Posts by Nick Fisher
43 posts • joined Saturday 17th February 2007 19:24 GMT
Good point, I should have added a 'IMO' there. DLY is a cracking read, agreed.
Freyr and Batalix?
I do. Aldiss' finest works, without a doubt.
I agree
I had 10 years fault-free service from my PowerMac G4. My Intel iMacs have likewise performed faultlessly.
Posted in Apple iMac 27in
Very impressive bit of kit.
I purchased the 21.5" quad-core i5 model and it goes like the proverbial off a shovel. The screen, as the reviewer noted, is a marvel. It's an excellent machine.
Not quite
It's a 4Gb download. Unpleasant, yes, but you can install on it all machines which use the same AppleStore ID. Make a disk image on a DVD (or memory stick) for future use.
(and given that Apple rely on the honesty of its users with regards to OS installs - no licence code or serial number shenanigans here - you could probably install it on as many machines in your household as you care to)
I'm puzzled why your XTools d/l failed. You can break/resume Apple Store downloads ad infinitum.
Posted in Apple Mac OS X: ten years old today
OS X public beta
The beta was time-limited IIRC. Judicious resetting of your system clock may allow it to boot.
Kindles
As somebody who reads a lot of books and spends a lot of time away from home, the Kindle was a no-brainer purchase for me. I love it.
Would I like an iPad? Of course of I would. But I wouldn't use it as an e-book reader.
LCD vs e-ink
LCDs are backlit. e-ink screens aren't (- they're reflective, like regular paper).
They really are much easier on the eyes.
Firewire?
Do any of these drives have a Firewire port? (I'm guessing you would have mentioned this in the review if so)
n/a
El Reg is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Monolingual - use with caution
Monolingual is a great way to save some disk space, but beware, it can completely break your Office suite. After using Monolingual, Word 2008 became extremely unstable for me (crashing every few minutes), and the Auto Update procedure ceased to work.
A Time Machine backup saved the day, at the cost of several hours productivity.
Curious minds want to know
How slightly are you hoping for? 3%? 5%? A little bit more slightly than that?
Posted in BBC ices launch of free iPhone news app
Leave the BBC alone
The only people interested in breaking up the BBC are those people in direct competition with it. Well, them and the swivel-eyed loons and fantasists of the rightwing blogosphere.
Incidentally, don't forget BBC Radio. Radio 4 alone is worth the licence fee IMO.
Posted in Tories ask: Why BBC3, BBC4?
BBC4...
...is the serious documentary ghetto (and not just arts). It's arguably home to the finest programmes BBC television produces.
Leave it well alone, please.
Posted in BSkyB yanks more cash from HP's hide
The Murdochs. Dontcha just love 'em?
I think I'm not alone when I say I'd like to see a far, far smaller News Corp.
Apple and Open Source
Well there's WebKit, of course. Chances are your phone uses it.
Alternatively
Apple are re-entering the inkjet printer business with the introduction of the StyleWriter III.
("It's a really beautiful thing. We're really pleased with it. Look at that, two pages per minute in HQ mode, boom. Available July, $399")
Posted in 'Plutonium pinch' nips NASA
Copy boo boo
"One programme already feeling the "plutonium pinch" is New Horizons, which recently announced three contenders for a 2018 mission to either the Moon, Venus or an asteroid"
You mean New Frontiers. New Horizons in the Pluto/Kuiper mission currently en route.
OS X retail IS the full version. Not an upgrade.
No, they aren't upgrades. If I put a new HD in my MacBook I can install a retail copy of OS X on it and boot from it. I've done this on more than one occasion.
Posted in Tories oppose charges and speed cameras
The thing about the congestion charge...
...is that it works. Roll it out nationwide, do us all a favour.
Best thing Ken Livingstone ever did IMO.
Psystar
"If I want to buy OS X and install it on my hardware, with the understanding that I get ZERO support from Apple, why shouldn't I be able to?"
Apple aren't stopping you doing this. Go ahead. They don't care.
What they DO care about (and what many posters here don't seem to get) is selling non-Apple hardware with OS X installed on it (or bundled with it). That's a big no-no.
Posted in Apple banishes Macs to old folks home
Fine machines
In contrast to Stevie, my '99-vintage Sawtooth G4 is still giving sterling service, and has been trouble-free since the moment it was unboxed. A Mac that can boot both OS 9 and X 10.4 is a handy beast to have around.
Stephen Baxter
As Jeff pointed out above, this was the plot device in Baxter's 'Titan' novel (an excellent read btw, far better than his later stuff). In the novel, a crew of 5 took around 6 years to reach Titan in a one-way trip in shuttle hardware, prior to descending onto the moon itself in Apollo CMs. As you might expect, bad things happen on the way.
(Read 'Voyage' for his alternate history manned Mars mission)
Posted in In the ditch with DAB radio
One reason to buy a DAB set
Good luck trying to listen to Test Match Special on R4LW.
No engineering or scientific applications available for Macs
Odd, could have sworn I was running Mathematica and VMD on mine yesterday.
Posted in Apple tells Mac users: Get anti-virus
A pedant writes
The plural of 'virus' is 'viruses'.
There are no such words as 'viri' and 'virii'
Posted in Elgato EyeTV DTT Mac digital TV tuner
Nice bit of kit
I purchased one of these for my iMac. It's an excellent little device, and the DVR software works flawlessly. Thumbs up.
@Brett
Of course Apple sells 'the full OS' in a retail box. Every shrink-wrapped OS release that I can recall from System 7 upwards could be installed on systemless bona fide Apple hardware.
I replaced the HD in my MacBook over the weekend, installing 10.5 from scratch from a Leopard retail DVD. No target disk mode, no slurping from a Time Machine, nothing.
Waste of Research Council money
Makes me glad I'm not submitting a grant application to the EPSRC this year.
@Daniel B
Yep, my first Mac was a 2 Mb LC running System 6.0.7.
I remember paying for the VRAM upgrade so I could have 8 bit colour on a 13" screen.
Happy Days!
Makes sense
I bought my first Mac back in 1991, and I've been using them ever since.
How many hardware problems have I had with them? Er, none.
Days lost due to dodgy software/OS upgrades? Zero.
Viruses and malware? Zilch.
As with everything in life, you get what you pay for.
Apple, reassuringly expensive since 1976.
£500k
Not being cynical here, just realistic.
£500k certainly is a lot of money, but it doesn't buy many postdoc lab years.
(I work at the bench in biomedical research myself and know very well how quickly grants get drained away, and how small a percentage actually goes to fund wet science and salaries).
In this day and age
Generous as it is, £500k doesn't fund a lot of biomedical research these days. It should be sufficient for 2 or 3 three-year postdoctoral posts, plus support for a few graduate students.
Posted in Cassini to surf Enceladus's icy plumes
Not even remotely risky
Cassini will be at an altitude of 200km when sampling plume material (which, incidentally, is thought to consist of massively dispersed micron-sized particles). So to all intents and purposes it's still flying through vacuum, and not passing through a car-wash.
Fat binaries
Older readers may recall that fat binaries first surfaced in Apple's 68K/PPC transition back in 1993 or so.
Posted in Toshiba Portégé R500 slimline laptop
Apples and Oranges
I agree with Paul - if it doesn't run OS X it's of no use to me. Windows is an irrelevance as far as I'm concerned.
Posted in Apple ships Air
Sweet
Lovely little device - have three on order for the lab here. Perfect as 2nd machines and mobile presentation/modelling/data-logging systems.
I fail to understand why people are getting so steamed about the lack of an RJ45 connector. What's the problem, worried about naughty wireless h4c|<z0rz?
C'est merde pour le MS
Nice one - there's no real need to run any MS software these days anyway.
(although I suspect that the decision was taken for financial reasons rather than technological ones, sadly)
Posted in Germany flicks off-switch on DAB
DAB is good for one thing, at least.
Test Match Special, 'nuff said.
Posted in Turkey blocks YouTube, part II
Nice one
Considering the unadulterated tripe that exists on YouTube, is it too much to hope that the UK govt will be following Turkey's lead?
Posted in It was the MacBook Air sub-notebook
Ports
Who uses RJ45 connectors on laptops these days? Er, that's right, no-one.
Notice it doesn't have parallel ports or those splendid PS/2 DIN connectors either. Those fools at Apple, what were they thinking?
Strange
I've been playing WoW with the Leopard firewall enabled for the past week or so with absolutely no problems whatsoever.
But why let the facts get in the way of a good story?
Posted in Genes offer excuse for beer fear
A pedant writes:
Actually the causative agent of malaria is not an amoeba, but an Apicomplexan parasite of the genus Plasmodium.
