* Posts by Giles Jones

2536 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Dec 2006

iPhone demand in the UK is 'soft', survey finds

Giles Jones Gold badge

Speed is the key

It needs to arrive now! it's already hideously out of date when it comes to bandwidth (I just bought a £40 Lobster from Virgin mobile that is as fast).

It can only win over users if the phone is very easy to use, robust, reliable, has good reception and battery life. Nobody wants a poor phone and a poor ipod in one. The phone and media facilities need to be class leading to make up for the ancient data speeds.

At this stage I'm not a fan despite being a recent Apple convertee. Apple has world leading design in many ways, but also poor design in other ways. I love my Mac Pro and Macbook, but I hate their mice (Mighty mouse wireless is too heavy and cumbersome).

They oversimplify things at times and sometimes looks dictate function which is bad news for ergonomics.

Operating such a slick shiny phone with fingers seems crazy, fingerprints everywhere.

No end in sight for Vista's Long Goodbye

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Apple

In response to Webster Phreaky's post about Logic 7 crashing. Logic 7.2 is the latest release, Logic 7 is the older PowerPC only release.

Stuff does break in all OSes, it's how it gets resolved that counts.

Microsoft puts a figure on open source 'patent infringements'

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Prior art

Many of these patents are prior art and are friday afternoon patents which should never have been granted.

Much of Microsoft's claims are on things like FAT, SMB which originate in other operating systems.

Microsoft can go after the vendors of Linux, but you aren't going to stop Linux users who pay nothing for the OS and share it.

Linux is too big to be stopped, Microsoft has some patents up its sleeve, unfortunately for them IBM and others have a lot more.

Honda to debut hydrogen fuel-cell car in 2008

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Man power

In these times of obesity and climate change it's strange that nobody is working on tapping the energy of humans. Surely there are developments to cycles that can be made?

Judge in MP3 case to Microsoft: time to pay up

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DRM

You can argue this is why many music sites use DRM laden formats and not MP3. The MP3 licence holders are greedy and will sue anyone providing MP3 downloads.

Danes 'prove' sudden iBook death syndrome

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Why are manufacture faults Apple's fault?

Apple uses the same manufacturing facilities as many other brands.

It's well knows there's only about 5 companies who manufacture laptops.

Apple's failure rate is much lower than other brands, that's a well established fact.

MS to 'backport' Office 2007 security improvements

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All suites are like this

Nathan's comment about multiple apps cobbled together applies to most productivity suites.

People want the ability to move data between applications without having to first save them to a file. Open Office is much the same.

Much of the weakness is just how powerful Microsoft made the macro and data access functionality. Power users can get a lot out of these features, but they are a risk to those who don't use them.

Dell Linux is go

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Cool

If this is all configured up nicely with all the hardware working perfectly then this is a significant news.

Vista – End of the Dream?

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Backward compatibility

In response to Jamie's comment about writing a new OS and running Win32 under emulation. They could have done that, however the Intel processor contains a lot of old compatibility elements.

However it works and works pretty fast, just look at Itanium to see how new more elegant designs aren't always realistic. Linus Torvalds famously said they threw away all the good bits of x86.

Have a look at the pain the Mac world has had to ensure swapping processor families. Apple have done a good job and it's good to be able to boot Windows on a Mac laptop, but they couldn't have done so without having a smaller market and loyal fans.

Sinclair ZX Spectrum: 25 today

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25 years of the C64 soon

The Commodore 64 was launched in April 1982.

While the Spectrum had the games and was a homegrown computer. The Commodore 64 was a much superior computer in terms of hardware.

The sound chip was designed by someone who was interested in synthesisers (so much so that he founded Ensoniq after leaving CBM). The graphics chip wasn't bad either.

Commenting on the Apple Mac comments, lets not forget the Apple Lisa was released in Jan 1983. It was a complete failure but it was one of the first GUI computers, something that is a milestone in itself.

How did we all end up with Windows?

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Apps are the key

Over the years Microsoft has resisted any product that competed with their two main product lines, Windows and Office.

IBM's OS/2 was better than Windows 3.1, but it had to offer compatibility and the ability to run Windows applications. It almost worked but I'm sure Microsoft did all it could to ensure it failed.

Applications are the key, most people choose their computer, games console and movie format around what they wish to use or view on it.

One thing Microsoft can't easily stop is Open Source, there's no company to bankrupt. This is why Microsoft keeps on about patents and IP, mostly Ballmer hinting about IP and how Linux "stole our code".

Microsoft to EC: define 'unreasonable'

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Protocols not APIs

MSDN just provides you with their APIs, even these are incomplete in some areas.

This is about protocols and what messages are sent to achieve various tasks like authentication, printing, file sharing etc...

An API just tells you how to write software to use the functionality that uses the protocols.

Take MSN Messenger as an example, the protocol for this has had to be reverse engineered. You think that is on MSDN?

Dark mutterings on killer Wi-Fi in schools help no one

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Fear causes the damage

If you worry and get stressed about something then your health will suffer. It is the worrying about radio masts, Wifi etc. that causes the problem.

We have satellites in space beaming Sky TV and the GPS signal down over the entire country but does anyone mention that?

AMD's CEO doesn't have Intel to kick around anymore

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Performance and price

A few years back AMD were the premium performance product, Intel knocked out the power hungry, cheap, slow processors.

This has reversed mostly (AMD still are good on power consumption )so it is no wonder AMD are doing badly.

They need to blow Intel away in terms of performance again.

Microsoft Silverlight to copy Flash video tricks, Adobe responds

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Flash for a reason

People use Flash for video for a good reason, it's available on most platforms. Microsoft's version will be limited to Windows and possibly Mac, shutting out some mobile devices and Linux.

On the Office format wars

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Open formats

Victor is missing the point, there are already many file formats that are viewable on any computer.

MP3, PDF, JPEG, MPEG etc...

What is wrong with creating an open document format to allow for some innovation in the market? Imagine what Adobe, Apple and others will do if they can create an Office suite to compete with Microsoft.

The monoculture helps nobody.

Russians crack OpenOffice security

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Given it's open source

It's a lot easier to design attacks when you have access to the code.

Also, the best protection against people reading your data is to physically prevent access to it.

Vodafone explains N95 crippling

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What monopoly?

Asdf, which monopoly are you on about?

There are numerous operators in the UK, Orange, Vodaphone, T-Mobile, O2 and Virgin.

That's no monopoly.

Thunderbird 2 is go

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Missing the point

Kevin is missing the point, this isn't meant to compete with Outlook Express based on features. Simply by using Thunderbird instead of Outlook Express means you are slightly less likely to get a virus.

Outlook Express uses the IE HTML engine and this makes HTML email attacks possible.

Study: Users pay for Microsoft patent woes

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Linux forums?

"And before people start raving on about the likes of Ubuntu, which is a good distribution, have a look at the ubuntu forums and you will see that many people, power users included have problems installing and configuring it."

Erm, just because you have to visit forums for Linux problems doesn't mean there aren't any technical issues for Windows.

I would estimate there are more users with Windows problems than Linux ones simply based on the sheer number of Windows users. It's just a lot easier to find the Linux forums.

Linux actually works better than Vista out of the box these days, hardware is detected better.

Michael Dell even runs Linux:

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/corp/biographies/en/msd_computers?c=us&l=en&s=corp

Cracked HD-DVD and Blu-Ray app keys revoked

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Software is one thing

But suppose they manage to sniff a key for a hardware player from a major manufacturer.

Would they dare revoke the licence forcing all owners to bring in their players for a software update?

Nintendo nudges sales forecast upward

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They'd sell even more..

If they produced enough consoles to satisfy UK demand.

You can buy PS3 and XBox 360 at most stores, but still no Wii.

Why I won't buy a Dell next time

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Dell clutter nightmare

I was given the task of getting someone's new Dell laptop online last night. Given the really awful default setup of XP, I would certainly avoid a Dell laptop.

The desktop has so much bundled junk, internet trials, anti-virus, Dell support control panel etc.. etc..

Bootup to usable desktop was of the order of 2-3 minutes on a brand new laptop. This is even before XP has started to slow down as it typically does.

PS3 UK sales rocket... then plummet

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Delays are the problem

If Sony had shipped the PS3 to the UK at the same time as the US it would be affordable by now. Not to mention it would have had a good selection of titles available.

The delays caused a problem, the Wii and XBox 360 have cleaned up, only the die-hard Sony fans have hung on for the PS3. The more casual gamers have gone for a Wii, the hardcore online gamers went for a 360.

Sony should think about how they treat the UK market in future, we're a fairly rich economy with a lot of games developers and a lot of hardcore gamers.

Sony PlayStation 3

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Overpriced due to the newness.

It's overpriced as it has just been launched, maybe if Sony wasn't giving out free TVs at the launch the price could have been lower.

Orange SPV E600 email phone

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There's Minimo

Minimo is based on Mozilla like Firefox is.

Paul McCartney signs for Starbucks

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I'm shocked

Shocked that Paul would have anything to do with Starbucks and their fairly dubious record on fair trade and their support of Rodeos.

Ubiquio 701 ultra-mobile PC

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No application?

Like the poster above, there's few applications which someone requires on the move that there isn't already a well optimised device for.

Why play video or mp3s on a UMPC when the battery life would be awful?

For office applications a Windows Mobile device will do.

Viacom's YouTube lawsuit could test limits of DMCA

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Viacom is missing the point

It's free advertising for their shows.

For example the other day I was talking to someone about Beavis and Butthead, a funny cartoon show popular in the 90s. They had never seen it, I found a YouTube clip but it had been taken down. Therefore this person didn't see how funny it was and won't be buying any of the DVDs.

The old dinosaur media giants need to get with it. TV is dying, if I was in power I would have a 5 year copyright on TV. That's plenty of time to generate profits and would encourage TV stations to make more programmes and stop showing repeats.

EU consumer chief roasts Apple

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One persons pirate is another persons freedom fighter?

It comes to something when the copyright law abiding citizen has all the chains and restrictions while the pirates are free to do what they like with the media in their possession.

There's even professional software out there that has performance limitations due to the use of hardware protection. These restrictions were removed by pirates and the software runs much faster.

Look at DVDs and their copyright messages, these are removed when the films are pirated so the pirates never see them, so who are they trying to educate? preaching to the converted me thinks.

Fatman iTube amplifier

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Vinyl?

Quote "A well-produced LP with a good pickup can offer a dynamic range in excess of 120dB over the standard 20Hz-20KHz frequency range."

Unfortunately a well produced LP doesn't produce these ranges, RIAA equalisation is applied:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization

Which is preemphasis and deemphasis, such audio processing is a no-no if you are an audio purist and are trying to achieve a sound as close to the original source material as possible.

Most studios use digital recording now, so there's little point in claiming analog technology produces a better sound when there's so few people recording with reel to reel tape. Modern mastering of recordings allows recordings to be dithered and converted to 16-bit 44100 without any intermediate analog stages and so the noise levels are almost non-existant.

Dynamic range counts for nothing if you have a poor signal to noise ratio. The noise floor will be such that the effective dynamic range will be lower.

Nobody is claiming CD is the best digital audio format, it's just the current "standard". People are reluctant to move from CD as they know the next generation of digital disc media will be full of restrictions and DRM.

Developers tell Eclipse why it sucks

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At least they listen

How many other open source projects or commercial products ask such questions?

You used to have to pay good money for something as good as Eclipse and often it would only support one development language.

I have used a few Java IDEs and found Eclipse (once you have found a good stable build) to be one of the fastest ones to develop in.

Sun's Java Studio has some killer features but it is incredibly slow and resource hungry.

Microsoft calls Google thief

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It's Microsofts new strategy

Rather than compete with others, they just acuse them of stealing.

Ballmer keeps talking about Linux stealing their code yet there's never any proof given.

Why can't Microsoft just release something good and stop whining?

Their Windows Mobile platform is becoming stale, I'm sure it will change radically after the iPhone is launched. Then who will be the thief eh?

Asus Lamborghini VX2 laptop

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1680x1050 is a standard resolution

1680x1050 is WSXGA+ resolution, a standard resolution.

Yes it's short of the 1920x1080 max HD resolution but such a high resolution in a very small package would cost a fortune to make.

OLAP and the need for SPEED

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Calculations and slices

It's not just about speed, it allows for calculations, calculated columns (members) plus arranging reports by dragging and dropping dimensions.

It's very interactive.

E-Ten Glofiish X500 GPS smart phone

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Slow?

Sure Windows Mobile may seem slower than Palm OS, but it is more functional.

Both Symbian and Windows Mobile are sluggish at times on every device I have used. There's so few phones running PalmOS these days, commercial software support is fading.

As for the X500 being expensive, Clove are selling it for £364 and that's with VAT.