Posts by RichyS

Workshy Layabouts

The Post Office is a desperately inefficient mess that's probably gone far too far down the path of ruin to be rescued. The workers have got so used to their cushy 'Spanish practices' (for example, being paid overtime during their normal working hours) that they fail to see that the rest of the world has moved on. I suspect most of these workers would be horrified to get a job in any modern organisation, and be paid (the horror) to actually work their hours, or be paid on results.

They're overstaffed, overly lazy, and have no sympathy from me.

Workshy layabouts.

Re. Leading Edge

@Apocalypse Later.

Well, Win 7 is really Win 6.1, so if you're still using XP (Win 5.1), then you are only 1 major version behind.

Well done.

Personally, I've used Win 6.1 on my wife's Sony Vaio (installed the RC just to get the thing moving again after a combination of Vista and Sony bloatware). While it's nice enough, and certainly better than Vista, I'm really not sure what all the fuss is about. It's still a bit messy and inconsistent to use. Parts of the UI and underlying control & config panels still seem to be stuck in NT4. Too many things are still not obvious or counter intuitive. It still has a registry. It still frustrates me.

Evil Bill, 'cos there _still_ isn't an evil/chair throwing Ballmer.

@number-g

You'd have thought your sistyer would have seen this coming.

(c) Jimmy Carr (probably) 1998.

I've already got my coat on. Thanks for coming. You've been a lovely audience...

Riiiiggghhtt....

Ultra secret detector nonsense. My arse. Are the TV Licensing numpties really going to go to the effort of developing some super-secret technology, when a list of addresses from Royal Mail cross referenced with a list of addresses from their sinister database will equally well do the trick?

I don't think so.

I pay my TV tax once already thanks. I'll be buggered if I'm going to pay the tax to watch the same old rubbish somewhere other than my house. I can only watch one thing at a time -- why should I have to pay double/triple/whatever?

It always used to be that a license/tax was required for equipment 'capable of receiving a TV signal' (whether you actually had it hooked up or not was beside the point -- as long as it /could/ receive TV, you had to pay the tax). Has that now changed? What's their definition of a TV signal? My mobe is /capable/ of receiving TV (or so my operator keep telling me). Does that mean if I plug it in to charge it up at work, it suddenly becomes 'installed', and I have to pay the tax again?

How about the BBC stop paying Graham Norton such an obscene amount of money for the dross he turns out, and stop taxing the rest of us? Crazy, I know.

I'm fed up of being fiscally raped by the powers that be...

I'll be back...

... spending more time with my family, come the election ^H^H^H^H^H bloodletting.

I for one won't miss you, you pathetic viperous little woman.

P.S. Does PunterNet include male prostitutes (yes Harriet, they exist), and allow women to rate them? If so, I can't see the 'failure on equality' angle.

Reality check

This has been the reality for some time now. Despite the best efforts of the marketing monkeys inside the operators to pretend otherwise (I used to work for one of these operators, so know how delusional the marketeers can be!).

Before the iPhone, punters used to walk into a Carphone Warehouse or wherever and ask for whatever Nokia was coolest amongst their chav friends that week. Then they'd see which operator was cheapest. Very few people go into a shop and demand to be on Vodafone/Orange/T-Mob (delete as applicable), unless they have some serious reception issues at home/work.

People want phones. As long as they can get enough minutes, SMS, and data cheap enough, they couldn't give a shit about the WAP portal, music download service, other marketing guff the operators come up with. Apple know this, and know they can shaft the operators and get away with it. Good luck to them. I might even get an iPhone now...

Oftards

I'd ignore the idiots at Ofsted. What jurisdiction do they have over two people having a private arrangement? What constitutes a 'reward' in this instance is purely their opinion.

Now, if they want to report it to the police, and assuming the CPS don't throw the case out for being a gross waste of time and money, we can test the definition of 'reward' in court. Until then, I don't give a fuck what these nannying (no pun intended) fucktards think.

On the other hand, getting a CRB check for two people who in all likelihood are already CRB checked (they work for the Filth, after all) and becoming registered childminders isn't going to be too much effort. Then they can pay each other the £240-odd per month that you can claim out of your gross salary for childcare. A little bit less money for Darling to spunk up against a wall can't be a bad thing.

What the fuck has happened to this country?

Re.: my next step is clear then!

@Jeremy 3.

Why did you use the 'Joke Alert' icon>

I am a mandatory title.

Although this seems like some pretty decent hardware for the price, I can't help thinking it will fail. Time and time again, people have rejected the notion of a traditional desktop OS and UI on a tablet/slate device. I don't see this being any different.

Really we need a ground up approach to a tablet device, actually centred around how people might use them. Windows (even 6.1 with all its alleged touch based goodness) is not a one size fits all OS.

This is where Apple's rumoured tablet will hopefully succeed. Apple has the guts to ignore the spec-junkies and actually make their devices simple and useable for the average (in non-El Reg reading) person, wrapped up in an attractive package.

In summary, I don't think it's too late or too expensive. I just think it doesn't meet a need. Hence, fail.

PS. @Shaunm: I haven't noticed any Mactards (or anyone else) claiming that everyone is stealing Apple's idea for the tablet. And you're right, tablets have been around for over 10 years. Pretty much since the Newton, in fact!

PPS. Plus, Archos are French aren't they? I'll never buy anything made in France unless I can eat or drink it...

Monkeys

The sooner the big operators realise that they just offer infrastructure and a bit pipe, the better.

Sack all your marketing monkeys, they're useless...

War, huh.

I suggest we declare war on Sweden instantly.

And where do I sign up?

This is just nonsense

I'd imagine that the real Win 6.1 parties will be waaaay more tedious.

@Rhydy: spotty yellow cat... Sort of like a leopard. With a white wig. Snow Leopard, per chance. Or it's Boris Johnson in some dubious 80's leopard print Spandex... Your choice.

Why all the rage?

I don#'t understand all the rage on the Internets regarding the lack of camera on the Touch. When it was first rumoured, everyone just commented on how pointless another crappy camera in another device was. Now that it doesn't have one (but the Nano does -- one borrowed from mobile phones circa 2001), everyone's up in arms.

Make up your minds guys.

Personally I think the camera on the Nano is pointless, and just smacks of a feature upgrade for the sake of something new. How many people will have a Nano or Touch and not have a mobile phone capable of video and stills. And chances are of a much higher quality.

The thing that makes the iPod great is not the hardware of the device itself (though that's pretty good in comparison to most), but the integration with iTunes, the iTunes Music (and Apps) Store, and countless hardware add-ons. However fancy the (camera-less) Zune HD is, it won't integrate fully with my car (thanks Audi AMI), nor will it work with my portable speakers.

I think Apple's problem right now is that the webs get so full of excitement prior to announcements with fanbois building up what's going to be new (it'll have OLED, a camera, mind control, a rocketship, etc.), that it can only lead to disappointment when Apple do (yet another) small incremental upgrade. Despite popular opinion, Apple are not about revolutionary new products. They are about taking existing products and refining them until they work very very well. iPods, Macs, etc. have only ever been incrementally upgraded. Yet, every time, the fanbois work themselves up into a lather over the huge number of features they'd like to see.

Frankly, it's pathetic.

T-Angerine?

Well, it begins with T, and is orangey. Certainly the 'Anger' bit covers off the Orange customer services experience.

And to think, they used to be so good when Hans Snook was in charge, before the France Telecom takeover.

In fact, on that thread, if the regulators at the time forced Vodafone to sell Orange when they bought Mannesmann AG (who, I think, had bought Orange from Hutchison Whampoa). While I realise that 3 where not in the marketplace at the time (are they really yet?), is the current situation so different?

+1 for a Beeb emulator

I agree with Richard Porter (are you the Richard Porter that writes Sniff Petrol? If so, get back to it. The gap between editions seems to be getting wider!).

Hours spent on the Tube would disappear with a copy of Citadel or Repton 3 on my iPod Touch.

Ah the joy.

Grammar Nazi icon (can I be pedantic and say that the tool tip text for the icon should really have 'nazi' with a capital 'N'?) 'cos we had Beebs at my school.

@APK

Yup, I thought your post was drivel too. Lengthy, tedious, boring drivel.

Now, take the tin-foil hat off you sad little angry man.

Too little, too late.

That is all.

What about Regent St.?

Might have been better to look at the queues outside the Regent Street Apple Store in London. Thanks to the work-shy layabout bastards at the Post Office, we have _yet another_ postal strike here. So, the 25 quid (or whatever it is) price with free postage wouldn't have got you your Snow Leopard fix by Friday.

Oh, and my wife's lappy BSODs quite frequently with Vista on it. I blame Sony and their esoteric components though. My work Thinkpad X61 crashes a couple of times a week. Mind you, it BSODed the very first time I turned it on. I blame corporate IT and their esoteric software. Having said that, I rebooted my Mac yesterday too after Spaces went weird. It didn't crash as such, it just seemed easier to reboot than sort out the problem another way. OS X does crash though. Just like every other highly complex general purpose OS...

I am a mandatory title.

All very interesting. Only a couple of apps on there that I have. Can't remember the last time I used them though.

On the other hand, the developers will probably have plenty of time to get the updates out before I receive my copy in the post. Thanks to the work-shy layabout feckers at the Post Office.

@Michael C

How dare you bring reason and logic into an anti-Apple rant argument.

Please desist in future.

Why?

I'm sorry, but why on earth does a car repair trade association need data on the driving convictions of 1,900 people?

If I need a massive dent polishing out of the front of my car, why does it make a difference if it got there because I was drunk and drove into a wall, or some idiot hit my parked car?

SHOCK: Students are cheap.

In other news: students buy cheap lager and QC Sherry rather than Chateux Neuf du Pape.

SCCs

I wonder if the number of SCCs Asus sell compared to Apple, Tosh and HP is relevant here.

SCCs by their very nature are less complex, and therefore less likely to go wrong. Additionally, if an SCC /does/ break, what are the chances of the user just buying another (on the basis that they're dirt cheap), rather than stumping up for a repair.

Be interesting to see a further breakdown of the numbers.

Finally, no surprise to see Sony nowhere on the list. And what about Dell? My previous experience of them suggests that they're cheap because (in the words of Gerald Ratner) they're crap. On the basis of once (well four or five times) bitten, twice shy, I've not bought a Del recently...

Keyboard icon as coffee in a laptop is not a good mix...

What's all the fuss about?

I installed Win7 (well, 6.1) on my wife's Vaio laptop as Vista was constantly causing problems. Sony's continued use of bizarre hardware and drivers meant that I couldn't get all the XP drivers, so an upgrade to XP wasn't an option.

So, I've had a bit of a play with Win7, and it's... okay. I suppose.

But really, what's all the fuss about? You don't seem to get as much pointless pestering from UAC out of the box, and some of the taskbar features are nice. And it's good to see that MS have re-architected the graphics compositing engine so that it's not using daft amounts of memory (and thus running veeerrrryyyy slowly). But, that's it. It still takes far too long to come back from sleep. It still takes too long to find and join a wireless network, and it still feels a bit cluttered.

Am I missing something? Or is Win 7 just a case of 'any port in a storm' compared to the horror of Vista?

@Nordrick Framelhammer

The only thing worse than an Apple fanboy is the polar opposite. Someone like you. You're the kind of idiot that still finds calling Apple crApple amusing.

They're just a company that make some quite nice stuff. It's not perfect, but neither is every iPhone blowing their users faces off with exploding batteries.

Get some perspective and grow up.

Re: AC Huh?

Sometimes it's just not that easy. For multi-channel organisations, a lot of the information the web site needs is stored or calculated somewhere in the backend. An example might be a complex financial services quote engine that sits on an old mainframe; or a telco that offers online billing. You can't easily replicate the algorithms, or do nightly batch updates if real-time information is required.

What /should/ be happening (and PCI DSS requiring) is that all web servers sit in a DMZ, and that any system storing or processing card data is segregated from the rest of the network.

Sadly, PCI DSS is a little ambiguous, and organisations can be lazy in maintaining their implementation (despite annual audits). In the cases above, TJX where not PCI DSS compliant, while Heartland were.

Sad descent

So, we can now expect complex political arguments to be communicated in 140 characters or fewer.

Great.

We might as well sign the whole sodding election process over to Simon Cowell and be done with it. Government by the lowest common denominator.

I despair.

Not a dead horse, but a rare thoroughbread...

@AC 12:19: this isn't a netbook, and it's not trying to be a netbook.

Maybe people who want a small cheap computer to catch up on some email and surf the web will find the MacBook Air too expensive. For people who want a small and light laptop to use for traditional business applications (so, no games, no intensive media applications -- just a bit of word processing, spreadsheeting [if that's a word!) and presenting), it's perfect.

I'm not a lady (even in my free time) so don't have a handbag. Neither do I work in meedja, so don't have a manbag. Instead, I carry a laptop, some papers, a few white papers and the odd glossy brochure. All the latter have one thing in common -- they're A4. So, on the basis that I already need to carry something A4 sized, I might as well have a laptop of the same footprint. And get the advantage of a useable keyboard and screen (which cannot be said for the vast majority of netbooks). I currently carry a ThinkPad X61. It's pretty light and does the job. It's also fairly low powered, but suites me fine. It doesn't have a DVD drive, and that's never been an issue. I also have never needed a spare battery (though the battery life of an X61 is pretty crappy). While I have 3 USB ports, I only ever really used 1 (USB thumb drive). My mouse uses Bluetooth.

Personally, I'd love to have a MacBook Air -- it fits my needs perfectly. And I bet there are thousands of people out there whose needs are similar to mine.

Just because you can't tell the difference between two marketing segments, doesn't make this a 'fail'. On a final note, I bet Apple make more money on the external DVD drive than Asus, Acer, etc. make on a single netbook. That's why Apple isn't in the business of selling to the low end.

Always suspicious...

I'm always very suspicious of Microsoft's claims on numbers shipped. Most of MS's site licenses include an upgrade capability, and they'll ship you license codes and media for every single sodding upgrade ever. My wife is head of ICT at her school, and gets sent more MS CDs and DVDs in a year than AOL of shipped in their life. Anyway, back on topic. I can bet that MS count the couple of hundred PCs at her school as shipped Vista copies, just because they sent out a license. The reality is that they're still all running XP as so much of the educational software /still/ requires XP to run. To the AC above: yes, MS counted 'up'graded to XP versions of Vista as a Vista sale too.

I can't see many businesses having a compelling reason to upgrade to Windows 6.1 before the end of 2010 anyway (hell, when's the first SP scheduled?). Most of my clients still run IE6 as standard!

As for consumers, I don't know anyone who is thinking of getting a new laptop in the next year or so who isn't going Mac. Okay, so my cross section of firends & family may not be representative of the marketplace as a whole, but it's interesting, nonetheless.

Re. 'Am I the only one..."

No, you're not.

I wish O2 would spend some of their money on their hopeless 3G network, rather than on securing phone exclusives.

@Thad

A tiny percentage? Maybe of phones in total. But in the first half of 2009 (before the 3GS launched), Apple commanded just over 13% of smartphone sales, just behind RIM (on 18.7%), and Nokia with 45%. Though that Nokia total includes all their S60 devices -- the majority of which are hardly purchased as 'smartphones'. Most people use them as featurephones in reality.

HTC where some way fuirther back in 4th place with 6%.

If Apple sell an extra 5 million phones to China next half (and assuming all other sales remain static), they'll move up to around 23%. Again, not too irrelevant.

While I don't have an iPhone, I'm certainly interested in news about it. Long may El Reg's coverage of the Jesus Phone continue...

@Alistair Millington

Already in place. Well, if you have Word 2008 for Mac it is, anyway...

Cheaper in the UK

I assume this will be cheaper in the UK since HD radio is bugger all use here.

Other than that, a fair bit cheaper than an iPod Touch. Mind you, without all the apps, it can't do as much as an iPod Touch either.

Still, a bit of decent competition can only push Apple on.

Oh, and does it support AAC?

Harriet

I'd have thought that Harriet Harman would want all male MPs to be CRB checked. They#re all men and thus potential rapists, after all...

Define 'Not Supported'

Not supported, or not tested on?

They're two quite different things.

Still, I have no intention of using Office Online, so I don't really care either way.

No comparison

I think the two photos are very revealing of the two companies in question.

Microsoft appear to have gone for a 'just good enough' generic shopping centre location; while Apple have gone the extra mile to produce a shop that is truly exceptional looking.

And that seems to be MS's problem. For years they've been able to get away with an OS or an office suite that has been 'just good enough'. It's Apple's attention to detail and keen focus on being able to do a few things well rather than a lot of things badly (cf. iPhone to every Win Mobile out there), that is seeing Apple in the ascendancy, and Microsoft in severe danger of becoming an irrelevance in the consumer space.

Oh well, it's amusing to watch them try...

Is that a Dell in your pocket...?

I presume it's launching in China because this is the handset that all Western networks viewed as so gawdawful that they couldn't bring themselves to launch it in the West.

If it's anything like their clunky and style-absent laptops, I'm not surprised...

Ceci n'est pas une title.

This was a pretty standard 2nd year software engineering group project when I was at Nottingham. I think Prof Kendall set it every year. And I graduated in 2002.

Looks like one of those groups finally came up with a half decent solution...

Beer: 'cos that's what Uni's really about...

Virus

This is virul in the same way that Ebola Zaire is viral.

End result is much the same too...

So many armchair experts

What is all this talk of 'rights' and 'illegal' this and that? Most of the commentards here really do not know what they are talking about.

Palm license USB. As such they have made some legally binding commitments to follow the standard. This includes not putting in false information in certain fields, such as VendorID. In this respect, they are in breach of the licensing agreement, and could (though almost certainly won't) have it withdrawn.

People ask what if MS did this with the Zune? Well, they did. For some reason MS came out with a special version of WMP that only worked with the Zune. No idea why, but they did. No-one really complained. Similarly, with Exchange (re. John Saunders), anyone wanting to sell an Exchange client must license the Exchange technology from Microsoft.

Apple are not stopping you doing whatever you want with your DRM free music. It's all there stored as open MP3 or AAC (Advanced Audi Codec -- owned and licensed by the MPEG group. Nothing to do with being Apple proprietary -- Lossless AAC is another matter). The meta data is stored in the file as ID3 tags -- not in any proprietary Apple database. Again -- sync/move any of these files to a music playing device, and they'll work (I do it quite frequently with my SE phone for when I don't want to take my iPod. Running, for example).

At the end of the day, it's Apple's software, and they can stop devices pretending to be iPods working with it. If Palm want to play nice with iTunes, they should speak nicely to Apple. I'm not sure if it will work, but it evidently did some time ago for Creative and a few others.

Personally, I think Apple are being short-sighted in not letting certain other media devices sync with iTunes. But then what do I know compared to Apple? They seem to be doing alright at the moment!

Saint Stephen of Jobs, for obvious reasons...

Oh dear

Impeccable timing as ever, Dell!

Who uses 2007?

If I knew anyone running Office 2007, then this might be a problem.

Fortunately, everyone I know who still uses a PC (including me, for work) still use XP with Office 2003.

Ribbon is just too horrible for words (no pun intended...).

'?' is not a title (apparently)

Can anyone tell me why anyone in their right mind would want full Windows on a device slightly larger than a phone?

XP is bad enough on a netbook screen.

Steve: just because you can put Windows on everything, doesn't mean you should.

Doesn't this already exist?

Isn't small, thin and light with a bigger display what the MacBook Air, various Vaios. Thinkpad X series, Tosh Porteges etc. already offer? And it's a fairly niche market.

And the reason they're not so cheap is that it's harder to make thin laptops that perform well. I suppose you could take the netbook internals and put them together with a 12-13" screen (spreading out the components and having a flatter battery would certainly make the netbook thinner). But, it would still be a netbook in terms of power, and unsuitable for 'upselling' Windows on.

I don't get it. I'm sure everyone would love a cheap, thin, netbook. But I can't see how it can just magically be delivered.

Ballmer is ruining Microsoft. How much longer are the shareholders going to put up with him and his idiot statements?

Can we have a stupid Ballmer icon? His head on a monkey would do it for me... Evil Bill, as that's the closest.

Resistive is Futile...

I must admit, I stopped reading at 'resistive'. This is 2009 people... I don't want original Palm Pilot touchscreen technology on my new smartphone.

I suppose the verdict and score of 70% goes to show that it's not the bare specs that count, but the actual usability of the device. Which seems to be the point that most iPhone Haters miss (disclaimer: I don't actually own or use an iPhone).

Value and Cost

I think the Microsoft spokesdroid is confusing value and cost. Macs cost more, but (in my experience, YMMV) tend to offer greater value over their lifetime (in terms of build, support, need to upgrade/repair components etc.).

If you're only after a cheap PC though, then a Mac isn't for you. After all, the world would be a pretty boring place if everyone drove Audis, Beemers and Mercs. There's room for Kias, Vauxhalls, and Chevrolets too. Alright, maybe not Chevys, but you get the idea,

Seconded

I'll happily second the motion (ooh er) for a Sid James icon.