Posts by netean
50 posts • joined Wednesday 16th January 2008 13:36 GMT
Posted in Why is solid-state storage so flimsy?
HD failure
in the *cough* *cough* 20 something years since I had my first hard drive capable PC - Amstrrad 1640.. that smoked the competition with it's 40Mb drive. I've had exactly 2 personal hard drive failures and just 1 single drive fail in a server room environment (the raid controllers in the server room, there's another story!)
1 of those drives was poxy portable hard drive that I might have been a teensy bit careless with and trodden on as well.
Yet solid state fails with alarming frequency, the CF Card in Apple Newton being the first, but SD Cards for my cameras fail frequently, as did the 8Gb solid state drive in my Acer Aspire One, luckily I'd just bought a 60Gb replacement (non ssd) drive for it when it did. 60Gb.. not much I know, but with everything fully loaded on to it, I've still got a spare 30Gb free.
What do you people do with your machines to consume so much space so quickly?
Posted in Ten Androids for under 100 quid
Re: SanFrancisco is pretty good
I bought an original San Francisco about 18 months ago. Of course it kept the orange crapware infeste OS on it for all of 10 minutes. But I have to say it's the best £100 I've ever spent. I've nuked it and put on custom Rom and custom Rom so many times now, I've installed app after app, Of course the camera on it is all but useless but I have a real camera for taking pictures. I had a working version Android 4.0 on my ZTE way before my fellow HTC Desire loving colleagues as well. Ok, like for like, it's not a patch on a Desire HD or later, but it's been the most fun, the most flexible, the most well use bit of electronics I've ever owned. Currently it's doubling up as my phone, my skype phone, my wireless router, my firewall, my wireless proxy, in conjunction with my Google Music account it's also my wireless music DLNA server and it's running my two of my php driven, mysql development test sites too. Despite me throwing on some of the ropiest custom bleeding edge ROMs I could find, it's not let me down, not even once. For any price I think it's been great fun, but for <£100 at the time it was a bargain IMO.
WHen it comes to replacing it, I'd have no hesitation about buying another cheap as chips ZTE
why oh why
Can't help but think that Nokia's Microsoft love affair will be the death knell of Nokia. A once mighty, lovely platform, Symbian was great in its day (and maybe still could be, I don't know as I haven't seen the N8 in action)
Meego, on the surface looks a great idea, and a great platform, that Nokia could have developed to whatever specs they needed rather than retrofit Windows crapness.
Sad to say but I suspect that in few years we'll be lamenting the demise of Nokia and they'll be the Singer Sewing Machines of the 21st century.
Posted in LucasArts Day of the Tentacle
how the mighty fall
Considering how old this game, I still think it holds up amazingly well - the dialogue is snappy, gameplay is still good, puzzles still challenging and amusing.
A lot of the SCUMM games are actually superb in many ways and most hold up suprisingly well in terms of gameplay.
There was a time that Lucas Arts Games were a dead cert quality game. You didn't have to read a review, you just knew that it would be quality, quality acting, dialogue, gameplay, story, animation etc.
I'm hard pressed to think of a single title that Lucas arts have released in over a decade that doesn't suck donkey c*c*. (If you even dare mention KOTR - I'll come round and slap you, a game so boring and devoid of ambiance and "star Wars-ness" that the developers should be shot!)
I can play many of Lucas Arts old games again and again and again (as I can with many of the non LucasArts SCUMM games)
I wouldn't touch any of their modern garbage with your ten foot pole, let alone my own.
Posted in Toshiba readies 'cinema specs' 3D TVs
Just because you can doesn't mean you should
Perhaps sales are disappointing in Japan because 3d is a pointless technology that gives little (or no) benefit to the programme or film being watched. Far from enhancing the viewing experience, 3D Cinema or TV just ads more distraction.
Just because you can build a glasses-less 3d television doesn't mean you should.
Perhaps rather than silly gimmickery to entice people to watch their incredibly expensive television sets, they should invest the money into production companies making more engaging and less gimmicky television programming.
nice
Not only nice looking and feature rich, but (for me) the major selling point is that it won't REQUIRE iTunes. Even at version 10 iTunes is still a pile of slow, bloated crap.
great idea
Sounds a top idea. Then, at last I could find somewhere I could get hold of mephedrone again...
Posted in GCHQ loses Top Secret laptops
protected data
What this doesn't say was how the data on the HD was protected. I work for a government agency, and all our laptops require a Smartcard to boot, have PGP encrypted hard drives and in new machines TPM support turned on.
all the laptops do is boot into windows (2000 or xp) and the create once securely connected to our network start up our remote desktop software. No data is stored (or should be stored) on the laptop itself.
This has been true for... years (at least 5 to my knowledge)
So whilst it's never great to lose a laptop, I'd imagine that most government departments are similarly security focused and means there's minimal change of data being "recovered".
Posted in iTunes sync comes to Moto's Droid
I wish they wouldn't
Whilst I can see why iTunes sync is important to some, I really wish they wouldn't iTunes (on windows) is one of the worst applications I've ever used. Certainly the slowest app I've ever used and the most frustrating and bloated pile of garbage ever invented.
ITunes is SO bad that I'd even prefer to use WMP over it (and when anyone would CHOOSE to use WMP over anything it shows just how much iTunes stinks)
Posted in IBM adds iPhone support to Lotus Domino
has domino changed it's spots?
I do remember a time, when users and admins alike quaked with fear at the thought of having to use notes or perform admin tasks on notes & domino.
It used to be a backward, awkward, pile of old-fashioned, unpolished quirkiness. Yet everything I'm reading about it these days makes it sound positively progressive and, yes, useful. Has it turned itself around from the olden days?
Posted in Apple iPod Shuffle 3G
I just don't get it
£45 for a 2gb MP3 player ! why would anyone pay that kind of money for that kind of functionality.
Just seen a similar player 2gb, clip (no screen) for £14 online.
If you're looking for a 2gb player with no ability to control what you play (ala shuffle) then there are seriously cheaper (and better) alternatives out there. Ones that don't tie you down to using poxy iTunes as well.
Posted in Apple iPod Touch 3G
what about the music
I love my 1G ipod touch, but call me silly, but I bought it to.. y'know... listen to music. and for that, it's not all that good.
I'm tied to the goddawful iTunes.
I can't edit playlists on the machine (have to use iTunes for that) nor
create more than 1 "on the go" playlist at a time
can't customise eq settings
can't have custom EQ settings per track/album.
still can't properly use either of the FM transmitters that work on other ipods.
in all this big rush to make a games machine, to make it a web browser and PDA like gadget they've consistently forgotten the most important thing. MUSIC
loathsome
I loathe them, they are a horrible company.
Nothing wrong with budget airlines per se, I've flown easyjet a couple of times and they're ok. Flown Ryanair twice and never again. Just a ghastly, greedy company.
its a shame
it's a shame really as the latest incarnation notes is actually pretty damned good. No really, it's actually really good. voip/im integration. symphony integration etc etc
Notes has been one of those apps that people have ragged on (myself included) for being terrible, and it really really was. Hideous, but... its way way better than it once was - sadly the same cannot be said for vista
I had a vista laptop - never ever again will I trust Microsoft, the next machine I have will either be a mac/hackintosh, linux or xp until xp dies a slow and quiet death. Vista was not fit for purpose, slow, very very very slow, ate system resources and took a well specced laptop and made it run like treacle (even after SP2).
Once vista died again (it seemed that every so often it would fail to boot and require re-installing) after the 3rd failure I nuked it for XP and it flies!
Vista is horrible - despite all the hype for Windows 7, it was the same hype that evident for Vista so I'm not getting burned again
Notes OTOH -I'd invest in tomorrow (if I needed to)
In my mind at least, Notes is a WAY WAY better brand than vista (despite old notes being the worst application I'd ever used)
euuuwww
having downloaded and watched this today (thank you bit torrent!) I can see it was definately hardcore.
gruesome, and realistically gory. After watching it I felt truly a bit disturbed and shaken. But y'know what, that's a good thing. In a world of Transformers and G-force and Ice Age 2-3-4, 15 etc.. It's important to have films that make you think, may you FEEL something, experience something, even if that feeling isn't pleasant. It's made me think. And whilst it's in no way a pleasant watch, (you're watching people being brutally tortured) I'm glad I saw it. - but not all that keen to watch it again! (mind you, having sat through transformers 2 the other day I would say the same thing - only with that I'd have preferred to have spent those 2 hours doing something better!)
Posted in Asus laptops top for reliability in Q2
shame Acer can't follow suit
all I can say to people thinking of buying Acers... don't they're very unreliable (and then expensive to repair - if its a laptop)
My 17" acer notebook, 22 months old, GFX card failed. Cost to repair (out of warranty) £250
Rubbish!
Next time I'll buy an Asus
downloading it now
I've grabbed the english subs already, and am downloading it now.
It was released unrated and Uncut in German, so it's all over the torrent sites.
Thank you BBFC, not only in highlighting this film for me, but giving me the smug self satisfaction of getting one over on "them".
great
had they given it an 18 I probably would haven't noticed it. NOW i'm straight on the interweb to download a copy, I just HAVE to watch it now.
How to promote a film in 6 easy steps
Make it controversial
Make it VERY controversial
Push the envelope as far it will go
Get it banned
Watch the press hype it madly
collect $$$$$$$$$$$ / kudos / the next job offer.
Posted in Toshiba TG01 smartphone
windows Mobile = fail
I doubt I could ever be persuaded to try another Windows CE/Mobile device. They're just too clunky, too slow, too bloaty and the User experience is always severely disappointing.
For now I'll stick with symbian, sure has it's own issues, but at least it isn't windows mobile.
lets not forget
Lets also remember that a lof ot the countries that people "roam" in, have vodafone companies/networks. So WTF are doing charging extortionate roaming charges if their users are using THEIR network.
heroin and instant addiction
Umm mistakenly stated:
"heroin is instantly addictive".. sorry but scientifically this is actually NOT the case, heroin can be addictive but it is not instantaneous - nor is it with crack cocaine (although the latter can become more addictive more quickly)
Heroin takes time and repeated use to become addictive.
From a pharmacological point of view Codeine is much more addictive and you can pop down your locql supermarket and buy it!
Posted in Motorola Aura
wtf
stylistically, it looks quite nice.
functionality wise: what a pile of garbage... that would be fine if the phone was free on some noddy basic tarrif, but it's not. it's several times more pricey than my car (ok my car is crap, but still i bought a car for a lot less!)
motorola deserve to go out of business, they continually make the worst phones, with the worst usability, with the worst feature set, with the worst software.
can't see who this is aimed at, surely the Paris Hilton's of this world will have a diamond encrusted platinum coated jesus-phone and won't want nor need one of these?
but why?
After initially being incredibly skeptical, I've come to LOVE twitter and use it constantly. But I just can't work out Twitter's business model. How the hell are they ever going to make money?
As far as I can tell, their model is: Create site, become popular, and milk the investment until it dries up.
Posted in UFO ruled out of wind farm prang
the nerd response
UFO != Alient Space Craft/Flying Saucer
UFO == "unknown or unidentified flying object"
just to clear that right up there!
Posted in Amazon: Kindle 2 to sell internationally
i just don't see the point
Expensive
DRM laden - I can't just give a friend my book when I'm done reading it - nor can I take it down the oxfam bookshop!
Requires power to charge or use
Requires book manufacturers to supply content (FFS make it cheaper than a real book it surely costs them a lot less to produce)
what about when the machine dies, how do I get my paid for books off the device?
£240 that would buy me a lot of real books.
I'm sure ebooks will have their place eventually, but real books seem much more versatile to me.
windows mobile
no iPhone fanboy here, whilst I think the iphone has some levely features, it's missing a load more (like not needing fecking itunes for a start!)
but: windows mobile, sorry.. been down that road too many times before, with the promise of improvements with each new iteration of the WM sputum.
why oh why oh why do companies go to all this trouble to produce something with such potential only to stick the pile of shíte operating system on it.
FFS accept it, WM is and always will be utter utter shíte, move on now and use something else.
Posted in Red Dwarf finally returns to Earth
she's not mentioned
As Chloe Arnett isn't mentioned, I'm hoping against hope that she won't be returning for the special!
Fingers crossed!
finally I'm above average
at last I'm above average in something!
My regular speed is around 6800kbps, dropping to about 4600 on a bad day and up to 7200 occasionally..
Still for the privelage of my 50Gb monthly cap I do pay £40 a month!
Posted in 2008's top three MP3 players
ipod isn't a great mp3 player
BEing an iPod touch owner, I think the Mp3/music playing ability is the weakest feature of the touch. No playlist editing, no music management whatsoever (don't get me started on the lameness of the on-the-go playlist) - no ability to add or configure the equaliser, no podcast shownotes, it doesn't even let you display the full title of a track if it's longer than the screen width.
Don't get me wrong, its' a lovely lovely device for many things and I use it constantly, but I'm always disappointed by the lack of music related features.
don't charge to improve sound
This is something I simply cannot undrestand, the ipod being arguably top of the line in terms of portable audio players (at least in terms of market share and public perception), but playing and charging are virtually impossible as the interference for the charging is attrocious.
The ipod has gone through what, 6/7 updates and it's still a huge problem.
Well done lg for giving that as an option I say!
better than vista... wow how hard can that be?
As someone who bought a laptop with Vista over a year ago, I I hate it with such a passion - it's such a fecking struggle to use.
File copying is a joke.. startup times a joke... UAC - gah turned that off immediately.
Sidebar.. you're kidding, alkl that memory for...?
I've had to reinstall it twice in 12 months... both times after Windowsupdate! -
Windows 7 has to be better than this... and I'm sure it will be, if my next laptop is a quad core machine with 8Gb of ram and 2 graphics card.
My next pc will run OSX, I'm done with windows!
price
it's certainly moving towards the price of a macbook!
But will it run osx I wonder?
osx
question is:
which one is better for installing osx on?
awful
"A 40 mile round trip on a single charge."
+6-8 charge time
+ top speed of.... 40mph (wow)
this is pretty rubbish.. Basically it's a city car yes?
if you live less than 20 miles from work and want a green solution - GET THE BUS.
If you want a green solution that's faster than this, buy a bicycle!
The ONLY people I can see this being useful for would be city delivery drivers, but being a car and not a van, it's not suitable for that purpose either.
looks to me like it has EPIC FAIL written all over it!
fair use
you didn't say what the "fair use" is in this "unlimited" package.
Currently their "unlimited" plan is for 3gb per month.
So basically I can pay my £45 for the dongle, then my £20 per month just to have the pleasure of not being able to use as my main broadband because it's "unlimited" to 3gb.
Alternatively, just find a wifi hotspot or a library!
Posted in Amazon Kindle set to go massive
shame about both the price and drm
"hey friend, I'm reading this great book right now.. you'd love it"
"Oh yeah"
"absolutely... hey I'll lend you my copy when I'm done with it"
"but surely this is stealing as I haven't got a license to read the book in my house"
Kindle/Sony: too pricey. cost of ownership too high (especially with kindle)
Does little better than real book (some things less well)
Needs power!
Even with great leaps in resolution - eye strain a plenty!
eBooks are way way way too expensive
DRM is just plain terrible.
Posted in Nokia E71 smartphone
symbian!
I have a nokia n95 and I love it.. its' loaded with all sorts of stuff, gps tracking, sports tracking, games, word docs, pdfs music, videos etc (thanks to my 8gb sd card) - it's a lovely lovely phone/camera/video thingy... but my god, symbian s60 is so damn slow and unstable (using latest firmware btw).
the lack of stability and speed really really let it down badly. So i'm sure the same will be true of this phone also
no jailbreak yet
also, if you want to jailbreak your iphone or ipod touch you'll have to wait a bit.
personally I'm not upgrading itunes nor my touch for as long as I possibly can. ITunes sucks enough and don't see any reason to pay even more money to apply just so I can download the odd application.
HD
since when was 720p HD?
I've got a DVD player that outputs 720p but pretty sure that's not classed as HD.
IIRC, HD is 1080i or 1080p... or am I wrong?
Linux != Modern OS
Martin Owens: Calling Linux a "Modern OS" is a bit like calling COBOL a "modern programming language". UNIX/Linux etc has been around for years.
The closest thing to a "modern oS" was BEos and that's 10+ years old now!
one of the many Ooo problem
no way to patch or easily update Openoffice. it's just criminal that a each minor software revision involved downloading and reinstalling the whole suite.
Just crazy that a patch update can't just be that... a patch!
I hate openoffice!
Posted in Nokia shows an Orange face to the world
how the mighty fall
I remember orange when they were brilliant - admittedly that was a long time ago now.
sadly now they cripple their phones or at the very least graffiti them with junk. Their customer service is just appauling and they ain't cheap either!
My wife is still with them after signing her life away on an 18 month contract. As a "loyalty" they too are offering her a 10% discount per month when she renews for another 18 months... Not likely!
If I was running a business orange is probably the last company in the world I'd ever use - they're just awful.
Posted in Russell T Davies bows out of Doctor Who
glad it's not just me then
loved the idea of a new doctor who.
Loved the high(er) production values, and there have been some really good moments, but overall it's a just a bit... oh, I dunno.. piss poor..
lets not forget the little pilsbury doughboys from the start of season 3
nor the arrival of Catherine Bloody Tate.
Nor the piss poor storylines that have marred every single episode this season (so far)
I never really understand why Britain can't do good Sci-Fi... it doesn't have to the "mickey mouse" genre that we seem to make it.
I for one welcome our new Time Travelling overload, he can't be worse than the current one surely!
Posted in Skype comes to mobile (almost)
not just me then
having used skype and got rather narked that they "removed" my credit because I didn't use it in time - but when I did use it the latency was just appauling, reminiscent of calling australia back in the 1980s. Like old fashioned "satellite delay".
Call quality wasn't as significantly less than I remember it was back in the 1980s also.
Might be more expensive, but I'll stick to real landlines, or another voip operator (for me it's gizmo or wengophone). as their lag isn't nearly as bad!
Posted in Windows Vista update 'kills' USB devices
me too
mouse works in one usb port, but won't work in any of the 4!
The more I use this god'awful pile of junk the more determined I am to make this my last windows machine.. I'd love to go to linux, but that is just a dogs dinner or a system. Vista is just absolute toss.
Next machine will be OSX compatabile, and if I can afford it, might even be an Apple Mac.
Posted in Nokia admits DVB-H still not taking off
gimmick
is it just me... I really don't see the need, nor point of TV on my mobile... I have to be sitting down for long enough to watch a whole program (i.e. 30 mins) - err... when I'm doing that I'm at home... in front of the TV already!!!!
all these technologies are great and all, but no one really stopped to think "do people really want it?"
DVB-H = Phail!!!!
Posted in OpenOffice update released
sad
I'm applaud the effort for OOo and heck it is free. But Free != good.
every little update requires a complete new download - 115mb each time is terrible for minor updates, couldn't they have a more easily patchable system?
For that matter, when will I be able to download JUST writer - I will never use the other components, so why must I download everything!
Still looks as ugly as sin. I remember Wordperfect 7 looking better than this, and that was, what 10+years ago.
I WANT so much for this to be a great application and for me to like it, but it's slow, clunky NOT M$ office compatible for real world use in many offices.
Handles multiple languages (in the same document) suprisingly poorly- although finally it can spell check in more than one language!
Sadly, despite their best efforts I still think it's a bit naff!
linux... over BSD?
Why go Linux... with all it's crappy code validation and NOT for validated and pretty secure code from.... know which one is it.. it's a BSD, I know that much... is is OpenBSD that is the really secure one?
the myth that they must charge for updates
clearly this isn't true.
Creative give firmware updates for Free and they're american
Microsoft give updates for free and their american (service packs anyone!) - and their updates include new software and functionality
I can get bios and graphics card firmware updates for free.
Note: previous Ipods had free firmware updates that added new functionality!
I've just paid nearly £300 my ipod touch, and now they want me to buy a service pack (effectively)
This was my first venture into Apple and so far it's my last. A great product that is hampered by a greedy corporation.
I was reluctant to jailbreak it, but this charge has changed my mind also. a Very very poor decision on Apple's front.
apps not showing
Lots of people are complaining that their apps dont' appear after update. This is most likely because you're manually syncing your music. Apparently you must auto-sync your music (and lose whatever is on your ipod) to get the updated software.
