Posts by Timbo
106 posts • joined Wednesday 6th June 2007 17:52 GMT
Best file manager? Has to be XTree Gold (for DOS) :-)
Re: "200KW of solar panels .. about the same as .. the panels around the ISS"
A large solar array collecting sunlight and converting it to electrical energy sounds OK, as long as you can keep it directed towards the sun and it doesn't become damaged as you are accelerating along.
Maybe a better idea would be to have a very small nuclear reactor on hand to create the electrical energy ?
OK, so it would need a lot of shielding, but it could be packaged into it's own re-usable craft, and use it a bit like a railway shunter, moving "cargo" around the solar system.
Re: Sadly, the under 40s
<quote>......(phones were hardwired - no plugs and sockets)</quote>
I seem to recall in our house, on the end of the phone cable was a big 4-pole brown plug that was like a 1/4 inch (6.35mm) headphone jack, that pushed into a small brown box on the wall.....
Was this "non-standard" or maybe just used on those properties deemed suitable for such forward thinking connectivity ??
Posted in The ten SEXIEST computers of ALL TIME
obviously, we're talking about REAL computers, so the omission of the SGI Indigo and Cobalt Networks RAQ's is a shame......and I did have a soft spot for the Atari ST...
personally, I always thought the computers used in "Time Tunnel/Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea/Lost in Space" TV series were wonderful, full of flashing lights and whirling tape drives.... :)
Re: Introducing a new definition of "a few"
>>The cassette-based Walkman was introduced in 1979
I remember selling the first Sony version of the Walkman in 1979, when it was called a "Stowaway" and had the model number TPSL2.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkman
Of note to Apple might be the fact that, in 1982, Sony made a product called a Watchman.....except that this was a portable TV, rather than something you wear on your wrist and listen to... :)
Mesenger (aka MSN, back in the days) works very well...
...it has a low bandwidth "overhead" (allowing it's use over a laptop and mobile tether connection via 3G), it allows you to block one or more contacts, (so you can stay "offline" to those you don't want to "appear to") and it has a nice range of options so you can save your chat history, add a few extra "emoticons" to your library (which are great to use when chatting)...
Skype on the other hand is a VOIP client with "chat" added on.....difficult to use and not worthy of serious consideration for "chat" - maybe dropping MSN is to appease the shareholders to justify M$ hefty $8bn investment....??
Either way, there's now room for an alternative to MSN...I wonder if Yahoo Messenger is still going?
El Reg is nearly as bad with typo's as The Grauniad
Exchange rate error ?
"The under-fire Osaka-based firm, which predicted losses of ¥250bn (£1.92bn) for the year ending March 2013, has been looking to offload staff in a cost-cutting exercise.
.
.
Sharp will be forced to record the ¥25.3bn (£19.47m) expense as an “extraordinary loss” for the third quarter of its financial year ending March 2013."
So, I "get" that ¥250bn is £1.92bn - but how come ¥25.3bn (roughly a tenth of 250bn) only gets me £19.47m..... ??
I thought one billion is a thousand million....maybe it's been decimalised and devalued and you don't get as much back, for lower values :)
"But pairing an ARM processor with a GPU – essentially a modern-style, outboard math coprocessor like Intel used to offer in a special socket for x86 CPUs before they were brought on-chip with the 80486SX and Pentium chips......"
Errr.....not quite true - the 486DX has the FPU built-in.
For the 486SX, you had to buy the the 487SX, to get an FPU, (though by plugging in the 487, it then disabled the onboard 486SX.... :( )
mmmmmmmmmmmm
So, I guess it's a question of whether Irish men will be able to tell if they are in a 4 GEE "spot" - and whether the women of Ireland will be saying "a bit to the left, nope, you've gone past it, back a bit.....ahhhh.....THAT'S IT...just THERE".... :)
I so enjoyed playing "Hexen" and "Heretic", way back when......and more recently "Assasins Creed" and the "Final Fantasy" series.....
Seems to me.....
that Apple only do things that THEY like/want......and Apple will fight against anyone who argues that the Apple way is wrong/incorrect/unlawful etc
Personally, I think Apple (in it's legal dealings) has just grown too big for it's boots and is seeking to "boss" anyone it chooses, based on it's own interpretation of "events" - maybe it's time some high-flying big-wig Apple employee was held to account for the contempt they have shown (to the UK Court) and incarcerated somewhere under Her Majesty's Pleasure (sponsored by Samsung/iFone/Google/Viewsonic etc) ;)
Won't a AMBIT or CISCO cable modem work?
I had a VM account until recently (when I moved). I had the Samsung V+ box (for TV) and for broadband, I was provided with an AMBIT cable modem and Netgear WNR2000 Wireless-N router.
(These worked well until the AMBIT failed and they sent me a CISCO 2100 as a replacement).
Can anyone confirm if the AMBIT or CISCO will work above 20Mbs ? If so, then these are available off ebay for around £10-£15 - then just connect up to any standard router (not an ADSL type).
OK - it doesn't resolve the SuperHub issues, but it's a work around until someone at VM or Netgear sort out these issues.....
Yet another trade mark case on the horizon ?
Given that BMW own the "Mini" trademark, how will Apple cope with loads of German lawyers itching to grab a share of the spotlight ?
Maybe they've already been to Cuportino hence why Apple didn't call the New iPad the "Series 3"..... ??
So, who's wrong ?
To quote El Reg "A speaker on the car-sized robotic vehicle was used..."
To Quote CMF: "From what i can gather, it doenst have speakers...."
(OK so the pedants will say it has only ONE speaker, rather than "speakers")
Re: wind sensor fault
>>Yeah, you should send your own probe to Mars, show them how it's done.
Well, if I won consecutive Euromillions and National Lottery draws and had the income of Soros, Beckham, and Rooney I would.
Just because I can't send my own up, doesn't for one minute prevent me from having an opinion about the designers of Curiosity who appear to have misjudged the problems that their choice of landing the craft would have.....
I'll wait until the final report on what probably caused the sensor fault...
wind sensor fault
quote: "One possibility is that pebbles lofted during the landing hit the delicate circuit boards on one of the two REMS booms," said Curiosity deputy project scientist Ashwin Vasavada.
When I saw one of the first pics showing the top of Curiosity, my first thought was "There's a load of unprotected wires on the top there".....and other reports of the sensor fault claim it might be down to "cut wires"....
Given the method of landing meant a lot of surface material was going to be thrown up the the Sky Crane, you'd have thought that someone would have ensured that these wires were protected. I also wonder if these exposed wires have good enough "outdoor" properties to protect them against heat/cold etc.
No problems here...
...have had a T-Mobile business account for about 7 years now - except in the odd rural area, I've always had good signal coverage, so this news is welcome - coz now, I don't have to manually switch networks if I'm in an area where the signal is weaker than usual.
errr....but what about the moon ??
I thought it was known that the moon has water on it - so why go to the bother of capturing asteroid(s) when the moon is just a short distance away, and we know where the water is....so its not a wild goose chase....
Once they have the infrastructure in place on the moon, then they can capture asteroids, and crashland them near to the moon-factories.
I'm not that surprised...
I think the issue here is that a lot of "branded" products (or just some of their component parts) are out-sourced from other suppliers. And given the lead time between design, prototyping, standards approval and production, it is very likely that the designers and engineers who worked on (say) an item that went on sale in 2010 are now working on the models for 2014, perhaps even for a different company.
So the chances are that the cost of re-employing engineers to tweak the firmware is too high for the brands - esp if they don't actually get any financial return for doing so (apart from customer loyalty).
Perhaps brands could offer firmware upgrades at a fair price just as the satnav brands do when they offer new maps for their devices....at least there'd have some clawback then :)
PS A friend of mine bought a Sanyo digital TV with built in Freeview just a few years ago....and guess what - it was only capable of receiving the 2k mode broadcasts so when Freeview went to 8k mode, the TV tuner stopped receiving broadcasts and there was no firmware upgrade path.
Sounds like MS have a devious plan....
...which is to force an once successful company to rely on them to produce the software for the Nokia hardware - and once Nokia "fail", having been designed the hardware for WinMob, then MS come along and buy them up cheap - giving MS their own hardware platform.
Then MS can compete with the likes of Google (who have Motorola), Sony (after buying out Ericsson) and Apple.
My guess is that there'll be plenty more Android devices coming along soon, esp as processor improvements continue and the Chinese producers keep making them, and that within a short space of time, even the cheapest phones will be Android based.....and in that case, I can't see how MS will make any money from their phone software.
Re: I am disappointed
A friend of mine told me the perfect food for Pi Day - it's a small round flat bread, with tomato paste spread upon it and then cheese melted on top, of radius "z" and height "a" and whose total volume was described by the formula V= pi x r squared x h = substituting in the above formula gives us "pizza"..... :(
(yup, I know it's lame - personally I prefer Pi day as 22nd July, which is more mathematically correct than 3.14)
More income to help pay the celebs ?
example #1: I "pay upfront" to buy a CD or a film on DVD. I have no choice in this, unless I illegally download from the 'net - and I can watch them at any time I like - I don't have to have been to see the band play or go to the cinema.
example #2: I "pay upfront" to use my TV in the UK to receive broadcasts - whether they are from BBC, ITV or anyone else. I have no choice in this, if I want to watch ANY TV.
The licence fee funds the BBC and the programs it makes or commissions. As licence fee payers have "paid" for these programs already, then they should be available for free, unless one chooses to buy them on a different form of media.
If people outside UK want to use iPlayer then a charging model sounds reasonable. After all, overseas people didn't fund the creation of the programs. But charging UK residents for use of iPlayer is quite wrong and seems to be just another way for the BBC to earn extra revenue.
The question then is: would this extra income be used to subsidise the TV Licence fee - perhaps, even reduce it at some point - or is it just a case of the BBC accountants looking for additional income streams at relatively low cost (apart from a server farm and lots of HDD space to put all these programs on - but then they already have that and we've already paid for that too....).
And ultimately, do we get more quality programs (from this extra income) or just more dross - I'm so sick and tired of all these reality / talent programs featuring 3rd grade celebs....
Posted in Starship Voyager dumped into skip
..and the designers website is still going...
Last updated: December 2011 - http://www.24thcid.com/Default.asp?xa=1
Posted in Starship Voyager dumped into skip
Hasn't he been trying to sell the place already?
I seem to recall seeing a TV news item about this place - it's certainly been featured on a few news programs in recent years - and IIRC, he had put the place up for sale (with it's Star Trek theme intact) some time back.....
Seems the ex-wife has given up being patient and wants her share of the money back.
Seems a shame to just "bin" it - eBay would seem to be a sensible option http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/meh_32.png
Posted in Sonos Play:3 network music player
Still seems expensive...
So, for £259 you can get a mono active speaker? - and if you buy two, you can then have stereo ?
But for £399, you can get a Sonos ZP120 and still have change (from £518) to buy a half decent pair of "branded" bookshelf speakers...ie Wharfedale Diamond 9.0's for around £60/pair.....which is what I did....
Posted in Cello C42T71DVB-3D 42in passive 3D TV
typo?
I quote from the article:
The very first dialogue window cautions the user: ‘Please ensure the aerial cable is pluggeg into the tv.’ Pluggeg? Any thoughts I had that this TV has been had been built by erudite British boffins quickly vanished.
What's this "has been had been" bit about then.....??
Posted in Stephen Fry's truly terrible mistake
Yet another poor piece of journalism....
All we ever get from Mr Orlowski (on the subject of DAB) is complete and total "it's pants" opinion.....it's almost like the same old record being played over and over again....
IMHO, for most people DAB works very well - it's not strictly "hi-fi" on many stations (excepting Radio 3) but as most people aren't actually listening to it "intently", and simply have it on in the background, whilst doing something else, it's more than good enough....
And in time, if the techie bods want to improve the DAB radio broadcast standard, then fine.....after all, it's happened before on TV's - going from 405 to 625 and now to HD.....the only difference is that that took 40 years...
So, Mr O...give DAB a chance....and stop boring us with your completely over the top ridicule of it.....it's SO repetitive...and so predictable.....and it's hardly worth reading.....
Streetview car near Cambridge, UK
Astra + camera on top, but no Google signs on doors, spotted driving North along Waterbeach High Street (in Cambridgeshire) at 10:15 am today....wonder if the camera was switched on as it passed, coz it would show me waving at it...!!!
Posted in Ice in fuel caused Heathrow 777 crash
@James O'Brien
>If they cant remove the water by other means why not just freeze the fuel before it leaves the refinery? If it forms ice there then surely that would get rid of it?
They could do this....but you should also remember that airports store massive amount of fuel which then get pumped into planes either directly or using a bowser....
And refueling can take place in all weathers and not all seals are 100% - so a bit of rain water or condensation could in theory get into the plane fuel tanks, even if the refinery got rid of any water beforehand.
Just seems like one of those things, coupled with an excessively cold region that the plane went through en route.....
Lessons hopefully will be learned....
@Steve VanSlyck
>> I have calculated the largest prime, also the largest Mersenne prime: infinity...
I counter that, coz I've just come up with a bigger number, which is your number (infinity) plus 2......
So, you can counter sign the cheque and send it on to me....
PH.....coz she's worth every penny......
Posted in eBay changes anger smaller sellers
@ K
>>Add the extortionate paypal fees on top of that and ebay enjoy 2 bites out of your miniscule profit!
So, you must be a reseller....!!
For me, as a private individual, to use eBay is easy and simple....I have something I don't want anymore and it's "too good" to junk, give to a charity shop and no one I know, wants it.
A few other people might want it, so onto eBay it goes - it fetches a fair price and someone else gets the item....a win, win scenario.
If I'm lucky, I get a reasonable percentage of it's original value back. If it doesn't sell, I can offer it again (for free) and keep my fingers crossed.
As a reseller, you COULD open a shop (if you haven't already got one) and sell on the High Street.....take a gamble on business rates/VAT/wages/National Insurance etc and hopefully a caring landlord....and that really would eat into your "profits".
PH - coz she could be regarded as "damaged goods"...?
@ Test Man
>>Actually if I was going to be a pedant, it is:
>>01>071+081>0171+0181>020
Err...yup, I do know this....I was just trying to show up the farce that is "outer and inner" London numbers, when what preceded it, was the overall "01" scheme....
And yes, I realise that during the 80's and 90's demand of London number rose, due to everyone having a dial up modem (remember them) and a fax machine.....and they needed more numbers to meet demand....
Like all these things, it's not rocket science to know that if demand skyrockets, just increasing by a factor of 2 isn't enough....(as in going from "01 abc defg" to "071 abc defg" and "081 abc defg" ).
And they still had th same number of numbers when they went to 0171/0181 and then changed again after that...!
Even with introducing 020 7 and 020 8, (as 0171 and 0181) they still have the roughly the same number of numbers....although demand may now be less, as dial up modem and fax are becoming less "required"... the only real improvement they got was being able to use the 0 and 1 as well.
(And yes, I know about 020 3 as well !!!! - no doubt they'll have the other numbers in use soon enough, given that most of the rest of the country now has a "1" after the leading zero )
Talk about nightmare....THANK YOU OFCOM.......(and your predecessors!)
OFCOM cock it up again....
Whilst I have no truck with people who exploit the 070 number range so as to amass huge quantities of currency in some bank somewhere, I would have thought it was so obvious that some people could be fooled into thinking that 070 numbers were mobiles, given that most other 07 numbers are mobiles.
So, why did OFCOM allocate this range in the first place....surely, they must have given it some thought.....?
Obviously not and now, once again, some phone numbers are going to have to change JUST because OFCOM didn't think ahead....
- They've messed up the London prefix codes THREE times. (01>071+081>0171/0181>020 7/020 8 )
- They messed up the 0500 codes, which were assigned by Mercury Telecom (which became C&W) and made firms change codes to 0800
- They've messed up the 0870 codes, by allowing people to charge mega amounts, when it should be at "National Call Rates" - they've now had to introduce the 03 code to clear up that mess
- They have messed up the 0345 / 0845 numbers, which are supposed to be at Local call rate - except, most mobile are charged a premium to dial these...
- And when was the last time you called a FREEPHONE number on a mobile and found you got charged....
OFCOM should be sacked and pulled up before the beak and made to sort out this mess......
@ClammyLammy
Quite agree.....the ideal best bang per buck, should be closest to the "cost" baseline, whilst being as far away as possible from the "performance" baseline.
Hence the line should NOT be at a 45 degree from the origin - coz that's just a random "assumption" of the "ideal".....the actual ideal angle would depend on the scale used for each baseline.....a "shortened" X-axis base line would cause the line to be at a completely different angle compared to, say, a "shortened" Y-axis.....
Isn't it
isn't it
standard
random
It goes from bad to worse...
....according to the BBC website:
"China Olympic ceremony star mimed"
see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7556058.stm
What next???
What else....
...might be faked?
Some of the opening ceremony inside the bird's nest, looked a bit too "clever" for mere humans to have achieved alone...
Maybe there's some other stuff as well, that they haven't admitted to yet....?
Mine's the one with the fake designer label...
Posted in Rumour of redesigned iPhone
...and why not?
The iPhone (2G) is not going anywhere anymore, coz most people (who have the money) want a 3G phone. But loads people (I guess, in this now cash-strapped economy) could quite fancy a re-engineered iPhone Nano type product, which is basically a re-designed iPhone 2G.
OK - so maybe a slightly smaller display, smaller battery, but with pretty much the same "guts", just shrink-wrapped onto a smaller PCB and then wrapped into a smaller "package".
The 2G "technology" is proven, so there's plenty of life left in the old horse....like PH.....(or is she a bike - coz everybody's ridden her ??).
Posted in German medical team arms man, twice
Fingerprints...?
So, hopefully the "donor" wasn't an arch crim or pedo or serial rapist.....coz otherwise, it's gonna be tough telling people that you AREN'T the person they accuse you of being, if your fingerprints match what's on file somewhere.....and god help you if the recipient needs to go to the USA....!
Wonder how they chose the "donor"????
Can't see the point....
...of moving stuff to the Moon, only to then have to lift it off the surface again in order to set it on it's way....and it's not as if there are any decent raw materials available there.....loads of minerals....but they would all need huge amounts of "processing" to turn them into steel, aluminium, glass, etc.
Energy would be unnecessarily expended in getting kit to the Moon, landing it onto the moon and then taking off again...
Seems a much better idea would be to assemble everything in high orbit, using the Orion launch vehicle as a "freighter" - perhaps with intermediate stages, being bolted between the top and lower stages....the "launch" stage would drop to earth, leaving just the "freight" plus maybe a "top" guidance system (which again can be re-used after re-entering the atmos.
Then just park the "freight" in orbit and use the ESA system to auto-dock them all together....
Thunderbirds are GO....!
Don't understand
Sorry, for being an uninformed Brit pleb....
I thought that both XM and Sirius were broadcasting straight from satellite to in-car (and perhaps other) receivers.
So, what's this talk about "booster towers"....?
Does satellite radio suffer the same problems as GPS and sat TV in that if it doesn't get a strong signal all the time, it cuts out? If so, then I can understand a static booster tower providing a bit more signal to radio's....
But then, why not just cut out the (expensive?) satellite and link all the boosters via a terestrial infrastructure (such as IP ????).
Or, you could always use FM ?????
Posted in Intel slashes Xeon, Core 2 Duo prices
from what to what?
>Over on the server side, the company slashed away on three low-end Xeon chips: the 2.40GHz X3220 (12 per cent), 2.13GHz X3210 (also 12 per cent), and the 3GHZ E3110 (11 per cent).
>Meanwhile, the Core 2 Quad Q6600 - a 65nm desktop chip - is now 14 per cent cheaper. The prices of all other chips are unchanged.
Well, that's good info......except for some glaring omissions - what are the OLD and NEW prices for the above CPU's?
Even if only OLD prices are given, I can work out the new prices.....
Paris: Coz even she can work out if her market value is increasing or decreasing....
Posted in El Reg net closes on Street View fleet
Spot the Google car...
...so maybe what WE need to do (collectively) is to plot the car reg against the location on a daily basis....
So far, there seem to be three cars:
LJ08 AYB
LJ08 AYV
LJ08 AYW
any more?
Then we can plot them on Google Earth - this could be a fun thing to do, during this summer, when everything else is going downhill (economy, house prices,...) leaving us plenty of time to twiddle our thumbs...now we can be pro-active !
(IT coz we need it now...!)
Posted in Prius hybrid to get rooftop solar panel
My two-penn'th
1) Clarkson-san did a production "costing" on the Prius on the 1st edition of the new Top Gear series (air date 29th June I think) where he advised people about the cost of shipping Nickel (I think it was) from South America to Europe to be turned into batteries, which are then shipped to Japan....very "eco-friendly" in his opinion...!
But then again:
2) Surely any extra "free" energy (such as solar) that can be stored within the car (such as the battery) surely is a GOOD thing....such that over the lifetime of the vehicle, it uses less energy because of the "trickle" from the panels (and not withstanding the production and environmental cost of solar panels in the first place).
Maybe, if more vehicles, such as those with large flat tops, such as London's bendy buses or 40 ft trailers each had solar panels, then overall, all this extra energy could help....?
IT Angle - is there one? (OK - so "solar panels power new generation of in-car GPS" might be one - doh !! )
Posted in HD TV in the UK
@ Wize
>>I've not seen anywhere showing HDTV next to an equally large TV on standard def to let me compare the two pictures. Afterall, if its good, it should speak for itself.
If you've only been to one of the multiples (Comet, Dixons, Tesco, etc), then you are unlikely to see ANY HD content, as for many they don't have access to HD broadcasts....most don't commit to having an active Sky HD box for demo purposes...and they are unlikely to leave a Blu-Ray HD player and disc on show.....! (Of course they *could* set a receiver or player up "behind the scenes" but they don;'t usually have the know how to stream the same signals to multiple screens...
My suggestion is to visit a decent hi-fi/AV dealer, esp. if they sell Panasonic or Pioneer plasma's.
The picture quality is just so good.....you'll easily see the difference....but as to justifying the cost....well, just wait until your current telly breaks down (or has an accident !), and it can be claimed for on your contents insurance...
And in 2-3 years time, they'll be giving HD tv's away with a packet of cornflakes.....(coz the tellys will be very cheap and the price of wheat would have shot up :-)
Gates coz he's done a runner....at last !!
@ FoTD
Any way in which a "robots.txt" file can do the same ??
Posted in JPG hole cuts RAZR open
Download site asks for date of purchase !
How crass can you get?
To be able to download the software fix, your phone must be "in warranty".
But if you put in any old date within the last 12 months, it then allows you to download the software....
Put in an older date and it refuses.....!!
There doesn't appear to be any other "checks" going on, such as serial number or similar...
I guess "someone" at Motorola clearly doesn't want you to update the fix and would prefer you to buy a new phone...
Mine's the one that weighs a ton and looks like a brick.
@ Frank Bough
>> so why are we still pissing money up against the DVB-T wall?
Err....some of us can't have satellite dishes fitted....or don't want to pay Murdoch some extortionate amount for a monthly subscription
And some of us are NOT in Virgin/NTL/Telewest cabled area's.....
Which leaves us a choice of either:
- a small crappy picture on a PC via Broadband....hardly "HD" ???
- or someone upgrades the analogue terrestrial broadcast system to something better...such as DVB-T
Also: I think Sky have maybe 6-8 million subscribers. Virgin might have 3-4 million.....so maybe 10-12 million homes. That's about 50% of the total.
Of the 10-12 million, I wonder how many have HD sets???? a few hundred thousand maybe? Let's say half a million ??
So, with so many new TV's now being "HD Ready", the option to buy a compatible HD Freeview box to watch World Cup and London Olympics might just be the ticket to build up more "demand"?
How strange?
I downloaded the Vista SP1 update (KB936330, including all languages - about 440MB) and it installed perfectly on my Vaio laptop.
No issues, no problems - just took a while to "run"...but everything rosy over here.
Maybe I was just "lucky" ??
