* Posts by John Wards

11 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Mar 2008

How can I get a Creative Zen to work with a Mac?

John Wards
Stop

XNJB no workie with Zen

My boss has one of these Mac things and a Zen. I pointed him in the direction of this thread and he says...

"That XNJB doesn't show any of the music on it, takes 2 minutes for every action and then freezes the Zen so you have to reset it. It's useless."

Next?

Pentax K-m entry-level digital SLR

John Wards
Stop

FZ28?! or any super zoom over a dslr?

If you have the money to buy a dslr you would be mad to spend it on a super zoom. The two don't compare.

The image quality you get out of a dslr is night and day compared to super zoom. The ISO abilities also, same goes for the noise. In terms of creativity, you just can't play with depth of field in a super zoom like you can with a SLR.

You don't have to change lenses you know.

If your just wanting to take pictures of your kids then don't spend all the money on a high end super zoom as you don't need to. Get a 7-8x zoom thats all you need, any more its just a "My zoom's bigger than yours" p!ssin match...a bit like the stupid mega pixel race. You don't need more than 6 mega pixels unless your printing bigger than 6x4.

Honda shows off Insight hybrid

John Wards
Stop

Eco?!

44mpg on the combined?! What is eco about that? More to the point where is the progress in the tech?

My C4 diesel does 55mpg between fills which is a combination of city, windy b roads, a roads and motorway...and that is with my heavy foot.

If I drive ECOish I can get 63-64mpg, i'm sure if I got instruction on how to drive even more eco that figure would rise.

Wal-Mart punts industrial strength feminine deodorant

John Wards
IT Angle

Anit=poof hair...

Ah Canada..the home also of Anti-poof hair.

http://www.antipoofhair.com

Sadly that is now a promo site for something else...however anti-poof is still listed here

http://www.gethairapy.ca/en/products.html

OpenSocial, OpenID, and Google Gears: Three technologies for history's dustbin

John Wards
Thumb Up

Here comes the PHP developers...

Lets play a game, count all the rants from PHP developers who've got all offended.

(I'm a non-offended PHP developer)

What's the best compact camera?

John Wards

Fuji F100fd

Fujifilm Finepix F100fd might be what your after.

A bit less money and you could get a Casio Exilim EX-Z1080 they are highly rated.

Or a Canon IXUS 860 IS.

As for the best...your going to struggle to get the same answer twice on that until the camera makes see some sense and stop chasing mega pixels and start putting bigger sensors in their cameras.

Ubuntu man Shuttleworth dissects Hardy Heron's arrival

John Wards
Linux

I can't use a real Linux distribution

I realised last night that I've been a Linux user for just over 10 years now....in that time I have used every distro going...even paid for Coral Linux and worked with Xandros for a time.....

I'm not a fan boy I just like using Linux. I have used Ubuntu for 2/3 years now and I don't give a monkeys if its not a "real distribution".

It works, it works out of the box. With 3D...with dual monitors...with wifi...with any usb thing I have to hand.

Fsck me I can even print!

"I can't use a real Linux distribution".....I've got better things to do with my time....

Ubuntu does bird beta

John Wards
Linux

ActiveDirectory....

The most interesting feature is the active directory support, which is great for trying to convince the boss that simple desktops with ubuntu can be dropped in on a windows 2003 network.

BBC's download iPlayer goes titsup

John Wards
Alert

Someone unplugged the router?!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bbccouk/2243773541/

BBC calls DRM cops on iPlayer download party

John Wards
Go

Re: Yep downloads dead still...

The iphone scripts that people have provided are working on all iplayer shows that have an available mp4 stream.

All they have done to secure is check for the QuickTime headers and an other header called "Range" on the quick time request its set as: Range: bytes=0-1 Then when the file is downloaded its: Range: bytes=0-

They are not going to be able to stop people faking these Headers.

Silly BBC for going for the PR coverage that the Jebus phone seems to provide.

John Wards
Go

Javascript security

They haven't added any DRM to the MP4 so the only thing it can be is javascript "security".

Looking at the code http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/script/1.7/iplayer_info.js

This seems to do the security (A new version was uploaded this morning according to the modified headers)

I've not tested anything but I'm pretty sure they are using javascript to identify the browser which then will either set a cookie to say its not really iphone or just uses javascript to do the redirect.

http requests are pretty simple things and send very limited information. If its securing on something sent over a http get request it will only take someone with an iphone and a bit of knowledge to look at what is being sent and replicating it.

if its pure javascript a bit of grease monkey will no doubt get around it.

By the evenings out it will be bust wide open agian?