Posts by Alex Rose

RIM profits nearly sliced in half

I suspect at least some of RIM's problems are due to their lack of support for ActiveSync. We look after 40+ companies' IT and always recommend Android or iPhone as proper BES support is ridiculously expensive and for most of our clients the security features within Active Sync are more than sufficient.

The abortion that is BIS email support just needs to be put out of its misery and they should support ActiveSync for smaller clients keeping BES support for enterprise customers where its features are appreciated (and affordable).

If Blackberry devices supported ActiveSync I'd have no problem recommending them to clients as the devices themselves suit some people, but at the moment supporting them is just a bloody nightmare, so the client receives worse service, so I won't recommend them.

BT trying for fibre 'monopoly', claims TalkTalk chief

Does my HP Touchpad not belong to me?

Just because HP was not paid back the amount of money it cost to produce does that mean that it's not legally mine?

It's not BT's shareholder's fault that the government of the time did not achieve maximum return on its investment. If it offends you that much then vote for a political party that will return it to public ownership.

There is no dilemma in my mind, if asked "how much exactly did you pay for this" the shareholders could quite reasonably answer "the amount that we were asked to pay, what's your point?"

Back to school time?

Seriously guys, they were not "given to BT as part of the privatisation."

1. The Post Office/BT owned the poles and cables, the country owned the PO/BT.

2. The government sold the country's stake (i.e. 100%) in the PO/BT and put the money into the public coffers.

3. The pole and cables STILL belong to BT but BT is now no longer owned by the country.

It's really simple to understand if you actually pay attention at school. If you have to expend all your cranial capacity to simply continue breathing through your mouth then I guess such a complicated idea would be beyond you.

Samsung unveils 20Mp EVIL shooter

@AC "re:Canon & Nikon"

For the flange to back distance of Canons and Nikons you need to think more like 44-46mm.

Seven lessons from the HP Touchpad fire sale

Are you calling me a liar?

As soon as I heard that they were going to go on sale for £115 I knew people had to move fast. I phoned everybody who I thought would be interested and there are 3 people with new tablets who are grateful that I knew that the price drop would lead to a global gadget grab and phoned them to clue them in.

The fact that the author didn't realise what the price drop meant doesn't mean that the rest of the world doesn't have two brain cells to rub together.

iPad sales shove Apple to top of mobile computing tree

Re: Re: This used to be a tech forum for techies

Actually it's been hijacked by a gaggle of passive-aggressive fans and anti-fans of all varieties.

And so that there's absolutely NO mistaking where my loyalties lie I'd just like to say that my Commodore 64 beats the pants off your crappy Spectrum 48K.

Google+ bans real name under ‘Real Names’ policy

Are you blind?

Are you really telling me you didn't see the "Joke Alert" icon by the post you're responding to? Or that you didn't realise it meant that the post was a joke?

Microsoft replaces Xbox 360s after disc-format switch

Oh the irony!

"Stupid Microsoft should of"

It's should HAVE, you moron.

Maybe stupid LinkOfHyrule should have learnt to write properly before accusing others of stupidity.

You state that they should have made a console that works in the first place. That's really strange as I was under the impression that during the last few years I've spent wasting some of my spare time playing very enjoyable games on my Xbox 360 it was in fact "working".

Now why don't you get back under your bridge you vile little troll and let me get back to deciding whether I should buy LA Noire for the XBox 360 or the PS3 - a far more important task than correcting the grammer of odious little twerps like yourself.

Microsoft breaks own world record for IE nonsense

@ArmanX

Actually if you read what he wrote then nowhere at all does he say that "if one expects to have a complete web experience, one must use Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 9"

I've read his post forwads, backwards, sideways and even upside down a couple of times and NOWHERE does he say anything at all like the phrase you tried to ascribe to him.

If you disagree with someone then have the intelligence to disagree with what they actually said because to be honest I think your statement that fucking dogs makes you manly and more attractive to women is quite simply wrong and I think you should be ashamed of yourself for advocating the castration of every third male born to households with the surname "Lovell".

Note - Don't bother coming back and accusing me of being a Microtard or whatever the kids call each other these days, my post tells you precisely nothing about the platforms I use.

P.S. I think rather a lot of people who post on this site should look up the meaning of "straw man" and then hang their heads in shame.

Official: PS3 has more fanboys than the Xbox 360 does

I also have both...

and have been caught out by dual format games being only 720p on the PS3 when they're 1080p on the Xbox (Fallout 3 and Colin McRae Dirt 2 spring to mind). I thought it would gradually die out but a quick check in Game the other week showed that new releases are still suffering from this.

Until the developers stop being lazy (or Sony provide decent development tools) then PS3 games are going to be hamstrung by developers coding for the Xbox first and then doing lazy port jobs to the PS3.

Still, as I say, I have them both so it doesn't make a blind but of difference to me really.

Steve Jobs unveils 30% subs model for ... everything

Yes, that's exactly how capitalism works

I'm pretty sure British Gas will soon be putting their gas prices up until they are 1000 times higher than their competitors, then their customers won't be able to afford to look for an alternative supplier.

Not an exact analogy I know, but for the love of god can you people not use your brains before posting this drivel?

You seriously suspect that Apple putting its prices high will DIScourage content providers from seeking an alternative distribution method? By that logic Apple should be charging at least 100%, then no one else will be able to get a look in. In fact why don't they charge 200%, they'll be sure to be left as the only game in town if they do that!

Only if you don't read the article...

...does it seem to suggest that "*only* A) is available".

If you use your brain, parse the sentences and comprehend the meaning behind the words then you'll see that the article states that "Publishers are still permitted to "leverage other methods for acquiring digital subscribers outside of the app," – ie, sell digital subscriptions on their website without having fork out cash to Apple"

I know that the internet appears to have caused everybody's brains to have dribbled out of their ears but, seriously, saying an article doesn't make something clear when it's written there in clear English beggars belief.

Steve Jobs takes 'medical leave of absence' from Apple

"Magical"?

I can agree to an extent with all your points except the "magical" iPad comment.

I've actually used one, I just don't see what's so great about it. Too big to be a phone, not powerful enough to be a laptop.

iPhone -yes, Mac - yes, iPad -eh?

(Note - I own no Apple devices, although I've no problem buying them for my wife.)

Feds subpoena Twitter for info on WikiLeaks backer

Although I'm a big fan of DNS...

...the idea of looking forward to being able to have an intelligent conversation about it with the average man-in-the-street has never occured to me. The people to whom I speak who know about DNS already know it's a pretty neat solution to the problem it solves (despite the known weaknesses in the system) - we therefore don't need to have a conversation about it. I really don't expect anybody else to really be that interested - in much the same way as I wouldn't expect non-accountants to get excited by the differences between LIFO, FIFO and weighted average when it comes to analysing stock value in cost-accounting, non-Barristers to get excited about the latest missive from the Bar Council or non-cyclists to get excited about news of a new polymer for making bike tyres that promises 10% less rolling resistance.

Also, calling people "muggles" just because their speciality differs from yours is the height of arrogance.

'Methanotroph' bacteria feasted on blown BP rig's methane belch

Hypothesis is irrelevant until backed up by empirical data

Show us the evidence for your hypothesis that "metanotrophs" (sic) only exist in areas with regular leaks of gas and oil or get back under your bridge.

Google suit halts Microsoft fed contract

Not Exchange, rather MCSE is garbage

We look after about 30 Exchange servers ranging from 2000 to 2007 and to be honest they don't give us much trouble. Certainly nothing that could be remotely described as "constant babysitting".

Maybe the problem lies with the MCSEs that you know, in my experience the only thing MCSEs teach is how to remember the answers to some multiple choice questions. As far as technical knowledge, problem solving or actually being an engineer they teach you precisely nothing.

There are MCSE qualified people out there with good engineering skills, but they have those despite having MCSEs not because of it.

Amazon: 'iPad LCD tablets no threat to Kindle'

I can't speak for your wife's eReader...

...but on my Kindle it takes about 1 or 2 tenths of a second to update the screen.

If this is the level of screen update that causes you to loose your temper to such a level that you wish to do physical damage to an inanimate object can I suggest that you Google "anger management classes."

I know we live in a time of reduced attention spans but seriously, David, you need to get a little perspective.

@HomesIV

<pedant>"high-voltage USB port"?</pedant>

Skype's mega-FAIL: exec cops to cause

You're clearly not an engineer

As if you were you'd realise that fixes don't happen instantly. First they had to identify the problem, then they had to create a solution (possibly going down a few blind alleys before hitting on a working solution), then they had to come up with a method to implement that solution on a scale large enough to alleviate the problem, they then had to actually go and implement that method, then once they had found it to work they had to monitor the situation and tweak their method as necessary.

If you're not impressed that they did that in the time that they managed to do it in (can't be bothered to go and check the article again, you say 12+ hours, if that's correct then I think that's a miracle on par with turning water into wine, but then I live in the *real* world) then you are clearly not, and have never been, an engineer.

WikiLeaks payment service threatens to sue Visa, MasterCard

You kind of had...

...a little bit of sympathy from me.

Until you equated DHCP servers with the Internet :(

Ubuntu's Shuttleworth lands luxury NY crash pad

What to do with your millions

To the people who are saying that he should be investing more of his money in Canonical to aid the rise of Linux here's an idea - YOU guys all put YOUR millions into Canonical and let Mark do what HE wants with HIS millions.

Dirty PCs: How much filth can you take?

James Dore is a bit of a doughnut

I'm sorry but it doesn't matter how much sheeting the builder covers the machine in, the machine is still sucking air in from outside to cool itself. Therefore if there's dust in the air then it will get inside the machine, The only way to stop this is to stop the air going into the machine, in which case the machine will overheat.

Either encase the server and filter the air going into the case or move the damn server.

Anybody who can't work this out has no business looking after servers.

Fanbois howl as OS X update bricks PGPed Macs

@The Fuzzy Wotnot

"after giving it some serious Mac bashing"?

Are you for real?

Were you reading the same article that the rest of the world was or have you been spinkling ketamine on your cornflakes again?

There was no Mac bashing in that article. None. Nadda.

What is wrong with you?

Twitter joke martyr loses appeal

@Shemmie

Wow, the poster you responded to actually gave you all the clues by using the correct words but you still managed to mess it up.

It's wouldn't HAVE people. HAVE, HAVE, HAVE, fucking HAVE!

"Wouldn't of" makes no fucking sense!

(Hmm, maybe a little too much caffeine so far today.)

@Snowy

Inciting racial hatred?

INCITING RACIAL HATRED?

Either you didn't read his "tweet" or you're an idiot. Which is it?

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Campaign?

8 to 10 hours of campaign for the best part of 50 quid? No thanks. Already got stiffed by COD:MW2 which lasted me less than 6 hours. I wouldn't mind but I'm actually pretty crap at games so if I can finish it in that time it's definitely not worth the money.

It's a real shame too as the screenshots look gorgeous and I'd love to play it, but I'm not getting ripped off like that again, I'll stick to games that give me a good 40+ hours for my money.

Jobs dubs Google's 'open' Android speak 'disingenuous'

There's a difference between a PC and a phone

MS got a monopoly on the desktop in a very different time, selling to very different customers.

I'll happily keep my Android device and put up with a few minor foibles but I can certainly appreciate why my wife loves her iPhone and why the average man or woman in the street would prefer that type of experience.

The fact of the matter is that for most people the iPhone does "just work"* and for that reason they'll continue to sell and Apple's marketing machine will continue to try to present them as an aspirational device.

It all comes down to this - the iPhone is EASY and does 99.9% of what 99% of people want to do. We can go on in our geeky way about how it isn't "open" and how Jobs is taking our "freedom" but the fact of the matter is that we are in the minority. Deal with it. Or, better yet, stop linking your own personal happiness to whether or not your choice of phone OS has the largest market share or not - IT DOESN'T MATTER!!

*By "just works" I of course don't mean they don't go wrong, I mean that you don't need a degree to make it work. Anybody who tries to claim that it means they don't go wrong is just as guilty of issuing FUD as MS, Apple, Google and the Linux crowd.

25%?

If you think 25% is looking after shareholders more than customers then you've obviously never worked in manufacturing.

One could also make the argument that THAT'S WHAT A COMPANY'S SUPPOSED TO DO, YOU DOUGHNUT!

Steve Jobs chops student hack down to size

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As an Android user my heart sank and I died a little inside when I read this comment.

Webmin for users: Usermin

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Funny - it doesn't claim that it's breaking news anywhere in the article either.

The bile tastes delicious thank you. What does your comment about "not writing an article on it" mean? What does that have to do with you being an arsey bugger about the article? How does it make any difference? To what does it make the aforementioned difference? In short, what are you talking about?

Oh, if you're going to reply at least have the courtesy/guts not to reply as an Anonymous Coward, it makes it hard to take you seriously knowing that you're too scared to post under your own name.

(FAO the moderator - I know, I know, very childish, but it's Friday for god's sake. If I can't have a little fun on a Friday when can I?)

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And being an acerbic twat has been around since the dawn of civilisation. How ironic that you'd accuse somebody else of being behind the times!

If you already know about Usermin that's great, don't read the article then, For those people that don't know about it this is a useful article.

Trevor is pretty up-front that this group of articles is aimed at people who aren't familiar with administering *nix systems.

Public sector earning more than private, but less than last month

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Well if they included the CEOs and executive tier of the public sector I'm sure they included it for the private sector as well. So your implication that the results are skewed is totally misleading.

(untitled)

And how does it accurately reflect the pay disparity between bar staff and the CEO of BP? Seriously if you are going to claim the methodology of the study shows bias against public sector workers at least pick a part of the methodology that doesn't skew BOTH figures!

Ex-IBM heir apparent gets six months in the slammer

Calm down...

The Attorney for the Southern District of New York even said "even high-flying executives do not receive get-out-of-jail-free cards for participation in insider trading." So there's nothing for you to get so worked up about.

Oh, hang on, what's this?

"Moffat is being allowed to begin serving his sentence in June 2011 so he can attend his daughter's graduation next year."

Hmm, of course if he lived in a trailer park he'd have been treated just the same. Wouldn't he?

Breaking the habit

OK...

Well Aston Martin's marketing people have persuaded me that I need that DB9. I STILL don't think my boss is going to let me have it.

I don't know what it is that makes people think that IT doesn't have to bow to the realities that every other department bows to, but for some reason they do.

Do you think purchasing would order the secretaries Mont Blanc fountain pens if they said they needed them? Or do you think they'd be exercising due diligence if they checked first if the existing pens were still up to the job?

I'm astonished by your ignorance

I'm guessing you don't work in IT and don't know an awful lot about business.

IT are there to supply the best IT possible for a given budget. If the accountants want upgrading to the latest "whatsits" in Excel then it needs to be demonstrated that the benefit of doing so outweighs the cost.

This is what is known in the trade as good business practice.

I could do my job a lot better with a Aston Martin DB9 as my company car, I can demonstrate that I can do the job in less time so should my boss give me one?

Changing passwords helps keep costs down by reducing network intrusions, just because users don't see the value (to which a monetary amount can be attached) doesn't make IT arrogant to expect them to toe the line.

tl;dr

So the tl;dr version is, "Lazy developers made me do it" :)

Thanks for the info.

Terminal Services

I'm confused as to why you didn't use terminal services? That way you install the software only as many times as you have users. 50 users - 2 or 3 terminal servers - job done.

Using VMs with thin clients just seems.....weird. I'd be interested to know your reasoning for going down this route?

'PatentGate' allegations denied by Apple

It's would "HAVE" people!

Example 1:

"I would have gone shopping but I felt ill."

Example 2:

"I would of gone shopping but I felt ill."

Are you seriously trying to tell me that when you look at the second example and try to parse it it makes sense to you? You might as well say something like:

"Her eyes were green, the colour have a winter sea."

Now if you think that sounds stupid think about how you sound when you do the same thing in reverse.

Microsoft rushes out emergency fix for critical Windows bug

Like everyone else?

Well, I've just called my Mum and she says she didn't look at it. So I guess that your claim that everyone else looked at this article is an "epic fail, n00b, lolz."

I read the technet post, my point was that the Reg could have outlined the affected sytems in their articles.

Now, if you're going to be an acerbic twat at least have the bollocks to do it without posting anonymously.

What versions of Windows are affected

I've read this article, and followed links to 2 previous articles and the nearest I can find to useful information in any of them is that "even fully patched Windows 7 machines are vulnerable".

Does this mean that all Windows machinea from 2.0 onwards are affected? What about x64 versions?

Come on Reg, if you're going to report this stuff at least give us useful information. I look after systems running everything from 2000 onwards in all desktop and server flavours - throw me a bone here!

Apple as a religion: How the iPhone became divine

Care to take it back?

Not until you actually have the guts to post under your real name.

No. No! NO!

"they invented the Graphical User Interface "

For the love of God! This is why I find Mac evangelists irritating, because they espouse lies like this one.

Apple did not invent the Graphical User Interface.

Now write that out 100 times!

The real shame is that I like quite a few Apple products but I could never bring myself to buy one because I can't bear to be associated with the lies. I guess that means that I have some sort of problem :)

Google brews (another) Facebook rival, says report

Zuckerberg

"I'm sure that Zuckerberg wouldn't say no to couple of billion dollars"

He already has done on a few occasions. That's why neither Google nor Microsoft own Facebook.

Android's UK phone sales quadruple

Title? What title?

That may be because Apple only have 2 phones (soon to be 1 once they sell out of 3GS stock).

If you can't be bothered to research an expensive purchase that's your problem, don't blame the manufacturers.

Do you complain that Ford sell too many types pf car, maybe they should rationalise their lineup and only sell 2 models (large and small?) that way people won't have to exercise their brains when making a choice?

For what it's worth the HTC Desire does everything you outline in your post and it took me 20 minutes to find that out and to find out that lots of people rate it as a phone.

Seriously, there are a hundred sites on the web that will help you find the information you need. Try Which? for starters.

Imitate Real Ale quaffers, save the economy, says biz prof

As one who's wife runs pubs...

...I have to say that JD Wetherspoons are generally pretty good at stocking a decent selection of real ales. They also keep them very well as their aim is to have all their cellars Cask Marque approved.

Just because JD Wetherspoons is cheap doesn't mean they can't keep and serve a good pint of beer.

Whether you agree with what their pubs are like is another matter entirely, but it's unrelated to the quality of the ale they sell.

Panasonic DMR-BW880 HD DVR

I've got a couple of Panasonic Vieras..

..and they must have ads in the EPG for Freeview (pretty sure they're not in the Freesat EPG), but to be honest I'm not 100% sure because when I'm looking at the EPG I'm looking for guidance on what programmes are coming up.

If some adverts are enough to put you off buying a TV (rather than bad picture quality, size etc.) then can I respectfully suggest that you go outside, take a deep breath and go on a hunt for a little bit of perspective.

So long then, Windows 2000

Your nickname,

...does it refer to your opinion of grammer and/or punctuation?

Seriously, try reading what you typed out-loud, and then come back and try to tell me I should take you seriously.

I'm not trying to be a dick, but if you can't be bothered to try to communicate in a comprehensible fashion why on earth should I be bothered to try to understand you?

Pressure mounts on Apple to recall iPhone 4

hyperbole and irrationality

Like claiming that likening the situation to Toyota's only works if both are life threatening?

How you can sit there and claim my argument is irrational beggars belief.

The fact that in one situation there is a danger to life and in the other there isn't has absolutely no bearing on the relevance of parallels drawn between their similarities.

Not paying due care and attention to where you are going can cause an accident whether you are piloting a supertanker or driving a car - the fact that they are different vehicles, that they move in completely different media, hell, that the car may be fueled by petrol and the ship by heavy fuel-oil makes absolutely no difference to the ability of a rational thinker to see that a lack of care and attention can cause an accident in BOTH situations despite their differences.

Apparently the world I live in is one where I'm subjected to unwanted irony.

Twat.

Humanity is doomed!

"and the other likens it to Toyota which implies this is going to cause death" and it implies that Apple have a problem with the brakes on their cars, and it implies that Apple are really called Toyota, and it implies that Apple are a Japanese motor manufacturer.

Because the situations are not ABSOLUTELY IDENTICAL we can in no way draw parallels between them.

When will these so-called PR "experts" stop treating us like idiots who can use our own powers of deductive reasoning to work out that what they mean by comparing the 2 situations is that both could lead to the damaging of the company's reputation by a perceived unwillingness to address the problems quickly and honestly?

OMG! By drawing parallels with Toyota they're saying that iPhone 4's kill users! LOL!!1!

Twat.