* Posts by Alan Gauton

56 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Sep 2007

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Don't want to upgrade to Windows 10? You'll download it WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT

Alan Gauton
Unhappy

Automatic Install

I was having an issue last week - my home PC (dual boot Windows 7 Pro / Mint 17) started trying to install Windows 10 - I'd removed the the GWX hotfix, hidden it, removed it again, hid it again, and then over the course of a couple of days the Windows Update log had half a dozen entries saying "Upgrade to Windows 10 Pro - Failed".

A new hotfix installed a couple of days later then stopped it happening again. Which makes me think Microsoft bodged part of the update systems....

Well, what d'you know: Raising e-book prices doesn't raise sales

Alan Gauton

Re: It's really simple

Not an e-book, but in the old days (pre e-books) Stephen King sold the Green Mile as a six part paperback. Apparently part experiment, and part throwback to even further back in time.

Canned laughter for Canadians selling cans of air at $15 a pop

Alan Gauton

Re: in the Sixties

And in the 1980's Dundee students on an entrepreneurial course were selling tins of "Scotch Mist"...

Visitors no longer welcomed to Scotland's 'Penis Island'

Alan Gauton

There is more than one Twatt - there is one on the mainland of Orkney as well.

Windows 10 Start menu replacements shifting like hot cakes

Alan Gauton

Re: Hardly surprising

For added giggles you should browse through your Google account history, and listen to your audio recordings of all your Google Now requests....

Motorola's 5-incher finds the G-spot: Moto G 4G budget Android smartie

Alan Gauton

Re: Lolipop

Yes - as has been mentioned previously in the thread, Lollipop for the 4G Mk1 version hasn't been released yet. And it will be 5.1 when it does appear.

The ones who have updates already will be the 3G version, or asking for trouble by mentioning they have a soak test upgraded version.

Alan Gauton

Re: Why do they have to keep embiggening the screen?

Everybody? Personally I like the size of the Mk 1 Moto G, and would love to see current flagship handsets at a similar size (without reducing the specs for the "mini" versions).

Alan Gauton

Re: Lolipop

The Mk 1 3G model has updastes to 5.0.2 - Motorola announced not long after that the Mk1 4G (and the E amongst others) will jump straight to 5.1. Which is partially the reason for the delay.

BBC gives naked computers to kids (hmm, code for something?)

Alan Gauton
Happy

Re: Pedantic point of order

Except, being pedantic, at time of writing he's been suspended - not sacked.

Would YOU touch-type on this chunk-tastic keyboard?

Alan Gauton
Happy

In my case, envirofone.

I was lured away to the shiny new touch screen device waved at my by my mobile provider. And still wish I hadn't got rid of my e71. It was a great device, especially for the e-mail/text side of things.

Lost WHITE CITY of the MONKEY GOD found after 500 years

Alan Gauton

Re: Don't tell Steven Spielberg

Thought it was already in pre-production...

Who wants SLEEP DEPRIVATION for Christmas?

Alan Gauton

Re: Flawed Results

I used the link on the BBC report on this story. There was a separate document which listed the devices used. Not sure if most people can see it though, but my workplace has subscriptions to a lot of technical sites.

(Edit) Found the link: http://m.pnas.org/content/suppl/2014/12/18/1418490112.DCSupplemental/pnas.201418490SI.pdf

Alan Gauton
WTF?

Flawed Results

While the results may be in, they are flawed. The devices used are a couple of Ipads, a Kindle Fire, a Nook tablet, and a Kindle (non-paperwhite).

The results for the kindle are similar to a paper based object, but there is no test of devices like the Paperwhite, Kobo Aura, etc.

Kindle, meet my partner. Darling, play nice with Kindle, please

Alan Gauton

That depends on the company - Amazon provide licences for content, Kobo make a big deal on the fact that you own the ebooks you buy from them (or at least they used to).

Could YOU identify these 10 cool vintage mobile phones?

Alan Gauton

I had a Sendo handset (before I got my Razr. Can't remember the model number though - the phone was great, the keyboard not so.

I still use a Slvr (red) though for an old Orange OVP Virgin SIM.

Early result from Scots indyref vote? NAW, Jimmy - it's a SCAM

Alan Gauton
Happy

Re: wtf

Also commonly known as a lorne sausage.

Rather bizarrely I did see someone in Dundee asking for a sausage burger roll last week - he did sound English though. :-)

JINGS! Microsoft Bing called Scots indyref RIGHT!

Alan Gauton

Re: Margin of error

"Whichever way it goes, it's probably going to result in demands of recounts, legal challenges and accusations of misconduct from one side or the other."

Apparently the recount system is that each side can demand a recount in each of the 32 council counts, but no recount will be allowed for the final total.

Wetsuits, sunshine, bikini babes and a competitive streak: Epyx California Games

Alan Gauton

Re: I think the comment about the initially baffling controls is spot on.

Nah - Daley Thompson had his Decathlon, and then Supertest - published by Ocean. HyperSports was Konami iirc. published by Imagine (part of Ocean also).

You didn't get the MeMO? Asus Pad 7 Android tab is ... not bad

Alan Gauton

Re: I sure got the MeMo

I'm sure you have the previous version. I suspect you got the ME173X (which is also excellent imho), and this review is the ME176X(?)...

F1? No, it's Formula E as electric racing cars hit the track

Alan Gauton

Buemi drives for one of the Toyota LMP1-H cars. Still not Toro Rosso though. :-)

Alan Gauton

"On the first day of testing, the fastest driver was Sebastien Buemi, who raced Formula 1 for Toro Rosso, the Red Bull test team that's leading LMP1-H."

That's a bit mangled. He drove for Toro Rosso in F1, who are owned by Red Bull, but aren't really a test team - junior, maybe, and certainly nothing to do with LMP1-H.

"it has been a long time since we saw Orange and Vodafone as big name sponsors"

Oh, a whole 7 months since Vodafone were a big name sponsor - not exactly a long time.

eBay slammed for daft post-hack password swap advice

Alan Gauton
Facepalm

Re: Can't belive i'm this late to the comments and no XKCD

There was - Alex Brett about 30 minutes before you....

Feature-phones aren't dead, Moto – oldsters still need them

Alan Gauton
Happy

Background?

"As you can see from the above picture, the Doro 508 has white numbers on a black background. "

Might be my new glasses, but the black background looks green to me?

Beastie Boys settle with toy maker over Girls copyright dispute

Alan Gauton

Re: Who sued who?

Iirc, Goldiebox had been advised that they were about to be sued by the Beasties. So they pre-empted it by suing first.

Scottish gov may miss IT budget cut target

Alan Gauton
Happy

Salmon?

My daughter already calls him the fishman - you spelling his name wrong won't help...

Five unbelievable headlines that claim Tim Berners-Lee 'INVENTED the INTERNET'

Alan Gauton
Happy

Re: Macs ARE PCs.

My daughter used to refer to it as "the engine".

Woz he talking about? Apple co-founder wants iPhones to run Android

Alan Gauton

Re: RE:

Lovely.

M$ have dabbled in the Unix / Linux market - apart from NT services for Unix, they also did (an admittedly awful) version of Internet Exploder for Unix. I tried it on a Solaris box, and it used up a user's disk quota during the install....

Google Chromebooks now in over 6,600 stores

Alan Gauton

Tesco?

Started selling them on Monday? At least one of the Dundee branches has had them for a few weeks now.

Bing uncloaks Klingon translator

Alan Gauton
Alien

Not Translation, but search

On the other hand, Klingon has been supported in Google's search engine for years. I'm sure they've supported it since 2007 or earlier.

https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=xx-klingon

BSkyB punters drown in MASSIVE MYSTERY Yahoo! mail! migration!

Alan Gauton
WTF?

Re: migration notification

Yup - same here. I was a bit puzzled over the decision to use Yahoo, but I don't really use my Sky e-mail account much anyway.

OpenSUSE 12.3: Proof not all Linux PCs are Um Bongo-grade bonkers

Alan Gauton

Re: Why are the KDE desktop shortcuts penned in?

It's been a while since I last looked at KDE (4.2?), but you could switch to a more conventional desktop style in KDE as well.

Google to refund some pre-price drop Nexus 7 buyers

Alan Gauton
Unhappy

Re: Thing is....

Define day one - I ordered mine before it was released - but the Asus UK twitter feed says if you bought from Google Play you're not eligible.

Alan Gauton

Not quite - people who bought early direct from Google don't get the refund from Google, and don't get the voucher from Asus.

I bought from Google pre-release because of the £15 play voucher, as I didn't realise retails stores would also have it. So to not be eligible for either offer does annoy me a bit.

Asus offers compensation to pre-price drop Nexus 7 buyers

Alan Gauton

Re: NOT for Google customers

While that is true - people who bought from other places got the £15 Play voucher as well.

Alan Gauton
Thumb Down

NOT for Google customers

Asus UK now saying on their twitter feed that Nexus 7s bought direct from Google don't qualify for the £25.

OEMs and sellers must pay refunds on software faults - OFT

Alan Gauton

Re: Me likey

You do know you can delete items from your Play store account from your device?

From the Play store app, menu -> My Apps -> All - then you can delete them from your account.

Carphone Warehouse lauds Nexus 7 while eagerly eying iPad Mini

Alan Gauton
Thumb Up

Re: Still no update for me :(

They are out there - mine updated over the weekend (maybe even the end of last week). It's nice being able to rotate the home screen without additional apps.

Now pay attention, 007: James Bond's Q re-booted

Alan Gauton
Happy

Re: Surely

But he's aged well - doesn't look a day older than when he was working as a journalist in the 1950's. Maybe that's where he got his taste of the spy life (The Hour).

ASA keelhauls Ebuyer AGAIN - this time for dodgy disk ad

Alan Gauton
Unhappy

Ebuyer Deliveries

Ebuyer seem to make up delivery times - the last two times I've ordered items for a specific delivery day. In both cases they were a day late. On contacting ebuyer they say because of where I live, deliveries will always be a day late. So why offer a specific delivery day option? I wouldn't mind so much if I lived off the UK mainland, but I don't. And they almost always seem to use 24hr delivery services.

They also frequently advertise free delivery on orders, which when I go through to the checkout miraculously changes to not available in your area. Maybe if I lived in a remote location, but I live in a town 15 miles from a city, on the main traffic corridor to another city...

Ten... freeware gems for new PCs

Alan Gauton
Happy

Re: Avast!

You can't have been paying attention - or used an automated installer.

I've installed Avast many times over the years, and it's always asked if you want to install chrome.

Google emails Virgin Media subscribers ... about privacy

Alan Gauton
Megaphone

Virgin Only

Just checked my Sky e-mail account, also run by Google. They've e-mailed them as well.

WHSmith Kobo Vox e-reader

Alan Gauton

Android Market

But is it running Android? Yes and no, cos if you look at the settings, about device, it claims to be running a derivative of Ubuntu.....

Lenovo aims to seize PC crown within 3 years

Alan Gauton
Thumb Down

Maybe, if they can sort out their ordering system.

Lenovo have had a few good deals on their website - shame the backend is not so helpful.

I recently placed an order, after 10 days not knowing when it was likely to ship, I e-mailed to be told the order was ready, and would be shipped on 10/10/11 (about 2 1/2 weeks later). I asked if it was ready why it was going to take so long to ship, and got the reply it would ship soon, by courier. 20 minutes or so later got another reply saying the order was cancelled. To which I replied saying, yer wot?

So I phoned customer services, to be told that no, the order was still in the system to ship on 10/10. Then I got another e-mail saying that it was indeed cancelled, and I would get an automated reply. Phoned back and was told, yes it had been cancelled.

It took about 2 weeks to get the automated cancel e-mail (round about the expected shipping date), at which point I took my business elsewhere.

They did offer a 10% discount, and said I could place another order through the site, but if this is how they work, they're going to struggle to get direct sales working.

Supermarkets trounce telcos on mobile services

Alan Gauton
Thumb Down

It depends

The thing about Tesco is that they don't publish an easy to find list of everything in their tariff - for example, unless you bundle your data in their PAYG - you'll end up paying 4 quid a Mb for data...

Apple-branded unicorn spotted at 3

Alan Gauton
Thumb Down

Well, yes, but no

...

Once you pick your plan ...

"White iPhone 4 is currently unavailable for order online or in-store."

... Been like that for months.

ITV preps pay TV service

Alan Gauton

STV?

You do know STV still exists - and because of that viewers in Scotland using Sky still can't get an official ITV-1/STV HD channel. (You can add it as an "other channel", but can't record it).

Yank objects to Reg cherry-popping headline

Alan Gauton
WTF?

Cherry Coke

Coke recently did a survey on one of their sites - looking for new labels for Cherry Coke - one of them did indeed have "Pop Your Cherry" on it. No idea if it won though.

HP, Dell punters furious over Windows 7 upgrade delays

Alan Gauton
Alert

And the difference with Toshiba is?

Toshiba told their customers it would be December?

HP strikes back on charges for 'free' Windows 7 upgrade

Alan Gauton
Thumb Down

Tosh 2

Toshiba are £27.90 for the Win 7 update - which again I find excessive. However, as well at the Windows 7 disc, you also get a driver disc for your machine. Still expensive. Tosh claim it's not just P&P but the cost of a driver disc....

HP did the same last time with XP upgrades to Vista - except, iirc, that time is was £13. They shipped Vista and a driver CD in paper sleeves that time round.

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