Posts by stuartnz

Facebook 'personal' news feed gets algorithm rejig

Where is the option to click on either? I've spent the last several minutes hunting for such an option but haven't found it. Facebook's own help page does not say that you can choose between them either. It offers only this:

"We've combined the Top News and Most Recent stories together in a single News Feed view.

If you see top stories first when you load your News Feed, simply scroll down to see the recent stories."

Any directions on how to get this clickable option you describe would be very helpful.

Amazon's cloudy vid-tablet breaks cover: Not an iClone

Targetting a new market?

Reading the comments here, I think that most people who already own a Kindle do not fit the target market for this new device. I am one of the many satisfied Kindle owners who likes the e-ink and and the simple focus on doing one thing well. I want my Kindle to read books, fullstop. I can't get used to reading on backlit devices, even the 4,3 inch screen on my Sensation hurts my eyes after using the Kindle app for a little while. I'm sure that Amazon will sell lots of its new toy, but at twice the price of the excellent and functionally almost perfect Kindle, it's of no interest to me.

Parmo v poutine: Your cut-out-and-keep pdf guide

Compact file size

8.76451 petagig PDFs - so only half the size of Adobe Reader, then?

Amazon's anti-iPad arises 'in October'

Colour Kindle?

I was thinking that I might be tempted by the Amazon tablet until I read mention of a colour e-Ink Kindle. Even if it's little more than vapourware at present, I will still sit on my meagre collection of pennies and wait for such a delight. I so love my Kindle that I'm happy to stick with a dedicated e-reader that (basically) does one thing and does it well, until another one comes out that does the same one thing, but does it better.

Parmo v poutine: The ultimate post-pub nosh deathmatch

Paneer poutine

SO pleased I wasn't the only person who thought of paneer when seeing the cheese curds. You're right too, much better in a curry than with chips

UK gov chews over Amazon Book Depository engulfment

Slicker?

"Although the Amazon buying experience is a lot slicker than the Book Depository and many retail prices offered by Amazon are slightly cheaper, "

Slicker how? Since buying a Kindle 3 last year, I've also been buying more dead tree books (as you rightly say, they are EXPENSIVE up here at the top of the world in Aotearoa), and all the ones I've bought have been through Book Depository. I've found their ordering process no slower or more convoluted than Amazon's (except for 1-click) and most importantly, not one of the books I bought through them was available cheaper on Amazon, even before shipping charges.

Amazon swallows UK online bookseller

Merde! Crap! Scheiss! Etc

I am a Kindle owner with nothing particularly against Amazon, but I *LOVE* the Book Depository, and really fear for its continued excellence now. Free shipping up here to NZ was fantastic, and the range of books was very good. I am glad that I bought a lot from them in the last year, because I'm sure the assimilation will sooner or later (most likely sooner) mean the end of all that was so remarkably good about Book Depository.

Amazon Kindle Lighted Leather Cover

Like my Kindle Case

But am pleased I didn't get the lighted one. The leather cover is a nice addition and does make it feel more bookish, but I still don't see the extra baggage of the light adding anything to the experience for me.

Microsoft releases first service pack for Office 2010

Heretic here

I am liking Office 2010 so far - only had it a week, but the ribbon is cleaner and less cluttered than 2007 and I'm looking forward to trying the customisation options for the ribbon too. It's really not the done thing in these here parts I know, but I'm going on record as saying that Office 2010 is AOK. Especially since it opens all my Hindi-language ODT files ( created in various OpenOffice versions) without any hassle at all, while LibreOffice kept crashing on them.

Spielberg flung Fox from Transformers 3

Deflationary revisionism

5.5 million is in the ballpark for the number of *Jews* killed in the Final Solution, but the previous poster said "Hitler may have killed 13 million *people* in concentration camps" and that's pretty near the standard estimates for the TOTAL number of victims, including Slavs, Gipsies, gays, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc.

Kindle Store awash with auto-generated crap 'books'

Lost in the Amazon?

Do people just browse the Kindle Store hoping to stumble across something to buy and read? When ever I go, I'm looking for a specific author or title or keyword, and I have yet to be bogged down in screeds of auto-generated spam creations. I've seen them, for sure, but they don't cripple my shopping experience any more than does looking through shelf after shelf at a dead tree store, AND I don't have to walk around a room with my head tilted to one side

Steve Ballmer window-dresses Windows 8

Hoist on one's own pedantry?

Nice to see Bell's First Law (aka Skitts, Muphry's etc.) still proving true. In standard English orthography, I believe that there is normally only one "i" in exclamation.

Amazon heralds unstoppable rise of the e-book

Rekindling a love for reading

I've had my Kindle for 10 months and love it, ESPECIALLY after getting a nice leather cover and finding Calibre! But most of the books I have on it were either free or very low-priced. What I have found is that thanks to the eReader my pleasure in recreational reading has been rekindled (sorry, couldn't resist), and I've bought more dead tree books in the last six months than in the previous 6 years. I first check to see if the book I want is available for Kindle in my region, and if not, then it's off to www.bookdepository.co.uk for a paper version. I think it far from inpossible that other Kindle owners do similarly, and that thus Kindle may even be helping dead tree sales numbers.

MicroSkype: Andreessen settles accounts with Ballmer

D'Oh!

Thanks!

Something doesn't add up

"The consortium bought a $1.9bn stake in the company, valuing the unwanted Skype at $2.7bn.

Andreessen Horowitz wasn't the largest stakeholder: that was Silver Lake Partners, which put in $1bn and held 39 per cent."

They paid $1.9bn but were NOT the largest stakeholder? When the other stakeholder put in only $1bn? And the company was vlued at 2.7bn, but the two stakeholders mentioned put in 2.9 between them?

Revealed: Secret security plan should Kate leave Wills at the altar

not alleged 'brother'

Even in the scenario you posit, which does seem VERY likely, there's nothing "alleged" about their being brothers. Not by half.

Got a buck to send M Night Shyamalan to film school?

Cameron, PLEASE!

A big YES to Cameron especially. "Titanic" is still safely on my anti-bucket list, and Avatar would have been so bad it was funny if it hadn't been so excruciatingly long. I'm ALMOST tempted to watch Airbender to see if it's bad as that nasty Navi nightmare.

Nuance Flext9

Not "anybody"

"that’s available to anyone with a handset running Android 2.1 or above" - Nope! I was excited when I read this because Swype is not available for my X10 Mini Pro, but nor, it turns out, is this app - "the app could not be found" was the drearily familiar message after scanning the code at the end of the article

The Register and Australia-New Zealand

Still Underwhelmed

"More usually I'd expect there to be two or three for Australia" so why call it "Australia-New Zealand"? Of course NZ's tiny and won't generate much content, so why not just be upfront and call it like it is, TheRegAus, and tell K1W1s we're stuck with it?

Underwhelmed

I want to add my voice to those less than thrilled by the change. Living on the English-speaking side of the Tasman, the sudden cacophony of "All Oz, All the time" on the Reg is about as appealing as the idea of living in the giant penal colony to my west. At least give us the choice, and PLEASE stop pretending there's any real NZ content in the new AusReg.

US gov says it can't build an interstellar starship

Ayenbite of Inwyt

The same freedictionary you link to gives the phrase as "to wit", in its legal dictionary section

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/to+wit

Twenty-tonne space truck poised for ISS trip

Eccentrica?

If it was a 3-stage rocket, of course

Researcher cracks Wi-Fi passwords with Amazon cloud

Good to know

"A ten-character, random, mixed case alpha-numeric password will average 30000 years at 400000 per second"

So my 44-character mixed case alpha-numeric password should be reasonably safe, even though it's a mix of placenames and dates from my family history (no birthdays)

Famous 'Silhouette' Flash illusion unravelled

Weird!

I saw all 3 turning anti-clockwise and was busy trying to figure out how anybody could see them as turning clockwise when all of a sudden the one on the left atarted turning clockwise while the other two carried on turnning anti-clockwise.

Amazon wraps up Kindle crashes

No problems here

I've had my Kindle 3 in its Amazon Kindle cover for several months now, and had no problems AT ALL. I also don't think the price was too steep, except for the fact that shipping it up here to Aotearoa from way down North in the Benighted States doubled the price. A genuine leather cover that transforms how the Kindle feels and makes it a much more "booklike" experience was worth it, and I am very glad I did get it. It will be interesting to find out what's causing the problem for those who are edxperiencing it.

Top 10 Kindle books outsell dead-tree versions 2-1

I love my Kindle

I'm with Vince. I got my Kindle a couple of months ago and have rediscovered the joy of recreational reading. Especially once I got the leather cover for it. It now feels like a book, and it takes no time at all to forget about the medium and focus on the content. It's also great for series reading. I've long wanted to systematically work my way through Discworld, but in a small home, 40-odd extra books would be challenging to store. No such problem with the Kindle. For these reasons I too have no problem seeing how digital sales could significantly exceed dead-tree sales. All I need now is for Amazon to expand the library available to users here in NZ.

Bad glass delayed Apple tablet?

Change of Vapourware obsession please

If I had a dollar (even one of our paltry NZ version) for every time El Reg had written a breathless puff piece on the iPad in the last two months, I'd have enough to by myself a nice shiny MS Courier.

Asus said to be making gadget inspired by gadget Apple is said to be making

@Matthew LeShure

That's a nice looking piece of kit. Does it come with some template Contacts pre-loaded, preferably the spokesmodel's phone number?

Video surfaces of alleged Apple tablet

Still prefer the Courier

It seems weird sticking up for MS, but the total media fixation on what is still vaporware while ignoring something that may be the first decent bit of MS hardware is so bizarre my inner Quixote feels compelled to tilt at the i-Dolatry that even the Reg seems to have bought into. I just hope MS hurries up with more details on the Courier, or the currently chimaeric Apple Tablet will outsell it without even actually existing

Apple's alleged Kindle-crusher set for spring release?

Where's the Courier?

3 months ago (alleged) snaps of the Courier turn up online, with spec.s Surely this puts that interesting looking device ahead in the vaporware race, but after that brief blip, it vanishes from online media consciousness and the only thing we here about is the still putative Apple Grail. With any luck this obsessive fixation on all things (real or imagined) Cupertino might mean that the Courier will end up nice and cheap.

Amazon coughs $150k to student over lost notes

Not so unhappy now

At first I was staggered that Amazon had decided to realease the Kindle only on the penal side of the Tasman, rather than the English-speaking side, but now I'm thinking our convict cousins across the ditch are welcome to it. Android for the Courier, anyone?

Amazon tosses gelded Kindle at UK readers

Oz gets it, Zild doesn't

Another reason to wait for the Courier, I guess

Dual-screen Microsoft 'booklet' uncovered

A decent e-book reader perhaps?

I don't normally comment on these articles because of the fanboy wars, but this product looks promising. The Apple tablet also sounds promising but it seems that MS may be ahead of Apple in moving out of vaporware stage. Here in Zild neither Kindle nor Sony's e-readers are much use so something like this might be nice as an ebook reader, especially for non-tagged PDFs.