Posts by Joe

Other players

Perhaps part of the problem is this vague promise of players for Mac and Linux?

They've said they'll have one soon, but who is working on the Mac and Linux DRM solution? What's it based on?

Parallels DOES have "Unity"

But it's called "Coherence". Windows apps in the Dock, Mac apps in Windows, and all windows together on the same desktop...

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rN9jNNeEd98

I've not delved into Fusion, but it sounds the same to me.

@silverguy

Actually, I think you're allowed to keep TV-recorded stuff on tape for only 28 days, after that it's illegal. I might be talking through my hat (or something else) here, but I'm sure I read that somewhere reliable!

It really is a strange situation that the BBC is in these days - as I read somewhere else, "the BBC delivers programmes to viewers, whereas all other broadcasters are in the business of delivering viewers to advertisers."

@Will Leamon (too)

Yes, Will, do tell - perhaps a visit to your town would be worth giving my biometrics to your government!

Osama for breakfast?

Surely it's just the 'Two Minutes Hate'? I hope you're shouting at him! Eurasia doubleplusungood.

@ Andy S.

In theory, phoning up the doctor's surgery makes complete sense.

But have you ever had to deal with the dragons on reception that doctors always seem to employ?

Perhaps the Sky system can be programmed to be terse, rude and presumptuous too!

Names

Gimp is a dreadful name for a piece of software!

Most "average users" would avoid it just because it sounds worryingly like some sort of Internet sex thing...

Come on, if your mum saw and icon labelled "gimp" on your desktop, you really would have to spend a good half hour convincing her it was innocent!

Statutory rights

I'm not sure what legal consumers' rights you have in the US, but here in the UK I dare say you'd have grounds to demand a complete replacement of the whole unit - certainly by the time the display started to flicker!

The bad old days

I remember growing up in Britain in the 1980s, with only four BBC Micros for the entire class! So deprived was my generation... How did we ever manage to learn anything without our own individual personal laptops?

Attitude and confidence

I reckon attractiveness to the opposite sex is a lot to do with attitude and confidence. Other factors affect it, but only by a fraction.

Confidence is key - if you have a well-toned body then you're going to feel confident, right?

But the body isn't essential - have you seen Johnny Vegas' girlfriend?

The blame game

So by their logic I could sue the company that makes the brick a thief may use to smash my car window? After all, without the brick that crime wouldn't have occurred! (Except of course, it probably would have still occurred, but without the brick...)

Or perhaps the treasury should be prosecuted for making the money that is used in drug deals? Everyone is to blame for everything!

What?!

It's really not that hard to employ a competent programmer.

I knocked up a mailing list using PHP and MySQL for a band I'm involved with, and we haven't had any problems even approaching the magnitude of these ones (yet..!)

If anyone for the BBC is reading this, I'll sell you it for the right price ;)

Us Register readers...

...are obviously far too computer-savvy to ever buy a USB cable from a high-street chain, but Staples, PC World, Curry's, etc. must be raking it in from technophobes, as from what I've seen £15 is about average!

They come in so much packaging too, there's tons of plastic to rip off before you can get near the damn thing. Why they even need packaging is beyond me, it's just a goddamn cable!

@ John A Blackley

He's based in the US, and he's a nutter (the word being used in a jokey way, no doubt). Why the annoyance? What's it got to do with Europe or the British?

Regulation?

Surely this industry should be subject to greater regulation - is it right that one company (i.e. Murdoch's cartel) should own the studio making the programmes, the channels broadcasting the programmes, and the means of distribution (the satellite system)?

Surely Fox can just "sell" any programme to Sky, no matter what the bid is, if it serve's Murdoch's interests to keep it off the other channels?

Finally, shouldn't his newspapers be forced to print a disclaimer alongside stories about his own companies, along the lines of "Sky TV is wholly owned by News Corporation, which also publishes The Times"?

Then the public would be able to tell which stories are merely vested interest promo pieces for Murdoch's other companies!

I wouldn't mind, but...

...Lexmark's ink is crap! In my experience, unless you use it daily, the cartridge nozzles dry up.

I use my Lexmark printer once a month or so, and the official Lexmark cartridges inside (which can't have printed more than a dozen pages) print out the streakiest, crappiest printouts you've ever seen.

Come back dot matrix, all is forgiven!

Yes

Finally eBay have realised what we've all known for ages - that Google always returns "Buy <your search term> on eBay!".

Remember this? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/05/ebay_steve_irwin/

@Oliver

Of course they will, you xenophobe! Capitalists choose workers that are the cheapest for the job, not whose skin colour or accent is most like their own - why would an Indian manager of a company be any different to a European?

As for rich western businesses outsourcing labour to corrupt totalitarian dictatorships such as China, that's certainly inexcusable!

But...

...will it work on my ZX81?

Re: Next step in GPS

"...overlays onto a windshield."

Excellent! Then we don't have to bother going anywhere either, we can just sit in the car and pretend! Global warming is stopped, thanks to Google! ;D

@Some Guy

I think what Barry was complaining about was that US English is often simply called "English" in software - certainly in Mac OS X - and the others are listed as "Canadian English", "British English", etc.

In the past, though, I've seen English labelled as "International" in some software! Now talk about presumptuous...

Is this really the Register comments section?

I can't believe nobody has tried to blame this on Microsoft or Apple yet! Surely the residents of Cornwall simply need to switch to Firefox and all their problems will be solved?

This was always going to happen

Hackers will always pounce on the latest thing and tear it to pieces. (This is no different to Vista in that regard!)

Shareholders? Care?

This is how capitalism works:

Question: Is it profitable?

Answer: If yes, do it. If no, don't do it.

Ethics don't come into the equasion.

The creepy legacy of the GDR continues...

Really, this ex-country is a fascinating subject. Even 17 years after it's end it's producing stories like this! Weird as hell.

Sounds pretty suspicious to me - even if he did commit suicide, it sounds like he had some involvement with or pressure from the Stasi.

Crime and secrecy

But not just anyone can read the files, so they're not made completely public. Even when a citizen gets to read their own file, parts of it are anonymised so that secrets not relevant to their own case aren't revealed.

The main reason is that there are many unsolved crimes that the Stasi committed, including murder.

If someone close to me had disappeared in the GDR, I'd be waiting for the results with baited breath!

Home users don't care

Most home users simply don't know, or don't care, and if they do it's not to stop professional hackers (we all know that's not possible!), it's to stop Fred from next door using your internet connection for free.

So WEP with your surname as the password probably suffices for many...

ABS was also nicked by the English

I believe ABS came from the German Antiblockiersystem, and the English did the same as the French. Which would account for the missing "L" in the acronym...