Posts by Kenny Millar

Sony Ericsson Android phone caught on camera

You too can have...

.... stuttering, under powered graphics.

Ballmer preempts Jobs with tablet slate trio

@Hmmm...

You are so right.

Look at the photos over at the archos website and see that it's all about the OS and the hardware, the end user can go to hell. Who (at MS) cares about the user experience so long as it runs Windows 7?

For MS it's all about the Brand and the juggernaut of sales, keep the user swamped and he won't be able to move away, while others are concentrating on the user experience: Treat the user with respect and he'll be faithful.

Apple, Nokia and Palm are all coming to realise that if you get the user experience right, then the users will stay faithful. MS are still trying to use beatings and negative reinforcement to demand brand loyalty.

So, you know what MS should do? (I know I will get flamed for this, but it would work). They should draw a line under Windows 7 and say, after that we will have a brand new operating system. It will not be backwards compatible, though it will work on the same hardware. It will be new from the very bare bones upwards, it will not be based on any previous version of windows, and it will not be called windows.

Now, I know all you windows fans will be snigger at how stupid that sounds, but is it really? Is it any worse than someone who decides to switch from WIndows to Linux? Or windows to Mac OS X?

You are all crying out about how there will be no support for you favourite this that or the next app, but the developers will love it, they get to re-factor all their products, which they've been secretly wanting to do for years. Anyone who has ever made Mac software has already done that once, and it pays.

Don't you think....

This is a damning indictment of Windows Mobile?

Ballmer readies slate PC for CES

@Me too?

Yip - Apple really don't know how to make mice do they! I should know, I switched 100% to Apple about 5 years ago and have never regretted anything other than the crap mice.

He he, they really should just leave the mouse market alone.

iSlate? I spy more control from Cupertino

Ooohh so close

You were so very close when you said:

>Imagine a Slate with USB, BT2.1 (with full A2DP) and Infrared, a MiniDisplayPort, AND an HDMI

>port. Connect it to your TV, to play some games, connect handsets (iPhones or Apple controllers

>wirelessly or over BT for multilayer). the Slate could be the new AppleTV, or it could fit in the

>middle as a bridge device.

All those ports, well the physical ones at least, will be available - but via the dock connector.

5-megapix 'iPhone 4' set for June?

Not the iPad

The extra cameras are going into iPod and Ipod touch devices.

There, I said it.

@Rumours upon rumours

The thing is, that fruity tech is not 2 -3 years behind, but is actually delivering what people want.

Nokia et al think that adding more and more tech will drive sales, and to some extent it does, but then people have actually ended up paying for the tech, and not getting much in the way of usability. Whereas fruity tech deliver usability in abundance - in fact the user experience gets highest priority, ahead of having the latest widget, camera or photon cannon. People like HTC, Nokia and Microsoft should start investing in usability and let THAT dictate the technology and not the other way around.

@ What Year

You are wrong.

It's all about usability and Apple are years ahead of everyone else in that front.

What use is the best tech if it's a pigging pig in a poke ?

Kingston SSD Now V 40GB boot drive

FPS

"...gives you the benefit of rapid start up, very low operating noise and a PC that is amazingly responsive."

Any Apple Mac from the past 5 years will do that too.

Putting a faster hard drive in a PC to make it go faster is not the correct answer. It's Windows and the mandatory CPU Gobbling anti-malware that makes your PC go slow.

Buy a mac.

How I rebuilt Europe after the Berlin Wall collapsed

Foul Mouthed Tim

Tim,

Do we really need all the foul language? No journalist should ever be so short for words to articulate hat he has to say.

Apple said to have axed Atom support from OS X 10.6.2

Like I said

This is because Apple are about to launch a NetBook not a tablet.

I've told you this before.

They have specifically targetted non-apple branded machines with Atom processors. Think about it.

Hitachi Data Systems fingered in Sidekick disaster

Neverfail for Sidekick any one?

Neverfail for Sidekick any one?

Foxconn to send Apple 400,000 iTablets in Q1 2010, say moles

It's not a tablet, it's a netbook

Now, remember where you heard that first.

Apple's iPhone loses carriers money, claims researcher

Try buying one on PAYG

Try this simple test.

Go into any CarphoneWarehouse or O2 store and ask to buy an iPhone 3GS on PAYG.

They will tell you that it is currently out of stock and it may be several weeks before they get stock - or some similar statement, they'll also tell you that they DO have it in stcok on Contract SIMS.

Now, do you know what the difference is between a PAYG sim and a Contract SIM? Nothing.

It's the same phone, the same box, the only difference is the box they tick for activation.

O2 and CPW simply do no wish to sell the phone on PAYG, therefore they must be making more money from Contract than from PAYG phones. So much more, that they would rather loose the £440 sale than sell the phone to a PAYG customer, and then keep the phone in stock until a contract customer comes along.

Windows 7 versus Snow Leopard — The poison taste test

For me, it's the contempt

I use windows 7 a lot, I have to for my job.

I've used Windows in all it's versions since Win386, through WfW, W95, XP and so on.

I have also used Mac OS X since Tiger (10.3).

What strikes me is the difference in attitude towards the end user from both Apple and MS.

I just get that feeling that the MS developers put code first, and user experience last, whereas with Apple, the user experience is EVERYTHING it's even written into (for example) the iPhone SDK agreement.

I was using windows 7 the other day and was trying to do something simple like copy a file off of my memory stick onto the desktop. The explorer window was just cluttered, poorly laid out and confusing - even for an experienced computer user like me.

The Apple finder isn't perfect - but it is leap years ahead of it's rival when it comes to user friendliness.

Anyway, each to their own.

Bye for now.

Phorm phading phast

Phank Goodness

By bye Phorm, we all hate you ayway.

Opera Software reinvents complete irrelevance

@Ted Dziuba - Not journalism

This is a rant, not journalism.

I really detest such negativity in so called journalism.

If you can't present something in a neutral and balanced way then just shut up.

You may well be correct that Opera is not being relevant, so you should present the facts, and your opinion, but to moan like child is just unprofessional.

I wish El Reg would let us filter on author.

McAfee downplays service pack fail

Fail and the SysAdmin

The people who made the biggest booboo were the sysAdmins who rolled it out without properly testing it on their builds first.

Site news: Unique commenter handles coming

Eh, What handle?

What do you mean? My profile doesn't have a handle.

Eh?

Rumor mill coughs up $99 4GB iPhone

@zomg

So, let have a wee look at your comment.

Don't you think there is something you are missing?

Like the fact that Apple actually make great, usable products?

You obviously got a touch of green fever, because /your/ chosen technology supplier doesn't make any decent products. All you have left is to slag off a company that does, and people that appreciate them.

Triangular buttons key to touchscreen typing success - inventor

Nah, he's wrong

What ever way you look at it, all he's doing is making the target area for any key smaller, and therefore training yourself to be more accurate at typing, through lots of early failures to hit the right key.

His screen dump is hilarious - it's all keyboard and no where to type!

Atlantis home today, storms permitting

@@AC

Noise? The orbiter (it's only a shutlle when it has the solid rocket engines and fuel tank attached) makes a totally unpowered decent (ie a GLIDE) back to earth.

Apple bars 2.0 code from App Store

Surprise - el reg gets it wrong again.

You're wrong.

You can still develop on v2.2.1 and you can still submit v2 apps, so long as they will ALSO run on v3.0 - ie using no deprecated APIs.

It's not rocket science. Just plan english, which our reporter seems to have a poor grasp of.

Pirate Bay loses trial: defendants face prison time, hefty fines

Get a grip people

There's a huge difference between Google and TPB.

TPB was obviously designed to allow access to stuff you didn't want to pay for.

At no time did they ever try to discourage people from carrying out illegal activity from their site.

The verdict is a good one.

BT chief: People don't need fibre to the home

Talk about missing the point!

We didn't need the internet, until we had it.

It's not a matter of need, it's a matter of progress and availability will fuel demand, providing it is priced appropriately.

In addittion, BT Can't afford NOT to do it, since someone else will, if they don't. It wouldn't cost Virgin much to extend their fibre to the home from the street cabinets.

Third e-bike to line up for 'zero-emission' TT sprint

Eh?

So why does it have brakes and not an energy recovery system instead?

UK kids presenter gets online support

Stupid Parents

If your kid is scared by this, then it's because YOU have brought them up to think disabled people are scary!

What a stupid parent you must be.

My Three year old loves watching CBeebies and it doesn't bother her in the slightest when she sees this presenter.

Microsoft goes retail with own shops

Feck sake

Have MS never had an original idea in their life?

I bet the shops are over complicated, over engineerd and buggy, like everything else they copy.

BREAKING NEWS - MS TO REBRAND

MS have today announced that they are to ditch the name 'Microsoft' with all it's negative connotations, and rebrand as 'Me 2'

This is a wonderful bit of imagineering, as it encapsulates everything MS is knee deep in.

The pan-European Office for the Ecodesign of everything

Ahaaa!

It's eco-design,

Took me ages - I was trying to figure out what e-code-sign was all about.

Third-gen Apple iPhone in development?

Quick

Get the milking machine ready, for the cash cow is heading to the barn!

Apple in iWork piracy boost

@raving angry loony

Hey, you don't get it!

It will take you less time to learn-and-prepare a keynote presentation than it would to prepare a presentation in the cumbersome OpenOffice or PowerPoint - it really is child's play.

Google kills iPhone-optimized iGoogle

Blessed relief

Thank goodness - don't you just hate it when people do an 'iPhone' version of their website and then direct you there based on your User Agent string.

The iPhone has the best web browser on a mobile device bar none, it works GREAT with full size web sites and we don't need a smaller, special version just for iPhone.

Brill, I say - good on you google, and about time too!

Deception of 'up to' broadband speeds exposed

@Tim

You are not alone. Many BT Customers are experiencing slowdowns after 5pm weekedays and at various times at weekends. It's almost like flicking a switch - 5pm BOOM! Non BT-Vision customers get throttled so that BT Vision customers can watch neighbours.

Apple wrongfoots iPhoneys

@Dominic Kua

The point is, it DOESN'T work, once you get beyond the main switch on screens it's nothing like an iPhone. Trust me on that one.

Walmart's Jesus Phone no better, no worse

Rik is an (==donkey)

Negative reporting, in a negative style.

If you can't speak sensibly then don't speak at all.

You aren't even man enough to reply to my emails about the term 'Jesus Phone'

Cowon iAudio S9 PMP

Take note!

Finally someone has figured out what makes the iPhone/iPod Touch so nice to use - the user experience.

Sony, motorolla, Creative and Nokia should be paying attention!

Man faces $52k bill after voicemail breach

I agree

He shouldn't have to pay a penny.

Even if he had no password at all, that doesn't make it OK to steal his service.

If I leave my door open and someone burgles my house, that doesn't make it LEGAL to burgle my house does it? Theives will all rot in hell anyway.

Jobs, Apple out of Macworld Expo

@Stuart Gibson

Staurt has it dead right.

The withdrawal from Macworld is about timing and control.

The abscence of Steve Job - well thats anyone's guess but it's totally up to him!

We really don't know exactly how much the current product line up is down to him, and how much is down to the team, of which he is just one part. These are interesting times and it will be good to watch and see what pans out in the next year or so.

Anti-radiation phone chip withdrawn from sale

Eh?

Sorry what? Have I missed something here?

I never trustd the tinfoils hats - because as far as I can see they have no active component, and won't work as a faraday cage since they are not grounded, but this new device should be ok, after all it's got a chip in it.

Mine is the one with the wire wool lining.

Latest Firefox beta gets touchy on Mac

Pinch together / Apart

Surely you'v got that AFE(*) ?

Surely pinch together should be zoom out, and pinch apart should be zoom in?

(*) AFE = Ass for Elbow.

Harvard prof slams US nut allergy hysteria

At last!

A voice of sense!

Apple's Snow Leopard set to exploit GPU power

How many times?

They said I was 'odd' and put me in the 'odd box' when I said you'd be able to do browsing on your games console.

They told me I was odd, when I said you'd get in-game advertising.

They told me I was odd when I said search engines would sell your searches to advertisers.

They told me I was odd when I said you'd search, browse, shop and play games on the same console, and that the adverts you get when your online would be targetted directly AT YOU.

They told me I was odd, but in reality I was just telling you what was coming. It came. In fact, its so passè now. (See my article in mid nineties in Develop magazine).

Now listen. I'm telling you what's coming - now don't call me odd, just listen.

Windows is moribund. Got it? I'm not odd. I just know how to ignore the hype and look at the facts.

A380 too quiet, moan Emirates pilots

I have a better idea...

... better ear plugs! £1.49 from B&Q for 10.

Customs warns of killer consoles

£9bn

Yeah, right.

Apple tells Mac users: Get anti-virus

A voice of reason

John, nice article.

At last a voice of reason!

I've been a long time mac head, and am proud of it, but I'm not stupid either - (Honest I'm not!) - and think AV for all platforms is a good idea.

Tux makes home on the iPhone

Such brilliant minds, yet...

They can never focus a camcorder can they?

Why is it that every video like this is always out of focus?

Makes you wonder....

IT departments VAT-whacked

Only a fecking idiot

Only a freaking idiot would hard code a variable tax rate ino software.

The moral of the story is - get rid of any software package that has done this - who know what else the developers didn't understand about accounting.

For 99% of retailers it will be a matter of setting a new tax code, and saying use the new one from midnight on Sunday. For any that can't do that, sack the fecking accounts software supplier!

-LHM

Luke Skywalker's lightsabre goes on sale

But..

Is it Mac compatible?

The Apple Armada - Still worthy of the Jolly Roger?

Get (IT) right!

It's (PRODUCT) RED not PRODUCT (RED).