Posts by Craig

Temporary...

As much as I appreciate the benefits that Microsoft has brought to computer users worldwide, I can't help but see this news of Bing being the second most popular search engine as a little premature. Traffic will be inflated for a few days while people try out a shiny new toy, after which time traffic will drop to a more realistic level.

Maybe I'm the one with premature comments - so far Bing does seem like an innovation to the search engine genre. It won't be long before Google copies all the good parts thereby negating any need for people to use Bing.

I'm an Altavista fan, rarely use any other offering. Always had a lot of respect for the techs at DEC and their efforts on Altavista bore significant results. Been a long time since www.av.com appeared on search engine rankings, does it get lumped together with Yahoo results?

85 pages - and still a biased conclusion

So out of those 7 million, how many make purchases based upon the 'free trial'?

I suspect the vast majority are like me, download it, check it out, and then go buy the CD or DVD unless it really is pure crap. Even the new Star Trek film, saw it on a 32" TV and then went to the cinema (kept the ticket stub, as I do with every film I see at the cinema). It is possible that the slightly younger generations (16 to 21) may not have built up enough moral fibre at that stage in their lives, but rest assured by the time they're 30 they'll know that if they want to continue watching good movies and listening to good music then they have to pay for it.

Being a nation of try-before-you-buytards is not quite the same as a nation of freetards. Are there really 7 million people in the UK who are dumb enough to harm the individual artists who prepare the visual and audio media we so thoroughly enjoy?

Not that old chestnut again...

Why does everyone stick to this false notion that Microsoft were late with tabbed browsing? They brought tabbed browsing to the Mac with version 4.5 of IE, Firefox didn't even exist at that time. No-one batted an eyelid when Microsoft introduced it, but someone comes along later with the same idea and everyone "can't live without it"...

Worth noting that a few months after the release of IE 4.5 for the Mac, Opera introduced tabbed browsing for the PC version of their browser. Again, no-one paid any attention. Stop giving Mozilla credit for something they copied!

Would they complain to Ramsay?

Oh FFS someone shut up the idiots who are submitting complaints... I think most people are aware that Gordon Ramsay swears a lot so if you find yourself easily offended by a frickin' word (which might be repeated a multitude of times) then CHANGE THE CHANNEL!

Would be amusing to see how many of these people would still submit a complaint if they had to make the complaint directly to Gordon Ramsay. Well, maybe not amusing, more like hilarious...

Maybe someone should introduce Chef Ramsay to the acceptable substitutes presented in such classics like Father Ted, Battlestar Galactica, and of course the almighty Farscape.

Re: 70,000 PCs for £30million...

Roughly £430 per PC, but don't forget logistics, deployment and support costs. I'd be very surprised if the contract is purely a box-shifting deal.

Nice progress

I usually appreciate reading about Microsoft's efforts to make its technology more accessible, and am happy to hear of another step forward.

Shame that even if Microsoft were to release all code for all its products and didn't restrict that code with any sort of license someone would find a reason to complain!

Re: nVidia + AMD combo set to rise again

Looks like there's already a new (and I think it's unanounced since I haven't heard about it yet) chipset from nVidia for the AM3 chips - the 980a SLI (http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_nforce_980a_sli_us.html). Now I need to find which motherboard manufacturers are bringing this to market!

A new episode?

Do you think the Intellectual Property Office would sponsor a new episode of Wallace and Gromit? I can imagine the storyline revolving around Wallace being beaten to the punch by big corporates when trying to register his patents, and on the few successful applications the story gives insight into how the big corporates walk all over the small guys and ignore the patents they own.

At least it would be educating the visiting students with some real world insight into how patents work!

Software updates

The great thing about Philips HDTV boxes is the ease with which the software for the TV can be updated, just hit the 'update software' option in the menu when viewing digital TV and it will grab the latest software over the airwaves, providing support for new features. My 32PFL7962D has had several software updates since I bought it a little over a year ago, each one offering new features and sometimes support for additional codecs.

If the standards for high-def over the airwaves change, I'm sure Philips will update their software to accommodate those changes.

To echo others - WTF?

"ditched Microsoft's Outlook [Express] for open-source email following a computer virus that caused a massive breakdown in communications"

So rather than deal with the virus that caused the problem they blame the mail client and switch mail clients in the hope that will overcome the original problem... Okay so even I don't use Outlook Express, in fact I find it madenning when a corporate entity or public authority doesn't use a MAPI-capable mail client. At least if they were using a decent mail and collaboration platform such as those offered by Lotus, IBM or Microsoft then they would have been able to retrieve the 'missing' emails.

Next time you call BT for broadband technical support, just remember that the best IT staff in India are working for the PM.

As an afterthought, maybe those emails arrived safe and sound afterall. With only a single copy of an email held in a dbx file as part of Outlook Express's mail store it's very easy to hit the delete button then compress the message store - voila, all trace of the original message purged forever. Sounds like the sort of mail system governments must love!

Re: Raise the CO₂

Thanks for the chuckle Gary!

They're like pirates...

Take a limited company that has £300k of debt because the owner decided not to pay HMRC for 2 or 3 years. Owner approaches an accountancy firm specialising in liquidisation and administration, and pays a little over £45k into a 'fund' that is intended to meet the costs of disolving the company.

Owner of said company walks away and sets up a new limited company, thereby ensuring that once more the owner is not liable for anything.

Accountancy firm handling the administration starts racking up the legal fees and before you know it, their fees are almost exactly £45k. Not a penny left for any creditors, including HMRC.

Owner walks away having paid less than 1/6th of what was owed, but is legally free of the debts altogether.

---

Coincidentally have any of you ever asked an accountancy firm who handles administration for anything? Unless you're willing to fork out 5 grand, forget it. Events so far this year have made me believe that large quantities of money are made by the administrators. Obscene amounts. No other industry (well maybe the entertainment industry) seems to offer the potential to earn thousands of pounds for so little effort.

Re: Bill and James (FAO D@v3)

That's a trick question isn't it? Tell us your age and then ask us what it is, there's got to be a catch... That or it was just a really daft question!

"Condense the universe's timeline"

Within the space of one week I've heard far too many people suggesting that the history of our universe be considered from the condensed perspective of a standard Earth year. It was funny when Stephen Fry did it on QI, gets old when repeated too frequently though.

Already there?

My Motorola Maxx V6 has been around a couple of years now and is charged via its micro-usb port. You can even plug it into the computer with a standard micro-usb cable and it will charge from that without any special software. Seemed like a good idea and made me wonder why other vendors don't do something similar. Nice to know it'll become a bit more widespread in the future.

"the language has equal validity with English" ??

If the ID card gets Welsh language on it then we should also include Gaelic. While we're at it, let's make ID cards A4 in size so that we can include wording for every language used by British citizens.

Someone thwack the bint with a large stick until she realises some sense. I'm Scottish and proud of it - I love my language just as she appears to love hers. Regardless of national pride, including just one addiitional language on ID cards is asking for trouble.

Only gaelic

It may surprise some of you to learn that there are parts of Scotland where it is quite normal to encounter individuals who primarily speak gaelic, and who do not have a comprehensive grasp of the English language.

I was lucky in that most schools on the North-West coast were offering English lessons in primary school by the time I was four years old. Even now there are some primary schools that do not offer quality tuition on the English language and students of those primary schools have to rely on TV for English education until they reach secondary school.

It is easy to presume that everyone speaks English fairly well, but while gaelic is the primary language in many of the rural areas of Scotland it will always be the case that some individuals will have difficulty picking up a second language - in this case, English.

Consideration of end users

It's the age-old problem with software. Designed by techies for techies, even when we try to take into account user requirements we still end up with a solution that isn't entirely intuitive.

Windows is by no means transparently intuitive, but it's a lot better at providing straightforward means of performing numerous end-user tasks than current breeds of Linux. Mac OS X has the potential to knock Windows from the dominant OS spot, but even that is unlikely for another three to five years (guesstimate).

OcUK - good prices, fast delivery, lousy after-sales service

I've had mixed experiences with OcUk, most orders have arrived on time and have met my needs, but when it comes to RMAs frankly OcUK suck. Especially when the RMAs are raised because they've sent out the wrong parts.

On one occasion they sent me the wrong tube connectors two times in a row! I gave up and figured that they must have put the 1/2" fittings in the 3/8" fittings bin in the warehouse by mistake. On another occasion they sent the wrong motherboard, I sent it back after obtaining an RMA and they refused to replace it, stating that I'd already opened the package. I had to suck up the cost and pay again for the motherboard I wanted in the first place. Another occasion saw me receive a front bay display panel that came without cables or driver CD. I never resolved that one after I sent it back, they refuted their receipt of a recorded delivery package.

What is happening to OcUK is wrong, and it must be costing them a fortune. Despite my negative opinion of DDoS attacks, I can't help but feel a little sympathy if the person behind it has had a bad experience with returned products. The old saying "two wrongs don't make a right" comes to mind.

Monitor = drinks

For that price I would hope that it supports a refresh rate of 120Hz to ensure compatibility with the next generation of 3D display hardware from nVidia.

Am I tempted by this overpriced monitor? Well I wouldn't object if I got one for free, which I'd then sell for half its retail value, then I'd go to the pub.

Flamebait?

"cushion you from the Internet Explorer 8 standards mess"

...

I'm trying to figure out how the author of the article has managed to come to the conclusion that an effort from Microsoft to make a browser more compliant with standards whilst also giving end users the opportunity to render sites in the same way IE7 does is in fact a standards mess?

Sure, in an idealistic purist world we'd tell developers of non-standards-compliant sites where to get off, and backward compatibility would be dropped altogether. On the other hand, why piss off the many businesses who have intranets that serve their intended purpose perfectly well even if those intranets do use a few non-standard techniques to accomplish the desired functionality. Let's face it, businesses are not going to adopt Opera, FireFox, Safari or Chrome unless the developers of those browsers provide the means to provide site-wide configuration by way of group policies. In that regard IE is king of the hill.

I guess all I'm seeing here is an ill-informed individual using their bias in order to get a few hits. Well it worked, I read the article and I felt inclined to convey my opinions.

Slight digression...

"Then IE 4.5 appeared in 1999 with Mac-first features such as Print Preview and Forms Auto-Fill"

You forgot a HUGE browser enhancement - IE 4.5 for the Mac included tabbed browsing. Yes, that's right, Microsoft had tabbed browsing long before Firefox was a twinkle in a developer's pants!

Supporting the smaller developers

Forget about operating systems and office/collaboration software, the victims of software piracy are the small development houses who write solutions for specific industries (manufacturing processes, warehousing, etc). AC posts that we're only protecting other countries' IP - wrong, we've got enough of our own to protect. Written for the UK industries, by people who understand the intricacies of those industries - fellow Brits.

I would be interested to learn what compensation might be awarded to a business if found to be completely innocent of any IP infringement crime; that being my only concern I have no problem with random checks because the innocent have nothing to hide. It's the guilty parties who have no qualms about stealing which end up warranting the need for these checks.

Old versus new

Curiously, two workstations at our office which had AVG 8 installed were affected by this false positive today, but the workstations running AVG 7.5 were unaffected despite also receiving virus definition updates in the morning.

I like AVG, but feel that the version 7 engine is more refined and efficient than version 8. I haven't purchased version 8 for my home computers yet but know that sooner or later when my current licenses expire I will be left with a decision. In all likelihood I will buy Sophos Anti-Virus SBE at that time unless AVG 8 is refined significantly before then.

I just wish Sophos didn't rely on consultancy firms to sell their software, that way everyone could enjoy the benefits of what is unquestionably exceptional AV software.

*chuckles*

Hideously cruel, love it!

Selling up

My guess is that people are cashing in valuable shares to free up actual cash resources. Once the ball starts rolling the panic sets in as others see the value of their shares dropping and decide to sell up before they end up making a loss.

Pure guesswork. I don't know enough to be able to make an educated guess so it's just logical conjecture based on what little I know.

Somewhat surprised

I'm a bit of a fan of Thomson Speedtouch routers, in my experience they've been reliable and robust. Particularly good Speedtouch router models I've had the pleasure of using are the 585i v6/v7, the 608WL, and the 780. None of these exhibited the symptoms described in this article.

Does anyone with one of the affected routers know which Thomson router it is based on? Or is it the case that BT have developed their own firmware, and the custom firmware is at fault?

Step 3: Profit!

"the councils each receive an average of £1,900 annually for selling edited electoral rolls"

Ok this seems so wrong. While I do not support the practices of marketing firms, I do understand the need for councils to generate revenue from sources other than our council tax. If the edited registers remain available then it is high time for the councils to start charging more for the edited register if the company or individual purchasing it will use the data for marketing purposes.

There are still legitimate reasons for purchasing a copy of the register, and those people should not be penalised. A simple clause such as £xxx for personal use, £xxxxx for commercial use would suffice and as far as I am aware, it would also be legal.

nVidia denies claim

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/15240

Looks like a flat out denial, very glad to see it. I'll gladly choose nForce chipsets over Intel or AMD offerings because of reliability and performance.

Re: Will they ever learn?

"Ok this was a while ago, but nothing's really improved from them."

Hiya Andy,

A couple of years ago I'd have agreed and said Microsoft's own site search functionality was somewhat poor.

Nowadays though I find the search sections of Microsoft's numerous sites to be very efficient, effective, and powerful in their scope. MSDN search and Support search are both fantastic and very good at delivering entirely relevant results as required. Even the search feature for the main microsoft.com site (which incidentally searches all or a user selection of all MS subdomains) is very reliable, often offering a 'recommended result' which is normally the very page I'm after - regardless of the complexity or simplicity of my query!

These days I'm beginning to feel a need to move away from Google's invasive practices and amazingly I'm finding http://www.live.com to be the solution. Google's own search results are increasingly yielding link sites for generating search engine results instead of the actual content I'm seeking.

Who are they?

*rubs eyes* Ok so we've all known that this was coming for a few months now, nice to have an article that (relatively) concisely presents the facts for us.

*rubs eyes again* Yep, I thought so. Is there any mention of where we can find out who the ISPs that have voluntarily signed up are? I didn't see a list of ISPs in the article.

Thanks!

Re: Neil Greatorex

You want a recommendation? I think there is only one ISP in the UK these days that offers what you ask for. Hopefully El Reg won't mind me pimping the services of Zen Internet, I've been with them six years and no plans of changing because everywhere else I look I see traffic shaping, usage profiling, fair use policies that are not in the slightest bit fair to customers, the list goes on.

Some people don't like a fixed download cap. I'm on 100 gigs per month and rarely use half of that even though I am a heavy downloader. Still, it's easy enough to top up with additional download quota if for some bizarre reason I ever exceeded my limit.

Which ISP was offering 500 gig download caps without shaping last year, then kicked a tonne of their users for breaching the 'fair use policy'? I really don't know why these companies are allowed to get away with such abuse.

Upgrade coupons...

Free upgrade coupon for all scmuc*cough* I mean all customers who bought Windows Vista?

I align myself with the sensible people who figured we'd skip Windows Vista what with it being somewhat new and unpolished, wait for the more refined version of Windows to follow. I sure hope Microsoft don't drop the ball twice in a row.