Posts by Reg Varney
68 posts • joined Tuesday 8th January 2008 21:19 GMT
I would be rather more interested...
... if they spent the effort improving the resolution of a 20+" monitor rather than a 5" screen. It's ludicrous that resolution increases have stopped at 1920x1080 all the way up to 27" (except a few like Dell U2711), when the same resolution is available on a 5" phone screen.
This plague of spurious patents will only be solved when the defendants realise that it is a bloody sight cheaper (and more satisfying) to just pay for the assassination of the litigants, their lawyers and every half-wit patent office reviewer who was ever involved in the original patent than it is to spend 5 years in court defending them.
Or maybe they've just seen hordes of IT jobs disappear offshore and can see which way the wind is blowing,
And to second some of the others' comments above... a lot of it *is* really, really fucking boring!
How would anyone tell anything else was wrong?
I've had an NatWest branded Virgin One account for a couple of years, and their website is absolutely full of stupid bugs that they do nothing to fix. For a major bank, it's a technical disgrace
Posted in Firefox 13 now available for download
Enough with all this useless crap and stop the damn thing crashing!
For the last 3 versions, this has been disastrously unstable, crashing a minimum of twice a day, including when I'm not actually doing anything, just have it open in the background.
Used to be great, but unreliable POS recently,
Re: Be afraid
Fuckers! That's the first I've heard about them adding download limits to XXL50; how can they introduce this crap without even telling their existing customers?!
Posted in October 14 declared 'Steve Jobs Day'
In honour of jDay, I will be spending the whole of October 14th shouting "#@&# you, you @&~$ing $£@% and all your stupid $*~%ing fanbois!!!"
(* truth in advertising: I do worry that all that punctuation might hurt my throat, so may substitute actual letters)
Posted in HTC knocks out the Beats
Good!
[grumpy old codger icon goes here] The crappier and less air the internal speaker can move the better; last thing I need is a new wave of yoof phones with codger-baiting capability
Not with a bargepole!
It's irrelevant whether "phone numbers and email addresses are not shared between Google and potential lenders" - I'd a damn site more concerned handing all of that valuable mineable data to Google.
Yes, and all they do ...
is to put up the $1Bbillion to fund the 10 years of clinical trials for the 5% chance that the drug will make it to market. The bastards.
Posted in Facebook fails webmail tests
Exactly!
Why anyone bothers to keep quoting Which? surveys is beyond me - they are the most clueless consumer organisation in the face of the planet.
Posted in Facebook closes today ... NOT!
One more proof, if any more were needed...
... that facebook is a home for complete imbeciles
Posted in Visa goes all P2P in US
It's not going to get rid of cash...
... but it might (finally) be a viable alternative to cheques. Devil in the detail and all that, especially thew security aspect
Are Adobe ever going to get their collective arses in gear?
Their bloated explot-ridden apps need to be totally ripped down and re-written. Chances of that happening... 0.001%
Posted in HP reveals inaugural Palm webOS tablet
Dead in the water
No price mentioned = high price. So, they're late (probably launching after iPad 2 and Androidpads with 3.0), new (so sod all software, at least in comparison to the others) and high-priced.
Shame, I was rather looking forward to this as an alternative to Google, but it looks still-born to me
Posted in UK probes ebook pricing
But the ebook cost as a proportion of the retail cost...
should have one whole level of mark-up removed, as the digital vendor (eg Amazon) equivalant of the wholesaler, sells to the user with no bookshop mark-up.
So - delete the production cost, delete the bookseller mark-up and then we should see the ebook price.
Stupid survey
You're forced to post an entry in every category, even if you have no opinion in that category
Posted in XP? Thanks for the memories
Massive retraining??
It's Windows before, it's Windows now (and probably more like the version they're using at home) - where is the retraining?
Posted in Yahoo! sneak peeks revamped Mail
I'm no fan of Yahoo, but...
... they do provide free POP3 access to most of the world (everywhere except US, I think). Bizarrely, this is only on accounts created since the rule change - there is no way to "upgrade" an old account into having free POP3 - you can only go the paid "plus" route,
Now, some (/most/all) people would think that this is a pretty stupid way of annoying their current customers, and that potential new users are more likely to go to hotmail or gmail anyway, but that's the Wonder of Yahoo for you.
Posted in Ask.com kills Bloglines
Agreed entirely about Google
I have no desire to give Google any more information about what I;m doing than they already have from search
Posted in Ask.com kills Bloglines
For some reason, they haven't posted my comment on their blog
which read something along the lines of "you've bought a service that worked, done fuck all with it for years and now killed it. excellent, well done: I am certainly more disposed to use Ask's services now"
Really, really pissed off over this - Ask have the right to run whatever services they want, but why buy the fucking thing in the first place and then do nothing with it. Their reason for shutting it down is total nonsense as well - if they can't tell the difference between the content of an RSS feed and the stream of drivel that constitutes twitter, then god help them
Suggestions for a replacement? So far today I've tried Google Reader, Feedly, activor.us and Feedshow - hated all of them. Feedly is kind of interesting, but I want to read what I want to read, not what happens to be newest; GR and Feedshow don't allow non-alphabetic sorting, and feedshow doesn't seem to have been updated for the last 3 years. GR is also encrusted with loads of Web 2 shite: "like" & "share this" buttons, and the like.
Posted in Toshiba touts £329 Folio Android tablet
Same screen resolution as the Samsung...
... but 3" bigger screen?
What's the point of the bigger screen, if the screen resolution isn't increased?
No-one *wants* to stick with IE6
I'm part of an enterprise which is *finally* going to upgrade to IE8 next year (just after it is superseded by IE9, probably). The problem isn't just the internal apps written to IE6 that don't work on anything else, there are really key business apps by 3rd party vendors which don't work on newer versions or other browsers, either because the vendors haven't finished testing on a newer version or they've abandoned development completely, or we're stuck on an old version and can't move for some other dependency.
It's very easy for some smart-arse in a 100-PC company (or 3 PC house) to go on about switching browsers and how IE6 is so old, but try moving a 100,000+ PC enterprise, that is dependent on some apps which can't move - it aint that easy.
Posted in Apple lays claim to expired patents
The Merkan patent system is stupid, but...
... even there, a previously filed patent must be prior art, by definition. The clues are in the words "previously filed"
Posted in BBC Trust approves Project Cartel Canvas
Lord Reith even compared commercial TV to ... smallpox, the bubonic plague and the Black Death.
Two points:
1) All of those would be a preferable experience to watching most of ITV's current output
but 2) isn't bubonic plague and the Black Death the same thing?
Posted in 6Music: Dead man walking?
@James Dunmore
Yes, but the whole point is that XFM *doesn't* do that - not because it can't compete with 6Music, but because it was bought by Capital and drastically re-targeted the station. They don't want to compete with 6Music, they just want a student-oriented equivalent of Crapital.
XFM was great when it started, but has been utter shite for years
If a twatterer has 0 Followers ...
... do they still exist? How would they know?
It's not the 140 chars, it's the 40 IQ
Follow the link to the Twatterer in question. I don't think it's Twattle itself that is the problem
@LinkedIn is not much different
Not true actually - you can supress updates by user.
I do agree with the general point of your post though - it's beyond me why people on LI want to publish every asinine through that goes through their head; it's even less appropriate there than on FuckwitBook
"Don't be evil"?
For a simple mission statement, Google seem to really struggle to understand it. The ubiquitous Google worries me far more than MS or The Cult of Apple
Standard SOP to provide a lifetime purchase limit on a product?
I call *utter bullshit* on that. I have never heard of that being applied to anyone, ever, in any circumstances. A per day limit when there's a shortage (even one engineered by the mfr), maybe, but a lifetime limit? I think not.
Posted in Microsoft cuts out paste
Bullet in chamber? Check. Pointed at foot? Check...
Who are these dumbass "users who don't want it"? WTF is wrong with these retards, and where on earth did MS manage to find such drooling cretins?
Or maybe they don't exist, and MS are being stupid? Nah, couldn't be
@ Why has no-one mentioned XFM
Because it's been utter shite since it was taken over, several year ago?
Posted in Microsoft erases Windows 8 optimism
WinVista = Worst OS Ever?
You haven't lived: Try CP/M & BOS and then tell me Vista is worse.
Posted in Google stalks your social circle
Sounds another good reason...
not tyo sign up to Gmail, or facebook
Agree with Slabman
this is getting somewhere near what I want from an eBook reader.
I want:
- whiter background than the currently murky grey
- magazine subscriptions
- colour (though I can live without that for this generation or 2 of devices)
- Find (by on-screen keyboard)
- highlighting capability (by touch or stylus, not buttons)
- no DRM
- ability to accurately render PDF and CHM docs
- Realistic pricing of eBooks / eMags, not deadtree price + surchange for presumed piracy. In other words, not the rip-off iTunes model
I don't want:
- Wifi that eats battery for no useful purpose - I'm happy to download on my PC and connect the ebook reader to it. How many people *really* find themselves stuck somewhere with nothing to read and *need* to download a book from the WiFi hotspot, *right now*? If these people actually exist, I'm not one of them
- ebooks that cost a large portion of the price of the deadtree version (eg 100+% in the Waterstones/Sony model)
- buttons. Any buttons at all (well, except an on/off, and even that should just be by closing a cover on it)
Posted in Microsoft names Visual Studio 2010 dates
11 THOUSAND dollars for Visual Studio??
VS is undoubtedly a good tool. And MSDN is a fantastic resource.
But... 11 THOUSAND DOLLARS???
Posted in Microsoft protests $290m Word judgment
Hypocrisy on The Reg, surely not?
Patent trolls in all other cases get traduced, but if it's Microsoft on the other side, suddenly it's Big Bad Business against the Poor Injured Victim
There's an analysis of an infection of (a variant of?) this
at http://novirusthanks.org/blog/2008/11/trojan-spywin32zbot-analysis-of-malware/
From that, it looks like a lot more than 23% are detecting it - though that may well be an older version of the scumware
Is is really wrong of me...
... to wish the stupid hippie fucktards would just shut the fuck up. If they want to spend the rest of their lives debugging their almost-finished-but-couldn't-quite-be-arsed-with-the=boring-bits applications on Linux then feel free. But stop bugging the rest of us about it.
Posted in Apple ends Palm Pre's iTunes charade
re: "Why all the hate for iTunes"
Because it's a godawful piece of software, with a terrible UI?
To give it its due, its linking with the iTunes shop is, as you would expect, excellent. However, as I have no desire to pay more for a digital download than I can buy a CD for in Tesco, that is of no interest to me.
It's also pretty good at managing podcasts.
For everything else, MediaMonket is infinitely better, in just about every respect.
I can accept offshoring of jobs...
... for jobs which don't require local contact, or detailed local knowledge. But it burns my arse that the government hands out visas by the thousand to import lower-paid workers which displace UK workers, who are expected to train them up to take their own jobs away.
Posted in RIP Personal Computer World
"Back in the day", it was essential reading...
... when it and Byte was the only "general" computer magazines widely available.
But, it's been irrelevant for years, and the current incarnation, with the crappy paper and the retro articles has largely been embarassing - the columns have been trivial, the reviews superficial.
eBay are doing their damnedest to kill themselves
After my last experience with their totally dysfunctional dispute system, which is absurdly biased in favour of dishonest sellers, I am determined never to use the useless gits again. So it is with some amusement, I watch as they thrash around, repeately shooting themselves in the foot, and alienating everyone that they haven't screwed over (yet).
Posted in NZ unleashes sonic Manilow weapon
If Manilow doesn't work, they can escalate...
.... and hit them with Heino, purveyor of Schlager and Volksmusic. Definitely the Ultimate Sanction
(By all means, Google him if you're intrigued, but don't listen, if you value your sanity)
Many years ago she was described as...
... Diane Banker Butt-licking Margaret Thatcher Feinswine.
I see she hasn't improved with age
@ Mike
Hmm. I'm either misreading your irony, or you're taking the use of "sad" literally. In this case, it's not in the sense of "unhappy" but in the sense of "get a (first) life".
Hope you feel better for knowing this ;-)
Posted in Born Again Delphi
@A J Stiles
Well there are 255 characters in 7-bit ASCII, let's have all of those in variable names as well.
Anyone who thinks that, for example, aVariable, AVariable, AVARIABLE, avariable, aVariAble etc are all sensible and adequately differentiated names for *different* variables should not be allowed near a keyboard, IMHO. Or should be forced to only program in fortran-66, where they aren't able to hurt anyone.
Heresy to invoke VB in this discussion, but defining the case of a variable in the declaration, then the IDE converting all instances of this variable to the was it is cased in the declaration = very good.
