Posts by Ian Yates
767 posts • joined Tuesday 12th June 2007 08:17 GMT
Posted in Amazon revamps E Ink Kindle line
Keyboard
I'll stick with my Sony, but the keyboard on the Kindle was the reason I didn't go for one, so it's interesting to see they've finally dropped it.
A portable movie-rental device sounds interesting, though.
I never thought it did start with the Simpsons - I assumed they were referring to how the Simpsons was written... my bad.
So, when will someone experiment with using manitees to write Family Guy episodes?
Except...
This morning the "when it's available" for my building changed from 30-Sep-2011 to (drum-roll please) 31-Dec-2011. And this isn't the first time they've knocked it back.
I'd rather they just said "no current plans" than getting my hopes up until days before the date they give me.
I imagine this is the state trying to make it clear that publishing private CCTV footage is illegal.
IANAL, but it seems to be common with CCTV footage appearing on YouTube (remember the woman in the "mall" who fell in to the fountain?).
Yet to be convinced
My PC has a lot of real estate and while I want as much content on it as possible, I need all of my common tasks to be quickly available through a simple keyboard or mouse gesture.
My phone/tablet, on the other hand, do not have a lot of real estate and having tasks hidden until I make a clear gesture to find them is an acceptable productivity hit.
So, is Windows 8 really two OS's rolled in to one, or will the tablet interface be like Media Center, an application on top of Windows "Classic"?
Maybe I'm an exceptional case, but the convergence doesn't feel like a step forward to me...
Each to their own
But I prefer one that fits me and does exactly what I need a hat to do
/weak metaphor
Certainly, in theory, pure .NET apps will be fine assuming MS release an ARM-based .NET framework.
I know a lot of companies that just wouldn't bother considering Win8 on ARM if they don't.
WOROW (Write Once, Run On Windows)
Here's your reason: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_DSL#United_Kingdom
TL;DR: BT don't think anyone wants it
Although, I don't think it would remove the line rental cost, since you'll still need the final mile cable.
What are you driveling on about?
Most providers DO give you the option to pay a monthly charge for all your calls. Even mobile operators do this (though, normally with a use limit).
The 084* (and 0870, among others) numbers you list are /premium/ numbers - the people using them have asked for them specifically to make some money out of taking your call.
If you're still stuck: http://www.saynoto0870.com/
I live in London, and I still always dial the full code.
Most people here believe London's area code is "0207" or "0208", when it is actually "020".
Even knowing this, I'd rather waste a fraction of a second of my life dialing three extra digits than mistakenly trim the number and get the wrong person.
Academic argument really, since I never use my landline and tend to use the phone's contact list for nearly all my calls.
The good money is with something FAT32-related at the minimum.
Probably some vague (and questionable) UI/UX ones thrown in for good measure.
If only one of these companies asked for more proof than just threats and either leaked the details or at least gave their thoughts on the credibility...
Responsible?
A responsible approach? How... novel...
I'm sure no one would have batted an eye-lid if they'd just stayed schtum and investigated in private.
Homogenous
And these are 200,000 drives from the same manufacturer and, presumably, there won't be too many different manufacturing batches involved (unless they've been stock-piling drives for years) - so you could potentially see a situation where 50+ drives die in a very short time frame...
Although, I'm sure they've thought it all through and we're just missing some info.
/else: boom!
I feel sick
Did he say all that with a straight face? He's taking the CEO role to heart, that's for sure
Mnemonic
Only Big And Famous Guys Know More Love Than You?
@NomNomNom
You have to use the "joke alert" tag for that kind of comment, I'm afraid. There are enough imbeciles around that comments like that could be taken seriously :)
Posted in School caned for losing 20K details
Punishment
I'd like to see actual punishment for these types of problems.
Too often the "organisation" is "criticised" - big whoop. It should be the individual who is penalised; they are the ones in the position of responsibility to secure and protect the data in their charge.
If you're a sysad and you can't even use a complex password yourself, you don't deserve the job.
Fining places like this (and the NHS, quango's, train companies, etc.) doesn't work, because they just recoup their "loss" through higher fares or taxes...
Quality of tech reporting
At least you didn't stoop to the Beeb's coverage of screaming of the doom of this "security flaw".
I was impressed until I read the detail and realised that I'm sure I did similar things to this in the days when software came with 30 day trials.
Whoa now!
"Who runs a totally watertight operation with absolute secrecy? No-one"
So you *think*! How do you know?
@Naughtyhorse
Pah! I thought you were going to say "they *convert* energy"
Steam
Personally, I find Steam a better experience than non-Steam games. They're always patched (without each publisher having to come up with different ways to patch games), and things like Steam Cloud means you never lose game progress.
Plus, the offline mode works, assuming the game doesn't have another form of DRM.
However, just last night I fired up BioShock 2 for the first time and Valve have been forced to include Games for Windows in it... my broadband being down until this morning, I carried on without signing in to GfW and played for about an hour before finding out that I can't save without GfW... REALLY?!
To make matters worse, I tethered to my phone so I could sign in to GfW and guess what happens - after waiting for five minutes for a mandatory update to GfW (having only downloaded it a few days ago), it prompts that the GfW account has changed and boots me to the main BS2 menu...
I was seriously pissed - not sure if I can be bothered to go back to BS2. I'll certainly avoid all other GfW-encumbered games in future. Why the hell would 2K (MS?) insist on TWO forms of DRM?!
Valve?
When did Valve ever do this? Only Valve titles I know of that require constant Internet are L4D, L4D2, and TF2 (etc.).
Certainly, though, I'm shocked Ubisoft and EA haven't learned their lesson - this doesn't stop pirates at all and just makes me want to pirate the game more.
As an example, I really wanted to like StarCraft 2, but I just got so fed up with the DRM that I gave up and never went back. Annoyingly, they already had my money by that point, but I'll never buy a game with so much DRM again.
Posted in From Dust
Value
Sounds well worth the £10 for some light-hearted evening gaming.
Actually, it really sounds like what I thought the final Populous would be like - not the awful travesty that tarnished the series' name. Maybe I'll save myself £10 and brush off my Populous II copy in DOSBox :) Armageddon!
Posted in End of an era: Atlantis hits the tarmac
only vehicle
I assume by "we" you mean Americans, because Russia still have Proton and Soyuz. Perhaps they aren't quite as elegant, but they do the job.
Begs the question
How serious does it have to be?
Name, address, phone number. That's pretty valuable information right there.
Usual problem
Politicians: "You are all idiots. Also, this stuff might be dangerous, so we're just going to ban it for your safety before it's invented."
Public: "Have you asked any medical experts to evaluate just what the dangers are?"
"No, but it isn't taxed like tobacco or alcohol, so it must be dangerous. In fact, we've disbanded the medical and science advisory boards because they said that some of these things weren't actually dangerous, but my public school education tells me otherwise."
"Oh, thanks; have some extra expenses."
Nothing wrong with that
But it would be nice if Apple didn't try to enforce the revisionism that the iPhone was a magical device with no precedent.
Sure, it was a well-designed and refined product (especially given the state of things like Symbian at the time), but I think the revolution was actually in placing the consumers' experience over the developers' (and Apples over that).
Stats
What's missing from those stats is the cost of those two games.
I don't disagree that mobile gaming is a boom market, but I don't personally find it comparable to console/PC gaming.
I have quite a few games on my phone and tablet, but when I'm home and fancy some multiplayer FPS, you're never going to convince me to give up my keyboard/mouse or controller.
Casual games are certainly becoming more phone/tablet-based, and rightly so. Consoles and PCs will just become further niche in more "hard-core" gaming.
FoS/FoE
"There is no 'freedom of speech' enshrined in British law AFAIK."
Human Rights Act 1998 (based on Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights).
I agree with your statements, though.
The way papers (tabloids) behave right now is "print first, ask later". If it sounds juicy, get it out there and deal with the consequences later.
Aagghh!
I can't get the image of a monkey on amphetamines out of my head!!
acronym / abbreviation
"TLA is not a TLA by your definition"
And why not? Are you saying that "TLA" is not an acronym?
Using your dictionary link, "acronym" means: "a word formed from the initial letters or groups of letters of words in a set phrase or series of words"
So regardless of what "A" stands for, "TLA" is an acronym; and a three-letter one at that. Granted, acronyms are also abbreviations (but not vice versa).
I really don't understand what you're being pedantic about.
A pinch
I'd be pretty pissed if my password was being stored hashed without a salt. I'm not naive, I know it happens, but it should be be illegal under DPA for lack of due care.
Not saying this is an infallible solution, but I'm always amazed when a service warns users that their passwords have been compromised.
Posted in Splashtop Remote Desktop
Works well
But if you've changed your DPI, it will be useless (as I have done on my HTPC). Refuses to let you see the whole host screen.
Works equally well for streaming audio to a second set of speakers, assuming you can't hear both at the same time because of the half-second lag. (i.e., upstairs and downstairs)
Tim
Do you need us to buy you a pint?
Posted in Bug-Byte Manic Miner
All together now!
Dur dah dur dah dur dah dah, dur dah dah, dur dah dah...
Posted in Facebook gets awesome with Skype
Standards
I'm glad to see they've picked one of the many interopable and open video-chat standards that are already in use. Oh, wait...
Resolve
Why would any browser or OS use a DNS lookup for something that fits the pattern of an IP? I can't believe any browser out there doesn't attempt to go direct to IP addresses, so his example is a fail - but it does highlight the kind of attacks that people will be thinking about,
I wondered that
What do they mean by "leak users' IP addresses"? If they didn't provide servers with their IP addresses, I think users would have a bigger problem.
Monday apathy prevents me from actually trying to find out what they mean. (but doesn't prevent me from typing this reply)
Troll
I can't believe you picked that icon over this one ;)
meta^meta studies
That reminds of some reading I was doing around environmental tobacco smoke (passive smoking).
Big tobacco funded loads of reports to prove it didn't exist or it had no harm (and eventually admitted some of the reports were fake). But even better was a meta-study that came to the conclusion that ETS didn't exist because there were more high-quality studies showing it didn't than ones showing it did. (Don't have the reference at home)
Genius! It just made me wish (and hope) that someone's done a meta-meta-study in to how well meta-studies are done.
True
I think the article could have changed the wording on "increase, not ban, the production of child pornography".
Surely just not banning it would have the same effect? Increasing circulation, maybe, but production surely is abuse, no?
Good article, though
Posted in 17 flock to see Gordon Ramsay turkey
Re: Read The Grauniad One
The trailer review is excellent.
I also like the wikipedia "Critical Reception" understatement:
It took £121 on its opening weekend in June 2011, comparing *poorly* [emphasis mine] with the same weekend's biggest opening film, Bridesmaids, which took £3.44 million.
Thank F for that
How long did that take them? Seriously?!
Fring and NimBuzz had it so long ago, Skype should have bought of them out instead of shutting them down.
Too late now, though; everyone's looking for better (or "non-MS") alternatives.
Problem solved?
What exactly are they trying to solve here?
I work for many large corporations in IT, some with 10,000+ employees. None of those companies would consider using an online office suite. Hell, they generally blocks docs.google and any other site that could potentially be used to get data on or off site.
It sounds more like a solution for personal/SOHO users, but they're currently disallowed. Plus, I'm increasingly hearing of such people switching to Open/Libre Office because it does the basics well enough without costing anything.
IMHO, MS Office peaked with 97/2003.
Android
Update to Android? Like what? We're still waiting for video calling through Skype.
I may be in the majority, but video calling is the main reason I have Skype at home, to keep in contact with my distant friends/family.
Skype on Android would be a killer app if it did video calls, but it's months too late with apps like Fring allowing a get-out to a lot of people.
As soon as I've found an easy-to-use Windows client that supports video-calling, I'll be switching the silver surfers in my family.
And a browser-based solution is not an option: they need an icon they can click and leave running in the background.
Husband
"this time... for good" /Russian accent
Makes me wonder if he was also holding some kind of heavy implement as he said it.
Posted in Kiwi gals swig shots of horse semen
Here's the solution
Put it in a vial and sell it as horse semen.
Posted in So, how many rhinos does a tram weigh?
Headphones
With or without headphones, these things are dangerous. The ones in Manchester are silent killers! Sneaky little things.
I don't know Manchester that well, looked the wrong way first (thinking they always travelled on the same side as cars) and stepped as I looked the other; jumped back just in time.
My Manc friends nicknamed them Population Control Devices - reducing the city's average age one person at a time ;)
Posted in Dungeon Siege III
Torment
Where's the next PlaneScape?! There was so much room to explore more parts of that universe with different storylines.
Hell, I'd pay for a higher-res version of PS:T that ran properly on W7. Assuming I had enough time to sink in to it
