Digital Technologies (who made the Flip) and Pure (who make DAB radios) are different companies...

By thewelshbrummie on 13 Apr 2011

Amazon's crashing cloud

Since it's continued functioning through the problems with the cloud service was mentioned in the podcast - according to FlagFox, Amazon.co.uk is hosted in Ireland, well out of harms way.

By snowdog99 on 28 Apr 2011

Google bulbs

"Bulbs that work in tandem with the light switches"

Brilliant! Love that idea, when can we get these?

By greemble on 12 May 2011

Volume glitch?

Just an observation-
Oddly, at various times in this weeks (#160) podcast the volume of some peoples voices slowly dropped to nothing, then came back again almost immediately. On one occasion, Nicole's voice was muted for so long as to miss most of a sentence, but that was the only bad occurrence throughout.

By Heliosphan on 26 May 2011

Glitch fixed

Heliospan,

Thanks for the feedback. We had a problem with the sound levels which we've now fixed.

Apologies for the inconvenience.

Barry Collins
Editor

By Barry_Collins on 26 May 2011

Low bandwidth mp3 file

What has happened to the low bandwidth download of the podcast for us in far off lands?

BP

By bpage1 on 2 Jun 2011

Low bandwidth

We've been tracking the download stats on the low-bandwidth version, and I'm afraid it wasn't being used enough to warrant the time it takes to re-encode the podcast at a lower bit-rate.

I'm sorry if that affects your listening, but we only have limited resources, I'm afraid.

Regards

Barry Collins
Editor

By Barry_Collins on 2 Jun 2011

Low bandwidth mp3 file

Thanks for the quick reply. It was great for us "far offs" while it lasted. Back to the old hour long download for us I'm afraid, but we will still download.

By bpage1 on 2 Jun 2011

Nice Song !

Thanks for puttting a bit of the song in the podcast (sorry for you guys in far off lands - even more to download), but it made me smile.

By MikeRobins on 9 Jun 2011

Poor Nicole!!

I enjoy listening to the podcast, but I feel I must register a complaint! You always boot Nicole out of the studio for the HHOTW section. Is the studio that small that she can't stay when you bring someone else in with the hardware? (Mind you, maybe Nicole's happy to get the hell out of there for all I know :-) ) Keep up the good work!

By mrmiley on 9 Jun 2011

PC Pro or Gadget Pro

Everything's great with PC Pro... but what is it with cameras?

Camcorders, SatNav, Digital Photo Frames...

Maybe you should rename to USB Enabled Devices Pro?

:o)

No offence, just keeping an eye on feature-creep...

By Sercul on 10 Jun 2011

Windows 8? dont think so

As a user of Windows 7 and having seen the footage of windows 8, it really doesnt look good, i use both windows and ubuntu/other linux distros, and i think the whole radical change suits the linux distros but windows needs to stay in the same basic format, i dont see windows ever being popular on a tablet and i cant see it being popular on the desktop as it is too distant, not good.

By superdan89 on 11 Jun 2011

@bpage1

You can grab a [very] low bit-rate version of the podcast in the forum....

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=7&sid
=9e80c0e116422730b76cb61fc50226ae

By Anonymouse on 13 Jun 2011

not a complaint

I hate that this sounds like a complaint, but the mp3 is not 100% iTunes friendly, even after the nice artwork was added a while back. In particular the programme information should be in the lyrics field, to integrate with iPod's functionality (sometimes a useful feature), and relatedly the Description is truncated and contains some unnecessary 'curly quotes' that get rendered in iTunes as Unicode entities. Also the Description is truncated, and usually contains a functionless image tag.

All details, but an unnecessary irritation I find that wastes my time every time I download the podcast (making it iPod friendly).

By c6ten on 18 Jun 2011

Windows Phone Reporting out of date

I enjoy the podcast, but sometimes the stories are very out of date. On the podcast recorded on 13th July there was a prolonged session on Windows phone - in particular the fact that there were no new phones announced or available.
This totally ignored the fact that on the previous day at WPC 2011 (where the Steve Ballmer quote came from) Microsoft showed off new Windows Phone devices including ones from Fujitsu and Samsung.
Please try and step away from the premise "if it's not on our website it hasn't happened!" and check other news sources.

By Yogimax on 14 Jul 2011

She Stays!!!!

Wow, you let Nicole stay for Hot Hardware of the Week this week (Podcast 168) Spot on. You usually boot her out when it comes to HHotW. About time :D

By mrmiley on 21 Jul 2011

Love the podcast but...

...is it possible for Darien to accept he is sometimes wrong? The arguments of recent podcasts where he disagrees with almost every opinion from absolutely anyone are beginning to negatively affect the podcast.

By JBaker on 21 Jul 2011

@JBaker

With respect, I totally disagree. It is good to hear two opposing sides of a debate, sometimes it is Darien, sometimes it is Dave, but it works well. If you want to just hear people that have the same opinions as you, chat to the mirror.

By Aspicus on 28 Jul 2011

Empty file?

Is it just me? I've tried downloading the MP3 directly but I'm just getting a file with 0KB.

I've never had this problem before. Haven't changed anything at my end. (Or at least, I don't think I have.)

By john_sn on 28 Jul 2011

Corrupted

John, I dont think its you. I tried pulling the file on my PC earlier and it wouldnt play (I thought it was me too as I was setting up a new PC) but I've just tried pulling it down from itunes onto my iphone and its showing as 1193 minutes long and wont play there either.

So, I think its broken.

Or is that real length and it has really kicked off this week?

By Fraz_pro on 28 Jul 2011

Broken podcast

It appears there are some issues with the podcast server, which we're attempting to fix. Thanks for reporting the issue. We should have it fixed shortly.

Barry Collins
Editor

By Barry_Collins on 29 Jul 2011

Seems OK now :-)

I just downloaded a 56K file in any case.

As for the 1193 minutes I often see that when looking at it on my Pure Sensia (which is a crock **** BTW). That shows more minutes than the US Debt in dollars.

But according to an article in (this months'?) PC Pro, this could be down to variable bitrates in the MP3 conversion (some devices have difficulty measuring the track length, which I'd have thought would just be in the metadata, but what do I know?). So I learned something from the magazine!

By john_sn on 29 Jul 2011

Podcast 171 wont download in iTunes

Hi

The latest podcast 171 shows up in iTunes but will not download ?

Thanks

By MiniEggs on 10 Aug 2011

Podcast won't download in iTunes

Same problem as above, the download starts for around a second and then has an error.

By JBaker on 11 Aug 2011

Podcast won't download in iTunes

Same problem as above, the download starts for around a second and then has an error.

By JBaker on 11 Aug 2011

Direct link broken too

Not just iTunes, I download via the RSS feed and that's broken too.

By nelviticus on 11 Aug 2011

Pleaseeeeeeeeee

Need the podcast sorted for my morning walk guys @ 10am, this is critical forget, the london riots, I need my pc pro podcast weekly hit without delay! ;)

By a_byrne22 on 11 Aug 2011

Pleaseeeeeeeeee

Need the podcast sorted for my morning walk guys @ 10am, this is critical forget, the london riots, I need my pc pro podcast weekly hit without delay! ;)

By a_byrne22 on 11 Aug 2011

Maybe the servers that host the files have been looted?

By nelviticus on 11 Aug 2011

MP3 location

http://video.cloudfront.pcpro.co.uk/pcpro/podcast/
pcpro_podcast_171a.mp3

By larryh77 on 12 Aug 2011

Podcast location

Having been away for a couple of weeks, I've just noticed that iTunes can't download the podcasts anymore - they appear to be redirected to feedproxy.google.com
Our firewall blocks all google sites, which IMO is a good thing as they're far to nosey! but I was just wondering why the download location has changed?

By ilambert64 on 24 Aug 2011

Zune

When i subscribe to your great prodcast, as the logo, i get wordpress, and not the PC PRO logo. Could you change the icon, to your PC PRO icon?

By henry20012 on 1 Sep 2011

Touchpad costs

You talk about HP's pricing of the touch pad these guys estimate costs of $326/306

http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns/News/Pages/HP-Tou
chPad-Carries-$318-Bill-of-Materials.aspx

If they had launched with 1st N-thousand sell for $300 they could have got "traction" as Leo winges about the lack of.

They had a scheme where HP employees could get a free palm pre if they wrote an app. I thought this was to get the numbers up on the app store but they never published the apps. HP employees are NOT allowed to submit pay for apps. They have worked hard to AVOID getting an e**system.

Be funny if I didn't work for them :-(

DaveF

By Davef34 on 1 Sep 2011

Poddie 173

I only heard this a couple of days ago. I was interested in the bit about "girls prefer keyboards to touchpads, and maybe it's because of their nails".

My daughter has a touchpad phone (Sony Ericsson I think?) and long nails so I asked her.

From my sample of one I learnt the following:

Resistive screens are a Yes.
Capacitive screens are a No.
Buttons (eg Blackberry) are a maybe, as the nails slip off.

By john_sn on 6 Sep 2011

This weeks podcast was a lot quieter than usual. I had to have the volume on maximum and I could barely hear it.

By james016 on 9 Sep 2011

HP not knowing what they are doing

The German branch of HP took out a whole page ad in the FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) about 10 days ago so after their bosses announcement

By MikeW2 on 23 Sep 2011

HP not knowing what they are doing (cont)

... To say that HP was number one in PCs.

(apologies for the two posts - blame it on tHe iPad virtUal keyboard )

By MikeW2 on 23 Sep 2011

26/10/2011 Podcast #182 problems

The latest podcast #182 is not downloading on itunes correctly.

Hope this can get fixed asap.

Keep up the great work anyway guys.

Harry

By haz999 on 26 Oct 2011

Podcast 182

Hope that was a one off, PC Pro copy the gadget show & go on tour was truly dreadful, audio was terrible & trying to sound cool & funny getting down with the kids, cringe.

By JayLaFunk on 27 Oct 2011

Podcast 184

Really enjoyed the podcast. Can Tim Danton make more of an appearance in the podcasts?

By henry20012 on 10 Nov 2011

30 seconds in and I assume I'm listening to MacFanboi rather than PC Pro. Windows 7 never restarts itself automatically for updates unless that's what you told it to do. If you don't have such an option your beef is with the IT dept that think you're idiots not Microsoft.

And you guys know this. So why say otherwise?

By Duds_2k on 17 Nov 2011

Podcast 186

I would like to echo the hopes of Tim Danton making more frequent appearances. Always welcome!

Also, could you fix the link please. It's still pointing to podcast 185. Thanks.

By rip_tractorboy on 24 Nov 2011

Crofts

Just so you know; a croft is generally a small rented house in the country (usually the Scottish Highland & Islands) with some associated farm land and possibly animals.

The crofters generally have a second job elsewhere as the income from the croft is insufficient for most people.

Think of it as a part time/ micro farm.

By bronven on 1 Dec 2011

WIMAX to the home instead of fibre?

There was a long debate about this in the podcast.
In the Outer Hebrides broadband (www.hebrides.net) is delivered via squarials. Looking at the lables (being interested in such things) they seem to be running wimax. So it's happening already, but not perhaps at the speeds envisioned in the discussion! Scotland, meanwhile, is discussing how it can get fibre to every home - though I think the concept of laying fibre across miles of peat bog to get to remote community is heroic, to say the least.
But even at 1Mb/s (in each direction) the hebrides.net project has transformed our ability to keep our London based business going when we are staying in our house in up there, including having voip extensions to our telephone system.

By WilliamW on 2 Dec 2011

WIMAX to the home instead of fibre?

There was a long debate about this in the podcast.
In the Outer Hebrides broadband (www.hebrides.net) is delivered via squarials. Looking at the lables (being interested in such things) they seem to be running wimax. So it's happening already, but not perhaps at the speeds envisioned in the discussion! Scotland, meanwhile, is discussing how it can get fibre to every home - though I think the concept of laying fibre across miles of peat bog to get to remote community is heroic, to say the least.
But even at 1Mb/s (in each direction) the hebrides.net project has transformed our ability to keep our London based business going when we are staying in our house in up there, including having voip extensions to our telephone system.

By WilliamW on 2 Dec 2011

IPad is NOT a toy, Darren

I use the iPad to read several weekly magazines (in English and German at the moment) and to read many daily newspapers (from several countries) in their iPad versions and that when I'm at home with access to several PCs and a MacBook.

To show that the above are mostly only possible on a tablet let me mention that when I go on holiday to the Canaries for six weeks I'll be carrying *both* the iPad and a portable in my hand luggage.

By MikeW2 on 7 Dec 2011

Video special ?

Hi guys

I really enjoy the podcast and long may it continue.

I just wondered if you had ever considsered an occasional video version ?

A bit like the Radio 4 Bottom Line series

Maybe a one off special for the 200th edition ?

By MiniEggs on 10 Dec 2011

Video special ?

Hi guys

I really enjoy the podcast and long may it continue.

I just wondered if you had ever considsered an occasional video version ?

A bit like the Radio 4 Bottom Line series

Maybe a one off special for the 200th edition ?

By MiniEggs on 10 Dec 2011

Video special

Thanks for the suggestion. We'll certainly give it some thought - any other ideas for podcast 200 out there?

Barry Collins
Editor

By Barry_Collins on 12 Dec 2011

HTC Sense

I think HTC sense is OK for casual users, but Darien's right, it no longer improves the UI. What's more, the market agrees. HTC's sales are down 20% year on year, a pretty sensational drop. I think the market's getting less casual.

By amh15 on 15 Dec 2011

HTC Sense

I think HTC sense is OK for casual users, but Darien's right, it no longer improves the UI. What's more, the market agrees. HTC's sales are down 20% year on year, a pretty sensational drop. I think the market's getting less casual.

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By sdgvdf on 22 Dec 2011

HHOTW Specs

Guys, I've lost count of the number of times you've had incomplete specs for the HHOTW products you're supposed to be featuring - the weight of the Kindle Fire was this week's whoopsie; could you really not pause the recording long enough to quickly look it up? No? OK then, it's 413g - or less than 25g heavier than a Kindle Keyboard in it's leather cover, so hardly the wrist-breaker you seemed to assume it to be.

Personally (and I've had e-ink readers for a lot longer than the Kindle has been around) I prefer reading on an LCD screen and have hardly used my Kindle since getting an iPad - but I'd be really interested in a Kindle Fire just for the smaller size, provided it isn't too weird reading a widescreen format in held in portrait *podcast hint* that would be the kind of thing that's good to hear about...

But price is critical. I wouldn't pay £200 for one, not when they sell for $199 in the US...

And since I'm in moaning mode - do this comment thread really need to date back to August 2009, or do you think someone might have a bit of a clear out sometime soon? I mean, I know the Sonos is cool and all that, but, well, we've all moved on, really. Thanks, PJM

By petermillard1 on 19 Jan 2012

Oh, for an edit button.

*does* this comment thread...

By petermillard1 on 19 Jan 2012

Which podcast is this?

The top of the page says 18/01/2012 but I think this is the new podcast (ie the one I was expecting on the 25th). I don't recognise the description as being last week's anyway.

I download these as individual MP3s and delete them after listening so I can't be sure. (I suppose I could try recovering it from my hard-drive but that's perhaps overkill...)

Anyway, if this is the podcast for the 25th then could you please ensure the date gets updated please? Thanks :-)

By john_sn on 26 Jan 2012

Date error

Apologies - date error now fixed.

Barry Collins
Editor

By Barry_Collins on 30 Jan 2012

Thanks but...

... it's still showing the 25th at my end :-)

By john_sn on 1 Feb 2012

Errr... no it isn't

Well it was a minute ago. Now it's saying the 1st (correctly).

Maybe cos I logged in?

By john_sn on 1 Feb 2012

Disappointed with DGS

Great podcast - still, but is anybody else disappointed with DGS's growing Android fanboyism? Ever since he got one, everything else is rubbish. Normally I agree with most things he says, but not on this, other OSes have their merits too.

By Chris_M on 11 Feb 2012

In fairness, on this week's podcast I was talking specifically about Nokia. To me it seems crazy for a company in Nokia's position to stake its future on an OS with a comparatively tiny app store and a closed architecture that means the manufacturer doesn't control the user experience on its own platform. Android would (in my view) have been a much more sensible choice simply from a strategic point of view, quite regardless of whatever its inherent merits may be.

As for iOS and BlackBerry OS: undeniably these too have their strengths, but in this particular context they can be dismissed out of hand because there was never any possibility of Nokia licensing them!

By DarienGS on 13 Feb 2012

Unlimited data

Just to remind DGS and Jonathan Bray, there is still one carrier in the UK which allows unlimited data - The One Plan on 3.

By ICT_Tower on 13 Feb 2012

iOS?

Someone please tell barry collins that it is I-O-S (Three Syllables) not ios (one word).

By louisjenvey on 15 Feb 2012

@louisjenvey

Noted.

Barry Collins
Editor

By Barry_Collins on 16 Feb 2012

Samsung Series 9 versus 2012 Sony Vaio Z?

I agree that the 2012 Samsung Series 9 is very desirable, but I'm not sure that the MacBook Air is serious competition, after all it run OSX which is enough to put many off, myself included. My feel is that they are gunning for Sony Vaio Z territory, albeit in a light form for now, but that could be remedied with a more powerful version in the future. I am a very happy 2010 Vaio Z user, if I was in the market today I'm pretty sure I would go for the Series 9.

By Zaphod1666 on 14 Mar 2012

Great podcast

Been listening to the podcast for quite some time and you guys are getting bolder by the week.

This week was classic. A full on argument about the merits of Windows 8. It was excellent.

Keep up the good work.

P.S. Nicole has come out of her shell in recent weeks. Isn't there enough room in your recording suite for her?

By sixhundred on 17 Mar 2012

Ha!

Loving the fact that Nicole wasn't kicked out this week. I like the take she has on topics.

By khellan on 23 Mar 2012

Some observations from the colonies...

Hello from the United States. I always enjoy your podcasts and have a couple of observations from your last episode. You mentioned that Android users are reluctant to spend money on apps. I believe this is true for Android phone users, but here in the States the Kindle Fire is changing that behavior. The Kindle Fire is introducing an entire segment of our population to tablet computing for the first time and Amazon has made it enticingly easy to purchase content for the Fire. The Siren call of Amazon's "1-click purchase" is to enticing to ignore. Just wait until the Kindle Fire is released in the UK. I predict it will dramatically change people's perception of tablet computing and their willingness to spend money on this new addiction.
The second observation I have is in regards to the increase in the use of Chrome versus Internet Explorer on weekends. I think this is just a reflection of the business world's reluctance to officially support anything but Microsoft's Internet Explorer. In my office, the perceived risk of a security breach from other browsers imposes a rather strict set of software limitations on our PC's at work. As much as I would prefer to use Chrome at work, just like I do at home, I do not want to risk the inevitable wrath of our security officer.

Keep up the good work.

PS. I would love to subscribe to a Kindle version of your magazine.

By FluxLite on 23 Mar 2012

Some observations from the colonies...

Hello from the United States. I always enjoy your podcasts and have a couple of observations from your last episode. You mentioned that Android users are reluctant to spend money on apps. I believe this is true for Android phone users, but here in the States the Kindle Fire is changing that behavior. The Kindle Fire is introducing an entire segment of our population to tablet computing for the first time and Amazon has made it enticingly easy to purchase content for the Fire. The Siren call of Amazon's "1-click purchase" is to enticing to ignore. Just wait until the Kindle Fire is released in the UK. I predict it will dramatically change people's perception of tablet computing and their willingness to spend money on this new addiction.
The second observation I have is in regards to the increase in the use of Chrome versus Internet Explorer on weekends. I think this is just a reflection of the business world's reluctance to officially support anything but Microsoft's Internet Explorer. In my office, the perceived risk of a security breach from other browsers imposes a rather strict set of software limitations on our PC's at work. As much as I would prefer to use Chrome at work, just like I do at home, I do not want to risk the inevitable wrath of our security officer.

Keep up the good work.

PS. I would love to subscribe to a Kindle version of your magazine.

By FluxLite on 23 Mar 2012

First steps in computing

Far from avoiding this subject (see title) in the Raspberry Pi discussion, I'm all for it. A shame it didn't last longer.

For my part I'd like to hear more personal opinions and experiences, not just a download of news (which I've already heard elsewhere). If that's the sole objective, then maybe I've been listening to the wrong podcast these 200+ weeks.

I don't care one jot about Football Manager but I could listen to you guys reminisce about it for hours.

Regards.

By rip_tractorboy on 26 Apr 2012