Step 1: Tidyup

Assuming you have a Windows machine, you’ll find it’s probably riddled with loads of temporary files and unnecessary programs. Lots of unwanted files slow down your hard drive access time, and one of the other main hogs is programs that run in the background, consuming valuable resources. Three things that are easy (and free) to do, are as follows:

• Remove any unwanted applications – Go to your Control Panel and from Programs, delete anything that you no longer use
• Install a free program called CCleaner. This scans your drives for unwanted temporary files created by Windows, your web browser and a number of messy bits of software
• Finally, have a look at the sheer number of programs that start when your machine does – it’s a safe bet that you don;t need all of these “vampire” apps that run in the background draining your memory. We recommend Windows Startup Inspector as a free, but slightly geeky, app that lets you disable unwanted crud.

Step 2: Upgrade

A few years back, the idea of taking the back off your desktop or laptop to replace the memory scared many, and required some solid knowledge of what you were doing. RAM upgrades were also fairly pricey. One of our recent projects here was upgrading some of our machines – a Compaq desktop, a Dell laptop and an ASUS notebook. It was both cheaper and easier than expected, thanks to a handy tool that’s free from memory sellers Crucial.com.

The System Scanner is a small application that scans your system to work out what memory is currently installed, and what the motherboard on your computer can support. It does an excellent job of detecting what you have, and offering options for upgrades. The scanner correctly identified our desktop, laptop and even our netbook and offered the correct options. For our desktop, the option selected was for a top-of-the-range update to the maximum supported memory, when we were looking for an incremental upgrade – it suggested binning the existing chips and replacing them, but the tool lets you see the various alternative options – and the right one for us was keeping the existing RAM and adding two additional chips. Here’s a screenshot of the tool in action:

Results from the Memory Scanner from Crucial.com

It’s very easy to use, and even if you’re not in the market for a RAM upgrade, it’s worth a quick check to see what sort of figure you’d be looking at to get a system speedup.

Try the System Scanner for yourself here: Crucial RAM Upgrade System Scanner

As for the upgrade itself – very straightforward. The laptop was a case of removing a single screw and replacing two chips – the netbook was also straightforward. The desktop upgrade was OK too, but the angle of attack for the RAM slots as a little tight, as there’s quite a lot packed into a fairly tight space – nonetheless, easyish, and fast.

RAM upgrade time – A 200 PIN DDR2 SODIMM (apparently)

Without this kind of tool, it’s very easy to pick the wrong sort of memory, as there are lots of different memory types and configurations – Crucial’s tool makes it very easy, and it’s well worth a try. We’re pleased to report that since the upgrade, all three machines are buzzing – especially the laptop that we use for in-the-field podcast recording. The RAM from Crucial was also almost half the price that the laptop’s maker Dell was trying to sell us, proving that (here comes the pun), it’s “crucial” to shop around.

Any comments on suggestions on speeding your machine up, please let us know in the box below.

Related links:

• For more, see our PC Memory Updates page

As we do each year, our podcast team has taken a look back at the last twelve months of technology and put together an Audio Guide to 2012. If you’ve not listened to our podcast before, we’d urge you to have a listen, and maybe sign up. Shows are, of course, free.

2012 was a busy year for tech, and here are just some of the stories that we’ve covered over the months:

• Virgin announced that it was doubling its Broadband speed, at no extra cost
• Lots of discussion of potential Freeview interference by the 2013 launch of 4G data networks
• The Raspberry Pi offered a tiny computer for £22
• All change for The Gadget Show as Jon Bentley, Ortis Deeley and Suzi Perry were to be axed
• The launch of Apple’s 3rd generation iPad
• Launch of the Samsung Galaxy SIII, the rival to the iPhone
• Motorola acquires Psion, makers of the Psion Organiser and Psion Series 3
• Apple iOS 6, iPhone 5 and the iPad Mini announced
• The completion of the UK Digital Switchover
• The launch of the first high-speed 4G network from EE

Just a few of our highlights from 2012, and our podcast production team has just launched their audio review of the last year for your listening pleasure.

The FileSaveAs podcast?

If you’ve not tried our podcast before, that can be your News Year’s Resolution! Our podcasts are free, and you can listen to them online, or if you have an iPod, iPhone or iPad, listen to us via iTunes. There are several ways you can listen, and in each show, we cover a different tech topic.

If you’ve not had a listen, please give us a try and see what you think – You can take a listen to our review of 2012, which gives you a great idea of what we’ve been up to over the last year, and also hear us out-and-about at Birmingham’s Gadget Show Live.

For more details about FrequencyCast, our humble Technology Podcast, see our UK Technology Podcast page

This handy free app offered a one-click way to re-scan your iTunes music library, add any new files found in your specified iTunes folder, and remove any files that had been deleted.

It was particularly useful as a one-click solution to error messages like this: “Some of the items in the iTunes library were not copied to the iPhone because they could not be found”. The ITLU app would rebuilt the database removing files that had been moved or removed.

iTunes Missing Files Error Message, formerly resolved by ITLU

iTunes 11 and iTLU

Running the iTunes Library updater after installing version 11 of iTunes, pops up the following message:

"the 'dict' start tag on line 7003 does not match the end tag of 'plist;. Line 7093, position 3"

iTunes Library Updater Error Message

The error message is a show-stopper, and the iTunes Library Database Updater no longer works.

The fix?

According to the developer’s website, there isn’t one. Here’s a statement on the developer’s website:

“Unfortunately, Apple has removed the API that iTLU used to control iTunes from the new version 11.

As a consequence iTLU will not work anymore with iTunes 11 and up. There is nothing I can do about that. Sorry!”

So, that appears to be it for a one-click solution that sorts out files in your iTunes database…

Alternatives to ITLU?

As far as we know, there aren’t any, but you may well know differently. If you do, please add a comment below

The mail server “mail.xxxx.com” is not responding. Verify that you have entered the correct account info in Mail settings.

The tedious iPhone |Mail Server Not Responding error message

Every time that I open the Mail app on my iPhone, I see this message at least half a dozen times. I hit OK, only to see it again, and again. I’ve trawled the Internet looking for answers, and nothing seems to apply to my situation, although loads of people have reported the same problem. In my case, I know why this is happening… It’s because I have multiple POP3 email accounts on my phone, and some are on the same email server.

Due to the nature of my work, I have different email accounts for the different clients and websites that I work for, and when my iPhone checks for new mail, it has to scan close to 10 different email accounts to check for new waiting messages. From reading various reports of the problem, it seems that the iPhone Mail app may not be correctly closing off an email connection when it’s finished checking for me messages, meaning that next time it’s checked, the app reports that a connection cannot be made to the email server. If you’ve never seen this error message, you’ve no idea how tedious it is to have to press the “Ok” button to clear this message up to 10 times each time you check for a new message!

Fixing the email problem

I’ve tried everything I can think of – changing the settings – disabling accounts, changing the checking frequency, and even changing the security settings on the email server – but nothing worked. Until today. The fix has been for me to abandon the Apple iPhone Mail app, and install a new email application. Surprisingly, there aren’t many out there, and that’s likely to be something to do with Apple, and that they don’t like apps that steer people away from their own native applications.

After trying some apps and reading reviews, one stood out:

Sparrow – Email for the iPhone

This isn’t a free at, but at £1.99 it was worth a try… and I’m happy to report that since installing this application, there’s been no sign of the dreaded error message when checking for new mail. The app handles multiple email accounts very well, and is one slick app.

There are a couple of things that it doesn’t do – and key to many is that it won;t check for emails in the background. It;’s also not fully integrated into the iOS6 operating system – meaning that it’s not perfect… but for checking, reading and sending emails, it’s great. It also adds a lot of features not found in the standard iPhone Mail app – it plucks people’s photos from your contacts store and also from Facebook, and makes clever use of left and right swipes to manage your mail. Also, for those with multiple accounts, it offers account icons.

Here are a couple of screenshots of Sparrow in operation:

So far, I’m loving this application, and it’s great to be able to check for email without having due ensure multiple presses of the “Ok” button every time an email comes in.

If you’re plagued by the “mail server is not responding” on your iPhone, give the Sparrow app a try. Download Sparrow for iPhone from iTunes.

If you’ve found a better app, or a fix for the error message, please post a comment in the little box below, and it’ll be emailed to us. Hopefully…

This nifty little tablet is still on offer at that massively reduced price, and has just got even more attractive thanks to a free software upgrade.

Blackberry Playbook Summary

Rather than running the Apple iOS system, or using the increasingly popular Android OS, this uses Blackberry’s own interface and software, although as we’ll explain in a bit, the updated Playbook can now run Android apps too. Here’s the highlights of the Playbook Proposition:

• 7″ touchscreen
• Front and rear cameras
• Wi-fi and Bluetooth connectivity
• Available with 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of memory
• Micro USB
• HDMI Out, handy for presentations and not seen on other tablets
• GPS (location and sat nav)
• For gamers, there’s a built-in Gyroscope and Accelerometer

The Blackberry Playbook, at a knock-down price

Playbook OS2 Upgrade

On Tuesday the 21st of February, a free upgrade to version 2 of the tablet’s operating system was launched. Here’s a summary of what’s new:

• Dedicated e-mail, calendar, and contacts apps (oddly, missing from the first version)
• Better Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn integration
• An Amazon Kindle eBook App (although this was pulled shortly after release whilst a few bugs got ironed out)
• Support for Android applications with the Android Player.

The addition of support for Android apps is huge, and could make all the difference for the Playbook, although it’s important to note that not all Android apps are available. Developers have to make some tweaks to get the apps to run, and the Playbook-ised apps need to be approved by RIM before the can be added to the Blackberry App Store. Expect to see a large amount of new apps on their way now that OS2 is out.

If like the sound of the Playbook , then they’re still around at this awesome price – The 16GB is in stock online at Currys at the time of writing: Blackberry Playbook 16GB at Currys

Free SIM Cards

O2 have a fantastic Free SIM card offer on for the next few weeks. Order a free SIM card with free unlimited calls and texts to o2 customers when you top up £15 a month.

If you’ve not picked up a free o2 PAYG SIM card before, get one between 15^th February and 15^th March , and you will automatically be entered into a competition to win one of 200 sets of Beats headsets. To qualify for the competition, you will need to top up at least £10 before the 28^th April 2012

This competition is only open to new customers taking an O2 free sim between these dates.

To get your free SIM card, go here: Free SIM card from 02

SIM-Only Vouchers

That’s Pay As You Go… but what about if you’re looking for a SIM-only contract? Here’s offer 2: O2 is offering a free £25 voucher with a £15 and over 12 month Simplicity contract.

If you sign up to a 12 month tariff (with 600 minutes or more), you’ll be sent a  free £25 voucher for Argos, ASDA, Marks and Spencer, Sainsbury’s or B&Q. The £25 voucher offer runs until the 1st of March 2012.

Looking for a Simplicity SIM? Get a SIM from o2

Need some SIM help?

We have answers to lots of common SIM card questions… For more on SIM Cards, see our UK SIM Cards page

Evi, created by developers True Knowledge, is a credible rival to the voice recognition service for iOS, known as Siri. Evi, with her cyclops single-eye icon, makes good use of the microphone on many smartphones to listen to commands, send them over-the-air for processing, and returning text.

Testing Evi

We’ve been testing Evi here on a Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet computer as well as on an HTC Desire smartphone, and although a little slow, it’s still pretty usable, and returns some sensible answers. You can also say a few silly phrases to Evi, for some largely amusing answers. Whilst we’re not saying that this rivals Siri for speed or slickness, it’s an app worth trying, and it has the advantage of being a freebie.

Also, don’t expect the smooth integration with Android that you get with Siri. You won’t be able to get Evi to send a text message, or add an entry to your diary – It’s limited to performing online searches – although in a rather stylish way, without Siri’s “here’s a webpage” cop-out.

If you want to give Evi a test run, download her from the Android Marketplace. Here’s a shot of Evi in action:

Screenshot of Evi on a Samsung Galaxy Tab

Evi for iPhone?

Yes! Evi is also available for Apple devices, and currently has the advantage for those of us in the UK in that it: a) supports UK business lookup (e.g. “Find my nearest coffee shop”), and b) has a female voice, rather than the male voice us in Britain get by default.

Although free on the Android platform, the developers have opted to make Evi a paid app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch – however at a measly 69p, it’s hardly going to break the bank. Download Evi from iTunes

We’ll continue playing with what appears to be the best rival to Siri, and report back if we uncover anything interesting.

Although this is a pretty powerful little tablet, it’s not caught the public’s imagination, and so Blackberry dropped the price last year. They’ve now slashed the price again, with the entry level machine now costing £169 (a saving of £230 on what you’d have paid last October).

If you’re in the market for a decent tablet at a silly price, then the discounted Playbook is currently in stock online at Currys: Blackberry Playbook 16GB at Currys. 32GB and 64GB versions are also available at £199 and £249.

What does the Playbook offer?

It’s an incredibly light and thin (10mm) tablet with a 7″ display. It supports multi-touch, and has a dual-core processor. Other top features:

• 7″ 1024×600 WSVGA touchscreen display
• Up to 1080p video playback, with HDMI output to connect to a TV or monitor
• Front and rear facing cameras
• Gyroscope and accelerometer for enhanced gameplay
• GPS and digital compass / magnetometer
• Support for H.264, MPEG4 and WMV video playback
• Wi-fi, Bluetooth, USB and HDMI connectivity

The Heavily Discounted 16GB Blackberry Playbook

Sure, the Blackberry Playbook isn’t an iPad, but if you’re looking for a powerful and capable tablet device at a bargain price, the Blackberry Playbook is worth some serious consideration at this knock-down price.  It’s currently half the price of competing 7 inch tablet devices such as the popular Samsung Galaxy Tab.  More on the Blackberry Playbook.

Got a Playbook? We’d love to know what you think!

Update 21 Feb: Now even better… Blackberry Playbook Gets A Facelift

Virgin Media, operator of the UK’s cable TV and Internet network is planning to double the download speed offered to customers of its 10Mb, 20Mb, 30Mb and 50Mb services from next month. The speed upgrade will start from February 2012 for some customers, and be complete across their cable network by the middle of 2013. Although the upgrades are set to cost Virgin £110m,customers will get the speed increase for free.

A free doubling of broadband speeds is a good thing, and it will take the UK’s fastest download speeds to 120Mbps, which is three times better than the maximum speed offered by other UK broadband providers such as BT and Plusnet.

Last year, BT announced its plans to roll out its BT Infinity fibre service to 66% of the UK by 2015, at a rather more pricey £2.4 billion, but currently, BT’s fibre service only offers 40Mbps.

Virgin has been in a great position to offer a fast connection as they only offer the service in the more profitable parts of the UK, and their network was built as a fibre network from the ground-up, and isn’t an old network of copper cables and telegraph poles that requires a major upgrade just to get speeds of up to 40Meg. Virgin’s also pretty accurate in its speed prediction – if you pay for a 30Mbps service, you get close to that figure, whereas here at FileSaveAs, the machine we’re using is on an “up to 20Mbps” connection, and we’re seeing a speed of about 4Mbps. Sadly, neither BT Infinity or the Virgin cable network is available where we live (yet), and each time we check on the date for fibre in our area, it seems to be pushed back by 3 months.

If fast broadband is of interest to you, the winner in the UK is clearly Virgin, and customers are also set to be winners too, as they’re about to start getting free upgrades to even faster speeds.

If you’re lucky enough to be in a Virgin Media cable area, then take a look at their combined cable TV and fast broadband service – you can find details of what they offer at virginmedia.com

Got Virgin? We’d love to know what you’d like to use your new shiny faster connections for – Please add a comment below.

In 2011, we saw various bits of tech excitement, including:

• Launch of the Nintendo 3DS, glasses-free 3D gaming
• BT Home Hub 3
• Google +1 and Google + (social networking, not a new TV channel!)
• Playstation and Blackberry network issues
• First experiments with IPv6, the new network standard
• The demise of the US space shuttle program
• The iPhone 5 wasn’t launched, but we got the Siri-toting iPhone 4S instead

Just a few of our highlights from 2011, and our podcast boys have just launched their audio review of the  last year.

Our podcast?

Not tried our podcast before? Where have you been all our life?? We’re now in our sixth year, and the won the best UK non-profit podcast in the last round of European Podcast Awards – so we must be doing something right. The show’s host, Carl, is a gadget-phobe, but he’s paired with Pete, who’s a technophile (or a “geek” as many call him)

Our podcasts are free, and you can listen to them online, or if you have an iPod, iPhone or iPad, listen to us via iTunes. There are several ways you can listen, and in each show, we cover a different tech topic.

If you’ve not had a listen, please give us a try and see what you think – You can take a listen to our review of 2011, which gives you a great idea of what we’ve been up to over the last year, and also hear us out-and-about at Birmingham’s Gadget Show Live.

For more details about FrequencyCast, our humble Technology Podcast, see our UK Technology Podcast page

The new mobile phone operating platform, iOS 5 , is set to include over 200 changes, adding extra functionality and improving the user experience. Here are some of the headlines:

• Wireless sync with iTunes
• A new Notification Centre
• iMessages (free messaging between other iOS devices)
• Improved reminders
• Integration with social media service Twitter
• The ability to take a photo from the standby screen
• Support for formatting (bold, italics, etc) in email
• Photo editing and red-eye reduction
• Support for iCloud (storage)

Ahead of the roll-out of Apple’s latest mobile OS, a new release of iTunes has been made today. iTunes 10.5 is now available to download. It stores your music and TV purchases in iCloud, to makes them available on your iOS devices over-the-air. It also supports Automatic Downloads, plus the new wireless-sync feature in iOS 5. Thankfully, the latest version of iTunes 10.5 no longer mandates an install of the multimedia application  QuickTime.

The last major software release for the iPhone and iPod Touch was iOS 4, back in June 2010. We think it’ll be interesting to see whether the enhancements that users will see in iOS 5 will prevent hardcore iPhone lovers from feeling the need to get hold of the new iPhone 4S this week, with many feeling that the improved camera, processor and the Siri ‘virtual assistant’ isn’t enough of a revolution to warrant an upgrade.

Next year’s Gadget Show Live takes place at the NEC in Birmingham from the 11th to the 15th of April and will see over 280 companies show off some of the latest technology to hit the market. Exhibitors already confirmed for the event include: Samsung, JVC, Sennheiser, Kenwood, Packard Bell & Acer.

Our podcast team were on-site last year, reporting from the show, and getting hands-0n with some great gadgets. If you’re interested in hearing what we got up to, go to http://www.frequencycast.co.uk/gsl

As well as touring the stands, visitors to the show can attend the Super Theatre, where you get to see a live Gadget Show starring channel 5 presenters Suzi, Jason, Jon, Pollyanna and Ortis.

Presenters of Channel 5's Gadget Show

Here’s a quote from Matt Hodgins, the Gadget Show Live Event Director: “We have been overwhelmed by the demand for tickets, year-on-year. The show once again promises to be a fun-filled, interactive and exciting day out for gadget fans of all ages, with lots of new content for 2012. Whilst we have done our best to accommodate as many visitors as we can, the phenomenal demand we have already seen for tickets suggests we are on course for another sell-out event in 2012. ”

Tickets for this year’s show in April sold out weeks before the event, so if you’re set on going to the 2012 event, it pays to book early. Over 100,000 people attended this year’s show, and for the 2012 show, an additional 10,000 tickets have been released.

If you want to reserve your place, go to http://www.gadgetshowlive.net/tickets

At the time of writing, BT is offering three months of free broadband, and you can get a £25 Amazon.co.uk voucher when you sign up.

Here’s a summary of what BT’s offering, broadband-wise:

Free mobile wi-fi

Free wi-fi whilst you’re out and about – This uses the BT Fon network, and does indeed open up a range of locations to surf with your smartphone or laptop for free. This network of free wi-fi access points is only available to those on the BT Broadband network

Inclusive High-Speed ‘n’ Router

A wireless broadband 802.11n router (a.k.a the BT Home Hub) – The latest version, v3, has been improved to offer a more stable wi-fi connection, especially in congested areas.

Low-cost Digital TV

BT Vision – BT’s digital TV service. As well as offering TV shows and movies on-demand, Vision offers Sky Sports and ESPN (saving on your Sky subscription!), and with many dissatisfied with Sky’s sky-high prices, we’re seeing many switching to Vision, as it’s a low-cost way to get more that the basic Freeview service, for only £4 a month

High-speed Fibre Network

Faster access with BT’s fibre service,  BT Infinity . This new service seems to be getting a lot of interest, judging by the questions coming nto our team here at FileSaveAs, with lots of you seeing an impressive rise in broadband speeds since upgrading. There’s a new interactive map showing when the fibre optic network will be expanding to your area – see bt.com/infinity.

More Info

You can sign up, or find out more, at www.bt.com/broadband

The £25 Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate offer is available until the 29th of September 2011.

Note that is offer is only available to new BT Broadband customers ordering Broadband and Anytime Calls on its own or with BT Vision Essential or Unlimited on www.bt.com. To claim the Amazon voucher, you’ll need to enter your details at www.bt.com/claimvoucher once your broadband has been installed.

An updated version of the mobile phone platform, Symbian Anna, has just been released. This will run on the Nokia N8 (pictured here), Nokia C7, Nokia E7 and Nokia C6-01 handsets. The update offers some new icons, updated to the web browser, portrait keyboard and various other updates and polishes. The update also adds NFC (Near Field Communication) support for the Nokia N7, better integration to Microsoft Communicator Mobile, and some security tweaks

If you have one of these latest Symbian-powered phones, you can get the Symbian Anna update from the Nokia Ovi Suite, although if your phone has been customised by your network operator (i.e. you’re on a Vodafone-branded Nokia N7), then you may have to wait until the operator-customised version is made available before you can get your hands on Anna’s goodies.

With Android and iPhone dominating the market, the Google/Motorola takeover getting lots of interest, and the Nokia/Microsoft deal being big news for the Finnish manufacturer, it’s easy to forget the once-proud Symbian – Nokia has a commitment to supporting the Symbian environment until at least 2016, and there are apparently another ten Symbian phones in the pipeline. Anna’s younger sister, codenamed ‘Belle’, is also in the works.

Still using a Symbian OS phone? We’d love to know what you think of Symbian these days… Or have you all migrated to Google or Apple?

Now, we know those sites are in place for our benefit… they load faster, and typically exclude Flash, ads, and other junk that slows down the mobile experience… but now and again, we need to get to the other stuff on the site, and sometimes it’s hard.

Today, the problem with mobile versions of a website caused me a real problem. I used my iPhone to visit the Maplin website at www.maplin.co.uk – The browser redirected me to mobile.maplin.co.uk – which was down. Here’s a screen capture of what the Maplin site has been doing all day today:

Maplin's Mobile Website, broken on iPhone

The problem was only with the mobile website – the desktop version was fine, but there was no way to get the iPhone to do to the Desktop version. We found a way though – it look a couple of minutes, and this was what we were able to get on our iPhone 4:

Desktop site working on the iPhone

So, how did we manage to get our iPhone to start showing the desktop version of websites? Well, sadly there’s no magic setting on the iPhone to do this? Well…

How to make an iPhone avoid a Mobile website

To be able to fool a website into not giving us the optimised version, what we ended up doing was to install a different web browser. A browser that can “pretend” it’s not a mobile phone browser.

After some research, we found the Atomic Web Browser for iPhone – the free version doesn’t do the magic we needed, but the 69 pence browser app does.

If you’re sick of mobile versions of websites, pay your £0.69 and download the app in iTunes  (link), then do the following:

• Open the Atomic Web app
• Press the Settings button (looks like a cog)
• Select “Identify Browser As”

Atomic Web Browser Settings Screen

From the next screen, you have the option to change what’s known as the “UA Prof” (or User Agent Profile String). This is the setting in a web browser that identifies the browser to websites. The iPhone browser says “Hello, I’m an  iPhone”. The setting in the Atomic Web browser allows you to get the browser to pretend to be something it’s not. Here’s what it can identify as:

Atomic Web Browser - UAProf Screen

So there you go. We set our browser to be an Internet Explorer browser, and the Maplin site was happy to believe we weren’t an iPhone and let us in.

The solution worked for us. We hope it’ll work for you too!

The costs of using your mobile hone abroad have always been high, but the good news for consumers is that prices have been steadily dropping. New European Union rulings that come into effect today mean that will make it much cheaper to speak, text and surf whilst overseas.

• Phone calls will be capped at 32p a minute
• Receiving a call will cost 10p whilst roaming
• A text will cost no more than 10p to send, and remain free to receive
• Data roaming costs will drop too, to a maximum of around £1 a megabyte, with limits imposed to stop you spending over £45 whilst data roaming, unless you request otherwise

The changes affect roaming in all EU member states, and prices are set to all even further over the coming years. Roaming charges are now around 75% lower than they were six years ago.

Data charges are still pretty steep, and many still suffer from bill shock after realising that their mobile phone has been quietly sending and receiving data whilst you’re away. For some tips on keeping your data roaming costs to a minimum, see our Mobile Internet Abroad page.

Got any tips of how to keep your costs down when you’re roaming? Let us know in the comments below

IPv6 is the new form of addressing, and it will mean updates to the Internet’s backbone, networks and gateways, web services, Internet Service Providers, as well as home routers and operating systems. It’s a big change, and this month, the first major step towards the full deployment of IPv6 is taking place.

Later this month, you may start hearing about World IPv6 Day, where some of the big players in the online world start testing the new addressing format known as IPv6. Various tests are being completed around the world to get a feel for how much work still has to be done to get us all ready for the new addresses. It’s expected that normal Internet users won’t see an impact as a result of this month’s tests, and it’ll mainly be a learning experience for the world’s online service providers and web experts.

You can find out just how ready your computer is, by visiting test-ipv6.com

IPv6 Interview

Our podcasting team has been talking to the boss of one of the leading UK Internet Providers, Plusnet, to find out how IPv6 will affect us all, and whether or not we should be worried by the upcoming changes.

If you’re interested in finding out what IPv6 means to you, what some of the challenges of bringing IPv6 to the world are, and how one of the UK ISPs is progressing with the change to the new format, take a listen the our interview with Plusnet’s Richard Fletcher.

Also in the interview, details of Plusnet’s unlimited overnight download deal – great for downloading content without having to worry about a monthly usage cap.

For the full IPv6 interview, go to FrequencyCast Plusnet Interview

If you happen to be considering a switch to Plusnet, note that for a limited time, you can get 50% Broadband from Plusnet for a year – From £3.24 a month. Expires on the 8th of June 2011 – Details at www.plus.net . Their service offers UK-based support, and a handy no-contract option.

Unlike anti-virus software, malware detection software and kids protection packages like NetNanny, the new services from TalkTalk don’t need to be installed onto your computer / laptop, they sit on the TalkTalk servers, and make decisions before they serve the page to you.

The new solution offers three services:

• Virus Alerts – Protection server-side, from spammers, fraudsters and viruses
• Kids Safe – Lets parents block websites that they feel are unsafe or inappropriate
• Homework Time – Blocks social networking and gaming sites between set times of the day

TalkTalk is claiming to be the first UK Internet Provider to offer this kind of server-side protection, and parents can take control over the settings from the TalkTalk website, including being able to block porn and gambling sites.

The FAQ on the TalkTalk site is quick to point out that there are no guarantees here, and that their services is designed to complement, and not replace, existing PC-side software protection and home security packages, but for many, it could be a good step for ensuring a safer family browsing experience.

We suspect that this will attract the attention of various online bodies, especially those connected with security and privacy. Every time that a TalkTalk user asks for a webpage, TalkTalk will see that request and check whether it’s OK to serve the requested page, keeping a blacklist and a whitelist of requested webpages.

Many of you may recall the controversy with US firm Phorm, and a number of quiet trials that took place where pages requested by users were captured and analysed so that targeted third-party advertising could be served. At the time of the Phorm Controversy, many commentators were unhappy with the idea of the Internet Service Provider making decisions based on the websites users decide they want to look at.

Regardless of your views on privacy and security, the addition of these free tools could be a handy tool for parents looking to keep greater control of the nastiness that’s out there on the web, and offer an extra layer of security against phishing and malware.

HomeSafe launches today (9th May 2011) and is available to TalkTalk users.

More on TalkTalk: TalkTalk Reviewed

The limited edition souvenir phone is a fairly basic model from Alcatel, and it’s pictured here to the right.

To add to its collectability status, it has a screensaver of Wills and Kate, with a ringtone you can be proud of… “God Save The Queen”. On the back, the phone has the happy couple’s initials too.

The phone has an FM radio, for listening to live coverage, presumably, and a torch for night-time celebrations. You can get phone for a very limited time for £1 on either the Orange or Virgin networks.

Sure, it’s a bit of fun, likely to appeal to Royal lovers, but we suspect its true value will be as a collectable, and for only £1 (plus a £10 top up), it’s got to we worth a go!

We’re not sure how long this phone will be available at this price, so if you want one to spruce up your street party, or to stash away as an eBay bargain for the future, we suggest you hurry!

More details: Royal Wedding Phone for £1

Given that Virgin’s charging £25 a month for its “up to 50Mbps” service, the price for Plusnet’s high speed package is very appealing.

The Yorkshire-based broadband provider has been running trials of the new fibre service and has reported that 74% of the trialists that used to get speeds of between 2 and 12Mbps, are now getting speeds of at least 30Mbps or more.

Plusnet CEO Jamie Ford has this to say: “Plusnet Fibre is the next generation of broadband and 96 per cent of our trialists say they would recommend the service to friends. This will really benefit households where there are several users and with increased speeds, it makes it possible to download a 30 minute TV show in less time than it takes to make the cup of tea to enjoy with it as you sit down to watch.”

Plusnet is making use of BT’s fibre optic network for this new service, but are able to undercut BT’s Infinity charge, which is currently £18 a month. More than 4 million UK premises already have access to fibre-enabled services and this is set to increase to two thirds of all UK premises by the end of 2015, meaning that access to faster broadband is set to increase in the coming months.

Plusnet Fibre becomes available from the 19th of April. To see if your area is ready for speeds of up to 40Mbps, go to www.plus.net/fibre and enter your phone number.