* Posts by Tom Peach

46 publicly visible posts • joined 18 May 2007

Microsoft's online Office variant preps for business

Tom Peach

Office on Linux

So does this mean I'll be able to use Web based MS Office on Linux with Moonlight if I choose?

Could be interesting...

Apple plays catch-up with new iPhone features

Tom Peach

RE: @Good for Apple

It is about managing your customers expectations.

You are looking at it from a (mildly) techy view, yes there are loads of basic features that iPhone 2.x doesn't have. I have an iPhone and I don't miss a single one, they really aren't important, MMS...pah.

The point is that Apple delivered, it was well known these features were not included. People are free to choose from a range of phones that have MMS, cut and paste but many choose to buy an iPhone, so these features clearly aren't as important to the general public as you would believe.

Nobody expected to get a large range of additional functionality without upgrading the handset, and without paying more money, iPhone owners will feel good about this.

And for the record, before you label me as a fanboi, I think the iPhone is pretty crap, the interface is laggy and Safari painful to use. Add the fact it is crippled by a dependency on iTunes gives it even less appeal. I look forward to the Pre.

Tom Peach

Good for Apple

What every single reporter fails to highlight is that people knew that copy and paste etc. were not features when they bought the phone in the first place, there was no trick on Apple's part.

Apple seem to have found a way of escaping the problem that plagues every handset manufacturer which is an incredibly short shelf life for any new handset.

Apple customers are going to feel well supported by Apple here, they have something to look forward to that doesn't involve shelling out extra cash and that is probably enough to stop them looking to other handsets at least in the short term. So the iPhone owners get a phone which is above their original expectations for free and Apple get to cash in on the App store, everybody's a winner..

Google beds Microsoft for mobile sync service

Tom Peach

@ jake

No it means that Google have licensed the Exchange ActiveSync protocol. From TFA "ActiveSync will run on servers for Google Sync". So Microsoft will not have access to any additional info and your "clients" can rest easy.

Shame there is no decent (native) push email solution with Google Apps yet.

OcUK puts £10K bounty on the heads of DDoS varmints

Tom Peach

How to collect

So if I anonymously submit info how do they know where to send my reward?

US woman says Ubuntu can't access internet

Tom Peach

Dell's fault

A lot of you are missing the point, this isn't about Ubuntu being crap it's about a lady being sold a laptop that wasn't fit for purpose.

She erroneously selected a laptop preinstalled with Ubuntu, possibly because it was cheapest on the Dell site and got a shock when it turned up. Dell did OSS no favours by telling her it'll be fine, aside from the ISP setup CD she may have needed Windows (activeX whatever) for her online course, in which case Ubuntu won't work for her.

I wish everybody would realise that most people don't care if their computer runs Gentoo , OSX, Windows or BSD, they just want to put the disk in their ISP gave them and connect to the internet and read their emails. People don't care about Open Office etc, they are not interested.

Ubuntu is great, recommend it whenever it really will benefit people, keep the positive feedback coming and watch it gain market share. If you have any doubt don't force it on people, let them run windows to avoid nonsense articles like this.

Palm launches £399 Treo Pro

Tom Peach
Thumb Down

Windows mobile?

Give up Palm, all your customers have moved on by now.

Royal Bank of Scotland takes three weeks to squash nasty Worldpay bug

Tom Peach

So what would be an acceptable time frame be?

To identify root cause, check for other potentially affected areas, provide a fix and integrate and test it properly?

Three weeks is a long time but I can well imagine it would take a week to get prioritised correctly, especially if the vulnerability was sent to the wrong people, and a week to implement the fix provided everything went well.

Opera CTO: How to fix Microsoft's browser issues

Tom Peach

RE: Where's the damage?

They make no money out of IE but they do make money out of Live Search. Opera and Firefox using Yahoo or Google as the default search engine costs them revenue, so it is in their interest to have an "IE compatible only" internet.

Palm to bring latest Palm OS smartphone to UK

Tom Peach

@Tony

Clearly says 320x320 in the page you linked to, check the pic

Dell bets big on storage

Tom Peach

RE: Dell and Storage?

I see the problem. I am not American and I can't understand you at all.

Confused BBC tech chief: Only 600 Linux users visit our website

Tom Peach

@ El Reg

What percentage of your visitors are running Linux?

I understand many people will be reading it from work and so that might alter the figures in MS favour but it would be interesting to know what a semi-geeky site can expect...

SanDisk launches Flash video player for TVs

Tom Peach

Not a bad idea

It's actually not a bad idea, do away with the poor reliability of wifi. Just copy a Divx movie to the device then watch on the TV, no wires, no mess, no choppy playback. A simple and cheap solution for somebody who occasionally wants to watch Divx on different TV's around the house, a pretty good stop gap until everybody has Ethernet throughout their houses.

Palm punts consumer-friendly Centro phone

Tom Peach

Wake me up.....

When Palm release their Linux based phone with wifi.

How is it possible for Palm to ignore so many people asking for the same thing yet?

Samsung iPhone rival to hit UK in November

Tom Peach

OS?

What OS is it running?

US teen trades hacked iPhone for Nissan 350Z

Tom Peach

RE: 350z = Nissan

Agreed, distinctly unexciting car

EnGenius SI-680H Wi-Fi VoIP phone

Tom Peach

why bother to review this?

Although I wanted to write something mean after reading the first 2 paragraphs I thought I'd read the whole review to see if their is anything at all interesting about this phone.

Sadly this just looks like a crap version of the cheaper Siemens gigaset IP phones that have been around for a while.

Why are you bothering to review this old technology? I want my 4 minutes back.

Windows Genuine Advantage cries wolf (again)

Tom Peach

WGA

"The experience of a system that failed validation in this instance was that some features intended for use only on genuine systems were temporarily unavailable."

Are they implying that some features are intended for use on 'pirate' versions?

Server outages and update problems are inevitable, I know Ubuntu has suffered them before. It's a shame MS shoot themselves in the foot by adding an application that adds no useful functionality, it's inevitable it will cause problems from time to time.

Jason Bourne disses James Bond

Tom Peach

Bond

How many times has, or will, a family member say to you "what Bourne movie is on" during Xmas or New Year?

Run along Damon.

Skype hangs up on users

Tom Peach

RE: I remember...

"Perhaps it's time to consider a new solution..."

What about a telephone Jeremy?

Nokia issues battery warning

Tom Peach

Burnt Finger?

Most people keep their phone in their pocket!

'Portable' CD player puts MP3 into a spin

Tom Peach

RE: Rubbish

Can you expand on how a CD travels at a different RPM at different points on the disk?

Desktop Linux: That dog will mount

Tom Peach

RE: Lots of baseless attacks

Reg should really replace the original "article" with Jeremy Akers work of genius above

F5 gets symmetrical, symmetrical gets F5

Tom Peach

RE: yrtemmyS

nope, should be

"F5 gets symmetrical , lacirtemmys steg 5F"

Burned by a MacBook

Tom Peach

@ Too Complicated

You contribution to human civility is duly noted.

I can only assume you post is satirical, in which case it's hilarious. If it's not, well, it's hilarious.

Tom Peach

@ Too Complicated

Your post was the most boring, stupid, silly post I have ever read, ever.

Tom Peach

RE: How come she lost work??

Fair point, also what was she using prior to owning the MacBook? Couldn't she have used her old laptop? Maybe she sold it or it caught fire.

This article has clearly struck a chord with a lot of readers, I think El Reg think that articles that annoy folks have more people coming back for more. This is probably true short term, after which we get bored from lack of content.

Tom Peach

Look at the facts

Apple sell "consumer" and "business" laptops, Emily bought the consumer version. They offer a support contract, she opted not to go for it.

Her laptop failed, and Apple replaced it for her, they were under no obligation to replace it same day or next day. They even eventually upgraded her to the machine she should have bought in the first place.

Emily was burnt? The offer of a more expensive machine was acceptable compensation to her so she took it.

I imagine most of you work in IT, what do you do when you have a system failure and trading/payments/whatever stops? Do you wait for Sun to turn up and fix the hardware, tell your users to wait a bit? No, you have a DR plan, because disasters happen, and you can only rely on yourself to recover from them.

Apple fulfilled their obligations as a supplier, I never would have considered buying Apple but I might now.

Tom Peach

RE: dangerous

"If you were a US citizen, you would more likely have gone straight for the compensation. "

Haven't you heard, Brits don't have the same rights as US Citizens, in the UK is is seen as acceptable for electrical products to occasionally electrocute the user.

Personally unless the thing had put me in hospital I'd do anything to avoid the royal pain in the arse of taking somebody to court.

Sometimes stuff goes wrong and is dangerous, if i live to tell the tale the last thing I want to do is waste the next few months pursuing it legally just so i can say "i told you so"

Tom Peach

I'm repeating the sentiments of many but....

Why on earth did you buy a £700 Mac with no support contract when it is business critical for you?

I bought a Dell Latitude, not because I use it for business, because i wanted the better build quality than the Inspiron. It came bundled with next day on site, which i didn't need, but there was no option to remove it.

The laptop had its share of problems, for a start the casing wasn't straight. This is almost impossible to prove over email, but the thing didn't sit flat on the desk. I mailed Dell, no real urgency on my part, a bloke came to fix it the next day. The screen developed a fault down one side, not sure if it was my fault, bloke came to fix it next day. The battery failed and started to only half charge, new one sent out to me the next day.

What would have been the financial implication of me being without my laptop for a week? £0

What was the cost of each callout? £0

What was the additional cost of this service? No idea, bundled with the laptop, i think about £200-£300 extra for the full 3 years on site support.

If you can get next day support for this kind of price, and you opted to buy something else, then you deserve all you get. Yes, the laptop might have burnt your house down, or might have injured your family, but claims against Apple are handled by the courts, take months at best, and don't help you get working again.

I'd actually suggest you buy a second laptop, for the sake of <£1000 you can pretty much guarantee you'll be able to able to work when you need to.

Jordan names sprog 'Princess Tiaamii'

Tom Peach

RE: Once again.....

After the brilliance in opening the article "Bulgarian airbag platform Jordan," I think they can be excused

Congress sniffing Google-DoubleClick deal

Tom Peach

RE: THANK YOU Microsoft

Er Lexx, Google isn't even close to being richer than Microsoft, and their "Do no Evil" is questionable of late. They (Google) have shareholders, and shareholders generally want the company to do good, evil, or whatever it take to "line my pockets"

eBayer mails UK lad £44k

Tom Peach

I'd love to see the reaction

Of the villain/gangster who was expecting 44k and got two Play Station games instead

Terror-cops get realtime Congestion Charge database link

Tom Peach

A tough message to any would-be terrorists...

Ensure you don't use your own car to carry out your terrorist activities.

Microsoft Windows patent will spy for advertisers

Tom Peach

RE: Kiss it Goodbye

This is exactly right.

For example the IT security policies in Financial Institutions (and L&P requirements) prevent software that phones home. If MS incorporated this kind of targeted advertising into core products it would force many organisations to find alternatives.

'You're a f**king moron'

Tom Peach

brilliant

short, sharp and to the point. You should find out who he is to publicly commend him

Fujitsu Siemens makes tiny, quiet, green tower server

Tom Peach

2.5inch disks

I can't imagine for a second that the electricity cost saved by such a machine is greater through it's entire lifetime than the additional cost of using 2.5 inch disks.

I could see a greater use for a bigger, equally quiet machine that consumes more power but has several times the disk space for the same price.

Nick, I'm sure the Mac mini is stable and all but that would be a poor solution for an office (assuming you are not using RAID1, although even then i'd still want internal disks)

JP Morgan's iPhone Nano report is rubbish

Tom Peach

RE: Purile

"I think you'll find that they provide links."

It was a bad source, I'm sure speculation about anything other than the iPhone wouldn't have warranted an article.

I'd rather the Register journalists invested their time in bringing us news, not regurgitating iCrap.

Tom Peach

That's right

That's right Reg, just keep publishing unsubstantiated crap as long as it's vaguely iPhone related.

Or, even better, publish a story that the unsubstantiated crap you published was, in fact, unsubstantiated crap (as long as it's vaguely iPhone related)

Why not add a section?

Hardware, Software, Music & Media, iPhone, Comms, Security...........

There are over 12 iPhone articles in the mobile section, and most of the others reference the iPhone.

I think I am developing iPhobia...........

Analyst rubs crystal ball and sees iPhone 2.0 based on Nano

Tom Peach

Please stop

Enough iphone aritcles! Please, please stop.

How about a special "iphone free week"

Geek Squader gets fruity with customer porn

Tom Peach

Nothing New

The guy didn't go searching through the PC, the wallpaper was three good looking gals and there was a "pictures" folder on the desktop. 99% of blokes would do the same.

Most of you have probably read peoples email and looked at private pictures before the novelty of it wore off and you started to respect peoples privacy, the rest of you are liars.

How is this different from the "quality control" that takes place when you get photo's developed anyway?

'al-Qaeda' puts on big shoes, red nose, takes custard pie

Tom Peach

RE: Testing

for sure, these "bombs" should never even have made it to UAT

Google searches for computer dealers

Tom Peach

One problem with Google search appliances:

They're crap

Google algorithm's work well in a chaotic environment like the Internet but in a reasonably structured env like a corporate intranet they fail dismally.

Windows Vista aligned with good management practice

Tom Peach

Ignorant fool

Ken, I'm sure your fun packed days on the MS helpdesk have rendered you an expert in corporate IT environments.

The bottom line is that most corporations are cost conscious, and care about productivity. Do they f*ck want to upgrade all their hardware is it doesn't save money or increase productivity.

What is the motivation for upgrading to Vista? First of all the cost of doing so is huge, just think of the money spent on integrating all your IT systems, and the time spent bug fixing all those proprietary applications your users run on their desktop. Large organisations have thousands and thousands of applications in use, I guarantee that any OS upgrade will break at least some of them be it Vista or Linux etc. Even service packs on XP are not unknown to break something, be it directly or the strain put on the infra by rebooting so many PC's.

Some corporations will look to move a small subsection of employees to Vista because of the hardware limits of XP, and the fact that under MS supported config XP will allocate half it's memory to the kernel - 2GB memory is not a lot for e.g. a Traders desktop, beyond these special cases what is Vista going to add to your organisation?

Now Linux, I use Linux exclusively on my laptop. I have to say that the driver support on Linux is far better than any version of windows. But you have to make the distinction between 'works out of the box' and actual availability of drivers. An OS like Ubuntu is more likely to support all your hardware without searching for any additional drivers than XP is. Unfortunately with Linux if the hardware doesn't work out of the box it is likely going to be more difficult to track down the drivers than if you were running e.g. XP. This is completely irrelevant in the IT world however, because you run standard hardware throughout your organisation, and if you wanted to run Linux you'd pick compatible hardware, just like you wouldn't buy a load of cheap P2's expecting to run Vista on them.

Sadly Linux is not going to find it's way into the largest organisations very soon. Forward thinking companies will begin to look at multiple platform support when they assess new applications, to free them from vendor tie in, but even with a conscious effort to do this it'll be years before their entire application portfolio is movable.

The other real blocker is retraining users who are used to XP (yeah I know this will apply to Vista too) and size of the organisation supporting the OS. As much as I want to see Linux on the desktop in my organisation Canonical is not a big enough vendor to support it. Yes they have the whole open source community supporting them but I want my bugs fixed now, as top priority, and their will be hundreds an hundreds of them...can they really handle this?

I think the bottom line is that organisations still have little choice but to move to Vista at some point. It won't add anything in terms of productivity, it'll be a pain in the arse to roll out, and it'll break a whole host of apps that nobody mentioned were important until they can't use them any more. But the upgrade has to be done so lets get it underway while MS still care about proving Vista, and to stop us wasting time and money on rolling out more apps that run on XP. Lets also kick ourselves that we let ourselves be put in this position and make sure we have choice when Vista + 1 is released.

140mph YouTube boy racer facing jail

Tom Peach

Great

Lets hope the little prick gets a jail sentence. The speed is one thing, but I'm surprised he didn't kill anybody undertaking on the hard shoulder.

BMW helps nail 105mph V-sign biker

Tom Peach

Steal one next time

So basically if he'd stolen a bike he would have got away with it?