Posts by TWB

Pop OS X Mavericks on your Mac for FREE while you have LUNCH

Re: Truly Groundbreaking

Honest/open/ignorant question - have there been many other mainstream free OSes from a commercial organisations?

Gateway drug

I am a Mac user/owner but not really a complete Apple fan - no iphone or ipad here....

I do however see this as 'get hooked on this and you'll have to buy apps from (via) us'

Not necessarily a bad thing just yet, but I wonder what people will be saying about this policy in a few years. I think MS would be daft to copy, so I guess it might happen. Interesting times....

Hypersonic MEGA METEOR pulled from lake, then Russians drop it

That is terrible!

But made me laugh - upvote.

Icahn to Cook: 'Buy back $150bn of Apple's stock, or tell me why you won't'

Say nothing

I hope Apple just don't bother to respond to him.

Bill Gates again world's richest, tops in US for 20th straight year

Re: still better at making it than giving it away

'That's like buying a brand new Vauxhall Vectra every 4 and a half minutes.' - sound like something Alan Partridge might say - I like it.

James Bond's Lotus Esprit submarine car sells for £550,000

I'd love to own it

I loved that film as a lad. Loved the way the Esprit changed into submarine and still think they are great looking if slightly dated. I have never owed or driven a Lotus and no longer drive like the World's road are my racetrack, but once upon a time, a mid engined, high power to weight ratio car like that was my dream. I'm now boring and prefer a practical estate-sofa which gets me there in comfort.

Google Nexus 7 2013: Fondledroids, THE 7-inch slab has arrived

Lucky you

I checked my old Nectar account and I have 11 quid - might have to buy some more stuff....

Apple users not all the same

I use a Macbook at home - just because I preferred the hardware/software integration a long time ago - I cannot stand labels. I also had a Nexus 7 mk1 and really liked it - sadly I managed to break the display - no idea how, but I did not get around to replacing it.

I like the look of this new model and may well get another. We have an iPad at work work we use for predominantly for looking at schematics. Having used both the iPad and Nexus, I preferred my Nexus, so please, for those that assume all Apple users are the same, think again - I'm an engineer, not a writer, graphic artist or facebook user.

Silicon daddy: Moore's Law about to be repealed, but don't blame physics

New architechture and improved coding

Improved coding has already been mentioned, but I don't understand why so many computer operations insist on moving vast amounts of data from place to place e,g, load a programme from HD to RAM, why not have only non volatile RAM and the programme or data is always ready - just needs to be pointed at - this is only one tiny example of of the architecture of computers could be improved and I am not talking about today's magnetic HD or Flash or DRAM but something which is all - I've just got to design it.....

Superstar cluster-Zuck as Facebook tries out celeb-only edition

I am so glad I never signed up

That is all.

Beam me up? Not in the life of this universe

I would not do it this way

Based on the calculation I suspect teleportation this way will not work - I don't know how it might work but I remember being told digital TV would use too much bandwidth and widescreen would not work as the sets (CRTs) were too heavy.

Re: Missing the point

There was a Radio 4 science fiction play about someone getting duplicated in error a few years ago - the woman was emigrating to Australia from UK to join her son and family there. Her 'original' self got stuck in the Uk but lost all her identity e.g. bank account, house, tax id etc etc. She travels to Australia and sees her duplicate who is blissfully unaware of the accident and an official eventually says words to the effect, 'get used to it, that [other duplicate] is you and everyone thinks it is'

Quite interesting philosophically.

My precis is a bit rough I know.....

UK economy to lose £198m if BBC and pals lose EPG slots - Ministry of Fun

I've got a solution!

Go back to only a handful of good channels!

Apple KILLER decloaked? Google lovingly unboxes Nexus 7 Android 4.3 slablette

Re: Surporised nobody's thought of this one yet

It's just like bikinis, the more you pay the less you get.

(ref: the line in 'where do you got o my lovely' - "in your carefully designed topless swimsuit...")

New 4TB drive spaffs half a telly season into your eyes AT ONCE

Re: 4TB too big for me

"I would much rather have a bigger one " - oo-errr!

I reckon you would spend more time managing the stuff on it than watching any TV - but please fit one and let us all know how well you get on.

4TB too big for me

I have a 1 TB Humax PVR and we rarely watch things twice so manage the stuff on it (delete stuff we've watched). We run at about 500GB full and there is stuff on there from over a year ago that I will probably never get around to watching. I wish I had the luxury of time some people do....

Meet Antarctic sysadmin Richard Youd

Re: No POP3?

I wonder if it means they can abandon station at very short notice and not worry about taking the IT kit but 'keep' the emails?

But I see your point.

Official: Cloud computing invented by two technophobic old geezers

I like the sound of that organisation

I know the article was about cloud computing, but it is refreshing to hear of places which run quite well without all the latest IT fashions. I have wondered about trying to run a business without computers and how much more work would get done (i'm sure I would give in very quickly)

Spotted: Android 4.2.2 update for Google Nexus devices

I tend to agree

I bought a Nexus 7 in December and I would rate it as 'quite good' but not much more. I've had a play with iPads and find them similar - but like you I still prefer my laptop for most things.

Hard Glass Spinner Technology: HGST's new 2.5-incher

Re: Glass platter

Glad someone else knows that - you can even get 'glassy water' - I am not sure how exactly, but as you cool it down it becomes more and more viscous rather than suddenly freezing at 0 degrees (1 atm pressure etc etc)

Engineers are cold and dead inside, research shows

This is the real reason engineering is unfashionable

Not because it is hard or difficult for others to understand - but it has far too few women in it and many engineers are not cool.

I know this because I am one of those miserable uncool ones and never had enough casual sex.

Reader input required: review our reviews

Power consumption testing please...

I think I have emailed about this in the past but for many devices I would like to know what its power usage is. Get yourself a cheap Maplin or similar plug in power meter and run the device through it while you are reviewing it.

A single line in the review like - "We found the 'Fab-o-matic 5000'* drew 42W while starting up, 85W under heavy load, 15W in normal use and 2 watts in standby" - obviously you might want to think about a more consistent approach to measuring from device to device.

*Don't think these are available any more, sorry....

Hmm, I think I'll order an iPad Mini on Amazon ... Oh no I won't

Re: Serves Apple right....

I don't like Porches myself, but I prefer the Boxter to the 911 for many reasons but cost is not one of them.

Major Freeview EPG revamp to go ahead after appeals rejected

Can't they wait until 25th Oct

When the final analogue services get switched off and then leave it alone for a while - as someone in the engineering side of the broadcasting the earache I get from Mrs TWB for missed PVR recordings after a retune - and I have already set my Humax to not auto retune....

AData claims 'world's thinnest external HDD' crown

AData - is that such a good name

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought the prefix 'a' when added to a word meant 'without' - is this such a good idea on a device which is supposed to hold my data? (or do they mean 'item is provided without data'?....)

New MPEG format paves the way for UHDTV

Re: And with the higher compression ratios...

'And people's eyes looking fuzzy or dark-skinned people's faces loosing all texture (as the codecs apply less sharpness to darker areas of the picture)...' - I don't know what is proposed but a non-linear 'brightness to level' conversion could help here perhaps, so the levels are closer together in the black than in the whites.

Re: The critical measure here is the bit rate

'Where are you going to find space for 90Mb/s, or even 25Mb/s, signals without returning the UK to a three channel country?' - oooh I like the solution there at the end!

Axe hovers over John Lewis IT jobs

If they are JL partners...

I am not sue of the exact set up of JL but I understand all staff are 'partners' and all get a say in the way the company runs (always appeals to me as a bleeding heart liberal/lefty/hippie)

Are these JL staff or are they contracted out already?

The Grundy NewBrain is 30

My first sale on eBay!

I acquired one of these years ago while working for a then computer journalist. It sat in various boxes and lofts until I decided to use it as a guinea pig for my first ebay sale. I sold it as not working but still got £92 for it which pleased me greatly. The buyer claimed he had mis-keyed the amount but then paid in full???? He told me had got it working a day or so later by replacing dried out caps in the PSU.

Sony, Panasonic to partner for OLED TV push

It all sounded so promising....

I used to 'lecture' broadcast engineers in display technology about 10 years ago. Then CRTs were still considered best for colour gamut while LCD colour monitors/displays still had somewhere to go. OLED was talked about then as being much easier to manufacture and potentially so much better than LCD - I wonder what went wrong....(apart from me changing jobs and losing interest)

Facebook tears wraps off its own app store

Message to Mark: Run

I really see no long term value in Facebook - if I was Mark Zuckerberg, I'd quietly put the money somewhere safe then go.

People-powered Olympic shopping mall: A sign of utter tech illiteracy

Re: For once

I did not know that about Merkel - thanks - typical, those sensible Germans....

And I agree wholeheartedly it takes a mix of skills it just seems that here we do not have the balance right here but that is pure gut feeling.

For once

Lewis writes something I agree with.

What he did not appear to say was that sadly the World seems to be run by rule makers and those who like working around those rules (lawyers, bankers, journalists, wankers etc)

I wish there were more scientists in power, though there has been one major exception in the past....

Now on Freeview HD: Olympic arts channel that's tough to watch

Works on my Panasonic

Yippee.......oh, is that it?

Boy wrecks £22k worth of MacBooks by weeing on them

Drying out does not always work...

My wife spilled hot tea onto my Macbook a couple of years ago and it instantly died. I tried for several days to carefully dry it out but it would not boot. I did eventually revive it but it required a a strip down and clean (it was dry inside by this point). It also needed a new battery and wifi card.

Ikea to integrate TV, Blu-ray, sound system into sideboard

Great idea

If they get it right this could be a good thing - I may be a broadcast engineer but I dislike messy cables and clutter - probably in a minority here though....

Commodore founder Jack Tramiel dies at 83

Hear hear

'These days the fiction that the Apple II was "the first" home computer seems pervasive..........'

Even as an Mac user now, I am pleased to hear someone say this - we had a PET in 1978 and it was definitely both a home and work computer.

Freeview TV shoved aside for iPad-compatible 4G

Fewer TV channels

As an old fart who works in TV, I have said for years that I was happy with 5/4 channels - I don't see this desire for loads of them - I can only watch one at a time.

Maybe Ofcom could drop a mux....who needs shopping channels anyway.

Sitting down all day is killing you

Remote support can be bad.

As someone who *could* email or phone everyone I have to deal with at work, I make it a principle to get off my arse and go and see people at work - it has multiple benefits, not just health. Some issues are best seen first hand, and some issues need to be dealt with face to face and it is amazing how much better some people feel if they 'see someone' even when I don't sort out their problems - I just wish more of my colleagues would do this.

Powerful, wallet-sized Raspberry Pi computer sells out in SECONDS

Ideal as a generic controller

I can see a market for selling these to all sorts of equipment manufacturers.

Also RPI should look into manufacturing really cheap touchcreens and interface cards to go with them 8 port mains controller??? with 8 inputs? I would love to get one of these and make myself a central heating/hot water/solar controller/programmer which works the way my family think rather than the way these things normally are designed.

Smart telly trends make Apple 'iTV' a certainty

Re: Mac can't play AVIs or MKVs....

Try VLC plays most things quite well and there are free plug ins for Quicktime as well.

Smart TV shootout

Panasonic

I bought the Panasonic model here in a hurry for reasons too boring to mention and generally I am very happy with it, though I find it that it cannot play .mpg files which are direct DTT recordings i.e. they are not transcoded - I wish it had VLC bulit in....

I hope software updates come in time - would be nice to have ITV player and 4OD.

Bury council defends iPads for binmen

How will it work though?

This was not mentioned in the article at all.

So I put my bin out on Monday night, go to work on Tuesday morning, it fails to be collected, I call the council on Wednesday to alert them.

What is the iPad (or any other device) for here? I do not see the need - the council will still have to make a recollection - where is the saving?

I like iPads think they look nice devices but fail to see how any device could fix the non-collection issue.

Magellan Explorist 710 hiking GPS

@Kevin7 - Seems quite dear

Um...price of maps - there are 200 or so 1:50000 OS landranger maps in the set and each costs around £5-8 depending on where you get them, so that would be about £1000 for the entire set - or am I missing something?......

12% of UK don't carry cash

Re:I'm in the minority then

I agree with you that having no debt is a good thing - whatever some economist might argue - though I sometimes wonder if the UK economy is so reliant on debt now, that if we all cleared our debts tomorrow (somehow) it would collapse.

Well done paying off your mortgage* (if you had one) - 5 years to go for me....

Renault readies sub-£7000 e-car for Blighty

No doors - not as bad as you might think

I like the look of it but think it will not catch on even if the batteries were free - people are too set in their ways as the comments above sadly show - we're all doomed anyway.

However, as someone who owned Mini Moke outside and inside London for 15 years - believe it or not, with no doors (I never used mine - they stayed wrapped up in the loft) you stay surprising dry even in the heaviest of rain - it was only when there were severe side gusts did I get a bit damp but with a decent coat and gloves I was rarely cold even through winter.

Saying that, I still don't want one.

Ten... fantasy gadgets you wish you owned

Point of view gun

Point it at someone who does not see your point of view and hey presto, they see your point of view.

H2G2

Elgato Tivizen iOS Wi-Fi TV tuner

DSO

"By what margin is reception likely to improve once analogue is switched off?" - I cannot say for sure, but the signal goes up 7dB when analogue gets switched off (a bit more than double)

Oddly this may affect people who get a strong DTT signal now by getting too strong a signal after DSO. I have an aerial which has too much gain for where I live as I am only 6 miles from CP and I have to pad it down by -20dB to get my STB to accept the signal. Before I did this, my STB said the signal was good and strong but the 'quality' was too low for it to work.

Intel debuts '3D transistors' with 22nm chip recipe

Transistor operation

"A transistor consists of three basic components: a source, a gate, and a drain. When a voltage is applied to the gate, electrons flow from the source to the drain, turning the transistor "on". When a different voltage applied, current between source and drain stopped, turning the transistor "off"."

Not the best description of transistor operation....

Yes, for a p-channel MOSFET if you apply a voltage between gate and drain, then current will flow from source to drain, but only if there is voltage applied between source and drain.

For your third sentence, I think you probably wanted to say: if you set the gate voltage to zero, then the current stops flowing from the source to drain.

Saying that by changing the voltage you get the effect is somewhat ambiguous as you do not specify whether you mean increase, decrease, set to zero etc etc

Also as CrazyOpsGuy says, there are far more types of transistors, some are switched on or off by voltage, others are switched on and off by current. The control current and voltage can positive or negative depending on the type of transistor.

Panasonic HDC-SD900 camcorder

Bugger....

And here I was thinking it was time for me to go HD camcorder only to find my laptop (2 year old Macbook) struggles with your youtube sample - maybe it would be Ok with the footage from the camcorder and it is just the youtube decompression required.

Sounds a nice machine though - thanks for the review.