Posts by Paul Shirley
1045 posts • joined Friday 19th June 2009 15:36 GMT
Posted in Acer Stream Android smartphone
look at the pictures
It already has dedicated volume controls (those buttons on the left edge), though I find them a little to easy to accidentally hit on my G1 (same vol button position).
Posted in Viewsonic intros £350 7in Android tablet
Apple implemented 25+ year old ideas
Have to agree about the originality. After all PCW magazine mocked up what future PC's might look like in the early 1980's, a glass touchscreen slab about 7" big, roughly the same form factor as an iPhone, with an icon grid interface in the artists impression...
The iPhone isn't quite as pretty - it's originality is that round the display instead of a edge to edge glass surface. The iPad is obviously much bigger. How original ;)
Of course Apple do seem to believe they have an exclusive license to implement other peoples ideas.
Posted in Mobile 3D planned for MeeGo Linux
what's the point?
I'm struggling to see the point or even WTF the article title has to do with this white elephant. How does bringing a knock off of Second Life do anything more than bring a knock off of Second Life to more devices? What's the point? Where's the story?
Posted in Oracle sues Google over Java in Android
patent wars just fizzle out
It was speculated that Google did this 'not Java' thing to prevent Sun having any contractual rights to assert against Android - its not Java, not licensed, not contracted -> not actionable. Given Sun's shitty attitude to licensing they had to do something in any case.
And guess what: Oracle have had to fall back on patent claims. I'd love to see fireworks here but if that's all they've got this ends with a patent cross license deal, or if Oracle plays hardball, with Oracle bled to dead by decades in litigation.
[BTW: if you want real Java on Android, there's an app for that. It worked but I couldn't really see the point using crappy Java apps on the phone]
Posted in Taxman warns on phone fraud
honey pots needed
What we need is an officially sanctioned supply of honey pot bank and credit card account details. Accounts that if accessed trigger a automatic visit from local law enforcement. Poisoning their haul with fake account details is a moments fun but doesn't get the bastards locked up.
because giffgaff dont do microSIMs?
1: they don't supply microSIMs, you'll have to cut your own or get one of the other users to supply one. So that's 95% of iPhone users frightened away. And you need to manually configure the phone because they can't get it automated - like most other networks seem to manage, that's most of the other Apple fans gone then...
2: PAYG data is no more or less unlimited than any of the others, use as much as you like, pay 20p/Mb for it. Yes, that's a better price than any most of the listed offers. Since no-one in their right mind would pay PAYG rates from any of them its not much of a consideration.
If one of their goodybags (AKA bundles) works for you giffgaff are *usually* the best deal without going to contract. Not exactly PAYG any longer though, more like a 30 day rolling contract with slightly less hassle switching product each month.
the Linux kernel does not belong to the kernel maintainers
DZ-Jay: "it's their kernel, their project"
No. It's their *fork*. The beauty of open source and the GPL is, when someone decides not to cooperate you can bypass the obstacle by forking. And no-one has rights to whine about it after the event.
I prefer a few hours more battery life than worrying about bruised ego's and developers notoriously difficult to work with.
mobile carriers need to stop profiting from malware
I currently have premium SMS blocked on my giffgaff account but the block has to be on SMS+International calls. Not one or the other, it has to be both. Even where carriers allow premium SMS blocking it's obvious they really don't want you doing it.
The whole mobile industry is corrupt to the core, they've not seen a scam they don't like, there's a slice of the action for them whatever happens. Or seen any need to protect customers.
Posted in Brian Blessed lends his tongue to TomTom
Google TTS
Next campaign: a Blessed option for Google Text To Speech on my phone!
sounds as deluded as Jobs
Paoli said. "People did not understand what we were trying to do [on OOXML]."
No, the problem was people understood all too well what they were trying to do and didn't like it.
Doesn't really help that Microsoft still don't understand the difference between a standard and some barely readable source code commentary. They did it with VC1 and got savaged, did it again with OOXML and got savaged, doubt they'll ever learn.
Sadly Google are repeating the same mistakes with VP8.
Posted in Sophos downplays Android malware threat
its basic Linux security
'su' is how you run commands with root permissions, without it a rooted phone behaves identically to an unrooted one. Since su pops up a full screen requester every time its used it's hard to sneak su use in without the user noticing. Hard to install a rootkit without su...
When someone works out how to bypass that requester then we'll be in trouble.
Posted in Sophos downplays Android malware threat
no remote install -> no threat
If my G1 pops up a random su requester you can guarantee I'll get suspicious real fast. Until someone finds a *silent* privilege escalation being jailbroken is no less secure than not, on Android at least.
This rootkit claim appears to require physical possession of the phone, at which point its rooted state hardly matters, just saving them rooting it themselves!
Posted in Poisoned Angelina flick hits torrents
codec packs
This is why using the more trustworthy codec packs (K-Lite for instance) is a good idea, nothing should need to download a codec and any its pretty obvious there's a scam if it does happen.
It's a pity so many self appointed 'experts' like to tell everyone that all codec packs are evil.
Posted in Lite-on iHBS112 internal Blu-ray writer
test it on 3rd party software
Whilst we need to know how broken the crapware shipped with the drive it, I'm a lot more interested in how well it works with the 3rd party software I actually use. A few tests with the 'usual suspects' - Nero, IMGBurn, K3b etc. - would be more useful to the average reg reader and their OEM version of the drive.
Posted in IPVision FetchTV SmartBox 8000 DVR
yes, its Netgem(ish)
Most of the management are ex Netgem UK.
Which means you should be very wary, Netgem had an appalling attitude to fixing bugs and bugger all success at actually doing it. Every 6 months a new pile of bugs masquerading as fixes for the last pile of bugs, for 3 solid years on my iPlayer. I'd wait a few months to see what users say before buying.
$0.01 at Amazon
Old news, been 1cent at Amazon for a while now.
http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-KIN-ONE-Windows-Wireless/dp/B003H4R6SA
its economic warfare and you just surrendered
>If UK games companies aren't able to stand on their own, why should the rest of us subsidise them?
Simple choice: do you want the youngsters that staff this industry pissing away their wages in Britain or somewhere else prepared to tempt them with tax breaks. Once those youngsters leave the UK they don't come back, don't send money back and my gaming £ ends up in the foreign pockets they work for.
If you want to fix this bit of economic warfare without offering tax breaks, good luck trying to close down the subsidies we're fighting against. But you don't really care do you?
1 day,2? maybe 3 for the BT reply
...and the countdown to BT suddenly discovering it can afford to deploy to those homes has begun...
do privacy right or stop trying to make a buck from it
If rigorous privacy control is 'uncommercial' then commercial entities should get the hell out of the business. Their right to make a buck comes a poor second to my human rights and outside the idiotically corporate US it usually does.
only storing packets worth mining
Of course they didn't store encrypted packets, the fscking car didn't hang around long enough to sniff enough data to decrypt it. These packets were useless for data mining, not storing them is an admission of intent, not an excuse for a mistake.
They need to stop digging and start properly apologising.
no coverage
With 4G only available in 27 locations its a miracle they sold more than 27 handsets!
Posted in Mobiles back in the frame as bee killers
recognising fraudulent research
Also worth reading http://www.newscientist.com/special/living-in-denial to get a feel for how to recognise bad or deliberately deceptive 'research'. In this case it sure looks like there are ties to the wider world of alarmist denialism.
I'd really appreciate it if TheReg added a MASSIVE link to that page on every Orlowski post, the man that demonstrated the link between SCO's fraudulent Linux lawsuit and Global Warming ;)
bet she ran the car down ;)
In my part of the world when a suicidal or plain stupid pedestrian stumbles into the path of a car we don't automatically blame the car driver. We already know this woman is stupid, I want to hear more than her word before deciding who's at fault here.
honey bees not needed
Honey bees - aggressive freeloading buzzing bastards and not native to the UK. My garden seems to do perfectly well with our army of assorted bumble bees and other pollinating insects. Rather less food crops need insect pollination than the beekeepers would like you to believe anyway - grains are wind pollinated for example.
But what would summer be without the honey lobby whining ;)
3G - not just a battery drain, its completely bloody useless
Saw a 50% life increase after switching down to 2G+WiFi on my G1. Even more impressive when you consider how broken WiFi is on Android, not using the real power saving sleep modes. Given the piss poor quality of 3G in most of the UK its no loss.
Pretty easy to spot the power sucking apps as well and tame them. Netcounter in accurate mode is one of the worst. Right now I'd be getting 2-3 days between charges if I didn't browse the morning away in bed ;)
its about excluding competitors
As part of the patent pool they're protected from patent attacks. Unlike everyone outside that pool... even ignoring any patent fees they're collecting this disadvantages potential competitors.
Of course they like it, no proven monopoly abuser (Microsoft) or control freak (Apple) could miss this opportunity!
too stupid to use a meat cleaver
For some people using a meat cleaver to cut down a normal SIM is just too hard... even with a pictorial guide to use. The rest of us just pay less ;)
Posted in Ocarina compresses Flash and MPEG2s
new mpeg2 encoders
Hope they tested against todays encoders, which already achieved that 40% improvement over the last 5 years or so. They've nearly hit that level of improvement on Freeview over the last 2 years.
Surely they wouldn't rig the samples with old, badly compressed mpeg2 to make their transcoder/recoder look good... would they?
Posted in Ten Essential Android Apps
Navigation
Navigation is in the latest maps update, it even manages to start before telling me my location is not yet supported, its coming. The impatient can look for the hacked maps app and use it now.
Titanium Backup is the essential app backup tool for rooted phones.
Cant believe no SMS replacements were listed, Handcents this weeks favourite, since ChompSMS went too far with the adverts.
Screeble: orientation and motion controlled override for sleep, seriously extends battery life by allowing much more aggressive sleep timeouts. I like my G1 running for more than a day.
I'd love to suggest an alternative to Fring, with its atrocious UI but its the only app where SIP 'just works'.
Of course the ultimate 'app' is a new rooted firmware, more speed, more apps, more choice.
Posted in Ten Essential Android Apps
2.1 too bloated for older hardware
They're hamstrung by not having the app2sd option hacked ROMs use. 2.1 got so bloated getting it to fit into flash on older hardware is a problem and dumping apps onto SD to make space causes problems normal users won't be happy with.
so focussed on search the solution is always 'search'
WTF would anyone need email showing in multiple folders for? Its about as stupid as wanting a different copy in search results for each tag.
Folders are for grouping, tags are for searching, one is not a substitute for the other. Unless you're Google and the answer to every problem is 'search'. Idiots.
charge more
They already do! With PAYG rates @20p/min a 4.3p termination charge already has no connection to the call rate, odds are absolutely nothing will change for mobile 2 mobile calls by 2015. Contract rates are already theoretically below the termination charge if you look hard enough (and spend enough monthly).
The only foreseeable improvement will be call rates on VOIP lines. Currently I pay 8.9p/min to call a mobile (in fact I don't, its cheaper to call with my mobile!), its extremely likely all of the termination charge reduction will be passed on and that's likely to displace mobile originated calls.
rushed into production
Let's face it, the iPad is Apple panicking. Android tablets started popping up and Apple suddenly upsizes the iPhone... without waiting to remove all the phone specific stuff. Cue apps trying to get GPS fixes and other stupidity.
Seems most normal punters are just smart enough to wait for Apple to finish the job, or more likely can't understand why a bigger but less functional iPhone is better than the one already in their pocket. Truly just a geek toy right now.
doesn't stay fast though
Go back in 3 months and see if its still running fast. Every standalone version of Windows I know accumulates cruft at a spectacular rate and slows down. The folk re-installing Windows every few months to maintain speed aren't completely delusional.
Posted in Novell (not SCO) owns UNIX, says jury
7 years but finally the lawyers are in the firing line
What you forget is SCO's lawyers jumped on board as partners in the scam right at the start. Despite attempts to disentangle themselves when the sheer extent of SCO lies became undeniable they've been well and truly screwed for it.
Last guesstimate I saw was around $30mil in the red on the case around a year ago, they were paid upfront and spent it all long ago, meanwhile they're on the hook all the way to appeal. The pain is just starting for Bois,Shiller & Flexner, IBM show no sign of voluntarily ending their case - which is now IBM's counterclaims against SCO and not much else - a couple more years expense. IBM will be going for costs and only the lawyers will be around to pay, given their sharp practice throughout they're likely to get hammered badly.
It's been a good day but the best is still to come, when the legal support services that allowed this travesty to last so long finally see retribution. We'll be safe from this sort of extortion scam only when the lawyers see its not safe to get this involved.
not impressed
20 years ago porting Amstrad CPC Z80 source to CBM C64 6502 I was hitting that 90% shared source in the majority of source files. Only the poor conditional assembly support in the tools stopped me actually using the same files.
Frankly, if you can't hit that ratio your doing something very wrong, especially in a higher level language. Just a little planning and the right architecture.
Nothing to see here.
Posted in Samsung Galaxy Portal i5700
Bluetooth
Out of the box Bluetooth support in Android is minimal, just the stack and headset support,so far all Android phones have shipped bare. Quickly fixed by a trip to the app market but its a puzzle why no one preinstalls any of the apps.
cackhanded effort
Call me simple minded but claiming this attack is so easy a 1st year student could do it tells me Chip&Pin is easy to break. The idiot couldn't even astroturf right, deserves sacking for undermining his employers denials, even if he wasn't caught publicly.
Posted in MPs bash broadband tax
I already subsidised Internet access
Down the years I've pumped £1000's (literally) into Internet access, as a perpetual early adopter I've already subsidized broadband at levels the 50p tax will never reach here in the city. £90+/month right at the start of dial-up ;(
If rural areas want it they need to do the same, pay the premium needed to bootstrap supply themselves. And give up on this fixation on fibre, if they can afford to run a mobile they can afford to run mobile broadband. The towers will deploy a hell of a lot faster than BT will act.
Firefox exploits can be contained
Firefox does have exploits but it can be sandboxed and because its not deeply hooked into the OS there's little chance of getting round the sandbox. My copy only has access to a few folders, cannot install software or run external programs with enough file and|or system privileges to even work let alone do damage.
Remember: IE is evil because it deliberately pushes its bugs into the OS with high privileges, not because its buggy.
just dump Reader
Best security fix for Reader? Uninstall and replace with ANY other pdf reader... as a bonus you'll stop needing to task kill the zombie process their POS leaves running after you quit.
Posted in BBC clambers onto iPhone bandwagon
where's the content?
Since the entire BBC site now appears to just be a search engine for iPlayer I'm not sure why they're bothering - there's bugger all content left to present! Every damn search for information seems to just link to a iPlayer episode list, with fsck all information about anything.
The problem is that I don't want a mobile phone
No, the problem is most people that 'just want a phone' aren't going to spend £300+, however pretty it is. Especially not when a £4.99 candy bar does the job well enough.
why wont flash just die
Already watching iPlayer on my Android phone, so that's the only (half) desirable Flash App redundant. No reason to infest it with an OS crashing lump of fail after all ;)
puppets
Heaven knows what will happen if the skeptics finally accept all that air pollution we spent a century getting rid of was heavily suppressing warming...
Still, the real wonder of climate skeptics is how easily a small group of energy company provocateurs can make them dance. Going to be hilarious when the companies are finally ready with their climate change 'solutions', after 20 years delaying the competition they'll finally come clean and disown the skeptics. The meltdowns among the puppets will be spectacular to watch ;)
meanwhile in Belgium
Reminds me of the Belgian 'Metro' front page story about a school outlawing soft drink vending machines and supply table beer instead - because a 2-3% beer was considered much healthier than sugary fizz!
Never did find out if it was just a wind up, we were hitting the 10% stuff too hard that week to keep track ;)
Windows Administrator account
...they use it because Windows is damn near unusable from a user account.
If Mozilla want to get serious about security they can quite easily make Mozilla downgrade its permissions as it starts, before plugins get a chance to do anything. Right now I have to do that externally with the DropMyRights app.
The wailing when clueless users discover they can't access most of the filesystem, run installers or fire up external apps with any hope of success is a powerful disincentive to enforcing that. If its optional the clueless will opt out - how else can you explain use of Internet Exploit engine?
@C++ Can't do...
When people say this they mostly mean 'it doesn't do that out of the box'. There are very few things C++ cannot do, with enough effort. Reflection is the main one because the information simply isn't there in the binary to allow it but if you need reflection in a production app you got the design wrong!
There are things its harder to do (the 1st time) in C++ but hard != impossible. Good C++ programmers also know that other languages can get the coding done faster and very occasionally produce better run times. Something the script kiddies seem to struggle to understand...
C++ is traditionally associated with...
Really? I associate it with the exciting world of game programming, where any CV not starting with 3+ years of C++ flies straight from envelope to bin.
Or it would do if the bloody education system actually taught the language instead of whichever scripted/late bound/JIT based monstrosity happens to be in fashion that year. So we end up accepting self taught C++ hackers with pitiful skill in the language because even that's better than experts in those other languages.
