You can find it here

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/__PVY.HTM

But be warned that that is from the Catholic Church, and most of these types think the Pope is the Anti-Christ.

Well

Before Bayer invented their synthetic willow bark, "aspirin" didn't exist as a word, so that is a slightly different case. The full explanation of how it became a generic word in Europe would involve invoking Goodwin's law, so I won't.

I can't comment on Band-Aid. In the UK, we call them plasters, and I'm not even sure that Band-Aid branded plasters are available for sale here. Certainly the Superdrug and Boots websites don't come up with anything, nor does mysupermarket. Those are the places most people would shop for such things.

App Store is a much weaker case than Aspirin. It might be similar to Portakabin which is vigorously defended by its owners.

I suppose Steve could argue that App stands for Apple rather than Application.

More than that

Blaster won't work on Macs for the same reason it won't work on Windows computers these days.

Both Mac and Windows have built-in firewalls that prevent unauthorised outside connections, and most people now connect to the internet via a router which doesn't allow direct access to the internal computers.

Sort of

They are listed on Nasdaq and file accounts with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company itself is registered in the Cayman Islands for tax purposes and operates in China.

I assume they can actually understand the Chinese squiggles on baidu.com, but what loss have they suffered from not being able to find any of those squiggles pertaining to Tienanmen square on that particular website. There is nothing about it on my website either, am I going to be sued next?

Not that much of a problem

Just get a microsim adapter for about £1.60 or so. El Reg likes to link to amazon every time they review something, so here is the obligatory Amazon link

http://www.amazon.co.uk/GadgetsNTechs-RELIABLE-MICROSIM-warranty-SHIPPING/dp/B003UA1JXE/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1305737736&sr=8-3

Re: Don't agree

If you are at Paris Gare du Nord for example, how long does it take to go through border control to get on the Eurostar to London compared to just walking onto the platform to get the Thalys to Brussels. Certainly a lot more hassle than putting a ticket through a ticket barrier.

Re: um.....

You would have femtocells in places like railway stations and shopping centres where there are a lot of people making phone calls in a small area, just like at the moment you have wifi to take some of the load off the data network.

Re: Your Mum and Dad

What advantage would this have over an iPad or a similar offering with Android on it?

It isn't all or nothing

If energy demand is likely to increase, and renewables can supply most of that increased demand, we should go for it.

Re: Google

Google is an ad-broker. Selling adverts is what it does, and it makes lots of money from selling them. Everything else it does is a way to get people to their site to view those ads, just like a what TV or radio station does.

Re: Why

They can bring actual integration to Windows Phone. Never mind better, Skype isn't available on WinPho at the moment, and the old discontinued Windows Mobile app was pretty useless.

Re: WM third

In the corporate market, typically on machines with barcode scanners, and some times a small thermal printer. For example, when a courier delivers a parcel, the thing you sign on is quite often a Windows Mobile device. The stock check computers in Tesco run Windows Mobile. Another example is the machines used by Traffic Wardens.

For those stateside

If you don't understand "the British Library", think "Library of Congress".

Very useful in business

We do use it in business. A lot of overseas customers like to call us on Skype because it is free, whereas international call charges cost a lot of money.

What could Google make of it?

I have an Android Phone. I have the Skype app installed on it. If someone calls me on Skype, the phone rings, I answer it, and I talk to them, just like if I was talking to them over the GSM network. The only annoying thing is that it doesn't hand-over betweek wifi and 3g very well. Any time I select a contact and tap to call them, it asks if I want to dial out using Skype or GSM.

Apart from allowing the two Google Voice users who commented above to call me on Skype, and they probably have Skype accounts anyway, what benefit can a Google takeover bring. Some people seem to forget that you are allowed to use the products of more than one company at the same time.

Only problem

Is you don't want to take the contact number from the back of the "meter reader's" ID card. That is always going to be an accomplice. The number should be printed on the back of the bill and on the energy co's website.

Re: Yeah but

1) It's a re-badged Volkswagen

2) Diesel is taxed at the same rate as petrol. You get about 25% more miles per gallon from diesel compared to petrol, and it costs about 4% more.

3) 109g/km is for the 1.6l diesel. The 1.2l is 89g/km.

Re: Ah but

The Jazz has a boot, the iQ, to put it nicely, does not. That's why you might buy a Jazz. Alternatively, you could get a Skoda Fabia Greenline Estate, a regular diesel with a very large boot, and only emits 89g of CO2 per km.

It's not legal

It has been repealed by various murder acts, race discrimination acts and human rights acts that have been passed since then that contradict it. If two laws contradict, the later one stands.

Re: Phone books

Which country are you in? In the UK, mobile phone numbers are never published in the phone book. For landlines, when you sign up, they ask if you want to be ex-directory, and most people say yes. There is no extra charge for that.

Not quite

They haven't paid any cash. They have just signed contracts to pay cash in future when the parts arrive, or at some point, probably 30 days after they arrive. It means they have to accept delivery and pay for the parts whether they have any use for them or not, but they haven't received them yet, and legal liability to pay for them only happens when they do, so that is why it is off balance sheet.

Niche?

ARM licences more chips every year than Intel has produced in its lifetime. That isn't really a niche market. If anything, Intel is the niche player.

Less than that though

For that £25bn, they got BT and O2 shares - when BT demerged Cellnet, they gave everyone an O2 share for every BT share they held. O2 was subsequently taken over by Telefonica and the O2 shareholders got cash. The demerged BT shares are treated as being 77.544% of the old shares, and the O2 shares are treated as being the remainder. That means the shareholders paid £19306m in 2010 money for the BT network and £5591m for the Cellnet (now O2) network.

Yes, on average

In Britain, I believe the record is about 10% of the energy supply (http://www.bwea.com/media/news/articles/pr20100909.html), but that was for one freak half-hour period. Some times you will get 21%, some times you will get 0%, depending on how hard the wind blows, how cold / hot it is, what's on TV, the time of day and so on. You can aim for an average supply of about 5% without having supply interruptions, and you can get a bit higher by having managed interruptions.

In a previous flat I lived in, I had a stored heat tarrif where the electricity company switched on the storage heaters for 8 hours per day at times of their choosing; and the electricity on that meter was a lot cheaper than on the other meter which I used for everything else. Another possibility is refrigerated warehouses, where they keep the temperature a bit colder than required, and the chillers can go off for a couple of hours at a time without causing any problems.

Too small, in the wrong place

Urban windmills don't work. They need to be very big and in an exposed windy place. Rooftop windmills in the city are a waste of money.

Not yet

I'm the only person in the office who doesn't use a calculator. I use Windows Calculator, Excel for more complex stuff or the one on my phone or my iPod. Other people use the one on their desk, which is less capable than Windows Calculator, or ask me for more complex stuff.

It is not as simple as that

Back when MSFT was a growth stock, its stock options were worth a lot more than they are now, so staff remuneration packages were worth a lot more, that means the remuneration package needs to be adjusted to reflect the new reality, and hopefully incentivise staff into turning the company back into a growth stock.

Facebook is a pre-IPO company, so its stock options are potentially worth millions when the IPO does go ahead, and the company is far enough developed and has private equity offerings to indicate that it is a pretty safe bet that it will be.

Google is still a growth stock that doesn't pay dividents - dividends are bad news for stock options as they take money out of the company, so its stock options are likely to be worth more than Microsofts. Probably less than Facebook, but they do have the advantage over Facebook that you can cash them in now.

Yes there is a way

No internet access in the Channel Tunnel, and when you get to the other side, roaming charges will be so expensive that you will need to switch it off anyway.

Probably not

I can't figure out how to get it to work using IE9 on Windows 7. Maybe that is why it is still in beta. However, the free Windows Live Skydrive works just fine and you can use that as a way to get MS Office running on your linux desktop.

They are good if you want to work on a document alongside loads of other people, but if you just want to type letters, manage your money or do powerpoint substitute presentations, LibreOffice is a much better choice.

Yes it would

It would be like how the analogue spectrum is being taken away from TV stations and replaced with digital allocations. There needs to be an IPV6 switchover in the same way that there is a digital switchover currently underway for television.

Re Virgin

The money is going to Fujitsu. Virgin will be one of the companies you will be able to pay money to every month in the hope of getting an internet connection. Talk Talk will be another. Hopefully there will be some Internet Service Providers as well.

Indeed

Indeed it does, which is why the police helicopter regularly flies over at night with a thermal imaging camera to catch these people.

Yes they do

Yes, plants convert CO2 to O2 during photosynthesis, however the electricity used, and we are talking about 1kW of LED lights per square meter, or more than that if you use a less efficient bulb, generates a lot more CO2 than the carbon captured by these plants. Also, that carbon gets released again when you burn the plants.

Cannabis can be grown outside even in places like Scotland, but you are much more likely to get caught if you grow outside.

Re; Windows Server

The sky is grey on my planet most of the time. It was blue for a few days last week.

You have to pay lots of money for Windows Server, whereas you can generally download a copy of linux for free. That in marketing terms makes Windows Server a premium product. You may think the free one works better, I do, but from a marketing perspective that doesn't change anything.

Re: What

Windows Server is strong in the Small Business Server, Exchange Server and Sharepoint markets. Linux runs in everything from the world's fastest supercomputer to el cheapo Linksys routers. Linux is mass market because it runs on all the things you mention + many more; and most people are running linux machines without even realising it.

Re: title

I think there is only room in the operating system for two operating systems long term.

In desktops there is Windows (mass market), OSX (premium niche)

In servers there is Linux (mass market), Windows (premium niche) + maybe Solaris for storage

For phones it looks like there will be Android (mass market), iOS (premium niche) and Blackberry will survive for a while in the same way that OS/2 did.

For tablets, Android's position as the mass market leader is not guaranteed. If something else comes out in the next six months or so that can perform better than Android, it will have a chance. After that, it will be too late. It won't be WebOS or Blackberry as they are tied to single vendors, and I don't think Windows 8 will be out in time, or will be good enough, so it is very likely that Android will be the winner.

Re: Clarification

Surely the biggest risk for a site like this is that it will be on the browser history list rather than that someone could conceivably do a man in the middle attack?

Think about it. Who is going to want to know about the data being sent to a child protection agency? It has no financial value, but the paedophiles who might get reported to them will want to know so they can punish the child etc for shopping them in. There is a good chance that they will have access to the end point and can either use the browser history or some sort of monitoring software to see what they have been up to. They probably won't infiltrate an ISP or set up a dodgy wireless access point so they can harvest data going over the line.

Re: contracts

Read the 404 error, print off a copy for your records, confirm that you have read it.

The real small print isn't to your advantage, so it is better not to be bound by it.