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Tech Digest

Gadgets, consumer electronics, mobile phones and wireless

"Oi, where d'you think you're going?"November 1 2006

Ever wished you could jump straight to the front of the queue like a celeb when you go to see your favourite band?  Well if you're a Virgin Mobile customer, now you can. Mobile Marketing Magazine reports that Virgin has launched a queue-jumping facility that runs at selected gigs at Carling Academy venues across the UK.

Ads at the venues give instructions on how to jump the queue by texting 'Qjump' to a dedicated shortcode number. In return, you get a barcode sent to your phone that you scan at a terminal to convert it to a ticket that lets you and a mate jump straight to the front of the queue while all the other suckers shout abuse at you and try to work out which obscure band you're a member of. Clever eh?

Get the full story here. 

TechDigest has movedOctober 30 2006

If you are wondering why it has been a bit quiet here of late it is is because we have changed hosting. So to see TechDigest you need to skip off to techdigest.tv . You will also need to update your RSS feeds too.

No Sympathy from YouTubeOctober 23 2006

If you post copyright material on the video share site YouTube you can expect no help or sympathy from the company, according to a report on CNet News. Information on who posted the clip or move may be handed over to the authorities or legal representative of anyone who’s copyright may have been infringed. This follows the well-publicised case of Robert Tur, a US journalist whose footage of the 1992 Los Angeles riots ended up on YouTube in July. Tur’s s attorneys were given the name of one of the people who posted the clips and advised to seek redress from them, instead of YouTube. The company’s policy on copyright infringement is spelt out in its user agreement and on a pop-up that appears when clips are uploaded so it should come as no surprise but it looks as though an increasing number of copyright owners could now pursue copyright violations through the courts.

Vista Tip - Enable Check BoxesOctober 20 2006

Here’s another in the series of occasional Propellerhead Top Tips for the new Vista operating system and this one involves enabling a useful little facility called Check Boxes. It works in Computer, the new name for Windows Explorer and My Computer and the idea is it makes selecting multiple files a lot easier.

As you know in Windows 9x and XP to select a number of files at once, for deletion, copying etc, you have to hold down the Ctrl key and highlight each file in turn. It’s not too bad when you’re only dealing with one or two files but unless you are very careful, and precise you can end up accidentally copying a load of files, or moving them to the wrong location.

Check Boxes in Vista put a little (you guessed it) check box in front of files when you hover the mouse pointer, so all you have to do to select a number of files is tick the box when it appears. It’s not switched on by default (in Release Candidate 1).

To make them appear open Computer and on the Tools menu (press the Alt key if it’s not showing) then go to Folder Options and select the Vie

Do You Want Chips with that?October 20 2006

Not sure what to make of this one but a chap (and I’m assuming it’s a he…) called Sc4freak posting on [H]ard|Forum claims to have deep-fried his computer. In fact he was trying out a technique called submersion cooling, where the motherboard is dunked in a non-conductive liquid, in his case cooking oil, and apparently it worked quite well.

However, being of a curious disposition, and feeling a bit peckish, he put the container with the oil and motherboard on the cooker, turned up the heat and fried a few chips. The big surprise was that with the chips sizzling nicely the PC continued to work, though eventually it did crash whilst playing Quake but apparently lived to run another day, as we hope he will, after ingesting who knows chemicals leeched from the hot mobo…