Posts by Alienrat
26 posts • joined Tuesday 28th June 2011 16:55 GMT
I generally use the iPad for day to day stuff. I also used to use a windows tablet PC. I love the touch interface in the iPad and the fact that it works so well by hand. I don't love that you can't use a pen in any sensible way for writing and drawing - I am not an artist, I am a software engineer but my most use tool is a pad of paper.
I used to love the pen system on the tabletPC, and that I could write and draw on it, like the pad but then search for things. I did most of my open university using it but using windows with a pen was not a lot of fun in general.
A system that combines both of those would be fantastic. The note 10.1 seems quite close but not cigar, but I will probably get one anyway. Would certainly be interested to see what the surface was like.
Re: what about traffic data
Actually, now I look at home, the satellite image of my house is exactly the same image, same resolution, cars parked in the same place etc, but further at the end of the road it is different, I can't quite see where the join is. The google maps have (c) google stamped all over them.
Re: what about traffic data
Where I work in dorset, I tried traffic, google maps said traffic wasn't available in my area. Apple maps has it and looking out of the window, it seemed quite accurate.
But then Apple maps are more accurate with shop locations too, googles locations are quite a way out, even if neither of them can quite keep pace with the speed of shop closures :/
Google satellite view is higher quality though.
Certainly if I was going to London, I would use the google maps, but out here in the sticks, the apple data seems to work better for me. It is certainly nice to have both (I tried nokia maps, but it didn't seem to offer much I didn't already have)
Posted in Nokia HERE iOS maps app review
Re: Wrong Luton
Mine went to the Luton near Exeter, but then that doesn't seem that unreasonable as I am not that far from Exeter. Maybe it is a relevance filter. I am very happy to ignore the Luton with an airport.
In general, I am perfectly happy with Apple maps. Some of the shops are wrong on it, but where I am, no more than google. I wouldn't be happy if I lived in london though, the labeling of the tube stations is awful, and so are the details available at different zoom levels.
I guess this is handy for that.
I went from tesco to giffgaff, seemed cheaper and on the same network. I was a bit unlucky that not only did the O2 network go down for a while in that time, but so did a lot of giffgaff services.
Then I accidentally switched iTunes match on the phone and used all my data, and because I had auto update on, it added £10 which lasted a day or two of data, so had to wait for 7 days with no data before I could get another plan, or pay $stupid/MB. I didn't find cutting the sim down was particularly hard though.
But the real killer against using GiffGaff? The faux mateyness. 'Thanks for choosing GiffGaff, Nice one!'.
Went to 3, unlimited data, £5 more, network seems to stay up. They don't slap me on the back when I get a voicemail or pay a bill, but I can live with that.
Presumably if you don't log into whatever facebook app you have on your phone, it can't replace your addresses with anything.
Re: Nokia is doomed...
Of course it would be possible to believe that Nokia would be doing badly with another platform.
They put a huge amount of effort into trying to remove their huge dominance of the phone market, they have the skills to continue to fail with any platform.
Re: Cough....
The newton does predate this. It had several gestures, the major one being the scribble gesture to delete text.
I am sure there was something before this, but this is a clearly identifiable product that was available to purchase 5 years before 1997.
Re: None too shiny
How many users are in a tsunami anyway? I checked the standard measurements tables but it seemed to be missing
Bit tired
Got it, played a few levels, quit.
Loved the original angry birds and various newer version, but this is for some reason just missing something. Not just the proper level completion music (although that is bad), but the pigs aren't smug enough, the birds aren't angry enough.
Went back to the old one and tried it, and it still has it, so it isn't just too much of the same thing.
Posted in Apple iPad 3 Sim-only contracts compared
Giffgaff data plans are £7.50/1GB, £12.50/3Gb
I still have an existing £7.50/3GB data service from 3, so I think I will hold onto that one!
Yes, I prefer the shape of the iPhone 4 to the iPhone 3. I didn't really mind the shape of the 3 that much (although I preferred the shape of the Nokia n73 I had before that), but I really liked the 4.
I am quite happy to admit when I don't like something (and frankly don't know that many people who don't).
I would say in fact, I prefer the shape of the iPad 1 to the iPad 3, but that may not be that accurate as I have never had the iPad one out of its case, and I have yet to get a 3 case. I wouldn't go as far to say the shape of the iPad 3 is a mistake, I just find the edges a bit sharp. I shall see what it is like when eBay has provided me a decent case.
Re: Spoiled developers
> Wonder why new, trendy, Starbucks/ Mac type developers hated Symbian?
I am not new or trendy and I hate Starbucks with a passion, but I am a Mac Developer (and PC, and iPhone and Android). Why did I hate Symbian?
I don't - the core operating system is great. But one day I saw an iPhone and discovered how much fun you could have with a phone if you didn't have to spend huge amounts of your time trying to work out where the settings to do what you want to do was.
Are we all using Androids or iPhones because device makers wanted to stop us using symbian? No, we are using them because even though their core systems are not as well optimised for mobile use, they are just much easier and more entertaining to use.
No, I never understood why Nokia didn't pick up on that either.
@eulampios
>>BTW, from the programmers' pov, people that used both Emacs and MS Visual Studio claim that the former to be much superior to the latter. Now try comparing the billions of $$ dumped at MS VS and the "cheapo" things emacsen/vim(sical).
Seriously? One of the joys of moving from programming linux to programming windows was going from emacs to visual studio. I used both - I would never choose to use emacs.
Now having gone to programming Java, I miss it quite a bit, but when you have to use eclipse you are probably going to miss most things (except emacs).
Or
Just make something that isn't a straight copy of an iPad. I had a look down Purple World, Acer / asus / sony etc seem to be able to do it, how hard can it be?
Even ignoring
Even ignoring the robot tuning stuff, which is very good, surely they must know that this is the ugliest guitar they have put out in a very long time? I admit it is hard for them, as guitarists are about the most conservative anti technology people going, if it didn't exist in the 60's it isn't good enough, but that is.. well.. it pushes ugly to a new place.
And it has a great feature of looking like one of those bulbous childrens half scale guitars in the process. I think the market for that one is collectors, the ones who don't play guitars.
About time they started teaching something about computers again in schools, rather than how to use MS office.
So with all tablets being 5% of the market, and microsoft after a few years only now managing to equal the sales of XP machines, are they sure that windows with a UI change is what windows users want?
I personally like Win7, but I know a lot of people who really really want XP. Sounds like it might be worth putting more effort on those 45% of people don't want another layer over the top of windows than those 5% of people who want a tablet.
Posted in Got a non-iPad tablet? Weirdo
@Steve Brooks. I take it your friend is a little special if he specifically bought something to do only two things that a 5 second search would have told him he couldn't do.
I have an iPad, an HP touchpad and an archos android tablet, and am not particularly bothered if someone wants to know what I am using to browse the web, it doesn't detract from me at all.
Never understood why people got so personally upset about other peoples choice of gadget not being the same as theirs.
I don't use the android much (there for testing) but the other two I use all the time.
Apples approval process is just to check the application follows the rules - can't see what rule this broke.
In fact I don't understand why they were fined. If people want to pay a few quid to strap a phone to their face that changes colours in the belief that it makes their skin better, then I think they should be allowed to.
There are quite a few homeopathy related applications on smartphones. Are they going to be removed and fined next?
Posted in Windows 8 to boot in 8 seconds
MBA 8 seconds?
You must have a really fast macbook air then, my wifes one isn't that fast. It is fast, but not 8 seconds fast. I have just put a new crucial 256GB SSD in my macbook pro, so now it is 28 seconds from power to useable desktop with apps and documents loaded (down from 67 seconds on a monumentus XT 500GB). I am quite happy with that, although I don't tend to restart.
However, I think it is good that people are trying to improve. My windows 7 machine only takes a few seconds to logon screen, but from start it takes a few minutes before it is in the state that you could call usable. I don't quite understand the linux / mac comments anyway - windows starting faster doesn't take anything away from you.
After all - it may take 2 minutes to get to a usable desktop in windows, but in linux, it has been 30 years and we are still waiting :) <runs>
Posted in £69 Pre 3 spied on HP UK website
reason being
Because a webOS phone sounds like a really interesting thing, whereas an android phone doesn't?
Safari on Mac
You need to go to keychain access, search for digino, get info and say 'never trust' or delete it
Far from new, but not arrogant enough for IT
If you are working in a company where the CEO has decided he wants a mac, and you need to satisfy that need with the cheapest, safest kit available, and this CEO is as you say, clueless based on what he knows, then surely that job is to provide him with a mac . Why would he need access to anything? Why would he need access to this companies sensitive data? that is made by other people, not him. He wants to email powerpoints to other people and receive reports, and be told when his meetings are - he needs LDAP access to exactly nothing, so I am not sure how this vunerabilty matters.
No, I don't do IT, I am one of those little people making the important company data that is worth stealing. I have only seen that behaviour in a small company. MD brought in some laptop, we just told him it couldn't connect to the network as it wasn't compatible and set up his hotmail account. Job done.
In my most recent experience of large networks as a user, the policies they were bringing in meant that i had to spend a large amount of my working week working around them to be able to do the job I was paid to do. And I was not in a unique position. If you think that improves security, I may not be the silly one.
I don't need to do the job to know that that is wrong, any more than I need to be a plumber to know that I shouldn't have to take a bucket to the toilet to flush it.
Lack of effort?
I have Mac and Windows machines. Some jobs are better done by one or other of the machines. If I was a CEO and some of my IT staff came to me with some of these complaints, I think i would be ringing up the agencies.
IT network staff rarely seem to get it is their job to support the users, most I have had the pleasure to work with thought it was the other way round. If my staff needed to use Macs to do their job, or windows, it is the job of the IT staff to make that work. Don't come to me and say it is impossible, come to me and tell me what you need to make it work - if they are so insecure we can't use this or that system, or even have to be disconnected fine, tell me that, or if you can't work out how to do it, fine, help me interview people who can. Just don't sit around whinging it is too hard and it can't be done because you don't know how to do it as you only understand windows.
Factory fresh?
.. or will it need jailbreaking?
