* Posts by Steve Evans

2772 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Apr 2007

Apple yanks C64 emulator from App Store

Steve Evans

New advert tag line...

The new iPhone

You'll forget who actually owns it.

Custard Creams can kill: Official

Steve Evans

Tim tams...

What about the tim tam challenge, that's an instant scolding risk if ever I saw one!

@sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD - We can get them in Pomeland too... Along with the Polish jaffa cakes which I hate to say, are even more smashing orangey than the originals! Assuming you opt for the orange flavour of course, they have a choice!

Microsoft pulls Windows 7 balloons from Euro 'launch parties'

Steve Evans

Well if all the paranoid hype is to be believed...

...surely for an accurate ethnic make-up every house in the UK should have some straggly bearded suicide bomber hiding in the corner?

Labour calls for free Wi-Fi on trains

Steve Evans

Only in Scotland...

Ah, that would be because that's where all the Labour hierarchy will be going back to when they loose the next election!

Lotus details meths-drinking hybrid e-car engine

Steve Evans

Errrr...

"cylinder block, cylinder head and exhaust manifold all part of a single casting"...

I won't ask what those curious bolt like lumps are on the exhaust manifold attaching it to the cylinder head are then...

Worm wiggles through weary WordPress

Steve Evans

"Applying an update might be a chore"...

Not if you've set up wordpress properly it isn't.

You click the "update" link, and it does it all for you in a few minutes.

(You do take a backup before of course)

Conficker borks London council

Steve Evans

WTF...

I thought it was bad enough that TFL (Transport for London) had systems levelled by Conficker earlier this year, but now approaching the 1 year anniversary of Microsoft's patch which prevented Conficker, local authorities have still not protected themselves against it.

Does anyone know of a vacancy in local authority IT admin, sounds like a cushy job, it's obvious they don't do f*ck all!

Startup makes thin clients look chubby

Steve Evans

$300?

Given that you can buy a netbox for less than this, and then use the netbox as a thin client with a bit of linux, why would you want to buy one of these? Sure it's really small, but given the user will have a monitor of 17"+ on their desk, and several netbox manufacturer provide a mount to bolt the box onto the back of the monitor, I can't see where the benefit of the extra size reduction comes in.

As for no CPU... Of course it's got a processor! Silly sales spin. I can't see anyone implementing ethernet, USB and video without a processor or some sort!

Faux Facebook 'friend' takes US woman for $4,000

Steve Evans

Stranded in London...

Yes, it's the middle of nowhere, there's no US embassy you can go to for assistance, all you can do is use facebook (via some medium unknown) to beg for help.

As the saying goes, "A fool and his money are easily parted"

Music industry cooks UK government's piracy stats

Steve Evans

Hmmm...

If they had any sense, the government would not want to piss off 7 million people.

I'm sure that's more than the number who voted for them last time, so it would be a very good idea to make friends with them, and not enemies!

iPhone MMS hits US on September 25

Steve Evans

@Simon Banyard

If the American carriers had sorted out their interconnects like Europe did way back in the 90s, you too would have found what a useful technology the SMS system is, but because the US networks were so unreliable at SMS exchange, everyone resorted to email to send each other messages.

SMS and MMS are GSM standards, not Nokia/Ericsson or anyone else's.

A cross network, cross manufacturer, cross country message push system. If you have a mobile number, you can send them a message (with our without a picture). Most phone contracts include a few hundred of these a month, if not unlimited. So there is no cost.

This cultural difference is one of the reasons the iPhone took so much stick when it first arrived over here. Apple didn't even bother to look at how things were in Europe and only implemented the very basics (any less and they probably wouldn't be able to claim it was a GSM handset!). So when their new wonder phone arrived, couldn't do groups messages, or send picture messages, we all laughed.

They eventually fixed this, and now these features are revealing the cracks in the underlying US cell system.

Now wouldn't you like a system where you can send a message to any of your contacts without having to remember what kind of phone they have, or that Jim's iPhone has had to go back because it needs a new battery and he's using a 10 year old mobile he borrowed? A system that pushes a message onto the phone of anyone, anywhere on the planet (except the USA for previously stated reasons)? Oh, and it does handset delivery confirmation too.

Now tell me how this is backwards?

As for multitasking, are you trying to claim that as the iPhone doesn't do this, multitasking is bad? Good grief man, extract your head, Mr Jobs would like to sit down, and I think you could do with some fresh air.

Steve Evans

Ahhh how sweet....

Dear America, welcome to the 21st century!

Google patents (2004) home page

Steve Evans

Ah...

So they haven't patented the "bork bork" language version?

German inventor gushes over portable women's weebag

Steve Evans

@Code Monkey

Agreed. The Germans are obviously not fully up to speed on the English girls who now drink pints during their binges, and therefore flow in quantities formerly only achieved by men.

Apple Store pillaged in 31 seconds

Steve Evans
Jobs Horns

Oh...

I always thought it was their prices that made shopping an "uncrowded, casual experience"

Men far worse than women on password security

Steve Evans

Unfortunatey...

These surveys only reflect the male and female habits of people who fill out surveys.

I don't know about the rest of you, but if the list of questions has a scroll bar on the side, or worse a "Next" button on the bottom, it's going to get skipped.

I'm a busy man, I have 126 individual passwords to change.

Secret US spontaneous human combustion beam tested

Steve Evans

And....

What about the other useful performance information... Rate of fire...

Come to think of it, how long did they need to keep the beam trained on this dangerous unoccupied stationary vehicle. I guess we're all assuming the Sci-fi kind of pow-booom hit, but that's a bit of an assumption. For all we know it was slowly cooked over several seconds like beans in a microwave, not something which would be easy with a moving vehicle, especially when the driver notices things are getting warm and makes evasive moves.

Oh well... I guess in future all military movement will be carried out under cover of fog, or maybe all desert vehicles will just have a big dust blowing fan fitted to the top, or maybe just a mirror.

Gmail in massive web outage

Steve Evans

"Cloud" cuckoo land

As has been recently demonstrated by hordes of lost iPhone owners, who suddenly found their O2 provided data connection was no longer feeding them their google maps, anyone who puts their complete trust in systems which they have no control over, and no contact point to shout at, really does deserve what they get.

Always have a backup, take a paper map, and only use gmail as a front end to a real mail server which you can still pop/smtp with :-)

Dole bludger fined for BNP leak

Steve Evans

I wonder....

I wonder how they found this genius... I bet him and his wife were the only recent party members who weren't on the leaked list :-)

California child kidnapper stalked Street View van

Steve Evans

stalking the google car?

He'd have to be pretty damn quick on his feet to see the google car, get the van keys, run to the van, start it and get down his drive before the car has even finished passing his house!

Or do google cars "cruise" at <1mph?

So I vote for him using his van to go somewhere, what a novelty.

O2 just can't keep it up

Steve Evans

Tut tut...

Relying on a data connection for your maps has always struck me as far too much faith in technology. I'm far happier with Nokia maps' pre-loading ability.

I also have paper maps in the car in case of a terminal technology failure, and I'm also known to check routes before departing (shock horror!). Then again I'm one of those rare few who can still read road signs, and doesn't just blindly follow sat navs down rivers and over cliffs.

5 men named in racket that netted $4m in stolen card data

Steve Evans

Security joke

Most of the card industry is a security joke.

Even when they're not getting data stolen en-mass, they impliment things like chip and pin which are inherently flawed.

It used to be that a shop would actually touch and look at the card and your signature.

Since chip and pin you don't even hand the card over. You stick it into the slot and punch in the numbers.

This means there is sod all chance of me, a white male, being spotted using the card of "Mrs Jones", "Mr Mohamed" or "Mr Singh". All of which might have been noticed in the past.

South Africa official calls for 'outright ban' on pornography

Steve Evans

@Matt 89

"40% unemployment, 3rd world Education system

Endemic Corruption at all levels of government"

They're just following the model set by us in the UK!

Caviar Black gets 2TB model

Steve Evans

@Annihilator

Unfortunately in my recent experience, 400 and 500gig RE2 drives, a lot *does* go wrong. I've had at least 50% of the 500gig drives fail, and all the 400gig drives failed. When they fail they just start going into the "spin up, click click click, spin down repeat until false" loop.

Luckily as they were all in raid configurations I was able to replace each drive before the next failure on all but one occasion when two failed within a day of each other, and I was out of spares. Due to the high death rate I had already experienced I had been very strict with my backup schedules, so I didn't loose anything important.

However it has made me very very wary of WD RE drives. Especially as there seems to have been little to no coverage of the problems in the eMedia, despite plenty of forum chatter. Maybe if they renamed themselves to Apple/Microsoft they might have picked up a grilling.

In comparison a test trial with cheap 1TB Samsung spinpoint drives has worked faultlessly for months. Maybe I should focus more on the "I" in RAID... Inexpensive

Spanish boy racer cuffed for snapping self on mobe

Steve Evans

Pah!

"Unsurprisingly, he was held in custody pending an appearance before the beak."

Well actually as a brit I do find that quite astonishing. Over here he'd get a lift home, many chances to do a runner again, before finally being sentenced to 200 hours of community service and having 6 points put on the licence he doesn't have.

@SmallYellowFuzzyDuck - You're not wrong. When I lived out there for a while I discovered that the much repeated stricter DD limits are generally ignored by the population. I regularly saw people barely able to stand, driving down the mountain round after a night in a mountain side bar. Unfortunately I never saw any of them go over the sheer drop!

iPhone thieves collared by Jobsian GPS

Steve Evans
Flame

They should count themsleves lucky...

The Jobsian device's remote detonation feature hadn't been activated!

'External force' fractured French iPhones, says Apple

Steve Evans

So...

Apple say an external force was applied to the screen?

You mean kinda like how a touch screen is used?!

I too know someone with a broken screen iPhone. He did say it was his fault as he dropped it. Not sure quite what he dropped it onto, or from how high. All I know is I've never broken a screen on any of my non-apple phones, even the one that flew out of the open window during a car accident was fine, and able to ring the recovery people once I'd found where it had landed!

Fire at Google UK

Steve Evans

Chortle...

@Rob 101 - Very good :-)

I think I'm going to go with the iPhone left on wooden decking surface.

Blazing laptop of death claims one

Steve Evans
Flame

hasn't released the manufacturer...

Well we all know what that means don't we... NDA...

Windows 7: Microsoft's three missed opportunities

Steve Evans

Can someone explain to me...

What's the great fascination with wiping greasy fingerprints all over your screen?

I can see a vague advantage on a mobile phone where you don't have the option of a mouse, but on a real computer a mouse is always going to more accurate than stabbing your digital on the screen... Plus if course when your finger is on the screen, you can't actually see what is under it any more!

Oh sorry, I forgot, we all use a stylus, nobody pokes their finger on the screen do they.

Yahoo! News confused on theft of Lego giraffe's todger

Steve Evans
Coat

Hmmm...

"A more prosaic version"... Surely you mean "A more mosaic version"

Mine's the one with the lego technic racing car in the pocket.

Electric motorcycle world championships planned

Steve Evans

Hmmm...

I'm not sure the sound of two wheel milkfloats is really going to have the appeal of 1000cc of ducati!

Facebook to hire like it's 1999

Steve Evans

Not a moment too soon...

Given the number of times I have seen the facebook error box appear in the last couple of days they need some more staff!

If they continue with this kind of stability I might actually have to do some bl**dy work!

Doctor investigated for posting inkblots to Wikipedia

Steve Evans

Oh dear...

I've just had a look at the 10 prints on wiki, and although I did match up with a few of the obvious bat, bird, people answers, some of my other interpretations weren't even on the charts!

Some of their guideline interpretations seriously depend on particular social backgrounds. One of them has a suggested interpretation of "animal skin", now I can't remember the last time I saw an animal skin, so it's hardly likely to be the first thing that comes to mind. It does however look like my table cloth after I spilt my coffee on it yesterday!

To me number 10 looks like a carnival by the Eiffel tower!

Model-slag blogger sues Google for blowing her cover

Steve Evans

Oh dear...

If you're gonna slag someone of, at least learn how to "really" be anonymous on the internet!

Sure, she's pretty fit as a clothes horse, but IT skills seriously lacking...

What's her cooking and ironing like?

4chan pwns Christians on Facebook

Steve Evans

I assume....

... they will be turning the other cheek?

- and getting that slapped too!

Microsoft goes Darwinian with evolutionary tree patent

Steve Evans

@Lee

I hope that's not an American accusing the UK of trading morals/anything in favour of an oil deal...

If it is then he should research the word "Irony"

Plus IIRC, Mr Bush passed a law allowing for the detention of people *suspected* of terror offences which includes no right to a phone call or legal representation... AKA you disappear.

Steve Evans

The year is 2100...

... nothing has been invented in the US for at least 50 years. Herds of lawyers charge about this once productive land in their German saloons throwing law suits at anyone even contemplating inventing something. This in turn is then met with counter suits from herds working on behalf of the would be inventor. Once productive land is now a patchwork of golf courses, law courts and BMW dealerships. The courts are open 24/7, but even so most suits must wait at least 8 years before being heard.

The US patent office now covers an area exceeding Texas.

All paper has to be imported. The last tree in the US was cut down to make court papers filed against Mr Zak J Trudawitz in 2035. Mr Trudawitz, a farmer, had insisted on describing his product as a "Strawberry" in contravention to the patent on all fruit names granted to Mr S Jobs of Cupertino, CA in 2028.

London hospital recovers from Conficker outbreak

Steve Evans

Oh good...

They can't even immunise themselves against something that was cured in an update 10 months ago.... what hope have we got when the swine flu hits?! We're all gonna die...

DIE!!!!!

*runs screaming into the street*

Bubbly-belly-bugging boffins battle bovine belch peril

Steve Evans
Flame

If methane is so bad...

Surely the easiest solution is to fit a pilot light on the back end of the cows.

This might also improve the lighting on dark country lanes at night.

Trading in The Pirate Bay bidder stopped over deal funding

Steve Evans
Pirate

down and down...

The longer they string this out, the smaller that database is going to get.

Give it a month and I'll be able to buy TPB with my remaining credit card balance.

Orange prices up LG 3G watchphone for UK

Steve Evans
Flame

Ahhh...

Nice to know what Orange have been doing instead of getting the N97 working with their crippled firmware...

I'm sure a watch phone is a worthy investment of their time... Oh hang on a second... It's not the feckin' 80s anymore... There's a credit crunch... We don't have any yuppies who would be stupid enough to want one of these!

GGF plans to steer The Pirate Bay freeloaders straight

Steve Evans

Glug glug glug...

She's takin' on water captain...

Man catches MSI laptop with... his arse

Steve Evans

Ummmm....

Not quite sure what message they are trying to purvey here...

1) MSI netbook - Shifts those stubborn cling-ons

2) MSI netbook - Whatever you do, don't try to use it as a computer, it's better as a frisbee

3) MSI netbook - There's a reason it smells funny

4) MSI netbook - If you worry about what they do to you pizza in the kitchen, you really don't want to see what we do to your netbook

IT Crowd writer defends NHS

Steve Evans
Coat

Aye...

It's just a pity about their new number...

0118 999 881 999 119 725

3

Minister attacks drunken topless lovelies with tangler-bazooka

Steve Evans

Tangle in the propellor...

So completely useless against a jet boat, or jetski then.

If I were a crazy terrorist, a jetski would def be high on my list... Fast, manoeuvrable, very shallow draft for an escape up a small river... That's assuming I want to escape and haven't just blown all my limbs to the points of the compass of course.

Les Paul dies at 94

Steve Evans
Pint

RIP

Les, thanks you. May you rest in a beautiful symphony of sustained notes,

I shall raise a bottled drink to you, and when empty, play slide guitar with it.

Orange repeals unpopular price changes

Steve Evans
FAIL

Didn't tell me...

First I've heard of it. I had notification of a change to their off-tariff data rates, which basically means if you are an occasional user you'll get have your data bill doubled.

Orange customer relations are pretty shit these days. Just ring them up and ask where the N97 upgrade is. Not only do they not have it (still screwing about breaking it with their orange firmware I guess), but every time you ring you get a different load of bolloxs explaining if and when they will have it.

My PAC is sitting on my desk

Dell: Linux v Windows netbook returns a 'non-issue'

Steve Evans

My mother...

I bought my mother a netbook for Christmas.

Being an evil tight fisted son it had Linux on it.

After the initial "Oh, that looks different", I showed were things were, put some nice "shortcuts" onto the desktop for her to use, like openoffice, firefox, and away she went.

Perfectly happy.

Had a bit of fun getting the printer working, but that's just the printer manufacturer being lazy and poviding sh*te drivers. I'm sure M$ pay them to do that!

Almost everything she does is web/email based, so the OS makes no difference. In fact she likes openoffice as it opens all the new word format attachments she gets sent by friends who have a newer version than she had on her old windows pc. (I didn't mention I could put openoffice on the old pc!).

Stephen Hawking both British and not dead

Steve Evans

@David Webb

"I'm thankful Hawkins is still alive today, he should be an inspiration to everyone of what a person with the most severe handicaps can do in life."

Indeed... Although American's don't seem to have a problem with handicaps, especially mental ones. They put them in places of power and authority!