Posts by Shades 911 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Mar 2008
"If you don't put a fast CPU in the thing you might as well just use an Atom or even an ARM."
That's odd. I must be imagining my lowly little Atom based netbook, with the standard intel graphics, playing 720p video (upscaled to 1080p by the netbook, not the TV). It will, at a push, do 1080p video but that has to use the right codec and only with (the ancient Microsoft) MPlayer2.
And I thought Linux users were above the "Solve everything by chucking more power at it" mentality?!
...a study at a uni to come up with this? Back in my younger years at an infamous hardcore/techno club called "Club Kinetic" there was nothing quite like the rush that hearing the start of one of your favourite tracks gave you... waiting for that breakdown for a huge hands in the air moment and then building, building, building until 2000 people went absolutely crazy! Ahh, those were the days. :)
Best of all I was a "straight head" (and known for it, complete strangers would come up to me and say "You're the straight head! I don't know how you do it, you're always up here on the podium") so, for me at least, it WAS the music.
Which makes me think, I'm going to have to go to one last rave before I'm too old and the kids wonder who the hell brought their grandad with them! ;) Anyone know any good old school ('92) hardcore nights?
Like tech authors consistently forget, when reviewing the history of personal computers, the personal computer that brought the modern desktop experience, productivity apps and gaming to the most personal of personal spaces that a personal computer could reside - the home - whilst others were still sitting in offices. What else could I be talking about other than the Amiga. Listen to some tech authors and you'd think the Amiga never even existed.
// Any excuse to shoe-horn a reference to the Amiga into el Reg comments! ;)
...myself nor my dog have, or will, use Chrome any time soon, for the very same reasons why I won't be installing Android on my phone (which I could if I so desired). Come to think of it, that also means that Chrome won't be going anywhere near my girlfriends, mums or grandparents computers, at least not while I'm the family nerd!
// STOP assumptions.
...If I'm wrong but surely the quality of a cable that passes digital data shouldn't make ANY difference to the quality of the audio? Obvously, if data gets lost due to cheapo cables thats a different story, but still that shouldn't make any difference to the perciev ed quality of the audio that comes out of the speakers if it gets there?
Dear Sony,
GT was the reason I bought my first PSX. GT3 was the reason I bought my PS2. Purchasing a PS3 now looks in doubt... Unless you (as Polyphony Digital) can get your act together, and very quickly, for GT6(?)
I Never thought I'd say this but the 360 is looking more and more appealing. Are you listening?
Signed, A loyal customer reconsidering his loyalty.
Why, oh why do you still continue to support the fallacy that iPods are manageable by iTunes and iTunes only? WinAmp, either with its built-in support or the superior ml_ipod plugin, is in many ways far better at managing the contents of iPods as its smaller, faster, not bloated, doesn't demand you install QuickTime, transcodes ANY file WinAmp can play (which is pretty much EVERYTHING!)... I could go on but you get the idea!
C'mon, this is a tech website populated by techies isn't it?
For using "Vice President" rather than the infuriating non-word that is "Veep" that some people round these parts are of fond of using. Anyhoo...
I wonder if it is possible to make a complete mockery of the US patent system by "designing" a (secretly vapourware) product that infringes as many patents as possible and wait for the glorified ambulance chasers to hopefully waste much time and money to A) Pursue something that doesn't really exist and B) realise that they have wasted much time and money? Actually, scratch that, the US patent system is making a mockery of itself enough as it is!
...how does your car stack up against a Bugatti Veyron? Or a Kahn Range Rover? Or a Maybach? Or a Zonda? Or a Rolls Royce? Bentley? Masserati?
Classes exist so you can be the judge of what is best within your price range, otherwise you'd spend your life looking at your car and thinking "while this is a pile of sh*t compared to [any of the above*]"
*Unless you DO have one of the above of course! :)
...MySpace has largely become a portal for discovering new music. In this regard, with their customisable pages, music player and other bits and peices, they are actually far more suited for pushing new music than Facebook. Why they aren't taking advantage of this is a complete and utter mystery. It may not be what they were, or what they wanted to be but surely its better to adapt and play to their strengths than stubbornly pretending they are a relevant "general" social network anymore?
In fact, I've just checked my old MySpace account and the ONLY activity on there IS by musicians/DJs. Its time for MySpace to start exploring their new direction (whether it was chosen by them or not), if they don't its time for their employees to start looking for alternative work!
Its a smartbook, and yet you compare it to a netbook, and not very accurately at that:
"Essentially, a netbook is a device you work through rather than on."
What a complete and utter load of tosh! (No pun intended) I can't remember who it was (someone from IBM perhaps?) who said many people were buying Netbooks (the later Windows versions) as a replacement computer... and this is certainly true for me and many others.
I've said this time and time again. Granted netbooks aren't any good at raw number crunching (so compressing an MP3 takes a few seconds longer... wooo!) but they ARE perfectly functioning FULL computers. My Netbook gets put through all sorts of things, image/video editing/creation, entertainment (720p no problem, 1080p in the right format), its even been used for the video screens in a £3m nightclub and controlling the lightrig, and DJing with a 4 channel USB soundcard/controller.
Anyhoo... I absolutely love the design of this, it looks absolutely awesome! Why can't they do that with Windows netbooks??
...in a little project, if you haven't already heard about it, called AROS.
"The AROS Research Operating System is a lightweight, efficient and flexible desktop operating system, designed to help you make the most of your computer. It's an independent, portable and free project, aiming at being compatible with AmigaOS at the API level (like Wine, unlike UAE), while improving on it in many areas. The source code is available under an open source license, which allows anyone to freely improve upon it."
http://aros.sourceforge.net/
"However, I can heartily recommend the Mobile Drive XXS with their rubber cases, quite tough little things and has survived a few waist height falls to the floor."
Not an official test by any means but I'd sooner it be in that rubber case, which if nothing else helps to spread and dampen the impact with the floor, than without.
it IS a (Freecom) Mobile Drive XXS with a little window and piece of paper? I think I'd be more inclined to save the money (on the extra cost of the drive and dock) and suffer the "inconvenience" of having to swap the drives. Which is not that much of a problem when you consider even netbooks have a minimum of 3 USB ports and even then, USB hubs aren't that expensive.
However, I can heartily recommend the Mobile Drive XXS with their rubber cases, quite tough little things and has survived a few waist height falls to the floor.
...I can bring it back to an IT angle! May I present to you Jay Miner (RIP), "Father" of the Amiga:
"Jay always took his dog "Mitchy" (a cockapoo) with him wherever he went. While he worked at Atari, Mitchy even had her own ID-badge, and Mitchy's paw print is visible on the inside of the Amiga 1000 top cover."
Oh how quickly we forget anything that doesn't support our argument - Specifically about Adobe's Flash plug-in which, for years now, has been able to access webcams and microphones!
Thanks Macromedia, for creating yet another easy to use opening for hackers! More functionality, more functionality ... oh right, forgot about security again. Sorry.
Seriously though, as much as I hate to admit it, Mozilla probably recognises that Steve Jobs may have a point when he continually bashes Flash - it will become increasing irrelevant as HTML 5 (and successive built-in browser technologies/standards) becomes more commonplace and replaces more and more of Flash's capabilities. At the moment no browser, that I am aware of, has built-in support for webcams and microphones so what will become of the websites that use such peripherals once Flash is (hopefully) dead and buried? As far as I can see Mozilla is simply thinking ahead, in an attempt to further rid us of the blight that is Flash, but you're bashing them as if in-browser webcam/microphone access was their idea AND you know for fact that they are going to get the security wrong.
"Sorry, but I'm an old fuddy-duddy. "
Yes you are ;)
"Gimme a phone that doesn't go on the Internet unless I specifically say so"
I'm pretty sure most phones that are capable of accessing the internet can, unless they are particularly stupid, be set to not access the internet unless YOU want them to.
"that doesn't leave you open to all sorts of potential hacks because the data from things like Facebook hasn't been sanitised properly but is executed by default on your phone every time you access the address book, etc"
Why would your CHOSEN friends "hack" your phone via status updates on Facebook? (Not that I've EVER heard of such complete and utter nonsense happening in real life by and to anybody I know!)
"that can actually ring people"
I'm pretty sure all PHONES can, either that or you're getting your TVs remote control confused with a phone! ;)
"tell you who's rung without you having to guess"
I can't think of ANY phone (that has a display and phonebook) that DOESN'T display who is calling you if you ALREADY have their number... or do you expect your phone to be psychic too?
"or go on the damn Internet again."
Ahh yes, the well known "phone ringing makes it jump onto the internet" problem?!?!?!?
"Now this phone automatically updates from Facebook every time you go into the contacts list? [...] the sheer constant access required to keep them running"
Status and contact photo updates are no worse than receiving multi-part SMS or MMS in terms of actual data being flung to and from the phone, which can be minimised if the phone OS/software has the smarts to check if something actually needs updating first rather than updating blindly. Granted this does cost the user, unless on an unlimited data tariff, but it still shouldn't really be THAT much to worry about.
"I wonder how well this phone fares when it can pick up a GSM signal but not a GPRS/3G signal"
I can't vouch for WinPho 7 but I think, with my phone, if it doesn't have a GPRS signal as a minimum (and it will use if available GPRS, 3G, Edge and HSDPA) it doesn't attempt to transfer any data... (Does GSM even do data other than voice/SMS? I don't know, but would you really want to do it?) Besides, if I'm in a place that doesn't even have a GPRS signal (sound like a nice day out in the country to me!) I dare say someones inane drivel on Facebook would be the last thing on my mind.
"And it's a *phone*. That's quite a privileged bit of hardware."
Oh please, its 2010. Its. A. Phone.
"You can do some real damage by taking over that device with something malicious, whether it's recording every conversation (ever used phone banking or given you card number to a company you trust over the phone?), sucking up your home address and your GPS location, silently sending millions of texts, deliberately purchasing lots of things from the app stores to get commission on them, or even just making prank calls to the emergency services via your phone."
How often does this really, and I mean REALLY, happen? Its not happened to myself or a SINGLE other person I know. Come from under your tin-foil hat, its not all as bad as you think!
"[ALL THE REST]"
Loosing the will to live......................................................
SD card support? Check.
SD card can be removed? Check
Sounds like removable media to me... however it is used.
As a complete guess I would suggest the problem will be Microsoft have probably done an "Apple" (lock-ins, no multitasking etc) further under the hood than this article would suggest. I bet WinPh 7 uses a database to index files before they can be "seen" by the OS. That is where the desktop Zune software comes in. Like iTunes, Zune will more than likely have to update the files databases on the phone before the OS will recognise that files exist. Hence copying files manually won't really work and so at a "consumer level" the fact that the memory card IS removable is being buried . It also wouldn't surprise me if the Zune software even copies your files over with seemingly random names (just to make things more difficult to manually copy over) JUST like Apple do.
All phones that charge via USB can ALSO charge via a wall-socket charger (even using the same cable if the charger has a USB connection)... Do you have to install ActiveSync on a wall-socket charger before your phone will recognise it? Do you have to install ActiveSync on your car before using a car phone charger?
Stop trolling fail troll.
...about the reporter over at CNet having to avoid resting his hand/wrist on the screen while writing with the stylus?
"The use of pen and finger is unusual, and you can see the reporter taking care not to rest his hand against the screen when using the stylus, for obvious reasons."
If the Slate can't differentiate between a touch/gesture and a natural element of writing (hand/wrist wresting against the surface while writing) then that is a pretty annoying flaw.
...that is a little concerned that "YouTube" decided to specifically mention titling/tagging video's with 'Human Rights' and 'Police Abuse'? Someone cynical would think that this suggestion is to make it easy for relevant "authorities" to find them and flag them (and get them removed). No-one here at El Reg is THAT cynical, is there?
"This soundbar bar is not exactly bursting with connection options either. There are two optical digital connections and one analogue. This is less than ideal if you want to take your sound directly from several different inputs such as TV, Blu-ray player, Sky/cable box and games console"
Do most (modern) TV's not come with an optical digital out? Plug-in Sky box/Blu-Ray/Console via HDMI and it all gets pumped out via the optical digital out to whatever device you choose.
//Paris because she's got plenty of inputs
...still bothering with Silverlight? I don't know anybody with it installed on their computer, not only those who know their way around a computer but also those who do not. And I can't say I've even encountered a site thats complained that I've not got Silverlight installed, ever!
Anyhoo...
How much of a loser do you have to be to want to rank a "social" document?
You do realise Google Earth is actually modelled on a real place called Earth? No? Well, perhaps you'd like to visit us sometime? There's all sorts of things to do. You can see things, touch things, taste things, hear things and smell... Well really, the least you can do is not let your head explode while I'm talking to you!
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