Author: Carrie

  • A positive mental environment

    Is it just me or is plastering these around Glasgow… [photopress:080107nabuse.371740.full.jpg,full,pp_image] …likely to be counter-productive? It’s another campaign against domestic abuse. Says the Evening Times: Statements often used by abusive partners will feature on the posters, such as You’re useless’, You’re going nowhere’, You look a state’, You’re a waste of space’ – will go…

  • Sony spanked over DRM “deception”, Apple’s next

    Blimey: SONY has been convicted of misleading the French public and told to pay damages to a consumer watchdog for selling downloadable songs that only run on its own music players. France’s Union Federale des Consommateurs (UFC) took Sony’s French and British subsidiaries to court in February 2005 over the music download site Sony Connect.…

  • The new UK singles chart: good news and bad news

    The spanking new UK chart is out, and it’s a bit of a non-starter really: there’s good news (two Girls Aloud tracks in the chart! Yay!) and bad news (Snow Patrol! Boo!) but the inclusion of downloads is hardly earth-shattering – for now, at least. The changes to the chart rules are important, though. As…

  • More Microsoft: Windows Home Server

    This could be interesting: Microsoft’s been working on a device called the Windows Home Server which, it seems, hooks up to your network and takes care of backups, file storage, media sharing and other things. There’s no content on the official site just yet, but there should be some more info there later today. Meanwhile…

  • Microsoft brings IPTV to Xbox 360, Apple fans’ wait is nearly over

    Annual tech trade show CES is underway, and Microsoft’s keynote announced a few new goodies: a new Ultimate Extra for Vista that delivers full-motion desktop backgrounds, interoperability between Xbox Live and Vista, and more interestingly a TV service for the Xbox 360. US launch this summer but other than that there’s sod-all information. Price? International…

  • eBay can kiss my increasingly lardy arse

    The joys of online-only customer service: a few months back, eBay spotted – and stopped – some fraudulent sales going via my eBay account. The sales incurred listing fees, which eBay promised to credit; today, eBay threatened to send debt collectors round to recover the fees which were nothing to do with me and which…

  • This sat-nav is brilliant

    [photopress:B000IM5BYU.01._AA280_SCLZZZZZZZ_V40659814_.jpg,full,pp_image] This little baby is the Navman N40i sat-nav system, which – thanks to festive generosity from my family and flogging my old sat-nav on eBay – I got just before Christmas. And it’s brilliant: it zooms in when you slow down, it has all of Europe in its maps, it’s dead easy to use…

  • This book is brilliant

    I’d never read Joseph Wambaugh before, but a cover blurb from James Ellroy persuaded me to buy Hollywood Station. And it’s brilliant – like the best bits of NYPD Blue crammed into a single novel. Funny, too. [photopress:1847240240.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_V38703916_.jpg,full,pp_image]

  • Dead trees

    One of the great things about the Xmas holiday is that it gives you the chance to catch up on your reading. I finally got round to reading two books I’ve been meaning to get for ages: Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion and Michael Bywater’s Big Babies. The former is an intemperate rant against religion,…

  • Ho ho ho

    [photopress:325227423_58b96d0d98_1.jpg,full,pp_image] It seems that everyone is already winding down for Xmas, so this is probably a good time to wish you all a very merry Christmas, a riotous Hogmanay and a happy and successful 2007. [Photo by David]