In completely and utterly unsurprising news, Halo 3 is the fastest-selling preordered video game in history. There are more than 1 million pre-orders for the game and a little more than six weeks to go before it gets released. My order is somewhere within those million preorders, and it just so happens that I have a few days break (purely by accident, I assure you) around that time. If you haven't ordered yours already (who not!?), check out this BBC hands on preview.

I had to pay the phone bill today and duly went online to use the convenient online payment service that BT provide. As a side issue, the web interface to your account with BT is very good on the whole, providing access to bills, including details of phone numbers called, and the ability to download your bills too.

Unfortunately, some aspects are less friendly. The payment form itself for example, as with so many web forms that seem to about today, had data entry restrictions that seemed a little excessive.

For example, I had to enter a contact telephone number (yeah, I know, to pay my own phone bill I had to provide a contact number - shouldn't they know that already?). Now in the UK the format of the phone number is typically area code, then a space, then the phone number, i.e. 012345 456789. That's how it's written, that's how it's quoted by BT on the account summary page. However, the web form flatly refused to accept a space in the field for the phone number?

I had to pay the phone bill today and duly went online to use the convenient online payment service that BT provide. As a side issue, the web interface to your account with BT is very good on the whole, providing access to bills, including details of phone numbers called, and the ability to download your bills too.

Unfortunately, some aspects are less friendly. The payment form itself for example, as with so many web forms that seem to about today, had data entry restrictions that seemed a little excessive.

For example, I had to enter a contact telephone number (yeah, I know, to pay my own phone bill I had to provide a contact number - shouldn't they know that already?). Now in the UK the format of the phone number is typically area code, then a space, then the phone number, i.e. 012345 456789. That's how it's written, that's how it's quoted by BT on the account summary page. However, the web form flatly refused to accept a space in the field for the phone number?

I had to pay the phone bill today and duly went online to use the convenient online payment service that BT provide. As a side issue, the web interface to your account with BT is very good on the whole, providing access to bills, including details of phone numbers called, and the ability to download your bills too.

Unfortunately, some aspects are less friendly. The payment form itself for example, as with so many web forms that seem to about today, had data entry restrictions that seemed a little excessive.

For example, I had to enter a contact telephone number (yeah, I know, to pay my own phone bill I had to provide a contact number - shouldn't they know that already?). Now in the UK the format of the phone number is typically area code, then a space, then the phone number, i.e. 012345 456789. That's how it's written, that's how it's quoted by BT on the account summary page. However, the web form flatly refused to accept a space in the field for the phone number?

I'm a big fan of MAKE the magazine for builders, inventors and general fiddlers of hardware. But I'm not such a keen fan on their blog feeds. Particularly those that include a movie in their content.

For some reason, the movies in those feeds are set to start automatically on page load, without requiring a click to get them started. Now on an individual page for the item I can understand it, but in a feed it just becomes annoying.

While I'm feed reading I could be reading all sorts of posts and other pages in other tabs or windows, and I could easily be viewing 20 or even 100 feed items in one page.

I'm a big fan of MAKE the magazine for builders, inventors and general fiddlers of hardware. But I'm not such a keen fan on their blog feeds. Particularly those that include a movie in their content.

For some reason, the movies in those feeds are set to start automatically on page load, without requiring a click to get them started. Now on an individual page for the item I can understand it, but in a feed it just becomes annoying.

While I'm feed reading I could be reading all sorts of posts and other pages in other tabs or windows, and I could easily be viewing 20 or even 100 feed items in one page.

I'm a big fan of MAKE the magazine for builders, inventors and general fiddlers of hardware. But I'm not such a keen fan on their blog feeds. Particularly those that include a movie in their content.

For some reason, the movies in those feeds are set to start automatically on page load, without requiring a click to get them started. Now on an individual page for the item I can understand it, but in a feed it just becomes annoying.

While I'm feed reading I could be reading all sorts of posts and other pages in other tabs or windows, and I could easily be viewing 20 or even 100 feed items in one page.

Continuing todays unofficial topic of low-cost and low-power motherboards, I thought I should mention the EFIKA mainboard. I've mentioned EFIKA before as an organisation who are trying to think beyond the ordinary grey/beige box design and think more about the power that we really need on the desktop.

Since that post back in February, EFIKA have released a version of their mainboard for just $99 (see The $99 EFIKA - on the Road to Mobility). Like the VIA boards, the $99 EFIKA mainboard includes pretty much everything you should need in a very small and capable format. You'll have to add storage, RAM, a PSU and keyboard/monitor, but you'll save the planet and the electricity bills.

Continuing todays unofficial topic of low-cost and low-power motherboards, I thought I should mention the EFIKA mainboard. I've mentioned EFIKA before as an organisation who are trying to think beyond the ordinary grey/beige box design and think more about the power that we really need on the desktop.

Since that post back in February, EFIKA have released a version of their mainboard for just $99 (see The $99 EFIKA - on the Road to Mobility). Like the VIA boards, the $99 EFIKA mainboard includes pretty much everything you should need in a very small and capable format. You'll have to add storage, RAM, a PSU and keyboard/monitor, but you'll save the planet and the electricity bills.

Continuing todays unofficial topic of low-cost and low-power motherboards, I thought I should mention the EFIKA mainboard. I've mentioned EFIKA before as an organisation who are trying to think beyond the ordinary grey/beige box design and think more about the power that we really need on the desktop.

Since that post back in February, EFIKA have released a version of their mainboard for just $99 (see The $99 EFIKA - on the Road to Mobility). Like the VIA boards, the $99 EFIKA mainboard includes pretty much everything you should need in a very small and capable format. You'll have to add storage, RAM, a PSU and keyboard/monitor, but you'll save the planet and the electricity bills.