Re: It sure is.

Microsoft have http://so.cl

I went along for the beta, and was totally baffled by it. They're trying some weird search engine/social network hybrid. Just bizarre.

Re: AT Powerswitches

Not that one, but I've fried my fair share of boards by plugging the power connector in the wrong way around.

Polarised connectors? Kids of today don't know they're born.

Re: Everyone...

Ah, the old "PC of Theseus". Rule I use is "new CPU = new computer", at least when it comes to naming the thing.

New disks, gfx, other cards - not new computer. I rarely upgrade so often that swapping a CPU out doesnt involve a new m/b and ram as sockets/architectures and so on have generally changed since my last upgrade.

Re: fingerworks!

I'd love one of those. But just as I could afford one, a certain fruity company bought Fingerworks and pulled all their products.

Perhaps I should sue Apple for causing my rsi.

Re: Keyboards

I had an HP Pavilion G6 recently. Possibly even the model reviewed here. Took it back because the keyboard was so stupidly bendy it was essentially unusable.

I also had a low-end Samsung for a while (went back for different reasons) which had an absolutely superb keyboard. Nice and stiff base, lovely key response, a joy to use.

Re: For years I've put up with crap service

Protip: shop at John Lewis.

Their customer service is peerless. Their technical knowledge too. Plus they stock more than one brand of electronics and won't push you towards the most expensive. I went in all ready to buy an ultrabook/MacAir because I wanted the screen size, but the chap steered me to a non-ultra 13.3" Toshiba which was half the price.

"If iOS is such a clone of Windows Mobile why did Microsoft throw it all away and start again?"

Comment on Ars Technica the other day - "Why would anyone want to copy iOS, it's years behind"

Sometimes chucking it all out and starting again is a good idea, especially when the underlying technology has changed so much. Current WinMo, much as I'm about as far from an MS fanboi as you can get, represents some impressive innovation in UI design. iOS, meh - not so much. And that's fine - mainstream users don't want cutting edge design, they need their hands held and that's perfectly OK. Smartphone users are not all geeky types who want the newest everything all the time, or are prepared to learn something different just to use a phone. Which is exactly why iOS is popular. Because it's simple, familiar, safe and easy. I can hand it to my Mum and she's fine with it. Me, I prefer something more modern - because I'm prepared to put in the effort to get the rewards. Neither is more right, it's different things for different people.

Oh, and you're wrong about it being the first touch-only UI. Symbian UiQ and s60 were perfectly happy just getting a finger. Seem to remember a few other devices were too, back in the day. iPaq, anyone?

Multi-touch and finger gestures were around in Fingerworks devices for years. Back in the day I had just saved up enough for one of their awesome Touchstream LP keyboards when Apple bought the company and discontinued all their products. Sure they weren't phones, but the technical innovation of multitouch hardware wasn't Apple's work. They just bought someone else's patents.

I had a touchscreen phone in 2006 and it was perfectly usable. Sony Ericsson P900, iirc. No stylus needed (although one was supplied), no buttons, no start menu. The handwriting recognition was so good I could even send email with one hand, with the phone in my pocket. Yes, it wasn't as slick as modern devices, but it was certainly good enough.

Because it's Android so, iirc, you have to have some buttons.

Also it's quite handy to have page-turning buttons if your fingers are less than sparkling clean, and shunting home/back controls off the screen means more screen space for words.

another vote for Calibre here

I ran the awful Sony software once to get the Adobe DRM thingy authorised so I could use the library service, then never booted it again.

Calibre Just Works. But I don't do collections or any of that sort of thing. I have four or five books on there at any one time and I delete them once I've read them. All my library management - such as it is - is done on my PC.

But I do love my PRS-T1. Well worth the few extra quid over a Kindle, imo.

Re: Electric Cars bad...

"I do not think that it is a good idea to hand total control of the production and distribution of auto fuel (or any other type) to a single central authority like government or giant corporate."

News just in - probably too late to be worrying about that. Saudi Aramco are the world's largest company, they control a significant amount of the oil market. They are the giantest of the giant corporates. Personally I'd rather be in thrall to the French or Norwegians for electricity than to the House of Saud for oil.

Re: How many shades of grey?

16. Almost certainly an eInk Pearl screen. Easily as white as a cheap paperback (although more grey than cheap paper's yellow/brown shade).

IRex managed to get more shades out of eInk with a cunning pixel manipulating system - my Iliad did 16 shades on a screen which supposedly was only capable of 8 - but I expect that secret died with them.

Why do you need more range? Most of the books I read don't have pictures, and 16 greys is enough to anti-alias text to an acceptable level, especially at the resolution eInk works at..

Re: Hmmm..

I would too. I want to pay taxes to make the country better for everyone and not just me. I'm more than happy to support those less fortunate than me through the state (I wish the state was better organised, but that's not quite the issue).

For me, that's what a civilised, humane person does as part of a modern, progressive society. I appreciate other people have different points of view, and I'm not saying they're wrong, this is just my opinion.

Re: Sample size?

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Soc_participants.shtml

Re: From reading here

I generally have no more than three or four books on my reader at any one time. Unlike my girlfriend who often has several books on the go at once, 99% of the time I'm only reading one at a time. I'll often drop sets to read through on there - like doing all of Mieville's Bas Lag books back to back last month. I delete books from the reader when I'm done (or return them if they're library books). My library lives on my computer where it can be neatly organised in directories and/or via calibre, and backed up and so on.

Re: How?

actually the Sony Reader does let you do that.

virtually, of course. but tapping the top of a page creates a 'fold' which you can easily page back to later on.

pretty neat feature.

Re: Bah!

Me too, I grew up in Congleton, with Jodrell Bank on the horizon, looking awesome. I suspect it's presence - and plenty of visits to the place - was at least part of the reason I've always been interested in astronomy.

Also I once gave Sir Bernard a Tunnocks Teacake while he was weeding his garden. He seemed pleased. True story.

Re: Pffft - they're not REAL books.

Rare that I'll resort to either linking to Twitter or Stephen Fry, but he makes a good point here:

"One technology doesn't replace another, it complements. Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators."

http://twitter.com/stephenfry/status/1312682218

Re: Pffft - they're not REAL books.

My ereader lives inside a lovely hardback, leather-bound jacket. It looks like a book, smells and feels like a book too. It's a book. It's also a library, dictionary and (if you really want it to be) a web browser and mp3 player.

Re: Haven't seen the footage yet...

If all the gear worked, there is video of the descent. It just hasn't been transmitted back to Earth yet.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/instruments/cameras/mardi/

Re: Technical question, why does FPS > 60 matter?

It's not really that having 300+ FPS is better for the user than 270FPS, it's more to show that the same hardware is performing "better" with the different software. This test was done on a Valve test rig with an old game - you'd expect to see very high framerates in that situation. In this context it's a bit like how someone might claim their sportscar does 270mph and this other "better" one does 315mph. Nobody is going to actually drive at those speeds, but it's a performance metric you can use to compare two things. How meaningful pure FPS comparisons are another question entirely - much like top speed comparisons for cars.

Also what the guy above said.

Re: I'd pay

"the very fact they someone is using Linux imples they are not likely to spend a significant amount of money on software"

Speaking for me, and just for me, that's not why I use Linux. I use it because - for the things I need my computer to do - it's better than Windows. It's more stable, more secure, gives me more control and the tools available do the job just as well or better. That it's free (from cost) is a bonus, but it's not a factor in my decision to use it.

I spend money buying games for my PS3, and I'd happily spend money buying games for my PC if Steam ports successfully. I have been known to buy the odd HumbleBundle for linux.

People who just want to avoid spending money can easily pirate whatever software they fancy, from Windows to Office to Photoshop to games or whatever.

Re: @ Taylor1

How to polish a turd: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiJ9fy1qSFI (mythbusters)

Re: Make sure it's network unlocked

Possibly the only thing they have in their favour is that Vodafone don't network lock their phones.

Complete shower of shit otherwise, of course.

Re: Stop Press - Reg headline to CONTAIN random capitalized WORDS for no GOOD reason

News International RAGS often CAPITALISE certain words in both HEADLINES and ARTICLES THEMSELVES, along with LIBERAL use of BOLD TEXT. I believe THE REGISTER was engaging in SATIRE.

Re: For that matter...

My last machine shipped with Win7 and Win7 didn't have drivers for it's wifi card.

Neither did Intel. INTEL. Not some fly-by-night hardware vendor.

I had to install some for a totally different card which somehow worked.

All the linuces I put on there worked perfectly out of the box.

Re: Olympic...?

All right, no one is to stone ANYONE until I blow this whistle. Even... and I want to make this absolutely clear... even if they do say, "Olympics"

Re: thus proving

Maybe the only thing being proved is that if you're the kind of person who is prepared to spunk a thousand quid or so on a teeny little computer which is worth nothing near that, you're possibly also the kind of person who buys Macs...

Re: A shame

New to me. I'm an IT guy, not a finance one. I like these kind of pieces El Reg do from time to time, they shed light on a world which is usually as baffling to me as the internals of my servers are to my boss.

Re: perhaps controversially

"You've just labelled every "normal" user of a computer (ie, 90% of the population) as a blithering half-wit."

Interesting interpretation you made there. I've worked in user-level tech support and seen some of the ways people try to get control of their systems - yet I don't think they're stupid, they're just busy. Even the guy who called me out because his mouse wasn't working (it wasn't plugged in) - not stupid, just focussed on something else. He was busy brokering sales/purchases for the company I was working at - a task which, as far as I'm concerned, is high-level voodoo. For him, IT was something which either worked or you called someone to fix it - and how many things do you have like that in your life?

You don't have to understand every aspect of a tool to be a tool user, and not doing so doesn't make you stupid. I don't. I can change a theme on my desktop, I can write a script to do x y or z, but ask me to write assembler or lay out transistors on a cpu die and I'm as lost as nearly everybody else on the planet. We all use magic, because lots of technology is sufficiently advanced these days - and that's perfectly OK.

Re: I run a similar 'flat' theme on Gnome 3 and it's fine

Metro's search driven menu is actually very similar to Gnome Shell and Unity, so "hit start button, type, press enter" is pretty much the same operation for all three of them. Last time I used MacOS I ran quicksilver which was the same again. Fiddling around with the mouse just to launch stuff and find files isn't something I've done for quite some time. Obviously other people's milage varies, that's just me.

On desktops - I keep pressing ctrl-alt-downarrow (new virtual desktop shortcut in Gnome) in Win8 to get to a new, empty, desktop and it keeps turning the screen upside down. I can't believe that inverting the screen is such a common operation there's a shortcut key for it.

If Windows users don't like MS's shell, and particularly if they do like Gnome's one, I don't imagine it'll be long before Cairo is ported to Win8. http://cairoshell.github.com/

Re: perhaps controversially

My GTK/Shell theme is currently Elegant Brit, it's up on Gnome-look somewhere. It's not quite as polished as it could be, but the flatness does make a nice change from rounded corners and shiny FX, which I've been a bit bored of for a while now.

I've noticed techie types are often very protective of their UI. I wonder if it's because we're used to having so much control over our computers, and building up lots of muscle memory about how to do favourite tasks (if I had a pound for every time I've typed ":w" into not-vi...) and then when someone else changes it we feel like our personal space has been violated, and our precious efficiency has been ruined.

For the Normals, computers are just magic boxes. If one day you power it up and the magic looks and works a little differently - who cares? It's not like you can do anything about it anyway, you just hunt around for a vaguely familiar icon or two and click it until the internet or email or photo app or whatever is in front of you.

Re: archery shoot-out??? surely its track and field stuff

QWOP tournament.