* Posts by Kevin Reilly

48 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Sep 2007

Top cop: Strap Wi-Fi jammers to teen web crims as punishment

Kevin Reilly

Re: Thumbs

Boxing gloves? Could also have ahem side effects.

Goodbye Vulcan: Blighty's nuclear bomber retires for the last time

Kevin Reilly

operation skyshield

I once saw them scramble a whole flight of Vulcans at Finningiey many moons ago.it liquidised your bowels. If you need conformation check out what they did to the septics @ Norad. egg on Yank faces

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Skyshield

School's in for Chromebooks, Google's the top swot in class

Kevin Reilly

If you want to equip an IT lab for young fanbois one Mac Pro plus 20 odd1 chromebooks will do the job at a fraction of the cost of buying Macbooks. Look it up.

National Grid's new designer pylon is 'too white and boring' – Pylon Appreciation Society

Kevin Reilly

Re: White pylon

I think they would look better in Coyote brown or even a nice Flectarn Camo. with Hi Vis where the lines fit for elf & saftey.

LA schools math quiz: $500 Chromebooks or $700 iPads for students?

Kevin Reilly

Re: Raspberry Pi

How about making the little ones use crouton to add Debian to their Chromebook . That should give them something to work (stress out ) on.

Kevin Reilly

Re: Ok

I have a toshiba NB 200 NetBook, I considered buying a chromebook but to save beer vouchers I decided to buy an extra gig of ram + SSD for the old Tosh. Added Mint XFCE edition and chromium. This is now my go too carry on. Unlike my mk 1 iPad the browser don't crash and I can upgrade to a later OS. Give me a chromebook over an IPad anyday. I also read somewhere that a computer lab of twenty five or so kids can share one mac pro from chromebooks with special software at a one off cost per seat of a few bucks. How much does 25 MacBooks cost eh??

Even a broken watch is right twice a day: Not an un-charged Apple Watch

Kevin Reilly

This is an opportunity for apple to sell approved wireless charging mattresses so you can recharge your own batteries at the same time as your watch. No seriously!

Nokia Lumia 735: Ignore the selfie hype, it's a grown-up phone

Kevin Reilly

Nobody ever mentions the Satnav.

Nokia 630 free Global downloadable maps. Turn by turn navigation, turn off all the mobile data I don't use because I'm to tight to pay for a data plan. Turn of the WiFi until needed and the battery lasts a week for me. 100 quid sim fee. What's not to like. Can't.buy a garmin ( they use Nokia maps) for that amount of money and garmin want to charge for updates plus they don't give you a free phone either.

Official: Turing's Bombe better than a Concorde plane

Kevin Reilly

Re: countless? (AC Pedant Rant!)

I'm over fifty. We did a pretty good job on the Germans without Nukes. The other 9/11 (Darmstadt) in 1944 212 Lancasters & 14 Mosquitos killed between 3 to 4 times the numbers killed in the World Trade Centre. 10% of the towns population, hardly rated a mention back then. No CNN in them days. The bomber offensive also supposedly shortened the War by tying up a lot of assets defending the Fatherland.

Kevin Reilly

Re: Great stuff.

My vote goes to the DC3 as it approaches it's centenary. Should still be flying in another hundred years. Wot metal fatigue PAH! Gooney Bird rules.

Drones swarm over bearded Brit billionaire's island getaway

Kevin Reilly

I wonder

how they perform when up against a pair of well aimed Churchills ?

http://www.ejchurchill.com/gunmakers/e-j-churchill-guns/

YES, I have ridden the Unicorn: The Ubuntu Utopic unicorn

Kevin Reilly

Re: Mate is an ADVANTAGE of Linux Mint but not the reason to move...

I have an old Toshiba NB200 netbook. This has had Lubuntu, Xubuntu and Unity on it in the past. A couple of weeks ago I tried Mint 17Xfce. so imressed am I that I have ditched plans for a new Chromebook and bought 2GB of RAM + a 128GB SSD instead.

A better computer for an 80 quid investment. Mint + Chromium, it's a no brainer. Mint is a lot nicer XFCE than Xubuntu.

Turing biopic with Cumberbatch, Knightley to premiere at London Film Festival

Kevin Reilly

History being rewritten by the victors is just as bad as it being written by those with an agenda. 1969s giant leap for mankind was made possible by War criminals who also thought up the idea of a fleet of subs firing V2 rockets at the continental USA. But NASA won't be mentioning that anytime soon.

Kevin Reilly
Holmes

No one seems interested in Bletchleys greatest cryptographic achievement. This was not Enigma but the Lorenz crack, AKA cracking Hitlers Blackberry. Obviously not Gay enough.

Top 10 tech essentials for the festival season

Kevin Reilly

Basic fone

One o them 15 quid Tesco jobs from Samsung with a sim card from Asda,Giffgaff or similar. Battery goes for months on a charge and you can divert your poshfone to it for when it dies. Also good to flash & loss of it is not the end of the world.

Flat mobe battery? Just light a fire

Kevin Reilly
Pint

Re: But you can already get.....

You can also get the Samsung E1200 sim free with a free PAYG sim for 15 quid from Tesco. Battery lasts over a month on standby. Just set your smarty to divert when unreachable. No data but hardly any size or weight to it + negligible cost.

VTOL hybrid flying car promises the skies

Kevin Reilly
Angel

Re: Who'd have thought the robin reliant...

Firstly it was the Reliant Robin not the other way round. Secondly far from flying it was known for falling over going round corners as famously demonstrated by Blowhard Clarkson on Top Gear. No need for one of them to get airborne to crash and burn. In fact after a burnout to one, i've know everthing apart from the chassis & running gear / drivetrain being shoveled into a couple of dustbins. No TUV in them days.

BlackBerry CEO: Tablets will be dead in 5 years

Kevin Reilly
Thumb Up

I like my playbook

It does flash, email, web & GPS. Has 64 GB of flash storage to which you drag & drop video or any other files to over a Wifi network from Windows, Macs or Linux boxes just using Samba so nothing to install.all for the price of the cheapest iPod 135 quid at Currys. Whats not to like ?

Stephen Fry explains… Alan Turing's amazing computer

Kevin Reilly
Pint

Re: Tommy Flowers

Don't forget Bill Tutte

who Turing rejected. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._T._Tutte

Lorenz was a lot bigger deal & was carried over into the cold war as the Ruskies blagged it from the Nazis and used it for years thinking it was uncrackable. Churchill told Stalin about Enigma but Lorenz was never mentioned. It was the greatest secret of Bletchley park. It remained so till the end of the 20th century and many people took it to the grave. It was the Hot Line to Hitler. His personal Fax.

Review: The ultimate Chromebook challenge

Kevin Reilly
Pint

I wish someone would do a chromebook capable of either logging in to either google or to a local server. The Mac Mini seems ideal as you can download the server addons from the app store. Then after you get your Mac server you could add macs for the rest of the family for a couple of hundred quid a pop. Thin client see.

Ubuntu? Fedora? Mint? Debian? We'll find you the right Linux to swallow

Kevin Reilly
Linux

My problem is that due to the Nvidia graphics on my laptop most of the live CDs fail and freeze up. I could get round this by using the alternate Ubuntu text based install CD. But now they have abandoned it. Last time the upgrade failed. The workaround I used was to install Xubuntu who still do an alternate disc. Then install the Nvidia driver and apt-get the unity desktop. Then I decided to try Cinnamon. Added the PPA, downloaded it and never looked back. I have Mint on Virtualbox on Win vista and if I could I would probably install it as you get all the multimedia goodies. I would probably choose the Debian edition of Mint rather than the Ubuntu based flavour.

As it stands though I will stick with my custom Ubuntu + Cinnamon cos it rocks & I can't be arsed to mess about with the computer anymore. If Windows Vista was anywhere near as good as OS X I would not have bothered with Linux in the first place.

Petition for Alan Turing on £10 note breaks 20,000 signatures

Kevin Reilly
Mushroom

Don't forget Bill Tutte

Tutte was the bloke at Bletchley who cracked the Lorenz cypher after bring rejected by Turing for the Enigma team. then Tommy Flowers built the computer to automate it. This crack was more valuable than Enigma even after the war. As the USSR plundered it from the Nazis unaware that GCHQ monitored it right through the cold war.

Also cracking Enigma had a lot to do with the Poles who smuggled a machine out and the sub hunters who captured a naval machine. Enigma cracking was far was far from the one gay achievement some would have you all believe.

Sony Vaio L VPCL22V1E 3D PC

Kevin Reilly
Pint

Re: i love

Got short arms have ya? seriously though for the money I'd prefer an iMac, or even cheaper something like my own setup a Mac mini hooked up to a 32" LG Full HD telly. You would have enough left to buy yourself an iPad + a smartfone & enough change for a great night out & a bottle of Talisker!

Apple throws free Snow Leopard bone at MobileMe punters

Kevin Reilly
Happy

Re: will this update work?

the thing about my old Mac is it does stuff Linux ( & Windows in some respects can't) iThingies & jukeboxes etcetera. But Ubuntu is the best for a mobile connection on Dongle, Bluetooth or wireless. also good for ripping DVDs & Blagging iPlayer stuff.

Kevin Reilly
Pint

My one & only Mac

Is a 32 bit Intel Mac Mini 1.4 GHZ I love it dearly. I have had the memory & hard disc upgraded. It does sterling work these days connected to a 32" LG HD telly with an Elgato Eye TV added plus front row as my media hub. My Notebook still has Vista on it cos I have plumped for the better option of Ubuntu. No new kit required for gmail etc so i'll be pouring the cash saved down my neck.

iPhone users get iJustHadAShag bedpost-notch boast app

Kevin Reilly
Thumb Up

this is definetly one for the jokers

Just think where you could go to and post ! Blackpool Tower, The o2, Spaghetti junction, The White Cliffs of Dover. Parliament Square, Buckingham Palace, The White House, The Vatican, Alcatraz, Wembley stadium @ the cup final. the possibilities are endless.

'Lion' Apple Mac OS X 10.7: Sneak Preview

Kevin Reilly
Thumb Up

LMDE

I have a intel core solo Mac Mini. The upgrade path is assured simply because it dual boots Linux Mint Debian Edition & Snow Leopard vie Bootcamp & rEFIt. You could probably do the same with Ubuntu but there is no need to reinstall ever with LMDE

http://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php

http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/install_linux_your_mac

Using the internet in the People's Republic of China

Kevin Reilly
IT Angle

ah the Ping

I wondered if pinging the URL would work. We used to do it to get to blocked websites ( including the Reg) when I was doing a Cisco course courtesy of the jobcentre. It was a Tutor that showed us how actually. The BOFH who ran the training centre used to block everything, she even thought the Telegraph was unsuitable. You would think the chinese would be a bit more sophisticated.

Chicken Little report: Sat-nav dependency spells DISASTER!

Kevin Reilly
Black Helicopters

Good for bombs tho'

It may help with the nukes but GPS has changed the definition of close air support. When Stormin Norman was on stage showing the world how to do shock & awe it was with expensive bombs dropped by even more expensive aircraft. Now geriatric museum pieces (more reliable than the B1s & 2s) drop dumb iron bombs with satnav (JDAMS kit fitted) from 48000ft & 10Km away then land them within a couple of metres of the designated target. in the 1940s a mile was as good as a hit. the yanks are raiding aviation museums to keep the B52s flying. If we still had a few Vulcans the Us would be begging for the RAF to use them to take som of the pressure off their pensioners. After all they did once defeat Norad & pretend bomb the land of the free.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Skyshield#Operations

Debian 6: Have your Debian and eat your Ubuntu too

Kevin Reilly
Go

Best of everything

Try Linux Mint Debian Edition all the good stuff & you never need to install newer versions,

http://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php

My Mac dual boots it with bootcamp & rEFIt.

Great!

Antique Nimrod subhunters scrapped – THANK GOODNESS!

Kevin Reilly
Unhappy

Yes But

Just what are we going to use to locate the daft b*astards who decide to set off to Florida in a rowing boat/dingy/pedalo to prove themselves hard, if/when they get into trouble ?

Facebook boobs over breastfeeding page... again

Kevin Reilly
Happy

Separated@birth

>Seems that you show so much as a fingernail on fb you get banned. Whoever is modding over at >fb need to learn the difference between porn and breastfeeding!

Well waddaya expect.

http://www.cringely.com/2011/01/2011-prediction-5-facebook-forks/

Who will rid me of these obsolete PCs?

Kevin Reilly
Linux

Canteen?

Swap out the HDDs for Solid state drives. (1GB SD or similar cards fitted into IDE adapters) load the aforesaid cards with one of the CD type kiosk browser Linux editions. Use universal USB creator to make the bootable cards on any netbook/laptop. Hook them all up together with cat5 and an old switch in the company canteen/messroom or similar & all your employees can do facebook etc on their breaks. you can't download anything to them and they reboot every time you close the browser. Cheap Internet cafe for the proles.

iPhoto 11 ate my library, say users

Kevin Reilly
Pint

Re Backup

I have a Mac Mini, I also have a Windows 7 Toshiba netbook dual booting Ubuntu complete with a card reader & Shotwell. Linux is worth having just for Shotwell alone. If you insert an SD card or connect a phone it will import only the shots not already in the library. All these pictures are kept in date order in a folder within your home folder called err, Pictures. This folder can easily be copied to a USB stick or hard drive etc plus you have a backup left on the memory card. When that fills up just buy a new one. Simples! iPhoto 11 is costly and not required by me thanks very much.

Cameron cocks up UK's defences - and betrays Afghan troops

Kevin Reilly
FAIL

Just what is Tornado for ?

Are the RAF going to start bombing Germany again? Are the ghosts of Trenchard, Portal & Harris haunting the MOD? Or is it simply just the fact that the PM is an easily manipulated Muppet?

Answers on a postcard to............

MoD braced for painful weight-loss surgery next week

Kevin Reilly
Pirate

why not get totally radical

Amalgamate all three services into a UK Defence force, have a bonfire of the brass hats & the Sir Humpreys. Then give the military what they need but tolerate no infighting. it seems to work for the Israelis ok.

Behind the Kindle, under the iPad: an unholy alliance

Kevin Reilly
Pint

What about an old model

why cant we have a borrowing service for e-books. just like you have for paper ones, you could call it err a Public Library maybe.

Kevin Reilly
Linux

True potential of the Kindle.

when I started reading e-books it was on a 2MB monochrome Palm (great in sunlight) & I tended to roll my own books by reflowing & converting the .TXT files from Project Gutenberg.This was great for the time but nowadays you can buy e-books or get loads of Public Domain stuff free gratis& for nowt.

All you need is to get is the open source Calibre from http://calibre-ebook.com & pretty much any flavour of e-book reader, even a DRM encumbered Kindle.

Because Calibre will do all the conversion for you so seamlessly, it will also get & format loads of stuff from the web for you to read later on your e-reader.

I have the Linux version of Calibre on a Ubuntu Netbook but you can also download a Windows version. You can then connect via to say a Kindle over USB & transfer your free books by the yard. As well as maybe occasionally buying the odd book. Amazon is truly not the only fruit for a kindle.

Crash grounds RAF Eurofighters - for Battle of Britain Day!

Kevin Reilly
Pint

re Vulcan

I bet if we still had Vulcans upgraded & equipped with JDAM the yanks would snatch the hand off the RAF if they deployed them to take the pressure off the B52Gs loitering over Afganistan on close air support duties with the satnav bombs. Real OAP reunion party.

Trident delay by the Coalition: Cunning plan, or bad idea?

Kevin Reilly
Pirate

Halve the cost

split the cost of a trident replacement with the surrender monkeys across the channel. it"ll never get used anyway, unlike the carriers.

Microsoft: Hotmail fix coming soon to a browser near you

Kevin Reilly
Megaphone

go gmail

Get a Gmail account & use that account to poll your hotmail account over pop3. that way you have webmail or IMAP or pop3 plus great access from android or iphone / ipod touch / ipad or most Nokias etc.

LaCie touts tough truck-resistant flash drive for tough guys

Kevin Reilly
Pirate

Data smugglers will want one

This is perfect for ramming where the sun don't shine when plod or similar require you to turn out your pockets. LOL (unless you'r wearing one OUCH!)

Apple prices up iPad for UK

Kevin Reilly

Re USA to UK

Unlike mobile phones Wifi works worldwide as it is an international standard. Does apple include a charger with the iPad (gasp) cos they don't with iPods & both use the same dock connector. So you just need a USB charger to juice it up. Apple usually charge extra for them but if they supply one you can usually take it apart & plug a UK figure of eight mains lead into the USB bit.

Kevin Reilly
Thumb Down

+ £100 for a 3g connection what a waste of money.

I have a 3 Mifi. these cost about 70 quid on prepay 40 quid on a £7.50/ 1GB pm contract. mine is unlocked so I use a Vodafone top up & go sim from a 3G dongle in it. But 3 mobile broadband sims with 3 GB preloaded valid for 3 months can be picked up for under a tenner if you google, or just top up for 10 quid per GB/month online or at the supermarket. The modem is a little gem that fits into a shirt pocket or the condom pocket on a pair of jeans. Then it happily connects me to my Mac Mini, an iPod Touch, Toshiba NB200,an Asus X59GL Laptop,or a T-Mobile Pulse Android phone where a five day internet pass on prepay would cost £2.50 otherwise. I dont plan on buying an iPad anytime soon but I would never buy a 3G model at that price premium over the Wifi model.

Ubuntu does bird beta

Kevin Reilly
Thumb Up

Ubuntu & Notebooks

I am a Mac user on the desktop (Intel Mac mini) but I think Macbooks are fragile & overpriced. So I invested in a 120 gig hard drive for my Thinkpad X30. This is partitioned 90 gig Ubuntu 30 Gig XP. Using www.fs-driver.org Windows can read & write to Linux partitions, thus my Linux home folder is also my documents for Windows. Also Ubuntu does target disk mode over firewire from the Mac, & will print to the Mac's printer over Ethernet as Bonjour support is built in. All in all this is a very handy tool both for home & away use (3g USB modem & wifi both work fine in both OSes)

You want to learn about Ubuntu?

Kevin Reilly

Re it's still linux

"Unbuntu is not yet suitable for domestic users."

My main computer is a Mac Mini but my laptop is a second hand Thinkpad X.30 running Ubuntu. It does everything I want, Wifi etc at about a tenth of the cost of a Macbook pro.or a quarter of the price of the white Macbook. No Windoze needed at all. I think it's bloody marvelous, & i'm not a major geek at all either. honest!

Apple reminds customers who's boss

Kevin Reilly

re One size fits most

"Only if you are too clueless to have any idea what it is you want to do with a computer does Apple offer any value-- if you know what you want to do with a computer, don't buy an Apple, as you can't do it your way..."

Really! :o)

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/unix/

Kevin Reilly

Tesco

Could somebody who has ordered an iPhone pop it down to Tesco & see if a Tesco mobile prepay (02 really) sim will work with it. that would be really going downmarket.