Posts by Stuart 22

Re: HELL YES!!!!

AFAIR Sipgate 0800 VOIP calls have always been free. But nice to add 0845/0870.

As a sidenote we broke down a week ago and had to call the AA. It as nice to see they had added a 0121 number to their regular 0800. So it was a bundled minute call to get us home. Nice!

Re: In the end

Or is it Asus & Lenovo are finessing Apple?

This must be a good thing for joe public (well those more interested in functionality rather than branding). It would help if Apple responded by finessing Asus & Lenovo rather than look for any excuse to sue them.

Re: Mixed feelings..

One has to be careful that safety systems which may protect the driver do not put other people at risk. Whllst air-bags, ABS etc which can made driving safer are mitigated risk compensation. Hence the rise in pedestrian and two wheel casualties.

More effective might be an all electronic system that automatically deducts £100 from the driver's bank account when they drives too close or too fast. I predict a rapid change of behaviour and drop in crashes Toyota could only dream of ...

The point is getting a result

Only a couple of years ago I needed to generate a load of very similar HTML pages. I could have used a proper language but the project was so simple that it was much faster to do in the ultimate procedural language where syntactic errors were flagged up 'in flight'.

Object orientated coding is not optimal for quick & dirty one-offs. IT 'professionals' sometimes forget that.

Re: What..?

Yep, much more important and surely Apple will be an early adopter. It ensures, if the fixed battery doesn't, that one pride and joy will wear out and need replacing just as the new model comes on line. Brilliant!

Sent from a nearly two year old San Francisco. Remember them?

Re: Every user interface gets this way!

The function of an OS is silently and transparently make things happen. The prime function of a GUI is to seamlessly get you to the application of choice as easily as possible.

So some people want to clutter and decorate their desktop. Fine - but we don't design desks to have fiddly bits for everything somebody else might want to do. Maybe people who do need another layer on top of a standard GUI. Just as a GUI should be an optional layer on top of the OS.

When MS tried to Vistaise me with bloated inefficient eye candy and layers of jobsworthian control I didn't want I went happily to KDE 3.5. Possibly the best Linux alternative to WinXP. Instead of seizing their advantage KDE galloped (and overtook?) MS on bloat and clutter with KDE4. I'm too lazy to change existing installations but new ones get LXDE. That's getting back to basics, its fast, it does the job, everything needed is one or two clicks away without having to spend time configuring it.

XFCE is probably just as good. Lets hope kids exposure to RPi will convince them that simplicity is nearly always better. If LXDE can make a £25 computer hum then just think what it can do to a real computer ... and with the RPi our kids may realise that before Windows/KDE/Gnome developers do ...

Re: Hmmm

Ordered my 512mb RPi @ 9.50 this morning. Despatch note received @ 11.43 for delivery tomorrow. On past form I expect Farnell to fufil on time.

I dunno who is the dumber - RS who obviously can't get their act together - or the whingers who complain about RS when they ignore advice to switch their order from other suppliers (not only Farnell) for next day delivery. Yes there was a period of 3 days last week when you could not get an RPi overnight. Now we know why ;-)

Re: I went xubuntu - Fantastic it all just works.

I use Kubuntu but while I like KDE - version 4 suffers from severe bloat.

I also have a few Raspberrypies. At first LXDE was so slow as to be a joke. With the latest Debian release it does perform adequately and I've been playing around with the Midori browser. Going back to basics is quite enlightening. Because it doesn't understand Flash etc it automatically strips much of the bloat in many websites so the end to end performance is not that far short of a 'proper PC'.

Perhaps it is a bit too basic. Xbuntu may be a middle way. I may give it a go ...

Re: Obviously A Fanboi ...

From early reports it appears the map problem is proportionate to the distance from Cupertino. So its clearly a customer fault. So let's have less of this blasphemy please ...

Re: Ballmer says...

Getting back to reality:

Windows 3.0 was a breakthrough which got refined through WfW 3.11.

Windows 95 was a breakthrough only because of the GUI which got refined through Win98

Windows NT was a breakthrough that laid the foundations for Win2000 and refined in XP

Let's forget about Vista, except MS had to improvise Win 7 to cover the gap

Is Ballmer saying 95 was greater (commercially or technically) than 2000/XP?

Now if I was a MS stockholder I would be overjoyed if Win 8 achieved the same dominant success as 2000/XP (and lived so long after its planned demise). Tell me its going to achieve more and I'd sell fast and short.

Re: OS?

Yep tasks get in the way ... the joy of the first generation micros was being able to code (or at least copy) EVERYTHING to make your pride and joy work. And could we make those 8080 & Z80s sing? I remember the first atempt to address a disk on a TRS-80. Mind boggling. And when TRSDOS didn't do it very well people created NEWDOS to pass round and improve.

I've pretty poor understanding all the latest coding fads but I can still hold my ground against the younger lads 'cos I have a clue what's happening underneath their bloated (if better documented) code.

Wish I could say the same about cars. You used to be able to understand 'em. You could fix anything on a basic mini that had not fallen off. And even some of those. Hence my favourite chat-up line."The fan belt's gone again, take off your tights!"

Modern BMWs are pretty poor in that department.

If you have ever been to Ofcomm HQ you know they can keep an eye on their yachts parked out on the river with the best views in London. Plus their bathrooms you can not only bendover in style but swing a catamaran or two.

You need to understand they live in another world apart from those that have to live with their decisions.

Re: Please could you run this past me again?

Cuts no ice in Redmond. XP dies in 2014 and any planet that dares defy MS. You have been warned

MS Office is cheaper for schools ...

Yes - but you wouldn't need a Linux genius to go the other way. Just someone with equal competence to Windows. Except they are rare because only Windows & MS Apps are taught in most schools. Microsoft gets back far more than it gives you in subsidising the training in its products for its profit. MS has a stranglehold on the education sector and that is fundamental for it keeping a stranglehold on corporations - at the taxpayer's expense.

End educational subsidies and I think we wouuld find education taking a more realistic view of the products it licensed. The knock-on effect could be beneficial to society (MS shareholders excepted).

Re: Will nobody think of the cheeeeeeeeeeeeeldren?

"The technology they're looking at is so easily circumvented that the only terrorists and paedophiles they'll catch are the stupid ones."

I have wondered about that. Maybe they are not as dim as you think and part of the strategy is to highlight those of interest from the rest of us. Could it be that those who choose to try and screen their communications is exactly the target audience for the real heavy guys at GCHQ concentrate their firepower on?

Hiding the fact you are hiding stuff is a little more tricky ...

Boy's Toys

Do you do nothing but work? Take time to enjoy the internet. A fondleslab provides a more immediate and convenient access point that even a netbook.

Its a basic connection with what's happening outside your immediate environment. Is a TV, a newspaper, a telephone - a TOY? Maybe you need to grow up a little ;-)

T(b) for Two ...

This is worse. We are fast approaching a duopoly as WD & Seagate gobble everything in sight. Its in both company's interest to operate an informal cartel. They can gameplay this without having to lift a phone or email a third party. The sprats can just coast on the droppings in the hope they will be gobbled up for a good price soon.

We need a major new entrant as a game changer. Can China rock the boat here?

Re: Rich nerd's toy

Does not compute. Giving a £5,000 subsidy to someone buying a bike would save more energy, save on our health costs and make the roads less congested for those that still want to drive a car.

Everybody wins ... except the moto manufacturers. Oh, sorry!