Posts by Chika

IE8 to follow web standards by default

Sloppy amateur code?

@one of other of the Anonymous Cowards on this subject.

"Perhaps we should be focusing on the amateur web developers out there writing slop HTML and CSS"

Perhaps you should consider the number of pages written by supposedly professional web developers that have serious flaws in them that make so many amateur sites look wonderful. Actually, I find that corporate sites tend to be bigger offenders when it comes to interoperability than any amateur.

The Paris angle? Well, we *are* talking about Microsoft, aren't we?

Fujitsu Siemens turning off life support for old folks PC plan

Demographically speaking

I can agree with much of Gareth's sentiments, especially as I am somewhat connected with a group of people that are hardly in their first flush of youth who are quite active, technologically speaking. They use systems that are easy to use and, on the whole, are quite happy with that. Of course, that wasn't the real idea behind these machines - they were designed for the entire other end of the spectrum, but they do the job well enough.

Oh, didn't I mention what they were? Nah... I'll only annoy the M$ users... and the Linux and Mac users... and the BOFH readers... well, some of them....

BOFH: Insecurity complex

Actually...

...back in the day, we had a name for such people as Jim(/Jeff).

We called them "experts".

Cowon iAudio A3 personal media player

Veeeery interesting!

Actually, it does sound interesting considering that the one format I would really like to use is the Matroska format. However, reading through this review, I'm a little concerned that the reviewer seems to push this idea that fashion has something to do with function. It is just the same with mobile phones these days; I don't want to WEAR it, I want to USE it!

Warner Bros revs up live action Akira

Well, that just proves my own theory

I recently had a pop at wHollyWeird on my Livejournal, attacking the creative black hole that is the American film and television industry. When I first became interested in anime, it was because I was thoroughly sick of the diet of BLAH coming out of the States coupled with the steady decline of anything UK based. It now seems that the wHollyWeird execs are so desperate for anything resembling talented writing that they are now content to rip off the cultural outpourings of other countries. They also pander to those blinkered folk that believe that animation is not a valid medium for film making.

Paris connection? Simple! wHollyWierd execs are a bunch of tits!

RIAA chief calls for copyright filters on PCs

OS wars?

The only clear issue here is that the RI Ass. of A consists of a bunch of idiots bent on legitimising spyware for their own purposes.

As a Windows, Linux, Unix, RISC OS and (very occasionally) RSTS/E user, my beef is with the RI Ass. of A, not with any specific OS. I have enough and completely different cows with the systems.

MS bundles Vista SP1 and Server 2008 out the door

Windows ME, the second coming?

I've often said that I wouldn't touch Vista until SP1 at the earliest. However, I'm still a little cautious given the amount of hysteria about some of the features (a feature, as everyone beyond a certain age knows, is a bug with seniority), plus I still have to see any evidence of any real benefit over XP SP2 (we'll leave SP3 alone for now as I have a completely different, yet strangely related set of doubts about that one!)

The thing is that I have heard a rumour, as yet uncorroborated, of a new desktop OS in the works. If this turns out to be true, then what we effectively have with Vista is the NT platform's version of one of Microsoft's biggest mistakes - Windows 98 Third Edition, aka Millenium Edition, aka Windows ME. Company paranoia and greed get in the way of good programming practice, with the result being a giant pain in the derriere. Not that M$ is renowned for good programming practice, but there you go!

For the moment, I get everything I want from the systems I run, and I shall not let M$ force me into anything, least of all "upgrading" to an OS that I don't trust.

Bill Gates advice to UK wannabes? Don't get sued

@ Anonymous Coward re: Bill Gates will be forever hated

Actually, it's worse than that. He won, not by giving us anything better.

He won because we let him.

Germany flicks off-switch on DAB

Supreme Indifference

That's what you get from me. To be honest, the word "digital" is being used as a marketing tool rather than a specific description of any real benefit and, given the nature of DAB and some of the pitfalls of using it compared with traditional radio, the benefits to us end users are marginal at best compared with what benefits the broadcasters get out of it.

IMHO, Germany has the right of it here.

Hannah Montana fails to defy laws of physics

The Link is....

OK, I give up. Paris Hilton was, perhaps, the body double?

Naaah, that's just crazy talk!

Microsoft spits out final XP service pack, beta version

The customer is always...

...subjected to more and more cynical attempts to sales hype. "Right" has nothing to do with it. M$ are in the business to make money, and they make more out of selling a farty one brand new OS than they do from upgrading the old one, no matter how stable either is.

Yes, WXP was flaky when it came out, just as all the other M$ systems (whoever wrote them) were. Some of them improved with age and patching. Others didn't. It took M$ many years to admit how wrong they were to release ME, and I have no intention of waiting for years to hear them admit the same thing about Vista. I'll switch when *I'm* ready and when (if) I see that Vista is ready for me, and *not* when M$ thinks they need a cash infusion.

The art of software murder

My memory isn't that bad!

Yes, Stuart. I remember Xara very well, just as I remember where they came from (I still use Impression Style on RISC OS, and I know more than one person that swears by Artworks). A pity they can't relive those heady days prior to their sell-out!

But then I've just read this after reading that article about XP SP3 and the comments about it and Vista and, suddenly, it all makes sense! Muckysoft are just doing to the NT system what Verity is suggesting others do to their applications.

Hmm... wonder what I did with that copy of Wfw3.11 I had?

Update glitch derails Kaspersky

Re: Hmmm, okay....

@Joe Noyes. Dunno. I know that my machine is nothing special and my own install of Kaspersky seems fine, though it did complain a lot over last weekend when it insisted on rebooting after updating twice.

Campaign to name US street after Douglas Adams

Look...

Douglas was just this guy, you know!

Fark attempts to trademark NSFW

Yay! Time for puns!

They must be farking mad!

BOFH: Xmas party: Get a wriggle on

He only remains a bastard...

...if the great unwashed remain ignorant!

Mind you, we wouldn't want him to become too complacent and stuck in a rut, now do we?

Counterfeit Vista rate half that of XP

Could it be...

...that making note of it might actually encourage somebody to do it?

Nahhh... that's crazy talk! Probably the anasthetic talking!

Gene Simmons blames college kids for ruining music biz

It's Only Rock 'n' Roll, but..

Yes, I grew up with this sort of thing, too. Kiss were never a big part of my interest, though - power chords were one thing, but anyone can do that sort of shit. I was a bit pickier about what I listened to, so Kiss never made it into my own collection, and the closest I got was when somebody played a bit in a club somewhere (anyone remember Oscars in Newbury Park?) I viewed them as talentless morons in makeup and spandex. They probably still are, especially if Simmons can come up with comments like this.

The day they actually produce something I actually like, I just might consider paying for it. Until then, Simmons can sit and spin.

PC World feels the Vista pinch (again)

Is PC World necessarily to blame?

If we assume, as previously stated here, that PC World is staffed (or certainly run) by idiots, can we necessarily blame them for trying to sell the latest crudware from Microsnot? If the Beast of Redmond states that their current product is great even though it is flawed, especially if they pay big bucks in advertising, can you blame PC World for swallowing the bilge?

Of course, the other side is that a certain death camp memorial quotes the phrase "those that cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it" (or something like that). That's why, even though I have seen stable Vista installations, I still refuse to use it until at least the first service pack as I have seen every M$ system go boobies up on first release in some way. Consider the public release of XP, or 2000 before it, or NT4 before that, or WME, W98, W95, W3...

The only diff I can see is that Joe Farty is beginning to catch on.

Only Sky can save digital TV

Digital TV? It isn't the distribution that is a problem...

I have a Sky box. I only watch it sporadically. Why?

Well, let's start with the content. Yes, there is some good TV on some of the channels besides the analogue suppliers. Trouble is that it is often old output from the same analogue suppliers, or has been shown there already, and it is repeated to death.

Even where there is stuff I want to watch, it is heavily cut with adverts. Not just with traditional ad breaks, but with sponsorships, digital overlays and overdubs. I want to watch television, but they seem to be more interested in telling me what is coming up later in the day than actually showing what I want to watch now. All digital services are provided with EPG, so I can find this sort of info out at the touch of a button, so why do I need to be told again and again, between programmes, during breaks, even over the shows themselves?

And yes, I know what the "red" button looks like, so why keep telling me to press it for things I don't really want anyway? If I want an interactive experience, I can switch my computers on!

These are all problems I have with digital TV. Problems I never had on analogue. Maybe that's why people prefer not to switch?

You want to learn about Ubuntu?

Wassamarra?

OK, I'll admit it, I don't use umbongo. I use openSuSE 10.2, and I like it fine. However, I do know of more than one user of Ubuntu and they are quite happy with it. And I'm not speaking of raging geeks here.

I'll admit it, I prefer SuSE because I have a history of using it, but then isn't much of the negative rumour concerning all Linux distros basically due to people with bad experiences of versions from years past? Isn't it all rep, hyped by Windows users and the great unwashed? Give a dog a bad name, maybe?

However, I agree to an extent with Matt Bryant in that Linux in general needs a better sales front. Goodness knows, being a RISC OS user too, I am familiar with the fate of ventures that don't go for the marketing jugular.

ARM to bash 'non-issue' Intel with multi-core chip

@Norm DePlume

Correct. Lest ye forget the StrongARM and its offspring, the XScale, which were developed by DEC Semi from older ARM processors. Intel inherited these beasts when it bought DEC Semi, much to the annoyance of Acorn users that had SAs loaded, suddenly to find.... Intel Inside! ARRRRGH!!!

BOFH: You think you know a guy...

Of course, you know why a PFY might hate Arcs.

Well, first of all, they are an ex-school system, and more than a few former pupils had to cut their teeth on the things. These days, however, they can scream at the crappy school peecees that the various know-nothing governers have foisted on todays' schools.

However, the main reason why a PFY (or a BOFH for that matter) might loathe and despise a RISC OS machine is the fact that they can't sod about with them like they do with a peesea. The damn things are pretty robust too. It's one of the lesser reasons why Acorn couldn't sell anything (if they aren't breaking, then the replacement market is likely to be a bit on the small side). Of course, Acorn's abysmal record on marketing didn't help!

And, for the record, if this is an Archimedes with an owl on it (the BBC IT Literacy owl is what I take this to be a reference to), you are talking about the kind of Acorn that hasn't seen the light of day in over 10 years now (the A3010, as I recall). Even current RISC OS users tend to scorn those old beasts!

@Anonymous Vulture

"I also have an A3050 (I think, please don't flame me) with green keys, but it does not start Arthur any more. Gets stuck with a *OS prompt. It runs all OS commands, and if I remember, it will start Basic using the whole screen. I never got into RiscOS to know how to fix it. Any ideas?"

"It'd be either an A3010 or A3020, can't remember which one had the green keys."

It was, I recall, the A3010 that had the red keys. Actually, they were the same computer under the hood except that they had different components added during the last bit of manufacture reflecting their different target users. There was also the A4000 which used a similar board to the A3020 but in a case which looked like a half-height A5000. These all got killed off when the RISC PC came out.

I never heard of an A3050, the A3010/3020 being the last to use that series numbering. A305, certainly, especially if you are using Arthur!