* Posts by Anthony Shortland

88 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Nov 2007

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SpaceX's Starship on the roster for Texas takeoff

Anthony Shortland

Article is wrong. License hasn’t been issued yet.

Corporate execs: Get back, get back, to the office where you once belonged

Anthony Shortland

Re: Collaboration

That can equally happen in an on site role.

I briefly worked as developer in a software house where management wanted us onsite to share knowledge - trouble was those with the knowledge either were too busy or not keen on sharing whether in the office with them or not.

To me, it’s not about in person or remote, the team work and peer review can be as good or bad regardless depending on the team.

Anthony Shortland

So more of the “you must be in the office for these Teams calls” nonsense. No thanks, thankfully my contract is 100% remote.

BT CEO orders staff: Back to the office or risk 'disciplinary action'

Anthony Shortland

Ultimately cost cutting/headcount reduction

Companies right now need to be looking at massive cost cutting.

Wouldn’t a convenient way to achieve that be to encourage a % to leave and not replace them thus reducing heads without any redundancy costs?

Toyota needs more than its Cheer Squad to deal with chip shortages, as five more home factories forced into idleness

Anthony Shortland

Re: So nothing to do with work from home?

It’s definitely chip shortage. Hence why Ford and Volvo for example are offering customers vehicles missing functionality (chips related to driver aids seems a big issue for some reason) with quicker delivery windows or wait for full functionality.

Likewise household appliance makers are making models that were supposed to have WiFi connectivity without that feature - again due to lack of chips.

Anyway chip shortage is old news. Availability of Aluminium is the next crisis for many manufacturers apparently.

Star Wars: Episode VII trailer lands. You call that a lightsaber? THIS is a lightsaber

Anthony Shortland

Re: That lightsabre...

Disney wouldn't care

They're far too busy trying to figure out how to get some Frozen references in there!

NetWare sales revive in China thanks to that man Snowden

Anthony Shortland

Re: Was it hell....

I remember someone saying that MS pitched early versions of Windows Server as being so much like normal desktop Windows, you didn't need a techie to run it, your secretary could do it in their spare time.

This was kind of true, if you were talking about a 5 to 10 user workgroup. NT4 had so few features and so bad scalability 5 to 10 users was all it was really good for.

How the clammy claws of Novell NetWare were torn from today's networks

Anthony Shortland

You forgot netadmin for dos!

Nokia outs budget phone pair

Anthony Shortland

Re: "a gap where nobody actually lives."

I'd imagine the market is basically for someone who wants a phone to travel with, to take PAYG sims for whichever country they are going to, for a price thats no disaster if the phone is lost, but is of good enough quality to last a few years.

Yes there are other phones that fit that, but those tend to be by samsung/LG etc who tend to have some strange ideas when it comes to usability of their budget phone OS's. Something that definitely isnt a problem with nokia phones.

Apple's TV killer 'on shelves by summer 2012'

Anthony Shortland
FAIL

downfall of apple?

This could be the first apple product to spectacularly flop in many years (they didnt make a big deal out of the other apple tv devices so I'm ignoring those).

Based on the rumours we know of it so far -

tv's will only be 32 or 37" - seriously who wants tv's that size now other than for bedrooms?

siri interface - didnt they ought to concentrate on getting siri itself working better in other regions first? I hear it struggles even with some southern state american accents!

kinetic style interface - hello microsoft lawyers!

available content - can we really see apple providing an interface to other peoples (ie terrestrial/satelite) content? highly unlikely - more likely we're talking about bt vision style streaming where they control all the content. But how is that going to work with so many people with sub-par broadband still??

Anthony Shortland

is there a way to integrate with sky/virgin?

Anthony Shortland

i'd say 37 is too big for the kitchen, and too small for the living room. The only real place for a 37 these days is the bedroom.

Nikon 1 J1 interchangeable lens compact camera

Anthony Shortland

true but not really an issue as I'd guess most people who will buy this will either already have a Nikon DSLR so will just buy a pancake lens or two and then get the mount adaptor to use their other normal Nikon lenses. OR they havent got a DSLR so wont be bothered either way.

Snap said to show iPhone 5s being stacked by bunnies

Anthony Shortland

nope

looks more like a samsung gallaxy SII - but without the samsung branding.

So lets hope it is the iphone5 and samsung tells apple they'll see them in court :)

iOS 5 falls back to autumn, say moles

Anthony Shortland
WTF?

so the big features are...

A google latitude/facebook places clone, and a internet archive (lets call it........ itunes!) to download your previously purchased itunes content from.

wow.

still no mention of real multitasking, or proper widgets to make use of the quad core chip the fanboys keep gushing over.

Ten... fitness gadgets

Anthony Shortland
FAIL

so....

The most popular product by far is rated the lowest - not that the reg is out of touch with reality at all.

Google axes Jobsian codec in name of 'open'

Anthony Shortland
Thumb Up

hehe

brilliant move there by google.

So iphone/ipads are brilliant devices because of their wonderful support of the future - HTML5. No one needs flash. Flash is dead.

Yet now no one is going to use HTML5 for video because of such a split in the use of the codecs.

Google has well and truely screwed apple over on this one!

Microsoft confesses to New Year Hotmail blunders

Anthony Shortland
Thumb Down

maybe not best practice

but I'm pretty sure most networks/services have test accounts on live servers.

Beastly Android will batter Apple's iOS beauty

Anthony Shortland

£200?

More like £110 now and coming down all the time!

£110 pay as you go with something like an O2 sim that gives free texts and 500mb downloads if you top up £10 a month all with the same (if not better) functionality to an iphone (although maybe not so slick).

compared to the cost of an iphone.

Oh and the alarms on android phones are a bit more reliable as well :)

Facebook figures suggest WinPho 7 user base still small

Anthony Shortland
WTF?

umm

exactly how long has it been out? (ahem.... weeks), and yet its not caught up with iOS or blackberry yet? wow what a total flop it is then!

Wikileaks: Berlusconi useless, Pope Catholic

Anthony Shortland
Alien

again.....

are these for real????

I'm convinced the CIA is producing these leaks

Brits say 'no, no, no' to 3D TV

Anthony Shortland
WTF?

erm

considering most homes have probably only just bought non-3d tv's in the last couple of years, I'd say 2% by xmas (or up to 6%) was quite an impressive success actually - especially considering the lack of content out there still.

The Reg going for the daily star/NOTW style headlines again then.

Wikileaks outs 400,000 classified Iraq War docs

Anthony Shortland
Thumb Down

hmmm

From what I've read in the media so far, there isnt a whole lot of earth shattering stuff in here (again).

The only thing that surprises me is how much Iran stuff there was - and if Iran has been such a bad guy in all this, then why havent the US government released this earlier considering how much they seem to be trying to convince the world action is needed against Iran?

So, I then went and googled wikileaks conspiracy...

which possibly explained why those missing weeks in Fallujah are still ... missing.

Google Android chief smacks Steve Jobs with Linux speak

Anthony Shortland
FAIL

too funny

So when people struggled to compete with Windows, they bitched because of the apps that microsoft bundled with the OS.

When Apple struggles to compete with Google, people bitch because a couple of apps (market and gmail) ARENT part of the OS.....

Just proves you cant please everyone really.

Branson 'spaceship' successfully falls off mothership

Anthony Shortland

More questions

and more importantly, no matter how the in-flight meal is served, will it taste as bad as virgin atlantic food does??

Project Canvas becomes YouView

Anthony Shortland
Thumb Down

hmmm

YouView..... wonder what the owner of YouTube will think of that.... considering the coming GoogleTV as well.

Cinema chain bans laptops, tablets

Anthony Shortland
Thumb Up

Banning phones will stop the problem

Its simple, if they ban people taking phones in people will stop going.

When no one goes, the cinemas will have to close

Problem solved!

Koran-burning 'pastor' loses website

Anthony Shortland
Thumb Down

losing followers?

judging by his support on the foxnew sites comments, I'd say unfortunately the opposite was the case.

Google pulls trigger on 'Instant' search engine

Anthony Shortland
Thumb Down

2-5s slower more like

two issues here..... firstly the ajax like most ajax type sites isnt instant, i'm not even sure i'd go as far as near instant. I wouldnt go as far as slow.... just a definite lag.

secondly, dunno about everyone else, but im finding im typing my search in much slower and watching the results appear instead of typing at full normal typing speed with a return key at the end.

Dell Streak causes user fury

Anthony Shortland
Unhappy

its all going a bit pete tong isnt it?

Oh dear android (I'm a android user and love it btw)...

How has android got to this point where its supposed to be for average users, and where it has such regular OS revisions (which seem to generally require full wipes to be successful) and yet there is no way for said average person to back up their data?

HTCs sync software is about where Nokia was 10 years ago - very unreliable, and only really does contacts and calendar and not a lot else.

Ok so backup programs exist, yet most require root access (titanium) - not something an average user is going to dare attempting. Its also not something an average user should have to attempt to ensure their data is safe. Especially when the process is different for each phone/rom.

I really hope android 3.0 covers this huge hole in functionality. What we need is some background OS level process which backs up everything from the phone memory (without needing root access) and dumps it to a simple single file on the sdcard. Then it should be inteligent enough to restore what it can (including apps!) depending on OS compatibility if it finds that file on the first boot after an OS upgrade.

Doubt it will happen though.

Archos announces five Android tablets

Anthony Shortland
WTF?

err

a "tablet" with a 2.8in screen? hmm not entirely sure tablet is the right name for that?

US starts charging for online visa-waiver

Anthony Shortland
FAIL

fraud/phishtastic!

So, those dodgy ESTA websites that charge people are gonna have a field day now!

Previously travel agents were able to advise people that if the website is trying to charge them for their ESTA application then they are on the wrong (and potentially very dodgy) website.

Now all the dodgy websites need to do is say that the fee has increased and the average traveller will have no clue - until they get to immigration at the destination airport and find out that they're not allowed in because their ESTA isnt valid because the site they went to and paid £40 to was fake! They'll probably then at that point try to book a return flight only to find out those damn fraudsters have also maxed out their credit card!

Cutbacks strip speed cameras from Blighty's roads

Anthony Shortland
FAIL

which.....

which makes me think this is just a ploy (again) by the local authorities to gain control of the money the cameras bring into the government.

I would be very surprised if the cameras really did disappear or even just get turned off.

Gizmodo editor reunited with seized goods

Anthony Shortland
Alert

whos' got the iphone?

that could be the most sought after iphone ever - it almost certainly wont have the signal problem if it doesnt have the iphone 4 case!

WTF is... Project Canvas?

Anthony Shortland
FAIL

me too!

It seems to me that Canvas is going to be too little too late. I admit I havent read a whole lot into it yet, but it seems that all its offering is a unified interface to things that are already available - basically a shell with links.

Great, but without moving the game on and offering something new, it just seems like its out of date before it really gets off the drawing board.

Compared to Google TV, which is offering true smart tv functionality and integration to other google services. On top of that, Google already has sony on board with TVs from them on the way. Plus, Google TV will have world wide interest, Canvas seems very UK TV based currently.

I cant see how Canvas stands a hope of competing - and annyoingly I'm having to support this potential failure with the tv license!

iPad beats BlackBerry for browsing

Anthony Shortland
FAIL

source of stats?

I wonder how they gathered these stats - with the header meta tags I assume?

In which case the android stats at least are unreliable as android users (unlike iOS users) have a good choice of browsers, including Dolphin (which seems to be more popular than the build in browser) which has options for changing the user agent to allow fooling sites into showing desktop type pages instead of mobile sites.

iPad's brain not so unique

Anthony Shortland
Thumb Down

ios

like most trademarks apple sees and wants for itself, cisco ios will no doubt disappear from existance (and probably history books) very quickly.

Steve Jobs unveils iPhone 4

Anthony Shortland
Thumb Down

by 18 months...

I mean from now, 6 months until its well stocked world wide, and then 12 months of sales.

Yes, the iphone 5 will be announced this time next year, but it will be nearly xmas 2011 before its well stocked world wide i bet.

Anthony Shortland

Re: Happy Devs

Until your apps get rejected...

Anthony Shortland
FAIL

ok...

so we know what spec the iphone will now be for the next 18 months, and its only going to be 3G, 5mp camera. The only real selling point is better motion sensor.

Compare to what HTC already has out there with the EVO (4G, 8mp camera) - seems the iphone is out of date before its on the shelf.

Then the real killer - HTC seem pushing out new better phones every 3 months. So potentially HTC/android will be 6 generations ahead by the time the iphone 5 is near.

seems like the end is near for the iphone era.

Anthony Shortland
FAIL

what no...

still no fm transmitter built in? seems ridiculous that the nokia n95 had so many features that are still missing from the latest iphones/blackberries/android phones.

Facebook simplifies controls but continues exposing users

Anthony Shortland
FAIL

ok then...

so you have a choice then.... either dont join, join and set your privacy tight so no one finds you, or use one of those sites that almost got popular but where you couldnt find anyone (face-pic etc) that werent so social and have kinda died off since facebook showed them being social is better.

Anthony Shortland
WTF?

Privacy International says....

what you basically mean is :

Privacy International reacted to the changes with "We're disappointed that facebooks default settings do not go against the whole point of facebook".

Seriously, a facebook that by default hides all information wouldnt be facebook. It wouldnt be a social networking tool at all. The whole point is that you can find people. Thats why people use it ffs!

Windows 3.0 turns 20

Anthony Shortland

32bit?

was it?

i thought 32bit only came along with win3.11 and the win32 librarys on top?

German 4G auction winds up

Anthony Shortland
WTF?

get on with it already ofcom!

why wait?

That extra cash would go a fair way to plugging some of the hole in the deficit - potentially allowing for the budget cuts to be less severe this year wouldnt it?

Plus, if we have to wait another year thats going to put us a year behind a lot of the western world in the use of the technology as well.

Google TV: Android and Chrome on your boob tube

Anthony Shortland
FAIL

haha murdoch

silly silly man messing with google. say goodbye to your print and tv businesses all in one go.

MS hopes biz punters will guzzle Office 2010

Anthony Shortland
FAIL

does it still have that stupid ribbon toolbar?

no thanks.

Apple in shock talks with Reg reader

Anthony Shortland
Thumb Up

Steve Gedikian

this is Steve Gedikian of nullsoft/winamp a few years ago I believe? if so yeah definitely good bloke. Maybe apple isnt evil to the core afterall!

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