Posts by foof

Toshiba launches latest MacBook Air beater

Stupid title

It can't be a MacBook Air beater if it doesn't run OS X.

And yes, the MBA blows.

GM shows off production electric car

Only in a four door?

Bleh.

Otto Z. Stern possibly dead at 57

One down

and only Lester Haines to go...

Maybe then we'll get back to IT.

Apple is Fisher-Price of sound quality, says Neil Young

Pot, meet kettle...

All this coming from a guy that can't sing one note in tune.

Christ, he makes Tom Petty sound as smooth as Sarah McLachlan.

French get pre-pay iPhone 3G

@Eric Dennis

I can buy an outhouse full of crap for for that amount too, but I wouldn't brag about it.

In order of usability:

1) Used Mac

2) iPhone

3) Outhouse full of crap

4) Windows Laptop

5) Compaq desktop

6) Any phone made by Samsung

Grissom bows out of CSI

Star Magazine or The Register?

I can't tell.

They both have the same kind of shit in them.

World fails to end as Palm ships Treo smartphone with Wi-Fi

Palm just doesn't get it

WiFi after all these years and they put it on the Windows version.

People don't buy a Treo because they want WM, they buy it because it runs PalmOS. This phone is totally irrelevant to the average Treo buyer.

If they come out with a 800p with WiFi and GPS, that will be news.

iPhone 3G to be in 'very short supply for weeks' - carrier

They can use Canada's allotment

With no viable data plan and a three year contract, we won't need them!

HTC Touch Diamond

Paragraph six, first sentence...

"Running Windows Mobile"

No need to read any more of the review. It's crap.

An iPhone with a keyboard?

No CDMA? Don't bother.

While the old farts look at anything without hard keys with skepticism, the line in the sand is networks.

They don't care about GSM, CDMA, TDMA or analog. They only want to know if it works with their current provider. Superior technology be damned. What good is an iPhone in a area with no GSM service when a rival salesman next to you is making calls on his CDMA Blackberry. Like it or not, North America is still primarily CDMA.

In Canada there is only one GSM network, and it has sub-standard coverage and outrageous rates. Our company has been waiting for the iPhone for over a year. Now that Rogers has released their rate plans, we can finally re-sign with our old provider, get our new Blackberries and forget about the iPhone for a few more years.

Hard keys? Pfffft. It's the network that businesses will choose. Hardware is secondary.

Stray left foot washes up on Vancouver beach

Dexter

The show was televised on a local channel just before the feet started washing up.

Coincidence? I think not.

Gamers love in-game ads, ad industry-sponsored survey reveals

That smell

It must be a survey from a marketing company.

I WAS a diehard Battlefield fan. Bought every version and expansion pack the day they were released. Except 2142. With paying for a game and then being subjected to advertising, EA lost me forever as a customer.

I stopped buying DVD's and started downloading them. Not because I'm cheap but because I won't stand for being subjected to a mandatory preview of upcoming releases.

With Sony's history of dictatorship, adding rootkits and now in-game advertising, they are another company whose products I can do without. It's a shame that Blu-Ray won. Sony doesn't deserve to be the god of HD.

AVG scanner blasts internet with fake traffic

Traffic

This obviously sucks bandwidth from the host but doesn't it also impact the computer running AVG?

For the few poor shmucks still on dial-up or with metered connections, visiting a minimum of ten sites every time you do a search is ludicrous.

Time for a boycott AVG campaign.

HP's VoodooPC challenges MacBook Air on thinness

Yay! A thinner laptop!

It would matter if it:

a) Wasn't a PC, and

b) Wasn't a HP.

Anyone know how thick the more functional and more reliable Etch-a-Sketch is?

Brits get iTunes movie downloads, rentals

Canada to get it in 2010

or sometime thereafter...

Is Vista ready for Business?

@Wolf

I had the misfortune to have to install software on a one month old HP laptop with 2GB RAM. It wasn't low end, either.

I'll quote Paul Probine; "Vista functions like a bloated asthmatic slug towing a caravan full of elephants to a carnival."

Maybe I'm spoiled by using OS X on recent hardware but my god, how can anybody think Vista is usable? Vista set PC's back 10 years. I've yet to see a new Vista machine run anywhere near as fast as an old machine running XP. Combine that with the fact that Vista has nothing worthwhile upgrading (downgrading?) for, and you get a recipe for an epic business failure. The best business OS, if you are forced to use Windows, was and still is Win2K.

Taser gun usage soaring among UK cops

Don't tase me, bro!

When it is becoming common to see videos of half a dozen cops standing over a downed victim - or should I say alleged perpetrator - and zapping him multiple times, it becomes obvious that the taser is the most abused weapon since the night-stick (applied in a dark alley). The new weapon of choice for today's coward on parade. (CoP)

TASER International states that no deaths have been directly caused by a taser, although they might have been "contributing causes". Last I heard, a mugger that scares someone with an existing heath problem to death, still gets charged for the death.

Cuts and bruises heal. A stopped heart, just because you were yelling at someone, could be more permanent.

iTunes to offer movie downloads on day of disc release

Not in Canada you say?

Oh, right. You didn't mention that. All Canadians get are some music videos and a few Canadian TV shows. The only use for an AppleTV here is to load pirated movies on.

HD media future may be Blu, but it's not rosy

No sh*t, Sherlock

The format with the most expensive hardware won. And most people haven't been exposed to the high cost of the movies yet because they can't even afford the player! Let's see a bunch of sub $200 players and then maybe the format will show signs of life.

We had a format that was good for Average Joe but Videophile Dork and his buddy Gamer Goof wouldn't let it be.

Dell waves goodbye to 1100 Canadians

Duuuudde, you've been Dell'd

Good riddance.

With Dell's reputation on par with eMachine's and Packard Bell, we don't need to support such a low end crap peddler. Better to send the jobs to India and not be associated with such wankers.

Microsoft kicks out third Windows XP service pack

@ STFU fanboys and FUD merchants...

"and as for the FUD..... do you realy think MS would deliberately screw up a SP just to try and sell a few copies of a OS that they have admitted has flaws... MS may uses some un-ethical business tactics, but they are not stupid."

They have a documented history of deliberately altering their software to act up in the presence of other companies software. They have been repeatedly caught doing unethical AND stupid things.

Pull your head out of your ass long enough to look up what "FUD" stands for and how MS invented it.

Microsoft soothes Vista pain with Bossploitation flick

OMG

They actually think they are still relevant.

American Apparel's tags start tracking your pants

@ Calling all paranoid fantasists

Funny how someone calling people that want to protect their privacy idiots is posting anonymously. Pot, meet kettle.

Apple MacBook Air Early 2008

It's not thin

Check the specs! It's the same thickness as a Macbook, only the edges are thinner.

For all the stuff that they took out of a Macbook to make it weigh less, and weight is the ONLY benefit of the Air, they should have priced it at $999.

If you need any add-ons such as the optical drive, you end up using more desk space than the Macbook, too.

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

Serious toe

That guy in the orange jumpsuit in the video on the Street View page seems to be rather proud of his package.

Blu-ray 'to bloom', now HD DVD's dead

I'll buy one when

they cost the same as a HD-DVD player six months ago.

Superior format be damned. (splitting hairs, really) Average Joe consumer lost out when Blu-Ray won. We are still over a year away from an affordable player and at least two years away from a $99 unit.

Why I downgraded from Vista to XP

The more things change...

The more they stay the same.

Here we are in the 21st century, with more power in a mobile phone than most computers of only 10 years ago and it still takes just as long to boot Windows and write a letter.

Pirate Bay hits ten million peers, one million torrents

one million torrents?

Maybe a tenth of them are active. It looks like they keep the old unseeded torrents around just to pad their stats.

BlackBerry gets fruity with Lotus

@Daniel B.

We haven't found a useful 3rd-party app for the Blackberry yet. In-house development is more trouble that it's worth too. Unless your company got suckered into Exchange there are better phones out there. With the network outages or just generally slow delivery and hardware failures, we're counting the days till the end of our crapberry contract. And the iPhone is currently on the top of our list for a replacement.

Will Microsoft parachute Windows 7 in early?

XP was a minor upgrade to 2000

NT5 was renamed Windows 2000. I still have a NT5 beta somewhere. XP is NT5.1. I lost interest in Windows after that so I'm not sure what 2003 and Vista version at.

The NT branch was completely separate from the 1, 2, 3.x, 9x, Me branch.

iPhone turns blue as IBM creates Lotus client

@ Michael Miller

"Meanwhile, all your users are looking longingly at Outlook"

The same users that click on attachments from [e-mail] titled 'this improtant pleese reed" ?

"...and your admins grumble darkly about how much more secure and easier to administer Exchange is..."

Then they deserve to be fired because they're idiots. The asshat that hired them should be canned too.

The Blackberry would be ok for mail if we could get any of them built in the last year to last more than two months. In five months every user we have with a new blackberry has had it replaced at least twice. The only reason a Treo would beat an iPhone is third party applications, and that is coming to an end soon. Email is critical to us, as soon as the contract is up on our crapberries, we're switching to the iPhone.

SMBs grasp Vista nettle

@Tom

"Just about everyone using XP should have tested Vista. The ones who have not even tested it have their heads in the sand."

We use(d) XP and did not need to "test" Vista. A look at the spec sheet and the requirements concluded that Vista gave us no improvements over XP, or Win2K for that matter. Eye candy does not make a business more productive. The fact that it took Microsoft this long and there is still no compelling reason to upgrade, we chose a different vendor for our next OS.

Centro a bright spot in Palm's quarterly results

Another Palm Fan

I'd sooner switch to a plain phone and a pad of paper before I'd use anything with Windows Mobile.

There seems to be no chance of a CDMA iPhone, and none of the carriers in my area carry anything Symbian either. Hell, even a free iPhone couldn't get me to switch to the only GSM provider here in Canada.

That leaves Blackberry and Palm. And I'll choose a Palm over a locked down Blackberry any day.

Dutch gov blows open standards raspberry at Microsoft

@Malcolm

"There are some quirky differences, but nothing to stop deployment."

Text to Columns in Excel. That is the reason we cannot switch to any other program. Something so simple, that has been around forever, is ignored in open source. Well, there is a lame, clunky and next to useless plugin for OO that when it's not crashing or doing random formatting, it's slow as hell.

We could be happy with full Office 97 feature compatibility. But as with most open source group efforts, nobody looks at the whole picture. Like Linux, everyone is chasing the latest and greatest without finishing the base first. (and no, I'm NOT a fanboy of that POS called Windows)

Canadian runs up $85,000 mobe bill

What's a mobe bill?

Something like an duck bill? or some nation's currency?

Anyway, did you hear about the guy that got hit with a $85000 cell bill?

Canadian cable giant slips Yahoo! name onto Google home page

"a lot like a wireless provider sending messages to a customer's cell phone."

and I've switched my wireless provider of 17 years because they started spamming my phone.

Counterfeit Vista rate half that of XP

RE: Everybody now loves XP?

Forced upgrades. Gotta love it.

Remember when an OS was something you ignored and it was the applications that were important?

Vista does nothing that W2k can't do as an operating system. I have yet to find a game that requires XP to not run on W2k after hacking the version check. Other than eye candy and bundled apps, there is no reason to upgrade.

Same for Office. 90% of the population don't use Office 97 to it's full capabilities yet they are "dinosaurs" if they don't upgrade to the latest "extra crap" edition.

Because of Vista my home is now Microsoft free. Within six months my workplace will be too. Thanks Microsoft, you've helped me see the light.

Rare bug blights Lotus Notes

@ Pascal Monett

Excellent post. So true.

We were using Notes for mail only and when we migrated our servers from Windows to FreeBSD, Domino became a casualty. It doesn't run under Linux emulation.

As Notes doesn't work particularly well with imap, we went lightweight with Thunderbird. All the users want Notes back. Not because Thunderbird was bad, but because they really liked Notes. These are the same people that go home to a Dell installed Outlook.

It is too heavy for just mail. Add a few databases and it shines. If we could get Domino to run under OS X or FreeBSD we'd switch back.

Apple gives MacBooks some Santa Rosa loving

re: Pricing

The top iMac is $2299 US at the US Apple Store. It is $2449 CDN, or $2620 US at the Canadian store. A difference of $321 US. 14% more to import? I don't think so. It cost no more to import from China to the US than to Canada. Even if they shipped from their US warehouse, which they sometimes do, it is only a brokerage fee of about $20. That doesn't explain the other $300 profit.

El Reg deploys (extra) comment icons

El Reg finally admits they've hit rock bottom

"Adios: I’m so furious that I am removing El Reg from my bookmarks."

"Where’s the IT angle?: This is self-explanatory. Feel free to add comment about how when I was a lad The Register had proper tech coverage, etc, etc."

If they realize they need icons such as these, there is little hope of them pulling out of their downward spiral into the depths of suckiness. Useless, biased hacks, and now attacking their readers. "Anonymous Coward"? (read: we don't give a rat's ass about what you say or who you are, just sign up so we can sell your email address.)

Last one out turn off the lights.

Artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince attacks internet

Who is Prince?

Maybe if he would spend more time on his music and less on tantrums and lawsuits he'd be relevant today.

"one of the greatest musicians and performers the last 30 years has produced"???

Don't get out much, do you? Even TPOH does a better job of When Doves Cry.

Top judge: put everyone in UK on the DNA database

View from abroad

As a Canadian who has never been to the UK I'm sure my opinion won't mean much, but...

@Peter Davies "We're not talking about a complete George Orwell society, just having a name/NI number against a string of DNA?"

It seems as though most of the news stories I read say how almost the entire country is under video surveillance. Fingerprinting children, now DNA sampling for everyone. Can't stand on a corner and pick your nose without being videotaped. Freedom seems to be only slightly better than China. What's next? GPS microchipping?

Not talking about a complete George Orwell society? You are already there, my friends.

US in move towards GPS-based air traffic control

What about small aircraft?

Try telling the owner of a old Piper Cub with no radio that he has to outfit his antique with full GPS so a tower can see him.

@ Orv

The altitude reported buy the transponder is usually taken from an altitude encoder, not the altimeter. An encoder isn't adjustable and has a fixed pressure setting ensuring all aircraft operate with the same inaccuracy.

The terrorists I party with

Well maybe,

if you upgrade your RAM and install a serial... err, sorry about that. I'm using language much too technical for a political mag like the Register.

Our leaders suck. Our media sucks. Life sucks. Blah, blah, blah. Better?

Can Osama keep Bush afloat?

What's that sound?

Must be my bookmark for the Register going in the trash.

Although I agree with most of this article, and found it quite interesting, this is not the place for it. Most people come here for IT stories and a bit of humor thrown in as well. There are many other sites devoted to politics. Left or right, there's a site for you.

Stories without an IT angle are becoming more common here. Now we have to deal with name calling ("Bushie" still applicable to around half of Americans regardless of thier support for GW now). I'm not American but wonder how long it will be before the Reg targets my country for slander.

Thomas C Greene obviously has a political agenda, which is fine. Just let him post it somewhere else.

El Reg lobs iPhone at Genius Bar

Reporting or whining?

Just because YOU don't like it and returned it, doesn't give you the right to demean people that do like it and are happy with their purchase. What an ass.

The Reg needs a way of blocking stories by author. At least put the authors name beside the story name on the home page so we don't have to completely waste our time.

This hack, and I do mean hack, needs to return his keyboard to the store as well.

Say goodbye to Office 2003, Microsoft tells PC builders

Freedom to change

Microsoft, for the first time, has opened the door for allowing people to switch to different platforms and programs. First with Vista and it's insane requirements there is no incentive to stay with Windows. Now with Office 2007 and it's completely foreign interface and incompatibilities, people can move to a different office suite without any extra hassle.

Our first attempt to roll out OpenOffice was a disaster. People were complaining not about formating, but how the UI was different. Now they look at OO as better than 2007. We have no problem asking customers to resend their documents in a more compatible format.

Now with hardware upgrades we are switching to Macs. Not because we have seen the light and are switching to OS X, but because it gives us the choice to run Windows, OS X or whatever.

There has never been a better time to break the ties and stop being locked into one system. Thanks Microsoft.

Best Buy amps up Apple volumes

Canada too

Best Buy Canada has been selling Macs for a long time too. It seems only the US was left out.