Posts by joejack

Elon Musk finally finds 'someone foolish enough to take the job' of Twitter CEO

BBQ Sauce

This seems like a similar setup to Ted Lasso Season 1.

But that would put Musk into Waddingham's role. Eww.

Mac OS X at 20: A rocky start, but it got the fundamentals right for a macOS future

Re: UNIX

What an uninformed comment. Without Unix underpinnings, legions of software developers would not have flocked to OSX. Imagine Cygwin for Mac. No thanks. Microsoft finally realized this, hence the whole "Windows Subsystem for Linux" initiative (which is actually a Linux subsystem for Windows).

Steve Wozniak at 70: Here's to the bloke behind Apple who wasn't a complete... turtleneck

Re: There’s a quote:

The Heathkit H11 probably couldn't play Pitfall ][ though.

Fitbit fitness fans furious following flummoxing flawed firmware float, fleeting feedback, failed fixes

"Your flagship phone is not supported"

I had a Charge 3 for a little over a month when it stopped syncing 6 months ago. After trying everything, I emailed support, who kindly informed me that if my device is not explicitly listed on their compatibility page, they refuse to support it. I have an LG v30. None of the newer models are there either. Amazon was kind enough to accept my return, as this support nonsense was not listed on their product page.

Never again, Fitbit. I switched to a Garmin and think it's better in every way.

Compatibility list:

https://www.fitbit.com/devices

The Palm Palm: The Derringer of smartphones

Santa bring me...

No, not this gimmick. How about a 16x9 or 4x3 5-inch bezel-less phone with a headphone jack, a recent Bluetooth stack and DAC, an 835 or better CPU, and Gorilla Glass 4 (because 5+ gets scratched when you look at it sideways). 128GB, because it's almost 2019. A small phone likely won't have room for an SD card slot or removable battery. That's forgivable, so long as it's waterproof. Also, a useful battery and being easy to hold is way more useful than being razor-thin. With a composite plastic body (ok, very 2013) you won't even need a protective case.

I would love to see a manufacturer take a gamble of "function over form" like this.

Space, the final Trump-tier: America to beam up $8bn for Space Force

Re: I don't understand why they need it

For the same reason we 'need' a wall, even though the rate of illegal immigration has been on the decline for years. It distracts and emboldens the idiots who can't see past shiny logos and empty promises.

Re: Which is worse ...

I'm more interested in the inevitable fake logos. Something with Zap Brannigan seems about right.

https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/trump-zapp.jpg?quality=80&strip=all&zoom=1&resize=644%2C429

Happy 10th birthday, Evernote: You have survived Google and Microsoft. For your next challenge...

No mention of Springpad?

Springpad was the best alternative to Evernote. When they went under, they provided a data extraction tool to users for free. Classy exit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springpad

Five actually useful real-world things that came out at Apple's WWDC

Re: I'm an iPhone user

Mozilla/Firefox got there first with an arguably cleaner solution. They seem to be very privacy focused lately:

https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/facebook-container-extension/

What a hang up: US big box biz Best Buy kicks Huawei to the curb

Re: Huawei has no Brand Recognition

LG just doesn't understand branding and marketing. I picked an LG V30+ over the latest flagships because of features (tho the lower price was a bonus), and couldn't be happier. Well, except for the botched Oreo update last week.

iPhone X: Bargain! You've just bagged yourself a cheap AR device

Imagine a future

Imagine a future without billboards and signs f**king EVERYWHERE. They're on your phone instead.

> I suspect this is a manufacturer driven hype bubble to sell people a 'must have' feature that really they don't particularly give a shit about.

You missed the point of the article then, which was that Apple is getting the kit to the streets WITHOUT a hype bubble. The hype will come AFTER the killer apps have been developed.

Amazon Key door-entry flaw: No easy fix to stop rogue couriers burgling your place unseen

What? Where do you live? I'm in a city, and my house/front porch sits right on a well-trafficked sidewalk.

Aside: Zigbee is crap. Its only advantage is less setup required, meaning lower costs for Amazon to support, versus something like Z-Wave.

Is this a hotdog? What it takes for an AI to answer that might surprise you

Re: So where is the hotdog?

@chuckufarley, I've lived here since 1999, and have never felt unsafe. The murder RATE in Chicago comes in 8th place behind St Louis, Baltimore, Detroit, New Orleans, Cleveland, Newark, and Memphis. I guess "per-capita" is too many syllables for POTUS Cheeto McTweeto to grasp. There's definitely work to do, but to say you need bulletproof armor is silliness.

Wowee, it's Samsung's next me-too AI gizmo: The Apple HomePod

Re: Mono?

I think Google's excuse is, they want you to pay extra for ChromeCast Audio dongles on all of your audio equipment, and you can then use the Home to send music to one or more of these.

I swapped out my $20 bluetooth audio converter in the kitchen for a $50 Echo Dot. Sounds fine on its own, but way better plugged into stereo speakers. Hell of a lot cheaper (and more open and versatile) than a $350 Siri. WTF Apple.

Minnesota, Illinois rebel over America's ISP privacy massacre, mull fresh info protections

Re: Minnesotan here!

> the Confederacy was all Democrat, and Lincoln was a Republican.

> Some things never change.

No, dummy. Everything changed.

http://www.livescience.com/34241-democratic-republican-parties-switch-platforms.html

Also, I don't think Lincoln would look favorably on any states seceding.

'Leaky' LG returns to sanity for 2017 flagship

LG G4

I bent/broke the headphone connector, lodging the tip in the phone. A quick YouTube video and a $7 part from Amazon, and I was able to take the phone apart and replace it myself. It's getting dated (broken NFC, tap-to-wake stopped working a few updates ago), but I'm not sure what I'd want to replace it with at this point.

FWIW LG support in the USA has been good in my experience. I had to return because of the bootloop bug a while back - a free fix.

Android Wear: The bloatware that turned into gloatware

Nice overview!

I think Pebble was on the right track with eInk screens and an open ecosystem, but they were too inaccurate for me to consider. I hope Fitbit does something interesting with them, but they seem to be going in the wrong direction lately.

Revealed: How a weather forecast in 1967 stopped nuclear war

"the only survival strategy is not to play"

Hello Joshua.

FBI won't jail future US president over private email server

"while she may be well-qualified for the office, she is unfit to hold it"

Awesome. Trump, then?

Don't go chasing waterfalls, please stick... Hang on. They're back

One thing I've noticed

Agile tends to foster good communication WITHIN a team and makes it easier for everyone to engage with the project; Waterfall forces better communication BETWEEN teams, but often leads to lack of ownership ("that's the PM's job - I've got my queue.")

We're going to use your toothbrush to snoop on you, says US spy boss

Re: I don't see the point of IoT for me

Without lasers, there's no internet Smooth Newt.

http://i.imgur.com/7VjA8tQ.gif

LogMeIn adds emergency break-in feature to LastPass

Re: Emergency access to the whole damn vault?

LogMeIn/LastPass still never lays eyes on your password. The recipient has to create an account in order to be designated (free account is fine, and 2FA is now free on the free accounts as well). A public/private keypair is generated based on the master passwords.

Full details: https://helpdesk.lastpass.com/emergency-access/

Longing to bin Photoshop? Rock-solid GIMP a major leap forward

Re: GIMP: love it

That reminds me, I need to pick up a henway later.

So. Farewell then Betamax. We always liked you better than VHS anyway

"Oh, no... Beta!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeLMIrsEfFo

El Reg keeps pushing Apple's buttons – its new Magic Keyboard

Re: "So, overall, an improvement."

> "You need the latest OS version to get a keyboard to work?"

No. You need the latest OS to get it to automagically pair via bluetooth when plugging it in.

Otherwise you can manually pair, as with other bluetooth keyboards.

Smartphones are ludicrously under-used, so steal their brains

Love the idealism!

IMO it's not the tech holding us back from this, it's the walled gardens locking you into each manufacturer's ecosystem. Would also be nice to see iOS and Android adopt USB-C.

Google creates cloud code cache

"(because it's a beta, the debugger only Java apps are currently supporteD)"

Is the article also beta?

Abort, abort! Metal-on-metal VIOLENCE as Google's robo-car nearly CRASHES

Re: Not a near miss

Reminds me of that old George Carlin bit about airplanes: "That's not a near miss. It's a near HIT!!! <BOOM> Oh, look... they nearly missed."

Huawei P8: Chinese mobes have arrived and the West should tremble

Re: It had to happen

It's a long-running cycle. David Hume wrote this in 1752, reprinted in Andy Kessler's "How We Got Here", a fun and still-relevant read from 2004:

“There seems to be a happy concurrence of causes in human affairs, which checks the growth of trade and riches, and hinders them from being confined entirely to one people; as might naturally at first be dreaded from the advantages of an established commerce. Where one nation has gotten the start of another in trade, it is very difficult for the latter to regain the ground it has lost; because of the superior industry and skill of the former, and the greater stocks, of which its merchants are possessed, and which enable them to trade on so much smaller profits. But these advantages are compensated, in some measure, by the low price of labour in every nation which has not an extensive commerce, and does not much abound in gold and silver. Manufactures, therefore gradually shift their places, leaving those countries and provinces which they have already enriched, and flying to others, whither they are allured by the cheapness of provisions and labour; till they have enriched these also, and are again banished by the same causes. And, in general, we may observe, that the dearness of every thing, from plenty of money, is a disadvantage, which attends an established commerce, and sets bounds to it in every country, by enabling the poorer states to undersell the richer in all foreign markets.”

Go, daddy, go: GoDaddy shares rocket 30% in value at IPO

That reminds me...

I still have an old domain with them I haven't transferred over to NameCheap yet.

Apple's 13-incher will STILL cost you a bomb: MacBook Air 2015

How to bring the sexy back

For the 13.3" model, maintain the form factor, but trim the bezel to make room for a 14.1" 1680x1050 screen.

That is all.

Cisco posts kit to empty houses to dodge NSA chop shops

Re: Don't buy US kit

Buy Chinese is your answer? If the Chinese do have backdoors, how long do you think before the NSA et al finds their way in?

$250K: That's what Lenovo earned to rat you out with Superfish

Re: Heads will roll?

> (Typed on my Thinkpad W701. Probably my last from this brand after buying 20-30 over the years.)

Really? If Lenovo follows through on their statement about no longer pre-loading bloatware going forward, that would keep them on my shortlist.

HTC One M9 hands on: Like a smart M8 in a sharp suit

Re: Questionable quality?

I wouldn't know about that. My phones don't last more than about a year before I drop them in soup, grind them into a rocking chair, or fling down the steps on the way to the train. Happily I'm signed up for a replacement plan.

Re: Android hardware is good....

Since this is an HTC thread I'll hold on the "say what you like about iPhones." I will say that my 2-year-old HTC m7 was just updated to the latest Android 5.0. Very smooth process.

Bankrupt RadioShack to close up to 2,900 stores, share others with Sprint

I'll just leave this here...

http://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1vibnd/everything_in_this_radio_shack_ad_from_1991_can/

Google, Amazon 'n' pals fork out for AdBlock Plus 'unblock' – report

Re: Begun the Ad Wars have

> On a TV I mute the adverts.

How will you know when a new season of Archer starts up?

Tim Cook: The classic iPod HAD TO DIE, and this is WHY

Re: Thanks Apple...

I also use a Sansa Clip+. Not the sexiest UI, but it's dirt cheap, good sound quality with EQ, FM radio, voice recording, standard phone charger to charge it, physical controls make it easy to control without looking at it, Rhapsody integration if you want streaming, and a memory card slot for an extra 128GB in storage. Although Sandisk really needs to up the processing power IMO. "Refreshing your media" takes entirely too long.

Post-PC era? PAH! Apple says Macs OUTSOLD iPads in Q4

Yosemite should help stifle that sales boom...

So long Lotus 1-2-3: IBM ceases support after over 30 years of code

Re: Mistakes?

My first real job out of college was porting a large app from OS/2 to WinNT 3.5. After using the two side-by-side for a while, I wanted to cry as M$ continued eating their lunch. Better UI, subsystem, API's, etc.

We were using PVCS for VCS. Anything was better than SourceSafe, which tended to corrupt its internal database as the project grew in size. Yikes.

Get ready for another HYPEGASM: New iPADs 'in October'

Enjoy that "security"

NSA can still request the encrypted data, then brute-force the password.

LG drops G3 quad HD Android mobe with FRIGGIN' LASER camera

Re: £480 RRP

Same, though I'm also curious to see how battery life holds up once rooted.

Mozilla dev dangles Chromecast clone dongle

Re: Strange description of Chromecast

> I imagine that the Chromecast has a good chance of having more services ported to it, too

Yes. There's a good chance. But like AppleTV, Google maintains tight control over what types of apps are allowed to play in their sandbox. Hence the interest in an "open" alternative, for those too lazy to root their CC.

Google spaffs $50 MILLION on 'get girls coding' campaign

Re: Stop calling it #@*$ing "coding"

A constructive comment. Rare and welcome :)

Atom, GitHub's code editor based on web tech, goes open source

In memory, it takes up 130MB, plus two 30MB helpers. Compares nicely with Sublime's 220MB IMO. That's the tradeoff for integrating a ton of 3rd party frameworks I think. Expect this to bloat as more plugins become available.

Sublime

So, it's like Sublime. Except it's free and open source. And it's got web goo under the hood instead of python. And releases will happen more frequently (how long has ST3 been in beta?) Emacs and vim bindings are already there. I think this is going to be huge.

@JDX, when I first heard of a "github editor" I thought it was going to be web-based as well. Seems like the time is right for something like that, and having it tightly integrated with the Github site (as an option for small tasks, of course) could make for a really interesting workflow.

HTC One M8: Reg man takes spin in Alfa Romeo of smartphone world

An apt analogy, given that I've had a very weak signal on THREE different HTC One's, which were on the same network as a friend's GS4 that had full bars. (Why three? There was a cabbage soup incident, and a rocking chair incident).

Also, I thought the M8 had a 5" screen? It's the original model that has a 4.7" screen as the article reports.

Re: IR

I use the remote app all the time as well. Only wish it was a learning remote, so I could aim my current speaker remote at it to set the volume controls. Then I wouldn't mind losing the remotes.