menu.

Well I thought it was interesting so here’s the top 10 posts on nerd. by number of views (based on the last 500 page hits courtesy of Statcounter.com).

1. Review: Why the Netgear WG311 v3 Sucks (72)
   Slightly dodgy network card that Netgear don’t seem that fussed about fixing. Bad on XP, it got worse on Vista (see number 4).
   
2. Playing iPod Video on Your TV (45)
   Seems to be a lot of people looking for instructions for the iPod Classic. Here’s a tip: sell it.
3. Server application unavailable: installing IIS on .NET 2.0 (44)
   Seems to be a common problem. Sadly Microsoft’s error message is about as relevant as ever.
   
4. Installing Vista (AKA More Netgear WG311 Misery) (31)
   Even more messed up. Thank goodness for Linksys!
   
5. Thunderbird/Outlook/Google Calendar Integration (25)
   How to integrate your Thunderbird calendar at home with your Outlook in work, via Google Calendar.
   
6. Orange Answerphone (Voicemail) Number for PAYG (23)
   Such a simple problem. Who knew it would be so hard to find?
   
7. Stop Monitor.exe Hogging CPU (20)
   Why can’t people just give you a standard installation instead of trying to do everything for you? Help sounds good, until their useful tools start killing your PC.
   
8. How to run IIS Web Server in Windows XP Home (20)
   Microsoft’s official line is it can’t be done, but it’s not that tricky.
   
9. Making Firefox Scroll With Syanptics TouchPad (19)
   Discovering the solution to making Firefox scroll on my Acer Aspire laptop.
   
10. NAS or Home Server (17)
    I deliberate over whether I can justify spending the extra to build or buy a home server before eventually deciding that a Linkstation Live will meet my needs for less than half the price.
    

O2 have slashed the cost of owning the Apple iPhone (8GB model only). It’s down from £269 to £169. The same deal is also available at the Carphone Warehouse. Good news I’m sure, but you’d still have to be mad to pay a penny for the damn thing on top of the £35 × 18 = £630 of a minimum contract when you can get Nokia’s N95 8GB (which I have been seriously coveting for months) for “free” at that price (then again, without any kind of data plan that’s extortionate too).

Maybe if my N73 breaks I’ll consider upgrading, but since I’m spending a tenner a month on pay-as-you-go I can’t really justify jumping to £35/month for the N95 8GB or to £44 a month for an iPhone.  Maybe if I hold out long enough…

My phone, a Nokia N73, came on an O2 contract but I’ve switched to Orange. Unfortunately that means that when I press the voicemail button the phone dials 901 (O2’s number). I couldn’t figure out what the Orange voicemail number was which was a bit of a pain. A few minutes googling revealed it to be 123. This seems to work for Pay As You Go and contract customers alike.

A couple of months back I switched to Pay as you Go on Orange. This is my first time on a pre-pay mobile phone plan so I’m new to this lark. Anyway I just received a text that said:

Hi from Orange. You now have 60 free minutes to call your friends and family. This can be used to any network or landline within the UK at anytime. Enjoy.

My immediate reaction was concern that they’d given me talk time as a reward instead ofmy 300 texts for topping up by £10 in the month ending 12th December. I phoned 453 to confirm the message was genuine as it came from +447973100610 and not “Orange” or something similar (O2’s messages always had “O2″ in the From field).

According to 453 I have 278 messages left to use by midnight on 10th January so that’s about right, but I also have “60 minutes of free calls to phones in the UK” to be used by midnight on 13th December 2008. Nice one, but why?

I can only assume it’s a Christmas present of sorts, since there’s been no explanation in the text or at 453, and all bundle-related information seems to have dropped off the “My Account” section of their web site altogether. Since I refuse to pay 25p to talk to some muppet at Orange’s call centre unless I absolutely, no other choice, end of the world have to, and they refuse to answer account-related questions by email, I suppose it’ll have to remain a mystery.

Update: 17th December 2007

I’ve just received a text which seems to go some way to explaining the above.

From: Orange
Thanks for topping up. You have won 60 free minutes of talk time for 12 months. We will send yo ua text in the next few days and then they will be ready to use.

That’s handy since I’ve already used 8 of them!