Posts by Peter Galbavy 367 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Feb 2010
I had a Dell Streak before and I am not a small guy, so the size fits fine. Been to Hong Kong for work in May and the Note is as popular as the SII and almost as popular as the iPhone. Lots of petite ladies with nice leather covers on their Notes using the Stylus likes it's meant to be.
In fact, the 10" tablet version, if it ever ships for a normal price, might make a nice replacement for my ASUS TF201 which is starting to get real boring quick in the performance stakes.
I love the smell of inovation in the morning, especially when it's culled from the shoulder meat of others - given we were using (not called "WiFi") wireless networking at "Live '95" for Demon Internet's stand network. It was about 2Mb/sec mind but it wasn't microwave and wasn't point-to-point either. I recall the technology developing very quickly, so I'm not 100% sure why any of the CSIRO stuff was new. Perhaps discussing it with the ghost of Hedy Lamarr would help clear this up.
At my previous employers - a large US-based bank - we had mandatory Compliance Training they referred to bribes euphemistically as "facilitation payments"; it was consider acceptable that "it may be necessary, depending on the local circumstances, to offer facilitation payments to officals". But bribes were verboten,. Yeah, right.
Oh, and in Hungary - my ancestral home - try getting any form of public medical treatment without envelopes changing hands to make sure you get a clean bed, fresh food and even surgery by someone who knows how to hold a scalpel.
In the UK/EU it should make zero difference as a manufacturers warranty is a freebie that may or may not influence your purchasing decision between brands. Your legal protection is through the original retailer and being statutory rights they cannot be withdrawn simply by the manufacturers say-so. On the other hand if you try to use your shiny TF201 as a hammer for nailing up a picture, for example, then it's your problem as you cannot reasonably expect it to function as originally sold and so the retailer has little liability. Unless of course advertising, promotional materials or the product documentation (including the packing) gave you an expectation of it being part of the legitimate functions of the device. Like "GPS" being written on the box :)
Don't get too surprised by the many directional nature of this to and fro in patent wars. It's all a phoney war (mind the pun...) intended to reinforce each big monolith's place in the industry. It's there to build barriers-to-entry against new and small competitors just like termination fees in telecoms networks - which 3 has been poorly fighting against for many years - and traffic based transit fees for smaller ISPs.
As a large market player you quietly agree to charge your similar competitors a nice high fee which you know they will simply charge back to you roughly in balance; you come out no better or worse off but the little guy can happily go get screwed as they can't contra the charge on a like-for-like basis.
Also, if they are not seen to "defend" their patents then how are they going to claim legitimacy for their FRAND rights against new entrants and reinforce the legal framework that appears so confused and stupid to most of us. If they didn't then the IP laws would start looking useless and politicians might start questioning their utility. After pocketing lobbying fees of course.
This is just a way of moving £10m (plus the rest - you think they will stop at £10m ?) - into the pockets of those who have demonstrated friendship and support to the regime. If they were really interested in the genuine opening up of public data then there are far better ways and some of those go ahead "for free" in spite of, not with the help if, the government.
I just bought a D-Link "myPocket" here in Hong Kong for $699HK and a spare battery for $99HK - about £65 - there are a number of version but when I looked online for UK sourced versions they were all about £130+ but this maybe with a USB PSU (bloody expensive PSU in that case) while this just comes with a USB cable. Frequencies checked and this one will work when I get back to the UK.
There are plenty of the Huawei models here with the 21Mb ones about £200HK more.
I wanted something to use a local SIM while I left my UK SIM in my phone and also like Alex says above to save battery on said phone, which is usually more important.
So far, it works fine and has two modes *either* USB modem or Wifi hotspot and the memory card works in both. It also charges from USB in both modes which I believe one of the other popular ones here doesn't. I got a few hours out of the first charge and we shall see how it goes.
One downer - it gets VERY hot when left in a bag...
This is not the same as getting caught stealing loo paper from the company and getting a warning from personnel. This is criminal behaviour and neither the DWP nor any other government department should be allowed to handle this internally. Each and every one of this 992 plus all the uncounted other similar criminal actions should be passed to the police and/or CPS for investigation and possible prosecution.
Again: This should not be the DWPs choice. The watchdog is truly toothless.
Having lived through the first 'net bubble and watching this one continue to inflate, I can say with some certainty that these incubators and the pseudo nerdgasms in the mainstream media that go with them are simply there to nurture the parasites that feed of the genuine innovators and those who put real work into technology. Along swoops either or both of some hipster luvvy or a JV managed suit with an MBA and there goes the farm. Meh.
In many large organisations the more tech savvy people already find ways of doing lots of the stuff that BYOD makes official. It's just that now consultants can sell something that already exists in the guise of security and "Think of the children!"
IMHO Most commentards misunderstand copyright vs patents vs any other form of IP protection.
Again, IMHO and ignoring legalese, copyright is there to give protection to a creator of a work so that they can be rewarded in exchange for the effort creating it. It is a protection for the creator of a work to give them a living. What it shouldn't be is a barrier to others also creating original works and making a living from those. Just like anything else these rights can be bought and sold and that is fair. Having this protection extend WAY beyond the time that the original creators own children could in theory benefit (the original copyright being for 14 years - the length of two apprenticeships) is over the top and is just a protection for the businesses that exist to "farm" copyright.
Patents on the other hand are almost the OPPOSITE of copyright; The give the "inventor" of something unique and original the right to make money from others using the original idea. Unlike copyright is prevents other from creating their own original works that are similar but should be there to allow for clever new things to make it to market while still earning the inventor a share of his/her genius.
The consumer right to transform the content of a carrier (CD/DVD/ebook) to something you can actually watch/read the way you want should be enshrined in consumer protection and should not be something that an IP owner should be able to prevent either through the law or through technical protection. Outlaw DRM and many many problems go away.
This drought shit is all a conspiracy anyway between the private water companies - who want legislation to force metering on all households - and the makers bottled water who want to sell more product. This latter might be a joke. You decide.
I was in Bonaire a number of years ago and all their drinking water is desalinated. The result is that tap water is pure and clean and you don't have to worry about drinking it as a tourist. Extra bonus, but only if you don't mix it with the normal London water supply.
Perhaps the questions should be more focused on why a "natural monopoly" like water supply is privatised ? Electric and gas can almost be justified as they could be considered as competing with each other, but water ?
Exactly the same here. Bought a £1,000 TV, but for the general picture and UPNP part - which I am happy with overall. I use iPlayer now and again and have Skype installed and on in the background - but the rest is basiccally a pile of shite. Not checked, but I expect all the web traffic is proxied via Korea - only that could explain the stupid speed of the web browser and some of the other apps.
This summary reads like someones taken the brochures and some anecdotal commentary and drafted up this article.
Can we please have some more informed data including at least (using the same HDD when the choice is given):
1. sustained throughtput - read and write - with one or multiple users
2. power consumption when idle
3. noise level when idle
These devices - and I have an aging ReadyNAS NV+ - are meant to run 24/7 in a "home" environment, so the last two are as important as the first.
Recently been looking at ebooks as I am about to embark on a long trip and don't want to carry too much paper and/or rely on what's for sale at the other end.
I've realised very rapidly that ebook pricing is rigged - why does LOTR cost the same £12.99 from every UK seller ? - and that the lack of consumer rights to resell books that you have finished with or lend them out to others are going to stifle competition and will be bad for consumers.
There is no competition because it is not right to compare pricing for books by one author from publisher X to books from another author at publisher Y - they are not fungible. In the real book world there is competition and you can choose from a number of resellers of the text you want based on their supply and the margins they are willing to endure.
Where I stayed once in Houston they had this web-auth issue with wireless to but once I explained that my Android browser was "not compatible" (front desk don't know either way) they hard-wired my nominated MAC in for the duration of my stay. Or rather they emailed it to the support org who did it. Took all of about 30 minutes and that was in the evening local time.
But back on topic; To little for too much money, sorry Belkin.
I don't doubt that we have global climate instability and I don't doubt that the actions of humans since the industrial revolution has contributed to that instability to some degree or another; What I have a problem with is the vast and overarching conspiracy that seeks and gathers money and power as a consequence of this. There is an entire academic, industrial and financial layer over us now whose sole purpose is to move said money and power away from "ordinary" people and into their control all in the name of another version of "Oh no! Won't somebody think of the children!"
The Emperor may not have any clothes but in this case it's the guy selling the fake binoculars at the parade that's making the money.
As per Dave J's post, my D6530 only got 1018 a day or two ago. According to the download page (http://www.samsung.com/uk/support/model/UE46D6530WKXXU-downloads) it was only released on the 10th.
I am, TBH, not that bothered though. I have seen the "quality" of Netflix on a PS3 and I think iPlayer is far far better.
PS It seems that once it appears in the USB downlod page above it is on the 'net for direct update too. Was for me. None of this fiddling with USB and all that lark.
I recently bought a Galaxy Note and a Samsung TV - coincidence - and I thought I would give these apps a whirl. So badly written that they cannot cope with screen res changes. There is a separate app for galaxy Tab users and the question that begs to be answered is: why?
The underlying APIs and many other Android apps based on them cope fine with differing screen resolutions and yet a company as large as Samsung appears to have employed some intern on a summer programming project to do this as a proof-of-concept rather then a real app. Shame.
So it gets a 10% from me.
Anyone done the sums on how much extra (so-called) carbon did this conference waste over the normal background usage of the attendees ? The flights, the over-wasteful hotels and restaurants, etc. etc. ?
This is almost as good as the amount of wood wasted in burning for "biomass" power stations.
Peter
As a (the?) Dell Streak owner, I like the big screen and while I've only had it about a year I am tempter by the Note. I don't find the Streak too big for my fat fingers or my shirt pocket as it's nice and thin to compensate. Others make comments, but they're just envious.
How long until BT find content on virgin media's own website "unacceptable" and block it to "protect" their customers... from competition ? Or visa versa.
Surely Ofcom should - but are too much in the pockets of the big telcos - require a "significant market power" test for arbitrary blocking like this ?
The Neo-Who stuff just seems to be "playground acting" to me. A bunch of actors running around making things up on the fly with zero structure and lots of pretend machine guns, cars and spaceships (etc.). Only decent episode, IMHO, was Blink.
Still, stuff all else on worth watching, so it gets watched by default.
Strange how no "mainstream" (read: bought and paid for) reviews mention the horrendous green tinting to the FOTR EE Blu edition. Odd that, and the way that a replacement programme is rumoured for after the US holiday season - after the sales have all been rung through.
I've owned a number of Canon DLSRs over the years (since the D30) and I've had my 1DsIII for about 3 1/2 years now and setting aside the absence of video - which is not my thing anyway - I am still very happy. Looking at the new 1DX I am impressed but that sense of longing and "how can I affford it?" isn't there this time. Phew. For professionals - as opposed to just keen amateurs like me - this will be a nice top of the line model and good luck to Canon...
PS For those who are not pros, remember its all about the lenses in the end.
I was given a 3G Voda dongle while working on a client site in the the City. The connection would be OK at first and then traffic would grind to a halt. Like some kind of per-connection high water mark. The carrier was OK, could disconnect and reconnect and get an IP allocated etc. but traffic was blocked. Nowhere near any monthly limits.
Tried my personal TMobile as a tether and it worked perfectly when I really needed it.
So, a cariier but no traffic. Vodafraud back to their old tricks again ?
"If I have seen further is was by standing on the shoulders of giants." - How perfectly apt for my feelings today.
I actually shed a tear when the news sunk in earlier. A great man and a great contributor to our world. Without him much of what we do - I mean those of us reading El Reg - would not be doing it. Simple as that.
... are that if you do something wrong, nothing happens in the uncivil service.
Unless the "lessons learnt" are: "You make a serious mistake with people's personal information = you get fired" then there will be no reason for these complete incompetent fuckwits to change their behaviour.
As a happy Dell Streak user I am happy to see someone continuing this size phone. Good to see the screen density growing, just hoping it can be charged using a non proprietary connector - my only real hardware bugbear on the Streak.
Might just become the replacement once the initial premium price drops.
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