Posts by Law

Re: I disagree

"I never got the appeal of machines commanded by voice. If you've got to speak to it why don't you just tell another person what you want done."

Me: "Wife - Xbox on!"

Wife: "Husband - bugger off!"

Me: "Wife - open Titanfall, and snap the football"

*wife throws xbox at husband*

Not sure you've got a solid plan there. These things are always solutions looking for a problem - until you get used to them, then it's just an expected feature.

"I don't use gmail. I never have

But Google still scans a lot of the mails I send or receive"

But that's a different issue to the one I was addressing... The act of scanning incoming mail from other providers isn't new. If you don't want Google to scan your emails don't email Google users. Or if you do, make sure you encrypt the message.

I understand the expectation of privacy in email to a point - I expect it too, but all free providers do this to a point... But email is fundamentally unsecure.

"this time, Google really means it"

Dunno why, but that actually made me chuckle evilly.

They were also running out of numbers on the Nexus line for phones...

Re: The Facts..........

I had an mp3 player that did one click rip and copy - it was definitely before the iPod, wasn't a creative device, and was one of the easiest things ever to use. It was also card based so you didn't even need a USB cable and install drivers... Just plug it into a reader.

I then got a a creative nomad Zen (awesome little device)... First time I enjoyed carrying all my music around with me.

My only bad experience with ripping and copying was with a net minidisk player by Sony... It was horrific software that was loaded with DRM and prevented you from listening to tracks you "checked into" a minidisk. Artificially limiting mp3s to mimic physical medium, to "protect" themselves from piracy. Even then though Sony released and then tried to ban a standalone application that ripped and copied whole CD directly to the netmd, including tags, side stepping the concept of a library on the PC.

Re: Why in the hell are any of us stupid enough...

"Migrate now or you will be out of business pretty soon. The. Net stuff is for idiots, even MS Cannot manage to depend on one runtime version, SQL Server 2008 needed two versions of the runtimes, FFS!

Nuff said!"

Some of us in the real world don't have a choice. A lot of the client side software I write is c++, and some .net. The reason? Customers use Windows. All of them. Nobody has ever requested a linux or mac flavour. Not a single one of our customers use anything other than XP and Win 7. The reason for that? Validation. They all work areas where the OS (as well as our software) requires validation, both internally and often through government bodies. Sad fact is, Windows is standard for most client software. There's simply no business motive to make it cross platform. There is absolutely no chance of the business going under - none at all - for not supporting mac or linux.

I will say this though - as a company we're putting more functionality into setups where processing is done on the embedded hardware we sell, and therefore we can use more lightweight clients. Some decent JS frameworks means we're moving some stuff to browser based clients - it's slow going though, as it relies on customers to move with the times and validate more up to date browsers, and there are some things you just can't do from a browser that need to be done on the client - like cuda processing with massive datasets).

Personally - I don't have a problem writing .NET applications. I like CS, and I much prefer .NET to the java framework (which incidentally has a ton of runtimes too, plus a million add ons like java3d).

The .NET runtimes aren't massive in size/number. I'd also point out they (MS) don't try and trick you into installing Ask toolbars every bloody update either (I'm looking at you Oracle! *waves fist*).

Never used SQL Server, but my guess is it'll be bundled with various tools that were developed independently - hence the different .net targets... it's not rocket science.

Before I get slammed as some sort of microsoft groupie or something, I will point out for the record that I'm posting this on a machine totally free from microsoft software, with Eclipse open tinkering with some Java code.

Re: AV for Android

"And only the REALLY gullible think there are is no Android malware."

I know there is some android malware, but I also know I'm not stupid enough to install it, or think one of the "authentic" virus scanners is going to do anything more than giving me a false sense of security (which is what this is doing anyway).

The fact these people bought into a virus scanner that has bugger all access to anything important on your phone means they are the type of people who would install a virus willingly then blame the platform for the security "flaw". You're only as protected as the weakest point of entry... sadly for a lot mobile users (and PC) the user is the weakest point. That's true of any platform, not just android.

Re: Nice to see where things are going, but for now.......

"Kind of interesting, but how many hours of viewing do you get before you go over your broadband usage cap"

You still have a cap??

Not weird at all... I used to just open and close my 3a just to get another sniff of it. Still vividly remember the smell now.

Re: Google to keep Motorola's Advanced Technology group

"Google is a data collection company - not a development one"

If you're splitting hairs then technically they're a advertising company. Data collection/development are the processes by which they target/sell more ads.

Re: 3D still being filmed using 2D methods?

I get what you're saying, the use of blurred foreground debris flying in front of a scene is very annoying in some films as your reaction is to look at it... And since you can't focus on it the stuff rips you out of the moment. I was just saying the point of 3D film wasn't to have an all-in-focus experience... Just to add depth... Hence the 3rd dimension atop of X and Y.

There are techniques with post and at capture processing to mimic all focused video, but film makers like to direct your gaze to the story and I'm guessing it'd be very expensive.

There are some major crimes against cinema with poorly done 3D films, but doesn't make them all bad.

To the downvoter, you could at least reply with your theory on what the 3rd D is.

Re: Religious Tolerance in the USA

"Well, I, for one, would not have wanted to be a muslim in the States in the aftermath of the September 11 detonations."

...... detonations? They were planes... not bombs.

I agree with the initial assessment, but I'd suggest it would have been much worse for muslims in Iraq & Afghanistan than in the US.

Re: So fix it!

"Firstly, the entry barrier is a lot higher for someone with almost zero knowledge. Back in the 80s, you switched on your machine, the BASIC prompt would come up and off you went, usually with something like:

10 PRINT "Hello World!"

20 GOTO 10

RUN"

I don't believe it is higher. Today we have the net - google "learn programming" and there are sites out there that let you instantly start typing into the browser in the same way you did that with your computer. They also can track your development, you can choose simpler languages, more visual languages, more complicated concepts. You also have millions of people that can answer your questions.

A good example is this:

http://www.w3schools.com/js/

On top of that, computers are cheaper and more widely available than they were back then. I learnt basic, but I learnt it at school because we were way too poor to own a bbc micro... that self-learning on their machines also got me banned from using the computers at school. That stunted my learning of programming quite a bit and I almost forgot how much I enjoyed it for a year. These days they have schemes to get computers to poor families, libraries have them for free. Schools these days won't ban you for simply writing a bit of basic that had an infinite loop in it.

I miss the good old days too, but I am also excited about the opportunities modern tech will provide my two kids that I never got. I'm also looking forward to helping them through it too - something I never got with my parents, who didn't (and still don't) understand computers.

Re: Errr

Or pay slickvpn (or a million other VPN sites) less than 20 dollars for 12 months of unlimited access to any site in the world from any country.

Hell of a lot easier than aws and scripts... takes 2 seconds to hit connect from US option.

Re: Fixed

[continued]

As a subject, writing only appeals to a limited set of people – the aforementioned opinionated weirdos.

There’s a reason most journalists are portrayed as somebody who wouldn't know their arse from their elbow when depicted in the media. It’s because if you leave the dim writing nerd in charge of putting words to paper, he'll start muttering to the world, and others might actually believe the bollocks he writes.

Re: Who the hell cares?

The hair doesn't fall out over night - usually if you're going to go bald you normally have some sort of warning via family members losing theirs too, basically you come to terms with it way before it's gone.

"Paying users won't notice."

They will - the only time I ever have problems watching video is when using legal methods. I want to watch the Daily Show - region locked to US (fair enough I guess, but annoying as hell). I want to watch Netflix - device doesn't have the required hardware security chip to play it (WDTV Live Hub). There are loads of examples I can give, but why bother, these are ones that bothered me recently.

The alternative? Type "Next Big Film Title* 1080p torrent" into a search engine**, wait 20 minutes, copy to WDTV box, away we go, and for free! The only people this sort of crap affects is paying users, and maybe the first wave of crackers who love the challenge of bypassing (if not entirely cracking) media security anyway.

* Not an actual film title

** Google, as if you'd use Bing!

Re: re: *

Providing you also get the option to change your mind back (at the cost of wiping the phone clean) I'm all for this idea. Hell, I'd love to give win phone a go on my nexus 4 if they (Microsoft) released a rom or something for it... I may not stay on that platform, but I'd give it a go.

The problem (I've seen) with the more expensive winphone-only phones is you are asking people to give up what they know and take a chance on an underdog platform... I've yet to even toy with one, and I'm a gadget whore and always jump on the chance to play with these things.

If they made it less risky for flagship phone buyers (like going back to android if they hate it) - I think their numbers would increase a lot as a good portion will probably prefer it if done right - as in, all usual win features available to the install (and stable).

Re: Are people idiots?

Don't mind ads on the web, hate ads in apps on my phone. They take up more room, slower for older phones, and it'll cheapen my Nexus experience.

Having said that, it's an ad touting company, so get why they would do it... but I'll be switching to an ad free client (paid for if needed) until they revert the decision.

Re: Run As Administrator

"Have you tried running Win8 as a normal user."

You should try enabling family settings, just signing in is a nightmare. All the background services, manufacturer plugins/spyware/junk all triggering parent permission screens one after another.

Re: Due Diligence

"If they had bothered to try out a Surface for themselves they'd have known it was shit."

I had one as a toy (through work) to tinker with.... tried to use it as a daily tablet. It wasn't horrific, I actually liked it. I'd never pay what they were asking for it though, that's why it bombed I think. They were asking mid-range laptop money for a fairly limited heavy tablet. Sub £/$300 and they'd have had a decent response to it I think.

My main issues were fixable with the current gen... the number of stability bugs in the software/drivers (wifi randomly stopped working constantly and requiring reboots to connect again), and the snap-on keyboard-cover died within a couple of weeks of use (replaceable no questions asked by MS though).

No longer using it though, gathers dust in the office with a sign saying "free tablet".

Re: What they say and what they do.

"That was an issue at the time; cheap PCs were still a magnitude more expensive than a reasonably powerful PS2 with otherOS available.

these days a similar raspberry et al will suffice for many of the homebrew ideas (apart from the oddball clusters people were building with PS2's)"

You mean PS3's right? ;)

Back on subject - I'll probably grab a ps4 when they drop a little in price. Don't get enough gaming time now I have kids these days to justify a full price release-day console. :(

I'm a current 360 user, but I won't be getting an xbone.

Re: Onroad parking would be better

"If people can avoid driving into parked cars"

That's a big if.