Posts by Blane Bramble

HTC woes prompts 'leave now' tweet from former staffer

I have had both an original Desire and now a One X - both decent phones, but HTC has a few problems. The most important ones from my perspective are:

Too many models, with too confusing a line up.

A habit of dumping the current latest and greatest phone (and its updates) for a new one too quickly - well within a phones contract lifetime.

HTC Sense - dump it, give us plain Android.

Carriers delaying (the already delayed because of Sense) updates, or simply not providing them at all.

Give me regular updates and a bog-standard Android and I'd be happy. Yes, I know about Cyanogen etc. but this is about what HTC get wrong, not someone else gets right...

Murdoch hate sparks mass bitchin', rapid evacuation from O2, BE

Re: I wonder......

No Sky here, but a self-installed Freesat box. Would rather miss 1/2 the F1 then give money to Murdoch.

Re: So 0% are staying?

Might be unlikely, but it's possible. Bear in mind people actively chose Be rather than one of the bigger, cheaper providers because of what made them different, so it's not unexpected that those same people will look for an alternative.

Waiting, but will be off

The only reason I haven't moved yet is I don't want to get locked into a 12 month contract until I find out what's going on with FTTC around here (or not, as it seems BT have no interest in our cabinet even though the exchange is < 1.5km and cabled up nicely).

Ready for the car 2.0? Nvidia preps UPGRADABLE car system

Re: No

No, but my Windows laptop sometimes likes to refuse to shutdown until it's installed what it thinks is necessary - not great if you are trying to get out of the office in a hurry.

Under the microscope: The bug that caught PayPal with its pants down

Re: What about the testing ?

Having dealt with a few penetration testing companies on behalf of some of our customers, they seem to largely rely on using the same OS tools that anyone else would use and provide a report that is simply the unfiltered output, including such gems as proposing an ssh server is insecure because it reports its version (hint: this is required for interoperation between servers and clients).

Merde! Dummkopf! Google Translate used as spam cloak

Re: " because it may easily be used to lute users into visiting malware-tainted websites."

I want to know who is orchestrating it all

Wealthy London NIMBYs grit teeth, welcome 'ugly' fibre cabinets

The solution is simple

BT just need to dig a really big hole (or maybe lots of medium sized ones) and bury the residents.

Perish the fault! Can your storage array take a bullet AND LIVE?

Re: in short..

... or will attract politicians...

Success for Einhorn: Judge blocks vote on Apple's Proposal 2

Re: Im not an investor but....

Tom7, your mistake there is in assuming capitalism isn't working. For those at the top of the pile it clearly is. The rest of us are simply resources.

Germany's RTL pulls free-to-air channels off terrestrial TV

Re: what i'd like to know is

At a quick glance, that directive seems to be more in the other direction, i.e. the UK won't stop others broadcasting into it's territory if they want to.

Blighty's schools shake on new 3-year deal with Microsoft

Re: Feed the children Microsoft crack whilst young....

The problem is, by the time you've gone through GCSE's, A levels and university, the latest version of Office that is going to be used in the real world is likely to be as different to the one you learnt as OpenOffice or anything else is. Add to this the "parrot-style" tuition that often passes for computer literacy these days, and very few kids have the skills to use a word processor or a spreadsheet - instead they have a qualification for Word 20xx and Excel 20yy.

Anonymous hacks Westboro Baptists over Sandy Hook protests

@Vin King

The clue is in the first line "Congress shamm malke no law..."

It does not say that anyone else cannot stop you, just that the government (the rulers) shall not be allowed to.

Re: Probably...

@AC 08:55:

"Those decisions are for the democratically elected government and the judicial system."

As I understand the US legal system, it is the exact opposite. The right to free speech is the right to NOT have the government make that decision.

Their right to free speech does not mean they can demand or expect that having pissed others off, those others are not allowed to drown out their speech.

John Lewis agrees to flog Microsoft's Surface RT tablets

Re: Make your bloody mind up!

Maybe "ramping production" is a downwards ramp, not an upwards one...

Linux kernel dumps 386 chip support

Re: @ AC [Microsoft Salesman?] = The joys of open software

Windows 8 System Requirments:

Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster with support for PAE, NX, and SSE2

So no 386's then.

PAE: Pentium Pro or newer

NX: Pentium 4/AMD64 or better

SSE2: P4/AMD64 or better

(from Wikipedia)

So, Windows 8 doesn't support 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium 2 or Pentium 3 architectures it seems, or any of the AMD equivalents.

Re: 8080, bloody Hell!

@Fatman - the fact that you know what SSSD means without thinking it is a mistype of a new fangled non-spinning disk thingy dates you (and me).

Apple manufacturers: ARRGH, pesky iThings are impossible to make

Re: anyone else?

"keeping Samsung around wouldn't have helped."

If the process had been licensed to them, I think it might well have helped, given their manufacturing prowess.

Bradley Manning to speak in public for first time in two years

@AC 16:47

If you have had to sign the Official Secrets Act, then you will know that everyone is already bound by it, whether they have read a copy of it or not. The bit you sign is just a reminder of your existing obligations.

Freesat downs own website after Downton quickie

Happy Freesat user here

Put up a dish and installed a Humax Foxsat box specifically for all the Olympics channels earlier this year. Bonus of being able to record the F1 in HD when not around to watch it (if I can avoid hearing the results!). Refuse to give money to Murdoch and Sky, even if it means missing live coverage of some races. As a bonus I have a horror channel to record plenty of crap movies!

RIP Psion PLC: You're with Motorola now

Re: Very typically English

Expensive and rubbish?

Nominet mulls killing off the .co from .co.uk

Re: Why ...

DNS is supposed to be a hierarchy. The existing JANet name system was reversed (quite literally in this case) into DNS. Technically we should have a .gb name space, but .uk was preferred against the relevant standard. Nominet did the right thing and used the hierarchy to set up a sensible name space, and manage it in a way that is genuinely better than any other country registry that I am aware of. Now they seem to want to throw that all away.

Assange's fate to be revealed at high noon

Re: Maybe not the US,

Argentina already tried that, it didn't work out well for the ruling Junta.

Court orders Twitter to unmask Dark Knight copycat killer wannabe

Re: "this does not appear to fall under those strict parameters"

The problem is, the police request was:

"@twitter - rly imprnt - can haz dox for terrist pls?"

How one bad algorithm cost traders $440m

Re: Doesn't it work both ways?

You seem to be misunderstanding modern trading. The point is to pay yourself huge amounts of money for a high-pressure, high-risk job, and then ensure that you stack the system so that someone else (preferably a tax payer) takes that risk. Trebles and Bollinger all round!

Re: Nick Leeson Software inc.

At the very least you'd think they would set a maximum loss setting for the test. I would assume the point of the algorithm/system is to make money, so sensibly that should be 0 - trading goes negative, stop and report it.

Re: Intriguing.....

Surely the problem is it was buying shares and then immediately selling them at a lower price. Doesn't matter who or what you are trading with if you do that.

TMS puts the boot into flash

Re: Baffled now.

I think they're referring to this "Flash": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Paget_Flashman

In particular the part: "He became an expert cricket bowler, but that was through hard effort (he needed sporting credit at Rugby School, and was afraid to play rugby football"

Apple misses earnings targets, Street reacts

Re: Shock

Continually increasing sales graph in change of direction shock. City analysts quoted saying "we've never seen that happen before".

Maybe people are waiting for the iPhone 5. Maybe sales are approaching saturation level for the market.

Raspberry Pi sales limits lifted

Re: The Raspberry Pi is already rotten

Except it's not a UK product at all, and currently no Linux distribution works on it.

Olympics security cockup down to software errors - report

Re: Repay the money you c**ts...

Yup, paying the money to the soliders would be a nice gesture. No good spending it on the Officer's Mess - the majority of the guys on the ground are not going to be officers...

US county named 'area of outstanding natural stupidity'

Re: I disagree with your assessment

I submit (if no-one else has):

Land Of Outstanding Natural Stupidity.

New electronic labels squeal to spare you from food poisoning

New Product Opportunity!

Replacement smart labels - keep a fridge full of them for whenever you sell something that should have been cold!

Maude to gov IT suppliers: If you are rubbish you will be binned

Re: How will they stop sub-contracting?

Normally there is a clause about "will you sub-contract" etc. I guess this needs to be expanded to include who you're sub-contracting to so that can be checked.

Simply nobody is rushing to beat the Microsoft licencing price hike

One question

As I understand it, GBP prices are "too cheap". If the prices are out of parity, why not bring the euro ones down?

Wraps come off UK super-snooper draft plans

Re: I was wondering when...

If it was about protecting children, I suspect there are plenty of better ways of spending £1.8 billion.

HTC Ice Cream Sandwich updates slip to late March

Already out for the lowly Desire

http://www.sandvold.as

Seems to run pretty happily. If only HTC could keep up with the amateurs!

Teen net addicts pee in bottles to stay glued to WoW

@Desk jobs?

Or on-call. Seen 4am far too often due to that in the past.

Sea eagles menace Scottish children

@Spelling

They'll be changing the spelling of Eigg next!

Apple tightens screws on hardware hackers

Not that hard to find...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Silverhill-Point-Star-Torx-bits/dp/B003ALOG06/

Yank fires up iPhone-controlled beer cannon

But where is the beer?

All I see is a machine that flings cans of fizzy flavoured water.

Apple TV stripdown reveals mystery solder pads

@Gangsta

Spot on, they need to make an iPad that can fit in a shirt pocket, now *that* would be a useful device.

US military builds laser backpack for 3D indoor mapping

Who you gonna call?

The post is required, and must contain letters.

Mozilla sidesteps iPhone code ban with Firefox Home

@Phil: I don't get it

The examples you have given are either games consoles or appliance electronics (in the case of blu-ray). They are designed for a single purpose, and subsidised by the manufacturer (in the case of games consoles), with a levy on the software supporting this subsidisation.

The iPhone is not subsidised by Apple (in the UK it is usually subsidised by the supplying Network provider, again supported by income from your monthly contract), and is designed to run applications. It is pushed as a device that "has an app for that". However, if "that" does not fit in with Apples view of how the iPhone should be, it simply will not be approved.

How many other "smart" phone platforms can you mention where the owner of the device is not the one to say what applications they can use on it?

How many other computer platforms (and we have been repeatedly told that a smart phone is a portable computing device) can you mention where the owner of the device is not the one to say what applications they can use on it?

Now do you begin to understand?

Microsoft RTMs Office 2010

Users assume

that means they don't have to RTFM

iPhone 4.0: iAds, multitasking, and 98 tweaks

Co-operative multi-tasking is still multi-tasking

Incorrect. Windows 3 had co-operative multi-tasking, and task switches were performed when you relinquished control by polling the message queue for your application - as long as your application was processing messages, tasks would be switched correctly. If you decided to sit in a loop and not poll the Windows message queue, you would lock up the system.

HP slides Slate into iPad slipstream

But...

will it blend?

Business host DataGate vanishes

Nominet transfers

As long as he is the registrant, he can transfer the domain directly to another tag via Nominet by filling in the correct form and paying the relevant fee. If he is not listed as the registrant, then there is a lesson there about using a decent registrar in the first place.

Ofcom proposes squeezing £4m out of airlines

If it's about efficient usage

then surely the solution is to charge those using 25KHz bands and allow use of 8.3KHz bands for free - or am I missing something here?

Synology Disk Station 409Slim

409slim?

GREETINGS, I AM THE MOST HONOURABLE 409SLIM. YUOR DISK STORAGE DIED RECENTLY AND LEFT ME WITH ONE BILLION BYTES (1,000,000,000) OF YOUR DATA LOCKED AWAY IN A VAULT. TO RELEASE YOUR DATA PLEASE SEND ME DETAILS OF YOUR NAME, PASS-PORT AND ADDRES