Posts by John Bailey 811 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jun 2007
It's quite a common ailment amongst fanboys.
No doubt someone will also attempt to explain how holding the precious while using it with no measurement equipment other than the reception bars is far superior to controlled conditions in a lab performed by an expert in the field.
Never mind guys.. Tell us again about the market cap..
Typical for who..
The majority live in urban areas, where they will be reasonably close to an exchange, while a minority will live in rural areas, where 5 miles from the exchange would be "normal". Average it out, and there will be a huge range either side.
Selling a 2 gig connection, but delivering say 10 gig, or 256 meg is not really useful? But for national advertising, that is about as accurate as they can get.
What they can reasonably do is make a line check, and quote the deliverable speed to the individual customer based on that before they sign up. Which is happening with Orange at least. Perhaps others are doing it too.
Last year, I was sold a 13 gig connection, and that is what it usually is. Even at peak.
"open styles window, right click on style, modify.
You're not in IT are you?"
Ok.. Did it.. Now I lost all my headings and the nice curly letter font that my title page was done in.. GET UP HERE AND FIX MY WORK OR I'LL GET YOU FIRED!! I have to go and give this presentation in twenty minutes, so it better be done by then.
You don't directly support users do you?
For your solution to work, the user will have to have properly used styles when creating the document. They don't always do that. Sorry.. But you fail at user support.
Repeat after me.. "Would you like fries with that"..
Open office has styles too. Work in exactly the same way. Are also totally useless if you don't use them.
Any change from MS Office/Windows, no matter how trivial is an unacceptable and impractical imposition that reduces productivity and attracts massive training costs.
A total redesign of the OS/application UI in Windows on the other hand is a chance to modernize the UI for an enhanced user experience.
Phase 2 will be in about 3 years or less, when a massive hardware upgrade will be required across the board to get the system ready for Win 7.
A sane post.
MS make their money on the corporate level. Home users are a PR exercise. Keep em thinking Windows is the only OS. Not a major concern.
Win8Tablets will, if they ever exist, be corporate stuff, Microsoft's home turf. Perhaps a token effort for consumer tablets. Android and iOS will take the consumer market, and might gain some traction with corporates in some small way.
My predictions, as prone to being wrong as anybody else.. But with a two year time scale.. Certainly more realistic than some Dell suit blowing smoke rings.
ARM and x86 are not code compatible. Windows programs are too big to run on titchy low power ARM SOCs. So anybody expecting to be able to run the same OS and the same apps on both is either not sufficiently technical, or severely delusional.
Blocks don't work like people often think.
Porn is not labelled "dirty filthy pervy pictures" There is no magic word to make the nasty images go away. So you block a word, you block anything associated with it. And whitelists are just approved sources. Not good enough, because you have to be approved first.
Blocking is bad. Censorship, once available as a tool, will be used. Anti stalking laws have been used to break up picket lines. Anti terror laws have been used to intimidate.
Do you honestly think that given a means of effectively deleting certain content from the internet, that out technologically inept leaders would not use it as a sledgehammer cracking the embarrassing little nuts that come along from time to time?
The use of porn is not illegal. Thus, no justifiable reason to block or even monitor it. And absolutely no reason why it should be blocked at ISP level. If you don't want little Johnny to look at naughty pictures, don't let him have a computer in his room, and talk to him abotu sex before it becomes a problem. Because lets be honest here.. It is not that easy to come across it accidentally..
People who come out behind daft ill conceived laws through ignorance are as bad as the ones with a hidden agenda. Worse, because they genuinely believe they are helping, so will go that extra bit to support the bad laws and knee jerk regulations instead of calling for real positive action to be taken.
Similar case was Megan's law (I think) where kiddy fiddlers would be made known to neighbours. Big support form the Paedo finders.. Just like in America.
Big mistake.
It makes kids less safe, because sex offenders are more likely to go underground. And it allows the police to under fund and under man the departments that are supposed to keep an eye on them.
But knee jerk, "no smoke without fire" idiots froth at the mouth, and scream accusations when anybody points this out.
Support without understanding is dangerous.
Little Johnny is not stopped by the law. An older mate can be cultivated, and if they ask enough people, someone is going to end up getting a few beers or a pack of cigarettes for him. Who hasn't been asked by some kid to buy something outside an off license.
Little Johnny is stopped by the punishment he will get from mum or dad if caught, or he is stopped by the knowledge that such things are bad for him at such a young age, which is something a good parent will have made him aware of. Not by "It's illegal".
If you have to block anything, you have already lost. And forbidding with no explanation makes it all the more enticing.
When you have finished child proofing the world, how do you then world proof the child?
You made a logical assessment of what should happen. That was your first mistake.
In reality.. Popup window comes up and user clicks OK. Clicking OK is how one closes a popup. The most dire warnings get put through a mental filter and come out as "Click OK to close this nasty scary popup".
Reading popups is dangerous. It must be avoided at all costs. Because if you have read the popup, you might be responsible for what happens next. Then you can't tell your computer repair serf that you don't know what happened. And picking that MP3 player or USB stick up off the street couldn't possibly have wrecked the work network... could it?
I got offered an extended warranty on a pair of £17 ear buds the last time I went to Richer sounds. Even the sales guy was embarrassed. A pity.. They used to be good.
Now I buy all my consumer electronics online.
No trudging to the shop, no hard sell, no risk of the damn thing being out of stock, and requiring a second visit.
Dixons group.. Give me strength.. I've seen cabbages with more technical knowledge.
A friend told me last week that he was sold an external USB DVD drive and assured that it would work for recording TV programs.
Actually.. The big box stores were the ones who killed off the specialist stores 20 years ago. Not the internet. Now the internet is killing the big box stores. And nothing of value is lost. And who is on the internet? The little guys the big box stores killed off.
Online retailers are a joy to deal with. And the few times I have needed to return anything, it's been accepted and I get the refund as quickly as possible.
Bug box = Expensive cab fairs, hassle of arguing with some kid who barely knows how to plug the appliance in, and tries to pass off a credit note, as "store policy".
Once you get outside amazon, there are plenty of small specialist knowledgeable operations selling good quality stuff at reasonable prices. Many couldn't survive in bricks and mortar land, because they are just too specialized.
You may be surprised, but the Palm Graffiti handwriting system was very good. And worked on a 3 inch screen perfectly well without needing a big keyboard area. Took about a day or two to learn, but once done, it was as quick as hand writing, and did not require you to look at what you were writing. I still don't know why it hasn't been taken up by Android.
Personally, I'd be quite happy with a stylus enabled Android PDA and some variation on Graffiti. .
They are talking about the seemingly inexhaustible supply of twits who will swear blind that because something is used on an Apple product, it must be the first and best, and that everybody else is copying them.
I've not only seen posts to the effect on various forums, but I've seen people trying to maintain that Apple using rounded corners was a new magical idea, and that others are copying them..
Theft = criminal extraditable offense. The US has a nice cozy one way extradition deal with the UK, where Julian Assange is currently detained at her maj's pleasure. It isn't as if they have to go looking for him. How many extradition requests have there been?
Handing sensitive papers to the media may be legally dubious, but if Wikileaks is guilty of receiving stolen goods, then so is the Guardian and the New York Times. Stolen goods don't stop being stolen after they pass through a given number of hands.
So sorry.. Point has no validity. Try again.
Wikileaks is not a charity. True enough.
Neither is the guardian, the Wall street Journal, the FT, the Sun, the daily mail, or any other news outlet of any stripe.
Which charitable organizations do publish a general interest newspaper? And no.. Guide dogs for the blind newsletters do not count.
Again.. Try harder.
The credit card transaction and billing address is in all honesty, not evidence of anything. I've had fraudulent transactions made on my card with my full address. It's pretty common.
The IP details, user name and password etc.. Much more solid. And it would take someone who knew him very well to duplicate that.
As to the bank statements.. Gotta love a perv who keeps good records..
The only way to win is not to play.
USB banjaxed.. Well.. It works for the officially sanctioned devices.
Reception dodgy. Not holding it right, and every phone drops calls when the antenna is blocked.
Non functional screen. The Steve is encouraging you to use your imagination.
3 inch metal spike shoots out of the earpiece when you answer a call, The Steve is helping you, by forcing you to slow down and mellow out.
Doorstepping god botherers, Scientologists, Apple fanboys.. Same strategy applies.
Do not return eye contact.
Do not engage in conversation.
Do not attempt to reason with them.
They win by making you want to eat your own face in order to distract from the stupid radiating from their pre programmed smiles and their pre approved talking points.
Mint brought out a debian based version with rolling release a few months ago. It's currently on my laptop, and working just fine so far. No reason why Canonical can't do the same.
6 month releases with all new all shiny stuff is good to a point. Lots of new stuff to try out. But I'll be the first to admit, it is a hassle to do a clean install every time. I look forward to more rolling update distros. Install once and forget it until the hard drive wears out.
Only problem I can see is if they need to d a major overhaul. Sometimes a clean install is a good thing. But we shall see what we shall see.
What you are referring to is trademarks. Specific art work or typography that is registered, and unique to the company for the life of the company. . Not surprising, as the article is also wrong in it's lego reference.
A trademark must be protected. Because it's real purpose is to differentiate one brand or source from another.
To use the lego example. I can sell as many lego bricks as I want. I can even call them lego, although I could possibly be in trouble then, as it is close enough to cause confusion.
Why? because lego is not trademarked. "LEGO" however, is. Capitalise it, and I'm definitely guilty of trademark infringement. If I call them interlocking construction blocks, I'm in the clear.
Lego has been available for around 70 years. The patent on the traditional rectangular blocks has long expired everywhere. Mindstorms and other newer types....Who knows.
So I can copy the design with no fear of legal consequences. The LEGO company can do nothing about it. And 40 years ago, I can remember there being lego bricks that were not made by LEGO.
LEGO bricks are NOT copyright protected. Despite the article's assertion. Copyright does not cover physical designs. Artwork, photos, drawings, text.. yes. But not the dimensions and mechanical characteristics of a small plastic brick.
So print as many lego bricks as you like, in any substance you like. LEGO can't touch you so long as you do not include their logo. And if you want a ready made lego brick model, try http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:591
And pay special attention to the distinct lack of the word LEGO in all caps.
The latest news is that MS have back-pedalled a bit, and accessing the device from a non Xbox is apparently not hacking. Lovely quote from MS on the adafruit.com blog.
Adafruit response.. Bounty is now $3000. And people are talking about setting up a donation process to get it even bigger.
Wild guess here, but it sounds more like an over enthusiastic PR/Legal employee got his knickers in a twist at the thought of "teh l77t Hax0rs" taking over a kinect, and using it to declare global thermonuclear war. And MS are desperately trying to distance themselves from this twit.
I'd say the top sellers are mostly super cheap or free books, and then the most sold titles in the paper stock lines were counted. No confirmation that the Kindle best "sellers" were the same books as the paper best sellers.
Standard Amazon PR release.. "We are doing really really well.", then "we are doing even better"..
Lots of announcements of success, no hard figures from anybody. So basically.. no information. Although I don't doubt that they are selling well.
As far as e-book readers in general go.. They are great. If you haven;t used one for a few days, you don't actually realise how pleasant they are to use. And it's more of an adult/mature reader gizmo than a young adult one, which is possibly why there are so many gadget blogs who seem offended by this device.
They'll claim their iPhone is working perfectly no matter what, even when they don't have the specific model in question, login specially to participate in the poll, and advertise it in some iFanboy forum so they can flash mob any vaguely apple related story if it is in any way non devotional.
Sorry to ruin the careful astroturfing..
But..
As I remember reading.. i4i is(were) a company producing an actual product for sale to customers. One that Microsoft absorbed, and didn't pay for. So in what way are they trolls?
Oh yes..They took a big important company to court and won.. I can see how this would not be a good thing for the software industry as a whole.. Patent law was intended to protect the big powerful companies from the small weak ones.. Silly me..
You just can't get competent legislators these days. A bought law should stay bought with none of this silly applying to everybody malarky.
Not many people actually eat raw chillis? The few that do, I'll agree are mostly doing the macho thing. In which case, I'd love to be around when someone handed them one of these. I seriously doubt it would be possible to eat a raw one.
For those of us who enjoy heavily spiced foods, the heat isn't really the attraction. Once you get used to it, the heat diminishes, and the flavour of the chilli comes out. You might just taste hot, I taste a whole range of flavours under the heat.
It's far more than just AAAARGH it's HOTTTT...... And most certainly is not a macho "who can take the most pain" thing. If it hurts, you used too much. If you get an enjoyable tingle, then you have found the right level of heat for you.
Dateline 2050..
Today Microsoft celebrated the last copy of IE6 being deactivated. Microsoft spokesman Geoff Dhalmer proudly stated that he can see no reason why the can't have IE9 off the internet within the next twenty years, and replaced with the new IE32. The most standards compliant version of Internet explorer to date.
Mr Dhalmer also announced new and exciting enhancements to HTML 12, and an entirely new media layer that takes full advantage of underlying Windows 21 capabilities.
Well said. Keep promoting this viewpoint and they lose their power.
The IRA spoke for the IRA. NOT Ireland. I'm Irish, and was sickened by the stuff they did. They did not speak for me. EVER!
The fundies and random nutters of any arbitrary group speak only for themselves, but try to pull the rest of us into one side or another. It only works if you let it.
It isn't the products. It's the fanboys. And sadly, Jobs is the worst of the lot. How sad is it when a fanboy worships himself?
The mind numbingly technologically illiterate PR eating morons who by sheer weight of ignorance make us want to strangle them with their own posy white ear buds as they regurgitate the latest gospel according to Jobs are the problem. I can see why that journalist wanted to hit the Scientology guy.. ifans are the exact same.
I actually saw one of them on some forum try to make out their iProduct was faster than a dual core PC because it loaded a web page slightly faster.
Apple products are most likely ok. But the sheer amount of nonsensical whining and smug bragging from not only the fanboys, but his holiness as well is too much to stomach. At least Steve Ballmer is funny. Jobs just looks like a cross between a televangelist and someone's creepy uncle.
So..If one is to learn to cook, one must first thoroughly understand the history of cooking, the chemical reactions involved and the fundamentals such as the physics behind boiling water? And naturally, the objective is not to get the little cherub capable of feeding themselves, but to turn out the next Heston Blumenthal.
Sorry.. No thanks. I'll put an egg into a pan of water and learn as I go along.
Absolutely agree. Computer programming is a hard frustrating difficult job. But this is not a job centre course. The objective is to turn out kids who have enough knowledge to understand what is out there and find the course that will actually lead to a job. Right now, this is not happening.
An office skills course will not be of much use to a graphic designer. And there is not a career path from word processing to programming. But you can't really figure that out without knowing what is available and how each thing interacts with the rest.
Who knows.. It might even make your job a bit easier if you don't have to cater for pig ignorant people who insist on doing things the way they always have no matter how different the new system is.
Teach basic computer literacy. Do you know how many people still can't use a directory structure sensibly? Let alone understand the difference between curt and copy.
Teach the anatomy of a computer. If even 10% stop thinking that the bit that everything plugs into is a CPU, that will be worth it in it's self.
Teach basic maintenance.
Teach the absolute basics of how a program works.
Teach basic image manipulation.
None of it has to be to a level that would be useful getting a job. In fact, the getting of a job is not the target. It should have as it's aim, to create computer literate people who can go on to specialise in their chosen path.
We don't expect every English class to turn out a class full of authors with every graduation, but literate people can use the ability to read to further their ambitions beyond manual labour.
Nor do we expect every person who gets a pass in maths to be a mathematician. We do expect them to be at least basically numerate.
Forget the vocational level stuff. Teach them how to use a versatile tool instead of how to use a few programs from one company.
I've been living in the same flat for the last 20 years.
Day one. One ceiling light fitting. Still there. Used 100W bulb.
Years later, one ceiling light, one table light. Used 60W bulb.
About ten years ago, switched to low energy bulbs.
Last year. Added a desk light. low energy bulbs now used throughout. Normally jut the ceiling light on, with occasional use of the desk light, or just the table light.
In total, I'm less electricity to light my living room than I did on day one.
Cheaper lighting does not automatically mean more used.
Sorry..You will have to find a better way to justify using more electricity than you actually need to.
A few years ago, Open source was all "hobby projects" that would never be seen in the corporate or business world.
Now.. Open source is an ecosystem for reducing software development time and cost, and is a valued part of corporate/manufacturing etc. Big multinational companies, government institutions, small business.. All use open source now. Many do so openly. And some of the biggest names in the computer industry are contributing back. 100% contribution is not likely, and of questionable worth.. Realistically.. Does any open source project really need 100companies submitting the same change every day?
Now modifying and keeping the code under wraps is a holdover from the "everything is a trade secret" days. Too much hassle, too much liability and other well worn excuses.
Soon, it will be easier and cheaper to allocate a couple of people to keep up with open source submissions and keep everything ticking along. Then the adoption will surge. Companies will list the open projects they contribute to as a PR bullet point. Money/developers/changes.. All good.
The simple reality that companies like IBM, Google, Sony, Samsung, Apple, Amazon, Ebay, NYSE. LSE and many others have found is that the software is useful. The adoption figures alone prove that beyond doubt.
It will however take time for them to get used to the whole open sharing concept as a means of saving money. But when they do.. Look out closed source world.
If you are talking about your own social/ethnic/etc group.
Same as any black comedian will frequently tell jokes that would be uncomfortable from a white comedian, a Moslem/person from a Moslem country, such as Omid Djalli, Shulpa Shetty(Spelling) can tell Jokes that incorporate Iranian/Islamic stereotypes and it's funny. Woody Allen made how many Jewish jokes in his career? They walk the walk, so they can offer an invitation to laugh with them, not at them.
I can tell a cripple joke, and use the word cripple without being offensive. Because I am visibly physically disabled. Self depreciating humour, and I use it to put people at ease when I see they are trying really hard to not notice my wheelchair. Much easier if I break the ice and put my foot in my own mouth deliberately than them doing it accidentally and feeling embarrassed.
When Microsoft did those things, it wasn't a giant multinational corporation.
When they pulled the rug from under IBM, Bill Gates was a 20 something year old geek with poor personal hygiene practices who had the smarts to only license DOS to IBM. A product that he bought from someone else, and hacked to work on the PC.
Today, they would have had to run that by legal, and this would have given IBM time to think.
When they rolled networking into Windows, they had an established product at the dawn of easy networking.
That was all what.. 20+ years ago?
Today Microsoft has caught the corporate disease. Middle management sprawl. Like an oil tanker, they can't change direction on a pin like a small company.
Breaking the 640k limit.. One guy.
DirectX, a personal project.
Would they have got done today? Would they have been patented and forgotten about? This is what Microsoft has lost. And will never get back while everything has to go through so many corporate filters.
IE6 is the defacto standard. Just like Office is the defacto document format. Both are lockins. It's just that theIE6 one is noticeable because it stops people doing what they want. Lockins are like that some times.
Way back when everything suddenly went web app, all the developers of the corporate world were delighted to not have to do custom front end applications. Now they all pay for the saving. And will continue to do so for as long as as it takes.
Even better.. Microsoft's lockin strategy is now biting them on the bottom by stopping companies upgrading to newer versions because the software is incompatible... Which means either they re write IE6 to run on 7, or they can't stop supporting XP.
Sad thing is.. A large number of people will just do the same damn thing again, and in years to come, will be unable to move from Office when the next big thing comes along.
You do know that a lot of those licenses are going to be "bought" by companies who immediately exercise downgrade rights yes? Which I seem to remember, have recently been extended to 2020.
So they pay for a new computer, which comes with a licensed copy of the current Windows, and they delete it and put on their own corporate or government image.
Stop reading Microsoft PR releases. The big numbers are sales of licenses. Not usage figures, which would be far less appealing. And as every off the shelf PC comes pre installed with a copy of the latest OS, hardly difficult to achieve.
The not so good truth is they buy the 7 license with a new computer, but the customer is still using XP. And will continue to do so for many years to come.
If we laugh at yet another over reaction by the daily mail, we can't then take offence at genuinely offensive stuff.. Don't know about anybody else, but I see a slight flaw in the logic here.
Daily fail standard practice seems to be outraged at the slightest thing. As it seems is the default settings of many of the morality watchdogs.
It's a perfectly natural bodily function. If anything the nonsensical level of taboo is the thing to be embarrassed about.
If every other phone suffers from the same thing.. Will slipping a rubber band over the outside solve it?
No?
Then the problem is not the same, no matter how you hold it.
Sorry. But no matter how much you fanboys spring to the defensive, the problem is not shading the internal antenna with your hand causing a drop in signal, it's shorting the external antenna with your electrically conductive finger bridging the little black line.
The only way other phones could have the same problem is if they all used external antenna.
You may have swallowed the sermon, but the rest of us are not so gullible.
I think the word you are looking for is Android. Or Meego, or Chrome... Yes..There is choices still..The horror.
Sorry.. But if the only way to sell a category of product is with a unified single software eco system, then how do you explain smart phones? RIM, Android, Apple, Nokia.. To name a few.. All have different OSs, yet they all still sell.
If you want to find the best.. Tough. There is none.
If you want to find the right one for you, great. Read a few articles, play with a few devices.
If you want one development platform.. I suggest you hit your head and dream about an alternate universe.
And please.. skip the " If Linux wants to take over" nonsense. Linux is a lose collaboration between several different groups, and the modular design that encourages this is the same one that allows it to be chopped up and put on everything from a router to a supercomputer.
The fanboys are immune to reality. But they are not a big enough group to keep Apple in huge profits from mediocre gear. If Apple were selling three units a year, they would still see them as dominant.
Once the association goes from "just works" and does everything, to " Oh.. the one that doesn't do flash" despite the fair game attack on Adobe over recent months, and "Ohh.. isn't that the one you have to hold in a special way to get it to work?"
Apple have lasted years selling ordinary stuff to the ignorant for a premium. It will eventually end. Just a matter of when..
Don't you have to sign up and pay a fee to get your app sold/given away through the Android market place? So it isn't as if all you need to do is set up a free account and get on with it.
In comparison.. In the hallowed sanctity of the app store temple of smut free iSpiffiness... Where each and every app is carefully vetted for purity and wholesomeness by teams of specially trained iElves..
How many tip calculators?
How many fart apps?
How many flashlight apps?
How many apps that are not much more than the example app in the video?
How many PD books wrapped in a reader and sold as full blown apps?
How many games that are little more than accelerometer based versions of those old "get the ball bearings into the holes" games I played when I was a kid?
Can you look me in the eye and say these are worthy examples of the programmer's art? Not just there to make the numbers up?
Agreed. "Lego programming" is not new. But it is a fun way to get involved, and to perhaps see computers as something more than boxes you buy software for and play games or surf for porn on.
http://www.sumopaint.com does a bit. But nothing near even Gimp. useful in a pinch, if you have a photo to work on, but no access to your preferred app. Wouldn't want to do anything complicated on a big image with it though.
The cloud.. No thanks. Insecure, unreliable,and slow. Dumb terminals died out for a reason.
It's a pipe dream for the minimalist hardware crowd. Same ones that think the iPad is the shape of things to come.
Still.. If you subscribe to the idea that if you say something for long enough, it will eventually happen, go for it.
Mine's the one with the honking big desktop beside it, and the 22 inch IPS monitor.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
