* Posts by Hywel Thomas

162 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Mar 2007

Page:

Windows 7 early promise: Passes the Vista test

Hywel Thomas

@Richard

You don't press the 'play' button to switch off an iPod. You press the 'Play/Pause' button to pause the song and the iPod switches itself off. Th button has both symbols on it.

So when a newbie asks "how do I switch it off', the answer is "just pause the song and it'll switch itself off automatically after a minute".

This is entirely different from shutting down by clicking on the start button. In fact, it's a good example of how well Apple thinks things through. There is no need for an on/off button, so there isn't one. Just as there isn't one on most tape players (note also that on many a ghetto blaster, 'off' is 'tape/off' : same thing)

Sony Ericsson to reduce handset range by 20 per cent

Hywel Thomas

Fifty Eight ?

Reduced by 20% isn't enough

Reduced TO 20% isn't even enough. Reduce to 7%, I say.

Put that effort into making 5 superb handsets : Cheap bar, cheap flip, mid-price bar, mid-price flip, smart/mediaphone.

And with the bar vs flip, the only difference should be the packaging. Same feature, same software.

Give them names. Like the Sony, the Sony Flip, The Sony Plus, the Sony Flip Plus and the Sony SmartMedia. Keep these names through product refreshes and redesigns.

Build a brand within a brand.

Holy f**k, Microsoft covers up ‘undesired’ words

Hywel Thomas

See it in action here...

http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/apple_getamac_vword_20081019_480x272.mov

Apple MacBook

Hywel Thomas

@shakje

Er, comparing a 13" laptop with a 17 " laptop with awful resolution ?

What's the battery life, what's the weight, what's the volume ?

I'll tell you...

Mac Book: 44% of the volume of the Sony

Mac Book - battery life 210 minutes longer (300 versus 90)

Mac Book - 54% of the weight of the Sony.

Or in other words, a simply list of specs like the one you gave is out-of-context and meaningless.

it might be handier when the 15.4" review comes out. Here are the numbers...

Mac Book: 52% of the volume of the Sony

Mac Book - battery life 180 minutes longer (270 versus 90)

Mac Book - 65% of the weight of the Sony.

... maybe not.

Apple takes wraps off rumour-matching MacBook Pros

Hywel Thomas

Price

£744 through a currency calculator. £807 taking the VAT off. The rip-off-Britain factor is on 8% or so. How is anyone surprised by his ?

Apple MacBook Air stays skinny, gains beefier specs

Hywel Thomas

Will you stupid c**ts never learn ?

ADD THE FUCKING VEE AY TEE !

At today's exchange rate, with VAT, it comes out as £1210. It's less that 10% more expensive over here. That's less than the usual difference.

Texan boffins working on electric cyber-heart

Hywel Thomas
Thumb Up

Metabolising implants ?

Ideal for the morbidly obese. Better than a tapeworm, certainly. Use the energy in fat reserves without having to do any work. rather than harness the energy produced to run a heart, have an iPod dock put in place of one's belly button.

Apple to detail latest laptops on 14 October

Hywel Thomas

Remeber VAT plus a currency buffer

Expect the $800 machine (doesn't include US Sales tax, so that's not what you pay there either), to be $599.

It may even be a little less.

General rule is Dollars * 10% + VAT. then squeeze it to a nearby price point (£605 would be adjusted to £599. £660 woul be adjusted to $549 etc.

Apple patents OS X Dock

Hywel Thomas

Magnification

The main problem with Magnification is that it's too configurable. This is normally not a problem with a Mac. Usually it works one way, with some room for tweaking within limits. The problem here is that the default setting sucks. The icons move, so targets move. Makes it difficult to use.

The right way to set it up is to have the magnification on, but only slightly larger that the normal size. Then there is valuable visual feedback without the problem of the target moving. Set up this way, it becomes a good feature. Used at the default (shop wow factor setting), it seems useless.

First thing I do is not turn the magnification off, just down.

It's odd though, that the people who don't like it can't simply switch it off.

As for the patenting of it. Urgh!

EU battery rule may zap iPhone, blow away MacBook Air

Hywel Thomas
Thumb Up

Excellent

If something stops working due to a sealed in battery, people are just going to the whole thing. This would make responsible disposal much easier. It also means third party higher capacity batteries will be an easier option for those devices.

What I'd like them to ban though, is those annoying thin cables that run from wall-warts to low-voltage devices (like, for example the one to the Maxtor drive sitting on my desk. They need to put them in a nice thick sheath that doesn't get itself massively tangled the moment your back is turned. While they're at it, they should produce a standard power jack size, settle on polarity and make it possible to switch to common voltages, so that if you can't find the right one, you just use one of the others that are lying around.

Hywel Thomas

OR maybe..

also standardise voltage. Make a new 12V standard with a mini figure of 8 lead,

Or something.

There's got to be a better way.

(Years ago, Douglas Adams wanted the car-fag-lighter-socket to be the standard).

Renault looks to wee-hued windows to cut car power draw

Hywel Thomas

Kangoo, not Kangaroo

It's a concept. Not a production car.

As a driver of their current (or at least 7-year-old) cheap French bread van with windows, I rather like it.

Ordinary cars don't need to look aggressive. I reckon the angry frown of most car designs now contributes to irrational road rage. Even when being driven reasonably, an aggressive looking car looks like it's being driven aggressively. Not nice to see in one's rear view mirror.

UK.gov and UK.biz pour £60m into IT skills gap

Hywel Thomas

Other incentives ?

Why not just subsidise Uni fees for courses relevant to employer needs ?

Given the choice of a course that costs £2,000 with a likely job at the end or one that costs £4,000 and is worthless, I know which one I'd take.

Or, as it's the employers that want these skills, why not get 'em to pay for it. IT Apprenticeships, straight out of school. Certainly the average support position doesn't need a degree as some proof of intellect. Just an HNC day release gubbins, like they did back when we used to make stuff and Wilt was teaching at the local Tech.

DARPA seeks Special Forces submersible aeroplane

Hywel Thomas

Fold the wings, Flood the cabin.

Fold the wings.

Flood the cabin.

Use breathing apparatus (pumped from snorkel).

Problem solved.

Oh. And there's 8 hard bastard in there, right ? Pedalo power for the last 8 miles.

California train smash driver sent text seconds before disaster

Hywel Thomas
Coat

I'M DRIVING THE TRA

I'M DRIVING THE TRA

RIAA filesharing target Jammie Thomas wins retrial

Hywel Thomas
Joke

No sympathy

I mean. Can't she just get a loan for it ?

Apple bans App Store heartbreak chatter

Hywel Thomas
Jobs Horns

The Devs Don't Like It

http://furbo.org/2008/09/24/killing-our-enthusiasm/

Blockbuster: DVD to Blu-ray shift slower than VHS to DVD

Hywel Thomas

Too expensive, ya think ?

play.com

Hellboy

£3 DVD

£14 Blu-Ray

Same film. Similar experience. Blu-Ray isn't worth the 300+% premium.

Why even rent of you can buy something like this for £3 ?

Turkish court bans Dawkins' website

Hywel Thomas

Ankara now worse than Anchorage

Unless Palin gets her way.

Oz pub slammed over 'No Undie Sundie'

Hywel Thomas

Spoilsports!

Don't some women like getting pissed and flashing their tits and bits, under the lustful gaze of dozens of drunken eedjits ?

The Centre Against Sexual Assault is oppressing them !

Media standard backers attempt Apple-less solo run

Hywel Thomas

What is this ?

Is this a new file format or yet another container with a new DRM ?

If the DRM is at least standardised, then that's a better situation, but eschewing DRM would be better still. That's what Apple claims to want, but most of the labels (and none of the studios) won't let them sell without DRM.

A genuine standard container seems at first glance to be a good idea.

Western Digital's 2.5-inch to hit 1TB by early 2010

Hywel Thomas
Paris Hilton

Question

How does a 5400rpm drive with 500GB compare in performance terms with a 7200rpm drive with 250GB (all other things being equal, like number of platters). Seems to me like it should outperform the smaller 'faster' drive : a bit slower to find stuff, but a fair bit quicker to read once its gets there ?.

Paris, because she doesn't know either.

Apple, O2 to release PAYG iPhones this month

Hywel Thomas
Thumb Down

PAYG / Fanboy

Does nothing to tempt me. The only thing that would tempt me would be a regular long commute by train. Otherwise I just wouldn't have any use for the data bit while out and about.

The current contracts would pay for my PAYG bill for over 10 years.

Carbon Trust: Rooftop windmills are eco own-goal

Hywel Thomas

@JonB

"Hmm... Prison sentences measured in KWh might help..."

I like it !

Set maximum daily levels and monitor weight-loss for safety reasons (go underweight and the maximum daily target is reduced).

Marvellous.

US woman celebrates cloning of 'precious Booger'

Hywel Thomas
Coat

Let's get it out of the way...

Korea. Dogs. Inbred. Inbread. Geddit? LIke in a sandwich.

Wünderbra! German policewomen take 'Action Brassiere'

Hywel Thomas

Just stick you head in between and go ...

"Gewehrkugelbeweisbüstenhalter"

Hywel Thomas

bullet-proof ?

Does that work both ways ? Are these officers now less likely to be asked, "Bit cold luv ?"

CGI furnishes filmstar with fur

Hywel Thomas

Nice work if you can get it...

... I wouldn't mind touching her up.

Norwegians demo 10cm video & GPS pocket-chopper

Hywel Thomas
Black Helicopters

Is is available in...

... black ?

Ubuntu man challenges open source to out-pretty Apple

Hywel Thomas

@Thomas Davie

Unmount is no worse than Eject. Eject makes sense for a CD or DVD, but makes little sense for a USB or Firewire drive. The only advantage is that it can have a nice recognisable icon. It's harder to make one for 'Release from the clutches of the OS in a controlled manner' or "Liberate Resource to allow safe disconnection"

Mono man accuses Mac Gtk+ fans of jeopardizing Linux desktop

Hywel Thomas

Deprecation's what ya need.

There are choices:

Stay still.

Move forward, maintaining compatibility = One foot in the past

Move forward, deprecate where necessary = Forward thinking.

Usually, old stuff works on old hardware on old operating systems. It doesn't stop working when a new OS is released, only whan a new OS is installed. There is a problem of old hardware dying, so buy some spares.

If it's not that the hardware is broken, but that its not beefy enough, (more data, quicker response required etc), then new hardware is needed, and if the new hardware needs a new OS, or uses a new chip with different byte order or different instructions or whatever, then the software is broken, out of date, and this eventuality should have been planned for, If it took 4 man years to write the old software, with modern development envirenments, new software engineering techniques, and the existing system as a functional spec, then the new software should take a fraction of the time to rewrite.

Sensitive Wii maker snubs developers

Hywel Thomas

Pedancy ?

"Pedantry", surely.

I wouldn't have said anything, but you beat me to the correcting the transmitter/receiver error, so thrrrrpp ! ;)

Upgrade drags Stealth Bomber IT systems into the 90s

Hywel Thomas
Thumb Down

Should have gone with Charles' crumpet

C for safety critical flight systems ? It's a disaster waiting to happen. What next … Windows for Warships ?

Asus readies iMac attack with all-in-one Eee

Hywel Thomas
Thumb Up

Fanboi likes it

I'm a bit of a fanboi. I rather like it. It may not be quite in the same league as an iMac, but for someone who simply doesn't need the power of an iMac, but would like a reasonably attractive all in one at a reasonable price, I think it looks good. Less ugly than most monitors, let alone most all in ones.

The OS would probably put me off a bit.

US hackette ponders jub-powered iPod

Hywel Thomas

@fluffykins

http://xkcd.com/322/

Hywel Thomas

@ Peter Hawkins

Never mind the trouser dept, we just need to tap into the wrist motion while watching the hotties charging their iPods.

Onaninetik generators.

Or something.

BBC begins fresh Freeview HD TV trial

Hywel Thomas
Thumb Down

Why not just ditch terrestrial TV broadcast ?

Would it not make sense to plan to ditch terrestrial TV broadcasting, now that freesat is up and running ? Certainly for HD. Use the bandwidth for decent radio instead and legislate to allow satellite dishes on all buildings (though maybe for listed buildings, there could be a planning decision on the placements, so it may have to be on an outbuilding or something).

ICO slaps TfL over Oyster data hoard

Hywel Thomas

Looking at the positives…

If they're tracking Oyster cards, lending yours to an accomplice while getting up to no good could provide a handy alibi. And the first time this doesn't work, or is rejected as being unreliable, they whole integrity of Oyster cards as ID gets chucked, possibly scuppering plans for real ID cards at the same time.

The war on photographers - you're all al Qaeda suspects now

Hywel Thomas

CCTV Paedo link ?

Can we not get a paedo employed somewhere to monitor CCTV which shows children in shopping centres or something. You know, walking, holding hands with their mums, being fully clothed and acting in a typically childish asexual manner. Then catch the paedo bashing the bishop to the images ... and get all CCTV banned for encouraging the kiddie fiddlers ?

Hywel Thomas

Coppers throwing their weight around

I had the misfortune of watching 10 minutes of some city centre drunken idiots TV show last night. I can understand that it's frustrating dealing with pissed plonkers, but where some police seemed to be doing a decent job at stopping violence that had broken out, they were astonishingly poor at dealing with people who appeared to have a genuine grievance, and were merely asking for an explanation.

A couple of lads, who were pretty wobbly, seemed to be trying to find out why their mate had been arrested. The answer to this was "JUST GO HOME SONNY OR WE'LL TAKE YOU IN AS WELL". They (that is the drunks), finally gave up and started to walk off. A policewoman then followed them to make sure they were still walking away. They reasonably asked why she was following them, and whether she could see that they were going away. "YEAH. I'M FOLLOWING YOU TO MAKE SURE YOU DO". They carried on walking, and maybe 200 yards and three streets from the clubs, the policewoman was still following them and basically harassing them. When one of them swore, not even at her, but in exasperation, she said "RIGHT, I"VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOU TWO!" and called for a van to cart them off as well.

They were drunk, they weren't really disorderly though. At worst they'd lost a certain amount of inhibition, which is why they had the bollocks to question what was going on. That's what really annoyed the police. They were no threat to anyone. Arresting them seemed to me to be a complete waste of time and indeed a waste of resources.

A programme that was meant to show the evils of a typical city centre on a Saturday night showed a couple of pissed idiots not getting into a club and some ludicrously undiplomatic police throwing their weight around unnecessarily. If it was meant to show what a good job the police do, it failed miserably. If I was their boss, I'd want to know where the fuck they were trained.

I'm guessing they harass photographers when they're on the day shift.

Reding would OK charges to receive mobile calls

Hywel Thomas
Thumb Down

Bloody stupid idea.

That would make my PAYG phone rendered fairly useless. Charging people to receive calls makes no sense at all. Caller pays. That's how it should be.

God makes you stupid, researchers claim

Hywel Thomas

atheism and cake ?

Is there a causal link ?

Windows Vista has been battered, says Wall Street fan

Hywel Thomas
Jobs Halo

@ Binston

Why the fuck bring up Mac ?

Nobody is forcing people to buy new Macs or to upgrade to new versions of OS-X. Nobody is forcing people to buy new PCs or to upgrade to Vista either.

The real extravagant hardware requirements of Vista have pissed people off. It doesn't work well on some very recent hardware. The problem here is maybe that the minimum h/w spec is set way too low, and this leads to disappointment (and class actions for misleading advertising).

I prefer the Apple approach. Get rid of legacy bloat on a more regular basis. Up to the point of no longer supporting the h/w, usually each successive release actually improves performance. At some point they should try to get the most of of recent hardware rather than supporting the old stuff. There's also the carrot of some of the new stuff being quite compelling (is this what you mean by 'forcing').

My experience of Vista has been OK. It's certainly easier on the eye. It's rather annoying that so much stuff has moved around for no apparent logical reason. I think it was done to try to fool us that a lot of it is new. A lot of it's not new though, it's just got a bit of slap on. That's maybe it's real problem. It didn't throw enough away. It tries to include stuff that's just too old.

There is a different business model, so comparing the two is difficult. Apple is in the business of selling hardware. It's in Apple's interest to software that makes new hardware compelling. Microsoft is in the business of selling software. It's interest is to sell to any fucker who can pay.

Apple's Snow Leopard to cut the bloat from Mac OS X

Hywel Thomas

@Chris Cluestick

You don't generally get universal installers that pick and choose, you get universal apps. They contain both binaries. I can boot a PPC Mac from a partition on an Intel Mac. I can can copy a universal app from an Intel Mac, drop it on a PPC Mac, and it'll run.

Dropping support for PPC hardware is not the same as dropping support for PPC software. Rosetta may still be a part of Snow Leopard so that those old PPC only apps will still run on Intel hardware.

Hywel Thomas
Jobs Halo

Not all about hard drive space.

I'm quite happy about what Snow Leopard is rumoured to be. Not because it gives me anything new, but because the OS has felt slightly more fragile going through Tiger and Leopard. I'm all for them going back and refactoring, trimming bloat, optimising for space (still important on laptops) and speed, improving stability, deprecating old stuff and most importantly, make it it a new solid foundation on which to build. Continuing to build higher and higher and continuing to bolt more things on would be a huge mistake.

Apple to charge iPod Touch owners for new OS - again

Hywel Thomas
Jobs Halo

Ways and means

What they could do is offer the upgrade at a price in the US, but have it free elsewhere, and not do much to prevent users in the US getting it from foreign iTunes stores.

There may be a problem in that divvying up the development cost to US owners only would push up the cost (to those that didn't know how to get it for free).

As for "not knowing how much we'll have to pay for the upgrades during the machine lifetime". You don't _have_ to buy the upgrades. The amount you _have_ to pay is exactly nothing.

Economist: girls actually better than boys at maths

Hywel Thomas

How It Works

http://xkcd.com/385/

WD pitches Firewire pocket HDD

Hywel Thomas
Thumb Down

Absolutely bonkers.

Might well get a USB only one and save a few quid.

I've been switching to these small drives lately, since ditching the desktop. I'd be quite happy to pay a bit extra for firewire, but no point if it means having USB too.

Recently got a Toshiba USB that needs the juice from two USB ports. Seems to work well enough off one though (at least on the left side of the MBP, though not on the right side).

Pants purveyor punts handset-holding undies

Hywel Thomas
Coat

B2F

Put them on back to front for a whole new perspective on the ring-tone.

Hywel Thomas

Bluetooth Bullet

What they should have done is have a bluetooth enabled vibrating bullet placed strategically in the gusset. The phone need not be kept in the knickers then.

Page: