* Posts by tirk

346 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Nov 2009

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Bob Dylan's new album is 'Copyright Extension Collection'

tirk
Unhappy

Judas!

Seems the historically appropriate thing to shout at Dylan (and yes, I guess he might not have had any influence on this decision, be her doesn't seem to have publicly condemned it either).

Now you can control ANY Win 8 kit with your EYEBALLS

tirk
Windows

Re ...will they detect my eyes rolling...

Sure.

Clippy pops up and says "It looks like you were hoping to do some work!" Then laughs manically.

Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet creator Gerry Anderson dies at 83

tirk

Re: Yes it did

B&W vs colour is an enormous factor in determining what gets repeated though.

Lego quad-copter: your ultimate drone nightmare

tirk
Joke

Re: ...Lego themed fetish dungeon...

Always, always count the bricks before and after!

tirk
Gimp

Re: Superior Format

2013 will be the year of Meccano, mark my words!

tirk
Thumb Up

Re: Cost of LEGO

1. Buy *very* cheaply at boot sales

2. Tie loosely in pillowcase or similar

3. Run through washing machine

4. Profit!

...OK, so not great for a present for a child, but if you need *lots* for (ahem) grown-up projects...

Google, Microsoft go head to head in Santa-tracking tech race

tirk
Happy

Re: Ha ha, MS software...

Ob. XKCD link - http://xkcd.com/612/

Phone-hack saga: Police cuff man in southwest London

tirk

I'm glad I wasn't the only sad one who checked Wikipedia for the usual suspects ages!

Apotheker: HP board was just as culpable for Autonomy buy

tirk
Coat

Video of Apotheker's statement here?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc52OMftJSk

Dixons and Microsoft haggling over Surface RT Ts&Cs

tirk
Unhappy

...a clever strategy for building an eco system.

MS are playing a long game here, a several years long game. They can't compete with Android or iOS yet, and current apps frankly work better on Win 7, but they are betting on their dominant position to make TIFKAM the GUI people use at work, and the one they see in high street PC vendors over the next few years.

Personally I don't think it *deserves* to work, because they have put the GUI ahead of the applications (you know, the thingies most people actually use a computer for). But I fear it *may* work, due to their close, almost incestuous relationships with corporate/retail customers. Like IBM in the '70s, no-one will get fired for buying MS.

Punters rate Apple, Samsung more highly than ever

tirk
Unhappy

Re: Sony rated higher than Apple?

I'm guessing it's an "aspirational" rating then. No-one who has actually experienced Sony kit in the last few years could possibly rate it above toxic waste IMHO.

'HP has just days to cough what it knew about Autonomy'

tirk
Facepalm

HP "usual scenario"

Is there any truth to the rumour that clown cars are the new executive transport there?? Certainly fits the recent management style!

Windows Phone 8 must be Microsoft's priority one, two AND three

tirk
Thumb Up

Social bloatware

Good term! Tight Facebook/Twitter/whatever integration may be great if you want it, but is worse than a useless feature if you don't, or just don't want to share your FB contacts with your other social/business groups(*). 86% of the world's population don't have a FB account after all.

(*It may well be that WP8 allows easy separation of different contact groups, but it's perception as "a FB phone" will make people think otherwise.)

Microsoft’s so.cl network now open to all

tirk
Coat

Re: Socialism!

So if I get too excited over so.cl I'll turn it into j. socialism??

Half of all app store revenue goes to just 25 developers

tirk
Thumb Up

Re: Surprise, surprise

Quite. The "new entertainment" (games, music - though that's a different market) funds the platform. For me the most useful software that doesn't come with the OS is probably Citrix receiver (which presumably makes it's cash in other ways).

Chinese student fails job interview because of iPhone

tirk
Unhappy

Re: Really? Is that the best reference you can do?

Yes, but finding "shit to say about Apple" works on el Reg. Just look at all the commentards and voters falling over themselves to prove how superior they are just because of their choice of smartphone. This place claims to have a "vast IT Professional community". Heaven help the IT profession if the votes and comments here are in any way representative.

Autonomy founder attacks HP fraud charges with new website

tirk
Unhappy

Re: ...the mighty sword of truth and trusty shield of British fair play...

...won't mean a damn if the US decide to extradite them (no evidence needed) then offer them a plea bargain (18 months in an open prison if you plead guilty, or 30 years in a supermax if you make us have a trial).

See, they were guilty all along!

Microsoft halves Surface RT production orders - report

tirk
Mushroom

Re: And to think they broke a nice, functional desktop interface for this.

But it's the nature of the beast. The MS business model requires users to constantly "upgrade" (am I the only one to still use keyboard shortcuts because I can dig them out of my memory before I can find what I want in the &!@#ing ribbon?) Incremental change (sometime called "improvement") just won't persuade us to buy the same things again these days, so we have to be *made* to want completely new things every few years.

The lesson for MS is that unless they change that business model, they must eventually be history. Perhaps not this time, but surely one time soon.

Motörheadphönes Motörizer rock 'phones review

tirk
Facepalm

All so establishment in old age...

Hawkwind's Master of the Universe on a Ford advert, Lemmy selling beer, and now Motörhead brand eartrumpets!

I wonder when Stacia will pop up advertising stairlifts.

Windows 8 launch outdoes Windows 7's, says Microsoft bigwig

tirk
Windows

Re: vs. Desktop Linux and OSX

One way to tell is to track it here http://tinyurl.com/c2k2yv9 when November's figures are out. For October, the share for Win8 ("Windows NT 6.2") was 0.32%, Linux was 1.48% and OS X was 8.42%, so it's got a way to go.

BYOD: A bigger headache for IT bosses than Windows Metro?

tirk
WTF?

King Canute

A lot of the comments above strike me as the IT equivalent of King Canute - we don't like it so you can't have it. Well, if (and that is not yet certain) it makes economic sense for the business, then it's likely to happen, whether or not IT want it. There will be plenty of external consultancy firms telling the directors that they can do it, even if your "backwards IT guys" can't.

IT should be about finding how we can successfully, securely and efficiently embrace new ideas and technologies, not protect they way we do things now.

The tide comes in on it's own schedule, not ours.

Phone with Facebook hardware button lobbed out by Nokia

tirk
Flame

Re: Aaaaagh!

Quite. Another lazy "pink it, shrink it" insult to half the planet. :-(

Gangnam Style beats Bieber Baby, becomes biggest timewaste EVER

tirk
Coat

Biggest timewaste ever?

I thought that was posting here? Oh, hang on...

London Underground platform Wi-Fi set to cost £2 daily for many

tirk

I find it most useful for collecting and sending email from the train, which it can do in the few seconds the train in passing through a wifi connected station, rather than for browsing, which as you say, you don't really have time for.

Autonomy to HP: bollocks

tirk
Flame

Re: HP = twats

HP to SEC. " We screwed up, and lost a bundle of cash from the US economy. However, we have these convenient British scapegoats - can you get the money back for us please? You can always extradite the former management and owners if that helps.

HP: AUTONOMY 'misrepresented' its value by $5 BILLION, calls in SEC

tirk
Black Helicopters

Re: Some of HP's accusations.

Alternatively, isn't it possible that HP, having realized they paid *way* over the odds for Autonomy (as was widely commented at the time) are now looking for a convenient scapegoat? A foreign scapegoat at that.

Either way, HP management don't come out of this well.

Android-loving suits boot BlackBerrys into 3rd place in the office

tirk
Facepalm

Re: BYOD Policy

Easiest way to get a P45 too.

Like it or not, BYOD is not going away, and IT departments need to realize that. I remember the same attitudes to PC's from mainframe-loving IT departments in the 80's & 90's - we should be embracing new technologies, and new ways of using technology, not just saying "no".

Skyfall makers 3D printed Bond's DB5

tirk
Coat

re: Decimation

Hang on - the article clearly says "replicas" plural, so perhaps they made enough so every tenth one was destroyed? Which of course would be more accurately "decimation" than destroying a tenth of a single...

OK, I'll get my coat.

What happened to comics for kids? Hell, what happened to COMICS?

tirk
Happy

Re: Four words

Halo Jones was and is indeed brilliant.

Can I add Warren Ellis - Transmetropolitan? Or indeed Ministry of Space, for the Dan Dare retro feel?

Like all art, there ARE good ones out there if you look hard enough.

Sinofsky OFFSKI: Is Windows 9 now codenamed 'Defenestrate'?

tirk
Coat

Re: Win 8 / Metro GUI - is it a joke?

Ah, sort of like the plot of "The Producers"? If so, Ballmer's lucky - I can't see Win8 being anywhere near as liked as "Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden".

Peak Apple: Forstall was 'closest thing to Jobs they had left'

tirk
Unhappy

Trollfest 1: Real news 0

Welcome to El Reg.

Apple rejects NAKED HIPPIE ebook, despite apple coverup

tirk
Childcatcher

If my kids are anything to go by...

...it's probably the pubic hair rather than the nudity they objected to. Seems to disgust anyone under 40 - weird!

Windows Phone 8 will be 'less than explosive' - HP bigwig

tirk
Joke

Odd...

Epic train-crashes normally tend to be explosive!

Apple iPad Mini 8in tablet review

tirk
Unhappy

" the review is clearly intended to be provocative to help page clicks..."

Well it worked then, the Fandroids are out in force, which means the other lot will be along in a minute.

Neither side waiting to read the article of course.

Bond fans: Test your 007 trivia, now!

tirk
Angel

25/50

Surely can't be the best score?

iPad Mini's quite a handful

tirk
Facepalm

Re: Anyway

Must be half term.

tirk
Facepalm

"How drole. A4 sized manuals on A4 sized devices are too big."

It's the thickness of the manuals of course (he said, struggling to avoid the obvious comparison with AC!)

Nokia primes Lumias for Windows Phone 8 push

tirk

Re: Meh - 2010 specs - no thanks.

To be fair the Palm Pre had wireless charging in 2009.

(Though I've never seen how hard it is to plug a cable in, TBH)

Dr No, Thunderball, Casino Royale? Vote now for the best Bond film

tirk
Happy

Re: Do you expect me to talk?

Oblig. XKCD link - http://xkcd.com/123/

Apple CEO: Microsoft Surface 'compromised, confusing'

tirk
Joke

@g e

"So, he's stating he's confused by a device he's never laid hands on."

You'd never find anyone on el reg commenting on a product they'd never used, now would you?

Gates: Microsoft will merge Phone and Windows platforms

tirk
Windows

A bit sad to drag him out TBH

...to try and shift this snake oil.

Gates changed the IT industry. The only way Balmer is doing that is by driving MS nearer to bankruptcy.

I just LOVE Server 2012, but count me out on Windows 8 for now

tirk
Unhappy

@Sir Wiggum

"Hybrid PC/Tablets" are fine, but I think the problem is that Win 8 needs to be hybrid too. At the moment it seems like a phone/tablet OS with a few grudging afterthoughts to keyboard/mouse use.

Why James Bond's Aston Martin Top Trumps the rest

tirk
Headmaster

Re: for an affordable 'Bond' car

"Mainly because Saab's are horrible."

I've only owned on (a 9000 Carlsson) but that was a lovely car. Unlike your apostrophe ;-)

Education Secretary Gove: Tim Berners-Lee 'created the INTERNET'

tirk
Coat

Next thing you'll be saying my monitor is not the computer!

No, the tape drives are (he said, showing his age).

Microsoft Surface priced up for Blighty

tirk
Joke

Re: Magnetic power supply...

Perhaps MS are setting up Apple's lawyers to be the excuse for not selling any??

MYSTERIOUS GREEN GLOW seen on iPhone 5s

tirk
FAIL

@RobE

I don't know which is sadder, this comment (the only objectively sustainable claim is the "inflated prices" one), or the fact that it has a net thumbs up vote. So much for reasoned argument.

Sites can slurp browser history right out of Firefox 16

tirk
Headmaster

NUMBER of people!

Didn't they teach you anything at troll school??

Amazon UK leaks Windows 8 retail box, TV ads

tirk
FAIL

Express, Connect, Create, Play...

But will it Work, or even Sell?

'It's not a post-PC world: Just a post Windows one, maybe'

tirk
Unhappy

I'd love it to be true, but....

There are far too many people in corporate IT departments who know nothing but Windows, and what MS tell them. Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM^w Microsoft.

Steve Jobs is STILL DEAD

tirk
Windows

Gosh Windows fanbois are bitter.

That would make Android fanbois alcopops then?

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