* Posts by Big Bear

211 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Nov 2008

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Sony Ericsson to drop M2 for Micro SD

Big Bear

Halleluia!

The Mountain has come to Muhammed! Of course, I’m a bit miffed as I recently got a new SE phone with an M2 card in it…

Noticed this trend in the Vaio range as well – the new models have slots for SD and other cards, whereas I have older models that only support the Memory Stick or Memory Stick Pro, and all my other machines including the 7 year old HP Pavilion, support every other kind of card under the sun, EXCEPT for Memory Stick!

BT slammed for 'importing' cheap Indian contractors

Big Bear

Re: Oh Boo Hoo

In reply to this, as well as the other comment about 8 grand a month (nice to see you people all standing up for yourselves as AC, by the way) – one of the reasons contractors negotiate the higher price compared to permies is that companies like BT can get rid of us quickly and cleanly with dubious methods such as bringing in cheap foreign labour. The contracts can be cut or just left to lapse and the contractor leaves, unlike permies who would get redundancy pay, pension contributions, retraining, and possibly go to tribunal to try and extort even more money out of the company. Knowing that we don’t charge the client these extras, you can’t reasonably expect us to do the same work without some perk like more dosh.

Windows 7 to ship October 22

Big Bear
Boffin

@danlab

Many dinosaurs would happily survive a tsunami, either being flight-capable or aquatic, and the land versions reached such immense sizes dues to amazingly light bone structure via such means as internal air pockets, like modern flying birds, so their "floatability" would also be up for debate. For those out there wanting to add that they would have the in-built survival awareness of modern animals to run to higher ground (many documented cases show this but are unscientific), that is up to the jury as we just don’t know enough about the wiring of their brains.

Triangular buttons key to touchscreen typing success - inventor

Big Bear
Joke

Prior art?

Bah! My K’Vort class Bird Of Prey had triangular keys all over the bridge, especially for the weapons stations! A true warrior worries not about the shape of the key, for victory with honour is all that is important in the world of glorious text entry!

Mines the one made of targ leather with the Mek’leth in the pocket, purely in case some hoodies try to steal my mobile…

Acer: Android netbook coming in Q3

Big Bear

@JahBless and Re: Evidence

Linux power users… what’s that... Maybe about 1% of the market at best? Not sure such paltry demand will be the prime driver for the manufacturers! Though I think JahBless answered AC’s question (Title: “Evidence?”) in that yes, techies started the trend but mainstream public demanded Windows because their experience didn’t extend to using the crap Linux distros in the netbooks. Of course, JahBless has also managed to extend the stereotype by shovelling all non-Linux users into the stupid, dumb (l)user category, then wonders why the mainstream public dislike the attitude of most Linux users and their superiority complex…

Asus shows ARM-based, Android-running skinny Eee

Big Bear

What's the point?

“disappointing performance as smartphone chippery tries to run apps it was never meant to do”

Well that’s the squillion pfennig problem… putting ARM into a small notebook (postitbook anyone? I’ll patent that phrase) is all well and good but people will be expecting it to run applications like any Atom machine if it goes in at the same form factor. It’s the same problem as when the Atom machines get up into the proper notebook sizes – the public will expect them to run like the more powerful machines they emulate and will not understand when the performance isn’t there, no matter that the cost is lower, though that gap seems to be closing as well!

To my simplistic mind, why not recreate the sub-10 inch market with ARM machines? This will put a physical differentiator in for the public to recognise that this is a small, less capable machine and so they have their expectations managed in terms of performance and the capabilities of the kit. Atom is seemingly heading for the small notebook niche of 12-13 inch form factor, rather than sub-notebook 10 inch one, and even though this is still a “premium” size that costs above the odds compared to the 14-15 inch range, I get the feeling that Core 2 models of these machines will soon drop in price once they start putting i7 chips into the flagship lines.

Brit hover barges, airships offered to Canadian oilfields

Big Bear

@Ms Bee (Confused)

That's a bit harsh - in my first read through I saw the word "cashbag" and my third-eye visualised an image of a high heeled, overly manicured, gold legging'd Anna Nicole Smith hauling an oil derrick platform up a river.

Must stay off the little red pills.

Europe, Russia discuss 'orbital shipyard' plans

Big Bear

@Destroy All Monsters

I'd be more worried about someone inducing a solar flare to destroy them, just to open the gates to Sto'v'kor.

Asus Eee PC 1008HA Seashell

Big Bear

@W/Ramazan

I agree that ultraportables, like the Q40 Ramazan mentions, have a completely different niche as compared to netbooks, but as you say, a £300+ machine is not that chuck-about-able at all, and in all fairness, you can find older £1000+ machines for £150 on eBay as well. I use my old Vaio TR5 that is 5 years old for netbook tasks, but I just love that it is the same weight range (1.4 Kg) and same dimensions (10.6 inch screen), but with a great keyboard, and with 1280x768 resolution, and the screen is of such a high quality that it is entirely usable. It is no longer my main laptop so I don't mind it taking a bit of a battering either, but it really is a great little machine that I will be sorry to see die off.

I would like to see how the Atom handles an Oracle instance which I need for work, as the little Pentium M ULV could work happily away with it, and the higher rez allows for useful spreadsheet viewing, but then again, those tasks are not what netbooks are designed for! Unfortunately, with the growth of netbooks into the larger, pricier form, such as the Acer Aspire 751, people will be thinking of them as small notebooks and that may well turn people off them.

As per other posters, it will be interesting to see what the new, small, ARM based machines will do to the market - I have noticed they are growing as a sector over in the Far East, but that region always produces many items that never make it over to the West...

Big Bear

@Ramazan

Isn't the Samsung Q40 an ultraportable in the £1,000+ price bracket? W is comparing a bunch of cheap netbooks, hence no mention of the stupidly expensive Fujitsu Porteges or Sony Vaio T-series machines, which are all in the same size and weight range as netbooks but have much more capability like Core 2 Duo CPUs, fast RAM, integral optical drives, and decent screen resolutions. Of course, good quality components like those cost a lot more money...

Google: Let us keep search data or die

Big Bear

It will be useful

In tracking the spread of public attention as to any kind of spread of any news. I'm surprised that companies are not being sold this data by Google to track brand and product awareness.

Bugger all to do with disease though.

Also, despite Google's monopoly, you'd have to include other search engines like Wolfy if it was to be a serious world-saving thing!!!

Rumor rubberizes iPhone 3.0

Big Bear

@David Edwards

Not only will it advertise to potential muggers, but they can happily assault you with careless abandon, knowing that the lit up logo is the only place not to kick you, and that even if they do catch the phone with a blow, the rubberised back will cushion the blow a little and hence mean that they are less likely to break that which they would steal. Everyone's a winner!

Wolfram Alpha - a new kind of Fail

Big Bear
Paris Hilton

WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE???

100+ comments about a search engine and no one has told me if it any use for finding smut on the internet?

What has this world come to??????

iPhone users to walk and read at same time

Big Bear

@Bad Beaver/Paul McConkey/LaeMi Qian

"DUDE" is a great way to get their attention, or, if they are male, call them "Madame". I personally like dropping the shoulder, as my rugby coach taught me when I were a nipper...

LaeMi - just step through them, followed up by a short, derogatory and rude comment about twunts "not f*cking stopping there you twat".

Another pet hate - when couples decide that since they are couple they can walk hand in hand and take up the entire pavement.

Yet another hate - in the Tube, idiots who decide that they have right of way because they are late for their train. Especially on the stairs. This also counts for the train network. Flicking their heel on the top step is also good on the stairs.

Final hate (for now) - f*ckwits who think their tiny bit of wheeled luggage needs to be trailed at full extension behind them. Unfortunately, flicking these over can scratch the leather on the shoes. Hence the cheaper pair of shoes I wear to work...

HP hit by laptop recall

Big Bear
Flame

Dooooooooooooooomed!

As I sit here in the office surrounded by a sea of silver and black, all I think about is the potential fiery death trap my employer is subjecting me to!!

Debbie Gibson battles Mega Shark and Giant Octopus

Big Bear

So excited, BUT

In amongst my excitement a few questions come to mind.

1. I see Iowa class battleship. Battleship has a kitchen. Kitchen needs a chef. Where is Seagal?

2. What's the love interest? Ah-hah - Debbie Gibson you say. Sequel I say: BABY HALF SHARK HALF OCTOPUS vs (anyone)!!!

3. According to the other posters above, if Asylum vaguely copy real Hollywood films, then what is this particular movie based on?!?!?!?!

Q1 chip sales plunge reveals slowing demand for netbooks

Big Bear

RE: Cause they all suck?

You mean a proper laptop? Of course, with that kit you’ll have both cack battery and higher prices. I agree that they are all the same these days, and have grown to be too big, but with a rubbish resolution. My 5 year old Vaio has a 10 inch screen at 1280x800 and of a high enough quality that I can not only use it productively but also not get eyestrain. Of course, it did cost about six times the original Eee, or three times the newer Eee’s!!

Interestingly, if you have a look at what they are releasing in the Far East, you can see all sorts of machines not sporting Atoms, with stuff like detachable screens, and of the sub-10 inch size. Of course, it is doubtful any of these will see the light of day over here…

2060: Humvee-sized, bulletproof meat-eating spiders attack

Big Bear
Linux

David Weber was right!

They'll come swarming out of their Systems That Must Be Defended in massive commercial engined dreadnoughts and gunboats!! Doomed... DOOMED I TELLS YA!!!!

Probably find that fleshy human young are just the right size for snacking on too...

Maybe we can train Penguins in Asymmetrical Warfare to cull them down?

Skinn-Eee Asus out next week

Big Bear

@Nathan Hobbs

Anyone who opens the machine?

Having seen sparks and smoke from the RAM fittings when duncehead here forgot to pop the battery out, I can assure you that I will NEVER forget to do that again! Each of my machines gets cracked open to a greater or lesser extent at least twice a year to give the innards a good blast of compressed air and get the dust out of the fan enclosures and heat sinks. And besides, I like to have the “emergency shut down” route for if liquid ends up on the machine…

US game plods deploy robot enforcement menagerie

Big Bear

Depends

Do either have lay-zorrrrrrrs strapped to their heads or built into their chests?

Amazon big-screen Kindle sails this week

Big Bear

Ahhh memories...

I remember using old technology from last century to read – the Palm m505 with the “Documents To Go” application that let you sync it to your laptop and download stuff like e-novels and stuff like that. Formatting was always a bit of a pain but it worked, could be popped into your pocket and the battery lasted days at a time.

Ten years on I can’t wait to see the 3-D holographic book that this new stuff must surely do…

Apple drives iPhone app developers to the brink

Big Bear

@James O'Brien

Couldn’t agree with you more, Sir… His clear and concise analysis would quickly cut through the diatribe on this comments page and see to the heart of the matter.

Slightly on topic, is this not monopolistic behaviour where ONLY appstore provides a means of selling iPhone applications? If developers could sell through several channels then if one clogs like in this case, then the others would carry on generating revenue while waiting for this to clear. What are the monopolies commission doing? Passing Go and collecting $200 backhander reacharounds from Jobs?

Safari, Opera browsers patch-shy, says study

Big Bear
Joke

Why worry?

I'm sure that No-Script will kindly update my core FF in the background without worrying my small brain about such details...

Asus to launch Air-like Eee PC 'Seashell' next week

Big Bear

Why the Air comparison

Is it purely due to its thinness? Otherwise there are no similarities... one is a proper computer, the other is a Mac (boom boom!). Seriously though, they are completely different and aimed at different segments with completely different levels of capability...

Air is in the same group as the Voodoo Envy, Thinkpad X300 and Vaio TT or Z; this Eee is in with the S101 and NC10.

Adobe PSD pushes programmer too far

Big Bear

@David Wilkinson

I have been the recipient of such comments of the "Dear Dave, I owe you a proper fix for this hack but it will last through Rel 4.1 unit test. Must fix for 4.2. Cheers, Dave"

There are times when the man to blame and swear at is yourself...

LG Arena touchphone

Big Bear

@iPhone fanboys

Tsk tsk... don't you know that before the Almighty Jobs went up Mount Cupertino and returned with the thrice-G blessed iPhone, people were still using cans and string to communicate with?

Philistine... you should be burnt at the stake for heresy...

Windows 7 — It’s like Vista, only less annoying

Big Bear

@Mac Phreak

Sorry Mac Phreak – I used that as an example to highlight the, dare I say it, inbuilt geekiness of Linux, where even Ubuntu, which has long been touted as the most user-friendly and hence (ironically) most similar to the two big players, will scare the average user when they have the big screen talking about partitions and other techie matters. I doubt more than single percentage points of users have ever installed an OS, and the vast majority of those will be those ones who reinstall Windows because that’s what their brother’s mate’s neighbour suggested, and I believe that with Windows all you get is the full reinstall option which blows away what was there beforehand with a clean vanilla instance.

Big Bear

@Goat Jam

“Good grief (sic), are Windows users really that dumb? No wonder Windows is so bloody nannying all the time.”

Yes, yes they are…

Remember that Windows has a stupidly high percentage of installed base globally, and that people like many of the folk here who just know what they are doing is an extremely low percent of the population. I’m generally IT savvy but not really into operating systems as to me they are a means to an end, namely running applications for fun at home or for profit at work, but when I was playing around installing the latest Ubuntu last night, one of the first steps let the user partition the drive and it asked whether I wanted to stick 9.04 alongside or over Ubuntu 8.04 – I can imagine 99% of the people using computers scratching their heads at that stage. Let’s face it, people are dumb and the Penguinistas have yet to quite reach that level of simplicity to break fully into the mass market.

And before the open-source abuse starts, let me just say that joe public just wants someone to tell him what to do and how to do it, and his eyes will quickly glaze over when the reply involves asking which distro he has as one will need a apt-get and the other a yast and so on and so forth – until the infighting stops Linux will never overtake Windows as each flavour is individually better, but there is a lack of overall focus and trying to find a goal. Unfortunately the open-source world does not lend itself to an overall strategy as variety is its biggest advantage and Achilles heel, with too many leaders trying to move in too many directions.

I personally liked Win7Beta, and once Vista got configured it started behaving itself well and neither of my Vista machines have crashed since SP1 came out. In fact, the last crash I remember was Firefox a couple of nights ago on one of them!

PS. For the guys talking about liking the classic start menu and toolbars – I found myself turning them back to the Vista version as I kept forgetting I wasn’t on XP anymore and the different locations Vista stores stuff meant I kept wandering to wrong folders! Plus I’d go back to XP and keep on trying to use Alt-Up to navigate with then punching the keyboard when I couldn’t go up a level… best feature introduced in Vista IMHO!!

Firefox finds more pesky bugs

Big Bear
Linux

Ahhh...

That explains why one machine went to 3.0.9 and another went up to 3.0.10 - no admin rights the first machine so no auto-update including no “Check for updates” option… I set it up during a paranoid phase of my life…

On a side note, I don’t hear the usual squealing slagging off the browser under scrutiny that normally occur when this kind of story breaks for certain other browsers! What’s good for the goose has killed the penguin, obviously.

Microsoft answers EU antitrust charges

Big Bear
Boffin

Grrrr...

I'm gonna be pissed if the Ubongoto 9.04 I'm installing tonight has bloody Firefox on it... That's just monopolizing Ubooty's strong grip of the consumer Linux base and being unfair and uncompetitive. In fact, I'm just gonna download IE and use that instead... thank f*** they went ahead and gave me a browser to enable my choice, eh?

Errrr....

Boffins pump out pop-up touchscreen

Big Bear

It uses set shapes?

It ain't no LCARS display is it?!

Microsoft names Windows 7 RC1 dates

Big Bear

@Richard Wiggins

XP to Windows 7 is completely fine… it is, to steal a much-beloved phrase, much “snappier” than Vista. I have both on an old ultraportable laptop and it runs extremely well, which is impressive as I would never consider putting Vista on a Pentium M ULV.

Supersonic stealth jumpjet passes hover thrust test

Big Bear

@John Smith

"all current UK carrier operations are done with Harriers (VSTOL) or helicopters" or from the deck of a RN ship looking on at the US carriers steaming alongside us? Somehow carrierborne aviation has never been gotten right over here... from the early lead with HMS Argus, through the highly advanced HMS Ark Royal in the 1930s, to the modern era (the Invincible class design could have been sold internationally instead of those ships that all resemble the Principe Asturias of the Spanish fleet - imagine the extra dosh of having the shipyards churning out a half dozen of those to friendly nations over the last two decades, with extra cash from selling Harriers and maintaining them). About the only true success story was recognising the Fleet Air Arm of the 30s/40s was pants and putting steel decks on the Illustrious and Formidable class carriers for WW2 so the ships could survive.

PS. Fans in the wings? Dirge the Decepticon!!

Sharp intros 'world's first optical sensor LCD pad' netbook

Big Bear

Finally!

Someone is breaking out of the mold! Pity the machines have bloated to 10in but hey, at least someone is trying something new...

McKinsey: Adopt the cloud, lose money

Big Bear

RE: pay head?

It's the credit crunch... companies are struggling to find the cash to pay these costly consultancies so other means of "satisfaction" must be used...

Firm debuts flashing 'phones

Big Bear
Thumb Down

Oh dear...

Pure chav.

Can't wait for the inevitable lawsuit from some epileptic sufferer you has a seizure over this.

AT&T mistakes netbook for phone, sells with service plan

Big Bear

@Robert Hill

Ignoring the first part of your reply, as several other posters have answered, but in answer to your direct question "So the consumer can get a subsidized phone, on a competitive tariff, on a network that took a risk to bring that phone to the UK, and port their existing number from any other mobile operator to keep it. So Mr. Bear, please, detail how this is a loss for the consumer..."

I am a consumer.

I wish to have an iPhone.

I have poor O2 coverage in my locale.

This is a loss for me as I cannot get the iPhone on a network with decent coverage in my locale.

Further comment on your last paragraph as well - the initial idea of mini notebooks being web-based terminals, ie. the modern cloud idea, incidentally identical to the ancient mainframe idea, seems to have died off a bit, with all the manufacturers all plunking huge HDD for local storage, rather than small SSD with the bulk of storage online as it were. My personal feeling is that the idea is sound, but will, like wired network access, saturate available bandwidth and this will lead to the mobile ISPs all doing the same unlimited tariffs with all sorts of limitations on them, and the regulatory bodies will do diddly-squat for the users as long as they keep getting their kickbacks and other forms of corruption.

Not sure what I said to deserve such vitriol in your reply - can you please elaborate?

Big Bear

Manufacturers won't give a sh*t

Let's face it, a phone without a network is as useful as chocolate bogroll, but laptops will still be bought outside of this sales channel, and you can bet that the manufacturers will make sure they gouge the telcos for access to the latest and greatest bundles of wizardry...

The big loser is the consumer, as we have already seen with the lock-in a la iPhone/O2, with the same firm the only one offering the NC10, and so on, so soon if you want, say, a Mac in this type of deal, you will have to get some sh*tty T-Mobile SIM and just hope that they have deigned to put a mast near where you want to use it. Now the big question is how do they lock-in a PC platform to a particular telco?

Apple Mac Pro

Big Bear
Unhappy

Where's my damn Gov bailout?

Sweet machine... pity with this damn recession I can't justify/afford getting it...

Playboy TV offers 'Jacq off' special package

Big Bear

I'm DISGUSTED with PlayBoy

Consarnit!! More Government corruption and pork! Why should they get cheap pr0n, paid for eventually by the public purse that pays their wages (assuming they don’t fob it off as another expense) when I have to pay my hard earned, halved after tax dough into providing my own cheap and nasty viewing pleasure????

AND I CAN’T EVEN CHUCK IT INTO MY COMPANY’S EXPENSES AS “BUSINESS ENTERTAINMENT”!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously annoyed with PlayBoy now… off to rejoin the world of Hustler… it’s like Apple vs MS, but just bouncier…

Where's the Evil Heff icon?

Samsung phone recognises people, calls them

Big Bear

The meh responses

Nice bit of fancy trickery, but suffers from one core problem.

Not an iIdea. It'll never take off...

Battlestar Galactica eyes 'technology run amok'

Big Bear

That time travel theory revisited

..and found lacking, of course.

Namely.. how did they send a Raptor to go get the rest of the fleet to join them?

Of course, a sensible ending would've been if only Galactica had made it to the past and with the ship falling to pieces only a very small amount of people survived (Hera, Athena and Helo?) and so there begins the interbreeding with the early humans on the earth leading to mitochondrial Eve?

Big Bear
Boffin

The time travel theory

Damn! That makes a lot more sense than the bloody finale... in the past the singularity doesn't exist so isn't a threat to the planet that it is in the future, as it must be relatively nearby. The planet develops robots as shown with dancing Sony-bot which ends up being Cylons and boooooom, nuclear war!!

So the cycle is repeating really - it happens once but the time paradox is the repetition bit...

Adamo battery not hot-swappable

Big Bear

You'da thunk...

That Dell might have learnt something from the reaction to the battery lock-in on the Macs with them and figure out that this might not be a "good thing"... especially as Dell don't have the religious cult behind the Second Coming of Jobs...

Police union leader calls for 'killer games' sales ban

Big Bear

Symptomatic of not engaging brain to speak...

Imagine if they made guns illegal as well… what a world that would be!

Of course, then what would I have to defend my 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th amendment rights against that fecking dino riding pizza boy throwing mushrooms at me…?

iPhone 3.0 adds cut-and-paste, search, new dev toys

Big Bear
Thumb Up

@sleepy

"of course one must be ever vigilant that Apple doesn't ever turn into the kind of company that despises and exploits its customers (dare I say Sky, Virgin, BT, Microsoft, cellphone carriers?)"

You, sir, owe me a new keyboard and monitor! Funniest thing I've heard in ages!!

Bravo, bravo - for the Yanks out there, irony at its best!

Dell MacBook Air Adamo officially launched

Big Bear

@sleepy

Shurely shome mishtake? The unibody Macbook is a grand, which is a third cheaper than this overpriced piece of penigal-extension, whereas the white plastic (multibody?) Macbook is half the price.

Either way, Dell are trying to sell into the luxury machine market… which I would’ve thought their XPS range is, or even their Alienware subsidiary? Though I suppose the only mainstream manufacturer to offer high PC prices are Vaios, though they do have a habit of being we constructed and extremely well equipped for their small sizes.

Scientology spokesman confirms Xenu story

Big Bear
Boffin

Who knows?

Who would win in a fight between Xenu and the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

All in the name of science of course!

iPhone 3.0 gossip lassos MMS, tethering, cut-and-paste...

Big Bear

@Dan

Dan, I’m a bit surprised you are touting Shazam on the iPhone as a “killer feature” as any phone will do it, just through a dedicated audio channel rather than a web based app. To be fair to you, I’ve also done a similar search for a song I hear on the television and did it through web search which oft-times finds a web site listing things like music played in a particular show and so forth.

As for the iPhone itself… meh. Played with one for a while, but since I use a phone to call, text and listen to music on I went for a smaller, lighter phone with a far better battery life and equivalent music abilities, especially as I am no fan of iTunes and refuse to have it on any of my machines. For email, web surfing and so on, I have laptops for that stuff, and if something is that important then the other person should realise that phone calls will get my attention much better than a one way message medium like email or SMS.

Govt advisor calls violent-videogame tax

Big Bear
Thumb Down

Oh great...

So it'll be knife wielding teen crazies slashing each other for games to practice their knife slashing on?

Does anyone think rather than kneejerk to everything?

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