* Posts by Mark_W

10 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Dec 2009

Metro breakdown! Windows 8 UI is little gain for lots of pain

Mark_W
FAIL

Even Apple

who are notorious for their control freakery allow you to turn off the crap you don't like on Lion - such as unnatural scrolling et. al.

And normally so do Microsoft - you could even set Windows 7 so it looked like an old XP installation. However, it seems that in W8 they're forcing you to stay in the Metro UI without tinkering under the hood to find an obscure registry entry.

It really is a recipe for disaster for Microsoft. They *really* need to put a very obvious way to turn off the Metro UI and make it look like a start menu (i.e. make it optional rather than imposing it onto the unwary user) otherwise I know most corporates just won't roll it out - the retraining costs for W7 is bad enough - this will be way too much of a change and a step too far for most large corporates to stomach. (Hell - that's why most of us are still on XP!)

In a time when corporate IT training budgets are lower than the budget for tea bags, it's something that will just be sidelined.

It could even be a serious blessing in disguise for Apple, as it will sadly give the serial IT-Dept bothering wannabe Mac Adopters more ammunition to justify the shiny shiny Macbook Air they so crave.

Crazy pot smokers get high on wireless power

Mark_W
Go

I have one of those

It's called a Wacom Tablet, with a Wacom mouse. A cordless mouse that has no intelligence at all in it, plus I can use a pen too. :)

Amazon buys Lovefilm

Mark_W

Cancelled a while ago

I've been a lovefilm subscriber for a few years, but cancelled it tail end of 2010 after I noticed more and more discs were unavailable. The Universal ones were bad enough, but in October time, a couple of the studios stopped allowing them to do Blu-Rays for rental.

Now I just use an Apple TV (v2), the Zune/Xbox HD video service, or the Blockbuster that is left on the high street and can watch what I want to when I want to.

Lovefilm's become a bit superceded now.

Standard smartphone charger to dominate in two years

Mark_W
Jobs Horns

Apple, really?

Let's not forget that Apple also signed up as part of the Blu-Ray Disc Association but we all know Cmdr. Jobs' point of view when it comes to BD. They may allow you to use a micro-USB charger, but it doesn't mean your accessories will come with a Micro USB - I bet they all still use the proprietary iPod connector.

iPhone 4: Perfect for everyone, except humans

Mark_W
Jobs Horns

It's an electroconductivity issue

I seem to remember a comment about the breaks in the case being down to seperating the different antennas that the external steel band is acting as - so is it possible that the act of holding the phone like that (with sweaty salty hands) is causing a short or somewhat between the two parts of the case causing the radio to drop out?

So the iPhone band case would insulate against this issue.

Bit of a design flaw, though, Mr Ive....

Fanbois howl over 'hang a lot' Safari 5

Mark_W
Jobs Horns

I have had issues with Safari 5

I must be one of the rare few who have had issues since going to Safari 5. Mainly on sites with flash, strangely, like Youtube.

Normally manifests itself by the browser window crashing and throwing up a crash report pane to send to Apple. Then the first time you launch Safari after that it won't load any sites (just hangs on attempting to load) so you have to force close and relaunch Safari for it to work again. I've never had it crash before and now I'm getting it every 10 minutes or so if I consistently try to use it. Have emptied cache, reset all settings but it still happens.

Apart from the Flash plugin, nothing else is loaded in the browser. So I've gone back to using Chrome which was my default anyway and I'll wait until either Adobe realise their code is shocking or Apple realise their code is also shocking. One of them'll fix it and we'll be right again :)

Apple prices up iPad for UK

Mark_W
FAIL

How much?

Nah. Too costly on a rip off $ vs £ level. Comedy pricing from Apple again forcing us to be second best in the queue and still charging us loads more.

I've a macbook and an iPhone 3G, but I'm not getting a 3GS and I definitely won't be getting an iPad. In fact, I'm tempted more and more by moving to Android almost entirely.

Government wastes millions on redundant cycle route planner

Mark_W
WTF?

They even compete with themselves

I love the CycleStreets software, and use it and BikeRouteToaster regularly.

However, this isn't the first time the government re-invent the already functional rotating rolling object called the Wheel.

You can get an iPhone app from the Department for Transport that shows you where there are traffic issues. However, you can also get a much better and functionally rich app from the Highways Agency. So that is two sections of the government developing essentially the same software. I wonder how much money got wasted doing that??

Murdoch hacks grumble over outsourced IT failures

Mark_W

Typical of Outsourced IT.

Every time I've been through the IT Outsourcing loop it's always ended in failure. To keep costs down the Outsourcing companies pay badly, and as they say, if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. But the cost to the business from lost productivity when the systems are down is massive. SLA's aren't worth the paper their printed on when the chips are down.

They should sack their CIO, recruit someone with a small amount of clue and get back skilled staff to run the operation properly, rather than cutting the corners to outsourcing. It may look cheaper, but I bet they lost more yesterday in revenue and productivity than they have made in outsourcing savings over a 12 month period!

That's a bit like the bank who scrimped on the SAN software and ended up screwing their SAN when someone extended the LUN and nearly devauling the Euro. A £500 licence cost ended up with a 7 figure fine on their bottom line.

iTunes gifts Blighty 12 freebies of Christmas

Mark_W
Troll

@The Cube

...in your opinion.

However, it takes all kinds to make the world go round. Thankfully not all like you.