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zjayzjay

Listed below are comments made by zjayzjay between Friday, 30th May 2008 and Thursday, 15th January 2009.

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Sheikh ya money! 4:58pm on 15 Jan 2009 All the complaints about spending huge amounts of money are unfair I think - from man c's point of view this is clearly a statement of intent; regardless of whether this transfer goes through or not Abu Dhabi Co are showing their flare and relentless ambition, and that can only be a good thing?

However, as a sport I think football will learn from F1's mistakes and investments like these will be few and far between - i mean look at the 'big money' since ZZ's transfer?
E-tailing - has the revolution arrived? 9:48pm on 13 Jan 2009 The slow rise in internet retailing is to be expected; there is always a grace period where the public is sceptical about new things - now that people realise without shop floors and huge overheads prices are reduced they will, in my opinion, slowly migrate to online retailers.

The problem I have is that most of these online retailers are also traditional retailers, or owned by the same holding companies as traditional retailers, and in most cases are either equal or fractionally cheaper in price, save for the giants (play.com for example) - if you buy a loaf of bread from tesco it is the same online as it is from the shop.

This lead me to compare the prices and to be honest, after all the ranting and raving done by these online retailers about how they are cheaper because they have less overheads - you realise, yes they are cheaper, HOWEVER - 1. their return/exchange policy requires you to post the item back to them at your own expense (credit to littlewoods and nike who not only dont charge but also do all the leg work by picking it up)
2. they want you to pay for delivery unless you spend £50/75/100
3. they bombard you with countless emails offering sales when youve bought one item from them years ago (thank you very much nike) - in the pre and post chrismas sales ive been received on average an email a day off nike offering discounts etc

whilst the online retailing landscape has changed, I think that in terms of who loves it, right now it is most definately the bank managers who are comparing the profitability of these websites who are saving upwards of 40% on running costs and sometimes offering no discount what so ever, why do online retailers think they exist? - It is to be cheaper than the high street because they aren't on the high street, do not be an alternative, be THE ONLY option.
Insurance that worsens crunch 8:40pm on 12 Jan 2009 The withdrawal of this insurance is not necessarily a bad thing. Granted, it was the final straw for woolworths - but it was one of many; its collapse was happening with or without trade credit insurance.

Other companies have taken this lapse into their stride; JJB Sports most notably with a huge sale to clear out old stock and return to a more traditional form of selling stock and then using the money to fund new stock - not as quick as "putting it on the tab" but its nice to know that some companies recognise in times of financial strife, more debt is not a good thing. If only gordon brown could see this..
Free prizes? Not quite 7:20pm on 04 Oct 2008 although not illegal* - i do sincerely apologise.
Free prizes? Not quite 7:20pm on 04 Oct 2008 Although illegal, this is scandallous and immoral. Really, out of the "enlightened" bunch who use such an inferior product, who will read the short print and note that its nigh on impossible to win? 99% of live searches will be from people who use IE and haven't/cant change their homepage so its just there to use; they wont read the small print theyll just see a big WIN FREE XBOX CONTROLLER and go for it.

In regard to the future of microsoft; they re-invented themselves pre-WINDOWS, and the time will come when theyll need to re-invent themselves post-windows (microsoft developed windows AFTER its ms-dos platform which gave it the market share it enjoys today because all suppliers/programmers bought into the program, and as windows is one of the few MS-DOS running OS's - where is the competition?

Microsoft at present is, as most companies will be, struggling from a lul in the market demand, and the visionary people within the company; much like yahoo is. However one thing you MUST note is that microsoft has no debt; it never has done (thank you bill gates) so the chances of it going bust, are quite frankly almost silly to even ponder.

Search seems to be the "in" place to be, but its the exact reason why microsoft is failing at the moment; why can't they understand that if people want to search, they will use google. Dont try and beat the best, find a way to do something completely different; thats how google over-came yahoo. Eliminate the reason/need to search, then youll have 100% market share; guaranteed.
Google - is the love fading? 6:38pm on 05 Sep 2008 ugh @25 - just re-read your post.. You GREATLY underestimate the rest of internet users, aswell as companies; do you really think shareholders would allow mass advertising campaigns online that give no return? Of course not, granted its not perfect, but the fact is that google makes billions PROFIT a year, so if companies didnt get leads, google wouldn't get money - see where im going with this?

Just had another scary thought - at googles inception, what company was willing to invest billions into the internet-based companies? One, possibly, in yahoo (who turned down buying google) - now there is google, yahoo and microsoft all looking to gain ground and companies such as MTV and CNet looking to boost profits, any start ups that have the potential to be as good as google, will more than likely be snapped up by the big-wigs, and turned into revenue generating machines for the very people the start-ups were made to shun.

Dont hate google, hate capitalism for creating the 'big guys' in the first place, and allowing them to stay up there.
Google - is the love fading? 6:33pm on 05 Sep 2008 first off (@8)
Altavista is heavily reliant on yahoo, which in turn is now hugely commited to revenue sharing with google - in effect your searching on something that isnt as good as yahoo, but relies on a system that is proven to not be anywhere near google

Anyway, on topic; google has expanded way beyond a search engine, but the core business is still heavily reliant on people using google.com/.co.uk to search for things, if people started using yahoo (after clearance from US for yahoo to show google ads), then youd effectively be getting googles power, with yahoos terms (do you REALLY think that google will let yahoo use adwords on a special commission with its current search algorithm? Keep your eyes peeled for 1, perhaps 2 google employees leaving by 'mutual consent' and joining yahoo - id bet at least 4 figure sums that happens!

All of the things google offers, id like to note, are mostly also available on yahoo, with much less intrusive privacy fears, also the fact that yahoo's ad system is effectively being scrapped in favour of AdWords; you again wont be snared by ads that start to scare you
Chrome - first impressions 4:52pm on 03 Sep 2008 Im on a mac, but did install it on a desktop with decent spec. Must say that whilst its quite clearly better than IE, this is by no means a compliment (being punched causes less pain than being stabbed in the eye), so space for praise are limited.

In terms of features, it is in a similar group to the cronies of the microsoft they so vehemently oppose; features that have long since been available on other platforms, renamed and done in different ways then rebranded as "ground breaking." The rendering engine in safari and FF3 are far more superior, and even with its "open source" backend, its still subtly promoting googles portfolio of websites, such as youtube and obviously the google search - things that microsoft gets great flak for.

The "home page" has been on opera for about a year now (ish)! and private browsing has been on safari since as far as i can remember. In terms of speed though, I can load pages quicker on Camino (for macs) on a wireless broadband connection, faster than chrome can manage on a desktop with wired broadband; whilst it is beta, there is still none of the "outstanding performance" others have seen - in comparison to other browsers that are cross platform, open source, user friendly etc (which according to each browsers own brief is either in the current release, or promised for the next one)

In one line; it could, should, and if released by another internet giant, would have been better, safer and more fun to use.

if only yahoo had the ganucks to release theirs, instead of holding back to preserve the google-yahoo effective merge
Firefox 3 - triumph or disaster? 8:16pm on 28 Jun 2008 just curious, how can 8.3 million downloads be a disaster?

Yes there was 1 security flaw exposed. Thats a triumph - only 1 flaw?! How many does IE have?
There could be 10+ reported weekly at one point.

One thing i do feel needs saying is the dismal performance firefox 3 offers to macs. Not only is the current safari still faster, the beta 4.1.1 is noticably faster, and my current browser niche camino is faster still - at loading webpages and initializing.

I think open-source browsers are starting to see higher % of the market, obviously there will always be IE, and unless there's a huge fall out firefox will continue to be the web dev's wet dream, glad you did mention opera though - when i was using vista it was the only browser that made life bearable. On IE-exclusive web sites it would render pages to at least look funcionable, whereas the firefox prejudice by "IE loyalists" would make a website unviewable.

If you use windows, use opera
If you use mac, use camino if you want ultimate loading speed, or safari for the full package (especially when 4.1 comes out!)
BT iPlayer Homehub issues 11:47am on 30 May 2008 I can safely say that BT and homehub are the most frustrating experiences i have ever had with a company.

Granted you cant expect perfection from a company; they will give relative advantages but obviously it is not cost effective to develop perfection.

HOWEVER - the homehub not only is flawed as hardware, but also the firmware is unstable, far from user friendly, and even dangerous.

As hardware, the homehub is made by the wrong material, and made without key features. The plastic it is made out of quickly becomes hot when in use, usually after 5-10 minutes, and from there it all goes down hill. As the homehub has no fan, there is nothing to solve this, and so we had to buy a desktop fan to cool it down - when its hot, it doesnt work or is very slow.

The firmware on the homehub often forgets our BT username and password, and on a daily basis i am told the installation of my homehub is wrong and i am not connected to the internet. When this first occured obviously i wrang BT, waited 45 mins for a rep, and after a further 10 mins hold the problem was going to be 'investigated'.

As re-assuring as this was, my phone calls now in the double digits and the issue remains. I cannot wait for the fixed term to end - it'll either be sky broadband or virgin - whichever company can offer me an all-inclusive package for the cheapest (phone/mobile/broadband/digi TV).

Anyone who has problems with homehub overheating, desktop fans can be a life saver, so id look into getting one.

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