Yet in just a short space of time they’ve gone from industry giants to a major disaster area, contributing to the slow-down in PC sales and somehow failing to capitalise on their webOS platform and HP TouchPad tablet as a realistic, corporate-based alternative to the iPad.

How has it all gone so wrong?

This week figures of PC sales over the past 12 months reveal that overall the industry is slowing. This is in contrast to earlier figures that demonstrate that the PC hardware market is burgeoning. Both of these things are happening against the backdrop of tough times, so why the difference?

At this stage it isn’t clear, although it is most likely to be related to the fact that if sales are down, consumers are upgrading hardware components rather than entire systems. But what has this got to do with HP?

Astonishingly, their Q4 PC hardware sales are down around 25%. This cannot due to market forces or the threat of recession – more likely it is related to HP’s inability to forge a consistent path through the current economic climate. Twisting and turning on policy and direction for the company, customers have gone elsewhere, put off by the possibility of being unable to acquire long-term technical support and the actuality of a poor pricing strategy.

In amongst all of the pointless changes at the top, however, one good thing has come of their problems – the announcement that WebOS will be made (largely) open source. This could be a major move for both the company and the OS; the relationship always looked like the IT equivalent of Tom Cruise and Katy Holmes, a celebrity marriage that on paper appeared to work but somehow doesn’t look quite right. After all, HP had the chance to use WebOS as a corporate tablet platform, essentially preventing corporate tak-eup of the iPad.

Given their dominance in the enterprise marketplace, it seems incredulous that they messed that up.

Ultimately, the mobile and tablet operating system with a UI that makes Android look like a cheap iOS knock-off is severely under-appreciated by money men, and needs the strength of hobbyists to build it into a viable alternative to Android, iOS and Windows Phone.

Let’s just hope that as an open source platform it can finally stay safe from corporate mis-management.

Sadly it wasn’t long before scammers had taken advantage of this heartwarming tale – which will involve £20 million being spent on loved ones – and used it to reel in unsuspecting victims. This is how the message reads:

Hello Dear

My wife and I won one of Britain’s biggest lottery of £101 Million British Pounds and we have decided to donate to the less privileged and charity projects all over the world, and make at least 20 people millionaires.

To verify,please see our interview by visiting the web page below.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8820740/101m-lottery-jackpot-winners-Dave-and-Angela-Dawes-to-give-millions-to-friends-and-family.html

Your email address was among the emails which was submitted to us by the google inc. as a web user, to be one of our beneficiaries,kindly send us the below details so that we can issue a valid cheque for £1,500,000.00 pounds in your name or direct our bank to effect the transfer of the funds.

=======================================================================

*Full Name:

*Telephone Number:

*Age:

*Country:

=======================================================================

Send your response to our email,  mr.dave-angela@gmx.com

Best Regards,

Dave & Angela Dawes

As you can see, the typical phishing details are requested. With those 4 pieces of data anyone can claim to be you.

Sadly this is all just further evidence that some people will stoop as low as possible to find ways to steal money from you or borrow it in your name. If you have received the email message above, obviously you should delete it right now. Human interest stories have been used before as cover for phishing attempts and the criminals behind these emails will continue to do appeal to our innate greed.

If you don’t have an email security solution installed on your computer already, now is the time to do so.

It’s also good to see Microsoft pushing some quality apps for the platform, and INTO certainly seems like one to install as soon as you get your new Windows Phone (whether a Nokia, HTC, Samsung or LG).

With Blur bassist Alex James as its creative director, INTO offers a way to get more from the things that you are interested in via your Windows Phone.

As you can see, it also offers a way of sharing offers with friends and family, making this an app that no Windows Phone owner should be without. Like the platform, INTO puts the user first, placing them at the centre of the phone experience. A quick example – you can snap a photo and upload to Facebook in under 5 seconds. That’s not just fast, it saves you from messing around on your phone longer than necessary.

You can find out more about Windows Phone and the INTO app via the facebook.com/windowsphoneuk page, where you can look out for opportunities to win an Arctic adventure for two in Finland, two Lumia 800 handsets and tickets to the INTO insider social event with Alex James and Sophie Ellis-Bextor or Monday December 5th!

We’re just a few weeks from Christmas yet the biggest online retailer has failed to present its top selling new gadget to the British public. Unavailable anywhere outside of the USA, the Kindle Fire has a ready made killer app in the shape of the Amazon website, but unless you have a kind friend, uncle or plane ticket, anyone in Europe and the Far East who wants a Kindle Fire tablet will have to wait.

Does it make sense for Amazon to hold off? It’s difficult to say. Reviews have been largely positive (unless you read Apple-centric papers such as the Telegraph) so there seems to be every reason for Amazon to supply some of their Android-based 7 inch slates for buyers in the UK, Germany, France and other European countries.

At the very worst, this would have resulted in shortages in the USA, something that other companies have turned to their advantage on many occasions over the years.

Similarly, we have the (temporarily?) revived HP TouchPad available for £300 in the UK and just £120 in the USA. Even with VAT this doesn’t seem right, and is of course the result of the endless “rip of Britain” pricing on electronic goods that has dogged gadget fans for many years.

With Samsung prevented from selling their latest tablet in the majority of territories thanks to Apple’s unjust legal actions the only avenue to acquiring a decent alternative to the iPad is to choose the Motorola Xoom or the HTC Flyer, the latter of which doesn’t have Honeycomb installed yet. The Eee Pad Transformer from ASUS is a good option, but has the status of proto-laptop rather than out-and-out tablet.

Or, a canny shopper might look for friends and relatives in the USA who might be able to help out by purchasing a Kindle Fire or HP TouchPad on their behalf, sending it through customs as a gift.

But what if you don’t have a friend who can help?

Fortunately we’re living in the modern age, which means that by checking any of the following websites you can find a service that will allow you to shop in the USA. These sites either provide a proxy US-based address for you to ship your goods to before having them forwarded, or offer a fully proxy online shopping service.

• www.vpost.com
• www.shipito.com
• www.comgateway.com
• www.borderlinx.com

But what about payment? Don’t worry, as this can also be handled. If you don’t have a US credit card, using payment services via these sites can get you around that potential landmine, allowing you to shop for cheap electricals in the USA from the comfort of the UK!

It isn’t every day that a car manufacturer as iconic as Volkswagen gets the chance to celebrate a long-running line with such style, but that is exactly what happened recently at the 35th anniversary of the Golf GTI.

The celebratory VW Golf GTi Edition 35 model was paraded before an admiring collection of enthusiasts, journalists and industry bigwigs when events took a fascinating turn…

We wouldn’t like to speculate exactly where they got to, only that Volkswagen seems ot have created a flux capacitor with an extremely low threshold for time travel (44 mph?).

To find out just where the brave designer and test driver ended up, head to facebook.com/VolkswagenUK.

While these repairs might come under warranty, there is always the chance that the fault that your computer hardware has developed isn’t covered. If this is the case, and your device has gone beyond its return period, then you have two choices:

• Hire a local expert to fix the problem
• Go it alone

Both options are viable – but which should you go for?

Hiring a Local PC Repair Man

This is the most popular option under such circumstances, but the real problem here comes with the limits of the repair man’s expertise. Most technicians specialize in computing and networking, and even this expertise might be limited to resolving errors on a Windows machine rather than a Mac.

If you suspect this to be the case then you will need to ask some questions about the engineer’s ability with non-Windows systems. After all, Mac OS X and Linux are very different from Windows, and as such techies often charge by the hour you don’t want to be waiting for them to try and work out how to run a system update on your Mac!

Going it Alone

The other option is for you to attempt to resolve the problem yourself.

You might have noticed that we’ve changed direction here at The Gadget Monkey, and we’re now focussing on critiquing various aspects of the tech industry and consumer electronics, highlighting particularly cool new games and hardware and embarking on a series of tutorials.

These tutorials intend to have one clear aim – to share knowledge, and empower our readers to fix problems, achieve tasks and generally maximise the potential of their Windows, Mac or Linux PC or their mobile phone or tablet.

Going it alone in this respect therefore requires you to find an Internet-enabled device with a web browser (perhaps a laptop, netbook, second PC, mobile phone, tablet or media center) and use this device to search for the answer to the question you are looking for.

For instance, if you’re trying to work out how to update your Mac to the latest version of OS X, then you should use “lion update mac osx” to find the answer.

While there might be some quite technical problems that cannot be easily resolved, the majority of faults can be fixed without spending any money at all. Over the coming weeks and months this website is going to be showing you just how easy this can be…

However: taking matters into your own hands is not recommended for everyone. If you’ve never taken hardware apart before, then you might want to get a friend in to help you. Self-repair is certainly not for beginners, and you should be absolutely confident that you are able to succeed and take matters into your own hands.

Windows Phone is Microsoft’s latest stab at the mobile phone market, and after years of trying it seems that they have finally got it right, offering a wealth of features and integration with popular services (both in-house and external) backed up with a functional and increasingly growing app store.

While the original 2010 release of the platform was missing a few vital features, the 2011 Mango update is the Real Deal, a super-functional operating system that relies on the fast and responsive Metro user interface that we’ll soon be seeing as the star attraction of Windows 8.

Microsoft’s original partners were HTC, Samsung, LG and Dell, and each of these electronics giants released a fair selection of devices that were easy to use and reasonably successful for a brand new mobile platform, if a little similar to other handsets that had already been released (such as the HTC HD7’s similarity to the HTC HD2).

In 2011, however, a new range of devices are available. These second generation Windows Phones come courtesy of HTC, Lenovo, Acer, ZTE and of course Nokia, and join the first generation devices which are all capable of running the new Mango release.

HTC

With five original devices such as the HTC HD7, Mozart, Surround, Trophy and HTC 7 Pro, HTC are expected to deliver improved handsets in the shape of the aptly named HTC Titan and the smaller HTC Radar. Both equipped with front facing cameras (presumably to support an impending Skype app) these devices look set to attract the HTC adherents to the second wave of handsets.

Samsung

Offering the Samsung Focus S – a cousin of the Galaxy S Android device – and the Omnia W, these two devices will again include the front facing camera along with 1.4 GHz processors. One of the beauties of the Mango upgrade is that it unlocks a lot of the potential from the first generation devices, which is why many owners of these original handsets might not be interested in the second gen phones. However Samsung have an edge over HTC by offering exclusive devices – the Samsung Focus S is only available via AT&T in the USA, while the Omnia W is also known as the Focus Flash; both names recall previous Windows Phones from Samsung.

Nokia

The legendary Finnish mobile phone manufacturer has had a torrid time in the past 5 years, since around the time of the launch of the iPhone (although its problems are more deep-root than that) but they’re hoping to turn things around with the launch of the Nokia Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 devices.

While the 710 is positioned as a mid-range Windows Phone handset, it is the Lumia where most of the attention is focussed, offering as it does a clear alternative to the much-vaunted but ultimately unsuccessful N9, and features a 12 MP Carl Zeiss lens.

Curiously, however, both Nokia phones are missing the front facing camera, despite having Windows Phone 7.5 Mango pre-installed.

Notable Mentions…

It isn’t just these big names that are bringing second generation Windows Phone handsets to the masses. Names that you wouldn’t necessarily associate with Microsoft such as Lenovo, Acer, ZTE and Fujitsu are all expected to release devices with Mango pre-loaded, although their availability outside of Asia will depend on various factors.

We reckon spotting an Acer device will be easier than getting hold of a ZTE handset outside of China, for instance.

The first thing to understand is that whatever the fault, if it occurs beyond the warranty then you’re pretty much on your own. We’ll be investigating what this means exactly later in the week. In the meantime, if your hardware – it might be a mobile phone or a mouse, a game controller or a satnav – begins working erratically and indeed failing, then to add insult to injury you now have to prepare yourself to jump through a set of rather annoying, profit-protecting hoops.

Preparing for Faults

Whatever hardware you purchase, there are several things that you should do to prepare for the eventuality of an error or fault occurring. These steps will enable you to be prepared for problems further down the line, and take just a few minutes to arrange:

Keep the purchase receipt somewhere safe, along with a copy of the warranty.

If the hardware is Internet-ready, or used with a computer, complete the registration form. If you’re not keen on receiving spam emails there should be an opt-out checkbox – otherwise, just use an email address that you rarely check.

Store the box somewhere safe. This is important for various reasons: you get a psychological edge over the company you’re returning the hardware to if it has clearly been well-looked after, and if there is no comeback for the device to be repaired you can at least sell it in the box on eBay. Some people will pay a lot for boxes; you might even sell the box on its own!

At the point of sale you might also extend the warranty on the device. This is entirely up to you, and depends on whether you’re offered the option as well as if you can afford it.

Checking Your Hardware

When faults arise, the first thing you will need to do is check your hardware to ascertain the cause and nature of the problem. You can either choose to do this by checking the online support pages for the product concerned, or by calling the support line for the product.

Depending on the company you bought from you will either contact them, an allocated hardware support agency or go through to the manufacturer’s support department. This is when the hoop jumping really starts as you will be asked to perform a series of steps to establish the origin of the issue. What can be particularly frustrating at this stage is the amount of time the process can take along with the fact that often the operators don’t actually have any technical ability – they’re simply quoting from a selection of process charts.

Returning Hardware

Ultimately, if the device is within warranty and has a fault, then it must be returned. To whom is another matter entirely.

For instance, you may have simply packed your hardware away in its box and returned to the store you purchased from. Different countries have different legal requirements for shops dealing with returns, and at this stage you may find yourself referred to a telephone-based support line by the store.

Alternatively, you might go through the telephone-based support process and be advised that your hardware will need to be returned. Typically this will involve a courier being sent to your address to collect the item, but if you’ve purchased from, say, Amazon, then you will need to return the hardware to them, fully boxed.

Ultimately in these situations, making sure that you are fully covered for faults and damage to your new hardware is ideal, so purchasing an extended warranty might just be the right idea!

If you have ever doubted the point of having a tablet, this movie featuring amazing London photographer Fatsarazzi (Fats to his friends) makes the case as clearly as you would expect from an artist of his vision.

The device that you can see him using in this clip is the awesome Samsung Android Honeycomb tablet that is set for release in the UK in the next few weeks. Replete with a responsive touch sensitive user interface and the usual Samsung refinements for Android such as Touchwiz, the Samsung Galaxy Tab enables Fats (we both love the Galaxy – I think we could be friends) to snap photos wherever he is thanks to the 3MP AF rear-facing camera, make the required edits with downloaded apps and then share them as he sees fit.

Let’s see what Fats has to say about it all:

He makes a fascinating point about being able to pass the tablet around like a framed old photo, don’t you think? This is thanks to the slimline design of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, and the ease with which the Android Honeycomb operating system brings to performing any tablet-based task is remarkable, and witnessing professionals like Fats taking to the Galaxy Tab so effortlessly is a promising sight.

Don’t leave here thinking that there is no way a tablet would be able to process those images either – with a dual-core NVIDIA ARM-based 1 GHz processor, the new Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is more than capable! Keep up to date with the latest news on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 by heading over to the Samsung Facebook page at www.facebook.com/samsunguk or their YouTube page www.youtube.com/samsunguk!

Sponsored Post

Viral video by ebuzzing

Combining the mundane with the stunning, the everyday with the remarkable and cars with real life documentaries is the name of the game for Honda at the moment, who are continuing their successful sponsorship of UK Channel 4’s popular documentary series with a new series of mini-documentaries, sponsorship idents (small clips between shows and the main commercial breaks) and even an online hub this year.

Readers in the UK will have seen the familiar “Documentaries on 4, sponsored by Honda” strapline, and this recognition will be used to further Honda’s presence on the fourth channel with a series of short films featuring owners who use their vehicles in interesting ways – such as Philippa, the alpaca breeder in Oxfordshire (itself quite unusual) who uses her trusty Honda ATV to herd and tend to her animals.

It’s a great concept, and one that looks a great fit for Channel 4 viewers. Brought to the screen by Hollie Newton of major advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy, the whole idea of people-centric, car-based promotional clips that probably won’t bear particular relevance to the main show is a great one, and of course continues a trend on TV to move away from in-your-face adverts in favour of material with relevance, a move that W+K have been involved with for a while.

While it might be too late for the rest of us to get featured in this series of films (or just get our mugs on Channel 4!) there are of course many ways in which a Honda can be used.

For instance, sadly no one will be making any documentaries out of my uncle’s use of a Honda Civic which for years took him to and from his role as a gardener for a local estate, or of our local midwife whose Honda CR-Z has taken her to many home births in the area. While it might seem a little sporty for a midwife, the CR-Z certainly helps her to make the deliveries on time!

Watch out for Honda’s new series of before-, mid- and after-show indents on Channel 4 documentaries soon.

Sponsored Post