Posts by Stuart 22 929 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2009
No mention of the Trash-80 - the best of the first three high street micros. Commodore & Apple were more fancy design than Z80 grunt. Besides the original desktop they could claim the first A4 sized handheld that any trendy journo had to pack. Absolutely brilliant.
Trash-DOS was a bit useless which led to maybe the first free third party alternative NewDOS when Linus was still in nappies?
Ah well RIP. You will not be forgotten while I can still hit a keyboard.
My 'at home' devices would be perfectly happy to communicate with my router
Right on! and my 'awayday' devices happily communicate with my smartphone. So if they need to communicate further they go through the mobile connection or the phone wifi connection and that's under my control. Just think about different contracts for different devices and roaming abroad, the cost of ignoring the free local wifi.
The network honchos can go and salivate elsewhere. Their reputation hasn't reached banking standards, but they are getting there. Will the next merger will be Barclays-Vodafone? The horror, the horror ...
Hopefully the reduced budget has been shifted to those cute little boxes that get kids intimately involved in hardware and software to get probably better payback from future careers in IT development in the years to come.
From someone who always found the RM choice extremely underwhelming and aimed at adults, not kids, oh and the past rather than the future.
Unfortunately, there's no such thing as a free lunch.
Well there is. I don't respond to adverts. Its just an attitude I have. So they just waste my time - adblocking saves my time at no cost to the advertiser. And they haven't alienated me. So good all round.
I do have Adsense on my websites for those who want adverts and give me some revenue. I'm happy for them to do that and I provide the service. If, like me, they choose to block the ads then great. Its supposedly a free country.
Of course if 100% of us block 100% of ads !00% of the time then the ad model fails. A happy day for me and it would be market choice that decided it, not backroom bribes and mind manipulation.
"Apple have never competed in the low end. They only do high end, high margin"
Absolutely correct. No one would argue about high end prices and margins. And to be frank I have never heard anyone doubt the quality of its cameras.
But in basic web browsing on responsive websites the iPhone significantly under-competes with landfill Androids. I had to borrow one to prove what I was hearing was true. The Retina resolution claims are a bit of a con. Apple's double pixelling halves the effective resolution presented to the browser (and it doesn't matter which one). So in landscape its under 600 pixels on the iPhone4/5/6 and responsive sites wrap and drop 'unimportant' data. Whereas a cheap Android shows it in all its glory.
The iPhone people I spoke to were unaware of what they were missing and that for a lot less they could get a lot more - well when it comes to web browsing.
Oh and every iPhone 6+ owner I know was replacing a 5S. Perhaps I should get out more.
Only 53,000. I worked for a UK based IT company in the last millennium that had 30,000 people. We were big in the UK, SA & Australia and a few ex-colonies with a modest presence in Europe and almost unknown elsewhere. Known - was to other IT cognescenti. No public dealing.
Yet this company with less than twice the number permeates almost every connected person and business worldwide - that's billions. Indeed many of us are too dependent on their services for both work and play. They are perhaps the most successful company in doing business automatically without the involvement of much grey matter. The first real AI company?
Security should be multi-layer precisely because you can't exclude flaws in any layer to allow this sort of thing to happen. Which, in the end means if the scam works, you don't end up with a heavy bill.
Capping bills is the ultimate protection. Tesco Mobile do it (you specify the maximum extra cost in extra charges you will accept which you can easily change if you are going to do some heavy roaming etc). Hence there is presumably no technical reason everybody else cannot do it. They just won't because screwing customers for unwanted services has become addictive.
Ofcom could change that tomorrow if they put the user first. By the way anybody been to Ofcom Towers? Very plush isn't it? I guess that helps keep them in contact with the common man ... from a great height with a great view ;-)
I'm an LibreOffice user and installed AOpen - the android compatible version of OO so I could edit documents and spreadsheets.
I have uninstalled it. I just wasn't using it on my 10" tablet. Viewing stuff is useful but is it really the medium for creation/editing? Well not here YMMV. Indeed documents in particular are increasingly being created and held in the cloud - whether shared or personal so the importance of LibreOffice is declining on my desktop. And why my Chromebook takes an increasing share of my keystrokes.
I may download for a look. But I doubt for work.
Purveyor of dodgy parties to the British Electorate. But be careful, don't expect your deposit back. Younger whipper snappers may need to be reminded when Robert Kilroy-Silk thought he was poster boy for all well versed in Latin and breaking moulds. Very few when he tried to muscle in on Nigel's UKIP and even fewer when he flounced out to form Veritas. That ended in tears too.
Perhaps Symantec should have snapped up Banque National de Paris's shortened moniker ;-)
"But gay also meant prostitute. There, fixed your misplaced nostalgia for you."
Different nostalgia in different places methinks. I can remember describing myself as "a batchelor gay" when picking up ladies of the female gender for rather more than platonic love. It was a common phrase probably emanating from a popular song written in 1917. As I don't know the words I haven't a clue if that was euphemistic but if so it was lost of the lads of the 60s. Well those I knew. It was a bit embarrassing when a few years later it took on the other meaning. Had to rewrite my chat up script.
Not that either was very effective :-(
Win8/8.1 - mostly consumers will probably be well advised to do the free upgrade. Win7 - consumers with recent hardware might find it a good move too with '7' support ending within its lifetime.
Guess Microsoft are betting nearly all its Win7 business users will be unable to take advantage of the free upgrade. 12 months is just too short for any significant operation to evaluate, decide, test and deploy a new operating system. They will just hang on grimly until 2020 when it will, hopefully, be someone else's problem.
It is almost worth getting Win10 just to see how well these things interlink and work. But, and its a big but, Microsoft are only going the way its two rivals have preceded it. And I'm not sure i want to go along for the ride.
We do seem to be increasingly irritated by ads that have tried to read our minds and failed, by digital assistants who pop up to help and don't seem to understand "go away" in vernacular speak. If I want to ask a question I will ask but to get an answer to a question I have yet to ask and get it wrong is unforgivable.
These are phones, tablets PERSONAL computers. I want them to do what I want them to do - not be sucked up into what the Borg has decided I should do.
Perhaps that's why I finding command line operation increasingly satisfying when using a desktop ... Maybe the time has come for MS-DOS 10 ;-)
"I can absolutely guarantee they will never can the Linux client".
Reviewers used to rave about Evernote. I used to rave about Evernote and introduced it to some of our clients. However, as we migrated from XP to penguinland it was disappointing to find EN had absolutely no interest into making their product platform independent. The make-dos (running under wine or nixnote) are not reliable enough to commit to. So its off elsewhere for us. And a lot more if you believe the discontent on their forums.
Its their business decision and it drives my business decision. If you can't do Linux then you are going to lose all the Win/Mac desktops that might be sharing the same data. Hope they got their sums right.
"All of the top 50 free iOS and Android apps for which there are Windows desktop apps already exist as Windows Phone apps."
Is that a surprise? They are massive, adding an extra platform is not an issue in expense or resources. And if it is I'm sure Microsoft will help.
This is meaningless. My app portfolio will contain a number of these apps. And by definition these will appeal to global/general interest need. But then I have apps specific to my needs. These can be country, region or even town specific (like local buses). They will be to specialist tasks related to my skills, employment or hobbies. They will be low volume, they will be vital, and all of us will have a different set of these. They aren't on Windows now, they won't be on Windows till it has volume and Windows isn't going to have volume till it gets the apps. Not the 50 big 'uns but near the whole portfolio.
Otherwise you are offering me a significant reduction in app functionality. I, and I guess most others who have a choice, will decline the offer.
The alternative would be for Windows to run Android or IoS apps in an emulated environment. That's how it was done by companies smaller than IBM in the distant past. Whether Microsoft is man enough to do it with Win 10 should be interesting.
So I pay an employee $24/hour. He/she spends 6 mins of it on Facebook - an underestimate?
So I'm being taxed $2.4/hour by Facebook. Employee cost is approx 2 x salary so it round terms it is $5. I, and all other employers, have hike my prices to compensate so in reality the consumer pays (or the stockholder if I take the hit).
Given that Facebook has taken 10% of my employee's productivity - then I need to employ an extra 10% of staff to get the same job done. Of course 1% of this would be re-taken by Facebook and so on.
I could filter Facebook on the LAN. But folks would just FB on their mobiles in the bog. So I have no option to let Facebook create more employment at my expense through the addictive power of their exploitative activity.
Well I suppose its good that I and other employers should feel honoured we are paying for a greater contribution to society than Portugal. Thank you FB.
"I resent the fact that you have branded those of us who want to download a large amount of data per month and have thus chosen an unlimited service as being thieves."
I apologise, I used the wrong verb. The issue is that if you contract with an ISP that offers unlimited then, unless you get your fair shares worth - you are paying for someone elses's usage. And, of course, if instead everybody does try to regain equanimity then the ISP's peering goes into meltdown unless they throttle etc.
So while I am not accusing you of acting unfairly, your use of unlimited could be seen as unfair to the user who doesn't need it. I agree it is their problem to realise that and go with a 'limited' service. I run a small internet company and our usage is comfortably within our 200Gb monthly allowance. Of course that does involve downloading movies or online gaming. Horses for courses. Ours is Zen. Almost as good as A&A I'm told ;-)
Before you point out that your unlimited is cheaper than my limited - that's only if you don't value the other differences the alternate ISPs have compared to the big'uns.
My ISP is not on the list. They just give unfiltered access to the real raw internet. No proxies, no deep packet sniffing, blocked ports, traffic throttling and the other popular provider malfeasances.
They don't provide unlimited. You just get what you pay for and not other people's attempts to steal bandwidth for nothing. They also keep a low profile which means they miss out on tea and biscuits at Number 10 to exchange gongs for protecting our children, terrorists and cuddly kittens.
Its a novel approach. I am surprised so few are so not prepared to throw themselves into the clutches of big corporations with an appalling record of misleading and generally screwing their users with a fair dose of technical incompetence and incomprehensible support desks thrown in.
But then I guess, like all others, mine is just another brand name and operating unit of that overarching UK ISP also missing from the list: GCHQ.
The lack of apps implies it of no use to me as a replacement tablet. YMMV.
The one reason I might buy this (as a Linux house) is to be able to access desktop Windows applications that will not run well under Wine. And at a bargain price. In other words lashed up warrior style with keyboard and screen and hopefully sitting on the LAN. Oh and to find out why Win7 clients are so grumpy about 8.1 ;-)
Maybe, just maybe, if over time it gets more apps and Microsoft become nicer and Google become badder I may swop my mobile OS of choice. Its nice to have a choice. Google and Microsoft can sharpen each other up. Competition is good, avoiding an Android monopoly is good however good the actual product is.
Microsoft taught us that lesson long ago. Irony unleashed.
"Up until the late 90's there was a correlation between increased CO2, due to mankind's industry, and temperature, but that correlation between the two appears to have broken down in the last 15 years."
I think you need to review your understanding of correlation. If you look at the timeseries in the last 50 years or so you will observe two distinct 'reversals' where temperatures fell. This shows not unexpectedly that other factors affect the annual temperature in the short term. The usual culprits are weather and water currents that behave cyclically. They have had a dramatic short term effect but little effect long term.
Hence what should worry people with a more skeptic view of global warming is that the last ten years are at best a pause and not a reversal as before. Does this mean there is not a stronger underlying warming or just that the expected cooling cycles are diminished? I don't know the answer. But to say this has destroyed the previous correlation requires strong evidence. Would you like to share it with us?
"This is the key problem. There ain't one. The biggest problem with temperature data sets is that a significant number of ground stations which were originally located in the countryside upon establishment have ended with the grounds of the neigbouring metropolis over time."
Please give people credit for not understanding the issue and trying to exclude it. I tried to do so by referring to the last 20 years against the next. That removes most of the urbanisation issues over the last century or so.
There is no way I would want to con Lewis. It just whether there is a trend over 40 years of which 20 are yet to come. Can I add you to those who might wish to bet against me or are you frit?
"Try addressing the point of the article. As a statistician would you be comfortable saying "xxxx EVER" if its within the bounds of the margins of error."
To begin with the issue is since when records began and not EVER. So the direct answer to your question is no.
The semantic point is that is if 2014 recorded the highest temperature using the accepted measures. The answer is probably yes. Though we can have another argument about whether those are appropriate or not. But the margin of error is not really relevant as it is the same for each recent year. So while it is possible it isn't the probability it is.
But this is a digression I was seeking to avoid. The sub heading "Global warming probably still on hold" only applies if you take a very short term view of the series and cannot see the difference between a pause (the last ten years) as opposed to a reversal seen in previous cyclical perturbations.
But we can argue statistics till we are blue in the face and accuse each other of cherry picking. That's why I suggest we cut the cr*p and put our money on our carefully considered positions. And not one without risk. My analysis doesn't exclude the cooling expected if we have a massive volcanic eruption. I can't predict those. But I'm still prepared to put my money where my mouth is. Are you frit in responding?
OK Lewis you had your say. I'm a mere statistician specialising in timeseries analysis. I'm not going to argue. I hope to live another 20 years - I hope you do too. So what wager are you going to make that the mean temperature of the next 20 years will not be higher than the last 20 years?
We can use any reasonable bucket of how that is measured. Over to you.
"Ye! Who needs a trial, just put him in the stocks and lets throw the cabbages already"
Inappropriate. Send him to Bletchley Computer Museum and be required to load/unload an EDS60 disk cartridge continuously for a period not exceeding a Linux kernel's best uptime. Webcam streamed as a screensaver for our pleasure.
One of William Shakespeare's most notable lines is "let's kill all the lawyers" from the play Henry VI, Part II.
But now, one retired US lawyer is trying to change people's interpretation of the famous line.
David Epstein says: "One interpretation is that's it's actually a compliment for lawyers... that's the one I'm stressing."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-28879259
I assume in the UK the victim may be able to take action as 'passing-off'. Does the US have similar legislation? I would have thought it worth ago using the DRS of Nominet if the offender is a UK domain. Trademark law may also give some comfort. Where are the lawyers when you need'em?
I'm a Grandad so is it ok to use my Samsung offline? With a Kubuntu crouton to be precise. Works brilliantly though the 16Gb is a bit tight for applications even with a 64Gb low profile USB stick for data. So this would work much better. Pity about ARM as it means no Wine.
But then instant online and great battery performance are the killers for these devices. Those of us who like building personal clouds so we can be truly mobile may need fewer local legacy apps requiring the crouton making it near perfect.
BTW if you are a SysAdmin you can SSH straight out of ChomeOS shell with key authorisation which is really cute. Grandads prefer blo^H^H^H command lines.
So says Doug Parr, Chief Scientist ... of Greenpeace. Unabolished I presume.
His pitch is that Ann Glover was giving her personal opinion - he gives in his Grauniad opinion piece. But he has evidence. She doesn't include the views of agended non-scientific groups. Shocking. Absolutely shocking.
Hi Google,
You need more office space?
Have you not approached the awfully nice people who live in a green officeblock just north of Vauxhall Cross with a lovely view of the Thames? They are in the same line of business and have perabytes of links already fitted. It would be a truly hat, glove and dark glasses fit if you moved in alongside.
Their masters might forgo all this silly talk of taxes and might be good for the odd gong if you routed your data through them without all this weird creepo stuff.
Best Wishes,
Felix
Why are domains such a rip off?
As a Nominet member I pay £2.50+vat/year for .uk domains. Nominet isn't exactly a low cost operator and makes a healthy surplus which is used to do good things and pay useless contractors to screw up the data validation side. But I digress. An efficient simple no-frills registry should be able to go well under this.
Whereas I have to pay about double that for a .com, even more if I go through Google. A lot more for most of the others TLDs and some ridiculous price for .london
How do we break the cartel and get domains at cost as the commercial model is not working for the consumer?
They could have used this:
http://news.images.itv.com/image/file/74646/image_update_37a81a6ae22400d1_1344373011_9j-4aaqsk.jpeg
No they didn't name BT Gold after him. For you young whippersnappers BT Gold was the first major dial-up email system in the early 1980s. To have an account was almost as posh as having a secretary with an IBM Golfball.
Two versions is a fair policy if you provide updates to move to those versions if physically possible.
It would have been nice if Google put that requirement into their licence agreement with the manufacturers. The upside for us is it would make it more attractive (ie easier and cheaper) for the manufacturers to stick to a close approximation of bloat free vanilla Android.
As it is very few new products offer Lollipop or even a promise of Lollipop. Some are still offering JellyBean which suggests they are going nowhere.
I'm not sure the average punter is aware of the version/upgrade policy is when he/she buys and not much effort goes into telling them - what a surprise!
Maybe if Google was billed for the landfill and unnecessary re-purchases things might change
I hate Tesco. I never go in their shops. Well I do very occasionally - to collect what I clicked on Tesco Direct which has a great reputation for Moto G discounts. I also have the tenner 1000min/1Gb SIM only deal - 'cos its about the best in the market and with the cap the only safe SIM to take abroad.
So this anti-Tesco person loves 'em a bit. And, while I completely understand why Tesco is divesting Blinkbox, broadband and landline. I just pray Tesco Mobile doesn't get into the hands of another miserable MVNO. Without TM the rest will become even worse rip-offs. With TM the new management can rebuild from a part of the outfit that does offer value, excellent customer service and a clear billing system. Oh and some clubpoints for more from Tesco Direct.
My one gripe with TM is the O2 network, but what the hell, sometimes you need a rest from people trying to call you ;-)
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