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Paul Freeman-Powell

Listed below are comments made by Paul Freeman-Powell between Monday, 13th July 2009 and Monday, 16th November 2009.

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The anonymous bullies 10:42am on 16 Nov 2009 @ Anon - I enjoyed your message, Frank James Gunn ;-)
24 hours with Ubuntu 3:38pm on 23 Oct 2009 I follow Ubuntu with interest and am continually pleased to see it getting better and better with each release.

I think it's good for people in the sort of "middle ground" of computing.

I'd never really recommend it to anyone unless they already knew a great deal about computers/technology (in which case it wouldn't take a recommendation from me...) HOWEVER... if I know that all someone wants to do is a bit of web browsing and the odd bit of word processing, then it's great.

We should all be aware of the pros and cons of all main systems ie. Windows, OS X and Linux (various variants) and realise that they all have their good and bad points.

Looking foward to having a play with the new Ubuntu :)
Will T'Orange be good for shoppers? 4:30pm on 08 Sep 2009 @7 - very good point. A business post really, nothing to do with tech....
Will T'Orange be good for shoppers? 3:09pm on 08 Sep 2009 When I saw the article and clicked on the title link, I thought you'd gone all Northern with that Yorkshire-sounding title...
Read the manual? Never! 09:35am on 21 Aug 2009 I completely agree with you - instruction manuals for most consumer day-to-day items shouldn't be necessary.

People need to actually use their BRAINS and not just say, "Oh I'm too old for this, your generation is better suited for all this" or words to that effect. Just because it's technology, they presume they can't do it and have a huge mental block where they suddenly become blubbering fools who can't even work out the most simple English.

Why are they not embarrassed and ashamed?

Example... If you're typing something in Word (other word processing packages are available...) and you want to *insert* a French *character*, you would click Insert > Character.

Sometimes I think people don't realise it's all actually in English (or their native tongue), it seems like through their eyes, it's all colour-coded with random swaves and patterns, and you somehow need to be "shown how" or "learn how" to do something.... when they could just take a step back, tell themselves they're an intelligent being, and just do it with ease!
The watchphone: Gadget or gimmick? 12:30pm on 20 Aug 2009 A gimmick? Definitely.

But it will make playing Thunderbirds so much more fun!!
The spinning of Spinvox 10:50am on 23 Jul 2009 I suppose it's just one of those "use it for personal calls but not sensitive ones with your work phone" issues.

I don't mind if some worker miles away earning minimum wage knows that someone, somewhere in the UK is meeting someone called "hi it's me" at a pub at 8pm tonight...
Green shoots in the music industry? 11:20am on 16 Jul 2009 Research done by one company will say one thing, and research done by another company will say another.

In the words of Churchill: there are lies, damned lies... and then statistics.
118800 and a web revolution 1:39pm on 14 Jul 2009 I think you're spot on in your penultimate paragraph.

My response when people go crazy about not putting your phone number anywhere people can view it has always been to quote Tim from The Office: "what are [they] going to do, PHONE ME?"

Shock horror........

However, if I were to have constant irritating phone calls offering me 10 carrots for the price of 9, or a 4% saving on hair insurance, then I might indeed get a bit irritated. Irritated, but not threatened.

Someone knowing my phone number is hardly like them having a house key, knowing my secret PIN, memorable date and mother's maiden name, is it?
Stephen Fry on copyright 09:58am on 13 Jul 2009 The comments I made about this time last year on this blog still stand - if you go into a shop and take something from the shelf, someone (the shop's budget or their insurance company) is very definitely suffering a loss.

However, if you use a service to download something which you would otherwise just do without, the result is the same independent of the action taking place or not.

For most people, I would imagine, a large proportion of their music (/film) collection was acquired for free on a "because I can" basis. Much of the downloaded music would not have been downloaded and paid for if it weren't downloaded for free. Therefore it CANNOT be said that every illegally downloaded track results in a 79p (or whatever) loss for the industry.

If you have an 80GB iPod, and an MP3 is roughly ~3MB in size, that's roughly 27,306 tracks you can fit on the device (assuming it's the full 80GB i know... this is just a rough example). If those tracks cost 79p each then it would cost £21,572.26 to fill that device with music...... when they're marketing these devices as being able to hold tens of thousands of music tracks, I really don't think they could honestly say they expect the consumer to pay that much money to fill them with music and hope they don't get mugged....

Spotify on the other hand... although not portable, it's pretty bloomin' wonderful if you ask me, and long may it continue!

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