Posts tagged with ‘internet’

20 years of internet shopping

Wednesday, 10 March 2021

Today marks twenty years to the day since I first bought something online. The item was a CD of Novák’s Slovak Suite and other works, and it was bought online from hmv.co.uk for the princely sum of £11.24, plus £1 for postage. The site still exists today, although HMV must have been in administration and […]

Read the whole article...

BBC internet radio streams join race to the bottom

Sunday, 15 February 2015

I shouldn’t have tempted fate. At the end of my article on the poor sound quality of Freeview radio, I mentioned that internet streams are much better, singling out BBC Radio 3 for broadcasting at 320 kb/s. Little did I know, the BBC were just about to switch that stream off. The BBC had announced […]

Read the whole article...

Classic FM comes to Freeview – in glorious mono!

Sunday, 8 February 2015

DAB Digital radio in the UK has long suffered from sound quality issues on many stations due to broadcasters’ preference for squeezing a large number of stations into their multiplexes. The low bitrates utilised mean most stations are even broadcast in mono: a huge backwards step from FM. It is often suggested that anyone wanting […]

Read the whole article...

Stop using my address!

Monday, 6 May 2013

What do the Utah First Credit Union, US Weightwatchers, a school in Washington State, an alarm system for elderly people, Bell Canada Telecom, and the Danish Pipe Shop all have in common? They have all sent e-mails to me, believing them to be addressed to one of their customers. I always thought I was fortunate […]

Read the whole article...

Classic FM streaming update

Friday, 6 April 2012

Ever since Classic FM’s owners made half-hearted attempts to stop overseas listeners from listening online a few years ago, people around the world have been listening quite happily to internet streams of the station. If the streams are accessed directly by URL, for example using a media player, there is no check of the listener’s […]

Read the whole article...

Watch what you tweet

Sunday, 21 November 2010

This post is slightly late, but around two weeks ago there were two cases in the news of people who had been arrested for posts or “tweets” they had written on the micro-blogging site Twitter. The first was an appeal against a sentence earlier this year by Paul Chambers, the man who tweeted that he […]

Read the whole article...

How long will .co last this time?

Tuesday, 9 November 2010

I was surprised to read today that the Colombian domain .co challenges .com. The Colombian government have handed the running of the domain to a private company to realise its commercial potential. They hope that .co will replace the ubiquitous .com domain as the domain of choice for companies – or should that be companies […]

Read the whole article...

Facebook is a privacy nightmare

Wednesday, 31 March 2010

I don’t use Facebook, largely because I don’t like giving up control of who sees various pieces of personal data. Traditionally, an address book was a very private thing, kept securely at home. But now, with social networking sites such as Facebook, people seem happy to publish a list of their contacts on the internet. […]

Read the whole article...

Who wants to read The Times anyway?

Friday, 26 March 2010

It comes as no great surprise that The Times newspaper’s website is to charge for access to content. Rupert Murdoch has been threatening this for some time, having already closed his free London newspaper thelondonpaper last September. But at £1 per day – the current price of the printed daily – how many people are […]

Read the whole article...

Wikipedia censorship a step too far

Monday, 8 December 2008

Today, many internet service providers in the UK have censored a page on Wikipedia due to an image used on the page. The image was blacklisted by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), an “independent, self-regulatory body” that aims “to minimise the availability of… child sexual abuse content hosted anywhere in the world and criminally obscene […]

Read the whole article...

20th Century Fox 35mm film accident addiction address adverts aerial photo Airbnb airport air travel alcohol America American English animation anniversary apostrophe app archive arts funding backup bank bank charges BBC Beijing benefits Big Ben Birmingham bitrate BNP bottle bridge broadcasting BT budget bus business calendar camera cannabis cartoon cash cash machine castle catchup TV cathedral Catholicism CD celebrity censorship CERN Channel Tunnel chart children China Chinese Chinese New Year Christianity Christmas church classical music Classic FM climate change clock code coin collaboration Colombia comedy commission Communism complaint composer computing concert concerto Conservatives contempt copyright corruption councils countryside courier court crash crime critics culture currency DAB date David Cameron debt demolition development Didcot Didcot Power Station diet digital photography digital radio digital rights management digital television diplomacy direct debit discount Disney disrespect diversity domain Downton Abbey drink driving driving drugs dust e‑cigarattes earthquake eBay eclipse education election electricity electromagnetic fields email Empire employment energy engineering ethnicity etymology EU Europe Eurostar exams expenses Facebook fanfare feed fees file‑sharing film music fire fitness flag Flickr flying football Formula One fraud Freedom of Information free speech Freeview fuel duty gambling game show gay George Gilbert Scott giant hogweed Google government Greenpeace guitar health Heathrow heraldry heroes holidays Hong Kong honours hotel housing human rights ID cards image use immigration independence inflation interest internet interview Iraq Islam Israel ITV Japan jazz Jazz FM jigsaw jingle job John Williams joke Jubilee jury justice Kidderminster Kodak Labour landscape law Leicester lens letter licence life expectancy litter loan local government logo London Lords lorry lottery mail Malaysia Mandarin manners mathematics mayor measurement megapixel Met Office military millionaire mistake mobile phone monarchy money monopoly moon motto mountain murder Murdoch Music names nationalism Nationwide newspaper New Year New Zealand NHS Nick Clegg Nokia Northern Ireland nuclear obesity obituary Ofcom Olympics opening hours Open Rights Group open source opposition Oxfordshire pandemic parents parliament peerage petition photogaph photograph photographer physics Pinyin Plaid Cymru planning plant plat poem Poland police poll Pope post postcode post office power lines power station prayer prime minister prison privacy privatisation prize Proms pronunciation property protest publication Queen quiz racism radio railway record recording referendum regeneration renting republicanism ringtone rip off river road royal royal mail RSS rubbish satellite savings Scala Radio school Scotland seatbelt shop shopping sky skyline smoking SNP social networking song Spain spam sponsorship Star Wars station statistics STFC streaming street view sun supermarket swearing Switzerland symphony synchrotron tabloid tax taxonomy telecoms Telegraph television Tesco Thatcherism theatre The Simpsons time timelaspe timezone Titanic title toll Tony Blair tourism trademark tradition transit travel trees tsunami Twitter unionism unit university vandalism vaping Venus violence Virgin visa vote Wales war waste water weather web web design website weddings weed weekend welfare state Wikipedia winter wireless Wordpress work writing Yahoo yob


By browsing this site, you agree to its use of cookies. More information. OK