Posts by Oli 1

London officials declare cabbie-bothering Uber is legal – for now

Re: Does Uber use journey GPS data to determine fares?

The crux is that a taximeter is physically attached to the vehicle. A mobile phone, not so much.

No doubt, they will decide its all legal and above board, and then change the law...

Graphics pros left hanging as Adobe Creative Cloud outage nears 24 hours

Re: Thanks a bunch

longest record for guiding a user through installing teamviewer, 2 hours.

i wanted to die.

Nominet bins Optical Express' appeal against 'It ruined my life' website

if you are researching whether to go ahead with the treatment or not, you find them quite quickly.

having been blind in one eye since birth i was really interested in this type of treatment when it first came out, thorough reading put me off though. sadly others dont read into things as much, so sites such as this are very much needed,

Three's money man reveals UK mobe firms' dark pricing dealings

It was the call charges and the unforgiving call centre that drove me away from three for the second time, but sadly there is no comparison when it comes to mobile broadband. Always had a signal and it always worked.

Ring an 0844 to pay a utility bill, oh that'll be £7

I see they are cutting these charges now, it'll be at least another 18 months before i think about trying them again, and thats really only down to o2 completely over-selling their network.

"Best of a bad situation"

Google wearables: A solution looking for a rich nerd

Change the world they wont, but they are handy for lazy people such as myself.

Also great fun to tinker with, seeing as you can link most stuff to it. Tasker integration is great.

I have a pebble, the original one. So Around £100, not £300 (no idea what samsung were thinking)

The stuff i use it for most is changing music when on the train and dont want to un-tangle a length of headphone cable, turning lights off at home when on the sofa watching a film, checking my train is on time as i run for it, and seeing who is calling then picking up, again when the phone is buried.

Im not looking for a killer app, its just nice to have.

but again, i tooks me years to get the pebble at £100. I dont think ive ever spend more.

The problem though, i get 4 or 5 days charge from the pebble's e-ink screen.

The video shows an almost HD screen, im sure that leads to charging everyday.

Beastie Boys settle with toy maker over Girls copyright dispute

Go and produce something, copyright it, and then see how you feel when it runs on a tv advert and you get squat.

Just because its a creative piece of work, why should they not see a benefit?

BuzzGasm: 9 Incredible Things You Never Knew About PLIERS!

Will you be making an 2015 Calendar of the best of these over the year?

Best news i read all day!

Mens sana in fibro sano: Virgin Media network-level smut filters are ON

Re: Why am I finding out about this from El Reg and not from Virgin?

they will, in good time...

Check your postcode online, i dont get my upgrade til Jan 2015, i dont need a letter in Feb 2014 about it.

Nokia launches Android range: X marks the growing low-cost spot

You couldnt make it up!

I started reading with optimism and joy in my heart but by the end i find my self slowly pawing at my S4, knowing it will become an S5

Facebook gobbles WhatsApp for SIXTEEN BILLION DOLLARS

Facebook messenger must be going well then?

Someone's snatched my yummy Brit COTTAGE PIE – Viv Reding

Re: Cheese? In a cottage pie?

Ketchup? Behave! ;)

A BBC-by-subscription 'would be richer', MPs told

Give me the option and i'll detune immeadiately, oh and i'll block iplayer locally for you as well.

Now for a reduction in the bbc's monopoly on the FM band.

Pay-by-bonk on the blink: O2 loses Wallet

The only reason i ever tried o2 Wallet was in the faint hope i'd one day be able to pay by bonk with it, as promised in a new version that never arrived. Nice to see that paid off....

We really need to sort this out in the UK, the only way it seems possible to get NFC payments is either with a limited iphone trial with natwest or android with barclays. have i missed anyone?

needless to say im an android user with natwest, so no go.

we will be back to trading in rocks before they ever sort this mess out

Antarctic ice shelf melt 'lowest ever recorded, global warming is not eroding it'

well sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet </clay davies>

Sensors and sensibility: Quirky’s Spotter multi-purpose monitor module

They could have hit the mark with this, if it talked to ANY of the home automation systems already in place...

Winamp is still a thing? NOPE: It'll be silenced forever in December

one of the only bits of software i bought! - a real shame.

I remember when AOL bought them and thought this is the end, and we got another decade out of them. truly a shame to see them go, but i wont be uninstalling anytime soon, so long live the llama!

iSpy with my little eye: Apple wants to track your every move

i heard rumour this was coming. While its a clever idea, its nothing that hasnt been done before, although this time round its a slightly better implementation.

Apple trying to convince its punters that this is better than NFC, when its a completely different product.

More confusion for those shiny lovers.

Bitcoin mining rig firm claims $3m revenue in just FOUR DAYS

Suddenly my 3 spare HP Proliants are looking quite attractive.

Shame the electric bill will probably cause me to be in debt rather than "in the money"

This article has been deleted

Cant they just pop down to silicon roundabout for a quick explanation?

Turd Sandwhich Vs Giant Douche - GO!

Whoops! Apple drops kimono, flashes 'FREE' GarageBand for iOS7

Ah Logic Lite. The equivalent of Ejay Dance 6

Study accuses media companies of cooking the books on piracy losses

Yawn

You can't kill the music.

You can kill the hangers on, the middle management, the bonuses for execs, the social media managers, the mailing list managers, the brand managers, half the promo team, need I go on?

Don't wait up for BBM on iPhone, Android – BlackBerry

never used it as i have never and will never own a bb handset, but from what ive heard BBM has real advantages over whatsapp, but they are mostly for corporate sectors. i mean i cant see why consumers would need centrally managed groups or distribution groups. i could be wrong as like i said ive never used it, but i guess the majority of whatsapp users have never used it either.

i will give it a try if it ever makes it out the stable for android as a curiosity but as per whatsapp will only use it if demanded to by a friend.

On a side note, since i couldnt replace my nokia n95 with another nokia and was forced to go touchscreen keyboard, i hate texting. a phone call is so much easier and quicker for me. i find the whole thing a bit insane, i have standard sms for talking with my parents, whatsapp for one group of friend and gtalk for another . ridiculous.

How to get a Raspberry Pi to take over your Robot House

funnily enough just got my arduino in the post today

/me is excited much

Re: Reg ongoing feature?

Im in the middle of writing a full guide on how to hack together a pretty impressive system.

It will eventually turn up in this XBMC thread, or keep an eye on ptslondon.co.uk/ha

Previously posted: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=101300

Im also about a year into an x10 experiment in my flat. originally i had 50's wiring so powerline networking were simply out of the question.

The upstairs neighbour had a flood that gutted my flat, cue a full re-decoration on insurance, why not pay to do the electrics done properly at the same time and then decorate over all the in-wall work for free.

So i have cat5 alround the flat and brand new electircs, time for some x10 fun.

Ive had to put my x10 controller and one end of the flat, which means the bedside lamp at the opposite end of the flat cant be reliably controlled, happens to be my girlfriends...

When controlling lights in the ceiling ive gone for bayonet fittings, which cant dim, just on or off, but the other draw back being if we use the original wall switch and the x10 device is off, you get no light, and you can end up leaving the wall switch in the off position also, so when the x10 on command is sent, it doesnt make it to the bayonet light fixture. pain in the ass!

Its the little annoyances which mean my girlfriend has pretty much veto'd home automation. It had all initially gone very well, i used x10-commander as a web interface for activehome pro, so i was able to write a simple android app for the whole house control, using Tasker it became almost "aware". Stuff like, when my alarm goes off in the morning it fades my bedside light on, turns the hall light on amd turns it all off again when my phone disconnects from the wifi on the walk to the station. Equally when i get home the lights all come on, xbmc is woken up, the projector and sound system turned on. Its all overkill and ridiculous but the upside, almost unexpectedly has been my electric costs have gone down because everything is only on when its being used. I could use activehome pro's lifestyle function to fine tune it, but the live input from the android app side of things works well, so why change it.

next steps for me are looking into x10 micro devices to sit behind the wall switches. reasoning being you will always have local and remote control no matter what. which is essentially in my mind anyway what the whole thing should be about anyway?

also just bought an arduino uno, am looking to build a adalight / boblight type thing for the projector screen in the front room, also read i can set notifications into the led array, such as a white 360 ripple etc. im thinking door bell notification during a video. homeawesome have a great ip tv door bell plugin going on, linking that with these other toys just adds to the fun.

overall my implementation was always just a technical demo i suppose, i went for x10 as i knew it was cheap and it had the open-ness allowing apps such as x10-commander to exist, its simplicity is incredible and allowed so many other system to be "bodged together" to work pretty realiably, but there is always a weak link if you dont do it properly. If i were to build my own house, i think you could do it 100% spot on, working around its limitations, but otherwise, there are too many unknowns for it to be perfect.

You thought NFC tags were Not For Consumers? Well, they're in Maplin's

or you can goto ebay and get 10 for a £1, free delivery.

Dixons in talks to offload loss-making online mart PIXmania

based in france made it a nightmare for payments on large items.

tried to buy a fridge, freezer, washing machine and dryer all in one go. absoulute bargains... until Mastercard thought the card had been cloned and stopped the payments as it was out of the country and excessive amount. they did this 4 times, we ended up doing a direct transfer.

when one of the items was then simply not what i ordred they delivered the correct one but the delivery guys refused to collect the wrong one. its still in the garage, fully packaged awaiting return. this was 2 years ago....

Cisco pours cash into log management startup

Keep on loggin'

All your logs are belong to us!

MPs blocked from ogling 'web smut' 300,000 times – while in Parliament

Re Claire Perry - does anyone know if old Guido Fawkes actually sued her?

It seemed he had an open and shut case against her but its all disappeared and she continues to tweet her utter non-sense.

Even if a percentage of these 850 requests a day are down to malware / popups, what on earth is going on within that network!

Do not adjust your eyes: This Kobo ten-incher has a 2560 x 1600 resolution

My Motorola Xoom is coming up for replacement soon, just starting to get sluggish and the weight is becoming an issue, this (looks wise) is a contender.

No SD is probably a deal breaker though.

When out with the camera, it is a MASSIVE aid being able to see pics on a 10" screen almost instantly

MIDI daddy Dave Smith: '30 years of version 1.0 shows we got it right'

Long live MIDI, still rock solid after all these years!

Loving all the touch apps that have been built on top, so you can use the latest tech with the oldest tech usually without issue after an inital setup and learning process.

Beers to you Dave!

Nasty BOFHses. It burns us! It burns...

Everyone loves a bunker!

New use for old iPhones: Watch your house get robbed in REAL-TIME

as above, old news...

ive been using ispy which adds most of the above functionality to any old IP cam, except PTZ of course.

Surprised how many useless IP Cam apps are in the App Store compared to android.

The only one i could find for iphone that was usable was WebOfCam. Crap app but better than nowt!

And you CAN get a £40-50 PTZ IP Cam, but it wont last a year in my experience.

If you are serious about setting up home CCTV, just spend the money and the do it properly!

Google Glass: Would you pay a mere $299 to plop one on your brow?

even if i wanted to try this out, its going to be difficult by the looks of things, being 90% blind in my right eye.

Google rolls its eyes, gives Windows Phones five more months to sync

Truly laughable, google should just switch it off and watch them squirm!

Claire Perry MP

Claire Perry MP

http://order-order.com/2013/07/24/poll-result-86-of-readers-say-sue-claire-perry-guido-has-instructed-lawyers-to-commence-proceedings/

https://twitter.com/claire4devizes

Have a read of her Twitter feed, i can only imagine the impending court case, grovling apology and her carrying on as usual.

Words fail me how ignorant this woman is, and frankly, deserves everything a court can throw at her!

Spotify: If musicians don't give us their stuff they get pirated more

ahhh spotify, the digital equivelent of throwing breadcrumbs at ducks in a pond.

Users rage as Fasthosts virtual servers go titsup... again

Recommendations please!

not with fasthosts, im not that stupid... but i do have hosting in the US (webzpro - who i have nothing but praise for)

Im now looking to move over to a UK based host, who would people suggest?

ive been to a few review sites but when i see fasthosts in the top 3, its best to avoid.

Hunt on NHS data sharing: Obviously we HAVE TO let people opt out

so glad i opted out of this years ago when we had the chance,

Mobes' pay-by-bonk just isn't cool enough, sniffs Tesco bod

Crap implementation!

Tesco have the worst implementation of nfc of all the major retailers. It fails to work for me at least every other time. Every other place I've used it, it works first time.

Nfc mobile seems to still be struggling I'm yet to b able to try it but I'm happy with bonk by card so don't see the big deal really

From stage to stream: The unseen tech at the BRIT Awards 2013

Thanks!

A fascinating look behind the scenes!

Apple tech FOUND ON ANDROID: Passbook gets pay-by-bonk

I phone starting to look dated?

It was dated when it came out.. Didn't bother the fans back then and it won't bother them in the future.

Cable Cowboy lassoes Virgin Media with HUGE £15bn deal

Re: @AC 6th Feb 20:53

have to ask, were they able to offer you an adsl product at your new address?

i went through this before but dsl is dsl,so why not keep the contract?

if they could literally provide you no service by any means then im with you.

Re: Dear Customer

You read the contract before you signed it though right?

Oh...

In that case the hit squad will be over for your kidneys soon, i mean, you gave them permission to take them whenever they wanted....

Reg Hardware Awards 2012: The Winners...

just lost my whole lunch break to HTML 5 Lemmings.

Nice one!

Car dashboards get Nokia HERE without a phone in sight

finally some choice!

i wondered how long it would take for this sort of dash to be put into cars.

Think its been almost 7 years since i first hooked up an original xbox with XBMC to a 7" screen in the dash.

Still, i bet this offering or the google one will look and feel a damn site better!

New York takes 2,100 pervs offline, gets gaming support

I wonder if this was a bad move long term. Surely its better to know their online identities and monitor rather than cut off that identity to the services its using. I mean if I was cut off from something I'd sign up under a new name.

Does come down to parents to protect theirown kids tho.

It must be the end of the world... El Reg man thanks commentards

Re: Thanks us for being cynical

Aww stop!

Ninite has saved me hours this year, and malware bytes of course!

Oh and veeam, love it!

Cameron defends U-turn on web filth ban, leaves filtering to parents

Thanks Dave!

Now hows about we start work on ridding us all of the DM.

The press is the press, but when people are stupid enough to believe the crap they print, its time to sort it out.

Either that or a free sachet of salt for every reader!

Syria cuts off internet and mobile communications

Very interesting read on the cloud flare blog. Thanks for sharing!

I hope the nets are restored soon

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

Recently went to see the parents and mother decided it was the day to clear out my "computer stuff" cupboard from when i lived at home. (I thought it had all gone in a skip a decade ago) I then discovered I am a hoarder...

2x 28k modems

1x 56k modem

1x 56k v90 modem

Too many new / unused telephone - modem cables

Too many serial / paralell leadss

2x paralell spllitters (marked color / b&w / scanner / zip drive - shudder)

Pretty much every bit of Palm ever made and sold in a box (uncle worked at palm)

Bluetooth OCR devices for palm pilots

Windows 3.11 discs

Windows 95 discs

Windows 98 SE Disc

Windows ME box (discs all burnt and melted into one useful blob)

Various Encarta and Office discs

Borland learn c++ in 7 days (unopened)

Various GFX Cards

Various CDs labelled, DRIVERS DONT LOSE!!

Various Digital Cameras probably with resolutions lower than my front facing phone camera

Various SoundBlaster LIVE! cards and front panels

And a device that looks like some sort of media apparatus with a PS2 port on the end.

All seems completely useless in todays world, did i throw ALL OF IT out? Nope.

Hey, you never know when you might need a PS2 colon inspection device!

If "she who must be obeyed" knew about any of this, it would be in the skip before i could blink, so it stays safely in the garage for another 10 years of being forgotten