* Posts by Arctic fox

2770 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Nov 2009

'iPad cads' dash fanboi fondleslab hopes

Arctic fox
IT Angle

Re Nefarious? Indeed, it does not seem in principle......

..........any different from what has been Apple's usual pricing policy - screw the market for what you can get. In this instance much facilitated by the company's apparent inability to produce even a ballpark guess concerning initial sales with the result that there are massive shortages. Though it has to be said that if someone is so sad that they are willing to part with up to 2000 dollars they almost deserve to be ripped off. The new iPad seems to be a decent piece of kit (not my kind of thing but each to their own and all that) and Apple's own pricing this time somewhat less of a piss-take. However if they release before they have ensured adequate supplies their loyal/deranged punters are going to get screwed.

Arctic fox
Jobs Horns

Yes, artificial - Apple's Fail.

Companies like Apple do a lot of market research to ensure they do not make a fuck-up like this. It is not possible to believe that Cupertino simply based a rough guess on the number of iPad 1s they sold. Either it was deliberate or Mr Jobs should fire the entire marketing dept because they are clearly not doing their Jobs (pun committed with malice aforethought).

First time I've ever used this icon but this time I am in no doubts that they deserve it on this occasion. A marketing fuck-up like this from a company famous for its marketing expertise? No, it was deliberate.

Intel and Apple: tablet d'hôte

Arctic fox
Happy

What's Intel asking for their chips?

"But do those machines ship? Most do not."

I do not claim to know, I am just wondering. Are they maybe being greedy over what they expect the OEMs to pony up for that Intel kit?

Hadron Collider 'could act as telephone for talking to the past'

Arctic fox
Terminator

Paradoxes, moi?

This communication with the past being limited to the earliest moment in our future when this particle is, perhaps, discovered and the necessary communications devices are, perhaps, developed. This, for the very simple reason that no-one except someone in our future would (with the aforementioned kit) be able to recieve any messages from someone who had not yet developed the aforementioned kit...........are you still with me? In short this past that could be communicated with must by definition post-date the first point in time when this kit is developed, or something like that. Oh bollocks I need a drink.

Make streaming a felony: Obama

Arctic fox
Happy

The authorities tried to do the same with........

.........printing when it was invented (in Europe at any rate) in the mid-fifteenth and of course we all know how successful that was do we not?

Is Apple planning incompatible payments?

Arctic fox
Jobs Halo

My gob has never been so smacked.

Planning a system incompatible with other standards with millions of locked in customers, well I'll go to the foot of our stairs! I am sure that that nice Mr Jobs would not dream of doing such a thing.

NB: Irony alert in relation to icon use.

Windows 7 customers hit by service pack 1 install 'fatal error' flaws

Arctic fox
Happy

SPs always make me nervous.

I run Win 7 hp 64-bit at home on two machines. A few days before the update was released I ran full system backup manually on both of them and then took backup off schedule. Happily when Redmond sent SP1 down the pipe to yours truly it installed in both cases without giving any noticeable problems. Had I experienced problems I could not find a work-around to I would have switched off Windows update, formatted the drives, restored from the drive image and then kept that monkey (AKA Windows updat) off-line until it was clear that a safe version was available. I've been burned before!

App Store not invited to web's date with destiny

Arctic fox
Grenade

Part deux of my rant.

Furthermore, to paraphrase one of Bill Clinton's advisers from the 90s, "its the infrastructure, stupid". That's right, the big pipe in the sky. If we start shoving everything up there so that everybody's shineys are a rather expensive collection of "thin clients" (in the software sense), how the hell are we going to get the bandwidth? The infrastructure investment required in the years ahead by the carriers is already humungous, can you imagine the sums of money involved if it is largely cloud-based? Who's going to pay for that? The poor bloody punter of course through his/her data-plan and/or tax slip. What a wonderful idea! We tell the punter that he/she is a plank if they want locally stored applications and then we charge them an arm and a leg for an alternative that the punter has so far showed no great signs of wanting. As far as I am concerned they can stick it.

Arctic fox
Happy

@bojennett Re: "It's because HTML sucks, dude"

"You HTML5 people... you need to get over yourselves. The fact that you can make it work at all as an application framework is truly commendable. You've done the equivalent of bolting a jet engine onto a bicycle bike frame. The fact that the bike doesn't blow up is awesome - but that doesn't mean I want to ride it."

Do you mind! I laughed so hard at that image that I almost ended up with my breakfast coffee in my lap.

Arctic fox
Megaphone

All this seems to assume is that........

..............your interaction with content must be cloud and social network based. Quite apart from the practicalities of the customer being hostage to having a live connection _and_ the carriers data plans in order to be able to use content and facilities on his/her mob/pad, it also assumes that everybody wants to be involved with Twitter, Arsebook etc in order to "share" this experience. How about those propagandising for cloud/web based solutions recognise that under certain circumstances lack of locally installed facilities is in fact a _lack_ of freedom for the punter. Plus a very simple and age old aspect of being human - people like feeling they own something real, "solid" if you like, that they have bought; locally installed apps play to this feeling. This whole cloud/web based shtick sounds like a wonderful deal for web designers and the carriers - where do the customers _real_ interests fit into all of this? Why does it, apparently, have to be either or? Why cannot customers choose between locally installed and web based according how _they_ want to organise that aspect of their lives? Particularly without being told that their preferred solution is "inferior" - just because it does not happen to suit certain agendas.

Japanese nuke meltdown may be underway

Arctic fox
FAIL

The downvoters should be ashamed of themselves.

The guy has a legitimate point - what are you all doing, whistling loudly in the dark?

Apple patent foresees ultra-svelte iDevices

Arctic fox
Joke

@AC re Uh! And the Man From Cupertino will probably try.......

...........to insist that you use a non-standard connector only available from your local Apple Store!

Arctic fox
Grenade

More patent trolling?

Are they actually trying to patent a genuine device (if so, where is the physical example of such a device accompanying this application?) or simply a very generalised series of concepts intended as nothing more than a judicial minefield for any competitors in the field of consumer electronics? A clearer example of deliberate market poisoning would be hard to find. Apple make very good kit that is deservedly very popular but their taste for using their legal department to dream up schemes designed to cripple any future competition reminds me very strongly of Microsoft at its very worst in the 1990s.

Microsoft Kinect faster seller than iPad, says Guinness

Arctic fox
Happy

@DT re Penetration of the market.

Highly relevant point. Seems that xbox owners (I am not one) are highly enthusiastic. That the sales of kinect within that market (xbox owners by definition) should exhibit a take-up that can be compared with other best-selling devices which do not require pre-ownership of another device is fairly eye-crossing. What will be very interesting from a marketing point of view is in what degree new xboxes are being bought with kinect and whether kinect will now accelerate sales of xbox per se. The combined package cannot be dismissed as a "100 buck peripheral", representing as it does a fairly significant investment in ones home entertainment system. We will no doubt have a clearer picture of that possible phenomenon by Q3 or so.

Tesco heralds 2011 as YEAR OF ANDROID

Arctic fox
Happy

Stock is money - sitting there doing nothing.

The issue for Tescos and Asda (or whoever) is simply that they can carry iThingy cases because they all fit the one phone. To meet your needs (and mine - Desire Z) and those of other Android customers they would have to stock a considerable range of cases. However if Android sales are really taking off for them they may well begin to do so now.

AMD claims 'fastest graphics card in the world'

Arctic fox
Happy

.......and probably reads magazines like.....

.........."Topless Benchmarks for Men".

Arctic fox
WTF?

Let me see now....

.....if you install this you need ear plugs, several 14 cm case fans, an industrial grade psu and you can also heat the office with it. As far as the private market goes we are of course talking financially well heeled obsessive gamer who still lives in the cellar at his mum's, are we not?

iPad 2: Apple forced to make carrier concessions

Arctic fox
Megaphone

On a general point in this context

A point which applies to all such companies (carrier or producer), ie attempts to create or maintain some kind of lock-in. They all do it, we can all think of many examples and many companies. The common factor is of course the desire to avoid be subjected to any greater degree of genuine competition that can in fact be avoided. All such strategies *whoever* is deploying them are aimed at evading competition without risking a direct confrontation with the competition authorities. In other words they all see OUR interests as the very antithesis of theirs. A thought to be born in mind when one feels the impulse to post defending ones favourite company - whoever they are. The only side they are on is their own.

Arctic fox
Happy

This will be interesting.

In the developing situation Apple is now (in order to maintain and evolve its position) going to have to be much quicker on its feet than it has had to be in the recent past. The company has had time between each iThingy release (because of the lack of serious competition) to get things right from the marketing point of view. As the pace of development in the market now begins to heat up they will not only have to be quicker, they will be under more pressure to avoids missteps. More importantly from their shareholders point of view the era when Apple could price their products as they liked and dictate terms to distributors (telcos etc..) is likely drawing to a close. The developments in the mobile market (phones and/or tablets) over the next couple of years are likely to make it a bumpy ride for all the majors - Apple included.

Cloudy iTunes rumors juiced by music mogul talks

Arctic fox
Happy

What are they going to call it?

".........busily negotiating with music-industry decision-makers about allowing multiple downloads of their creative content............."

" iSpotify " perhaps?

Samsung UE55D8000 55in net-connected LED TV

Arctic fox
Flame

I had a fairly positive attitude to this telly........

...........as I read through your thorough review Steve until I came to the bit about it ships with ONE pair of the specs. ONE pair with a TV that costs over two and a half grand? Sammy are extracting a great deal of urea out of customers they expect to part with over 21/2K.

Microsoft blows Windows Phone update, again

Arctic fox
Happy

Re Microsoft Staff

"......and should be thrown away with blackberry, symbian and ios."

Now Dear El Reg readers you have a chance to enter our exciting all new competition, all you have to do is guess which OS this gentleman is ast*******ng on behalf of and YOU TOO can be a winner!!

Arctic fox
Happy

Everybody having fun?

Speaking as a Desire Z owner this issue is not exactly relevant here at Arctic fox Hall but for some reason I still prefer debates with some connection to reality/facts. This problem with the latest update to the update is effecting a limited number of one producer's phones and has, at the time of writing, been reported as a problem by 100 customers so far on a world-wide basis. I.e. the proportion of customers with that OS effected are a small fraction of 1% of the total installed base. Anyone got any figures for what's typical for an upgrade for other OSs such that we can compare? In other words do we know of any OS that always updates without ANY customers having issues?

Android malware attacks show perils of Google openness

Arctic fox

@Jean-Luc: Re "Lets not shoot the victims here"

Respectfully suggest you check out my reply @Blitterbut with the title "An entirely fair point." There you will see that I had in practice already conceded your central point. However, I do think that people should, on general principles, learn a _bit_ about their shiny. Especially if they are going to use their bank card over it!

Arctic fox
Happy

@Blitterbut: An entirely fair point.

I was fulminating somewhat wasn't I! Yes, it is of course entirely possible to get caught out by a seemingly genuine app in a context where one does not have a rational reason to suspect something is wrong. Furthermore I would certainly agree with anyone saying that Google have to evaluate how they might improve security in the Market without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It is just that one gets so tired of some people not being willing to think for two seconds when they install something and then starting to howl when it all goes horribly wrong! However, I would not wish to suggest that anyone who gets caught is a prat regardless of the circumstances - by those criteria very few of us would succeed in avoiding the title "Noob of the Year"!

Arctic fox
Grenade

I do not understand what is special about this problem FCOL!

If you visit dubious sites on your pc and download freebies from them you are highly like to end up with your pc being somebody's bitch - maybe your bank account as well. What the hell is different here? The Market is in practice as open as the rest of the net and when you access via your smart phones (whose IQs are clearly higher than that of many of the owners) you are accessing it by means of a _hand-held computer_ FFS!!! Just the same as if you were using your pc. How difficult is this to understand? If you insist on downloading "My Little Porno" wallpaper or whatever and give it various permissions then your arse is going to be grass, end of. I do not understand how it is possible for anyone to be *that* stupid. Before I buy an app (like many, many other owners whose IQ is in fact larger than their shoe size and are capable of thinking _without_ experiencing extreme pain) I check out the company and the permissions the particular app requires _BEFORE_ I download and install the bloody thing. Am I some kind of genius? No, of course not. If I and many other sensible people can manage these elementary precaution what the hell is wrong with these doughnuts?

Microsoft plans June Windows 8 tablet tease?

Arctic fox
Happy

@Mark. re. ""Microsoft are doomed""

Quite frankly I think many of those who post the kind of "contribution" that so often involves spelling MS' using a dollar sign are expressing what they hope will happen rather than that which they believe *will* happen. There are of course in relation to any future for MS in tablets several imponderables.

1. Will Win8 per se be an advance on Win7 or will it get "Vistaed"?

2. Will the Win8 port to ARM architecture be successful from the technical point of view?

3. Will the UI be any good?

4. Will the compiling of such packages as Office for ARM be successful?

5. Will the devs produce genuinely good apps that run well on the os?

6. Will the OEMs produce genuinely good, attractive and sensibly priced kit to run it on?

All these questions are wholly legitimate and non-contrived issues for debate (they are of course the types of challenges that face all major software/hardware companies). However a fairly significant proportion of the postings we see are absolutely uninterested in the *possibility* that the answers to the above questions might, just might, be yes. The reason is of course very simple, they *want* the answers to be "no" because *IF* the answers are "yes" MS is likely (because of its brand recognition in the market place amongst a large number of ordinary punters) to have a major success on its hands. Given that I neither have an axe to grind nor a crystal ball I have no certain idea what the answers to the above questions will *actually* turn out to be although I am certainly interested in what they *might* turn out to be. We see the same phenomenon being directed at Nokia in other threads from the same "M$"haters/obsessives, they *want* it to go as wrong as possible for the "team(s)" they hate - rational debate about what may go right *or* wrong in this area is not something they have any interest in.

For the record: We run both Win7 and Ubuntu at home and I use a Mac at work, Mm Arctic Fox runs an N8 and I have a Desire Z.

Arctic fox
Headmaster

re Move on. There's nothing to see here.

"Competitor Apple will also show off the iPad 2 tablet, but the difference is that it will hit the market immediately, rather than in 2 years"

Except that it is looking increasingly likely that any customer who is pleased with his/her iPad 1 would be very well advised to wait for the iPad 3 before upgrading. Especially given that the kit is not exactly cheap. In other words it is not unlikely that for all iPad customers with more sense than money (rather than the reverse) purchase of the iPad 2 would be rather pointless. Kit there is no point in buying is as much vapourware (to all practical intents and purposes) as kit that never gets released from the point of view of said customers, hmm?

Elop's choice: Microsoft and Nokia take a bruising

Arctic fox

I am not interested in a WP7 phone personally......

......given that I own a Desire Z and am very happy with it. However in the interests of objectivity I have to say that on the basis of the evidence so far (total 5% of WP7 phones actually bricked, all Samsung, and all of them confined to two models I believe?) one could equally well argue that it is all Samsung's fault for being unable to build according to laid down specs. It is after all rather a coincidence that the problem should in fact be confined to a couple of phones from one manufacturer is it not? One could also point out that this is not the first upgrade from an OS builder that has gone wrong for a certain percentage of owners - hmm?

Nokia C1-01 budget voicephone

Arctic fox
Happy

I have to say that I agree.

On the basis of your description Alun and the specs I have to say that it is very good value for money. If our common back-up phone back at Arctic Fox hall, which is showing its age, (the phone - not our home!) does decide to pass over to the other side then this one is definitely a contender.

Jobs stand-in ranks iPhone over sex

Arctic fox
Happy

@JustaKOS Re Might be true

"If he's the sort of bloke who needs to dial out to arrange it, then I suppose his iPhone might come before sex."

Not forgetting *afterwards* as well when he uploads his account of the great event to ArseBook. As long of course as he keeps off the damn thing *during* thus avoiding annoying the young lady too much - mind you if he failed to take that elementary precaution he might very well end up with what we can call a "dropped connection"!

Arctic fox
Headmaster

A "physiological" need? "Psychological", surely?

Given *some* (note that I stress the word *some*) of the postings we have seen on various threads here at El Reg from *some* of the iPhanbois I would have thought that the term "psychological" need was more appropriate. Perhaps we should be consulting the works of Freud rather than Maslow? Especially given the displacement/substitution behavioural characteristics the kit seems to induce in *some* of its owners?

Flaw in MS anti-malware engine poses command override risk

Arctic fox
Happy

@Pigeon Re Foxy foxed!

"Man from mars got you there. This was a very short one, calculated to confuse.

I bet he uses a different name when he really wants to be serious."

My only problem old chap is that I fear very much that he thought that he was being serious!

Arctic fox
Thumb Up

@Ken Hagan: re "Er, but it *is* that simple"

"The horrendous infection rate within the Windows population is largely down to the fact that most end-users run as admin and willingly run EXEs that they find whilst surfing. Even *I* could crack a Windows box owned by such a user."

Thank you Ken Hagan, that indeed was, essentially, my point - although you managed to sum it up much better than I did. My point, when I referred to the (obviously ideal/imaginary situation) where Windows itself did not make the situation worse, was of course to underline exactly what you point out in your posting. The biggest threat to security is the end-user. Short of attaching electrodes to the gonads of every employee and sending X-Zilliion amperes through their reproductive equipment every time they breach security protocols I do not begin to have any idea how we tackle this problem.

Arctic fox
Grenade

@amanfromMars 1: Really? Fine. Then do us all a favour and......

.....explain in your posting what the hell you mean. Why is my posting "That is very convenient, head-in-the-sand, wishful thinking"? You have in fact said nothing at all other than that you disagree with me. Kindly, without howling, explain why. Your "reply" to my post said precisely nothing other than that you did not like what I posted, what kind of "contribution" to debate is that?

Arctic fox
Happy

Re Trusted computing and the fate we make ourselves.

Speaking for myself I have no desire to flame you! With regard to the issue of access and who gets it one has to acknowledge that this is the heart of the problem. Let us assume (hypothetically speaking) that MS had produced an OS that was as close to perfect as ordinary mortals could possibly achieve. To what extent would this really make a difference? I do not pretend to have the answer to that but my guts tell that it would make considerably less difference than one might hope and indeed this comes back to what you were discussing. The fact of the matter is that we are all painfully aware that the biggest threat to ones system is either oneself or the plank in the office next door. One is forced to conclude that although we have to keep trying the bullet-proof OS/company system is in the absolute sense unachievable. Unless of course we try and remove the human element completely, what we can call the "Skynet approach" - and we all know what that led to!

Arctic fox
Happy

Rememberence of things past - or in this case the present.

Fair enough - within the terms as you have defined them!

Arctic fox
Headmaster

Not to nitpick and all that but should the headline not have been....

..........."Flaw in MS anti-malware engine *posed* command override risk"?

In other words using the past tense rather than the present tense? Otherwise the MicroDollarSoft brigade might be misled into believing that they had yet another opportunity to log on and begin to howl about the Great Satan from Redmond. We would not wish to expose them to disappointment, now would we?

Antennagate Redux: Consumer Reports condemns Verizon iPhone 4

Arctic fox
WTF?

Re Choice: Cupertino magical reality warp strikes again:

I have always taken the cracks about the Jobsian reality warp as examples of barbed humour until I read your post and realised that The Man From Cupertino really can warp reality for a certain type of iPhanboi.

Let us take the OFF-contract price of the cheapest of the iPhone4s at Amazon: £599

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Apple-iPhone-Black-Mobile-Phone/dp/B003TQ3NCY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1298703067&sr=8-1

Let us further take an example one of the high-end Android phones the Desire HD available OFF-contract from Amazon for: £375

http://www.amazon.co.uk/HTC-Desire-Free-Mobile-Phone/dp/B003ZDP5YK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1298703126&sr=8-1

Are you seriously telling me that it is impossible to get a more reasonable deal for a Desire HD ON-contract than for the iPhone4 (16Gb, the cheapest of the two iPhones) ON-contract when the sim-free price difference between them is over 60%? Because if that is true then Apple has a deal with the carriers concerned that the competition authorities ought to be looking at on the grounds of predatory pricing or Apple is taking a hit on their *own* margins that would result in their own shareholders going absolutely berserk. I do not know what Steve has been feeding you boy but just say no, you know it makes sense.

Arctic fox
Happy

Re: Choice: Cupertino magical reality warp strikes again:

In my previous post I referred to the Desire HD as being 60% cheaper the the iPhone4 16GB. I was of course typing too fast! What I meant to write is that the Desire HD is 60% OF the price of the cheapest iPhone4 and is therefore about 40% cheaper than the iPhone. That however does not change one iota the rest of my previous post.

Arctic fox
Happy

@Asgard Re: Why didn't they just quietly fix it?!

They did not dare. That would have been an explicit admission that there was a hardware defect with the original release. I do not believe I have to spell out the reasons why SJ would sooner have gnawed his own leg off than concede *that* particular point.

'Most stupid criminal ever' blew cover on Facebook

Arctic fox
Happy

Sometimes its the perp.......

......who needs protecting from himself!

Apple 'greed' tax spreads beyond music, movies, magazines

Arctic fox
Thumb Up

@matware

"If Microsoft had taken 30% every time you ran your credit card through a web site on a Windows PC, people would be baying for blood."

Imagine it? The "I-cannot-spell-Microsoft-without-using-a-dollar-sign" brigade would be howling fit to be tied. They wouldn't just flame the article concerned, it would be a question of towering inferno!

Arctic fox
Happy

iFanbois do it for free?

There's both a t-shirt and a very near-the-knuckle joke in there somewhere!

Arctic fox
Happy

The small print in your iLease old chap.

Where its says "you are only renting your iPhone from us, it remains our property not yours".

Huawei to gift underground coverage to London

Arctic fox
Happy

Let me see now...

Deep-level tube tunnels, connectivity, iPhone. Why am I beginning to giggle?

Google opens curtain on 'manual' search penalties

Arctic fox
WTF?

Don't you just love semantics?

"For years, Google told the world that its search engine was completely objective, and only now is the company beginning to freely explain that this is not the case."

They lied, repeatedly. What else can we really call it? I do not in fact have a problem with the company having to intervene to prevent external attempts to manipulate the search results. Indeed I expect them to do what they can to keep the bell ringers from getting away with that kind of crap. What I really do not understand is their unwillingness to admit it. If they are worried that we will believe that *they' are manipulating the search results in an unethical manner then they have contributed big time to giving us that impression by lying about what they are doing!

The Doctor Who Experience

Arctic fox
Happy

It is a strange thing, how a tv program could have that effect.

I still remember the feeling of excitement on Saturday evening in the early sixties as we sat waiting after tea for Dr Who. To this day I still get a faint reminder of butterflies in my stomach if the old Radiophonic Workshop mix of the theme tune is played damn near fifty years after dear old William Hartnell first brought the Doctor to our screens.

Nokia: free phones for developers

Arctic fox

@It has started even sooner than I thought

I am not surprised that you posted that as an "ac". Especially in the light of the fact that the E7 is not due to launch in the UK until April.

Five Reasons to be cheerful about Nokia-Microsoft

Arctic fox
Happy

There is an awful lot of certainty on this thread.

I do not claim to be a greater seer than the next guy and frankly no idea how this is going to turn out. However, what if Nokia actually make this work? Hmm? A large number of people on this thread and several other threads are going to have to eat a large number of their own words, pan-fried and heavily seasoned to make them palatable.