paging Burnt, or anyone else who knows about phones

My earliest usenet post, doing a jeremy at
rec.games.computer.quake.playing, is 1997.

And MZ related spam to here in May 1998.
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=&hl=en&lr=lang_en
&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&selm=01bd8769%24a0955920%24LocalHost%40simon&r
num=4

I rock, craply ...

 

Who the **** does that?

 

Try using your debit card in a foreign country. [1]


[1] this may actually work in the EU - I'm not sure, and you can withdraw
cash with Switch cards in other countries, but I've never had
it accepted for a transaction. Credit cards on the other hand are accepted
best part of everywhere.

 

That's because your Switch card has a cirrus logo on it.
That's the compatability.

 

Nah, NCSA Mosaic, with external helper apps for JPEGs...That was technology
at its finest.

 

Indeed - my visa debit card has always worked, on the couple of
occasions I've needed to use it.

 

<waves>

Sometimes I need to send someone new out on market research visits, so I
give them my PAYG phone with my number and the office number being locked in
as the only permitted outgoing numbers. Very handy.

 

As did my Co-op (visa) debit card in Canada.

 

Madrid's nice. Milan, not quite so. Interesting train station, but
Madrid's one is better (tropical rain forest in the concourse IIRC).

 

Common usage in cellular networks.

 

Anywhere in telephony.

 

I've used lots of different bits of plastic in Switzerland, both for
purchases and for cash. The automatic ticket machines at Geneva Airport
seem a bit unpredictable, though.

I also had very little difficulty with plastic in California. Some petrol
stations were a bit twitchy: the ones where you pay at the pump.

Most were OK but some wouldn't take the card. I think it's because some
of the smaller companies have a lower limit on purchases which have to be
checked with the credit card company, and were unable to do that.
Generally, my Visa depbit card worked when my MasterCard didn't. Cash and
normal purchases were no problem with either of them.

 

Me too, except I still have my Orange as they'll price match anyone else
(actually, I gather they won't allow you to transfer to OVP Virgin
anymore) and my last bill was 2.54 - bargain.

 

Except that you're inventing solutions to problems that don't exist,
and then thinking that they're "handy". This is a basic problem with
nerds and geeks alike.

 

Oooh, where's me thermos

 

Well the "problem" in my case is that I need to provide new members of my
field team with:

1) A means of contacting me and the office until a company phone can be
sorted out for them.
2) A simple of way of tracking expenditure (I put a top up on my expenses
and so I don't have to mess around with a phone bill and a highlighter pen
each month).
3) A constant number to be recognised by our systems at the office (our work
involves sending SMS data back to a server which needs to match the numbers
to a person for payroll - saves having to add new numbers at short notice).
4) A way of making sure they're not taking the piss with personal calls. The
fact that the dialled numbers can be locked down is a great feature.

These are very much real (as in not 'invented') problems for my work which
*do* in fact exist, and a PAYG phone happens to solve them very nicely.

You seem to have a bee in your bonnet about this one. Just because you think
it's odd, it doesn't have to follow that *nobody* will find them useful.

 

You have poor analytical skills.

You're wrong: I don't care either way.

 

I await your far superior analysis of my job requirements, despite not
knowing what my job entails.

And yet you seem to be berating anyone who dares to suggest that they find a
PAYG mobile useful to them. Odd.

 

Hey, I've been out on a 'social event' where the high-spot (apart from
the free food and wine) was a trip... to Madrid's train station.

 

I've been to social events where the high point has been railway related
[1], but I've got an excuse.

Some years ago I went to a Cricklewood BR reunion/piss up on the Severn
Valley Railway whilst they held a preserved diesel weekend. The one that
headed our train I'd driven in service [2], in BR blue ... Suddenly my
youthful vigour and vibrancy simply vanished.


[1] The alcohol was the main event really
[2] D400 'Fearless' 50 050, IIRC