Posts by Howard Cole 10 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Feb 2010
"By calling them plug-ins, a term that usually applies to web applications, Ericsson made its offerings sound simple, modern and unthreatening"
Is it just me getting old? Since when did plug-ins not refer to something with a plug. I think you'll find this is a term used by the software and web developers that is borrowed from the good old hardware with connectors era.
I agree with AC 11:43 - Apple get Kudos for reversing the trend toward lower resolution screens. 10 years ago I could by a laptop with a 1440 x 1050 screen, but recently it is very difficult to buy a laptop with anything other than a 1280 x 768 resolution screen - which is a massive step backwards in terms of usability and the manufacturers refer to them jokingly as HD screens.
With apple introducing higher resolution screens, in phones, tablets and macbooks, and phone manufacturers and Google following suit - I can only hope that laptops will follow soon.
I am not a legal expert, but most of these patents seem to be fairly loose and based on known technologies. If the open source community, and even the closed source community pooled together to provide copies of their own source which showed prior art, then would most of these patent troll companies be shown to be the useless vultures that they are. (No insult to vulture central intended).
If one or two of these legal actions can be thrown out of texan courts, then possibly these ridiculous patents would no longer be pursued in court - as the possibility they are a unique patentable idea gets proved incorrect.
Just a thought? Or is this already happening somewhere?
I take it that whoever approved the budget for this will be one of the first made redundant during the public sector cutbacks.
Probably not. It will be one of the poor sods in the front line unemployment office who is given the boot.
What a waste of money. It makes me really mad that people can get away with this, using MY money.
People would just not get away with this where I work. We have an inbuilt "use the money wisely" system in our company called "Keith". He asks us what we want the money for - and if its a stupid idea or one that cannot be justified he says "No". Clearly the public sector does not seem to have such an inbuilt safety/common-sense feature. Otherwise ideas such as this, and MP's Moat-Repairs would clearly not get through.
Sooooooo Mad.
Like most tech people here I do not really like the anti-competitive way that Apple control their marketplace. However it seems as if the rhetoric by some of the much-loved Register hacks is becoming a little vitriolic and not quite as balanced or amusing as I would hope for.
Yes there is a story to report here, but I cannot quite see it as any more anti-competitive than most other firms that are in Apples position, and therefore does not warrant a daily tirade of anti-jesus propoganda.
Is there no other IT news at present? Has Paris Hilton gone underground?
Please - don't force me to read the Daily Mail (UK Trash Tabloid) for my balanced news feed!
Unfortunately, it is very hard to restrict your laptop to only 60MB these days becasuse of all the automatic updates for windows, office, java, adobe etc.
If you are unlucky enough to be abroad, log in to collect your emails for 20 minutes or so, and you happen to coincide with a windows updates - I would hate to see your bill!
The charges for data roaming are just a rip-off. I can get a mobile dongle in the UK that gives me 3GB of data for a modest per month fee. If I end up on the continent - the equivalent amount of roaming data is going to bankrupt me.
Ridiculous. Its about time the EEC launched some useful regulation on data roaming charges.
I am staggered by the number of people that seem to think people are responsible for their level of broadband service because they live or choose to live in an area where there is poor broadband.
When I last moved there wasn't ADSL broadband, only dial-up.
In the last 10 years broadband has boomed and changed how we live and although 56Kbps dialup was sufficient initially, now I get emails that would take the best part of a day to download at that speed. I wouldn't even attempt to download todays Microsoft Service Packs at that speed.
I cannot think of another invention which has had such a fast impact on our lives. It has led to a huge number of people owning computers, the creation of some of the biggest companies and and the birth of many innovative and worthwhile businesses. (El Reg as the most worthwhile obviously!)
So whereas 1Mbps seemed like luxury initially, it is not really sufficient today. Soon, with the advent of streaming high definition video content etc, 50Mbps is going to seem like a throttled connection. However, until the market in the those burbs where you can get 50Mbps becomes saturated with so many companies that it becomes unviable to update to any higher speeds, those of us in the rural areas will still be stuck on what will become an unusable speed connection.
We've see what a shambles that the market led industries with shoddy watchdogs has given us in terms of Water/Sewage, Gas, Electricity and Rail: Poor infrastucture, frequent shortages, intermittent services and rising costs.
There is an opportunity with fibre to provide an upgradable service to all of exchanges in the UK providing at least the infrastructure to provide high speed broadband universally. BT, the only carrier in the country with this ability say they will not do it and so it is down to the government to enforce the upgrade.
If not, then many businesses will start to become less viable, as services they will need cannot be provided to areas beyond the burbs, and as the market for LLU saturates, perhaps those beyound the cities will start to feel the restrictions.
It is short-sighted not to invest in fibre. Other countries will do it and their economies will overtake ours as it becomes more apparent to business that the internet is critical to their survival. For example, why would an international company invest in a country which cannot provide the ability for its employees to work remotely.
The same goes for mobile broadband.
It is not just rural communities. As others have pointed out, you get blackspots in cities. It is a postcode lottery - and as such almost discrimatory.
Yes it is worth subsidising fibre. It is not just TV and illegal downloads that the net is used for.
@georgeclooneylookalike
Hi georgeclooneylookalike,
Yes I have gas and mains sewer - however - if I didn't have gas I could easily get an alternative fuel type that is only a little more expensive and thus be able to heat my house as fast as you can in the burbs.
If I didn't have mains sewer then I could get a very sustainable and cheap to run sewage system and shit as fast as you do in the burbs.
There is no cheap alternative for fast broadband that I am aware of. So without fibre to cabinet I cannot surf as fast as you in the burbs.
Anyway, so it was clearly viable to lay water/sewer/gas/electricity/phone to my place - so the only reason BT don't want to lay a fibre cable is that they can't see a fast profit in doing so and therefore want to squeeze more profit by getting the government to pay.
Don't get me wrong georgeclooneylookalike, I am not totally averse to paying more for my broadband, and like everyone else here I don't think that the proposed tax is the fairest option but I do see broadband as much as a right as the ability to receive TV for which I pay a huge tax. Only I see broadband as much more important as it could be a major driver to our economy which is already in need of some serious investment.
Yes broadband really is important to me. I use it extensively for work - play - socialising. I see it as the infrastructure to a better economy for the UK - so if the tories cannot come up with an alternative then Yes. It is worth changing my vote. Unfortunately I cannot see any other differentiators when it comes to my vote.
So I appreciate your views george, but please understand mine.
I live in the third of the country whiich is not "economically viable" to roll out fibre broadband (Just like I wasn't part of the country where it was initially thought that broadband wasn't going to be viable AT ALL - but now everyone has it)
More and more people have the ability to work from home where there is reasonable broadband, enabling those in the rural communities to save a fortune on fuel and saving a bit of CO2 to boot.
Broadband is now an essential part of my lifestyle as much as a mobile phone and a car. Additionally it is an essential part of my business. I therefore consider the broadband tax to be a GOOD idea.
I live in rural North Yorkshire, a conservative area. But how do you think I'll vote if the Tories plan to scrap this tax at the coming election?
Tories - Frikkin Luddites - Trying to keep all of us that don't live in a city in the dark ages.
Agree with the article, and also the perception of Joe Bruin - the codebase is probably so shockingly bad now that it is a nightmare to maintain.
I have seen this so often in the past. A large codebase is not properly managed. The original team that developed the software moves on as they see the project turn to mud. They get lots of junior programmers fresh out of college to implement hacks. Not their fault - they have no option but to build shit upon shit. Eventually even the smallest of changes just further corrupts the codebase. Any original design gets lost or smothered in tweaks. I suspect there are a few old-hackers who "know" the software and are the only ones capable of making any changes to the software now.
A mess. They need a rewrite - from scratch. I doubt that they can re-write parts of it because it is probably a mess of interwoven dependencies that no one can untangle. We know it - they know it. But will they do it? It needs a brave decision from someone at the top.
If they don't then I can see flash losing its dominance to Silverlight and HTML5. Its your last chance Adobe!
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