* Posts by Steve Evans

2772 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Apr 2007

Orange UK: the iPhone's latest colour carrier?

Steve Evans

@Martin Fowler

I'm not sure what cells you hang about in Martin, but I've been with Orange for years, and I've had no problem with coverage or customer service.

At work my boss is an avid vodafone fan, and all company mobiles come from vodafone. I've lost count how many arrive either misconfigured, or not configured at all. Message centres not set, WAP/Internet access points incorrect, and the pain of actually trying to speak to someone who knows what these setting should be in unbelievable. I know, cos I'm the poor bugger who has to do it.

I won't mention the crazy things that the vodafone internet gateway does to http request... Lets just say when you write a java app that uses http requests, you really don't want it to go via vodafone!

Inquirer celebrates spammer murder-suicide

Steve Evans

Be careful Mr Haines...

It's a long drop from a high horse.

Morgan shows 'light & slippery' fuel-cell car concept

Steve Evans

@JonB

Pssst, Jon, we don't have 240v mains electricity in the UK anymore...

They sneaked it down to put us in line with Europe...

Now the specified mains voltage is 230V +10%, -6%

Like any modern device really cares as long as it's got above 100v and less than 300v!

Although I do begrudge my kettle taking 5% longer to make my cuppa Grrrr! Bl**dy Europe!

Steve Evans

Two cars...

I agree many people use a car that is far bigger than they require 99% of the time, but why stop at saying you should have different cars for different jobs... How about pushing it a bit to different vehicles... I came to work today on my motorbike, and although it's quite capable of leaving pretty much any car at the lights, it's going to go a hell of a lot further on it's little sips of fuel than any 4 wheeler. Damn sight easier to park too!

Sat nav blunder places The Rock in Skegness

Steve Evans

How...

... did the driver even get into our country! Originating from outside the EU, surely he would be required to have some documents giving him clearance to be transporting all that stuff? Let alone bring himself into our country as a worker!

I can't even order some PC components from the USA without having to make a trip to the local post office to pay tax on them... And annoyingly a handling charge with exceed even the tax... Makes me wonder what exactly the postage is supposed to pay for if it's not the handling!

Who do you think you are, knitting Mr Hitler?

Steve Evans
Thumb Up

LOL!

Love it... Nice to know there are still people willing to either say "bollox" to political correctness, or are so detached from reality they don't even realise such things might cause offence!

I so wish they are the former, but fear they are the latter!

Dangerous mobe chargers flood UK

Steve Evans

@Mage

500mA is the specification for the maximum current you can draw from a USB port on a PC. It's not the electrical specification for the connector.

I have a multitude of devices which I charge with Mini USB connectors, and I have a cigarette lighter adapter in the car which has a PC style USB connector on the top. This can provide a whole amp of current, and none of my devices, or plugs have yet melted.

Jeremy Clarkson tilts at windmills

Steve Evans

@Adrian Jackson

Sounds like you've swallowed the government statistics...

Speed does not cause accidents. Bad driving (which can, but does not have to, include inappropriate speed) causes accidents.

Speed (sorry, safety) cameras are a strict letter of the law device, that take into account absolutely nothing but your speed. Unlike a real policeman (if you remember what they look like), who could judge if you were being silly using years of experience.

Take for example a camera on a 30mph stretch near a school.

Situation 1: Pouring rain, 3pm in the afternoon, school kick out time, car doing 29mph (I know, fat chance of doing >1mph with all the 4x4s about, but go with me on this one).

Situation 2: Same road, 2am, lovely clear and dry summer night, car driving at 35mph.

Now which one of those is going to get the speeding ticket? Number 2 because he's doing 35mph past the camera.

Now which of those if most likely to have an accident and hurt someone? Number 1.

I looked carefully at the statistics for a camera near me, the headline said that it had reduced accident, and upon study, yes it had, by about 2 a year (which to be honest would have been eaten up just be standard random variations). However, dig into the figures a little deeper and you find although the total number of accidents had fallen, the fatalities had actually risen! Now I don't know about the rest of you, but I find a few more dents, scratches and bruises highly preferable to deaths.

EU abolishes the acre

Steve Evans

Honestly...

Can Johnny Foreigner not use a calculator?

The EU seems fixed on removing anything that might require the use of one... Join all the currencies together into the Euro, tada! None of that annoying conversion. Maybe it's so nobody will have the ability to check their expenses claims!

Come on you lazy buggers, we manage it all the time over here... Here are some rough conversions which you can do in your head. Please note I say rough.

When cooking, or talking about the weather C = ( F - 30 ) / 2

When talking about distance or speed, Miles = Kilometre / 1.5

When employing a plumber, Złoty = UKP / 4

And if you think that's bad, try dealing with Americans who take our units, and then short change you with them... 4 Fluid ounces missing from a pint, that's flamin' criminal!

Oh, and well done to our unelected leader for being so spineless. Pity Hadrian didn't put rusty nails on the top of his wall, or you'd never have had the guts to cross it.

How long would it take to clone Maggy and get her back in power? I know she did many unpopular things, but she had more bollocks (especially when it came to Europe) than all the leaders we've had since put together! Back in those days you could always cross the channel and hold your head and middle finger high and proud!

El Reg tells you what the Highway Code can't

Steve Evans

Statistics...

They do say you can prove anything with statistics.

I remember checking out the figures for a speed camera near me... The headline figure showed a reduction in accidents.

However, when you check the figures, although the total number of accidents dropped, the number of fatalities actually rose!

Now I don't know about you, but people actually dying outweighs a few reduced dents, grazes and bruises!

Dutch university can publish controversial Oyster research

Steve Evans
Happy

Cool...

Where's the download link?

:o)

Nike pulls Air Stab trainers

Steve Evans

Oh dear...

Political correctness goes mad once again (did it ever return to sanity)?

I wonder how long it is before they spot some very dubious phrases in sport...

Brace yourself for...

He shots, he scores -> He kicks the ball at the goal, he scores

Jeeez...

And what will become of moving through the opposition like a knife through butter?

UK boffins roll out video periodic table

Steve Evans
Pirate

Ah ya poofs...

Get that 2kg lump and chuck it in some acid! :-)

Irate sysadmin locks San Francisco officials out of network

Steve Evans

Ummm.

"the system, which is up and running but inaccessible"

How do they know it's running if they can't access it?!

SanDisk touts read-only SD cards for sensitive data

Steve Evans
Coat

Oh dear...

Small portable storage is always getting lost. I've mislaid countless USB sticks, and even the occasional 3.5 hard drive. However unlike HM Gov, all my important stuff is encrypted, and backed up.

I would recommend going the opposite direction with storage for civil servants being akin to the hotel keys with the huge tags.

Something like an SD card attached to a house brick with a Kensington laptop lanyard should be about right.

Mines the one with the SD sized holes in the bottom of the pockets.

BT breaks up families

Steve Evans
Happy

@Sarah Bee

It did work, we're just a bunch of bored techies who love filling in obvious gaps, oh and nitpicking, but you didn't get any of that.

Barclays to scrap 1,800 UK tech jobs

Steve Evans

Amusingly...

As a Barclays customer I was recently offered a load of shares by them... I chuckled to myself and declined... I'm sure there are some muppets somewhere who don't watch the news about the banking sector in meltdown, but I'm not one of them.

I hope they kick out whoever was responsible for that god awful chip and pin calculator thingy that's required to do anything online these days, and shoot whoever it was that decided not to send them out automatically, but instead wait until the customer was suddenly hit with a "You need you chip and pin security calculator thingy do do this" on the web banking.

Tossers, the lot of 'em.

Raptor and Eurofighter go head to head

Steve Evans

How about...

We see just how good value they really are, and we chuck the EF and F22 up against a current Russian plane... The SU37. We even have some in NATO thanks to our continual expansion eastwards.

Baptist church in assault rifle giveaway

Steve Evans

Good greif...

Surely it's easier to get teenagers in by just giving away free alcohol... Or am is my 30 something year old brain total lost and out of touch?

Homer Simpson's email address hacked

Steve Evans

Sounds like...

TV and film need an email equivalent to the 555 phone number!

South African survives exploding fridge attack

Steve Evans
Coat

@kns2c

Land of the free?

Errr, have you checked that recently?

Mines the nice red one, oh and the musket

Gadgets safe from global airport anti-piracy plan

Steve Evans

@Daniel B

I imagine the 50,000 counterfeit DVDs weren't the obvious pirate burnt copies you swap with your mates, rather the more serious full monty pressed pirate DVDs from some dodgy fab plant in the far east.

Obama bloats Vista by 11MB

Steve Evans

WTF...

... is a Friendster?

Which incidentally was underlined in red by Firefox cos it knew it was a completely crap word! Then again, it also just underlined "Firefox", which is amusing...

The Top Ten 3G iPhone beaters

Steve Evans

N95...

I've got an original, and I've used the 8gig quite a lot too.

With the latest V21 firmware on the original N95, I'd have that any day of the week over the 8gig... Loosing the removable memory card from the 8gig was crazy (although we know why... Guess where the 8gig is connected inside!).

And for those that ask why... Well go out into the field with an N95 and a Digital SLR. Put the MicroSD into a full size SD adapter, and plug it into the camera. Shoot your photos onto it... Then put MicroSD into the phone, and you can email the shots, preferably via a nice wifi point! Two devices do the job perfectly. No need for a laptop.

You can't do that with the 8gig... :-(

MS takes Windows 3.11 out of embed to put to bed

Steve Evans
Coat

Ah... fond memories...

My first experience of the intarwibble was on WfW...

Trumpet winsock...

Spry mosaic...

Ah, those were the days when a web page would load in a couple of a seconds even via a dial up modem (14,400 I think), no huge flash animations, no pop ups, no ads... Ahhh... Bliss.

@AC... I don't think WfW came on 3 floppies.. IIRC it's about 6 or 7... Windows 3 came less. Now if you want Windows 2, I have a copy on 2 floppies.

Oh, and I'm still alive and in my 30s... (Just!)

Mines the one with the U.S. Robotics Courier V Everything not really fitting in the pocket!

Seagate first with 1.5TB hard drives

Steve Evans

@tony

Haven't they already done that?

How about sticking one of these puppies (as someone else called them) in an external enclosure and connecting up to eSata. 1500gig removeable storage... Lovely jubbly!

World+Dog lines up for iPhones

Steve Evans
Jobs Horns

It's well known...

...that New Zealand has more sheep than people... It's just unusual to find one that owns/requires a tent and can verbally reply to interview questions.

Microsoft hopes third time is lucky with XP SP3 update

Steve Evans
Gates Horns

XP SP3

Having just applied this to a couple of machines, I found a really annoying pointless change.

Terminal services client from the command line used to use the following for accessing the console...

mstsc /v:servername /console

For no reason (except to make it like the version shipping in Vista, which is different for no reason) you now have to do

mstsc /v:servername /admin

Why?! If you must have /admin, why can't /console still exist and do the same?

I'm sure there are loads of admins on the planet logging on to servers using their tried and trusted batch files who are wondering why nothing is running on the remote 2003 server... When in reality they have just logged onto a whole new session, and not the console they expected!

Prius hybrid to get rooftop solar panel

Steve Evans

@Matt

"To be fair, as far as I can tell modern air-co units take less than 10%."

That was a finger in the air figure, kind of aimed at the Prius, which doesn't have many geegees under the bonnet to start with!

"It's also worth remembering that you can lose 10% in fuel economy while driving with the windows down."

A valid point, although I think you'd need all the windows open to get near 10%, same goes for roof racks.

"You also mention using veg oil etc. Apparently you need to be careful as this can eat the seals in some cars, plus there's the issue of HM Revenue........."

I don't think it eats the seals so much as shifts all the old gunk that has collected there, which has probably been preventing a leak in the first place.

No tax issue with HM Gov any more, personal use, less than 2500 litre (I think) and it doesn't cost you a penny.

"Finally, according to Ford diesel cars are not as efficient for short journeys. I've certainly seen that for myself. Compared to a petrol car the diesel takes an age to get up to temperature and hates short journeys."

Indeed, but for short journeys a bus, your legs or a bicycle would be even better.

Steve Evans
Thumb Down

It's all a stunt

Solar cells really do produce very little when compared to the output of an internal combustion engine, and the electrical requirements of a car. One headlamp is 55 watts, just go and look at the size of the panel you need to run that. (Yes I know, who wants a solar powered headlight!).

If you really want to be green and have amazing economy, you could beat the prius just by getting a small diesel from the 1990s!

Sure it won't have an aircon button to suck 10% of the engine power, but it does have these glass thing you can open, called windows. (No they're not just an operating system).

If you really want to go to town, chuck 50% old veggi oil in with the diesel, and tada, you've just halved your usage of fossil fuel.

We really haven't progressed much.

Let air passengers smoke dope, say Denver potheads

Steve Evans

Smoking lounge...

Ah the luxury... I'd be happy to just have somewhere to have a regular ciggi whilst waiting for my 4 hour delayed flight... And they wonder why I get stroppy!

Comedy UK social network berates moaning users

Steve Evans

Hehe..

Well they kicked me off for being a wrinkly old possible kiddy fiddler in the recent "delete from users where age>36" clear out, so it doesn't have any impact on me, although it is rather amusing...

However, I'd just like to ask if someone could clarify the "it's our hobby, we don't make any money from this site" with "Faceparty, owned by Anarchy Towers Ltd"...

Are you allowed hobbies in work time? If so, can I get paid to f*ck off to the zoo too?

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

Steve Evans

Film?

Film? What is this film you speak of granddad?

Flirty texting could land Scots in jail for 10 years

Steve Evans
Coat

Shoooorely...

...this would already be covered by harassment laws...

However, congrats to Scotland for making a bonkers law, without thinking about the technology involved...

What happens if the receiver is in Scotland, and the sender in England? Or vice versa?

What if the receiver is in Scotland, but happens to be logged onto a cell on the other side of the border in England? Or in England and happens to be logged on to a cell in Scotland?

What about if both parties are English and are on the English side of the border, but happen to both be logged onto Scottish cells? I know the whole of the UK is pretty much run by Scots these days (second only to when James I was on the throne), but surely we need to keep their daft laws behind the little wall!

I can see lawyers making lots of money, but bugger all convictions!

Mines the one with the emigration papers in the pocket.

Teens use technology to party in strangers' pools

Steve Evans

I'm thinking...

About putting a blue tarp out on my back lawn... Anyone know when the next Google plane is due over?

CherryPal out sweetens Apple with 2W, ultra-cheap PC

Steve Evans

@John Robson

Exactly what I thought...

It's got "My new firewall" written all over it...

Old Windows exploits dominate hack attack traffic

Steve Evans

@Rich

I think you're a little confused. I can't think of any home router that routes anything inwards by default.

The only way data is allowed in from the internet to your home PC is when you have initiated the connection yourself from the PC, then the router knows to let a reply come back through. When you drop the connection to that port the router clears the entry and you're closed off again.

I think the big problem is people who are not behind a NAT router, but actually have the public IP on their machine, i.e. dialup modem, USB broadband adapter. Plus of course those who don't bother with even free antivirus and execute any old attachment they receive in email or IM, no amount of firewall will safe you from basic stupidity.

Uncontacted rainforest tribe caught from the air

Steve Evans

@Craig

So why do you bother putting a suit and tie on everyday?

Who's to say that the red paint isn't their uniform for hunters? Maybe the red is actually some mud from the river which helps stop the insects biting them? It could all be perfectly logical.

Personally I find some of the views here a little worrying. Who are we to impose our so-called advances on them? You're judging them using our standards and beliefs, they are a completely different culture.

Sit back and look at what our so called culture has given us... 1001 excellent ways to kill people and things including the planet. How nice.

Daily Mail cites video game as proof of terrorist doomsday plot

Steve Evans

@Mike Plunkett

They're probably stupid enough to, yes!

UK to outlaw cartoons of child sexual abuse

Steve Evans

So let me get this right...

If I don't quickly dig through my hotmail inbox and deleted the rude Simpsons cartoon, I'll end up on the sex offenders register?

Swede packs off GPS to make world's biggest sketch

Steve Evans
Thumb Down

Hmmm..

Doubtful... I've tried turning on my GPS on a plane before, cos budget flights never have the fun "What the toilet will currently flush on" tracking displayed for us cattle... I've never managed to get a satellite lock, and I've tried with 2 different units.

Then of course there's the matter of batteries, as has been mentioned a few times, and of course the odds on a UPS package correctly making that many trips without an extended stay in Germany via Heathrow terminal 5... They're so low they rival our Eurovision odds!

So add one vote to the "it's a 5 minute job with paint"

MEP tries to ban lightbulbs with mercury amendment

Steve Evans

@David Shepherd

The liquid metal isn't that much of a problem, it's the vapours it gives off, very nasty.

As for the sodium, I remember one lad at school who would always drop some down the sink to watch it go. One lesson the teacher said "Today we're going to be using sodium, I don't want any of it going down the sink, Fred Bloggs do you hear me?!" (name changed of course).

About 2 minutes into the experiment that was a huge boom from the back of the room, we all turned to see Fred standing there, white faced. Sure enough he'd chucked some sodium down the sink, but hadn't thought to rinse the sink out first... Whoever had used it last had just tipped acid down it, and not rinsed it either!

He didn't do that again!

CPS apologises for DNA disc blunder

Steve Evans
Black Helicopters

"No evidence that the disk was copied or left the office...."

I pick up disk, I place disk in laptop cd/dvd drive, I image it onto hard drive as an iso file with one of 100 programs, I place disk back in case on put it back on the desk under a pile of bits of paper.

Pick up laptop, walk out of office.

Now tell me, look at your disk, the one you lost for a year, and tell me if you can tell it's been copied.

Given that it was lost, and therefore out of sight for a year, I could have taken it home and copied the ones and zeros off it by hand in that time, still without anyone knowing!

Muppets the lot of them!

Black helicopter cos these idiots would forget to mask the windows before applying the stealth black paint coat.

Nokia shows an Orange face to the world

Steve Evans

Oh good...

Another reason to avoid Orange branded phones.

Once branded you are tied to getting firmware updates when the operator decides you can, which is usually months/years after they have come out for generic phones as they have to sit on their arses for ages, and then crowbar in all their custom bits you didn't really want in the first place.

Only saving grace I have found so far is at least on the current Nokia N series you can change the model number to a generic one (warranty void of course) and then flash it with generic firmware from the Nokia website.

The economy: A big Arab did it and ran away, claims PM

Steve Evans

Well...

Or maybe he could stop putting quite so much tax on it... He must be laughing all the way to the bank...

Has anyone else wondered how the price of UK fuel kept going up even when oil is priced in dollars, and the dollar is currently worth only slightly more than the paper it's printed on... Hmmm...

Petrol stations deploy anti-theft stingers

Steve Evans

Easier solution...

In some of the seedier parts of town, especially after dark when the attendants lock themselves away behind the bullet proof glass, and the interchange of money is done though a metal draw, insisting on pre-pay is pretty much the norm. Especially if you happen to ride a motorbike and can't be arsed to take your crash helmet off.

However I have to wonder about forecourt layout, I know plenty of garages that are just surrounded by a curb with a bit of grass... so avoiding the spikes is just a simple matter of driving slowly up the curb, over the grass, and then away to freedom. If you happen to be in a 4x4, you wouldn't even need to do it slowly.

Maybe I should set up a business just making "Warning! Anti-thief spike strips in operation" signs.

Tories show they're ready for government...

Steve Evans

@Senor Beavis

Inc(vote_count);

Asus speaks out on UK Eee PC 900 battery issue

Steve Evans
Thumb Down

Nope...

"or buy from another country - if you can..." put up with a keyboard lacking a £ symbol and @ and " swapped... etc etc...

MS bashes Gay(wood) Xbox Live gamer

Steve Evans

God help...

..anyone from Scunthorpe.

Man barred from posting crimes on YouTube

Steve Evans
Stop

Good grief...

He posts evidence of his law breaking on youtube, and just get's an ASBO preventing him from posting on youtube?

He's obviously a complete tw*t, and I pity those who have to live anywhere near him.

Why don't the authorities just download the clips, and haul the moron into court and hit him with all the charges. (vixy.net does a good line in youtube downloading).

The authorities are obviously complete tw*ts and I pity those who have to live with them.