Posts by Karim Bourouba 139 publicly visible posts • joined 8 May 2007
I refuse to beleive it!
They are far to busy to do any of that - or any actual police work as they are tied up with all the paper work that goes into 'modern' policing these days.
Isnt that the line they normally trot out when people point out their myriad failiures?
I dont think we are sliding into a police state at all. instead, much like the Royal Mail, the police in the UK also need to be forced into modernising.
Does it matter if Apple makes a netbook or not? I mean, look at current netbooks. A lot of them come with a Linux installed, or the owner installs a Linux after buying it.
Does Apple really need to produce the hardware? Or do they simply need to produce a netbook centric version of Mac OS instead? And even if they did, would anyone want to buy it?
Correct me if I am wrong (and buy this I mean piss off to the Apple zealots who will deride me), but isnt the fact that you can buy a small, cheap, portable computer that runs an (often) free OS the drawing factor here? Apple gear is (apparently) more popular for its style as opposed to its content, so would a netbook version of the OS suit?
And on the note that they dont know how to make a small, cheap computer - just what exactly is the Mac mini then? Are they telling us that it is completely beyond their ability to simply add a screen, keyboard and battery to a Mac mini and call it a netbook? And then there is the iTablet - isnt this already a netbook? FFS, this is silly. So Apple doesnt want to make a device called a Netbook, big deal.
Paris, because I nearly always use Paris when posting about Apple and its 'Tards.
This looks like a typically US centric article to me. I dont see MS losing the smartphone market to Apple at all. If anything, they will loose their meagre share to either RIM, Nokia or any manufacturer deploying Android.
The iPhone is nice, but it is just an MP3 player with a fairly bog standard phone attached. I dont see how business will be taken with this as a tool, how exactly are they going to provide an entertainment device to their staff in order to do work? RIM is definitely providing very good handets now and Nokia may wake up and see what is happening. But any market share they loose will more than likely be hoovered up by Andriod based devices - not jesusPhones.
I admire the church of scientology like zeal they have programmed their cultists with, and i admire the kick in the arse that they gave to the mobile phone world - but if you look at it objectively all they have done is give us a new input method, thats it and even then its a reimagining of the touch screen. There is the store, designed to syphon money directly from our bank accounts to Apple, negating any online store the network may have already (poorly) implemented.
Sure, the iPhone will always do well, but I dont see it making its way into the breast pockets of big business any time soon.
No doubt the Apple fanboi-tards will hit this post as well.
Paris, as she has an iPhone and doesnt know what all the fuss is about - just as long as she can post her facebook updates.
You bunch of bellend-tards complaining about losing the feature to install a different OS (probably Linux). So what if it has gone from the firmware in this device? Whats the point in complaining about it? They only way you would miss it is if you already have a PS3 and replaced it with the slimline version.
is this really the most important feature?
I think the only reason I wont replace my PS3 with the PS3 slim is down to the fact I have an old school 60gb version that plays PS2 games. If the new console did this, I would probably get one.
Saying that, a fool and his money are easily parted. So I will probably go get one anyway...
I like the idea that this could be deployed to a disaster zone sharpish. It makes me happy that people are doing this sort of thing, if not for that very reason.
But isnt there a slightly more sinister edge to this? Should nefarious groups get hold of the knowhow, then they would also have a GSM network that only they use, and quite possibly noone would be any the wiser. They may even have better 3G coverage than me...
With that said though, I am most impressed with this and I am genuinely interested to see what happens next.
If a lot of this is going to be all 'under the hood' then is there a potential that people could just let all of this pass them by?
I mean, the Beeb did an article on this a few days back and I went to take a nosey at what was on offer. I mean, doesnt Bing do some of the realtime search stuff that Caffeine is promising already? And, if we really just dont notice any of the changes, then was it worth it in the end?
Bit confused about this one.
This will have very little relevance with the anti-Linux fanboys as you put them.
How this could have been overlooked for eight years though, is the real matter. Does this mean that a trivial bug slipped through whatever QA process the community uses only to be overlooked again by the various white/black/grey hatters in the world?
Did we all just assume that Linux could not be affected like this? I think the answer may just be yes.
I still dont get how you can say that you cant work with the N810 under the hood. Its a Debian, if you want to compare it to Ubuntu fine, its a good comparison as Ubuntu is a Debian also. Underneath, they are almost identical. If your device is crashing, then update to the latest software.
If that doesnt help, then god knows why you havent been onto Nokia's support line about it. There isnt much point in telling the good readers of the Reg about your problems, unless you think Nokia is reasing this. And if a lot of other people have had the same problems, then maybe, just maybe, Nokia would be willing to do something about it?
I initially got my N810 as I was sick of my S60 devices. Over the years they have gone from slick and fast to slow and retarded. Nokia seems to have lost the plot when it comes to hardware on their S60 devices - the N95 is faster than the N96, which was supposed to be its flagship prior to the N97. The hate, as you put it, for S60 probably stems from the fact that Nokia hasnt really done anything with this platform for almost seven years, all they do is react to things like the iPhone. Which, to anyone who has followed Nokia at all during this time seems a little strange, given they already had Series 90 a good few years back (die hard Psion fans will probably show their love for this one). Series 90 was good and its interface lives on, in Hildon.
I dont mind that you dont like the device or its OS. What I mind is someone sounding off about things that they dont seem to have researched so well, or infact, discussed with the manufacturer. What you appear to be complaining about are two different things: Linux and Hildon.
As it happens, yes, i have tried installing Ubuntu on the N810 and I have used Android on the N810. I own an N810, if only for a few months now. Right now, it has Maemo on it and it works just fine for what I want it to do. i dont find Hildon to be a problem, nor do I find any of Nokia's apps to be a problem.
The only problem I have with this is that I dont know what to do with it - it isnt a phone and thats probably what I really wanted more than this. A phone with a big wide screen, that wasnt a Windows Mobile device, that wasnt an iPhone and wasnt a Communicator. Natch, this doesnt exist ATM.
Then we get Symbian - dont confuse this with the OS on Nokia smartphones like you have confused Maemo/Hildon. With current Nokia smartphones the problem isnt Symbian as such, as others have pointed out - its the concept of S60, which is why people went off and came up with UIQ and people are coming up with things like Qt now.
Who knows, according to the Reg now, Nokia isnt going to replace Symbian with Maemo. Maybe they will redefine S60 so that devices can be Linux based etc.
It wouldnt be fair to call you a moron. You need to look at it this way. On a desktop, a linux runs with a GUI. If you use Ubuntu as a point of reference, then Gnome is the GUI. This over-simplifies things enormously, but I think it is warranted right now.
In maemo, the GUI is Hildon - which is a part of Gnome. Again, a massive over-simplification.
Maemo is a version of Debian - it doesnt just 'use' apt or dpkg. So installing Debian to the device is simple. It's done for you when you first get it.
As for porting software to the N810, this often takes place for Linux, for those using Gnome, KDE etc.
If you dont like Hildon, then you are out of luck - its a part of Gnome as I mentioned and is used not just for maemo, but also for Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded. Ubuntu can be considered a fairly popular Linux for the purposes of this comment.
Staying on the topic of Ubuntu, if you dont want to try the perfectly good implementation of Android, then did you even look at installing Ubuntu Mobile at all?
I dont blame anyone for not liking the hardware on the N810. But to rubbish the software on the basis that you simply dont like it and complain that you cannot do anything to replace the OS is childish. I dont blame you for not liking the initial OS on the device either. But since its release it has been improved quite a bit - and if you really couldnt live with it then it is incredibly simple to replace it with one you prefer. I dont even blame you for simply disliking the N810 and feeling you were cheated, if you dont like it, fine. There are plenty of others that would agree with you that the series of internet tablets so far are a little pointless - me included.
Oh dear. Did you not even look into installing Android? Hardly takes any time to get it installed... but I can understand people not wanting to try things out with their new hardware. As for the "Yes you can put Debian on it" comment - you do realise that Maemo is a Debian?
Still, never mind eh? Better luck next time.
Paris, as her nerdy younger sister knew full well that Maemo is a Debian and that you can use Apt on it...
Well, from the comments above it looks like the Church of Apple Scientology has got here first.
S60 has been rapidly going down hill over the last few years, but I think this has more to do with variant versions and operator "customisation" than anything else. If you get a generic Nokia handset with generic Nokia firmware, then you have little to worry about. However, when you get a handset on subsidy from an operator, thats where you are likely to get into trouble.
The comments on Maemo are clearly made by people who have never actually used one of these Internet Tablets. As devices, they are fine, you can do loads with them. But in saying that, I have always viewed them a bit of a "whats the point?". I mean, its all the stuff you would like your N96 to do properly, but without the phone bit. The N900 looks like it could be a winner, and to be honest, if you dont like Maemo then install another Linux - or indeed, install Android (you can do it on the N810).
Even Moylans comments on how extensible the Symbian OS platform seem out of place and odd. If it was so hard to develop on, then how come there are so many apps for S60 devices? You want Python, fine - learning it for a Nokia phone is no harder than learning it for anything else.
And I think the problem here is purely to do with the S60 spec as opposed to purely Symbian. Communicator users were in uproar when Nokia based the E90 on S60, and I think this movement is more than likely to have caused the current predicament with Nokia devices.
Nokia themselves have tied up the 'normal' mobile handset market, to confuse things further, this would be their series 40 devices. They also have two further specifications, series 80 and series 90. So I suppose what I am trying to get to is this: it isnt so much Symbian that is the problem, but more the Series 60 platform that Nokia uses. I also feel that Nokia taking control of Symbian OS also contributed to the problems they are facing now.
I personally cannot see any form of Apple dianetics taking root in the business world, so I dont see the jesusPhone displacing RIM or Nokia devices there. But Android, thats a different kettle of fish. This is the one to watch, unless MS is able to magic a good mobile OS out of its arse. Remember, resistance is futile.
Big Brother, because Google wouldnt like you to put all your personal information on a mobile device connected to the Internet constantly. They just expect you to do it.
At least, it probably will be in the desktop world.
Think about how easy it would be for Google to own your computer as well as your data this way (I think this is the idea behind Chrome OS).
I am quite excited about this prospect, not about Google, but the fact that I may not need to go through the process of installing an OS, but instead just install the hypervisor. I am intrigued to see how companies like MS will use it to fight piracy etc. I am also interested to see how the open source community would work with the concept - after all, open source is based on the ideal that its just software. Could the open source community support this?
But is this a saving we will see straight away, or will it be over a few years?
Also, should ID cards go ahead, will the country save more than £3billion in whatever else goes on?
If cancelling these cards now will save us this amount of money now, then it makes more sense to bin them. I mean, getting back £3billion right now should surely be at the top of the governments minds right now.
With an extra £3billion in the coffers, MP's could go back to spending thousands of pounds on their moats etc.
On a seperate, tinfoil hat wearing note (@codemonkey). If you have to be in the club to get anywhere, then how do you know about all of this? Are you part of the clique? Or are you just making things up to justify your own dissatisfaction with the government right now? Or, are you promoting another party?
Or, are you actually one of the Lizard people, who as we already know, control the population of the UK via the medium of reality TV?
RIPA has to be one of the scariest things in UK law at the moment.
Aside it being a license for nosey Council employees to snoop on people, it seems to be a massive invasion of privacy. Does it mean that anyone who uses encryption is doing it because they are up to something they shouldnt be? Is this just an effort to criminalise the use of encryption in software? The mind boggles.
Normally, I dont advocate the use of things like this, but with the rise of bot-nets and zombies, what stops a bot-farmer from holding encrypted data on someone else machine? And then add that to the sheer amount of companies that use encryption to transmit data every day of the week.
Plod picks up said person and tries to lever the encryption key from them but to no avail. I know it sounds like something the tinfoil hat brigade might come up with, but I dont think anyone can rule it out.
And then there is truecrypt, all some nefarious evil doer needs to do here is just employ two encrypted OS's, one hidden and one not hidden. Plod wont know any different because, well lets face it , the average intelligence of the plod is almost equal to a garden fence.
Essentially, anyone with anything they really want to hide can do so without fear that plod will be able to find the data they are hiding.
I'm getting all paranoid now, I know. But surely RIPA just isnt worth all the hassle? Why can't the government just hide this under layers of impenentrable legislation that will take months if not years for the scare-mongers to get through?
Paris, well because I always use Paris. Plus, she and plod also share the same level of confusion as to what encryption means.
I took a look at it and have to say it is a very nice phone indeed. This made me seriously think about getting a non-Nokia handset for the first time since 2004 (although, in saying that , Nokia also helped with that choice).
The build quality is great and the way the phone just works is awesome. Unless more details emerge on the Nokia N900, then an Android based handset will be the way I go when it comes to upgrade.
Even though I am not an Apple zealot (like a few people on this thread...), I would consider buying one.
Mainly because I am sick of current smartphones and I dont want to be locked into a lifelong contract with o2 for an iPhone. I had been thinking about getting the Nokia N810, but now I see this on the horizon, I may wait a little longer.
I already own an iPod Touch, so having one of them with a larger screen would be ideal.
Cant help but think that Apple are missing a good bit of business here somehow. Retro gaming is still going pretty strong, just look at the Wii Virtual Console, the XBLA and PSN - they are all hawking games from 25 years ago for a pretty penny.
Is Apple unaware that a lot of people are willing to spend almost a tenner on Sonic the Hedgehog almost twenty years after it was released? i, for one, would snap up old games like this in a shot should they ever make it onto the App Store...
Good luck with that, I dont think there will be many proxies across the world that will stay up for the lenght of time needed to get a torrent if they allow such activity.
Back on topic, if you think about it logically, wouldnt the IP be the property of the ISP? They are just assigning part of their network to you after all.
Who didnt like going to lectures? it meant you could interact with real people while you ignored the lecturer.
And, in my case where one lecture theatre could hold almost 600 people on two levels, you could sit at the back at the top completely anonymously.
Virtual lectures would mean that noone would see you not want to be there.
First up, Tom101 doesnt seem to understand. MS were told they were abusing their system and as a resuly had to remove their browser component from windows. If an OEM wants to install a browser, the choice is theirs. They are also free to choose to install any browser, so complaining this isnt in the spirit of the judgement (not the law) is foolish.
Now, the point made about the OS not shipping with a browser at all, yes this would be true if it were not bought from a source that bundles a browser with the OS, such as from an OEM. but the point about users with no Internet connection not having a browser? I cant think of many applications that would need a browser and not an internet connection.
I think my biggest problem with this utterly ridiculous and money wasting judgement is that other OS's are free to continue to bundle either a browser with the software or have browser integration with the shell. Why is it ok for them and not for MS? Why should I have to use FF/Opera etc with Linux and so on. Why is Apple free to push Safari on anyone who has there OS (or itunes for that matter).
grr.
he made the classic mistake of saying that Apple Mac's are not as perfect as the sales guff makes them out to be. Bet he wont do that again in a hurry, eh?
However, I think your question still needs answering - if the device is just a HDD that shows up as an HDD when you plug it into Windows, then yeah, you probably can format it to NTFS.
Someone did point out that NTFS is only really suited to a Windows environment, which is true. But this shouldnt be a problem so much as the device doesnt appear to be a NAS etc. So, should you decide to brave this article again and dodge the Apple zealots, i hope this helps you out.
Paris, well, because
Sadly, you seem to be adopting the same attitude as many other supporters of largely racist and ignorant far right political movements, you know groups like the BNP etc.
As soon as someone says "I dont like that way of thinking", they tend to get a bit wound up. Last night on Sky News, the goon in charge of the BNP commented that the UK was a slum and that the BNP were a direct response to the peoples needs. I completely disagree, the BNP is a product of peoples worse fears and ignorance, a little like the qualities you seem to have displayed on this thread.
While there is a need to diverese political attitudes in order for democracy to work, we can rest assured that evil, racist, criminal thugs like the BNP will never gain any great power in the UK. thank god.
Paris, as she has about as much a clue as yourself.
Maybe, just maybe, illegal immigrants are not the source of all woe in the UK.
I for one would be interested to hear what the BNP have to say about tacking the problem of crime, drug use and social housing in the UK, should the (for some reason) win an election.
So far, all I have heard them say is that they will kick all the illegal immigrants out, not let any immigrants in and spend lots of money on promoting St Georges Day and a traditional Christian Christmas. I think I also heard the muppet in charge of them saying he will ignite industry in the UK again. From looking at their website, it would seem that this will all be paid for by 'eliminating multiculturalism in the UK'.
At the same time as doing this, the BNP also want to withdraw from the EU - and then set up new trading and travel agreements with the EU (?). Isnt that just going to cost more money, or am I being thick? There is a whole bunch of other stuff, like enlarging the army, reintroducing the death penalty, using chaingangs - the normal guff from muppets like the BNP as well as messages that all the other political parties are putting forward, you know the stuff about doctors and nurses as well as green fuels blah blah blah.
I have never really viewed the EU elections in the same way I look at a general election, to me the EU elections are sort of like a supra council election - it doesnt really if one party has overall control as long as the parliament has a decent share of representation from all corners of the politcal world.
So, getting the Pirate Party in is good, it means discussion will take place on a very big topic. Getting the BNP in wont really do much good at all, they want out of the EU. The only good to come of it is that people will hopefully wake up and turn out to vote for the next election, putting these rascist (and potentially criminal?) thugs out of the picture.
Again with Paris, she really wants to download the next series of Lost without fear of her ISP sending a strongly worded letter.
What did I say about the BNP and the NAZI party? I didnt draw any links.
Oh no, I did actually, I mentioned that the BNP are racist and as we all know from history, so were the NAZI's. Both parties seem to have a similar ideaology and the BNP seems to be intent on playing on the worst fears of a minority to get what they want.
You may also notice I didnt have a problem with protest votes in general, but there are other far more worthy parties to vote for in this manner - even UKIP rate better than the BNP.
And now I am wondering why you singled out my name for the title of your post....
Paris, because she isnt wondering...
No, it tells us that 6% of the 34%(ish) who bothered to turn out for the elections thought that voting for the BNP was a good idea at the time.
It's funny to listen to the news from this morning and last night. Apparently Labour got the blame for this as well. Now, personally I dont see how someone who has been voting for the Labour party for the last n amount of years starts voting for a far right racist party. Dont see how the swing from left to right can take place unless the BNP is actively going out and lying to people.
Which they probably are.
Last night the goon in charge of them commented that the BNP MEP's will be donating 10% of their wages to community causes and to a traditional christian christmas. Of course, I would imagine that the community causes will be things like marches, shaving heads, burning books, fearing other religions, fearing immigrants, making the public fear other things (like Europe, the single currency etc) and getting angry with anyone who appears to disagree with them.
I still maintain that people should be able to vote for who they want, but I think those who voted BNP as a protest should feel ashamed for wasting their vote. Especially when they could have voted for the Pirate Party ( or the Roman Party, Ave).
Paris, because she cant spell BNP.
Does this mean you voted for the racist BNP then, only to prove a point against the main political parties? If you did, dont you think that it was a tad silly?
I understand the need to suffer groups like the BNP, after all we live in a democracy, but I dont see the need to throw away a vote for them. That is, of course, unless you fit their idea of what a British person looks like. After listening to the chap who leads that rabble on Sky news last night it would appear he will figure out who can stay and who can go just by looking at them.
I am not telling you that a protest vote is wrong, it isnt, but it is a great shame that it goes to muppets like the BNP instead of actual political parties like the Green Party, or UKIP, who actually want to try and make a positive difference.
Paris, because even she isnt stupid enough to waste a vote on the BNP...
Yes indeed! It is a fine time for good old Somerset today, in the tech news and lauded for the councils ability to allow fraud!
All they need to do now is draw a link to the dodgy land deals taking place on the coast (possibly) and Somersets destiny will be complete.
It's not often the third world of England gets mentioned in the tech news, happy day!!
I am no CSI wannabe, but given the UK is the serveillance capital of the world, wouldnt one of the CCTV cameras placed everywhere have picked him up at the ATM itself?
I know cameras tend to point at ATM's in busy places, like in train stattions and city centers etc. So would it have been a big problem for someone to have reviewed the tapes for the days the transactions were made?
Or, could it be that even though we have all these cameras in the UK, we dont hang on to the video for very long? And, chances are that even if there were no camera looking at people at the ATM itself, surely one of these spy devices would have picked him up in the vicinity of the ATM around the times the transactions were made?
Or am I just being too clever for my own good?
Dont forget, the nature of being a contractor means you will not always be employed for long stretches especially right now.
£400 a day sounds a lot, but if the contract is only 2 months long it becomes a lot less. In todays climate, contracting rates are crap (well at least in Scotland they are).
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