Posts by Craig Newbury

Same old iPad? NO. The new 'soft SIMs' are BIG NEWS

Re: This _is_ designed to make carrier switching harder

The reason reprogramming an IMEI number was made illegal was so that stolen phones that were reported as such could not be used. When a phone is reported as stolen its IMEI is added to the CEIR (Central Equipment Identity Register). When a phone connects to a mobile network its IMEI is checked against this database, and if it is stolen the network will provide no service to the device.

HP's UK PC boss: We're going nowhere

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

Demo units tend to be under different SKUs, on the stock file. Normally listed for something like £999. They also tend to get shipped back to the manufacturer when the product is discontinued.

UK tech retailers are rubbish

Left guessing?

"Here's an actual reason for the counter-argument: when I tried using OS X, I had no idea what the red/green/blue buttons do on windows. On Windows, you get a text tooltip when you move the mouse near it. Not so on OS X - you're left guessing. That's not easy to use."

When you hover over the red one an X appears (Close Window), the yellow, a - appears (minimise), and the green, a + appears (maximise). Gee, what an enigma of symbolic instruction, how on earth did you manage to figure it out?

BBC iPlayer boss quits for job with Intel

iPlayer DRM

I thought they got rid of the MS DRM over a year ago, the iPlayer client on my machine uses Adobe Air. I use a Mac so I may be wrong about this but I thought the windows client also used Adobe Air, so has no need for MS DRM.

US bumblebees in 'alarming' decline

To quote Homer Simpson.

Oh no, no bees! Now who will sting me and walk all over my sandwiches.

Dixons warns of tough Christmas

Really??

So you want 40,000 people to loose their jobs at christmas.

What an asshole.

Apple to lead fanbois 'Back to the Mac'

NTFS support

I was hoping they would include NTFS write support directly into the OS in 10.5 and 10.6, lets hope they do it this time.

Apple bins iPhone covers

Not just scratches

Yes, the iPhone screen is made of glass, which makes it very tough, and resistant to scratching, but makes it more prone to shattering. If you have a shattered iPhone screen do you think your really want to hold a broken piece of glass against your face, or would you prefer a layer of plastic in between you and said shattered glass to keep it all in one piece?

Dell bars Win 7 refunds from Linux lovers

Apple EULA terms

Interesting that you would spend time looking at how you could use the MS EULA fully to your advantage in order to get a refund for pre-installed software, but ignore the Apple EULA stating that you may only install OSX on an apple-branded machine.

Apple blueprints warranty Big Brother

Prior art

A few years ago I had a Compaq computer that had a microwsitch that wold record in the system BIOS if, and when the case lid was removed. But then again, as long as Apple doesn't include notes of any company doing this before, the Patent will no doubt be granted.

Windows Mobile on iPhone a cruel joke?

Finaly...

Will there be copy/pate functionality?

Ohio voting machines confiscated in criminal investigation

Uhhhh....

...If I read correctly someone was able to disable the system that logs unauthorised changes. Why was this even possible?? I hope this is not a manufacturers feature, but some kind of modification of the devices software.

Dutch tax office deletes 730,000 tax returns

Sorry...

<Dr. Evil>Crazy Dutch Bastards</Dr. Evil>

Apple sued over iPhone caller ID

How is this...

...any different from how other phones display a persons name when they call, or am I missing somthing.

Schools chief pushes Big Brother out of dinner line

@Jeremy Wickins

"you don't have to do it, but you are excluded from this aspect of society"

You could say the same aout a driving licence, passports.

You don't have to submit your information to the DVLA, UKPA, or anyone else. But if you don't you can't have a driving licence, passport. You don't hear people saying, "well this is ridicilus, i want to start driving a car, but they want my details. What ever happened to civil liberties?"

Still sounds more useful than what I had at school.

When i was at junior school there was a machine where you put in £1 or whatever it was that the school dinner cost. In rturn it dispenced a credit card sized plastic card. You walked along 3 feet and put the card in a jar with a slot cut in the lid.

It just seemed like the most pointless peice of kit ever, surely a bolted down jar you just put the money in would be better.

I personaly cant see any problem with fingerprinting them.