Posts by Rob Daglish

French youth faces court for illegal drone flight

You sir...

...are the chief scriptwriter for Casualty, and I claim my free prize!

Birds Eye releases 'mashtags' social spud snacks

Re: Today's menu

Nope. Realised what he'd done straight away - anyone else used to play "give the novell netware network a funny IPX number"?

London's King of Clamps shuts down numberplate camera site

No, I'm in Copeland, so I'm now an Obese Benefit Scrounger. Official, innit?

BT's mobe interference claim laughed off air by ad watchdog

Given that they have a shaky idea of telephony, and none at all about IP or networking, I'm going to guess that as far as BT are concerned anything that is wireless is a form of black magic and can easily interfere with any other black magic in the area...

How Novell peaked, then threw it all away in a year

Ah, the Novell Brainshare...

...none of which was complete without being completely and utterly drunk, a giant bouncy castle and a good band, and a lecture from Joe Doupnik, who could make even wire-level protocols interesting.

I remember one event at Manchester, we tried to get Joe to speak after inhaling some of the helium balloons that were strewn around the marquee as he was fairly high-pitched anyways, and we wanted to know if he'd become inaudible!

I still had a school running netware until about 12 months ago, fairly sad when that was all powered down as it was a really good ZEN/Groupwise/NDS system

Spotify spews 'unencrypted' FREE MP3s all over creation

@Joe Harrison

I'd suspect that it's probably also due to the fact that the DJ doesn't take any time to properly balance and EQ the sound system too. First time I use a venue's PA, it can take ages until I'm happy that the noise I'm hearing is actually what I want to hear. Just because there is lots of expensive kit there, doesn't mean it all plays together nicely.

Also, laptop sound cards are usually pap - if I'm outputting from a laptop to a PA, I generally use a decent USB audio interface like http://www.dv247.com/computer-hardware/focusrite-scarlett-2i4-usb-audio-interface--101863

Although as I usually end up with Musical Theatre, it all gets knocked sideways by the vocals...

Review: Jabra Revo Wireless headphones

@Nelbert Noggins

Can't speak for these, but I have a very nice pair of over the ear Sennheiser MM-500. They work perfectly well over Bluetooth when I'm out and about and don't want to carry around CDs or vinyl or MiniDisc or whatever.

The advantage is, when I'm at home or if I'm mixing a show, I plug in a cable, and I've still got my nice comfy headphones, but now, the sound quality is a little better

For me, that means I don't have to find a bluetooth set of comfy phones and a wired set of comfy phones - so instead of having to buy two pairs, I have one, and I didn't mind paying a little more than I would for a decent set of wired phones on their own. That said, I wouldn't have paid full price for the Sennys...

YMMV.

Torygraph and Currant Bun stand by to repel freeloaders

@Kubla Cant

No need for them to be apps, except it's rather nice that I can grab a copy of the times onto my xperia and read it on the train without needing a mobile phone signal, which is non-existant on the Cumbrian Coast line for large sections, and we don't have any on-train wifi

Crooks, think your Trojan looks legit? This one has a DIGITAL CERTIFICATE

@John G Imrie

You mean "Has anybody thawte?", shurely?

The one with the dog-eared Jokebook, thanks....

Want to run your own Apple shop? Start with £70k of German chairs

Not just BMW, Merc and Audi...

I think every car manufacturer does it - one of my clients is franchised for Hyundai, Nissan, Suzuki and Fiat. They have a devil of a time meeting all of the standards, which even go as far as the paint colours used to paint cupboards and walls in the workshop, which is hidden from customer view. One of their sites has different areas of the workshop painted different colours in an attempt to keep them all happy...

iPad Mini: Why is Apple SO SCARED of the Kindle?

I will laugh so much...

...if Apple actually don't launch a small iPad later, but go completely left field instead and bring out a synthesizer or something. (I don't think they will, it would just be funny to see all the experts on the back foot)

Sony NSZ-GS7 Google TV internet player review

"Slicker than a brylcreemed ferret"

You just know I'm gonna work that one into a conversation now...

Everything Everywhere flogs 4G hand-me-downs to Three

Re: Three

Speak for your own bit of Cumbria please Danny 14 - I used to have a 3 phone until the site share they had ended, and was told that "it's ok, I see by looking at the coverage maps, if you just move 4 miles to your left, you get good coverage" (this is a direct quote from the call centre. Even the shop staff (whose phone I had to use) laughed at this). We get crap coverage from 3 in the rural west. YMMV - if I go to Carlisle, or even Workington, it's OK, Whitehaven's a bit meh.

Beck's open-source challenge to freetards: play it yourself!

Re: Won't be selling many of these...

Oh, like Photoscore then?

Devolo dLAN 500Mb/s powerline network adaptor review

@GrumpyJoe

There was a round up on reghardware a while ago for just such a thing - you swapped the socket faceplate for one with a single 13A socket and four RJ45s - something like this: http://www.etcelec.co.uk/Power-Ethernet-PE-200AV-T1000-Double-Socket-and-4-x-RJ45-Outlet-119

O2, GiffGaff network goes titsup for unlucky punters

Bloody phones...

Our phones are on a BusinessSharer tariff, and my personal and business numbers dont work, and haven't since lunchtime in sunny Cumbria. My wife's phone on the same contract doesn't either, but that's probably more to do with her introducing her BlackBerry to the inside of the washing machine than owt else...

Sky joins BBC for Olympics coverage

Re: How about

Was that a deliberate discworld reference?

Cable-cutting rogue engineer caused ultra fast broadband havoc

At least he'll be able to get a job with BT when he gets out - oh, wait, they only cut people off by accident... (they kept taking our LLU lines as they didn't have a dial tone on. Funny that, being naked DSL and all)

London wage slaves face hour of Cloud discharge a day - official

Re: All you need now...

If you're on a train, you're almost certainly standing, yes...

TSA bars security guru from perv scanner testimony

Re: false security theatre

I would have said you were joking if I hadn't seen this myself, at Edinburgh Airport, about 6 weeks ago. Pilot & Co-pilot walk to security - Security Guard says "You can't take that through with you" pointing at cup of costa coffee, and pilot & co-pilot then have to take off belts, money from pockets etc as does everybody else.

FFS, they're already flying the plane, it's not like they would have to work to hi-jack the damned thing!

Panasonic CF-53 Toughbook 14in rugged laptop

+1 for use in a workshop

ONe of my clients has got the big one like this, and 4 of the CF-18 with the touch screens for use in a garage workshop environment, and you can't knock them (no pun intended). Only fault is one needs a new touch screen, but they are all around five years old now, so really can't complain at the abuse they take from spanner-monkeys!

Pub landlady's footie sat-TV battle moves law's goal posts

Re: When the boot is on the other foot ...

>I'm going to get massively downvoted for this, but does no-one think this landlady is unfairly >exploiting a loophole?

Only in the same way that if I were in France i'd fill my car tank up before coming back to Blightly! And in this day and age, I'd take any competitive advantage I could as a business, quite frankly. Costs of everything are going up, if you can get football cheaper, then why not?

Google's Android 'let down' sinks iPad rivals - IDC

Re: consensus

Hmm. I have to confess a bit of bias here. I bought an iPad on release day (not as part of the madding crowd, but I happened to be near an apple shop anyways, and I wasn't going to drive two hours to get back to it another time)

I've really enjoyed using the iPad over the last few years, and it's still going strong now, and I still enjoy using it (when I can, her who must be obeyed has acquired it). I've bought countless Android tablets in that time to try and replace it, and none of them have really been capable of making me sit up and go "Yes, I want to spend time with this tablet" - and it's not like I've bought only cheap ones - I've had a Galaxy Tab (it was OK), Viewsonics (for the price, fairly good), Motorolas (Please, not again) Acers (not bad, but I'd rather have their W500 than the A500), some cheap un-named thing off eBay, and ended up selling them on in fairly short order.

Hardware wise, they've all been OK. Software wise, Android has potential, but for me, not being able to use a proxy server is a real issue and one google don't seem to be addressing, but the two seem to have been thrown together at the last moment by people who haven't actually talked to each other at all during the development process, which has been disappointing.

My latest attempt at a non-Apple tablet is the BlackBerry playbook - I didn't buy it until V2 of the OS was out, and it is a lovely little tablet with a cracking screen, a good browser, understands proxy servers, and generally plays very nicely. If I had to gripe, I'd like a longer battery life, and I'd turn off some of the bezel gestures ASAP, but I can see myself using it in 12 months time, unlike the Android ones. If anything though, it's crippled by a lack of decent apps - although the ones that there are tend to work well, unlike Android Marketplace where there might be 15 apps which are cr*p to the one useable one...

So maybe someone did come up with a usable alternative, but no one noticed it amongst the hordes of dross on the market?

BlackBerry PlayBook OS gets RIM spit 'n' polish

Re: Potentially history repeating

Yes, as one of the two people that used OS/2, the name is a bit worrying. But the PlayBook is a lovely little piece of kit, much better than my Samsung galaxy tab it replaced in terms of usability and build quality. I'd like to see RIM make a success of this as an alternative to the iPad.

For example, I'm writing this from a school network with a proxy server, without having to root and install random software from the Internet.

I never missed email as I tend to use my webmail anyways, but had I had it longer before the upgrade it might have been more of a nuisance.

Smart meter SSL screw-up exposes punters' TV habits

Great, you can spy on me...

Unless there's no mobile signal.

They came to fit one of the gas smart meters in my in-laws the other week.

Poor bloke turned up 3 hours late after problems fitting the one at the previous job, stuck his head in the cupboard under the stairs where the meter is and took out a signal meter.

Two minutes later, he was on his way as there was not enough signal on either of BGs preferred mobile provider networks.

It isn't as if they are in the middle of nowhere like a lot of our country, there on the edge of a large town. Until the mobile providers have a 100% coverage obligation, the current meters are doomed, especially if you live in an old house with thick walls.

Quantum computing comes closer as diamonds get spooky

@richard 12

Yeah, but let's be honest, if they had a bambleweenie, they'd only have wanted to sell you norton for sub-meson brains with it.

Anyone else think 14.99 for norton for tablets was a bit of a joke on their latest ads?

Huge PDP-11 in a lorry: How I drove computers into schools

The Idea Was Reasonably Sound Though..

We had something called the "SATRO Bus" when I was at school. SATRO was a government funded initiative in the eighties to get more kids doing technology stuff at school, and because we had a lot of small schools in rural locations and not enough staff to train, they went out and bought an old Leyland National bus from the local bus operator (Cumberland Motor Services), and the Leyland factory helped convert it. Originally, it had some whacking huge satellite dishes so they could show you pictures from the weather sats, a couple of computer controlled lathes, routers etc to do technology with, and 16 BBC Model Bs.

I actually got to help when they upgraded it to 16 Technology for Business 486s...

After SATRO was disbanded in the 90's, it got bought by Kendal College to do a similar job, but sadly after a number of years with them was replaced by a small minibus in the early noughties.

It drove all round the county, and worked really, really well - the guy who drove it was my boss for 4 years after he finished with SATRO, and even now staff and ex-pupils remember him as that bus driver with the computers...

Pint for Jeff the bus, might not even be working in computers if it wasn't for you and your colleagues...

Now Barracuda bitten by Thai disk drought disaster

Lappy drives as well...

Bought 3 ST9160412AS in September for 26.80 plus vat each, a single one now is listed at 110 quid... I might wait a while before buying any more...

UK CB radio crowd celebrates three decades of legality

CB Radio always makes me think of a Mike Harding sketch:

Mike Harding did a CB love song way back when. The song is at the start of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2JlTPTybfs&feature=related, but the explanation is from around 5 minutes into http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGxoV4djsaI

Jaguar recalls over 17,600 X-types in the UK

Smudge - here is your prize - it's a left hook, courtesy of our ex-deputy PM ;)

A couple of points...

Firstly,TeeCee - apparently, pressing the brakes won't switch off the cruise control in the error state, or at least, not according to my reading of the 4 letters I have from Jag so far... And the CC on the x is different to the mondeo - it's more like you describe the GM one - up/set, down, resume, cancel, but no on/off like the mondeo has.

Secondly, Im told by a ford master technician that it's similar to a problem with the ranger they had a couple of years ago - recycled code that someone has just noticed, perhaps?

Thirdly, this has been out a while, as I got one of mine done, but then Jag suspended it as it had a nasty habit of frying ECUs, and I haven't been told that it's been restarted again cos I'm still waiting for the other one to be done.

Finally, most importantly, so listen up El Reg, it's not just 2006 to 2010 cars - there are some '55 plates affected, including mine. Bugger.

Would you let your car insurer snoop on you for a better deal?

Gonna really upset you now - Adrian Flux insure my 6.2 litre V8 Rolls Royce for £129 per year, unlimited mileage and any driver over 25.

I wanted to insure an MX5 as a weekend/nice weather car they wanted around £700 per year for that as I can't get classic insurance on it, and as my day to day insurance for a 2.2Diesel Jagdeo is in the region of £700 I'm going to sell it an buy an old XJS convertible...

Ok, I'll bite...

If I actually believed that they would reduce the premiums rather than just go "No, 'cos see this sudden breaking event here?" when you'd stopped sharp to avoid some lunatic pulling out of a side road.

And how does it know if it's me or the wife driving, cos presumably you can have more than one driver insured on a car? I'd guess it's a marketing wheeze rather than a genuine attempt to do anything serious....

Android bug lets attackers install malware without warning

I thought he'd made an app, which installed more apps without permission? Ok, it posed as a wanted app, people agreed to give it permissions, then it snuck some other apps in without telling anyone?

Once he'd got the Trojan on, it didn't matter where it came from, as it presumably went off to it's own headend to get the software rather than from the marketplace.

I completely agree that it's down to proper vetting of apps before they are released - with iOS, you never rally had to worry about apps on the AppStore, but I do find myself being mucn more careful on marketplace, but if any hacker would care to write some malware to stop my phone randomly rebooting, I'll take it!

'iPhone 5' chippery captured on camera

I thought it was a full size sim as well

but it's difficult to judge the scale on these. I did notice it appears to be on the side, instead of the top as well. Ok, it might just be a prototype, but given the fact its been in the same place on previous phones, I can't see them moving it now. I wouldn't be suprised if it's a hoax, or some disinformation, but i'd be suprised if it was the next iPhone.

M-Audio Keystation Mini 32

@Tim Walker

Tim,

Can your friend not get an educational license? My father who has just become a music teacher by doing a BMus and a PGCE, and is currently on an MA got one, and my wife who is a music teacher got one also - total cost to each of them was around £80?

Might be worth trying Pugh or someone of that ilk, as most people with an sch.uk or ac.uk address should qualify?

Apple finally purges Mac OS of disgraced DigiNotar certs

A Downvote for a question? Seriously?

Thanks for the info AC, the update must have slipped by me, as it's been a busy 6 weeks for me since schools finished in july.

But which f*C@%ng idiot downvoted me for asking a question to which I didn't know the answer? I was actually hoping that Apple had fixed the issue on iOS as well as the update info wasn't very specific. Hey, I don't like the fact that they haven't fixed it yet either, but that's no call to take it out on me!

El reg, if this is the response of your commentards, forums attached to a story ain't the way to go - no one will ask anything as they'll end up flamed to a crisp.

ios4.3.5

Is this why my iPad has just had an update thrown at it? The update said fixes a certificate security issue, but that was about all. 2+2= and all that...

Claimed DigiNotar hacker: I have access to four more CAs

@the solution

Seriously? Is that meant to be sarcasm?

TomTom fights falling satnav sales with iPad app

On the Other Hand...

On the other hand, I have a really good satnav in my car. It's tied in with the audio system, and works very well. In fact, it beats TT hands down. So I said goodbye to my TomTom and just use that now. It gives better instructions, has a decent sized screen with clear directions, and doesn't block any windscreen at all. So I won't be buying a silly TT app for my iPad either. Not looking good for TT really is it?

A Farewell to Oates: Adios, El Reg

Good Luck

I'm starting to worry about working conditions at el reg...

That said, all the best for whatever you do. I'm might even try a "breakfast beer" in toast tomorrow (pun slightly intended)

Cheers.

Ultra-cheap HP TouchPads to hit UK at 6pm

<sniff sniff> is that fish or rat I can smell?

When I told the missus about this, she fancied one to play with rather than an iPad, especially at that price. Both the Pc world and currys I tried this morning had never had stock, but they seemed to be satellite branches of belfasts larger stores, so possibly...

Pc world site still shows them as "in stock for collection of home delivery", but when you click on link, they're unavailable and they try to sell you and advent tab. Now I've got to disinfect my eyes.

Argos have stock at full price, cpw have very definitely got no stock, and go so far as to say don't even ring us to ask when we're getting it back in stock, comet don't mention it at all.

Call me suspicious, but yesterday, there were hundreds of thousands of these sitting in the channel. Surely to goodness, they can't all have been sold overnight? Or have they built a temple out of them to sacrifice HP on?

I'll give our local store a try tomorrow, but I'm not holding out much hope, so I guess I'll just have to keep saving for the ipad2 with 3G.

Apple eyes phallic iPhone, iPod charger

Genius plan...

Yup, patent something completely stupid, wait til samsung copy it, and then either

1) they'll fail and go bust

2) they'll electrocute all their users and go bust

3) sue them for breaching your patent and they'll go bust.

Either way, it's goodnight s2 and a win for the home team...

The curse of Google?: Android licensees fail to cash in

@Samster

Yes, android market is simple to use. But if you put an app in Apple's AppStore, it appears on all devices - iPod/iPhone/iPad. Not all applications appear on all devices in the android market as not all devices are capable of running all apps. As a techie, I get that, but I would hazard a guess that most of my users won't grasp that, because it hasn't been explained to them - and if your phone doesn't display "AngryBirds", but your mate's does, it's gonna look like your phone is cr@p, regardless of how good, bad or indifferent it is.

And that's before you start not being allowed to use the market on devices because they don't fit into one of google's pre-defined boxes...

Aussie ALDI withdraws infected greybox offering

@David D. Hagood

Surely that's silly to format a perfectly good hard drive every time you buy a new one...wouldn't you be better off doing it to the new drive ;)

Hey! My friend is sending spam

Now I understand..

This has happened to a friend of mine who isn't computer literate. Last Friday, she asked why she had to keep going through a password recover thing because of "some message when I try to go on my email". It seems that she gets a message, which presumably tells her that her account is being suspended as a spammer when she tries to login, and invites her to do a password recovery, which she does every time. Either she's not reading the message, or she's reading it but it doesn't mean anything to her and cant remember enough of it to explain to me, but at least now I know why it's happening and can explain next time...

She mightn't be computer literate, but she ain't thick, so this could have done with more publicity so people like me knew about it before it went live, and a better written message with some advice on why the account has been suspended and what to do about it...

Atlantis computer goes down: Fixed by 'nauts

Hardly a great advert though...

Seriously, would you buy a car that the manufacturer described as "handling like an old truck on a washboard"?

Netizens mobilise to recover precious stolen guitar

@AC 12:01

I have all of MY instruments insured. But that's the point, they're MY instruments, and have been through a whole bunch of scrapes, concerts and experiences with me. I can soon buy another sax, but the point is, it's another sax - not MY sax. Two instruments, from the same manufacturer, made in the same way with the same sort of components, are not the same - each instrument has a unique soul that can never be replaced. Any musician will tell you something very similar.

Samsung to refresh 7in Galaxy Tab this September

@Rmartin,m gale

2.3.3 is here? Just bought mine for rock bottom price SIM free, and updated it more or less as soon as I got home? Early June, admittedly, but even so...

BT earmarks 66 more exchanges for fibre-to-the-cabinet upgrade

Grrrr.

So, living in the countryside, I get to pay more for a slower connection than a town dweller, which irks, but this list is good news. Yup. No exchanges within 100 miles of me being done still, so I can chill out as none of my friends will be able to rub it in my face that They're on an upgraded exchange. Yay, go BT!