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Panasonic TX-P42G20B Has Arrived

Retrocosm Leave a comment

As I mentioned in an earlier entry I had decided it was time to upgrade my main television to something that could handle full HD and was future proofed for Freeview HD.

The Panasonic TX-P42G20 I had my eye on is currently around £725 at Amazon, which given its abilities seems pretty good value to me.  Bear in mind a few years a go I bought an Ilayma 19 inch LCD computer monitor for more than this, in fact I ended up with two, quite an extravagance on reflection.

I am unable to criticise Amazon, I ordered the set at around mid-day and for only about £8 delivery it arrived the following morning at 11.  I was shocked to see the delivery driver walking up the drive carrying it with little difficulty, given my previous 37 inch plasma is barely liftable by one person.  This new unit must weigh less than half as much.

I hooked it up with little difficulty and am blown away by the quality.  I have ordered a Panasonic Blu Ray player which hasn’t arrived yet.  However I am frankly astonished by the quality of a regular DVD upscaled by my Denon DVD player connected via HDMI, my wife was convinced it was HD.

When the Blu Ray player arrives I’ll do a proper review but on first impressions things are looking very good.

(Update)

Arrrgh, Guide+, how did I fall into that trap?  This is turning out to be a great television but I really, really object to having adverts delivered to me when viewing the guide.  Not only is it completely unacceptable to force adverts on to your customers in this underhand manner when they’ve just bought your product but to add insult to injury the adverts make the guide almost unusable by stealing valuable screen estate.

I’m a great fan of Panasonic but this has made me seriously question whether I shall buy the brand again.

(Further Update)

Screen burn, something I thought had been resolved with modern plasma screens has reared its very ugly head.  Courtesy of Cbeebies and the BBC red button I now have the words ‘Come and play’ faintly but permanently etched into the top right corner of the screen.  I’m seriously irritated, not only with the TV but perhaps more so with the BBC red button service.

Which imbeciles decided it would be a good idea to create a solid high contrast graphic and place it permanently in the corner of the screen? Morons!

Incidentally my previous Panasonic Plasma which has seen many more hours of Cbeebies has no such problem.

Noisy Mac Pro Fans

Retrocosm Leave a comment

For various domestic reasons (children) my Mac Pro has ended up in my bedroom, on a carpet.  This is arguably the least ideal location to locate a computer other than of course the bathroom, given the level of dust accumulation in the typical conjugal bedroom.

One advantage however is that my wife and I can at least watch content from the BBC’s iPlayer whilst lazing in bed.  Not so advantageous however is the increasingly intolerable level of noise being produced by the machine, or more directly its fans.

This increase has been gradual and although I knew the current levels were clearly not as the Apple engineers had intended I couldn’t remember what the noise levels were when I originally bought the machine.

I decided to take the machine apart for a clean, and as it transpires not a moment too soon.  I removed the RAM riser boards which were caked in dust and fluff and blew them through (outside) with my own surprisingly still powerful lungs.  This dislodged the vast majority of the muck so encouraged I set the riser cards aside and removed the hard disks.

All four slots are occupied in my Mac Pro and each disk had a fair amount of dust on.  Next came the ATI graphics card (a Radeon X1900.)  Oh dear, it was grim, similarly as thick with dust as the RAM on first inspection it was then I discovered what I imagine has been the main issue.  The card is one of those double width monsters with a huge heatsink and fan.  On the side of the heatsink opposite to the fan, where the air is drawn through was what I can only describe as a small carpet blocking the airflow (picture below.)

Much huffing and puffing later the ‘carpet’ came free, the process was akin to changing the filter in a vacuum cleaner!  Whilst I had the box open I took the opportunity to remove the DVD drive bay which was also pretty filthy.  I then took the carcass of the machine outside and blew through the area where the processors are located, a thick cloud of dust came out of the machine.  I decided to reassemble the machine at this point and try it, I’d like to get access to the processors heatsinks but it’s quite involved and I’ll probably break something.

I’m pleased to say I am now reminded how much noise this machine is intended to make, not a lot, under typical use it’s almost whisper quiet.  On watching some iPlayer content whilst encoding a video file with Quicktime there was a barely, if at all, perceptible increase in noise.  Now I’m just angry that I left it this long but pleased the situation is resolved.

(Update)

Right, so I’m encoding a video into H.264, I’m applying a radial blur to a 21 megapixel image, I’m live streaming iPlayer, browsing the web and playing chess and the machine is still whisper quiet, good grief I can’t believe what a dufus I am.

Nuisance calls from 02086586176 & 02087610223

Retrocosm 1 Comment

For some time now, we have, intermittently received phone calls from the phone number 02086586176.  The calls are from a fax machine to our home land line and are always in the early hours of the night.

Typically the situation will persist for a week or so and then there may be a gap of a few months before the problem returns.  For many people this will be an irritation, for others extremely distressing.  We all react differently to phone calls in the night, my wife for instance panics and immediately rushes downstairs to answer the phone assuming it’s bad news from friends or family.  Whilst I don’t react in the same manner, once woken I can rarely get back to sleep.

When we first moved to our current address we registered with both the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) and the Fax Preference Service (FPS.)  However it has become apparent that this will not solve this particular problem.  Our number is not a fax line, however in order to make a complaint to the FPS you must send them a copy of the relevant fax you wish to complain about.  See the problem?  No fax machine, no fax, no proof just several phone calls in the middle of the night.

BT offer a Choose to Refuse service which enables you to block given phone numbers however they are currently charging £3.35 per month for this service, I firmly believe that this service should be free.

On investigation I have discovered that phone number 02086586176 belongs to:-

Ivor Cox trading as Orion Forklift and Plant

78 Beckenham Road
Beckenham
Kent
BR3 4RH

Phone:- 020 87667223  Fax:- 020 87610223

Google Maps

For some reason I had envisioned a builder’s yard with fork lifts and JCB’s however on viewing the address on Google Maps using Street View it is a small house converted to offices on the corner of Chaffinch Road and shared with a number of other businesses.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has taken enforcement action against the company on 24th September 2009 following 1700 complaints made to the FPS.  You can view the PDF here.

The ICO says that should the company fail to comply with the Enforcement Notice, they will not hesitate to take further action. Failure to comply would be a criminal offence and may lead to prosecution.

Given that we received a nuisance call from this number in the last few days it would appear that there is either an ongoing appeal against the enforcement action or it has been ignored.  I have therefore written to the ICO for clarification.  But you can see from the ICO’s comments why these things take so long to resolve if ever.  Why for instance does it say ‘Failure to comply would be a criminal offence and may lead to prosecution’ instead of Failure to comply would be a criminal offence and will result in immediate prosecution?

(Update)

Had another call from this company, this time on 02086587546, no response yet from the ICO.

(Update)

Yet another call from this company on 02087610223 at 4 am.  (Apparently the FPS and the ICO are utterly useless)