Posts by Justin Clements
271 posts • joined Wednesday 13th February 2008 18:19 GMT
Re: Balmer is safe because...
>Much as I dislike Ballmer and all the cock-ups he has presided over, simple fact is that MS revenues and share price are on the up.
In 1996, I'm sure Kodak and Blockbusters were having pretty good years as well. It's not about where Microsoft is today that is worrying people, it's where Microsoft will be next year that has people concerned.
Posted in Move space junk with laser shots
Don't get it.
Why not just de-orbit space junk and be done with it?
Losing Sleep?
To be honest, I wouldn't lose sleep over accidentally running a DDoS on Spamhaus. Everyone in the industry has been frustrated by them at some point in the past, and frankly, they are pretty much getting what they deserved.
There are plenty of other organisations who provide the same service but with less attitude.
Can't say I'm surprised.
Fuck em. With any luck they'll be getting some massive bandwidth bills as well. These guys used to be the bane of the life of an administrator at ISPs years ago.
Article is spot on
Sorry guys, but the article is spot on. Linux Desktop is a bit of a dog (regardless of UI), and Windows Tablet failed for 10 years before MS re-imagined a tablet - with a desktop UI again, and the most ludicrous thing is that MS in their enormous wisdom market the Surface as a tablet with a keyboard!!
A pure Linux distro tablet will get no further than where the desktop versions have got, which is practically no where.
One Year At Most
I reckon they'll do this for one year at the most. Very simply, they will confuse customers as to what the device is (it's not an Apple iPhone) and they'll have massive numbers of returns. Worse still, retailers will be put off selling an iPhone that isn't because they'll be getting them back and sorting out this mess.
100?
100 developers get free kit? Why bother?
If they want to get serious with the developers, then they need to put aside 20-30k units, and ship them to the developers who did anything for the previous BB platform.
Drugs are bad
Is she on drugs?
>"My view is we have to ultimately offer a smartphone, because in many countries of the world, that is your first computing device," Whitman said. "There will be countries in the world where people will never own a tablet or a PC or a desktop. They will do everything on a smartphone."
This is the same woman that bought Skype so that Ebay buyers and sellers could talk to each other!!! For what? The whole point of ecommerce is that you didn't need or want to talk to a shop keeper.
But take her comments - would someone like to tell her that the world is full of PCs and some are pretty cheap - cheaper than smartphones - and what about all the s/h PCs across the planet??? And what's a smart phone - £300+?
Re: Will a leopard change its shorts?
Nominet was never set up to represent the domain holder, it was set up to represent the interests of the members, eg the ISP community.
However, rest assured that Nominet has done it's best to marginalise it's members ever since it's inception and will continue to do so until it succeeds.
Who writes this crap???
>>Apple, which was somewhat blasé about iOS security early on, releasing the iPhone with serious security design flaws
One one hand the article complains that no hackers target OSX because it's a small minority and on the other hand claims that the security for iOS is 'blasé' yet there aren't millions of drone iOS installs out there when Apple has hundreds of millions of iOS installs!
So make your mind up, Apple are either very bad about security, or very good. Which one is it?
weird
12" keyboard and a 4" screen. Sounds comfortable.....
Re: So...
Beats the hell out of me what the point of RT is then. I thought the whole point was to remove the threat of the iPad in businesses.
And why are businesses going to buy the full fat version, when they never bought Windows Tablet either?
Good idea?
Again, it has to be repeated - what part of Russia and China sponsoring such a change makes anyone remotely think this is a good idea? If there are screaming alarms bell, it's Russia and China asking for a change in how the internet is run!
Seriously?
>>3 support calls?
Seriously? 3? A whole THREE support calls. Gees. Not three hundred, or a three thousand, but three?
Hmmm
/yoda hmmm...the bullshit is strong in this one
Google just don't get it.
Google, meet the EC (again), EC, meet Google (again). I believe you're all familiar with each other already? Funny that.
Ermmm....
If Google are unable to see that they are being anti-competitive (as per Schmidt's response) in the eyes of the EU (and just about everyone else), then how they are coming up with a "proposal" makes next to no sense.
You cannot propose to remedy a situation if you are unable to see the situation in the first place.
Posted in New Samsung chief: I want SOFTWARE
Re: Getting Tomatoes off Eyes Could Help
Good on ya Handle!
So AC, what interesting presentations have you made to the likes of Apple and Samsung recently? Any? Ever? Of course not, because you're a dull little keyboard warrior with a job in security, night security at a mall probably.
Cough....
....Apple Newton.....predates all of this crap.
FFS
Oh do fuck off with the Foxconn rebrander nonsense.
Re: Question ..
Nothing. Plus the scam software will ask for a pin and a signature. Might as well just hand £20 notes to people.
You're finally understanding business
Business is about profits for it's shareholders. Shareholders hold the risk and expect profits.
Stylus?
Does anyone really want a stylus apart from a very small minority?
Here is the problem with a stylus:
1. You lose them. Regularly. Make whichever Ebay seller you buy the replacement from "favourite" status as you'll be using them a lot.
2. If you don't hold pens for long periods these days, try holding one for the next 2 hours. If your hand isn't in absolute agony, then you're a better man than I. I had Windows Tablet years ago, and the stylus was one reason it was just so plain horrible. Once you leave school, you simply don't use pens or pencils for much in the grand scheme of things.
3. Where are the millions of users crying out for a stylus? They all seem quite happy to use their finger after all.
So....
Apple should just bend over and take it in the arse because you see them as sissy cowards?
If Apple have a case, then they will win court cases. If not, they'll lose. But they are doing what everyone has the right to do which is having their day in court and making a case.
Not at all
If it is a matching programme (like I've seen at Sun), the employee merely raises money for chairty (or gives money to charity), that their employer then matches pound for pound, dollar for dollar.
A few years ago, one of our fundraising teams (we run events) raised £14,000 for charity, and iirc Sun Microsystems were putting up another £14k as per their charity programme.
The Obvious Reason
The blatantly obvious reason developers are looking to Android in the next year, rather than iOS is because they've already developed their iOS offerings. They are simply developing for the next major platform, which is only sensible.
No case?
Seriously, people are worried about no case?
I'm using a spare hole in the pcb and nailing it to a shelf.
Who?
So who exactly decided this was a counterfeit? The buyer? Paypal?
Dayam, these Paypal people are good if they can spot a counterfeit violin from an email.
Logical?
It's not logical, loon.
You are either late or on time, not "nearly late". And no, the company doesn't have a right to want a bit of a late fee for being nearly late. Get real.
More people than you think
The timing of todays news item is brilliant. Watched a documentary of the Rovers last night and it was absolutely fascinating. I think my wife actually got bored of me pausing it every few minutes to tell the story before they did!
Probably didn't help that we also MST3000'd the documentary, but hey.
Brilliant stuff. Pity the documentary only had the first 3.5 years of the Rovers lives though. Thought it ended a but early.
Beginning of the end
Said this from the start, endured many red thumbs down, and I'll say it again, G+ will eventually fail.
Facebook has the critical mass of users which G+ will never get. G+ is not worthwhile whilst the majority of your established friends are still using Facebook, and simply promoting yourself as "We're not Facebook" simply isn't good enough for people to make the switch.
Meh
This is what happens when legislation hasn't caught up with protecting legitimate companies.
It shouldn't take a company like Chanel to be in a court proving that it's the victim of people using it's name or using channels that it has not approved.
Question is when will we realise that the internet is not the wild west, where people can arbitrarily trample over other peoples and companies rights?
Bit of history being rewritten
1. Apple didn't like Flash because it ran like a piece of crap on the Mac.
2. Adobe failed to address Flash performance on the Mac over several years so Apple rightly were cautious about the iPhone.
3. Apple are totally correct when they talk about phones having limited power and limited battery. Do we forget the old days when a Nokia 6300 could do 10 days+ on standby? The fact that Symbian was designed to be low power (low memory and low cpu overhead), or the fact that the iPhone only lasted a day because Apple underestimated how much people would play with their phones?
And on the back of that, Adobe couldn't be trusted to develop a low power version of Flash.
What killed Flash was iOS and Adobe's intransigent. No iOS, no future.
However, what I never understand is why people got so upset in the Apple vs Flash thing, calling Flash the open standard when it was a £700 package you had to buy if you were going to develop on it. It wasn't an open standard in the slightest and had nothing to do with the internet, which is largely based on open standards.
BTW, how is Adobe doing with a long overdue rewrite of Photoshop or whatever they call it these days. A hugely expensive product that has been neglected for 10 years as they dodge the development budget for OSX.
Posted in Amazon Kindle Fire
One thing overlooked
>>It's hard to resist the impulse to snap up a tablet for only $199 (£128), and Amazon knows it.
Totally agree with that statement - who could refuse $200 for a small tablet?
However, what has made the iPad the huge seller is it's stickiness. We still use our 4-5 hours a day and we got ours the day it was launched. And we're not alone.
But if the Fire isn't sticky in the same way, eg people using it, then it's loss leader thing will become a huge millstone around Amazon's neck. And Amazon's financials aren't exactly a thing of beauty either.
Apple have also stated that iTunes and App Store are not core to it's business. They are the value added bit that sells hardware, whereas Amazon is betting the bank on people using the Fire to make "MORE" purchases than they would. Here is the key word (I capitalised it) - MORE.
Amazons business plan fails miserably if the Fire cannot generate more sales than the standalone Kindle does. A user could simply buy the $79 Kindle and buy the same ebooks that they get with the Fire. A user could simply buy an iPad and download Kindle. Both of these scenarios make more money for Amazon than a purchase of the Kindle will.
All in all, it's a very murky business plan that has no obvious "win" surrounding it.
Very odd
I find it very odd that no one has mentioned (or even remembered) how Apple views iTunes and the App Store.
If you read all the industry reports and earning calls, Apple sells hardware. The App Store and iTunes merely reinforce the ecosystem (hate using that term) that drive a future sale. They've even said that the ecosystem is pocket change to the wider business of selling kit.
But then we have Amazon, who are making a loss leading Fire who will be driving their full ecosystem (shoot me) to make up the sales to cover the loss they are making on the hardware.
If Apple are failing to make serious amounts from the ecosystem (bleh), then why should Amazon succeed?
And why should Amazon succeed on a product that is a cheap and nasty like the Fire, when they have the perfectly acceptable Kindles which have been good sellers in the past, that do have a large following (remember the hullaballo about iPad screens and reading in the daylight??), and the fact Kindles (non Fire) probably do make money?
Posted in Punctured Google+ leaks bored users
Ermm....
You don't really understand the concept of social media, do you? It involves others.
HTH.
What's the point?
At best, these orders represent $600m in orders, with an outside best of $60m in profits for the companies concerned, and probably an awful lot less that that. There is precious little money in these boxes - so who is concerned (or not) that they get a slice of it?
$340k you say?
so......that makes my Twitter account worth £15 then....
Hmm
Guess Google won't mind me starting a search engine that values a link and site from how many other sites link to it.
I'll call it PageWank.
And if anyone complains, I'm going to bitch that the system is broken and it's violating my right to innovate (using other people's ideas).
Good grief:
>>“For a small number of publishers with this error, the October ‘Payment issued’ line item is also not displaying. Publishers with this problem will be paid as usual and according to the normal schedule,” said the company in a posting on the Google support forums.
So, despite them screwing up badly, they won't bother doing anything outside their normal terms, meh we missed this month, we'll pay you double next month.
Try that with your mortgage company or your credit card company without getting extra fees!
Such a simple article
Why is it that the anti-Apple commentators want to turn this into something it's not?
Better documented elsewhere; Samsung have refused to do a deal with Apple on certain FRAND patents, and then used it as a counter suit against Apple. Samsung were given the green light to add their patents to 3G by the EU as long as it was done under FRAND to ensure that there was a level playing field and fair competition.
Samsung have started using those patents in the IP war, which is specifically against the deal they agreed with the EU in the first place to have them implemented.
Not forgetting
That Ebay fucked over all their sellers, screw them on a regular basis for yet more charges, fuck over the 3rd party companies who were using the public APIs to provide services to sellers, ended up changing feedback so buyers could extort virtually anything they want from a seller.
Maybe he should look at the sheer number of sellers that no longer use Ebay (and big 10k+ feedback sellers) to get an idea of how e-commerce is doing.
Posted in China fires up homegrown petaflops super
right....
So a country in the slow lane for the last 100 years, puts together a questionable machine, with a questionable processor, with statistics that no doubt no one can corroborate, with an unknown switching later, that uses a fraction of the power that companies in the west have been constantly developing for the last 30 years.....
Right....
Strange
Considering that it's widely known that Apple are the predominant supplier of PCs and laptop over $1k in price, it's a bit odd to find the bargain basement players like Acer thinking that they are suddenly going to run away in this particular market segment.
Optimistic is another word.
Posted in Google+ opens up to enterprises and apps
Minority
You are a very small minority.
Many of my friends tried G+ and couldn't be bothered with it after a few days. It just doesn't have their friends on it, and their friends are still active on Facebook. So if they want to chat to friends, they have to use Facebook.
If your group of friends are all on G+ then more power to you, but I fear you are in a small minority.
Missing the bigger picture
The real question is whether Samsung retain loyalty in phone users.
Apple are showing a close to 90% retention plus huge numbers of people wanting an iPhone next, but the real question is whether Samsung can follow that. Android retention (as apposed to Samsung) is a lot lot lower.
If they can't keep customers, they'll just be another Nokia or RIM.
Posted in Google+ opens up to enterprises and apps
Why bother?
What is the point of G+ if no one is using it? We already have to keep up Twitter and Facebook and heaven knows what else, now we have to run a G+ profile as well? We don't have all day to keep on top of every social media gadget.
ahem
Apple Newton - started development in late 80s, and MessagePad was 92 or 93.
HTC - 1997.
Long since started
Google are well aware that they are a one trick pony. They have plenty of great ideas, but none that gain much traction. Rather than innovate they seem to emulate.
It's getting very hard to take Google seriously these days.
