Re: 'Follow' that 'friend'

I agree with you. As, I think, does our Canadial friend Trevor. What he said was that younger people see this separation between private and corporate web presence - but management, who are older (and more technophobe), don't.

It was hard to get (in)famous a few years ago. Not so much now, and still getting easier. 20 years ago you couldn't send a nasty email to your prospective daughter-in-law telling her in minute detail how to behave, let alone have it splashed in all newspapers and laughed about on comedy shows.

20 years ago a few people might hear that kind of story, and it might impact on your employment prospects if your social and professional circles mixed, otherwise no-one would know. After a few months people might remember the story, but not the name, so you could also live it down.

Now, if HR do a Google search on your name, that'll be right at the top of the list. Of course they still have to work out if you're the same person. So not only has our capacity for Z list celebrity increased, but our capacity for public forgetting has also decreased. Society is going to take many years to adjust to all this.

Perhaps we should have a discussion as to what the best turd batting technique is? Sometimes a good (Boycott like) forward defensive stroke. Other times, braining the offending PHB with your bat, and burying the body behind the pavilion might be preferable...

Re: 'Follow' that 'friend'

Yes, but does your boss see it that way. Or, for that matter, the HR droids at the company you've just applied to work at?

Re: Alternatively ....

Scott,

If he takes away his furnace he would definitely cease contributing to the build-up of atmospheric carbon. Except in the direct way, due to decomposition. He lives in deepest, darkest Canadia, and it gets mighty cold there in winter...

Re: Apple bought the lot fair'n'square from Proview Taiwan.

That's all bollocks.

Proview sold the trademark via their Taiwanese arm. For all the money they thought they could get for it. They may have been motivated to try and nick a bit more, because they were feeling sad that they didn't get extra cash at the time. But that's no excuse.

Nor did Apple commit fraud with their purchase through a shell company. At least so far as we know. There was no obligation on them to tell Proview what they were up to. So long as they didn't actually tell any lies in their purchase. There's nothing to force them to tell all the truth. By the terms of that agreement they bought all the world rights to the trademark. And there was nothing in the agreement to stop the company that bought it from selling it on. Given the company that was buying it, I'm sure Proview knew that they were getting it for someone else - just not who, or what for.

This was all established by the court case in Hong Kong, which Apple won. I'd suggest that Hong Kong's legal system is the best we're going to get in terms of what's on offer. I'm sure the pointless case that Proview started in the US will be wound up as part of the deal.

The only question is what happened between Proview Taiwan and Proview China. Either Proview Taiwan deliberately sold something it didn't own, or moved the ownership of that trademark within the group at some point afterwards - in order to screw over Apple. If Proview Taiwan still existed, Apple would simply be able to turn around to them and demand their $60m back. It is remotely possible that this was a cock-up on behalf of Proview, but much more likely not.

Re: Apple bought the lot fair'n'square from Proview Taiwan.

Proview Taiwan and China were run by the same person. They were different legal entities, which has allowed this switcheroo. But I'd be willing to bet that this was fraud, rather than error. Which is why the judge in the Hong Kong case specifically criticised the CEO. I believe the Taiwan operation has already been wound up, leaving Apple no one to sue, rather conveniently...

Apple are blameless here. They were either accidentally defrauded by a cock-up at Proview Taiwan, or (more likely in my opinion) deliberately so by the China bit of the company. C'est la vie.

Re: Good advice

Just don't feed the app any login details. Then Facebook will starve, for lack of data to eat...

Re: Wherever you go, there you are.

Trevor,

That sounds disturbingly like a cue for a song! You're not secretly writing a musical are you? It would be an impressive extra string to your bow, but I have a horrible feeling that:

Tech Support! Superstar!

Would be a sure fire, smash... Failure... Although I suppose you could put it on anyway, as a tax write-off.

Song 1: When The Call Comes Through

first line: Wherever I go, there I am…getting paid.

Sung by our hero with a chorus of black t-shirted, laptop wielding PFYs dancing in the background.

[Thinks: I must have had too much cheese last night]

Re: Yet anothr case of Apple pinching ...

Apple probably not pinching anything in this case. According to the Hong Kong court judgement, Apple bought the lot fair'n'square from Proview Taiwan. The CEO of that, was also the CEO of Proview China, and the court accused him of deceptive practises.

So in this case I believe that Apple are in the right, and have just been shaken down. But that's one of the costs of doing business in China, which you need to factor in - against the profits from Chinese sales, and the savings from manufacturing there. Just like operating in Russia - there's always the risk that you'll get screwed, and have no legal protection.

Re: Pass the parcel

A better answer would be CEO arm-wrestling.

Plus, as we know they're so desperately eager for cash, they could sell the TV rights of Google vs. Microsoft for a few million more.

Maybe go up to cage fighting to decide between competing bids for the same domain?

Re: Another re-skin YAWN!

"So how does a poor performing reskin of the un-optimised Webkit browser API become no. 1 app?"

Because Safari isn't that good. Perhaps Apple will take this as a wake-up call, to sort their dodgy browser out.

Re: Moare tabs!

"not having to scroll up to the top of the damned page to see the address bar, which drives me crazy in safari."

Agreed this is annoying.

Sorry to state the bleedin' obvious, if you already know this. But a double-tap on the black bar at the top of the screen, automatically scrolls to the top.

Re: Spot on.....

A smart TV would be perfect for my Mum. Except there isn't one with a UI she can operate. She simply doesn't think in tech. Maybe if Apple really do an iTV... But I have zero faith in any of the other manufacturers. Her iPad she can operate easily. This is a woman with a masters degree, who's still consulting, ten years after retiring - so all she needs is a UI that wasn't thrown together by somebody who was blindfolded. And possibly blind drunk...

You hear all the praise for the Sony PS3 as a media player. It's got one of the most horrific, un-intuitive, messy UI's I've ever had the misfortune to try and use. It's also horribly brown. Goodness knows what Sony's tellies are like, which haven't had billions spent on their development.

Re: Is it really Chrome?

I'd say it jumps to the top of the charts because Safari on iPad is a bit crap. Much improved on the iOS4 version, but still not great. Maybe this will act as the kick up the arse the Apple devs clearly need.

Re: That's a nice cheery punchline...

That's an impressive cheque you're paying in there!

If it comes off, I'll be happy to buy the beers. I'll own the bar after all. I won't be paying your air fare though. Plus I may be shooting down incoming aircraft full of bank lawyers and anti-fraud policemen, so you'll need to be careful who you fly with...

Re: Fundamental misconception.

The author of this article is probably fully aware of that. He seems to have taken his mission on El Reg as interpreting management to the IT labouring classes.

The whole point of the article is that this is not how senior management at RBS operate. If it did, they wouldn't be a nearly bankrupt, partially nationalised, badly-lead, deadbeat organisation with a tenuous grasp on morality and competence.

As you say, companies have forgotten that most people would like to do a decent job, and leave the politics to someone else. Morale is more damaged by not allowing people to do their job properly than it is by pay cuts. If only management could align the company's and staff's interests more, they'd have fewer management problems and make more profits. The problem is that this is very hard to do. See as an example the idea that giving CEOs vast amounts of shares will align their interests with shareholders - and how badly this has failed. And how much harder than getting one person's pay and conditions right, is it to set the whole culture of the company?

"But please, tell me how on earth you can pass on the Sunday afternoon drinks with your mates as expenses? I need to know!"

team-building exercise, preparatory to attempt to fly rocket plane, emergency planning meeting, sales meeting, team away-day... One must use one's imagination.

In our books, anything that goes under 'marketing' is likely to be more or less dodgy. Appropriate given that's a good definition of the activity.

I once had a very important finance meeting with the MD of one of our suppliers. On the terrace of a rather nice curry house, overlooking a park, on a sunny Saturday evening. I'm sure he put the excellent curry, 2 bottles of wine, coffees and brandies through the books. The fact that the meeting component was finished before I'd finished my first poppadom is irrelevant.

A few years ago I put a skull & crossbones on a 4' flagpole through the books. It was a present for a retiring partner - to go on his grand children's climbing frame in his garden. I still get marketing email from the flag company now.

Sorry for the off-topic

"Good lesson that even completely disconnected systems can be linked, if not in the fashion you would have expected."

I remember reading in the 1980s about someone who'd bought a Ugo. Communist block car, manufactured in Yugoslavia. It was converted to right-hand drive for the UK. As it turns out, simply by sawing the old pedals off the left hand side, and covering them in carpet.

Going down the motorway at 70. Passenger yawned, and stretched, and stretched, and BRAKES!!! Could have equal amounts of 'fun' with the accelerator at junctions...

Re: Just FYI

M Gale,

Thanks for the link.

As you say, use of 4.x is steadily increasing, but not very quickly. That graph seems to confirm what I've thought for a while. Android gets updates very very slowly, if at all. It's almost not worth developing for the new version for 6 months to a year after it comes out. Of course, that's probably not true, as I expect early adopters spend more on apps. But I think Google really need to do something about that.

Re: iOS has a good UI?

To the anonymous one,

Your use of language here betrays you. You've said 2 things

"they confused basic with easy to use"

I'd argue that you confuse truly easy to use with what you find easy to use. My Mum can use her iPad dead easily, and has only asked for help a couple of times. She had to ask me how to save a file on her PC the other day... Admittedly it was from Open Office as a Word file, but even so, she's been saving and attaching files to email since the 90s. It's just the UI wasn't all that obvious to her, and she's not done it in a while. My brother, who's obviously younger (and somewhat more tech savvy), has never asked me for help with his iPhone, but needs it with his PC every so often.

"I USED to own an iPad, but soon grew out of it, it's far to limited for proper use (by proper, I mean anything thats not games, email or web browsing)."

Apple designed the iPad for games, email and web browsing, plus media consumption. Those are it's 'proper' uses. If you want to do more then it can do, but it's not as flexible as Android. A lot of that's Apple's lock-in, but they do produce perfectly 'grown-up' kit, it's just they're aiming at a slightly different target to you.

A lot of people confuse their own needs and desires with what everyone wants. And some don't seem to be able to see that they are actually part of a small minority in the market, which not all suppliers choose to cater for.

I'd also suggest that a lot of techies over-estimate how easy most people find it to use computer kit. Partly because they don't care, so they've never learned stuff. But also, if people only do something once a year, they'll probably forget that skill the next time they need it.

Re: Why use "The Cloud"

Hmmmm. So you're suggesting that my nice new Googley tablet, light enough to hold in one hand, would be improved by dangling a small, portable hard disk off it? Interesting...

To be fair to Google, it's some pretty good marketing.

Re: where is the battery?

Our intrepid skydivers had wires dangling out of the glasses into their suits. Was that power? Or their radio link-up?

I have another question to ask on the glasses. How do you read them? That's a very small screen in the top corner, and by definition is between your glasses and your eyes. So anyone who has to wear corrective glasses may struggle to read it. Even worse for anyone who has to wear reading glasses, as these are designed to be used while you're walking around, and that's when you don't wear your reading glasses (or you'd bump into things).

It also seems strange that the glasses should be anything other than a remote device for the phone in your pocket.

Re: Sounds pretty amazing

The Android fans seem to be permanently grumpy. Partly because there are more of them, so you'd expect the loony minority to include more people.

I'm not angry, because I bought WinPho for around £100, and knew what I was getting. You'd have to be a bit annoyed if you'd just gone for a Lumia 900 though. I'd be pretty miffed at MS if I were Nokia, but then they've probably known for ages. Dumping users on platforms that are about to expire is nothing new for them anyway...

To be fair to MS, they are providing another major WinPho7 update, so they're not abandoning the old handsets totally. And they've got a pretty decent record on keeping support going for older stuff, so there may still be patches.

This is one of the areas that gets the most name calling. As people feel the need to justify their spending decisions. It's amazingly rubbish that Android 2.3 handsets are still being released, when ICS is now around 9 months old, and you'd hope Google were providing previews to favoured manufacturers. I think that gets the Android fanbois all defensive. And as we know, attack is the best form of defence...

It's a bit worrying that WinPho8 won't run on single core chips. It has to make you wonder if it's got all porky and bloated, because WinPho7 is very fast on mediocre hardware.

Re: No DLNA player?

"the 'help' from Sony support was that it only works with Sony USB drives..."

That's par for the bloody course.

But then, I'm still bitter about my Sony Ericsson P800. Great early smartphone. But Sony 'blessed' it with memory stick only, back when SD cards cost a fortune, and Memory stick was twice that. Plus this was Memory Stick Duo, i.e. smaller form factor with an adaptor to fit the full size. Even though that made no difference to the cost of the identical chips, you can imagine that Sony didn't see things that way...

Plus they used a different version of Symbian to everyone else, so none of the apps that I saw reviews of and liked actually ran on UIQ.

There's got to be loads of money for someone who can produce a set top box that my Mum can use, and market it in a way she can understand. So far I've yet to see anything that can match both of those (quite tough) requirements.

Re: Sounds pretty amazing

I can't work it out. Have I been downvoted by the fandroids, for saying Android is less than perfect? Or is it WinPho fanboys for the same reason (assuming there are any)? Or perhaps Apple's legions, for barely mentioning them?

I didn't think I'd said anything objectionable, and tried hard to be fair. Perhaps I should just put it down to the usual drooling idiots...

Re: Sounds pretty amazing

If you can get it from Carphone Warehouse on Vodafone, they do theirs unlocked. And without Vodafone's 'wonderful' branding and software.

That's how I got my Lumia 710, at £100 but technically Voda pay&go.

WinPho is based round your address book more. Which I think is a lot nicer than the Android ones I tried. That's where Facebook and Twitter stuff turns up (should you wish to turn it on). Plus swipe left on someone's address, and you get a list of all calls, texts, emails (and social networking crap) for them for the last few weeks. You can pin contacts to your home screen. I've found WinPho better at handling lots of contacts, better at searching your contacts, and smoother at dealing with ones synched to different accounts. Oh and most importantly for me, big writing, when trying to call someone when you're out-and-about.

As a phone I think the Lumia is great. I seem to be getting better signal than on my HTC Wildfire, or my previous Samsung dumb phone. I can make calls from my bedroom and a mate's house with dodgy reception without them breaking up, which neither of the other 2 could manage. I think it's a bit less fiddly to use than either the Android or iOS phone functions, but the in call controls are probably a bit worse (2 buttons to get it onto speakerphone for example).

I prefer email on WinPho, but I doubt there's much in it. You can have a unified inbox (which I haven't tried) and I don't think Android can do that. But I'm told it's good. For a bit of browsing IE seems to be pretty good. However, someone above says they can get iPlayer on the Huawei, so it must do Flash. WinPho doesn't.

As a computer, Android wins. I'm pretty unimpressed with the Windows Marketplace. There's lots of apps, but a lot of them are crap, and there are many things you can't do that there are loads of free apps for on Android. The only one I miss is a WiFi network analyser, so I don't mind. But you might. Also Android's widgets are better than WinPho's live tiles. You can change size on some of them, and display more information. Plus Android can have more than one home screen. Mostly I don't miss this, other than having brightness and GPS controls on the home screen. However, WinPho has Nokia Drive, which is way better for navigation than Google maps. And you have free worldwide maps to dowload to the phone (for when there's no signal).

Finally software. Looks like the Lumia might only get one more major update. It's not going to WinPho 8. I guess the Huawei will only get to ICS.

Final, final caveat. No tethering on the Lumia 710 yet. Nokia have apparently released the software update in some markets, but not all, and it's been promised since April. They're not saying why/when. Quick websearch tells me this is now due on the 27th.

Re: Weird

Strange how the people above had magically easy syncs. Maybe I just did it wrong. Although a bit of searching online to solve problems didn't show answers that were all that easy. Perhaps it was because I was updating on 2.2. Maybe ICS does this better?

One thing that would make life easier, would be if Google actually bothered to put an Android manual online...

Anyway, there's no way to just back the phone up to a PC, and then just restore it. This would be the easiest. But to upgrade I had to do the following:

1. Move the text messages. You can't back these up via GMail. You have to download an app to do it - once you've found one that actually works. I couldn't find one that worked on MMS, so I had to find the pictures that she wanted saved, and save those separately. Muck around a bit, to save a file to the SD card.

2. unmount the SD card. The transfer to new phone, with SIM. Mount SD card. That's got your piccies and files. Then import texts.

3. Then set all mail accounts up again from scratch, as you can't move the details across and just re-type the passwords.

4. Go to the Play store and re-download all the apps. There's not a list in here of ones you own, so you've either got to find an app to make this list for you,or make one off the previous phone.

5. Finally set up all widgets and the homescreen.

Are you all sure that's an easy process? As opposed to setting up a new iPhone, which is plug into comoputer with backup of old one, tell it to restore to the new one, bung in new SIM, then all you need to do is bung in the account passwords again, and move the icons round to where they were on the homescreens.

Re: @jonmorriss

"A tablet that needs a keyboard is a fail."

I'm afraid that's utter bollocks.

I think my iPad is brilliant, but typing anything more than about 2 paragraphs on it is extremely annoying. Even just typing in url's is irksome. I therefore don't type on it much. That's OK, it's not what I bought it for. But it would be nice to have a keyoard, in the odd meeting or so I can send off a quick email. I've not seen a decent looking cover/keyboard for less than about £80, so I've not bothered. It's not a must-have, but the option would be nice. A tablet needs a keyboard if you want to type into it. You could then say, just get a laptop, but the advantage of a tablet is for using it on the sofa/train. It's a matter of making choices available. Some people want a device for a bit of light laptop work, as well as the kind of media consumption that tablets are great at.

Personally I think a stylus would be more useful. Handwriting recognition is much nicer than pecking at an onscreen keyboard, as well as much easier (and more natural) to do when you're holding the tablet in one hand. You also gain the ability to sketch. I don't know how well the digitiser pens work with capacative touch screens, but Samsung seem to have manged it with the Galaxy Note. I wish Apple had gone that route with the iPad. A decent, well-implemented stylus is what will have me jumping ship from iOS to whatever platform can do it.

Re: Funny

Jeebus,

Have you got some evidence for that?

I wasn't aware that there was a commonwealth extradition procedure. So far as I understand the law, if you're in Blighty then our courts will respond to an extradition request from a country with which we have an arrangement. If it's the US, then you're supposed to just get sent out there, and all they need do is provide a court warrant asking for you. If it's the EU, then the same. Otherwise it's the normal process, where the requesting party must provide the evidence, and UK courts decide whether there looks to be a case to answer. Plus they rule if that country will shoot or torture you. Then finally the Home Secretary gets to sign off on it, or refuse, which is the point at which political/diplomatic pressure can come to bear.

So far as I understand it, that last stage is the only time Australia could intervene, other than in giving Assange normal consular services, i.e. helping him find a lawyer.

Re: Lack of comprehension from our Jules

It is built into the terms of the system. Basically if Sweden wish to extradite him, the request would have to go through both our system and the Swedish one.

I believe I've seen quotes from both UK and Swedish government spokespeople to this effect.