Making it work
Letters to the Editor
Ted Gibbons | Tuesday, September 29 2009I am writing to you as a self-confessed media and tech nut, who basically skips straight to Project Lounge as soon as my copy of PC World arrives. Unfortunately, the main message of the feature so far has been (excuse me if I paraphrase) “It’s a bit too difficult, and it doesn’t work properly...” Okay, that’s reasonably true, especially with regard to the EPG, but it’s also tech-nirvana when you finally get everything up and running.
I have experimented with several Media Centre setups, and currently run a Vista Ultimate box, GBPVR (connected to separate SKY decoders) and a MySky console. Although the Vista Media Centre was easy to setup, the EPG was a nightmare (as you rightly point out), but several weeks spent on various forums and some legally questionable tricks later, I had an EPG that has not faulted in over a year.
The GBPVR system (missing from your line-up) was a breeze to work with and the EPG was working almost straight away (similar “questionable” legal tactics, though). This has the added advantage of easy live streaming through to the many PCs in the house not connected directly to Sky.
Finally, the whole system is connected to a Windows Home Server (my favourite appliance of all) – allowing me to store, stream to an Xbox 360 and backup many years worth of Inspector Morse, Dexter and the IT Crowd. Bliss. So you see, it can be done and it’s worth persevering with – and when you get it right you wonder how you ever lived without it.
Nial Greenstock, Auckland
Nial wins a month’s supply of Illicit Cola for letter of the month.
Pentax missing
I purchased the September issue of PC World and was staggered to see that your test of recent model DSLRs did not include any Pentax cameras.
Pentax has a long history of making excellent quality cameras and lenses – longer than some of the other brands included in your article.
Pentax DSLRs get brilliant reviews in magazines and on websites around the world. The latest model, the Pentax K-7, has some superb features and previous models like the K20D and K200D are also very fine cameras.
The ability to use every Pentax lens ever made and with stability controls built into the camera body, makes Pentax an option to seriously consider.
I don’t work for Pentax, but I think your article did camera buyers a disservice by omitting Pentax from the tests.
John Stone, Christchurch
Forecast cloudy
Geoff Palmer’s Consumer Watch column “Cloud delusions” in the August PC World was the most level-headed, logical, rational piece of prose on cloud computing that I have read to date.
Well done. It should be compulsory reading for anyone who thinks moving in that direction is a good idea over the next few years!
Philip Adamson, Auckland
Finding the way
When you test GPS navigation systems in future, can I suggest you test them in rural areas as well as in the city? I have a TomTom One XL which is excellent in every respect except for its system of entering rural destinations. The TomTom logic requires that the city in which the destination lies is chosen first. The problem is that the “cities” listed are often obscure rural locality names, and our rural postal delivery system is not recognised. Even roads very close to major cities can be a problem. As just one example, Fletcher Rd, 10 minutes from the Hamilton CBD and with a postal address of RD 10 Hamilton, is listed under Ngahinapouri, Koromatua, Tuhikaramea and Waipa District, but not under Hamilton. A visitor with only the postal address as a reference would have a real problem.
Keith Garratt, Rotorua
A little too clean
Your software articles often include reference to registry cleaners. I now have serious reservations about such programs. I have tried several over the years, many of which promote their thoroughness. I have yet to find one that does not at some stage remove something that makes something else, usually Windows or another Microsoft application, inoperative in some way. Something that is often not noticed until a particular function is required some time later.
I have had to perform a complete reinstall on occasions. A computer technician told me that such programs are a great source of income for him after clients ‘cleaned’ their registry. Non technical people have no way of understanding what most entries refer to when listed by their registry cleaner program, leaving them with the choice of what appears to be a horribly disjointed registry or the possibility for disaster by removing them.
J Coyle, Auckland
Seagate service
LV Martin once said that, “It’s the putting right that counts”. It’s good to see it still exists.
I had the misfortune of buying a Seagate hard drive that had bad firmware installed. Some research on the internet revealed the problem was quite widespread. Eventually, the drive failed permanently but I discovered the online store that I purchased it from were no longer in business.
I then emailed Seagate directly to explain my problem. Within in a day I had a response asking me some more questions, which I promptly replied to. Seagate then arranged for the drive to be picked up and sent to Singapore, where the firmware was upgraded. I received it back within the time Seagate had specified to fix the issue.
On my drive were video files of my grandchildren, which I desperately wanted to keep. Of course, the moral is to make sure you back up properly.
Brett Nicholls, via email
Lonely Vista
It’s now official, Microsoft’s latest OS, Windows 7, will be on retail shelves as of 22 October. Does this mean Microsoft are giving up on Vista and expect us to rush out and purchase this new OS, or are they going to continue “fixing” problems with Vista until they get it right?
For those of us who purchased Vista or a computer with Vista, I think they owe us that much. SP2 has “fixed” some of the problems but there are still more, stability being one.
Roz Ritza, Auckland
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