The Internet is for grown ups, not for children

Wendy

You wrote: "Is Dutton saying that if the grown-ups had been there it all would have gone better? Well, then, where were they?"

I've said it before, but I think it is still worth saying: the people who created the Internet were the adults. They just didn't design a network for use by naughty, malicious, grasping, pompous, argumentative children. That's why the Internet architecture does little or nothing to allow for human weakness - it was designed for use by consenting, like-minded adults pursuing common goals.

Pity the rest of us are so many millennia behind.

My 2 cents worth...

Tom

Blogger

I've been emailing Blogger (I have several Blogsites there) and no one answers. They're censoring my Blogs, removing my remarks, taking out pictures, and no one gives me a reason.

I am 81, and with WWII behind me, I think I've done my part so that we can all enjoy Freedom of Speech.

It all began when a friend affixed the face of fidel castro to a Cockroach for me and I used it in a Blog. Now, if they can burn a flag, I can dishonor a cockroach by putting fidelito's head on it. So, eight subsequent Blogs have been removed beginning 9/3/05. No one answers my emails to tell me why, or whose toes I am stepping on.

Who is the CEO of Google? Perhaps I have to write to him and find out. Dozens of Cubans on the east coast want to know what I find out (and it will soon be hundreds).

Thanks for listening,
Howard E. Morseburg

PS I am going to apologize to any cockroaches around too.

Future DVD formats

Dear Adamson,

This has all the hallmarks of turning into another VHS Vs Beta, people aren't going to know what to buy, eventually someone will release a player that plays all formats and in the mean time, we all spend squillions of bucks on new technology. Well sod the lot of them, sit back and wait for the Blue Consortium to get their act together and figure out which format is best, so that manufacturers can make the discs, that can be played in all players. We already have enough different standards around the World, television, DVD +/- R, memory sticks, etc.

Just wait until the mud stops flying and then purchase your new blue (whatever) standard player / burner Mr. Joe Q Public

Paul

HDTV, displays, and the rest

Hi Hilda,

A rant for your next "letters" article, if you're so inclined...

So nice to hear that we consumers aren't switching to HDTV because we're not sure the devices will work together. Here's a clue to the industry: early adopters are the people who buy things first, and they tend to be the technophile types who spend their time finding out how this stuff works. I've not avoided buying an HDTV yet because I'm confused - I've waited because I actually can't buy what I want. Let me explain, lest anyone think I have unreasonable demands.

HDTV will be available in either 720p (1280x720) or 1080i (1920x1080) formats (now we've got rid of 1152i). Ideally, I'd like to buy a 1080i resolution TV. But I pretty much can't, without spending a fortune - go to your local Dixons and there won't be a 1080-native screen there.

Accepting that, until the industry start selling 1080 screens, there's no point in having the 1080 format, I could give up and look for a 720p display. This means of course that the image quality improvement over my (100Hz) existing TV will be much less significant, and that the screen will be much less useful as a living room computer monitor. But you can't miss what you don't have.

Thing is... I can't buy a 720p panel *either*. I can buy 1024x1024 plasmas which don't even have enough pixels horizontally to do a 720p signal justice, and whose pixels aren't square, making them even *more* useless as a computer screen than their lowish resolution would suggest. I can buy a 1366x768 panel, which will have to interpolate 720p up and shrink down 1080i (as with any computer LCD screen set to a non-native resolution).

They're only *fairly* expensive, but given that by the the each pixel has been smeared over four by the rescaling process you're almost down to the standard PAL resolution you started with, I don't think they're a good deal. I have to assume that Americans haven't complained because NTSC is lower resolution to start with. Ironically, the 1366x768 thing seems to be designed to help computers (which can then do 1280x768 with borders), but the lack of HDCP makes a mockery of adding any current PC to an HDTV.

This wouldn't have been a problem if people sold HD-ready CRTs (no "native" resolution) in the UK - but I've never seen one.

Then you need a decent screen size to see the resolution advantage. I'd like an HDTV projector, but anything bigger than 1024x768 is extremely rare, and I don't have Sony Qualia 004 money.

Now to get something to show on my high-def screen. Sky, next year, will support HD, but probably only for premium channels to start with. Marvellous - I don't subscribe to any. If Sky One, E4 and the terrestrial channels were all HD, I'd be much more ready to switch.

I'd buy the next generation of high def DVD player, but I can't yet (even ignoring the format war). I can't just put a BD-ROM in my PC (even assuming that format "wins") and hope the software appears to decode it, because I can't get an HDCP-capable graphics card to display it with. Even when I do, I'll not be able to use either of the monitors I've got which are perfectly capable of HDTV resolution, because they don't have HDCP - I'm stuck with the (probably inferior) TV picture.

Want HDTV to take off? Here are some ideas:

1) Sell genuine HDTV-resolution TVs, preferably 1920x1080 ones. They'll help with the media centre PC thing, too.

2) Get the next optical disk format out there, preferably agreeing on which one to use, or at least making dual-format players.

3) Broadcast something in HD which non-sporting types want to see. There are a lot of early-adopters who are geeks, and we're (as a rule) not football nuts; besides, who cares how many pixels you've got when they're all showing a green field (even if they compress really well)? And HD or no, I'd still rather go to the cinema than subscribe to movie channels. Everything is already being recorded in HD, but if it's not broadcast that doesn't help me yet.

4) Let the computer users in on the game. I remember when a lot of my friends (myself included) bought DVDs to display with their computer. Then we hooked the computer to the TV for a bigger picture, then we got a separate DVD player for the convenience, once we'd got lots of DVDs. Can't do that with high def, at least without adding a new monitor, graphics card and possible "upgrade" to Vista to the cost of the drive.

5) Drop the price on decent projectors, and actually produce some in HD resolutions.

I may be unusual, but it's not that *I'm* not ready to go HD. I've been ready for five years, but nobody's made the products, and they're *still* not. The early adopters who *have* tried to go for HD have all been stung by the fact that their early panels don't have HDCP inputs, and so are useless for high def. They're probably disinclined to jump on the next bandwagon until they're sure.

Don't blame the consumers. Blame the manufacturers for the hardware and Hollywood for the content protection mess - they've made their own mess, and shouldn't complain about having to sit in it. Of course, the guys whose fault it actually is probably can't admit it without losing their jobs, but they could at least have the decency to keep their heads down.

Grr.

Andrew Garrard

Dear Mike,

I have a few complaints about this article.

One, the headline is very misleading. It immediately makes you think Apple is making their Flash player (iPod shuffle) more expensive. It doesn't give any reason to think they've announced a new iPod. Two, what the hell is with eyePod? They were never called that! If it's some kind of joke it just comes off as idiotic. Three, the whole topic of your article is badly written with awful grammar.

"We are wondering about Sony.

There is also some concern that if Apple managed to barter a discount, then what will happen when its suppliers start demanding that the Cappuccino outfit start paying the full wack. "

"We are wondering about Sony" does not qualify as a sentence or a paragraph. The last sentence is a question. It has no question mark. Fix it.

"The old eyePods had fairly cheap hard-drive players but the Nanos all come with flash memory that should price the iPods out of the market."

This makes absolutely no bloody sense whatsoever.

I don't actually understand how The Inquirer manages to keep going when they publish articles of this appalling quality. I'd like to hear how you're going to go about sorting out your writers so they don't post this crap again.

Yours Sincerely,
Conrad Quilty-Harper

Dell Nightmare

To Whom It May Concern,

My name is Sean Fleming and I'm a college student at Kennesaw State University. After attending college for a year I decided that I needed a laptop. It was pretty much a necessity for my future college endeavors. I purchased a Dell Inspirion 5160 with a 2 year in home service agreement. My nightmare was about to begin. After reading your article it was remarkable that I also experienced the same kind of customer service disaster.

I don't even know if you could call it a customer service disaster because I don't believe Dell knows the words customer service.

I'll start from the very beginning of my mess. My computer started experiencing Internet connection problems, the cable would be connected but the computer would prompt me with a message “cable unconnected”. I figured I would have no problem contacting Dell and getting the issue fixed so I procrastinated. With work and school keeping me busy I often resorted to holding the Ethernet cable up or stuffing my wallet under the cord (this for some reason temporarily fixed the problem). I waited around a month before the problem drove me crazy and I contacted Dell Technical Support. After “unusual long wait times” I talked to a representative.

They argued with me and wanted me to send my computer back to Dell, finally I convinced them to send out a technician to fix my computer (after all I paid more money for it).

A representative was supposed to contact me within 2 business days. After a week and a half I heard nothing, I emailed Dell, left voice mails, and even tried their online chat. Let me say right now, that Dell's Customer Service is a joke. Finally I actually got a hold of a representative that could help me. They informed me that “opps!, my case was not assigned” and they would reassigned it immediately. I reassured myself that it was just 2 bad events and everything would be ok.

A technician did come out to my house to fix my computer. Four hours later my computer was and still is a complete mess. The technician broke my keyboard, left me numerous “leftover” screws, and an abnormal booting process. He informed me that Dell would fix my keyboard and that I could change the bios if I wanted thus solving the boot process. Never the less, frustrated and angry I started the process of getting my keyboard fixed. After talking to a few representatives, they said a technician would be out to fix my keyboard. Eventually, a technician did come and fix my keyboard the best he could. He took the old keyboard off and told me that pieces were loose and that he would fix the keyboard the best he could. The keyboard and plastic sits awkwardly on my computer now. The internal state of the computer is a mystery (leftover screws, different motherboard).

I came home from school that Labor Day weekend and told my dad of the horrors I was facing. He was appalled and contacted Dell Technical Support on my behalf. He talked to a customer service technician named Kevin. They agreed upon a solution, which was a system exchange. My dad was given a case number and was told to contact 800 624 9897, Ext: 7266966. The representative was named Kevin; other representatives that furthered back that motion in later calls were named Andy and Francis (rep # 112460). Finally back to reality!!! This fantasy came crashing down as soon as I dialed these numbers above.

These numbers are for Dell's Customer Care Department, after spending literally an entire Tuesday on the phone I got nowhere. Customer Care Department told me to contact Technical Support and Technical Support told me to contact Customer Care. At this point I wanted to reach threw the phone and strangle everyone. I became irate on the phone but never lost my cool and eventually got directed to David Vflle (rep# 423540). David was the technical support manager.

His remedy to the problem was that I send the computer off to Dell or they could send out a technician to fix my keyboard again. I argued and debated with David for about an hour and he would not authorize a system exchange. Instead, he offered me a coupon on future Dell products. I politely told David what to do with that coupon and got Dell's Legal Department's Information.

I just wanted to share my story with you and I believe that I'm going to peruse the matter with a lawsuit. I never believed a company like Dell could exist, but they do. Dell doesn't know the meaning of customer service. In conclusion, Dell sold me (a college student) a 1300.00-laptop pc in which the motherboard (Ethernet port) became defective.

They remedied this problem by wasting hours of my life waiting to talk to representatives, which in turn led to an incompetent technician coming out to my house to only further damage my computer. Dell's response to this, “would you like a coupon?” If nothing else, I hope to make others aware of horrible company named Dell. If I do decide to pursue this matter in a court of law, I will keep you posted. Any advice would be appreciated.

Sincerely and Thanks for listening,
Sean Fleming