* Posts by RainbowTrout

55 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Feb 2014

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Red hangs up the Hydrogen phone as firm exits handset business

RainbowTrout

Bought one......

I foolishly bought one last December rather than an iPhone XR. Battery life is great but I am now on my 3rd handset as the fingerprint sensor failed on the other 2. And to add insult to injury, AT&T refuses to allow WiFi calling which Verizon and T-mobile does. The 3D camera is a neat gimmick though.

Irish Stripe techie denied entry to US – for having wrong stamp in passport

RainbowTrout

Re: serves him right

"In terms of individual charitable giving, yes, the US ranks very high"

Which equates to tax write-offs for the person/organization giving the donation.

Which keys should I press to enable the CockUp feature?

RainbowTrout

Re: Rotated screens and "pranks"

My favourite "prank" 20+ years ago involved telneting into colleagues SGI's making sure the $DISPLAY env was correct and firing up xlock.

Eighteen year old server trumped by functional 486 fleet!

RainbowTrout

In the mid 90's we were using 4GB SCSI's on our SGI workstations (in external enclosures) and may have had at most 25-30GB of total disk space (which at that time seemed more than enough storage space). The biggest issue was the weekly backups (on a single DAT drive running over 4 to 6 tapes with swapping) took so long it was time for the next one before the last one finished.......

The only GOOD DRONE is a DEAD DRONE. Y'hear me, scumbags?!

RainbowTrout

Re: "The only GOOD DRONE is a DEAD DRONE. Y'hear me, scumbags?!"

Except that generally the Swiss are not allowed to keep ammo at home for the military issued weapons.....

SatNad failure as Lumia income drops over 50% at Microsoft

RainbowTrout

I've had a 900, 920, and am now on a 1520. Will the 950XL be a worthy replacement to the 1520?

You're going to have stop calling people 'cold fish': THIS one is HOT-BLOODED

RainbowTrout

Re: The most important question:

Local restaurant had it on the menu as the weekly special catch a few months ago. Tried to get it but was sad to learn it was sold out.

Good luck displacing Windows 7, Microsoft, it's still growing

RainbowTrout

Only just now upgrading to 7......

My employer is currently upgrading 5000+ laptops and desktops to Windows 7. We didn't get XP until 2009......

Who was downloading smut in the office while eating ice cream?

RainbowTrout

ancient history

In the mid 90's when I was in grad school at a London medical school the admins freely admitted browsing the pron alt.binaries usenet groups.....

On leaving the UK and moving to the US and finally getting into the pharmaceutical industry I would hear these stories about why web filters had been put on all of the machines.... It turned out a low-level scientist was caught viewing porn in his cubicle not once but on 3 separate occasions..... The first time caused "counselling", the second was more counselling and web filters. On the 3rd offense he a proxy and that caused his firing...

Chat app WhatsApp gift-wraps free yaps for Apple iPhone saps

RainbowTrout

Personally, I prefer Viber to call friends and family in the UK.......

America was founded on a dislike of taxes, so how did it get the IRS?

RainbowTrout

Not all developments have HOAs (such as mine). You do lose out though in not having a neighbourhood swimming pool or club house which the HOA fees pay for.

The finest weird people in the world live here, and we're proud of it

RainbowTrout

House prices....

Ten years ago a company I worked for tried to relocate me from the east coast to the bay area. I knew it was not financially viable but went on the company funded recon trip. I was quite surprised to find a 450 sq ft "apartment" in Walnut Creek for $450,000.......

Charlotte, NC thinks it has won the Google Fiber lottery

RainbowTrout

Nope, the Triangle won!

From a facebook post from ABC11:

Governor Pat McCrory and city mayors appeared with executives from Google Tuesday to announce that Google is bringing its ultrafast internet and TV service to Carrboro, Cary, Chapel Hill, Durham, Garner, Morrisville, and Raleigh.

More here ---> http://abc11.tv/1wzkfkX

NSA gunning for Google, wants cop-spotting dropped from Waze app

RainbowTrout

When I used waze (I found it too much of a distraction so got rid of it) I never found the police/sheriff speed traps, they were never where the app reported them to be.......

Acer Chromebook 13: The best Googletop on the market?

RainbowTrout

Treated myself to one using my Christmas amazon gift vouchers. Nice light weight web surfing machine. The "free" 1TB of extra google storage is nice, disappointed I cannot connect to my home NAS yet though.

Frontier wipes credit of Elite: Dangerous 'billionaire' badboys

RainbowTrout

Re: Warp whilst docking

I remember that "feature" on the Spectrum.

El Reg's festive dating app guide, Pt. 2: The FEMALE perspective

RainbowTrout

Met my wife in 1999 on yahoo! singles...... Married since 2002 and have twin daughters :--).

Space Commanders lock missiles on Elite's Frontier Devs

RainbowTrout

I backed it (primarily out of a feeling of nostalgia), did not pay for early access, have not downloaded it (nothing new enough to play it on yet) but am also not going to run crying to Mummy for a refund....

Sinclair is back with the Spectrum Vega ... just as rubbish as the ZX

RainbowTrout

With the lack of keys how will we type in the Lenslok code to get Elite to work?????????

'How a censorious and moralistic blogger ruined my evening'

RainbowTrout

I particularly liked the Gawker headline of "Michael Wolff Accuses Journalist of Committing Journalism".

I've never used Uber and probably never will after a conversation I had at a local bar where a regular had too much to drink and sensibly left his car and got an Uber ride. It apparently took 45 minutes and $90 to get what should have been 3 miles..........

Space Commanders rebel as Elite:Dangerous kills offline mode

RainbowTrout

"Frontier was a much better game"

Bugs aside........

RainbowTrout

I will give it a try.....

I had the Spectrum version of Elite for my birthday as soon as it was released and have always considered it to be my favourite game. I Kickstarter backed Elite:Dangerous for £40 and was hoping for an offline single player mode. I still need to purchase a PC capable of playing it.

I have recently started doing the player vs player activities in Destiny and was surprised to find I quite enjoyed it (aside from usually being the worst or second from worst player) so I am willing to give the "open play" version a go but am also glad a "solo" mode still exists just in case.

Mastercard and Visa to ERADICATE password authentication

RainbowTrout

Yay!

Glad its gone as I have only ever had VbyV work correctly once........

Caption this: CERN needs pic tags. Serious answers only, kids

RainbowTrout

Number 3: The birth of Qbert?

Half a billion in the making: Bungie's Destiny reviewed

RainbowTrout

Re: sigh

"gaming is most satisfying offline and solo"

That's also how I prefer to play video games. That said, I have had fun getting to level 8 without the need to form fire teams of enter the Crucible so "single player" is possible. The issues I had on Sunday with needing multiple attempts to log in were a tad annoying.......

Need a US visa, passport? Prepare for misery: Database crash strands thousands

RainbowTrout
Trollface

ITYM a Harf-truth and outright lie......

Nokia emits Windows Phone 8.1 'Cyan' upgrade for Lumia gear

RainbowTrout

I wonder how long it will be until AT&T updates my 1520......

Microsoft's Lumia 930... a real HANDFUL

RainbowTrout

Re: no glance :o(

Glance was why I decided on the 1520 after having a 920. Main issue with the 1520 is it doesn't fit in my shirt pocket anymore........

Islamic terror peril hits US giants' phone wallets

RainbowTrout

ISIS will always mean the pulsed neutron source at the Rutherford Appleton Lab to me........

Multiplayer Elite to debut on May 30th

RainbowTrout

I gave £30 through Kickstarter. When the game is officially released I hope it plays on my ancient Dell laptop.......

Apple, Beats and fools with money who trust celeb endorsements

RainbowTrout

Re: Pono Player

I use my Lumia 920 to play music, its nice you can load files directly or use iTunes (I am glad that having to use the Zune software with the 900 was not a requirement for the 920). My only gripe is there is a noticeable gap on playback on tracks that segue on the CD and do on my ancient iPod Touch.

Also noticed a vast difference between Apples white earbuds and my Sennheiser earbuds.......

Netflix FREEZES prices for existing UK users to stop them quitting vid-streaming service

RainbowTrout

Got my email today for my subscription here in the US. The only thing I use it for now is movies for my kids on pizza Fridays. Seriously thinking about cancelling it.

Target finally implements chip and PIN card protections

RainbowTrout

About time.... When back visiting the UK I get funny looks from the people taking my payments because my VISA debit card has no chip and my AMEX card has a chip but is not the right sort.......

Apple patent LOCKS drivers out of their OWN PHONES

RainbowTrout

Re: Err...

My thoughts exactly!

'Maybe I'll go to Hell, but I think it's a good thing' says plastic Liberator gunsmith Cody Wilson

RainbowTrout

He came across as a posturing 6th former in the "Rolling Stone" article as well.

In one respect though showing that a functioning machine (unfortunate that it had to be a gun) can be made from ABS on a 3D printer shows there is real promise for the technology. In the past I've had rapid prototypes made (10 years or so) from what appears to be a silica material (I don't remember what it was) the results were pleasing but fragile but having a plastic model made really opens up the possibilities.

Happy 25th birthday, Game Boy!

RainbowTrout

My sister still has her's to play Tetris on!

Number crunching suggests Yahoo! US is worth less than nothing

RainbowTrout

Re: Dark art of Accountancy?

I once worked for a company which one year made a reasonably healthy profit of $34 million. The accountants in Germany then some how claimed and "proved" we had a loss of $60 million which was used as one of the reasons to sell of our division.....

Arts and crafts store Michaels says 3 million credit cards exposed in breach

RainbowTrout

Great.....

My wife shops at Target and Michaels. We already have had to cancel and replace her bank card once this year due to attempted fraud but at least it shows the bank fraud departments appear to be on their toes.

Ubuntu N-ONE: 'Storage war' with Dropbox et al annihilates cloud service

RainbowTrout

Got my letter yesterday.

RainbowTrout

Re: Shoddy

Got my email yesterday. Never used the service though.

Nominet bins Optical Express' appeal against 'It ruined my life' website

RainbowTrout

I had LASIK performed a couple of years ago in the USA at a large hospital "aesthetic" center (rather than one of the cheaper choices). I now have 20:20 or better vision. The procedure was not very pleasant and the smell of "burning hair" (or more strictly cornea) was a little off putting.... There were cheaper choices available but I think with any surgery it is prudent to air on the side of caution.........

Yahoo! keen! to! slurp! news! video! distie! site!

RainbowTrout

I'm amazed that Yahoo is still around....

Molyneux: Working at Microsoft is 'like taking antidepressants'

RainbowTrout

I really liked the non-Kinect Fable games, wish he would focus on those.

Why can’t I walk past Maplin without buying stuff I don’t need?

RainbowTrout

Re: Maplin...

"They're the ones asking you every 15 seconds if you need any help and lying to you about product features".

We get the same kind of "help" here in the US at the lamentable "Radio Shack" but here they are trying to sell you a cell phone plan. Sad to see so many of them closing but they are not the store they were 15 years ago for replacement components etc.

Hey, IT department! Sick of vendor shaftings? Why not DO IT, yourself

RainbowTrout

Re: Not sure where you work...

"In our large pharmaceutical company, the home-grown applications have been systematically replaced over the last 25 years by configuable standards, the residual home-grown applications will have disappeared in the next few years. When they go, the get replaced with some standard with reduced functionality, some were even sold to external IT specialists to turn them into "standards"."

Same at the biopharm company I work at. 10 years ago there were hand built programs to do time off, expenses, data management. The company was split and my bit sold to a VC company and the majority of the IS people stayed with the old company. New software tools were no longer developed but at least the old ones were updated. The company was sold on a couple of years ago and all of the internal webpages have gone along with the perfectly functional software tools to be replaced by a fricken SAP "portal" and internet that seems to be dialup.

Nokia launches Euro ANDROID invasion, quips: 'Microsoft knew what they were buying'

RainbowTrout

Re: this would actually save Microsoft money in the long run

"Honestly there are some things that the phone does really well, but then the majority of the time it seems like it has been completely abandoned".

I have a Lumia 920 (WP8) and my wife has my "old" 900 (WP7). There have been barely any app updates for her, she wants to like the phone but once its renewal time she is probably going with android or iPhone because she wants to make sure she can use a fitbit and there does not seem to be a native WP app for it.

Harvard student thrown off 14,000-core super ... for mining Dogecoin

RainbowTrout

A hundred years ago I got in a little bit of bother at the Human Genome Mapping Project where I legitimately had an account and (stupidly) ran a setiathome client on one of their Sun bioinformatics servers. I had fantastic through put but it slowed down legit work for the other users. They found it, deleted it, and I received a polite email telling me they had found it, deleted it, and please don't do it again....

Years of AWOL Windows Phone features finally show up in video leaks

RainbowTrout

Will all the poor WP7 users be left out?

My guess is yes. My wife has a Lumia 900 and I have a 920. The number of updates I've had compared to her (on AT&T) and how lots of the apps for the 900 dont seem to be being updated gives the impression that WP7 is unloved and becoming obsolete. She is now thinking about an Android or iPhone (where as I really want the 1020).

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