The grumpy thread

[MrDuke]

Actually, scrub all that - go in with a vacant expression, then when they ask what your looking for, turn around and gesture towards the Princess parked half-way across the pavement right outside the door, complete with random feathers stuck to the grill and ketchup smeared across the bumper. Then turn back and instruct them loudly to find a phone which will suit your 'style'. Dress like John Shuttleworth for bonus points.

[vulgalour]

That's some quality consumer advice there, I shall be making use of it later this year, now just to find a phone shop that has a pavement and a lack of bollards outside of it and a suitable way of fitting the pheasant wings I've got - friend's Dad is a farmer, sometimes I get free pheasant - to the Princess. Old Money spec, here I come!

[Cavcraft]

As someone who ended up with an eyefone all I can say is that they're not 'all that', but it is handy for e-mithers, eBay and random posts to AS when boredom strikes. If you treat it as a slightly retarded landline (they need to be plugged into power more often than you'd believe) they're not utterly shit.

 

I find that the best thing about having an eyefone is the look of confuddlement on the faces of the "JOBS IZ GOD" brigade when I happily point out that Android is much much better and that the only reason I've got an eyefone is that I it was given to me by an eyephone apologist who still can't fathom why after 12 months of owning the bloody thing I still use my trusty K750i as my phone and the eyefone as a toy.

 

If you get the choice, go for a Sony or HTC, but keep your 990? as your actual phone.

 

Blackberry things tend to have completely stupid user interfaces and can't do simple things without making you jump through a billion hoops.

 

'All of the above' (though sorry to admit I got an iPhone by choice) and Blackberrys are indeed complete shit. iPhone battery life appalling, it's still knocked into a cocked hat by my ancient Samsung D600 thing, but they're not all bad.

When my contract is up I'm going for a mingebag phone on a mingebag contract as I only really use the internet and text message facilities.

[messerschmitt owner]

and I love my iphone - but I'm writing this on a macbook ...

 

I'm sure all smart phones are as good/bad/indifferent* (delete as applicable). The ability to access t'interweb actually both saves and makes me money - so it is all good. I can check things there and then - and make phone calls too (mind you, that;s the part that iphones aren't so great at - but the 4s is infinitely better than the 3gs phone I had (still have to send off to envirophone or whoever).

 

I guess it is like all phones - ditch the crap programs supplied with it for better ones. I'm saving on not buying a sat nav, on being able to use t'interweb in places I couldn't before, and there are some cool games to fritter away time at train stations, etc.

[rml2345]

I too have one of those iPhone thingumys and mainly use it to go on the house wi-fi. Apart from the hopeless battery life it isn't bad really. I wouldn't have one again, mind you as there are parts of it that are bloody irritating...

 

*Edited ironically due to the damned things tiny shit touch screen keyboard.

[cort16]

iphones are great at doing everything other than being a phone.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

I find that the best thing about having an eyefone is the look of confuddlement on the faces of the "JOBS IZ GOD" brigade when I happily point out that Android is much much better and that the only reason I've got an eyefone is that I it was given to me by an eyephone apologist who still can't fathom why after 12 months of owning the bloody thing I still use my trusty K750i as my phone and the eyefone as a toy.

 

I recently saw a newspaper article about obsolescence illustrated with a picture of a K800i Okay, it's no iPhone but it's not like it uses pulse dialling. I'm keeping mine until it dies - the battery life is superb.

[wuvvum]

I caved shortly after Christmas and bought an Android smartphone - it's a £60 Vodafone own brand job though (made by Huawei) rather than anything fancy. It does everything the more expensive Android phones can do, albeit sometimes not quite as quickly, and the screen is rather small.

 

The sat nav function has come in useful several times though to find my way from stations to tat sellers' houses in unfamiliar areas, although I don't think it could ever replace a proper sat nav in the car as it doesn't have the maps preloaded (it downloads them from Google Maps as it goes) so in areas with a poor Vodafone signal it's useless.

 

I also find the fact that everything's done via the touch screen slightly irritating, and battery life isn't great. But it's been reliable, and I haven't found anything that an iphone can do that this can't - not in the spectrum of things I want a phone to do, anyway.

[Ross_K]

Google Maps is crap for getting around unless you're in a city centre.

 

Copilot Live is the best nav program I've found on Android for the price. I think it cost 30 euros for UK + Ireland maps...

 

Another essential Android program is CallFilter for ditching withheld numbers. Send them straight to voicemail, or have the phone answer silently and hang up straight away.

 

Tunein Pro for internet radio in the car.

 

Other notables:

Shazam

Vlingo

eBay

n7player

Tetris

UlysseSpeedo

[wuvvum]

UlysseSpeedo

I haven't come across this one, but imagine it will be around 22% optimistic and stop working at random intervals for no apparent reason?

[Pete-M]

The. Reading probably wobbles wildly until you hit 50 as well.

[Ross_K]

Unfortunate name, I know...

 

When the app stops working you have to replace the whole phone at a cost of roughly 600 quid.

[peter9000uk]

Sale of Laguna Estate fell through today after 3 months of pestering by bloke who wanted to buy it. Apparently his wife is unable to drive an estate car! I mean FFS it's not as though the bloody thing has grown or changed shape! Just MOT'd it as well, areswipes.

 

This has now scuppered plans for buying Scooter's Scooby.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Why did you not offload it on him 0.2 secs after he expressed an interest?

[cort16]

Sale of Laguna Estate fell through today after 3 months of pestering by bloke who wanted to buy it. Apparently his wife is unable to drive an estate car! I mean FFS it's not as though the bloody thing has grown or changed shape! Just MOT'd it as well, areswipes.

 

This has now scuppered plans for buying Scooter's Scooby.

 

What model/engine of Laguna is it?

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

I'm a few pages late to the party, but our gas has just been turned off by the boiler inspector because the cooker smells of gas.

 

Fortunately I had my tin of chicken jalfrezi before he came.

[peter9000uk]

Sale of Laguna Estate fell through today after 3 months of pestering by bloke who wanted to buy it. Apparently his wife is unable to drive an estate car! I mean FFS it's not as though the bloody thing has grown or changed shape! Just MOT'd it as well, areswipes.

 

This has now scuppered plans for buying Scooter's Scooby.

 

What model/engine of Laguna is it?

 

 

2001/Y 1.8 16v Dynamique

[autofive]

I'm a few pages late to the party, but our gas has just been turned off by the boiler inspector because the cooker smells of gas.

 

Fortunately I had my tin of chicken jalfrezi before he came.

 

i would kick off about that. he should have condemned the cooker and disconnected it, not turned off the gas

 

he will be on the phone later with a 'great deal' on a new cooker

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Just been on an hour long hunt for gas cookers before coming home and ordering one off the internet like I should have done in the first place.

 

Come to think of it, I don't know why he's left the gas off instead of just disconnecting the cooker (which he has done). Didn't try to sell us another, but did recommend someone to come fit it, so you might be on to something there

 

I don't dispute the cooker leaks gas, it definitely does.

[willswitchengage]

Electric ovens, although cheaper and shitter, can be similarly jokish. Ours died last year and on top of the purchase price, Currys or whoever it was offered to charge £50 for installation and "environmental disposal" of the old one. We investigated instead of paying up, "installation" was two screws between in the oven and cabinet (fortunately in the same place for the old and new) and basically rewiring a plug. "Environmental disposal" was up to the scrap metal man down the road with his orange blown-exhaust LDV Convoy

[autofive]

you dont need someone to fit a gas cooker, the pipe has a bayonet fitting on it, plug in and twist

 

 

we bought a new electric cooker about 4 years ago. it cost about 500 notes and lasted about 14 months before the grill stopped working

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

They'll be replacing the rubber hose with a rigid pipe.

[Negative Creep]

These things. I hate these fucking things. They are the trolls of the electronic world

 

 

 

Why? This is why

 

 

You can almost hear them mocking you? Oh, so you'd like to use every part of your multisocket huh? Well fuck you arsehole, because our shitty design means you'd won't be able to. This is what I think of these things

 

[MrDuke]

That, and I deeply distrust anything that generates enough heat to warm a medium-sized house without actually doing anything.

 

(yes, I know they're really busy transforming teh voltages, but still)

[autofive]

spent the whole night having strange dreams, including picking up an x1/9 engine that pished red ATF all over the back of my car and being pressed into walking the dog (which ran away obviously) belonging to a man with a hairy hand and an antique shop filled with crap, who offered me a pint, but then drank it himself.

 

wtf?

 

last time i have a lancashire cheese omelete at 9pm

 

so now its 8:15am, im wide awake, but i know that in about 3 hours i will want to sleep

[Ross_K]

Electric ovens, although cheaper and shitter, can be similarly jokish. Ours died last year and on top of the purchase price, Currys or whoever it was offered to charge £50 for installation and "environmental disposal" of the old one. We investigated instead of paying up, "installation" was two screws between in the oven and cabinet (fortunately in the same place for the old and new) and basically rewiring a plug. "Environmental disposal" was up to the scrap metal man down the road with his orange blown-exhaust LDV Convoy

 

£50? They're supposed to take it away for free when they deliver the old one. Arseholes.

 

Isn't that what WEEE is all about?

[Guest]

I have set a new record for fucking a PC up. 7 minutes. Tried to install GT Legends on the new PC SCTSH_ANDY built for me and now Windows refuses to boot. It just goes round in circles shrieking about a system restore disc that I don't have, and that it doesn't like my keyboard.

 

That tops the three days my first Dell netbook lasted before suffering a catastrophic hard disc failure that took a major piece of coursework with it)

 

I know what I've done wrong - I installed an old game with copy protection that Windows 7 DOES NOT LIKE at the same time as I rebooted for a Windows Update. Result : clarted core files.

 

I'm writing this via my Hackintosh. TRAITOR.

[phil drolls]

Can`t you sort that /\/\ by logging in on safe mode and restoring to a previous restore point???

[Danblez]

I have set a new record for fucking a PC up. 7 minutes. Tried to install GT Legends on the new PC SCTSH_ANDY built for me and now Windows refuses to boot. It just goes round in circles shrieking about a system restore disc that I don't have, and that it doesn't like my keyboard.

 

That tops the three days my first Dell netbook lasted before suffering a catastrophic hard disc failure that took a major piece of coursework with it)

 

I know what I've done wrong - I installed an old game with copy protection that Windows 7 DOES NOT LIKE at the same time as I rebooted for a Windows Update. Result : clarted core files.

 

I'm writing this via my Hackintosh. TRAITOR.

 

I feel your pain I managed to permanently f*ck a brand new MacBook Pro last week in less than 10 minutes whilst looking for an f1 web feed. All attempts at recovery didnt work and it could actually have knackered the hard drive apparently. The first and only time I have used a Mac, been using PCs for nearly 20 years and never managed anything like that.

 

To make matters worse it is works laptop and I really should know better

 

I feel like a grade A cockend!

[messerschmitt owner]

wife is on her third macbok pro in a week and a half - first two kept not restarting after going into sleep mode.