Re: Dull and slow
And for general usage could you tell the difference?
Posts by jason 7
3181 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jun 2009
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AMD's 'Revolution' will be televised ... if its CPU-GPU frankenchip Kaveri is a hit
Audiophiles: These Wi-Fi speakers have a stereo drift of less than 25μs – good enough for you?
Wednesday 15th January 2014 15:25 GMT
What I love is when ....
Hi-Fi enthusiasts/Audiophiles start trying to apply Hi-fi voodoo BS to standard computer kit.
Open up that £3000 blu-ray player from Audio Shed Backgarden Innovations Ltd, Bedford and at its core you'll find £20 worth of PC blu-ray drive surrounded buy god knows what in non-standard/non-compliant electronics.
Also Hi-Fi cable. I would bet that 99% of Hi-Fi cable manufacturers don't make that cable and most of it was probably specced originally by Boeing or for CAT scanners at 2p a meter. Buy it by the spool and slap your name on it. Cable making is huge industrial scale stuff not the kind of place you can just make 100m of special £1500 a meter cable in. It doesn't exist.
Modern spying 101: How NSA bugs Chinese PCs with tiny USB radios - NYT
Wednesday 15th January 2014 12:24 GMT
Ahem..What if all the NSA/Snowden stuff was a carefully planned ruse.....
....just to gauge by the powers that be, how the unwashed masses would react to knowing about mass surveillance?
Depending on the reaction would then give the go ahead one way or another, to new systems.
From what I've seen so far the powers that be won't have to be too low key about it all.
I guess they got the reaction they wanted. No one has been lynched and most of the public just shrugged.
Ban-dodging Mac Pro to hit Blighty's shops as Apple bows to fan fears
Wednesday 15th January 2014 09:54 GMT
Re: Its a nice looking piece of kit.
Nice idea but it would totally destroy the ace up Apple's sleeve....it just works right out of the box.
Instead of OSX being stringently designed to run with a tightly controlled group of core hardware it would be expected to work flawlessly with billions of combinations like Windows is.
It would be a massacre. The true greatest technical achivement would be exposed not as "it works out of the box" but as "how the hell does MS get Windows to work so well with so many pieces of kit??"
That would never do and if I was Apple that's not something I would want to rip up. However, they could I suppose release a neatly developed VM version for folks on other machines to install.
THOUSANDS of UK.gov Win XP PCs to face April hacker storm... including boxes at TAXMAN, NHS
Tuesday 14th January 2014 18:14 GMT
Re: All seems a bit Y2K like to me....
Don't knock it, got rid of a whole load of 3.1 and Win95 crap in my organisation.
The transition from all of us on dumb terminals in the early 90's to some of us on PCs by the late 90's hadn't been managed all that well.
Not to mention the upteen different versions of Visio/Office/Smartsuite/anti-virus/no anti-virus that had been bought randomly till then.
Folks didnt know they were born with their new 64MB Windows NT4 desktops. Though the wars that raged over lock down accounts and no floppy drive access were stuff of legend...
A lot of good came out of Y2K (for end users) however, it did tend to set/synchronise the upgrade cycle for the corporate/enterprise for ever more.
Light, fast ... and pricey: Toshiba's Portégé Z30 – now THIS is an Ultrabook
Tuesday 14th January 2014 12:23 GMT
When I can buy a half decent 22" 1080p ersatz IPS panel...
....for around £100 and that includes all the plastics, stand, power lead etc. I cant see how much extra a decent 13" panel would add to a £1300 laptop.
There are even decent quality TN panels around that cant cost much more than the standard crap they fit.
Could the Reg maybe do an investigation with the manufacturers as to why they always skimp on laptop screens? Some interviews with their product heads?
Let them put their case forward for their lack of effort.
Use strong passwords and install antivirus, mmkay? UK.gov pushes awareness campaign
Sinclair’s 1984 big shot at business: The QL is 30 years old
Sunday 12th January 2014 18:40 GMT
I remember....
Just before Xmas 84? I remember Your Sinclair had a pullout section devoted to the QL. I think it's on the internet somewhere on a QL fan site. Anyway I can remember thinking it looked cool and being 13 wanting new computers with 'moar ports' was compelling.
My ambition was to have a computer setup that would allow me to 'hack into and rule the world'. Isn't it great when your imagination outstrips your actual talent! Not to mention your piggy bank.
I think I mentioned to my Dad at the time that the credit card companies were letting customers pre-order the QL without adding it to their monthly credit limits (I guess back then £500 was a high limit). Suffice to say he just shrugged like Dads do, said "Oh really!" and the matter was never taken further.
Looking back I think I dodged a bullet. I wasn't even tempted when two or three years later Dixons were selling them off for next to nothing.
The next computer was a 128K Spectrum+2 (Amstrad Style) and then about a year or two later a 512K Apple Mac (with external floppy too for dual drive). Now I had a computer suitable for taking on the world but aged 17, the finances still didn't allow it. Macs were still damn expensive to run back then.
Suffice to say it was my last Apple PC.
If my 13 year old self could see the gear I have around my flat now, he'd explode.
Why 2014 might just be the year of the Google Chromebook
Saturday 11th January 2014 00:12 GMT
Re: It was Intel wot did it
But they first came out with Linux on...not Windows. So how was MS dictating the spec from day one?
XP didnt come till several months later and Windows 7 Starter arrived well after the netbook party was over (2009+).
Netbooks kind of arrived out of the blue. I think the first one I saw was at a Stuff Show in London, maybe Xmas 2005?
Friday 10th January 2014 15:46 GMT
Re: Don't think so.
Yes but you expect it to be slow because you know how the spec will respond.
But I got fed up with Joe Public bringing their netbooks to me asking..."Its really slow...can you make it faster!"
To which the reply was usually "Well your netbook is slow...because its slow!"
Like a Morris Minor owner asking why his car gets pulled over on the Autobahn.
They didn't want me to slap in another 2GB of ram and a SSD, because they paid next to nothing for it so what was the point. Plus it often meant near complete disassembly to get anywhere.
Had they brought me a laptop from 2006/7 I could do something with that. Slap in another GB or two and swap out the old single core Celeron for a £10 Ebay C2D. Bingo, good for a few more years.
Friday 10th January 2014 10:26 GMT
Re: Don't think so.
Nah, wimpy single core CPUs, slow SSD/HDDs and highly inadequate 600 pixel depth screens was more of a hindrance.
Parts bin specials for clearing out old tech.
People say MS limited the spec but remember the first ones launched by surprise from Intel/Acer/Asus with Linux installed and the hardware spec didn't radically change much from then on when Windows appeared on them several months later.
Thought sales were in the toilet before? Behold the agony: 2013 was a PC market BLOODBATH
Friday 10th January 2014 15:26 GMT
Re: What's the point of upgrading
@Flatpackhampster
Well I have a HD 7870 plugged in right now. Remember PCI-e is all backwards/forwards compatible. Also 16GB of ECC ram, two 1TB SSHDs, eSATA card, Soundcard and soon a USB3.0 card.
It's designed to run two GPUs as standard.
As for Mr Jones comment about Windows 7 not transferring files properly but XP will, I think you have it the wrong way chap.
Windows 7 will transfer files all day long with no issue. If there is it will give you options and then carry on.
Whereas XP will get halfway though a 8GB transfer of 10000 files and go "Oh this is a system file! Can't do it!" and just stop dead in its tracks.
So so helpful. XP should die a horrible death for that alone.
Could be your Windows 7 build is messed up so you might need a IT tech to look at it for you.
Linksys's über-hackable WRT wireless router REBORN with 802.11ac
Wednesday 8th January 2014 10:51 GMT
I would recommend a look at the TP-Link TD-W8980 N600.
Loads of features, gives as good a performance as my old Draytek before it and costs less than a third of this Linksys.
5GHz wi-fi is very handy living in a city centre too.
http://uk.tp-link.com/products/details/?categoryid=219&model=TD-W8980#down
I've seen the future of car radio - and DAB isn't in it
Malware! tainted! ads! infect! thousands! of! Yahoo! users!
Acer cozies up to Google with new 'droid PCs and fondleslab, Chromebook
Sunday 5th January 2014 23:51 GMT
Re: So ... hardware manufacturers are now openly telling Microsoft to get stuffed
Who in the Average Joe world cares about 'open and community driven'?
If it really really mattered to the masses, Linux would be king by now. But who is to say that had Linux become the dominant OS, that big corporate interests would not have moved in and basically taken it over as well. If there is a buck to be made...someone wants to control it.
No, folks want roughly what they are used to and for a good price and size. Everything else is secondary if considered at all.
Does it do what I want with the minimum of hassle?
Ethics rarely comes into gadgets.
Sunday 5th January 2014 13:48 GMT
Re: So ... hardware manufacturers are now openly telling Microsoft to get stuffed
Well most people saw the netbook as a handy alternative to lugging a 14" (as they mostly were then) laptop around on holiday.
My laptop back then weighed over 3kg with a brick for a power supply so wasn't a nice thought.
So the use of them for email and a bit of web browsing on hols etc or as a cheap machine for the kids to play on was all well intentioned.
Shortly the shortcomings you list bit hard due to average folks not having a clue about hardware specs and their ramifications. The love turned to hate.
Then tablets arrived that did the whole internet, media consumption and time wasting in a far more expansive and instant manner and netbooks were dead in the water.
Still they had their 15 minutes of fame.
For me Chromebooks are essentially a tablet with a keyboard. Bridging the gap between tablet and full laptop.
Saturday 4th January 2014 17:13 GMT
Re: So ... hardware manufacturers are now openly telling Microsoft to get stuffed
Well a search on 'Netbook Spec restrictions' seems to point the finger at both Intel and MS. MS more for machines that wanted to run Windows 7.
Seems Intel set the original spec (Netbooks started with linux after all) that doomed them. Always saw netbooks as a way for Intel to clean out its crap low power stuff that the industry demanded but no one actualy wanted at the time.
Saturday 4th January 2014 12:39 GMT
Re: So ... hardware manufacturers are now openly telling Microsoft to get stuffed
It wasn't software or cost that was Netbooks problem.
It was Intels crappy hardware spec restrictions.
Using a netbook was not a satisfying experience whether using Linux or Windows. The poor screen depth and slow CPU just killed the experience for me and many others.
(sits looking accusatory at his long abandoned Acer One wtih Ubuntu netbook edition on it's 8GB SSD)
Amazes me how many laptop reviews we have where people pile in going "Screen not good enough!" but netbooks always get a free pass on that one when their screens couldn't even handle most task/action windows.
Alicia Keys throws in towel on BlackBerry's creative director job
Acer C720 Chromebook with Haswell battery boosting goodness
Thursday 2nd January 2014 11:48 GMT
Indeed, as I mentioned above, if you don't like the spec then it wasn't designed with you in mind. But you could be surprised.
However, I can think of plenty that would find it useful.
Plus as I say to a lot of Chromebook skeptics, just try one. It's not the device to end all other devices it's another tool in your armory alongside, laptops, tablets and smartphones.
For me it fits the niche of "I like using a tablet but I miss the sheer speed of having a keyboard but don't want to lug around a full size laptop". My svelte 13" Dell just feels like putting breeze block in my bag.
For the price I'll thrash it for two years, buy another, log in in and I'm back up and running.
Wednesday 1st January 2014 16:43 GMT
I got mine last Christmas
The OS is improving nicely and so far hasn't given me any niggles. It's become my travel laptop/device of choice over my 13" Windows laptop and 7" tablet.
As you say it tethers nicely and does the job.
The only issue I have with recommending them 100% is printing. For me its not an issue as I try to keep printing to a minimum. My take is if I have to print then I've failed but many shall we say 'senior' people love to print everything and that's the rub. Okay the setting up to print isn't tricky but for the average numpty its a few clicks and a new concept too far.
We'll see what develops this year.
Wednesday 1st January 2014 14:13 GMT
Re: Is that enough RAM?
Well I haven't experienced any ram/performance issues with my 11" Samsung Chromebook.
Then again I'm a more 'normal' user in that I would only tend to have say 4 tabs open at a time.
I don't quite get the need for 40 tabs being always open as mandatory. Especially on a 11" screen.
Again it's probably a case of "if this device doesn't work quite the way you want it to, then it probably wasn't designed with you in mind".
Apple loses sauce, BlackBerry squashed and Microsoft, er, WinsPhones (Nokia's)
Android, Chromebooks storm channel as Windows PC sales go flat
Saturday 28th December 2013 02:30 GMT
Re: So if we award all desktops to Microsoft then I make it...
Ermm I'm one of those lucky ones that only flies for when I go on holiday.
So my original point still stands. I'm on holiday, I have better things to do than pour over spreadsheets or Powerpoints at 35000 feet.
Oh I can still do spreadsheets on the Chromebook at 35000 feet too though. Email and text docs too in fact.
Sleeping or sipping a G&T is much better however.
Snowden leak journo leaks next leak: NSA, GCHQ dying to snoop on your gadgets mid-flight
Saturday 28th December 2013 02:22 GMT 
I just wish they would drop the whole 'terrorism' cover.
It's not terrorism this is being done for, it's full control of everyone.
The powers that be don't want any surprises as the world fills up and the resources dwindle. They want to be able to nip any dissent in the bud quickly in case what they have is in any danger of being taken away.
This is the 1% building their barricades for 20+ years in the future.
I think of all the 'Freedom BS' we used to hear during the Cold War when in fact those very Govts spouting about freedom were actually envious of what the communists were doing.
Ho, ho, HOLY CR*P, ebuyer! Etailer rates staff on returns REJECTED
Tuesday 24th December 2013 11:09 GMT
I don't have an issue if they try a few "turn it off and on again" type routines with the customer before a full return. Most people are numpties. I still see plenty USB cables pushed into printer ethernet ports. For the sake of 5 minutes on the phone.....
However, I do get annoyed if companies start denying all responsibility. If the product doesnt work it's not your fault but you sold it, take it back, deal with the supplier and make the customer happy. Not saying that's what Ebuyer was doing but it's a shame it still goes on today.
Mosquitoes, Comets and Vampires: The de Havilland Museum
Calling all Spare Rib veterans: Sisters, don't lose your rights!
Station to station: Ten DAB-Bluetooth combo radios
Cryptolocker copycat ransomware emerges – but an antidote is possible
I KNOW how to SAVE Microsoft. Give Windows 8 away for FREE – analyst
Wednesday 11th December 2013 16:22 GMT
Well they do sell it cheaply to start with.
I bought a load of upgrades of Windows 8 Pro for about £20 each this time last year.
I still buy up copies for around £40 if you hunt places that haven't updated their stock records.
I think I paid about £20 for my copy of Snow Leopard from the Apple Store (for a Hackintosh), so that wasn't free.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
