Missing issue?
Have I missed an issue?
PCW December 2007 informs me there will be an article on wireless print servers next month. But the Letters page in the January 2008 issue then refers to the Editor's Choice (the D-Link DP-310) in the previous issue.
As January follows December, did you sneak an issue in I missed?
Ann Edwards
Technology isn't just for the young
It’s not long after you retire before you see condescending attitudes toward the elderly. “Ooo, look at that old man, he’s learning to use a computer. Isn’t he clever?” A refrain that is all too common nowadays and one that is encouraged by a government that assumes all older people need to attend, or be dragged along to, basic computer classes.
But millions of Britons from an earlier generation worked for many years with advanced high-tech systems. Men of my age (70) and even older worked in space sciences, atomic power stations, advanced transportation systems and, yes, computer systems. Don’t forget the first programmable computer was built at Bletchley Park in the 1940s (check out the working replica, it’s awesome).
I myself worked in the aircraft and other high-tech industries from the 1960s onward, and can include in my portfolio Concorde and guided missile systems, computer-controlled power generation and so on. Of course, manual workers and women of this past age may have had no opportunity, or even desire, to enter the world of electronics. But quite a lot of us oldies are, surprisingly to youngsters, techno-freaks.
I have built my own new (updated) PCs three times and am now online using Wifi; the only reason I’m not using all of the latest gadgets is a lack of finance. So, all you young-uns, stop being so damned condescending to wrinklies: you never know, you could even learn a few things from us.
Mind you, a virus called the Victor Meldrew Syndrome seems to be attacking my old operating system and causing me to grumble, as you have probably noticed. A stable and secure operating system from Microsoft? I don't believe it!
Brian Slack
VoIP's failings
I have always had at least one VoIP phone in my household for many a year now, yet I have recently started to favour the good old-fashioned plain old telephone service (POTS) over the many issues regarding VoIP phones compared to that of a POTS.
A few months ago I started to realise the increasingly annoying amount of issues to do with VoIP phones. While the price may be cheaper there are many issues that make me choose to use a POTS phone instead of VoIP.
First of all, set up is far easier. With POTS all you have to do is plug it into a phone line and you are pretty much ready to go calling who you like in an instant. VoIP, on the other hand, requires you to connect it up to your computer, either via cable or, even harder, wireless. A lot of the time it goes wrong, requiring you to edit network settings and the like.
When you finally do get it working it turns out that, due to the phone and internet being from the same company, it requires you to have a new phone number as well as being unable to drop your phone service without losing your internet connection.
Secondly, there's the delay. Even a tiny amount of delay causes major echo problems. Even something as common as a router firewall can cause delay up to anywhere from ten milliseconds to 3 seconds.
Thirdly, power is a problem for VoIP. With a POTS phone the power is supplied by the telephone line itself, meaning that in the case of a power outage then your phone is still useable without any problems. A VoIP's phone's power is supplied via AC power, as is the router it relies on, which can cause obvious problems if the power is down during an emergency.
After considering the advantages compared to the disadvantages of POTS and VoIP phones, i think it is a wise choice to stay on POTS until a time when VoIP is more stable, reliable and of a better quality.
Callum Smith
Dialup is sufficient
The dialup Dilemmas letter from P Smith (PCW October 2007, Letters) struck a chord with me. I have an 8am to 6pm, Mon to Fri dialup connection which costs £4.99 a month from Tiscali. I am retired so these restricted hours are ok for me.
I don't download video, but do use the internet about 20 hours per week. Downloads do take a long time, sometimes hours, but I have lunch, work off-line, or read PCW, during the download. To go broadband would cost me an extra £120 per year. I can buy a lot of software, or wine, for £120 a year.
I know which I prefer.
John Wood
Mastering your music
I read and enjoyed the article on mastering a music collection “Mastering Your Music” in the April issue. It certainly offered lots of clues for those new to the subject. But it was a missed opportunity to really explain what is going on to those of us frustrated by the lack of proper published analysis in this increasingly important area of computer-dependent mixed-media manipulation.
I am cautious about accusing the article of being superficial, when it will clearly serve some readers well. But where is the in-depth comment supported by rigorous testing of the type applied to hardware reviews?
What am I on about? Well, there are lots of codecs out there. All use different alogorithims which result in a different sound. Your codec comparison chart lists only the size of a resulting file using “their respective default settings”. We are not even told what that is. And there is no indication of quality.
Other bland statements, such as WMA at 64Kbits/sec “cannot match the performance of Vorbis and Musepack in other areas” don’t even resolve any obvious meaning.
Meanwhile the now ancient MP3 (MPEG-1, layer 3, to give mp3 its proper name), is given a bad press, with no reference at all to the newer, better MP3-pro, or MPEG-4 audio.
Instead of giving us the projections of experts about which storage medium will last longest, you waste space on a price comparison which readers could easily compile themselves with a pencil or a calculator.
I could go on, but I don’t want to presume to rewrite the article.
Whoever embarks on storing a digital music collection wants to know three things.
1. Which software is the most accurate, reliable means of ripping CD/DVDs.
2. What is the most aurally faithful codec for a given bit rate, to enable an informed decision about the quality / file size trade-off.
3. Which is the most stable, dependable long-term storage solution.
If any of these questions were answered in the article, I need to visit an optician.
Broadband for all
Recent letters and articles in PCW about limited or non-existent broadband services prompt me to consider how we ever arrived at a situation where virtually every house in the UK has access to a telephone line.
Obviously the answer is that commercial considerations were not part of the equation - the GPO was a public service utility that could not choose to ignore areas that were more costly to connect to the network than others.
This public service utility has been turned into a monopoly that serves its shareholders first and the public second, therefore I feel that the government has a duty to protect its citizens who live in areas that BT considers uneconomic to reach.
Is it too much to expect that if BT wants to continue to profit from its monopoly in supplying broadband services, both resale and wholesale, it must be forced to supply a minimum level of connectivity for every household?
A simple rule stating that there must never be an order of magnitude difference in Mbits/sec between the slowest and fastest service available to any subscriber would suffice to put even the most remote areas on the broadband map now and keep them updated as technology progresses. Unless this happens, I fear there will be some areas that will never be connected – ever.
Ralph Bartlett
The myth of standby
Regarding your article "Switched on PCs cost the earth" and the general concern about equipment on stand-by, it is quite wrong to say that it 'wastes' electricity. What happens to all that power? It's converted to heat which heats the building.
This means that the heating system will run less. In addition. leaving equipment on standby can improves reliability. Components are not stressed so much. this means equipment will last longer, so less electronic equipment will be scrapped.
The point I am trying to make is that it's not just a simple case of wasting power if equipment is left on standby, it is much more complex equation which should be looked at thoroughly before any generalisations can be made.
If I switch off all my electronic equipment in the house, my central heating system will compensate by running longer. If I save 1KW of electricity, the central heating will have to produce the equivalent amount of heat. Which KW creates the most carbon dioxide? The one generated by the power station or the one generated by my central heating system??
Sandy Norval
Mesh...great computers...even greater delivery charges
Being in the market for a new base unit (in fact two), PCW was my first stop to see what the current state of the market was. The August edition was very favourable to a Mesh Core 2 Duo system. So I headed off to the Mesh site.
I found they had a good performing Core 2 Duo base unit only system, designated the Elite2 duo SLI costing £799 inc. VAT, a fair price. So I put two of them into the shopping cart at a cost of £1,598 and proceeded to checkout and payment details stage. However I found that at the checkout stage, the total being asked was a whopping £1,760. How can that be? On examination of the details, it transpires that the delivery charge on a base unit to Northern Ireland is an incredible £69 + VAT, giving a total delivery charge for two base units (note, just two base units, no monitors, keyboards,
speakers or other things that might require additional boxes) of £162.15 !!
Surely this is some mistake, how can it cost such an amount to send parcels whose weight in total must be no more than 20kg, to an address in the UK ? Royal Mail will send an item up to 10kg anywhere in the UK (yes, including to and from Northern Ireland), guaranteed next day delivery (yes including to and from Northern Ireland), and insure it for £1,000, for £18.90 all inclusive. So assuming that each unit weights less than 10kg, that's a total of £37.80, fully insured, and guaranteed next day delivery.
I recently sent £1,000 of items, weighing 8kg to Taiwan, using DHL express service, the items got there in 3 days, at a cost of £55!
Clearly, a company like Mesh can negoitate highly favourable delivery terms with a carrier, given the volume of business, so one must assume they can get FAR better rates than I can, as an individual. So I find it impossible to believe that £162 reflects the actual costs of delivering two base units to me in Northern Ireland, regardless of the carrier chosen. I have actually tested the checkout, and if I was to buy 10 base units, Mesh would charge me £690 plus VAT (that's £810) for delivery!!
If goes without saying that with those delivery charges, I was not inclined to purchase from Mesh, and assume that few from Northern Ireland would consider it a cost effective company to deal with.
Ian McNeill
Mobile, but at a price
Gordon Laing is right to be sceptical about mobile connectivity (PCW, July 2006, p. 33). The rhetoric about being online whenever and wherever is so much hot air, because of the charging methods. Let me explain.
Every 3 or 4 months, I spend a day at the British Library, which commendably has Wifi throughout. During that day, I might want to look at my email four or five times. If I have a monthly subscription with one of the major wireless ISPs, there's no problem. But why take out a monthly subscription for something I use only occasionally?
Alternatively, I can buy an hour's time (say) with an ISP. But that hour begins the moment I first connect. I can't distribute it into several short sessions throughout the day. Delving into the recesses of the BT Openzone website you'll find a little-advertised pay-as-you-go tariff for my kind of usage. It's pricey, but cheaper than paying each month for something you don't use, or serially buying an hours'-worth of time and using only five minutes.
As for 3G data connectivity on the move, forget it. It has to be a handsome monthly subscription or nothing.
Allan Jones
The ludicrous cost of spare parts
Firstly I would like to note that I like Dell systems. I have bought them consistently for several years not because they are the best but because they are cheap, and until today reliable – they do what it says on the box and the online support with drivers etc. is pretty good, however...
We have just had a not-quite-3-year-old Dell Optiplex GX270 fail on us. It appears to be suffering a known Dell motherboard problem that causes it to either not boot or shut down during the boot process with an error message that declares it has shutdown due to a temperature problem. This is apparently due to some bad capacitors on the motherboard.
I have just been quoted from Dell’s spares provider a replacement for £195 + VAT plus the £5 shipping cost. Please note that this is a second-user, or ‘reconditioned' part with 90 days warranty not a new one!
The very pleasant lady I spoke to did mention they only had one in stock so either they are really attached to it or no one has been stupid enough to buy it at that price, I tend to favour the latter reason.
I don’t know whether this is an endemic issue across the market or just Dell, but this has certainly tainted my impression of the company.
When did it become cheaper to throw the things away? Aren’t we supposed to reduce the waste we generate?
Why does Dell make the cases so easy to open – what’s the point? Am I just older then I realised? Can you provide me with the address of a third world country I can send the thing to so it can be recycled?
Thanks for the opportunity to vent my anger!
Tom Glasson
