* Posts by Craig 12

300 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jun 2009

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Review: Sony Vaio Duo 11 Ultrabook

Craig 12

I played with one of these today at a MS promo event for windows 8 (seems a bit late!)

I'd read several average-to-bad reviews, but I honestly liked it. The screen was bright and clear, everything was snappy, touch wasn't laggy at all. Handwriting recognition with fingertip was impressive; didn't get to try a stylus tho.

My major concern was it seemed weighty for such as small machine, but then again I'm used to a lighter yet larger laptop.

Silicon Roundabout worthies in £2m UK.gov cash battle royale

Craig 12

Where are the links eh?

No UK date, no biz disties: Will Microsoft cock-up the Surface Pro too?

Craig 12

I always wanted a Zune, but they never released it outside the US (maybe Canada?), which I believe was part of its downfall.

I hope they don't do the same thing with the Pro, as I really wanted a tinker.

Don't shoot the Windows Live Messenger, cry IM users

Craig 12

I won't be moving to Skype

I think people will look back and see what a terrible move this is.

MSN is still so popular, and with an unofficial app, can be very lightweight with no adverts, unnecessary features or bloat (the very opposite of skype).

I still use MSN daily, even for work colleagues just down the corridor. I'd rather go to Google Talk than follow Microsoft into the mess that is Skype.

(I'm also an old fogey who misses ICQ)

Dozen more cities to get ultrafast broadband cash in gloomy UK budget

Craig 12

I think it's sad that el reg now has trolls like you, but hey ho.

Craig 12

Search article for "birmingham". No matches.

I don't see why all the surrounding areas of brum all have fibre or cable, but the city centre isn't scheduled for fibre until December 2013. I think they recently set that date because they couldn't be bothered pushing it back every 3 months any more.

You can argue whether or not we're still the "second city", but we're big enough for fast internet in the centre, dammit!

Mighty 4 Terabyte whopper crashes down on the desktop

Craig 12

Heads up el reg storage fans! Amazon have 3TB drives under £100. I'm all for new products, but at that price, 4TB can wait a while...

El Reg seeks hoardiest reader for crap-stashtic honour

Craig 12

A very tough competition for married hoarders to enter, as we have to become experts at hoarding and stashing!

SMARTPHONES make TEENS have SEX with STRANGERS

Craig 12

So, um, what apps do I need to download again?

Apple axed Brit retail boss for doing his job well - TOO well, perhaps

Craig 12

Re: ANY salesman will try to sell you something that his company sells

I hate buying stuff at the Apple store in the Bullring. (The last couple of things I bought there were not even Apple products, just stuff not stocked in many other "real" shops).

You can barely move even to browse, and all the "blue shirts" are *always* busy. I liked it better when there was just a checkout at the back, like a normal shop.

(They must lose loads to shoplifting as well. I bought a small thing, declined a carrier bag, had my receipt emailed to me, and just walked out the shop with no obvious proof whatsoever I had actually paid.)

Craig 12

"there are no glass staircases and minimalist draping of products over polished surfaces in Blighty's warehouse-like PC World or Currys mega-stores, and Dixons Group staff aren't prepared to hang around shooting the breeze with you as you scratch your chin and mull over making a purchase."

A one-off I realise, but In Birmingham we do have a fancy PC World / Dixons combo shop called "Black", that is like an "Apple" experience for other brands. If anything, it's far nice than the Bullring Apple store, which I hate going in to.

The hoarder's dilemma, or 'Why can't I throw anything away?'

Craig 12

Call that a cable box?!

If el reg wants to start a competition to find the most hordiest, I'm definitely in with a shot.

BTW Anyone need a scart cable? ISA TV card? Iomega zip drive? Two pin kettle lead*?

(*even I struggle to understand why I keep these)

Air China passenger arrested for in-flight phone abuse

Craig 12

Re: Shame the West isn't as proactive about antisocial phone behaviour.

"Why people can't switch off and totally ignore their smartphones for at least a few hours and preoccupy themselves with something else I find very strange--and very annoying when their disruptive behaviour personally affects me."

Why do you preoccupy yourself with what people preoccupy themselves with?

I fly a lot, and have never seen anything that would even remotely classify as "disruptive behaviour" originating from a mobile phone. Are you talking about people not switching to silent mode?

Have you ever used in-ear headphones? I use mine most flights these days, and I can't even hear the jet engines (or annoying announcements or other "boings"). I also find they help my ears recover much faster from the pressure.

iPhone queue ‘superficial and pretentious’ says queuing fangirl

Craig 12

Re: Craig 12

Thanks for telling me I'm not thinking correctly. You failed to put in any actual evidence or your thought process however.

For starters, not buying £500 on VISA doesn't give you £500 to save.

Let's say the average spend is £500, and people are spending it "here and there", it still no way gets to deposit levels. Someone would have to be "not-spending" / saving £500 for 5 years for a £30,000 deposit.

No one is buying an iphone every month. I'm not sure anyone on the current average wage could save £500 a month; certainly not an individual.

Craig 12

Re: Sir - That is BULLSH*T

>> This is crap!

>> I recently brought a £250k house with a £12k deposit..

Nice attitude you got there, and no way is that an average case. My friend who recently bought a 120k house paid the same deposit. For a reasonable deal, 10%-20% is still average.

Craig 12

Re: Sir

I heard a similar argument yesterday and I really think it's wrong. (Yesterday, young people couldn't afford mortgage deposits due to buying expensive laptops).

Here in the UK, for an average house, you need £16,000 to £32,000 deposit. Any other purchases pale in comparison, credit or debit card.

My wife and I earn well above average, and don't think we could have afforded our house if we didn't get on the ladder in the 0% deposit days.

Apple weekend iPhone 5 sales miss forecasts

Craig 12

Re: analysts BS

^This, and it sucks.

Every phone shop in Birmingham, and the bullring apple shop, has iphone 5 stock, but won't let me buy it sim free. Regardless of whether you think I'm stupid for buying one, it's more stupid they don't want my £599 at all.

Apple slip-up slows iOS 6 upgrades

Craig 12

Windows checks a microsoft page for every network connection to show you the little "world" icon. Of course, if it can't reach microsoft.com, it doesn't disable the entire connection...

Apple: You'd want hi-fi streamage from us, not poor-people Wi-Fi audio

Craig 12

You make a valid point, but then surely Apple could *work with other companies* so something could be suitable for mobile devices. And as other posters mentioned below, I forgot the most obvious one (bluetooth!)

Craig 12
Thumb Down

There are at least 3 protocols that I can think off the top of my head that already kind-of do this (ad hoc) but with video as well (WirelessHD, WHDI, WiDi). I know it's not not new for Apple to eschew standards/licensable protocols, but it is always annoying.

Akihabara unplugged: Tokyo's electric town falls flat

Craig 12

I was in Tokyo last year, and spent a day in akiba. I disagree with the overall tone of the article, and would still encourage people to visit (if you wanted to in the first place!)

There's still lots to do. The anime museum and gundam cafe by the station exit are worth a visit. Do a loop around ending up at Yodabashi and you'll still see your fair share of tech and game shops, some new, some "retro". I never went into a maid cafe, but it was still a novelty to see maids on the street and tell them "arigato gozaimasu" for my free "gift" (some promo tat, nothing exciting).

I think the biggest problem is that the world has caught up with tech. Before worldwide shipping and engadget, maybe a small part of tokyo could lay claim to being a tech-center, but now anywhere with an internet connection can be as informed, this is hardly akiba's fault.

(The japanese are a little to blame actually. For years we heard how amazing their mobile phones were, but while I was there it seems they've given them all up for iphones.)

Boffins say Vodka Red Bulls make you sensible

Craig 12

I'm not a heavy drinker, but I did grow up at the same time as the birth of alcopops. At 16/17, we'd mix up Hooch, Vodka and Red Bull to make a purple cocktail sure to keep you dancing all night (the legal way) (ignoring the under-age drinking part).

I still find Red bull stops me slurring my words, and I've never had a problem sleeping afterwards. If anything, I wake up less hungover!

I think this research is due for the "ask anyone" award of obviousness.

BMW slams ad machine into reverse, screeches out of pirate den

Craig 12

OK, someone needs to start a bullshit list, and put that quote about human misery on it as entry #1. Seriously, why does such utter bullshit get repeated and never challenged?

Don't get sued or cuffed on Twitter: Read these top 10 pitfalls

Craig 12

Very interesting article, merci el reg!

Also glad I didn't tweet my thoughts on seb coe last night; probably would fall foul of these laws (despite being true). He's a bit of a ****** **** really, if wikipedia is to be believed.

Ten... console games you may have missed

Craig 12

We missed all these because they are all very average...

Console content can cause crime, claims cop

Craig 12

What entertainment did the current crop of bankers and politicians enjoy when they were younger, and can we ban that somehow?

Google snaps bird's eye view of Olympic Village

Craig 12

I was thrown off with the 45 degree stuff when looking at Birmingham yesterday. It seems to kick in at a certain zoom. Completely pointless for trying to point out directions, as the orientation was off (compared to the top down) and the buildings obscured the streets.

Sure, it's pretty to look at, but let's not remember what maps are actually for!

Twitter titsup: Our failover was actually just FAIL ALL OVER

Craig 12

I'm on twitter, but didn't even notice it was ever down. I guess I must still have a teeny bit of life left after all!

Climategate cops: We'll NEVER solve email leak hack riddle

Craig 12

"The offenders used methods common in unlawful internet activity to obstruct enquiries."

A decent VPN then?

Streetfighter 2: The World Warrior

Craig 12

Let me recoup any lost nerd points by being the first in the comments to mention SF2 rainbow edition. Hadokens for all!

Craig 12

Surely the "championship edition" version (SF2 Turbo) on the SNES was the best at the time? This allowed you to play the bosses, two players could be the same character (with different colours) and it was so much faster. In fact, with the old U D L R combo, you could pump the speed up to faster than NTSC/arcase speeds even on the PAL version.

I loved SF2. I used to take my SNES into school sometimes in a backpack and keep it in there while it was hooked to the old TVs they'd have knocking around classrooms. I think the crowning achievement was using an RF splitter to display the game on two screens, such was the interest!

I don't know if they ruined the series with the million sequels, or whether I'm a stick in the mud.

iPhone 5 to be skinniest Apple yet SHOCK

Craig 12

Re: I might be intrested

My 4S lasts 3 days in use.

Disable Gadgets NOW says Redmond

Craig 12

I like having an analogue clock and flip-style calendar in the corner :(

Brits upscaling their TV buys

Craig 12

Re: Price

Less space did it for us, definitely.

In the front room we replaced a 50" plasma with a 55" LED, and the set was physically smaller. In the bedroom, same thing with a 23" LCD and 28" LED.

BT to fibre up another 98 exchanges, puffs 'FTTP on demand' offer

Craig 12

Just hurry up BT, ffs

Someone was laying fibre cables in central Brum today, hopefully my MDU is going to get in on the action.

I was happy with my 16mb (actual speed!) adsl 6-7 years ago, now it's starting to seem outdated. (No, I don't need to download terabytes continuously, but the times I do want to surf need to be much snappier.)

Mensch pal Bozier defends Menshn security, dubs critics 'snippy geeks'

Craig 12

Re: Little 4 year old Bobby Tables writes his own SQL!

Luckily for the rest of us, the first in line for the squad are the people who think firing squads for various demographics is a good idea.

Boffins program peripheral visions for ultra TV immersion

Craig 12

Bah, this is just like my idea that I completely failed to patent, implement, or tell anyone other than the wife, who was not listening.

The MIT thing is a bit more than ambilight, although the video is very poor at explaining why (with the sound off, I didn't bother to put headphones in). About half way through the demo, it tracks a rudimentary version of the tree object into the periphery.

My idea was using a bit of look ahead on the frames to stitch together accompanying panoramas for panning/zooming shots. All the image information is there (in pre-recorded media) to create very detailed periphery in as good as real time, if it's a more joined up hardware solution.

I wonder if I should tell Dolby about my infinite surround sound solution, or just moan a little bit when they invent it in a few years.

Apple's iPhone 5 connector said to be a control freak

Craig 12

Re: Usb spec

My USB ports supply enough to properly charge an ipad, and they even work with the PC switched off. Everything else USB work fine as well, so specifications be damned, it's damn handy!

Sony slams Nintendo Wii U functionality

Craig 12

Re: Yeah yeah

Sony tried motion controls before anyone realised you could build an entire console around a gimmicky peripheral (EyeToy)

Can't watch Flash vids in Firefox? It's not just you

Craig 12

The article with helpful tips is essentially: uninstall realplayer, downgrade flash... pointless.

Sony KDL-55HX853 55in 3D LED TV

Craig 12

Re: Backlit - Edge or direct?

While backlit sounds better in theory, I think in practice they were always disappointing. From the few models I considered a few years ago, the consensus was you could not avoid actually seeing the LEDs providing the light behind the image when viewing large areas of block colour or fast motion.

West Midlands plods get mobile fingerprint tech

Craig 12
FAIL

Re: OK, maybe.

It states they are not stored or added after the check.

Freecom Hard Drive Sq 2TB

Craig 12

Re: Growing number

I use a USB with my "smart" TV.

I got a 1tb USB3 drive for £80 from dabs, so I thought, why not? It's great to record inconsequential stuff (we still like watching "classic" simpsons) or have the latest local news recorded. Just watching something 5-10 minutes after it starts means you can skip the adverts. It also means we can pause live TV, even if it is the "real" TV.

I'd say it's a niche bonus, rather than afterthought.

Of course, the biggest problem with the reviewed USB is power. My TV powers the one I have, so it's only one lead.

Intel Ivy Bridge Core i7-3770K quad-core CPU

Craig 12

Was the cpu voltage increased for that stable overclock? And are we talking stock cooler?

I have the Noctua D14, so temps were not a problem for me, but I had to up the juice to get 3770k stable at higher speeds. Did you test with prime95 or anything similar?

I only ask because otherwise this article could be a little misleading.

Panasonic PT-AT5000E LCD projector

Craig 12

Anyone seriously considering a premium projector is surely waiting for the Red 4k laser projector which should be released this year...

Laptop computers are crap

Craig 12

Re: Displays and keyboards

Number pads are actually for people who buy too much on the internet from retailers who don't store their CC info :)

Lords give automatic smut censorship bill the once-over

Craig 12

Re: WTF is going on?

I share the despair. Perhaps that's what "they" want.

Introduce these crappy laws one by one and we can make a noise until it gets watered down. Do everything heinous all in one go, and it just overwhelms people into not giving a crap.

Why new iPad renders your pile of slab mags as garbage

Craig 12

Re: WHY does it look worse?

Are you sure you're responding to what the commenter has in mind?

The ipad 3 screen is the same physical size, but 2:1 resolution. Hence pixels are the same ratio smaller. Upscaling the image exactly 2:1 brings the upscaled pixels to the same real-world size as previous screen's pixels.

I think that's what people mean. Getting the ipad 3 to display something exactly like the ipad 2 should be easy.

Craig 12

Re: WHY does it look worse?

I've noticed it's actually worse to render. On my trusty ipad 1, issues of Future Music were quick to load/transition. On the ipad 3, the pages comes in like an episode of blockbusters. Once it's fully loaded, it looks as good as before.

Of course, the annoying thing about magazines is they are all their own app, rather than a standard interface like ibooks.

New Intel flash hardness performs faster for less

Craig 12

Hmm, I was going to buy one of those new Samsung SSDs this month for a Ivy Bridge build... perhaps these SSDs will be launched alongside the mysterious Intel mobo?

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