Posts by David Beck

Typed Storage is half-way house

The west coast designed Burroughs machines were vN with the addition of typing on each 48 bit word. I can't remember (or be arsed to check) the number of bits but the firmware knew if the word contained an instruction, a number (all or part of an integer or float), characters or a pointer. If you tried to perform the wrong operation you got a fault. Storage was allocated in segments with defined sizes and by the hardware so buffer overflow generated a similar fault. The systems programming language was a modified Algol. But of course all of this was 30 years ago and we all know how well we have moved on to far better designs now, both in hardware and software. How else could we keep the CompSci grads employed? A B6700 running MCP needed a guy once a month to sweep out the ashes.

PS. The other Burroughs designs of the time were classical vN with some other odd characteristics. They were decimal machines (banking was a big part of Burroughs business), so decimal that even the execution engine used decimal addresses, and you bought memory in round decimal amounts, 100,000 bytes for example. Odd.

PPS. Finally, the other design was for the 1700 series, even odder as it was opcode agile, part of the program header declared what instruction set this prog needed and the hardware setup to use that set while executing the prog, switching between firmware if necessary for multiple tasks. The opcode sets were optimized for the languages of the day, Fortran, COBOL, ...

The microcode engines of the day were probably a bit too touchy (lots of timing involved as in, you can't read that register for two cycles so do something else now) to compile Fortran or Cobol directly to the microcode but okay if you are decodeing an instruction set.

3000

According to the Orange T&C's, that would be unlimited==3000. Why do they do this?

Site was terrible

I had a look at buying a WII console -

-sent off site to hut something which gave 500 error the first time

-worked the second time but no stock, exactly one WII console on sale (at a £15 premium over Play.com)

-item listing had such short descriptions it was necessary to always click to see what the item actually included

Not very professional.

I'm only 64

If Nokia could capture the 50+ market I expect they would be very happy. It's an ageing population if you've not noticed. My E Series has real keys and while I use it mostly for voice and mail I do have the occasional app, mostly for specific news (Bloomberg, F1 app, ..). I will happily point out it supports VoIP out of the box (I'm on SIPgate, what SIP provider do you use?). I would consider an Android based handset if it came in a candy bar format with real keys (T9 is enough for me, I don't really need qwerty). But it has to support all of the functions I use on the E Series (GPS, wifi, integrated VoIP, voice (with noise cancelling mic), Java apps, native apps, push email, push calendar, FM -RDS radio and internet radio. And at least a three day battery life.

Huh?

I can do this with my Nokia E52 but it's not the right interface to run a PC screen easily either.

Huh?

I've used Skype since version 1 and never once considered using the video support. Is it an age thing? I'm an adult. My friends are adults. But then I'm not much on folks holiday pix either.

All of the E Series have both client and server

As the title says all of the E Series Symbian handsets have both client and server DLNA apps installed at delivery. Mind you the SIM free versions have SIP services integrated into "Contacts" at delivery too, so no idea if these features make it to the subsidised versions.

I have had a DLNA setup since 2005 and have generally had few problems except for format support. I agree that the client vendors could be a bit more forthcoming about what formats are actually supported. Currently I'm using a few cheap ZyXel clients and Buffalo NAS to play my DVDs, ripped to XviD. Everything is Ethernet, no wifi, wifi never worked.

It's all about the money

Every single science academy in the world has said that global warming is happening and that it is caused by human activity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change .

And the Sun is the cause.

Over eight out of ten climate scientists believe that human activity contributes to global warming: http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html .

And their grants depend on it.

The Pentagon (that bastion of commie socialist libtard propoganda) has examined the facts and believes global warming to be real, a threat to global stability and thereby the security of the United States: http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1730759_1731383_1731632,00.html

Without threats they don't a job, or funding.

The IPCC is not a committee. It is a panel of hundreds of qualified scientists who create a report based on the review of *thousands* of peer reviewed documents. Their conclusion is unequivocal.

Who did the peer reviews of the retreating glaciers then.

But no. The REAL reason that all these people say that climate change is not occurring / natural caused by the sun / medieval warm period / cosmic rays is because IT IS A COMMUNIST CONSPIRACY LEAD BY AL GORE AND THE PINKO F***ING EURO SOCIALISTS WHO WANT TO TAX THE WORLD AND GIVE ALL THE MONEY TO THE OIL COMPANIES.

I feel no guilt.

I don't know why the Register has such a one sided editorial policy on climate change (I mean seriously, WTF??) but it's a fail

Huh?, the Register reports. The editorial policy is expressed by the readers.

Buy an E Series while you can

If you want to buy a phone with keys and real functionality built-in buy an E Series before Nokia "iPhone'ise" the series. I've put an extra in a drawer for when my E52 dies. The E52 is not a "real" smartphone since it doesn't have a touchscreen. It does have wifi, gps, voip built-in (SIP), office apps, FM radio with location dependent presets, DNLA (client and server), etc. You can add Symbian apps (no touchscreen needed) for other things, social networking for example. I've added an F1 app and Bloomberg plus the Google apps. I get about 4 days of use before I need to charge. I would have bought a 6700 but without wifi I loose the VoIP to my SIP account and Skype to Go/iSkoot are not my first choice.

Why would a PCT have a public website?

Since PCTs are a layer of management not a public service why would the public be interested in what a PCT has to say. I know I'm not.

On the other hand a GP surgery is something I deal with on a regular basis and since there are thousands of surgeries there are, or should be, thousands of contact points. Are you suggesting that I ring the local surgery through some central number rather than just ringing the surgery? We all know how well this sort of "service" works, just call your bank to find out.

My local surgery has a website, does booking and repeat prescriptions via it and shows the actual hours of operation. The last thing I want to see is some "official" twat interfering.

So the "Web" makes a "Smartphone"

I've been wondering, now I know, if you can touch the screen and do web browsing it's a "smartphone".

I suppose my built-in SIP support, DLNA server and client, noise cancelling mic, GPS and off-line mapping, are really just there as add-ons to the Facebook app. My phone has a keyboard and all the other stuff, the least of which I use is the browsing and I don't use the Facebook app at all, so I guess I'm not really using it as a Smartphone. Very happy with a Nokia E55, 100 grams and 5/6 days on a charge with Wifi turned on.

But soooo sad, I can't touch the screen.

Because S60 still makes for the best phone

As an E55 owner I can attest that this sub 100g, half-qwerty handset is the bee's knees. I operate it solely with my left hand (right one is in a splint), took a few minutes to configure my Sipgate account for the built-in SIP support and has a noise cancelling mic which works a treat. Mind you I bought it as a phone, not an "entertainment unit", so this may place me in the majority. Oh and the re-moveable battery lasts for a week or so.

Look at E-series

You need to get away from the "almost an iPhone" products and look at what is happening in the E series. Nobody told these guys you had to touch the screen and they just keep packing in stuff and making the phones smaller and batteries bigger. I've got an E55 that does everything but cook breakfast and I can run all of it with my left hand (handy since my right hand is in a splint).

Note of caution - the E series phones will not change your life, will not make you popular at parties and will not encourage you to join the local ashram. It is a bloody good phone however and has enough goodies (hardware and apps) to keep you occupied for months.

Nothing wrong with S60 UI

Just to point out that there are those of us (currently about 40% of the market) that chose the S60 UI since it works for us. My daughter just renewed her contract and decided to keep her old phone as the carrier was only really offering touch screen phones which she has tried and returned. I need a keyboard since I refuse to use two hands to use a phone, or have to look at it to make a call.

Despite the euphoria for touch phone UI's even within the "smartphone" world (whatever that is, the Nokia 6700 isn't one, just look as the spec and tell me why not) then I'd say a lot more than 50% of smartphone sales are NOT touch screens, but until Apple produces one of these the hype will have to wait.

T-Mobile UK

SIM free Nokia E55 £200 (Amazon), T-Mobile SIM only 30 day contract, 1GB data £10, 3GB data £15.00. The 3GB allows tethering.

3GB costs

12 month £380

18 month £560

24 month £740

E55 is S60,noise cancelling (works properly with current firmware), GPS, free maps, wifi, wifi tethering app, SIP phone app, webkit browser (for those who have to browse but X /N series phone would be better for teen use), 100 gram phone. Removable battery, up to 32GB micro-SD, DLNA server and client, N-Gage platform games (teens better served by X/N), FM-RDS radio, limited number of fart apps but 30k others, Java, Flash, voice in (dialing, commands) and out (reads mail, sms). Apparently there are apps that involved undressed women and nobody cares. That is the phone is targeted at adults.

And best of all you can do everything with one hand, it uses this new technology called a keyboard which means you can operate the phone single handed without having to remove your gloves or look at it (for phone calls).

Comes without added hype.

Nokia?

40% WW market share for "smartphone" which does not include say the 6700 since it doesn't have wifi and is on the S40 software.

The answer would be "no" since the two are not comparable

HD-TV does not replace SD-TV. The intention of DAB is to replace FM.

What is comparable is digital terrestrial TV (DVB-T) replacing analogue TV, a process still happening but generally accepted to be beneficial to the consumer.

If the radio industry can provide DAB adapters in the same range of proportional cost as the Freeview receivers and TV's (assuming a decent FM portable is £40, the adapter should cost no more than £4 and be portable) and; can provide the same proportion of new content as Freeview vs Analogue (5 analogue TV channels vs 50 digital TV channels plus 24 radio channels) then there is a chance that DAB, even the out dated version chosen by the experts for the UK, might have some justification. Otherwise, DAB as currently touted in the UK, is technically outmoded, poorly sourced, thinly spread and over-priced. Encouraging it a dis-service to the general public and a number of the statements made by it's proponents about the need, quality, availability of content and cost to operate verge on the fraudulent.

Strongly worded letter follows.

Why can't it be wifi tethered?

Why can't the iPad be tethered via wifi. Both Android and Symbian phones have or can have apps to make the phone act as a wifi router. You just need to have a smartphone to do the tethering.