Tag: internet

PrimeTel’s PrimeHome Triple Play

Today I became a happy owner of PrimeTel PrimeHome installation, also known as Triple Play. Triple Play is this new way of bundling together loads of television channels, ADSL Internet connection, and really cheap telephony. It’s said to cost only 25 CYP month, but I got lucky and received a promotion offer of free installation and 3 month of service free of charge as well.

I didn’t have any time to play with it just yet, but it looks quite good. Here are the things that I’ve noticed during my short experience:

  • Television has an electronic TV guide with a time schedule for all programs for all channels. This is very handy.
  • Internet connection was way to easy to install. Just plugged the Ethernet cable straight into my laptop and I was done.
  • Sound quality in the telephone is a bit less than CYTA’s. There is some minor background noise all the time. But it’s not as bad as it can sound.
  • Switching channels on TV is a lot slower than before. This will need some getting used to. But it’s a fair trade for not having to configure any of the channels, crispy clear quality of image and sound, TV guide, and the selection of channels.

I’ll probably post more about it later, when I’d played more with it, but don’t hold your breath on that one.

P.S.: I might be somewhat biased being an employee of PrimeTel Ltd., and having received the package free of charge (installation + 3 month). Take my words with a grain of salt. And pepper.

Cyprus road tax online. IT gone wrong.

A couple of weeks ago, Vladimir mentioned in his blog that he managed to pay road tax online. I have to agree, this is a technological breakthrough in functionality offered by Cyprus government’s websites.

While paying the tax is now possible, the website is still very confusing. It provided practically no information or instructions on what to do. Now the site looks a bit different though. Notice that ‘Here’ icon that blinks as fast as your computer can render it?

So many people wanted to do it online, and so many failed. Some of them even posted comments on Vladimir’s blog, providing their information (ID numbers and car registration numbers) in hopes that it would somehow work.

Technology gone wrong…

P.S.: As sad as it is, it’s also very funny. Hilarious even.

More on Skype

Let me do a little side note, before I start – Mom, you should really read this post! :)

Now, just a couple of days ago I wrote that I decided to try Skype. I downloaded it and installed on my computer. There were few nice things about it that I noticed immediately, but there are so many more that need a second look!

Here we go…

Continue reading More on Skype

Skype anyone?

I think I’ve heard about Skype from more people than there are in China. I’ve finally decided to download and try it out.

Cross-platform – nice.

RPM package is available for Fedora Core 3, which worked just fine on Fedora Core 4 – nice.

I don’t have not even a single microphone – not nice.

Even if I had, talking would have been difficult most times (office people or kid shouting or sleeping at home) – not nice.

Possibility to call regular/mobile phones from the computer for an extremely low price – nice.

Chat is built-in – nice.

User identification is based on nicknames, not emails (which change) or ugly long numbers (which are impossible to remember) – nice. (My nickname is mamchenkov, by the way).

Without any contacts and without microphone, I can’t really check the functionality or the interface thoroughly.

Do any of you, guys, use Skype? How do I contact you?