Posts by Ed 11

Pilots asking not to fly F-22 after oxygen problems

Re: Is the Lightning 2 as good as Lightning

My dad was a fast jet pilot in the RAF. He has never been easily excitable, but he doesn't half wax lyrical about his days at a Lightning pilot. His favorite story is that when he was based in Cyprus there'd occasionally be Friday's where they hadn't got all their flying hours in during the week. They used to light cigarettes in the crew room, jump in their jets, point the noses to the sky and engage the after burners. It was possible to empty the tanks, land, taxi back and still be able to finish your cigarette before it burnt out. Legend.

Google Drive stalls on LAUNCH DAY

Re: Tsk tsk

Would you like a medal?

Apple TV third-generation (2012)

Re: I want to spend twice as much for the same thing

A HAV? I'm shocked and appalled you'd spend any time at the house of such a person.

Mirroring

To my mind this article glossed over the main selling point of the ATV, namely mirroring from any iPhone or iPad. The ludicrous ease with which I can mirror the screen of an iDevice to the TV is excellent. It's a very capable, quiet and energy efficient Netflix player too, unlike the noisy PS3 which the ATV shares a shelf with.

Some more UK specific services wouldn't go amiss but for now I have access to a plethora of UK on-demand services through my Virgin Tivo box so no great loss personally.

Google G-drive app leak sparks 5GB file vault riddle

5GB?

Google effectively reinvented free web-based email when they launched Gmail. 1GB of storage, at the time, was an epic offering.

They are clearly losing their mojo if the mythical G-drive launches with a frankly pathetic 5GB. It would be miles off being a market leading proposition. I'll pass.

'Unibody' iPhone 5 said to debut in October

How many times with El Reg readers publish comments along the lines of this one?

An Apple iPhone article! The iPhone X (insert model number here) which I have no interest in ever purchasing due to (lack of function, an excess of form, popularity, because I'm 'special', because I'm odd, because I worship at the altar of a different corporation). However inspite of my aforementioned extenuating circumstances (which, I hope made suitably clear to you dear reader, mean I don't like Apple) not only did I have the urge to read the Apple iPhone article, but write a faux angry comment!

Please stop it. All that you are doing is continuing to prove to every man and his dog people care more about Apple articles (and speculation) than for other manufacturers. My page impression and associated comment in no way prove that your 'digital entertainment' are a vital source of page hits and revenue. I urge you to cease and dessist.

Wii U graphics said to be no better than current consoles

1080p

Just a shame the current generation of Sony and Microsoft consoles don't output at 1080p.

Everything Everywhere's 4G party bus could run Three off a cliff

Re: Let 3/Three die

They are also the only network with decent data tariffs so frankly... I have no idea what you are talking about.

'The new iPad' revealed: Full specs, rumor scorecard

Sold

Ultimately all this iPad upgrade does is upgrade the screen. However this is the upgrade I've been waiting for having held off on purchasing a tablet to date. I ordered a 32GB Wifi version last night. I do not think the current generation of Android tablets can really compete with Apple's offering and the fact apps such as Sky's new F1 app are iPad only really emphasises the point.

Also on the plus side, given I will have a second iOS device this represents a nice way for me to look at changing my iPhone for an alternative. Having spent more on iOS apps than I care to admit to myself it becomes a far easier sell to look beyond iPhones when I have a device that can run all those apps anyway. Galaxy SIII perhaps?

iPad 3 launch news pushes Apple shares to $500bn high

I don't buy shares for the management of said company to make charitable decisions - that isn't what they are paid for and it is unlikely to play to their skill set. I buy shares I think will maximise my personal wealth. Any philanthropic decisions should be made by the ultimate owners of the wealth when it has been returned to them either via capital gains or dividend income.

UK-French drone aircraft blueprints nicked at Paris station

You mean Garlic Shrug, surely?

New password-snatching Mac Trojan spreading in the wild

Believe you are confusing virus and trojan. Are you sure you feel at home reading El Reg?

Sky flaunts F1 app with split-screen functions

Re: You don't need Sky Sports...

You do if your pay TV provider is Virgin. As a Virgin XXL customer (rough equivilant of being a Sky customer with all the packs except the Sky Sports and Sky Movies packs) I'd need to cough up a ludicrous amount of extra money per month to get all the Sky Sports channels when it would only be the F1 channel I was after. That, sadly, will not be happening. However Virgin also supply me with a fantastic 100MB internet pipe so I'm sure I'll stumble across a way to watch all the races that the BBC aren't showing live and in glorious sub par SD...

Re: Don't get it

It's probably because it's not just a case of developing '1' Android app. If I'm not mistaken, the new Sky Go app only works on a select few Android handsets. If you own a swanky Nexus, SE or LG handset it's tough luck. With Apple, for all it's faults, you only need to write your software once to make it available to every iPad user. Making much more than a 'Hello World' application that runs on every possible Android device would be rather like pulling teeth.

Proview fears fanbois will derail iPad export ban bid

Re: Popularity affects law?

Surely the same reason turkeys don't vote for Christmas. If you are a judge, and you, your friends, your wife and your children all own and really like their iPad's you aren't going to be as inclined to offer the benefit of the doubt as you otherwise may.

Also, Chinese courts aren't as seperate from the state as they may be in the UK. Do you think a judgement would be passed/enforced that damaged the wider Chinese state, as such an export ban on Apple would do?

And that ignores the fact that iPad popularity = sales for Apple = profit for Apple = ability to hire expensive and influential lobbyists.

Apple TV stock shortage sparks new gadget rumour fever

Please do correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Google TV already out?

http://www.google.com/tv/get.html

Halliburton latest biz to dump BlackBerry for iPhone

Good

Think they get around any lack of security in iOS by only allowing explicit access to the corporate network through an application such as 'Good'. This does mean the iOS email and calendar apps are pointless from a work perspective, and you can't access the intranet through Safari, but there are replacements for all these within the 'Good' app itself which stores data locally in an encrypted volume and only runs on devices that are not jail broken.

Apple won't rule out all singing, all dancing iBooks on Kindle

Missed the main story

Hang on... surely the big news here is that an Apple spokesman spoke to El Reg?!

Child labour, lost wages uncloaked by Apple factories audit

You've never eaten at the Microsoft, Vodafone, Allen and Overy or Linklaters canteens now, have you? All awesome.

BlackBerry PlayBook in US price plummet

Presume they've grown earnings by a similar amount? No, thought not. A company with lots of customers that doesn't make money is... an utter failure, albeit an utter failure with customers.

Sky follows BT in blocking Newzbin2

I'm prepared to pay. Unfortunately I'm not prepared to wait if something has been broadcast in the US and it's then not broadcast in the UK for an extended period. Also, as a Virgin customer, Sky deem it appropriate to bar me from watching Sky Atlantic so if I want to watch something from that channel I'll do what I need to.

Oh, and sometimes I forget to TiVo something I want to watch and if it's not on On Demand, what's a chap to do?

I've got a VPN solution ready to avoid the 'ban' when it reaches my ISP but I'm curious, how have BT and now Sky implemented the ban? Can the site be reached by typing in the IP address rather than the domain? Are customers who change their DNS provider to the likes to OpenDNS able to side-step the ban?

Kindle Fire: An open letter to Jeff Bezos

Or, possibly, Samsung.

New iPhone and Android mobes secure enough for spooks

Good

My employer, who do a lot of public sector work, recently allowed us access to work email through Good if we owned an iOS or Android device. Per the intranet the company are contractually mandated to protect data with FIPS 140-2 encryption and the Good app provides this.

Still, it's only cleared for data up to and including IL2 (PROTECT). Nothing juicy just yet but sounds like that might change.

Britain's Harrier jump-jets reprieved to fly and fight again

Which ones...

Lots of detail, yet no where could I see whether this sale relates solely to the old RN Sea Harriers, RAF GR7/9s or some combination of the two.

Hackers port iPhone 4S' Siri to rival devices

Sorta

Siri is damn impressive but to my mind it isn't the revolutionary product Apple have spun it into. It's consistently reliable and I am often pleasently surprised by how good it is at transcribing information. I haven't set an alarm, timer or reminder using anything other than Siri since I've had the 4S but it hasn't exactly fundamentally changed my life like the ads might suggest.

iOS upgrade swells iPhone battery-suckage grief

Not my experience

Whilst I freely admit it isn't statistically significant, my battery life is much improved. 60% when I got home from work compared to c. 40% pre update and that is with similar use.

Virgin Media touts high-speed signups and TiVO

50MB in NW6

Works like a dream. Slowest I've EVER seen is 39.4MB. It's exceptionally rare to see it below 46MB. Ping ranges from 6 to 19 m/s. I'm a very happy punter.

Agree that the Tivo interface appears to have been designed by monkey's however...

Jobs: 'I'll spend my dying breath destroying Android'

I've owned one Android...

... and it was called the HTC Wildfire. It was a cheap POS and frankly it left me with such a bitter taste that I'm not sure I can bring myself to try it again.

It'll be Windows or iOS for me going forward.

iPhone 4S: Our *hit list

Settings --> Storage & Backup --> Manage Storage

Should give you some idea what its storing! Personally, it's just a 1.6GB backup for me. If you then click on the backup, you can see on an app by app basis how much space the backup takes up.

iMessage

Not sure the article is factually correct, or at least it isn't representative of my experience. If use the Message app to send an iMessage and it doesn't get delivered, e.g. I don't have a data connection or, presumably, the person I'm sending the message to doesn't have a data connection, then after a couple of minutes the message is automatically resent as an SMS.

Looking at some of my conversation histories they are a mixture of blue speech bubbles (those messages delivered via iMessage) and green speech bubbles (those messages delivered via SMS or MMS).

iOS update woes prompt gnashing of teeth for Apple fans

At what point did Tony Murphy think that Apple wouldn't be hammered and decide to try again the next day?

Evidently, it was 31+ attempts later.

iPhone 4S pay-monthly tariffs compared

Or...

Buy sim free. I splashed out £500 for a new unlocked iPhone 4 last summer. Looking on eBay, I'll get at least £300 when I sell it, possibly nearer £350.

£200 depreciation over 15 months and a £15 per month sim only tariff seems like a good deal to me. And if the Nexus Prime turns out to be sufficiently tempting, I'll loose little or nothing selling my iPhone 4S in a month or two. Simples.

Samsung signals HD smartphones with supersize screens

I couldn't agree more. That sort of pixel density on a phone is utterly ludicrous...

And I will accept nothing less when it comes time to upgrade my current smartphone! If they build it, we will come.

Sonos Play:3 network music player

Super

I purchased one of these a few weeks ago having moved into a new flat. It's diminutive, versatile, and sounds excellent. I got the Play:3 and the Bridge for £240 as a bundle from BestBuy so shop around.

Samsung may try to block next iPhone in Europe too

Wasn't it Nokia that started it with a patent claim against Apple a few years ago?

Are you for real? I'm not a lawyer, but something smells awfully similar to BS.

Windows 8 fondleslabs rock up on eBay

A fool...

... and his money are easily parted.

Deezer launches stunningly original music idea in the UK

Bored?

I can hand-on-heart say I've never been that bored...

Samsung's lovely illegal tablet: Why no one wants to know

Wide of the mark

I have an Android phone. My employer gives me a new 'voice' device every year to compliment the obligatory Blackberry data device. The voice devices tend to be low-end and bargain basement and this year the list included a number of Android devices. Away from that, my mother was eligible for upgrade earlier in the year and found herself the proud owner of another similarly low-end Android phone.

Both these phones count as "new Android activiations". I've downloaded a couple of free apps, whilst my mum doesn't have a data package, has no interest in one, and will never take her phone online.

Now to compare either of these Android phone sales to iPhone sales where someone has looked at the market and made a conscious decision to buy a relatively high-end product is wide of the mark. The low-end phone market is now flooded with Android devices and many punters with no interest in the functions of their phone will become Android owners. The default upgrade is likely to be Android. Realisitically, it is only really those customers who purchase high-end Android phones that are likely to embrace the Android Marketplace and only these sales that are genuinely like-for-like when comparing to iPhone sales. Market share is all well and good.

Now the iPad is different. Each tablet sale is a conscious decision. Very few employers hand them out. Joe Bloggs doesn't have an existing tablet that comes up for upgrade every few months. Therefore, I fear it is far from guaranteed that Android tablets are destined to overtake iOS tablets because very few people who decide to buy a tablet will entertain the possibility of anything but an iPad.

On first day, Apple sells 50 Lions for every lion

And by implication...

85% are either very happy, happy, or satisfied. Which seems like a reasonable level of customer satisfaction.

OS X Lion roars, coughs on appearance in App Store

Download

Are some people really struggling that hard with a 4gig download? I'm away from home with work this week and using my phone as a wifi hotspot I was able to download it in a little under 3 hours. Kudos to Three, and kudos to their 'The One Plan' tariff for allowing me to download without fear of repercussions. Sure the other networks would have been less accommodating.

Apple annihilates Wall Street performance estimates

Seriously?

Urgh what a pointless post.

As any investor knows, companies only pay significant dividends when they are generating good cash flows and don't have any strategic plans to use the cash. E.g., they've run out of ideas. That is why utility companies are good shares to hold if you value dividend income.

However other things being equal, the value of all the shares = the value of the company. If the company pays a dividend of £1m, their cash balance falls by £1m, value of the company is £1m less and share price falls per share by the dividend paid. The shareholder is no more or better off.

No of course, if your 'friends' are not sophisticated enough to realise their gains when the going is good, then woe is them. My heart bleeds.

To say an investor will see nothing of the cash Apple hold is at best ignorant and at worst a lie. The share price of Apple reflects the view of investors as to the long-term value that Apple can generate. That is a reflection of the huge cash balances Apple hold. It is a huge strategic advantage to Apple to hold that cash. It would appear institutional investors better than you or I concur or they would be putting pressure on Apple to return some of that cash.

MobileMe web app features shapeshift into Apple's iCloud

iWeb

Am I not right in thinking that iWeb can very happily publish to FTP servers? Hence all one needs to do to continue using the iWe software is sign up to some free or cheap web host and continue as before?

I'm happy to be proven wrong but I'm sure I saw an FTP option when I last had a play with iWeb, albeit that was a long time ago.

Mac trojan evades Apple's brand new security fix

Twunt

Is this the same "idiotic and misguided sense of superiority" that leads me to have ClamXav and LittleSnitch installed? Having grown up with Windows and having to use a Lenovo for work purposes, I'm worldlywise enough to know that with a few simple steps it is very possible to reduce the risk of being infected to something very close to zero.

If you want my agreement that vendors should be a little more realisitic before painting the picture that their product is secure off the shelf then you have it.

However if you for a moment think I'm going to run an installer that randomly pops up either now or in the future then you are very much mistaken, and I'm not alone in thinking that mugs who allow such installers to complete have brought their troubles on themselves.

Shocker

OS X in if-you-install-dodgy-software-dodgy-things-can-happen shocker. Is this news? If, through my own free choice, I run or click through an installer that pops up then I deserve what I get. It's like saying OS X has a built in malware because it ships with Disk Utility and you can use it to format the hard-drive and lose your data if you follow the instructions.

Wake me up when there is something malicious that requires no user interaction.

Apple ships removal tool for Mac-menacing malware

File Vault

Unfortunately it doesn't play nicely with File Vault and I am not able to shut down and reboot my Mac if Sophos is installed - it freezes before the desktop loads. From the support forums it appears I'm not the only person who has this problem and Sophos have done naff all about it in months. It might be free software but that's quite a bug to leave unfixed.

ClamXAV it is for me, shame, as Sophos appears to be a slicker option.

New PlayStation Network hack hijacks user accounts

Linux fanbois no better

Jake, it might be the smugness of Linux bois such as yourself that keep significant numbers of people as far from Linux et al as possible.

Fiat 500 TwinAir

IT angle

Well it does have a USB port...

I was also excited by the "Buy from Amazon" link, thinking the online behemoth had made the move into the automotive industry. Clicking on the link was something of a disappointment as I'm not sure "The 2011 Electric Car Guide: Discover the Truth About Owning and Using Electric Cars" will serve my motoring needs too well. Although I imagine it has very low running costs.

Amazon jumps the gun on free clouds

Do something

If you don't like the fact your network provider is cutting your data allowance, may I suggest you up sticks and move to The One Plan on Three. Complaining in internet forums isn't likely to get things changed. An exodus of customers might be.