omnia 1 year on

well it has been very good.
it has however had to be replaced after the powerlead/earphone socket broke... and the replacement was one loaded with orange's awful software.

orange virtually ruined the phone by replacing the microsoft options with its own for messenger /email / maps and music.

that would be half ok, if orange messenger (based on the microsoft one) didnt actually cost money to have and use!! so you can if you know where to look find the microsoft "live" application but the orange software wont let it ever show in the program list. which means you have to set it as a toolbar on the main screen, and that messes up the look.

same with google maps. the default in the omnia software is gone, and orange preload a link to orange maps, which unless you have the latest high end plans (and not legacy high end plans even with the same name eg panther45) is a pay more to use product. luckily here the google application that brings in search, maps and email is easy to find online and download.

however orange really take the piss when you click on the installed buttons for orangemusic and orange email which you cant uninstall and have replaced the ones a normal omnia ships with... as neither actually work! they both take you to "no longer avaialble" website warnings.

this is the last orange phone i buy. i am likely to leave them too. their software and data plans are un competitive and cripple the phones they sell.

samsung omnia

4 months ago i took delivery of a brand new orange omnia. yes! they managed to keep me as a customer, and no, i havent got anywhere near the 250mb data cap my panther price plan gives me to play with each month.

but, what i cant understand is why the "media" is so down on microsofts mobile operating system. its fantastic. ok it has a very long learning curve and the access interface differs between manufactures, but that makes the phones standard yet unique and able to explore different ideas and features.

i bet that a lot of the less friendly reviews have been because the user has only spent a short time with the phone. true, not being the easiest phone to pick up and run with is a major problem for a user, but not an owner, who has the time to learn how a well featured phone works.

its smaller than an iphone, lighter than an iphone, has a better camera, a flash (that is too strong for many uses! but can be turned on to be a very good torch as a result!) and it has a huge memory. mine has a total of 24gb, with 2500 mp3 tracks already loaded...

yes it has the odd stutter when its in a built up area like london where all phones struggle to keep up with the limited network availability, but outside london i havent seen it stutter once...

the next version will be a corker.

Heather Mills, Is she the nut job the media makes her out to be?

Have you noticed she only seems to do interviews where she rants like a madwoman?

Have you noticed they only seem to print pics of her when she has a screwed up nutface?


Thing is, however one sided, she does seem to be a nutjob - and the best thing she can do to relaunch her image is to shut up and go away somewhere we dont have to read about her for a while, a longlong while

halo3 - i hate it

ok i have spent an hour on this now.

i dont like it.

i cant see what is going on
i dont like squad based games
i dont like how filled the screen is
and i dont like the default keys. i keep shooting my team instead of jumping

and i have no bullets left after the 3rd check point.

i hate it

xbox 360... or kettle?

this week i bought an xbox 360.

how loud is that fan? it sounds like a kettle boiling half the time.

the "package" (premium system) you get though does seem to feel good value. there are a lot of cables, books, heavy boxes, headset etc...
far better than the gamecube that was a machine, not the cables you needed, controller and transformer.. no feeling of "wow" at all.

has pm brown admitted there is no tallent in LABOUR

well there must be people in labours huge number of mps good enough to hold a cabinet position, yet he keeps offering them to the peers... one minute there is no role for any peer in new labour, the next minute he wants to give the opposition party peers jobs at the highest level.

just admit it gordon, without blair labour has nothing - and all it really had was blair spin and good luck.

good luck is something we all need after blairs con job lies ran out of luck and he subjected us to 3 decades of death from the middle east

paris hilton - americas shame

the paris hilton screw up this week, rocked american law to the core.

nobody really cares if american "law" is legal or not outside america, if it does deals with eastern european govts for "cia detention centres" who is breaking the law, and what law. its a difficult question no one needs to ask or answer. they can make up the law as they go along.

but when in their own backyard they show they can make up law as they go along, thats when people question their very basis of justice.

the paris pr machine will roll along, but she has to spend the entire sentence, the same as everyone else (unable to get a chum to pardon them) doing time.

and if she has a problem with it, all the better, as its meant to be a punishment, not rehab

the secret chinese invasion - whats the police doing?

shhh it must be a secret.

last year we were told dont buy copied dvds.. they support human trafficing, terrorists and weapons of mass destruction...

well, whatever the reason, they are illegal, they are depriving the tax man tax, shops revenue, and real jobs, employment.

so why is it, every 30 minutes at least 1 chinese person made his (and sometimes her) way through the pub during the fa cup final, smiling and offering "deeveedee" from a big bag.

at least 100 of the latest blockbusters, and clearly illegal for distribution in the uk hardcore porn.

now at £20 a pop, that means he has £2000 of nicked stuff in his bag.

if i had £2000 worth of nicked stuff i would be arrested in minutes. so whats keeping plod from these people?

it cant be because they are hard to investigate, they stand out a mile. they walk around the pubs like clockwork, and at least one of them i have seen coming in every week for months.


so, whats the real reason they are allowed to so easily break the law?