Posts by Piro

Re: Switched-mode power supplies are often like this

What's the solution? Better quality control? Better quality power supplies?

God no, they'll probably instruct the poor Chinese workers to smother the coils in hot glue.

Re: This is getting boring.

Says the man wasting his time angrily pushing buttons on a keyboard (during work hours for me, don't know about you). That's clearly a much better use of time than doing something you enjoy.

You have such mighty insight.

Re: Big intake of breath

Well, it's obvious really. If you were going somewhere where there might be actual danger if I got lost, of course, you'd have a decent map, no question.

Re: On a serious note.. -costs

60p for 30 minutes isn't so bad, but as a minimum charge? Madness.

Last time I used a payphone, I'm sure it was 10p.

Re: Really?

I don't get any because I don't use Facebook. I also have the domain untrusted by NoScript.

The nuclear option!

Re: Competing app stores?

But there are already other stores exactly as you describe.

There's no lockdown in Android. Amazon has its own store. There's a few others, too. Not to mention you can sideload to your heart's content by checking one box in the settings.

Re: Wrong tense.

I completely agree with all of this. Nobody was chomping at the bit for Windows 8 on the desktop, but Phone 7 being sidelined and 6.5 being on the market when it was inappropriate for such an archaic platform to be marketed - these are the big mistakes.

The problem is, I don't see who Phone 8 appeals to right now - the people who bought phones with 7 are probably not future customers, as they'll be flat out pissed Microsoft dropped them so quickly - they aren't the nerdy plaything that is Android, and they aren't quite as simple and mass market as the iPhone.

There's no doubt the new HTC and Nokia devices are attractive pieces of kit - but I would argue in spite of Phone 8, not because of it.

Re: I'd give it a go for 250 squids

Not even close really, dual core Krait can box with it easily, and quad core Krait does something nasty on it from a great height.

I agree that 8GB or even 16GB is paltry. It'd be fine with a microSD slot. As it stands, I wouldn't even consider it.

Re: "buy Chinese or keep your smartphone hidden". Really?

But when you buy it, most of the value of it goes to Apple, not the overworked bods that build the thing, or the workers that mine the raw materials.

Re: Why Bother?

Google Navigation on Android is turn by turn with voice for sweet FA.

Not where I live

Had parcels left in the back porch through the day without a problem. But then I do live in the sticks (and glad of it, too!)

Re: "A Scottish man has been given an extra stretch inside"

I hope I don't have to see what HE did there.

No, they aren't

Nobody is even trying to make the laptops you want.

I recently tried to find a laptop that met my needs, and found that literally only Sony made laptops that came close. Then I found out they had proprietary SSDs, and sighed. But upon realising I could shove an SSD in the optical bay instead, I went ahead and grabbed a 13" Z series Vaio. I don't particularly like Sony all that much, but it seems nothing else met what I was actually looking for. (Also has discrete graphics, another requirement).

When you look for stuff, you get an absolute sea of 1366x768 junk, onboard graphics, glossy screens, one button trackpads, and if it's not just that, they're heavy beasts. If you're lucky, of course, it'll also come with a pointless (saves no appreciable power) 5400 RPM HDD to round the deal off.

Re: Oh dear

It's a fair point, but as more people move to laptops, I would wager a lot of them get broken in incidents and replaced.

Re: 90% of customers use Charms on the first day they get the product.

The reality is probably more that 80% of people scooted their mouse into the right corners of the screen and some weird garbage popped up over there, then they tried to get rid of it. 10% used 8 before, and are OK with it. The remaining 10% is made up of people who have used a program to disable hot corners entirely, or are confused as all hell.

Re: Mid-40s?

Well, yeah, that part puzzled me too. It seemed to be purely based around financial situations.

Sadly what they really need is a glut of horny teenagers and 20 year olds, but this may not make for the most organised society. But it sure will start to balloon.

Re: Can you blame them?

If it hosed, it hosed it. I would recommend a factory reset, though.

Re: No SD slot . .

I like to keep a lot on my tablet at any given time - a massive collection of photos so I can leaf through or show them around - videos for flights, and maybe some random useful files. The point is, a simple microSD slot would cost pennies to include, and then I have the option of swapping out storage as much as I want, having it flush and internal. This is a 10" tablet, there's more than enough room for it. To be honest, a full size SD slot would be even more useful, as then I could download photos directly to it from my camera.

Don't defend these simple, and very useful omissions, because one day functionality you want will be lacking, and you will be surrounded by people also saying "why would you need to do that? why don't do it like THIS, pff, you're so stuck in the past", and you will be frustrated. Don't defend bad design.

Re: Conversion

You missed the big vote, then, sorry, it's all over now.

Re: How much?

Well, exactly. Once you're out of the station you can go back to using your 3G or LTE signal for SFA, or visit any one of a number of places with free wifi. Not exactly compelling. But it is nice for those on Something Sometimes!

Re: Not sure what MS Expected

"I doubt that for many average users the learning curve will be much worse than any Windows version migration."

Huh? Yes, it will, seeing as hot corners are new to most users, and the fact it has no start button and start menu means it is instantly disconnected from the Windows most users recognise since 1995.