Posts by Fred Flintstone

Re: Call me a cynic if you wish but ....

I must grudgingly admit that that was actually a brilliant use of their dead accounts - make it look like a decision was "accepted by users".

Time to close my test accounts, I've seen enough. Not worth the risk and time, even as experiment..

Re: Debian

Why use Debian with a bunch of crap added to it when you can just use Debian?

I think the original Ubuntu concept helped both. Ubuntu was a heck of a lot easier to install and went straight from install to "I have something any end users can actually use" instead of having to piece it all together themselves. So it put Debian in the hands of those who do not have the time to read man pages ad infinitum and tinker under the hood. AFAIK, the Ubuntu crew pushed what they did back to Debian as well, so the original idea of taking Debian and make it an attractive package for beginners was IMHO an interesting, positive idea.

It's a shame it came a bit off the rails.

Re: wtf were Ubuntu thinking pulling this stunt?

Hmm, not sure that is fair. I've met him a few times, and he doesn't really strike me as that sort of a person.

Sure, Mark has a profit motive in mind but I don't think it's as self serving as that. IMHO, Mark is seeking to prove that Linux can support a commercial LINUX OS enterprise (as opposed to a Linux USING enterprise, because we've got Amazon and Google demonstrating that on a daily basis) other than the RedHat model. Don't ask me why there should be another commercial vendor, but that was the sense I got from the whole setup, and he did originally come up with a version of Debian that was certainly a lot more dynamic and easy to install, it's only since about release 11 that things started to come off the rails because they seem to have increasingly discarded listening to their users (something you eventually pay for, without exception).

However, I think the deal with Amazon was implemented wrong - if they had made it an option which said "you can support us financially if you install this" I am positive they would have had many willing supporters. Making it a not so easy to remove default was not right, and if they had someone bright for marketing they would have issued a mea culpa already..

Re: Ubuntu is an ancient African word ...

"using Slackware requires at least ten functioning brain cells"

Hahaha, like it :).

However, the actual meaning does have a "sharing" implication, so maybe this Amazon deal was the plan all along?

Re: Colours

If you do that I want a <blink> tag too. If my experience of 70/80/90s computing is anything to go by, that idea alone should kill it off almost immediately :).

On a serious note, I do support the idea of a FEW colours, like blue and red, but there is a serious risk it will start to look like the first years of DTP: some people just want to use ALL the possibilities in one post. OTOH, this tends to settle down after a while.

In summary, I can see some people wanting it, but I'm not bothered. I started computing when everything was glowing in uppercase green, so I learned to cope early on :)

So the fucking morons who crash whilst texting ...

The SMS of those people will read something incomprehensible like "jkhvhgf" because the airbag will ram the keyboard into their face and leave a nice rectangular imprint (with or without rounded corners).

This, of course, will trigger an automated accident alarm because it's obvious what just happened.

Bandwidth. I'm sure it's possible to develop emergency apps that add more data, but SMS can scrape through where voice no longer carries, and that is vital in emergency situations.

There is one caveat: SMS is a discard service (AFAIK), i.e. the data gets discarded if the cell gets too busy. This use demands a change to that policy, can you imagine the impact if 911 SMS gets thrown out?

Nah..

.. they have McGiver..

Re: Ryan Air Are Doing It For £50

You know, it must a dream come true for Ryan Air - finally be able to charge for oxygen too..

Re: Just a sign of (sales) sucess....

Every company – Microsoft, Google, or even Apple – should have to earn our purchase. Each and every time.

You're in fine form today - who switched on your quotable statements engine? :)

Re: @Fred Flintstone - #DroidRage

He actually does have a point, though - I went slightly off track there because I was more looking at the pervasive EU law breaking than the anti-competitive activities which I consider a side effect rather than an deliberate aim.

In my opinion, Google created Android not as a competitive activity per se, but as a route to grab mobile market share because it wanted that user data. They have already publicly admitted that Android devices replace the Streetview Wifi sniffing (which implies that that wasn't nearly as much of an "accident" as they claimed). Furthermore, you cannot use Android unless you either furnish it with a Google logon (which means you agreed to their T&Cs) or hack it, which immediately raises questions about it being as "Open" as it proclaims itself to be, but I digress.

The only way to crack an already saturated market is either do something very new (which is what Apple did with its then groundbreaking UI) or something very cheap (which is what Android originally was, building on more or less the same principles that Apple worked out, but with the locks removed because screening meant accepting responsibility for content). Add some "Open Source" sauce to the "do no evil" meme and presto, it started to suck in developers and customers alike.

That that it competed with others was IMHO not a primary goal. Of course, the result was the same, but laws are about intent, and as much as I dislike Schmidt, I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt here.

Re: #DroidRage

In a few years, when Google are being hauled through the courts for anti-competitive practices which make Microsoft look practically saintly,

On the privacy front, that is already starting to happen in Europe..

Re: #DroidRage

they don't have customers, they have hostages.

You know, I'd upvote your post a gazillion times, just for that single line. Mind if I borrow that?

Oh, and as for a mea culpa for the past: ain't gonna happen, if for no other reason that it could re-launch investigations..

Re: Oh dear, Microsoft.

which achieves nothing except to alienate people and increase sympathy for the jihaddists

Excuse me? The one most certainly doesn't follow the other. Just because someone pisses you off doesn't immediately push normal people into placing IEDs around town..

at least when something is installed on Android, you get advance warning of the things it is wanting permission to do

This is actually one of the things I do NOT like about Android - maybe I had an old phone (Xperia) but my experience with denying an app access was that it simply did not install or stopped working, effectively brute forcing you to give permission for what sometimes is flat out questionable access. I personally don't call that permission management, that's blackmail.

On the iPhone, an app will still install and work, just with limited functionality. If I tell TomTOM to keep its fingers out of contacts database it will still work, but I'll have to feed it addresses manually - my choice. Of course, if you deny an app critical resources it's not going to work (the aforementioned TomTom would be pointless without access to the GPS data), but it leaves ME in charge. Even post installation I can change my mind.

I have no idea how things are on a Windows phone, anyone?

Re: Farcebook

Personally I can't even stand the phrase 'social networking' it offends my sociopathic nature

You should spell it correctly. It's " A-social", but the "A" is silent.