Posts by Jonathan White

eh?

"Apple for either a) letting a key piece of strategic hardware out of a controlled environment or b) engaging in a pretty tawdry piece of publicity".

I'd got with A ( presumably they didn't think they'd need to tell their staff to avoid necking several jars of memory inhibitor while in possession of one of the test units) but how exactly is B at all true? All Apple have done is send Giz a letter asking for their property back after Giz made a big song and dance about having it. A private communication which Giz then put on their front page.

They didn't squeal about it. They didn't publicly call for Giz to be dragged off to the nick, they just sent a letter asking if they could have back something which it appears there is a good argument was stolen from them.

Just what exactly have Apple done at any point in this that can at all be described as tawdry, especially compared to Giz, who paid five grand for something they almost certainly knew they shouldn't be buying and pretty much kicked an innocent bloke's career into touch for the crime of losing his phone?

F'ing norah, talk about double standards.

Huh?

No Picasa? Seriously?

Hmm..

"I wonder how I could, say, work on my Python (ipython with scipy and matplotlib) and Matlab (OK, Octave, but still) data analysis, while checking my mail, browsing the web and posting comments on El Reg."

If you're posting on El Reg you're not working on Python code. You're either doing one or the other. You may think you're doing both, but you're actually task switching, not multi-tasking.

And iPhones have been able to play 'DRM free music' in the background since day one.

Um..

If LW says that the iPad screen is too small to do any real work on, is she really going to think all that much of a netbook screen that's maybe an inch bigger on the diagonal?

Sounds like she'd be much better off with a proper laptop than a netbook.

Still flashable

@Alex - You can (and always have been able to) download the PS3 firmware from the EU playstation site, stick it on a USB pen drive and reflash a PS3 from that. You can even, with the right combination of holding down of buttons, reflash a PS3 that won't boot up to the usual OS.

If they get a firmware fix people will be able to apply it. Well, people with access to a PC, at least.

Hmm..

Maybe thy'd have done better of they'd gone a bit retro? They could have called the thing Sellatape. Much more market adhesion. I'm sure they'd have done well once they got onto a roll.

Ah, I see my coats arrived.

back now...

Nothing obviously new that I can see. Mind you, if Macbooks had dropped 50 quid I wouldn't know...

Oh my lord..

You're in a tank, there's a cock and his Audi in front of you and you don't hit the accelerator?

(BTW, it's not a paintball gun, it's one of these - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steyr_AUG)

Oh, someone has to say it...

Have they acquired Tinky Winky, Po and Dipsy as well?

If you can't stand the heat..

@big Al

If you attack an autonomously armed vehicle full of battle-ready soldiers in a conflict zone, what are you expecting as a response, harsh language?

And Lewis : The DARPA reference, much more like it, well done Sir.

Um...

Those saying the EyeTV and PlayTV units are HD compatible need to read the article. They are compatible with the form of HD the rest of the world is using/planning to use, NOT the weird variation we're getting in the UK. I guess there's a fighting chance that either a firmware or software upgrade to those two products would enable UK HD reception but as it stands, they are no better than any other UK stb product i.e. they'll still be usable for SD transmissions but the HD will be a no-go.

All tech begins with..

Where's the wipe clean colour screen Playboy special edition?

ah I believe this coat is mine..

About the worst possible measure of productivity...

I'm currently sat twiddling my thumbs because the beancounters can't get their act together and make a their minds up so I can move my project on. How dos that affect my productive time percentages, and how does it affect theirs? Do I assume because they're in another sodding meeting trying to avoid having to make a decision, they still count as working but I don't?

Bah.

"And it's not as if Apple have even the guy on the street tech gadet market locked up, the likes of HTC and Acer are doing huge numbers in sales on Microsoft-based products, because if nothing else, they have a superior product."

Cobblers. It's not about having a superior or inferior product as a phone. They're doing it because the businesses that are buying the phones in bulk have an existing investment in MS based architecure i.e. Exchange and MS based expertise i.e. All those MCSE's who can't cope with anything that doesn't have the words 'group policy' attached to it.

MS mobile succeeds at the corporate level for the same reason Office does - not because it's better than the competition, it's because the people writing the cheques and building the back ends know only that and are too bloody scared to look at the competition.

I could probably count the number of people who bought a phone with their own money because it had windows mobile on it and was therefore 'superior' on the fingers of one hand. And even they have to use voice dialing until they manage to chew through the straps. Quite a lot of people buy phones that are superior in spec to the iPhone then have to fight windows mobile to be able to use any of the extra power.

Smile? Not really..

@TempestX3

Smile were part of the Co-Op but Co-Op financial services (of which Smile is the public face) were or are in the process of being sold off to the Britannia Building Society, so they really are going to be no better than the rest.

Jon

Dear God

Do try to avoid dislocating your shoulders while slapping yourself on the back so fiercely.

Lord save us from 'experts'

Statement:

"the number of malware programs actively targeting the OS is most likely measured in the hundreds, security experts said."

Translation :

"We have no idea how many malware exploits there are for Mac OS. So here's a number that's sufficiently large and scary for us to continue to be paid."

Tell you what guys, when you 'experts' actually DO have a proper idea of what you're talking about, how about you come back to us then? The only thing worse than 'experts' are 'analysts'.

@AC post 2

"I think these will sell best to men who'd like to impress a woman with the label saying "EXTRA LARGE""

Er... isn't the woman in question going to spot the amount of exaggeration going on at a certain obvious moment? At which point the dastardly fibber is going to be out on his ear.

@Charlie Clark

"Apple doesn't release Safari to earn brownie points but to provide a front-end to iTunes store."

What? The front end to the iTunes store is er... iTunes. You know, free download, was cross platform years before Safari, the standard way to get stuff onto an iPod, you know, THAT iTunes?

Apple made Safari because MS had allowed the Mac version of IE to rot on the vine. By the time Safari hit the world, Mac IE was about three versions behind windows IE code and even further behind the likes of Firefox and Camino. Apple made Safari because they felt there had to be a web browser there when you switched the machine on the first time and at that point Mac Firefox was clunky and, frankly, ugly as sin.

They already had some parts of a browser there (because iTunes does use webkit after all) but the decision to actually make a browser themselves has absolutely sod all to do with the iTMS.

Jon

@WillR

Several apps have been withdrawn from the Apple App store due to legal issues - Delicious Library and Pocketpedia because they breached Amazon's new terms for use of their data for example (another example of Amazon doing stuff that pisses off the paying public but anyway) - and in every case so far, those who have already paid for the app retained their copy of it. You can't buy those apps any more but if you already have them they still work.

I dare say Apple do have that kill switch in the system. Even if they do, they don't have the pervasive wireless network or the level of control that Amazon do over the Kindle. If you had the 'turn my iPhone into a raygun' app and Apple puled it AND issued the killswitch, you'd still retain the app until you did a sync with iTunes, which of course yo don't actually have to do very often. There's no way for Apple to do what Amazon has done, which is pull something from the device with no way for the user to intervene in the process.

Jon

Blimey..

I wouldn't want to be the BT techie tasked with upgrading Moss Side. Bulletproof vests do get in the way when you're doing techie work.

Jon

@Robert Grant

Already been done, in a way

http://camendesign.com/code/video_for_everybody

bit of webcode that will detect which browser you are using and pick the appropriate encoded file to present within the <video> tag. All you have o do is provide the content in H264 MP4 and Ogg theora and it does the rest. Not streaming, but it works.

Jon

Return of the Mod

With all due respect Sarah, ido you really have grounds to take umbrage with the comments posted in this thread given the story in question is virtually a fishing exercise to get them. Did you really expect to get any other sort of comment? In fact doesn't the story kind of apologise for itself on exactly the same basis?

Not that I approve of them I think they're pretty crass in the main. However, if you don't want lots of outrageous comments about a young woman's breasts maybe not posting a story about a young woman's breasts - with embedded video for Pete's sake - might have been a better option? Seems very slightly hypocritical of the reg (as an organisation, not you personally) to me.

On the subject of the woman and her apparent plans, It's not unusual for athletes in any sport to have operations which will repair injuries or the like to allow them to continue in competition even though they could continue to function in normal life perfectly well without the surgery. This seems to me to be a rather extreme case of that. It's her choice to do as she will, assuming she understands any long term effects it may have.

Jon

Not Apple's fault

Seems to me that VMWare are doing something fairly funky which was always likely to break with an upgrade to the video driver. In fact, isn't it the case that in their READMEs VMWare have always said the 3D acceleration is kind of unfinished, isn't necessarily compatible with any particular bit of software on the guest OS and should be considered a bit experimental?

In any case, given you'd have to have successfully performed the OS update to get the problem in the first place, logically you'd have to say that for the victims in question Apple's stuff did 'just work' - it's VMWare's that didn't.

Course, there's no reason for the facts to get in the way of a variety of 'tard responses. Where's the 'storm in a teacup' icon?

Techy testing?

One test worth doing - how long does it take to set up and authenticate to a WPA-protected wifi network from the 'home' screen. If there's one thing that makes me want to jump up and down in hobnail boots on every WM phone I've ever seen, it's that.

Does look very nice though.

Jon

Er...

So, assuming it's got a HDMI port, the thing may well be able to output at HD resolutions. Fine.

a) Will it actually be able to decode and display HD content? We're talking about something the size of a mobile phone being able to decode 1920*1080p 25fps video (H264?) here. It'll have a battery life of minutes and you'll need an oven glove to hold it.

b) How big a file is a standard (say Sky/Virgin VOD or iTunes) HD film? 8Gb something like? So assuming you have some music and some images on your Zune, you're going to be able to fit about 3 films on the big one if you're lucky.

Serious kudos to them if they can make a proper, practical HD video decoding device that's battery powered and you can fit in your pocket but for now I remain a bit sceptical.

Jon

Hmm..

I find the headline a bit misleading. Surely it's far more likely wacky Jaqui will have opened an economy sized can of whoop-ass on her husband than vice (sic) versa.

Being caught out by dirty videos? It's got to Paris really hasn't it...

Jon

Hold on..

The data is made up of a statistical analysis of how many support calls they get over a given period factoring in the relative market share of each vendor? That's an utterly idiotic mechanism. Apple run their own in house (or more accurately instore) support system and a lot of people who buy EeePC's tend to be the techy types who can and do fix stuff themselves. Just as two examples that could skew the figures. In a lot of cases, they're using stats from the self-selected group of people too thick to figure out how to get support without having to pay extra for it.

How on earth is this considered useful information?

Jon

re: Jon Brindley

No, but given her history and craving for self-publicity there are probably plenty of other pics of her on the interweb she wouldn't show to her granny.

In fact, even though I do actually agree with her that this is an invasion of privacy, isn't it a bit rich for someone who essentially takes her clothes off for a living to complain that having similar pictures nabbed off her phone caused her such distress?

Jon

No £ sign

"I bought my P5 iMac some time ago (obviously) and was very annoyed to find that it comes with an American keyboard"

Then you bought a grey import; either intentionally or they robbed you. Every Mac or mac keyboard I've bought in the UK has come with a keyboard with a £ (and more recently €) sign on it. They've always had @ and " the wrong way round mind...

Jon

Hypocritical much?

Yay for blatant copyright infringement. All power to people who do little more than rip off someone else's idea to make a quick buck. Hooray for shoddy productry wrapped up to look like another companies product in the hope of conning some money out of the unwary.

Wait, what? You say that's supposed to be a bad thing? Oh I see, it's a bad thing /unless you're doing it to the iPhone, which we don't like/. Hmm.

Jon

Haven't they seen Spooks?

Err.. sounds like they still have to take a photo of you to do it. Taking a photo with an iPhone ain't exactly a subtle thing to do. Plus there's no reason they couldn't do the same thing with a windows mobile phone, if some bothers to write an app for it.

In fact, why are they mucking about with phones at all? Given the prevalance of CCTV in our new shiny 'enhanced freedom' Britain, why not just grab the photos off CCTV feeds from nice warm offices without having to go out and mix with the surly proletariat?

Jon

err...

The URL is a bit of a giveaway isn't it?