* Posts by jonathanb

2530 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Aug 2009

DEATH-PROOF your old XP netbook: 5 OSes to bring it back to life

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: Cruel and Unusual Punishment

The BBC Model B I used at school had a 640x256 screen

City of London cops arrest 6 suspected to be Microsoft counterfeit ring

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Re: 100k

Microsoft Ireland would pay the appropriate tax after claiming all relevant expenses such as copyright, trademark and patent royalties payable to other companies in the group.

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: Valuation

It is the actual retail price without any volume or other discounts, and including VAT which the customers would be able to claim back.

jonathanb Silver badge

Why City of London Police?

Barton upon Humber is in Humberside Police's patch, so surely they should be doing the arrests, and City of London Police should be sticking to their own little country-within-a-country in the Square Mile.

Intel puts fledgling internet telly service up for sale

jonathanb Silver badge

USP?

Eurosport Player, Sky's Now-TV and many other services do the same thing. They also have content deals and paying customers. What unique proposition does OnCue have that these services do not?

You DON'T need a new MacBook! Reg man fiddles with Fusion, pimps out vintage Pro

jonathanb Silver badge

How much faster?

How does it compare with a Seagate Momentus on its own. It has a bit of on-board flash storage, and when I put the 750GB model in my MacBook, it made things much faster.

Meet the BlackBerry wizardry that created its 'better Android than Android'

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: All worthless thou.

Apparently you can use a USB2go cable to attach a USB mass storage device, so a SD card adapter at the other end of that cable should do it. Not as good as an internal slot, but it can be done.

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: Well done guys, plenty of overtime coming up

If they do break things for Blackberry, they also break things for earlier versions of Android, and people don't upgrade that quickly.

Ignore the gigantic assets write-off, Universal Credit IT 'is working' – UK.gov

jonathanb Silver badge

The number of people in work has risen by more than unemployment has fallen. The number of people in work is at a record high. The number of people who are unemployed nowhere near record lows, it is a little bit lower than at the worst point of the recession. There's two reasons for that. Firstly the working population has increased due to immigration, and secondly, people who were previously claiming disability benefits have been declared as fit for work by ATOS, so they are now classified as unemployed.

jonathanb Silver badge

The number of people in jobs is increasing, very slowly, and most, but not all of the new jobs are real full time jobs.

Stewardess first to book $250k Virgin Galactic 'space trip' with BITCOINS

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: Bitcoin loans

People will not lend at a negative interest rate, because they would be better off keeping the money under the mattress. Conversely they would be very happy to borrow at a negative interest rate, just pocket the negative interest as free money, and keep the rest under the mattress until repayment date.

jonathanb Silver badge

You are not comparing like with like. If I send $1000 by Western Union it will cost me £667.54, which works out at a charge of 8.2%.

Yes, sending bitcoin will be free, however I need to buy bitcoin with British Pounds, and the recipient needs to sell them for Dollars. At current rates, I would need to send 1.25 Bitcoins to enable the recipient to convert them into $1000, and that would cost me £659.03. A little cheaper, yes, but a lot more hassle. It works out at a total charge of 6.8%. Paypal charge a 3% currency conversion fee + 0.5% cross border fee + 3.4% debit card fee, so 6.9% in total. Sending money via a currency broker can cost as little as 1% in charges, much cheaper than Bitcoin.

Guess which major US telco ISN'T cracking down on premium SMS spam?

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: Charging for SMS is THE scam @ecofeco

I send a text to say I'm outside, but O2 gives me unlimited SMS as part of the standard package.

Richard Stallman decides Emacs should go WYSIWYG

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: I use VI! ;-)

If your system is a bit b0rked, you sometimes need to use vi to get it back into a state where it can run emacs. That is the only use for vi.

US House and Senate push patent troll bills

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: Pig, lipstick, head, sand, bury.

The USPTO is certainly one of the problems, but not the only one.

We have patent trolls that write to companies telling them they are violating one of their patents, but won't tell them which one. They ask for a licence to cover all the patents in their portfolio, and if the company asks for more details about the patent they are allegedly violating, then the demand increases.

In many cases, the company isn't violating any of the troll's patents, but it costs more to fight them than it does to pay the licence fee, so basically they are engaging in blackmail.

Probably to solve this problem, the USA needs to move to a loser pay system for court cases like what happens in the rest of the world.

Rogue trader gets 2½ years for BILLION-dollar Apple share plot

jonathanb Silver badge

They didn't have the money to pay for the shares they had ordered. They were hoping to sell them for a profit before settlement day.

Data of 42 MILLION seekers for love plundered from Aussie dating site

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Re: Ummm

Because Cupid is full of fake profiles, even if their auditors can't find them.

You THINK you're watching your LG smart TV - but IT's WATCHING YOU, baby

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: For shame

Well you are given the opportunity to say no, but they still collect the data anyway.

Samsung says knickers to poor Gear sales claim, eyes pants to sell more

jonathanb Silver badge
Paris Hilton

Picture required

I was expecting to see a photo to illustrate how such a chanteuse might use this watch while wearing only a single item of clothing.

Google deletes Maps satellite photos of 14-year-old's unsolved murder

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: I would have thought

Maybe you didn't see him being shot, but maybe you did see a blood-stained madman a few blocks away getting into a car.

#ALERT! There'll be emergencies on Twitter for UK, Ireland

jonathanb Silver badge

My grandmother's sister-in-law made $28tn in 3 nanoseconds by working on the internet #alert scamurl.example/dhj2893

Also, as other people have pointed out, I only want alerts for things in my area. SMS is probably the best way to do that.

Gov mulls making it easier for ICO to squash marketing pests

jonathanb Silver badge

"for example, calls from telecoms or energy companies advising on better deals or tariffs potentially save consumers money"

No they do not. The calls from such companies invariably end up with you spending more money than you did before, as the prosecutions from OFGEM have shown.

Also, fines are not good enough as they are not acting as a deterrent. We need prison sentences and criminal asset recovery as well.

Fukushima fearmongers: It's your fault Japan dumped CO2 targets

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: Not looking at the full picture

OK, you have taken all the radioactive stuff off-site. Where has it gone? Has it disappeared, or do you need to look after it somewhere else?

jonathanb Silver badge

Not looking at the full picture

Most of the Chernobyl and Fukushima victims are still alive and in good health. However they have been evacuated from their homes and they are never going to return. Is that not something that should be taken into consideration.

Also, a very big problem with nuclear is the amount of expenditure required on the plant after it reaches the end of its useful life. That isn't something we can rely on the private sector to do. Why would they spend money on something that doesn't bring in sales revenue? The great civilisations of 200 years ago aren't always the great civilisations of today. Some of them are now war zones, or have been at some time in the last 200 years. So we can't rely on the government to do it either.

True fact: Britain is losing its brains

jonathanb Silver badge

http://www.kpmg.com/global/en/services/tax/tax-tools-and-resources/pages/corporate-tax-rates-table.aspx

"The corporate tax rate is 40%. The marginal federal corporate income tax rate on the highest income bracket of corporations (currently USD 18,333,333 and above) is 35%. State and local governments may also impose income taxes ranging from 0% to 12%, the top marginal rates averaging approximately 7.5%. A corporation may deduct its state and local income tax expense when computing its federal taxable income, generally resulting in a net effective rate of approximately 40%. The effective rate may vary significantly depending on the locality in which a corporation conducts business. The United States also has a parallel alternative minimum tax (AMT) system, which is generally characterized by a lower tax rate (20%) but a broader tax base."

So, 40% up to $18,333,333; 35% on anything above that. State income tax is extra, and can be claimed as an expense against your Federal tax bill. In Delaware, the State income tax is zero, and that is where 90% of larger US businesses are based.

The expenses you can claim against your income are more generous than in the UK, so you will be paying 40% or 35% of a smaller number, however, you will most of the time pay more tax in the US than in the UK.

jonathanb Silver badge

Corporate tax in the USA is actually higher than here, which is why Ireland, Luxembourg and Bermuda are very popular places to set up a company.

Google bigs up iOS Gmail app, leaves room for fat fingers of iPad-fondlers

jonathanb Silver badge

Review?

Any reason why I should use this instead of the stock email client?

We've found it – the ULTIMATE man-cave accessory

jonathanb Silver badge

Very expensive for what it is

22" TV - £130 - http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-blu-ray/televisions/small-screen-tvs-up-to-32/logik-l22fed13-22-led-tv-with-built-in-dvd-player-20374552-pdt.html

Mini fridge - £100 - http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/household-appliances/refrigeration/wine-cooling-mini-refrigeration/husky-el202-budweiser-mini-fridge-red-13828284-pdt.html

Home cinema system - £110 http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-blu-ray/dvd-blu-ray-home-cinema/home-cinema-systems/sony-davtz140-cek-5-1-dvd-home-cinema-system-12716783-pdt.html

Then you just need to find some sort of drawer unit, £200 at most.

You don't have to get the ones I linked to from Currys. Other suppliers exist and some of them are cheaper. But still you are looking at a maximum of £540.

SourceForge responds to GIMP grump with crowdsourcing caper

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: Crowdsourcing common sense?

You need to disable adblock first. Even Internet Explorer has adblock available for it these days.

Hackers steal 'FULL credit card details' of 376,000 people from Irish loyalty programme firm

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: parent company

They will receive a letter telling them that they are very naughty, and asking that they try not to do it again.

El avión Buitre 2 rinde homenaje a nuestros amigos españoles

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Ayudar

¿Puedo tener una traducción en Inglés por favor?

BROADBAND will SAVE THE ECONOMY, shriek UK.gov bods

jonathanb Silver badge

Superfast broadband is 24Mbps. The other target is that everyone in the country should be able to get 2Mbps broadband.

Is it all up for LANDFILL ANDROID? BEHOLD, the Moto G

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: Confusing

Or an Apple Store employee called Sam Sung - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/21/sam_sung_the_apple_store_employee/

Facebook makes Adobe fans change their horrible, horrible passwords

jonathanb Silver badge
Coat

Password strength

Everyone knows that you can't have a lowercase word as a password anymore, it must be mixed case and numbers. But that is easy, instead of having "password" as your password, you now have "Password1".

I do something very similar for sites where I do not care if someone manages to break in and find my password.

Android in FOUR out of 5 new smartphones. How d'ya like dem Apples?

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: Over it, stop the click baiting!

You can get a Samsung Galaxy Y on pay as you go from Carphone Warehouse for £30. That runs Android. I've no idea how well it does it, but at that price point, they are competing with dumb phones as well as feature phones.

'Daddy, can I use the BLACK iPAD?': Life with the Surface Pro 2

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: unhelpful review

People looking at it think it looks like an iPad, and expect it to work like one. That is the point the article was making.

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: Wrong comparison

For the Surface Pro or Surface Pro 2, anything that works on Windows 8.1 works on it. Maybe there are a few things that need more memory, a bigger hard drive or a better graphics card, but other than that, you have an Intel i5 PC with 4 or 8GB of RAM, intel graphics, and whatever sized SSD hard drive you choose. Anything that works on that spec PC will work on it.

jonathanb Silver badge

Docking it

There is a mini displayport socket that can be used with the appropriate adapter to connect it to a monitor. The adapters will presumably be the same ones that work with all recent Macs.

There is also a USB port that can be used to attach a keyboard and mouse, or bluetooth if you want to use wireless versions of them.

Virgin Media to hike broadband prices by nearly 7 per cent

jonathanb Silver badge

They target my area heavily as well, possibly because there are very few Virgin Media Customers nearby.

The reason there are very few customers is because they don't offer a service here.

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: here we go...

I'm going to bet that they do declare taxable profits in this country if possible.

The reason is that they have massive brought forward losses from the NTL days, and they can offset them against those and not pay any tax. That will be cheaper than paying American Corporate Income Tax.

By the way, they have always been an American owned company. It was a couple of Americans who set up National Transcommunications Ltd and started looking for opportunities to set up cable services. They found an opportunity in the UK, but not in their home country.

MPAA, RIAA: Kids need to learn 3 Rs – reading, writing and NO RIPPING

jonathanb Silver badge
Flame

No arithmetic?

Obviously they don't want them to learn arithmetic any more because they they would discover that their "calucations" of "losses" arising from "piracy" are complete rubbish, saying as they assume that every "pirate" would pay full price for every single item they "pirated" if they weren't able to get a copy by the means they did obtain it, and that the money they didn't spend on their CDs and DVDs didn't get spent on anything else either.

NO! Radio broadcasters snub 'end of FM' DAB radio changeover

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: Honest question...

With digital, you have to convert from analogue to digital and back to analogue, which takes time, depends on the codec, but possibly as much as a second.

With satellite, you have the time it takes for the signal to get to up to the bird and back down to the ground again, about another 0.3 seconds.

With internet, you have to buffer the stream to allow for the fact that speed can vary and packets can get lost in transit. That can add up to 30 seconds.

Internet Explorer 11 for Win7 bods: Soz, no HTML5 fun for you

jonathanb Silver badge

Google didn't dump flash support on Android. Adobe dumped flash support on Android.

jonathanb Silver badge

Given that everyone uses chrome these days, except for the few people like me that use firefox, yes it is unthinkable that Microsoft could try that.

BT Sport scores own goal with £897m Champions League footie rights deal

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: To be Fair

BT beat a joint Sky / ITV bid. The free matches went on ITV and there will be less free matches on BT than there were on ITV.

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: Can I opt out?

Plusnet (owned by BT) is cheaper, but doesn't come with BT Sport. That is your deduction for unsubscribing.

GoDaddy kicks off gTLD land rush with first domain sales

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: I'm baffled by this...

Most people don't even know that you can type in domains directly. They type things like "facebook.com" into the google search box.

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: Uno

I would generally look to .es sites for Spanish language content, or of course the domains from the other Spanish speaking countries.

IT finance bod coughs to slurping £130k from customers' accounts

jonathanb Silver badge

Re: I thought CISCO only leaked data, not cash

What I don't understand is firstly, why was the person tasked with collecting direct debits from customers allowed to make payments out of the bank account. Secondly, the only payments going out of the collections account should be to the main current account, and that should be managed by the payables department, not the receivables department.

jonathanb Silver badge

One of the things auditors look for is accounts staff that never take holidays. The fact that he was caught while on holiday is significant.