* Posts by Steve Evans

2772 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Apr 2007

My Council Services

Steve Evans

Gritting...

I wonder if there is a way of requesting gritting, or will my road, and the 3 others I have to take before I reach a gritted bus route, turn into a wreck-strewn ice-rink for a month - as usual.

Cassandra database now ready for mere mortals

Steve Evans

Twitter?

Hardly the best endorsement given the number of "broken bird" pages that service displays!

Michael Dell declines to eat his Apple (humble) pie

Steve Evans

@Goat Jam

Hindsight is 20-20.

In 1997 I don't think anyone could have predicted what Jobs could and would do with Apple, and I doubt anyone else would have managed it. It was "his baby" after all. He was a rather unique driving force, and we'll have to see what happens now he's gone.

In the parallel universe where 1997 saw the end of Apple, I don't think anyone will be casting any blame for not sticking with it. Jobs pulled off a 1000:1 shot.

Apple 'prepping smaller iPad'

Steve Evans

re: Riiiiiiiight

Well actually they are. They are still making the 3GS, that's your cut down budget iphone.

So unless they have some new "super" feature for the ipad 3 they have a problem. How can you sell an ipad1/2 as a budget option if there's bugger all difference to the ipad 3? Also the margins might not let them slash the price of the budget option enough to get in and mix it up with the Android tablets. Hence they might need a real budget model.

Steve Evans

re: Corrections..

I thought the mini ipad had already been release, it was called the iphone and they managed to squeeze wifi and 3G into it (well after a couple of goes anyway!).

Steve Evans

Odd...

I assume the iphone4/4s box does include sandpaper then?

Steve Evans

Re: Cost

Yup, quite a few... The only parts which presently impose a size limit (and a premium if you were to go smaller) are the battery capacity and the users fingers. Everything else is miles away from any kind of super small size premium level.

Screens are actually easier to make smaller, just try and find a large OLED for example! So the screen will be cheaper. A smaller screen will use less power, which is handy as the battery (as always) is really going to be the compromising component.

I doubt they could keep the current margins, and might have to cut it a bit, but that's always the way with a product range. Top end products have the margin. That's how Nokia managed to fail, they dominate the low end, and lost the top.

At the end of the day, a mini-pad would be firmly aimed at those that might go Android, to tempt them into the collective and convert them.

iPhone 4S: Our *hit list

Steve Evans

90%

We really don't need to comment here do we... You at El Reg can argue if it's a 90% gift of the gods, or a slight update with beta software released a bit too early (rather reminds me of a once great Finnish company).

Team Philippines solar car in self-combustion drama

Steve Evans

Errr...

You seem to be staying in Dexter Morgan's kill room!

Apple iPhone 4S

Steve Evans

This website is a strange one... You publish a "Ten... Androids to outshine the iPhone 4S" and then review the 4S and give it 90%.

If you keep bouncing across the fence like that you're gonna get splinters!

iPad baby baffled by paper magazine

Steve Evans

I wonder...

I wonder if Apple would like to use my new advertising tag line, it is available for a reasonable fee...

The #insert_tablet_name_here#, an essential tool for those with poor motor skills.

Virgin Media broadband in two-day wobble

Steve Evans

If it's that bad then it probably impacts the voice phone line. Try reporting that and tell them you get crackles, pops etc on the line when it rains. They tend to respond to problems with voice lines with a little more professionalism.

Leo DiCaprio slated to play Turing in biopic

Steve Evans

Don't forget...

I hope they remember to include Hitler's master code inventor, Abdul.

Apple: 4m iPhone 4S handsets sold, thank you very much

Steve Evans

Siri

Go on, have a laugh, tell it to call you and ambulance.

No prizes for guessing what happens ;-)

OccupySF BOFH runs protest network on pedal power

Steve Evans

@A/C 09:47 GMT

If you continually charged from one battery of the pair, then sure, it would upset things, but they have multiple phones requiring charge, so allow hookup to both sides of the centre tap and things will even out.

Steve Evans

You're copping the down-votes a bit there, but I think I know what you're trying to say (beyond the humour).

The truth is they probably are middle-class, the lower class can't be squeezed anymore, and now the middle-class are feeling it and they don't like it.

Odd that if they are so energy starved they are using such large machines. Surely an Atom based netbook would be a far better idea.

Also no sign of solar, which is very odd given the off-the-shelf availability of solar phone chargers.

Last, but no least, if you have a 12v charger, and need 5 volts for phones, the easy route is to connect the 12v to a pair of 6v lead acid batteries as used in some UPS's, motorbikes and alarm systems, then you can use the centre tap between the batteries and have two 6volt sources, far easier to work with.

Sixth of Britain's cellphones have traces of poo on them

Steve Evans

Why pick on phone, good daily-fail headline grabber I supposed, but they should check a few more surfaces.

I think you'd be hard pressed to exit a pub toilet without getting something on your hands from the taps, door handle etc etc etc... Then stand on the bus/tube on the way home and grab something to steady yourself... Oh dear...

So as always, wash your hands before sticking them in your mouth or cooking.

Oh, but don't go completely anal about it, exposure to things does help the immune system, it's one of the theories why there are more allergies these days, kids just don't get out into the garden and eating worms like they used to - they don't get past the door way before an over protective parent dives on them with an anti-bac spray.

BlackBerry stumbles to feet, full of apologies

Steve Evans
Big Brother

Haha...

Bet RIM won't believe HM gov next time they say inserting that message surveillance system will be seamless.

iOS update woes prompt gnashing of teeth for Apple fans

Steve Evans

Early day adopter.

Such is the pain of the early day adopter.

Given the track record of dodgy upgrades from Apple (and pretty much everyone else!), you wouldn't catch me jumping in on the first day (or two) with a device which I couldn't afford to be without when it bricks.

Hell, I've only just moved onto Windows 7, still have my XP virtualised in virtualbox though, no vista :-)

Steve Evans

@Goat Jam

There are some humourless twats on here.

Which actor should play Steve in upcoming biopic?

Steve Evans

No idea...

No idea who should play Jobs, but if this is a Hollywood piece, whoever plays Bill Gates will be English.

Microsoft flags Firefox and Chrome for security failings

Steve Evans

Yup...

Just change the user agent and tada...

Funny it actively refuses to rate an iOS user agent, whilst others just leave you with a lot of coloured boxes on the screen and no text.

BlackBerry BBM, email offline AGAIN

Steve Evans

@TeeCee

I take it you're not on facebook then?

Dubstep ringtone wins Nokia compo

Steve Evans

Wireless kiddo.

Steve Evans

That'll be the expert judges trying to be hip and choosing the one with "dub-step" in the title.

I rather liked Ozzbozz's progressive Nokia.

TheGreatMarvelous's entry was never going to get off the bottom rung once the expert judges got into the act, you would have thought that after appointing Elop they must have a sense of humour, but obviously not.

Android apps now playable on Windows PCs

Steve Evans

Not bad...

Took a couple of goes to get it to install (Win7 64bit), but worked eventually.

Bad news is that you can't get to their "app store" without using facebook as your sign in, something I'm not willing to do.

NTS: Create dumpable facebook profile.

Wall Street protest app Vibe is secure enough, cries dev

Steve Evans

Hmmmm

Curiosity got the better of me...

So I thought I'd try it... (Android flavour).

Default shows 10 miles range, yet I'm seeing messages from 125000 miles (yes, I know, that sounds a bit wrong on a planet that's only 25000 miles round). Tried moving the range down to two miles, and it force closed on me...

Tried it again, same result.

I've only seen two or three FCs this year, and this app has doubled it!

Uninstalled. Possibly a record for shortest existence on my phone.

No wonder he just puts the apk up on his site, if he put that kind of buggy code up on the market where there is feedback he would be flamed until he was charcoal.

Ten reasons why you shouldn't buy an iPhone 5

Steve Evans

RE: You fail at Internet... FOREVER

"Do you know the last time i took the site extension into account? Never."

Really? Your online shopping experience must be a whole world of wonder (literally). When will it arrive? *Will* it arrive? And how much did I pay for postage!!?

Steve Evans

That would be tricky, as Android is just an OS shared by many many companies, and each of those companies has many many models.

You'd need to target individual handsets, one at a time. And there just isn't time!

Steve Evans

Actually...

I can't quite believe I am commenting against such an anti-apple article, but #1... "One can see the commercial reasons why Apple doesn't like letting people change batteries in its devices easily"... One can? I can't see any commercial reason. In fact if they were removable, Apple could sell extra batteries for £99.99 a piece and hit their followers up with another huge profit margin.

The only reason I can see is that it might impact on the design, and Apple are the champions of form over function.

And #2, well yes, removable storage is very very nice, but a lot of phone manufacturers manage to screw this up by putting the microSD card underneath the battery *d'oh*. So you have to turn the phone off to swap the storage. The Nokia N70, N95 and N97 could both swap it on the fly. In this respect many modern smart phones are going backwards.

Apart from that, a perfectly good flame-bait of the Appleites. I guess this is a tactically timed post so that all the followers of the one true path are going to be in Covent Garden right now, all sharing the same overloaded mobile mast, and unable to check el-reg?

WTF is... HbbTV?

Steve Evans

Even weirder if you only did one of those lines... :-)

AT&T asks Apple to signal iPhone 4S is a 4G phone

Steve Evans
Thumb Up

Don't worry...

Apple have a long and consistent record when it comes to customising phones for carriers. Their reply will look like this icon (but with a different digit raised).

London 2012 Olympics: 17000 athletes, 11000 computers

Steve Evans

@Piro

Does sound a bit scary doesn't it, but on the bright side I think even an Acer machine can manage to work for 17 days... It's usually at about the 12-18 month point that the power supplies pack up.

HTC Android handsets spew private data to ANY app

Steve Evans
Big Brother

Ah yes, of course... Silly me ;-)

Steve Evans

Ah, the random down vote... Are you an HTC employee, the author of an alternative firmware or someone that doesn't think a service pushed out in manufacturers firmware which allows all your contacts to be grabbed is an issue?

Or just a twat?

Steve Evans

That's enough for me...

Cyanogen here I come!

Apple cofounder Steve Jobs is dead at 56

Steve Evans

RIP

Never bought one of your products, and from what I hear you were a complete sod to work for, but I appreciate the rocket you put up the backside of your various competitors.

RIP and condolences to your family and friends.

What's not in the iPhone 4S ... and why

Steve Evans

That is because the US also has GSM networks. You just wouldn't have been able to roam onto CDMA networks. If your carrier only had a roaming agreement with a US CDMA network you would have been in trouble.

Rather like the situation in the UK back in the last decade when O2/Vodafone were on GSM 900 and Orange/T-mobile (121 at the time I believe) used GSM 1800. For a few years you could buy single band phones which would only work on one or the other. Eventually dual band GSM became the norm and you could use your handset on any of the networks.

Steve Evans

Remember the presentation was PR by sales people. I seriously doubt the claims of "AI" will stand up to any real world standard definition.

iPhone 5 a no-show at Apple's 'Let's talk iPhone' event

Steve Evans

I didn't shoot you down - I don't remember actually seeing your comment!

I wouldn't be so sure that the lack of anything "wondrous" was a problem with real world delivery of the 5 as much as the real world problem of nobody with any sense (yes I know this usually excludes Apple shoppers) would want to go spend iPhone 5 kinds of money on a new phone right now!

If they can keep moving the smoke and mirrors about and convincing their loyal shoppers that the 4S is the one everyone has to beat and take their wedge of cash from them, then why not. The fact there have been better phones than the iPhone option for several years doesn't seem to matter when you're facing with the Apple PR machine.

Steve Evans

Gotta laugh...

The only company which insists on taking its website down to put in an update and when it finally does come back trying to go to http://www.apple.com/iphone/features results in:

Access Denied

You don't have permission to access "http://www.apple.com/iphone/features" on this server.

The iPhone 4S in depth: More than just a vestigial 'S'

Steve Evans

Re: Siri

I was wondering if it was on online or offline feature, and suspecting the former. As you observed, that little bit of info was rather hard to find, so again I was suspecting the former. Apple would make a huge song and dance about it (or an even huger song and dance) if it was offline, because those pesky droid phones already have a similar online feature.

And yes, it's a gimmick which is amusing for a while, but in reality not used.

Such cloud based features are all well an good when you're in your home country (although somewhat limited by the "unlimited" data carriers provide), but as soon as you leave the country, something us Europeans have a nasty habit of doing, mobile data roaming becomes something you only do if you really really have to. i.e. you've just severed a limb (because the roaming charges will cost you another one!).

Adobe: crashing 100 million machines not an option

Steve Evans

Maybe...

Maybe they could spend some of that time making their updates not requiring a machine restart every time?

UK punters happy to pay £3 to top up e-wallets

Steve Evans

Really?

There are people that say it is possible to charge too low a fee for moving your own money about?! What asylum was this survey conducted in?

From my cursory look at the graph I would say that the sweet spot (if they must charge) is below £1. After that you get at least a 20% leap in the "dislike"... The people conducting this survey seem to think that the sweet spot should be defined as "pissing off less that 50% of your customers".

Boffins invent miracle pill that counteracts effects of booze

Steve Evans

@Remy Redert

I don't think the magic pill is really going to help addicts and overdosers. Addicts don't keep drinking to avoid the hangover, they're generally trying to escape something else, and you could still overdose, in fact maybe more so. This drug only stops the effect of the drug on the brain, your kidneys and liver will still have to sort out all the crap you've tipped down your throat.

Evolution gave us pain because the human body doesn't come with a user manual.

Steve Evans

They'd still say you're nicked as you will still fail a blood and breath test.

Mozilla forces Firefox 7 on memory diet

Steve Evans

Well my experience of FF7 so far has been pretty good. I generally leave FF open with a zillion tabs in various tab groups on my laptop, and rarely shut the laptop down (takes too long to boot, so it get sleep/hibernate). FF6 would slowly leak and cause me to have to shut down the browser, restart it and then restore tabs, but so far today FF7 is being pretty good. I am seeing a memory footprint approx 40% smaller than before, and during the course of the day it hasn't proceeded to nibble its way through more and more.

So all in all, well done Mozilla guys!

HeyTell voice messenger

Steve Evans

No impact on call plan...

"How big is each message? The developer reckons about the same as an average e-mail but in the absence of an export option you'll have to take its word for that."

If you installed 3G Watchdog then you'd be able to tell us ;-)

I'm more worried about my data limit than my talk limits. Now if someone could work out a way of grafting an acoustic coupler to a mobile so I could use talk time for internet access...

Apple staff in UK told to cancel holiday in early October

Steve Evans

IANAL

but I don't think they can legally do that, if they have approved it, then they can't unapproved it.

If they then sack you for taking the holiday anyway, or sending them the bill for the cancelled holiday, then you could have great fun with them with an unfair dismissal hearing... Plus with this being the ever so media attention hungry Apple, I think sending your story "Apple ruined my holiday and then sacked me" to every paper you can think of would be the order of the day.

Huawei gets charged with juicy Android handset

Steve Evans

Hmmm...

3 days on a 1900MAh battery?

Hmmm... Doubtful in any real world test... Unless they're reduced the radio consumption by a huge margin. Which you can do, but then it becomes useless as a phone unless you're standing on the top of a tall building - next to the mast!