Posts by Peter Labrow

Adobe Cloud offers leg up over Creative Suite's price wall

I'd not spotted the greater Adobe rip-off

The upgrade price is from CS5.5 - the intermediary version of the software released halfway through their normal upgrade cycle (as far I'm concerned - and indeed, Adobes own press releases at the time). If you're like me and you decided to hold out for CS6, then tough crap. The upgrade price is over £700 - effectively that's doubled what it used to be in the CS1/2/3/4/5 days. Either you pay for each .5 release or you pay double for the full update. Total rip off.

Re: Not so good for upgraders?

Graeme - thanks, not spotted that price for upgraders. As you said, it makes more sense to upgrade - assuming you don't want the extra software. Thanks for spotting that.

Not so good for upgraders?

If you'd don't have the Adobe apps, then this seems like a good deal. If you're a user who already has CS5 and you don't need more apps than you have, then it's pretty pants. You can upgrade for less than £357 (for example, if you have the Premium Suite) but a year's subs costs you £562.56. I'm struggling to see the incentive, other than to access products I don't really need and services I wouldn't really use.

COMET WILL DEFINITELY NOT HIT EARTH – NASA

It's OK, I've already called Bruce Willis

He's on it.

Adobe automates website design for arty Luddites

Have you looked at the code?

Seriously, I've not seen any WYSIWYG tool pump out such terrible code. There's virtually a DIV around every full stop.

Adobe releases lengthy list of Apple Lion woes

Oh come on

Nearly every other software company has got Lion-compatible software out. Sure, Adobe's products are far more complex, but they charge WAY more and have greater resources. Could they not afford to be on the Apple developer programme? Have they only just seen Lion? Pathetic. What's worse is that they are looking at compatibility "in future versions of their products". WTF? Any chance of supporting your customers here? I have CS5. CS5.5 is a rip-off, and it's a rip-off that doesn't even give me any promise of compatibility. So you're telling me I have to wait for CS6? Look at the smaller software companies running rings around you - and learn something.

Orange gets UK iPhone deal

As soon as my contract expires

... I'm off from O2. Nothing wrong with the network but terrible customer service and slap dash approach to support. I left Orange for O2 when the iPhone came out, and I'll be glad to go back.

Axeman cometh: Microsoft lays off 27 staff

Get real

27 employees from a company Microsoft's size isn't an axe. It's not even a penknife. I bet it's not even a round percentage! News?

Oz cops in Taser fatality

Appropriate?

Even on death is one too many. There is no appropriate use of a taser, it's a battlefield weapon in the wrong hands.

Microsoft conjures imaginary 'Apple Tax'

Very good article

A very good article - and it's right to 'out' people that put forward misinformation as research, whoever they are. There's no doubt that, while you can get cheap PCs everywhere, there's no such thing as a cheap Mac. But, when you stack them up against products with similar build quality and spec, they are seldom poor value. I used to be a PC user - a 'power user' with a very hefty Dell workstation. When it came time to upgrade, it happened to be the same time that I needed to move to Adobe CS2. The cost of a Dell Workstation with 5GB of RAM (2 of which, at the time, Windows couldn't use) with upgrade software, compared to a new Apple Mac Pro with ALL NEW software, inc all the other stuff such as Office, was far greater than the cost of the Apple solution. So I swapped. Not for fanboi style, just common sense, less money, more computing power and access to all the RAM I installed. The real eye-opener was putting a new hard disc in compared to Windows. Windows PC: unscrew box, unscrew HD bay, unscrew drive rails, unplug drive, plug in drive, put PC back together, fire up Windows, run Disc Management, create volume, format, 1 hour later I can use it. Mac: open box, no screws, slide in drive (no screws or cables), close box, power back up, Mac OSX use the disc immediately in full Journaled mode. That's what computing should be about! However, following this comment will immediately be followed by lots of flame comments from people who seem to have a passion for knocking a computing platform they have never used, or not used in over a decade.

Microsoft plays coy over iPhone Office

Not yet, your not.

Goodness. Buy yourself a dictionary.

Microsoft talks open-source love amid TomTom Linux 'war'

Give with one hand...

MIcrosoft wants open source when it suits them. It wants open source to be it's open source - and remove all others. It's not willing to input its IP to open source. I'm not convinced that Microsoft and open source are mutually compatible.

Apple shares MacBook break-in tips

Dull

This is so reporting nothing.

Dear Obama: Please consider open-source a waste of your time

Your argument is not sound

Sometimes, to get the right thing done, legislation is needed. An example: if the Disability Discrimination Act in the UK and Section 508 in the US, most Web site developers would have done squat about Web site accessibility and most businesses would have no awareness of their requirements. The current status quo is not a level playing field as you suggest, where software is assessed on its own merits. Microsoft - and other big companies - spend millions in soft-dollar marketing to get their products promoted into governments. When that fails they apply pressure and in some cases drop their prices drastically to keep the business. Open source does not have the financial lever. The final say is that when it comes to taxpayers' money there SHOULD be a legal requirement to consider cheaper solutions that are as effective with an open mind. Nope, I don't use Linux and I'm not a freetard - but I think I'm more open-minded that you.

Wakefield does a Brum with possessive apostrophes

Dumbos

It takes less than five minutes to teach even the dumbest person how to use possessive apostrophes. Except in Birmingham and Wakefield apparently.

Wacky Jacqui Smith says whole country crusading against CCTV

Doesn't stack up, Jacqui

Knife crime is at an all-time high, so it antisocial behavior, alcoholic-related crime and even gun crime. So, Jacqui, exactly how have CCTV cameras made us safer? Paris, because she can't add up either.

Apple update purges 21 security vulns from OS X

Re:Anonymous Coward

I think you chose that moniker with good reason. I hope you feel better for your pointless, ill-informed, childish venting. Paris, because she has shit for brains too.

Gov to Manchester: No new trams without road pricing

Blackmail

I can't think of a better word. Pointless vote, then. You lose, or - er - you lose. Choose the manner of your loss.

MP calls for Jezza Clarkson's head

Get a life - and a sense of humour

Some people should focus their time on things which are more important - especially MPs who are paid to do so. Humour can be offensive to some, and even the good old slip on a banana skin is a laugh at someone else's expense. Clarkson did not mean ill to anyone by this. For goodness' sake, pretty soon we're not going to be able to laugh about anything without some retentive twonk bleating on about it, demanding blood. Get back on with your real job, and lighten up.

Brits are Europe's biggest gadget buyers - official

According to my wife....

I'm the one who is skewing that statistics in favour of the UK. Well, they put so much effort into making these things that it seems almost rude not to buy them.

Spanish doc cuffed for webcam in toilet

I'm so sorry but....

It's a good job they managed to flush him out.

Trousers Brown: Blighty faces 'food security' threat

Brown. Look to yourself.

Get on with running the country properly. If you did that, we'd respect you more when you were telling us how to live our lives.

King Arthur was English 'propaganda', French claim

Leave King Arthur alone!!!

So what, Napoleon was a midget and and Joan of Arc was gay. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries. Take that, Frenchies.

The Casey Report: Putting your mouth, not brain, in charge

@Fuion

If you can't be bothered to actually contribute, don't waste internet bandwidth.

Get out of the way of this nasty woman

I saw Louise Casey interviewed on TV and it was terrifying that this woman, who shouts people down continually and is in love with her own vengeful opinion, is in a position to influence policy. i was waiting for her to advocate bringing back hanging.

Microsoft chases satnav market

Yet another diversion.... excuse the pun

Microsoft should concentrate on getting Vista fit for purpose/getting the market to accept it and stop getting sidetracked into other markets.

Can Microsoft 'do' open source by 2015?

This shows exactly why they are in such trouble -

If a company needs to take so long to make a relatively simple change in direction, then they are no longer nimble and competitive. When they almost missed the boat on the Internet several years ago, the turnaround was impressively fast and outflanked many competitors who had been in pole position. Microsoft today is not the same company - Vista, years late, rejected by the market, fat and bloated, is not the product of a nimble company - even Gartner now says that Vista is Microsoft's tombstone. The timescales against this are embarrassing and far too slow for an IT company - by the time Microsoft gets wherever its open source initiative takes it, open source will be somewhere else.

Oldham murders owl with whalesong

As a professional designer myself...

...I can't say I'm in the wrong game, just charging the wrong amount. A good designer might charge (say) £80 per hour, so that means this took 1250 hours or approx 166 days. However, I'd say even an average designer could have done this in a day max, 'thinking time' included. Perhaps they did and this is just an example of 'value-based pricing'. In any event, I want to hire the salesperson from the design agency who negotiated the price. He's definitely very good value.

Apple guns Xserve and Mac Pro to 11

Price of add-ons

Those here seeing the price of Mac Pro add-ons such as memory and disc space as prohibitive (which they are, shame on Apple) should simply buy them from someone else - they are pig-easy to fit and you will save shedloads, without any compromise on performance.

Apple's Leopard rejects latest version of Java

Re: Peter Labrow posts

Nice to see lots of people assuming that I'm a Mac fan boy just because I said that problems happen with any new OS - which was the source of my comment about it not being news, not about Apple deleting posts from its support site (which clearly is). For the record, I am actually Microsoft partner who uses XP, Vista - and also Mac OS and even Linux - because I do a lot of testing on Web sites. So I'm not a 'fan boy' I'm just sensible. I would not apply a one-day old OS to any machine that my livelihood depended on; if I did, and something went wrong, I wouldn't be so daft as to start screaming about it - I'd just quietly roll back to my backup. Oh, no backup? Oh dear, that is careless!!

Mac OS is a good OS, and I'm not a Mac fan boy. I just have in-depth experience of more than one OS; one wonders if those people shouting 'fan boy' can say the same. Anyone who thinks that any new OS doesn't come with some 'issues' is in denial about the reality of software development - however much testing you do, issues come out in the wild.

Clearly, if Apple is deleting support posts, that's really unhelpful to all of those with this problem - separate issue from what I said though.

Hope that helps. Now leave me alone, I'm a sensitive soul!

No really news is it?

While I generally respect The Register, this is hardly news: "new OS has some compatibility problems". It would be wonderful if a new OS from anyone was flawless but it's never the case and it always takes a short (or long in some cases) while for such issues to be sorted. You're making more out of this than it is - and so are the developers who are crying because just a couple of days out and this issue isn't fixed. Any IT pro or developer with any common sense does not leap to ANY new OS on day one.

Warner punts Blunt on MySpace

I can see it now

"James Blunt has 0 friends" - possibly the only MySpace page to say that

Microsoft promises less-annoying Vista OS early next year

I moved to Vista early - and then bailed big time

Vista was the last straw for me, I installed it, hated it, and I moved to the Mac and haven't looked back. Vista is a broken, slow, painful OS, much worse than XP - two steps forward and ten steps back. No wonder readers of FHM magazine voted it the most disappointing thing of 2007. I'm not a Mac zealot, I have used PCs for twenty years, and I wouldn't be adverse to Linux, but there are more mainstream apps available for Macs, plus great Windows support for the few instances when you need it.

Warner Bros to remake Enter the Dragon

Oh dear...

The Wicker Man, Escape from New York, Planet of the Apes - how many millions do they have to spend before they finally learn?

Doctor Who recruits new sidekick

Re: The Rani

Not the Rani - the hand was Lucy Saxon's (note the red nail polish, she wasn't dressed in red in the previous scenes by accident) - which means that although it looked like she killed the Master as revenge for beating up on her, that was a MacGuffin, she was acting under instructions and knew to go get the ring afterwards. Guess how he comes back?!

Downing Street rejects Vista petition

The important part you missed

The Downing Street peition directs people to the Office of Fair Trading. And guess what? The Office of Fair Traiding does not accept compliants from individuals!!

This whole thing is a joke - and never mind Microsoft, all US companies are at it, plundering 'Treasure Island'. Check out the price for Adobe's Creative Suite, versus what is paid in the US.

It really is about time that equalised pricing was made law. This is discrimination based on location, nothing more, nothing less.

'IE8 compatible' - the cure for web standards headache?

Bite the bullet

They should just bite the bullet and go standards compliant. They have said that is where they need to go - they should swallow hard and go for it. There will be some issues, but any Web developer worth her/his salt will have been coding in a standards compliant way anyway. Plus, it's better to fix things to a standard, rather than be fixing this to suit one broken product.

Firefox has done a lot to make Web developers more aware of making sites standards compliant. It's time to make the change. Microsoft could issue a warning, two years before product release, that sites need to be standards compliant and that developers should test them in Firefox. That gives people plenty of time.