Posts by Category: opinion piece

It’s my party and I’ll talk if I wanna!

opinion piece August 28, 2007 posted by

iPhone unlocking goes ballistic – what price Apple’s business strategy now?

Whoa, it’s an iPhone unlock fest out there. There are now apparently six ways to free the handset for any service provider already, plus one group offering $100K to anyone releasing an unlock via Open Source. Expect many more to pop up over the next few weeks. We’re not going to add huge amounts to the general wibble, except to say that this makes a mockery of any exclusive arrangements that Apple may have made with O2, T-Mobile  and the rest…


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Bookmark This! June 28, 2007 posted by

The Record Industry’s Decline – industry admits stupidity, at last?

This Rolling Stone article looks at the many record industry mistakes which have resulted in the current dire straights (ahem) of all the major players. It’s not rocket science, after all their greed, lack of vision and short term stupidity were pretty obvious to most right thinking people five years ago (hint: any business strategy which relies on suing your customers is destined to fail spectacularly) but it’s interesting to hear them actually come out and admit that they should have done…


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Mobile Tech June 25, 2007 posted by

The iPhone Roadmap – forecast through rosy tinted lenses

Just for fun I’ve been toying with a tongue in cheek iPhone roadmap for a few days. But it is this excellent and extremely well thought out iPhone market evaluation from Tomi Ahonen that has inspired me to publish it. [Thanks to Information Architects for the above image.] iPhone Roadmap June 29 2007. iPhone launch. 750,000 sold in first week. Steve Jobs dubs it “the most successful Apple launch of all time”. Price $600.00 for 8 GB model with 2 megapixel camera, 2.5 G,…


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Gadgets June 10, 2007 posted by

10 serious problems with touchscreens that you should know before 29th June

So the Apple iPhone is coming on 29th June, eh? Exciting. But just in case the whole anticipation thing is becoming a bit too much for you to bear, here’s a small list of things to ponder while you’re waiting. 10 serious problems with touchscreens that you should know before 29th June 1. Sunshine is not your friend. Don’t bother trying to dial from that sunny beach. It’ll be a wash out. Of course you can always turn the screen brightness…


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Free Software March 23, 2007 posted by

Thunderbird – an email client triumph

So I’ve just taken the plunge and installed the Open Source Thunderbird email client as a replacement for my Outlook Express program. Before you snigger, I’ve stayed with OE for this long because I have a whole email process built up around it. Over 12,000 messages, stored in a huge number of folders and sub-folders, all linked together to improve my working day. So why the move? Because I was hit by a virus the other day (and no I…


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cool tech March 15, 2007 posted by

SkypeFind – local listings in your Skype client

SkypeFind is a new beta feature from the upcoming Skype 3.1 which is highly significant, although I haven’t seen anyone talking about it as such. They’re basically offering local listings search and user reviews of businesses in your area all done from the comfort of your Skype client. Yep, VoIP goes search. It’s important because the consensus is that local search is going to be *huge* as the technology evolves, and so Skype is really entering an arena already populated by mega-corps…


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opinion piece March 13, 2007 posted by

Fight for Web radio – or lose it

Tim Westergren of Pandora has been blogging about the absolutely ridiculous ruling by the US Copyright Royalty Board which will effectively kill off Internet radio if left unchanged. Man, where do they find the stupid muppets who make these idiot decisions? Do I feel strongly about this? You bet. And so should everyone who cherishes the Internet. Do not sit still – please complain, petition and fight to get this ruling overturned.  The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) has recently released a…


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hmm..interesting February 28, 2007 posted by

Gizmodo’s anti-RIAA campaign starts – going for gold

Gizmodo has started a Boycott the RIAA campaign, which is a gutsy and rather cool thing to do. The whole terror campaign being run by the record labels is beginning to wear a bit thin, and maybe it’s time for the majority of RIAA customers to speak up and voice their concern about these bully boy tactics by not buying any more RIAA product. There’s even a manifesto.  Gizmodo is declaring the month of March Boycott the RIAA month. We want to get…


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opinion piece February 2, 2007 posted by

Lycos sucks – stay away

So apparently this guy has just been done over by the Lycos Mail service (they deleted all his past emails when he failed to log-in or pay money to upgrade his account)and it’s now all over teh internets. Well I also have had a run in with Lycos Mail in the past, from which I learned one thing – stay well away, well away from the Lycos service. The company truly is awful in terms of customer support. One of the worst. This has been a…


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opinion piece January 10, 2007 posted by

Gateway notebooks – surprised R Us

The good folk at Gateway Computers have sent The Ferret one of their new Core 2 Duo laptops to check out, and we’ve got to say we’re rather pleasantly surprised. More later when we’ve taken a long hard look at the thing in earnest, but first impressions are definitely positive. There are a few interesting facts. First, it’s actually a decent looking box (we remember the day when Gateway stuff was uniformly hideous), it’s very good value for money (think £699.00…


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opinion piece December 30, 2006 posted by

The Red Ferret Journal Top 5 Products of the Year 2006: No. 1 – Dualphone 3088 for Skype

The Red Ferret Journal Top 5 Products of the Year 2006: No. 1 – DualPhone 3088 for Skype. Any product which delivers disruptive technology to the mass market gets our vote, and this home DECT phone is our numero uno top product choice for the year for just that reason. For the first time ever there’s a non-geeky, no computer way to make Skype calls at home, and better still, you can switch between Skype and your conventional landline calls at the touch of a button. Installation is…


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opinion piece December 29, 2006 posted by

The Red Ferret Journal Top 5 Products of the Year 2006: No. 2 – MojoPac

The Red Ferret Journal Top 5 Products of the Year 2006: No. 2 – MojoPac. Despite a raft of teething problems at launch, we have to give this software product a huge thumbs up for enabling seamless portable computing via flash memory devices. Just load up the program on your USB drive, iPod or other USB memory device and you can carry around a complete copy of your main computer environment from PC host to PC host. What makes this…


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opinion piece December 28, 2006 posted by

The Red Ferret Journal Top 5 Products of the Year 2006: No. 3 – PrinterAnywhere

The Red Ferret Journal Top 5 Products of the Year 2006: No. 3 – PrinterAnywhere. Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest ones, even if the technology is super clever. This little software program lets you print your document on any printer in the world which is connected to the Internet via a computer running another instance of PrinterAnywhere. You can also share your home printer, so that friends and family can print documents or photos directly on your machine from…


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opinion piece December 27, 2006 posted by

The Red Ferret Journal Top 5 Products of the Year 2006: No. 4 – Plantronics Voyager Headset

The Red Ferret Journal Top 5 Products of the Year 2006: No. 4 – Plantronics Voyager 510 USB Headset. This Bluetooth headset can be used for both cell phone hands-free and for PC based VoIP calls, which makes it an extremely flexible and useful tool. Use it at your desktop to make wireless Skype or SIP calls as required, and then take it out with you as a paired headset for your mobile phone. It’s very lightweight, the audio quality is superb, and…


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