Posts by Cameron Colley

Pretty much what I thoiught.

What about those of us without a steam valve, how are we supposed to get it?

More to the point: What did he do wrong?

Is it illegal to board planes in Cyprus now?

Why is everyone in the world America's bitch? Unless he was spying against Cyprus or harming their citizens they should have let him go on his way.

@So what, might have been a typo.

Which part is the typo? The part where she thinks that xxx is replacing www or the part where she correctly says that xxx will be a suffix then says it goes at the beginning?

RE: Silverlight rocks

Does it? I doubt it.

Flash is bad enough but some of us don't want Microsoft's dodgy "intellectual property" running on hardware we own.

@Pascal Monett

I agree to some extent, but if you';re stupid enough to pay FIFA and waive your rights to see a bunch of kids kicking a ball around then I don't have much sympathy for you.

RE: Yet more Jobs-inspired Snake Oil...

What they can't do that any old generic netbook can't is look flashy and be "fun" to use.

If you ask someone who owns an Apple device what it can do that any other generic device of that type can't they just show you the flashy interface and a couple of games that take advantage of the accelerometer to make things move around the screen.

@Micky 1

I may be wrong, but I don't think the BBC will have to do anything to cope with the demand -- they'll just broadcast over the internet live in a similar way to over the airways. Yes, OK, that's a slightly simplistic way of putting it but the congesting this will cause will be at the various routers between the BBC's network and the viewers.

@Rob Crawford

Indeed.

My E71 does everything I need it to (and most things that the Jesus Phone and Android ones do) -- and it has about twice the battery life.

Don't get me wrong, Symbian is of course clunky and the screen doesn't look as flashy because it has a hardware keyboard -- but for email and internet it's great and it will multi-task so I can leave my FTP client or puTTY and web browser open and just switch between the two to test updates (for example).

Yes, the iPhone has a flashy interface that is, I'm sure, easy to use -- but as tools go it's not the only choice.

If they can mong the firmware then the console is at fault.

All Sony had to do was put in a couple of thermal cut-outs, if it's heat, or make the firmware non-writeable without holding down a button or something (I'm sure there are more technical ways to do it). Unless you are explicitly telling a device "I am writing to firmware now and nothing else" it should not write to firmware.

A locked down piece of consumer brown goods should not be able to destroy itself. What's next, TVs that explode because you change their refresh rate?

Fine.

But then let's put the badly-trained shit-for-brains butchers who decided to "light up" a bunch of civilians in prison too.

RE: Lying not laying

I think he meant laying as in laying down. Yes, lawyers lie so they would have been lying also.

Though, personally, I always thought the above should be lying and lieing.

I recall a colleague got some free video call minutes from 3.

He used to video call his friends then they'd both either (if using a headset) put the phone in their pocket or put the phone up to their ear. I'm sure he isn't the only person to have done that.

So -- we've had video calling for a good few years now and I bet most of the calls are either 30 second demonstrations or the image being transmitted is of the side of the caller's head or similar.

I would guess the only time people have used this "in earnest" is fro the purposes of mutual masturbation.

I've already played with an early version.

Installed an image in VirtualBox. It is just Chrome browser with an extra settings tab and an always-open GMail tab.

My reaction was "meh" -- I can see it being used on very cheap hardware but it's even less exciting than the iPad.

@No, I will not fix your computer

Damn you...

I just snorted beer on my keyboard.

I remember it well...

You saw a link to a video you want to watch so you click it then one of a few things happened:

A new page opened with the video embedded in a Java applet.

A new page opened with the video embedded in an ActiveX control (shudder)

A new page opened with the video in an embedded Real Player window.

A new page opened with the video in an embedded Windows Media Player window.

A new page opened with the video in an embedded Quicktime window.

The video opened in Real player.

The video opened in Windows Media Player.

The video opened in Quicktime.

The video tried to open in Windows Media Player but you didn't have the CODEC so you tried right click open with on of your other players.

The video tried to open in Quicktime but you didn't have the CODEC so you tried right click open with on of your other players.

The video tried to open in Real Player but you didn't have the CODEC so you tried right click open with on of your other players.

Your browser downloaded the video and then you had to work out what to open it with...

Yeah, let's go back to that!

Let's not decide that the browser can be built to play a video format so that you don't need to mess around with plugins.

Have you not heard of URIs?

You know, those things you can post up on MyFaceBoWitter so that people can go and lok at a web page you'd like them to see? They work for iPlayer too you know?

What people have problem whit here is that time and effort go into developing this needless Web2.0 crap when they should go into making the site more stable and usable as it is.

If you do want to invite friends to "watch with you" you can always email them, or MSN them, or twitter it, or put the link on facebook, or... There is no need for hte BBC to attach this to the iPlayer.

Are Web2.0 fans so unimaginative that they can't work out some way of using existing technology to communicate and have to have some nice developer to make things easier?

Oh, do stop being a twat, Alfred 2.

When he allegedly* "did the crime" the punishment was not extradition to the US -- it was trial and whatever was punishment decided if* he was found guilty. Since then the situation changed -- so actually he is prepared to "do the time" for his actions as originally stated.

Aside from that -- I hardly think that throwing someone into prison to be beaten and abused for a few years is a fitting punishment for walking through an unlocked door** of a US public building**** and looking around.

The US just don't like to be embarrassed and so are using a one-sided extradition treaty meant for serious criminals and laws meant for suspects of mass murder (or "terror" as the governments like to call it) to punish this guy for making them look like the incompetent fucktards they are.

*He's innocent at the moment. Perhaps if he has a fair trial we'll find out if he's guilty or not?

**Weak passwords and other lax security isn't worth calling security.

***This is stuff owned and paid for by the public -- before anyone makes an comparison to housebreaking.

So, will you pay for news or not?

I particularly don't understand

"Sure Advertising is not funding online news any longer but in reality it does not have to when most aggregation services are small scale, getting their content for free and their hosting for minimal costs. Advertising just gives them a bonus."

Who provides the news to the aggregation service? Do pixies make it from thin air?

I'm not willing to pay for Murdoc's offerings, print or electronic, and I hate adds -- but I still realise that my news has to be written by someone, and even if I don't always agree with them they're still doing some work and it is entertaining me.

If El Reg went to subscription they I'd likely pay -- I'm certainly not paying now, I don't even see the adds most of the time, but I think they provide news worth reading and so worth paying for.

"News is news and will always be there. "

I don't know about you, but I'd rather not get all my news from people who don't get paid to write it.

Erm, I fail to see the problem.

If google are spying on my searches and/or recording them then they will see everything regardless of https.

But, since https is an encrypted connection to them, my ISP's DPI/phorm/whatever won't see it.

If you don't use google you're not loosing out because this is a change to something you don't use.

If you do use google you win because you already give your data to google, and now it's only google not google+Eve.

I hate Apple, and the iPhone.

So I bought something nothing like an iPhone.

As for "I actually use my iPhone to make...wait for it... phone calls!" I think you'll find out if that's all you want a phone for you might be better off buying something by someone like Nokia -- not only will it be cheaper, but it'll have better battery life too and probably better call quality.

Does that include email too?

While I agree with you to a point, the issue here is that Faceboob is supposed to lock down whichever details you want to whichever audience you want -- in other words if it worked as advertised then it would almost be as private as webmail and could actually be the email replacement some seem to think it is. My email is hosted on the web -- does that mean I should expect it to be shared with the world?

Yes, there's a valid argument that you shouldn't sign up for anything like this because of the potential fro privacy breaches and lots of IT people and other paranoid and/or techy types I know won't use this kind of thing, myself included.

But Facepalm appeals to those who aren't as aware of these potential problems so they have to go by the Ts and Cs -- which are evidently lies. This is the problem here.

People are not complaining that their details "are on the internet" they're complaining that things they were told would not happen have happened.