Posts by Ioan
238 posts • joined Wednesday 21st January 2009 08:45 GMT
you can't buy a ticket if you're not a register developer. if you're a registered developer do you still qualify as a fanboi? get your facts right you!
Re: Self-selecting surveys.. why bother?
yep, major fail from the register. this is an empirical study, without any regards to the poll health. it's not only useless but wrong too.
Devil's eye
still think they're not legal.
Report abuse
wrong icon - nothing of that sort in the post, only dilettantism
why are pc's/macs sold
well somebody has to program those tablet apps and the underlying servers
put him in prison together with the other terrorists, the bomb kind, and make a reality show out of it. that will teach the other "0nions", perhaps.
or let each of those, whose details were leaked by him, slap him.
it's always the folk that has to bear the costs of 0nion arrogance.
it's an [app] store so it can only sell stuff that is legal in whichever country. nothing to see here, this is nothing whipped into news.
the new monopoly shows its teeth
hype strategy works for Apple
if by hype you mean usability and friendliness, you're right on!
otherwise you're just bashing.
Re: when with $ parity == feature parity
yeah it's a big issue. because of that i'm using now mail & calendar from mac and outlook only for complicated tasks.
I'd also pay for full office functionality on mac, but ms delivered a half baked product which is not compatible fully with the windows version. No need to pay them again. I'm starting to create my documents in pages (I'm pretty sure that Excel cannot be replaced).
El reg pay attention. In the real world business buildings are insured.
Posted in Review: HP Spectre XT TouchSmart
Re: no competition breeds lukewarm products
I admit, I put Lenovo half-heartedly. They make very good products, probably the most solid ones (except for the Panasonic rough laptops). Lenovo has unfortunately the blandest design, even though X1 is a step in the right direction. Don't get me wrong. In all my companies I preferred Lenovo to any other Windows-brand. Lenovo feels good, and you can't complain about the performance really.
I never visit the laptop shops (or only every couple of years), that's why I wouldn't know about HP's retail. But every couple of months my customers issue me a corporate laptop (I got HP more than once) - so that's my experience with all of them.
At the moment I would use only the Razor laptop in the Windows world. It's the only one that really innovated. But, as Apple, that's because it's being bought with "real" end-user money, not by corporate money.
Posted in Review: HP Spectre XT TouchSmart
no competition breeds lukewarm products
Since many of HP's customers are locked in enterprise contracts, there is no need to make extraordinary products. They had to make a complementary product for users who would prefer something that is not a plastic brick. But still have a juicy margin.
Does HP even sell significantly to private persons? I.e. where people are willing to pay with their own "real" money. That would be interesting to know.
Same considerations for lenovo, dell, etc. If you're sure to get your customers through an enterprise contract you as a company won't care to do extraordinary things. IT department is also at fault here for not demanding more - how often do they measure not only failure rate but also productivity with a certain laptop?
old movies and songs
morons with horses' glasses.
bittorrent is often the only way to get old movies and songs that are not being published anymore (read with copyright expired).
"Perhaps it is best to never go public at all and keep a majority stake of the company you founded"
agree. going public makes your company become the object of exploitation. Those wall street guys are doing a really nasty job.
"PCs eventually came under the sysadmin's thumb, so it might be safe to assume that mobile devices will eventually succumb in the same way".
***Dream on***
Re: :(
doesn't run perfectly abap wd (SAP). besides, i keep my vm's as thin as possible, so i don't install what I don't need.
and now I get it, what's wrong with Firefox on mac. Well let's say it doesn't have a good fame - i have a bad opinion about it (initially it scored very badly for vulnerabilities). Being of non-apple conception, it probably doesn't have yet the right mechanics (as I noticed with Opera - bad gestures and animations that go with it). I will test it at some point - but that will take months to try and test firefox again. I tried firefox in one of the first versions, and after that my experience is limited to what I saw while colleagues were using it - maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.
:(
well, i can't use directly java in-browser on my mac anymore so I have to run it in IE in parallels. That's not so bright. Unfortunately i need to use hob secure for VPN to clients. I would love to get rid of Java on mac, but even Adobe CS requires it.
Re: Let me guess - the solution is open source right?
itunes U is genius - anybody posting against ipad here tried it? you can even get a lot of free courses from other renowned universities.
besides offering hosting of the content for itunes U, this content is not locked on Apple, you can view it on Android too with TunesViewer (only view no full interaction like itunes U).
but hey, if you spend your time kicking down others' sand castles, you probably don't take advantage of superior knowledge (to be found in Universities). bloody anon bullies/terrorists.
think different
regardless of checkbox, the time legally assigned for the use of personal data should be 2 years. After two years you get an e-mail: are you still giving us still the rights to use your personal data? Yes/No. No answer means no.
Re: If i was Oracle I would be trawling my stash of patents...
with regards to Hana that's a bit hard, since SAP not only offered this technology already several years ago, but Hana was the result of Hasso's University - it started as a research project there, if I remember correctly. Oracle is only making waves about something similar only in the last year or so.
Oracle has too much easy money from their DB software.
Re: Apple FRAND Licensing
exactly. a good part of the price of that device is only paid by consumers because of marketing (not due to the real virtues of the device). why should any company pay a percent of the final price for any patent (which includes the marketing plus), unless it's a product that needs no marketing? Apple is not only a hardware company, it's a marketing company as well - it's their merit too.
needs shake-up in own apps
i have a forearm-band for my iPhone (for while on inlines). This requires that the app supports landscape mode, and you'll be surprised how many apple apps don't support it (phone, settings - these are those that bother me most). One of the rules in the winpho programming guidelines was to always support both orientations.
so they would have to enable this first in their own apps. or maybe the watch will be portrait only mode.
only windows?
seems that it only runs on windows. any software that does that for mac, linux?
Posted in Review: Apple iMac 21.5in late 2012
@Mark 65 Re: mechanical harddrive???
I didn't know that - i checked you're right. Wow, how can they not offer the ssd for the small imac? that's stupid.
Posted in Review: Apple iMac 21.5in late 2012
mechanical harddrive???
regardless of what brand your pc is, i fail to see why anybody would order one with a mechanical harddrive. you can always get a small ssd for main (== fast and quiet) and an external mechanical harddrive for data you don't need to always carry with you. mechanical harddrives are only for slow data, like mp3s, movies, photos and maybe big games one doesn't play often.
Re: new shapes for computers and ways of interaction
normal people prefer to talk than to type.
new shapes for computers and ways of interaction
they need to finally start delivering computers in new forms with new input devices. A computer with a keyboard and a mouse is either obsolete from a usability point of view or meant for it technicians. I'm saying this because most users don't need to enter letters except for making searches - and there are other ways to do that (you could see a cloud with the most sought objects that day - for instance favourite query <<choose>>: which patient entered the hospital <<punch>> rotate arm to 9 o'clock <<hold 1 sec>> you get the list <<select person/data>>). My favourite would be virtual interaction in front of you while standing. The position of the virtual interacting device (floating keys/texts/pics/objects vertically shown via a stereoscopic screen) would slightly change to move the body stress centre constantly, just like some chair car systems shift slightly to make you adjust your position in order to save your back.
Re: Invention
i understand you Mark.
The State has to be fair and protect people who invent stuff. you cannot undo the fact that so many infringing devices have been sold and have been used with the bounce back feature (which I love, it gives a feeling of real to the fake world in a portable device). I guess there shouldn't be a lot of money paid to Apple or banning of devices, if Samsung could pull back the feature from the devices. but that is not easy in the loose ecosystem of Android. I also think Samsung doesn't want to invest a lot of money to withdraw the feature (which involves programming, testing, distribution) - so if they settle they'll probably settle below the cost what the roll-out of the feature withdrawal would be. it's all business at this level money / money.
I sympathise with the Android cause, many people feel it's the rebel's choice and I also feel a bit like that, even though I don't use an Android (i still have a faint memory-dislike for apple things - even though I'm exclusively using that at the moment). but it all boils down to the fact the many many features were copied from the iOS when Android was built. in 5 years all these kinks will be ironed and i don't think we'll have so much drama anymore.
Re: Invention @Cryo
hmmm. maybe not better off, but we'd certainly have more variety in how the software works. the interface we're talking about here is new in design - why do you think is built on the work of others (again not providing proof here)? of course patents must be carefully awarded, i'm not denying that. but the patent system works - and please think further than software.
it's a personal choice (we already have the punctuation so why capitals for forums - we're informal here). an iphone would capitalise the first word in a sentence, right? maybe other phones don't but even my windows phone 7.0 did that.
since that other guy grilled me for not pasting the european text for purpose of patent, i just found something you might like:
Under the European Patent Convention (EPC), patents are granted only for inventions that are new, involve an inventive step and are industrially applicable. An invention meets these requirements if it:
was not known to the public in any form,
is not obvious to a person skilled in the art, and
can be manufactured or used industrially.
Discoveries, mathematical methods, computer programs and business methods as such are not regarded as inventions. Surgical and therapeutic procedures, diagnostic methods and new plant or animal varieties are completely excluded from patentability.
The EPC does not recognise inventions whose commercial exploitation would be contrary to 'ordre public' or ethical principles. These include, for example, means of cloning human life or the use of human embryos for commercial or industrial purposes.
Re: Invention @Malcolm Weir
While you do make a valid point, that quote is to express what in Europe is not so eloquently expressed.
Here for your satisfaction ( i managed to find an faq instead of the text of law):
Patents protect technical inventions in all fields of technology. They are valid in individual countries, for a specified period. Patents give holders the right to prevent third parties from commercially exploiting their invention. In return, applicants must fully disclose their invention. Patent applications and granted patents are published, which makes them a prime source of technical information.
http://www.epo.org/service-support/faq/basics.html
Re: Invention
is it so hard to research a bit before nixing yourself?
Patents exist ..."To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the <<exclusive>> right to their respective writings and discoveries;"
Re: Invention
i don't think it's a pretty obvious invention at a time where touch was in its embrio phase, be honest would you have thought about it? why wasn't it invented for the windows mobile os already?
so many assumptions you make. no justification for them - and some are plain wrong.
I guess logic and reasoning is not taught in schools as it was 20 years ago.
anyway, we're all equal in front of the law and a big fat company is entitled to protection of its ip assets as much as anybody (a company is still people d'oh!). apple is all about details in details, of course it's affected by it (not effected). Tell me why it's absurd? Apple made touch appealing to the world & dog and they deserve many of their patents - just as the other phone makers deserve their technical patents. Also, some software patents are defining for an OS or a product and may not be licensed. And, having a big pot of money doesn't mean you don't need protection, kid.
you're not bringing any arguments on how the devs lose out. real smart developers do patent the cool things they do. but of course they have to have "inventions" for that. Being a developer, i don't think any developer who creates really cool stuff wouldn't want to patent original interface elements they create. it's not as expensive as you make it appear, any developer making some money can afford it. it looks you're just naively repeating somebody else's (perhaps misunderstood) opinion. Developers should not copy something they see used in another software product (especially when it has a stroke of genius) unless it's part of the OS they develop for or of the development environment. We're moving towards a society built on software - inventing will happen more and more in this area and will have to be protected.
Invention:
U.S. Patent Law. a new, useful process, machine, improvement, etc., that did not exist previously and that is recognized as the product of some unique intuition or genius, as distinguished from ordinary mechanical skill or craftsmanship.
Re: powerpoint news?
yes i have that keynote remote app. it's nice.
what! i've been using powerpoint in win quite a lot, never noticed this feature. talking to other people made me think it was only on the mac - nobody has seen this so far on win (from my working circles). thanks for the tip! with the retina display you can output everything to the apple tv, no need for third party :), with the latest macos of course.
Re: Dysfunctional out of control patent system
they still do compete on product quality. as a small company you can't go to trial with any company that has a claim on a patent related to what you did - it's cheaper to just pay the patent and hope that at some point a bigger company will invalidate it through a trial. You won't be snuffed this way as a small company and you may be able to grow to the point where you can fight back.
there are good things and bad things about this. i find though Europe much better with regards to patents than US, much harder to patent software stuff here (I tried).
Re: Invention
actually it's also a behaviour, a form of feedback (an interactive element) and an appealing form for a human (like fashion is). I fail to see your logic in "not an invention ... gui element ... should not be patentable" - why? do explain. You mean that this GUI element created itself? If it's a part of the OS it hasn't been invented by somebody - a person like you or me. Also the Ribbon UI for Office is patented and more.
Some of you people don't realise that all these patent laws exist to protect IP and ultimately the work of a passionated guy. If it weren't for these laws, we'd be invaded by cheap clones or products based on those ideas produced in a cheap work location, and you'd probably have to go to the East to get a job as a product designer. Why would you bother to invent something if it would be copied the next day, and due to cheaper labour and higher agility (because of less stringent work laws in that location) would appear on the European market before your product?
In this case apple is right, because it's these precious details that turn a person from a competitor's product to apple's.
you (the author) obviously had bad experiences. every goal has to be numerically measurable, without any subjective points. I find them beneficial, if you don't need to spend more than 1 day per year with your own review. I agree though the these reviews are a weapon when needing the fire somebody in a company with a strong work union.
Some companies though need to line the goals of that employee at the beginning of the year (sales: sell so much; research: take that and that course to be compliant and be allowed to work).
Also these discussions are also used to help the employee find her way in the professional life, if done properly.
powerpoint news?
I'm using office 2010 for windows and 2011 for mac. The powerpoint for mac has, when connected to a projector, a kinda of a presenter cockpit - you as a presenter see not the presentation that runs on the projector, but the next slide, the notes of the actual slide and you can enter notes on on the current slide. Has this feature been implemented for office 2012 for windows as well now?
yes, technically sounds nice, but is it also sound? The way you mention all those features makes me think of this episode http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh_Brother,_Where_Art_Thou%3F . German engineering is about incrementally adding well-aged and internally proven features and I have a feeling Apple is applying the same philosophy.
just speculations. the author doesn't know what research they're doing at the moment. think in the lines of "enterprise unveiled" in 5 years.
put on a bit more muscle and polish his head and could work at apple ;).
web(text) was not meant for applications
an application feels a lot like the hardware and OS it runs on, if implemented properly. that's what the users want - extensions of their beloved mobile device. whatever is done in html x it will still not be native software and can't in my opinion become really popular.
after all the web is stunted listings of an almost real time application on a server somewhere. it just doesn't feel right for applications. it is though quite right for documents - on the web everything feels like a kind of document (it makes sense, since we always need a browser to "browse" the web).
Psychologically a mobile device is a body extension - like a second skin if you will - so the user will expect to behave like an actual organ. Think: you don't feel with your skin only every 2 seconds.
Bottom line the proper native app makes you feel connected to whatever you're doing with it while stuff that runs in a browser makes you feel like you're looking at a document (stroboscopic experience, not continuous).
effing bots
i start to think there are bots doing marketing on El Reg. That just sound like a line from THX 1138.
Posted in iPad Mini's quite a handful
yep, I meant consumption, consummation definitely wrong here (wtf?, too early in the morning to post). converted games don't work, but if the ui paradigm is properly thought, they will work very well. see dungeon hunter 2, NFS, ticket to ride, they're all great - the ipad felt always a bit too big. Regardless if I may be regarded as a hardcore gamer, i still am a lot on the run so I prefer to take my ipad instead of my playstation 2 or wii - it helps if i can put all my luggage in the cabin, or just use one hand for pulling it. Also, most of the hotels don't allow you to connect the playstation to their tv's, if they have a pay tv module installed.
Posted in iPad Mini's quite a handful
Many say that iPad mini is a competitor of kindle or others with same size. In my opinion it's not so much competing with them. It's competing with nds, psp, it's for games. iPad for work and media consummation and occasional gaming while iPad mini is for games and occasional media consummation.
Posted in Apple unsheathes MacBook 13-incher
Re: The only snag...
maybe it's part of the apple's philosophy "think different". The reason not to have a built-in network port might be to allow both left handers and right handers to decide where to have that pesky network cable. I sure am annoyed on some customer laptops to have the cable right next to my mouse. With the usb adapters on my mba I can decide on which side to have the cable salad.
no maps problems so far
I heard about this problem with the maps application from different websites. But I fail to see the problem in the cities I used them (Germany, Austria), it was very accurate. Sometimes the new businesses are not listed. This whole maps thing is blown out of proportion in my opinion.
Posted in Apple MacBook Air 13in review
switched to mba from alienware 17x
yes, i do programming and the occasional photo/doc/movie. The screen is a bit too small but since you can plug it in to any other screen, I really don't miss the alienware laptop anymore. it doesn't break a sweat when programming with a couple of documents open (although for xcode is a bit too small). Only when using multi megabyte documents in word or in ibooks author, it gets a bit slow (programming is done usually at the same time via windows vm). I'm surprised that this old mba (late 2010) with 4Gigs of RAM works so well (the alienware was blazing fast at the beginning, but now it's become slower). At the moment I find it hard to justify investing in a new laptop. It only has a 256 GB hard drive, but even the alienware laptop didn't have enough space on the hdd for my needs. I'm using an external wd passport for mac drive (1TB), which is very small and useful (Aperture library is > 40GB). Very good stuff - I have the best of both worlds now (win and osx).
don't think so
while I am completely switching to apple at work and at home, I have a colleague who's a project lead by profession, and he's really switching to windows, winTablet, wp8 (quitting Apple for mobile). He wants to be able to use office software properly on any of those devices, where he left on the other device. He took this decision after getting an excel and pdf on his iPad while on vacation, which he couldn't edit. Of course he could have used iAnnotate and QuickOffice or Numbers, but he really thinks it's much better on the win eco-system (he saw a demo).
My opinion is that Microsoft's pull horse is office 365. If you like that, and there won't be an application on the iPad for it you'll switch to win at least for during work time. Might mean that I might also have two bags to choose before getting on the plane/train/car: the muscle bag (i.e. Microsoft) or the magic bag (i.e. Apple). Which makes the cloud sync even more important... So they will overtake pretty quickly android, I believe. Apple also on the long term, unless they publish the right office tools on the iPad.
in other news on Mars in the news
huge alien rovers destroying our cities! 10 million dead.
