Posts by Craig 12 300 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jun 2009
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.
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)
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!
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.)
"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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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!
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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