Posts by Chris Branch
32 posts • joined Thursday 15th November 2007 14:36 GMT
Cameraphones aren't much cop as cameras anyway
Tiny lenses and tiny sensors will give you crap pictures. That's a limitation of the laws of physics. Other phones might have better kit than the iPhone but can any of them replace even a cheap compact camera?
All cameraphones are equally convenient and no more. No point trying to find the cream of the crap.
Drop in the ocean
Still, the bureaucrats need to keep busy somehow.
Posted in Boffins breed new programming race
@AMOS?
AMOS with a GUI already exists - one of its original programmers developed it. Significantly more complex with Scratch but then it's not designed specifically for beginners/kids.
But on the subject of Scratch, anything that gets people young or old interested in programming is good in my book. Talented, impressionable kids need the same kind of exposure the rest of us got in the 80s/early 90s to stave off the Java-drinking code monkey dregs.
Cynical take
Programmers that give a damn about a good language to work with purposely avoid PHP.
The ones that don't care will obviously be more than happy with PHP, especially with all those code samples to copy/paste.
I'll bet it's easier to offshore PHP work...
Posted in Fasthosts to offshore support staff
If you're using Fasthosts
You probably don't care that they're doing this.
How much worse could it get?
Veggie heating?
One only has to ask them what they think produced the oil they fuel their cars and heat their homes with.
Answer lies in the grave...
All very pretty but
How long will the screen last for before it loses quality or breaks down altogether? Dead pixels?
I wouldn't be the first to dump £3k. Luckily for Sony I can think of some who would.
Posted in A Geeks Guide2... Christmas - Part 1
Reminds me of this
http://www.theonion.com/content/magazine/a_statement_followed_by_a
Seems to work well, but good luck deciding who to blame for it.
Not time for kernel to pop
As far as I can tell there isn't much wrong with the Vista kernel other than the DRM - which is a good thing if it stops people buying DRM content. If Microsoft strip out all of the crapware in Windows 7 (yes, you too, Aero) and make the OS itself better to work with, I might actually want to upgrade this time...
@Aaron
We already know that lossless audio on decent hardware = good.
iTunes sell medium-quality tracks and the iPod has poor quality earbuds. This is what the rant is about.
You obviously don't have a golden eye :)
Company tries to stamp on others' rights and fails
In a better society this wouldn't be newsworthy. Oh well - at least the world hasn't gone to pot just yet.
It's all fun and games until you're a victim
There are lots of idiots around who will whinge because they think they deserve everything now and have no patience. Good luck keeping them away. If you have a website like this you'll get that kind of user, and anyone who's been on the internet 5 minutes will know this.
What's amusing is that one 'hater' had the cheek to say a lot of people will be leaving the site because of this. Well, they will one way or another, but what's more important is that I wouldn't be surprised if *any* kind of criticism over the whole thing gets you kicked off the site. Apparently just ignoring them for a few more days was too much for the admins to handle. For the people still left on the site, watch what you say or you might be kicked off in a future temper tantrum.
Faceparty has millions of users and all their personal details, AND it's taking people's money - just a hobby? More like a failed business. Grow up, stop defecating on your users and live in the real world like the rest of us.
@Tigre
XP Home is uniprocessor, but there's no limit on cores that single processor can have (AFAIK, I know it's fine for dual core).
Posted in Hackers start poking holes in NFC
I cannot wait
Will we see pickpockets stealing money just by standing too close to people?
Mine's the blue coat with with NFC tag in it... oops, someone switched it, now it's a green coat...
Posted in Life a mess? The Moderatrix can help
This page needs one
Will the Internet ever get a 'punch user in the face' button, so we can deal with trolls and spammers the old-fashioned way?
You'll give NASA ideas
As soon as they realise they can profit from it, you'll get Hubble Plans... including one of the following for free every month:
25 picture messages
200 texts
60 minutes off-peak calls
If you go for the free calls, then among the silence of space you may faintly hear boffins laughing all the way to the bank...
@10 years
Not for having hacking tools, maximum sentence on that is 12 months, or a fine.
In any case the law says you have to intend to gain unauthorised access with it before you're guilty. Not as worrying as you may think, I'd be more worried if I was making programs specifically designed to break security though.
@JonB
Methinks it's the round socket to the right. Passive power brick PSU is fine by me!
Posted in Xbox 360 burns house down
re: Give it a rest
Forgotten the exploding mobile phone? Or the flaming Dells?
Posted in IT industry needs more women
@pg
I'm sure if you visited websites based around non-IT subjects and careers, you wouldn't be interested in those, either. The internet is full of loud, obnoxious voices - step outside if you want a sensible opinion!
Double-edged sword
So what about the genuine people who don't qualify for legal aid and don't have the cash to pay legal fees and have a roof over their heads?
The culture is the problem, not the mechanism that facilitates it.
How long
How long until we discover amanfromtheMoon?
Will he beam his thoughts down to Earth?
Will they make any more sense?!
The solution, of course
Charge by the gigabyte! That'll stop the ISPs blocking downloaders in favour of making £££.
Posted in Bray recalls team XML
CSV?
CSV is a very ill-defined format. Meanwhile those of us in the real world who need to work with data in a compatible way will get on with XML until the next acronym becomes popular.
Good for him
Good for him for doing something. Pity he didn't spend his time on more practical work like a 14 year old I know - but that'll come soon.
The real question is, has he actually learnt anything other than this 'ethical hacking' business in this past year? They teach you all that stuff at school for a good reason y'know.
Posted in Ballmer! explains! hostile! Yahoo! bid!
Scale! Branding! Audience!
Because Ballmer isn't interested in their developers...
Chicken and egg
Why is filesharing popular? So people can get music they wouldn't pay for/can't pay for.
Why can't the labels lower prices/improve legal download quality? Because they think filesharers have eaten away at their profit margins.
Unfortunately until they realise how to monetise the filesharers by giving them high quality, easy to find, cheap music (perish the thought) they will stick to their "home taping is killing music" mantra and keep their heads in the sand while revenue plummets.
Ironic that legal download sites fail to give me 'audiophile' quality DRM-free music that I actually *want*, yet mp3sparks does it without skipping a heartbeat. Well done record labels.
Posted in Viva VBA - alas
@AC
Anyone claiming CS to be a 'science' (including yourself) took one look at the name and let ignorance do the rest. It was never a science except in name; just mathematics with some engineering thrown in.
Posted in Flash-based iPlayer is go
Re: So...
Install a 32-bit browser then. It's not just Linux that has that issue as far as I know.
@Silo Spen
Java sucks, jar, jar, jar :)
Incidentally I also liked the article and its predecessors - it's good to have a refresh of times past and note how it may have influenced things today. (or not)
@amanfromMars
I think the Internet is already a 'ping dynasty'...
Posted in Public shows new data protection nous
@adnim
Rights are taken away, not given... the sooner arbitrary organisations are actively denied the ability to collect all our data for who-knows-what purpose the better.
