Posts by Mr Floppy
100 posts • joined Thursday 11th September 2008 02:10 GMT
Posted in Samsung reveals release for 5in tablet
Or not
> Samsung may well have improved the "resolution" of the sensor so that it works. Or not.
The stylus works like a Wacom digitiser. It uses electromagnetic resonance technology patented by Wacom I believe. No need for power but pen tip power, orientation of the stylus, makes it better than any stylus system out there.
The only problem is that the API for the stylus is owned by Samsung and not a part of Android. Mind you, they could have just licensed Wacoms Cintiq.
Posted in Zombie mobile Linuxes mate
don't just blame Intel
Nokia are still to blame. Maemo could have been great. When Nokia announced Meego after all the people bought the N900, well initially there was a little excitement but then nothing, nothing, nothing.
Still, the N900 rides strong ..
@Ian Ferguson
I don't actually watch much TV myself. The Mrs Floppy (an expat) likes it though.
But yeah .. suck it to yers! Stealing your TV!
Posted in Turnbull storms Paris with NBN’s doom
Prat
That is all. The guy is a major prat. His record at OzEmail kind of shows his approach. The company then had a great user base and potential but when the whole service got shit, he took his money and ran.
a large pile of steaming poo and mostly unwatchable
I have to say that although I agree, UK television isn't that much better either.
Atleast I don't have to pay the license fee. Have a deal with a mate where we both have a slingbox at either end.
Posted in TiVo chief downunder ejects to the US
Bye TiVo
the Topfields have been doing it for free for ages. Even with ice tv, it was still a better alternative.
Pity about Maemo
If it wasn't for Nokias stupidity Win mobile would be 5th
Posted in Winklevoss twins: Zuck on our salty nuts
did they really?
> These twins appear to be hardworking athletes that came with an idea, and just want they feel was stolen from them.
Even they admitted that the idea came from Divya Narendra.
Anyway, there wasn't a judgement in the case. The judge ordered the two companies to mediation. The case went bad for the twins and they were very very lucky to get 65 million. Ever since, they've gone back to try and get more.
Zuckerberg was never their friend by the way. They hired him to do work. No denying from me that Zuck is a tosser though. Don't know him personally but some of those interviews he's done, he's hardly Richard Branson
HTC Desire Z or something similar and ..
Put Meego on that and it may mean I leave my N900 as a shelf queen
Posted in Nokia offers $10,000 for new ring tone
Give the money to me
1. record
2. take a nokia phone
3. play the Gran Vals tune and drop it in the toilet
4. Flush
5. Stop recording
@BorkedAgain: And how would you feel
Well, the little franchise in Australia called the Pancake Parlour managed to make Ronald change his pancakes to hotcakes ...
and a little burger joint called Burger King in South Australia managed to make Burger King change their name to hungry jacks.
Go little guys.. but not Apple in this case
ouch me back!
At 3800 pounds, that's a bit steep there. I suppose I don't need the raid 0 SSD.
I think this form factor needs to be revisited. Maybe as an all-in-one like the iMacs but dock your keyboard and mouse and with a carry handle and a fold-out stand. Keep the built in battery but only as a UPS or something. Should reduce the weight. I'd love a 21 inch all-in-one gaming rig.
Posted in Hands on with the Samsung Galaxy Note
thumb typing
Yeah, if there is a proper bluetooth HID stack, then I'd happily carry around a rollup keyboard. I dont like typing with my thumbs.
But, theres a stylus so graffiti for android would be perfect us old palm users who have got quick at it. It's the only thing that'll stop me using my N900 with garnet VM.
even better!
it's Wacoms electromagnetic resonance technology behind the pen.
I'm liking this thing even more.
or a resistive touchscreen?
Or maybe a combination resistive capacitive touchscreen?
It might be multi touch resistive though. Will know more when the S-Pen SDK comes out.
you mean like Maemo
on a N900. Nokia's Internet Tablets. Such a travesty that they didn't do more with it.
It doesn't matter
Yes, there are some similarities in appearance (few that I can see) but it doesn't matter because it has the words "Samsung" on the cover. It's also pretty fugly.
I think the "inspiration" is misguided with many of the east Asian manufacturers. There are plenty of good designers out there given the number that make it over here as games designers. It just seems that the ones without an original thought work for the big companies, or are made to toe the line
Posted in Sid Meier's Civilization
Civ 2 was the easiest to cheat with
You could just edit the files as they were just text. Defeats the purpose of the game unless you want to totally dominate and place partisans to besiege all the other cities. It also helps you settle in the artic tundras.
Kids these days
BASIC was still a couple of years away in advanced computer studies. It was Logo and Turtle graphics for me. That with one of 6 Apple IIe we had. The geeky kids were the ones that stayed back in recess time to use them.
Mind you, you'll struggle to find any teachers now who has even heard of the those let alone teach it.
Posted in Elgato readies iPad 2 TV tuner dongle
I'll believe it when I see it
Tried heaps of different aerials and various tuners and none proved adequate. Best is a home made yagi from a magnum stick and paper clips funny enough but hardly mobile.
for the HTC dream/magic,
since CM (and the other guy who I can't remember) no longer has this phone, CM 6 is the only stable build. As nice as that is and fast, it's still froyo but have no fear, Ginger Yoshi is here and it's good as. Android 2.3.5!
perish the thought
Adobe kill every thing that they touch. Just look at Business Catalyst. What a joke of a system.
I wonder if Amazon are interested?
like all the rest
They missed the boat on the netbooks. They all thought about the form factor but not the software, or how the software would would work on such a small form factor. Then they put back harddrives, Windows XP, increase the form factor a little more and increased the weight, all with an underpowered CPU, it just didn't work anymore. What these companies should take away from this is that it isn't just about the hardware. Some software/OS support would go a long way
Posted from an eeepc 701 running puppy 5, with a modded touchscreen.
Posted in Apple shares drop after Jobs resignation
stock market for dummies
is that where all these player stock market players learn their trade?
Alien Dalvik
If they ever release it that is. It seems they are targetting obsolete platforms so this would be just the thing.
If not, I'm sure there will be someone out there what will make a community based Dalvik port. Maybe these coders could do just that
cue N900 and wiimote and out to a big TV
Sure, i can play some old snes games but there are some great ones there.
Whats a gamer these days anyway? People on iPhones are calling themselves 'gamers' even though they might play smurfs village or something.
Posted in Motorola Atrix Lapdock
design students
especially since the concept was out with the Olo computer for the iPhone. That didn't go anywhere but the idea was good and the patent is probably out there if they wanted it as I think the company isn't there anymore (unless apple snapped it up).
a design student could have thought up something better than this
good idea
lets start with the N900 power kernel for long term support
Posted in id Software Wolfenstein 3D
Different game
but they were great. I had beyond castle wolfenstein on the C64. It was in colour! Good ol 8 bits of it.
Posted in iLuv iPad 2 case and Bluetooth keyboard
Cheap and more expensive alternatives
There's a Kensington version that is $100 and then theres a dealextreme version that's $40. Still, where's the projection keyboard?
Like the KeyFolio
Best accessory yet, the Kensington KeyFolio bluetooth keyboard and case. Not cheap but the charge on it lasts ages. It's like a netbook but can work in portrait mode too.
I don't know about Android but I hope they sort out their BT HID stack. Still favour my N900 over the iPad. If Nokia took stock and looked at what people have done with their NITs, they could have had a good tablet instead of offering their netbook.
Posted in Google's Moto move spells iPhone doom
or get Buzz player
No need to jailbreak. It plays MKV and OGG fine just fine. Well, it struggles with 1080P MKV's but I think that's just the limitation of the device.
How about a dock the phone as the track pad
or a second screen or something. Motorola missed the design there.
nothing changes
He may have started it all but there are now lots of people that are a part of each release. Good on ya Cyanogen. Hope you get a good salary.
Posted in Nokia snubs UK with N9
first five weeks
They sold less than 100000 in the first five weeks starting back in november 2009. Wasn't even available here after it was released for more than five months. That said, it wasn't aimed at the mass market and it sales exceed expectations. They had planned to manufacture 30000 per month but upped that to 100000. That despite the absolute rubbish job Nokia did in promoting the device.
Posted in Octovo Solis e-book reader lamp
suggestions for tests
The problem with theses single battery systems is the boost circuit uses PWM. This isn't a problem for me but for some people, they find that the PWM causes some flickering. If you could test this, that would be great. Just turn on a desk fan and pop the light on behind it. You'll notice a strange effect and that is the PWM.
Still this one looks good. It could be just the photography but the white is quite white without the blueish tinge of the M-Edge.
Posted in X-COM UFO: Enemy Unknown
Simiar but ..
it's not ready yet. It's called Isochron.
You should email MicroProse or Mythos and pester them into making a mobile version
Posted in Oi, Android, get gaming sorted out NOW
Devices devices
It is quite the nightmare for porting even a simple game like Angband. With a virtual keyboard being part of every Android version, you would think that it'll be the same for every device but sadly it's not. Angdroid, she just doesn't want to work for a HTC Magic.
Hopefully they'll rethink the control system as it is rather convoluted. Maybe check out Nethack HD for the iPad for how to do controls. Or even check out kMoria which was out for the PalmPilot many yonks ago. I still play kMoria after all these years.
Posted in Mobee Magic Charger
NiCads?
The picture are NiMH batteries and not NiCd.
That's good that you can replace them because a good pair of eneloops actually will have a nominal charge of 800mA. Neat gimmick
Posted in Apple ups Mac Mini spec, lowers price
@Mark 65 - Writeable optical disk
One of my optical disk drives used to used to write on my read-only media. Well, I should say etch...
I had a read-only USB thumbdrive from a marketing company that was read-only. After a lot of fiddling about, I finally had to open the case and solder a little bridge to make it writeable. Sure it was only 512MB but I installed puppy on it, removed the bridge I soldered and it's read only again.
Posted in Apple ups Mac Mini spec, lowers price
Guess I'll stick to the late 2009 model
Only interested in this as a media centre under the TV but unfortunately the world still hasn't ditched the optical media, nor has the missus. Mind you, I already had to extract the content from a bluray film we were given to the NAS so we could watch it and the missus puts all her new CD's into iTunes from her mac which is also on the NAS. The only time we use the drive is when the missus rents some DVDs. Really have to get her off this habit.
I guess this is Apples way of moving everyone to their appleTV media solution
Perhaps the account above is simply a lie
"Perhaps the account above is simply a lie, or anyway a bit of a fighter pilot tall story. But the pilot quoted will be easily identifiable inside his community if not to the outside world, and he could expect a lot of flak for telling a lie on such a matter in public."
Well, it looks like if you pass on a lie, you can expect a lot of flak too
Meego
Meego may be what the linux foundation are supporting but the Meego community has some catching up to do with the maemo community.
Atleast marked as tested
There should be one some sort of marking that shows the level of compliance. It doesn't have to be as soon as the app is submitted. It can be retrospective.
It was a problem with iOS 4 too. You could get some apps that didn't behave properly and ran the phone down but over time, they got fixed as people got the hang of the API.
Posted in Belkin eBook Light
Paris, she'll suck your batteries dry
$25 is ridiculous and it uses 3 AAA's, so direct driven LED and possibly no dropping resistor, plus the weight of 3 AAA's.
There is a chip that will drive a LED from an input source of 0.9V to 6V. When the source is above 0.9V it maintains a constant light so unlike the 3 AAA direct driven lights, it won't dim as the batteries wear. Below 0.9V, it starts to dim. It sucks every last bit of energy out of a battery.
It costs 80 cents and it comes with an inductor. I'm sure it'll be cheaper in bulk.
I have a LED torch that cost me $11. It uses such a similar chip but it has a hard anodised aluminum body to justify the cost and uses a single AAA battery. I haven't changed the battery in it for months. Attached to pivoting head on a goose neck with a clip, all purchased at a shit shop (dollar or pound stores in your local lingo), total cost $12.
Surely someone can make something better than this.
Over simplified
Yes they are a specialised agency but I wouldn't lump them in with the other lot. They have their own incompetencies but they have done some good work. Well AIDS really. They do seem to be catching up to the other lot though
Posted in Asus revamp adds tablet-phone dock
The good, the pad and the fugly
ASUS really have trouble with naming their products. Padfone? Seriously. That said, the design I feel has missed something. The Motorola Attrix is a much more appealing dock system. What ASUS should have done is built the dock into their transformer, preferably with the phone as useful second screen or touch pad.
MeeGo on their slim netbooks is good but given the debacle with Xandros, I hope that ASUS spends a bit more effort in support. I've already tried on an eeepc 901 and it is already quite impressive. It is fast for a start, faster than the original Xandros, and all that without any ASUS input.
The All-in-one, that base stand looks ridiculous. It looks like a high-heeled birkenstock.
WHO?
Did you mean World Health Organisation?
Why did Nokia kill Maemo?
Because they are morons! Did they even see what the Maemo community were doing on the N900? Had a very mature debian arm repo to boot.
Enter Intel. Right, partner with them and look like a big company, kill off Maemo.
Enter Microsoft, partner with them and look like a bigger company, kill off Meego.
All the loyal customers, just treat them like shit. Symbian might not be as hot as new boys but given what it can do on a 369 MHz cpu, it wasn't bad. It even has a nice bluetooth HID stack that the new kids were missing.
Nokia, Es-POO
Wurd
Not denying that Apple doesn't peek at someone else, just that Microsoft likes to peek over the shoulder of Apple. In so much as they are happy to copy Apple in finding a CEO is really crap at running the iconic company.
In the case of Steve, I guess he wasn't just the Gil Amelio of MS. He's both Gil and Michael Spindler too.
Some apologies to Gil though, he did do some good things with National Semiconductor.
