Posts by Rick Leeming
57 posts • joined Monday 23rd April 2007 08:58 GMT
First Person who uses this on me...
Gets the biggest .BMP file I can create e-mailed directly to them with the words "Don't Send Me TwitterSpam" written in it.
Re: Bing?
I've used Google Maps (On my Galaxy-S), and I've used Navteq/Nokia maps (I'm using Navigon on my HTC HD7 at the moment).
Navteq are actually BETTER than google maps in the UK. Same maps as used by Garmin, and many car manufacturers. Google maps kept trying to get me to go up roads that are closed off (and have been for years), and sometimes routed me the LOOONG way round where I live.
Google I'm told is very good in large cities with large populations, however we don't all live in London/New York/LA.
Posted in Nokia's WinPho 8 double date announced
I rather Like Windows Phone!
Picked up a HD7 about 18 months back when it was just WP7, not 7.5. On the same day I picked up a Galaxy-S. I've still got the HD7, and the Galaxy got traded at CEX.
My wife has a 3GS, she's OK With it, but after playing around with my handset (and stealing it for a couple of weeks) she's rather more impressed with it. Prefers the menus, the battery life, and the software (Zune isn't bad really, it just takes a little getting used to).
In the past 2 years I've had Symbian, Blackberry, iOS, Android and WP7.5. I'm still using the Windows Phone, and I'm a demanding user*. Likewise I know a number of other people who are converts to WP7, because it really does "just work".
If you're slating it (like I did when it first arrived), you've not used it for more than a few minutes. Give it a chance, you may like it!
*My only gripe is being unable to use Mass Storage Mode.
They Said this when XP Tablet edition came out, and people carried on buying computers. (Ok, it was cack, but it was supposed to change computing forever).
Then Smartphones appeared, and they declared desktop computing at all dead.
Then laptops became affordable, and they declared the desktop computer dead.
Then netbooks came along, and they declared Laptops and Desktops dead (again)
Then the new high-end smartphones arrived, and they declared Laptops and Desktops dead again.
Then workable tablet arrived, and the desktop and laptop was declared dead again.
Then Ultrabooks arrived, and everything else was declared dead.
Then tablet stuck their head above the wall again, and marketing pukes have once again declared Laptops and Desktops dead.
And So The Cycle Continues. I've recently had more requests related to building and buying desktop computers than I've had for years. Because people have finally cottoned on that you can fix a desktop machine cheaply, after they have had a price for repairing a broken laptop, and found that they just aren't worth fixing. On the plus side, I've now got a nice collection of spare 2.5" Drives and SODIMMs. :)
Posted in Ten... pieces of tat for Apple fanboys
I had one of the sweatshits, and a hat at one point. Freebies because they were in a box at a place I did work experience at 6th form. Actually quite crappy IIRC, but they'd likely be worth a bloody fortune now to some hipster gimp.
Posted in Marathon
ran fine on a 68040...
I was using a Quadra 630 DOS, and it ran Marathon and Marathon 2 with no issues!
Properly takes me back, I've likely still got the disks in the attic with The Collection of Crap!
Circling The Drain....
It's a shame to see, as they made some very good products, for many years. They should just roll themselves as a Software and Services company, and let another manufacturer make the handsets.
A Microsoft/Nokia alliance is the obvious one to buy them out, Nokia rolling out handsets (their economy of scale would probably make it viable), and MS dealing with the software. Let Windows Phone live in the consumer marketplace, and let the Blackberry OS and Services live in the business arena (with a cheap handset or two for the Chavs).
I Liked Blackberry products, and had a personal Blackberry or years, but they appear to have lost their way. Shame really, they did some killer products. I had an 8900 at one point, and "Upgrading" to the Torch 9800 was probably the worst handset swap I've done. The 8900 could take a beating and keep on ticking, the Torch was a fiddly bugger that needed rebooting every day.
Aero?
Why Bother?
I'm using the Classic theme, because it's an OS. It lets me find the apps I want to run, and I want it to be clean.
As long as I'm not FORCED to use Metro day-to-day i'll upgrade, otherwise I'll stick with Win7 on all my machines.
Posted in Google Drive stalls on LAUNCH DAY
Re: Point?
Skydrive auto-sync app working fine here, and as you said, it's 25Gb.
I've used Dropbox before now, not a fan.
So basically they realised the hole they dug for themselves is far too deep to get out of on their own, and they need a little more appeal.
Don't get me wrong, I like Blackberry's products, it's just that they are trying to be all things to all people, and it's not working. Apple know their market, as do the Android handset makers, and MS is now turning out a proper consumer-focused handset OS that really does work well (It got me off Blackberry after many years, and after I had a HD2, a handset that would put anyone off). Blackberry on the other hand have stumbled along producing too many handsets, most of which don't have an obvious market.
RIM if it has a future needs to sell the software products, and let others make the handsets. If it wants to keep the handsets in-house it needs to scale it's range back to a few handsets aimed a few levels of the corporate market again.
I've said for a few years that RIM will end up being bought out by another company, and I was told to stop being stupid. iPhone was the first nail in the coffin, and they keep getting hammered in.
Posted in HP Pavilion dm1-4125ea 11.6in netbook
Nice Little Machines...
I'm using a little Acer "Ferrari One" at the moment, had it for about 18 months as it was only £300 brand new when my old lappy died. I used an MSI Wind u135 for a while, but it caused me rage!
Similar points raised in relation to a netbook and this type of machine. Screen res is good, graphics are pretty slick, and it's USABLE. The 11.6" point is where usability and portability meet. You're using a proper keyboard for the most part, you've a screen you can read, and the battery life does well.
18 months down the line the ONLY regret I have in my case is not checking first to see if the XGP parts would come on the market here. They didn't, but I'm still not disappointed by the Sub-Laptop/Big Netbook machines.
Posted in O2 denies Nokia WinPho handset cull
Never had them...
To the best of my knowledge they never had them in stock anyway. Her Indoors asked for one as her upgrade, so I asked to be kept informed, and never heard a thing. I checked the website every single day, never a dickybird. Asked them 2 weeks after release date, they said they had no word on supply date.
She's now on Orange, paying less, with the handset she wanted.
TBH I think they are just trying to shift their old Trophy and HD7 stock, but TBH as much as I love my HD7, it's been over a year since release, and I wouldn't agree with anyone getting one now on anything over £25 a month.
Posted in AMD Llano vs Intel Sandy Bridge
Nice to see
At least they are being a little more competative at last. I've never really had any issues with AMD laptops, using an Acer Ferrari One to type this on, works great. Last machine was a 2.0Ghz Turion, and the one previous was an XP Mobile. All have been great at the times they were bought.
Personally for a laptop I'd steer clear of Intel for the most part, as ny desktop does the most work. Anyone using a Laptop as their Only (or main) machine isn't really getting the best experience anyway.
Just put Woz in charge
Because putting Woz in charge will give them the other Founder, and a man who does actually believe in open, interesting, fun and innovative new products.
Might help if customer retentions had a clue...
They wanted £250 for me to upgrade to a Blackberry 9800 from a Curve 8900, that was on a £45 per month contract. I'm dumping that contract in a month or so, and I've already got a 9800 for £30 a month. Their customer retentions people seemed to think that as an existing customer I wasn't worth their time to deal with. Went back with Orange on the new contract as well because we get good contract discounts a month, but I was shocked that basically I could have a 9300 and enjoy it according to Orange.
Posted in BlackBerry OS 6 – Red Star Rising
typing this on my 9800...
I've been a Blackberry user on and off since the 7x00 series devices. A couple of years back I caved in and bought a Pearl as I finally caved in and bought a personal. Blackberry.
I've had few regrets, namely the AWFUL browser on the pre-OS6 devices, but when I got one I knew it was awful! With the Torch I really think they do actually have a handset that matches (and indeed surpasses) the iPhone in many areas. Still not beating the iPhone for media consumption and gaming, but for what matters to most people who buy this type of handset it's stunning.
If Adobe do roll out Flash as they are suggesting, and RIM do roll out a JVM to run Adroid apps (again as the rumours have been saying for months) then the iPhone really does have a serious competitor!
I gave my wife my old 8900 to replace the HD2 thing she's been using, and after a short grump about the keyboard she's already suffering from Blackberry Thumb!
Apple agreed to this years ago
As above, they agreed to do this before the iPhone 1 arrived on the market, then ignored it totally. They'll lost out to the market that buys the new data cable every 6 months because it's broken, again.
Awesome!
Got to love it, some people think the entire 'net is facebook, they'll be in TEARS.
OpenSUSE user here
OpenSUSE user here, because I'm lazy and prefer everything in one place ready to go. I tried Ubuntu, but TBH I just think of it as Debian for people who aren't technically advanced enough to install Debian directly.
Posted in Apple gives MobileMe a makeover
Too expensive.
MyPhone offers enough service for anyone, and you can opt-out of the advertising if you want. Likewise the OVI store stuff, and Blackberry is binging out Blackberry Shield at some point soonish.
All of the already released ones are free if you have the right handsets. Google I wouldn't use, because I prefer not to give them ALL of my information. Blackberry Haven't announced a price for their service yet, but it's unlikely to be expensive, if they even charge for it at all. Plus the features I personally am more concerned about are remote wipe, phone location and OTA backup anyway, these aren't charged for unless you're Apple.
Expensive phone, expensive contracts, vendor lock-in and even the OTA backup being charged? You're having a laugh! I like the iPhone as a media and browsing handset, there is NOTHING to touch it in those areas, but for e-mail and actually making calls on it leaves an awful lot to be desired.
Posted in GCHQ imposes Whitehall iPhone ban
Good call
I'm agreeing with what is already said about security. The iPhone is an amazing handheld browser and media device. However from a security point of view it's a disaster.
You can't enforce what apps are on it, you can't turn the camera off, you can recover wiped data, you can bypass the password easily.
Blackberry on the other hand is designed from the ground up for security. Even the encryption on them is reliant on the hardware side of things as much as the software. You have absolute control over it (I've worked places with varied security levels dependent of the idiocy level of particular users), and you can pretty much support anything remotely using BES (Over 500 pre-defined options IIRC, plus any custom policies).
As for it "only" being verified up to Restricted level, big deal. You shouldn't be carrying around data any more sensitive than that in the first place! It's one of the reasons a lot of large corporates disable USB ports and the like to protect client data!
64bit IE
Is utter garbage, they seem to have done the minimum amount of work so they can say "We're the first to market with a 64Bit browser on Windows". Never mind the fact it's horribly incompatible, horribly insecure with the Active-X controls it does actually support, and just plain horrible to use.
Included in Allowance?
I used to be on T-Mobile, and some time in 2006 they removed the free access to voicemail after I upgraded my call plan. On my previous (Cheaper) plan I wasn't being charged, but with the upgrade they started charging. When my contract came up for renewal I listed it as the main reason for leaving. Some of us don't answer our calls when driving, and turn our phones off when they don't want to be contacted. It annoyed me that they then charged me extra, so I left.
@ Charles
If you've paid for the handset then it's legally your property. Would you be happy if your OS was locked to use a particular ISP or similar? No you wouldn't, you'd go ape and complain.
I'm running WHS
TBH it's not a bad product. I was going to pile 2k8 on the box I've got, but after installing and setting up I found I had no real use for it. Loads of nice shiny options to play with, but in a home environment they just aren't needed.
I've got the 120 day trial running atm, and it's doing everything I need it to, and a few extra things that are rather useful. I would guess most tech-savvy folks will install 2k8 or 2k3 server, but having done that in the past It's more arse for a home setup than needed.
Posted in Rackable does cookie sheet servers
Reminds me of a homebrew setup...
I remember seeing something similar done years ago. Guy was building a cluster for some university students to use, and just slapped a load of motherboards (P3s) onto a load of shelves, then powered them up. Never realised Google started out with the same idea. Mucho cheapness to do, and fixing things is so easy it's untrue.
@ Alexis
I wouldn't use BMW and Ford as comparisons. If you want to stick with the Ford then think Jaguar X-Type and Ford Mondeo. Basically the same car, but the look is changed to keep the snobs happy.
cash in the COA
Just get the XP version, cash in the COA, instantly you have a cheaper netbook.
@ Martin
Probably Log Me In, or GoToMy PC to be honest. LMI is free, and I even managed to teach my 70-odd year old grandmother how to use it for when she is on holiday. Forget the really clever ways, they may have factored in, but when you dig on these types of stories you'll usually find something like LMI or GTMPC have been used.
If anyone nicks my laptop it's encrypted and insured, so I'm too bothered about it. Also being a normal human being with more sense than money I don't leave it sat in my car, or on my car roof.
@ Robert Moore
Thecloud probably won't have enough RAM for Vista.
Posted in Comcast reveals it is protocol agnostic
This sounds familiar
Do these guys have a stake in NTL/Virgin? They seem to have picked the most irritating punishments for actually using the bandwidth they supply. If they don't want you to download things then they might as well just give you 2Mb and tell you it's tough luck.
Posted in BT's Mayfair exchange downed by burglary
Stolen To Order?
Somehow I don't think this stuff will end up on ebay. Or alternatively it's someone who has finally had enough of BT's level of "Service".
1Gb to the home, 10Mb Per month Fair Usage Limit
You just know it'll happen. Especially if BT are involved.
@ asdf - Geography Lessons
You may benefit from them. If you hadn't been informed previously Europe isn't a country, it's a continent.
I work for a company that trades in the US as well as the UK, and i've looked at the deals. We get a better deal when you take all the extra benefits into account (handsets are free, as are 3G modems etc).
@ Charlie Clark
I work nights, it was about 6:30am when I was writing that and my fingers where pretty much going in the direction my brain pushed them rather than aimed them.
"Pretty Secure" is considered perfectly acceptable English here. Unix itself-unless it's messed with to not be-is a fairly secure and a reliable platform.
My real point is that the least secure part of any computer system is the user. OSX users have swallowed the "More Secure, and no viruses" line hook, line and sinker. They by and large believe that there is nothing that can infect their machine, so they can do as they please with nothing to worry about. I'm commenting here from about 15 years of experience supporting systems both in corporate environments, and in domestic settings, while dealing with people of pretty much all levels of technical ability.
P.S. If you are going to try and correct my grammar and spelling, perhaps you should consider a few lessons in the use of commas beforehand.
Apple, Windows and Linux security
See, the thing is. OSX stems from FreeBSD, a Unix. As such is should be pretty secure. However the point people miss is that people using Unix machines are inherently more technical than the average user. They know not to click on random links, download oddball executable files, and open e-mails with titles like "Get It Bigger, She'll Love You For It".
Similar profiles fit the users of the more "Serious" Linux distros. You pretty much know that someone using Fedora/RedHat/Suse/Mandriva will be fairly technical, and again will know the sensible things to do. On the flipside of this are the users of "Newbie" distros like Ubuntu/Linspire. They often aren't as technical. They can get the stuff working that they need to, but then they aren't too bothered about anything else. Even here there is a certain level of security consciousness. These are users who are either technical, or have in many cases had a Seriously Bad Experience of an infected computer.
Mac users, now then they are living in world of "We are safe because we use Macs". Even back in the days of System 6/7/7.5/8 there have been Mac viruses. However the modern Macs using OSX are sold as super-secure. When in fact we all know they are pretty secure, but not foolproof. This advertising however has made them out to be so secure you don't need to worry about anything. This results in the user thinking they can click what they want, with no consequences. It also results in a certain level of irritating smugness that really riles everyone else. "Get A Mac, It Just Works" rings out on the release of new models, and the party faithful line up to buy Mr Jobs a new Bentley or Three. Then if things don't work Apple just delete the topic on their forums and deny that there is a problem.
Now if you'll excuse me I'll go back to my Windows and Linux boxen. I'll keep my AV programs up to date, and remain pretty paranoid about my own security.
Posted in Web'n'Walk falls over
wasn't working until at least 10:30
I was trying to get on from 8am, called them at 9 and was advised of the problem. Just kept trying it every half hour. Wasn't working for me at 10:30, was again at 11. Still didn't work properly (Missing Images, slow loading pages) until gone 3pm. Ctrl+F5ing pages got everything back again, but it was annoying.
My handset is up for renewal this week, i've just ordered one on Orange instead of T-Mobile. After repeated patchy service round Lancashire and Cumbria i've had enough.
Now Installed on my desktop box..
..and I rather like it. Not used it for a much yet, but seems to have everything I want. Even supported my 770 Series chipset with no issues (10.3 wasn't huge fan of the board, and Ubuntu wouldn't even detect the hard drives).
Later I'll see how it like my Lappy, the combination of Turion X2, Nvidia Chipset and Broadcom wireless has made me give up previously due to a serious case of "More effort than I can be bothered with".
As for the MS and Novell hatred in this thread. Most distros contain something that MS own the licence for, even if it is just .WMA compatability. Come down off the high horse please.
At Last!
I've played with the RC Releases a little as i'm a long term OpenSUSE user. Felt nice, but was using KDE 4 and it did have a few annoying bugs. Full release should be rather nice to have set up so I can just leave the server up and running for 6 months plus and ignore it again. At the moment it's running Server 2003, and remembering the weekly reboots is a pain.
Posted in T-Mobile doubles 0870 call costs
Just as my contract comes up for renewal...
I don't ring 08xxx numbers all that often, 2 or 3 times a month is normal though, and usually for 20 minutes or so per call. I begrudge paying extra anyway, but trebling the cost isn't exactly going to keep my business unless there are lots of other freebies put in place. Free Web n' Walk may swing it, but only if they allow me enough that I don't have to bother about me connecting the lappy up.
Very Nice.
I'm a long-term HP user for my laptops. The only minus to this I can actually see is the awful GMA graphics (which the Air also suffers from). That said, if I personally wasn't paying I would be ordering one. Would make a nice machine with XP and Suse on a dual boot.
As for people saying it's not nice looking, it looks like a laptop that is actually functional rather than pretty. I like the looks more than I like the Air because of that, and so will many others.
It's nice, but it's not the answer to everything.
I'm reminded of Bill Ray's comment in an article about the iPhone SDK. "But eliciting positive quotes about Apple products is a bit like asking children for their view on Christmas; whatever you hear is going to be predictable and pretty much devoid of insight."
While i'll admit the iPhone has some very cool features, it's come rather late to the smartphone party. I've been using Symbian, Windows Mobile and RIM devices for a few years on and off. Personally I really can't see the attraction with any of them. At least with Symbian and WM you don't have to cope with Vendor lock-in, and the restriction of buying your software through a single point of sale. Nor are you restricted to using a single piece of rather terrible software to connect to those devices (I know iTunes works brilliantly on OSX, but on Windows it's cack). Also RIM have pretty much stitched up the corporate push e-mail market. Any company seriously considering deploying the iPhone to it's people either only has a few handsets, or is only just considering giving their field guys mail capable handsets. Nobody of any size is going to drop their existing Blackberry+BES install in favour of the iPhone. Nor can I see RIM opening up BES to interface with the iPhone. Also taking economics into account anyone with a largish company gets their Blackberry handsets for free as part of their deal with Vodaphone/O2/T-Mobile.
Is the iPhone a nice product? Certainly.
Is it going to take the market? Not a hope.
I was considering an iPhone the 1st time round, and opted for a HTC Wizard instead. I'm due a new phone this month, I'm asking for a Nokia 6500 Classic, because all the smartphones are Too Bloody big!
*sigh*
And again a possibly usefull article is ruined by the MSvApple debate. If you REALLY want to be secure then Solaris is your friend. Macs aren't much more secure than Windows machines because the weakest link in the security chain is drooling on the keyboard opening things they don't understand. The Spyware and Virus share for the Mac is slowly growing, and they even had viruses back in the days of 7.5. The downfall of OSX and viruses with be Hubris on the part of the users. Yes you CAN be infected with a virus, you aren't immune. Someone will write a real nasty at let it out in the wild at some point. When that happens the "We dont get viruses" argument will be the downfall of the machines. I'll be smiling as i reinstall and attempt to recover people's data off HDD's so they don't lose any more of their data.
@ Geoff
Erm, that would be incorrect. Apple always used to think of themselves as a hardware company, that also produced the OS. The recent leaning towards being mainly a software company is exactly that, recent. If you disagree take a look inside a Mac Classic and take note of all the names embossed inside the case. You'll see that the great majority of them (Including Woz's) are hardware engineers.
Back to PowerPC?
Just out of curiosity, would this be a possible ploy for Apple to return to the PowerPC chips as a base for some of their machines? They still code for the PowerPC chips in 10.5 yes? Is the Intel deal for a set period of time?
Greater minds than mine will no doubt have a better idea, but I know I wouldn't be surprised to be fair. As long as the OS doesn't look any different to the end-user then they won't have massive problems. Most Mac users i know don't boot windows, or in fact use Parallels, they just boot into OSX and do all their stuff. Outside of the tech-savvy it seems there is a lot of ignorance that you even can run windows if you really do need to.
Tux, because he need some loving too.
Posted in AVG revamps free security scanner
Nice of them!
I'm rather impressed. I was getting the impression that AVG 8.0 Wasn't going as a free product. The Paid for version has been around for a while, and I just assumed they would leave 7.5 as the free option. I'm running Sophos on one of my machines, but the others are just running AVG free. I've had too much exposure to McAfee and Norton to ever like them, just hoping that they don't let it get too bloated!
Thumb Buttons?
I'ver removed the apple software update anyway, but is Safari supporting the thumb buttons on mice yet?
Posted in Apple US retail sales leap past PC par
gah! fanboys!
Why the arguments? We know all OSen suck. Doesn't matter if it's Windows, OSX, Linux, Unix or even BeOs. They are all a pain in the arse.
Windows 98SE is actually perfectly acceptable for the majority of users out there. While most of us here are pretty tech-savvy, the average user doesn't care. They just want to turn the computer on, browse the web, shop and do their e-mails. Latest and Greatest doesn't come into it. Though to be fair, Macs aren't good value for money, even in a dim light if you squint. The newest laptop I bought (HP G6031EA, AMD TK-53, 2Gb RAM, GeForce Go6100) does everything I want of it, and then quite a bit more. It boots XP64 and 64Bit OpenSUSE. It "Just Works" once I got rid of the horribly bloated POS that is Vista.
My desktop box is a home built AMD 6000+, 4Gb and an X1950XT. Decent spec for what I use it for (Mainly Browsing and some gaming). Again this boots XP64 and OpenSUSE. The Reason i mention those is that at both points in time I took a serious look at Macs as a possible option. Both times I've had to conceed that for what each of these machines cost me I wouldn't have been able to get a Mac, and still have the same grunt. The Lappy was £375, the desktop was £550 all in. I wouldn't have been able to get the MacPro that would have been essential to actually play games on (once I had installed Windows alongside OSX). price/performance on Macs is a great big fail, and some of us really do work things out like that. Hell, I wouldn't have been able to get a MacBook pro to get away from the horrible Intel graphics chips on the MacBook either, even when you take the combined price of the machines into account.
Macs don't always "Just Work" either. They are just as bad as PCs for perferal hardware compatability. I picked up a cheap Samsung laser printer a few years back, and it refused to be recognised by either my G3 when I bought it, or my mate's Macbook about a month back. They are less prone to hardware conflicts and annoying driver issues essentially because Apple have such a tight level of control over the hardware, but they do still suffer with external devices.
Before I get accused of being a "Mac Hater" i'm not. Until recently I was still using a G3 that was sat under my desk, but after many years faithful service it finally let The Magic Smoke escape, and it's gone to the great recycler in the sky. I used Macs from System 6 onwards, running through various machines including a Powerbook 100, early Powerbook Duos (Now THAT was a snazzy idea), Quadra 630 DOS (shiny P90 card If my memory serves), PowerMac 6500 and eventually the rather awesome and uber reliable G3 (by way of a few other machines as well, including a few Power Computer servers we had at a place I was working). I've also pretty much always had a Windows/Linux box as well because of games, and software availability.
Now please, quit the bickering, it's like being in a playground.
ouchies, i just wrote an essay, nightshift is getting to me I think.
Posted in HP to ship SuSE on India PCs
Why does SUSE Suck?
Really come on. I've used OpenSUSE as my OS of choice for a few years now. Though I have had some holidays with RedHat and Ubuntu. Where SUSE falls down is that it has Too Much Stuff included by default. Where it wins is hardware support. I ended up with SUSE after multiple failed attempts at installing Ubuntu onto my Lab Boxen. I was trying to escape Mandrake/Mandriva for some reason I can't actually remember now.
I have also been responsible for rolling Ubuntu onto peoples machines, and some copies od Redhat on servers. It's no better or worse than any other distro, but at least it's users don't wave it in front of everyone's face telling them that it's The Ultimate OS a la Ubuntu & OSX users.
*shrug* I'll no doubt get flamed, but it'll be by fanboys, who's opinions are by deafault worthless.
