Posts by Phill Holland

UK.gov spunks £500k to create jobs in startup marketing businesses

Start me up, and let me down

Sounds great, but sounds like too little too late. and +enigmatix is right, who gets to decided on the lucky 10?

And the headline seems to suggest it's just related to PR businesses, wonderful. About as useful in the real world as a chocolate teapot.

This is probably some government idea that's filtered down in some form or another because lord knows the only people that really need help with public relations are either those who have cocked up in a monumental way or(and) those sitting in Westminster towers.

HTML 5 gets forked up

UWHATWGW3C

I propose we create a 3rd umbrella organisation, that covers both WHATWG and W3C, then we create a committee for the naming of that 3rd organisation with a tedious voting system spanning several years giving anybody the option to veto any decision at any point and return to square one.

I'd be more worried that at the end of this when we get our new standard, but for it to be ill defined and ambiguous in nature. Having 1 out of a 100 web browser developers having to work it out for themselves, all with different personal agendas is how things end up with the web burning.

Facebook phone app attempts to seize ALL YOUR MAIL

Re: Good advice

pretty soon facebook won't need any login details to eat your data. for all your datas belongs to us.

Symantec 'fesses up: 'Code theft worse than we thought'

I can see it now, try the latest version of our Internet Security software, now disables the ability to turn your computer on, for the ultimate in virus protection.

Microsoft names SQL Server 2012 launch date

Fiver says with the new version, and the increased cost it still won’t allow us to Justify text in Reporting Services.

What's worth more in Startup Land? Popularity or cash?

buying out

From a venture capitalist point of view, this can be a main view for investment; invest in a company, wait a few years for it to grow, then sell the company with a good return on investment.

PC World website went titsup on Boxing Day

PC world, what is it good for?

I tried shopping at PC World once and all I got was this lousy sense of apathy.

Anonymous plans zombie Scientology protest

dunno

is that an alien mask, or xenu; I get easily confused.

Mayor Boris wants 'WiFi London'

muppet time

quote Sceptical Bastard;

"As he has demonstrated in the past, take away his advisors and this tousle-haired toff is utterly clueless about IT."

Surely now you don't expect your politicians to be experts in every field they need to make a choice about. The best I can hope from my politicians is that don't pick muppets as their advisors. Muppets taking advise from muppets, yes I know how that sounds. I was very skeptical about Boris when he became mayor, I still am; but at least hes trying to do something positive, rather than using negative reenforcement to change things for the better.

having wireless access everywhere in london will be a tough trick to pull off...

Now Hollywood is chasing UK downloaders

hmm..

what happens if you have proof that not only had you downloaded stargate, but also purchased the DVD set anyway?

reasons for downloading, pirate version have that annoying "you wouldn't steal a handbag" message removed. Handbags don't have big warning signs on the side pointing out the consequences. nor do torrent application.

besides which using a torrent application isn't illegal and isn't evidence of guilt. (unless you use it to download copyrighted material, but who knows for sure if it really is copyrighted?)

Surely targetting the distributor of the torrent is a better way to go.

Gag order lifted for students who hacked subway card

employement

They should employee the three students to help fix the security holes, get them to sign NDA agreements and then sue them. duh.

Alienware Area-51 m15x gaming laptop

a title is required

how heavy is it? my old area-51 weighed a tonne. It lasted for several years and I was very happy with it, but the cost was still barmy; as demonstrated here with the new laptop.

Microsoft Silverlight: 10 reasons to love it, 10 reasons to hate it

bouncing ball

it took me along time to understand the point of silverlight against pre-existing technologies.

I thought I had it for a moment, but then I forgot it.

Hull falls off the internet

wah?

"We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this caused our customers who were trying to access the Internet during this period."

I love big companies who sincerely apologise for massive cock-ups, it appears to make up for everything. If the problems wern't so severe they'd probably drop the sincerity completely.

3 days on: The iPhone users still to make a call

moan moan moan

Simon Langley;

"I am in the same boat and it appears that this is my reward for being a loyal O2 customer for years.

I had to wait 2 hours in the shop waiting for O2's system to confirm I was eligible for an upgrade while new customers waltzed out with their fully functional iPhones."

I've had a simular experience, i phoned the 02 lady, just like the support email suggested and then she told me to go to carphone warehouse or the website, seeing as the website is like a merry-go-round simulator I opted for carphone warehouse. Where upon I spent 1hr waiting for the system to tell me that I couldn't upgrade in carphone warehouse, even though the 02 support line said otherwise.

complete muppets. My upgrade may consist of moving phone providers and getting an n95, screw the iphone. Paris, because she'll screw anything.

UK developer trio accused of game plagiarism

best ever

I wanna buy the movie rights to the story of these developers, unfortunately, I don't know "which" movie rights to buy.

The internet at its finest.

Taxing times for Hungary's porn inspectors

suits you sir

don't know about anybody else, but if I see a bare belly button I really cannot control myself. Its a good job it was censored.

one of those nuns is surely paris hilton in a ironic twist to the tale.

Activist coders aim to deafen Phorm with white noise

I'd rather...

...Write my own software to counteract this sort of thing, but then again this has to be installed in large numbers of computers to be successful.

The requirement of directx 9 is just as bizarre as the language choice for this project, Dark Basic is mainly a games development tool.

It strikes me that the targetted advertising is something google has been doing for sometime, just being more obvious about it, and of course you have the choice not to use google. Well you would if every single application you installed wasn't offered a "free google toolbar!!!" with every download.

I remember when using the internet was about the free exchange of information, everybody helping everybody else and writing poems about their dead pets, not about selling you something around every corner.

Vatican star watcher says aliens may be out there

babelfish

what if aliens appear, and provide categorical proof that a god does not exist? would that make the vatican disappear in a puff of logic?

Dell denies death of XPS to aid Alienware

stuff

I have a 3 year old alienware laptop sitting next to a new XPS laptop. The XPS system just isn't as well built and sturdy as the Alienware system, it still performs well even though its fairly old.

I was hoping that after dell's purchase, the XPS range would inherit some of the good features from the alienware range; or perhaps even drop the XPs range altogether and rebrand the alienware laptops. Dell do make good laptops, but their super wonderful laptops aren't as super and as wonderful as one would expect.

the market position for mutual benfit between dell and alienware should be apparent to both companies, alienware would benfit from the backing of a big company whilst dell should be taking examples from alienware to improve their own products.

UK.gov solves pensioner crisis by wiring them up to the net

slightly off the point

When I read the title I thought, woho! now the government is going to make the elderly work in IT as well. My Gran could be a gold miner or a power leveller on wow and earn a nice little income.

Office 2007 SP1 goes automatic for the people

nothing to see here

erm, Paris just because I want too see her try and do a million calculations.

Apple blocks cheaper UK iPod sales

its what they do

Apple have always charged a premium for their products. I remember a simular story about top end cars, the price was reduced and they wern't selling anymore because nobody believed you could get a good quaility product for that price. It didn't even matter if the cars were any good anyway, what mattered was the perceived value by the consumer.

You do pay a premium for the "design" of Apples stuff, even if you ignore the added importation fees they put on top of their products into the UK. Quite frankly some of their stuff is overpriced and can be made cheaper and better by other manufacturers; well ignoring certain patents ;-)

I was recently shopping for a new MP3 player, and you visit all the high street shops and chains only too discover that the same model of ipod costs the same in any shop. I think the price fixing accusation is valid. If you are capable of providing the same product for cheaper you should be allowed to do so, the competition is heathly and natural for any business.

and another thing, don't get on the pricing model for the iphone. thats a bloody rip-off in any language no matter how you add the numbers up.

Fasthosts' dedicated servers go titsup

monkey farm

£20 says that a majority of the rejects from the apprentice now work there.

our servers our down and we are riding the wave of phone calls from our clients. and me as a supposed IT expert can do nothing apart from wait.

Windows better off closed, says Microsoft

working 9 till 5

Theres little point in releasing the source code unless you wanted to change certain functions of windows because it didn't do what you want. (or heaven forbid you wanted to fix the bugs yourself)

Figuring out how Windows, or any software works and interacts with other bits of software from the source code is a friggin' knightmare and a waste of time if somebody is providing the API documentation anyway.

It opens up a huge can of worms if you find something wrong with the API implementation compared to the documentation; imagine people willy nilly fixing all the bugs and problems in Windows, and then breaking all the years of work arounds everybody else had to write to get their own software working?

Maybe I'll be writing a simular statement when ie8 is offically released.

Microsoft cuts Vista price

Its still a rubbish name

Windows XP made its way onto my machine, eventually because it was an easier beast to install; it already recognised all my hardware without the need too hunt the internet for the drivers. The same can be said for Vista, once XP support is withdrawn all the new hardware you buy will slowly become more of a pain to install on an XP machine. This is the path Vista will take to get onto your machine, it will just become easier to setup (given time).

I think, when Windows 7.0 will come around (which doesn't appear to be that far away) Windows Vista will be pushed into the same bin as Windows Me, and Vista will be skimmed over and ignored.

What I don't understand is where all the linux preachers have gone, this comment section is filled to the brim with Mac lovers.

I think people are getting tired of all this operating system noise, I think when the average joe computer user gets tired, they are going to start looking for alternatives and their techie friends will tell them to buy a mac, or install linux for them; which when setup up well (and finds all your hardware) can be a practical machine (look at the eee pc, I haven't missed Windows on it at all; it is a good model for other PC manufacters to follow)

I don't think Vista SP1 is going to be the magic bullet that fixes all the problems, I'm not sure what the user sees as a problem on Vista (such as UAC) micrsoft acknowledges as a problem that needs fixing.

TangoX dances in to challenge Eee PC, CloudBook

Peaches

Wonderful, but do all the micro laptops have to have stupid names?

People think I'm some sort of west country farmer who's just discovered this strange thing called technology. Arrrr, the eeeeeeeeeee pc.

Yes! It's the vacuum cleaner mouse!

recycle

eventually I could gather enough biscuit crumbs to make an entire biscuit again.

(in the event of an emergency food situation, which is almost always considering how little I can usually be bothered to get up and walk to the snack machine)

Porsche to challenge London CO₂ penalty in court

Posh

If you can afford a porsche, you could surely either afford the charge, or too buy a car with a smaller engine size (probably defeating the point of buying the porsche in the first place).

However, a two door sports car designed to be as light as possible perhaps shouldn't be classed in the same league as a heavy 4x4.

I'm not sure what the point of driving a sports car into essentially a large car park is anyway. I'd be too scared about somebody hitting it, every car I've seen in london has some sort of dent in it.

SCO details bleak future

Theres no business like SCO business

This is what you get when you let the lawyers run the business. I haven't figured out what SCO actually do anymore relating to the technology world in recent years.

REALbasic for iPhone?

ipwned

"Now you can get a phone AND ipod together for less and its a "rip off". Grow up, bunch of whiny bastards."

Lovely.

personally, I only started adding up the cost of a phone when the iphone came out and I only started doing that because they took the unique choice of charging for the cost of the handset as well as for the contract. £1000 is a fair conclusion of cost.

It would be interesting to see how this SDK idea develops, opening the device up to be just as programmable as my PC would probably help increase their market. Previously mobile device tend to rely on java to fix this problem but its not the best solution in the world and does have some drawbacks.

Only bicarbonate of soda can save mankind!

Baking Soda Swimming Pool

This is a nice idea, I like it although if it gets applyed to all the worlds power station we'll have too much baking soda than we know what to do with, it cannot all be used in baking. We'll probably end up burying the excess, like we do with everything else that we don't know where to put.

Not sure about banding around the term pollutant though, it seems its definition is simular to that of noise "any unwanted sound", and that depends very much on your persepective. The trouble is, having too much of one "unwanted" substance in a particular place may be defined as a pollutant, that substance could be anything from huge piles of cucumber in my sodding sandwiches all the time or vast amounts of radioactive material.

The problem here is really about maintaining balance within the eco-system, without creating any new problems to deal with, and one mans pollutant might be anothers mans/creatures gold.

I'm off too research man bear pig on the interweb thingy now.

Gamer takes Microsoft to court over Halo 3 'errors'

What??

How does a guy justify to a court that a faulty computer game caused $5m of damages? Did inserting the game into the xbox somehow cause a chain reaction that somehow managed to burn down his mansion and collection of pimped out hummers? Or did the CD tray somehow manage to chop off his hand?

If he were part of a collective, representing all of gaming than maybe it'd be a little more understandable, but any kind of faulty game doesn't justify this amount. ever.

Inventor of revoked payment patent says UK system is a joke

Stop It!

I might patent browsing the internet whilst at work, I seemed to have cornered the market. There are alot of freeloaders around that are browsing the internet when they should be working that owe me royalities.

I say this because this patent idea is blantantly cock too.

This story reminds me of the "buy it now" button everybody in the on-line shopping market lays claim to have invented and tried to have patented, its just as pedantic and silly.

Lost HMRC discs pop up on eBay

post and hacking

has anybody tried typing "password" to gain access to the database.

Dutch teen swipes furniture from virtual hotel

Wetting myself with disbelief

I guess it would come under the heading of data theft rather than software theft, which is fairly serious if you ignore what actually has been stolen. but you really have to concentrate very hard to ignore it. very hard indeed.

I would also suppose that the hacking attempt was really just guessing usernames and passwords;

username britneyfan

password Ilovejustintimberlake

or whatever it is these teenagers happen to think is cool now-a-days.

and honestly, the admins. of this thing must be able to click just a few buttons on the game too correct the problem without getting the police involved.

Jordan mulls mamtastic epitaph

Woof

Does she have any pet dogs? because it could read "please take care of the puppies".

Paris Hilton heads for the cryogenic freezer

Wrinkles

I guess she'll be fairly old when they chuck her in there. Rich annoying people do have a habit of living longer than you'd like.

Which setting do you think they'd use on the microwave when it comes time to defrost her?

Maybe they wouldn't use a microwave at all, I guess you'd just build a big fire and create a spitroast type setup. I'm sure she'd love that.

After months of denial, Microsoft cops to IE vulnerability

web dev.

Speaking from a web developers point of view, it really is a huge pain in the backside to develop a website that will work on all variations of websites. Often it takes alot of time and resources that most developers working to a deadline will not have.

My main gripe is that having got something working perfectly well in firefox, I then have to test it in IE7, and more often than not it doesn't work; either some of your javascript syntax no longer functions, or placement of controls isn't where it should be anymore.

Quite honestly having all these different browsers kicking around is a development nightmare, its just plain easier to pick one and stick with it.

apparently, this is the reason web standard documentation exists, now if only we could everybody in the browser development world to read it and agree on its meaning, maybe web development could mature into something more professional and exploit free.

Boffins: Dark times for application development

oh shut up :)

Whenever a person from the business world comments on software development, developers (those who'll listen) tend to create another layer of abstraction exclusively design to get those people distracted whilst they get on with the important job of coding; nothing usually changes down on the shop floor.

I think it demostrates a lack of understanding of how the software development process works. making software is essentially a creative process and trying to over-formulize such a thing so that it fits within a smart little business methodology box results in the creative element being totally removed. The by product of this is that it becomes exceptionally dull to develop even the most complicated of things. it could turn programming into a drag-and-drop affair, linking boxes, with little input from the programmer.

there is a need for better methods to develop software, but its direction needs to be controlled and decided by the code monkies themselves, otherwise you'll risk frightening away from the industry some of the brightest and most creative amongst them by the pile of increasing design diagrams and documentation.