Posts by Shell
69 posts • joined Friday 17th August 2007 11:51 GMT
Re: Seagate has a new 4TB 3.5in hard disk for digital video recorders
My Virgin Media DVR (Tivo) has a healthy 1Tb in it. Standard model.
Re: What about the benefits
Master Collection *upgrade* is £1300. Full price is £2500.
I'm a CC subscriber (via work) and think the model works well. I'm not forced to take our a year subscription, paying monthly instead. I can stop when I want. The software does *not* require an internet connection all of the time, only occasionally on start up - and these days, I rarely close photoshop when I'm not using it anyway. It doesn't use any resources to worry about while in the background.
It's not for everyone, granted, but I prefer the more frequent updates that CC already offers rather than the 18-month gap between boxed releases, and I love not having to drop £££ on the upgrades up front.
Re: About time too
Javascript supports threading (webworkers), so those choke points are falling away.
Re: Windows version
They're also basically Chrome under a different name. Safari and Chrome are branches of the same WebKit engine I believe (and Apple, Google and others contribute to WebKit itself)
Posted in Game closes 277 stores
Re: list of closed stores
The Edinburgh stores were not previously Gamestation as far as I know. We also had a Gamestation here, but that closed last year.
Re: Great for tablets and phones
Using OSX with an Apple Trackpad works well, even in a development environment. Swiping between full-screen apps is very nice, and feels natural. Not so well with the Windows 8 VM I set-up last night. COuldn't get anything like swiping to work, and what mouse gestures there are feel horribly counter-intuitive.
Missed a trick
WIndows 8 really misses the point of 'touch'. It's supposed to be natural, intuitive. I shouldn't need to 'figure out' how to move between windows, how to get around running apps. After playing for a few hours last night I still dont really understand what happens when you drag windows to the top of the screen, or how the new split screen works. When Apple introduced swiping between full-screen apps and the new 'mission control' into OSX it felt 'natural'. I didn't have to think about it because it was similar to 'real life'. I'm disappointed. There's a lot of nice stuff in the tiled Metro UI, I like the way it looks, but in actual use it is so badly broken it feels poorly thought out, very much incomplete.
What I'd love to see is the full-screen / gesture based functionality of OSX Lion + Metro's tiles.
Not just fancy effects.
Or beyond that, 3d visualisation - for example on the medical products I'm working on. As with any technology it could be misused (intro hell), but that doesn't mean that technology should just be dismissed because of it.
Posted in Microsoft's IE9: Don't believe the hype
Nice fonts
I disagree. I think font rendering is still much better in all browsers on OS X.
Posted in Microsoft's IE9: Don't believe the hype
Insane
The IE9 beta installation already hosed my Windows 7 desktop (work PC, wouldn't let one of these in my house!). Thankfully our support folks are giving me a Windows7 VM to try it with this week, having had to rebuild my PC on Friday. I don't think either of us want to do that again.
The mind boggle why they have to intergrate anything. For the chap up-thread who suggests the integration is just UI: if that's the case, why does the beta insist on downloading 4 components that require my PC to reboot? Safari, FireFox, Chrome don't require WINDOWS to be modified to run... it's just inane.
Ate my PC
So, tried installing the beta this morning. Required 36 updates to my desktop computer behind company fire wall. Okay, so I installed updates. Required reboot. All but 4 updates failed. Suddenly half my programs dont work. Tried to repair. Re-run IE9 install. Tells me I have to install updates... everything still broken.
So Microsoft DONT learn. They still have a browser so tied into the system that it can easily break everything if something goes wrong.
Also this week: Installed FireFox 4 b10 and Opera 11.x, both of which didn't require any changes to Windows 7 and work like a charm. And Chrome 9 has been working perfectly on this PC since the day I got it.
UK
Well, actually, in the UK I've never taken photo ID. You can fly internally with BA and not show ANY photo ID at all. You're simply not asked to present an ID unless you use a check-in desk. I always check-in online, and only have a carry-on back. I flew countless times last year between Edinburgh and Heathrow, and once this year.
Stung by iTunes too
November last year, my iTunes account was stung for £30 of app purchases and "in-app" purchase in... Chinese. These is despite a 16 character mixed-case password (not easily guessed) and never accessed from anything other than iPad/iPhone and my Mac (which is secure). It took 48 hours to get Apple to refund the amount, and it came with a very curt-but-polite "Apple's policy is that all purchases are final, non-refundable" despite my multiple protests that *I* did not make the purchases. Something somewhere is leaking account information, either a hack somewhere in iTunes or leaking OSX... I dont know, but it wasn't pleasant, and Apples attitude was less that supportive.
Posted in End of the line for ID cards
Passports
ot:
In recent months I've flown at least 10 times within the UK (twice this week), and have never once taken any photo ID with me. We always fly with BA, but maybe other airlines are more strict.
Sp00ky
And I suppose there was no chance at all that it is a Windows machine and it just randomly popped... as they do?
I think he's been reading too many of his own books.
Posted in Sony sued for dropping Linux from PS3
Ahem
"Imagine if iPhones suddenly lost their multitouch capabilities."
That's a wee bit over dramatic?
When using an iPhone you pretty much HAVE to use Multitouch as part of the Apple UI - so, what, 100% of users?
How many people do you know who actually run Linux on their PS3s? A few hardcore techies? 0.01% of all users maybe?
Posted in AMD ships low-cost six-core Phenom IIs
6... 12.... 24... 48...
6 cores for £199 already? Perhaps Intels estimate of the number of cores doubling each year should be revised! Wonder if you can stick two of these things into a mobo? Actually, I also wonder if there's any software out there that would actually make use of 12 cores... (can games do that yet?).
Shared
In a world full of shared hosts with many hundreds of web sites possibly sitting on one IP address, it's a somewhat frightening prospect...
Posted in BT mops up after flood and fire
Scotland too
It appeared to knock our POS card devices as far away as Edinburgh, Scotland too - at least my fave cinema lost their card facilities, with their provider pointing the finger at BT. I thought the whole point in the Internet was in the event of something like this happening everything would still 'just work'.
250mb?
250Mb may be 'a lot of farting applications' but that's half a days worth of YouTube in HD... If you really are going to use this for web browsing, 250mb is hopelessly low. The bigger screen lends itself to video playback.
Posted in Steve Jobs Flash rant put to the test
Webkit
The implementation of HTML5 in Safari on iPhones etc is based on the open source Webkit engine, of which Apple is just one contributor. Google Chrome is also webkit based. To suggest that Apple 'controls' is perhaps a little unfair?
Posted in iPad nearly had video conferencing?
iPhones
I can see iPhones getting front-facing cameras, but it doesn't seem an iPad type of thing. I imagine the beta SDK is likely to cover 4th gen iPhones as well as iPads, so finding reference to video conferencing isn't a shock.
RIP Flash
It wouldn't take much to re-train from Flash to JavaScript y'know: AS3 isn't that different. It's just like JavaScript with classes.
I wouldn't miss Flash if it died tomorrow - I loved coding for it, but these days I can do so much more with jQuery and JavaScript and never worry about plugins!
Posted in Sky 3D soccer fails to score
Glasses
The fancy 3d glasses sit fine over regular glasses, but you do end up looking even more of a twit (speaking from personal experience).
Posted in Adobe heats up iPad Flash bash
@alphaman
Adobe have an opportunity to become "the" development platform for iPad/iPhone though with their up-coming Flash CS5. Building apps right inside Flash in native iPad/iPhone format sounds rather cool - AS3 is heck of a lot more forgiving than objective-c.... plus you wouldn't necessarily have to write any code at all yourself (looking at Flash Catalyst). Flash lends itself to the slick UIs we see on these devices.
IMO Flash is doomed as a browser plug-in, with the infinitely more flexible open tech like HTML5 and powerful frameworks like jQuery: Adobe need to find a new market, and perhaps this is the one. If they can get Flash to compile apps specifically for other platforms, like Android, or even (gasp) Windows Mobile, they could 'own' the cross-platform development field.
Posted in Adobe sounds off on iPad's Flash slap
time to die
Long-time Flash advocate (in the absence of anything better) but IMO Flash has had it's day. There is little in Flash that you can't do with JavaScript and HTML5 now. While I think Flash still has its place (games) I certainly would not recommend it for regular web sites and frankly flash-heavy sites are a PITA even on a meaty computer. The only 'killer feature' that Flash really adds over HTML5+JavaScript is the ease of putting together sexy UIs, but given frameworks like jQuery or Scriptacul.us that gap is rapidly narrowing: plus iPad is a app-driven platform so you can create your sexy UIs in objective-c instead, no?
Posted in Steve Jobs uncloaks the 'iPad'
Not new but...
They said that about the iPhone tho. "Nothing new here". Have you any idea how many iPhones I see on the commute to work every morning!? Those buggers are everywhere (um... including my jacket pocket...). The iPad isn't "new" - it's a pooling of some of the best interface ideas in a format that is more easily consumed. I'm really excited by the idea of what this could do to the publishing industry. I'd much rather have an interactive stack of digital magazines that the backpack of design mags I usually lug around with me.
But I'm cautious too: I dont know if there is a market for an expensive device like this. And it'll only be a success if the content (such as interactive mags, lots of good books, a few killer apps) is there. And the idea of spending £499 + 3G contract on top of my iPhone contract... meh. Is there anyone rich enough left in the UK (apart from bankers) who can actually afford that any more?
Posted in Sikh coppers request bulletproof turbans
secularism ?
@masterpikey
You have cleanly demonstrated the problem; people seem unable to hold a frank and unemotional discussion when it comes the religious rights.
Perhaps we in the UK should take a leaf from Turkish secularism - a large, faithful Muslim society that STRICTLY separates religion from work/politics/public services.
I'm British, non-Christian (married to a Turkish Muslim), and I'm happy (and more than welcome) people to express their beliefs in any way they like - in their personal space and time. But when this starts to encroach on politics or public services, paid for from my taxes or otherwise, as a non-religious person this makes me very uncomfortable.
Posted in Sikh coppers request bulletproof turbans
Un-PC
Why are they wearing them in the first place? Perhaps it's terribly un-PC of me (har har), but surely the police shouldn't be allowed to have such blatantly religious regalia in the first place while on the job.
@Andy Bright
Too much WoWTime? (Or, applied to me, for knowing!)
I agree with the other comment re: WikiP is what it is - it's a great place for finding information that you're not to worried about the validity of - or a place to start if you're research a subject. But it should NEVER be taken as "fact". The journalists involved should be fired. What other lazy reporting for these authors has slipped by without being noticed?
Jacket because... I'm late for am Ulduar raid.
Posted in Recession takes chunk out of game sales
Big Bang?
How accurate are these figure? This time last year, GTA4 was released, which massively boosted games & console sales. There's no equiv "big bag" release any time soon, so I'm not sure how much the dip is due to the economy, or just that there are no big titles out.
@By I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects
Pants :( You're right. Back to Azeroth for me, RL is way too frightening.
Imba slacker trolls strike again
WoW's "message of the day" stuff is in an HTML box sat along side your 3d avatar (occasional game crashes can expose malformed HTML tags in that box, and other popup messages). So I guess it's covered.
Not that I've ever played WoW, honest.
I know it's probably naive, but is there no mechanism for fighting the patent system itself? Surely nobody takes it seriously any more. Why aren't people turning their lawyers against the system instead?
Posted in Applers howl over Mac OS fix
Frustrated!
Mac Pro: Bootcamp to Vista to enable other half to watch 'Driving Hazard Training DVLA' DVD (no Mac support). Keyboard suddenly does not work (drivers magically forgot how to talk to blue-toother Mac keyboard). Finally get that working again, and half way through mock exam, Vista interrupts "Important system updates", ruins test. Apply updates, reboot machine. Half way through next mock exam "Windows is configuring your updates", ruins test, then reboots the machine with no warning. When it comes back, mysteriously lost the keyboard AND mouse this time. Finally get that working again. Half way through the next (3rd) mock exam, "Blah program blah wants to run...", ruins test... It finally all worked after that, for an hour. Totally frustrating, how can anyone use this!?
Rebooted Mac into OSX, noticed there were updated (10.5.6) applied them. No problems. No interruptions. No work lost. Carried on working rest of the evening with relief, knowing I wont have to load Vista again for a very long time.
Posted in OMFG, what have you done?
@ Double Dekkers
Like the BBC news site, or most other news sites?
Users always hate change, but sometimes it's just something you have to do. I can't decide if I like the design yet. It seems a little more readable on an iPhone screen (flame away, I don't care), but there is heck of a lot of wasted space on the right column in any browser. But then, same goes for most news sites. You can never please everyone: personally I don't use browsers full screen (trust me, even the wonderful Reg full-screen on a 30" Apple Cinema Display would be totally overwhelming), so I'm quite happy for fixed width sites. Fixed with allows for a wider range of design choices that doesn't destroy the layout soon as a user resized the browser.
Posted in Apple slapped for dodgy ads
@ Ivan Headache
BBC and YouTube provide Quicktime alternatives of all the content that the iPhone is able to decode. The iPhone does not support Flash. It's never likely too either. Anyone following the Adobe development blogs will know that Adobe currently have no plans, or real incentive, for making a Flash player for iPhone. Apple aren't pushing for it either probably because it would just drain the battery so fast (Flash is pretty intensive). As the Flash player isn't open source, nobody else can make a Flash player for the iPhone legally (without paying a hefty license fee to Adobe I guess). I'd love to see Flash on the iPhone, but I doubt it'll happen.
Spotty
Well the 3G here in Edinburgh spotty at best with the iPhones. Three times this week I've had no coverage, or apparently connected but unable to actually *get* to anything over 3G (mail/web/apps all time out). My other halfs 3G iPhone is just the same.
It's a shame, because when the 3G does work, it's brilliant. But it's fecking annoying with all these outages (and there's no free WIFI near my office). I really hope it can be fixed via software, but I have my doubts :(
Accidents waiting to happen?
What scares me with these types of legal incidents, and the resulting "Streisand effect", maybe next time they won't bother with the legal path. Accidents are easily arranged...
"unprofessional"?
Given it was an article aimed and hardcore coders, and given the hardcore coders I know pretty much speak like that, I don't see the problem.
It was an interesting and entertaining article, and I hope the author has more on the way.
@ Mike
That would be true only if you ignore bloat. Meanwhile in reality, you see the OpenSource OS's and even OS X get leaner and better performing with each release, while Windows does the reverse. It SHOULD be about the users - the majority of people want something that is simple to use, quick, lets them run the programs they use most -and- looks good. Does it require a 3Gb install to do that? Microsofts insistence on support "old" applications is their major downfall I think - there *are* some nice ideas in Vista, but it's all choked up with compatibility issues and so many layers of technology the average person doesn't need to know about, nor will ever care about. That's why Windows requires such high-spec machines. This is why the Leopard can run perfectly smoothly on a relatively low-spec laptop. Apple don't care so much about backwards support. Now this is not always a good thing either (forcing all your users to update their software), but I really think Windows would benefit from a reset. Throw away everything; launch a sleek, small new OS with no backwards compatibility and a UI that doesn't require game-running video cards just to draw a desktop. Personally I don't think there should be a Windows 7 - there should be something else entirely.
Posted in Apple iPhone 3G
No regrets
Who needs email when you have email? Email exists outside of my iPhone, where MMS is resolutely stuck in "phone world". It's not a feature I'll miss. Same goes for video calls; while like most folks I was caught up in the early 3G video call thing (and I really did love my SonyEricsson k800i), I only used the feature a few times!
Since I got my iPhone (1st gen) I've used it's web features every single day. Now I've upgraded with an iPhone 3G 16gb and I have no regrets.
Posted in EMC adds Mozy lifesaver to Iomega drives
Unlimited
I also use Mozy's excellent unlimited service (circa £100 for 2 years sub) to backup my Macs at home. Like most folks I'm lazy about backups, but Mozy takes all the thinking away from it. My backups are running to around 200Gb... that would be heck of a lot of DVDRs! I feel a lot happier having off-site backups too.
I just hope EMC aren't tempted to start bloating the Mozy agent with "features"...
Careful, Restore may eat your phone...
So, I managed to actually upgrade my phone on Friday, but had to snatch it from the dock before it went through the restore stage - hey the pub is more important, right? So when I finally got home (several hours later, ahem) I plugged it into my trust Mac and managed after about 30 minutes to get it activated. Lovely. Installed lots of cute apps (the Facebook app is ace! And the AIM client is... dangerous), all worked perfectly. So of course, I get back to the office early this morning, and plug my phone into the dock here to give it a charge... and it promptly wipes the phone of all my apps, and everything else I'd done on it over the weekend. Stupid restore runs without asking!!! Talk about blood dumb software :( So off I go downloading and installing all those apps again. And I hope I didn't get any important SMS over the weekend...
@Steve Goodman
The GPS *is* something new: all your photos are automatically geotagged, and the phone allows Apps to be aware of where the phone is and behave accordingly. There are already some apps that ping other phones nearby for social networky stuff. It's both scary and cool. Tried one App on sunday that looks for other iPhones close by and shares "moods" with them. I have no idea what new level of useless waste of time this is, but it has a unique Apple twist :P
Meltdown
It does seam that their servers have had a meltdown. I filled in the form around 9:45am, only for it to crash out on the payment screen - it seemed to dump the hex of a JPEG to screen then give up. Refreshing after that resulted in the maint page appearing :s
I just called O2 and they are totally overwhelmed - big queues. Think I'll give up and try my luck at an O2 store on Friday instead.
@AC (ca vs bike)
A big net and a lot of patience.
bored
How bored to you have to be before you start trawling the source of web sites for smutty comments?! I mean... come on. Surely you're not run out of porn.
Paris, just because.
Not there yet
We're not there yet. Sat here on a National Express train from York to Edinburgh screaming at my "3" 3g dongle that disconnects me from the 3 network every ... three minutes! Very irritating. So I am using the free Wifi service on the train and it's excellant!
Until the phone network costs come down and reliability goes up, I'm not convinced cellphone networks are the way to go.
Posted in Palm OS-based Centro arrives in UK
Ugly
Seriously, if they are aiming at a youth market they need to come up with something less ugly :s
