Posts by Greg

eBay changes anger smaller sellers

@Shaka and his/her Shure SE530s

Arses! I've been looking for a set of those....on eBay.... ;-)

NINE POINT NINE PERCENT!

Plus PayPal on top! No way will people pay that much to list. They'll just bugger off to eBid.

What the hell is eBay's problem? People *enjoy* a site full of auctions and small sellers, because it's full of bargains and oddities. eBay seem determined to turn their site into simply a front-end for dropshippers and Hong Kong con artists. To hell with that!

Fujitsu intros 5.6in bonsai laptop... with Vista

That's...actually quite impressive

I'd be interested to see what it could do with a proper OS installed. Any idea on price?

Home Office reaches half-way hash in secure data handling

Well it's a start

Let's be quite frank - this is nothing like a perfect system. However, it's a damn sight better than previously! I just wish that the government would do things *before* a major scandal, rather than always being prompted by one. Encrypted systems should have been in use long before now. It's 2008 for Christ's sake.

Sats blunder firm sacked

@Cristoph

I believe the company they sacked off said that, not the QCA. And let's face it, they would. ;-)

Intel touts user-defined app cache Vista speed boost tech

Wrong question

"But the question remains, how many ordinary users will bother to drill this far down into their system to see if there is any appreciable improvement?"

The real question is: Who is going to upgrade to an operating system where this kind of crap is necessary to make your system's speed anywhere near usable?

Next Visual Studio going multi-screen?

This is a new feature?

Seriously?

I mean, come on. Every other IDE I've used lets me put what I want where I want, and always has. Christ, some of my *games* support dual monitors. Surely this can't be a new thing. Their software's not the best, but surely it can't be that bad?

COBOL thwarts California's Governator

I KNOW COBOL!

I got bored one Christmas a few years back, so I taught myself COBOL.

And I'm only 22, so I'll be around for a few years yet.

Perhaps I should give the Governator a ring? :-) Make meh some moneh!

iPhone 3G isn't necessarily

@Stephane

"@Greg : the 1700m fix you get is only the initial cell-ID location, it is not the final (A)GPS position (leave it some time). If AGPS does not work at least as well as GPS for you, have a pro configure your phone."

Or just....turn on...the GPS receiver?

@Will

"How exactly is AGPS not proper GPS?"

No offence intended (heh), but that has to be one of the most stupid comments I have ever read on this site. It's not GPS because it's AGPS! I mean come on!

My phone has both GPS and AGPS. With AGPS on, it says "here you are, to within 1700 metres." Wow, that's useful. With GPS on it says "here you are, at this roundabout, in this lane. You're in a blue car, and that shirt is hideous."

No comparison and certainly no contest. AGPS is absolutely useless. As is the iPhone.

Sony plans 2009 Euro OLED TV debut

Expensive

New tech is expensive to start with, and then Sony always charge about 50% more based solely on the word "Sony" emblazoned on their products, so....I think I'll go out and get my 52" LCD rather than wait for a 27" OLED that costs - if the previous screen is anything to go by - four times as much.

Dell offers glimpse of monster quad-core laptop

So it's...

...Not very portable, will have crap battery life, and will cost vastly more than it would cost to build the same machine as a desktop?

Sorry, but I've bought "monster" laptops before and they've turned out to be heavy, cumbersome, over-powered, over-heated and low on battery life. If you're serious about gaming, get a ruddy desktop.

AMD releases 'world's fastest' graphics card

Oh hell yes!

Thank you AMD!

Allow me to explain. The 4870HD is a great card, but I have a 3840x1024 desktop, so I need gobs of RAM on the card. My motherboard only supports SLI, so my current twin GeForce 7900GTXs are fine and dandy, but Crossfire for the 4870HD is a non-starter. This card gives me the power I want with the memory I need, at a bloody brilliant price. (Consider that my 7900GTXs were £200 *each*)

Nice one AMD! I'll bang one of those in my system as soon as I've sorted out this whole "buying a house" thing.

Lies, damned lies and government statistics

@Morons

Totally agree on the speeding. You know the rules of the road when you pass your test. You agree to them when you get your licence. Everyone knows the score. Then going on to bitch that you got caught speeding is just stupid. If you don't want to pay then don't speed. Going 35mph instead of 30mph on bog standard urban/suburban roads will get you nowhere faster. You'll either get caught at lights, or you'll brake for a bus, whatever.

But this wasn't an article about speed cameras. It was about the government doing its usual fingers-in-its-ears act whenever someone proves it wrong. And on that point I have to agree.

Carbon Trust: Rooftop windmills are eco own-goal

Photovoltaics for me

Apparently far better bang for your buck, and given the amount of electricity I use the payback period would be far shorter. Especially if I got a grant. ;-)

Cable broadband shines in Virgin Media Q2

Perhaps if they're now making these profits

They can remove the FECKING SPEED CAPS!

Kaminsky (finally) reveals gaping hole in internet

@Tom Maddox

Running Linux wouldn't help at all. One reason, really. Who in their right mind is going to be running a DNS server on anything other than Linux in the first place? ;-)

Rockstar confirms GTA IV PC edition

Oooh, there's a shock

A console exclusive that isn't! Shocking.

In any event, this is the exact reason I didn't buy it on a console. No point when you can play it on a machine with superior graphics and controls. :-)

US customs: Yes, we can seize your laptop, iPod

@Who will be the first

Aaah, but then if it's not *your* laptop, then it's obviously a BOMB! QUICK, CONTROLLED EXPLOSION!

Blu-ray to rule by 2011

I won't re-buy movies

Well, not many. I'll buy new movies on Blu-Ray, because there's not really much point doing anything else, but movies I already own - especially anything made before the mid-90s - will probably stay on DVD. If Outland wasn't filmed in HD, and no-one's willing to spend the time to re-master it in HD, then what the chuff is the point of owning it on a HD format?

Cash'n'Carrion: A lean, mean, fighting machine

Oh hell yes!

A shirt with a 48k ZX Spectrum on it! And another with the DeLorean!

Have you stuck needles into my brain to view my dreams, or was a long communal meditation session required in the office to find the very core of nerdism?

HMV lines up a few VAT-free CDs and DVDs

So lemme get this straight

If you're CD-WOW and you do this, you get shut down for being an upstart.

If you're HMV and you do this, it's OK?

Phht. Besides, it would take knocking the VAT off to bring HMV anywhere near affordable, never mind cheap.

Sony to bring E Ink eBook reader to UK in September

I want a Hanlin V3 or V9t

How can you have something against an eBook reader? My book collection is taking up space that could be populated with games! To convert all that text down to a single reader and a few SD cards would save me so much space it's frankly ridiculous. I can't *wait* to ditch all those paperbacks. It's impossible to keep them all in perfect nick anyway.

AMD Radeon HD 4850 and 4870

Regarding Crossfire

There is one situation, and one situation only, where Crossfire/SLI come into their own. Big displays. Really big displays. I'm running at 3840x1024, with two 7900GTXs (I'll upgrade before too long). In an ordinary machine, the difference between one card and two isn't worth the money. However, on a really big screen, having 1GB of memory instead of 512MB means something, and HL2: Episode 2 will run at full res on this machine, no worries. It sure as hell wouldn't with just the one card!

I would love to buy a 4870HD (or, as is far more likely, two), but this motherboard is all nVidia chipsets, so I'd need a new system core first.

Blighty's electro-supercar 2.0 uncloaked today

Hmmmm

Thanks to my brother's sound/lighting career, we have a three-phase socket coming out of our garage wall right underneath the main fusebox... Interesting...

Ten Tech Toys for Travellers

Nice list

I wonder if someone makes a turbine you can attach to your car. I do a lot of motorway driving... The backpack is great for nerds with bad backs (like me), and I *must* have one of those hands-free cameras for when I go snowblading this year.

Apple iPhone 3G

So it's...

...still not as good as my Athena?

Which is two years old?

Thought so. I've had GPS integration with Google Maps, a search facility on my contacts (you have no idea how hard I laughed when I read that bit), and all that other nonsense for ages. On top of that, I can actually do some work with it, and I can even do really advanced things like copy and paste! Hehehe.

Sorry, still too much fashion and not enough function.

Microsoft confirms 60GB Xbox 360

But what's the point?

Serious question. Why does this new version need to exist. Or is constantly releasing slightly different versions of the same thing Microsoft's way of "keeping things fresh"?

PC World pips Asus to UK Atom sub-laptop premier

Who beat who?

"PC World's own-brand Advent 4211 sub-notebook is essentially MSI's Wind rebadged."

So who beat who there then?

Nut launches death threats at Debian women

@Winston Smith

Scroll down a bit? You're using a widescreen monitor, aren't you!

Think tank slams paedophile paranoia culture

@AC

My own father was similarly accused, though of violence towards a youngster. Even after it was proved to be BS the mother still wanted him suspended from teaching! Fortunately the union took up his case and demanded the allegation be removed from his record, which it has been. Perhaps your friend could do the same?

Dell develops ultra-efficient server power supplies

I'm greener than Dell

Dell make crappy little machines that need chucking away every few years. You can't really upgrade them without a load of fuss, because all the cases are custom built to be as annoying as possible. Oh, you want a better processor in that machine? Well, you'll need a bigger heatsink than the barely-coping PoS we put on there then, won't you? Oh wait, you can't have one, because the PSU swings in over the CPU slot and we use our own custom wind-tunnel device to feed air to the CPU, so anything else won't fit! (I have actually seen this.)

Because you're chucking away your machines, there's no way you can offset that amount of waste + the energy required to make them by simply buying a more efficient PSU. The best way to stay green in the computing industry is to quit chucking stuff away and start upgrading. Kudos for creating a high-efficiency PSU, but when the rest of your business depends on the wasteful discarding of still useful machines, it's a bit toady to call yourselves "green."

Threat remains despite Safari carpet bombing fix

They "fixed" it?

But I thought it wasn't an issue? ;-)

They changed their tune rather quickly!

Sony confirms major PS3 firmware update features

I'm sorry, but...

...the last thing on my list of "Things I Want From a PS3" is that it's more like the 360. I've no interest in bragging rights or being able to call other players "douchebags" whenever I want. I want good games, good hardware, next-gen movie playback. That's why I'm a PS3 man. Let the people who want to sit online and exchange profanities with 13 year old American children buy a 360, let them buy Halo*, let them sit there with their brains ticking over. I'll be over here playing better/more interesting games, watching high-def movies, and not having my wallet rimmed for online play.

*I have actually started using Halo as an insult, it's that terrible. I apologise for its use in this post.

Bugs casts shadow over Firefox 3

@Odd AC

Errr...considering that IE still has the lion's share of the market...and that it's shite...you chose Firefox as the "poor but popular product" you wanted to whinge about?

Running FF3 on Xubuntu and WinXP. Both installations even share the same profile folder. Crashes? Bugs? Problems of any sort? Nope. It just works exactly like the old one while whapping out pages a lot faster. Even my add-ons work in both operating systems!

I hate to disappoint all the FF bashers that have suddenly come out of the woodwork, but from where I'm sat FF still kicks arse.

1,076 developers, 15 years, one open-source Wine

It's good for me

I dual booted my Windows machine at work a few days ago. Now I'm wondering why I bothered keeping Windows at all.

Oh yeah, Araneae.

Oh look, Wine.

Sorted.

NY street-cleaning truck swallows dog

New York Daily News - Speak Your Branes?

Holy crap, that lot are worse than BBC's Have Your Say.

OK, maybe not. But there's some interesting comments on there...

Becta schools deal stuns British open-istas

Don't use a massive commercial company

Use RedHat instead!

Wait...

Perhaps they get better service/value for money from the smaller firm? Size isn't everything.

Sharp pitches 'world's largest' LCD screen

Awwww

"Sharp's not saying how much the beast will set you back because it's offering the display entirely on a built-to-order basis. It's really aimed at businesses who want enormo-screens for conference rooms, shopping centres and the like."

But I want one!

Price

Just after I posted that, I found a website quoting the price as $100k. Ouch.

Foldable sports plane gives Everyman a chance at crashing

I love it, I want one

I've always wanted to learn to fly, and I didn't realise the Americans were so stupid that you can now learn to fly quicker than you can learn to drive, especially when *passengers* on other planes take more flak than this.

That thing looks like a right laugh. When I make my millions off the net and retire to Canada, I'll import one.

Have to go, it's time to wake up.

Windows Vista has been battered, says Wall Street fan

@rob

"Stop sign 'cos currently the detratctors are simply following the Apple media machine."

You mean you presume they are because it works for you, ergo it works for everyone else?

@ben edwards

Yes, a bunch of nay-sayers have created a lack of demand so vast they're down $49 million a year... Huge businesses that generally blindly buy any new MS product are not buying Vista. These must be some very powerful nay-sayers.

UK civil servant leaves Top Secret Iraq war intelligence documents on a train

Hehe

"The documents were handed in to the BBC which passed them to the police."

Not before reading them, obviously.

Mobile fingerprinting heads to another 10 police forces

And if you're not on the system?

Do you suddenly appear on the system?

Interstate web host foils gonzo porn baron Max Hardcore

8 and a half hours

Now that's some jury duty. Watch a full day's worth of porn.

HP's VoodooPC challenges MacBook Air on thinness

@adrian wardle

"Why is apple the only US notebook maker capable of making attractive kit?"

Because the rest of us are interested in stuff that works rather than stuff that's pretty. ;-)

British workaholics win EU opt out deal

Not sure about this

Somehow I doubt this is really being fought for the workers. Ra, workers can now earn overtime. BS, we could do that before. What this does is let employers increase the length of a working day even further (unless you're a middle manager, naturally).