Posts by The Brave Sir Robin 92 posts • joined 31 Aug 2010
My suspicion is that Huawei kit is actually secure and there are no back-doors or spyware in it. No phoning home or anything dodgy going on at all. I strongly suspect they are banned in various countries precisely because of this. The governments on question can't spy on people using Huawei kit and thus don't want people using it. I'm more inclined to believe in Huawei's honesty over the US, Australian, UK and New Zealand governments any day.
Totally agree. Poor design. UEFI is a dreadful pile of dingo's kidneys. There's no way an OS should be farting about with BIOS code/settings and able to fubar your machine. Modern OSs are big and generally full of bugs and have no business messing about in the BIOS. I'm surprised this sort of fuckup doesn't happen more often. All mobos should have dual BIOSs to get you out of these situations and BIOS flashing/setting should only be possible from with the BIOS itself.
The big problem with Android still exists. Users of anything other than brand new models will never get the updated Android with security fixes. Once you've paid your cash, phone manufacturers don't give a crap any more. People's only option is to flash a 3rd party Android on their phone, something which the average Joe won't have the skills for.
Google really need fix the problem of users being left out in the cold.
For various reasons I returned to Android (I hated using an iPhone when I had one for work), mainly for some specific apps I need for work. However, if I could run everything I wanted on my Win Pho (Lumia 640), I'd go back in an instant. I much prefer it to Android. I gave the Win Pho to the wife and she really likes it.
I notice that updates for my Huawei Android phone are coming through thick and fast, NOT !! In that respect, MS are doing a better job than Huawei. Had the same abandoned feeling on my last Android phone which was a Samsung.
A few years ago you could buy Inspiron laptops with 1920x1200 screens and fast HDs. You could customise on purchase with a choice of screens, memory, graphics cards, hard drives and upgrades to Windows Pro.
Today, affordable laptops aren't customisable, have really shitty 1300x760 screens, slow hard drives and not enough RAM. You can't get a good mid-range PC as good as the ones from a few years ago. So why buy a new one when it is more than likely not as good as the one you already have.
PC manufacturers are their own worst enemy here. Make the machines as good as they used to be and people will buy them.
"Especially fools who love their other halves."
Or is trying to woo an object of their desire.
I remember sitting through the nightmare of Grease back in the day hoping for a romantic result. No romantic result was worth sitting through Grease for though.
So am I. I've rather enjoyed the first two reboot films. Entertaining. Which, after all is the aim of a film isn't it ?
I'm a Star Trek fan and have spent a fortune over the years on VHS and DVD copies. But looking objectively I would say about 50% of all Star Trek episodes from all the series are a bit rubbish, 25% OK and 25% excellent.
I recently bought a Lumia 640. After several Android devices over the years I have to say I love the Lumia. Bloody cheap and yet does everything I need or want and I really like Windows Phone. Far more satisfied with it than the Galaxy S3, S2 and HTC Desire that preceeded it.
I believe thats what I said. I like it on a fondle slab but hate it on a mouse driven laptop or desktop.
You need a choice. Why not have full fondle interface on a tablet and a start menu with Metro apps in floating windows for laptops/desktops. How about a check box to switch between the two modes ? Not a big deal for MS to provide that. Maybe they'll come to their senses and do that in Windows 9.
I happen to think that netbooks were a good idea. I really liked mine. A bit too slow unfortunately. This tablet is much, much faster. The Venue 11 has a lot going for it in that its not an iPad, more useful than my Asus Transformer TF101 for actual work use in that it runs Office properly and stuff like Cisco VPN, can join a domain and can be managed by Enterprise software. It is much faster than the old netbooks and has a massive battery life. It also has a fairly good touch interface and a active stylus for note taking.
What's wrong with any of that ?
...when I bought a Dell Venue Pro 11 from the Dell Outlet at a rather fantastic price. Its a great piece of kit and I've discovered that I rather like the Windows 8 interface on a fondle slab. I hate it on a mouse driven PC or laptop though, The price I got it for was in the 'take a punt' area. Not sure I would have at the full retail price.
I find the Venue Pro much more usable for 'real' work than my Android tablet and I'm using it in preference nearly all the time. Battery life is awesome and the speed from the quad core Atom CPU is more than acceptable. I just wish there were a few more and higher quality 'apps' in the store for fondle use. I end up having to resort to the desktop with the optional keyboard dock much of the time due to poor quality apps or the unavailability of them.
Due to it running a full copy of Windows 8.1 Pro it can be fully managed in the domain setting and can run any corporate utility and security software.
I really, really like it much to my surprise. Enough that I'm going to recommend trialling them at work. They could do with a price drop though.
I used to love the Tomorrow People when I was a kid in the 70's. The music really set the mood. Feeling nostalgic and very old right now. I hope they do a good job on this. Supernatural is one of theirs and that is excellent so they can make good telly if they try.
I remember playing with the school 380z a very long time ago. It was one the only computer the school had until the BBC Model B and a 48K Spectrum turned up.
Those were the days. I remember giving the physics teacher (who had responsibility for the computers dumped on him) tutorials on it. I had to teach him how to use CP/M and code in BASIC and Pascal (which I'd been learning for O level computer science at an FE college 'cos my school couldn't teach it) .
A heck of a lot of UK Tomtom sat nav users have been unable to connect to the Live Traffic HD service since Feb 6th. The service is hosted on the Vodafone network. The error is something along the lines of "Can't establish wireless data connection".
I'll be well miffed if my getting stuck in traffic is Apple's fault. Not content with buggering up fanbois navigation they want to bugger up everybody else's.
That argument is bollocks. Netflix runs on Gingerbread and even Froyo. The whole Android "fragmentation issue" is also bollocks. Developers need to write their code properly. Netflix runs on anything with Froyo or newer. The only issue potentially is for someone running a cheap and nasty budget phone/tablet.
The market share argument for supporting Apple over Android is a non-argument and there is no fragmentation issue for Android if the code is properly written. The BBC and Sky seem to be populated by Fanbois IMV or they're in Apple's pocket (probably in the case of Sky anyway). It is fundamentally wrong of the BBC to waste license fee on supporting the Apple platform over Android when there are more Android using license fee payers.
Cut off 50% of their customers ? How can they cut off 50% of their customers when they don't bloody have any customers ? BBC iplayer on Android is lazily and badly written, relying on utterly rubbish Adobe technology to bodge in DRM. Sky Go is so crap it's not worth bothering with even if it does work on your device. Amazon just want people to buy Kindle Fires so they won't support other devices even though there's no technical issue why not.
If Netflix can produce a quality product on a wide range of Android devices then there's no excuse for Sky, the BBC and Lovefilm not to do the same.
With Netflix I get HD content with 5.1 surround sound on my WD TV Live STB and great HD video on my Android phone, Android tablet and PCs. Using the DNS bodge I get access to the US content. Currently working my way through some series I missed such as Warehouse 13, Eureka and Breaking Bad.
Lovefilm doesn't support Android which is a big no-no for me. Especially as there's no reason for this as they do support the Kindle Fire. Also no support on the WD TV Live.
It amazes me that Netflix can provide HD quality streaming on Android tablets and phones with DRM but the likes of Lovefilm , Sky and the BBC can't. Perhaps they should license streaming technology off someone who knows how to do it like Netflix.
...unless the one you have is broken. I'm a s/w developer and I'm more than happy with my 5 year old Dell laptop which is very heavily used and serves my needs perfectly. My wife and son are also pretty happy with their Dell laptops too, both of which are even older than mine. All the machines do what we all want, so why spend money on a new one? We may have to replace the wife's machine which is suffering from very floppy hinges but it won't happen until the day it breaks. I expect there are many people out there with perfectly adequate older machines just like us. Windows 8 is certainly no incentive to buy a new machine given that it is crippled with TIFKAM.
Of course not! You're not supposed to use a mouse you silly person. You're supposed to use a touch screen for everything.
Wonder if the EULA for Windows 8 includes a cop-out absolving Microsoft from responsibility for the neck and shoulder strains people will suffer when they spend all day reaching out to touch their screens. Or indeed for the responsibility for the eye strains caused by people spending all day looking at their monitor screens through the inevitable layer of awful, greasy, finger smears. Yuk !
Won't somebody think of the children who will grow up looking all lop sided like Quasimodo from using touch screen interfaces on laptops and desktops ?
Does that mean that the ASUS EEE Pad Transformer TF101 that I've been using for the last 18 months is also crap ? Why did nobody tell me ? I'm going to have to bin it straight away and buy an iPad 4 if its the only one worth buying. I can't wait to enjoy the benefits of using the not at all bloated, slow and poorly designed iTunes on my PC with my new fruity piece of genius. It'll be so satisfying to penetrate its Appley case with my fully loaded SD cards of musical pleasure. Oh how could I have been so completely wrong in my choice of tablety goodness.
So the correct solution is as implemented in 3rd party utilities like Actual Multiple Monitors or Ultramon where you get a task bar and Start button on every monitor rather than having to hover over specific pixels in either corner. The main problem. This would have been much more sensible that the context breaking major distraction that is Metro on the desktop.
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