Posts by Barry Lane

Adobe axes 600 jobs, lowers sales outlook

Not surprised

that sales are down at Adobe. Charging a small fortune for some very ordinary upgrades with CS4 was not a move that had me reaching for my wallet. Start selling software intelligently and you might just shift a bit more stock, Adobe.

Half of Brits abuse apostrophe's

Oh, good grief!

When I was a little lad, way back in 1950-something, we were taught that abbreviated words such as photos required an apostrophe because the word had been cut; thus photo's, 'phone, etc. Rules change, however, and now the abbreviated words are accepted as words in their own right and don't need apostrophes.

Anywho, what really bugs me is the way people use 'alternate' when they really mean 'alternative'.

For what it's worth, my son was taught very early on in his life what an apostrophe is and how and where to use one. Mind you, he did his early writing on an Amstrad 1512 and told anyone who'd listen that his middle name was 'S-p-a-c-e-b-a-r' but there we are.

Apple grabs double-digit US laptop marketshare

Why Apple

If ever I need reminding why I bought my Apple laptop doodad, I need only look round the office to see the way Vista functions. Although the technical problems we have had with Vista seem to be fewer in number, these days, the UI was quite clearly designed by a six-year-old with a box of crayons.

The coat. Because I just don't get it. Geddit!!

BT seals free Digital Vault

TTFN BT

My files are important to me, which is why I as a customer of BT - and soon to be ex-customer of BT - would never dream of letting that bunch of shysters take care of any of my data.

This is the UK's foremost ISP, allegedly, but they clearly know as much about customer care as they do about the technology of which they are supposedly the masters. Worse, they are now pushing their own brand of TV show provision. BT's belief a decade or so ago that what UK customers wanted was not the ability to send and receive data, but to watch Coronation Street on their Compaq 486 PC, is one of the reasons this benighted nation lags so far behind many others.

'Go', because that is what this distinctly peed-off BT customer is about to do.

Supercomputer to improve UK weather

Wrong Modelling

It's not the oomph in their computers, it's the modelling they use that needs looking at. A day's correct forecast is most unusual, and even current conditions occasionally elude the Met Office. I usually get my Met Office forecasts from the BBC, which is pretty convenient, but rarely right.

Try typing in the name of your town and check that forecast and the current conditions, then try entering your postcode instead. The range of temperatures, rain or sun can be breathtakingly wrong.

If the Met Office says sunshine, I'll get my coat.

King Arthur was English 'propaganda', French claim

Uberpedantic indeed, sirrah!

"This may be overly pedantic...

By Anonymous Coward

Posted Tuesday 1st July 2008 09:44 GMT

...but 'Roman' wasn't a race.

The citizens, and soldiers, of the Roman Empire were from all reaches of Europe.

The ethnicity of any 'Romans' in Britain is therefore uncertain."

Roman wasn't a race, you're right. Many of the Roman troops that invaded England under Claudius were German, of course, so work that one out. Rome was the place all roads pointed at on most legionnaire's Chariot-Navs, of course. It was the Romanisation of Britain that changed it all and that continues to affect us today.

Anyway, woss this got to do with IT?

Anglo Saxon Chronicles

Don't ask me the year - I'm old but I wasn't there, honest - but the only historical namecheck for any guy called Arthur was in the Anglo Saxon Chronicles. These dated from the post-Roman days - something like 523 AD, but don't quote me - and a single entry had it that "and Arthur won the battle at Badon". No mention of who Arthur was, whose jeans he wore, nothing. Or "rien", for Ms Toulouse. As for the location of Badon, well, it ain't on my sat nav.

If this battle actually took place, and if it took place during the Roman occupation of Britain, Arthur was likely to have been a Romanised Brit who was perhaps a tribal leader on the side of his Roman masters. Face it, if you lived in a country that had been occupied by Rome for 400 years or more, you'd have been a Roman too. The Romans were getting attacked all over the empire by the early 400 ADs and it was the same here in Blighty.

The Bretons of France and the people of Cornwall spent much of their lives nipping across the Channel; there are, I'm told, similarities between the Breton and Cornish languages - again, don't quote me; I can hardly cope with English. What is called Brittany only became a part of France in comparatively recent times. The legend of Arthur, Arcturus or Billy-Bob, call him what you will, is known and loved in Britain, France and many other places. In some cases, Johnny Foreigner has even tried to purloin the yarn and make it his own, the cad.

Furthermore... Oh, all right, I'll get my blouson.

eBay 'Buy It Now' button survives latest attack

Genome

I agree with B Shubin. However, this morning I have taken out copyright on every word and phrase in every language on this and every other planet.

You can write to me to complain about this, of course, but I will be charging for every word you write.

In the interim, I'd like to believe that any British judge would have dismissed the entire case as the crock of crap it clearly is, and thrown a whole bunch of costs at MercExchange for wasting court time, trivialising the law, opportunism... Oh, and being a bunch of tossers (not sure that's an offence in civil or criminal law but what the hey).

I must stop writing now as my lawyer says I have to invoice myself for all these words, and I ain't got a bean.

'As I watch England turn into a quivering pile of dung'

I suspect that God is not an American

The UK has enough problems of its own making without needing to point fingers and throw sticks at the USA, but I find that America's fundamental Christianity concerns me more than the Islamist variety elselwhere in the world. For a lot of folks around the globe, the USA's oft-touted 'Freedom' and 'Democracy' actually represent nothing more than what America believes is its inalienable right to foist its policies and 'philosophies' upon an ungrateful world. As soon as I hear any politician hint that God is on his or her side, I reach for the sick bag and the tin hat (it pays not to confuse those two, let me tell you).

I've only met one American who admitted to voting for Bush (then again, fewer of you voted for him than for Al Gore) and every one of them confessed to being embarrassed about their so-called Commander in Chief.

Don't know who's going to be the next Prezz but they'd better be a peacenik Democrat or the world is going to go dayglo one day soon.

How did we all end up with Windows?

Less sophosticated?

"Thus, the Mac is pretty successful among less sophisticated users" Keith Doyle

Firstly, and just to respond to Mr Doyle, who chooses above to dismiss Mac users as 'less sophisticated', to you, sir, I say pish and quite probably tish. I used to use Windows machines each and every day and I thought the faults, the hiccoughs, the hangs and crashes, were what computers did. I could fix most of the problems myself, way back in DOS 3 (I think) and Windows 3.1 days. My introduction to the Mac (then on System 7.1) was a revelation, and I have used Macs ever since. In my office there are four PCs (two on Vista, which is very funny and makes me laugh a lot, and two on XP Pro) and my two Macs. Pretty much every day is punctuated by the cries of frustrated Windows users - and I'm the one who ends up trying to make them work properly.

My wife has two PCs; a laptop running XP Pro and the other, XP Home. She has so many problems with these wretched machines, in part because she has managed over the years not to learn a thing about computing in general and Windows in particular. Windows did not become the biggest because it was the best; they did the best deals, courted the right clients - corporate, government, education, etc - and grew like Topsy. If Steve Jobs had got his finger out and arranged for PC games to play better on Macs, Apple would have taken over the world by now.

These days, even the IT professionals I bump into have limited success with the machines they are supposed to know so well. Nearly all of them say they would prefer a Mac but Windows is where the money is. All those unsophisticated PC people, see, with not a clue what to do, the lambs, but plenty of bucks to get their benighted Windows up and struggling again. Sure, one or two of you PC users out there know what to do, but most of you are, I suspect, happy to bumble along with your four-year-old OS and your ghastly beige boxes.

In the words of the PC prophet: Eat poo. 12 billion flies can't be wrong.