* Posts by JDX

6847 publicly visible posts • joined 28 May 2010

Firefox, is that you? Version 29 looks rather like a certain shiny rival

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Quelle surprise... the open source Linux crowd don't value UX. That's probably the one remaining drawback of so many otherwise excellent projects - the interface is cobbled together by programmers who think that there's nothing wrong with requiring users to know dozens (or hundreds) or key shortcuts.

I understand things are improving in big-name projects though; tools like Blender and Gimp used to be prime examples of this problem and I seem to recall OpenOffice had a bit of "just put options under a menu, it doesn't matter which one".

UX IS important. Unless all your users are nerds.

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They would clearly argue it is not "for no good reason". UX, ease of use and intuitiveness are all pretty important - as important as the functionality hidden behind the interface even (because many users will not invest time understanding how to use the functionality even if it's amazing)

Whether FF's old UX was bad I cannot comment but in principle an overhaul is quite worthwhile.

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Trollface

Re: Ribbons, we don't need no stickin ribbons

Everyone's caught up with Microsoft?

Marauding quid-a-day nosh hack menaces teepee hippie villages

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Re: Does he

It's not all about calories. Nutrients and minerals and vitamins and so on are important. And 1500 calories is hardly a starvation diet, assuming you leave a fairly sedentary life.

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celebratory full English breakfast with extra black pudding

Costing more than the entire week's budget!

Faster Macbook Air pops out: What, a NEW Apple thing and ZERO fanfare?

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Zero fanfare == good

It means it's an incremental update which is good - unlike iPhone where you get nothing between each generation it's good that their PCs gradually improve spec during a generation.

Stephen Elop: I was RIGHT to BURN the PLATFORMS

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Re: At least it seems we're finally watching the MS empire slide down

Well if an analysts says it, it must be true. They hardly ever spout utter tripe.

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Re: Regret? Pah!

TBH I don't really find day-to-day problems using even WP7.8. But then I'm not a high-end user so I don't expect my 610 to compete with an iPhone. I plan to get a 1020 and am curious how my views will change when running their newest OS on their flagship handset - clearly I WILL expect that to be pretty slick.

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At least it seems we're finally watching the MS empire slide down

I'm pretty sure people said that when Vista and the XBox360 were released. It is far to early to say if this is an IBM-esque slide into consumer anonymity, or merely a dip. They certainly have the resources to weather quite a protracted stormy period and suffer numerous failures on the path to the next Big Thing, whatever that might be.

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Never seen in the same room together.

Except that Nokia has been doing lots of innovation e.g. cameras, maps, etc.

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Re: "He likes pizza and R&D. Presumably not together"

Pepperoni Programming Pizza?

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"He likes pizza and R&D. Presumably not together"

Why the hell not, pizza and late-night R&D go together like nerds and over-earnest opinions on operating systems.

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Re: What was the point of getting Lumia out in record time?

By the time Lumia came out Nokia didn't really have any customers left to speak of... getting new customers was more important.

I like WP8 and the Lumia phones but I will be rather sad not to see NOKIA on my next phone*. Cue downvotes for daring to like something that's not Android.

* well, my next next phone, I'm planning to get a 1020

Why two-player games > online gaming: See your pal's shock as you bag a last-second victory

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GoldenEye

Surely that's up there in the "defining games" category too?

Friends don't let friends use Internet Explorer – advice from US, UK, EU

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Re: And so it begins...

Yeah, no vulnerabilities in other browsers. Every time they have one of those hack contests, the other browsers emerge untarnished.

Google's self-driving car breakthrough: Stop sign no longer a problem

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Yeah, this rather scuppers the typical comments every time self-driving cars come up in the news "sure it can handle a boring empty road but what about city driving".

Very cool. I wonder how specialised the algorithms are, i.e. can they be transferred easily to all kinds of other areas automation has traditionally seemed too difficult?

Will Apple's $130bn cash infusion keep investors onboard?

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Re: Parasites

Did he seriously complain that by stockpiling money they are creating a shortage, or was that a joke?

Obviously if you create a shortage, the value of money will increase. Burn all the forests, etc.

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MacBook Pros are next to useless with non upgradable RAM and no Ethernet

You don't speak for their userbase. Who upgrades RAM on a laptop except total nerds, who are a tiny minority?

If they are still selling the things, they haven't screwed up.

Chap builds mobe based on Raspberry Pi

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Where are your contributions Daniel? Stop belittling others from your armchair.

That's right, MICROSOFT is an ANDROID vendor after Nokia gobble

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Re: Android might not be Lamborghini, but MS is certainly Chrysler

You have that backwards. NS/Nokia use Android only on low-end phones while things like the 1020 are their attempt at a supercar.

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Re: "contact centers and local Nokia Care points."

Amazon have world-class service and they don't have much physical presence. The two are separate.

Minecraft players can now download Denmark – all of it – in 1:1 scale

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Re: When your government is spending almost 60% of GDP

When your government is spending almost 60% of GDP, and has done so for years, then it soon runs out of useful things to spend money on, but you can be sure as eggs is eggs that it isn't going to decide that maybe the citizens should be allowed to keep more of their money to spend as they see fit

Or as a counter-argument, when your government is spending 60% of GDP, you'd expect their remit to extend far beyond traditional "government services", into research and stuff normally done by private enterprise.

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Re: Wait! The GOVERNMENT did this?

It might happen in the UK, but the papers would be seething about how much "taxpayers' money" was spent on it, and how many disabled toilets that could have been spent on (they have their own bespoke units of measurement just like El Reg does).

Reg hack hacked off by iPhone 5 repair notice

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Re: Genius Bar

Teenagers usually know far more about current tech than anyone else.

Look behind you, 'declining' sub-$5bn iPod. The iWatch has come... to EAT YOU

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Re: I have a watch, thank you

I used to have a Sony Walkman. Even if it still worked, I wouldn't refuse to get an MP3 player instead.

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Re: Watch for music - headphones?

Bluetooth headphones are only relevant for those who use headphones. Ear-buds are more popular and crucially, introducing ANOTHER thing you have to charge up isn't great.

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Watch for music - headphones?

As I said above, size-wise a watch could supplant shuffle/nano quite well. But wouldn't it be impractical to plug a set of headphones into your watch and have the lead flapping around? Since Apple are obsessed with style and usability they must have a solution for this?

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iPod has 4 models - shuffle, nano, touch and classic. Only one of those has a large screen... the nano/shuffle could definitely be replaced by a watch. The classic is a niche product and you can tell Apple want to push you away from massive local storage to iCloud. Touch is a subset of iPhone but I don't know if it's a big enough seller to be safe.

It's also possible the writer didn't include iPod Touch in his analysis but was referring to more traditional iPod models which are focused on music rather than video/apps.

Pirate Bay's 10 millionth upload: Colour us shocked, a SMUT FLICK

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had to hurriedly patch the backend to ensure their systems could process the extra zero

Seriously? How shoddy.

Apple's strong iPhone sales crush Wall Street moneymen's tepid expectations

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Excellent and sensible discussions in an Apple thread!

>>They've got a good product and it's brainless easy to buy from them.

Sums it up perfectly. The iPhone and especially the iPad remain excellent products at the top end of the market. I think they don't really have an edge in phones any more except in marketing, but the iPad is just so slick.

And no I'm not a fanboi... I only own an iPad for work use and I use a cheap Nokia phone... but these seem rather objective facts for the massive majority who don't need to customise their device. Obviously Reg readership has a disproportionate number of people who DO want more control.

Sony Xperia Z2: 4K vid, great audio, waterproof ... Oh, and you can make a phone call

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Re: 4k

If I wanted a decent camera I would buy a Nokia 1020.

I'm not saying this isn't an amazing phone, I'm saying 4k video recording on a phone is a pointless gimmick which only serves to fuel the demand for faster chips, more storage and greater power use.

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4k

Great, so now the shaky terrible videos you take have far more detailed blurriness and take up masses more space.

Google adds a sense of history to Street View with archive footage

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Google-hating aside

StreetView is pretty incredible when you stop and think about it, how quickly we've taken it for granted.

Microsoft to spend $1.1bn to build Iowa data center

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Re: Creating jobs

85 full time jobs. Plus about $1b spent in the region, hiring builders and so on based in Iowa.

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Re: Golf courses

Why in a country with so much space as the USA, and especially in a state empty by American standards, do they end up having to build the thing on top of something like a golf course in the first place?

'Maybe I'll go to Hell, but I think it's a good thing' says plastic Liberator gunsmith Cody Wilson

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Not a lower gun-crime rate!

Next Windows obsolescence panic is 450 days from … NOW!

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Re: Can't afford Windows 7

If you don't have money to pay for software, you're important to nobody :)

Although I'm interested in the earthquakes.

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Re: Does your software require Windows?

Obsolete versions of Linux don't get updated either, enterprise Linux versions also surely have end-of-life/end-of-support just as Windows versions do?

Just because it's open source so you can in theory jump in to the code, doesn't remove the problem... pretty few companies want to be coding their own custom OS tweaks (do they?)

Spanish village called 'Kill the Jews' mulls rebranding exercise

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Re: This message brought to you by religion

Presumably since Christianity and many other religions actually originated in the East, by "exotic lands" you mean Europe?

Fancy joining Reg hack on quid-a-day challenge?

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Not to mention all that good food thrown in bins, or kebabs dropped on the street by drunk people after closing time.

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Re: @JDX won't really taste better

"better" tea doesn't neccessarily taste "better" - it's all about preferences and taste. Many people actually prefer the taste of Fosters to some £5-a-bottle craft lager!

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Re: Sorry - not where I live

Um, so buy the things you CAN get cheap locally.

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Re: Sorry - not where I live

But you do have to pay for the salary of people running a very small shop.

Plus, it's a novelty - buying directly from a farm is not best done in a fancy "farm shop".

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Re: Tesco.

Knowing the best time to visit when they dump loads of food in the reduced aisle, you can get crazy deals - as long as you don't mind eclectic dining.

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Re: having to take a teapot to work

An in-mug infuser would use up his whole budget, you mug.

Also, it won't really taste better unless you buy expensive tea. Which is rather not the idea.

Google eyes business service in latest Fiber trials

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Phones

Didn't/doesn't Google already offer totally free calls to phones from their chat service? I definitely remember being amazed by that a few years back but IIRC I was in the US at the time and never figured out if it was a short-lived trial, or a US-specific service.

Feast your PUNY eyes on highest resolution phone display EVER

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Re: At full arm's length?

Every time I watch video on my iPad it is set on a surface at arm's length (ish).

Amazon wires up email-to-Kindle to its gigantic online hard drive

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I thought they introduced charging by the Mb for files transferred by 3G.

Samsung Galaxy S5 fingerprint scanner hacked in just 4 DAYS

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Re: As has been proved time

Hopefully the time it takes someone to do this is longer than the time it takes to report your phone stolen and have it deactivated.

Kingston DataTraveler MicroDuo: Turn your phone into a 72GB beast

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Apple's Camera Adapter kit ... a rather expensive diversion.

Not really, you can get a 3rd-party one for £5. Although you can use it to 'side-load' videos onto the device, it's a bit slow and cumbersome from my tests unfortunately.