* Posts by HMB

638 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Oct 2010

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UK top dog for home Wi-Fi usage... almost

HMB

What does this all really mean anyway?

Australia has large metal framed houses that are terrible for wireless signals, so wireless isn't perceived as such a great technology there.

When it comes to the UK, all of the major providers, Virgin, Be, BT, Talktalk & Sky all come with wireless routers. Should we be congratulating the telecoms companies?

If you're average person had to go out and buy a wireless router themselves the market penetration would be dramatically less. I really don't see what waving around the figures means or does.

Virgin Media's latest throttling rules

HMB

Re: The fastest UK broadband service...

Just to come back at some things:

Much of what I said I still stand by, but it's disappointing that the register haven't conveyed things accurately regarding the slowdown only affecting usenet and torrent traffic or not.

Virgin is still the fastest ISP I've seen with the exception of leased lines running into large apartment buildings.

Anyone wishing to enlighten me of other information is welcome to.

HMB
Flame

Re: The fastest UK broadband service...

Oh that's so funny and so ignorant too.

* Everyone except Be Internet does traffic management at the normal price range.

* Torrents on BT are ALWAYS aggressively throttled (go google: "bt infinity torrent performance").

* At 1/2 speed I bet my 50Mbps virgin connection (soon to go up to 120) is still faster than any BT or BT Wholesale based product for torrenting.

* It's only usenet and torrent traffic that's throttled.

Don't get me wrong, the news saddens me, I am just sick of the whining unfair comparison brigade.

RIM pushes BlackBerry 10 kit out to thousands of devs on 1 May

HMB
Flame

Developing for Blackberry

While I'm at it, I was thinking of a neat new app I could write for Windows Mobile 6.5.

Half of Apple fanbois would bank with the iPad titan

HMB

Re: 30%

Not that big a deal.

BT fibre-to-the-cabinet rollout penetrates 73 more exchanges

HMB

Re: No static IP and a terrible fair use policy

Seriously, have you actually investigated this? BT are the only people to offer "unlimited" offerings over FTTC. Everyone else has usage limits. Plusnet offer 120Gb a month for the same price BT offer unlimited. Before you say that unlimited isn't really unlimited, the same harsh fair usage applies to the capped products too.

I think one of the high end ISPs did offer unlimited over FTTC for something like £70 a month, but seriously??

HMB

Re: Smug bastard

Don't you mean *the* satisfied customer? :P

I did look at Talk Talk FTTC, but 2Mbps upload? Really talk talk?

HMB
Alert

Re: Anyone actually have Infinity

Yeah, it was the upload rate that really made me want Infinity over cable, but I am very happy with cable and from the experience I have got vs Infinity customers who blog, I would say Virgin are much less throttled.

I'm torrenting the Debian AMD64 DVD 1 as a test, I set it off about several mins ago, it just read 4.1 MB/s. That's MegaBytes/s. It's 24% complete and 13 minutes ETA.

It was just reading 5.5 MB/s for a moment there (it's getting faster as I finish this comment), which works out at 44 Megabits per second torrent throughput.

HMB

Even if BT say you can have Infinity, they can change their mind

BT royally cocked up the order I put in for Infinity which was accepted. I even had a chat with the BT engineer (it got beyond installing a BT line) and he pointed out the green cab over the road I'd be getting the connection from.

A few days later and BT were telling me it wasn't available at the exchange, which was just BS. BS because not only did the engineer have it at his premises, he was installing in the area and had mentioned he'd probably be the one sent out to do mine. I even saw him since around the place I live and he basically told me to complain and that they were talking crap.

Now happily with Virgin and getting a very good service. :D

Supermodel-fiddling tool Photoshop CS6 flinged in free beta

HMB

So Affordable!

I'm so excited. I can use the beta and when it comes out Adobe have agreed that I can pay for CS6 buy selling them one of my Kidney's! I don't know why anyone would want to pirate this product.

Chrome beats IE market share for one day

HMB
Alert

The sun does not shine out of the ass of Chrome.

Let's not forget that Chrome isn't perfect. While it has definitely improved the web immensely, it's now the buggiest modern browser I know save the last time I looked at Opera.

Chrome is my main browser, but it's not hard for me to see when I do testing that IE9's graphics performance is far higher, I just prefer Chrome's appearance.

Jagged edges on rotated elements, rendering flaws that have crept in on fixed position stuff when GPU acceleration started and a pile of unfixed web kit bugs I still have to write fixes for means that Chrome may be a lot better than IE8 and it is, but it's no absolute knight in shining armour.

Bring on IE10 Microsoft, the world needs to be kept on it's toes.

iPlayer repeat fees threaten BBC earthquake

HMB

Re: One flaw

I think it's fair comment that there have been a shocking number of repeats recently, but I still love new Horizon episodes I watch a bit of Top Gear too, but other than that there's not really that much I want to watch. The license fee is kind of steep for just two shows I want to watch.

Tim Cook scoffs $11m slice of warm Apple pie

HMB

Share Value

Let's hope he doesn't do a Ballmer though eh?

The only real advantage of the iPad3 is the higher resolution screen, which is great, but I've kind of gotten used to each product launch being a lot more spectacular. It remains to be seen whether Tim Cook can keep up the pace that Steve Jobs did.

Audi shows off OLED-illuminated concept R8

HMB

Dr Pimp Called

He wants his prostitutes back.

5,000 Virgin Media workers unchained to slog away remotely

HMB

Balance

I know that if you have connection problems that it's immensely frustrating, but after the hell I went through attempting to get BT Infinity (and failing after they said I could get it), Virgin Media have provided a fast and reliable connection.

I have noticed occasional streaming dropouts from iPlayer in HD mode on my 50 Mb service, but if I speedtest at the same time I've got loads of bandwidth there.

It's a crapload better than the flaky limited rubbish my parents have to pay plus.net who pay BT wholesale for.

Broadcom boasts directional antennas for 802.11ac Wi-Fi

HMB

And when the BT home hub get's 802.11ac...

I bet it will still have a real throughput of around 24 Mbps.

T-Mobile's Full Monty speed 'capped at 1Mb/s'

HMB

1.9Mbps / 1.1Mbps, three, one plan (Down / Up)

Speed tested just now. I relied on this connection while BT sat with their thumb up their ass thinking about installing Infinity for me (which they said was available), before deciding 6 weeks later that they couldn't do Infinity because the exchange wasn't enabled yet (despite the phone line engineer living in a house we could see from my back window already having Infinity).

Greenpeace releases 'Cool IT' rankings

HMB

I thought Greenpeace were still busy working on making energy more expensive to better impede the development of starving children in Africa.

Berkeley boffins crack brain wave code

HMB

Illegal XML

Having a space in a tag name is invalid XML. May I suggest::

<tinfoil_hat>Content</tinfoil_hat>

AirDroid

HMB

How do they make money?

Maybe I haven't dug around enough, but how do these guys make money? They have a professional looking site and it's all very smart in appearance, but it makes me quite uncomfortable not knowing how they plan on making money from me when they're not asking for any.

Have people stopped asking this question or something?

Google plays the long game with Chrome OS

HMB

Overhead Scmoverhead

It's a bit chicken and egg for that don't you think? With games having high GPU requirements and best suiting large monitors?

You know this thing about overheads is misleading. When I'm sitting about in Windows it's not mindlessly gobbling CPU, actually I just task-managered and found Chrome was the one using 21% of my CPU out of 28%. The memory overhead is about 1.2Gb of RAM on a system with nothing really going on, I know that's not great, but you know what, it's not really a big deal either. RAM is relatively cheap. GPU performance? Well my bitcoin miner doesn't run faster under a baseline linux install than it does under Windows.

Windows only has two significant overheads, Hard disk space and RAM usage, neither of which are a deal breaker for me.

The Pirate Bay torrents printable 3D objects

HMB

"Apparently low temperature thermoplastics are a bad choice for Internal Combustions Engines" - he said, sitting in a pile of hot goo on his driveway.

Telly makers aim to put OLED in your lounge in 2012

HMB

I'm waiting for OLED for the general crappy laptop screens to be replaced with something decent, or gorgeous :D

Seriously, the latest laptop I could get (I was hunting for the best screens to) has a great image once calibrated (shouldn't have to do that) but the black level is chronically bad compared to any other modern display.

I want an OLED laptop screen damn it!

That or an IPS one, but only Apple seem to do those for any length of time.

Groupon banned from selling SNAKE OIL

HMB

They were also told they were VERY naughty boys and girls. In a loud stern voice.

MIT boffins devise faster Fast Fourier transform

HMB

Time to dig those CDs out again so I can rerip them in Even More Advanced Audio Codec.

Nuke support in UK hits record high

HMB

Perhaps you'd like some cherries with that? Oh! I see you've already got some :P

UNSW researcher creates four-atom silicon wires

HMB

Measurement Mystery

It just makes me wonder how on earth they connected the crocodile clips leading to the multimeter on each end of it. :P

Parasites spark swarm of zombie bees

HMB

"There have been a few reports of phorid flies opportunistically causing human myiasis."

*puts on best Star Wars Emperor voice*

Kill them, kill them all.

LG preps '14in screen in 13in chassis' Ultrabook

HMB

IPS Screens or Equivalent

Would it be too much to ask for at least one of these new laptops to come with the screen tech that makes the iPad, Touchpad and some Android tablets such a joy to use?

I am so sick of laptops with crappy looking screens and terrible black levels.

If I walk through John Lewis and properly eye up all the laptop displays it's really just the very expensively priced Apple laptops that have screens which really look superb.

It's odd because you can buy a cheap desktop LCD screen and it's really not that bad, but put a screen in a laptop and almost everybody butchers the quality.

China Telecom piggybacks EE to create UK network

HMB

Lose the Tin Foil hats

As much as we forget the past at our folly, we need to grow up and embrace the future.

It's not hard to see that switching from a planned economy to a more free market approach has brought unparalleled prosperity to a previously poor nation. I simply don't see any repeat of Soviet style communism.

What China offers in a positive light, is a possible alternative to democracy that may put them ahead of us. I certainly want to be in a Democracy, but it's going to be interesting watching China. Can China outperform Democracy in terms of bringing it's people the best?

One can't help but admire the epic levels of growth the country is going through.

I wish them well and I respect them. I also think that globally we need to be more co-operative and less confrontational.

Oracle VM whips rowdy virtual machines into submission

HMB

Mmmm... the crashy goodness of VirtualBox but for the Enterprise.

I use VirtualBox for it's leading 3D support (3D acceleration in Linux makes it look and work a lot better) for Linux & Windows aero (which they finally sorted out). Free is a wonderful price too, but if someone suggested running something mission critical on VirtualBox I'd just laugh.

Only yesterday one of my VM's became inaccessible after I upgraded to the latest release and attempts to restore back to a previous snapshot failed. I had to clone it and terminate the original to get the VM working again.

Microsoft celebrates the death of IE6

HMB

Closely followed by...

gs.statcounter.com lists IE6 below 1% in the UK, and IE7 just dropped below 4%.

Maybe we should be waving goodbye to IE7 too.

HP teases next Ultrabook launch

HMB

Ultrabooks, A Pointless Premium

Having got a lovely Dell Studio less than a year old from eBay for £300, an HP Touchpad for £200, what I really need in my life is a laptop that's thin and light but too awkward to use like a tablet, yet offering no real advantage over my existing laptop.

I hope it's at least twice the price of both my other gadgets combined too!

It's going to be a White (Space) winter after all

HMB

I for one think this technology is very exciting. I'm actually quite tired of a small minority bashing it.

It's the most ambitious use of radio frequency since the cell phone and look what an enormous industry that is now.

I think as a world wide society, moving data around is going to be almost as important as moving power around.

HMB

Easy To Fix Interference Problems

So let's say you allow whitespace comms and there is an area being affected by a database not having accurate enough information.

Problem is reported, database is updated, devices get updated information.

Where's your problem?

Google's Siri-a-like to be named 'Majel' after Trek actress

HMB

Winning?

Google voice recognition is.... well, see for yourself.

Original:

"Google voice recognition is so chronically bad that it's not worth bothering with if you can try a few times and edit out the mistakes"

Recognised on my android phone as:

"Google voice recognition for chronically bad it's not worth living with you can try a few times in the state"

That's not bad as far as Google voice recognition goes either. The other day it told a friend of mine that I wanted him to listen to sex. The original text message was completely work safe and just a status update on my journey.

The shit that comes out of the back of a horse is more practical and useful than the stuff Google thinks I said. (I'm well spoken without any real regional tone to my voice)

Jedi light-sabre beats Taser in Oregon parking-lot fracas

HMB

Because people never hit their head when falling after being tasered. They never get concussion, fits or convulsions. It doesn't sometimes cause ventricular fibrillation either.

Tasers are an important tool in a cops arsenal, but they are a very long way from safe. When you see a taser demo on TV with cops, they're usually set up so the person doing the demo doesn't have to fall on to a hard surface like concrete and there are paramedics on standby.

It's quite possible while you can't control your body to fall and hit your head on something hard enough to kill you.

US spy drone hijacked with GPS spoof hack, report says

HMB

Sometimes an embarrassing international incident has to occur before people sit up and take note.

Windows Phones message hub hit by killer SMS

HMB

Better than iOS

So you didn't read the part of the article that said that this wasn't as bad as the iPhone text message attack that allowed the attacker to access the phone?

So you'd prefer a phone that could be remotely compromised and accessed as opposed to one that would just crash a subsection affected?

Well that would start to explain a lot.

Ebooks must stay fat with VAT, blame the EU, MPs told

HMB

Quite, See New Building Insulation

My gran has to spend a fair bit to keep her house warm, causing CO2 emissions of course. My friend who moved into a special eco development, does not have to pay much at all for heating.

My gran's house is fairly new, only a few years old.

One of the most dramatic ways of cutting our CO2 emissions would be legally mandatory high grade insulation for new homes that really wouldn't add that much to the cost of a house during construction. Do all new homes require excellent insulation? No.

The government seem most interested in being environmental when it involves taking more money off you.

P.S.

I know that the laws are getting better for required insulation, but it's too little and by no where near fast enough.

HMB

Doesn't France routinely break European rules?

I mean seriously, they've been taken to court a few times by Europe. I wish the UK had that attitude more often if I'm honest.

I think that there are definitely good things that come from a united Europe, but I quite like a transparent, efficient, democratic government and that just doesn't feel like Europe to me.

HMB

A cheap tablet / reader + ebooks is far less expensive than paying for space in a physical property for bookshelves. Or are less well off people expected to burn their books after reading to keep warm?

Higgs boson hunters have god particle in their sights

HMB

Comic Sans

I would have thought this to be quite obvious.

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. The use of Comic Sans just shows how fine that line can be.

P2P veterans sue the Cloud ... for copying their stuff

HMB

If you keep using Paris icons on a tech forum, continually justifying why you used them, it's either time to come out the closet and admit that you're gay, or you really need to get out to a singles bar.

Either way... Issues!

Android, BlackBerry phone owners favour Apple tablet

HMB

I agree.

I own a Nexus One, looked seriously at an iPhone but if nothing else the screen size was a deal breaker. Lack of free sat nav and a few other features further soured the iPhone milk.

With an iPad, those issues go away. It's the silkiest smooth tablet I've seen. It's polished and refined. I hope that Android will get there one day.

Given £400 to spend on a tablet I would put it on the iPad any day. I actually ended up spending £200 on an HP Touchpad with the knowledge that ICS would come to it though.

So really this report wasn't the slightest bit surprising. I find the android fanbois disappointing but I guess somewhat inevitable.

HP throws WebOS to open source community

HMB

Hands up if you saw the end of HP developing WebOS coming!

I am so very glad of the Cyanogen mod team! I'd be very upset if my Touchpad software was just going to slowly perish.

Is Bill Gates mulling a return to Microsoft throne?

HMB

Depends if you're talking about computers or tablets.

Microsoft are far superior to Apple when it comes to market share of desktops and laptops. When it comes to tablets & phones, Apple clearly have the lead of the two.

Chrome is the most secured browser - new study

HMB
FAIL

"Not including Opera" Wah!!

If I was a security researcher I'd be very happy getting to 93.4% coverage.

Any rational study has to do cost benefit analysis. Two versions of chrome may seem excessive, but they seem to be taking the perfectly rational approach of getting the largest shares in first. This produces the most cost effective measurement of the market.

Why bother with around 1% of the UK market (go see Opera's market share) when there's nothing wrong with the rest? From a business perspective it's simply not worth it.

Bill Gates discusses nuclear development deal with China

HMB

Wrong!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Uranium 233 being a hard gamma emitter is not an end game for it's use in nuclear weapons. This means that as wonderful as LFTRs are (and I love them too) they do have a serious issue with them in terms of weapons proliferation.

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