Posts by JPatrick

Brit unis get £7.5m of taxpayers' cash for cybersecurity PhDs

Just a quick point

I think it should be Royal Holloway, University of London. Not sure it is a university in its own right....

or as the students have been known to call it Royal Holloway Conference Centre (also a College)

Samsung Galaxy Fit Android smartphone

Can I be first to say....

looks like an iPhone to me...

Billionaire Zuckerberg kills to eat

I eat ...

Vegetarians....

That is all.

Rhapsody bristles at Apple subscription grab

Hi Ho, Hi Ho....

... it's off to Android we go...

Amazon Kindle 3 e-book reader

3G Roaming possibly only for wikipedia....

Reasonable review, but I agree with others here that the 3G is probably a better choice.

I have heard that 3G roaming only works for purchasing books abroad and accessing wikipedia only (although if you're on a Vodafone network you may still get full internet).

Not exactly a surprise considering what that might mean in roaming costs for Amazon!

Also there are some hidden features on the Kindle, not worthy of a review here but Minesweeper, screen capture and a picture viewer are all there... (see a weblog called GeoPlanIT for info)

Group Test: smartphone satnav apps

CoPilot on HTC Magic (Vodafone)

CoPilot on my HTC Magic is excellent (okay I had one or two crashes, but I think that could have been my car charger playing). I used it in Germany and the Netherlands as well and it didn't steer me wrong!

For the price it's very reasonable.

UK.gov drops Home Access scheme

It's a shame...

I think this scheme was a good idea, not everyone can afford what some might consider a 'luxury item', I personally think that a PC and internet access in our society is very important and practically essential. Considering all the government departments who seem only accessible by their websites. Children whatever their parents situation should not be left behind the majority of society, computers are used everywhere and our workforce needs these skills. The cost of a computer and some broadband, is probably cheaper than allowing someone to have a skills gap that they take with them through life.

The rightwing cry of "I work for a living" therefore my taxes shouldn't go to help people, is just mean, silly and misses the point. I am proud that we as a society look out for the less well off. Being part of a our society means accepting that. The alternative is everyone out for themselves and I'm sure we don't want that.

phew, I'll get my coat....

Boeing's 'Phantom Eye' Ford Fusion powered stratocraft

I'm assuming this is the USA version of the Ford Fusion

because I don't think the engine in my "Fiesta on stilts" is up to the job....

http://www.ford.co.uk/Cars/Fusion

Steve Jobs beheads iPad apps for acting like desktops

Perhaps you shouldn't have a business model ...

that is so reliant on a gatekeeper who is well within their rights to approve and reject your product for any reason at any time?

As for writing off Android, well that seems a bit odd? Surely to reject writing software for rival that is increasing its market share and increasingly look like a serious competition for Apple is cutting off your nose to spite your own face?

How a Tory gov will be the most tech-savvy in history

Ahh but....

... will he allow ID carrying people in same sex relationships to smoke whilst using twitter to apply for jobs via the cloud?

I quote from TheyWorkForYou (I love this information!):

"Voted moderately against equal gay rights. "

"Voted very strongly for introducing a smoking ban. "

"Voted very strongly against introducing ID cards."

UK.gov folds over Ordnance Survey map data

Mmmm OSData tastes so good....

Finally some OS data to play with guilt free...

Try this http://bit.ly/9oQjH3, its a MySociety cache of OS OpenData. You'll probably need software like ArcGIS (or an OpenSource equivalent!) to some of the datasets (apart from Codepoint which you could view as text its CSV file...).

NZ internet filter goes live - gov forgets to tell public

Crude censorship?

Reminds me of when I was living in a certain Middle Eastern country (almost pre internet days) we could get English language magazines, but they were censored with black markers! There must have been a room of people somewhere making sure naughty images and words didn't get through... of course things did. Annoyingly the markers often went through on to multiple pages.....

You couldn't help feeling that those who wanted 'naughty' stuff would quite easily get around this rather crude censorship.

The same is true today, this country wide filter will do nothing more than encourage people to use more sophisticated means of getting their 'fix'. This will surely make the authorities job of proving someone had been using illicit sites that much harder? Encryption technologies and sophisticated software to hide what you're up to is where people will go and then we will have a hard time prosectuting suspected offenders.

Gmail users howl over Halloween outage

Gmail isn't free

Gmail isn't free, we pay for it by looking at adverts that google serves up, we just don't give them any money for it....

I've never had a problem with Gmail and I use it pretty much everyday. If you're the kind of person that sees email as "mission critical" and even a couple of days down time is a huge problem, then may I suggest either setting up your own email server or paying someone else for it?

That said using your own server or paying someone else is no guarantee and hey some interuptions to service may have nothing to do with your servers paid or otherwise....

Just my two pence.... nothing to see here now move along....

Google Maps reborn as world's largest Monopoly board

Belly up already.....

Just went to have a look at the website and got the following (and more):

*****************

Apache 2 Test Page

powered by CentOS

This page is used to test the proper operation of the Apache HTTP server after it has been installed. If you can read this page it means that the Apache HTTP server installed at this site is working properly.

The fact that you are seeing this page indicates that the website you just visited is either experiencing problems or is undergoing routine maintenance.

************ etc. etc.....

Can anyone launch a website nowadays without it going belly up on the first second?

RIP Personal Computer World

and I was just about to get a subscription....

I've been reading this since as long as I can remember, my dad bought it first. Sad to see it go as this was one of the better pc magazines. I have noticed that the adverts have been getting thin on the ground....

Hope it comes back when the market is better!

The penguin because well I'm not sure....

Noel Edmonds defies BBC's jackbooted enforcers

I like doing what I'm told so here it is:

There is no IT angle to this story. What is it doing here? I am removing The Register from my bookmarks. Please cancel my subscription. I am also dissatisfied with today's weather. Please make the weather the way I like it. Keep the fixed width, as I like it. Goodbye.

Paris, because like her, I feel used...

OMFG, what have you done?

I like it ...

What's all the fuss? I like the new reg, I have two large monitors and it looks fine to me in all my web browsers (FF, IE, Chrome, Safari). Instead of f'ing and jeff'ing about things, perhaps people could make considered more polite responses? I wish people actually got excited about things that really matter instead. It also seems silly to use capitals to get your point across...

On another note: I hope reported problems for people with accessibility requirements are addressed, and perhaps those with PDAs/phones...

"Thumbs up" because I like it so there....

I liked the new icons...but...

I did miss Paris

US government forces military secrets on Brit webmaster

"Special Relationship"

Couldn't he have auto-forwarded these emails to GCHQ or SIS? Afterall it's not like the Americans don't tell us everything anyway, so they wouldn't mind..... now how do I post this anonymously?