Posts by ColonelClaw

Blighty's BONKERS BANKING BONKING BONANZA: Apple Pay arrives

Probably not a very popular opinion, but I welcome the system. The current wave of contactless cards always made me very nervous about the lack of security, at least the Apple version requires your fingerprint (or severed finger).

Microsoft suspends Windows 10 new-build downloads ahead of launch

In memorium of Flock of Seagulls

The haircut on that Microsoft bloke, bloody hell it's awful

Satoru Iwata, Nintendo chieftain and gamer titan, dies aged 55

This is the guy who, when Nintendo's fortunes took a dive, insisted on not cutting worker's jobs, but instead cut executive's pay. That makes him awesome.

Rest in peace

Microsoft starts switching on paid Wi-Fi service with latest Windows 10 preview

Windows sells by the millions, if even 0.1% of users buy some WiFi time, they will have made decent money. You and I will never use it, of course, but I can think of plenty of people who don't know any better that might.

Microsoft emits Office 2016 for Apple Macs (you'll need Office 365)

That interface looks much nicer than the Office on Windows one. In fact it looks much nicer than the overall bleached-white Windows 10 GUI. Whoever is responsible for it should be quickly moved over to the windows division - I'm pretty sure they could do a better job in the 2 weeks left until launch than the current designer has.

Sorry, say boffins, the LHC still hasn't sucked us into a black hole

Re: Bravo

I found one of your 'another lot'

https://youtu.be/X-OatBpJq3E?t=1m48s

Actually, after watching that maybe we all deserve to be sucked into a black hole.

The sad song Samsung's sung: SEVENTH quarterly fail in a row

Too many models

A quick scoot over to http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/mobile-devices/smartphones/ shows Samsung are selling 39 different smartphones.

Why? God only knows. They seriously need to simplify their lineup, just browsing that page makes my head spin. It's the sure sign of a company that doesn't know which direction to settle on, and therefore ends up going pretty much nowhere overall.

Gaming's favourite fly by night. Batman: Arkham Knight reviewed

Re: Darkness. No Parents.

It's annoying to have to wait, but these days it's worth holding off playing any PC game on release, until at least the first patch. Frustrating, but in the long run you'll be less disappointed.

The games industry has learnt well from Microsoft :P

Foxconn's going to 'exploit' Indian labour? SCORE! Bye, poverty

Best of all those lucky Chinese and Indians get to find out just how things were during the industrial revolution - all thanks to being made to work a 12-hour shift, 6 days a week with sod-all holiday.

That's progress!

Microsoft to Android OEMs: 'Show me the money'

Like I always said

If you can't beat them, beat them up.

Whose GPUs let it cruise to record revenues? Nvidia, that's who!

"But Nvidia said sales of its other GPU category, including the Tesla line for high-performance computing and the Quadro workstation chips, also delivered healthy results"

I can't say I'm surprised. As somebody who buys endless numbers of Quadros, it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside knowing I'm responsible for paying a 300% markup on a cheap GeForce card where the only real difference is the driver.

And before you say "so buy GeForce instead", their performance is absolutely crippled in our 3D software. Trust me, we've tried almost everything on the market, including AMD. Both companies have us bent over.

Satya Nadella, Year One: Has Microsoft's new CEO cut the mustard?

" 5 Feb 2015 at 11:26, Neil McAllister

One year ago, on February 4, 2013"

Er, did 2014 not actually take place?

Pull up the Windows 10 duvet and pretend Win8 and Vista were BAD DREAMS

If it's any help, Scan are *extremely* generous in what qualifies on the hardware front for making an OEM purchase. Speak to a sales rep if you need a copy.

I notice scan.co.uk are still selling Windows 7. Not sure for how much longer, though.

CES 2015: The good, the mad and the POINTLESS

I can't believe you left out the two best gadgets:

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/06/1099-are-you-kidding-me/

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/06/skechers-simon-memory-game-into-its-new-kids-sneaker/

And when I say best, I do of course, mean shit.

Goes like the blazes: Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 late 2014 edition

Richard Madeley, Hunger Games and Mail Plus. El Reg, I salute you.

Why, hello there, Foxy... BYE GOOGLE! Mozilla's browser is a video star

Still no 60fps on YouTube in v34, but hopefully it isn't far off.

18 million iPHONE USERS HAVE NEVER BONKED to ApplePay

Something I've been meaning to ask - is it possible to use ApplePay in the UK yet? Or is it just in the USA for now?

Microsoft: How to run Internet Explorer 11 on ANDROID, iOS, OS X

So, if I use it to go to a web site that's infected by a zero-day vulnerability, whose machine get's hacked? Mine? Microsoft's? Both?

iPad Air 2: Vulture chews on new Apple tablet

I'm not 100% sure, but last christmas I bought my 72 year old dad a 16gb Air, and since then he's barely added 2GB of files to it (mostly applications), so it's been absolutely fine. He uses it constantly, primarily to browse the web/read email/listen to the radio etc. I did ask him before I got it if he wanted to put music and films on it, but he has no interest in that.

Personally my iPad is permanently on 63.9 out of 64GB used, but I'm a massive geek and he isn't.

CATACLYSMIC Sun BELCH causes hour-long RADIO BLACKOUT in SPAAACE

You realise that in publishing this article you've just given EE yet another bullshit excuse as to why I get no reception in my office in the middle of London?

It's a TAB-tastrophe – 83 million fewer units to ship in 2014

Note to tech companies: Make your stuff crappier to begin with then we will have a reason to upgrade more often. My 2.5 year old tablet (not saying what it is lest each side of the divide should take offense) still works absolutely fine and does everything what I want it to.

BTW I was being sarcastic about the crappier thing. The trick is to make your new stuff compellingly better.

Virgin Media DOUBLE-PUNCHED by BSkyB AND BT over ad fibs

This reminds me of the time Al Fayed went up against the Hamiltons in court. How the hell are you meant to back when all involved are such scum?

Vanished blog posts? Enterprise gaps? Welcome to Windows 10

The burning issue...

What I want to know is why Microsoft hired someone from Flock of Seagulls to do the intro video.

Microsoft WINDOWS 10: Seven ATE Nine. Or Eight did really

Dear interface designers, please read this web page as many times as it takes for you to understand why my eyes are bleeding:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_theory

WHY did Sunday Mirror stoop to slurping selfies for smut sting?

The race to the bottom continues at it's furious pace.

No sign of the bottom even coming into view, yet.

Internet of Stuff: Chip rivals try to stop Cortex-M7 from flexing ARM’s muscle

"We are bringing intelligence to what used to be dumb objects."

If ever there was a statement that covers the entire gamut of possible outcomes, from potentially great to probably pointless and frustrating, that would be it.

Patch Bash NOW: 'Shellshock' bug blasts OS X, Linux systems wide open

I suppose the real problem isn't patching Linux and OSX, which can be done in fairly easily and quickly, but is fixing all those millions of boxes and devices out there with the software embedded?

Chipzilla promises $6 billion to upgrade Israeli plant

"Tax holidays" piss me the hell off, in any country. It's the nearest thing I can think of to legalised bribery, and it's being perpetrated by bloody governments!

Divinity Original Sin and Wasteland 2 reviews: Turn-based gaming's not dead yet!

Both of these games are high up my 'to buy' list, but there's a problem. Since Steam introduced the Steam Sale, I find myself generally only buying games during these sales. Therefore I end up buying 20 plus games 2 or 3 times a year, and not much else outside of these times (apart from the frequent daily random sales). Steam itself has, in effect, turned me into a tight-fisted bastard. Don't think I'm complaining about low prices, I just feel a little sorry for the developers.

4K-ing excellent TV is on its way ... in its own sweet time, natch

"only four are worth watching anyway"

So, that's Ghostbusters, er, Captain Philips, hmmm, Moneyball? and... and...

help me out here please

iPhone 6: Advanced features? Pah! Nexus 4 had most of them in 2012

Nevertheless...

Could you do your usual TCO article on the 6 and 6 Plus please? I'd like to know which supplier here in the UK offers the least-ripoff contract.

Intel's DDR4-friendly Xeon workhorses bolt for workstations, servers

Disappointed that Intel didn't increase the value proposition of the V3s over the V2s. Instead they just made the new higher core count chips proportionally more expensive. If you spend, say, a thousand quid on a Xeon V2 and a V3 you get very nearly the same amount of processing power. (source: Scan Computers who have them in their store)

Guess that's what happens when you have no competition.

Mac security packages range from peachy to rancid – antivirus tests

Re: Chowder

I also use clamXav, and have yet to catch anything nasty (that I know of). It could be I'm being lax with my security, but I just get the sentry program it comes with to scan anything that appears in my 'downloads' folder, and then make sure anything I download/copy/import/etc passes through said folder. So far so good.

CNN 'tech analyst' on NAKED CELEBS: WHO IS this mystery '4chan' PERSON?

Seriously CNN? Chri$t on a fucking bike

Hot Celebrity? Stash of SELFIES where you're wearing sweet FA? Get 2FA. Now

I'm not remotely surprised iCloud itself wasn't breached. If I was trying to hack celebrity grumble pics would I go down the arduous risky route of hacking a cloud server, or just getting an email address via social engineering and brute-force the password? Pretty easy answer.

A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link etc etc

Is it an iPad? Is it a MacBook Air? No, it's a Surface Pro 3

The pen issue is what makes the Surface/Win8 a non-starter for me. In my opinion using a pen on a screen just isn't a very pleasant experience for a number of reasons; I'm yet to come across a pen tip that feels 'right' on glass, and it's awkward to not be able to let the remainder of your hand rest on a touchscreen, like it would on a peice of paper, as you constantly end up inputting involuntary clicks and movements.

The other big issue with an expensive dedicated pen is that they have the habit of getting lost, something that can't be said for my right index finger, which I'm glad to say I'm still using version 1.0 of, since birth.

Has your IT budget expanded or contracted in the summer heat?

Admittedly my company is very small, but I'm happy to report that at the very least the industry we work in, (architectural visualisation i.e. the building idustry) is getting stronger every week. After a few very dodgy years indeed, where we lost half our employees, we now have possibly the largest volume of work in our history. All this means I got to spend £20k on a shiny new Supermicro 2U 4-node rendering device. There's also another 10k or so available to buy a few workstations. It's been over 5 years since our IT spending was anywhere near these levels.

Apple 5S still best-selling smartphone 8 months after launch

Doubtless Samsung are very happy, possibly as happy as Apple. It's just every other phone maker on the planet that aren't.

Funny how so many tech markets turn into two horse races, seems to have been like this for as long as I can remember.

Japanese artist cuffed for disseminating 3D ladyparts files

I wanted to get one of those iPhone covers...

...but I thought it would make me look even more of a cunt.

Microsoft takes on Chromebook with low-cost Windows laptops

If Microsoft's cheap version of W8 is called "Windows 8.1 with Bing", does that mean that they are saying adding Bing to Windows 8.1 equals a cheaper (i.e. inferior) product? Sounds an awful lot like it to me.

Microsoft throws Kinect under a bus, slashes Xbox One to $399

Re: XBox 180

Or maybe, going by the handful of games that have been released, the XBox 720p?

Faster Macbook Air pops out: What, a NEW Apple thing and ZERO fanfare?

Re: Wow

I would have sacrificed the processor for an i5 to get flash storage. I will NEVER go back to a mechanical drive, the difference feels like 10-year's worth of processor upgrades.

Apple DOMINATES the Valley, rakes in more profit than Google, HP, Intel, Cisco COMBINED

"According to the Merc, Apple paid $13.2bn in taxes, far more than Intel's $3bn, Google's $2.3bn, Cisco's $1.9bn, and HP's $1.5bn. In fact, Apple paid more in taxes than those companies combined, plus eBay and Oracle."

Ok, that is surprising. I wonder why? Public shaming actually worked for once? Whatever, it's good news.

LaCie bigs up 2big, 5big, 8big... WHOMP: Lands big data on your desk

With regards to the RAID 5 support, many of these devices will typically end up in the broadcast edit suite shops found all over areas of digital creation (Soho, LA etc), where they will be connected to non-linear editing systems. This data is extremely transient in it's nature, so perhaps the need for bullet-proof reliabilty is less important?

Bono bests Bezos in Fortune's 'World's 50 Greatest Leaders' list

Say Wha?

Why is the Pope even on that list at all? I've been to central and southern Africa and seen with my own eyes hundreds of (mainly Christian) people of all ages dying from AIDS. It's both incredibly grim and unbearably depressing, and Popes past and present are directly responsible for it happening by telling them not to use condoms.

Of course, the big pharmaceutical companies love him for it...

And that's before we even get into the debate about religion being a load of utter bollocks.

MH370 airliner MYSTERY: The El Reg Pub/Dinner-party Guide

This is well worth a read, it's on Nate Silver's new web site:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-statisticians-could-help-find-flight-370/

OpenGL mobile graphics spec inches closer to desktop, laptop cousin

Ignorant tech question incoming:

Why do they even have a mobile version of OpenGL? Why just not use the existing full-fat version?

Vulture wraps claws around Elgato Thunderbolt Drive+ portable SSD

Thunderbolt is a bloody great idea - break out PCI Express onto a cable. So why aren't we seeing any real innovation in it's deployment? For a start Elgato could source the PCIe hard drives Apple uses and stick that in a case, they have a 1250MB/s advertised transfer rate, straight away you'd be getting speeds faster than SATA 3. I'm not in the hardware business, but they are, so why are their products not taking advantage of what Thunderbolt is designed for? Not much imagination, I'd say.

The Sun ERUCTATES huge ball of GAS at 4 MILLION MPH

Woah, I'm getting flashbacks to my teenage years spent squeezing zits