Posts by SteveK 400 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Jun 2009
Honestly, if I was far enough away that I needed a notification on my phone, the last thing on my mind would be rushing back home to dick about with laundry.
And as the connectivity between balls and phone seems to be bluetooth, presumably you can only be in an adjacent room at most.
"and doing it in the Kalahari desert is nigh on impossible"
Agree, it'll be a challenge to make it work, but really? Getting a wireless data link in a flat open area with no buildings or obstacles to block or reflect the signal, and probably virtually no other transmitters or sources of interference for a large number of miles in any direction is harder than elsewhere?
The problem seems to be that they are allowed to assume that not logged in = over 18 since they have no way to know the age otherwise, which means that they can show the ads to anyone. The only way they can reliably not show the ads to children is to require login and require that everyone including children disclose personal information, such as age (and probably a dozen other mandatory fields for marketing purposes). Which is also something that is not encouraged nor desirable.
So perhaps the only workable solution is to ban ads altogether? Or at least ads that are not suitable for children, other than on sites that are targetting adults (and require adults to sign up to view).
But surely when Tom Hanks or whoever actually turns up at the reception desk, that's a bit of a giveaway and junior staff member can still say X is in room N, and if they always use the same alias when travelling then it's rather surprising that a list of these names hasn't leaked anyway.
What is the problem with notifications? They seem fine to me. Presumably I'm missing something but it seems to me that: something happens, I get a notification, without needing to fiddle.
I can turn off notifications for certain apps. I have notifications I can pull down and view. I have notifications on the lock screen. I can just see the prioritised (or recent) notifications or double tap to expand the list. I haven't had to change or tweak any of that. What part of notifications does everyone else agree is so complicated, as I'm worried I'm missing out on something...?
By eliminating the default email app, Android/Google is trying to force corporate users to use Gmail. As a consequence, you have to get another email app for the very basic function of using corp email
While I prefer to keep work and home email apart in separate apps and initially saw the elimination of the 'email' app as a problem, actually it seems fine. The 'Gmail' app happily talks to my work Exchange server as well as the old email app did, and still allows individual notifications and sounds for each mailbox, so have not needed to 'get another email app' or be forced to only use Gmail.
So far liking 5.0 on Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 - speed and battery fly (probably due mostly to doing a factory reset to wipe out all the cruft).
Last time I bought a CD from Amazon I was also able to download a digital copy for free.
And last time I was looking, the CD with free download of the digital copy was cheaper than buying just the download version of the same album from Amazon...
Silverlight is also needed as a workaround for previous removal of functionality that stopped parts of Exchange 2010's web interface working in Chrome (v37 removed modal popups), specifically the ability to add attachments or view the addressbook.
A pain if you have a big Exchange system and thousands of students who haven't gone and bought Office, so actually use OWA to access it. (Also doesn't work properly in Microsoft's own IE11, hence a lot of students were using Chrome). Having Silverlight installed lets Exchange OWA fall back to a different mode ... until Chrome removes that too!
Apparently the solution is to upgrade to Exchange 2013, but on a big installation with many servers and multisite replication (fortunately I don't look after that, so I'm just spectating, with popcorn) that's not just an afternoon's work...
Mint does look and behave nicely. The concern to me though is that it and future versions of Mint for at least the next couple of years are based on Ubuntu 14.04. Which means that, unless Mint developers are going to backport apps, things will be stuck on the version that Ubuntu 14.04 offers with only minor point release updates. No bad thing necessarily - unless the package has a bug that requires going to a later version to fix.
The kernel for instance (which will presumably be forever 3.13 - it is in Mint 17 and 17.1 certainly). It has a timing bug introduced in 3.10 and not fixed until 3.15 which causes pretty, but unusable, display distortion in [certain?] machines with the Intel Core i-series CPUs and onboard graphics (Dell Optiplex 9010 series for instance) in both GUI and console.
Yes, I can grab the kernel source, or download .deb files from a 3rd party site and install them, but then it's up to me to do that outside the package management system and keep watch for security bugs etc requiring an update. And who knows whether any compatibility issues will arise if the kernel API hooks change between the version of kernel on the machine and the version that the distribution expects me to have.
Funnily enough, reverse was true for me. 4.4 had really bogged down my 2012 N7 to a crawl, trying to open an app or switch between them would take around 10 seconds. Did a wipe and reset, all returned to normal, updated to 5 when the OTA upgrade arrived a few days after that, all still fine.
Like Windows PCs, these things do slow down when they accumulate too much cruft and need the odd reinstall. Plus I gather a number of apps aren't quite suited to 5 yet, so cause problems - probably why mine's fine as I didn't reinstall all the junk that had built up since I bought it!
The iPad on the other hand does seem to get more sluggish with every update..
Perhaps it could have been if they really explored it for more than 30 seconds. Hey, you killed a kid. Now oyu have to meet them because they want to see you and have requested to. But then they run off inside 5 seconds not saying a word. Yeah... that's not really very powerful. Kind of a waste of time, really.
I was pretty sure at the end when Danny is wavering on pressing the button, the reflection in the iPad is of the kid, so I'm guessing he'll be instrumental in saving Danny in part 2 and will therefore have a purpose.
I had one the other day. I say 'day', it was still dark outside ad my brain wasn't firing on all cylinders or perhaps I could have been a bit more engaging. As it was, much of the call was spent with my asking what he got out of making fake calls and scamming people out of their money - he seemed quite angry with the allegations: 'why would I waste my time trying to steal a few pounds?' Well, that's the question isn't it? I even told him I knew he was talking crap as I work in IT - he seemed to just turn that around to 'if you work in IT, you know I'm telling the truth'... errr? In the end as he wasn't taking the hint, I just shouted the highly unoriginal 'F*** off and die' down the phone and hung up.
He called back 30 seconds later to ask why I had hung up on him, and after still trying to persuade me to go through his procedure list only finally hung up on me after I told him that at least talking to me was stopping him calling some innocent old lady who might actually fall for his scams.
Did make me wonder though whether the actual people making the calls really do believe the utter lying bilge they're spouting, and really do think they're working for Microsoft or whoever. Almost certainly not, but the insistence of this guy that he wasn't a common thief who should just step in front of a bus did seem genuine - and if you know you're nothing but a lying weasel then you'd just move on to the next mark and not try calling back someone who has clearly seen through your cunning ruse...
True, but I assume this system tracks you just because the page has 'like' buttons on it, regardless whether or not you clicked them - the fact that you visited a page about X will be logged.
On the other hand, clicking all the random ads that appear is useful. For a start, it messes up and devalues any possible data that has been logged about you; secondly if the target of the ad starts having to pay out for lots of clicks that result in zero sales then they may be less inclined to pay, which again devalues the advertising.
The main problem is not with Netflix themseves, but primarily that the TV studios don't want to (or aren't allowed to?) license out content to 3rd parties - the rights owners want a chance to sell DVD box sets and their own high priced subscription service first. Then when rights do come up, they're bought by the highest bidder in that country for first showing. This is likely to be especially problematic in a country that hasn't until now had Netflix, as the rights will have already been bought by pre-existing networks.
When I first looked at Netflix and Lovefilm, I was disappointed that nothing I searched for seemed to be there, but then I changed perspective and looked at what it did have, and what it suggested and discovered some good series that I'd either missed the first time, or had never heard of at all.
Series (particularly small quirky ones) do seem to be prone to getting cancelled after a season or two, usually without wrapping up the story so I prefer to not invest time in watching something that will get pulled just as I'm getting into it.
I'm sorry, I think India should be spending it's cash on bringing the basic necessities to it's provincial population before it piles billions into space.
I think you'll find $74 million closer to the mark than 'billions'.
And if they can show they can do it for a pittance compared to what other nations are spending then they'll probably be able to sell their services.
You know, you dropped it on the floor and the floor broke.
My mum did that with a sponge cake once.
Actually true, early '80s, had just bought a new-fangled microwave and followed a recipe in the book it came with to supposedly make a microwaved sponge cake. Result was rather solid and unrisen, we took it outside and dropped it on the concrete patio and it cracked the concrete... (My dad was not amused, the patio had only been done 6 months or so before...)
"And metro apps which live as windows on the desktop."
Isn't this just resurrecting the ancient Active Desktop that MS bundled in the days of IE4? I remember having to go round turning that off as one of the first things on installing a new Windows 98 machine...
Ok, the UK model has a pound printed there but just using the UK keymap will put it there even if there's no graphic.
And don't need to worry about other keys being shown in the wrong places as Apple are 'special' in not following the normal UK keyboard layout and just forcing the US layout on you anyway.
Price (both academic and public) seem the same as they were a fortnight ago, as I had someone ask me about buying one. Looking at his email, he was seeing the list price on the Apple UK store as £999 then, so assuming this reduction isn't something that's just happened?
"I was phoned three years running by Orange partners after cancelling my service, to see if I wanted an upgrade. That was despite having opted out of third party communication."
To be fair, all the networks are guilty of this. With Vodafone I would get on average 3-4 calls a week starting about 2 months before the contract expired and ramping up.
With Orange, I started getting these types of calls in the first week, but that turned out to be that the number had been recycled so I was getting calls targetting the person whose number it used to be. After a week, my old number finally ported across.
"My favourite example of this was from something that ITV used to show at post-pub-o'clock. Sadly that space is now taken up by some sort of tv-roulette-scumbaggery. The show was 'Tour of Dury'."
My example along those lines was the time [BBC|ITV] were showing the lunchtime as-live repeat of the (probably Japanese) F1 that had been on at around 5am, and had the programme announcer start with "And now another chance to see X win the (probably Japanese) grand prix"
Ok, technically it was a repeat and any real enthusiasts would have got up at unsocial-o-clock to watch it live, but nonetheless, anyone who had actually tuned in to watch the as-live showing probably still wouldn't want the end spoiled.
"I wish they would do that here in France, every bloody time that I go there are at least a half dozen twunts tweeting, smsing during the whole damned film.."
Oh, there still are similar numbers in cinemas here too, telling them doesn't make blindest difference to that.
Worst case though was in the cinema once with a row of kids behind (pretty sure they weren't being obnoxious because they were teens, they genuinely didn't seem to notice). Mobile rings, girl answers it and starts saying 'Oh, I'm in the cinema watching <whatever>, just getting to the bit where X is going to happen'... Another of them was reading out every set of subtitles, either because they couldn't read silently or for the benefit of another one who couldn't read at all...
And they wonder why people don't like going to the cinema any more - that and the fact that a film costs pretty close to the same as buying the DVD just to see. 2 or more people, it's cheaper by a good margin to just buy the film. I know the experience isn't the same, but as 'the experience' seems to include having the constant rustling of sweet wrappers; people who have just downed the 2 litre 'child-size' Coke squeezing past to go to the toilet every 10 minutes; being dazzled by mobile screens sending texts and so on, I'm happy to skip that!
"has perhaps the best support in the world from any manufacturer"
sorry? Maybe for home use, but certainly for business use "bring it to your closest Apple store and we'll repair it in a few days" doesn't cut it. When PC suppliers have been offering 5 year on-site NBD for some time, and Apple can't even offer an option to pay for that, it's certainly not 'the best'.
Fortunately we have an authorised repair centre close, so I only have a 5-10 minute walk to take whatever machine has failed in (and that's about the only time that I do appreciate Apple's insistence on removing functionality to make desktop machines light and portable).
Personally I do wish they brought back the 24" iMac. 21 is just too small, and 27 too large. In the words of Goldilocks, the 24 was 'just right'.
"'user funds' is perfectly correct english. It refers to the funds belong to any user, not a singular user"
Indeed it does. But as the non-Spartacusy-one pointed out, the article makes use of "user's funds", not "user funds" or "users' funds". i.e., the funds of a (singular) user.
Pedantic, I agree, but grammatically correct!
The $150k and $240k were listed as being taken on *previous* auctions, not this one.
That said, adding up the rest of the items listed still comes to just short of $230k rather than $130k. Maybe the extra $100k is auction fees (did they use eBay+paypal or something??)
On the subject of ridiculous, I did have one the other day telling me I had to
"fill attached questionary before May 13259579338080851941308th, 2014"
I'm guessing that's a very long way in the future, so won't bother to open it now..
but yes, I agree with your sentiments entirely about the sort of people who prey on those likely to fall for this particular one.
Apologies if this point has been made - I did skim through all four pages of responses of switch to Linux, switch to Mac (both might be valid arguments, but not the point I'm making) etc without seeing it...
Fair enough, I can understand 'get a new PC' because one that was sold running XP (assuming a home machine, not a business machine and therefore likely to have been provided with XP for as long as possible) is at least 5 years old (probably 7 since resellers starting shipping consumer PCs with Vista) may not be up to the job. Seems wasteful if the hardware works but I accept that the argument can be made.
However, I can't accept the argument as a reason for buying a new PC, that if you upgrade you'd need to find your application install disks and license codes, that you'd need to backup your files and restore them. Surely you'd need to do this if you went and bought a new PC anyway - it won't magically have your applications or data.
So maybe they're advocating that you go and buy new copies of Office and other applications too - and presumably just throw away your old photos, files etc rather than transfer them as clearly they're old and useless?
Or that you buy a new PC, but that you keep using your old XP one rather than upgrade it as that's the one that has your applications and files...
Or that you buy a new one, but then have to do exactly the same steps to install your applications and transfer your data that you'd have to do if you upgraded.
From his blog post (linked in article) he says he renamed @N to @N_is_stolen, releasing @N to be taken by someone else. Assuming the whole thing is genuine.
Doesn't make a lot of sense though. Surely the main reason for wanting the account was for access to all the followers (for some nefarious purpose?) who would still be on the renamed account. Or to sell, but it'll always be questionable whether it'll be returned.
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