Posts by James 51
558 posts • joined Tuesday 23rd June 2009 12:31 GMT
Re: a useful tool if used correctly
This brings back memories of my days as a technician too. A few teachers were experimenting with using computers effectively but all the kids who caused the most trouble were put into a single class and they spent more time in the computer suite than any other class by far.
Training programmes are a lot less 'sexy' than buying lots of hardware and lobbing it over the wall. Plus if you have an ideological problem with public sector schools why would you want them to succeed?
Bought a 9320 after my N900 started to go. Had assumed that my next phone would be a Z10 or a Q10. That might not be the case now. Not willing (or able) to pay a vapourware deposit now but my interest has been piqued.
Title is too long
"When they're on the train they can't be doin' stuff. So, if their time in the office is worth £50 an hour (say) then their time on the train is a loss of £50 per hour. Halve the journey time and we've thus created a value of £25 per passenger per trip. This forms part of the “value added” benefits of such transport projects."
I thought the point of smart phones, tablets and ultraportables was that people could work on the train and therefore there level of productivity should not be counted as 0 while they are on the train.
Re: Rooted for what?
Reading all my DRM free epub files (would never buy a kindle otherwise because of the walled garden and want to support publishers who are doing the right thing).
The colour is useful for kids books. My son is very young and black and white images don't hold his interest as much.
Also I use sigil to compile notes for classes I take. Being able to make text different colours would be very useful as would being able to see colour in diagrams.
Support for inline audio would be next on my wish list but I realise that's unlikely in an e-ink device.
If if they can make a good colour ereader (with a proper screen like e-ink, no LCD nonsense), as long as it can be rooted I might be tempted to buy one.
Re: A4
I'd hope that more people will start producing documents in .epub.
Any sign of the prs-t3?
I like the idea but you'd need a tube to protect it while you're carrying it around.
Do submarine optical cables have repeaters? I can see how land based systems could be upgraded to take advantage of this but there might be a bit of a lag in adding it to global networks.
How long till the 2G signal is turned off in the UK to make way for 3.5G/4G/Whatever the marketing department calls it today G ?
Re: Really...
and of course next year it could jump to £100 a month (or $100 if you're in the US, this is Adobe after all).
Four sprung duck technique
I remember reading a story about apple updating a video editor. They nerfed a lot of the advanced functionality and there was a big fuss made about that. If Adobe did something similar you could hold on to your old version and wait them out. Once it all goes to the cloud though, you're entirely at their mercy. Plus if they go belly up you need something new pronto or if god forbid you're having problems with the internet, you can't do any work.
Re: Nokia N900
I still have my n900 as a backup phone. A spare battery that is easily swapped solved the battery life issue for me.
Got a 9320 and a playbook after the keyboard got a crack and couldn't find a replacement. Pity, in many mays it's still head of lots of the competition (keyboard, stylus, flash support, ability to get full linux and apps working (v slowly), swappable battery, micro sd, proper multi-tasking etc. Some phones have some of these but tricky to find one that has them all and I avoid android as I don't want to be the product).
If the playbook OS is changed soon will it have to be recertified?
The programmes which sould grab a piece of orbiting junk and them pull it into a firely death are probably the most realistic if expensive. The one that uses lasers to shift stuff is proper sci-fi.
So, how are all those programmes to remove debris from orbit going?
So as a standard NFC is up there with 4G?
So, do I spend £30 on a replacement battery for my 350 or buy one of these?
"limit the scope of the National Science Foundation (NSF)"
In that case he would need to remose the S.
" Former Committee member Todd Akin (R-MO) also seemed under the impression that women could not get pregnant from "legitimate rape".
He's thinking of ducks. They're easy to mix up.
"Before Meebo's demise, Google stripped away all its features until it only consisted of the Meebo bar with added Google+ capabilities."
Looks like google jumped the extend part and went from embrace to extinguish.
I wonder if this could be used in future to effectively tag sheep. Yes officer, those are my sheep he rustled (shines torch).
Re: Internet connection required
Had a problem with BT Infinity + two weeks ago due to the weather. Loaded up Fallout with some DLC. Because the game couldn't connect to the internet (ok it did warn me I wouldn't be able to play the DLC but didn't fully appreciate what that meant) it stripped me of all my DLC perks (including those I picked during level up) and gear I had earned in them (though not the levels thankfully). I only had the autosave as I don't want to have the old I'll load twenty saves ago and it it this was instead trick as I wanted a bit of a challenge.
Every time I fire the xbox up it kicks every other device in the house off the broadband and they have to reconnect so now I generally play off line unless I want to play multiplayer (or need to prove I paid for dlc (bloody DRM)). If the next one makes even bigger demands on the bandwidth and needs it or it won’t work, there’s just no point. BTW I live in a fairly decent sized town about four or five miles from two exchanges and the broadband service from every provider is pathetic. Only BT fibre offers me faster (only just) access than on my phone no one else is going to pay to install or upgrade equipment here.
Re: Complete Bollocks
"overtook local sources who have been demanding a job because they believe it to be a right (my assumption, but likely)." I have never heard of anyone demanding a job because it was their right (other than Prince Charles but that's an argument for another day). BTW because of not hiring qualified IT staff by definition they were bringing in people struggling in other lines of work. Sometimes that paid off, the best coder on one team I worked was a former accountant. Sometimes it didn’t.
I didn't say that all of the internally sourced workers were cheaper. The ones from Eastern Europe were paid even less than the locals when they started but some of the workers from outside the EU were actually paid more than the local rate for qualified professionals doing their jobs. Their visa was tied to the job though so they couldn't afford to make a fuss when asked to do anything that might raise an eyebrow (nothing illegal, just not best practice or put up with poor managers). I think the idea was to train them up and then they could go back to their home countries and open new out sourcing offices there. That tended to back fire though. Most (but not all) of them found other local firms that would sponsor a visa and pay them more and they jumped ship, got a better offer back home or just got homesick and decided it wasn’t worth it.
Internet connection required
Another rumour on IGN about requiring an always on internet connection to use it. I hope these are wrong, otherwise my 360 is going to be sitting in my living room for a few more years yet.
Posted in Ten ancestors of the netbook
Re: Too long lived... for the manufacturers
Agreed. My AA1 lasted over 3 1/2 years (it took my boy bashing away and drooling over the keyboard to kill some of the keys). That's longer than any of my wife's full price laptops.
Posted in Ten ancestors of the netbook
I remember when the psion netbook came out. I really wanted one but my student loan wouldn't cover it. Did borrow my dad's 5mx though. Typed up a large amount of coursework on that.
"Only its keyboard gave the netbook an edge." But what an edge that is. Most people might be happy with a tablet but they aren't a proper replacement for a netbook. Even pairing with a bluetooth keyboard, the software a tablets are running at the moment isn't nearly ready to compete with them.
I have to fight my son everytime I want to use my playbook. He's too young to play with apps but watches lots of videos.
I use to work for a company in the UK that was an off-shored IT support branch of a US company. Their policy was to hire only non-IT graduates and then train them up so they could pay them 50% of what would normally be expected for doing those jobs. The local government paid for their training and a large part of their wages for the first year. After about 6 or 7 years the bribes ran out and then we started to hire people directly from eastern Europe and India to fill positions.
If the skills gap was as wide as it is made out to be, then you would expect market forces to push people into fill it from the local economies, particularly with the unemployment rates the western world is experiencing.
I can't afford to die.
When my brother died it was the media companies who fought the hardest to get not only the last bill but the cancallation fees paid as well. They only gave up when we pointed out he was a young man with no estate for them to sue.
Which reminds me that when my granny died her credit card company sold the (tiny) debt onto a debt collection agency that used a solicitor to send threatening letters to the whole family implying we were all liable for her debts (which had magically inflated due to their unavoidable costs). Took a few words with the law society to sort that one out.
There is a whole subsection of various industries who try to exploit the death of people and the grief of those close to them. They deserve all the press they get.
Hope this will drive down the price of 3G contract, just no need for 4G at the moment.
Re: Moral of the story...
My rotuer does have encryption turned on by default but I can't alter the secuirty settings or update the firmware. If those standards are found to have a flaw or more powerful CPUs and new hash tables make brute force attacks less unweildly I am not as protected as I should be. There is also a story on another el reg story a while ago about someone who put every security measure they could think of on their wi-fi router and had the SSID of Try to hack me. In the morning when he work up the SSID had been changed to challenge accepted. I don't know if that's true or not but it's still an interesting story.
Nice, if you can watch it
Wouldn't pay extra to watch the episodes (I am assuming that was £5.99 on top of your subscription). Not really going to matter to me till they have a playbook native streaming app.
Re: Moral of the story...
If your modem and wifi enabled router are provided by your provider and by contract are not allowed to replace them, that's not an option.
Re: Federal trick missed
When prosecutors do this in the US we cry foul about overreach. It would be double standards to ask for that here. Though one fine for every trip would seem a reasonable compromise.
Why the downvote?
MPs should take his advice and change the law so multi-national firms operate on a level playing field with UK only firms who lack the facilities to implement aggressive tax minimisation strategies.
BB7, BB10 and the playbook
Playbook browser is excellent for the iplayer website but I'd like to be able to download programmes too. Any chance?
@AC Use calibre to convert the books into epub.
I like the high resolution (for an ereader) though it might be physically a little large. Colour and epub 3 support (in particular embedded audio object support) are what I would like to see. If my ereader died tomorrow this is probably what I would buy as a replacement. Will be interesting to see what Sony pull out of the bag. They are rumoured to be annocing the t3 soon.
Re: We want to BUT....
"So unless Linux gets a proper layer of DRM, you I doubt will ever see Netflix or any similar service"
I think you mean one you have to pay for. There's always the post DVD option.
BTW there's no native BB7, BB10 or playbook app for netflix or lovefilm. First one that does is getting a subscription (I know good ereader have ported the android app to the Z10 and the Q10 but I don't have one of those)..
In some parts of the UK the vast majority of homes are heated by burning oil. The vast majority of the tiny minority that are left are heated by mains gas. Not going to make much of a dent their.
I can't see this being a target for hackers of what ever colour or political/criminal leanings. Nope, nothing to see (in the dark). Move along.
Flames cause everyone still has an open fire, right?
Re: Will not have an IT team representative present
I expect a BOFH on this soon.
I am surprised that they didn't just chuck him in prison to shut him up.
As long as the shareholders keep getting dividends they probably won't pay enough attention to see that the managers are robbing them blind.
Surly this is just yet another example of anti-capitalist/anti-free market behaviour from big business?
Re: A lot of my El Reg posts have come from a PB.
It doesn't have skype as the moment. It does have its own video calling app to other playbooks and it has whatsapp too.
It connects to bluetooth keyboards, I am looking for a good one atm. Logitech for ipad is most likely contender.
Android apps have to be repackaged but goodereader has a wide selection of them. Going to try the streaming netflix app tonight.
Took a look on amazon, 239.99 CAD. Works out about £155 before shipping.
I want to know where I can find a playbook for £90. Took a look on Debenhams website and couldn't find one. At that price I'd buy one for my son (who's always knicking mine) and maybe a spare too.
Isn't it Spring now?
