Re: Another case of filling the initials with words?
Backronyms are always best.
PING, the only acceptable form of groping in most workplaces.
1107 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Mar 2010
When you said you wanted to play games in Windows you essentially sealed the coffin on linux host and Windows guest.
I am a long time lover of linux, but it simply isnt practical to use it as a virtualisation host and get decent gaming performance.
As said above, Windows host and linux guest is a much better option.
Well this the opposite to what I was taught on the use if neither and nor, so I stand corrected there.
It appears that you agree with me on the word order though, since your example was
"they were neither cheap nor convenient"
rather than
"they neither were cheap nor convenient"
As far as I can see there's nothing stopping anyone providing parts, especially compatible but non-HP parts, and there's nothing stopping third parties providing you with troubleshooting support etc.
All HP are doing is requiring you to pay if you want firmware updates beyond the initial warranty period. Really you can't complain about them not giving you on going benefits of their research and development for nothing.
Indeed, the problem is that "the disposable part" in the case of lots of HP printers includes the print head. Those nozzles are where the engineering and patent worthy stuff really lies, and is also why most HP cartridges cost more than most Epson,Kodak etc cartridges.
Having the print head be easily replaceable is a great idea, as it is the common cause of death for inkjet printers, however having it as a separate insert in the carriage is a much better design, which a small number of HP and many Kodak printers use.
Also I've had to bin a huge number of Epson printers because the nozzles have become completely useless and cannot be replaced due to being integrated into the carriage.
I haven't studied this in detail but as far as I can tell the basic premise of the patent describes the design and construction of a number of existing blade systems, including from my own personal experience the HP c3000 which has it's blade, IO and power modules all inserted horizontally. The only difference in the patent images is that they show all modules being inserted from the front where was the HP enclosures have IO and power at the back. But I would of though it still constituted prior art.
I'm not entirely sure how long we've had this enclosure, but it was definitely well before June 2012 when this patent was applied before.
You haven't mentioned what platform you are on or migrating to which could be a fairly major factor, depending on the availability of tools for doing the migration.
Also depends on how much mail you have to move, how much disruption and user training etc you're planning/willing to have.
Do you have desktop mail clients that will need replacing and configuring?
All of the above gives you timescales somewhere between 1 and 9 months I'd suggest, entirely variable within that.
Actually you're a bit off in your comparison there.
Mileage on the car is not the same as time the engine has run. A car could have 50 miles on the clock but spent 6 months on but idling or on the drive stuck at 6000 revs. SMART power on time is just that, the time it's been powered on not necessarily active or doing anything. Perhaps the drives have been heavily used or perhaps they've been powered on but idle with the heads parked 99% of the time due to being sat in an unused server. There's no way to know for sure just from powered on time.
Regardless Aria (the company) are clearly in the wrong here and should offer refunds, but they may well have bought these drives in good faith having been told they were unused and simply not checked the SMART stats to confirm it.
Innocent until proven guilty and all that.
Aria (the man not the company) needs to learn to think before speaking though.
I have to say, regardless of who thought them up, I like the idea and wish it would catch on properly.
I use NFC in a number of places for payments and find it quite handy. I also have a tendency to leave the house and forget my wallet, though I rarely forget my phone, so having a mobile wallet app would be extremely useful to me. This is in fact why I'm planning to switch to EE when my contract is up, unless a network independent solution arrives first.
One of the biggest annoyances of NFC though is that there are some places that take it, but they apparently have to press a button on the till to trigger the PDQ and they're in the habit of doing this after you've inserted your card. Having to tell them you want to use NFC so they press the button first defeats the convenience and time saving of NFC in the first place.
I am also not an English literature (or even language) graduate, however I believe you are incorrect about multiple instances of "and" and commas. My understanding of it is as below.
If listing multiple points in one sentence you can certainly separate them with commas, or you can conjoin them with "and" but not both. Also you should ideally avoid the use of multiple instances of the same conjunction in a sentence i.e. you can use "and" and then "also" to separate two points but not two occurrences of "and" or "also".
The format "Because of <point 1>, and <point 2>." is OK when there are only 2 points.
But for more than 2 the format should be "Because of <point 1>, <point 2>, <point 3> and <point 4>." unless using the Oxford comma, which is generally considered a matter of personal preference, where the format would be "Because of <point 1>, <point 2>, <point 3>, and <point 4>.
Clauses within a sentence, where you you encapsulate some clarification with commas as I'm doing here, should only be done once per sentence.
Additionally, if the phrasing of your points contains commas you can use the first format above but replace the listing commas with semi-colons.
N.B. If you disagree with any of the above or it is incorrect, blame my teachers. Any instances of Muphry's Law in this post are entirely intentional.
Afraid not old bean. HSBC never received any bailout capital from the government, in HSBC's case it was in fact steered through succesfully. One of the few that was.
Apologies for using Wikipedia as a reference but : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_Kingdom_bank_rescue_package
Could you give an example of a high street branch of HSBC that does this?
I've been with them for 10+ years with no complaints and never encountered this (I'm not a premier customer) at 10+ branches that I've visited. The only thing close I know of is one branch that doesn't have counter services, everything is done via a wall of ATMs, and you can't always sit down with someone without an appointment but as far as I know they'll make an appointment for anyone.
I'm not generally on Apple's side in many arguments, but I have to say it does sound from the article like the guy is deliberately causing trouble and making life difficult for Apple.
I'm not opposed to people causing trouble and making life difficult for Apple per se, but when the person doing it is a court appointed monitor for a specific area, trying to stick his nose into everything I think it is a bit out of line.
You wouldn't expect a traffic warden to insist on performing a full body search of you and everyone in your car after telling you can't park somewhere or giving you a ticket.
It's fairly obvious why that's the case though.
If mobile operators try to put up masts in residential areas the NIMBY lot complain about it being an eye-sore or that it'll give them cancer. I'd suggest you complain to your parish council since it's likely most of them doing the complaining.
I wouldn't be surprised if there are masts mounted on top of the prison buildings, it's not like the prisoners will be allowed to register any kind of complaint about it.
They really have to block the sites solely to devoted to obvious ways to work around the filter system, otherwise it's kind of pointless implementing it. There's a fine line between blocking obvious and well known proxy web sites and restricting or blocking VPNs. So far they're on the right side of that line, how long that will last....who knows?
....is to switch to a lesser known ISP (presuming you're able to get decent speed over a BT ADSL/fibre line and not an unlucky Virgin Media only type).
My feeling is that rather than being an attempt to seriously control all public access to the Internet and adult content, it's really Cameron and Co's move to mollify the "won't somebody think of the children" types who think this sort of thing will actually help.
I'd be fairly surprised to see the government trying to force this onto all ISPs, I don't think that they're really that interested in it. They're just interested in shutting up the people who are bothering them.
Unfortunately not going to happen.
The 'light' option will essentially be none though I think, however calling it none would be inaccurate since there are some sites they are required to block by law such as thepiratebay.
I suspect if they called it 'none' and still blocked TPB etc you would complain about the inaccuracy.
The only real world situation where this applies is if an 'attacker' gets hold of your phone after you've unlocked it and before it locks again. Perhaps if you left it unlocked on the bar at a pub then left?
But really, if you've left your phone unattended whether locked or not
a) you'll be bloody lucky to ever see it again
b) due to point a, whether someone has changed or remove your lock code/pattern is a minor concern.
I wasn't suggesting the reviewer spend time struggling to get it to work if it didn't, or indeed spend any time becoming overly familiar with Linux in order to test it. As you say the number of people it would affect or who would care is not particularly large.
What I was suggesting was that he download an installer and at least get as far as seeing if the device is presented as a location to install to if it didn't immediately work, then fine. With a distro like Ubuntu this requires little more than the ability to follow a simple GUI, a level of computer literacy any author on an IT news site should have as this one clearly does.
He could even have not mentioned Linux support leaving the question unraised. But what he did do instead was say "who can say?" indicating that there's no way he could possibly know.
I was about to comment in this vein.
Frankly the author's comment of "who can say?" is utter crap, and shows a lack of effort.
All you need do is download Ubuntu/Mint?Debian/Fedora or any one of the many other popular free distros and boot up, see if it gives you the option to install to the device.
Sure that's not going to give a full compatibility chart of what kernels and distros are supported, but it's a hell of a lot more insightful than "who can say?"
Who can say? Anyone who is given one of the device to review who has an internet connection, a DVD burner, a spare blank disc and an ounce of initiative. That's who.
Oh and to the AC, why should a Linux using reader have to buy one to find out when El Reg could of tested it with the minor effort indicated above?
...but not for the reason a lot of people are thinking.
It's not that tablets and BYOD etc. is reducing the need for PCs (though admittedly that does play some role).
It's simply that in the old days (by old days I mean a period between 5 and 15 years ago) computer software was leaping ahead of the software in such a way that when a new Office package or new OS came out having newer hardware was more necessity.
It's really the advent of true dual core CPUs that caused this. With Intel Core 2 and more so the Core i-series CPU load has been less of a problem even a first generation i3 or i5 will happily handle most tasks in Windows XP through to Windows 8 without issue.
My main desktop machine is couple of years old first generation i3, with a fair chunk of RAM, and I can't see a desperate need to change it for a couple more years yet.
For admin/clerical type staff this even more the case, Windows 7 or 8 with Office 2007 - 2013 are absolutely no trouble.
Sales are more likely to come in bursts, as far as corporate purchases go, during the next 5 - 10 years. Mainly machines being replaced as they go out of warranty more than because they are under spec.
I concur though not with the mac mini part.
A mini itx integrated motherboard and cpu like an amd e-350 based solution plus case and disks would cost less and perform better with a similar power profile to the NAS device.
Install Windows, a proper Linux distro or a prebuilt Linux based NAS OS and you'll have a lovely home server.
"Right, so who is going to carry out said radical unnecessary treatment?"
It is my understanding that there are a great many plastic surgeons, particularly in the good old US of A, who will do things like a double mastectomy simple because you asked and have the money to pay.
Or the person might have a GP who is an old quack and takes the fancy genetic testing results at face value and gives a prescription.
I'm not suggesting in either of the above cases that the fault does not lie with doctor rather than 23andme, but regardless the situation could still occur.
It's not really about it being government approved information, it's about misleading or confusing people into thinking they are or will become seriously ill by providing an improperly explained genetic testing service without unbiased medical advice.
The service is sold as a method of finding out if you have or could be at risk from various serious medical conditions. But the results provided are likely to scare people into radical unnecessary treatment because they are presented as answers not just indicators, without proper medical advice.
I'm not a fan of governments controlling everything or restricting information, but ensuring important things like medical care and testing aren't improperly advertised/represented and come with suitably qualified advice, , that is something they definitely should be doing.
The main problem is really just down to marketing here. 23andme are over emphasising the reliability and importance of their tests. They need to go to much greater lengths to explain that the tests are just suggestive indicators and not guarantees of immunity or death from certain conditions. Perhaps where there are any potentially serious results advise or even provide proper medical consultation from a doctor.
This is where regulation would be a good idea, to ensure proper unbiased medical advice.
I would use their service if it were available in this country, but really more for curiosity than medical paranoia.
Been using this for some time with HSBC, they brought it in a while ago.
I have to say apart from the inconvenience of having and forgetting/leaving at home my SecureKey instead of just memorising my passwords and codes, I don't see a problem. (with the physical SecureKey anyway, HSBC don't do the app version).
The key is only of use to someone who steals/finds it if they guess your PIN which is 4-6 digits, so it's at least as secure as your credit/debit card. The PIN can be reset using the answers to your security questions sure, but the same can be said for phoning them up and claiming to have forgotton your phone banking password. The solution here is to make the answers to your security questions lies, that you only use with HSBC/FD. (For instance saying your favourite author is Oolon Colluphid and that your grandfather was called Hig Hurtenflurst).
The biggest problem I've found is that so far I've broken the LCD on my key 3 times and had to get a replacement, and been unable to access my online banking in the meantime.
On the first page the article says " but at its nearest Mars is less than 35 million miles (54.6 million kilometres) away".
This is not an appropriate way to describe a distance.
My keyboard is less than 35 million miles away from me.
My local supermarket is also less than 35 million miles away.
The Earth's moon is also less than 35 million miles away.
Does that mean they are all also a comparable distance to Mars?
Saying "a little less than 35 million miles" or "just under 35 million miles" or "approximately 35 million miles" are all significantly more accurate (though still not very specific) than saying "less than 35 million miles", which by definition includes all values between 0 and 34,999,999.999...
Winamp has some useful features, like being able to specify the audio device to use. Means my primary playback device in Windows can be my headphones while Winamp uses another output to play to my amp.
Windows Media Player certainly can't do that, not can any of the streaming services mentioned in the article.
VLC can but is hardly a suitable music library player.
Can anyone suggest a good free alternative to Winamp that can do the same thing?