Posts by Ian Ferguson

How to protest this...

...I'm going to stand outside the local STD clinic and 'check in' all my friends.

Re. "appropriate response"

Firing isn't an appropriate response here, being fired AND prosecuted for race hate crimes would be.

It's really quite astonishing that such small-minded people can be given responsibility like this. I do hope HMRC tighten up their interview and background check procedures.

Balanced articles plz

I take slight issue with the tone of this article - I know Lewis like winding us greenies up, but he seems to be saying that it's better to not do anything at all than to be ill informed.

What should we do - sit here and wait for the government to tell us what to recycle? We know how that tends to pan out...

Or alternatively

we could save a whole heap of money by not starting unneccesary wars.

</standard response to Lewis Page articles, which he's probably a bit sick of>

Enhancements

The original 70mm video is awfully blurry and fake-looking. I think the HD version should replace all the silly models and cheap sets with CGI.

And you know what else the original trilogy lacked? Comedy. More hilarious background capers by bendy aliens, please.

What's a cum tablet?

I think you've just hit the nail on the head when it comes to the 'What's a tablet for?' question - porn :)

This kind of culture...

...is entirely unsurprising from a police force who can get away with manslaughter, quite literally.

Until we see acting police officers being correctly prosecuted for crimes committed while in uniform, we have no reason to believe they are capable of understanding or enforcing the law.

Educate customers...

It would help if customers knew how to test the speeds they're actually getting.

My ISP have a speed test on their website. When they installed '20mbit/s' cable to my house, I tried it at various times of day and found I was getting 7mbit/s downstream at the most. So I downgraded my package to their '8mbit/s' option - and am now getting exactly the same bandwidth (7mbit/s max down) down and up, for a much cheaper price.

I suspect this logic could apply to many locations. Just remember to measure the upstream speed as well as downstream.

Rubbish!

Why should I pay the record megabiz pennies for a high quality DRM-free downloadable track, just like we've all been asking for for years, when I can download a dodgy copy for FREE?!

I'm telling you, until they provide perfect quality (analogue, not digital) 5.1 songs covering the entire back catalogue of every obscure unsigned band that has ever lived as a free instant download - no, scratch that, I want the ACTUAL BAND in my living room on demand - I'm not paying them a penny!

HMV are DOOMED until they realise their business model is broken, and they can only survive by handing out free CDs of Linux and open-sourcing their stores.

Hmm

I would like this, except that the app doesn't work very well, and the BBC News mobile site is already excellent.

There will always be competing standards, it's just something we have to live with. The likes of the BBC choose to develop for iOS because of user numbers. If you want to access the services on a variety of platforms - there's always HTML.

Great

This is good news for me, as an iPhone user.

Re. Android. At risk of feeding the trolls, I'd suggest that Skype are interested in market share more than universal reach. Fring was out for the iPhone waaaay before Skype; they only released their own app when the momentum of the iPhone became clear. Android still has a way to catch up - I'm sure Skype will release an app once it does.

Somewhere, in a dark damp room...

...the manager at ITV responsible for Friends Reunited is crying into a hanky.

I'm intrigued

Just what does an elf sound like, anyway?

I'm with Tim #3, let's have a demo!

Linux icon chosen as it's the nerdiest, but I think it's probably an insult to Linux users.

Why bother?

Iron Man has already perfected the technology, nobody else can get close.

In response to your question...

...young people nowadays don't actually want, or need, to 'own' music. They just want to listen to it.

Stats fail

Anyone could generate a similar theory by conjuring a randomised graph and picking out regular-ish peaks. There's nothing 'regular' or 'ordered' about those peaks.

All it proves is that extinctions occur, at a varying scale (which we knew anyway), sometimes correlating to the theory of 'mass extinctions' (which is statistically logical anyway).

Related to this article: This paranoia-fuelled theory that the BP Gulf disaster will trigger a 'world-killing' methane bubble event. Both theories are based in truth, but utilise dubious physics and statistics to reach incredible conclusions.

http://www.helium.com/items/1882339-doomsday-how-bp-gulf-disaster-may-have-triggered-a-world-killing-event

Ah, crap

A 'friend' might have to change some of 'his' passwords...

Thank f**k for that

Thank you, coalition government, from somebody who was stopped and searched at a station - causing me to miss my train - for carrying two very dangerous-looking bottles of Dr Pepper.

(I know, I know, "what's the worst that could happen")

Pleco

Pleco is one essential for me, although it's obviously only useful in Chinese-speaking countries.

It's free (with extra dictionaries and bits that can be paid for), and allows translation to and from Chinese (Traditional and Simplified).

You can enter Chinese characters by building them up from components, or drawing them on the screen (although they have to be drawn in the right stroke sequence, which means you need some knowledge of the script).

It's not really perfect for quick translations when you need to buy a cup of coffee - but it's excellent for helping while you are learning the language or curious about the meaning of a sign.

The only other essential travel app I'd mention is a currency convertor - but there's plenty around, so I don't know particularly which one to recommend.

Nice!

Now, Apple, please can you let me delete the YouTube app from my iPhone, seeing as I never use it? Or at least delete the icon from my desktop? Same goes for the Stocks app.

Ooooooooh

you neeeearly managed to not call it a 'vacuum' - until the second to last paragraph.

iRobot have always been terribly careful to refer to their products as 'cleaners' rather than 'vacuum cleaners' - as they don't suck, at least not in the literal sense.

Otherwise - what kind of Reg Hardware review is this, in that you stop at its basic functions and don't investigate hacking and homebrew?! ;)

Genius

The irony is, if they purchased 200 iPhone 4s and gave them away for free in a competition, they wouldn't get this kind of publicity.

Too damn right!

Due to the lack of decent streaming services from the BBC, I've ended up listening to live digital radio through TuneIn and watching live digital TV through TVCatchup. (Perfectly legally - I pay the licence fee).

BBC iPlayer is all very well and good, but they need to extend it to include ALL live stations, not just the occasional sporting event; and the live radio part doesn't appear on my iPhone (the on-demand part is fine).

They are SO nearly there... just need a tiny bit more effort... mainly, as you say, in publicising the great stuff they already do!

All the smug people here...

All the smug people here stating 'I strung them along, they hung up, fnah fnah fnah' - yeah, we get it, you're computer literate.

You are NOT the target of the scams. The elderly and computer illiterate are (this doesn't mean people are stupid - surprisingly enough, there are perfectly intelligent people around who just don't want to spend all their time on computers).

If my parents were called by one of these scammers, they'd totally fall for it. I'll add it to the list of things to warn them against. In the meantime, I hope the scammers will give up when they find out I set my parents up with a Mac; most targets won't be so lucky.

As far as I can see...

...3D was added as a gimmick to films to encourage people back into the cinema and away from pirated movies (or, god forbid, waiting for the film to come out on DVD).

As home AV setups now have colour, surround sound, widescreen and hi-def, cinemas needed a new trick. Once people have 3D at home, cinema will need to find a new fad.

The thing is... did you hear anyone actually crying out for 3D? Widescreen, maybe (nobody was UNhappy with their standard def TV); hi-def, at a stretch (most people can't tell the difference between DVD and Blu-Ray). 3D, though?

Heheheh

+1 Comedy for the BBC web team :)

Search results

Any search engine that excludes Facebook pages from its search results, intentionally or not, gets the thumbs up from me.

Facebook pages are complete drivel, second only to MySpace pages.

Right handed too

I'm right handed but I hold my mobile with my left hand. Seems logical to me - it leaves my right hand free to take notes, type, use a mouse, pick my nose, whatever...

I have an iPhone 3GS and want to upgrade to an iPhone 4. I was going to as soon as I could, but I'm glad I haven't yet. I've never liked putting a case on my iPhone - I buy a sleek, compact phone for a reason, and want it to fit discreetly in my pocket.

I will wait for Apple to fix this problem before upgrading. Early adopters can put up it however they like.

To be fair

Fry is an equal opportunities connoisseur - he carries around a Blackberry and an Android device as well as his iPhone. While he's a Apple fanboi by self-admission, he's usually pretty fair about comparisons.

Oh, and he can write your socks off, sorry anonymous author :(

Wow

I think this is what the catchphrase "do not want" was invented for.

As it is, iAd is making me consider jailbreaking my iPhone, if somebody creates an ad-killer a la AdBlock Plus.

Flash Crash

I don't understand the "running plug-ins in processes separate from the browser" bit of Firefox 3.6.4. Flash is still causing the whole browser to hang and/or crash on several machines here. Sorry Mozilla. (FF 3.6.4, Flash 10.1, Win7x64)

Why use it at all?

It's a crappy little product for home use.

The people complaining probably also use Notepad to write all their correspondence!

Get a proper backup package if you need something reliable, not a bundled utility. Having said that... Time Machine in OSX is sheer fucking bliss ;)

Skill sets

Hang on, since when has a child's success in life been purely measured in Maths and English?

Even while mucking about on Facebook, these kids are learning valuable computer skills (not to mention social skills and networking with other children, a vital part of development).

I'm not sure this is really such a bad thing.

'Vacuuming'

Do they still just clean with a little rotating brush, as opposed to actual vacuuming? My housemate had one a few years ago, and I thought it suffered from dubious advertising.

Eh?

What's the point of making an iPhone app for this, when a website (accessible on all internet-connected devices and workstations) would be far more suitable?

Some middle-management idiot has been reading too many buzzwords.

Great article

Thanks el reg again for paying for informed authors.

(At least, I presume he's informed, seeing as I knew nothing about this subject before reading the article...)

Hmm

This seems great on the surface. But if councils have to completely fund new speed cameras themselves, won't there be even more pressure to use them as revenue generators?

Thailand's Monkey Island?

These monkeys weren't green and foaming at the mouth, enraged due to the Voodoo Pox of LeChuck, by any chance?

Enola Gay?

I see it's flying above Enola Drive - coincidence? I think not!

Piranhas aren't dangerous

"where gangs of them regularly strip the flesh from their victims in a terrifying frenzy of teeth and foaming water"

I hope that's Sun hyperbole and you don't believe EVERYTHING you read.

Bizarrely enough, the 'frenzy' myth started with Theodore Roosevelt:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirhana#Theodore_Roosevelt.27s_description

"Windows is better for photos than a Mac, hands down"

Hahahahahahahahahaha

Maybe the operators should sort out their ridiculous roaming costs

and then there'll be no need for third parties like Skype.

iPad (possibly)

I was offered iPads in several techie shops in Shenzen a few weeks before it was launched anywhere. The boxes looked genuine but I didn't stick around to see what was inside (the shops are notorious for bait-and-switch scams).

"World Cup"

I presume this is to do with some physical team-based sport, but you fail to mention in the article what discipline this is.

:-)