Posts by Kevin 26 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Oct 2006
Divide by 365?? Tell me you don't understand the difference between a company's revenue and value without telling me... In all seriousness, a country's GDP is like a company's revenue, NOT a company's value. Comparing the two makes no sense.
I remember getting a copy of it bundled with a CD-ROM drive I bought (double speed no less) that had a full orchestra sound track on the audio part of the CD. It took me a while to work out that I had to plug the phono audio out of the cd drive into a separate pair of speakers...
Anyway I always found it slow and frustrating moving around and it always seemed to change camera angle at the wrong time. Still, a groundbreaking game for its time!
BTW, if you think that ripping CDs is tiresome, don't ever try to digitise all your old film pictures. It took me about a month to do that 6-frames at a time a few years ago. I think it used to take about 2-3 minutes per frame with a Minolta slide scanner I borrowed.
"Just torrent them with a clear conscience?"
I agree, if you don't mind ripping them to MP3 when you own the CD, then surely the same applies to torrenting them? Torrents normally have good tags and I believe iTunes will organise them all nicely for you automatically...
Just don't forget to delete the MP3s when you get rid of the CDs, otherwise that's just theft.
(Side issue is the rather small likelihood of being sent one of the those letters from your ISP)
I totally agree with this approach - I find it works for pretty much 100% of the 'soft' spam. As soon as I get an email like this, I hit the unsubscribe link and most of the time it works.
It's annoying that you probably didn't subscribe to this list in the first place, but hopefully most companies you buy from are reputable enough to comply with current spamming regulations (otherwise why are you trusting them with your money?).
I definitely get more spam through my letterbox than I do in my inbox...
Yep, seconded. I have the USB 2 version and it is one of the most useful storage devices I have ever bought. Dead quick and it *just works*.
As for Yumi, well I tried that just a couple of days ago and it didn't work with what I was trying whereas the Zalman got it first time.
Now, does anyone know of a thumb-drive style USB device that can do the same thing (I mean via hardware, not using some sort of boot loader)?
"...so you have to switch the resolution down..."
YOU may have to, but can be sure that everyone else is the same as you?
I would happily have 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 on a 13" screen. Other people may have different comfort levels but I'm not going to be so arrogant presume that my opinion is shared by everyone.
If you're in the market for this sort of thing AND you know your way around Linux, you could consider an HP MicroServer N40L. Currently £140 from Dabs after a £100 cashback. Much faster CPU, more RAM + 250GB drive and allows for 4 drives.
http://www.dabs.com/products/hp-proliant-microserver-g7-n40l-nhp-eu-svr-7RMD.html
A reasonable amount bigger than this and obviously doesn't come with the ReadyNAS software (which for some people is a bonus), so I understand that that it isn't a direct alternative .
Just puttin' it out there :-)
A lot of skepticism and FUD coming from Reg readers!
Random Noise: Seriously? You think they'll turn off your freezer so that it defrosts? You don't think your freezer would have some sort of safe-guard?
James 47: How much data do you think is involved here? 48 readings and some meta-data comes to single-digit KB per day. Not exactly going to make a dent in even a 2GB monthly plan is it? Anyhow, as Turtle_fan says, they would be unlikely to trust consumers' equipment.
Tony Humphreys: You've missed the point completely. The whole idea is that there will be no annual meter reading - no man with a clipboard or you entering the value into a website.
Anonymous Coward (Big Brother) - How dare a publicly listed company make profits!
Come people, Reg readers are supposed to embrace technology, not scorn it because there might be some teething troubles!
The idea with all of this is that we use the energy that with generate a bit more smartly. It's not easy to adjust the amount of electricity being generated - it is much more easy to control demand, but in order to do that, there has to be better communication between the consumers and distributors.
Why not heat your hot water, charge your Leaf, do your washing or give your freezer a boost when demand is low and electricity is cheap?
The down-vote button is the red one with the thumb pointing down.
AC, I know what you are talking about and agree with you, although you could have perhaps explained it better. Let me try. Imagine you have two audio files of your favourite track
1. a wave PCM at 16bit, 11kHz giving a bit-rate of 176 kbits/sec.
2. an MP3 also at ~176 kbits/sec.
The PCM wave is "lossless" and the MP3 is lossy, yet I'm guessing most people will understand that the MP3 will sound much, much better.
What AC is saying is that given 700 kbits/sec (roughly what FLAC CD rip might use), lossy compression will sound better because it would mean that it would have been able to start from say 24bit @ 192kHz to achieve the same end bitrate.
So the statement is correct, with a slight caveat:
*At a given bitrate* lossless compression will sound worse than lossy compression
just because it's small and usb why does that mean it should be used for travel use?
Already mentioned by someone but worth repeating: I use a usb tv tuner on my mac mini media center.
Just because YOU would use it as a travel device, doesn't mean everyone else would. Open your mind a little.
Wow, there isn't a lot of love for Microsoft in this thread!
I'm going to go against the grain here. Windows 7 is a great OS and far more pleasurable to use than Windows XP. Sure XP was a great and had a good run but move on people.
Ditto Office 2007/2010 (although tbh I'm not exactly sure what the difference is between the two ;-) ).
Microsoft don't owe you anything (perhaps apart from an apology for IE6). They are a business and they operate for the benefits of the shareholders, not for the whims of some whiny tech-heads.
I think their biggest enemy is actually IT departments buying shiny new laptops and then removing Windows 7 and installing XP.
Rant over. Please feel free to flame.
"At a time when USB 3.0 devices are still rare and specialised, HP reckons an owner of a family computer may want to connect two of them. Gosh, I’m seriously behind the envelope compared with those bleeding-edge home users."
Why would you moan about the inclusion of an (specialised??) industry standard that is fully backwardly compatible with the previous generation?
With that mentality we'd still all be using single core CPU's because multi-threaded programs are "rare".
Some people.....
Don't feel bad about it though, it's a common mistake.
Therefore the sub-heading should read:
"The installation before the installation"
The same applies to invite/invitation. You may invite someone to a meeting, but you always send them an invitation (not an invite).
Journalists these days.... tsk tsk.
I love my 2007 MBP, but I must say there is very little about these new machines that is actually *better*. There is plenty that is different, but really technically better? Particularly in the MBP's which already had discrete graphics. Hmmm. For example on a laptop of this price I would expect an eSATA port and the ability to have more than 4GB RAM. Also 1280x800 is getting a bit long in the tooth isnt it? I would think 1440x900 would be a better res for the MB and 1650x1000ish for the MBP.
And the whole blu-Ray thing? Come on, pathetic excuse or what? The most innovative thing about these new models seems to be the way the case is made. Woot.
The article suggests that hibernation mode uses more electricity than being switched off. This is clearly wrong as a PC in hibernation IS switched off. Perhaps they mean standby mode?
Besides, wouldn't hibernation mode be far more sensible as users wouldn't lose any unsaved work?
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