Posts by KroSha

Does tech suffer blurred vision on 3D future?

"But ultimately the movie industry isn't about the price you can gouge for the seats, but the number of bums that fill them."

It's both. I wouldn't have minded watching PotC4, but there was no way that I was going to fork out £10 for a 2D ticket or £14 for a 3D one. The *quality* of the movie is what determines it's worth, not what the cinema charges for it. Avatar was, rightly or wrongly, touted as an excellent cinema experience, which was why it was popular and sold lots of 3D tickets. PotC4 was certainly an also-ran and obviously not worth (to the punter) the mark-up that Vue, Cineworld et al. wanted to charge for 3D.

When it's only a 6 month wait, and especially when money's tight, people are far more willing to wait for Amazon (cheap), Lovefilm (cheaper) or TPB (free!) to have it available instead of spending ~£50 on a family night at the cinema. Even for a couple, it's cheaper to buy the BD than take the missus out for the evening.

Hollywood, like the music biz, need to focus on product to shore up their dwindling sales. The public want *decent* stories played out with *good* actors, rather than bad vehicles (Your Highness) or shoddy remakes (Arthur). 3D should only be used when there's a real case for it, otherwise it's just a distraction from the story.

Just trolling: It's OK to poke fun at Christians, says ASA

@ Chris W

"There can't be any sane argument against this unless..."

There's your problem. The whole premise of all religions is essentially non-sane. The only reason it's socially acceptable (in general) is because it's been going on a long time. Other people who spend a lot of time talking to invisible friends tend to get "help" from the white coat brigade.

Ballmer shoots down Microsoft breakup advice

Good to see the Money Men acting true to form; try to rape the company for a quick buck, rape the planet and 3rd World for a quick buck, keep the country club chums in charge.

'Right to be forgotten' may not be enforceable - Vaizey

There's one MP that should write a tech column. Probably for the Daily Mail.

Chicken fillets: The affordable alternative to Bulgarian Airbags

@ Old Painless

What's that got to do with it? She's obviously a bloody liability on the road and if she's that cavalier about her own safety, I hate to think what it's like to be a road user near her. The roads are dangerous enough without self-confessed fools making things worse. And yes, I am angry, having been crippled by a half-asleep bint in a RTA earlier this year.

The Adventures of Tintin: the Game

Shame they couldn't get it down to a PEGI-7, rather than a 12.

UK.gov moves to close VAT loophole on etailers

It's a "target-rich environment". As well as Bernie, they can add Phillip Green and Arcadia, Fortnum & Mason, HSBC and a whole raft of other wealthy individuals who work and earn in the UK (primarily The City) but "live" or "are headquartered" in the Channel Isles, Monaco, Luxembourg,etc.

Money earned in a country should be taxed in that country.

Ofcom boss warns of low interest in 'superfast' broadband

I get my broadband from Be / O2. I get a solid 9Mb down and 1.3Mb up, which is pretty good. I live about 3/4 of a mile from the exchange and BT tell me that I can get 5.5Mb from their ADSL. They keep on pestering me to upgrade to Infinity, but I honestly don't see the point. I currently get a free static IP and absolutely no caps or shaping, which BT and VM both do. I'm happy paying for what I get until a faster, *better* service comes along. And I'm fairly confidant that when it does it won't be from BT either!

PSN

The newly free DC Universe Online is 14GB. I want it, but it'll take a while to download.

Goldeneye 007: Reloaded

That disappointing

and it still rated 70%?

HP has another crack at fondleslab market

Hang on...

Decent spec'd hardware, at what was essentially a fair market price, and a reasonable OS failed to sell. So they canned it.

Now they want to sell what we assume will be a decent spec tablet, which they are going to have to sell at a fair market price, with an unknown OS? Let's face it, MS haven't exactly covered themselves with glory in the smartphone / mobile OS arena, and no one really knows how well the public are going to take to it.

But they expect it to sell and sell well enough to pay the licensing fees and still make a profit on it?

Hmm.

Euro banks unhappy with proposed e-payment rules

ARGH!

EU Politicos want it, so it must be bad.

Banks don't want it, so it must be good.

My brain!

Father-of-three attacked teen after Call of Duty jibes

@diodesign

I expect that Daily Mail readers already have Google's SafeSearch turned up to maximum. For the rest of us, well, I'm an adult and I'm capable of discriminating search results from their descriptive taglines. Even with SafeSearch off, the entire first page of "mature gamers" is exactly what you would, I hope, be searching for.

Simple

Don't get a 360, get a PS3. The higher price point acts as a barrier to filter out some of the 'orrible toe-rags. There are communities for older players; search "mature gamers" and they come out. Both XMG and MPG are only open to over 18s.

Union enraged by secret driverless Tube plan

@ Greg

The Tube is hideously expensive. Compare it to Berlin's U-Bahn, where an All-Zone day ticket costs €6.80 (£6.15), and that lasts until 3am the next day. Even the single tickets are 2 hour passes, so if your journey involves a U, a bus and another bus, you only pay once. Plus the trains run pretty much 24 hours. The last time I went out in Berlin we got home at 3am, and the journey took no longer than getting there.

TFL is still mired in the 20th century, mainly due to the massive resistance of the Unions to any change whatsoever. They're almost as bad as soddin' politicians! At least MPs don't strike if their pay rise is less than 5% in the middle of a depression.

Boris?

That you?

Yahoo! refuses! to! sell! as! buyers! flash! cash!

So the banks will lend money for that? Typical.

Currys, PC World websites slated by punters

Delivery problems

I'm now hesitant about ordering anything that won't fit through the letter box. This is mainly due to several dreadful experiences with the Home Delivery Network, on behalf of Amazon.

If it's coming by courier, then I try to find it in person, or from someone who will ship by Royal Mail. At least they leave a card, have semi-sensible opening hours and you don't have to ring them before going to collect it.

Online shopping is great, couriers are a PITA.

Samsung, Google whip out Android 4.0 Nexus

Doesn't it look kind of like an iPhone 3GS?

Gartner: Apple rivals can't touch iPad

Cheaper, but not cheap. It's still ~£300. Ok, £100 less than iPad2, but still a wedge of cash for most people.

Apple finally purges Mac OS of disgraced DigiNotar certs

True

I revoked my trust of DigiNotar as soon as the story broke. Logged in to my admin account, opened Keychain access, changed all Diginotar certs to "not trusted for all users". Job done. I still installed the patch yesterday though.

Is using your own kit at work a good thing?

Works both ways

Company IT doesn't support anything that gets brought in. And the work LAN denies access to anything not on the work list. The dirty LAN allows anything, but you'd better have a patched system.

Does Cameron dare ditch poor-bashing green energy?

Still

Some is better than none. Even on cloudy days a solar panel will still produce, just not as much as on a sunny day.

Renewables

Nuclear is the only way to go for long term energy stability. We can, and need to, top this up with a good amount of the green stuff as well, because even nuclear will run out one day.

Mandate that every new build or renovation in the country *must* install a significant area of solar panels, like Australia. That should give the solar sector a good jump.

Game says sorry for site snafu

Even as a console user,

I won't use Game. There are other sites that do much better deals and have far, far better customer service.

How are we going to search our hard disks now?

Paths

At the bottom of that Show All window is the file path for the highlighted item. You may have to hover over long folder names to see them fully.

Truncated?

Try clicking the "Show All" at the top of the list. That'll open a window where you can see the full name.

Dixons drops Motorola Xoom price... again

Still...

It's £150 cheaper than the 32GB iPad2. That's a hefty difference, even if it's still too much for some. If they'd knocked it to £299, then it's cause some serious thinking here.

UBS tells IT contractors: Take a 10% pay cut ... or 100%

Cuts

"Of the expected 3,500 staff reductions, approximately 45 per cent will come from the Investment Bank, 35 per cent from Wealth Management and Swiss Bank, 10 per cent from Global Asset Management, and 10 per cent from Wealth Management Americas," the bank said.

And 0% from the people who actually caused the problems in the first place.

If the workers have a contract, then they have a contract. If they want to renegotiate, then they can do so. But I for one would be straight on the phone to my lawyer and be preparing a case for unfair dismissal and breach of contract.

Stuff like this sucks big time.

Game denies Steam threat claims

Exactly that.

And it's the way the whole industry is going, including consoles. For now it's just codes to access MP, which I agree with. The next gen of consoles will increase the PSN / Live marketplaces. At that point we'll see single DL user licenses, so you cannot sell on your £35 purchase, effectively killing the 2nd hand market. Publishers and storefronts (including Steam) love it because they get revenue from every single sale. Customers hate it because you are now only leasing the right to play the game and don't actually own a product. Sales of full price games take a dive because no one can trade in the games they've completed to subsidise the cost of the new release.

HP's UK PC boss: We're going nowhere

People want value

If people think that there is going to be a new shiny-shiny in 12-18 months that they are going to want, that makes the value of the current purchase less. If they feel that the same item is still going to be useful in 4-5 years, then the value is more and they are willing to spend more.

Witness the MS ad campaign where they say "Julie thinks her 3 year old PC is still fine, so we put a shop in her home to show how shite it really is..." Said PC will probably be perfectly serviceable for a good 2 more years, considering the use she puts it to. If she paid £600, that makes a big difference on the spend/year.

People want to know that they aren't wasting their money. A quality build that they feel comfortable with can charge more than some dodgy chinese knock-off.

Of course this runs completely counter to the manufacturer's needs, who just want our money.

Apple rumor mill predicts 'all new Mac'

Keyboard?

Combination iPad cover and flexible keyboard. Like the rollup ones? http://amzn.to/ojcLNT

Set-top

That'd be an Apple TV? It already runs a flavour of iOS. True, they could do with adding to the capabilities, but the form is already there.

I guess it'll be something else.

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet goes on sale

Tempting

I actually think that they may be on to a winner here. OK, as a niche product it'll never shift shedloads, but I know several IT depts that are sick of telling their users that they will not supply or support iPads for the business. Some of these run Lenovo as their staple laptops, so I can see them at least testing whether they have a use for the business. If Lenovo have bundled this thing properly, then it could become the business tablet of choice, as the iPad is the consumer one.

Lenovo did manage to turn IBM's business laptop division around, maybe they can do the same for Android tablets?

Facebook revamps privacy settings (again)

Already there

Yes, the functionality is already there, but it's a bugger to get to and not everyone knows it's possible. You have to go Account >> Privacy >> view/edit setting >> Preview Profile.

If they are making it easier to see, edit and use, then that's a good thing.

I will, of course, be checking my settings as soon as the new layout is implemented, just in case they get reset again.

Coders breathe Android into dead HP fondleslab

Out of stock

CPW and DSG are no longer taking web orders. Even Amazon stocks are running low, and they're still charging £250+.

HP's WebOS mess: When smartphone assets go toxic

Pay rises?

What are they? I'm sure that the brass will still get their options and bonus though.

iPad sales shove Apple to top of mobile computing tree

Really?

Name one that has as good a choice of software, that works easily out the box, with similar specs, for significantly less cash!

Remember that cheaper /= better and that we all have a criteria in mind when making purchase decisions.

I'd hardly call the market leader for 2 years a fad, and the fact that you need to mock people for their choices reveals much about your psyche.

Face it, people want to buy it and just because it doesn't fit *your* needs doesn't make it wrong for them. The vast majority of IT users (i.e. those who don't read el Reg) just want something that works and that they can understand, without getting down and dirty. You might as well berate Dell for selling Win instead for Tux!

Apples and Oranges

Much as I hate to say it, this isn't a proper comparison. If you're looking at mobile sales, then you need to include iPod Touch and iPhone sales as well as iPads, seeing as they are all iOS devices. If you are looking at portable computing, then it's just MacBooks, Airs, and Pro's as they run Mac OS. Two similar but certainly distinct OS's.

It'd be more balanced to compare tablet Android vs iOS vs WebOS and laptop/netbook MacOS vs Win vs tux.

Seems to be a shill piece of research to include the best bits only...

Star Wars fans offered Blu-ray deals and previews

Why?

Lucas owns the lot and there's no need for a remake when he can still keep charging for the originals, or at least the CGI'd bastardisations of them. It's a VERY long tail, that keeps making him money, lots and lots of money, for only a little investment.

Not buying it.

I love the original films. The CGI versions weren't as good. There is no way I'm forking out for another format unless the theatricals are included.

id Software Wolfenstein 3D

Memories

I still remember the first time I saw Hans: "Guten Tag!" he yelled as he opened up with those chain guns and blew me to hell.

I still play Final Doom on my PS3, and PSOne discs can be had from 99p on the tat bazaar.

Mac OS X Lion gets bug-squashing update

Reversions

Try this for iCal: http://www.simpleandusable.com/news/how-to-remove-the-faux-leather-in-ical-for-os-x-lion.html

I think there's one knocking around for Address Book too.

Who'd buy a fake battery?

MBP

My battery went a while back; the "Service Battery" message came up. I bought a 'compatible' battery for £40 and it's worked very well. There are some companies that do perfectly reasonable pattern parts.

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy: Blu-ray extended edition

The Scouring of the Shire

Nope, because Saruman dies when the Rohirrim take Isengard. The Scouring is only shown is a vision to Frodo when he looks in Galadrielle's Mirror </geek>

Nothing!

Now try the Silmarillion!

Mac Lion's breath causes Celerra NAS storage to die

Not the only one

The new AFP in Lion has caused problems with Buffalo, QNAP, Synology and the Netgear NASs. Methinks they should have been playing with the dev betas.

On first day, Apple sells 50 Lions for every lion

DVD or USB

You can create a bootable Lion DVD or USB from the installer. You must do this before you run the installer, as it gets deleted as a part of the process.

Instructions for DVD: http://bit.ly/jTVRmy

Instructions for USB : http://bit.ly/pphvMq

Both work excellently.

Apple Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Part One

NAS & AFP

Netgear are doing the same for their ReadyNAS range. The newer x86-based boxes have a firmware update out already and the older sparc ones are being worked on now. I'll hold off until they've finished.

Well done Netgear for some fast work!

http://www.readynas.com/?p=5742

OS X Lion roars, coughs on appearance in App Store

Update

Yes, you need to be running 10.6, as that's the only way to get access to the Store.

Once you have downloaded it, it's easy enough to back up to DVD or a USB, either of which will boot a compatible Mac. So if you want a clean install, boot off the 10.6 DVD, wipe your mac & install, then use the 10.7 install.

My 3.74GB download took an hour.