How well does SIP work on a modern Android phone, with no 3rd party apps? I'm trying to give up my mobile phone contract. As part of that, I'm switching my voice calls to VoIP providers. For family and friends, that usually means WhatsApp, Skype, Signal and other consumer apps. For work, Hangouts, Zoom, and Skype. But what about "normal" people who just want to dial a PSTN number? And what…
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The first thing I did when getting to the USA as a kid, was to find a payphone where I dutifully called 1-800-STARWARS. I'd grown up with American media. Phonewords - where your phone's dialpad spells out words - were ingrained in my psyche. But the UK never had anything like that. In 2003, a reverse-charges company tried to make it a thing. Here's how they tried to teach UK users how to…
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A friend and I were having a good old grouch-and-moan session over a couple of beers. We were being snide and petty about all the people who'd ticked us off that week. "And another thing!" I proclaimed, "Have you seen their Twitter bio? It's all 'Forbes 30-under-30' and 'Global Speaker' and 'Best Selling Author'! Bah! Why can their bio just say 'I like cheese!'?" My friend took a glug of beer.…
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Another weird economic casualty of COVID19. I'm not wearing out my socks and shoes. I cancelled my train season ticket. And now, I'm giving up my mobile contract. For a decade, I worked in the mobile industry - and always had an unlimited SIM card. Rejoining the real world, some years ago, was a bit of a shock to the system. You mean people have to pay for phone calls?!? The pandemic has…
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A young man embarks on an adventure with another patient at his therapist's office, who he visits every Wednesday. This is, probably, a feel-good movie. No, it's a buddy movie. Well, actually, it's a romantic comedy. Or, possibly, a satire on race-relations in America. Definitely a bleakly hilarious road-trip. J. Lee's debut as a movie direct has a scattergun approach which pays off…
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Twitter has a nifty new feature which allows you to schedule the publication of a Tweet. But, crucially, it doesn't let the reader know when the message was originally written. How can you, as a publisher, prove that you wrote a scheduled Tweet at a specific time? Here's one method. Write a Tweet which contains a timestamp - "This is my message 2020-08-17" Generate a hash of the message -…
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It would be easy for the modern reader to conclude that women had no place in the world of early modern espionage, with a few seventeenth-century women spies identified and then relegated to the footnotes of history. If even the espionage carried out by Susan Hyde, sister of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, during the turbulent decades of civil strife in Britain can escape the historiographer's…
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My mate Dom was moaning to his ISP on Twitter. They sent him a private message so they could look into his account. Blimey! Thankfully, that was a pretty brazen and inept attempt at phishing. Anyone asking for all your card details like that should set the alarm bells ringing. Of course, phishers often target credulous people who don't understand that they're being scammed. By sending an…
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I've been sent a Flyland USB-C hub to review. It's a small but versatile unit - perfect for people who need to connect legacy equipment to something with USB-C ports. For £21, you get 7 ports: 3x USB 3.0 1x HDMI 4K 1x Micro SD 1x SD 1x USB Power Delivery It worked perfectly on Linux (more below) and Windows. No drivers required. It also worked on Android. Simple plug and play. Exactly the …
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December 1897, Paris. Edmond Rostand is not yet thirty but already two children and a lot of anxieties. He has not written anything for two years. In desperation, he offers the great Constant Coquelin a new play, a heroic comedy, in verse, for the holidays. Only concern: it is not written yet. Ignoring the whims of actresses, the demands of his Corsican producers, the jealousy of his wife, the…
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A decade ago, I was invited to the UK launch of Windows Phone 7. It was Microsoft's attempt to compete with Apple's iPhone and Google's Android. Sure, Microsoft could make a brilliant OS and had excellent hardware partners - but could they convince developers to use yet another system? At the time, I wrote: The revenue share is 70/30. I really think MS have missed a trick here. It’s an “…
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Lud-in-the-Mist - a prosperous country town situated where two rivers meet: the Dawl and the Dapple. The latter, which has its source in the land of Faerie, is a great trial to Lud, which had long rejected anything 'other', preferring to believe only in what is known, what is solid. Nathaniel Chanticleer is a somewhat dreamy, slightly melancholy man, not one for making waves, who is…
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