I got a new shiny Fire TV today, plugged it in, went to play some video and got “License_Error” on every single video, that was just great!!!
I noticed that all the prices were showing in $USD, but as I am in the UK this gave me a clue that the Fire TV thought I was in the wrong country, which I was sure was the cause of the license error. Sadly google did not furnish any answers for me today, so I started fishing around in my Amazon account and found my country settings, you can find this under
Your Account -> Your apps and Devices -> Your Devices
Select your device, then click the action button and choose to manage that device and content.
And then look at the settings tab, and make sure your country is set correctly. You will possibly need to do this via the .com site as well.
Sadly this did not solve the problem for me, and I had to get on the phone to Amazon support to solve the rest of the puzzle.
It turns out that my Amazon account was actually registered to amazon.com and not amazon.co.uk, which I presume is because many many years ago I originally registered on amazon.com when there was no amazon.co.uk. As a result, my fire TV had also been linked to amazon.com, thus why my prices were in $USD and why I was getting the error.
So the solution to this is that I had to transfer my account to amazon.co.uk, which is made more confusing by the terminology they use, as it is my Kindle Account I had to transfer even though I do not own a kindle, so it is not likely I would have ever figured that one out by myself. You can find instructions on how to do that HERE.
The final Step was that I had to factory reset my Fire TV and re-register it, after I did this everything was hunky dory and I was able to stream videos. This can be found under Settings -> System -> Factory reset.
Hopefully, this will help anyone else googling this issue.
I have been a customer of O2 for many years now, my company has a business account with them, having tried out most other providers over the years, they were all truly awful when it came to customer service, and O2 seemed like the best of a bad bunch. For the most I rarely ever had to contact them, so never had much to complain about, but this all started to change back in 2013 when I started to have reasons to contact O2 customer service, and realized just how bad it was, and it seems to get worse each time I contact them. What follows is 3 examples of the best trials & tribulations they have put me through. The most ironic thing is that they call these people gurus ?
The number transfer tribulation
this is a long story cut short, this one dragged on for weeks and weeks.
In 2013 my company acquired another company who also used O2, the previous owner of which transferred all his numbers away to another account, which as we found out some months later, included the number of an employee who was still working for us. So I contacted O2 and explained the situation, and the guy arranged to get the number transferred back (or so he said) and stated that it should be done within a few days.
So several days later I call back to find out the status of the transfer, only to be told there is no record of any transfer or any such conversation taking place, and that it is not even possible to do this so I must be mistaken and must have imagined the whole conversation I had with the O2 guy a few days ago. They told me I could not have the number back because it was in someone else’s account, they had no record of it ever being in our account to begin with, and I would need to provide them with those account details and the password, which of course was impossible as I had no way to know those details. I suggested they simply contact the account holder and speak with him and he would realize he had mistakenly transferred a number he shouldn’t have and would agree to transfer it back. But no that would be too easy, they wouldn’t do that, so I suggested they call the number of the phone in question and speak to the user who would also confirm his number was transferred in error, but no they wouldn’t do that either. Instead I had to just through all kinds of hoops for several weeks, each time having to explain the problem all over a again to each person I spoke to, in the end I had to just give up and go down a different route as O2 simply couldn’t or wouldn’t sort it out.
You would think it would be easy to transfer a number from one O2 account to another, but no. What I had to do was go and pick-up a free Tesco SIM card, and ask the employee to contact his old boss and ask for a transfer token, which he then gave to me, and I transferred the number over to Tesco. Then once it had been transferred to Tesco, get another transfer token and transfer it back to our O2 account, absolutely ridiculous.
The McAfee Enigma
The last time I did a phone upgrade, O2 offered me a bundle with included McAfee for up to 5 devices for less than it would have cost to NOT take it. Before you smite me for being foolish, let me first say that I am not a fan of McAfee anyway, my experience with McAfee software are up there with Symantec, i.e. install it at your own peril, and my experience with McAfee customer support is AVOID AT ALL COSTS. However I decided that I could just use it on mobile devices such as my kids tablets and phones, and if I had any problems I would only have to deal with O2, so it would be ok, its just a mobile app, how bad could it be, oh how silly I was.
The first brick wall was even getting the license activated, which was a challenge in itself. Firstly O2 sent me incorrect login details which did not work, it turns out you have to be a bit of a clairvoyant and figure out that they insert an extra word into your username which you have to remove, but they didn’t even know this, I had to figure it out and tell them. So sirely every single customer they sign up must be having this same issue ?
When you finally get into your O2 apps account, you then have to create another user for yourself to assign the licenses to. I tried to do this 10 times and it would not accept my email address saying that the user already existed. I contacted O2 support and spoke to some lady who informed me that when this happens, all they can do is cancel the account, and then I have to wait 30 days for it to expire and then get a new account. She also said I would have to use a different email address as McAfee do not allow you to signup more than once with the same address (all of this was nonsense).
I found this quite unbelievable, as she had made no effort to troubleshoot the problem at all and I did not believe for a minute this would solve the problem, and surely if I had to use a different email address in 30 days, then I could just use that email address right now to get a new account, but no supposedly this was not possible in O2 bizarro world.
So I wait 30 days, and then I get some new account details, and lo and behold, to the exact same email address as before, the username was wrong yet again, so they still hadn’t fixed that problem, it also meant that saying I could not use the same address twice was clearly a crock. So I go through the set-up process again, and had the exact same problem as before. So this time I tried creating a user with a different email address, and it worked. So it seems the problem is that you simply cannot add yourself (the admin) as a user to assign the licence to. So the error is very misleading when it says the user does not exist, what it should say is that the email address is already in us, and it also means that the whole having to cancel the account and wait 30 days was also a complete crock made up by another clueless O2 support person and a total waste of time.
So I finally get it all sorted out and get the licenses issued and get McAfee installed on all my kids tablets, only to finally discover that installing McAfee under the admin user (me) does not protect the other users. You have to install it separately under each user, thus giving them full control over it and the ability to alter my settings and override parental control. Calling O2 was pointless, as all they did was email McAfee, wait for a reply from McAfee, then relay the message to me, then relay my response back to McAfee and so on, a complete exercise in time wasting. So I contacted McAfee directly, which was equally as useless, each person I spoke to barely understood English and could not grasp my problem at all, and just kept telling me to re-install it over and over again. I had calls from 3 different people at McAfee, each time after 10PM at night as well, and went through the same crap with each of them. By this point I had already concluded myself what the limitations of the app were and that it had to be installed under each user and could not be locked down without using another parental control app on top of it, and that it would never work for me and so I told them this and told them not to bother contacting me again as I had removed the software and switched to AVG free which worked perfectly for what I needed and was FREE and far easier to setup and use. Several days later, despite being told not to contact me again, I get another call from McAfee, and the tech then proceeded to inform me what I had already told them, wow, no shit sherlock. Then just to rub it in a bit more, I get a follow up call form O2 as well.
I can honestly say this will be the last time I ever touch anything McAfee or sign up to any 3rd party software through O2, it is like dealing with muppets controlled by other muppets.
The Tablet Transmogrification
So last year O2 were doing tablet+phone bundles, so I got myself a Windows Phone + ASUS VivoTab Smart windows tablet. Despite barely being used, the tablet developed a fault with the screen, it kept randomly turning itself off and nothing would get it to turn back on, you just had to wait until it decided to do so of its own accord. So of course I contacted O2 as it was still in warranty, and they told me to take it to my local store to get it repaired or replaced. This made me groan, as all my previous dealings with my local store had been about as much fun as shaving with a blunt razor. The store cannot do repairs, and have no idea why O2 customer services sent people to them with that premise, they also do not have the same products in store as O2 sell on the website, especially not business deals, so they cannot replace them either.
So I begrudgingly trudge down to my local store, tell them I have been told to bring in the tablet for warranty replacement, the salesperson taps at the computer for a minute or 2, and then proceeds to tell that they have no record of this tablet, am I sure I got it from them. “Yes”, I told him, it came in a bundle from O2, “did you buy from this store” he asks, “no” I reply, I got it over the phone, it is on my business account, look it up. He then goes and speaks with his manager, who then comes over and asks me the same question “are you sure you got this from us?”. Agghh, we go through the same questions and answers again, only for to again be told, we do not have this tablet on our system, so I cannot help you. So I ask him, can’t you just call O2 customer service and speak with them, no he says, you will have to do that yourself.
So here I am standing in an O2 phone store, where the O2 staff are completely incapable of picking up a phone and making a phone call to their own customer services dept, unbelievable. So I get my O2 phone out, call O2, go through all the menus, eventually get through to someone, explain the situation, and hand my phone over the store salesperson, so he can speak to his own customer services dept. they eventually decide that they will have to put my tablet through as “Another device” because my device is not listed, and just hope that the repairs dept send me back the right replacement, sheesh.
Several days pass, and I get an email telling me that my tablet could not be repaired, but a replacement had been dispatched today for delivery tomorrow. Tomorrow came and went, no delivery, 2 more days passed, still no delivery, so I called O2. They have no record of my tablet or the repair or any idea where that email came from, so advise me to go to the store as it was probably delivered there, oh jeez here we go again. So I go back to the store, and surprise surprise they also have no tablet and no record of it, no idea who sent me the email and cannot help me and tell me to contact customer services. So I call customer services again, and again they tell me to contact the store, I tell them I have done this, and I ask her to call the store, instead she just calls the store and patches me through without even speaking to them, and again the store tell me they have no further details and tell me to contact customer services. By this point as you can imagine I am losing my temper. So I call customer services again and demand that they call the store and speak to them directly and stop messing me about. This time customer services speak to the manager of the store and tells him he has to take responsibility and deal with this.
An hour or so later I get a call from the store, so it appears he did manage to track down the details after all, amazing what can be done when you actually make some effort, he tells me the tablet is due to be delivered next Wednesday, and has no idea why I got an email telling me was to be delivered 3 days ago.
Next Wednesday comes, and I get another delivery notification, so off I toddle to the store expecting the worst. The manager hands over my replacement tablet, and to my surprise (not) it is not the same tablet, not even the same brand, mine was an ASUS, this is a Sony. Is there any information as to why I got a different tablet? nope, nada, so the manager takes a guess and says, they probably did not have any of those left so sent you something else instead, hmm yes ok, but would have been nice of them to ask me first and maybe give me a choice in which model I get sent.
I decide to bite the bullet and take it anyway, as it seems to be a much newer model anyway, and hopefully much better than the one I had before, which luckily turned out to be the case, it was a Sony Xperia z3 tablet. Running the latest Android 5.1.. Ok so my other tablet was Windows 8.1, but I was not bothered as I had already decided at this point that Windows did not work well on tablets, it just did not scale properly as the desktop is completely unusable on a tablet screen as everything is too small, and to be fair while I had gone off Android since 4.2.2, this 5.1 version did seem a lot better and the tablet was nice and nippy. The only problem I have now is that they did not send me anything with the tablet, and using a regular USB cable does not seem to charge the tablet properly, it charges very very slowly (8% in 6 hours), whereas my wife’s tablet charger seems to work just fine, so it obviously does need an actual charger.
Today I got a call from the repairs dept asking me if everything was ok with with my replacement tablet. I explained to the chap that I had been sent a different tablet, and that I did not even have a charger for it either, can you guess what he said? Sorry there is nothing I can do about that, you will have to contact customer services. Sheesh, then why bother calling me to ask if everything is ok if you cannot do anything about it if the answer is no.
Had another couple of calls recently from another one of these scammers selling insurance/cover for your sky box. As usual they pretend they are calling from your existing provider (Sky Protect) and try to trick you into signing up with them. As is usually the case with these scammers, there is no actual service, they just take your money for nothing.
In this case they seemed to know that I had not had any problems or made any claims in the last 4 months, and as a result I am now a “low risk” customer, so they can offer me a cheaper plan. I was wise to this scam immediately having dealt with so many of these calls in the past, and as soon as I challenged the woman for trying to mislead me she became angry and tried to deny everything she had just said to me. I mean how thick must you be if you think that is going to work ?
What does concern me though is how these people are getting hold of my sky account details and history in the first place, the only place to get these details is from sky themselves or from Domestic and General who provide their insurance service.
Here are some of the numbers I have found associated with this company:
03330116050
08443342663
03330117446
Company Details
Company Owner: MR EDWARD PREEDY Name & Registered Office:
BTG HOME SOLUTIONS LIMITED
8 AVENUE TERRACE
WESTCLIFF ON SEA
ESSEX
SS0 7PL
Company No. 09020753
Incorporation Date: 01/05/2014
Company Number: 09020753
In case you do not know, Domestic and General is the authorized and approved provider of sky protection, they provide this service via www.skyprotect.com, but D&G actually provide warranty/repair services for many other companies and products as well.
I contacted skyprotect.com to ask them how these scammers are getting hold of their customers details, but sadly did do not care at all that these scammers have their customers details and are pretending to be them, and would not even discuss it, and said that they would open a complaint for me, but that is pretty much all they would do. As this was the only option given to me that might get someone to speak to me, I let them go ahead and open a complaint.
Sadly nobody made any effort to contact me to discuss it or do any investigation whatsoever, all I got was a completely apathetic letter from Hayley Widdowson telling me that she had looked at my account (wow, how helpful) and my complaint has not been upheld based on, well nothing. Below are the key parts of her letter in blue and my response.
Dear Ms Widdowson,
I must say I am very disappointed by your response dated 9th September, which after 12 paragraphs of evasive waffle, still does nothing whatsoever to answer my original question.
I will address your response in-line below.
Following your complaint raised on 07 September 2015 regarding Sky equipment covered by Policy [removed]. I am writing to you as I have now concluded my investigations and I am sorry to inform you that your complaint has not been upheld.
Well thank you so much for informing me that my complaint has not been upheld, however I never actually made any complaint, I asked you a simple question “how are these companies obtaining the details about my account with you”. It was your web support team who refused to answer my question and insisted on lodging it as a complaint as the only way I would get a response from anyone.
1. Your complaint
My understanding of your complaint is that a telephone call has been made to you from a third party regarding your Sky equipment. You are unhappy as this company had full information regarding your Sky Protect policy and are concerned that your personal data has not been handled securely.
It was a question, not a complaint, but roughly yes, I asked you to tell me how they are getting this information about my account with you. So despite understanding the question, you have still failed to actually answer it.
My findings
I have reviewed the history of your policy and found that this agreement has been in force since [date removed]. Cover was originally provided under plan [removed] and under this policy reference from [date removed] onwards. Your protection has been paid by Direct Debit Since its inception meaning that it renews automatically each year; this also means that you Should not expect contact by phone from our agents regarding payment or renewal of your cover.
I am not sure why you are providing me with this information about when my account was setup etc, I did not at any point ask for this information, as clearly you SHOULD have this information as my account is with you. And again reviewing the history of my policy has nothing to do with the original question, which still remains unanswered.
I am able to confirm that there is only one extended warranty scheme that is approved and operated under the Sky brand name. This is Sky Protect which is provided on behalf of Sky by Domestic & General Insurance PLC. Whilst independent companies can legitimately offer extended warranties on digital satellite equipment these companies and their products are not connected to Sky or in any way endorsed by Sky.
Thank you again for more information unrelated to my question, but I did already know all of this.
Additionally it is illegal for companies other than Domestic and General to state or imply that they are approved by Sky to sell extended warranty products.
And yet knowing full well that this illegal activity is going on and has been going on for years, you do not seem remotely concerned about it or the fact that your customers details are finding their way into these scammers hands. Your teams previous replies to my emails and your own letter is proof enough of your complete nonchalance on the matter.
Please be assured that Sky does not provide customer data to any company other than Domestic & General for extended warranty purposes and that we do not supply our customer data to any independent companies.
Then please pray tell , how do these companies have my details and the details of your other customers if the only person who has them is you ? If you are not selling/providing the data to 3rd parties, then basic common sense leaves one other option, which is that your data/security has been compromised and the data has been taken.
If you are still concerned regarding the conduct of this independent company our advice in these circumstances would be to complain to the Trading Standards department of your local council, to refer to the BBC website for details of independent companies which have been featured on BBC Watchdog or refer this matter to your local police force.
What is of concern to me now and should be a concern to any of your customers is your complete nonchalance about the security of your customer data and the fact that this data is clearly in the hands of third parties, or how it got there. Also your blatant refusal to answer a straight forward question or actually investigate the matter, instead opting to turn it into a complaint just so that you can evade the question and fob it off as “not upheld”. This distinctly smells of “trying to hide something”.
Conclusions
As per my investigation findings Sky and Domestic & General do not supply customer data to independent companies. As there has been no breach of the Data Protection Act with regards to your personal information I am unable to uph01d your complaint.
There is absolutely nothing in your letter to indicate that any investigation whatsoever has taken place with regard to the security of your data or any possible breach of that security or theft of the data. All you have shown is that you looked at my account and then relayed back to me my own information from my own acocunt, which is not only irrelevant to the original question or issue, but I am sorry to inform you that this does not in any way constitute an investigation into data security by any stretch of the imagination i’m afraid. I would highly recommend that you make the effort to speak with an actual security specialist or at least someone in your I.T. dept who at least has some clue how to perform a proper investigation.
I had no intention of making such a complaint, this was your choice, but as you have of your own volition turned my simple question into a complaint and have clearly demonstrated your total indifference to the matter and unwillingness to actually investigate it, I will take your advice and pass this on to trading standards.
I will also be posting a copy of your letter and my response on my blog for the benefit of others also being affected by this ongoing scam.
Having problems with windows 10, need help, did you know that windows 10 has a built in support app to connect you to Microsoft support.
Now I wouldn’t recommend you resort to this app immediately with every trivial issue, but if you just can’t find the help you need anywhere else, Microsoft has provided this app called ‘Contact Support to assist you. This app gives you an easy way to contact Microsoft’s Windows Support when needed.
The easiest way to access the app is to type “Contact Support” into the search box. Microsoft promises that once the app launches, in just a few quick clicks you can be connected by chat or phone to Microsoft Answer Desk. This is a one-on-one connection with what Microsoft calls a ‘Windows 10 expert’. Support monkey may be a more appropriate term, but either way you are getting help.
I have tried this out myself, and I was connected to to someone in the answer desk within 1 minute, which is pretty good considering how many Windows 10 users there are already, but then I wonder how many know about this app. Sadly in my case the support was useless, I clearly knew more about the issue than the support person, and the only suggestion he gave me was to “find a local support tech”, that’s it, no troubleshooting, nada due to the fact by issue occurred on startup. Not really a useful suggestion to someone is fairly techy himself. However the service may well be useful to novices and those who are adverse to googling or using forums.
I have been experimenting with making my own salsa lately since I find the supermarket salsa quite lame in just about every respect.
The final conclusion of my experiments is that making your own salsa is so ridiculously easy and so much better, I will never be buying a jar of ready made salsa ever again.
My basic ingredients for 1 portion:-
Half a tin of Good quality chopped tomatoes, preferably Italian.
1 tap black pepper (I like lime pepper)
salt (I like chipotle rock salt)
Jalapeños (the ones in jars)
Piquant peppers
Garlic
1 tbsp chopped Coriander leaves (fresh is better but not essential)
A couple of thick slices of onion.
Quantities of piquant peppers and jalapeños will depend on your taste how spicy you like it. I like it pretty spicy and I use 4-5 slices of jalapeños and 4-5 piquant peppers and one garlic clove.
stick it all in your food processor and pulse it. You don’t want it puréed, you want to keep it at least a little chunky, how much again depends on taste. I like it at relish consistency.
Other ingredients you can experiment with which work well in salsa
Red and green peppers or even sweet peppers
Ketchup
Different types of chillis
basil
Tomatillôs instead of tomatoes for salsa Verde
I also recommend habanero hot boy sauce if you can find it, it has so many uses as a spicy tomato base, including salsa. It is even a good dip all by itself.
In case you missed it, Windows 10 Technical Preview has actually been out for quite a while now, and if you have a spare old computer or the ability to run a virtual machine, then you might want to give it a try, especially if you are an avid hater of the Windows 8 start screen 🙂
I have been running it for a few weeks now and it has been stable so far and has certainly got rid of those Windows 8 niggles, but one of big questions I had before I started, was what are the hardware requirements, and can my existing pc run windows 10?
The good news is that the overall hardware requirements are no higher than windows 7 or Windows 8, so if you are running either of these then your PC does have enough power. FYI I am running Windows 10 on a Dell Optiplex 760, which has 4GB RAM and a Intel Core 2 Quad CPU, the same spec system that I am running Windows 8 on, and it runs just fine.
The basic requirements
Fortunately for us, Microsoft has has made things easier and has published the system requirements for Windows 10. So click the link and take a look at that document and we will go through it step by step.
First thing to note is this statement
“Basically, if your PC can run Windows 8.1, you’re good to go. If you’re not sure, don’t worry–Windows will check your system to make sure it can install the preview.”
When I saw this I was like “YEAAA AWESOME”, but it seems this is a bit of a oversimplification. In simple terms, most people running a Windows 8/8.1 system are likely to be able to run Windows 10. But if you’re not sure, the installer will run a check to make sure before trying to install the operating system onto incompatible hardware.
Had you not read all the requirements doc completely then you might miss this bit:-
“Some PC processors and hardware configurations aren’t supported by Technical Preview, including a small number of older, 64-bit CPUs, and some 32 GB and all 16 GB devices running a compressed operating system.”
This is a Technical Preview limitation that should disappear once Windows 10 is officially release. However, it could stump some people trying to test out the preview, so be aware – specifically that “some 32 GB and all 16 GB devices running a compressed operating system” bit.
Checking your hardware
So, what if you’re still running Windows 7 or Vista? How can you decide if your hardware meets the requirements of running Windows 10? This is where the hardware specs come in useful.
Here’s what Microsoft says you need to run the Windows 10 preview:
Processor: 1 GHz or faster
RAM: 1 GB for 32-bit or 2 GB for 64-bit
Free hard disk space: 16 GB for 32-bit or 20 GB for 64-bit
Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver
A Microsoft account and Internet access
This however misses one important bit of information as it assume you are running windows 8 and thus already met this requirement in order to Install windows 8 to begin with.
Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster with support for PAE, NX, and SSE2
So in order to be able to run Windows 10 (or Windows 8/8.1), you need a processor that supports PAE, NX, and SSE2. Without this, your Windows 10 fun comes to an end and you will get the below message.
So what do these CPU requirements mean ?
PAE this gives ye olde 32-bit processors the ability to use more than 4 GB of physical memory on capable versions of Windows, and is a prerequisite for NX.
NX helps your processor guard the PC from attacks by malicious software.
SSE2 is a standard instruction set on processors that is increasingly used by third-party apps and drivers.
There’s more technical information on these features here.
Upgrade path
To help with upgrades Microsoft has offered up this upgrade matrix outlining the upgrade options to Windows 10:
Microsoft
So, how can you tell if your processor supports all of this?
You could try installing Windows 8/8.1. If it won’t work, the installer will tell you.
Download this handy utility called CPU-Z. Look under Instructions and if you see SSE2,EM64T (indicates the processor has support for PAE) and either VT-d or VT-x (which is what’s needed for NX support) then you’re ready to rock.
You also need to be aware that while your processor might support NZ, it could be disabled in the system BIOS, so you may have to dig aroundand look for this setting and enable it.
To install a 64-bit version of Windows 8.1 (not Windows 8) on a 64-bit PC, your processor also needs to support CMPXCHG16b(which also, annoyingly, needs motherboard support, so it can be hard to test for), PrefetchW, and LAHF/SAHF, which adds more confusion. Fortunately, most people will have this already.
Don’t have a spare PC, how about a VM ?
If you don;t have a spare pc and do not want to risk nuking your primary pc, you could instead run Windows 10 from the comfort and safety of a virtual machine environment. There are numerous options here such as VirtualBox, Hyper-V, or something like VMware Workstation. It all seems to work well as long as your hardware supports virtualization and your system has sufficient resources to run two operating systems side-by-side.
nb: credit to Adrian Kingsley-Hughes at zdnet for some of this info.
This has happened to me twice now on 2 different systems, where the whole Windows 8 metro (or modern as they now call it) interface seems to have gone kaput. I have been unable to launch any of the native metro apps, they would open and then immediately close, leaving only the icon in the taskbar on the desktop. I followed every single suggestion on every single website, blog and forum, but nothing worked.
The first time it happened I resorted to re-installing windows, but last time it happened I wanted to find another solution, but this time was not even able to access any page that used the metro interface, such as the pc settings, which made it impossible to then even try following some of the suggestions.
One of the possible causes I have read is a corrupted user profile, which seemed like a likely cause, as I was experiencing various other issues with things not working properly as well, but repairing your profile seems to be virtually impossible, and copying your profile is just a PITA, so I thought I would try someone more obvious and simple.
Firstly create a new user, if your pc settings page is not accessible then you cannot do this from there, so instead press “Windows key + x” and choose computer manager. And use the user manager from here to create yourself a new user, and add the user to the administrators group.
Now login/switch to this new user, and test if this user still has the same issues, hopefully not, which means it was indeed a corrupted profile, as was the case for me. If you do still have the same issues with the new user, then something else is the cause, so you can either continue following suggestions elsewhere. The first time I had this issue I had to resort to a full windows reset, even refresh did not work.
Assuming your new user is working, the simplest way to migrate to this user is thus.
Switch back to your original user, and make sure all your data and everything you want to keep is saved to your onedrive
I suggest you create a list to make sure you do not miss anything, this includes application settings you might want to save.
If you do have access to the pc settings, then check your onedrive sync settings and make sure everything is synced
Once you have everything saved to onedrive, logoff and login as the new user
Now delete your original corrupted user
Go to PC Settings -> Account -> your account and connect it with your Microsoft account
Once your Microsoft account is linked, your onedrive will start syncing and files downloading and your synced account settings will be re-applied.
You now simply need to copy your onedrive files back to their original locations if required, for thing like application settings etc.
In general it is a good to save everything to onedrive by default so that you always have a backup, as it seems that corrupted profiles is quite common.
I found this solution to be quite painless, all I had to do was re-install the Microsoft store apps and not much else.
Until now I have always been an Android user, we have had a few android phones with my last one being a Samsung galaxy note and my wife’s a Samsung galaxy s3 and It was always pretty decent OS with the first phones and even my galaxy note when I first got it with android 4.1, but since I upgraded to 4.2 everything wen’t downhill.
It now runs ok with nothing installed, but as soon as I install some apps, it runs like crap and I have had to install memory and battery booster apps to kill everything regularly and keep it running as it constantly runs out of memory. The battery will barely even last a day now, it used to last at least 2 days on standby before Android 4.2, so android 4.2 has more than halved the battery life.
If I actually dare use it for gps or playing a game, it will be dead within an hour or 2 usually, even with just basic use (email, facebook, twitter) it will be dead by dinner time. It constantly needs restarting or all apps to be closed to get any responsiveness back from it, which is rubbish. what is the point in a phone that you cannot actually use or the battery will run out?
In order to actually use it I have to have a portable charger with me at all times, or have it plugged into my car charger. As I need my device primarily for work when away from the office, this is no good at all.
I am also annoyed by the fact that I cannot actually use the entire 16GB RAM that it came with. This is divided into 2GB system RAM and the rest is USB storage. Can you install anything onto the USB storage? no, that would actually be useful wouldn’t it, most apps will only install to the system memory, which fills up pretty quickly and then makes the phone unusable. So in order to install more than a few apps you have to buy an SD card and then move as many apps as possible to that, but
even Samsung themselves do not seem to understand how this works, I spent countless hours on the phone to their support trying to explain this issue, but they insisted that the 16GB was all the same memory, there was not 2 different types of storage so shouldn’t be an issue, sigh! I even tried O2 support, but they could not get past the fact it was called “USB storage” and so just insisted I must have connected an external USB device.
I have had the phone replaced 3 times, and I have seen many such similar complaints on forums about the battery life decreasing by up to 75% since android 4.2, and my wife’s phone is not much better, so this is clearly not a hardware issue with my specific phone, just a general problem with android, android just seems to get worse with every release. Needless to say I was fed up and ready for a change.
I have no interest in iPhones, I tried it before, never liked it, sent it back the next day. So I decided to give windows Phone a try. I had just ordered a Nokia Lumia 625 for a staff member anyway, so decided to keep it for a couple of weeks and try it out myself first.
It certainly does take some getting used to, the interface is very simple and childlike compared to android, which initially I found very annoying and frustrating. I also found it very annoying that I could not quickly access notifications and settings as I could with the android, and this became a show stopper for me as it quickly got very annoying having to go hunting for those settings when I wanted to change them and not having a quick access list of notifications.
I tried the phone for a week but still wasn’t liking it, but before I gave up I decided to go and post on some forums about my qualms and see if there was any solution. After all I was an adamant Windows 8 hater as well once, but then windows 8.1 changed that and I am using it right now to type this.
I got a mixed response on the forums, mostly just hateful and obnoxious responses from one Windows phone fanboy claiming I was complaining about nothing, but a couple of more helpful guys suggested I wait for windows Phone 8.1 which would solve my complaints. So I sent the Lumia 625 off to the destined staff member and waited for Windows Phone 8.1.
A couple of weeks later O2 released the Nokia Lumia 930, with windows Phone 8.1, so I decided to take another punt and use my upgrade to get this phone. I have to say that 8.1 really made the difference for me and has solved my complaints, it now has a pull down task bar with quick access to 4 buttons, these can be changed but by default are set to WIFI, BlueTooth, Camera and Rotation lock. You also have a link to ALL SETTINGS and underneath all your notifications, just like Android.
One of the top complaints have read about Windows Phone is lack of apps, but I really have not found this to be a problem myself and from what I have read neither have others who have actually used a Windows Phone rather than reviewed it purely as a non user and simply based their opinion on number of available apps.
Currently at the time of writing the Windows Phone Store has over 300,000 apps, now this may pale in comparison compared to the 1 million+ apps in the Android store and 900k+ in Apple iStore, but this is still hardly a small number and to date I have been able to find every app I needed or a suitable alternative.
If you are simply going to compare numbers, then you should consider how many of those 1 million apps in the android store are just total crapware, and having been an Android user for several years I can attest to how much crap there is and also most of it is also spyware as well, if you do not carefully check the permissions each app if asking for, then it will steal all your contacts, monitor your calls and WIFI and collect details of all other devices connected to your network. This is especially true of free apps and games.
For every app or game you find, there are dozens of ripsoffs/copies/similar apps/games, and while i’m sure Windows Phone store will end up the same way, currently it isn’t, so you have far less crap to wade through to find quality apps, and it seems as though the ability for apps to SPY is not there by default too.
Whatever system you choose there are always going to be good and bad points, you simply have to decide which outweighs the others. For me the current negatives of Android far outweigh the negatives of Windows Phone, at least for me.
Here are the things I like about my Nokia Lumia 930
Good solid phone
Most phone reviews I read tend focus on form over functionality and will rate phones on how thin and curvy they are rather than how they perform, which I find totally backwards and also pointless, as most phones basically look the same these days.
The problem with most phone’s is that they are all fighting to be as thin and light as possible. This results in phones that feel flimsy and are easy to break, and frankly I find this to be a pointless battle as phones are already thin and light enough at the sacrifice of battery life.
The Nokia Lumia 930 is 9.8mm thick, so it is hardly chunky, it is however very square and does not have the curved edges of most phones, as a result it feels more solid and doesn’t feel like it will slip out of my hand, and I haven’t really felt the need to buy a case for it. I have dropped it several times now without an issue.
Better battery
The (obvious) problem with ultra thin phones is that the batteries do not have sufficient power, and this will not improve any time soon as there have been no advances in battery technology to keep up with the devices that use them, so the thinner phones get, the quciker they run out of power.
The Lumia 930 has a 2420mAh battery, which is pretty decent and more than most phones I have looked at, no doubt due the fact that Nokia made the smart move to go for functionality over form, and as mentioned above has not sacrificed battery capacity to make the phone 1mm thinner.
After I got this phone I tested to see how long the phone would last in standby with zero usage. It lasted 3 days and still had battery left, so is considerably better than my galaxy note/Android.
In day to day use I am only using 50% of the battery by bedtime, and I can get get 3-4 hours of game playing before I get a low battery warning.
Greasy finger proof
This is one annoying thing with every phone I have owned, as soon as you touch them, the back cover immediately gets covered in greasy finger marks. The Lumia doesn’t suffer from this problem, or maybe it simply isn’t notiable due to the garish colors.
The garish color
This was something I thought I wouldn’t like originally, mine is bright green, not exactly my favourite color. However this has turned out to be quite useful, I often leave my phone lying around the house and have to go hunting for it usually cannot see it even when it is right in front of me as they tend to be black and just merge in with everything around them. I don’t really have this problem now with a bright green phone 🙂 as long as I remember to put it face down.
Camera features
The Lumia 930 has a dedicated camera button which instantly launches the camera app, something sorely misisng from most phones, and best of all it works even when the phone is locked and password protected.
I could never do this with my Android, as the only way to have instant access to the camera from the lock screen was to disable the password and make the phone insecure, which is really not a good idea when your phone has access to your facebook, email, twitter etc. As a result I often missed out on photo opportunities of my kids because by the time I gave got my phone out, turned it on, entered the password, started the camera app, it was too late.
Feels more like a business device
I use my phone more for work than play, and I must say that Windows phone feels far more suited to this arena and I feel this is probably the niche where Windows phone may take off, especially considering that most business users are windows users and will (eventually) be using Windows 8.1 or its successor on their desktop PC.
The interface is slick and simple and uncluttered, and the way the live tiles auto update is simple yet useful. If you are coming from Android then it may take a couple of weeks for it to grow on you, but I got there eventually and I really didn’t like the metro interface to begin with.
Simple Interface
While the simple tile interfaces was annoying at the start and is not perfect, it eventually grew on me. It is so simple to use that it is certainly the phone you would want to give to a non technical person like your parents for example, who would likley have a much easier time getting to grips with it and using the tiles than they would with an Android or iPhone, and because of that it would be much easier to support.
Wireless Charging
It comes with an inductive charger, not unique I know, but it is the first device I have owned which supports inductive charging and it is ace. Although the charger does seem a little tetemperamental and requires the phone to be in a specific position, so by the time I have finally found the charging position I could have plugged it in instead.
I can certainly see myself getting a charging pad and using only inductive devices in the future.
what I don’t like so far
Lack of google integration
I am deeply embedded in the Google eco system, my company uses Google apps and so do I, and I have become very accustomed to all my photos being automatically uploaded to Google+, which is no longer possible, at least not natively.
Windows Phone will instead upload your photos to OneDrive, which is understandable as it is a Microsoft eco system, but this does mean more work via your PC if you then want to store and share those images on G+
Calendar
I really don’t much care for the built in calendar. It is very hard to read, at least for me as I am very long sighted, even with the system font size increased I cannot read the daily events without opening them.
Color scheme
You have no granular control over this, you can choose a base colour for your system, which becomes the default tile color and affects background and text color, and it is just impossible to read text in places where the colors clash.
The simple tile approach doesn’t work for everything.
Sound management
On my android I was able to set reminders and alerts to play continuously until I acknowledged them. I have not been able to do this on windows phone, which means if I do not hear the one time ding or beep to tell me there is an event or text message, I miss it.
No extendibility
The lumia 930 is a closed phone, you cannot get at the battery or add more memory with an SD card.
Although to be fair, it does have 32GB onboard + 2GB system RAM, which is the same as I had on my android with an SD card, so I think I am unlikely to ever exceed this anyway.
My experience with adding bigger batteries to phones was also not a positive one and i ended up switching back to the default battery, so I am probably not misisng out on anything there either. But this may be an issue for some with this phone.
NFC is not implemented properly
I never had cause to use NFC until recently, when I purchased a Yubikey neo to use with LastPass, only to discover that it won’t work because Microsoft have done a non standard implementation of NFC.
Mango Blog was great for the few years I have used it, but it rarely gets any updates (only 1 in the 3 years I have used it I think) and what few plugins there are, many of them are dead, and the rest are not being maintained or updated either.
The cfformProtect anti-spam plugin seems to be failing more and more, I have not even been able to post on the mango blog forums for the last couple of years as cfformprotect wont let me, despite informing laura many time, this has never been fixed. So I can only assume other must be having this same issue on sites running mango blog are probably losing comments due to people being unable to post.
Sadly I couldn’t really find any good reason to stick with Mango other than misguided support for CF just for the sake of it. I have been using WordPress for just about everything else I do for several years now, and it really is a no brainer in most cases as it effortlessly does everything you need with its plethora of plugins and then some.
So I have finally bit the bullet and moved my blog to WordPress as well.
Moving all my content from my old blog is proving to be a chore, there is no easy way to do this, the rss import is the closest I came, but it doesn;t import the images and mango doesn’t show all posts on the rss feed either. So I will have to keep the old blog online as well until I find a way to do this or write a tool that does it for me.
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