all talk and no action

Can't open web pages on your HTC phone but you're connected to the router?

I thought I'd quickly blog this as it took me a bit of Googling to find the answer.

My HTC Touch Diamond could connect to my wireless router but I couldn't browse the web.

This bugged me for ages and the answers I found suggested an incompatible router, a firmware upgrade was needed, and various other options. So I gave up - I have a laptop and netbook so it was an minor annoyance more than anything else.

Turns out it's simple to get your HTC Touch to open web pages if you can connect to your wireless router but can't browse the web. Go to Settings > All Settings > Connections > Wireless LAN > Power Mode > and move the slider to 'Best Performance'.

Mine was on 'Best Battery' and as soon as I changed it to 'Best Performance' the problem went away - HTC wireless network problems solved.

This might not work for everyone, but it worked for me.

So if your HTC phone can't open web pages, give this solution a try.

I found the answer on the Microsoft Windows Mobile forums.

(Apologies for the SEOd nature of this post but I wanted to make sure that anyone else suffering HTC web browsing problems would be able to easily find the answer. Let me know in the comments if you stumble in and this fix works for you.)

What a deal.

My laptop, which I've been paying a fortune for under the now defunct Home Computing Initiative for the last three years, is finally mine. Payments over!

Except there's a last choice to make:

Turns out the laptop was actually "on loan" to me for the last 36 months and to transfer ownership to me from the finance company, I have to pay £49.

Which is about what it's worth now.

But there's a second choice.

I have the option to return the computer, but I will be liable for the "collection and disposal charges."

Which are set at £49.

Let me think about it for a minute.

Sorry for the tumbleweed - very busy with work. Must try harder :)

I rode home today with the song Bodies, by Drowing Pool, in my head and was happily singing "let the bodies hit the flooooooooooooooooor" inside my crash helmet. That's tempting fate. I should probably sing Staying Alive by the Bee Gees instead.

Note to car drivers: us bike riders don't have stereos and so there's all sorts of weird nonsense going on inside our helmets.

I received an email today that I thought was cute. In it, the sender said:

"I have accidentally deleted my recycle bin from my desktop. Could you tell me how to get it back or how to get a replacement one?"

I was tempted to write back with:

"You can obtain up to five replacement recycle bins free of charge by calling Microsoft."

I didn't, of course.

For anyone arriving by search engine, the procedure is this: right-click your desktop, select Personalize, and then click 'Change desktop icons' and make sure there is a tick in the checkbox next to Recycle Bin. I've deleted the recycle bin on numerous occasions myself, by right-clicking it and selecting 'Delete' as delete in my mind translates to 'delete the trash' not 'delete the entire recycle bin'. It would be better if Microsoft renamed this option to 'Remove Recycle Bin from desktop'.

This week's Channel 4 documentary, Dispatches: Sandwiches Unwrapped, named the British Oakham Chicken And Pancetta Caesar Sandwich from Marks and Spencer as an offender, packing around 45 grams of fat. So while at a motorway service station today, in a brave and selfless act of journalism, I bought and ate one.

It was good. But since it's got chicken AND cheese in it, you can hardly expect it to be the epitome of health foods.

And since I grabbed the last of this type of sandwich on the shelf, I wonder whether the documentary has actually helped to promote it.

It would be interesting to see the program test its conclusion, which was that you'd be better off making your own sandwiches. I think that once I'd loaded up my bread with butter, cheese, ham, mayonnaise and everything else that seemed like a good idea at the time, it'd probably be higher in salt and fat than almost any shop-purchased version.

As I've noticed my cash running out further and further from payday each month, I figured I should do something about it. The big change, and the one that took some effort, was to take my bike training, buy a 125cc motorbike and use that to get to work instead of driving. It's been well worth the day's training, which cost £125.

£8 gets me a full tank of petrol which lasts me two weeks, and parking is free; in my car, I got through about £30/£40 a week in petrol and parking was £5 a day. The repayments on my new bike work out at about £60 a month. I can't be bothered to work it out but I figure I'm about even once you factor in the extra insurance, clothes, etc. But after I've paid the bike off, I'll be saving. I also get to work in 15 minutes because traffic jams don't apply to bikes, and it's a LOT more fun!

An easier saving was found by heading to confused.com when my car insurance renewal came in last week. My renewal fee was a touch under £400 and I found a whole load of quotes for £200. A quick call to my insurance company to cancel and they matched the quote. And they offered me breakdown cover for £35 a year, so I took that and cancelled my £100 a year AA cover.

While running searches, I also discovered that I can halve the cost of my home insurance, so that's tomorrow's telephone call.

If you haven't bothed up until now (and I know we all should but we don't sometimes) hit a price comparison site to reduce your outgoings. And get yourself a bike, motored or pedal-power.