Posts by emtee

Apple iPad vs netbooks: fight not over yet

Great second "computer"

My girlfriend is always on my MacBook, while her similarly-aged Windows XP laptop sits there unused*. Quite often we'd both like to be using the Mac at the same time. Getting a second "proper" computer (which has been hinted at) would be expensive and overkill.

The iPad seems like an ideal second "computer". It'll do the majority of what we both use the MacBook for on a daily basis - checking email, reading the web, and even editing the odd document.

Because the iPad is not be a "proper" computer, and is designed to sync with your "main" computer, buying an iPad wouldn't create the annoyance of having to manually maintain and synchronise two separate computers (like a netbook would).

Tempting... and cheaper than buying her a MacBook...! :D

(* Windows XP laptop hated because it's treacle slow and irritatingly cluttered. Hibernate/sleep could be used to avoid the glacial "power-on-to-actually-useable" time, but doesn't seem to work reliably... I guess I need to take a look at it. It was a fresh install only a year ago.)

Spyware threat haunts squeaky-clean iPhones

Sigh.. going backwards

I'm surprised by the comments which seem to accept this kind of rubbish as a fact of life.

My relatively ancient* phone runs Java applets, and this allows me to use the quite excellent Opera Mini, Google Maps, Google Mail, and Shazam iD.

Because they're applets, they have to follow the Java security model. Any applet has to be given permission before it can access any of my data. For example, to access the filesystem, to access the address book, to send SMS, or to connect to the internet.

When an applet tries to access any of these features, the phone asks me whether to allow it. Unless I grant permission, it's impossible for the applet to break out of its "sandpit". Of course I can grant permission permanently, on a per applet basis, if I trust the applet.

It seems that we're going backwards when technologies like this get left to one side. With the security threats that exist these days, it seems weird when we run applications on our computers or phones, they can do pretty much anything they like (e.g. access any of the user's files, not just the ones they need to access).

* It's a K800i, a mid-range phone launched three and a half years ago (and long discontinued). The camera is as good as the latest iPhone, and it has a real flash (not LED), doesn't break if I drop it, and battery can last a week... contact details, to-do list and calendars sync perfectly with the Address Book and Calendar on MacOS using Bluetooth.

Microsoft defends Hotmail's cookie requirement

Safari top sites

Ahhh.. this explains why a little image of my girlfriend's logged-in Hotmail inbox now appears in my Safari top sites.

One would have thought a failsafe logout would have made more sense. Rather than: "Something went wrong with the logout, so we've left you logged in.. kthxbai.", maybe it should log out of Hotmail first, and then attempt to log out of the other services. Or maybe they thought that a technical error message will make people more likely to run back to Internet Explorer? Or maybe they just didn't think?

I'm don't know if closing the browser window as instructed will actually help because on Mac OS the browser will still be running until it's explicitly quit..

Philips BDP3000 Blu-ray disc player

Dimensions

"The case is about a foot deep and a 435mm wide."

Do you know what that is in antelopes per parsec?

"We think that is quite big"

It sounds like it's the same width as many hi-fi separates, which should keep your audio/visual shelves looking neat and tidy.

"the width is only 6.5cm short of half a metre".

I'm disappointed you didn't find a way to use decimetres and yards in this paragraph :(