Posts by MattWPBS

Celonis slaps SAP with lawsuit claiming it's gatekeeping customer data

Re: What a world

There's a reason SAP is called corporate ransomware.

Excel Hell: It's not just blame for pandemic pandemonium being spread between the sheets

Re: Ye Olde English Proverb

Swiss Army Knife is the analogy I always use.

You can trim branches with the little saw blade, you can slice up food with the knife blades. If you end up trying to run a lumber business with Swiss Army Knife though, you want to take a step back and think about what you're doing.

Facebook apologizes to users, businesses for Apple’s monstrous efforts to protect its customers' privacy

Re: I'm confused

They already do.

And they've decided the warning box doesn't apply to them: https://www.theverge.com/interface/2020/8/27/21402744/apple-idfa-facebook-fight-ads-advertising

SAP proves, yet again, that Excel is utterly unkillable

Re: In my experience

"If your data is important, it's important to get somebody competent to build it for you."

If you don't have the budget, back to Excel.

Excel's a Swiss army knife

Seriously. You can use it to do enough small different things reasonably enough. Like you can use it to open a wine bottle, open a tinned can, or trim a branch.

Problem is when people try to use it for a bigger project, get to the level where it's the equivalent of where you should use a chainsaw to chop down a copse of trees.

UK finds itself almost alone with centralized virus contact-tracing app that probably won't work well, asks for your location, may be illegal

Re: Hanlon's razor

I prefer "cock up is more likely than conspiracy".

UK snubs Apple-Google coronavirus app API, insists on British control of data, promises to protect privacy

Re: "Details" are irrelevant

No, I'll happily install one using the Google/Apple API, but I have doubts about the NHSX app. It's partly that I trust Google and Apple keeping an eye on each other, it's partly that they've designed it to avoid a centralised data store that can be abused, it's partly that I don't have enough faith in the British government to swiftly build a tool containing this much personal information in one place, without screwing up somewhere along the line and accidentally exposing it.

More worried about cock up than conspiracy.

Roses are red, IBM is Big Blue. It's out of RSA Conference after coronavirus review: IBMers will not attend infosec event over 'health concerns'

CP+ (one of the biggest photography shows) has been cancelled in Yokohama as well.

https://petapixel.com/2020/02/13/breaking-news-cp-2020-has-been-cancelled-due-to-coronavirus-fears/

Apple files patent for 'polished meteorite' keyboard

Re: Re: Re: Prior art.

Exactly what sprung to my mind when I saw the diagram - that's a telegraph key.

TouchPad sales doubled after it was discontinued

Transformer I think...

Transformer I think...

Galaxy Tab 7.7 pulled from IFA after new Apple moves

"many indistinguishable iPad-alikes"

"Along with a wedge-shaped Honeycomb tablet, Sony released a dual- screen clamshell tablet"

Seriously, being sarcy is great Reg trait, but when you contradict yourself within three sentences, it's a BIT daft.

Ultra-cheap HP TouchPads to hit UK at 6pm

Except...

There's people (like me), who got them.

For that price?

Got the 16Gb one for £89. Figure it's worth a punt to see if people manage to hack Android onto it.

Google SHOCK! Snaps up Motorola phone biz for $12.5bn

a

"But once Google has a preferred hardware partner that it owns outright, it is hard to see why its former partners – now rivals – would wish to continue with Android.

Expect to hear a splashing sound as dozens of OEMs dump their green plastic robots overboard. But where will they go?"

Why would they ditch it? Unless Google starts pissing about and pre-releasing stuff only to Motorola, the change is that Google now has a LOT more skin in the game, and a lot more ammunition to defend Android. Like I said, predicated on Google not pissing about and favouring Motorola. Given their model's driven by advertising, rather than hardware, I can't see them trying to shut the ecosystem like that.

Domain name claim teases Sony-MS partnership

"As for the Microsoft and Sony collaboration, I won't hold my breath."

Well, yeah, you wouldn't.

Mainly because you'd be talking about any number of Sony laptops running Windows.

Google's Facebook: It rocks, but who cares?

Will people use it...?

Here's what you're missing (as far as I can see where it's going), these are the URLs for Google+:

www.google.com

www.gmail.com

www.youtube.com

www.blogger.com

www.picasa.com

www.google.com/calendar

www.google.com/ig

maps.google.com

news.google.com

docs.google.com

etc

etc

It really seems as if this isn't an attempt to launch a new Google product, it's Google linking everything it does together.

El Reg cuts ribbon on new Special Projects Bureau

Lethal Object High Altitude Notation

Answering the question "What happens if you push a lot of bricks out of an airplane?"

Ten... Premium Android smartphones

Exactly the same.

Came from a Desire to the S2, and I'm seeing better battery life. The screen's got a lot to do with that I think, no power to the black areas and all that. It's an amazing phone.

Nokia and Apple bury patent beef

Same.

Pretty sure part of this was that Apple were the only manufacturer who thought they didn't have to pay licenses.

After Black Friday, Nokia acts to halt share slide

Why did the share price tank?

My guess is that the market did not expect a 100% switch to Windows Phone 7. Maybe the expected the introduction of some Windows Phone 7 phones, and maybe some Android phones as well, but not the wholesale "sod Symbian, sod MeeGo, we'll put everything on WP7".

They've just trashed their current portfolio at a stroke.

iPad propels Apple into top-three PC vendor placement

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight...

So I'm assuming that Canalys will be including all smartphones in their PC figures as well? If an iPad, a Galaxy Tab and the like are PCs, why would a couple of inches difference in screen size remove something from the category?

Or how about XBox 360s and PS3s? They've got ample processing power, and a number of applications you can download. Guess they should be counted as well.

"With screen sizes of seven inches or above, ample processing power, and a growing number of applications, pads offer a computing experience comparable to netbooks."

English Defence League membership list stolen

Looking forward to...

Cross match of this to the BNP list. Anyone want to guess at crossover percentages?

MS drops drive pooling from Windows Home Server

Seriously...?

I got my WHS on the cheap anyhow (staff purchase), but the entire reason I've got one is that if a drive fails, then certain folders are protected.

Steve Jobs chucks Apple server biz from pram

Real impact's not the servers themselves.

Like the quote says, it's "video processing and rich media customers". These are the guys offloading a lot of processing from the desktop to the servers, and they've just seen their back end hardware plans go "pft". What do you do then? Stick with Apple, without the ability to rack stuff in the data centre, or take the opportunity to look elsewhere?

Android rebellion: How to tame your stupid smartphone

Same here...

No problems with G1, and no problems with switching to Desire. No problems for friends with Desires, Heros or X1s either...

An HTC named Desire. OK, two HTCs...

Check out the boot time...

Second video on here. Nuts.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/15/htc-desire-z-hands-on/

BBC news apps squeeze onto iPhone, iPad

For fox sakes...

Just sort the website out, and sod the iPhone if it can't handle it.

Superslim iPhone 4 enough to fend off Android?

You noticed...

The piece where it says "Opinion" rather than "Review" then?

Cameron aims to bring LibDems into government

Don't think it will be good enough.

Remember that Blair offered an inquiry on electoral reform, and nothing came of it. Once bitten, twice shy. Think it's going to be "referendum on reform or no deal".

For anyone who suggests that LabLib would not be legitimate:

ConLib coalition - 59.1% of the vote.

LabLib coalition - 52.1% of the vote.

Con - 36.1%, Lab - 29.1%, Lib - 23%.

If the Tories can't come to middle ground with the Lib Dems, and Labour can, then that coalition has the more legitimacy than a minority government in my mind.

Tories buy YouTube home page

Worth mentioning...

The 160,000+ on the unofficial Lib Dem Facebook group.

Get in. Hopefully we'll see some real change in the electoral system after this.

Wikileaks video shows US gunfire on Reuters staff

You see the bit at the end...

Where they pointed out that the 'RPG' is a camera?

Net downloads cause 'millions of lost jobs'

The music industry vs the musicians.

http://labs.timesonline.co.uk/blog/2009/11/12/do-music-artists-do-better-in-a-world-with-illegal-file-sharing/

Interesting analysis from the Times. Music industry revenues pretty much steady overall from 2004 to 2008 (in terms of live, recorded, etc), but with revenue shifting from the record companies to the artists themselves. The problem for the labels is that the costs of production and entry to the market have plummeted - you can get a good record sorted without having to spend tens of thousands on it, but they've still got the large structure costs. Used to be that live performances were almost a promotional support for the records, now it's more that the recorded output is promotional for the live performances.

Android - the winning formula for tablets and netbooks?

Exactly.

Tonnes of great stuff on there.

Putting an iPad through the Motions

Miss the part about specialist requirements?

You know, disinfection and the like? Numpty.

Nokia's free Ovi Maps scores a download every second

No data connection overseas...

= no Google Maps to use.

iPad vs e-book readers: price matters

"Taiwanese hardware makers like Asus and Acer are already working on colour tablets"

Make that "already sell", or did you not even check this very site?

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/11/27/asus_t91mt/

Steve Jobs uncloaks the 'iPad'

Uh-huh...

Right, so the game changer is that you're tied to one online store, rather than being able to buy OSX programs from anywhere online?

Apple's Tablet won't save Big Dumb Media

Pretty much on the ball.

I'd recommend reading Flat Earth News by Nick Davies, if you haven't already. It's a great primer on the way that the news industry (broadcast and print) has dumbed down and 'streamlined' in the last few years. Term he uses for the reprinting of press releases is Churnalism. There's some horrific statistics in there about how the number of journalists has reduced across the regions, and how this has affected coverage of court cases and the like.

My personal opinion is that there's got to be a real shift in the relationship between a newspaper and its readers. Not in terms of user generated content, but in terms of what we expect, and what we're paying for. Tell me that my money's going on proper investigative journalism, show me the results and drop the unchecked churn, and I'll pay a good amount of money for a subscription (in print and online). It's the idea that we're investing in sustaining investigations that I think is key.

Put the summaries of the stories out in the open, and put the detail behind a very flimsy paywall. Make it clear that the reason for the paywall is that the income is needed to fund the very production of the stories that people are after, and go for their guilt to make them pay.

Never mind the entire fact that it's getting easier and easier to block online advertising, so that's probably a daft thing to base a business model on.

(also - I'm glad there's comments on Orlowski articles now, always reckon they'd be good for drawing some interesting stuff out)

Knuckle rap for riot shield sledging coppers

Too right.

Looks like they work much better than a dinghy.