Posts by TheItCat

Next Xbox won't need always-on internet after all

Watching Live TV?

Just how are you going to be able to watch Live TV on an XBox without an Internet Connection?

I really don't see them putting DVB-T and DVB-S support in there for all the major markets in the world somehow...

I watched Excel meet 1-2-3, and beat it fair and square

Re: "The only issue..."

"It's even sadder that that is trivial to address and you haven't worked out how in 20 years."

I'll bite, troll.

What's the "trivial" way to fix it so that Excel never attempts to auto-guess that a cell is a date or time (because it always gets it wrong) when double-click a csv file (say, one attached to an email) to open it?

And don't say "save the file out of the email, open excel, file -> open, select file" because that isn't trivial when you're dealing with numerous auto-generated database exports on a daily basis.

P.S. 6 downvotes? I'm guessing most of you aren't actually using Excel as a quick way to pass around adhoc database extracts.

Re: "The only issue..."

The sad thing is that 20 years later Excel *STILL* can't cope with cells that contain dates or times and insists on formatting them into some monstrosity that in no way resembles the actual contents of the cell.

Wii-U boat torpedoes Nintendo's '¥20bn profit' into ¥20bn loss

Re: Good

Downvoted.

Not because you're wrong about casual gamers ruining games, but because you claim that console gaming has ever been anything other than a casual paradise.

What we really need is games developers to stop pandering to console limitations and start making games with depth and detailed UIs again. Doubt it will happen though.

Console gamers have ruined everything #StillAngryAboutDragonAge2

Instagram starts filtering out hipster pics on Twitter

Re: "make photo look worse"

If I could upvote this more than once I would. A million times over.

Use of Instagram, like owning an iPhone a couple of years ago, is a sure sign of an idiot.

The world's first Windows Phone 8 hands on – what's it like?

Megaidiots

Looks like people claiming "it has 8MP and my phone has 12MP, therefore my phone is better" is the new way to prove someone is an idiot.

Come on, people, this is supposed to be a techie forum. You should know by now that the quality of the image depends upon WAY more than how many megafroobles the sensor sticks into the final image. My >5 year old EOS SLR with a mere 5MP still produces massively better images than any android phone (12MP or not) because the sensor is bigger, the distance between the sensor and the glass is larger and the glass is simply better. Suck it up.

I'd far rather have image stabilised, noise-free, properly colour corrected images at 8MP than noisy, garish and blurry 12MP ones. Each to their own though, eh?

Booth babes banned by Chinese gaming expo

If attendances dwindle because there are no booth babes then doesn't that simply mean that there's no worthwhile content at the show in the first place? Why go to a show about video games if all you want to do is oggle women? There are plenty of strip bars you can go to if you must have that sort of thing

Waterstones stores surrender to Amazonian invaders

Browse dead trees, gain magical pixels - sounds good to me

As a Kindle owner I'd say the largest impediment to me putting anything other than free books on it is the complete inability of a way to find books I might like to read.

The idea of browsing a bookshop to find the book you want and then them downloading it onto your kindle there and then sounds like the perfect combination.

Somehow, I doubt that's what they have in mind though...

ISPs should get 'up to' full fee for 'up to' broadband

Re: So, If I get 75% of the advertised speed, I pay 75% of the price.

Downvoted because you're being ridiculously disingenuous.

Nobody is paying for "Up to" anything, they're paying for a particular connection type sold through Openreach (or Virgin). The cost of providing that connection is fixed, so the cost to you is fixed. The fact that you're a particularly special little snowflake with a bad line is irrelevant. You're costing the ISP £x, so they charge you £x+profitmargin pounds.

Why is this so hard for our poor little entitled nation to fathom?

SimCity to return after 10-year holiday

Re: Now they're redoing this

Transport Tycoon doesn't need remaking because OpenTTD is already doing a better job than a big studio would.

Google Wallet PIN security cracked in seconds

The PIN is just for Google Wallet?

A 4-numeric character PIN?

Are they insane? (well, clearly they are but...)

Can't they just change it to a secure password instead?

Kenyan startup claims Google 'scalped' its data after staging a STING

Indeed, the author of this article should be thoroughly ashamed for writing in such a pro-Google style when the company has clearly been caught trying to steal customers through deception.

If this were Apple, would the article read the same way?...

Hands on with Star Wars: The Old Republic

Normal MMO Controls

So you're complaining that a new MMO uses the same control scheme as every other MMO (including the massively successful WoW)?

Interesting...

Swearing fine quashed as teens have heard it all before

Because context doesn't matter

Clearly there's no difference between using a word abusively and using the same word as a qualifier.

I mean, we all know it's not racist if you say "go away you person with dark skin" instead of "fuck off (n-word)".

IDIOT.

Why your tech CV sucks

Nine pages :O

Good luck with that.

Mass ASP.NET attack causes websites to turn on visitors

What an utterly terrible article

How are these websites being compromised?

You say it's SQL injection then go on to say that ASP.Net sites are being targetted - which is it? (Hint: ASP.Net sites can quite happily run without databases)

This article gives me no information to be able to tell whether my servers are vulnerable to attack or not. Pathetic.

Win 8 haters are just scared of change, say MS bosses

You're wrong.

They got the taskbar thing perfect in Windows 95 once the QuickLaunch bar was introduced. Windows 7's "launchy-active-confusatron" of a taskbar was a massive leap downhill and this new Metro even on the desktop push is just going to annoy users even further.

iPhone 4S pre-orders obliterate sales records

The best marketing tool ever:

a high profile death.

Profiting from death is almost an American tradition now. Just look at the charts to see Michael Jackson's work still selling well and I see Columbo DVDs did pretty well for a few weeks when he kicked the bucket.

People need to stop being such morons.

Lightsabres to illuminate Christmas dinner

Much to learn in the ways of sarcasm have you.

And for the 4 retarded upvoters...

Lightsaber is to lightsabre as inner is to innre.

You're welcome.

Amazon to whup Apple rivals when Kindle Fire hits UK

Alternatively...

you can just produce a good product and get Apple's marketing machine to make your product popular by suing you.

Seems to be working for Samsung...

Who on earth buys something that expensive as a xmas present?

Completely unrelated: why are Britons so deep in debt?

Court bans man called Peter from calling himself Peter

no it isn;t...

There's an app for that

Windows 8 ribbon entangles Microsoft

Re: "Don't people like easy to find, logically organised menus these days?"

Yes, we do. Why else would we hate the ribbon so much?

Where's the facepalm icon?

WTF is... 4K x 2K?

you seem to be missing something...

Pretty sure the size of the pixels depend upon the size of the display, not the resolution.

As in, I can discern the pixels on my 1080p projector screen (90") from 2m if I look hard enough. Now if you're talking about poxy little LCD panels, then sure, but nobody who cares about quality has one of those anyway. Hell, my mum still uses a 20" CRT - and I challenge you to resolve the 576 pixels on that one from 2m away!

Popular open source DHCP program open to hack attacks

Badly written story misses the main point of the vulnerability

It's the DHCP CLIENT that's affected, not the server. It's saying if you have clients running ISC dhcp and someone pops into your network with a rogue dhcp server, they can compromise your client machines.

This is a pretty specific flaw though, as neither Windows nor OSX uses the ISC client, and so are not affected by this vulnerability.

Vanilla Ice to tackle panto Captain Hook

But...

us girls, however, prefer not to be associated with that crap.

Not anon so you can all see I don't watch Celebrity Dancing With Maria On a Desert Island Factor. or whatever it's called these days.

BT, TalkTalk in court seeking axe for Digital Economy Act

O-kayyy

But you'd trust Talk Talk?

The mind boggles

Facebook lets users report friends who post suicidal content

It's worse than that

Now people who spot this stuff will just report it to Facebook instead of someone who could actually do something about it.

Spaniards bemoan 'joke' speed limit cut

Economics

Time is money, friend.

Do you value your time or your money more?

Sony readies official PS Move support for PCs

Actually worse than Kinect

Because it requires you to buy a PS3 instead of just getting the Move hardware.

With the Kinect (and indeed, the PC drivers for the Xbox360 controller) you just buy the hardware you want and attach it to your PC. Much better than needing to buy the entire console and then network it.

Don’t Look Now hailed top Brit movie

Assumptions and all that

That would be my man, actually :p

Please explain to me how a film with more holes than plot, an absolutely cringeworthy Benny Hill and paper thin characterisation can be classed as "great"?

Sure, it's got a great car chase and some uplifting photography - the opening sequence driving through the Alps is incredible - but cinema is about more than that.

The Italian Job

Having bought the Italian Job on Blue Ray recently I can safely say that while it contains a number of iconic scenes it is definitely *not* a great movie and I'm pleased to see it doesn't appear in the list.

My partner, having never seen it before, was astounded that it was considered a classic.

Philips 21:9 Cinema 58in LED backlit TV

Really?

I'm sorry, I can't take seriously any high-end home cinema review where the reviewer talks in a positive light about zooming the picture to fit the screen. DON'T DO THIS! The bars on the side of the screen are there for a reason and really don't make a difference to the viewing experience.

And besides, for that price you could get a far better projector which throws a picture twice as big, with better colour reproduction and a screen that discreetly hides away instead of overpowering the room when switched off.

BOFH: Pain fear games

No, idiot,

he meant 1/2 frozen.

As in, HALF FROZEN. So they hurt more.

BT feathers ruffled over pigeon-based file transfer caper

Static IP, etc?

Not BT Infinity (who in their right mind would use BT as their ISP) but I do get a static IP, no port hijacking and wonderful 35Mbps/10Mbps speeds on my FTTC service from Plusnet.

Instead of whining on the internet you could be contacting Plusnet, aaisp (http://www.aaisp.net.uk/broadband-FC.html) or any of the other providers that can take FTTC connections and seeing what they have to offer?

Cheapskate

You're not paying for 8Mb you're paying for "the best connection I can get using standard ASDL".

Even worse, they've offered you the incredible experience of FTTC and you're moaning it's too expensive. If you won't pay for quality then don't moan when you get crap!

Mozilla stokes Firefox 4 with first beta build

Wait, you...click stuff?

Except for the task bar of course, which is all a browser tab bar is.

Plus... you click stuff in a browser? Seriously?

If I want to type in a URL or search (inline search is great) I hit F2. If I want to navigate forwards/backwards/home/up or close the current tab I'll use mouse gestures. The only clicking I do is to change tabs, and I can do that from the Win 7 task bar or through the browser task bar, both of which are at the bottom of their respective document windows.

Tabs at the top???

Putting tabs at the top is already a stupid idea. Moving them even further away from the content is idiotic.

Thank god Opera allows me to place the tabs at the BOTTOM of the page where they should be (your eyes will be at the bottom of the page when you've finished reading and want to move to a different tab).