Independent Learning Forbidden

surely they should fine and fire the assistant principal, and caution the policeman to use his brain in future - what planet did this happen on, or was it a cartoon ?

AVG is to protection what a net is to water, accept AVG has more pop-ups

AVG is a joke !! It's one of the most pointless, bloated, and useless anti-malware products. It's previously detected itself as malware and deleted it's own files. It's also falsely detected genuine windows files as malware and bricked users machines. To use it is to invite stress, data loss, and a myriad of pointless pop-ups into your life ! Seriously, who uses this rubbish ? your almost better off installing a virus.

Great idea !!

so can they now offer a service where you are guaranteed not to get ANY (non) reality tv ? That would make it almost worth while to own a tv

Do adverts actually work ?

When you get a pop up advertising something, does this make you happy, or does it annoy you ? It's the equivalent of talking with someone when someone else puts their head directly between you and the person you're talking with - rude, and often punchable.

I take all adverts as a desperate attempt to part fools from their money by trying to promote something which isn't good enough to sell itself.

I think the only folk who benefit from adverts are the advertising industry who, of course, will tell you that advertising works. Not for me,.. it's more likely to put me off a product or brand.

Also, as others have mentioned, I only click an advert by accident, I would never buy from an advert - I don't think these accidental clicks are in any way accounted for, so said results are incorrect.

I don't get it !

This idea that the desktop is dead seems to passed around by hacks (like it's some kind of contagion) who appear to repeat this blather without thinking it through..

I can appreciate if you are a casual user (the odd email, social networking, y'tube, etc, the odd little game) then tablets et al are absolutely ideal, certainly better suited than a comparatively cumbersome desktop.

But if you're in front of a screen most of the day then it should legible and large enough not to cause eye strain, and of course the devise needs to be powerful enough to do the work required, which is why a tablet/notepad is not a workstation.

For gamers, music producers, video producers, graphics artists, 3D artists, and more, a large screen (or several), powerful cpu('s), large fast storage, and powerful graphics are usually viewed as 'the more the merrier'. No one wants to spend hours squinting at a small screen and waiting ages for things to render - which is why people who need desktops use desktops.

You can understand why this may not occur to casual users, but it's akin to someone who only uses their little Ford Fiesta to pootle down to the local shop and back and occasionally trundle into town stating that F1 or WRC is dead simply because it doesn't figure in their experience. Go ask people who need desktops if the desktop is dead and you'll get a 'NO' every time.

PS - 16:10 wins over 16:9 (or even 4:3) every time, for obvious professional reasons

Awww FEK !!

now I'll have to find a new reliable decent ISP !!.....

Does anyone know of a reliable decent ISP in the UK ?

BE weren't that great to be honest (though still better than most), and while their support always answered theur freephone support line quickly and they were always polite, they were also pretty clueless. I've been with them since they started in the UK. Initially it was a real struggle to get them to get their finger out. For the first 6 months they insisted I was 6Km from the exchange and 2Mbits was the best they could get me. I sent them a map showing I'm 1Km from the exchange and slowly, 1Mbit at a time, they eventually got me 18Mbits but that's slowed to 14 over the past 3 years and they don't have any idea why. Also for the past 3 years streaming any video (Iplayer, C4, Ted, etc) to any device (WiFi or Lan) gets interrupted every 20 minutes,... They've never been able to fix this,..their best suggested solution, update flash.

Other than that, they were cheap, and never screwed anything up. I've tried BT, Virgin (when it was Blueyonder), and Talk Talk (who were just laughably the most incompetent group of morons I've ever had the misfortune to deal with). Sky is obviously not an option. Is there anyone else ?

how are they going to have the opportunity to earn and pay back £500,000 between them if they're in prison ?

Intriguing,..

I'm intrigued by the "live-action model sets", hope they don't just been scene sets. I'd love to see some Anderson style non-cgi vehicular models - the detail of the original models inspired a billion imaginations.

and as others have commented, 30 mins is to short.

is this journalism ?

hardly qualifies as an article as it ignores to many facts to mention.

can only assume the hack that wrote this pointless drivel was having a thinly disguised rant based on misinformation.

the register should not be a place where anally retentive hacks can vent unfounded ill informed dogmatic opinions

Finally - something interesting from MS,.. oh, but not at that price

Is it me or are people getting more and more gullible ?

unless your a moron or have a remarkably reduced genital set there just is no such thing as,..

- a phone, notebook or tablet that'll be out of date within 12 months and cost £500

- a car that's actually worth half a million

- a TV that'll be out of date within 12 months and cost £5000

these things only sell with such a high markup because some folk are dumb enough to believe the prices are reasonable, or are incapable to accurately value items - jus' sayin'

16:9

16:9 is great for anyone who could cover all their computing needs with a Tablet, but for me they are completely useless. How about doing a review of 'Professional Monitors' and only include 16:10's

:)

Goldman Sucs

Arse ! more like.

Saying MS only have 20% of the tech market is like saying that bikes, trucks, boats, trains, and planes have quite a chunk of the transport market, therefore car manu's should be worried - talk about irrelevant !

Can anyone do all their work on a eBook reader, Portable Media Player, Tablet, or Phone (my MP3 player can't run an MS-OS. I suppose (if you care enough) you could ask what's the percentage of things that can actually run an MS-OS actually using an MS-OS ? - oh, 97% you say - well there you go.

...probably

Boris

Oh dear, how sad, never mind

they're still desperately hoping to be bought out and so don't want to give away all their stock at silly prices. Problem is, their prices were never that competitive so 10% off brings them in line with their competetors and isn't an attention grabber, especially when they not even doing 10% of everything, just a few selected items, at least thats what the shop-boy told my friend when he went to buy a laptop last week and charged the full (more ecpensive than most places) price - good ridance !!

Ohhhhhhh, finally i get it,..

i didn't realise that 'rapper' meant 'dumb and pointless talentless arsehole' !

Made by Acer !!!

isn't Acer the Amstrad of the computer world. I always reckon if it's not good enough for geeks it's not good enough for me!

sounds like like an iRumour

was this rumour started by Apple? With all this petulant BS by Samsung and Apple you expect either one of them to turn round any minute and saying of the other 'you smel of poo' and 'yer mum dresses you funny'

I think if all countries banned the sale of Apple and Samsung products for a month because they're both whiny misbehaved shits, this would make both companies grow up a bit.

Cookies are vastly under recognised

some legitimate sites will put put 60 or more cookies on your computer. This is unjustifiable.

I can appreciate the need for a banking site or a forum or any site where you need to log in my need to leave ONE cookie - this is not a problem for anyone.

But the fact that most sites leaving more than one cookie do so to spy on you, to steal personal info, such as surfing habits etc, which they then sell without your permission to greedy morons who will use it to try and sell you their crap (it must be crap, as if it were quality it would sell and they wouldn't be so desperate to find any means to increase sales).

Some sites use the "If you continue to use the site, we'll assume you're happy to accept the cookies anyway." - to which we can 'assume' that the webmaster of the site is a moron with no real knowledge of how to interact with people and so makes huge mis-assumptions as obviously the majority of security aware users are "NOT happy to accept the cookies anyway" and only a moron or conman would 'assume' otherwise.

Therefore, we are forced to accept compromise, or screen every cookie (which is time consuming, but at least it builds up a blacklist and shows you whether or not a website has integrity and respects it's users or not.

I'll accept one cookie, any more is really unnecessary and an unacceptable compromise

Re: MP2 format

most media players on the PC will play MP2 and there are pleanty of free convertor programs which will convery it to almost any other audio format :)

ooo,..

is it for the same reason one corner of the field is favored by the sheep

Has anybody tried the "AVG Hat",..?..

.. it has several "features" setting it apart from other hats. It has pockets and a built in sideboard, a foot pump, a 24 volt onion peeler, an elastic tape measure, a depth meter, a ticka-tape machine, it's scented with porridge and amonia, is powered by four 24v truck batteries, and comes with it's own trolley (with one broken wheel).

The extra weight of these additions means that the "AVG Hat" can no longer sit on your head, instead it rests on your shoulders leaving your head free to tilt and turn in any direction unrestricted more freely than with any other hat known to man - the new "AVG Hat" because if you don't know about hats you won't know why to avoid it!

AVG !! Seriously ??

One of the worst, crappiest, bloatware ridden, bits of free protection ever made. I didn't know it was still made. Does it work right yet ? Are people actually using AVG ? Have they not heard of "Avira", AVG's nemesis in that it doesn't have bloatware, it's the best free anti-virus bar none, very few false positives, and it works - unlike AVG

i agree,..

forget the crimes and atrocities Mr Assange has helped make public (oh, i see you have already), it's not really a crime when your government lie to you, mis-spend your taxes without telling you, or murder innocent men, women, and children whilst laughing about it. These things are secret because the gov don't want you to know and so it's none of your business. Stop complaining, stop having fanciful ideas about truth and justice, and STFU. Instead, look at the shiny Assange shaped object and hear our voice. This good man is bad. The truth he tells embarrasses us so it must be lies. Go back to work and be quiet !

"Only America Has Succeeded" !?

i thought it was a multinational affair with multinational funding (and the majority of the scientists are actually not american) - how un-american to claim all the credit,.. oh wait a sec,.. didn't they also win WW2 on their own as well

stating the obvious

Peter Hain is a moron !

thank goodness no-one had Apples attitude and took out copyright on the mouse, the monitor, or the internet - if they had it would be a very different world.

As far as I know, neither Apple nor Samsung have copyright of the rectangle, or the human senses of touch or sight, so using a tablet isn't illegal or licensed (yet).

Neither Apple or Samsung have a spotless past and ultimately it's the customers who are paying (through the nose) for their hissy fits in the court - I boycott both brands :)

dumb greed

it's a great way of sorting the wheat from the chaff - dumb anal companies desperately try to make profit from suing for things they didn't invent

you didn't invent chronological order

you didn't invent a basic shape

you didn't invent stealing other peoples ideas

boycott companies who claim to have

BORING,...

is it just me or is this whole thing preposterously boring now

they're like two petulant children, you turn your back and they mess about, you turn back round and they both point at and blame the other - they both need a good slap and go and stand in the naughty corner for wasting everybody's time.

Imagine if Tim Berners Lee had been as anal as apple, we'd have no internet. Lets just boycott Apple and Samsung and buy from less anal companies

yawn,.. i know,.. i'll get my coat

the wonderful thing about iPlayer,..

is you can skip through avoiding all the crap bits,.. watched the 3hr 20m closing ceremony, in 15 mins - sweet

suicide can be an option

they used to make full featured keyboards, and sold loads, then they got rid of the useful features, and sold less. Not sure id firing loyal staff is actually going to increase sales - but hey, if they can't figure the obvious,..!

and,..

don't Mac System 7 and Windows 2.0 look like GEM

Dog Toffee !!

surely if you have an unstable overclock any OS run on it will be effected,..

unless MS have built some kind of code into W8 that will cause BSOD on O/C'd systems (which i think could be illegal) then this article is bunkum !

"Once a PC crashes, its crash probability rate goes up by a factor of 100 and for a second and third crash." - well D'uhhhhh !.. Not if you fix the problem, in which case the probability drops by an equal factor

Unless W8 is unstable, it should be more or less as effected by overclocking as any other OS

hmmmmm

most likely someone (like Apple, HTC, Samsung, or similar) has paid the US gov to do this to delay Huawei and ZTE from the hitting the US market and taking over with their reasonably priced full featured phones

whatever the exact details you know the reason will be greed, toys thrown out of pram in tantrum, and several man with very small peni !

no apology needed !!

anyone who took Bill's comments seriously is far to stupid to have their opinion considered. It was said on a long running satirical comedy show, and in context could not possibly be offensive to anyone with a brain. Any council member who thought this required an official apology should be fired.

why no USB3 ?

i'd get one if it had usb3,.. buying new outdated tech is overrated

who cares ?

.. so he swore, so what ? He has good reason.

My first experience with Linux was a complete fail due to the only Nvidia driver available offered 640x480 - so i replaced my Nvidia with an AMD and I've never bought or recommended Nvidia since. Yes I could have paid for a driver, but why? Drivers are free with the hardware. You don't buy hardware and then have to buy drivers to make it work. Regardless of what your argument is, Nvidia failed badly with Linux. They took a short-sighted and unprofessional stance - other than that it hardly warrants discussion

hmmm Legally speaking,..

just because MS say this is the case does not actually have any effect on the law

just like el Reg having a bar a the bottom sating (re cookies) "we'll assume you're happy to accept the cookies anyway." does not actually mean anything when the user happens to not be happy (as they haven't provided an "I'm not fine with this" button

jus sayin' - you can't simply declare law and think that it suddenly exists :)

broken links

the Buy from Amazon link is wrong (again - see article on Carmageddon)

by the same lack of intelligence,..

.. there are to many people in Britain who drive badly so we should, therefore, shut down all roads !!

Great way to kill a product

msn msgr 4.8 was prob about the best, it was simple, unbloated, and did precisely what was needed of it.

The problem is that so many companies get greedy, add bloatware, add pointless features, and don't listen to users, and in fact are often uncontactable. This does nothing to install customer/brand loyalty and everything to garuntee customers will start looking for an alternative that is unbloated and simply works.

'Live' is a classic example of a company so out of touch with it's market. While years ago msn-msgr was the main way i kept in touch with my online friends no-one uses it anymore. It's got worse over time and now it's pretty much pointless (though i concede that some folk may still find it useful - but i bet it's market has shrunk by 50% in the past 5 years) .. and has anyone ever clicked on one of those banner adds? can you remember a single banner advert? - lol

if your a company that is oriented by greed then you're doing it wrong !

I don't get what all the fuss is about !!

Did anybody anywhere actually take him seriously. I thought we just chuckled and dismissed him as we got on with something relevent. If this article hadn't been written, none of us would remember who he was or what he said

stating the obvious

isn't this exactly why the smart money never got involved? It was a no-brainer from the off

Hollywoods already rubbing it's hands together

well there's an accident waiting to be turned into a movie

Avoid freindly rabies victims

Rabies usually makes it's victims more dosile and less agressive, appearing friendly and even approachable. For example, the only time a coyote will go near a human is when it has rabies. So it doesn't take an einstein to figure don't approach a friendly skunk (or any other wild animal that would normally avoid humans like the plague). Also, a chicken-wire fence (or similar) dug at least a foot into the ground is a great way to control what can get in or out. That, a gun, and maybe some security staff (unless said skunk has managed to get his name on the list)