* Posts by Nick

62 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Mar 2008

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Microsoft's Surface Duo phone hangs up, drops out of support

Nick

Lunchtime and still only one comment

Doesn’t this say everything?

LG Electronics finally gives up cellphone business

Nick

LG - full of neat stuff that not enough of us appreciated

I've owned several V-series and am a big fan of their wired audio performance (and their ridiculously comprehensive support for bluetooth codecs). Apart from this though, there's no reason not to get a Google Pixel or mid-range iPhone (IMHO).

I'll probably get myself an external DAC and a cheap phone when my V50 gets obsoleted in a few years...

Mac OS X at 20: A rocky start, but it got the fundamentals right for a macOS future

Nick

I don't *love* MacOS, but I do like...

...the fact that its Time Machine backup (and restore) just works every time. This unlike anything I've ever experienced on the Windows platform, paid or otherwise (excluding several very solid disk imaging progs - but that's not really a backup)

Nick

Re: Its still a bit marmitey though

Who would downvote this helpful and polite post?

There should be an option to discount any future forum votes from these people as I don't care about anything that they say or do from here on in.

Tab minimalists look away: Vivaldi introduces two-level tab stacks

Nick

Re: Looks good

"Colour coded for memory, and brightness coding for CPU?"

@aidanstevens how do that in Vivaldi now? Sounds like a great trick.

Dropbox basically decimates workforce, COO logs off: Cloud biz promises to be 'more efficient and nimble'

Nick

Re: Literally decimates?

I made a bet with myself that this thread would be all about decimation and not Dropbox... I'm getting the hang of this place.

Nick

"More efficient and nimble”?

“More efficient and nimble”? How about a bit less crap and a lot less frustrating? That would be where I'd start.

Failing that, why not just buy Evernote and double-down on the useful-but-broken market.

Chap beats rap in WhatsApp zap flap: Russian banker walks from insider trading case after deleting software

Nick
Unhappy

Well corrected, but there is definitely something very nasty in our system though.

Soft press keys for locked-down devs: Three new models of old school 60-key Happy Hacking 'board out next month

Nick

From keyboard noob to Cherry-TKL-basher in under a week

Upgraded from my Dell's laptop to a brand new Max Blackbird Tenkeyless Backlit Mechanical Keyboard.

What a treat, and thanks for the steer to all who contributed on this thread!

The Rise of The (Coffee) Machines: I need assistance. I think I'm running Windows. Send help

Nick

The tea/coffee arc

I've been involved in quite a few new-build offices over the years and noticed that while the builders were in we'd have a great canteen serving real tea (and breakfasts) very cheaply but once the builders moved out and the workers moved in this would be replaced by feeble vending machines that no self-respecting builder would wash his/her boots with.

Ding-dong. Who's there? Any marketing outfit willing to pay: Not content with giving cops access to doorbell cams, Ring also touts personal info

Nick

My rule of thumb...

...for working out how much of mydata is likely to be slurped:

(Purchase price of "traditional" solution) - (purchase price of "alternative" system) = (value of my data to be re-sold)

For Ring home security I reckon: £400 - £200 = £200

So that's £200 of my data that Ring will have to sell to hit their target. Same goes for contract phones etc.

Apple: EU can't make us use your stinking common charging standard

Nick

Re: We should just all use SCART

How old are you? Did you ever use SCART? The bloody things were always upside-down and could work themselves loose from just the pull of the moon.

HDMI - now there's a standard (except it's still always upside-down)

LG announces bold new plan for financial salvation: Trying to actually make phones people want to buy

Nick

Re: Problem

Isn't this what Nokia is doing?

No Mo'zilla for about 100 techies today: Firefox maker lays off staff as boss talks of 'difficult choices' and funding

Nick

Re: Still my number 1 (only just though)

"Once we had tabs, adblockers and synchronised bookmarks, I was happy. The rest is just fiddling around the edges"

Exactly, because the vast majority of browser interaction is with what's in the window, not around it. It's pretty difficult to distinguish your product in such a case.

I'd be interested to see just how may people actually would go back to Opera were they to release the much maligned integrated mail client. I'd bet not that many after all.

It seems that this is symptomatic of the whole personal tech industry now, where phones, PCs, tablets etc. reached 100% functionality some years ago and the "new" features are increasingly peripheral to the fundamental purpose of the device.

Hold my Bose, we can do premium: Sennheiser chucks pricey wireless cans at travellers

Nick

Re: oh no!

I think that it might be the G5's socket that's bollocks, not the USB-C specification

Wham, bam, thank you scram button: Now we have to go all MacGyver on the server room

Nick

Re: Yep, had a very dodgy HP tape array in the noughties

and, with the addition of a bead of blue-tack, for retrieving small screws from below that utterly pointless raised base-plate that covers only 90% of the bottom of any given enclosure

Windows 10 Insiders: Begone, foul Store version of Notepad!

Nick

Re: Isn't this also usually followed by...

It's amazing what you can achieve in n++.

It might require an intermediate stage or two, where vim etc would let you do it in one line of (to me) magic, but wow.

Bose customers beg for firmware ceasefire after headphones fall victim to another crap update

Nick

Re: Why would you update the firmware on headphone?

That's definitely *one* reason, but there are also those who are so fed up with the product being half-broken on the current version that they're prepared to take the risk in the (vain) hope that it might get better.

(I'm thinking Windows here in case it's not clear)

Found on Mars: Alien insects... or whatever the hell this smudge is supposed to be, anyway

Nick

Re: No oxygen

But in the FDA's defence (this time) that's because the insects were once on the plant and removing them would involve more pesticides. Of course there could also be factory roaches in there too...

'Literally a paperweight': Bose users fume at firmware update that 'doesn't fix issues'

Nick

I'm very happy with this: https://www.whathifi.com/dali/kubik-one/review

I think that Bose gets a lot of flack from "audiophiles" due to its reliance on commodity drivers and software tuning rather than hand-built, beautiful-to-behold units made in a shed in Wiltshire. To my ears at least, Bose delivers a pretty inoffensive sound that can be listened to for prolonged periods without problem. It's only when you compare what else you could get for the investment that the whole Bose proposition falls down.

The abysmal software/customer service thing is just the future I fear, since most people *won't* vote with their feet, they'll just upgrade after a little moan on FB etc.

20% of UK businesses would rather axe their contractors than deal with IR35 – survey

Nick

Great, so 80% *are* going to deal with IR35. I'll take those odds thanks.

Facebook iOS app silently turns on your phone camera. Ah, relax – it's just a bug, lol!?

Nick

"If you do that, however, within a day the Nest app will prompt the user and explain that without access to their locations the app may not work properly."

This sort of thing does my nut in. My Bose headphone-manager app requires access to my location in order to run. Why on earth does it need that? As a result, I feel the need to keep installing/uninstalling these sorts of app once I've used them for what I need to do.

Same for airline, taxi, etc. apps.

I'm still not that Gary, says US email mixup bloke who hasn't even seen Dartford Crossing

Nick

Same here

I too bagged name.surname@isp.com as soon as they became available. I have quite a collection of impossible to remove associations, including:

- Australian kids' football club who are *very* annoyed that I won't just settle my namesake's debt

- South African Tag watch repair - who have had my namesake's watch for a couple of years, but won't talk to me unless I can tell them his postal address

- Several US department stores who want money

- Several genealogy sites answering questions I didn't ask

- A very angry lady who wants her passbook back

I tried quite hard to put these right at first but not anymore.

Heads up from Internet of S*!# land: Best Buy's Insignia 'smart' home gear will become very dumb this Wednesday

Nick

Re: We shouldn't have skipped the time when it was the Intranet of Things

Or - "There's an xkcd describing *every* situation"... if you have the time to look for it.

IT contractor has £240k bill torn up after IR35 win against UK taxman

Nick

I don't understand the point of tribunals, adjudication etc in this country. They are sold to us as a means to avoid expensive court cases for "small" disputes.

In my experience though,they are just a waste of time and money since if the "big man" wins then they win, but if the "little man" wins then the "big man" will keep appealing until "little man" runs out of money, time or (sometimes we read) life.

(I've recently "won" two frivolous adjudication claims with my builder who, on losing the second, declared himself insolvent, leaving me with the "joint and several" liability for the costs that *he* incurred)

Welcome to the World Of Tomorrow, where fridges suffer certificate errors. Just like everything else

Nick

Teen uses smart fridge to tweet after mum confiscates phone

https://metro.co.uk/2019/08/14/teen-uses-smart-fridge-to-tweet-after-mum-confiscates-phone-10569110/

(although the story seems not to be actually, you know, true)

From Red Planet to deep into the red: Suicidal extrovert magnet Mars One finally implodes

Nick

...or something that Billy McFarland cooked up?

A few reasons why cops didn't immediately shoot down London Gatwick airport drone menace

Nick

Re: RAF?

If they called in the RAF then perhaps we'd all notice that they don't actually have any planes left after all the years of right-sizing?

Marriott's Starwood hotels mega-hack: Half a BILLION guests' deets exposed over 4 years

Nick

Re: Kroll

Thanks for the feedback - I've now received my email, to the correct address, but the website still claims that my email is invalid.

I've spoken to a very nice man on the helpline who admitted that he's only there to handle to calls, he has nothing more he can do for me apart from pass it on to tech support.

sigh

Nick

Kroll

Has anyone tried to register with Kroll? The registration failed for me with an error and now retrying the process tells me that my email is already registered, but password recovery says I don't exist.

This doesn't make me feel more secure.

I've seen the future of consumer AI, and it doesn't have one

Nick

Re: Smash the spinning Jenny!

+1 for using the word meretricious

Nick

Cooking AI?

How about some AI that can work out that if, at 1pm on a Sunday afternoon, I want to print a recipe it would be better sent to my A4 plain-paper printer than my 6"x4" sublimation photo printer?

Just a thought...

Microsoft may have its groove back but it's binned 'Groove'

Nick

Re: Like I care

Version 1.0 - perhaps you should look at http://www.qobuz.com?

Essentially invisible: Android big-daddy Andy Rubin's hypetastic mobe 'flops in first month'

Nick

Re: yeah bun no but yeah but

Re. World Series - Snopes isn't always reliable, but this seems credible: http://www.snopes.com/business/names/worldseries.asp

"Negative evidence is easily uncovered by reading accounts of the first few World Series in the major newspapers of the era. The first several contests between the two league champions were reported under a variety of titles — “championship series,” “world championship series,” “world’s series” — before eventually becoming standardized in name as the “World Series.” If the name had derived from the New York World‘s sponsorship, it would have been known as nothing but the “World Series” from the very beginning (and as far back as 1884)."

Northumbria Uni fined £400K after boffin's bad math gives students a near-killer caffeine high

Nick

£26,000 in legal bills?

Did the university contest this case, or is the law just more expensive these days?

Just give up: 123456 is still the world's most popular password

Nick

Re: List # 15 and 20

I'm sure you're right.

So how likely is it that some/all the other trivial passwords are from (less cunning) bots?

MacBook Pro owners complain of short batt life – so Apple kills batt life clock in macOS

Nick

Re: Command Option P R

Crazy Operations Guy is correct, for five or six-year-old iMacs at least. On replacing the HDD we had all the fans going to full-speed when they didn't find the sensor in the disk. That said google quickly found a free utility to restore fan operation so hardly a show-stopper

Facebook throws BlackBerry an HTML bone

Nick

The updated Facebook "app" on my Z30 simply goes to m.facebook.com.

Perhaps I'm missing something?

Cops hate encryption but the NSA loves it when you use PGP

Nick

Re: The more, the merrier?

I used to include a PGP block in my email signature, but many of my correspondents replied saying that they'd deleted the email because it looked as if it had a virus attached.

Mature mainframe madness prints Mandlebrot fractal in TWELVE MINUTES

Nick

I was a Burroughs/Unisys man, but surely that printout is from a chain/train printer not a dot-matrix?

Supposedly secure Dogecoin service Dogevault goes offline

Nick

Re: Apparently it's hard to run a secure currency.

> the thing you do have to trust in both systems however is the value of the currency.

Yeah, and how likely is it that one crook would ever be able to undermine the value of a "traditional" currency... oh, wait.

Titsup UK Border IT causes CHAOS at air and seaports in Blighty

Nick

Re: What's the point!?

We're all here hoping that someone from the "inside" will post the truth about what's gone on. The story's just a marker for the comments to follow.

Anyway, I'd rather read "human stories" here than the Mail. I think that the Reg does a pretty good job of filtering them for me.

Faster Macbook Air pops out: What, a NEW Apple thing and ZERO fanfare?

Nick

RAM

How much memory do you need for posting on Facebook and Twitter?

That seems to be the exclusive use of Airs in Clerkenwell...

Windows Phone beats BLACKBERRY in mobe OS popularity stakes

Nick

weather channel?

I would have thought that its presence is due to every smartphone that I've ever encountered having an oversized weather applet on the home screen. How many people never get around for removing it?

GAH: Now it's INSTAGRAM and Windows Phone 8

Nick

Re: Shame

> Face it, only Apple can claim to be doing OS updates properly for all users; Nexus users have it good, too,

> but they're a small minority.

And of course Blackberry. We seem to be getting updates the moment that they're released, along with high-quality betas that are simple to apply/roll back. These seem to be coming thick and fast, and bringing real improvements (in my opinion).

Of course I'd love to have things like inssider available, but it's quite depressing that the lack of games and timewasters might seal the fate of the second/third ranking phones.

Z30: The classiest BlackBerry mobe ever ... and possibly the last

Nick

It's a shame more people don't give BB10 a second look

Recent phone history: Nokia N8 (great but SIM slot broke), E61 (keyboard bugs drove me mad), Galaxy S3 (too many hangs/reboots during important calls) and now Z10.

BB10 made no impression when I started using it, but now going back to anything else makes the back/home/app screen paradigm seem very old indeed.

Wife's Nokia 1020 is promising, but OS hasn't had the constant stream of (useful) updates that we've had on BB10.

Installing a beta is as easy as downloading the .exe (if you're a windows user). Then, when the release version overtakes your beta, it'll just ask you if you want to upgrade to it... eat that Android hackers. Finally, as far as I can tell, it's unbrickable, perhaps a legacy of supporting non-technical corporates for so long?

Totally agree with the author's comment about getting the bloody cursor to the beginning of the line though, but a single left swipe will erase a whole word. I use that for now.

Decks and plugs and rock and roll: Tascam CD-A750 cassette and CD combo

Nick
Happy

Nakamichi

After reading this article I just had to go and find a clip of the RX202 in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y515zlrqx0

It might be trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but what a way to do it!

Twenty classic arcade games

Nick
Thumb Up

Re: BEWARE, I LIVE

I used to play this while working night shift as an underutilised mainframe engineer at the Midland Bank computer centre in Brent, N. London.

Wasn't good for much else after an hour of this... but it did keep me awake.

BlackBerry Z10: Prices pruned despite eager iPunter interest

Nick
Stop

Latest firmware update

I'd be interested to know if they've fixed KB33694, or when they plan to:

"When an incoming phone call, message, or a general notification is received on the BlackBerry 10 smartphone, no sound is played, the LED does not flash, and no vibration occurs despite having these options enabled under Settings > Notifications."*

I was quite enjoying my time with the Z10, but it not actually functioning as a phone put an end to that - I sent it back. I wonder how many others have done the same?

*I believe that this is a bluetooth related issue, but even so...

Nokia accidentally unveils OS it should have had in 2009

Nick

@ Kevin7 - re. E72

I know what you mean... but more and more I've found myself putting up with the N8 for its great camera and hdmi output. Opera on a nice big screen is also nice.

But the foibles of any Nokia smartphone pale into insignificance when compare to the steaming turd that is Ovi Suite...

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