Posts by netean 71 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jan 2008
Is it really though?
When you factor in, the hardware support staff you need, (possibly with training for said staff) with 24/7 cover
Backup / Disaster recovery costs
Possible server room/hosting costs
Potentially additional security requirements
Ongoing maintenance
Depreciation and update/replacement costs/planning
Whilst this sounds like a very cool technological advancement I just can't get my head around why anyone would be using it?
How often would you need to phone someone and speak to them if neither of you have a common tongue. International business is pretty much done in English and how likely are you to want to do business with someone who doesn't understand you? How many of your skype, or email contacts don't speak English (at all) and of those one how much actual benefit will you get from real time Skype translation over cut and paste Google Translate via email?
If you're not using Skype to talk, then i can only think that you're using Skype for cam sex and in those kind of situations if you're talking you're clearly doing it wrong!
I'd be interested to read how either of these stack up against the Nook Simpletouch or GlowLight.
I've got an old Kindle (3?) with the keyboard buttons. Still going strong after 5+ years,
I'm still also unclear why ereaders are so damn small, sure they're fine for reading fiction but where are the larger sizes for text books, or visual impaired readers
What a terrible video, totally unrealistic.
Like all US Cops he was clearly supposed to shoot the "perp" once he dropped his weapon, but maybe he couldn't because he wasn't running away or maybe he were going to easy on him because he was white and just beat him up with his nightstick!
Worst series EVER and I'm glad it's over at last. 12 utterly disappointing, instantly forgettable episodes.
Looking back at Jenna Coleman's character, she started really well (I thought), a really interesting, strong character and to see how she's has been reduced to being just so boring, just so empty, it's a real shame. Not so much character development as character reduction.
I never thought I'd get to the stage where I'd given up on DW, I stuck with it through the Colin Baker dire scripts and the Bertie Bassett alien for Sylvester McCoy but I just don't want to watch anymore, it's not DW any more.
It's a steady stream of dull, poorly written scripts and stories. It just feels like it's lost it heart and soul.
Nothing against the cast, I like Peter Capaldi and think he could be excellent. I think the problem is Steven Moffat - he is a great writer and I like so much of the stuff he's done, except Doctor Who.
I think Peter Capaldi is good, the problem I have is the stories and writing. There's no doubt that some of the old school episodes were at times terrible, there were also some absolutely brilliant stories, but they were almost always at least 4*30 minute episodes, some were 6 or 8 episodes. Enough time to write characters and stories that could develop.
Now we're stuck with 50 minute episodes 10 minutes for the set up 30 minutes of trying to build a story until a lacklustre (fix it all with a sonic screwdriver) damp squib of a finale.
...and it's all a bit "samey" now too.
Too much expositional dialog, too much sonic screwdriver pointing that "magically" explains everything and everything works out fine in the end.
I disagree, it's not corruption. I used to work within MoJ IT and it's actually the opposite. People are terrified to do or say anything that may give even the tiniest idea of a glimmer of an corruption. The service is crippled by the fear that it won't be seen to be whiter than white. No one wants to take the blame so no one will make a decision, hence why it's only within the last year than they've finally had the go ahead to "upgrade" from IE6 as the sole desktop web browser and have no plans to upgrade from XP.
Any change that happens to the MoJ IT is pushed upon from outside.
I think Genesis of the Daleks is certainly one of the best, if not the best Who story. It's very well written, it's well acted, it makes sense and the whole Nazi/Eugenics sub theme is done very well IMO, thanks to the excellent writing of Terry Nation.
I'd also add Earthshock to this list. Certainly the first part of the story is just superb, the second part falls down a bit - especially as the Cybermen have always just been a bit naff, but add to the fact that they kill of a main character at the end, it's quite a departure from the usual "everything works out in the end" storyline.
Several reasons (and i say this as a die hard Linux user by the way)
Linux is NOT suited to enterprise level rollouts
Almost every business on the planet runs Active Directory: There is not (yet) a viable alternative to this in the Linux World - (Samba4 , Resara, 389, etc are not simple drop in replacements -or don't have the same functionality or maturity)
Training: Most enterprise staff are Microsoft trained - Big investment shifting them to linux
The "it's different problem" When 90 of an office staff spend 90% of their time using oulook and Word. ANYTHING that is remotely different will floor them.
Sharepoint or Office documents: Good luck migrating to a sharepoint alternative, or finding any linux office application that will flawlessly migrate all your Word/Excel macros without problem.
i don't say this to troll, as I passionately believe that Linux can be excellent and there are some brilliant things out there: Openchange for example (drop in replacement for exchange)
Sadly Linux on the enterprise desktop, just isn't going to happen anytime soon
Q: What kind of organisations buy Lenovo: Enterprise
Q: What will they book looking for in a Windows 8 Start menu: Clean, unclutter, WinXp/Win7 like drop down/pop up menu without ads, without security risks and without showing stuff to their their users that won't be able to install due to their group policy and non administrator status.
Q: What have Lenovo produced: More Crapware that an self respecting sys admin will remove instantly
Q: What have Lenovo done by doing this: Given yet more reasons for their main market to stop buying Lenovo. As if the "lenovo give the chinese govt a back door to your computer" rumour wasn't enough, As if Windows 8 wasn't also enough. Let's add a gimmicky, pointless, bit of cruft that doesn't match our target market or meet the needs of anyone at all.
Q: What will be the end result:
Dell. HP, MSI, Asus, Acer, Sumsung etc all make gains while Lenovo loses
Shame, I was hoping for a more generic media playing experience rather than a Google walled garden approach of apps that they individually provide support for.
For the same money (£25 +£5 SD card + £5 plastic case) My Raspberry pi is vastly superior (although I imagine also slower) I can watch and record live TV if I plug in my USB TV adapter, or stream live TV from BBC iplayer, 4OD, or TVCatchup. With a variety of addons to XBMC I can stream the latest movies, latest TV Shows from all over the world. I can play local content or stream directly from Mega.co.nz accounts, Google Music, Dropbox, Box or any other cloud provider, or from any device on my home network. I can stream content to other devices, including my Android Phone and Tablet and use a variety of devices to control it (TV remote, wireless keyboard, android phone etc)
I just can't understand why I'd ever want a Chromecast instead of a much more versatile Pi?
Search is bloody awful as a primary method of interfacing with a computer. Gnome Shell, the god-awful Unity and Windows feels otherwise. For me, a power user it's fine, it's actually how I tend to run apps. In windows Win+R then the app name, in KDE (my regular desktop) Krunner does the same. FOR ME, a touch typist, it's quick and simple.
For my 78 year old mum, it's bloody awful "you mean I can't use the mouse?" she says.
"well you can, but it will take forever" I reply.
But as she isn't a touch typist, isn't even familiar with a keyboard layout, taking her away from a menu and mouse icon is painfully slow (and painful for her hands at times too)
Moreover, Search is only useful if you KNOW in advance what you're looking for. I know that my web browser is Firefox, Opera, Chrome, etc and my email is Evolution, Thunderbird or Kmail. for "normal" people they don't give a monkey's toss about the name of their application to a lot of users they have "The Internet" and Word. and that is pretty much all they ever use or care about.
Search is great for power users, great for touch typists or fast "hunt n peck" but it should be the alternative, the secondary way, the way you interface when you grow skilled or when you're totally lost, in that case, you need to search to be clever, and in my experience it's only clever if you know the right geek speek.
We've spent the last 30 years getting used to interfacing with a mouse or a mouse style pointer (touch being a fairly natural extension of that method) Now with this move towards typing Microsoft is forcing people away from usability and demanding they learn how to type in order to interact with your pc.
Search is probably great for me, great for you too, as you're geek enough to be reading this, but for normal everyday "real" people (with lives outside of the computer) it's a bloody idiotic methodology.
in the *cough* *cough* 20 something years since I had my first hard drive capable PC - Amstrrad 1640.. that smoked the competition with it's 40Mb drive. I've had exactly 2 personal hard drive failures and just 1 single drive fail in a server room environment (the raid controllers in the server room, there's another story!)
1 of those drives was poxy portable hard drive that I might have been a teensy bit careless with and trodden on as well.
Yet solid state fails with alarming frequency, the CF Card in Apple Newton being the first, but SD Cards for my cameras fail frequently, as did the 8Gb solid state drive in my Acer Aspire One, luckily I'd just bought a 60Gb replacement (non ssd) drive for it when it did. 60Gb.. not much I know, but with everything fully loaded on to it, I've still got a spare 30Gb free.
What do you people do with your machines to consume so much space so quickly?
I bought an original San Francisco about 18 months ago. Of course it kept the orange crapware infeste OS on it for all of 10 minutes. But I have to say it's the best £100 I've ever spent. I've nuked it and put on custom Rom and custom Rom so many times now, I've installed app after app, Of course the camera on it is all but useless but I have a real camera for taking pictures. I had a working version Android 4.0 on my ZTE way before my fellow HTC Desire loving colleagues as well. Ok, like for like, it's not a patch on a Desire HD or later, but it's been the most fun, the most flexible, the most well use bit of electronics I've ever owned. Currently it's doubling up as my phone, my skype phone, my wireless router, my firewall, my wireless proxy, in conjunction with my Google Music account it's also my wireless music DLNA server and it's running my two of my php driven, mysql development test sites too. Despite me throwing on some of the ropiest custom bleeding edge ROMs I could find, it's not let me down, not even once. For any price I think it's been great fun, but for <£100 at the time it was a bargain IMO.
WHen it comes to replacing it, I'd have no hesitation about buying another cheap as chips ZTE
Can't help but think that Nokia's Microsoft love affair will be the death knell of Nokia. A once mighty, lovely platform, Symbian was great in its day (and maybe still could be, I don't know as I haven't seen the N8 in action)
Meego, on the surface looks a great idea, and a great platform, that Nokia could have developed to whatever specs they needed rather than retrofit Windows crapness.
Sad to say but I suspect that in few years we'll be lamenting the demise of Nokia and they'll be the Singer Sewing Machines of the 21st century.
Considering how old this game, I still think it holds up amazingly well - the dialogue is snappy, gameplay is still good, puzzles still challenging and amusing.
A lot of the SCUMM games are actually superb in many ways and most hold up suprisingly well in terms of gameplay.
There was a time that Lucas Arts Games were a dead cert quality game. You didn't have to read a review, you just knew that it would be quality, quality acting, dialogue, gameplay, story, animation etc.
I'm hard pressed to think of a single title that Lucas arts have released in over a decade that doesn't suck donkey c*c*. (If you even dare mention KOTR - I'll come round and slap you, a game so boring and devoid of ambiance and "star Wars-ness" that the developers should be shot!)
I can play many of Lucas Arts old games again and again and again (as I can with many of the non LucasArts SCUMM games)
I wouldn't touch any of their modern garbage with your ten foot pole, let alone my own.
Perhaps sales are disappointing in Japan because 3d is a pointless technology that gives little (or no) benefit to the programme or film being watched. Far from enhancing the viewing experience, 3D Cinema or TV just ads more distraction.
Just because you can build a glasses-less 3d television doesn't mean you should.
Perhaps rather than silly gimmickery to entice people to watch their incredibly expensive television sets, they should invest the money into production companies making more engaging and less gimmicky television programming.
What this doesn't say was how the data on the HD was protected. I work for a government agency, and all our laptops require a Smartcard to boot, have PGP encrypted hard drives and in new machines TPM support turned on.
all the laptops do is boot into windows (2000 or xp) and the create once securely connected to our network start up our remote desktop software. No data is stored (or should be stored) on the laptop itself.
This has been true for... years (at least 5 to my knowledge)
So whilst it's never great to lose a laptop, I'd imagine that most government departments are similarly security focused and means there's minimal change of data being "recovered".
Whilst I can see why iTunes sync is important to some, I really wish they wouldn't iTunes (on windows) is one of the worst applications I've ever used. Certainly the slowest app I've ever used and the most frustrating and bloated pile of garbage ever invented.
ITunes is SO bad that I'd even prefer to use WMP over it (and when anyone would CHOOSE to use WMP over anything it shows just how much iTunes stinks)
I do remember a time, when users and admins alike quaked with fear at the thought of having to use notes or perform admin tasks on notes & domino.
It used to be a backward, awkward, pile of old-fashioned, unpolished quirkiness. Yet everything I'm reading about it these days makes it sound positively progressive and, yes, useful. Has it turned itself around from the olden days?
£45 for a 2gb MP3 player ! why would anyone pay that kind of money for that kind of functionality.
Just seen a similar player 2gb, clip (no screen) for £14 online.
If you're looking for a 2gb player with no ability to control what you play (ala shuffle) then there are seriously cheaper (and better) alternatives out there. Ones that don't tie you down to using poxy iTunes as well.
I love my 1G ipod touch, but call me silly, but I bought it to.. y'know... listen to music. and for that, it's not all that good.
I'm tied to the goddawful iTunes.
I can't edit playlists on the machine (have to use iTunes for that) nor
create more than 1 "on the go" playlist at a time
can't customise eq settings
can't have custom EQ settings per track/album.
still can't properly use either of the FM transmitters that work on other ipods.
in all this big rush to make a games machine, to make it a web browser and PDA like gadget they've consistently forgotten the most important thing. MUSIC
it's a shame really as the latest incarnation notes is actually pretty damned good. No really, it's actually really good. voip/im integration. symphony integration etc etc
Notes has been one of those apps that people have ragged on (myself included) for being terrible, and it really really was. Hideous, but... its way way better than it once was - sadly the same cannot be said for vista
I had a vista laptop - never ever again will I trust Microsoft, the next machine I have will either be a mac/hackintosh, linux or xp until xp dies a slow and quiet death. Vista was not fit for purpose, slow, very very very slow, ate system resources and took a well specced laptop and made it run like treacle (even after SP2).
Once vista died again (it seemed that every so often it would fail to boot and require re-installing) after the 3rd failure I nuked it for XP and it flies!
Vista is horrible - despite all the hype for Windows 7, it was the same hype that evident for Vista so I'm not getting burned again
Notes OTOH -I'd invest in tomorrow (if I needed to)
In my mind at least, Notes is a WAY WAY better brand than vista (despite old notes being the worst application I'd ever used)
having downloaded and watched this today (thank you bit torrent!) I can see it was definately hardcore.
gruesome, and realistically gory. After watching it I felt truly a bit disturbed and shaken. But y'know what, that's a good thing. In a world of Transformers and G-force and Ice Age 2-3-4, 15 etc.. It's important to have films that make you think, may you FEEL something, experience something, even if that feeling isn't pleasant. It's made me think. And whilst it's in no way a pleasant watch, (you're watching people being brutally tortured) I'm glad I saw it. - but not all that keen to watch it again! (mind you, having sat through transformers 2 the other day I would say the same thing - only with that I'd have preferred to have spent those 2 hours doing something better!)
I've grabbed the english subs already, and am downloading it now.
It was released unrated and Uncut in German, so it's all over the torrent sites.
Thank you BBFC, not only in highlighting this film for me, but giving me the smug self satisfaction of getting one over on "them".
had they given it an 18 I probably would haven't noticed it. NOW i'm straight on the interweb to download a copy, I just HAVE to watch it now.
How to promote a film in 6 easy steps
Make it controversial
Make it VERY controversial
Push the envelope as far it will go
Get it banned
Watch the press hype it madly
collect $$$$$$$$$$$ / kudos / the next job offer.
I doubt I could ever be persuaded to try another Windows CE/Mobile device. They're just too clunky, too slow, too bloaty and the User experience is always severely disappointing.
For now I'll stick with symbian, sure has it's own issues, but at least it isn't windows mobile.
Umm mistakenly stated:
"heroin is instantly addictive".. sorry but scientifically this is actually NOT the case, heroin can be addictive but it is not instantaneous - nor is it with crack cocaine (although the latter can become more addictive more quickly)
Heroin takes time and repeated use to become addictive.
From a pharmacological point of view Codeine is much more addictive and you can pop down your locql supermarket and buy it!
stylistically, it looks quite nice.
functionality wise: what a pile of garbage... that would be fine if the phone was free on some noddy basic tarrif, but it's not. it's several times more pricey than my car (ok my car is crap, but still i bought a car for a lot less!)
motorola deserve to go out of business, they continually make the worst phones, with the worst usability, with the worst feature set, with the worst software.
can't see who this is aimed at, surely the Paris Hilton's of this world will have a diamond encrusted platinum coated jesus-phone and won't want nor need one of these?
After initially being incredibly skeptical, I've come to LOVE twitter and use it constantly. But I just can't work out Twitter's business model. How the hell are they ever going to make money?
As far as I can tell, their model is: Create site, become popular, and milk the investment until it dries up.
Expensive
DRM laden - I can't just give a friend my book when I'm done reading it - nor can I take it down the oxfam bookshop!
Requires power to charge or use
Requires book manufacturers to supply content (FFS make it cheaper than a real book it surely costs them a lot less to produce)
what about when the machine dies, how do I get my paid for books off the device?
£240 that would buy me a lot of real books.
I'm sure ebooks will have their place eventually, but real books seem much more versatile to me.
no iPhone fanboy here, whilst I think the iphone has some levely features, it's missing a load more (like not needing fecking itunes for a start!)
but: windows mobile, sorry.. been down that road too many times before, with the promise of improvements with each new iteration of the WM sputum.
why oh why oh why do companies go to all this trouble to produce something with such potential only to stick the pile of shíte operating system on it.
FFS accept it, WM is and always will be utter utter shíte, move on now and use something else.
BEing an iPod touch owner, I think the Mp3/music playing ability is the weakest feature of the touch. No playlist editing, no music management whatsoever (don't get me started on the lameness of the on-the-go playlist) - no ability to add or configure the equaliser, no podcast shownotes, it doesn't even let you display the full title of a track if it's longer than the screen width.
Don't get me wrong, its' a lovely lovely device for many things and I use it constantly, but I'm always disappointed by the lack of music related features.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
