Posts by Benjamin 4

Do not adjust your set, er, browser: This is our new page-one design

Keep the desktop site

I don't mind the redesign as such but please keep a non dynamic version which let's me fit more information on a mobile screen. I have always used the desktop version on mobile for this reason.

Huawei Honor 10: At £399, plenty of bang for buck – it's a pity about the snaps

Too Much

£399 still feels like £200 too expensive to me. Traditionally I have always bought flagships, but phones are so stupidly expensive for what I want these days.

Equifax reveals full horror of that monstrous cyber-heist of its servers

Re: And how...

And if I didn't want a loan, or car finance, or a credit card or any other credit related product and asked them to remove my details accordingly then what would they do then?

Microsoft: This Windows 10 build has 'NO significant known issues'

I thought they were bringing back aero glass? That still looks distinctly flat and gray and boxy.

Reg Lectures serve up Net Terrors, Rare Earths, and Ancient Tech

Is there any way of obtaining a webcam feed of the talk? The light and dark on the internet talk sounds interesting but I don't especially fancy the journey into London and for a lot of people it would be impractical, so it seems it would make sense to me to offer a web feed for say £5. Especially since we're supposed to be a tech website.

Enough is enough: It's time to flush Flash back to where it came from – Hell

I don't understand what people have against flash. Sure it has a few secuity holes, but I've always maintained that a good secuity program will mitigate this. Sure it used to be a resource hog, but since I got my current laptop (i7-2760qm 16gb ram) I've never noticed performance issues related to flash, so I think it just needed computers to catch up to it.

There are many sites that still rely on flash especially since I can't stand Firefox past v20 or so so most of the html5 video etc doesn't work properly. As long as you have a decent computer and security I don't see it as a problem. I do however agree there is no need for it on business computers.

The Shock of the New: The Register redesign update 4

Much better with the gray. Now please just stop the topics bar (or whatever you call it data centre / software / networks etc) from being always at the top of the screen. When scrolling using page down you lose the top line of text and have to scroll back up to read it.

El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

I don't think there's any part of this that I think is an improvement.

Everything is too big, with too much white empty space so its hard to differentiate between stuff on the homepage. The always on top title bar means that using page down to scroll chops off a line of text.

I miss the carousel on the homepage, it was helpful to easily find some of the more interesting stories, as were the links at the bottom of artucles.

Why do companies repeatedly feel that they need to change something that works as it is? I don't want a 'more modern and fresh experience'. Pretty soon we'll just get blank screens with nothing on them because it's too difficult to use otherwise. Come on, give your readership some credit, we're not complete idiots.

I regularly read, but don't normally comment, however I feel I have to make an exception here.

Krakoom! OCZ flies into the ground. Time to salvage the engines and look around

"everyone buys seagates"

I'd rather backup to floppy discs. Not really, but I lost a number of earlyish (2-12gb ide) Seagate drives to stiction and have never trusted the brand since. Never had a WD drive fail on me (without being dropped in a laptop) yet.

Transcend for SSD / flash storage all the way.

Deep inside the iPhone 5s lurk a few surprises

3.8v Battery???

I'd like to know what chemistry the battery uses. Since as far as I know traditional lithium ion and lithium polymer cells are only available in 3.6 or 3.7v, so I'd like to know what they are using to get the extra 0.1v.

Card-cloning crooks use 3D printers to make ever-better skimmers

Errrm. I would have thought that the whole world has managed to implement cards with chips in them by now, which would seem to defeat this. Please tell me there aren't places in the world so backwards that they still use magstripe only cards?

Hold on a mo: Brits blow £56m a year on the blower to gov minions

Could people not just use fixed line phones to call 0845/0800 numbers? It makes it all much cheaper and easier. I really don't see why there are all the complaints about them.

Russian mobile operators say 'nyet!' to Apple, 'da!' to Samsung

Re: Tim Cook seems not to understand the market

My previous phone I bought off ebay since I was stuck with an HTC Hero on a ridiculously long contract and just couldn't deal with it any more.

However when I went to renew my contract (a little while ago now) it was £25 for sim only with unlimited data or £26 for the same deal with an Xperia S. Who wouldn't pay £24 more for a £300 phone? This is why people still buy phones on contract.

Nissan to enter 300 kmh electric car in Le Mans endurance race

Re: The questions remain ...

@jake

I can't believe all the downvotes and comments you've recieved from people who just fail to understand the issue. You raise a very good set of questions.

For those that don't understand the main question behind the questions; over the course of the life of an electric vehicle and the equivalent class of petrol vehicle, which requires more energy to produce, which requires more energy to maintain, to run, to dispose of, which is less environmentallly friendly to dispose of, and ultimately which is actually more environmentally friendly.

And to be honest, if I had to guess, by the time you've swapped and big Li-Ion battery packs five or six times (assuming the car lasts 175-200 thousand miles which is not unreasonable for a modern IC car) and dispose of them and created the electricity using coal or gas plants (as in the UK) and extracted the rare Earth magnets for the motor (I know they're not strictly speaking rare, but it is a dirty, pollutive process to extact them nonetheless) I wouldn't be so surprised of the electric car loses.

Badger bloodbath brouhaha brings 'bodge' bumpkin bank burgle bluster

Re: As ocassionally happens.....

But isn't that half the fun? Trying to guess what the article is about without reading the subtitle or the article.

DHS warns of vulns in hospital medical equipment

Why the hell are these on a network, let alone connected to the internet. All of this sort of thing should surely be completely standalone with no communication protocols to other devices.

Unemployed? Ugly? Ugh, no thanks, says fitties-only job website

Re: You wish ..

@Whoever downvoted this post.

Please reload your joke detector and the try reading it again.

PayPal security boss: OBLITERATE passwords from THE PLANET

Re: I can change my password ...

Agreed. And you should use a different code for each website. So I'm good for ten websites, then what?

Philips pushes out SDK for multicolour Zigbee LED lights

Are you sure sir? It does mean changing the bulb!

Damn you Philips. You've just knackered one of my favorite comedy sketches.

Review: Livin' in the cloud with Google's new Chromebook Pixel

Re: No HDMI?

Searched HDMI cable on Amazon and clicked on the first link. 1.8m with gold plated contacts. 99p with free delivery. As long as you don't buy off the highstreet HDMI cables aren't that expensive.

Mobile TV is BACK: Ericsson launches broadcast video for 4G

Why? Just why?

The rest of the world is movining away from broadcast TV towards streaming so lets invent a new broadcast standard on a platform where broadcast TV has never worked?

Though frankly all mobile TV apps (live and streaming seem to be a bit crap). Even the iPlayer mobile app has atrocious quality, though accessing the desktop site improves quality tremendously.

Australian Parliament issues summons to Apple, Microsoft, Adobe

Sorry, so what's the outcome going to be. A committee will find that they pay more than other countries, and then what? They'll legislate that an iPad can only cost $500? Somehow I don't quite see it. The only way this can be resolved is through the market (i.e. another company comes along and starts selling a competitive product at lower prices).

Japan hides anti-piracy warning on P2P networks

I really don't get these laws. 10 years imprisonment while these people who get small fines for kidnapping and or rape. The world really needs to reassess what we punish people for.

Ballmer now flings out work rivals, rather than chairs, claims ex-Microsoftie

"Ballmer is the best person to lead Microsoft"

I think I just saw a pig fly past the window, probably on its way to show Ballmer how he should run Microsoft.

Oz R18+ game rating goes live

I'm all for protecting children if there is genuinely a danger, but methinks this is a rubbish way of going about it. Sure there is an age where children shouldn't be able to access content currently rated at 18+, but I'm not sure that this is it. And I'm not sure that this would solve it even if it was enforceable.

We would be far better off if parents sat down with their children and explained that there is violence / sex / whatever portrayed within this game. It's not representative of real life. Treat it as a fantasy and a way to blow off the stresses of your real life.

Wouldn't that be far more sensible than an unenforceable legislation? Even if shops abide to it and people don't buy from abroad and adults don't buy the games on behalf of children they'll still play it round a mates house who has an older brother who got it.

It's the same with all the f**king stupid legislation they keep trying to introduce to block porn. Massively expensive, never works, and doesn't achieve what they set out for it to achieve.

Anti-virus products are rubbish, says Imperva

I'll stick with using an AV suite ta very much. I've used unprotected machines, admittedly back in the dark days of XP / IE6 so maybe things have moved on, but they were riddled with viri very quickly. (I use viri as a generic term for viruses, worms , trojans, adwere, spyware, whatever else the latest term de joure is)

I use Eset Small Business Security, cost something Like £15-20 per machine per year which seems a worthwhile investment and I've never had a virus slip past it. Maybe I'm lucky, maybe I'm not the target of this report, but for the money it costs me I'll stick with it.

Build a BONKERS test lab: Everything you need before you deploy

Re: No love for AMD?

I'm just guessing here but he stated that he specifically wanted vPro and a set of remote management capabilities. I don't know about remote management but certainly vPro is restricted to Intel cpus (unless my brain is playing tricks on me cause I haven't done any major virtulisation work for a couple of years).

Chinese court orders Apple to cough £100k to writers for violating copyright

If people are successfully suing for copyright infringement in China Apple must be doing really badly!

Dish seeks more time to oppose Sprint - Softbank deal

Surely they'd all be better off moving towards where the UK mobile network industry is going and have one or two networks maintained between them and then all sell space on them.

Canadians nab syrup rustlers after massive maple sap heist

Re: Syrup Syphon

You are thinking of golden syrup. This is maple syrup which, while not as thin as water is not anywhere near as thick as Golden syrup.

Schmidt 'very proud' of Google's tiny tax bill: 'It's called capitalism'

"Imorral" "Pushes the Law to its limits"

Either they're breaking the law or they aren't. If they're breaking the law prosecute them. If they aren't breaking the law change it so that they are or stop whinging about it.

Apple share dive scuppers trader's alleged get-rich-quick fraud scam

Re: 'Rochdale Securities'

And the home of 'Ecky Thump'!

Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone 8 handset review

I really like the hardware but I'm not touching Windows Phone with a barge pole. If I could get this with Android, especially CM7.2 with ADW launcher I would really like it as a phone. Sadly the software lets it down.

Tiny Ubi Android machine pre-orders open

"I'm sorry, the term cargo bay doors does not appear to be in my mexican."

Why is 4G so expensive? Answer: The Post-Voice Era is coming

Why would I want a high bandwith mobile data connection with a 500mb or 1gb cap?

NEC looks to offload Lenovo shares

Re: buy-back

That doesn't always mean they are making a lot of money. I could be the top PC maker by virtue of selling all of my computers at cost / a loss. I'd be moving the volume but still not making money.

Ten 15in notebooks for under 400 quid

Re: Backs and second hand laptops

100% agree with second hand ThinkPads being the way to go. £180 off eBay for a proper 15.4" 16:10 1680x1050 screen - beats any other laptop in this review. A proper keyboard not one of these stupid cichlet keyboard, a track point and 4-8 hours battery life (dependent upon model and battery) and virtually indestructible to boot. A 500gb hdd and £20 on Amazon to boost the RAM to 4gb.

I seriously don't understand why more people don't do this.

Ofcom begged to protect minicab, other small-biz's radio spectrum

I disagree that moving to satellite or cable would solve anything since those are proprietary networks and unless you want to pay for upkeep on them for me as well it wouldn't work. We should just spend the money to get internet to everyone, scrap timed content altogether and then watch shows off the internet when we want to (i.e. shows would be available to watch at any time during the day / evening / week after etc that they want them to screen on).

Watchdog probes rules for naughty mobe fondling on flights

Re: if

If I'm to play devils advocate I'd say that just because it doesn't that doesn't mean there isn't a chance it could. And do you want to be on a plane that might crash? Besides get a real book then it wouldn't be a problem in the first place.

Police mistake reveals plan for Assange's Embassy capture

Anti-Terrorism Laws??? Limits should apply!

There should be a law that says laws and police departments etc can only be used as intended. For example local councils would be banned from using surveillance under RIPA etc and an anti-terrorism police department could not be used to help collar Assange.

Gartner: UK PC market stayed on its knees in Q2

No surprises there then

I recently purchased a ThinkPad T61 from eBay for £180. 2.2ghz dual core, 4gb ram, hdd from my old laptop, decent battery life, and that should see me for another couple of years. Likewise I built my desktop three years ago with components that were old then and it still does everything I want.

There has been minimal improvements in the market for years now (apart from cutting edge applications). Manufacturers need to come up with something to make me want to buy computers, otherwise they're going to keep loosing sales. Basically they're making computers too good (not that I'm complaining).

Microsoft: MED-V won't help you escape WinXP end-of-life

Given how many people don't want to upgrade why don't MS just charge for updates and support and make the most of it. I have yet to find a compelling reason to upgrade.

Home Secretary to decide on McKinnon extradition by October

If you ask me anyone who does this should be given £1 million and told to get on with their lives. It would soon tighten up security on govt and military computers!

US county named 'area of outstanding natural stupidity'

Re: Poor understanding of grammar

"Their intent was to keep the people free from an intrusive government."

And of course the current 'Merican government is soo good to it's people!

Hubble spots ancient spiral galaxy that SHOULD NOT EXIST

Re: Further proof

Whoever downvoted that had a massive sense of humour / sarcasm failure. Please reinstall sense of humour version 1.5. If this still fails please uninstall internet ver 2.2!

Nearly 2 MILLION US Facebook users quit social network

TV - right there with FB

And how often do you watch television (and I mean actually watch it, not just have it on while you pay attention to something else? TV is in decline, it has just taken a while.

As is music. Very few people actually listen to music.

My point is that all these once great things are relegated to second / third place and not the primary draws they once were!

Minister of Fun bends Ofcom's ear on Freeview-4G knockout

£60 to stick a filter in the loft???

Most signal amps in the loft still use normal coax connectors. Are the really saying that the average person is too incompetent to go into their loft and stick the filter in?

Disable Gadgets NOW says Redmond

Excuse me while I feel quite smug...

For running XP and consequently not needing to do anything to combat this.

(Joke alert so that people understand that I am not advocating running XP for security reasons)

UK judge hands Samsung win for being 'not as cool' as iPad

Another word for simplicity:

The complete lack of all features!

NatWest seeks volunteers to bonk with their iPhones

I know, I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, I'm just saying I don't see a point in it yet for me personally, since I would never have an opportunity to use it.