* Posts by Greg

648 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Apr 2007

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Microsoft's smiley browser face turns sour

Greg

Microsoft should have some balls

The only way to fix the IE mess is to finally make a version that's standards compliant, make it available on all Windows/Mac platforms, and then leave it at that. Older sites break? Tough - recode them. Older browsers then don't support them? That's what you get for using IE - either upgrade to 8 or get FF/Opera.

It will be a ball-ache for some, but far less of a ball-ache for others, and it will solve the problem for good. We're all sick of MS wasting our time when building sites, so why not have one final bash at it, and then it'll all be over, permanently.

DRM in latest QuickTime cripples Adobe video editing code

Greg

Good old DRM

I don't care if it's your movie, made by you on your workstation using your own software. You're obviously a filthy pirate scumbag and I'm not letting you play it!

Sony signs on for made-to-order DVD service

Greg

I like the sound of this..

Get other companies to sign up to it, and we might actually get Reboot released!

Apple's iPhone numbers do not add up

Greg

@Dana

Have you even read any of the articles around here that slag off Vista, Microsoft and anything associated with the two? El Reg are equally cynical about everything, not just your Lord and Master, Mr Jobs.

This is a completely factual story. Would you like to show how it's biased?

Ruddy fanboys (girls?).

Greg

Hold up

"However, at the company's most recent analysts conference, Apple executives re-iterated that they expect to sell 10m iPhones by the handset's first birthday, in June."

Hang on a second. Their possibly dodgy numbers aside:

3.7m sold so far (according to them).

2m on order for the first quarter, assuming this order hasn't been cut.

1.2m for the second quarter leading up to June.

3.7 + 2 + 1.2 = 6.9m.

Am I missing something? I'm just a programmer, so business processes aren't my thing. If anyone can explain where the rest of that 10 million is going to come from, I'd love to know.

If Apple end up bolstering these statistics by filling a landfill, I'll be irritated.

New Bond film title voted a 'Licence to Thrill!'

Greg

Why is this such huge news?

I can't understand why this is such a big deal? They unveil the title - the title, for sod's sake! - and it gets headline national news, they run polls on what people think of it, etc, etc. Geez.

The Bond films are rubbish anyway. How about simply labelling it "More Garbage"?

New Bond movie is Quantum of Solace

Greg

Daft title

That's even more stupid a title than Attack of the Clones.

MPAA admits movie piracy study is 29% full of @$#%

Greg

If this was used to support legislation...

...should that legislation be withdrawn or put on hold until it can be re-appraised?

Designs for SpaceShipTwo displayed in New York

Greg

Training

What I want to know is, who gets to fly them, how are they chosen, and how are they trained? I would be genuinely interested to see a documentary on that.

Mozilla security chief confirms data leakage bug in Firefox

Greg

At least with Firefox...

...you know that patch will be here sooner rather than later. :-)

Apple's record Q1 no match for pessimism over economy

Greg

@Deep Tank

I'd be careful making statements like that. Historically, some now dominant Microsoft products were scoffed at for being tiny. IE vs Netscape being a good example, though the promotion of IE was rather aggressive.

O2 misses iPhone targets

Greg

@Henry Jenkins

You've had FIVE iPods? In 7 years (or 6, seen as you don't buy first gen)?? Why? Did the first four die, or have you just been replacing one inadequate product with another for the past 6 years?

I've had one DAP. I've only ever bought one DAP, had it 3 or 4 years, and I still use it heavily, daily. Never even needed to replace the battery. I'll restrain myself from fanboyism - *cough* iAudio *cough* - but you might want to rethink your choice next time if you're already on number 5.

Apple MacBook Air

Greg

What the hell?

Was he being sold that, or was he reviewing (previewing) it?

"Oooh, it's thin. It's thin. It's so thin. Wow, incredible, woo. Thin!"

Are you sure he wasn't one of the people whooping and touching God in the crowd at Job's speech?

"£1200? Wow, that's impressive."

Impressive? It's extortionate!

Sparks fly over electric shock dealing Dell laptop

Greg

Re: It ain't the voltage...

80mA??? Seriously?? I should be dead! The number of times I've been electrocuted, and the ways I've done it, I should be kaputski! 6 feet under, pushing up the daisies, joining the choir invisible.

An ex-nerd!

Motor titans crowd aboard 'green' bandwagon

Greg

@Paul Cooper

I dunno about the MPG thing mate. In a recent experiment of my own, over the course of a week driving in and out of the city in my 1.0L Lupo, I actually hit the 65mpg VW reckon it's capable of. I've started driving everywhere like that and I'm getting on average 45-50mpg, again mainly on city runs.

It was the MacBook Air sub-notebook

Greg

Re: Battery

"Or do as any sensible person would do and simply buy a new battery and get it fitted for free by Apple:"

I wouldn't class anyone buying one of those as a sensible person. ;-)

</obvious>

Seriously though, how many iPod owners bought new batteries when theirs blew up/expired, and how many just went and bought the new iPod?

And only having batteries available from Mac means they can rip you off to their heart's content.

Greg

Re: Can't anyone read?

"Greg said "wireless-N. Nice. So it's non-standard wireless". Wireless N is neither non-standard nor proprietary."

It's not been standardised yet. I'd say that was fairly non-standard. Which makes it....proprietary. Hmm? No?

There are still inconsistencies and incompatibilities in .11n hardware, which is why I wish people would wait for the ruddy standard. Nothing wrong with G for me.

Greg
Jobs Horns

The stupidest laptop I've ever seen

There's a better vid here, sports fans:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ULy1SPNAKu4

At 0.4cm thick at the thin end, what's to stop you snapping it in two? He went on about it being durable, but he opened it with his fingertips. And if it's only that thick, it can't have any cooling.

And what the hell is this:

"It's optimised for the wireless world in a way that only Apple can do."

Errrr...what magical way do they have that the rest of us don't?

Oh, wait, it's wireless-N. Nice. So it's non-standard wireless and partly proprietary, most probably. That'll be the bit that only Apple can do.

Also from the vid:

"Re: Screen - Whether you're delivering a keynote or watching a movie, everything is blah blah blah..."

Watching a movie? On what? It's got no optical drive! OK, I could rip some to the HDD, but only a few, seen as the HDD's so damned small. So that's useless too. I notice that every solution he has for it not having an optical drive involves buying another Mac product. Yes, why use your existing DVD library when you can rent ours? Why install stuff when you can use your other Mac to install stuff (which you can only do by....installing stuff)? Backup? We've got another Mac product for you! Or perhaps you'd like to add to the already OTT £1200 price tag to buy the external drive? I am reminded of this:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/08/20

As for ports - one USB port (for the optical drive it's missing) and a proprietary monitor port so you'll end up paying a fortune for adaptors that you then have to carry with the system. Nice.

And if I'm not much mistaken, that's a sealed-in, non-replaceable battery. So in a few years, it's dead and there's nothing you can do. Except buy the new Mac, of course.

That's got to be the stupidest laptop I've seen in ages. So I'm sure Apple will sell millions of them to their fanbase. All they have to do, it seems, is wear a black top and say "wireless" a lot.

I do like the trackpad gestures, though. Very nice, those.

EMC does flash drives on big storage

Greg

30x IO at 30x price...

...and FC drives are about, what, £200 for a good quality high-capacity one?

x30...

£6 000! Jesus H Christ!

US Marines: Osprey tiltrotor doing OK in Iraq

Greg

Re: ...Or The Major

Thank Christ someone got the reference! I was beginning to worry for a minute.

Greg

They should talk to Aramaki

His always work.

</total_nerd>

Academics slam Java

Greg

Bollocks

Prepare for some fanboyism...

What a load of utter crap. What they're saying is, programmers aren't as hardcore and uber-nerdy about piddly little details as they used to be, and these old-timers don't like it.

So what they're really saying is, someone's made a decent language where you don't HAVE to care about that shite, and that's a bad thing. Well, sorry lads, some of us got bored of having to worry about constant pointer issues and memory leaks.

I've used many many languages over the years, starting with BASIC and Pascal, moving on through web languages like PHP to C++ and finally to Java (via a gazillion others). And of them all, Java is the one that impresses me the most. Contrary to the opinions of these morons, it's flexible beyond belief. Want an app for a mobile phone? Perhaps your wristwatch? A website? Or maybe you'd like to code up a scalable enterprise banking system instead?

Sure, you don't get down to the really hardcore stuff as much, but that's kind of the point of Java - why the hell would you want to when someone's written a perfectly good library already? With the wonders of proper OO, you can just drop in a free-licence library and save yourself a ton of time and effort. How can that not be brilliant?

And how can using a very well structured, strongly typed, flexible language undermine good practice? If you don't follow good practice in Java, your program's likely to be crap. Or not even compile, for that matter.

I'm sorry, but their remarks are nonsense. Especially the one about "not knowing how to build programs without a graphical interface." That one made me laugh. On my University course they taught us how to code servlets and the like before they taught us how to code with Swing.

Truth is, take any student that has sat a "programming course," having never done programming before or outside the course, and they will still know sod all about programming in most languages when they come out. There's only so much you can teach, and there's such a vast amount to learn. Of course they don't know everything - that comes with experience. And obviously the course tutors are going to settle on a language that a) they like, and b) will be useful to the students in the future. And that's Java. (No matter how a certain over-enthusiastic lecturer at Leeds Uni wishes it was Python. Don't worry, we're getting him treatment.)

I wouldn't mind them teaching C++. Really, I wouldn't. It's not a crap language. It's just that...well...Java's better. By miles.

Right, rant over. Back to fiddling with PHP 4 and wishing it was PHP 5.

Microsoft backpedals on Blu-ray for Xbox 360 comments

Greg

@Chris

Not being sarky, but you seem happy to quote the triple-layer HD DVDs, which won't work on a lot of players, in order to make them 1Gb bigger than Blu-Ray, but you didn't mention the upcoming 100GB Blu-Ray discs, and you're wrong on speeds - Blu-Ray's read speed is quite significantly faster than HD-DVDs.

You also pointed out that Sony started giving away Blu-Ray movies. Have Toshiba not recently panicked and started giving away 5-10 free discs with every player, or was that my imagination?

You are, however, entirely right that the HD DVD drives are cheaper to produce. I'd still rather have Blu-Ray.

Microsoft takes a shine to Logitech?

Greg

NOOOOOOOOO

Logitech peripherals are brilliant and well priced. Microsoft peripherals, in my experience, are the opposite. Don't like this at all.

I wonder how long it would be before they tried to make a DRM-protected version of the LCD software on the G15...

Google turns Irish town 3D

Greg

In defence of the West Riding

Now just hold on a ticker there, old son. There are some lovely looking places in Kirklees. It's true that the centres of Leeds and Bradford are not among them, but go a few miles outside the cities and there's some lovely places around and about. :-p

Oooh, hark at him, getting his back up about God's Own County. Let's play Spot the Yorkshireman. ;-)

Greg

Better get this in first...

Before any smart-arses make smug comments about Leeds not being part of the West Riding/Kirklees, I invite them to rearrange these words into a well known phrase:

Off

Sod

Greg

Sounds pretty cool

I noticed you could do that on Google Earth last year. Was thinking of doing a few bits around here for a laugh, but was advised, weirdly enough, that if I did it I'd get sued, as only the council were allowed to. Apparently all your vision are belong to Kirklees.

Parents to get classroom spynet in 2010

Greg

Waste of teachers' time?

On a schoolday, teachers already have no time on their hands. Now the government wants them up update a blog on their kid's behaviour in class? Not only is that going to be a huge waste of a teacher's time (and I'd love to see PE teachers try and do it, seen as that's the class where the worst behaviour generally is), but it's going to mean Bad Things for the kids too.

Because it's such a huge waste of the teacher's time, they'll only ever use it to threaten the children, and the only stuff that will ever go on there will be bad, never good. Which will be great for the kids - every time you so much as fart in class you get an earful when you get home. Got a teacher that doesn't like you? Enjoy! Add that to the twenty thousand exams you're expected to sit during high school, and you'll have some really happy kids. I thought we were supposed to be encouraging them to stay?

I'm sure I'll get called a bleeding heart for caring about the stress levels of kids, but I was massively pressured at school, college and Uni, as were friends of mine, and its had a detrimental effect. The last thing kids need is this useless shit-stirring nonsense.

Sysadmin jailed for 30 months over failed logic bomb

Greg

Compensation?

If it didn't go off, what the hell's he paying $81k in compensation for?

And if he can't even code file-deleting malware properly, he should have lost his job ages ago for just being crap.

Apple cuts UK iTunes prices

Greg

Re: Everyone who caught out my maths

Damn, that's what I get for reading El Reg on a 5 inch screen while trying to eat a burger.

Greg

Re: Not much of a saving

Check your maths, mate. 99p down to 74p is a 25% saving!

Not that I use iTunes to care. ;-) CDs and a high quality rip is still the way for me, and I'm an uber-nerd on most things.

Paramount puts down HD DVD dump rumour

Greg

Silly Buggers

They *should* move to Blu-Ray. Sticking with HD-DVD is only going to lose them money, prolong the format war and piss off fans of their shows/films.

'Fat PSP' owners won't get Skype

Greg

Re: @Mark

So a console should be released and never changed, updated or improved. Uh....huh. Off the top of my head...

Mega Drive II.

Mega CD

32x

Generation NEX

Saturn Mk II

N64 Expansion Pak

PS One

PS2 Slim

PS2 Hard Drive

X-box 360 Premium/Elite/Super Elite/Hyper-Pointless Elite/Halo Elite

DS Lite

PSP Slim

The impending Wii Mk II and possible (though now unlikely) X-box 360 Ultimate

...are all console improvements, many of which have an impact on capability. Not to mention the countless firmware upgrades/hardware revisions, some of which are required to play new games on the newer consoles.

So console gamers aren't used to upgraded console versions, eh? Yeah, right. I *am* a console gamer, as well as a PC gamer, and you're talking nonsense.

If I'm to be honest, I'd rather spend £700 on upgrading my PC back to God-like status every few years than spend the same amount of money buying new consoles to play the games I want to play, but hey, what can you do?

Greg

Oooh, look, more ill-informed bashing

"Screwing the early adopters?" Oh, come on! The PSP's been out for over TWO YEARS. That's hardly knocking "early adopters." Get some perspective. Companies have been doing this since the beginning of time. MS anyone? Or perhaps the mobile phone companies that pull similar tricks on a daily basis? If the old PSP can handle Skype then yeah, they should release it, but they probably won't, and neither would anyone else.

I only got my PSP last year, and yeah I'm kicking myself slightly now there's a newer, better one out, but if I want the new one I'll trade in on it, and if I don't I'll stick with this one. I'll probably get the new one so I can have video out and play Chains of Olympus on my TV, but that's my choice. Don't want the new model? Don't get it.

I wonder how many of these people were having a similar rant when Nintendo bought out the DS Lite - only ONE YEAR after the DS. Oh, wait, Nintendo are the friendly cuddly company that would never relaunch a product for increased profit.

Note for the inevitable "Sony r evil" retorts - I'm no fanboy. I have a limited edition DS Lite sat next to my PSP, and I have consoles from all the major players.

Warner Bros gives all its hi-def loving to Blu-ray

Greg

Re: It has a cooler name

Interestingly enough, right at the beginning of this format war, a mate and I reckoned that HD-DVD would win the format war because people knew what the hell it was. Joe Public knows what HD is because everyone's ranting about it, and he knows what DVD is because he's got hundreds of the buggers, so putting the two together isn't a problem. Blu-Ray? What the chuff is that?

Me, I hope Blu-Ray wins conclusively soon so we can get over this and I can get my fave new films in HD format. I'll have an American PS3 soon, so importing BD discs will suit me right down to the ground. Microsoft are too late to introduce a 360 with an integrated HD DVD player - their external add-on will have to do for now (even though it generally pushes the 360's price above that of the already superior PS3 - nice little retort I use with anti-PS3 gunslingers there).

Small point - note that I said "new films" in that previous paragraph. As far as I can see, the vast majority of my collection would not benefit one iota from HD, or "upscaling." I'd be quite happy to buy new films on BD - might as well get the best quality there is - but I can't see the point of buying Outland again in HD.

Schools minister touts 'one interweb per child' pork barrel

Greg

Hang on...

...isn't Teh Internets an evil place full of nasty padeos and bad identity thieves. Shouldn't Nanny Brown be keeping all the poor innocent kiddywinkles away from the Big Bag Interweb?

SETI@home needs You!

Greg

@M Burns

You might be pleasantly surprised by recent BOINC clients. BOINC's been running happily on my system for a year now without so much as a crash or corrupt file.

Barcode faking for fun and profit

Greg

I used to do this

Where I work, they have access cards with a black magnetic strip on the back. Staff are always losing the sods (I snapped mine in half, which was far more manly), much to the annoyance of the building manager.

Nothing new there, right? Well, one day I had my card on my desk, the sun hit it, and something in the strip caught my eye... They're not magnetic, there's a bloody low-contrast barcode embedded in the strip!

One quick lunchtime experiment with a scanner and some graphics kits, and I was printing my own access cards. Secure, eh?

It's amazing that companies think we can't replicate something that's printed on plain paper in black and white.

Office update disables MS files

Greg

I beg your bloody pardon??

More of Microsoft thinking it knows better than me how I should be using my PC. If I want to open a file, I'll bloody well open a file! Sounds like the "Vista Paradigm" encroaching on XP.

I applaud the turning off of product activation, but blocking file formats they think are bad? Who's betting that OpenOffice formats are on there...

Kid's 'new' MP3 player was preloaded with smut

Greg

What's the big deal with restocking?

I don't get why people on here are having a big whinge about returned items being put back on the shelf. That's not only what I'd expect to happen, but what I'd *want* to happen. If I return something that is near-as-damn-it mint, then they should put it back on the shelf and not chuck it or send it elsewhere. To do so would be a waste. Sure, if it's something like an MP3 player, for Christ's sake make sure it's been wiped first, but other than that, who cares?

Oh noes, someone *used* this completely unscratched, blank, working DAP before I did? I demand a refund!

I don't consider restocking the item a sin - that's just sense. They should have wiped it first though. To do otherwise is plain dumb, and may even leave the company open to legal challenges.

Greg

*Ding Ding*

"Within 10 minutes, my daughter was crying,"

I detect bollocks in the immediate vicinity.

(As did she.)

Microsoft warns on Home Server bug

Greg

@Steven Hewitt

"My reply: If you value ease of use, the ability for end/home users to operate a server and don't want you box to shit itself to a command shell when the resolution is set wrong then use Windows."

Your server has a GUI? What do you need that for? ;-)

Now RIAA says copying your own CDs is illegal

Greg

Ludicrous

There's a point at which the law - rightfully so - fails to give a toss about stuff like this, and the RIAA should do the same. Why do DAPs exist if not to host your own music? They (the RIAA and others) can get stuffed if they think I'm buying hundreds of albums again in crappy MP3 format when I can rip them in Vorbis, FLAC or whatever I like from albums I've already paid for.

No, *technically* you're not allowed to put your CDs on DAPs, just as you weren't allowed to copy CDs to tape for your car, and you're not *technically* allowed to video a lot of stuff off the TV, but people do, have done, and will continue to do so, and in the vast majority of cases such activity is entirely harmless. Hopefully the judge in this case will have enough money and confidence that the RIAA can't bribe or intimidate them senseless, and they'll throw this crap out.

Spirit of the law vs letter of the law, once again.

Virgin Media network collapses nationwide

Greg

Really?

I'm smack in the middle of the "affected areas" and I didn't notice a thing. It just carried on trucking for me.

New Jersey scraps death penalty

Greg

*Polite golf clap*

Nicely done, NJ. Took your time, but at least that's done now. Let's hope other states follow suit.

I have this vision of all the prisoners on death row throwing a party right now.

PS3 sales to surpass Wii's... in four years' time

Greg

Re: Eponymous Cowherd

Wow, I'm impressed you managed to be that condescending in such a short post. Well done, sir.

If you'll look back, my actions were hardly that of a fanboy - I complimented the Wii on its excellent control system. However, when I go and look at Wii games, they all seem like....guff, really - stuff to show off the controls, or remakes of GC games.

I'll concede that the Wii has been doing well in the past year, but I dunno, I just can't shake that feeling. Maybe its that the people I know with Wiis have *all* admitted that they hardly played it after the first month or two, or that few of the games are targetted at traditional gamers.

Yes, I said it again - gamers. Because like it or not, that's a market you can't really ignore with a games console, eh? I love the Wii, but I haven't bought one because I'd rather fight aliens than flip pancakes, and I'd much rather plan a battle than play imaginary bowling (especially when there's a real bowling alley down the road). Aside from perhaps Red Steel and Call of Duty, I can't think what the heck I'd play on one if I bought it.

Greg

Re: Good for us, bad for them

"This will either mean Publishers signing upto a console, or the consoles themselves being a bit more like a DVD player. ie It doesnt matter which you buy, they all play the same film."

Isn't that last one...........a PC?

A PC resurgence? Joy of joys! PC gaming is still far and away superior to console gaming anyway.

Greg

Is the Wii a fad, though?

I've been wondering about this. I can't shake the feeling that the Wii is a fad - something advertised as "this Christmas' must have," much like Furbies, etc. It's already out of date in terms of power, and as great as the control system is, there are still very few games on there that interest me as a gamer. The PS3 will certainly outlive the Wii (and possibly the 360), so if the Wii does turn out to be a fad, and its sales drop off after the initial "woo factor", the PS3 could catch up a hell of a lot quicker...

Just a thought.

Sega denies Dreamcast revival

Greg

Re: for those who *do* seek a sega revival...

You stunner! I've got Rez on the DC and PS2 (and the soundtrack, and the...err...girlfriend-friendly attachment), but on my PC? Hell yeah. That and Alien Hominid HD are (were) the only reasons I was jealous of 360 owners. No longer!

I'm off for a download.

Mother launches attack on epilepsy inducing video games

Greg

I take it she can't read

There's a warning in the front of every game I own about epilepsy seizures. Some even have it onscreen before the game starts, where it's a risk. On TV, if its a possibility they warn you before the programme or news item. If she's too much of a fucking idiot to read the manual when her kid has epilepsy, that's her fault.

If my kid had epilepsy, and something that came with an epilepsy warning caused a seizure, I'd be kicking myself, not the manufacturer.

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