* Posts by Richard Penna

12 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Jan 2008

Are West Bromwich Borg pliers actually side cutters?

Richard Penna
WTF?

You can't be serious...

... the first story was amusing, but this debate is now firmly in garden-shed-nerd territory.

Now please Google, don't leave any more <insert tool name>s on top of the camera box.

iPhone App Store bars mention of Google Android

Richard Penna

Just say it like it is Apple

"Providing future platform compatibility plans or other general platform references are not relevant in the context of the iPhone App Store,"

Quit f*cking around with words Steve, just say what you mean - you don't want anyone to notice there are products made by other companies. You're God. We get it.

And yes, I think it's relevant - the mention means it's a good app that people will want to buy.

US record industry wins $1.92m from file sharer

Richard Penna
Flame

Re. 1.92M

Do they honestly, I mean truly honestly believe that she's going to pay them that, or anything even in the same galaxy as that?

Not to mention the absolutely disastrous PR this is causing for them.

Entire class fails IT exam by submitting in Word format

Richard Penna
Alert

Are they mad?

Rarely do words fail me when reading a story, but this takes the biscuit.

Let them re-save their work, submit it again and give them their diplomas! What the hell is the board and school playing at - some 'life lesson'?

Firefox and Safari updates tackle alternative browser bugs

Richard Penna

Hmmm

"My pet flame: why th f**k does it tick download Safari by default whenever their is an update to Quicktim on Windows. If I want their brower I'll ask for it: THEN the update can tell me about it."

Because Apple and M$ are united in one aspect: they both think their software is supreme god of the universe and that WE should be giving THEM a damn good reason why not to use it.

My pet peeve is any time a spokesperson for M$ says anything to the effect of 'we want Windows users to have an enjoyable experience...' or 'this is without doubt the highest quality product we've ever offered'. Actually, make that any time Gates says anything. It's all hilarious bullshit.

Mr. and Mrs. Boring sue Google over Street View pics

Richard Penna

Jokes aside...

Having looked at the pictures on another site, I can see what the Borings are complaining about. Google doesn't have a right to march into a private residence and start taking photos.

Now maybe that $25,000 they're demanding is going a little far, but a removal of the pictures isn't an unreasonable request IMO.

Thing is, if it was a 'celebrity' 's home, there would be total uproar, front page news and an official apology from Google the next day. But it's just normal people so it doesn't matter.

Ban using mobiles while crossing street, says US legislator

Richard Penna

What?!

There are a million things more dangerous than talking on a phone while crossing the road, and to be honest, it's an individual's responsibility to consider their safety.

And also, how on earth would it be enforced? You can 'ban' stuff all you want, but people will still do it. The world is not a particularly safe place, just live with it and stop pushing these stupid rules.

BBC to put shows on iTunes 'next week'

Richard Penna

Re price conversions

I would love Jeremy Paxman to get Bill Gates and Steve Jobs in a room together, and refuse to let them out until they justify why they both charge double in the UK what they charge in the US. I remember Huw Edwards asking that question to Gates, and he completely let him off the hook after the lamest 'its all about economic/exchange rates... which I don't follow.. but, ummm I wouldn't expect there to be any... massive differences... ummm'.

Just admit it - you're ripping us of for something that in the digital case, costs $0.00 more to sell to us.

It's made even worse because we're paying the licence fee and the Americans don't yet they get it cheaper.

Google in mass 404 land grab

Richard Penna

Two minds

On one hand, yes, this could be a useful feature. I mistype things a lot, or if I don't know the URL then google is the first place I turn to anyway.

On the other hand, many sites' 404 pages contain a search box, or are just like a normal page on their site but with the error message where the content would usually be. Heck, some just have a link to the homepage, which is usually what you're trying to find anyway.

I'm not entirely against this from google, but I do think that when the toolbar is installed or upgraded, it should be made crystal clear to the user that this feature is being enabled, and give them a chance to disable it. Because I agree with the remark above about many users not knowing even what the toolbar is, let alone how to modify it. I helped a friend set up their Internet a while back, and attempted to remove the Yahoo search bar from IE, but when I restarted, there it was back again. If I can't do it on first try, many users stand no chance at all, and it could be considered unethical for google to take advantage of this lack of knowledge.

Virgin Media dishes out free bandwidth boost

Richard Penna

Yes, but...

I can understand where this bandwidth throttling idea comes from, but maybe VM have forgotten one little business principle: you get what you pay for. My household has the XL 20MB package, and for a good reason: we are very heavy Internet users. Heavy enough that when we get throttled from ~2.20MB/s downloading from a newsgroup, to roughly 500K/s, we damn well notice it.

I'm torn though between several stances:

On one hand, yes we are heavy users, and it may be affecting customers close by. That's how the Internet works and perhaps we should be more considerate. Wouldn't hurt to make this limitation a bit clearer perhaps?

On the other hand, if the infrastructure is such that there are noticeably adverse effects from those legitimately using the service to its fullest extent (and why shouldn't we - we're paying for it), then either a physical overhaul is needed, or they shouldn't be offering this sort of service.

CES moots move from expensive Las Vegas

Richard Penna

What comes with the hype...

This whole thing about inflated prices is just something that comes with the hype of a big show like this.

Half of me just accepts this, and the other half does feel that it's a bit unethical (to put it mildly) - it's like the stories we heard about hotels in London putting up their prices really high when the bombings prevented a lot of people from getting home.

Of course, those situations were not the same - I think the London hotels were being pure evil by profiting from those who had no choice, whereas people can choose whether to go to CES. Hey, stay in a motel instead, there's plenty of them - more money to spend on cool gadgets (no sarcasm at all btw :)).

'Draconian' Microsoft promises to make Office work again

Richard Penna

You really don't care about anything except your 'user concerned' image do you M$

Soooo....Bill

This is what happens when you geniuses decide that you know better than us how to take care of our computers.

First class tw@ts.