Harry's Blog

The postman today brought me two pieces of technology, two broken pieces of technology.

Neither was broken on arrival but neither actually works as advertised.

First there is the Barclays Bank PINSentry system. This cumbersome little gadget seems designed to stop you being able to use online banking whenever it might actually be convenient.

I don't want to have to put my card in the little card reader, insert my pin and then type the resulting number to the barclays website.

Why?

Well it's such a faff, and having just tried it, I discovered it doesn't work. Well done Barclays.

The second problem comes in the form of my lovely new mobile phone. It's a Nokia N95 and a rather smart piece of kit it is.

I spent a while this morning customizing my settings and trying out some features such as the WiFi web browsing, GPS and even made a phone call with it.

Then I tried the five megapixel camrea. The first photo looked great. But trying to take the second one the autofocus stopped working. By the time of trying to take the third photo the camera had given up completely and the lens cover refused to open.

A quick call to Vodaphone sorted things out for me, a new phone will arrive for me tomorrow. But it's not been a great day for technology and me.

If you've got a pacemaker, better not come anywhere near me.