Posts by Efros

'BLING BLING, BLING BLING' 'Hello, yes, my iPhone is made of GOLD'

Re: Fished in!

that's iDon'tgiveashit shurely.

British spooks seize tech from Snowden journo's boyfriend at airport

Every 4 years there's a popularity contest

Every 5 years mate, our colonial cousins have 4 year terms.

DON'T PANIC: Amazon's Chromecast late-ship email was a blunder

The hook

as far as I can see, and I use a Chromecast, is that you can immediately get what you're looking at on your phone/tablet/PC onto your TV with a minimum of fuss. I have an HTPC connected to my living room TV and it can do much more than the Chromecast, I should hope so given its cost, but it can't compete with using a tablet to browse the content and then get it on the TV. The 12 foot interface on none of the HTPC software I use or have used can compete with the tablet interface, having said that I only use the Chromecast for casual viewing and Netflix, other stuff still goes through my HTPC. The other advantage is portability, 5 seconds to disconnect it and then another five seconds to plug it into another TV. Oh and the price is the killer advantage of course. An ideal situation would be an app that easily interfaces and controls my HTPC via my tablet, which exists for MediaPortal in aMPdroid, but also one which will feed the URL of desired content to the HTPC, which it doesn't, for now at least.

Imation posts FOURTEENTH loss-making quarter

They've always been overpriced

Never understood how they managed to get any business over the years, overpriced not overly good gear.

Typical! Google's wonder-dongle is a solution looking for a problem

I bought the Chromecast, it arrived yesterday in the mail. For $35 it is very good at what it does, which TBH is not an awful lot, but it is good at it! It is a piece of hardware screaming for someone to write a couple of decent apps for, local media streaming would be a start.

Robot cop called in after MAD BONGER blown up in LIQUID MARIJUANA EXPLOSION

Bit more serious

than "inevitable pinhole burns, All down the front of my favourite satin shirt".

"Jazz cigarette" indeed!

Chromecast: We get our SWEATY PAWS on Google's tiny telly pipe

I read that Google are releasing the SDK for it so there will be apps appearing, if someone gives it local media support i.e. accessing local network content, then this will be a winner. It has already sold out in all the major suppliers in the US.

Chromecast: You'll pop me in for HOT STREAMS of JOY, hopes Google

Just ordered one

Best Buy seem to be the last store in the US to have stock, either that or they are lying (not beyond the realms of possibility). I'll be interested to see the effect of this on the other TV boxes, roku, Apple TV, etc., not making any statements myself until I get a chance to plug it in and try it.

Apple drops hints about future low-cost iPhones

"If there are lots of other tablets selling, I don't know what they're being used for."

Obviously not browsing, duh!

You think it might be games and/or reading.

Ex-prez Carter: 'America has no functioning democracy' with PRISM

Re: Where is the fourth estate?

The media sold out to commercial concern over a decade ago. It took 3 weeks for the Occupy Wall Street demos to make it onto mainstream News Channels in the US.

You, Google. Get back here and bend over again - EU antitrust chief

Money must be tight in the euro trough, perhaps trying to drum up some fine revenue.

Worldwide smartwatch shipments predicted to top 5 million next year

I smell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoZ7JXkv6_o

Apple files patent for refrigerator-magnet iPads

Hmmm, iPhone + Bank cards = weekend of penniless misery

Home Office opens up anonymised crime data API

Scotland Ya Bass!

Police.uk my erse!

Judge nixes Microsoft SkyDrive name in BSkyB court ruling

It is very clearly a microsoft product, Microsoft blue, annoying tiling, It even tells you in the address bar.

http://gyazo.com/a1bcc4e4b8fe29690c30b4fd23fc8122.png

Probably says more about the average user's powers of deduction than anything else.

Microsoft's murder most foul: TechNet is dead

My subscription for this year became active on the 30th of June. Bar Stewards.

Facebook restricts ads running next to dodgy posts

or alternatively ABP, never see ads on FB again. Ironic, actually not more like totally predictable, that the advertisers can decide where their ads appear and the users can't decide where the advertisers ads appear

Barnes & Noble sheds Nook tablet albatross, will focus on ebooks

Just ordered the HD+, I don't think they'll drop the price any further. If I'm wrong I'll buy another one. They really are very good android tablets especially for $149.

Premier League seeks court order to ban footie-streaming Swedish site

" If they pull out (and they will, if they lose enough money), the league (and the clubs in it) probably won't survive."

I don't see a down side there, Sky losing money and football bankrupt, sounds good to me. Next target Horse Racing, not cos I'm a animal rights bod, it's just effing boring.

Pint to enjoy in a pub without the football backdrop.

Glasgow subway's new smart tickets aren't, moan passengers

Indeed, at 6'4" the only place I can stand vertically is in the centre of the carriage. I swear there's a couple of 90 degree turns as well, at least it feels that way.

Re: Too cheap

If you understood the size of the Glasgow circle line you would get it. There are 15 stations on about 6.5 miles of track on a single line, the London system has 11 lines, 250 miles of track and 270 stations.

PM Cameron calls for modern, programmable computers! (We think)

The man is a

Twonk, a complete and utter twonk.

YES, Xbox One DOES need internet, DOES restrict game trading

Not a gamer

Looking at this from the outside, it seems a truly gigantic waste of time and money to invest in all that R&D to end up with a finished product that, because of a couple of 'features', drives your potential and loyal customers into your competitors hands.

Seven all-in-ones that aren't the Apple iMac - and one that is

Re: I'd buy an all-in-one with Linux!

I'd say they are pretty much legacy now. My laptop's DVD writer was removed 2 years ago and replaced with a very capacious secondary HD. Haven't missed the DVD since. I have two machines with DVD writers and I think I've burned about half a dozen DVDs in the last year, all for other people.

As to the all in ones, for me they're a definite nono. I've had to deal with other people's all in ones when they've gone phut, and almost always it results in the purchase of a complete new system. For this sort of money I would be hoping to get a bit more in terms of oomph and long term peace of mind.

Who should play the next Doctor? Nominations needed!

Re: Robert Carlyle

As the Begbie persona, glassing the Daleks and kicking the Cybermen in the stanes, well perhaps the ball bearings.

Doctor Who? 12th incarnation sought after Matt Smith quits

Has to be Billie Piper

Purely on the basis of Alex Kingston and Billie Piper getting jiggy with it will bust the ratings!

Moss reanimates after 400 years in DEEP FREEZE

Re: Looks just like the stuff on my lawn

Indeed if enough people populated their lawns with moss we could put the whole lawncare industry out of business. Moss doesn't need mowing ( major plus in my eyes) and doesn't seem to mind anything barring a drought.

Future beer being enjoyed as I peruse my beautifully self maintained mosslawn.

Gigabyte's BRIX fall into place

Re: HTPC?

Or an rf one. My HTPC was built aeons ago and has a metric shitload of storage, consequently to big and noisy to reside in the living room. It sits in the basement 10 feet below the TV and is HDMied to the TV with an rf remote (Firefly) for control. Works for me.

They WANT to EAT YOUR COMPUTER - welcome your ANT overlords

Reg cruelty

Your Gorilla is malnourished he used to be 800lb.

Petshop iPad fanboi charged with filming up young model's skirt

No tape involved!

Surface Pro to hit Blighty priced 25% up on top-o-the-range iPad

MS needs to stress

That this machine is not an iPad competitor but a whole other kettle of fish. Given the reactions here and elsewhere to the price I would say they have failed in this respect.

Apple: ebook price fixing? Nooo, nothing to do with us, no siree

Mandy Rice Davies

and her quote springs to mind.

Review: Samsung Galaxy S4

Re: Except that it isn't though really is it?

Indeed there is and I have one, it's a phone cost me $50 up front, annual usage 1500 minutes, annual phone bill $99. All the other stuff I use my tablet for :)

LIke Billy Connolly my inner welder is screaming "£580 for a fucking phone!"

Coke? Windows 8 is Microsoft's 'Vista moment'. Again

W8... really?

Ok this one will probably be downvoted to oblivion.

I use Windows 8 on three machines daily, 2 for work and one for home use. All three are multicore machines with SSD boot drves, all three were previously Windows 7 and all three perform better and more reliably under 8. I actually had to go and google a windows 8 BSOD to see what it looked like, never seen one. Boot times are ridiculously low, much faster than 7 and TIFKAM is history as I have boot to desktop and Startisback installed. I'm not a novice user and I delve into the nether regions of hardware/drivers/registry whenever required. The reorganisation of aspects of the W8 interface, whilst initially irritating soon disappears when you get used to it, as we all had to do in almost every version of windows since 1.0 (that one was installed, messed with and immediately consigned to the trash). TIFKAM should have been an option selectable if you had a touch screen, I wonder what the reception to 8 would have been if M$ had done this instead of forcing its use on everyone.

Beer for those who read it all.

37,000-machine study finds most reliable Windows PC is a Mac

Re: In news just in

"My home laptop is a small and light Acer Aspire. 2nd on the list and I got it for 20% of the cost of a Macbook Air 6 months ago. It's never crashed (but I've mostly use Ubuntu for the last month)."

Similar story here with a 5 year old lenovo Ideapad Y550 with W8, it is always either on or sleeping, the only reboot it gets is following updates or to boot into the other OS (Ubuntu). I honestly can't remember the last time it crashed.

App gap flap: New York's e-cabbies FOILED AGAIN

There is also the generation of a paper trail for income that some of the less scrupulous i.e. money laundering taxi companies will avoid at any cost.

Can't beat the Nexus 7? Join it: Nook tablet gets Google Play store

Just waiting for the garage sale. Then I might be tempted to buy a couple.

Star Trek: The original computer game

Rogue: Dungeons of Doom

Similar sort of game. I played this on a TRS80, a z80 multiuser CP/M machine and a variety of other behemoths of their day. Full story here http://www.gameadvice.com/cgibin/faq.cgi?game=r/RogueDungeonsOfDoom-MToy.txt

Fried-egg sarnies kick off Reg man's quid-a-day nosh challenge

shoulda

gone with the Scottish soup, 2lbs each of potatoes (£1.30), carrots (69p) and one swede (65p). One smoked ham hough (£1), 1 onion (19p), lentils (45p) or barley (60p). Boil the ham hough in the largest pot you have in lots of water until the meat is falling off the bone. Remove the bone and skin then add the grated carrots and turnip, the chopped onion and the lentils/barley bring back to the boil. Simmer until the lentils/barley are nearly done add diced potatoes and water if needed and simmer until potatoes are done season with salt (taste it first) and pepper, serve in the largest bowl you have with bread. Should be enough for at least four days. Make sure you boil it every day otherwise it will ferment and taste kinda funky and cause all sorts of gaseous emanations from you, lay in a supply of loo roll, very high in fibre! This is also a cure-all for New Year hangovers, tattie soup!

Ten Windows 8 Ultrabooks

Re: Too expensive

Actually closer to 2.5 Kg, and about 1.5" thick, besides my use of my laptop is not on the move. It is invariably on the couch or at my desk, lugging the thing to work is not that big a deal as it fits snugly into my rather large briefcase anyway. Meeting my needs is what I do at the minimum expenditure, these "Ultrabooks" don't do that for me. And in answer to Eadon I wouldn't give Apple so much as a sou of my hard earned cash for their slant on overpriced kit with underwhelming performance.

Too expensive

I'm not spending that sort of dosh for something that is 'sexy', give me performance and value and I'll think about it. MY 5 year old lenovo Y550 (cost ₤450 with about ₤100 in upgrades spent on it since) is more than adequate for my mobile needs and will continue to be so until something not easily replaced on it dies. When it does die I will not be looking at ₤1000 replacements.

WD glams up SmartWare with Dropbox

SmartWare

Definitely isn't smart. Biggest heap of crap any of the HD manufacturers have dumped on their customers, and HD manufacturers seem to excel at writing crap software.

Space elevators, vacuum chutes: What next for big rocket tech?

Niven & Pournelle

Their Footfall novel along with The Mote in God's Eye, used Orion and a few other DOD projects from the 50s, 60s and 70s for the drives in various scenarios. Indeed the heffalumps invading Earth in Footfall used laser powered shuttles.

German boffins aim to burn natural gas - WITHOUT CO2 emissions

Hmmm

Heating the column and maintaining it at 1000C requires energy, where is this coming from and how does it compare with the potential energy to be recouped from the H2.

Microsoft Xbox gaffe reveals cloudy arrogance

Same Sh#t different decade

I remember attending a Microsoft Junket back when IE4 was being launched in the late 90s, One of the biggest topics of conversation was the size of the download (IIRC about 28 MB) and the inability of IE browsers of that time to continue downloading after a break in the internet connection, a not uncommon problem with 56k modems. The MS spokesgolem didn't see this as a major problem as shurely it would only affect a small minority of users.

The healing hands of guru Dabbs

Similar effect

Only I put it down to the PC knowing I have a screwdriver, and that I'm not afraid to use it!