Posts by Nya
129 posts • joined Saturday 9th October 2010 12:32 GMT
TIKFAM?!
TIKFAM?! Come on Trevor, you wrote it right afterwards!
8.1 is an improvement, but still not far enough
The core OS in 8 is great. Fast, stable and generally blood brilliant. The issue is that damned abomination TIFKIM. Heck, I own a WinMo phone, and I can't even tolerate it on a desktop or laptop.
An operating system shouldn't ever get in the way of you doing the work you want to do, it should help you do that better, not get in the way. A good example of how utterly backwards it is, is how the hell does a user print from Mail or even IE in it? is it on the lil ... button like on the new look Hotmail? nope. Is it on the charms bar? nope. Quiet simply they forgot the print command and it's now only accessible from Control-P...so hang on, this is a touch based OS which to do a basic feature such as print you need a keyboard and a history of old control key commands.
Am I using 8 on my desktop. Yes...why? because the core OS is as said above very good. But I am using Start8 to avoid all signs of TIFKIM. While in 8.1 MS is making steps in the right direction with the mention of booting to classical desktop and things. The current rumor mill has it that the Start button is still going to be missing and TIFKIM is still going to be the default start menu. It's not a step far enough, and currently the idea mix for ease of use and productivity is through a Start menu application like Start8.
Come on El Reg!
You missed the side by side test again an iPad we were waiting for. Where you throw them both down the stairs, then drive over them, and drop them in the bath...we need a true comparison after all :D
Sure it's infinity?
It looks more like 8 that's fallen over :P
(yes I know its a Moebius strip)
Re: Believe what I say not as I do
Digi-times covered it last week, and PCR had the same story as well. They could well be redesigning things, highly likely actually. But it was mostly caused by the fact Cook and co believed they would escape the downturn in the desktop market and built far to many. Thus having a huge inventory to clear now. But, it does point that what he is saying isn't what he is doing. All this comment is about is trying to cheer up Wall Street into increasing the magical share value.
Believe what I say not as I do
If he believed in the Mac market than perhaps Apple would be placing orders for them, oh no, it seems he's cancelled all production for the second quarter and also not given out any lead to the supply chain for anything in third quarter either. Ok yes, they are clearing inventory at the moment, but the fact Apple have cancelled production does underline the fact that what Cook is saying here, is not what he is actually doing.
Posted in Build a BONKERS gaming PC
Re: Bonkers?
The Revo drives are a piece of trash. I just got rid of one as it takes up that many motherboard resources you end up crippling half your system (let alone how slow it'll make your boot time). Use a Revo and lose a RAID controller, use the Revo and expansion slots gets disabled, use a Revo and USB3 get's nerfed down to only running at USB2 speed. And to top it all off, when I swapped the POS thing for a pair of OCZ Vectors, the Vectors smoked it in outright speed when paired up in RAID0...which worked perfectly along with all the other parts of the motherboard the naff Revo nerfed.
Samsung?
Doesn't really seem like Samsung's style in China, would of more thought the thinking would be
Who Are We ;)
Re: @Mark
Not really, they have very detailed engineering plans for all the business kit on the site you can download. The plans and designs on the laptops are amazingly detailed. They are fully detailed engineering guides, but it does seem to depend on the generation though and the product line though. If you want plans, you buy business kit. Consumer crap wise, well it's consumer crap.
Re: relevant?
Very true. Part of the channel which can are adapting to push tech support more and venturing as best they can into the mobile space. But let's face it, the small independent which makes up a huge section of the channel can't touch the direct sales in the mobile space. Apple's captive market, captive support if they can as well is just knifing the channel at every opportunity is more than just annoying now. Sourcing Apple repair parts is usually an annoyance also, but is really the only way to make a decent margin out of the Apple ecosystem.
Interestingly, we've been seeing some quiet strange "Windows 8" effect of late. Strange in that it's not quiet as expected really. Laptop wise for first time users it seems to be going ok if slow (very few first time users now). But the interesting thing is coming from old time users and businesses who have played with Ipads and other tablets, monkeyed around with Win8 on their laptops and are now buying up good old Win7 desktops and AIO's again when the old XP boxes are expiring. Maybe not quiet the expected the changes to the market, but interesting to watch what's occurring on the ground.
Urrm no
RRP of £129 - VAT = £107.50 - £86 for device = £21.50 - delivery charges, and really it's not actually that much per machine in reality. It's not bad though :)
Re: @Mage
You're confusing innovation with marketing.
Ipods. Stolen off Creative (of which Creative got very little in the way of the lawsuits) but they claim to of pretty much created the MP3 player market.
Smartphone’s. Nope, the LG Prada was out before it with hmm, full phone touch screen, rather shiny and a grid system for applications. But no, the marketing shovelling proclaimed they innovated again.
Tablets Apple copied the design off HP and released it as innovation. All they did was take a HP TC1000 make it thinner and stick a mobile OS on it. Dress it up with lots of marketing spin and proclaim they invent everything. Nothing innovative at all!
Apple doesn't innovate. If it did it might actually spend a decent amount on actually researching and innovating. It doesn’t. Just look at expenditure on research and Apple doesn’t do much at all compared to IBM, HP, MS and Samsung, hell even Nokia spend more! Now marketing expenditure ohh yes, now their it does lead the way by a huge margin!
Doesn't sound right though
"it'll have a 3G SIM and need's to be tethered to a Iphone or Ipad."
Yeah, that pretty much doesn't really sound right. As Sony (and others) have shown with Android watches, tethering is all well and good, but it is crazy for it to need a SIM in it. If anything this thing (if it even exists and isn't just the usual trash from the Apple rumour mill) is just like a Ipod Nano with tethering you can offload commands to the phone. Only another possible for it to actually have a SIM card would be if it didn't need to be tethered, and was basically just a rehashed Nano which did streaming audio...
Hang on a mo...
So yes, this combined solar/wind/power cell system works out as cheap as current power sources IF there is a national grid to channel the stuff around the country. Now, not sure totally on this but the US doesn't have one of those does it? so creating that would be an added cost. And on top of that, since this is a grid issue not about generation issue, there is also loss in the distribution also. So yes, each combo power source is not that expensive, getting the rest up and running is going to make the scheme hugely more expensive.
Nice idea though.
Is it April?
Something has to be wrong, this is sense in something regarding patents. Can't be right, must be an early April fools or something. It'll soon blow up with in fighting I am sure.
Re: Silenced?
Not Mafia, it's those dodgy Danes. There is some kind of Lego/Bacon faction against the SPB's brave Playmonaut.
While watching this weekend with baited breath for a happy ending, it is sad he hasn't been found...yet!
But I still hold on to the chance we'll find him living it up on a lost Tracy Island discarded many years ago into the Channel surrounded by hoards of Amazonian Playwomanuats and many a tale to tell.
Question...
So, the side is too thin for a SD card slot...so that must mean it's too thin for USB, so where the hell have they put the USB ports? also inaccessible round the back somewhere?
Please excuse the rant...
The problem stems from analysts, who've convinced everyone the problems we face in the channel is all down to tablet and smart phone sales "stealing" users from our normal sales areas on desktops and laptops. The snag with this wonderful look at sales figures doesn't actually show the reasons for it. Talk to the clients and learn why they aren't buying and it's a whole different reason than what the analysts and the manufacturers (especially Microsoft in this case) believe it to be.
After speaking to many of them myself (and I doubt this is just a luck that they all think the same just about, and it's some odd geographic anomaly. The real reason is the current hardware they have in the office, which has been solid for the last 5 years or more, "is fast enough". Hardware 5 years ago with the Core2 Duo and the like reached a performance level with Windows XP and Windows 7 to do everything the normal business user wanted. Look at the clients, they batter away in Office and Sage pretty much, with specialist bits of software which was written when Visual Basic was new, but the licenses cost that much they aren't ever going to replace it. Hardware now is only ever replaced when a seat fails, or new seats are needed. The upgrade cycle doesn't exist any more as bloated software isn't an issue any more.
Sales with tablets and phones are increasing yes. But these are devices being used for display, or light data gathering which goes back to the main office machines. The grunt work is all done back in the office by the minions while the tablets are out looking glitzy showing off the work done on the 5 year old desktops. They aren't going to replace a classic office machine...not for a very long time and not unless the capability of them improves a lot.
Back on topic to Windows 8. What's going to happen is it's going to sell with huge fan fair and success up till the New Year. Microsoft and the OEM's will be quiet happy and everyone will breath a sigh of relief. The New Year will hit and the big OEM's (HP, Dell and the like) will get hit by massive numbers of returns after users find it utterly unusable on the notebook's and desktops which they bought. Retailers will refuse to sell it on anything but a tablet, and the OEM's will by Q2 selling all machines using downgrade rights used and shipping with Windows 7 already installed. Microsoft by now will be in panic mode since it was "totally unexpected", and all the belief in the analysts which keeps on telling them it wasn't anything to do with them. By end Q3, maybe early Q4 Service Pack 1 will be out, and will give users finally the option to enable classical desktop or Metro (I refuse to rename it no matter how much tat), and Sinofsky will be leaving MS to "work on personal projects elsewhere", or possibly a "family reason".
I would love to be wrong. Sadly though, it is all fitting awfully into place though :( As for Channel sales? we're screwed! Support and selling other things is where we have to go. Backing Android mostly as it has the choice of devices and open walled selling system we can earn a living off.
Analysts don't know anything
No one bought a desktop because every PC in the company's we sell too don't want to upgrade, as there is no need. The hardware has been at such a point for the past 5-6+ years, that software no longer needs better hardware to run at a level that's comfortable for the user. Company's now only buy systems when an old one dies, or new staff come in and need more stations. The PC market hasn't gone anywhere, it's just now reached a point of of total stagnation due to no need to replace hardware every couple of years as the latest version of software, runs just as fast as the old one. And with current OS's like 7 being smaller and faster than Vista, and 8 being faster than 7 (ok not like anyone's going to use it), the need for new hardware isn't going to come anytime soon.
Until hardware makers bring something new to the table (not something utterly unproductive like touch, gestures or any of that tat), than the market will linger in stagnation. What is installed is good enough. No need for new hardware at all. And all this utter trash about the wonders of tablets is nothing without actual market foundation. As a display device yes, people are using them. But for work, they are going back to the office and using the hardware the companies have had for years. Yes, it's a growth market at the moment, but as a replacement for the hardware in the companies? no it isn't.
Analysts don't know anything about the real world or the state of what or why thing's sell in the channel. Everything they say should be always taken with a huge pinch of salt, and even then with some rubber gloves on due to the amount of BS they shovel.
For the channel, it's a hard position. We can push selling machines for lower power consumption. We can push machines to look prettier in the office. But until someone gives a proper reason for clients to need new hardware this situation will continue. Meaning those in the channel need to diversify and adapt to keep ourselves going.
Re: Windows Phone still works
Cheers for pointing that one out thanks. And bloody kicking myself for falling for that other one also!
Re: Windows Phone still works
If it ever worked. It is nothing but one line of text from a story with a pile of adverts. It's crap, no other word for it (the Reg's app, not the Phone OS before some snide fanboi from the other camps starts).
Posted in Myspace mutates Windows 8 with new look
Interesting, but will fail
Ok, it's pretty and shiny (which usually sells things), but in the realm of social networking sites all the really matters is that it has all the people you know on it. The same problem Google+ had, yes people looked, but never went back to it. This will be the same, people will sign up to see how shiny it is, then go back to Facebook as it's where all the users are. Sadly a catch 22, but one a redesign won't fix short of it allowing a user into Facebook through it...which yes, defeats the object of the site.
Posted in Smack your phones up, says Microsoft
Re: That's actually pretty clever.
The HTC one is not this, it's shutting the phone up by turning it over...same output, but a different method of doing it.
Innovation
Lets face it, Apple doesn't invent anything. All they do is trawl around at others ideas and stick them together in something pretty and sell it with immense marketing muscle they have. Yes all credit to that, but invention, innovation isn't part of Apple for the last 15+ years.
Innovation is to actually invent something. Have a look at HP and the memristor. Hell, even MS is more innovative with the Kinect.
As for those wittering on about Samsung stealing Apples idea's. Look at the court cases in every location (including here in the UK) where Apple tried and got slapped down for it. The ONLY reason they won in the US was the utterly screwed up patent system and the fact the trail was down the road from Apple HQ.
With Apple's abuses of the patent system they could probably get away with claiming they invented the wheel and fire. Imagine a company claiming a patent for brewed beverages from hops and trying to screw everyone else. That's Apple!
Pfft Planes!
If we're looking at future tech, why not just scrap the things all round and use a space elevator...45mins up into orbit, 15min to platform Oz side, and 45mins back down. Problem done. No space for planes, loads faster, and cleaner all round....a few technical issues to sort, but easier to get done that having things carrying aircraft around built at every airport on the planet....and a damn load more future tech like for 50 years time than what we have now but with fluffy bits!
It's not even a snail...it's a dead snail, it's fallen off the leaf, it's no longer of this world, it's an ex-snail...
Re: "Windows 8 costs them $85 to license"
While there are no prices on RT, I wouldn't put it past the same as what MS did for XP for netbooks with it selling to the large OEM's for $7 a license (again guess work). Your $85 is based on old school full copy of OS license pricing which these days MS seems to be shifting from. The sub $15 price is where it needs to be though, as that's what MS is charging folks for using Android, so if Win8RT is cheaper than Android, it has a better chance of selling it.
As for the Surface...as much as I loathe Win8 in a desktop or laptop, if that price is true for everyone to get our hands on it there's no question I'll get one also. Loss leader maybe, but the big profit maker and enterprise seller will be the full tablets which won't be anywhere near this price. And odd how MS isn't looking at selling one of those itself is it? Seems MS is going to leave the full blown tablet in the hands of the OEM's...for now anyhow.
Hang on!
"high-technology crimes unit"
So basically Apple's personal police force get's used once more.
You do know...
this is only work on probably future x86 mobiles.
Guess gives another reason for buyers, but doubt it'll be used much since x86 phones aren't exactly commonplace yet...seems more like Intel looking for another bit of ammo to try and get people to make x86 phones than anything else though.
I actually like it!
Ok, going to be rather unusual here...but I actually like it. Much nicer than Gmail and the interface feels very desktop mail client. Shame about the calendar and file storage thing going back to old Hotmail style, but over all it looks good and feels very nippy to use. I few lil quirks that hopefully they'll sort out, but over all I prefer it greatly over Gmail so far.
Panic!
Panic! Panic! Panic! Global warming causes avalanches on Saturn's moon!
Re: "They did not invent."
HP TC1100...10.4", rectangular, rounded corners...called a tablet. Released in 2003 or something. Apple has never invented anything. Copy, patent, and then advertise they invented it as the patent says so yes. Invent? no!
Very nice!
Think that's going to make a nice xmas prezzy! Will be interesting to see the pricing if/when it'll appear over here (well other than through the usual Chinese import site known as Ebay).
Re: Service Pack 1 (win8SP1)
While it's all well and good chasing new market share in the tablet/mobile devices. The issue here is all about how MS has done it. They've torpedoed the desktop and laptop market completely in the hope of scaring people off them onto the new devices. It will probably work, the issue is in these markets they are not a dominant force, and while some will shift, most will jump to the two biggest OS's in these markets.
8 on a production machine, designed to actually do a task where users simply use a mouse and keyboard isn't fit for purpose. The under laying OS is great, and has a lot of fantastic features. It's just that we can't get at them with the utterly backwards GUI.
We'll see some interesting things once this launches...lots of licenses sold first quarter after release, lots of triumphant acclaim and back slapping. Good sales on tablets. And quickly followed by the desktop and laptop market falling like a brick and HP and Acer and the big OEM's only shipping Pro versions so they get them shipped pre-downgraded to 7. Lot's of fuming at MS, and within a year from now Sinofsky will of gone due to "family reasons" and yes the SP1 will get the more classical Win7 desktop back on it.
Justice?!
"Apple has made a clear showing that, in the absence of a preliminary injunction, it is likely to lose substantial market share in the smartphone market and to lose substantial downstream sales of future smartphone purchases and tag-along products," Judge Koh said in Friday's ruling.
So let's get this straight, Apple can get anything banned from sale in the US, delay a court case into the new year so the busiest sales periods are missed, just by saying whatever product which hasn't been found to be, or even looked at yet could damage sales?! Screw the patent system, this is guilty before before being proven innocent. Really shows how the US justice system is utter screwed in favour of a US company!
Posted in Retina Display detachment
Where's the surprise here?!
And the surprise here is what? Apple screwed it's user base over with the removal of ADB (Apple Desktop Bus) ports and AppleTalk ports back in the day. They then did the same again removal of the FDD as mentioned in the story. And they did it again with changing their own propriety video connection, and needing adaptors for Firewire. And heck, we've all been reading how Apple's busy hiring connector folks to redo a smaller connection for iDevices.
So why is this a surprise? Apple screws over it's users every few years to either extract a nice wedge on top of the huge amount they've already paid over the odds to be able to use any equipment they currently own. Or be forced to buy all new kit. Apple never loses out of this, it's win win for them every time as very very few ever think bollocks to it, and go elsewhere.
Meanwhile, we all know Acer and HP have both announced (think it's about 3 months+ back the story now) the removal of optical drives on pretty much all laptops now in the holiday season...which isn't an issue. But none are removing Ethernet. And HP still offer on some of the business spec built to order machines a RS232 port!!!! and I got a lovely i5 off HP last year shipped with *shock horror* a Floppy Drive!!! yes it came at the cost of the card reader, but for the job at hand, it was necessary. Heck, image Apple doing that couldn't you!
Cutters are so last century!
What you need is flame thrower! One of those portable camping gas tins, a few left over parts off LOHAN and you're sorted. A LOHAN GAGA merging...could call it something like urmm BRITNEY :P
Had something similar
I got some Kingston USB flash drives...perfect packaging, and the drives were identical. Issue was they were all coming up with 2-4GB randomly changing sizes (were meant to be 16GB's). Being curious looked up the chips in them and yep, totally dodgy knock off's which soon made there way into the bin. But lesson learned stick to the big disties in the channel. The smaller cheaper ones usually tend to have a reason for it. But that said they were perfect looking fakes down to the correct barcodes for the product and the card and finish on the packaging. Was quite impressed how well they were done.
Issue is it's already in Win7
Scare thing is, Windows (probably Office also) has built in localisation locking. They never enabled it in 7, and not sure if it was in Vista or not. But back on the release of 7 when they discussed the feature the feeling was it would hurt international flyers who's copy of Windows would cease working when they landed on the other side of the pond as the license wasn't valid and the machine would brick itself in good ol' black screen of death licensing issue style. From this move, it seems this issue has been fixed sadly now....or as a side idea someone's come up with a lovely pop up when you land outside your region of it asking for more money...but MS would never try that would they :P
Re: WP7 does seem a bit "Marmite" doesn't it?
The main reason (well until MS shafts all the users when 8 comes out) is updates being out of the hands of phone companies trying to get to force a new phone on you. Sadly only the Jesus phone, BB and WinMo do that now. Even the Nexus seems to keep getting the previous version forgotten about by Google for a few months.
While not a huge issue currently, sooner or late the massive fragmentation, and lack of security updates is going to hit the phone market like it has the full blown PC market. And when that occurs, it'll be nice to have something getting updates.
Am I a bit paranoid on this? probably yes. But hey, WinMo is Marmite. Love it, hate it, makes a good door wedge :P
Re: Re: Wait and see...
Extensively. The under laying OS is great. The issue is the bloody awful GUI on it which will result in no one ever being able to get any work done ever again. Tech will have there ear's bitten off if they try to give anyone the tat MS is shovelling with Metro. It's simple, give the user an option to disable Metro and all would be fine, but no! MS is forcing it on all users and as such it's going to bite them so hard on the ass it'll make Vista look like a midge bite compared to the great white shark dangling off there asses when 8 lands.
Wait and see...
"With the upcoming release of new Windows 8 PCs and tablets, the next version of Office, and a wide array of products and services for the enterprise and consumers, we will be delivering exceptional value to all our customers in the year ahead."
Yeah, at which point we'll see the usual large sales to the OEMs and the whooping and back slapping of it being wonderful, quickly followed by the OEMs not being able to give it away and huge panic setting up, heads rolling (but doubtful that it will reach Ballmar) and sudden listening to the actual customer base that 8 is a huge stinking pile of a GUI disaster that MS's core market doesn't want! The same with Office but on a more costly scale.
6 months later downgrade options are extended, and also extended to the standard edition since that's canned as badly as the pro version, we then get a service pack on 8 which will give us a proper desktop and sales gradually return but the markets that ticked off with it we'll get a fast tracked version called 9 along shortly after with Metro an option on install. Meanwhile Office gets a fast downgrade option and a follow on version also fast tracked with a none touchy feely interface.
The only highlight, if that's actually what it will be will be RT which gets a decent push from the big OEMs but still doesn't get market appeal due to lower cost and better featured Android devices which will finally be entering the market after the Android OEMs have finally learned high price devices don't sell again an Ipad.
They think Vista was a big disaster? it's going to make the 8 disaster look like a speed bump!
Posted in Punters want BBC iPlayer in TVs, not 3D
My perfect telly!
Exactly. Stick in a built in freesat tuner, iplayer, 4od and whatever it is those things ITV and 5 use and also add on support for Netflix and Ilovefilm, a load of hdmi ports and usb for adding your own drive to record onto, and it'll be my perfect tv!
3D pfft, not wanted!
Back on topic...
Well unlike everyone here who seems to utterly be in fanboi flame or rant mode I might as well try to get back to the main topic where the Reg is actually very accurate. The channel is being utterly abused by Apple. Yes by supplying the channel they get around the whole closed market by only selling by what they control through there own site, shops and authorised partners. But the way they have treated the channel for years is nothing but distain.
Lack of supply, pricing so uncompetitive you can't match there own store prices unless you want to make a loss. Or if you are very lucky you can mak 50p profit on a £1500 Macbook Pro which is a complete piss take, and for many of us yet another reason to boycott Apple kit. Let alone the fact the company is a bunch of evil bastards.
I know it'll sound like fanboism, but Apple needs to learn how to deal with the channel in a similar way to MS does. Ok get licensing issues, but on a whole we can ignore that as they actually help everyone in the channel to make a profit, and lets face it that's what all of us in the channel what to be able to do to pay for yourselves and make a living. The same is pretty true also with Linux, it's far easier to make a living out of selling it than Apple kit. It might not be pretty or shiny but who gives a stuff if it will pay our wages!
XPE
On the embedded systems it could prove interesting as there is a huge install base of machines using XPE out there, which haven't an upgrade path at all. Getting Linux to work on some of these things as a possible upgrade path is nothing but a pain in the behind and a huge downgrade in performance. But then again, on an embedded system it shouldn't really be that huge a problem to just keep rolling on...hopefully!
Am thinking of it more as...
basically a close range wireless system which has a screen and battery in glasses frame, which sends all the grunt work to the Android phone in the users pocket which is providing all the processor, connectivity and storage....an add on for the next Nexus maybe and Jelly Bean?
Thanks for the above
Cheers for the above comments on the GPS stuff...off to find one now :)
