BBC Micro program

The program for creating your own Ceefax clone was called SEAFAX. The last time I was mooching around the emulator sites nobody had got a copy uploaded.

"Building a redundant SDP would be very expensive, especially considering how rarely it would be used"

It would be £10,000 cheaper if you didn't blow your money on Battersea Dogs Home.

two points of view

While I don't agree with the extradition issue, I think the guy and his mother need a reality check if they think he's done nothing wrong.

Did she not even question the £147,000 he raked in? You don't get that kind of dosh from a website and Google ads.

In the never ending battle of the entertainment industry of the US versus the internet and the way they use the US legal system did he honestly think he'd be completely safe from prosecution? Maybe he should have read The Reg and seen all the stories that have been published over the years.

Maybe we should do a trade?

Deep sea creatures in return for Celine Dion?

Simcopter

Bring back Simcopter!

@ rob44

I think the "bigger picture" when it comes down to fossil fuels is efficiency when its burnt.

I don't know the current figures for how efficient a car is, but perhaps it's more efficient for the fossil fuel to be burnt in bulk at a power station rather than in each individual car.

101 / 111

This is only going to cause confusion. First we have 101 for non emergency 999 calls, now 111 for non emergency medical calls. What next, 121 for non emergency fire brigade calls - cat stuck up a tree, smoky neighbour's bonfire? What about 131 for non emergency mountain rescue and 141 for non emergency coastguard?

Payment for chores

Rather than shooting her laptop, her dad should have made her listen to the Godawful song "No Charge" by J.J. Barrie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwWNCVLysKY

as long

as there are people willing to pay full price for one e-book and an "official" case rather than a cheap Ebay copy or know a mate with a DVD full of thousands of e-books.

Orange Monte Carlo

I noticed this alongside the Orange Monte Carlo. Although it's £119 in the Orange stores, is currently on sale at Argos for £80 (if you can still find any in stock that is). I'm a little confused at why Orange has released this model, unless the Monte is too "big" - the screen does look rather huge alongside it.

Playmobil or Lego

Has to be the latter, purely to send this into space:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_QIkHRKCv-3Y/SiM03gMPhMI/AAAAAAAAAoo/gFPj8n-vfbs/s400/Darth04.jpg

That's no weather balloon, it's a space station.

Homebrew Dizzy

I was quite active on the Speccy PD scene in the 90s when the fall of communism (indirectly) led to the explosion of home made Spectrum clones and some incredible programmers. I think we had about a dozen unofficial homemade (but still incredibly made) sequels around at the time.

Kogan Vs Transformer

I had an Asus Transformer tablet first. Beautiful piece of kit but so expensive.

I then got a smaller Kogan tablet direct from them for £80. Works beautifully, much more compact and manageable, fits in the pocket far easier rather than carrying it in a special carry case, and at that price I don't care if I drop it or sit on it.

My list...

Mr Atari2600 creator

Matthew Smith

That is all

Talking about the next product

Are you sure Jobs wasn't rambling about the old NeXT?

Original Teletext

Was brilliant. The BBC did Telesoftware, Channel 4 did 4TEL and lots of related content from their 80s computing programme 4COMPUTERBUFFS. Then Bamboozle and Digitizer in the 90's when the licences changed.

Small engined diesels

The problem with small engined diesels is that they are generally used around towns and on short runs. The problem with diesels is that this kind of use fills the engine with crap. Yes, diesel particulate filters will help a bit but soon get clogged. I've seen loads of small second hand cars with clogged EGR valves and Diesel Particulate Filters which look like bargains but cost several hundred pounds to get sorted.

"better" voices

No, the only appropriate voices are default or none at all. "Comedy" voices are funny for about two seconds, unless you're Colin Hunt (see Fast Show)

The media reported

people laying flowers outside Apple stores. I don't understand why anyone other than a close friend or relative would do this.

@ Alan Buckley

My Orange SF is the same. I have the screen set to auto-dim and turn off bluetooth and wi-fi when I'm not using it. I only have to do a couple of charges a week.

@Disintegrationnotallowed - The Reg always gives budget Orange Android Handsets a very favourable review.

Limited car fitting

Its all very well but we're slowly losing the ability to fit third party stereos into cars, unless you get third party manufacturers making surrounds to allow them to fit. But my experience has been they tend to look a little cheap and out of place from the original - particularly if its curved. And on my current car - Peugeot 407 - removing the radio would mean everything in that region - climate control, and some car settings - would stop working.

Looks nice

But need to see it in a hand to really visualise the size.

thin USB flash drives

have always been a little dearer than the usual sized:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/LaCie-iamaKey-USB-Flash-Drive/dp/B001V7XPSA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313583573&sr=8-1

Chrome Deployment

I've just overseen a deployment of Chrome on over 300 machines at my place of work and have recommended it to sister organisations. The reason we went for Chrome is simply that Firefox seems to have become bloated and is very difficult to configure for multiple mandatory and roaming profiles and Group Policy, whereas Chrome was a doddle.

Angrybirds on Orange SF

Runs well if you upgrade to a ROM like Japanese Jellyfish and make use of SetCPU.

x-com's 8 bit successors

Believe it or not, UFO Enemy Unknown almost made it to the Spectrum.

During the 1990s when the Iron Curtain had fallen and people were building their own Speccy clones, I ran a PD software library and was once sent the preliminary code and part working bits of a very good Spectrum version.

@ code monkey

Maybe you'd think otherwise if someone was masquerading as you to avoid prosecution for a crime, just like the bloke on that fly on the police-car show on Channel 5. He was stopped for driving offences and gave a false name. The cops used the fingerprint gadget on him and soon found out the truth.

no confirmation on "request"

When the girl puts in "10" there's no confirmation. Seems a bit odd.

Another 2K3 user here

Could it be that Microsoft finally got it right with XP and Server 2003?

@jonathanb

Yes, in theory its a good idea to dump Microsoft in favour of an open source office app, except that the licensing usually encompasses Windows & Office bundled together - (ours here does, so we pay whether we use it or not and there's no discounts) And then there's the third party software writers who (badly) write their apps to look for and work only with Adobe Reader and Microsoft Office applications.

Follow up to "a fine won't work"

I've had a better idea:

The public should be allowed to take over the paper and print as much muck and dirt about the usual staff as they can:

DO YOU KNOW REBEKAH BROOKS? DO YOU HAVE ANY SEEDY LITTLE STORIES ABOUT HER? CALL OUR HOTLINE NOW AND WE'LL CALL YOU STRAIGHT BACK AND GIVE YOU ££££££ EVEN IF ITS NOT TRUE - WE'LL STICK IN A TINY APOLOGY AT THE BOTTOM OF PAGE 41 IF ITS FALSE.

A fine won't work

When you have a nation of morons willing to pay it for the company by buying their papers.

The only way to hit the company where it hurts is to ban them from publishing - a sliding scale from a week onwards, depending on the crime or lies they've published. And if they use page 1 to tell a lie, they should use the same page and font for the apology, not tucked away at the corner of page 20.