Posts by dz-015
200 posts • joined Tuesday 27th April 2010 15:56 GMT
Re: Choices choices...
So then you get 10 developers working on 10 products used by 1 person each, instead of 10 developers working on 1 product used by 1000 people. Great.
Interesting article, elegantly written. Staggeringly display of ignorance in the comments though - maybe Reg readers should stick to commenting on code- and science-related articles, as they certainly don't seem to have much understanding of UI history.
Personally I've never come close to grasping why Linux developers spend so much time and energy constantly recreating the Windows 95 interface over and over again. It's a terribly sad waste of resources.
Re: mint is really doing things no linux has done before
"mint is finally pushing linux to the point where it's acceptable for daily use by non technical people"
Yup, so long as they're trapped in a nightmarish past where user interfaces never made it beyond Windows 95.
Oh dear, I see all the Google fandroids were first into the forum today.
Everyone's talking about what Google Glass can supposedly do for the user whilst missing the far more important point, i.e. how this will enable Google to turn far more of us into products for its advertising business. Combining this with GPS, face recognition and visual recognition of other objects will enable Google to accumulate location and product data on hundreds of people per day against their will, just from the visual/location data supplied from one user wearing these damned things.
Paranoid? I hope so. But if anyone wears a Google Glass anywhere near me I'll be politely asking them to remove it.
Re: Independent ISP...
"The only catch with Zen is their data caps"
Absolutely. I was actually with Zen for a while, and I moved from them to O2. With O2 I've had just as good a service as Zen for far less money and with no data caps at all. It's been fantastic. That's why the Sky takeover sucks so much.
I'll consider moving back to Zen if their data caps are less silly than they used to be, but I'm certainly keen to look into other alternatives too.
As an O2 customer I've been finding this very sad, partly because I don't want my prices to go up, partly because I don't want the quality of my service to go down, and partly because I don't want to help line Rupert Murdoch's pockets. I'll be cancelling my service and attempting to move to an independent ISP, but there don't seem to be many of those left nowadays.
Re: Cancelled shows
Firefly is available. Futurama is most definitely _not_ available.
"Only" 10 billion dollars in profit? Yup, that's a company that's really sliding down the toilet.
Company profits rise and fall over time. Share prices rise and fall over time. It's NORMAL. Enough of these stupid hyped-up articles already!
Re: another advert for supermicro?
It's quite sweet in a way, watching young Trevor get excited about discoveries of things that experienced Reg sysadmin readers have already been using for many years.
You might want to learn how to spell before you start criticising the intellectual capabilities of others.
I have no idea why anyone in their right mind would ever use Orange for anything nowadays. They truly are an awful company, and their broadband service is so diabolical that they would actually have to pay _me_ quite a lot of money to use it.
"The blacklists supplied by the not-for-profit organisation are used by ISPs, large corporations and spam filtering vendors"
And small businesses, and individuals who run their own mail servers.
Re: "In fact, it thinks 3G connectivity is not all that different from 4G."
That's the weirdest misspelling of "those" I've ever seen!
Re: modern technology @dz-015
"Give the kids an appropriate understanding of how they (computing devices) work"
Why? Most kids don't need to know how a computer works. They just need to know how to use one when they get out into real life. I'm able to cook a decent steak but I don't have a clue how to farm cattle.
iPads aren't just about consuming media. They also function as photo editing devices, electronic canvases for artists, all-in-one recording studios, and so forth. Not only do they provide a cheap way for kids to have a go at all sorts of exciting creative activities in addition to everything else they can do, but the act of kids seeing just what you can really do with technology and how far you can push it is important in itself.
I'd argue that this sort of stuff is way more important for most kids than whatever the modern equivalent is of learning how to program BASIC on a BBC Micro.
Re: modern technology
So you think kids should be plunged into a technological black hole in which they leave school literate and able to write a story or draw a picture, but with no clue how to operate a computing device?
Yes, that really sounds like a great idea.
"money that could have been used to hire a competent CompSci teacher"
It could be argued that it's far more important for all kids to learn how to use modern technology properly than it is for a few geek-kids to have an extra computer studies teacher.
Re: Inexcusable
Yup. Totally pointless article. The bottom line is Microsoft is badly managed and promotes a culture of incompetence, much like the software they unfortunately keep trying to inflict on people who don't know any better.
I can't imagine why any normal person* in their right mind would pay over a grand for a laptop running a system as restrictive as Chrome OS. This product seems like utter madness to me.
* Yes, I know _you_ will install Linux Mint on it (although good luck getting the window manager and all your applications to work properly with that display). By "normal person" I mean "average person in the street".
Posted in Review: HP Spectre XT TouchSmart
"HP is not copying Apple and the look-and-feel of the Spectre XT TouchSmart is nothing like that of a MacBook Pro."
LOL.
"the company you dearly love is being ruined"
I've never loved HMV, and as far as I'm concerned they ruined themselves decades ago. Perhaps if they hadn't done their best to monopolise the market with stupidly inflated CD prices for such a long time then they might be getting a bit more sympathy now. They failed to move with the times and now _they_ are having to pay the price. Too bad.
So basically the manager who was most likely given a backhander by Microsoft to force the engineers to use this crap says that the project has been a success. What an amazing surprise.
"Because the old Star Trek films were deep cinematic masterpieces? Come on, I love ST but it's just trashy sci-fi."
Star Trek and Star Wars (the original trilogy) both had decent characterisation, emotional depth, values; things Abrams does not really seem to recognise, which is why he is not qualified for either, let alone both.
Sigh. So now all Star Wars and Star Trek films are just going to be shallow, overblown JJ Abrams films with some minor cosmetic differences. What a total fucking disappointment.
Re: @ dz-015
"Jeebus christ man, calm down. You'd think he'd posted rumours about your leather clad donkey fetish, not gotten his facts slightly wrong about the TV licence system. Idiot"
Every single time there's an article on here about TV-related stuff there's inevitably a discussion about TV licensing leading to some idiot trying to tell people that they need to have a TV licence if they have equipment which is capable of receiving live broadcast TV. I've seen it so many times, and not only is this rumour incredibly misleading and annoying because it potentially disempowers people, but it's also generally irritating to see people posting nonsense because they haven't checked their facts first. Posting nonsense due to not checking facts qualifies you as an idiot. Getting annoyed at people posting nonsense due to not checking their facts is not idiotic. So you're the idiot for calling me an idiot, because I'm not one.
I tried Lovefilm but cancelled it because the interface was so awful. Currently on Netflix and sticking with it because the interface and streaming is much better. I hope the selection improves over time. In the meantime I use other sources to watch the stuff which is missing, which I feel is perfectly acceptable.
Re: Don't have a Tv Licence... Love Netflix
"I thought you needed to have a license as long as you owned equipment that was capable of receiving a TV signal"
Well why don't you check your facts instead of making assumptions then spreading rumours which are wrong. Idiot.
"CalDAV and CardDAV methods, which are widely supported by industry"
Really? Which industry?? Certainly not the one I work in, sadly.
What about tea?
Coffee isn't the only alternative to Coke. We're British for Christ's sake - we're supposed to like tea.
I don't know or care how Google does it.
Yes, perhaps best not to think about it; because, if you actually consider it for any length of time, you might find yourself feeling a significant degree of concern about handing over so many intimate details of your life to a gigantic faceless entity.
So with Mint you get the choice of a GUI that's an unimaginative rip-off of Windows 95, or... a GUI that's an unimaginative rip-off of Windows 95. Wow, what a tempting plethora of options.
Seems surprising they didn't include Rez.
Yay. Another window manager that's a clone of Windows XP! How innovative - just what the world needs.
Posted in Ten Linux apps you must install
Re: I've been using Linux since mid-late 1993 (Slackware).
Downvoted for using the stupid, annoying and unnecessary word "grok".
Re: Multiplayer game based on Elite?
"I believe it's called Eve Online"
Don't be silly. One of the compelling things about Elite was that you piloted the ship yourself in real time. When I first encountered Eve I got very excited, assuming it would be the same. But as soon as I discovered that it was all just point-and-click autopilot stuff I immediately lost interest. Without requiring the skill of flying the ship yourself it all seems very dull.
I very much hope this new version of Elite comes into existence.
Re: Thou shalt not go against the word of Jobs?
Fair enough, but there's no need for all the nasty and inaccurate personal anti-Jobs comments in this forum just because the aesthetics of a boat are not appreciated, for Christ's sake.
Shame about all the pathetic Fandroids jumping in here with their anti-Jobs comments. Also a shame that Steve never got to enjoy his boat.
Posted in Apple iPhone 5 review
"Is there something in my Android phone that I can activate to make me despise iOS? If so, I suggest a lot of you turn that feature off, because you sound like morons."
Well said. I'm reaching the point where the constant, vast outpourings of bile from "fandroids" in these forums is actually starting to put me off reading the Register altogether. It's entertaining in small doses, but now these people really need to start getting a grip.
Posted in Fans rap Apple's 'crap' Map app
"What makes you think Apple will be mining any less data than google?"
The fact that Apple is in the business of selling hardware for its revenue, whereas Google depends entirely on turning its users into advertising products for its revenue.
Posted in Fans rap Apple's 'crap' Map app
Apple isn't trying very hard to collect scarily vast amounts of data about me to use me as an advertising product. Google is.
Posted in Did GM food cause GIANT TUMOURS IN RATS?
Re: GM Food is fine because...
I think people with life-threatening food allergies might disagree with that incredibly ignorant statement.
Posted in Fans rap Apple's 'crap' Map app
It was blatantly obvious that the new Maps app was going to be worse than the old one, so I don't have an awful lot of sympathy for those who went ahead and upgraded without thinking about the consequences.
I'll stick with iOS 5 on my iPhone 4, since iOS 6 seems to make pretty much everything worse. A bit of an odd situation really. I would look into the Android option more at this point, but I have no wish to use a product which allows Google to track me even more than it already does.
"our resident BOFH Trevor Potts' enthusiasm for the software is unbounded"
That's probably a useful clue that I should give it a miss then.
Why would anyone want to defy this policy? In fact, it should be rolled out across the entire world. Just imagine how much nicer Britain would be if chav families could only have one of their appalling offspring instead of the usual 12.
Jolly good. They can stick their stupidly- and inaccurately-named "awesome bar", along with all the other components of Firefox, back where they belong. Firefox on Mac has long been a slow, bloated piece of crap, and I've certainly no wish to abominate my iPhone with it.
Re: Sysadmins are the Janitors of Computer Systems - what do you expect?
"I do not dislike sysadmins but they are very much weak in seeing the big picture of things"
Hey, just because the author of this article is incapable of seeing the bigger picture, don't tar all of us sysadmins with the same brush please. >:(
Posted in Ten movies inspired by video games
They'd probably ruin it, but a film based on Speedball/Speedball 2 _could_ be fantastic, in a gritty, violent, retro Rollerball type of way.
"the slightest impact and they shatter"
I've had an iPhone 4 for over 18 months, dropped it numerous times, and it doesn't even have a scratch on it. I don't even keep it in a case.
The buttons, sadly, are not as robust, though they are quite easily repaired.
"Have you tried swapping out the video card on a Mac Pro for a better one"
Indeed I have. I paid the extra for an Apple one in order to avoid all the hassle of buggering about with the firmware etc. The point is that THIS WAS MY CHOICE, and I could just as easily have bought a Windows/Linux PC instead of a Mac Pro and had the choice of doing things differently. This is why Apple DOES NOT HAVE A MONOPOLY. You might want to read up on the definition of the word "monopoly".
Re: An opposing viewpoint!
Oh, and I now buy Apple products in John Lewis because they give a two-year warranty included in the price, unlike the Apple Store where it's only one-year and they refuse to acknowledge the existence of the Sale of Goods Act.
"Apple ... takes the most egregious of Microsoft's monopolistic practices and raises them to an art form"
Not really, since Apple don't have a monopoly on anything so far as I am aware, as opposed to Microsoft who were successfully prosecuted for having a monopoly _and_ abusing it.
The other difference is that Apple make decent products, whereas Microsoft make pretty poor quality products then rely on monopoly abuse for profit. Not saying Apple are perfect, but this is a very important distinction.
"Apple is toxic to the computing industry"
I don't really see how this can be true when they make great products and don't have a monopoly on anything. People always have a choice, and Apple leads the way in terms of making huge efforts to make things people really want, thus driving the computing industry forward rather than holding it back. Whilst Apple aren't perfect, it seems a bit silly to say that a company behaving in this way is "toxic" for the industry.
