Posts by Jan Hargreaves
112 posts • joined Thursday 18th October 2007 12:06 GMT
Re: And yet, and yet ...
Do you not do any re-touching in your business at all?
I would be surprised at any design business that doesn't have at least one program from Adobe.
Posted in WTF is... H.265 aka HEVC?
Re: Patients?
Ahh fair enough then. The pricing seems extremely reasonable to me and I was somewhat surprised considering the level of abuse the MPEG-LA receive from freetards/ the VP8 brainwashed.
The previous suggestion of a 20 cent (ish) addon in the Ubuntu store seems very sensible.
Posted in WTF is... H.265 aka HEVC?
Re: Patients?
It's free for up to 100,000 units, 20 cents up to 200,000 units and 10 cents after.
You are saying this is too expensive? What do you think they should be charging?
Can somebody please enlighten me... what file(s) over 500MB would someone want to send that are not pirated?
Re: @Jan Hargreaves
"If you've been following the whole Win 8 thing for a while (your use of TIFKAM indicates you have,) then you should know the answer."
So is that anything other than... you can't? For example you want to watch a video online out of the corner of your eye while doing an email. Can't see how this is going to work in TIFKAM. What happens when somebody suddenly skype's you. It's just a complete and utter mess.
"And a lot less painfully then the generally suggested "Tell people to use Linux instead."
Photoshop under wine in Linux would really be painful. I've been saying for a long time that Linux advocates can come back to me when there is Photoshop or good enough equivalent on Linux. Still waiting...
For the record, I use Windows 7 myself. I looked at the upgrade options, including the special offer to update quickly. And quickly thought.. forget it. They are really not offering me a worthwhile upgrade.
Still...
Re: @Jan Hargreaves
Tell me how you can use excel or word, or photoshop with only 25% of the screen? And I mean productively.
TIFKAM is for content consumers. Not really for doing any real work at all.
What's the 's' for? I thought it was Just Window 8 now.. since you can only use one at a time
Posted in Facebook prepares to dominate Android
Re: G+
Both of you are there. I don't think anyone else is interested....
Re: Huh
The problem with VP8 is that it is a vastly inferior codec. It's compression looks much worse, at larger file sizes.
The fact that Google is pushing it is only holding back everyone from just getting on it with and standardising H.264.
Competition is good in certain areas.... but with some things we just want one that fits all. HTML5 is really taking ages to get going because of the squabbling over the video codec standard. Guys... H.264 is the best, get over it and move on please.
Posted in Review: HTC One
Beats? No thanks. I don't need all the levels pre-f*cked for me. I guess I would like it if I listened to R'n'B/Pop.
Re: Jailbreaking
Isn't it now illegal to jailbreak your phone in the US now. Perhaps this is a now a requirement for operators to do what they can to prevent users from breaking the law?
Posted in France demands Skype register as telco
Re: @Jan Hargreaves
About as much as Microsoft are paying you I would imagine...
Posted in Outages plague Hotmail and Outlook users
It's Microsoft's 'push the self destruct button' week. On Friday they switch of MSN Messenger.......
Popcorn is ready!
If you will pick the cheapest service... then you get what you didn't pay for. Move to a proper host.
Posted in France demands Skype register as telco
I wasn't asked to give alternatives though. And I intentionally didn't give any examples because sometimes you can end up sounding like a car salesman or employee of said company. Since you are now asking specifically though, I'll bite.
I use VoipStunt.com for sip calling. It's actually brilliant. A tenner of credit every 120 days and you get 120 days of free calls to about 30 countries. The tenner of credits is still good after that has expired. I've been using it since 2003. You used to be able to get London numbers through them, but you can pick them up for a couple of bucks a month from flynumber.com or just get an 056 number for free if you don't mind that prefix.
With SIP you only need 64kbps for a voice call, and there is no leeching of your bandwidth or CPU. I prefer a hardware device for calls so I have a phone that I can use even if my pc is shutdown. They have a crappy client, which works fine mind you, but you can use ANYTHING you want by just plugging in the settings (unlike Skype). We're even setting up a proper answering machine service on our server to handle calls for our company now.
For chat I use Pidgin.im - again there are plenty of alternatives and I have several accounts of several protocols running there (different clients use different protocols).
Skype is the horsemeat equivalent of a juicy aussie steak.
Posted in France demands Skype register as telco
You act like skype is the only thing in the world that makes calls. You are trolling or what?
There are PLENTY of programs/alternatives that offer what it does. It seems to do everything it attempts very badly. Can't think why anyone would defend it honestly.
Those two (Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis) have been responsible for some awful software over the years... Anyone remember the failure that was Joost? Kazaa was equally awful.
Posted in France demands Skype register as telco
Wish Skype would just die. It's horrible.
- The call/video qaulity is pathetic (epecially for the bandwith it uses).
- The rates are extortionate.
- The application GUI is disgusting. You can't even exit the program from the menu (how stupid is that).
- It eats your connection and makes browsing, VOIP calls, and other uses slow or unusable.
- Oh and it's responsible for killing MSN messenger on Friday (except in China).
DIE!
I really don't get the hate for Flash at all. When used right, it's bloody fantastic.
When used wrong (or when you could achieve the same results without using it), yes it is awful and horrible.
So shouldn't all you flash haters be calling for the banning of every other language/ development engine because if it's used badly it's horrible... so therefore let's make it extinct. We would have nothing left....
Re: It is all so very simple.
Can't you each have your own user account?
err... look at the website. it just looks stretched.
http://mate-desktop.org/
Why does MATE look like a 4x3 TV feed stretched on to a 16:9 screen?
No. I have to admit that I was probably later than some other designers, but about 7 years ago I stopped using tables for web layouts. I still use them sometimes for tabled data, and I use them every week for email newsletters (gotta love outlook right?).
Honestly.. Chrome is far worse than IE at not following standards. I really cannot fathom why people in the tech community love it so much.
I build websites for a living, and Firefox, IE, Safari all tend to behave and do what I want. It's ALWAYS &#)(%@$ Chrome that has problems.
Or maybe it's just me? haha
Re: Oh dear ....
What happens if you pull out the hard drives on your system? I bet it goes tits up. Pull the drives out of a mac pro and the desktop still functions, mouse and menus and clicking on stuff. Slide the drives back in and away you go.
It's a wonderful piece of kit that lasts for a decade or more. There are many good things about it, and the case is a lot better than any case you can buy anywhere else. If you don't like OSX then fair enough, that's your opinion.
It's just like an iPad is a bit more expensive than your bog standard chinese android tablet, but all the useability tests say it is miles ahead. 80% or more of the mobile browsing usage is on apple products. You pay a little bit more and you get better quality.
If you want to build your own machine then go ahead, it is a lot of fun, and you can mix, match and change everything that you want. A Mac Pro is obviously not for you.
Whoops, you got me. 0.65 cents per play it is.
As you said, though, even then... this is way more than they actually pay. I was also wondering whether they sold the branding of his song's page for an extortionate amount. Still don't believe the final figure. It's propaganda.
Regardless... it's still misleading, to paint a picture that Google is helping artists. They are worse than the record companies.
Now... if the label/artist did receive 0.65 cents per play... that would really help the music industry. Anyone have any idea how much Google charges the advertister for each play? You know.. they only made $50 BEEELION last year.
65 cents per play? Is this guy for real? I work for a company that has a large catalogue in YouTube and from the last month of sales figures available, our highest earning track on YouTube earned $3.84 with 19,997 plays = 0.000192 cents per play.
Must be the same propaganda machine that Spotify uses...?
Re: Ironic!
That would be why most of YouTube is still H.264 then??
Also, VP8 is inferior to H.264 in every way. It's a larger file, it's a lower quality picture, it's a format that doesn't play on servers without extra configuration, and no support for hardware acceleration. Pretty lame....
Also video has nothing to do with this story so not sure what bandwagon you are on. If I have been caught by excellent trolling then my hat goes off to you sir.
Yup I bet all the traders for goldman sachs are using 4 iPads or Nexus' hooked up to each other...
Oh... wait....
Tablets are okay for a bit of work on the go but if you want to do anything serious you need a proper machine.
Goldman Sachs... they took all our money five years ago.. why should we listen to these fraudsters. They've probably just shorted a load of Microsoft stock before releasing this "report"
Re: I'm with you guys, I don't get it
When a number of ISPs are giving you full untouched access to SpeedTest (and other speed testing sites), but then throttling/ downsizing/ cutting your capability everywhere else it starts to not become a very accurate guage anymore.
(FAIL for the ISPs doing this)
Re: why?
I'm guessing you've never had a job you actually enjoy?
Re: Something linked to departing executives…
P45 icon seems heavily appropriate for when fail or facepalm just isn't enough. Would we keep having to explain this to our cousins over the ocean though? Maybe make it pink?
Re: With such a great camera why fake the pictures then?
Looking at the pictures the author has posted, I can see every reason why they used a PROPER camera to make the shots for the advertising. The shots he has posted are grainy, fuzzy, lots of noise, just poor overall. But I guess most people now accept this level of picture. Laziness to carry 2 devices is all I can think of as a reason.
Can you imagine the ads if they used the actual pictures taken by the phone? They would be a laughing stock of tech world. Which wouldn't be so bad, but for the fact that the camera is supposed to be the most impressive feature of the phone... oh dear... the rest of it must be awful.
I do find it slightly strange how the review starts off really positively, but then this doesn't work... this crashes... this is not as good as the rival... etc etc
I'm glad some people like the tiles home screen.. .I just haven't met any of them yet. It's big, ugly, a waste of space, and as the author stresses - counter intuiative.
You may be paying for 30 Mbps but what are you actually getting?
That said, I wholeheartedly agree. Crappy voice quality like talking through wall socks, stuttering video like a 10 year old camera phone, and why is it that Skype wants to use all of my bandwidth when not on a video call, while my SIP only needs 64 kbps. Go figure. Have subsequently configured my router to only allow skype 200 kbps. Personally I never run the piece of crap... but other people in the house.....
Obviously has no idea how windows upgrades work. You miss out every other release. Is there one person in the world who thought Vista was a "mandatory" upgrade?
This guy is a bit clueless. Then again... he is a salesman. He creates nothing. He just makes money off other people's products. He can do his "work" with a tablet. Well... whoopdeedoo. CIOs have many choices today which is a good thing. And they can select the appropriate hardware and software to best do the job required.
Is he seriously suggesting that people will go to work, then do all their work for the whole day, sat at their desk... on a smartphone?
Posted in Apple banishes Java from Mac browsers
An update that just removes a plugin is a 66MB download????
Would be interesting to know what percentage of cloud "offerings" are ACTUALLY cloud systems.. rather than just a web server being marketed as a cloud.
Re: IE x2...., "can't even share bookmarks"
But y'know dude... bookmarks wtf is that man? Der woz a toolbar for dat years ago... know one uses that stuff anymore. An if dey did... it would be in the cloud innit, synced in all da browzers. Word.
(That was really painful to write like that sorry!)
You jest... but you are either not a football fan or have no idea what I am talking about.
It's basically the best football podcast there is out there today, and many thousands would agree. James Richardson, Barry Glendinning, Sid Lowe, Raphael Honigstein, Philippe Auclair to name just a few of the excellent pundits they have. It's free and it's quite simply pure gold.
As I said this would be via donation. I wasn't suggesting that they block the site for anyone that does not pay. Subscription is also not the only source of revenue, there are others, including ads. Additionally they could also cut costs.
I'm with you on the "tax" idea. It's a non-starter. But hey.. since you are not willing to pay anything at all... how do you suggest that they sustain their business in the long term?
Was just thinking about this topic again earlier... have to say that Football Weekly is worth £2 a month on it's own! That's 25p per episode... that will get you what.. a third of a can of coke? A tenth of a pint? And you get insight and awesome wit for 40 minutes. Honestly... the Guardian has some bloody excellent products. I don't read the whole website... some of it is of no interest to me whatsoever. I never read the paper version cover to cover either.
I read The Guardian every day that I am online. And that must be about 350 days a year (for the past 7 years at least). It's basically one of the first set of websites I visit whenever I start my browser.
I would be more than happy to pay £2 a month to them. I have even told them this on their site. Twice. They claim that they set up a donation system before, and it cost more to run than they got in donations. They either need new staff who can run such a system for next to nothing, or they need to advertise it differently because I've never heard of it. Wonder if it got blocked?
Ahhhh.. .well there is the rub. Wonder if anyone can come up with a way to tell if someone is blocking ads on your site? Force those people to pay. I use Noscript and see no ads. I would not click any, nor buy anything. I would however be happy to pay to access sites, ad free, that enlighten my day (such as yours truly El Reg).
I do however strongly object to media outlets who want financing when they are not State companies. They have a business, they need to be successful. Most other businesses are streamlining and triming the fat to survive. Most print publications seem to be sticking their fingers in their ears and hoping everyone else will pay for the business to survive regardless of whether they provide a product that anyone wants. (The BBC is a hugely respected company throughout the world. That's another discussion entirely - they should charge the licence fee to anyone abroad who wants to pay it).
Posted in iOS 6 maps can't find Sydney Apple Store
Re: its become a bit fashionable to say 'Steve wouldn't let this happen...'
But he did let awful, embarrassing things happen. Stuff that was rushed to market, and full of problems...
MobileMe.
Now, I'm no supporter of rival companies/ products. I like the stuff they do at Apple, but there were plenty of examples of catastrophies while Steve was at the helm.
Re: Using it more and more...
Google+ - The new cure for insomnia!
Re: Wait a minute.
Not sure if they live in America, but if they do, apparently Americans consider McDonalds to be a restaurant.
Posted in GoDaddy stopped by massive DDoS attack
My first thought when I saw this was must have been someone who tried to do something pretty simple, but ended up tearing their hair out with the abomination that is the godaddy control panel.
Lowest common dominator indeed... GoDaddy is to hosting like nescafe is to coffee.
Re: Both Apple and Amazon want to control the contents....
Are you living in 2005? iTunes downloads are DRM free and you can copy them to anywhere and play them on anything.
Your most successful product launch to date.... was selling a product for less than it cost you to make it... well fancy that!
Re: Android and YouTube seem to be doing OK...
They didn't create any of the examples you gave. They just bought them.
Try looking how successful Buzz, Wave, and Plus are........
Wiki
Since when has Wikipedia been a social networking site???
