Posts by AndrueC 5085 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Aug 2009
I dunno why you're all laughing. He got them down from $2b to $1b. That's a fifty percent cut, ya know. 's not often you can argue a seller into that big a haircut. It's usually only possible when the seller is of 'questionable moral or legal standing'(*).
(*)Or a bank in the case of Greek sovereign debt :D
To be fair, VPOP3 hasn't screwed up for me either. Unfortunately a couple of years ago they revamped the UI and it went from being a paragon of ease of use (I'd even used it as examples in presentations) to being far less intuitive.
No what's screwed up for me is Windows Update (twice) and my SSD (fixed with a firmware upgrade).
I'm smug, then. I do have a GMail account but hardly ever use it. I prefer to run my own email server (VPOP3 on Win7) and yes, I rely on POP3.
But..I've had outages of my own kit and they usually last at least half a day on account of not being willing to leave work just to fix it. EMail is useful but it ain't /that/ important to me. Schadenfraude in IT is usually inappropriate :)
Out of curiosity how do 'older' disciplines handle this? For instance electronics - who teaches people how to design a circuit? How to design logic circuits? How a transistor works? Do the 'old guard' there lament the fact that most of it these days is just connecting chips or modules together?
I raised this question a while back when I commented about an El Reg article that felt it necessary to point out that C++ was still being used and one punter admitted that he had no idea even though he was a software developer. Are we actually heading toward that old Sci/Fi idea where civilisation collapses because no-one knows how to do the simple stuff.
As I think I wrote in a reply to that punter: The cloud is all well and good but it is still dependant on assembly language.
I would say that an important part of programming that ought to be taught is how to deal - sorry interact - with people who can't. Most especially those above you in the hierarchy. Thorny topics such as 'I need time to refactor' or 'Just because our competitor does it doesn't make it a good idea'. Possibly even 'Asking me to work longer hours won't magically fix the problem'.
Programming is as much art as skill. Programmers need to be given enough freedom to enjoy their work and respect shown to them to encourage them. Yes, programming is a job but it is NOT a production line scenario. We need time to think and to explore and the business needs to realise that. We can work to a deadline but only if the schedule includes some 'us' time.
Except that the 'Brussels Sprouts'(*) have so far done more for the UK than the HM govt. Together with - gosh - BT they are well on the way to completing a roll-out of highspeed services in Cornwall. Contrary to what you are suggesting they also have a stronger and more wide reaching commitment to faster broadband in the EU. It's pretty much the EU pushing the UK here - or at least the UK govt. desperately scrabbling to try and avoid looking like they are being chivvied along.
(*)Name calling always adds maturity to a discussion, doesn't it?
>Virgin does not have an large install base for ofcom to demand that they open up there network to other providers
Indeed - and who do we blame for that? One could understand not having market dominance nationally since their network - at best - only covers half the country. But apparently they don't even have market dominance in the areas that they do cover. No wonder last quarter was the first time in their history they've made money. If I was a VM share holder I'd be jumping up and down at meetings asking what the hell they are playing at. They should have been able to squeeze BT out to the margins if played properly.
>BT Group are only interested in areas where Virgin are, or where someone else picks up the tab
Fundamentally not true. I have FTTC at home in Brackley and there's no VM presence and no third party money.
BT just go where they can make a profit. Same as any large corporation. It sucks if you live in area where telcos can't make a profit but what're ya gonna do? Nationalisation just ruins it for everyone - poor service at greater cost. Smaller companies have been touted as the answer but as current events are showing they don't fare very well.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/5170-nextgenus-and-fibrestream-a-short-step-away-from-administration.html#news_comments
Hopefully the new owners can make a better go of it but that should be a salutary warning to everyone in the final third.
As long as the bidding is above board I don't see a problem. BT are the biggest telco in the country and obviously have experience and economies of scale on their side. It's hardly surprising that they are bidding on all the contracts. Despite what some may think BT don't hate rural populations. The only reason they are reluctant to upgrade them is RoI. If someone throws more money into the pot it sweetens the deal.
But yeah, BDUK is a bit of a joke. Elsewhere the EU and BT got together and are rapidly rolling out higher speeds in Cornwall.
Agreed. That's why I'm glad I still have my HTC Desire. It might be old and short of onboard RAM but the big thing in its favour is a removal back for the battery. That means you can buy a 3000maH battery that comes with a replacement back cover. Sure it adds 50% to the overall thickness but I actually find that makes it easier to hold plus you can prop the phone up on its side when viewing videos :)
My Desire usually makes it through 48 hours before it needs a recharge although with light use over the weekend it often makes it from Friday morning to Monday morning albeit showing orange on the battery meter.
In fact I've just noticed that Amazon are selling a 3500mah batter for the Desire so I might replace my 18 month old batter with that.
Not far off.
You can get 'an office chair' for £75. If you're under the age of 40 and/or intend to make other people sit on it then it might suffice. For six months to a year at least.
You can get 'an office chair' for £150. If you're under the age of 40 and/or intend to make other people sit on it then it might suffice. Could last a couple of years.
*But* if you're 40 or over and intend to sit in the seat yourself then anything less than £400 is a poor choice. £700 quid for a chair that someone of advancing age has to sit on for eight hours, five days a week is a worthwhile investment. In my opinion no-one over the age of 40 should be required to sit in a chair that can't be independently adjusted for height,pan depth/tilt,back tilt,lumbar and arm rests. You don't get chairs that offer all that without spending some serious money.
I would also suggest that anyone over the age of 40 should be offered a free ergonomic assessment every couple of years. A really far-seeing employer would do that at 30 and consider upgrading the seat if appropriate. Sitting is not 'restful'. It's surprisingly stressful on the human body and 'any old chair' is injurious to your health.
P.S.:I'm not an ergonomics expert nor office furniture salesman. I'm just a 45 year-old whose body won't tolerate sub-standard seating any longer without aching.
There's either been some back handers (unlikely I feel) or else BT have shown they are the only game in town. Has anyone asked VM, TalkTalk, Sky why they didn't bid?
As for Fujitsu - I'd like to say I was surprised but I'm not.
Oh well, the main thing is that people get upgraded and given a decent service. BTw usually manage that for most people and perhaps the investment will even encourage LLU expansion.
Yeah but as with ClearType they'd just ignore your preferences unless you used an undocumented feature:
http://geekswithblogs.net/glozano/archive/2006/11/14/97082.aspx
But if they found you using that they'd just take it away in the next version like they did with Office 2k10.
B'stards.
Yah, that's pretty depressing. Then again VS UI has never been all that clever. Dialog boxes that ought to resize but don't. Others that resize but don't remember what you last set them to. Bizarre under use of space (project options for .net). Stupidily long delays opening dialogs (assembly references in 2k8, sort of improved in 2k10 at the expense of slowing everything else down it seems).
Either the VS development team are a bunch of clueless geeks or else they just like torturing the rest of us and have an internal build that has actually been run through usability tests.
Seems reasonable to me. The days of broadcast TV are probably coming to an end so why bother to give them more space? I still think a wired connection is best for most things but prioritising on-demand interactive access seems quite sensible to me.
Oh gawd. I'm agreeing with Ofcom. Send the men in white coats :(
You might also want to ask how often vendors provide firmware updates. I had an SSD that failed at home but was brought back to life by a firmware udate.
"Correct a condition where an incorrect response to a SMART counter will cause the m4 drive to become unresponsive after 5184 hours of Power-on time. The drive will recover after a power cycle, however, this failure will repeat once per hour after reaching this point. The condition will allow the end user to successfully update firmware, and poses no risk to user or system data stored on the drive."
This was a Crucial M4 SSD.
> In most States, meters have to be replaced by the utilities every few years
I think it's too late to worry about them ripping you off then. Two of my three meters are as old as the house - 17 years. The water meter was replaced a couple of years ago. What is the logic in replacing the meters so frequently? Lousy build quality?
Ah but to put the counter-point:Open Source stuff tends to fragment. How many versions of Linux are there now? How many UIs? Has the KDE v. Gnome battle ended yet?
There's more than one version of Windows but aside from the changes wrought by UAC most developers don't have to concern themselves too much with that. Even the UAC changes aren't seriously breaking since the OS does it's best to accommodate you. The result is an ugly kludge under the bonnet but it works. Code for the Windows version on your dev box and chances are good to excellent that it'll work on any other Windows box in the world. Same with the UI. You code for 'Windows' and that's that. There might be a wide choice of frameworks (which is good) but you don't have to worry that customers are going to start bleating that your application doesn't run on their particular Windows UI.
It's a complex equation all round but all I'd advise anyone thinking about this is that they think about it hard and impartially.
Not too worried about El Reg - I've had nearly three times as many likes as dislikes so I don't look like a total pratt. But if they asked for my DigitalSpy name they'd find out what I was really like. Not that I'm ashamed of anything I've posted there but when it comes to work I prefer to filter my opinions a little bit :)
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