Posts by petur

Toshiba intros laptop that CHANGES COLOUR

Shame of the other specs though

Even my 10" netbook already has that screen resolution (LED backlit too)...

Middlesbrough cabbie relieves lad of iPhone

still a crime

I *really* hate the tendency to blame the victim for not being careful enough when getting robbed. It was a crime and it will always be a crime to take something that isn't yours. Period.

Over here (Belgium), police manage to give you a fine if you do not lock your car, because you encourage thieves. WTF? I'm ok that you can't call upon insurance in such cases, but the person who took the stuff is still a thief. I guess it is easier to fine the victim.

NASA rovers to lose comms this week as Mars moves behind Sun

@@CRC

My statement remains valid (even if 4 idiots managed to give it a thumbs down).

The article specifically states the fear of commands getting corrupted. If they have been using CRC since the dawn of the space age, why fear a corrupt command goes through? Unless your comms protocol stinks....

CRC anyone?

"To avoid the chance of a command being corrupted by the sun and harming a spacecraft"

Since when are they not using CRC or anything better on communications? I even use it on any communication even if it is just a few cm... NASA FAIL?

Intel sings duet with Black Eyed Pea will.i.am

dir.ec.tor

Please ship me a new keyboard (and a fresh coffee)

Ubuntu - yes, Ubuntu - poised for mobile melee

Ubuntu

Been using Ubuntu for some years now, always using the latest offerings. The problem with it (and many other distributions) isn't if it works and if drivers are available, but how well it works.

There are two issues: one is stability, as I have yet to run Ubuntu full time on a machine without it popping up some weir issue (currently my desktop thinks it is ok to start its GUI without any window decoration, my netbook regularly failed to connect to my wifi - recently solved by some update,...)

The other is funtionality. Play flash full screen? Nope, not even on a quad-core machine with beefy graphics hardware. Intuitive (simple yet performant) video editing? Got some evenings to waste tinkering with it?

In short: they have come a long way, but it is a moving target. They may be now where Windows95 was, but the world moved on.

Beer icon because I'll have a drink on what the future can bring :)

Volvo demos automobile auto-pilot tech

Windows screensaver?

Is that the default windows XP screensaver I see on that display? Not getting in that car!

Ion readies book scanner for e-book buffs

reflections?

Nice idea, but it seems to hold down the pages flat using glass or plastic plates. Sure must give a bunch of reflections and prevent using a flash....

SWAT team besieges Illinois school in 'butt dialling' incident

Repeat after me...

the terrorists have won,

the terrorists have won,

the terrorists have won,

...

US woman sues again over XP 'downgrade', seeks class action

@SharkNose

Apple has it right? You mean Apple is any better? Smoking some strange stuff lately?

OSX will only run on Mac (so Apple already gets your money twice), and will happily collect Apple Tax on Mac specific hardware updates. No service packs, but upgrades that come at a price.

Take it from me, If Apple were as dominant as Microsoft on the PC OS market, some court would have shut down their operations by now. Please let Apple grow more....

I'd rather have a market where I can select hardware and OS, I might even consider OSX, but not the way things go now.

Skype still staggering after major blackout

Reason to ditch skype

This supernode crap is what made me ditch skype years ago. My pc became supernode overnight, and began consuming my complete upload allowance.

I agree free stuff is give and take, certainly with a distributed environment, but saturating my internet connection without giving me *any* control over it was a bridge too far.

And anyway, skype is closed as hell, I find standard SIP compliant VOIP much better - pick any provider or client, or even run your own server :)

Oracle revs Sun's VirtualBox hypervisor

drag-drop

Sorry, what is your problem with shared folders? It works great, it would really be a PITA if I had to move every file back and forth with drag and drop. At least I can let the apps act on the real data directly, and not copy the damn files over first....

Google open sources '$5m' in Java Eclipse tools

What, no Google = Evil comments?

Probably doesn't fit their agenda :P

iPad media apps: Stealthed hobbits thwart Google's flaming Eye

@Jim Coleman

Indeed, they can't afford to lose, which is why they are pushing open standards so much. For the users, it gives an open and free alternative. Win-Win IMHO

Not only a problem for Google

When content providers move to dedicated apps, it is not only Google that gets a problem. For us users the problem is much bigger: it takes away our freedom on how we consume it (reader/browser choice), when we consume it (caching/saving), and ease of use. Unless an app (icon) for every damn news or media source is something you fancy.

Luckily, I do not have or want an iPad (or any other iCr*p device), I believe in open standards and freedom of information. Too bad things on this world are run by the majority, in this case (scrap that, in all cases) a bunch of idiots (yes, idiots also starts with an i)

Facebook trains self to recognize your face

Google already does that for more than a year, btw

If you use picasa or picasaweb, Google already offers this....

Google drops nuke on 'objective' search engine utopia

@BristolBachelor

So, why are you still using Google Search?

If you use Google, that means that their search engine delivers on your expectations or the alternatives are worse. It's Google's engine, they can do with it what you want. You, as a user, have the choice where to do your search. Now grow up.

Apple iPhone 4 vs... the rest

Article written as seen through the eyes of an Apple fan

Since when has the iPhone been ' the standard' and has nobody been able to catch up? Open your eyes, Apple monkey...

Oracle asserts non-existent open source trademark

still...

Don't know what license Hudson uses, but if it is GPL for example, you can't call your fork the same name. Probably true for other licenses too...

Xbox modder prosecution dropped like white-hot potato

Hey Rick!

Doing whatever you want with hardware you buy DOES NOT include illegal copying of stuff.

97% of INTERNET NOW FULL UP, warn IPv4 shepherd boys

RE: NAT

As much as I like my current ISP over any of the alternatives, moving to NAT would mean I leave them that instant. I want easy access to my home network, take that away and I move on...

Honestly, I think an ISP moving to NAT brings far more issues than them moving to IPv6.

NASA to make MAJOR ALIENS REVELATION this week

I just hope

the interstellar message didn't mention anything about a bypass being constructed

Apple Mac Mini with Snow Leopard Server

For that price...

I think I'll just buy a NAS that offers me

1) more drive options (more drives, hot-swappable, and multiple RAID types)

2) more USB, eSata and network connections

3) a nice web based admin interface I can easily manage over the internet

4) about 1/4 or even less of power usage

If you had said you should tape it to the back of a monitor, I might have agreed....

Android flaw poses drive-by data slurp risk

RE: Weak link?

What does this have to do with fragmentation? Nothing. Stop trolling...

What android needs is an update system like for example ubuntu (and to some degree the nokia n900), where updates can be pushed (the owner still decides if he installs). On n900, the updates come through for apps, not for the OS itself. But there's a community (with patched kernels) that deals with it there....

Google to scrub slurped UK Wi-Fi data

@Mike

Because they will be able to, in the absence of GPS (signal or device), give you pretty accurate location info. This can mean 1) you can save battery by leaving GPS off if you do not need the super accuracy of GPS but find cell tower triangulation not accurate enough 2) you can use location services on a device that only has wifi

Angry Birds struggle to take on Androids

how many times do they need to say fragmentation?

On PC, the fact that display,... is different is no problem at all, yet when developing for a mobile platform they seem to be unable to write flexible code?

It's all pretty standard with an ARM chip and a graphics system. Don't use compiler options to specify a specific ARM architecture (ARMv7/...) and you should be fine.

If the platform is below the required spec for a cpu/gpu hungry app, that is one thing, but to blame fragmentation? Sponsored by Apple to spray such crap?

Anyway, having seen Angry Birds on my n900 (and totally missing the hype), I wonder where the problem could be, it is not the most complex app I've seen.

And if you app can't handle different screen dimensions, please don't call yourself a developer. Script kiddie is closer...

Synology DiskStation DS411+ Nas box

trumps everything else

Unless you put it next to a QNAP TS-459Pro+ which has a dual-core atom 1.8GHz :)

Google alerts users to Facebook contacts 'trap'

RE: our trap is better

Excuse me? All the data you have in Google can be easily exported in many different formats. They don't offer just one way to get *your* data back out, but went the extra mile to offer you multiple ways so you can easily import in your app xyz which only supports format zyx.

The article is about Facebook keeping all the info to itself, you can input loads of stuff, and then it sits there forever, making sure no competition will ever come around (who is going to enter all that stuff into a competing site, huh?)

Rethinking the iPhone

n900

I think an n900 would do all you want and more..

Here in Belgium I found an affordable pre-pay solution from Mobile Vikings, costing me 15 euro/month for 2GB data (gprs/3G), 1000 SMS and 15 euro worth calling minutes.

The n900 handles my voice needs (GSM and VOIP in one unified addressbook), internet browsing and apps. And very hackable and open (linux).

Hotmail always-on crypto breaks Microsoft's own apps

RE: Gmail HTTPS.....

I don't see any 'on when possible' - here it says always use or not always.

Mine is set to always use https, and igoogle works just fine

Google Chrome OS: unlike Android, it's open source

RE: Android not open

"one big-name developer says it's no more open than Apple's iOS"

Which is why so many companies are porting it to their hardware and offering it... I have yet to see any 3rd party offering iOS on its hardware.

What isn't open on Android are the Google applications (maps, gmail,...), which you are free to replace with your own implementation ;)

Linux life savers for paranoid penguins

rsync

And for those who love rsync but hate commandline, there is grsync :)

Firefox 4 Android beta gets stomach stapled

no longer a debug build then ;)

Looks like they removed the debug symbols and enabled some optimization...

Unpatched IE bug exploited in targeted attacks

CSS

Funny that the vulnerability is in the CSS code. Seems that not quite following the standards isn't the only problem of this code :)

Testy Turkey re-blocks YouTube over naughty hotel romp clip

Welcome to the EU?

Looks like these people are ready to join the EU... NOT!

Google's $8.5 million Buzz settlement a go

in other words...

$8 million goes to the lawyers and $500.000 to the rest. Who won?

Google man slings mud at Facebooked Bing

small difference

If I Google for something it won't serve private content of others, only what's out there in public... The stuff people keep on facebook goes (IMHO) much further than what Google can get its hands on.

Flash video comes to iPhone, iPad (kinda)

RE: VLC

And since Apple violates the VLC license, it will soon be gone from iCrap devices...

/me walks off to watch some flash stuff on his n900

Ms. Gates: 'Bill does not use a Mac'

RE: scrollwheel

If the scrollwheel was soooo much better, then where is it now, huh? Right...

And you like to misrepresent facts: you don't need to press a button for every item, how about holding it down until it scrolls into view. Takes less effort than moving your thumb around a circle like an iDIOT.

Lots of Apple 'inventions' are so hyped up nobody dares to quietsion if they really are that great at all. I absolutely hate pinch-to-zoom and using touch to rotate. I mean, how many useful zoom and rotation settings are there. Not much. So I'd rather just double-tap the portion I want to zoom in, and have it done for me (hint: works when using device with one hand!).

Wake me up when they 'invent' something that isn't 99% marketing hype

Street View spies a €2.4m fine

recording protected data?

I don't think unencrypted wifi can be called protected data. Quite the contrary.

Dane-Elec myDitto Nas device

done right?

If you need to carry along a USB stick to get access to your NAS, I would not call it 'Done right'.

These days I don't even carry any USB stick along anymore, that's so previous century.

Foxconn warns phones prices will rise

WHAT?

"Hon Hai will have to take care not to improve workers' conditions to the point where the brands take their business elsewhere"

I'd be ashamed to write anything like that. Is that how much you care about other people?

Bloggers swallow iPhone 4 screen weakness claim

One thing you forget

Since the iPhone4 has this antenna problem, many users use a bumper or external case, and STILL the iPhone 4 has more broken glass incidents.

So I wouldn' t play it down like you do, unless you are an Apple fanboi, of couse.

(I smelled your bias already in the title and it stinked)

Google spits back at Oracle's Android suit

Fragmented? Blame Oracle!

If Java had been true open source, there would have been no need for Google to come up with Dalvik. So blaming Google for the fragmentation is taking it a bit too far.

Oracle, look at yourself.

Flakey scales brand Commonwealth boxers bunch of blobs

@Welcome to the land of outsourcing

Indeed.... having worked together with 'developers' over there, I'm not surprised at all this is a total failure. Seems to be a common feature in India.

Google Earth 'Liquid Galaxy' open sourced*

Nice

When I was at Google last year they only had the setup with three panels, and it was already impressive. It did work more fluidly than what the youtube clip shows... The 3D controller needs a fair bit of getting used to, but after that it's addictive :)

Google shocks world with unthreaded Gmail

RE: Apple Mail Threading

Yup, that is how gmail does it too. Love it.

Nutter repairmen scale 1,768ft TV mast

@Gavin McMenemy

using a fish-eye lens, everything looks round...

German gov gives Google Street View privacy deadline

Complete information please

Thomas de Maiziere also said that people should stop the paranoid panic, with people sharing lots of private stuff on facebook and others, but refusing a picture of their front door....

So he's already suggesting himself that the current privacy standards they are after are a bit over the top.