* Posts by Nigel Wright

157 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Sep 2007

Page:

Sony Ericsson confirms Symbian spurning

Nigel Wright
FAIL

I will never buy another SE handset again until the day I die

The P910 was a great phone and one of my favourite 'til this day.

When that phone was stolen I then bought a P990 sim-free. It cost me a considerable sum of money at the time Alas it was woefully under-specced for the o/s and full of bugs due to it not having been properly developed. SE promptly dropped support for the phone, failed to deliver upgrades to sort the bugs in it and basically abandoned me and other users.

Android or not...they can go swing. Never ever again.

Microsoft secretly yanks TechNet product keys

Nigel Wright

I've mailed them...

I am writing to you with respect to my Technet subscription.

Without prior notice or indeed any kind of communication it appears that you have changed the terms of my subscription insofar as you have reduced the number of software keys I have access to from 10 to 2 for most packages. Given that I paid a substantial amount of money on the basis and understanding that I have access to 10 (not 2) this constitutes a change and a breach of contract in the UK. This unduly affects my ability to make use of the subscription that I purchased it for - software testing.

I am very unhappy with this state of affairs and respectfully request that you re-instate my subscription to the original extent for which I paid.

Yours Sincerely,

Nigel Wright
FAIL

I am not very happy about this

A very terse email is going to be sent...I won't be renewing. This is another reason to move to a Linux distro....being on the receiving Microshaft's end of "sharp" business practices.

Crash grounds RAF Eurofighters - for Battle of Britain Day!

Nigel Wright

Wrong

By whatever metric you use, except for range, the Spitfire equivalent of the P51 at that time was markedly superior.

The P51 filled a void that the Spitfire couldn't - namely of long-range escort fighter. But don't mistake this for being superior. The Spitfire MkXiV easily out-turned, outgunned, out-dived, out-climbed and out-accelerated the P51D. They were broadly comparable in maximum speed with the Spitfire again having the lead at high altitude.

Nigel Wright
Thumb Up

Sleep easy..

....a Spitfire or Hurrucane could probably still out-turn most modern jets in a dogfight :-)

You just got persuade the jets down to less than 10,000ft and 250mph!

Apple iPod Shuffle 4G

Nigel Wright
WTF?

Better?

I don't think so. The fact that the Shuffle has to use iTunes automatically limits it. A Sansa just needs a file explorer type app in either Linux or Windows for content to be transferred in mass storage mode.

Apple hardware, by "virtue" of the fact that it utilises user non-replaceable batteries means the design is poor - the hardware life is defined by a consumable item.

The Apple is more popular thanks the the Apple marketing machine. I've use a Shuffle before...I thought it was and still do think it is nothing but a very cheap low-end product successfully marketed as something special at an inflated price. People are easy to fool.

Nigel Wright
Thumb Up

same here - e280

8GB of storage, user replaceable battery, titanium cover.

Sounds great, it's robust, user-upgradeable firmware...all for £65 a few years ago.

Brilliant kit.

Dell Inspiron M101z 11.6in notebook

Nigel Wright

I still think the best netbook they made was..

The Mini9. I bought mine for less than £200. Stuck an extra gig of RAM in it. It's very quick and boots Ubuntu in less than 30 secs. It's also very compact. These machine are just slightly smaller and expensive laptops.

The Mini 9 has completely changed my computer usage thanks to size, portability and robustness (the latter due to having an SSD).

No one needs Blu-ray, says Microsoft exec

Nigel Wright
FAIL

I think he's very wrong

We are nowhere near having the necessary ISP performance to stream data in such quantities. Do that with Virgin in its current guise and you will end up capped with slow speeds by the time you have a DVD's worth of data downloaded. That's unlikely to improve any time soon - in fact it's likely to get much worse.

Ubuntu man responds to GNOME 'coattail' claims

Nigel Wright

If there's a problem with OSS/Linux it is this..

....infighting.

Personally I don't care if Canonical are perceived to be riding on someone's coat-tails. They've delivered a workable, usable and reliable operating system that I like and which is free of everything I detest about the alternative. For that I am grateful to all those who participate in the project.

Mozilla's next Thunderbird gives Gmailers hope

Nigel Wright
Thumb Down

I am beginning to despair with Mozilla..

...I know it's free, but....

Firefox has been a serious memory hog for quite some time and on my Ubuntu boxes it has regularly been grabbing 500MB of RAM after running for a few hours with a few tabs open.

Thunderbird too is a memory hog as the Reg' has observed. Whatever happened to the lean philosophy? A gig of RAM is ridiculous for users of netbooks or lightweight laptops who may well be using Ubuntu UNR or XP with only a gig to start with.

Sort yourselves out Mozilla.

Strippers hit historic Marconi HQ

Nigel Wright
Thumb Down

A sad reflection of Britain's techn' industries

We appear to not only have divested ourselves of the more tradiional industries, but also of the tech' industries too.

...what else would you expect in a nation of shopkeepers, bankers and the low-paid service sector?

Broadband boss: 'The end of freeloading is nigh'

Nigel Wright

They have to be joking

Joe Public can't afford that. £600/month is half the salary of a substantial portion of the population. You can't charge what people can't afford - you'll have no customers left in no time at all.

Epic Fail: How the photographers won, while digital rights failed

Nigel Wright

The outcome was pre-ordained the minute Mandelson was onboard the yacht

Big business and money talks.

The ORG and its proponents never stood a chance. MPs failed to show, mp3 backtracked on promises and the bill was forced through at the last gasp of paliament. The outcome was obvious.

Ignoring the arguments over copyright, which I agree with, the one overriding concern I have is how this bill negates the usual processes of law and targets people on the basis of highly dubious evidence. The pirates will simply go back to swapping physical media instead and nothing will change.

Microsoft roasted for Office 2010 standards FAIL

Nigel Wright
FAIL

Well what a surprise!

Dance with the devil and this is what you get. The ISO <as> well Microshaft should be ashamed of themselves. I think it's probably true to say that many of us open-source fans saw this coming.

Massive fail.

Nerd alert: First Lucid Lynx Ubuntu beta fun

Nigel Wright

I think Ubuntu is great, but...

I am not very comfortable with the creeping commercialisation of it.

Apple turns the flamethrower on Android

Nigel Wright
FAIL

No matter what....

I still won't buy an iPhone and my next phone is likely to be an Android one.

Skype first to scrap Windows Mobile

Nigel Wright

Pick it up here

http://66.102.9.132/search?q=cache:tzDh08AD5T8J:www.skype.com/download/skype/windowsmobile/+skype+for+windows+mobile+6&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-a

The click on download it directly onto your device.

Device being pc. Works for me at the time of posting.

Nigel Wright

Borrox - I want to install on it my new phone

Any pointers as to how I might get hold of the installer? I want to install in on my new phone.

TIA.

Nokia No.2 is so sorry for N97 debacle

Nigel Wright

I think virtually all smartphones are pants..

They seem buggy and full of usability issues..neither any good as PDAs or phones in most cases.

However, having broken my HP Ipaq614c recently (it too was rubbish) I bought an end-of-line Palm Treo Pro running WinMo 6.1...and to my great surprise it's been brilliant. No crashes, totally reliable, fast and usable (unlike the Ipaq which was just crap in all respects).

Palm's implementation of WinMo 6.1 is a good user experience IMO.

I hate WinMo of course, but I have no choice but to use it for reasons of compatibility.

Mobile networks: It's a risky business, says 3

Nigel Wright
FAIL

I was in London last week for work..

....very close to Westminster. One would think my 3 mobile "broadband" dongle would work...... One thought wrongly.

Utter, utter pants! I will be cancelling my contract.

2010 will be the year of the net tablet, claims analyst

Nigel Wright
FAIL

Do these "analysts" have a clue?

Blah...blah..blah.

Netbooks started out at £200. Now look at the price. Theyhave crept up to close on £400 (that will be the Microsoft tx).

PDA's cost £200+. They've bombed.

I bet these net tablets have very high prices indeed, and certainly not in the £200 bracket.

Nokia were ahead of the game in 2007 with their excellent Internet Tablets. They bombed. The frequent criticisms included small screen size, limited processing power, physical size being too big etc.

Tablet pcs have bombed. Criticisms are poor battery life, weight, size, cost, lack of keyboard, limited functionality/use.

So, please explain to me how these net tablets are going to be any different or better?

The next big thing? Only in the eyes of the gullible.

It's the end of TV as we know it

Nigel Wright

All this presumes that...

...in Digital Britain there's plenty of good quality bandwidth available. Ho-hum...

2009's Top High-End Touchscreen Phones

Nigel Wright
Stop

iPhone = smartphone?

It can do one thing at a time. Hardly smart even if the UI is nice and it's very usable. It's not smart.

2009's Top Win Mo Smartphones

Nigel Wright

I am re-appraising WinMo

I've bought a brand new HP614c - end of line £100 instead of the usual £300+. I needed a phone at the weekend, and a "smart" one at that.

Fab hardware. Solid build quality. PANTS o/s. Pants as in more pants than I could have imagined. It's infuriatingly fiddly and requires far too much input to achieve any task. But then the ability to run a shed loads of differing apps is a bonus too.

Stop-Go-Stop-Go........errrr......

Buffalo Linkstation Duo

Nigel Wright

Better than my ReadyNas Duo by the looks of it

My ReadyNas Duo is the biggest pile of poo I have bought in terms of kit for many years.

The return of the Psion-sized PC

Nigel Wright

Oh how I yearn for an updated Series 5mx

Nothing has come close since. Superb hardware. Superb software. I mourn the passing of the Series 5mx. All it needs now is bluetooth, wi-fi and a decent screen.

iPhone upgrades - a one-way control-freak street

Nigel Wright
FAIL

Exactly why I won't buy..

....despite pressure from the Mrs to get her one - she likes shiny useless gadgets.

Apple's attitude (and similarly other smartphone suppliers) is pants. You don't own and iPhone....more like they grant you a licence to use one. OTOH, if you buy one you have little reason to moan on here as most people are savvy enough to know the score with Apple and how the shower of s***s work.

Filesharing laws to hit websites and newsgroups too

Nigel Wright
FAIL

How many times does it have to be said?

We already have avenues for copyright protection - the courts. It seems to me they are driving a way around the courts by intrucing tribunals? If someone is suspected of infringing copyright then they have a right to be heard in a court of law...not a bloody tribunal.

..and if copyright holders wish to enforce copyright then it is for then to do so through the appropriate instruments of law. It is not appropriate to expect ISP's to do it for them.

I wonder what they will do when this action fails to revive their flagging business model.

Windows XP on netbooks to lose life support?

Nigel Wright
FAIL

Thanks to MS and general public stupidity

..netbooks have gone from £200-£250 devices to £300-£400 devices with no increase in horsepower or spec'. I'm still on my Dell Mini 9 with Ubuntu and it performs brilliantly.

Lily Allen exits Twitter, bins BlackBerry

Nigel Wright
Thumb Up

Every Lily I have known...

....has been an attention-seeking, ego-centric drama queen. I don't know Allen, but she's keep the end up for sure!

BlackBerry Bold 9700 priced, dated for UK

Nigel Wright
Thumb Down

I don't get the Blackberry thing

I have a 9000 Bold as a company phone. It sucks. I hate the thing. I really don't get what all the fuss is about with Blackberrys. My Treo 680 personal phone is far more usable and versatile (wifi excepted) and I prefer it by far.

As the 9700 is a point upgrade I think I'll pass on this one thanks!

AMD revs Athlons for Windows 7 assault

Nigel Wright
Thumb Up

I knew they were coming because..

I am speccing a low heat/low noise SFF pc and whilst checking motherboard specs and CPU compatibiIity lists last week I noticed that the new parts were listed. So I have been holding off on making a purchase :-)

A quad-core 45W job will be just ideal in the mini-ITX system I am gonna build.

Inside Intel's 'Moorestown'

Nigel Wright
Stop

Intel never were very good

..at power management. And still aren't.

Firefox update quells quartet of security vulns

Nigel Wright
Thumb Down

Memory hig?

Yep. It's really bad. On several occasions I have seen the v.3.5.2 creep up towards 1.5GB of RAM!!! It then crashes. It's repeatable. How I wish for version 2 again! 3.5.2 is a pile of poo.

Xperia Pureness: The oddest mobile phone ever?

Nigel Wright
FAIL

It's a gimmick

Fail - the screen is a gimmick. If they wanted simple it would be like one of those venerable Nokias.

I want a simple phone:

B&W lcd display so I can read it in bright sunlight.

Decent sized keys.

Calls, txt, maybe a radio and/or mp3 player

MicroSD slot for mp3s

No camera

Robust case

7-10 days battery life on standby.

Hands on with the Nokia N900

Nigel Wright
Thumb Up

Interested...

I thought the N800 concept was a great one and I really enjoyed using mine. I didn't miss the cellular functionality it lacked. It only disappointed insofar as it felt like a concept device that Nokia pretty much abandoned to small apps developers.

I loved the fact that it ran a form of Linux and I could compile my own apps for it.

The N900 looks like an incremental development of the N800 tbh and I can't see anything revolutionary about it. I hope they have endowed it with enough cpu cycles and RAM as they were the chief things lacking in the N800 harware-wise.

Japan fine with cheap old mobile phones, ta very much

Nigel Wright
Thumb Up

This doesn't surprise me..

Having worked with the Japanese in a Japanese company for a few years I found that most of them were tech' luddites with very few of them even having a mobile (and this was the semiconductor industry as well!). And I can't say I blame them. Making phone calls is so much easier on a dumb phone...smartphone manufacturers have forgotten that the primary function of a phone is to make calls.

Met hires Twitter consultancy

Nigel Wright

Errrrrr....

"A spokesman said that the deal was not part of any investigative or intelligence-gathering programme. "We are increasingly looking to the internet to get our message out," he said."

You appear to have forgotten that you work for us. We're not interested in your message.

UK.gov revives net cut-off threat for illegal downloaders

Nigel Wright
FAIL

I have an idea...

Let's stop filesharing. Let's go back to swapping cds/dvds and copying them for mates. How about CD clubs amongst peers (sic). Let's see them try to stop that.

And let's stop buying overpriced unimaginative formulated crap that the media industry peddles.

Microsoft's Windows 7 pretzel takes fresh twist

Nigel Wright
FAIL

This gets more of a farce as each day goes on

I pre-ordered Win 7E at the promotion price, but I have since installed Ubuntu 9.04 64-bit and it runs nicely for most parts so, I think I will stick with it. It'll save me some money and if I need Windows then I'll run my licensed copy of XP from within a virtual machine as I am doing now.

Handset makers, the criminal's friend

Nigel Wright
FAIL

One thing can be sure...

...if the authorities have access then it will be abused rather sooner than later.

To this end I do not support this intrusion into outr privacy, because that is what it will become. From over-tall photographers to.."who've you been calling then, sonny?".

Can't trust them. Won't trust them. They've given ample demonstrations as to why.

Orange repeals unpopular price changes

Nigel Wright
Thumb Down

Serves them right

Arrogant tw*ts. My other half recently bought an Orange phone and they have been absolutely rubbish. She's had no end of trouble registering it with them, them giving her the run around and making it difficult for her to claim promotion vouchers that came with the phone.

It's just an effing phone. How difficult is it? I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole tbh.

Palm accused of spying on Pre owners

Nigel Wright
FAIL

And what about the impact upon my data costs?

...presumably transmission of such data would be coming out of my data plan? That's naughty.

HTC Hero Android smartphone

Nigel Wright
Thumb Up

Sounds like it's getting there..

My next phone will be Android-based. I will probably wait another iteration or two for them to iron the slow response. I would also prefer it if they dropped the camera functionality as I prefer to use a proper camera and can barely recall the last time I used a phone's camera.

MoD Minister: This is the last generation of manned fighters

Nigel Wright
FAIL

Pay attention to history...

...history has shown many times that it is folly to leave the defence of the nation to politicians. That brilliant man Hugh Dowding demonstrated that in 1940.

The American's can't secure their networks against a bloke in his bedroom (McKinnon) so, what hope they can secure remote control of their fighting vehicles.

Wars and conflicts will always need personal involvement, after all, that's how they begin and end.

Apple blueprints warranty Big Brother

Nigel Wright

Closed system

....what else would you expect. This is precisely why I will never buy an Apple product, despite liking some of them.

Microsoft ditches Windows 7 E plans

Nigel Wright

How can an o/s ship without a browser?

I am an FF user. I avoid I.E like the plague and I use Linux so I am no fan of MS, but HTF can MS ship an o/s without a browser? How do people get online to download one of their choice?

MS can harldy be expected to ship other browsers on media accompanying the o/s. Arguably, a browser is an essential part of an o/s these days in the same way as a text editor is.

Microsoft's Windows 7 price gamble - and why it's flawed

Nigel Wright

Linux is already well ahead...

...in functionality and is much easier on the hardware in terms of resources.

No extra software is needed to be purchased - it's already there are part of a distro or can be downloaded using the package manager.

It's easier on resources and runs in far less memory - it will run well within 512MB of RAM.

The problem Linux faces is the lack of familiarity people have. Windows is by and large the same across all versions as far as a user experience is concerned. Therefore, people are very familiar with it and tend to struggle with Linux because it's not the same as Windows.

This is what LInux has to overcome. People don't understand that they can't install Windows applications in a Linux system, but neither are they aware that there is also likely to be a Linux alternative that works just as well.

Amish farmers lose court battle against RFID

Nigel Wright

And the number of the beast.....

.....was 666

Page: