Par for the course

Farsebook copying someone else's work and ideas and branding it as their own.

Here little children, sweeties...

FFS get a grip

People -- lots of people -- are dying and you're whinging about a little mistake with a graphic.

It's not a video game; death is forever.

... and the verdict of the User Interface jury is...

Just about every, no, lets restate that, every Sony telly I've used has a dire User Interface. Simple things like being able to change screen resolution at the click of ONE remote button is absent. Same with simple picture-in-menu channel choices.

So the picture's OK. Ermm, that's what one expects. Lots of inputs; again, it's expected. 3D, OK, I'll pass on that (as have most consumers thus far).

The optional extras are the User Interface and this is where Sony have been dire.

So unless that's improved -- and the remote control -- then why bother with a Sony?

There's two types...

... of people who call their customers "users". One group are drugs pushers...

Cultural risk aversion

There's a genetic aversion to risk in government procurement which results in the "less risky" big boys getting all the work. Saving money appears well down the list when compared with the possibility -- real or imagined -- of a problem affecting a procurement career. That and the importance placed on process over results.

Get the kids to bake some lovely Rasberry Pi

Hmmm yum yum.

There should be no place for 'office' - at should be part of the English lesson; learning to write. Or drama; learning to present.

BTW what has Microsoft got to do with this?

Second (smaller) balloon burst?

Bit low-tech, but have a ikkle trigger balloon; when it go bang, launch. Would be lightweight - fill it with some hydrogen and it'll weigh nothing.

Input sanitisation

The thing I hate is those dickheads at ICANN have shagged my nice simple input sanitisation routines used whenever anyone inputs an email or DNS address. A one-line regex now will need to be replaced with a database lookup plus a shed load of maintenance.

Or a message saying "No poncy top-level domain names allowed here. Use a proper name like everyone else."

Where's the programs?

After reading this I thought I'd download it and spark it up in a VM on my Mac, just to see what you're all going on about. Fine; installed, updated, ran Firefox so connectivity's great.

But now I want to run some other programs. How? I can't see any "Programs" or "Applications" folder on the screen... It's like that damn Windows 8 - what's the bloody point of hiding all the sodding programs?

Let me start gently, then work up my experience as I get to know it better. I expect these user interfaces to be better than this. I want to be able to switch my NON-TECHNICAL family away from the scourge of Microsoft; they couldn't give a damn about the OS and I want something more reliable than Windows.

What a pain.

IT training courses

It's a sad indictment that all IT training courses I attend -- these are *public* courses -- there's a very small percentage of female attendees, frequently there are none.

There's more female project managers and administrators. Just very very few engineers.

Browser . . . shell

Browsers are becoming the shell which users interact with their computers, so it's inevitable that they'll be the main attack vector.

No turning back

What's a degree in sports for?

I cannot think of any subject more pointless than "sport" at a degree level. A "sports degree" is a complete oxymoron.

OK, sport science, studying to become a medical type person maybe. But sports for the sake of it is utterly pointless.

What's the world coming to?

Can I do a degree in drinking beer?

Where's the pointing device?

A keyboard also requires a pointing device close to hand; a mouse, trackpad or nipple. It's just not acceptable to expect to point around the screen whilst, say, editing a document. One's hands are rested on the keyboard; the screen is up in the air; pointing at it is very difficult from this angle, and damn uncomfortable as well. That's why I'm using a mouse as I slide my hand from the keyboard to the mouse.

Alas iOS (and Android) doesn't support pointing devices so this is at best only a half-solution.

Ironically Windows 8 may fare better in this respect as it's more Windows than Tablet OS. Of course Windows 8 doesn't yet exist, nor will it ever run on an iPad.

Amazing they're still around!

Given that they've completely missed two markets which they were already operating in, it's amazing if they'll be in those and other markets for much longer.

It's a serious issue of poor strategic thinking from the board. It is astounding that they don't have any significant presence in the smartphone and tablet market. All they have is a version 0.8 tablet and a mess of a smartphone that is anything but cool.

Shocking that the board are still in place.

As things get more cloudy and web-based, there's a massive threat to their core OS business too.

Ouch, that must sting Microsoft

Wonder how Ballmer's feeling? Must be pretty lonely when you can't compete because you were asleep at the helm and sailed right past the opportunity. Wouldn't be surprised his shareholders revolted.

Still, we've a half-baked Windows 8 to look forward to. That'll really worry Apple.

Trust in me...

Should one trust Google with my information, or Dropbox, or anyone else?

That's not to say that Google can't be trusted. Or is it?

The jobs still exist, just done by suppliers

All that's happened is the jobs have been shifted from internal to external suppliers. It'll cost much more in the long run.

Ownership is key

Alas government IT is specified by one group: the government's agents called civil servants, but delivered by a completely separate group: the suppliers. Add to that mix a bunch of miscellaneous hangers on all pushing for "better value for money", a culture of complete risk aversion, and you end up with more time being spent on commercial aspects than doing the job.

Contracts are all about who's got the best negotiator. Government pays little, suppliers pay a lot. Figure out who gets the better contract negotiator.

The key is ownership. If you have a small internal group responsible for making their own dog food, you often end up with much cheaper results. Of course this then goes off the rails if you don't have people with the right skills.

Until smaller suppliers can get involved, it'll be the same old big dozen or so who keep delivering the same old same old...

Didn't they read the bit about...

... share prices can go down as well as up.

In Groupon's case, down is inevitable.

Why anyone would want to "invest" in Groupon in the first place beats me. Speculate maybe, but not invest. What's the number one rule of "speculation"... only speculate money that you can afford to loose and never borrow to speculate.

I still see Groupon's woes as simply a tax on stupid greedy people.

Ballmer meet Mr Potato Head

Something like Toy Story, but Ballmer can't even do falling with style.

Caveat emptor all ye snake oil purchasers

What a surprise, the new company owners must be so pleased they've bought a company that's built upon worthless principles and could easily be copied. Call it a tax on fools with too much money, or is that greed?

Perfect description

Sums the whole soshial meeja nonsense up nicely