* Posts by dave

12 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Mar 2008

Pirate Win 7 ruse used to build botnet

dave
Happy

Windows IS a trojan

Seems to me that if you got rid of Windows, all botnets would be gone too!

Asus pulps Apple in hardware reliability survey

dave
Flame

Who fixes broken ASUS machines anyway?

Let's face it, if your ASUS or your Lenovo goes wrong, you bin it and buy a new one. Hence no reported failure. If your MacBook Pro goes wrong, you get it fixed, and Apple get another minus point for making a machine you want to keep.

Apple preps Jobsian magic wand

dave
Happy

Er, you can already do this with an iPhone or iPod Touch

'Remote Pad', a freebie from the App Store lets you use your iPhone as a trackpad and/or an 'air mouse' to wave your way through your mac or PC, or Linux box from the sofa using the accelerometers in the phone/iPod. Uses WiFi, and is actually pretty useful, especially for two finger scrolling, a la MacBook, on a desktop mac with no trackpad of its own. Did I mention that it is free? ;-)

Amazon unveils Kindle 2.0

dave
IT Angle

Web browser?

With 3g and 16 greyscales, this could be interesting

Apple MacBook Pro 15in

dave
Boffin

Under the battery panel...

The battery and hard drive are under the panel (eek, one screw and someone could pinch your hard disk!), but the memory slots are buried inside and you have to unscrew the back of the machine to get at them.

Apple swipes £121 for 'free' MobileMe trial

dave
Jobs Halo

I just got some free .me love from Apple

As a long time .Mac user I just got an unsolicited mail telling me they are giving me a free month extra subscription because of all the switchover to .me hassles.

Apart from losing the iCards, the MobileMe web apps look OK and seem to work, so I'm happy. Methinks Steve Jobs will have a very sore foot from all the Apple ass he must be kicking...

eBayer slaps $714 price tag on $630 in cash

dave
Coat

To eBay, or not to eBay? That is the question.

If you can be bothered to weed out dodgy sellers by trying to verify their validity (try to arrange to view the item in person is probably good enough), eBay offers a service that is worth using - even if it is mostly for fantasy browsing!

PayPal fees, and more importantly the setup and maintenance fees, for sellers are peanuts compared to using your bank to process credit card payments from occasional customers.

So, all things considered, there is a whiff of 'bubble economics' about eBay and PayPal, but they are both genuinely useful and convenient services, worth paying for.

I'l offer you £10 for that coat, because it's raining and I used to have one just like it.

Indian electronics firm has Moto device biz in its sights

dave
Thumb Up

Return of the mobe?

What else did I miss?

Apple gets into mine-sweeping, missiles and storage

dave
Alert

Not the first time Apple kit has been used by the military...

Apple IIs were used in SS20 Nuclear missiles in the '80s. Something to do with the easy development of plug-in expansion boards, if I remember correctly. The Russian military bought Apple IIs and designed their own missile guidance hardware and software for their ICBMs.

US allows visual inspections of nipple rings

dave
Coat

But you can still buy glass bottles of duty free

But you can still buy glass bottles of duty free grog to take on board. WTF

Google's riches rely on ads, algorithms, and worldwide confusion

dave
Happy

Ah the irony...

Are The Register going to share how much *they* make from Google AdSense with their readers?

Buffett falls for free ride Google

dave
Coat

~400 Mw for a typical aluminium smelting plant vs <10Mw for a big data centre

Where do you get your 'facts'?

2 mins in the 'clouds' rubbishes your numbers on power consumption comparisons, and the premise that aluminium is real, and therefore has value, while information is virtual and has no value - doesn't really make much sense.

Passing up the chance to use 'as much as you can eat' in the same sentence as Buffet is just unforgivable ;-)