Posts by Matt Bradley

Brainscan boffins build blunder-warning hat

Prince Phillip

Expect to see Prince Phillip wearing a portable MEG at all future engagements from 2011 onwards.

Microsoft claims IE8 is 'a leap forward in web standards'

@Jason Harvey

Is this your abacus? I found it where you tied your horse.

I'll send it over on the next postal carriage.

Phone designers to improve reality

Satnav

Heads-up display sat nav, please? A sat nav that can recognise the correct turn to make, and superimpose it onto your windscreen. That would be cool.

Google open sources poor man's Web2.0rhea

@Eddie Ito

+one on that, please!

... or possible a twaxdodge.

US woman attacks missus with sperm-filled syringe

POIDH

^^^^^ You know the drill.

'Talking' iPod Shuffle spills guts

@Worst iPod eva

If there's a demand for it, I'm sure Griffin, Apple, or somebody will make an adapter which as the control on the cable, but replaces the headphones with an audio output jack.

However Apple do produce other options which do have the ability to dock with external devices. If you want an iPod with button controls and a discreet audio out, just buy a iPod mini. Simple.

Complaining that the nano doesn't have buttons is a bit like complaining that a BMW Mini doesn't have the same size boot as 5 series estate.

Taiwan supplier fingered in Apple touch-screen netbook rumor

@Chas @AC's everywhere

Oh dear. I'm A Mac user myself, but seem that even so my gentle jibe is still capable of enraging some slavering MacTards.

Sad to see that some my fellow Apple users playing to type. Honestly: I'm ashamed to be associated with you lot. It really is embarrassing.

As regards touch screen mobile computing and internet access. Erm... iPhone anybody? Why would Apple build a nasty cheap mini laptop when the already make one of the best portable internet devices on the market?

$500 computer

"We don't know how to build a sub-$500 computer that is not a piece of junk."

ed:

"We don't know how to build a sub-$500 computer."

There. Fixed that for you.

Fanbois will abandon iPhone for Palm, says Wikisugardaddy

@Anonymous Coward "there is no cloud"

How about synching diary, call logs, contacts and other documents remotely with the office via web services?

That's not to say that you can't have local copy of the data, just that when the connectivity is available, you got more up to date versions of the data.

So for example, If I have no connectivity, I can still get Dave's number, but if I'm connected and I ring Dave, it will log my call with the office. Plus. If he's changed his number and rung my office manager to tell him/her, then my mobile phone contacts will be updated immediately.

If you don't think that this is a cloud application worth having, that's fine: just carry on plugging your phone into your desktop machine and using a desktop sync application. Personally I want rid of the wires and I also like having up-date info on all my devices.

:)

@Pete B

"Is it so unreasonable to ask for a good handheld that's useful when it's on its own?"

No, it's not unreasonable: rather, it's just plain daft. A phone is PORTABLE COMMUNICATIONS DEVICE. Surely a portable communications device should be designed to operate on a mobile communication network. This being the case, it it really so far out for it to synchronise data and apps via the network?

in fact, a portable communications device which isn't connected and is "on its own" is, by definition, already useless.

That not to say, of course that you *can't* use the phone without connectivity or access to the cloud - but why on earth would you want to?

David Blaine tw*tdangles into Urban Dictionary

YESSSSS!

Quite right too.

Bletchley's Colossus makes beautiful music

Radiohead remix on old hardware

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmfHHLfbjNQ

Always worth a listen. Including contributions from:

Sinclair ZX Spectrum - Guitars (rhythm & lead)

Epson LX-81 Dot Matrix Printer - Drums

HP Scanjet 3c - Bass Guitar

Hard Drive array - Act as a collection of bad speakers - Vocals & FX

Koobface variant worms across social networking sites

@Chris iverson

No.

Snacker discovers Nokia phone in crisp packet

So that explains it.

Charlie Brooker referred to the Walker's Chilli Chocolate flavour crisps as tasting like "excreted battery acid" - perhaps there's something we're not being told?

Asus lights up 1TB SSD Lamborghini laptop

Yes but

I bet it'll still be cheaper than a Macbook Pro...

Google bars Android app makers from their own apps

Odd slant on this piece

"So, Google has banned downloads of copy-protected apps on developer phones. The result: Many developers are prevented from downloading their own applications."

wtf?

"So, Google has banned downloads of copy-protected apps on developer phones. The result: Developers are protected from loss of income from piracy of their code, but might have to buy a regular phone if they want test downloading their app."

There. Fixed that for you.

Honestly: this seems to be a small price to pay. Seriously: how many developers are going to want to skimp on the cost of a second phone, if the result is that they lose a large percentage of their app sales income to piracy?

Any serious app developer who queries this is an idiot.

Google faces post-Fleetwood Mac comedown

Nice

"Oh, and in case you were wondering, twelve million dollars is enough to buy forty eight million doses of a drug to treat malaria."

Of course, it should be pointed out that Bill Gates left Microsoft first before he started campaigning for money to spend on Malaria. Perhaps we'll have to wait for Page and Brin to do the same before they start dropping the cash where it matters?

Gates looses mosquitoes on tech conference bloodsuckers

Too easy

Bill Gates releasing bugs which can lead to an infection? Surely not!

... to easy.

Microsoft SKUs Windows 7 clarity

pay for security

As with Vista and XP (where you had to pay extra to have password protected fileshares), you have to pay extra to get full security (like bitlocker) for your data.

I can't understand how Microsoft can possibly think this a good idea: flood the market with low-security, crippled versions of windows, then deal with the PR disaster later? Stupid.

It doesn't sound like they've learned *anything* from the Vista deployment debacle.

Ah well. No skin off my nose (see icon).

Wrong kind of winter brings England to a halt

Great stuff @Sarah Bee and misc others.

This whole exchange is quite hilarious.

Frankly, I think the whole matter should be settled with a massive snowball fight in Nottingham. Apparently, it is in the MIDLANDS somewhere, so everybody should be able to get there fairly easily. The rail network is very reliable, I hear.

As regards the CLINT in Nottingham: I wrote it, Sarah. It was the only way I could get the word published on the Register... ;)

Microsoft's IE 8 beta adds 'special' list

@Hayden

I agree with you that CSS can be a bit of handful at first, but once you get your head around it, it is a hell of a lot easier and tidier that tables were. Not to mention the fact that it opens up the rich client possibilities a lot.

As regards testing: if you're not testing in IE 6, IE 7, FF and Safari at the very least then you're doing it wrong! That said: if you code for FF, then the only one you have to really worry about are the various flavours of IE.

The problem that MS have with IE 6 and & is that they are HOPELESS when it come to rich client / AJAX stuff. IE is slow, bloated and clunky, and as more and more web applications go rich, and SaaS becomes more widespread in the browser, IE is going to be marginalised unless they fix it. Hence Silverlight and IE8. MS can see the future slipping away from them, I suspect.

@oh come on boys ...

Just a minor point here, but OO *IS* maintainability... or haven't you got that far with your "scripts" yet?

(I'm guessing that by "scripts" you mean server side programming?)

On the main point, you're absolutely right: Microsoft have only moved IE towards standards compliance to pander to all those pesky little companies who keep bringing out HTML standards compliant browsers like Google and Apple. Honestly, its silly: why would MS feel threatened by Google or Apple?

Note: I would have marked up the above in <sarcasm /> tags, but I'm not sure that you'd be able to parse them...

Welcome to backwards compatibility hell.

The problems of IE 8 are strangely similar to those of Vista.

Microsoft is in an impossible situation now, surely. Their products only sell because they are de-facto standards, and they are only the de-facto standard because of their ubiquity. The only time in its history when IE could claim to be the best browser was when it had used its OS monopoly status to CRUSH any meaningful competition. Firefox, Opera, Safari and now Google Chrome completely outclass it in both standards compliance, and javascript performance. MS now need to replace IE with something that is actually GOOD, but that means breaking backwards compatibility with their own poorly designed legacy.

Vista was dog because Microsoft has stubbornly stuck to their backward compatibility requirement for so long, that each successive generation of their OS has simply become a compounding of bad design decisions. IE is now about to suffer the same fate.

When users are getting a bad experience from both the latest version of Microsoft's OS, and from Microsoft's latest browser, what then? I bet questions like this are keeping Steve Balmer awake at night.

Can anybody else see the vultures circling over Redmond?

Brit loonies adventurers headed to Timbuctoo by 'flying car'

Looks like they bought a lemon

Any fool can see from the photo that it's just a "cut and shut" job.

The front is clearly a rear-ended Lambo, onto which they have welded the back end of a hovercraft.

Mine's the one with the arc welder in the pocket.

Storm worm smackdown as researchers unpick control system

Just what we needed

^^^ More please. Do these guys have Paypal donation box?

First Windows 7 beta puts fresh face on Vista

@Adrian Waterworth

Of course, your decision to switch your audio production work to an Apple platform would have been made so much easier had Apple not removed firewire from the entry level MacBook range, and then whacked up the price by £250.

Feeling your pain. I suspect this is a product of Microsotf's investment in Apple Corp: "stay alive, but don't *actually* threaten our market share".

OS-X Doc

"The Start menu still exists, but if you pin an application to the taskbar it appears there whether or not it is running."

Ahem. The OS-X Dock menu?

Innovative to the last.

US smutmongers want big bucks bailout

Dried up

So sorry to hear that the adult industry has dried up. Here's hoping they get the stimulus they need to lubricate their future activities.

Hasbro drops lawsuit against Scrabulous creators

Eric you're a genius

^^^^

(N.B: this works as both a flame, and a congratulation for the obvious flamebait)

Tell Santa to bring more assault rifles

Armed Miltias

I do awfully like the rather quaint idea of an armed militia of American citizens rising up to remove the government.

What surprises me is that the people who use this as a justification for US gun ownership don't seem to realise that this precisely the kind of thing that happens in states like erm.. Afganistan and Iraq.

If you guys want to live like that, be my guest. Merry Christmas.

Rogue Android apps rack up hidden charges

@Oh lordy

Regards the solution: Most people have home wifi that doesn't cost anything to use (other than the monthly broadband cost). I guess yours charges for bandwidth?

Pirates pee on Amazon's MP3 parade

STill think DRM is a bad idea?

^^^

Pirate bay are legitimate music fans' worst enemy

Yes! It's the USB Toaster!

Firewire

"But it also supports FireWire 400 and 800 connections for all your marmalade lovin' Mac owners"

Haven't you heard? Apple don't do Firewire anymore. The macbook specs are going BACKWARDS in time...

Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 planned for 2009

"standards compatible"

...not "standards __COMPLIANT__" then?

Sigh. ANOTHER broken browser to test in then. I can't wait to be rid of IE for ever.

With so much money, why can't Microsoft get this right. Are they hiring chimpanzees in the IE dev team or something?

Google shares plummet past $300, reach three year low

@Webster

Yeah. I spotted that huge AAPL stock slide on the Dashboard stock widget my new MacBook. Were you still waiting for your PC load up IE before you saw it?

Thanks for the heads up all the same.

Microsoft bets future on search bribery

Google

Google.

Y'know: if we're /really/ lucky, this recession will finally smash Microsoft to bits.

Let's look on the bright side for a change, eh?

Where's the Larry & Sergey icon? SERIOUS omission.

Open source fanciers finger Beeb's Win 7 'sales presentation'

Multi Touch

OSC obviously didn't notice the bit when Multi touch failed to work properly, and when they pointed out that Apple already does this... and it works.

Serial troll vents steam through ears

@Sarah Bee - Disappointed

Aww Sarah, I'm disappointed. After using the s...thorpe word as the sole subject line of my response to Ted's piece here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/22/dziuba_yahoo/comments/ I was kinda hoping I might get my own FOTW. Especially when you binned it for bad language. It looks like I've been outclassed by this foaming maniac.

Must try harder next time.

Who's got more cash? Apple or Microsoft?

@Fraser

Your G5? How old is that, exactly?

I've yet to get into that territory, having only just started using my first Mac, so I guess I'll see what my machine is like after I've had it for 5 years. Although maybe I'll have replaced it by then... :)

@Stuart

"M$ always emulate Apple ideas about 2.5 years after dev, it would be interesting if Apple ever come out with a significant feature, that is user driven and very difficult to run on a Windows platform."

But they already have:

1] No registry that fills up with cruft and gradually slows the machine down to a crawl.

2] No BSOD.

3] Quiet operation (no noisy fans).

I think all of these fit the bill as described. The hurdle that Apple need to get over is a price entry point which is actually affordable and acceptable to the mass market. Making their new range of laptops more expensive, and have less features, suggests to me that apple aren't so bothered about the mass market.

If I was on the board of Apple, I'd be wondering if there was any mileage in partnering with a few approved 3rd party OEMs to deliver MAC-OS on cheaper hardware. Of course, this might take a chunk out of Apple's hardware sales, but it might also broaden the OS market considerably. Hmm.

Windows 7: One compatibility label, no confusion

Vista was a great thing for me.

Windows Vista convinced me to buy a Mac, which I duly did this week. So far, I can't see me buying another Microsoft product...like... ever.

I suspect that XP was Microsoft's best effort. It is pretty stable, reasonably quick, and it works well for at least the first 6 months of use before it starts slowing down / crashing, etc. I don't think Microsoft have the CAPABILITY to produce well written, stable software which delivers on its promise. Witness IE 7 and 8: With all the resources in the world, MS *STILL* can't produce a browser that is capable of rendering HTML properly. Meanwhile, Apple and Mozilla seem to be able to manage. It can't be all /that/ hard, surely?

Apple's 'next move' is an HSDPA MacBook, forecasts analyst

iPhone

Erm... isn't the iphone a small form factor internet device? Why would they need to make a netbook as well?

BBC's speak you're branes collapses under Brand-Ross sex outrage

@Juillen

Have you actually HEARD the broadcast? Actually Ross and Brand were being extremely complimentary to Sachs. but then Ross got carried away in a rather tasteless joke, and said something he shouldn't

In fact, you can hear it in their voices that they knew they had gone too far.

To characterise this as" bullying" seems a bit odd. I don't think that you've heard the broadcast. Was that the word they used in the Daily Mail?

Plymouth nurse punted panties on eBay

"Hospital IT security operatives probed her inbox"

Chuckle.

Apple revamps MacBook as 13in MacBook Pro

I've figured it out.

I can see how they worked this one out in the boardroom:

1] Over charge for underspecced hardward,

2] Thereby ensure that the market share stays low.

3] Therefore we won't become a significant malware target any time soon.

4] This in turn means we don't have to fix our poor security patching record.

...

...

Profit!

@Alexis @Frasier

As it happens, I AM a BMW Driver. I guess I just think cars are more exciting than computers, and therefore worth the extra spend.

I'd also have to agree with AC: In my BMW, I got a better engine, better bodywork, better performance, more reliability, and overall probably lower TCO long term than an equivalent Ford.

Spending £949 on a MacBook, I get a slower CPU, less RAM, smaller hard drive, smaller display, older OS, oh... and a nice shiny case, which if recent history is anything to go by, will break in about 18 months.

Comparing MacBooks with BMWs is not a sensible comparison any more. More like Lamborghini: expensive to buy, expensive to run, high maintenance, and showy.

I'm disappointed

2008 was going to be the year I switched to Apple.

At £699, a Macbook was a fairly reasonable alternative to a better spec Wintel machine at half the price, if only because of the MacOS advantage.

But NOW, Apple want us to cough £949 for their new Macbook, where the RAM / HDD spec aren't much better than those you'd get on a £300 EE-PC. Are they serious?

I'm not prepared to spend £600 just to get an OS!

Oh dear. I think I'm going to buy THREE Intel machines instead and install Linux on them all.

Sad.

Windows Mobile on iPhone a cruel joke?

I just choose that now....

"I just choose that now....

.... and you have to wait.... wait... heh... a moment please... "

Priceless!

They a missed a trick here though. Why didn't it bring up the hourglass when he went to use... well.. anything?

OpenOffice.org welcomes gatecrashers to version 3.0 orgy

Standards

Will it support the ISO standard from of DOCX too?

It would be nice to think that the first word processor to fully support Microsoft's new ISO standard document format will be Open Office, rather than MSWord.

Famed investor backs away from web-obsessed Microsoft

Showing his ignorance

"We [...] wish MSFT focused on its core strength: software. "

Haha.