Tonight is Eurovision, and I will be watching and supporting the UK. Below is the first rehearsal of Jade Ewen, and I am very impressed. She has a great voice, and this is well worth a look:
JK
The Pirate Bay founders have now be sentenced to one year in prison, and a huge £3 Million fine. There site is the webs biggest illegal file sharing website, and home to free downloads of Music, Videos and Software. But will this be the end of the site?
I don’t believe so. The site has already survived a raid, and if it did go down, there’s always another site to instantly take its place. But I don’t believe this is the real question. The question we shoudl be asking is one of morality: Is file sharing right?
Of course, the content creators need to make a living; their job is making Music/Movies/Software or whatever. But are any of these people empoverished? Madonna/Britney Spears/Take That? The music industry is worth several billion dollars.
The Internet has arrived, and its popularity is reflected by the huge number of users of Facebook and Myspace. The Music and Movie industry need to embrace this. Record Artists make a huge proportion of their money through Touring and Merchandise. If the music is out their, then maybe more people will start listening to it. I believe that the time has passed from where Music was paid for, and delivered in physical form. Piracy will never be defeated, beacause so many people are not willing to pay for their music anymore. The Industry should stop being in denial of this, and accept it, and develop.
JK
Everyone! Everyone is on Twitter now: it’s the new facebook of the net. (And I find facebook boring). Everyone from Oprah to Ashton Kutcher, to CNN is using Twitter now, and so am I. You can follow my updates by adding jmkuk, or by visiting this page on my blog. Enjoy!
JK
(I’ll review Twitter soon)
Mma Ramotswe. The No 1 Lady Detective in the whole of Botswana. (Quite a title).
The series is shown on BBC1 at 9pm. It’s one of my weekly favorites, and I highly recommend it.
It has great plots, twists, and is hilariously funny. I really feel like I know who Mma is, like she’s a friend. Check this program out, especially if “you are a woman who lies to eat” lol.
JK
We’ve all heard the Apple ad’s, I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC blah blah blah. In my opinion, Macs and PCs are all pretty much the same. They’re both computers, they can surf the web, write documents and organize photo collections. Why does there have to be such a big deal made out of the difference?
I primarily use a HP Compaq Desktop PC, for day-to-day uses. It has an AMD 64 Dual Processor, 1gb of ram and an 120gb hard-drive. I also have a Acer Netbook, running Linux, and an old eMac, running OS X Tiger. While all three computers run and look differently, they all do the same things.
On my Desktop, I use Windows Vista. In my opinion, it is a good OS, and I’ve never really had a problem, except once when I installed a bad driver. Lesson learnt. The whole world though seems to be against Vista and why? It’s really not that bad!
I think perhaps if people actually gave it a go, without having preconceived ideas, built up by those dam Apple ads, then they may feel differently. I’m looking forward nevertheless to Windows 7. As I wrote in my review in January, Windows 7 is an excellent upgrade to Vista.
JK
Ads: they seem to be everywhere! Ad banners, popups, interstitials. They are never ending; a huge part of the web’s great commerce. However, these ads may be taking more from you then you realize.
Google, eBay and many millions of other sites use ads that spy on us: they find out what we are looking at, where we live, and a whole lot more. Google scans emails sent and received in Gmail, eBay uses are account information.
But what gives them the right? We haven’t asked for those ads, and we haven’t agreed with them, that prying on us and invading our privacy is ok.
A new ad site that has sprung up is Phorm. It already has agreements with BT,Virgin and other UK ISPs, that allows it to look at your live browsing history, and serve appropriate ads. The service isn’t yet live, but will be shortly. In my opinion, this is a direct invasion of our privacy. What gives Phorm the right?
Internet Advertising is now a valuable commodity, with many sites providing free services in return for the ads. Examples are Facebook and Spotify. While it’s great that we can get these free services, it is not ok with me, that these ads are spying on me. I should complain; if only I knew who to…?
JK
I’ve written about Blyk a few times over the past year, since taking up the service. Basically, if you’re not familiar, Blyk is an ad-supported mobile network, which provides £15 free credit each month. See my other Blyk posts here.
Recently, Blyk changed to this £15 credit, from the previous offer of 217 texts and 43 minutes free each month. The new deal is actually a loss of around £10! Also, Blyk increased prices: 15p/min up to 24p/min! (They did reduce texts from 10p to 8p).
Next, Blyk started charging £10 for replacement sim cards if they are lost or stolen. Something that other UK networks don’t do. Also, they stopped the Text Balance enquiry service, and have also stopped issuing invites to the service!
It asks the question, is Blyk financially secure at all? Yes, we are in recession, but these steps are those of a company in dire straights. Hope Blyk will weather this storm that they seem to be in; Blyk is a good service, offering excellent value. I’ll be watching in the next few months.
JK
Cheap holidays. Maybe something of the past, with the credit crunch setting in, and increased petrol prices and taxes. Well, Global Holiday is a new website which offers over 20 million bargain holidays, to Spain, Greece, Turkey, Egypt and other long haul destinations.
These types of “All-Inclusive” holidays are incredibly popular at the moment, as families can easily budget the cost of the trip, which is very important in the current economic climate.
So fancy a holiday to Spain? Soak up the sun, dance the flamenco and swim in the peasant med? Through Global Holiday, you can book a complete holiday package from only £139! Or how about visiting Florida? At Global Holiday, you can see all about the area, its attractions and even watch video tours of Orlando!
Global Holiday also has an informational travel blog, with info about the travel industry and the latest deals available. Learn the insider secrets from the blog!
Global Holiday is definitely a website worth checking out if you want a great holiday on a budget. We all need a holiday from time-to-time, in order to relax from our normal busy lifestyles. An All-Inclusive package is a great choice for any family!
JK
Pushing Daisies; one of ITV’s most popular American Imports. Despite its complete wackiness, it is one of my favorite TV shows. I love the way the stories unfold, the language they use and the twists and turns of each weeks plot. Now however, the show has ended; ABC has put it on the shelf, mid season.
13 episodes have been made, only 10 of which have actually been shown. Apparently, episode 13 won’t provide a narrative ending to the show. Will Ned and Chuck ever be able to touch??
Perhaps the show will return in the future; who knows, even ITV may commission it. I certainly hope so! My friday evening will be that little bit emptier without Pushing Daisies.
Here is a clip of the show:
JK
PayPal offers “a safe way to pay”, being owned by eBay, and offering millions of users Internet payment facilities. It is the most popular service of its type, and all eBay auctions accept PayPal: it’s compulsory!
I recently sold an unwanted Christmas Gift on eBay; it quickly sold for £30.00, which I was quite happy with. eBay charged me 50p for the listing, (I’m quite happy to pay for this). As per the eBay rule, I accepted PayPal on my listing, and promptly got paid. When I checked my account, I found out that actually, PayPal had charged me another £1.25 in “Charges”. What for?
I had already paid eBay, (the owner of PayPal), the required fees, and now they were effectively charging me again! I make hundreds of fund transfers form my bank account each year, and never get charged a penny. Why should PayPal do any different? It’s not like they even provide good customer service: they are useless!
PayPal should have the sense to stop charging its customers, who don’t have a choice on whether they use the service or not. eBay seem to have a powerful position here: and quite frankly I don’t like it. I will have to think whether I use eBay for sales again: it’s not even the cost so much, but the principle.
JK
