* Posts by Rebecca 1

17 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Jun 2009

Google+ is an identity service, Schmidt says

Rebecca 1

Forgive me if I'm wrong...

...but computers have not yet achieved sentience, so anything written on the web orginated from a real* person. Maybe not someone who Google ranks highly, but I don't really want a large US corporation telling me who to belive.

Yes, there's a spam problem, but the spammers are real people and will work at gaming the Google+ system anyway.

* Imaginary people generally strugle to use keyboards.

Facebook password reset coming to phone near you

Rebecca 1
Black Helicopters

On the plus side

You not longer have a facebook account.

Is Facebook worth more than Google?

Rebecca 1

Do you Hoover your house?

I do. I don't however have a vacuum cleaner made by Hoover, like most people I know.

After a while people will forget that Google, eBay and Facebook were brands rather than the generic name and will look for alternatives.

Bloke pissing in reservoir prompts 8m gallon flush

Rebecca 1
Stop

$3.56

Is the value of the water before its been treated. The treatment process adds value.

Southampton Uni shows way to a truly open web

Rebecca 1
Stop

Of course the worst PDFs of all are...

...the ones with 2 columns of text!

Who thinks that is a good idea? I'm reading it on a screen too small to display a full A4 page at a readable size, so halfway through each page I get to scroll back up again and start again. PDFs designed to be read onscreen (and which are created with linked chapters and text rather than images of text) are wonderful in comparison.

Pickles throws down gauntlet on council data

Rebecca 1
Grenade

Not to be paid more than PM?

Does that include just his actual pay, or all pay and benefits (a central London pad, mansion, cars, foreign travel and holidays with celebrities)?

Chinese bride sentenced to hard labour for retweet

Rebecca 1
Stop

or....

That is a translation which is much shorter in the original language?

Behind the Kindle, under the iPad: an unholy alliance

Rebecca 1
WTF?

Market for ebooks

I'd love to buy the books you publish as eBooks, for a discount compared to the "real book" price. But I'm not going to read the eBook then buy the paper book of a "read once" scifi novel.

Put a charge (half price, quarter?) for the eBook, without DRM preferably. I have multiple computers, phones and an eReader, and don't want to rely on Amazon's servers working. Yes, it'll get pirated, but you'll get some money for it.

UK set for eBook pricing showdown

Rebecca 1
Go

ebook formats

Use ePub. You can include DRM with it and it "flows". There is also support for chapters and (some) images. It works on most of the ereaders out there, not the Kindle, but that's only of use if you intend to sell through Amazon (who have their own format).

Please don't use PDFs, they are designed to be viewed at a fixed size and therefore don't display well on a a screen smaller than the one they were intended for (I have a Sony Pocket Reader) so will miss much of the market.

And I do try to buy ebooks direct from small publishers for niche genres, so if you have an online shop, do sell through that!

How an ancient printer can spill your most intimate secrets

Rebecca 1
Black Helicopters

If there's no audio sheilding...

...Then what's to stop the whole doctor-patient conversation being eavesdropped?

Show geo-data some respect, don't rely on Web2.0 data

Rebecca 1
Go

Open Street Map

Allows you to host its data yourself. In fact it encourages this to reduce the load on the UCL hosted servers.

Satnav leaves family stranded in Outback for three days

Rebecca 1
FAIL

Unable to get directions

There is a skill which is dying out with the rise of GPS units called "map reading". When using this one gets a large sheet of paper (or the Ordnance Survey "Get-a-map"/Open Street Map) which shows both roads and footpaths in an area. You then look for route options before walking along the choosen route, keeping track of where you are.

Alternatively the GPS in your car can do all the thinking for you.

Cloud computing, eBooks - no thanks (or not just yet)

Rebecca 1

A couple of years ago I would have agreed

My eReader gets a daily newspaper delivered (not a Kindle, over RSS), which saves me having to choose between having the paper delivered daily (often after I've left the house) or going out of my way to go to a shop. I only wish there was an easy way to pay for this service. It also picks up classics from Gutenburg. As well as this, I sometimes drop technical papers that I only have in digital fomat onto it to read. Basically, its a reading tablet that is lightweight, can be filled with cheap fiction I'll only read once on holiday, and I still buy books!

Sneaky bin chipping still in the bag for UK.gov

Rebecca 1
WTF?

7 bin bags of rubbish?

In one week? How are you doing that? Or are you having regular deliveries from HP?

Google hails Pac-Man with retro gaming homepage

Rebecca 1
Happy

There is

Google.com/Pacman

Tattooed Swedish devil girls sexually molest cyclist

Rebecca 1
Stop

@ wkd

Someone who was forced into something whilst outnumbered deserves insulting? I sincerely hope that you never learn why everyone, not just women, deserve protection from assault.

Fiancée discovers boyf is grumble flick stud

Rebecca 1
Coat

Isn't this a little hypocritcal?

She was willing to pay for services, as long as they weren't her fiance's.

If he was secretly selling ....coats,,,,,, for example, would there be an issue?