Posts by Scott Mckenzie

Tim Cook: I'll give just a THIRD of what Gates gave to charity last year

The Reg in acting like tossers shocker

*surprised*

VINYL is BACK and you can thank Sonos for that

Puzzled...

You mention the resurgence is down to Hi-Res Audio and then cite Sonos and Amazon AutoRip as examples.... now i'm not sure of the exact process that Sonos uses (but am certain it's really rather poor as it's based on the source) but do know that Amazon AutoRip uses a 320kbps MP3. Neither of those are Hi-Res.... they are however exactly the reason why i still buy CD's and rip them myself, so until true Hi Res audio becomes available for download, i'm all for vinyl.

Now if only the wife would let me buy one, or better still my father let me have his Transcriptors Master Reference....

ESXi is telling fibs to backup software

Veeam Fix

Veeam have recommended disabling and re-enabling CBT - which can be done with this powershell script - http://www.itwalkthru.com/2012/03/disabling-or-enabling-vmware-change.html

The next backup will take quite a bit longer though!

Driving with an Apple Watch could land you with a £100 FINE

Re: Yawn

Been a few times. I'm dead now though so can't go anymore :(

Yawn

The Reg has really gone downhill hasn't it... is it not possible to post an article that doesn't have to have a dig at Apple? We all know they think you're a bunch of complete and utter kumquats too and hence never invite you anywhere, but the plethora of drivel that comes through on my RSS feeds means I miss out on the once a week vaguely interesting article you guys actually write these days.

Have you thought about growing up?

Quit drooling, fanbois - haven't you SEEN what the iPhone 6 costs?

Err...

Isn't it pretty much exactly the same price the 5S was?

The Reg 'we don't get invited to Apple events so we'll bash them at every opportunity' is really getting a bit fucking dull now. Have you considered growing up? As stated above, the products cost about the same as other 'comparable' items yet there aren't a plethora of articles baiting those.

If you don't want it, or can't afford it, it's quite simple - don't buy it. However, based on the sales of them thus far and the pre-orders this no doubt will have, i'd wager few people are that bothered and will buy it if they want it.

Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid: The plug-in for plutocrats

The main benefit for these cars comes to company car drivers who'll pay very little tax on the very low emissions. If you're company is paying for your fuel, you won't care what the emissions are but it's good for Porsche as they can sell more of them to company execs who previously would have avoided them like the plague!

Amazon boss salvages Apollo engines from watery grave

Wow

They really are looking at taking cloud computing to another level with this...

Official: Sky to buy O2 and BE's home broadband product in £200m deal

Bad news

I was a Be user for years, had to move in October as we moved house and they couldn't supply us.... to be fair i've been with BT and they're ok, thankfully i've not needed help!

This is terrible news though for a small company that had excellent customer service.

'Leccy-starved Reg hack: 'How I survive on 1.5kW'

Surely...

....a not as great picture but much more efficient LED TV would help, rather than the hungry beast that is a Plasma!

Felix Baumgartner sadly turns out to be blinkered FOOL

But..

...we've never even managed to land on the closest orbiting moon to us, so why are we trying to get on Mars???

Global notebook sales tank in recent months

Odd

People still rant and whinge and moan and slate Apple, but surprisingly their opinions count for nothing as the numbers keep on increasing.

Personally, i wouldn't want anything less than 2880x1800 for my laptop, oh, hang on that really limits my choice....

Emotional baggage

Re: Crumpler

Crumpler for me too - some of the designs are a bit quirky but they're very well made, strong and reliable.

Loads of pockets too!

Build a bonkers home cinema

Diminishing Returns

You're right of course, but trust me, having heard some similar things - that would sound quite a lot better.

Of course one thing not mentioned in the cinema paradiso is the actual room - that can play as much of an effect as the equipment - mediocre equipment, setup right in a well designed room can sound absolutely stunning, whereas really high end gear in a crap room sounds worse than an all-in-one system!!!

Microsoft lobs licensing liposuction at Server 2012

Hmmm

Not sure the Foundation version is a real SBS replacement - 25 user limit is rather restrictive.

Natwest, RBS: When will bank glitch be fixed? Probably not today

Apparently

We have been told at work (as it's affecting us there) that the issue was down to an update to the Mobile Banking App, it failed and had a domino effect that was 'unforeseen' and has pretty much broken everything!

Which is nice.

Apple's Retina Macs: A little too elite?

Re: Samsung

Because of the performance, the portability, the OS..... none of the which the Samsung does to a comparable level.

I'm writing this on a 6 year old Mac laptop, that's running the latest OS extremely well.... your average six year old windows laptop could probably just about still manage XP with SP3 installed.

Re: Ugh

Not really.... if you don't like the product, or it's not suitable, don't buy it.

An incredibly small percentage of people actually care about this sort of thing, your average joe has no concept that a hard drive can be upgraded to a larger one. So it really, honestly, makes no difference at all.

External

As a part time/occasional editor of video it's also rather commonplace to use external storage - you have the footage you're editing stored locally and you write the final thing to external storage. With the benefits of Thunderbolt too you can easily have large capacity and high speed storage externally.

If you want to edit video professionally you don't buy a cheap, portable machine anyway!

The Retina model is actually 'good value' try and build a basic spec 15" normal one to the same spec as the entry level Retina.... aside from the fact you can't change the graphics card, it's cheaper to buy the Retina model than it is to put 8Gb RAM and an SSD into the 'normal' one.

Hit upgrade on Symantec Backup Exec, and unleash Hell

Err..

Surely the best "upgrade" the BE is the uninstall command????

They've made it progressively more complex as the years have gone by... so glad i jumped ship to Veeam last year (admittedly not much use if you don't have a Virtual Environment)

Google farewells apps in spring clean

Re: idiot alert

As far as better alternatives go... on the Mac, i think you'll find it's called 'iPhoto' and comes with every Mac and integrates seamlessly.

Vodafone agrees to Cable and Wireless buy

Re: Demon Internet customer here...

I was more worried when CWW bought Thus to be honest....

It has seemed ok so far and to be honest the access to cable actually improved the line connection speed, sadly the customer service took a nose dive though!

CD: The indestructible music format that REFUSES TO DIE

Quality

Until you can get mainstream downloads in high quality, CD is still the best option...

Some places (such as the Naim and Linn independent labels) offer 24Bit 192KHz downloads but the artists are usually niche. Until Amazon or Apple offer high quality and I mean the current Apple Lossless or FLAC as a minimum, many folks will stick to buying and ripping their own CD's.

For a vast number of people the quality of downloads is fine.... for others, it isn't.

Elgato Thunderbolt SSD

Re: Apples, Oranges, Pears & Lemons

They did mention that the SSD was a SanDisk and at the moment i believe they only make the one... and it's supposed to be the fastest on the market!

Thus i'm not sure how great the speed results are.

Re: erm

Well no, seen as USB3 is considerably slower than Thunderbolt and a SATA III drive is considerably slower than an SSD.

Otherwise, yes... you're completely correct, it is cheaper.

Pioneer SC-LX85 9.2 AV receiver with AirPlay

Marmite

Still a marmite product to me... with music the tone was far too harsh - even after extensive tweaking of MCACC or whatever acronym they use.... for films the sound was excellent but as always pick your speakers wisely!

Half of Apple fanbois would bank with the iPad titan

Or..

...... have an Android bank that never gives you your money.

And has hundreds of branches that are all incompatible with each other and are all quite shite and nowhere near as good as the real banks.

Apple iPhoto

Free on a Mac

It's only free on a new Mac though isn't it.... you don't get new major versions for free do you?

Belkin Dual-Band Travel Router

Airport Express

We use an Airport Express to do the same thing, coverage is great so get consecutive rooms and a number of staff share the connection.

Absolute piece of piss to set up and all the power is built in!

Cook & Co. boost Apple TV to 1080p, update interface

I rarely do it.

But Jailbreak the ATV2 and install Plex and you've got a great little product!

That said the WDTV is also an excellent product - extremely good value for money!

'The new iPad' revealed: Full specs, rumor scorecard

Re: apple.com down so can't get my order in

I am tempted as i do read a lot of magazines on mine. iPad 2 resale values will be great if i feel the need to move mine on.

The screen does sound stunning - the other features aren't essential for me at the moment though.

SD Slot?

Why - I have a 32Gb model and am nowhere near filling it. What do you use it for??

Mine has 7 Newsstand subscriptions and i archive the older issues... no music as that is on my iPhone etc.

I transfer the pics from my Nikon camera with the SD -> Dock adaptor and am good to go.

Really don't see the extra storage need!!

But each to their own requirements...

gLol

Can you catch me cuckoo in that cloud based land of yours please!

LulzSec SMACKDOWN: Leader Sabu turned by feds last summer

To be fair..

...if i lived on Shetland i'd be looking for something interesting to do!

But you have to wonder how, the internet infrastructure up there really is on a par with tin cans and string, must've been the worlds slowest hack!!!

Death to Office or to Windows - choose wisely, Microsoft

Re: Re: " . Office is a kingmaker in the enterprise, and the iPad is already king there."

Depends on the product but many CAD products exist for Mac....

Re: Re: Re: Re: huh?

Err, you don't get much PC for £200 these days.... given that an iPad starts at £399 and can do an awful lot!

Does depend on what you need a machine for, but for me the amazing battery life, ability to do huge amounts of stuff out and about - manage servers, check email, manage VMWare environments, access Sharepoint.... means the iPad is an integral part of my life.

Re: Re: "Windows is dead."

I too would like to introduce myself.... I don't personally use Windows anywhere. I have a number of Macs as does my better half. Slowly but surely the company I work for is moving to Mac also.

Symantec sues rivals in backup patents spat

Re: Re: Seriously...

I wasn't spending 24/7 on it... but there were a number of issues going back and forward between myself and Symantec, with them logging on remotely to do a lot of the work. It appeared to be as simple as setup, install some crappy update system, apply 300 updates, add a backup to disc destination and go from there - which took about 4 hours. If it had of worked, then great.... but it didn't. They decided we hadn't bought the right licenses and advised us new ones, they added them and it still didn't work, they then decided the licenses were still wrong... They were creating logon scripts, adjusting group policies etc to try and get it to work and in the end they couldn't. I'm fairly sure you can see why i hold them in such high regard and rate their support up there with the very best.

Conversely, on the same system Veeam took me 15 minutes to get up and running and hasn't missed a beat since. It was also half the price.

For our needs Veeam is great... for others they may need other functionality.

Seriously...

WTF!?

If they really have those patents then surely no-one can offer a B&R Solution that works well without paying them a royalty?

Maybe Symantec should consider the fact that their software is both bloated and hideously expensive and their support is beyond useless as more likely reasons for their profits falling?

Veeam is a beautifully simple yet incredibly powerful product and i love it! It was setup and fully functional in about 15 minutes.... Symantec took 7 weeks of toing and froing with their support before I gave up, got a refund and discovered Veeam!

Google Maps takes scenic route

In a nice car...

That first map looks WAAAAAAAAAY more fun :)

2011's Best... Hi-Fi and AV Kit

Yes

If you can put up with the awful sound the Pioneer has an excellent app. Otherwise Yamaha, Denon and Marantz all have iOS apps (unsure about Android)

Check the device though as not all of the amps feature Network ports and thus will not work from an app.

Apple stores getting close to overload

It is weird isn't it!

Still the one in Glasgow is my favourite of all that i've visited!

Ice Cream Sandwich

And here comes the science bit.

Or something...

It looks awful, menu layouts look similar to Windows Mobile in the early days!

And the big problem lies with different phones, some offer it as an upgrade, some don't, some have buttons some don't.... i'm sure i'll get nailed for this, but that's where iOS is so good. It's clean and polished, it works well - sure there may be some restrictions (i've never found any that stop me doing anything i want) but for 99% of the people it does everything they want.

it's like running Windows on a PC - is the latest version compatible with the hardware you've got - no idea! Guess you'll have to try....

Cracked emails again deployed against climate researchers

But surely..

...everyone knows global warming is a huge loads of bollocks?

Don't they?

Kindle Fire: An open letter to Jeff Bezos

And people question why..

....Android is so shite.

So many versions, so many restrictions.... it's a complete joke.

Amazon should buy WebOS and turn it into something good.

Roll on the Apple Fanbois Massive!

Henge Docks Docking Station

Also have one

The only thing i'd like to see is some padding on the points where the computer sits - mine has scuffed the case of the MBP from continuous docking and undocking.

Otherwise it's great!

Chinese hacks face life ban for nicking rumours from web

Hmmm

So does that mean that future googling of Tiananmen Square will show what exactly?

As you wouldn't want to "altering news photographs or video clips "in a way that distorts the authenticity of the material"." now would you....

Best Buy to shutter all UK megastores

Gutted

It was actually refreshing to go into a tech store and speak to someone who actually had a clue.

They will be missed.

That said, i'm looking forward to a pre christmas stock fire sale!!

Panasonic HM-TA20 underwater camcorder

Indeed!

Glad I wasn't the only one who noticed....