McPhee

You live in London, yeah? Tottenham Court Road. You'll get a decent deal there. Won't be quite as cheap as internet prices, but it'll be reasonable and a lot faster than waiting for a custom build (up to two weeks easily).

Will we see Duke Nukem Forever? :p

I know, was just getting the comment in before one of the Android boys (or ReZ) throws it in there. The iPhone is far from perfect but the new one (HW wise) looks so nice! The Desire looks and feels too plasticy to me.

You could always buy a good phone instead

I can imagine TF2 on Mac working brilliantly! One button mouse Spy (no cloaking), one button mouse Medic (no uber), one button mouse Sniper (no scope), one button mouse Demoman (no sticky detonation). Excellent! Bring on the cannon fodder :p On a serious note, hit up this server Emasher; 213.229.65.89:27015

I'm only on WiFi at home, the rest of the time is 3G. I use the web a lot, every single day, but it's mainly web sites, email and apps like The Guardian. The only times I've ever come near 500MB have been when tethering to my PC a lot or when I had a Spotify Premium sub and wasn't using the 'Offline Playlists' function much. 500MB/month is some pretty heavy web use, it takes video to go over that really.

Just saw this article up on Giz, thought it might help anyone trying to decide what AV software to install; http://lifehacker.com/5559102/microsoft-security-essentials-finds-unknown-malware-but-avoids-false-positives

I was taking the piss. The hardware on this new iPhone looks amazing, it's just the software side that's letting things down. Personally I found the Froyo and Windows Phone 7 announcements far more interesting with a lot of very good ideas in both. I was hoping Apple would start moving toward the cloud and reduce the amount we need to use iTunes (maybe even wireless sync! ) but no, 'FaceTime' is the 'big' feature.

I've had Freesat since it launched. It's Sky, Virgin and Freeview's retarded younger brother. Channel selection is poor and you miss out on pretty much all interactive content. HD channel selection is also very poor, basically BBC HD (which isn't near as good as it was at launch, they've dropped quality loads). I guess if the World Cup in HD is that important then it's worth having, but I can't recommend it. I've got a Sky HD box on the way.

Sweet. Need to get me some MS points then!

Which one's the new one?

I'm not blown away; Google's I/O conference was far, far more impressive. However, iPhone 4 does look very nice. The styling is great, beyond any other phone out there (way better than the toy-like Desire). It's kinda Motorola Droid-like but more modern. I might order, will have to give it some thought over the next week because it looks like a very good handset. The only other possibilities are the Dell Streak (if O2 start unlocking them) or the Motorola Milestone XT720 (but I don't really use phone cameras so 8MP w/ Xenon flash would be a waste).

Slightly smaller screen with a higher (960x640) resolution. Better rear camera with flash. Front facing camera. More powerful SoC (same one as in the iPad?). There's also rumours circulating about a (Product)Red iPhone. For more, see here; http://gizmodo.com/5520471/the-tale-of-apples-next-iphone?skyline=true&s=i

Let's not even go down this road. Far, far too messy. That map is horribly misleading and the idea that Palestinians have a right to be pissed off is a dangerous one, something that has been holding up the peace process for years now (Hamas regularly talk of reclaiming lost lands etc.).

Pretty much what I was about to write there, fish. I do find myself pondering who is right in all of this though. If Israel do remove all sanctions from Gaza would it really jeopardise Israeli security? Is the idea that they're at war with the whole of the Arab world a hangover from it's inception as a state? Are Hamas fighting for freedom, or do they want to destroy Israel and reclaim lost lands? There's no way of knowing. Stepping back from Gaza could be the right thing to do, or it might be the biggest mistake Israel ever makes.

If I was picking the best tracks by those bands then yeah, I'd have done the same. Getting the whole thing to fit together made me change stuff though, the 60's really weren't that great so choices are a bit thin on the ground up to 68. By the 60's (imo) Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles et all who were big in the 50's had lost it a bit, some very poor albums. That leaves The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, The Who and The Yardbirds for the majority of the 60's. Not really a fan of The Yardbirds or Beachboys so it was either double dip or go with early Stones/Beatles/Who tracks. Might move Led Zep though, having the Jackson 5 in '69 is a bit of a disgrace given how good a year it was.

What I'm saying is that Israel's actions towards the flotilla are irrelevant and not the issue. The blockade is there and they enforced it. The unfortunate events that happened on-board the ship are down to the activists who shouldn't have been there and who shouldn't have started a fight with Israeli troops. The issue is the legality of the blockade and the wider issue of Israel's attitude toward Gaza. Different discussion. While the flotilla takes the limelight in the media there will be no focus on the real problems in the middle east and what our role should be in resolving them. Personally I think it's time we (along with our allies) distance ourselves from Israel. The whole situation is a disaster and there will be no resolution while Israel maintains strong links with Western nations. The Israelis hold too much influence (certainly in the US) for a fair resolution to be met at the moment.

I've heard reports of O2 doing handsets for existing customers at cost. Not sure if they'll do it on the iPhone, but they're currently doing the HTC Desire for £275. If not it'll be the £450+ that they'll be charging for the PAYG handset.

The blockade's legality doesn't excuse the stupidity of the activists. Legal or not the blockade was there, they new it was there and they will have had a good idea of the consequences of crossing it. They still crossed it. Heck, they went one step further, they crossed it and then attacked Israeli troops. I've got no sympathy for them at all. I can't help but think it was all one big publicity stunt. I would agree that the blockade shouldn't be there and does need removing though.

If upgrades are the same as last year then you'll have to buy out your contract. On Vodafone it's the remaining line rental (before VAT) minus 25%. The free upgrades for original iPhone users was an unusual one, not something I think networks will repeat tbh.

60 - Ray Charles - What I'd Say 61 - Ben E. King - Stand By Me 62 - The Beatles - Twist and Shout 63 - Bob Dylan - Blowin' In The Wind 64 - The Kinks - All Day 65 - The Rolling Stones - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction 66 - The Who - My Generation/Land of Hope and Glory 67 - Albert King - Born Under a Bad Sign 68 - The Jimi Hendrix Experience - All Along The Watchtower 69 - The Jackson 5 - I Want You Back 70 - James Brown - Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine 71 - Led Zeppelin - Rock & Roll 72 - Stevie Wonder - Superstition 73 - Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road 74 - Bob Marley and The Wailers - No Woman No Cry 75 - Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run 76 - The Eagles - Hotel California 77 - The Stranglers - No More Heroes 78 - Kraftwerk - The Robots 79 - Michael Jackson - Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough 80 - AC/DC - Back In Black 81 - Human League - Don't You Want Me 82 - The Jam - Town Called Malice 83 - David Bowie - Let's Dance 84 - Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Two Tribes 85 - A-Ha - Take on Me 86 - Bon Jovi - Livin' on a Prayer 87 - Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up 88 - New Order - Blue Monday [88] 89 - Neil Young and Pearl Jam - Rockin' In The Free World 90 - Sinéad O'Connor - Nothing Compares 2 U (hate this song, but I can't find anything better) 91 - Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit 92 - R.E.M. - Man On The Moon 93 - Lenny Kravitz - Are You Gonna Go My Way 94 - Blur - Parklife 95 - Oasis - Wonderwall 96 - Ocean Colour Scene - The Riverboat Song (sacrificial lamb, odds on this will get changes for a Spice Girls track) 97 - The Prodigy - Firestarter (would be Smack My Bitch Up, but there's kids around...) 98 - Madonna - Ray Of Light 99 - Fatboy Slim - Praise You 00 - The Strokes - Last Night 01 - Daft Punk - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger 02 - Coldplay - Clocks 03 - Outkast - Hey Ya 04 - The Killers - Mr Brightside 05 - Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc. 06 - Gnarls Barkley - Crazy 07 - Pendulum - Blood Sugar 08 - Vampire Weekend - A-Punk 09 - Florence & The Machine - Rabbit Heart 10 - Plan B - Stay Too Long That's what I've got so far. Had to stick with reasonably well known tracks because it's for my Dad's 50th birthday do, there's a lot of people from a lot of different age groups coming. Some years I was kinda stuck and just went with the best I could find and others I've been spoilt for choice and went with one song per artist to sort that.

Which is why I'm asking for help. The draft I did was pretty much my taste in music with a few token variations in there. It read like a 'Rolling Stone Magazine' best of. I'm hoping for some suggestions to bump up the variation

Got a challenge for N-E. I've been told to come up with a playlist of songs, one song for each year since 1960. Unfortunately my knowledge on older non-rock stuff is kinda lacking so I'm struggling to get variation in there. Anyone feel like giving me a hand? A whole 50 songs, a decade or just a few suggestions (with year) would be welcome I had a draft playlist that I was going to post up - but I've just deleted it Second time I've done that now! Guess it's start from scratch time...