Posts by plrndl

The business mullet: Cool or tool?

Re: There's jeans, and then there's jeans......

You may be able to get a suit off the peg. I'm tall and skinny. Anything that fits my waist stops around mid calf. If it fits my legs, it goes 1½ times round my waist.

Re: The suit??

This ridiculous garment is only good for two things in my observation.

1. Countless years of tailoring expertise mean that it's the best garment to mimimise a huge paunch.

2. It's and effective uniform for conmen.

I'm with the brain workers myself.

Re: There's jeans, and then there's jeans......

For the price of a decent suit, I could buy a laptop, a fondleslab and a decent phone, and take them down the pub with the change.

Dead Steve Jobs 'made Tim Cook sue Samsung' from beyond the grave

Epic Fail

Apple have actually shot themselves in both feet with this ridiculous legal venture. For the record, Jobs did not invent the phone, the computer, the mobile phone, the WIMP, the rectangle with rounded corners, the Apple logo or anything else of note. He merely packaged other people's innovations in a beautiful manner, and took all the credit.

The iPhone is desperately in need of a design refresh, and should have had one for the iPhone 5, instead of making do with a stretched version of the previous model. Unfortunately, having sued everyone who makes anything that looks remotely like a phone, there's nothing they can make that won't get them sued in return (which they could probably afford), and banned from importing into the US, which they cannot afford.

200 million office workers gagging for a... Microsoft Surface?

Because they don't want to buy one, they want to be given one by their employers to replace the ancient XP machines they have on thier desks. Even I'd consider that, and I hate W8 even more than all the previous versions, and use Unix type systems whenever possible.

Wish List

I want my employer to give me twice, no ten times the salary, three times the holidays, a penthouse flat on top of the office building, a chauffeur driven limo for work travel, and something a little more sporty for my personal use...

Since when did the wish list for the rank and file influence business buying decisions?

Review: Living with Microsoft's new Surface Pro

Uncertaintly Principle

At least you'll be able to know exactly how fast you're going.

$64,000 Question

What's it like with Ubuntu/Unity?

UK web snoop charter: Just how much extra info do spooks need?

Empire Building

No-one will ever close the gap between what data can be transmitted and what can be used by The Goodies to catch The Baddies. I could happily invent 5 new means of communicating data an hour if someone was prepared to pay me enough to keep me interested in the task.

This is merely a superficially plausible idea for money grabbing & empire building by cops and civil servants (bigger empire=bigger salary & status).

What is really needed is better analysis of readily available data, not more data.

Ex-ICO: Draft EU privacy rules will turn every citizen 'into a liar'

... rogues, not businesses ...

What's the difference?

Longest-standing bug?

Bugs in open source software are typically fixed in a time-frame that corresponds to their severity. This was obviously not hyper-critical.

Windows Media Center EPG has SWITCHED OFF, wail Euro users

Myth TV

Another vote for Myth. It is a bugger to set up, you can't just install it and sit back, but everything you need to know is available on-line, and you will learn a lot doing so.

Mythbuntu is the way to go for a dedicated TV/PVR system.

US military nails 'best ever' Microsoft deal, brags size does matter

Money for Nothing

So that's only $350 per head for nothing. What a deal!

What Compsci textbooks don't tell you: Real world code sucks

The root cause of this situation is that IT decisions are being made by people who are not qualified to make such decisions, as they have zero understandoing of the consequences (eg Windows for Warships http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/1998/07/13987).

This is exacerbated by the problem most technically gifted people have with communicating with the technically illiterate. Thus the marketing and money men tend to heard more clearly.

Analyst offers cut-price fondleslab recipe

Re: "...ask where all the Netbooks have gone."

Not forgetting the typewriters, Walkmans (Walkmen?) portable CD players etc, etc.

Goldman Sachs: Windows' true market share is just 20%

Re: So, this chart is picky about the datapoints it uses

There's a difference between having the potential to do something, and actually doing it on a regular basis. Before the iPhone, accessing data on a phone was so complex that almost no one did. Have you ever used WAP? I haven't. The companies that had paid billions for 3G bands were wondering how they could get people to use it. Now they're worrying about running out of bandwidth.

Future Perfect?

I sell subscriptions to a well known business publication, read mainly by top business people (average income £250,000 pa). I speak to hundreds of them every week. Virtually all of them have an iPad and iPhone. These are the people who make the decisions about what the rest of us use for work. Increasingly, it will be stuff that "just works", which is VERY bad news for MS.

Most readers of the Reg probably NEED some sort of PC to do their work. I certainly do (and for my leisure), but the vast majority of people sitting front of a Windows PC need a small fraction of its power, and none of its complexity.

Microsoft's Steve Ballmer named 'most improved tech CEO'

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

If Balmer's the most improved, I hate to think who's doing worst.

Oh yes, I've got it, whoever's running HP this week.

Linux kernel dumps 386 chip support

Re: 486?

MS has always acted as if the purpose of an operating system is to suck all the life out of the CPU, so you can't run any non-MS software, unless you invest in extreme hardware, like gaming machines. MS Word on my work 2GHz Core 2 Duo XP machine is slower than Wordstar on my old 12 MHz 286 DOS 3.3 from back in the last millenium.

Microsoft braces for Surface RT feedback storm

Re: Whichever number is the bigger....

As I recall, there was a note in MS accounts for the last quarter, saying that sales of upgrade- to-W8-from-W7 licences sold for a pittance to users of W7, would not be included in the accounts until the next quarter, when W8 had been released.

Wonder why?

Samsung Google Nexus 10 tablet review

GPS

"if you haven’t downloaded maps when you were in a suitable hotspot." Surely anyone toting a tablet is also carrying a smartphone which can provide hotspot functionality. This is why I want GPS but not 3G on my Nexus.

Microsoft said to be building Apple TV adversary

Blue Scream of Death?

This sounds like the worst thing I've heard since Windows For Warships.

'Rare for tech not to be involved in child abuse cases'

T-Shirts

I believe it's quite common for T-shirts to be involved in such cases. Let's burn all T-shirts. And T-shirts wearers for good measure.

HP: Autonomy had us believing in a false IDOL

Headless Chicken

In the entrepreneurial stakes, I'd back a headless chicken over HP's management every time. It's a miracle HP still has any staff or products to trade at all.

Oprah Winfrey too late to save Microsoft's Windows 8

Because MS refuses to listen to its users, it has never got the insight that guided Apple's boom: for the typical user/consumer, the interface IS the product. Only geeks buy specs and gizmos. WE DO NOT WANT A NEW INTERFACE, and if we did we'd go looking for another product (are you listening at Ubuntu / Gnome / KDE). Ironically only Apple, that great driver of innovation and change has resisted the current lemming-like rush to destroy the desktop that has developed over millions of user-hours.

Windows 8 is a disaster because, to the typical user it's not “Windows”, ie it doesn't work like Windows has done for everyone who is currently a PC user. It's not because people are Luddites, scared of change etc.

Don't "Start Me Up"

Remember the chorus of that song: "You make a grown man cry".

Sinclair BASIC comes to Raspberry Pi

COBOLers

Now how about COBOL and FORTRAN support to amuse all those old banking coders whose jobs have gone to India.

The GPL self-destruct mechanism that is killing Linux

Hurding Cats

20 years on from Tannenbaum's promotion of the microkernal as the new black, I am not aware of any such OS that has made it out of academia. When's the last time anyone heard anything about the GNU Hurd? Everything that isn't Windows is UNIX derived. Meanwhile Linux is taking over the world, apart from the desktop, which is rapidly going out of fashion.

Mmm, what's that smell: Coffee or sweat? How to avoid a crap IT job

Wee Point

In my experience, you can tell a lot about a potential employer by checking the state of the loos. Make sure you check the ones that the staff use, not those reserved for "guests" or "visitors" (unless comparing the two). If there are such reserved loos, that is also a big signal.

SMARTPHONES make TEENS have SEX with STRANGERS

Re: this reminds me of my favourite statistic

My favourie statistic states that if present trends continue, by the year 2023 everyone on the planet will be an Elvis impersonator

Stranger In The Night

My smartphone doesn't seem to be working like this. What model do I need?

Fans' loyalty questioned as iPhone popularity plummets

Yawn

The iPhone is long overdue for a new look. iPhone 5 is sufficiently different for the fanbois to notice, but is same-old to normal people. Big bad Steve would have seen this. The current management are obsessed with keeping ahead of the competition in the features race, something that never bothered Jobs. He knew, as does any salesman, that punters buy benefits, not features. Only the geeks care about the specs.

Steve Jobs' Apple-powered yacht makes belated first trip

Re: Plural's

You got it.

Plural's

So plural's now have apostrophy's in the Reg, or is it just apples stuff?

FISH IN SPAAACE: New 'nauts and piscine pals head for Xmas on ISS

Presumably chips have already been subjected to adequate testing. I'll pop in when the pub closes.

BYOD for our own staff? That would be 'embarrassing' – HP exec

Re: Security, security, security.

This is a classic example of why IT Depts are widely hated by users. The purpose of IT is to SERVE the user and the business process, NOT to make life easier for themselves or to worship the God technology and it's commandments. If IT is not serving the business it is as much of an enemy to the company as the competition and the taxman. What do you think the company pays you for? Have you EVER considered this?

If HP were smart (if only), they would encourage BYOD to help them discover the (real or perceived) weaknesses in their own products.

Noisy whales made FAR MORE oceanic racket than humans do

Noise Levels

When there were more whales, they were probably communicating less noisily, since they were closer to each other. I suspect whales are smarter than rock guitarists, and realise intuitively that trying to make "everything louder than everything else" is a pointless waste of energy. These days they're probably shouting as loud as possible in the hope of proving that they are not alone.

Microsoft fast-tracks Windows 8 Service Pack updates

"By removing the need to install a SP" they are probably shooting themselves in the foot. Many knowledgeable users, particularly business users, see the first service pack as a sign that the new release may finally be ready for prime time. That they are issuing updates before the official release, merely confirms Intel's statement that the OS is not finished. This will not cause a rush-to-buy on launch day.

Will you soon be fingering your seven-incher?

I've turned up an answer...

... obviously you need 11 points for a Spinal Tap.

Guardian's Robin Hood plan: Steal from everyone to give to us

Pie in the Sky

There's a fundamental problem here. As a matter of principle, all UK taxation goes into a common pot. If you introduce another tax, it is simply that, another tax. Which will then increase, and expand its revenue base, every budget. Since when was "Road Fund Tax" spent on funding roads? "National Insurance" is a second income tax. Income tax itself was introduced in 1799, at the rate of 0.8% as a temporary measure to fund the Napoleonic Wars. Etc, etc.

TP

There are plenty of places to buy purpose-made toilet paer. Who needs newspapers?

TalkTalk somehow retains most-complained-about-ISP title AGAIN

Springtime for Hitler

"the period between April and June" is known as "May". Surely you mean "from April to June"?

Nokia out $99 dual-Sim Asha

Nice Looker...

...shame they don't make Android phones.

Ten USB 3.0 HDD enclosures

Benchmarks

Your benchmarks are meaningless unless you specify a margin of error.

I'll bet it's greater than any of the differences shown here.

Windows Phone 8 stands a chance as Apple, Android dither

Product? What Product?

Nokia has not announced any products. It has announced 2 model numbers, and a faked camera demo. When we have full specs, release dates, prices, and fully working demo units we can start thinking about products. Until then it's vapourware. Meanwhile Google is registering close to 1 million phones per day, and Apple goes from strength to even greater strength.

Error found in climate modelling: Too many droughts predicted

Test Your Model

If you want to predict climate x years ahead, first try going backwards x years, and check this against historical data. When you can "predict" backwards with an acceptable degree of accuracy, you then have the basis for going forwards. Until then you are just pissing in the wind.

Everything Everywhere 'to stuff Santa's sack' with 4G Lumia 920s

Rats

This is a new one - rats jumping ON a sinking ship.

Ballmer predicts 400 MILLION Win 8 Surface and Lumia fumblers

Re: MS need to shed Ballmer

MS's share price is going nowhere, in spite of huge profits, because the company is stuck with two legacy products, and a load of junk. According to a recent report in the FT, Apple's price has grown at an average of 27% per year for many years.

Balmer throws chairs at his staff: he is not a “people person”.

Of course he's passionate about Microsoft, he's got a billion dollars worth of MS shares that he can't sell because so doing would kill the share price.

Balmer is a one-trick pony who can scare sales people out of their share-ownership-induced comfort zones into actually selling. It takes more than this to make a good CEO.

Why Java would still stink even if it weren't security swiss cheese

Waste of space

So - bad coders write bad code. We knew that already.