Posts by Tony Smith, Editor, Reg Hardware

Official feedback: it works, but it's not recommended

I put Quddus' question to Devolo, one of the suppliers of powerline Ethernet kit. Here's what Peter Huddleston, who looks after the company's products here in the UK, had to say:

"We discourage surge protection units as these incur heavy noise onto the powerline which in turn affects the signal. Yes, sometimes they can work fine, and users experience no problems - but still we discourage.

"The actual devolo adapters have an integrated fuse so if there is a power surge, the adapters are independently secured."

And with that, and the other responses, that's this question answered.

Re. international shipment

I asked IronKey directly, and they said ThinkGeek would ship the product overseas.

Re. Price

All the prices were there originally... blame an overzealous sub-editor and a glitch in the edit kit code for their absence.

The full price list is now present.

Re. Maths

If the new value is 135 per cent of the old value, that's an *increase* of 35 per cent, Dan.

Sony said the *increase* is 135 per cent, ie. the new value is 235 per cent of the old value - 100% of x plus 135% of x.

Re. Warranty

Fair point, and one I perhaps should have made.

Mind you, it doesn't cover data loss, and how you convince a company their drive's stopped working becuase of a manufacturing fault, and not because you dropped it, is anyone's guess.

Still, it's an indication that Seagate is confident in its FreeAgents' longevity that it's willing to cover them for five years.

Re. Sony

No Apple, Sony or - for that matter - any company bashing here on Register Hardware. If a firm messes up, we'll say so, no matter who it is. Readers are free to bash away, if they wish.

Who The Register choses to bash - or not - is its own business.

Re. Fishy...

Nothing fishy at all, Mark.

The 2:1 ratio applies to sales of each console since introduction. The 6:1 ratio was simply June's figures, IIRC. This is what you'd expect given the fact that the 360 has been around a lot longer than the others, so is favoured by long-timeframe stats.

Re. Real world benchmarks

You can find Register Hardware's powerline Ethernet reviews here:

http://search.reghardware.co.uk/?q=powerline+ethernet+review

There's a fair bit on powerline here too:

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/04/10/how_wifi_working_again/

In general, you'll get 15-20Mbps through an 85Mbps link, and 40Mbps or more through a 200Mbps link. Both are faster than Wi-Fi. I've never noticed any appreciable speed loses when I've used more than two powerline adaptors, but there can be an issue here if you use lots, say 16 more more because that's the maximum number of links each unit's memory can cache.

Assuming my house is typical - ie. ring main upstairs, ring main downstairs - I have no problem getting a powerline device upstairs talking to one downstairs.

Various points

No, the score was not subject to the provision of a review unit. That's never the case, nor would we accept such terms.

I had no problems with the management software freezing, or random non-mounts of drives. That said, I didn't try to put the connected laptop to sleep, so I can't comment on failings there.

As I note in the review, the SC101T's ability to get data back after one of the drives is in a mirrored config is next to useless, so arguably the unit shouldn't be used for its claimed data-security properties. I didn't point it out - though some of you have - that the proprietary file system means you can't stick the drive in another machine to recover the data.

But then this box isn't aimed at people who are worried about that. It's for folk who want a single place to keep bucketloads of files they can then access from a variety of machines around the house. In that respect, it works admirably. Yes, data is slow to copy over, but that's the mirroring - switch that off (see the above para) and the performance is rather better. Read performance was fine, I thought.

As I noted in the review, what the SC101T sets out to do, it achieves. Most of the commenters' problems with the system would not be a problem with a NAS box. But then the Netgear isn't a NAS box.

Re. OSX freezes

I have to say I haven't experienced a single instance of Mac OS X crashing when removing the Tempo, under either 10.4.9 or 10.4.10.

It sounds to me like a driver software clash. Anyone else experienced this, or know of a solution?

Re. Accurate

Other aspects of the story's likelihood aside, 3G really is no longer a size issue. I have a Sony Ericsson W880i here. It's not much big and certainly no thicker than an iPod Nano, and it's a 3G device.

I'd also point out that Guy Kewney has been writing about technology for major UK publications since the late 1970s at least. His record of breaking technology news over here is second to none. That doesn't guarantee he's correct in this instance, but I'd take seriously what his sources are telling him.

Re. Hamster Wheel...

What this one:

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/10/04/usb_hamster_wheel/

Re. How Deep?

It goes down to 3m (10ft), apparently.

Certifying/banning movies, games, the news, etc

It's worth considering what the sales ban is all about before asking why other, equally violent media are allowed on our screens.

Cinema's generally don't allow kids in to see films like Hostel, Saw etc, so here you have a way of imposing the certificate in order to protect youngsters, as we should.

DVDs are trickier and, like games, can easily be purchased by an 'adult' who then passes them on to kids. Balancing the right of an adult, who can be supposed to be able to make a rational decision about what he or she watches, with the need to protect kids is incredibly hard, and debate on video has been raging since the early 1980s and still hasn't been resolved. Nor will it ever, I think.

Generally, the BBFC is tougher with video certification than movie certification - demanding more cuts, for instance - because it knows how easy it is for 18-certificate videos to fall into the hands of children.

So why not let Manunt 2 out with an 18 certificate? Two reasons. First, as the BBFC said, the game simply can't be cut to make it certifiable. Many, many movies and videos are not given even 18 certificates until cuts have been made. The studios make those cuts, and onto the shelves go the videos.

But there's something more important here than mere cuts: games are not videos. Watching a movie is, largely, a passive process. Playing a game is an active one. Watching someone die horribly with spiky things in their heads is not the same things as putting the spikes in yourself, albeit virtually. In one you're a voyeur, in the other you're a participant.

Now, what about gunninng down people in a first-person shoot-'em-up? Surely that's no different than Manhunt 2, and that's allowed? No, because the context and setting is very different.

You aren't going to meet Nazi stormtroopers, aliens, monsters, zombies etc in real life, so there's no assocation between the game and the real world. Manhunt 2's problem is that you prey on people who are very difficult, visually, to distiguish between folk in the real world. We grown-ups can appreciate the difference, but it's not at all clear young kids can.

My four-year-old thinks Doctor Who is real. In a few years he won't but he probably won't necessarily make the same distinction with a 'realistic' show like EastEnders. Or Manhunt 2.

As for the news, again its about context, and there are plenty of things broadcasters are not permitted to show, and why we have the 9pm watershed. Like DVDs, it's impossible to be sure kids aren't seeing inapproprite material, but crucially not of it is interactive in the true sense.

Re. just pay your $1500...

WWDC is not a press event? So why does Apple let all the other rags in?

WWDC *is* a press event, Apple's equivalent of Intel's Developer Forum. We've written some highly critical, close-to-the-knuckle stuff about Intel before, but the company has *never* refused to talk to us, and regularly invites us to IDF. AMD gets a bit prissy occasionally, but it soon passes, despite comparable commentary.

Apple is just being silly.

[Comment written on a year-old MacBook Pro with two lines of dodgy pixels on the LCD and a right-hand fan that rattles like a baseball card in 12-year-old's bike spokes. Build quality, we've heard of it...]

Re. It's no iPhone?

Rich: if the iPhone performs like the Touch, I'll slam the iPhone too - probably more so, since the Apple product promises even more than the HTC does.

Surur: I'm sorry, I don't believe the Touch was not influenced by the iPhone. I'm sure the hardware was been in development for some time, but I'm convinced that if Apple hadn't announced the iPhone, the Touch would appear as the P3450 - which is its default Bluetooth ID - with a standard WM6 UI.

If TouchFlo has been in development for two years too, I would hope it would extend deeper into the underlying OS than it does.

Re. the question nobody seems able to answer...

Andrew:

Parallels Desktop 3.0 supports OpenGL 1.5 and DirectX 9, Parallels says.

Re. Heat saving

Very good point, Ken, and one I intended to raise but inadvertently admitted. Running MPEG Streamclip and HandBrake to encode H.264 files gave the MacBook Pro's fans a mighty thrashing - this was a system you could tell was working *very* hard.

The Turbo.264 just felt vaguely warm during testing.

Re. widescreen

Mea culpa.

Yes, the iMacs do all come with widescreen displays. Blame an early morning, pre-caffeine mis-reading of Apple's iMac Tech Specs page.

Tony

Re. VoIP

I tried VoIP, but without much success. There's an Internet Telephony app on the handset, but I just got a 'no internet call services' message when I ran it. I tried Fring too, but it failed to install. This was on an N95 not tied to any network but with an Orange SIM fitted.

Re. Pointless

Weeeelllll... since the Apple TV is a Mac OS X box, it should be able to run the Mac version of Slingplayer. Installing it won't be easy, but it's certainly possible, and with a bit of tweaking to cope with the Apple TV's limited input device, ie. the remote control, it might just work...

Anyone fancy giving it a go?

Re. bias

Charting programs do this sometimes, but the numbers clearly present on the chart put AMD's advantage into context, ie. a 16.4 per cent lead.

Re. Not availale without a contract

Have a look here:

http://www.expansys.com/p.aspx?i=141528

This is the Huawei E220, the USB HSDPA modem T-Mobile and Vodafone are offering with their own names on the front.

Currenlty £184 inc VAT, down from £230. All you need is a SIM.

Re. BTW... the survey they did that says we wanted BD???

Sorry, Kain, but BDs are outselling HD DVDs in the US, or were as of 18 March, which is the last set of stats I've seen.

Nielsen Videoscan numbers put the number of pre-recorded BDs sold this year to 18 March at 549,730. The equivalent figure for HD DVD is 249,451 - fewer than half the Blu-ray number.

Total sales of discs to date is BD: 844,000, HD DVD: 708,600.

Unless there has been some major HD DVD sales since then, I can't see the BD vs HD DVD content ratio shifting in HD DVD's favour.

Mind you, both figures were undoubtedly microscopic compared to DVD sales...

Re. CPUs losing range?

This should explain it, Matthew:

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/04/01/cpu_time_dilation/

But please note the date on which the story was published...

Re. Spoilers

I don't think this is a film you're going to spend much time troubling over WHAT happens at the end. HOW it ends is another matter, and you'll have to pay your eight quid to find that out.

Re. Unlocked?

Good question, Ian. I can confirm that the F3 was tried with both T-Mobile and Vodafone SIMs, and it worked just fine with both.

No great surprise, perhaps, since Phones4U is offering the handset with airtime packages from different carriers and I doubt it would stock two versions of the same handset, one for each carrier. Especially when all past cheap Motorolas have been unlocked.

Re. usability

I did discuss how well the touchpad works for dialling, texting and navigating around the KE850's user interface. But you make a fair point about web browsing.

To fill the gap, then, the browsing experience isn't up to much. The handset's a GPRS device, so it's not a fast downloader, and the web browser app doesn't do an especially good job. It's fine for small-screen centric sites, such as Google's mobile page, but runs into difficulty with sites designed around monitor sizes.

Re. Gameplay

Hi, Lawrence

Gameplay's dependent on the game, not the console. It's the hardware we're looking at far more than the software.

You'd never say the PC was a bad gaming system because you don't like Doom's basic 'find key, kill monsters, open door' gameplay, would you?

Or maybe Register Hardware *should* be reviewing games?

What do other readers think?

Tony

Editor, Register Hardware

SuperCard

Folk interested in the HyperCard saga shouldn't forget that the app wasn't alone. SuperCard followed not long after and was pitched as a more powerful alternative.

It's since had a long history of different owners, but has managed to stay the course and is still available today in an updated, Mac OS X Universal Binary form from its current owner, Solutions Etcetera.

More info here: http://www.supercard.us/

Re. Review? What Review?

Sorry, James, you'd lose your bet. Reviewer Bill Ray had the N800 for rather longer than you suggest. I had a play too. I think the write-up of his experiences with the gadget cover all the areas you mention.

Re. Prices?

The Core 2 Quad Q6600 officially costs $851, according to Intel's website, Jack.

That said, it's rumoured to be planning price cuts in Q2, which *should* see the price fall to $530.

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/12/21/intel_quad-core_price_cut/

Tony Smith,

Editor,

Reg Hardware

Re. What I'd like to know...

Hi, Trevor

If a product's manufacturer says it will work with Linux, we'll mention the fact in a review. When something's a USB Mass Storage device - which Linux can handle, IIRC - we say so too.

However, we can't connect every other device to a Linux PC on the off-chance it may work. That said, we always welcome contributions from readers who've tried a product and found it works with Linux, and I'd invite them to post their findings as a Comment to a review of the product.

Comments are here for readers to ask questions and provide their own take on any given gadget.

Tony Smith,

Editor,

Reg Hardware

Re. Sending via bluetooth

I does indeed work. Again, the process isn't straightforward, and Mac OS X told me the device claimed it couldn't take the file, but over it went and I now have a handful of MP3s on the Treo to test the Bluetooth stereo support.

Thanks for the info, Mike.