Posts by Andy Barber

Intel crams four displays into one PC

Man Who Fell To Earth

That's nothing; David Bowie watched 12 TV's, at the same time, in the above mentioned film!

Psion founder retires

Pioneers

Don't forget that Psion developed an early version of 'Office' type software for the Sinclair QL, (Merlin Tonto,) called Psion Xchange creating an interoperating word processor, spreadsheet, database & a graphical display. OK it's clunky by today's standards but in the 1980's it was cutting edge. In the 1990's I visited quite a few firms still running QL's; if it works, don't fix it. The PC I replaced it with in 1994, cost as much as FIVE PC's now.

P2P pushes IPv6 surge

So how long...

...before my home router becomes obsolescent then?

Firefox update quells quartet of security vulns

3.5.3

"First, albeit unscientific, impressions, are that the latest version (3.5.3) of the open source browser loads more quickly and is generally snappier than recent versions. Firefox's memory hogging behaviour of late has become one of the main reasons those adverse to IE have begun to use Google Chrome as an alternative browser of choice."

Load more quickly? LOL I made a coffee while waiting for it to load.

Memory hogging, it now uses twice as much, so much for progress!

Colt Telecom cable cut mystery

The words...

...putting all your eggs in one basket spring to mind!

iPhones get sun, leg power

Sell the phone..

... with the solar charger, not as an 'add-on'!

Faux Facebook 'friend' takes US woman for $4,000

How can...

...people be so stupid?

Canonical rents out Ubuntu mavens

Upgrade

Why does Ubentu need to upgrade every six months? I installed V 6.0 which was fine. V7.0 refused to remove V6.0, so I gave up & went back to Windoze. My son is a Mac* fanboi & only boots up in Ubentu when at home though.

* Struth, I could have bought four PC's for the cost of one Mac but he needs a Mac for his Uni work!

The internet celebrates the Big Four-O

50k

My first modem was 1200/75 & connected to Prestel!

To non UK readers, it was like Teletext, 40 characters per line.

x86 Server virtualization still work in progress

Motorola 68nnn

What what was so wrong with the Motorola 68nnn processors? They had much more umph than the Intel chip! An ARM is better than an Intel chip!

Campaign for official Turing apology gathers steam

Steve Jobs...

...recognized him. Turing died by taking a bite out of an Apple injected with cyanide, hence his companie's logo.

Samsung gets 'stupid fast' in gaming grab

Who said...

...640Mb ought to be enough!

Lenovo parent plots sale

Steward's...

...Bar & greedy spring to mind!

Chinese youth beaten to death at net addiction bootcamp

What's wrong with...

...channel 32 or 50 on UK TV then?

Chinese more willing to trust hookers than pols

I for one...

... welcome our Chinese prostitute overloads!

Cray lands $70m super deals

Yes but...

...can it emulate a Sinclair ZX81?

Amish farmers lose court battle against RFID

Religious weirdo's

Ha-ha, point finger & say NOT IT!

McKinnon lawyers vow to take fight to US Supremes

Key, away...

...throw.

Struth the guy is a total twat, lock him up in the USA & they can pay for his internment. I don't want pay UK tax-payers to pay for his internment to a USA crime, that he has admitted to!

Ballmer: People don't 'get' Microsoft's Yahoo! marriage

Where is...

...amanfrommars when we need him?

GGF says plenty of treasure for Pirate Bay purchase

Pirate Bay re-branding

"may be renamed The Pirate Bay," which is like British Telecommunications plc, re-branding to BT plc!

Intel appeals billion euro fine

Fines

"...but where does all the money from the fines go? In this case, intel have profited, and amd have lost out hugely, so surely it should go to AMD?"

Why just AMD? What about IBM, INMOS, Motorola, Sun, & Zilog?

Apple sued over shrink-wrapped Mafia death threats

Paranoid?

"Besides, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that someone - perhaps even the Italian Mafia - isn't out to get you."

Why is the name McKenna, so similar to self-confessed hacker McKinnon? Have they ever been seen in the same room with each other? No, so therefore they are one & the same person!

WhipTail promises no bull 6TB SSD

640kb...

... should be enough!

Builder blacklist boss hit with £5,000 fine

Union

Strawbs song, 'You can't get me I'm part of the union':

Mine's the one with CWU on the back!

BTW my boss is in the Connect Union!

Kent Police clamp down on tall photographers

Downing Street

Last time I was out-side our Lord_& _Master's street, (Blair at the time,) I politely asked the machine-gun totting police if I could take a photo of them. They grinned & they were up for it!

New CEO to Tiscali TV: 'Show me the money'

Homechoice

When Homechoice first started, I'd just moved to frames in BT. The take up was staggering slow, about ONE customer a WEEK. The words "hole" & "plug" sprung to mind, whenever I connected a Homechoice customer.

Now BT Vision, that's a different story. BT's System X/Y* were designed to deliver TV but Margaret Thatcher thought that allowing US Cable Companies to dig up our streets was a better idea, than using the existing infrastructure.

* Thirty years old & now obsolescent!

World+Dog will buy 33m netbooks in '09, says analyst

33M Notebook?

At 33 metres it wouldn't fit on a bus, let alone my living room!

Mel Gibson to put hand up Jodie Foster's Beaver

Gay - God

One's Gay & the other has found God. What can possibly go wrong?

NHS Direct gets to be number one, one, one

Where's amanfromars...

...when we need him?

111 will result in too many mis-dials even with MF4 dialling, as LD dialling is still used!

Tap-tap-tap, "Emergency, what service do you require?"

BT names more exchanges for early fibre upgrades

London

Did you know that BT Regard Redhill & Reigate as London telephone exchanges. (L/RED & L/REI). Both are outside the M25 & I've worked in both TE's & all the others between them & the 020 area, (in the London South Area.)

Google strips beta wrapper from Gmail, Docs et al

Gmail

I've had a Yahoo! Mail account since 01-1995 I tried Gmail once but realized my Yahoo! mail wasn't broken & didn't need fixing.

Ofcom foresees an entertaining 2028

Sleeper

"There is a significant and steady growth of obesity in the UK population which could increase the demand for passive entertainment services".

So Woody Allen was correct then in the film Sleeper, with the invention of the "orgasmatron!"

Boffin predicts pee-powered cars

El Reg...

....at it's best (again), & I'm not taking the - Michael!

Beer icon, because I'd better re-fuel!

Niagara Falls to power next Yahoo! data centre

Free Leckie

With a data centre that big, it will have a loads of roof space to install solar panels, or is the TCO of solar power a negative? I've suggested it at BT but so far no action, so assume the TCO is the problem.

Who wants T-Mobile UK?

Value of customer

"...which values the 19m customers at something around £150 each."

Struth, I have paid just £55 in the last 18 month's for my PAYG Nomi account & that includes two, hour long calls to Australia!

SuperSpeed USB PCs to ship by year-end

640kb...

... should be enough! Finally a use for the BG icon!

Mozilla's servers wobble as Firefox 3.5 hits interwebs

@Joe H

Still using AVG 8.5.339? I'm on 8.5.375 & that is still hunky-dory after installing Firefox 3.5.

Judge says IBM dude gets the Dell (job)

What do they do?

What does IBM actually do? They have flogged the PC business (which it invented,) to Lenovo. I've seen loads of IBM office's closed in the UK.

So what do IBM actually do these days, apart from resting on the Laurel's of its patents?

Qantas cancels $3bn Dreamliner order

Hello...

...Airbus then. At least it's not a plastic (Aircraft) kit & can ACTUALLY fly! BUT if the Oz's buy Airbus, they'll get the ones made in China but at least it's an Airbus though. The words 'Hudson River', 'freezing water', 'Airbus' & '100% survival rate'; spring to mind!

BTW Get rid of the BG icon's!

DARPA: Can we have a one-cabinet petaflop supercomputer?

"programmable by ordinary coders"

So I can use a sensible language like Sinclair SuperBasic then?

BTW get rid of the the BG's icons!

Beer? Too long in the tooth!

Ballmer! in! anything! could! happen! shocker! over! Yahoo! deal!

M$ + Yahoo! = internet hell

So Yahoo! got there first (sic) with its Webmail in 1995. Now Micro$oft refuses to play catch-up 14 years later! Which do you think is the the more astute company?

BTW M$ Office is bloatwear & has be removed from my PC

BTW2 Why has The Reg still got a Bill Gates icon's, he's history!

Obama weighs into Raptor stealth superfighter fracas

P1185

What was so wrong with the supersonic Harrier? Come on UK.plc, go back to the drawing-board & develop the aircraft that will work off our future carriers, rather than the F35 that <might> work!

Mine's the one with an Airfix kit if the P1127 (Kestrel) in the pocket!

US military cyberwar force will work with NSA

@ B Weeks

"a TC reference in the article"

What, where, who, when how?"

Disney punts hetero luuurv to wide-eyed kiddies

The Norm

Ok Humans are 99.5% related to the Chimpanzee by DNA BUT 99.6% related to the Bonobo by DNA & they have bi-sexual orgies whenever they find food.

German old timers torture financial adviser

Secret message

"It was disguised as a policy. I wrote 'call. po-lice', & it wasn't spotted by the kidnappers?

PayPal UK titsup

Refuses my card

Paypal refuses to accept my Credit card at all. I have used it to make direct payments though, seen the receipt so I know it works.

I have spoken to a human by phone & they said my account was "blocked". They "un-blocked" my account. It still doesn't work!

BTW nice to see the new icons but why is Gates still there? He's so yesterday!

Social networking big boys must bow to EU data laws

Newsgroups?

Are the covered? Are the various Yahoo! Groups covered by this?

Transformers helmsman demolishes English language

I for one...

... welcome our pedant overlords!

Underwear obligatory for Florida city workers

I for one...

... welcome our underwear overloads!

MS names ship date for free security suite

Avalible on 23-06-09

<will be available for users in Brazil, Israel and the US initially>

Great! My licence for F-Prot runs out 24-06-09 & I live in the UK! So it's AVG for me then!

Why has it taken M$ so long to realize their buggy O/S's NEEDS built-in AV?

Oh, no Sir, you need ANOTHER multi-megabyte add-on, so we can slow your PC to 386 speed & force you to up-grade your (perfectly working HW), again!

{Bloke across the road still uses his '60's Ford!}