Posts by NightFox
272 posts • joined Friday 23rd October 2009 08:28 GMT
Re: Does anyone?
I hate that we move closer and closer to a US-style TV model, which seems to be completely stacked in favour of the interests of the corporates rather than the viewers, with more and more exclusives tied to single service providers or offered as PPV. TV of the future, be it IP, satellite or terrestrial is not going to be driven by quality (and I think in the UK we have still have some of the highest), but by the awful US model just because of the influence US companies are going to exert. Take the rumoured Apple TV set - I know it's all conjecture at this stage, but if it's anything like the existing Apple TV box then it's geared towards PPV/subscription IPTV and even though Smart TVs haven't really changed anything yet, companies with the clout of Apple have the influence to change the way we do things to the way America does things (or the way the company wants us to do things), be it for better or worse.
Yes, I know the likes of Sky and Virgin have already seen us off along this road, but thankfully we're still not at the stage where every new show is treated as a carrot to milk even more out of viewers (excuse the mixed metaphor).
Re: Impressive.
Dodgy "ship's biscuits"?
I was given the chance to get my MCSE qualification on NT4, it was only when I got half way through the self-teach course that I discovered that MS no longer even offered the NT4 exam. That's the MOD for you - cutting edge of technology.
Re: IE and licence fees?
My memory is signing up (by post!) to ISP Demon Internet, then when I got my account details making my very first connection to the Internet via Windows 95 - and then realizing I didn't have a clue what to do when the prompt said "connected". It was only after calling Demon support that I was snottily told I needed to start my web browser. What web browser? So then it was off to Escom to buy IE3 for £50 in the guise of Microsoft Plus, though whether the browser was free and I was actually paying £50 for some themes and Space Cadet Pinball is debatable I guess.
Re: I'd buy that for a dollar!
Nah, I bet if you look at the small print if will be $1 for the first 3 months then $1,460,000 a month after that plus line rental.
Reality Check
Siri :"beep-beep. What can I help you with?"
CIA: "Authorisation Code two-zero-three-Alpha: Search voice recording archives"
Siri: "bip-bip. Authorisation approved. What would you like me to search my voice recordings archive for?"
CIA: "Plans to carry out terror attacks against USA"
Siri: "bip-bip"
{pause}
Siri: "I'm sorry, I don't understand plaster carrot error a tax again stew say"
"Unless your old man bought your computer for you from Boots or WHSmith, you had to send off for it, clipping out a coupon from a magazine like Personal Computer World and posting it off with a cheque. Maybe your computer would come in a month, maybe it wouldn’t."
Brilliant; that captured the era in just two sentences better than any 'retro' article I've ever read
Re: But it's so B I G
Almost, but if my Blue Peter memories are correct then it's actually a section of plastic drinks bottle painted dark brown or black with some silver foil and a pink rubber stuck on.
Down and safe.
Re: Flaw in theory...
Wouldn't that make texting really difficult?
You've got to feel for Sir Jonathan Evans, all this on the very same day that he tells me his uncle has been killed in a car crash...
Posted in Paying a TV tax makes you happy - BBC
Re: I stopped paying the TV License in 2008 and haven't watch TV since.
But do you get hassled by TV Licensing? A few years ago I took on a flat just for use in the week and as it was really just a place to sleep I didn't bother with a TV. Very soon I started getting polite 'reminders' from TVL, which I ignored and the letters became more regular and the wording stronger (threatening forced entry to check if I had a TV). Now I could, at any time, have contacted TVL to inform them I didn't have a TV and maybe not doing so was a bit petulant on my behalf, but I took the view that it's not an opt-out system; I was under no legal obligation to do so. I was doing everything that the law required me to do (i.e. nothing), so what moral or legal right did TVL have to harass and threaten me?
OK, I realize that a certain degree of robustness is necessary, but it really irked me that there was a presumption of guilt based on "everyone has a telly", with the onus on the individual to declare otherwise.
Re: The real question is...
Ooo, Apple ain't going to like that I Ching Online thing, sounds like a direct copy of Siri
1541 > 8250
Yeah but you could make the head on a 1540/1541 play "Daisy, Daisy, Give me your answer, do" on a 1541, couldn't do that on a 8250
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gnMgmlKi_o
QoS?
Just give me anything that helps fix the 'Openzone Sydrome' - where at some point I'll connect to a BT Openzone free wifi access point, forget about it, and then days later I'll realise I'm going around with no practical data connection because instead of using the 5-bar 3G signal, my phone is still automatically connecting to each and every Openzone AP it can sniff, irrespective of signal quality, speed, or even whether the damn AP is connected to the Internet or not!
Re: ...terms mere mortals can get their heads round...
Has the Beeb now officially dropped Olympic Size Swimming Pools from it's official units of measurement?
Fact Check?
"Only about 1000 gold Blue Peter badges have been presented before.."
Really, 1000? I'd have thought - given the esteemed recipients mentioned - that the numbers would have been much less, more like 100? I think all presenters also get one on leaving (not sure about those whose departure involved substance abuse) but I still don't think that would have pushed the numbers up far.
Just surprised, that's all.
Re: Hmmm
Although the story doesn't give much detail on his disability, it's quite possible that the car's (presumably automatic) controls were specially adapted for him and this is some way compounded the issue of not being able to stop.
Even with a standard auto box, there's that much electronic locks etc on it to protect the engine that there's no guarantee it could have just been put into neutral at speed
Going for a Richard III
So that scar they identified on Richard III's pelvic bone.... dagger or Motorola DynaTAC? - where safer to keep it on the battlefield?
"As a company with a long motorsport heritage we are very keen on all types of sport, including football. While we appreciate the amusing nature of the website, as a global company, we have to ensure we do everything possible to protect the Michelin brand image."
The biggest tragedy is that the person who wrote that stale, clichéd corporate statement probably has a family who have to put up with him every Christmas Day and are already counting the days down with dread.
Re: Amazing
According to the bootnote, the ICO's limits are only £500k anyway so double-digit millions was, sadly, never going to happen.
It's all very well MS dictating hardware spec to its OEMs for Windows 8, and those OEMs may well look to providing that level of hardware support in the future. But let's face it - the run up to Christmas was the trasitionery period when all the OEMs were ever going to do was shoehorn Windows 8 onto their end-of-life Windows 7 stock to give it a new lease of life.
> The UK Culture Secretary Maria Miller hopes to have "the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015".
So do I, my mate and the bloke who lives down the road from me. Let's keep our fingers crossed and just see what happens, eh, Maria?
It isn't a competition for consumers!
Why is this bad news for me, an 'Xboxer'? Just because an alternative item sold better it doesn't seem to have had any effect on how my venerable Xbox 360 functions. Bad news for Microsoft? Maybe. But us consumers aren't all 14 year-old fanbois who flaunt our IT choices as some sort of tribal badge and feel we're in some way embroiled in a personal war against all other manufacturers and their own consumers.
So there.
Re: You get what you pay for
...and also half the time it's not even working as as far as any as the staff are aware, it's just that box on the wall with the flashing lights on that's probably something to do with the burglar alarm
Posted in Review: Lego Lord of the Rings game
Re: LOTR FTW!
I'm a big fan of the Lego games, it's an old and trusted formula that works well so I've got no problem with them re-skinning it with a new franchise. The only thing I think is a bit of a disappointment though is the historic distinct lack of patches for the whole Lego series- I think all of the Lego games to date have had very well known major glitches (like end-of-level Boss characters not being triggered, or levels that invariably crash unless you do very specific workarounds), but these never seem to get fixed. I know you could throw that accusation at many games, but the Lego ones do seem to have a particularly bad track record for post-release game-stopping bug fixes.
Re: well thats a surprise
Agree with others about how good WMC actually is - we used it is our main TV for 5 years, it was only its non-wife-friendly need for tinkering whenever channel line-ups changed and a couple of DVB-S issues (which later turned out to be down to a faulty LMB) which finally made me decide to switch to a commercial PVR as WMC seemed to suffer it's glitches when I was travelling. I kind of assumed that with WMC having been around without too many interface changes for several years, that the commercial PVRs user experience would be at least as good, if not better. What a shock! Even the high-end models from the likes of Humax, Panasonic and LG are so cludgy, horrible and basic coming from WMC. After several false starts, I've gone the Sky+ route but I still miss the simplicity and diversity of WMC, just a shame that MS seem to have all but given up on it or I could see myself going back to it after I've served my sentence under Sky.
Re: unsubscribe
I agree - I recently went through my spam folder unsubscribing to all the 'legitimate' spam using the links, and have now cut my spam by about 95% (I'm lucky that I don't get too much real spam).
My main annoyance on the unsubscribe links are the ones that require you to log in to the retailers web site to 'change your mailing preferences' as often I can't remember my credentials for a site I bought something from 10 years ago. You know my email address - you sent me the bloody link I just clicked. Now unsubscribe me!
Oh how I've tried to do the same, even stooping to the depths of buying Lego 'Friends' sets, which even make regular Lego look amazing value for money
Re: One of the good things about this is...
"...a mysterious disc", as in a disc with more jaggies than an 8-bit VGA display? I guess you could do some clever anti-aliasing though with different colour bricks?
Re: Why?
Not just banking, but I've found Twitter is good way into any customer service. The choices are often phone (hold for 30 minutes and then get some bottom tier call centre mule in India), e-mail (might get a reply in a couple of days), or tweet and get a reply from someone relatively high up the CS chain within the hour, often in a matter of minutes. Sure, I'm not going to be providing my bank details over Twitter, but for less sensitive personal information there's always DM, and often once you've got in touch via twitter and explained an outline of your issue within 140 characters, someone's often willing to give you a call.
But of course it's cool and elitist to scoff at anyone who uses social media.
Posted in The best e-readers for Christmas
Re: Sooo.......
That's the e-ink device appeal for me, I've got both an iPad and a Kindle (recently upgraded from the original to a backlit one). You can argue to your hearts content whether an e-ink reader is easier to read than a tablet but the killer feature for me is that I can sit down on a plane, pull my Kindle out that I've not touched for 2-3 weeks and not charged for months, and the battery will still be at 80%.
And I really thought we were getting soooo close to the day when Apple were going to start inviting you to their media events again.
Re: While I think that to some extent users are suffering from download fatigue in
If this browser choice thing in Windows was so critical to the likes of Mozilla, how come it wasn't just MS that 'failed no notice' that it had disappeared, why did no-one from Google or Mozilla appear to notice either?
Re: oh dear...
I'm just guessing that PC World won't even carry the RT version as a normal stock item, leaves them more shelf space for 5 year old graphics cards.
I'm not sure that Boris's statements are contradictory, I don't think he's ever had an issue with computer games per se, just the results of excessive consumption, q.v. alcohol.
Doesn't this same scaremongering crop up every time there's a new release of Windows? OK, this time we have the RT version, but those in the know will still chose the right version whilst those not in the know will once again go down to PC World and have some 'highly trained expert' compare the back of the boxes for them. Same as last time really.
Re: It's not just rural
I agree with wowford. Your article paints a picture of this issue just affecting isolated hamlets and farmsteads in the middle of bleak empty wildernesses, whereas my own experience suggests that this type of broadband speed is disappointingly common in many rural towns across the UK. If you class 'rural' as anywhere more than 20 miles from the nearest city or major town, then I think you can say that these sort of broadband speeds are in fact the norm for rural Britain.
Re: That'll teach the smug "I'm special" git
On every airline I've ever flown on.
"Welcome to xxxxxx. Please remain seated with your seatbelt fastened until the plane comes to a complete stop and the Captain turns off the Fasten Seat Belt sign. Mobile phones must not be turned on until you are inside the airport building."
At least I think that's what it says, difficult to hear above the din of everyone leaping out of their seats, taking their suitcases out of the overhead lockers and the frantic stabbing of hundreds of mobile phones 'on' buttons, all within less than one second of the tyres touching tarmac.
Re: All these iPads
I think you're confusing vaporware with rumours. Considering Apple is a company that makes such a big issue of not announcing products until it's got millions of them stockpiled ready to launch within a couple of weeks of the announcement, I think you mean the wild speculation that frenzied fanbois come up with whenever a blurry photo appears from one of Apple's component suppliers. I certainly can't think of any devices that Apple have announced that have failed to materialise.
Re: All these iPads
2010 just called, they said you can keep their joke as it wasn't particularly funny back then either.
Cool, kinda like the drinks holder in my car.
The Fall Guy
Colt Seavers wouldn't take this shit
D'Oh!
Typical - the day after I cancel my subscription to Meteoritics and Planetary Science, this turns up.
No, not really before you ask.
What's New?
I don't understand this, am I missing something? For as long as I can remember and wherever I've lived, the postie has ALWAYS left stuff with my neighbours if I've been out - the standard card they stick through your letterbox even has always had a tick box to show that it's been left with a neighbor, so what's different with this 'new' scheme?
Posted in Apple iPhone 5 review
Re: Obviously A Fanboi ...
@AC 12:08
Actually the YouTube integration is still there. The viewer is now a separate downloadable app, but the 'send to YouTube' functionality is still built into the OS
Send in the Billy Goats Gruff
It's an article about Blackberry and RIM. Go spew your hatred elsewhere, I'm sure there are plenty of iPhone-related threads bubbling away today just waiting to hear your views.
Re: I still don't get why this only appies to MS
These answers all seem to refer to iOS, I think the original question is referring to why Apple can get away with including Safari in OS X and not being required to offer a browser choice on first run.
