Posts by JB

Samsung Google Nexus 10 tablet review

Re: No SD slot . .

I totally agree with everyone on this, but nobody seems to grasp that Google want you to store all your stuff on their servers, or download/stream content from the cloud rather than store it locally.

Personally, I just plug it into the computer and load up what i need, and then when i'm done, clear it off and load more. Not perfect, but at least I'm not wasting bandwidth uploading tons of stuff to the cloud.

I have a Nexus 10 and love it. For me, having vanilla Android is more important than an SD slot..already upgraded to 4.2.1.

The best e-readers for Christmas

Tablet reading apps

I have a Kindle 3 and a nexus 10. i tend to use the Kindle for general reading, and any reading on the Nexus is textbooks or illustrated books. A genuine question, though: which apps do you used in android to read ebooks, especially ePubs? the ones I've looked at are pretty ropey, or are linked to online booksellers.

Incidentally, will El Reg be publishing a review of the Nexus 10? I'd be interested in their take on it.

Re: Thumbs up for Nexus 7

Mine's the one with a Nexus 7 in the pocket. :)

Instagram starts filtering out hipster pics on Twitter

Just share the version saved to your photo gallery, then. Simples!

Used to like instagram for the first 5 minutes before you had to trawl through thousands of 'selfies' and advertising pics to see any genuinely creative or thought-provoking pics. The last straw was when i recently posted a pic and instantly got 6 likes, all from 'users' with stuff to sell or promote.

Facebook and instagram - great ideas, but now teetering giants.

P-P-P-Pick up our PENGUIN-POWERED Pi PIPER of Python

Very interesting article, even if i struggled to understand most of it.

I love my Pi and have been enjoying learning new stuff like using ssh, and reacquainting myself with the command line and programming, but get very frustrated at my lack of ability in learning Python. I was a keen hobbyist programmer back in the 80s and 90s, using BASIC, Pascal and some C++, and looking back at some of the surviving scripts I'm amazed at some of the stuff I did. I'm finding that python tutorials are either "print "Hello World!" at the interpreter prompt", or a full-blown in-depth essay where it's assumed you know what stuff like libraries and classes are. I wish there was something for us ex-hobbyist programmers to get us up to date...or they put GOTO into Python! :)

Please keep the articles coming...immersion is one way to learn!

Dish: With these restrictions, FCC, you are totally crippling us

I'm sure you meant gigahertz...at 5Mhz the radio hams would start moaning!

Scammers use fake profiles to target Instagram users

If someone starts following me, and they either have no pics or dodgy profile text, I'll block them and report as spam immediately. Why would anyone in their right mind want to follow someone on a picture-sharing social network who has no pictures to share??

People have been talking about 'peak Apple' lately, I think it's also time for 'peak Instagram'!

Omnishambles beats off mummy-porn, becomes English word of 2012

YOLO

I'm currently in Yolo County, California - gives the name a whole new meaning!

Apple granted patent for ebook page-turning

Turnover...geddit? Oh well!

Seriously, totally agree with you. and those CD-ROMs were rubbish even back in the day. Remember one from 1994 and we remarked that it was too ambitious for the technology at the time.

As you were!

AT&T spaffs another $14bn on 4G cellular and fibre

"AT&T can apparently afford this thanks to growing revenues across its portfolio of connectivity services..."

$15 of that $14billion is from when i went 1.3MB over my measly 300Mb limit after going to 4G. These people really are joking!

Consumer VPN service could be popular as regional paywalls go up

Awful!

Used ExpatShield for about 5 minutes before having to restore Windows to a previous restore point - the software just took over my machine. Went with a paid-for VPN and have had absolutely no problems watching iPlayer and ITV player here in the US. You really do get what you pay for!

Brit 4G live TODAY: At last you can bust your data cap in 5 minutes

4G Data caps

I'm on AT&T 4G LTE in the States and the data cap is a paltry 300Mb a month, and that's up from 200Mb on 3G! And that comes with all of 200 texts and 450 voice minutes, all for the equivalent of about 55 quid a month! I really think you have a better deal in the UK, but not much better!

World+Dog hails 50th birthday of the LED

Re: So that is who is responsible

Totally agree...but that's what blu-tak and aluminium foil are for!

Last remaining reason to order an iPhone 5 disappears

Since when has etc. replaced a full stop at the end of a sentence?

Space shuttle to slip surly bonds of Earth one last time over California

Missed it!

Here in downtown Sacramento, it was supposed to fly over at about 9.30am. We all stood outside waiting, heard a rumble, didn't see anything. Someone got on their phone and told us we'd missed it, so we all trooped back into the office, only to catch a glimpse of the shuttle when we went to close the blinds! damn! Then all the smug bastards at the top of the tall buildings started sending their mobile phone pics to us!

Microsoft sets the price for a Windows 8 upgrade at $40

Tried it...

Did not like it. I'm using it right now, and it really disappoints me. Even the desktop mode is big and finger-friendly, just right for using a mouse and keyboard! Sorry, Microsoft, this is too revolutionary, Apple have the right idea, OS X for the desktop and IOS for the phone and tablets, though I hear that even they are thinking of amalgamating the two.

Real Networks will refund $2m to grumpy punters

RealNetworks???

I always used Real Alternative.

Regulator reckons telly advert caps are just peachy

Agreed, but nothing new

I remember watching (or trying to watch) UK Gold as it was then about 4 or 5 years ago, and just giving up wen the breaks (trailers and ads) went on for longer than the bits of programme before and after. There really is a point where the trailers just become interminable. I accept that commercial TV relies on ads, and I'm happy to put up with a certain amount, but having to sit through trailer after trailer after trailer is just infuriating.

PS: bring back the black bits between the adverts!

Toshiba Regza 32UL863 32in LED TV

LED TVs

Not necessarily a criticism of the review, but I'm fed up with LED edge-lit LCD displays being called "LED TVs". I was in the market for a new TV recently, and all the TVs in the local big box store were lablelled LED when they were clearly LCD panels.

Visa's amazing answer to e-wallet domination: A new logo

Isn't Vme the Spanish-language PBS in the US??

http://www.vmetv.com/english_info/

Can 24/7 porn rescue Google TV?

"Porn parody"

Never!!!

Man builds smartphone dock into arm

Bluetooth headset?

UK CB radio crowd celebrates three decades of legality

Well remember uing CB a great deal in the late 80s. Met a good many friends on it, and got me into radio, building aerials, constructing microphones, etc. Bought a cheap CB out of the paper in about 2001 and had another go, waste of time: just foul-mouthed kids swamping the channels, chatting on channel 19, etc. A real shame, it was nice to have an alternative means of communication.

There should be a nostalgia icon!

'Social' TV app Zeebox goes live

I agree with you most of the way. It isn't just the ads themselves that put me off TV and services like this, but all the guff that happens before and after the ad breaks: trailers, trailers and more trailers. It used to be that you only ever saw traillers between the programmes, not during them. It got to a point that the ad/trailer break lasted about 7 minutes, and I'd almost forgotten what programme I was watching!

Ten... small screen HD TVs

It's just the way things are going. With 40-60 inch screens for the main TV being normal now, a 20-37 inch set is considered 'small'. I'm sure in the 0s, when a 21 inch screen was big, all those ancient 9 inch sets were considered small!

Apple iPhone 4S

Yes, Apple stuff is expensive and, arguably, overpriced. But you have to admit the engineering, build quality, design etc is outstanding

Winning new UK pylon design may never be used

The question is....

...will your kite still get caught up in the wires with this design?

Windows 7 overtakes XP - finally

"...their counts only measure computers that are connected to the internet."

Have you tried using a computer that isn't connected to the internet lately? I recently moved house and had no broadband for a week. I thought I could use the computer to play games or do some word processing for work, but all I got were dialog boxes complaining about needing an internet connection.

Sneak peek: Revamped Opera gets turboboost

Yawn, yawn! Another Opera browser, who cares.....actually, it looks pretty god! Hmm, ight have to give this a go! That's always been my experience with people and opera. I love it, but thenI have all the major browsers installed.

Tokyo trains get lightsabre handrails

Wouldn't last five minutes in the UK

Nuff said.

Local radio stations band together against DAB

Local commercial radio??

When was the last time you heard an actual local commercial radio station, broadcast from your own town by local people? The consolidation that's happened in the last 20 years has just created another national broadcaster with a different name in each market.

Oh, and DAB is poor, I agree. Before I moved out to California, I ad a DAB radio, reception was pretty good but the way the bit rates were being squeezed made it horrible to listen to. Perhaps a system similar to HD Radio in the States, they even have digital radio on medium wave here!

GM OnStar cars will upload all data unless owners opt out

Awful

Just bought a three year old Saturn with OnStar built in. I always thought it was a gimmick to keep you paying a monthly subscription for something you woud hope never to use, but this puts the last piece of the puzzle in place. You'll be telling me XM satelite radios are tracking my music choices next!

Elixir 2

Here we go...

'hooves'!

Great review, though. I have the first version of Elixir, very useful indeed!

HTC knocks out the Beats

That's all we need...

...school kids on the bus to work with one of these!

Ten... digital voice recorders

Wow

How times ave changed! I like to think I'm up with the latest technology (especially reading the Register!) but voice recorders had somehow passed me by. I remember buying a little Sony microcassette dictaphone in about 1993, paid about £70 for it, and thought it was the bollocks at the time. But seeing these little devices makes it look like a wind-up gramophone! Very interesting round-up, shame I dont' really have a use for a voice recorder, really.

Google flight search engine lifts off

Who remembers....

....going into a shop called a travel agent's and asking the chap in the blazer behind the counter to look up flights for you while you browsed the brochures? (un)happy days!

Got a non-iPad tablet? Weirdo

Ipad

I own an Ipad and an Android smartphone. Ipad is great for some things, smart phone for others. It's Amiga/ST all over again!

AMD snags Guinness World Record for clockiest chip

the FX parts "will offer completely unlocked processor clock multipliers for easier PC enthusiast overclocking ... giving overclockers and PC enthusiasts complete customization and flexibility." - or somewhere to warm your feet on a cold winter's evening!

Onkyo TX-NR609 AV network receiver

1985 called...

...they want their stereo back. But hang on, what's all this 'streaming' wee-fee, stuff. :)

Would you be seen dead with a shopping computer?

You choose

I have an ipad and a kindle, and apart from one app on the iPad that cost me 99c, everything on both devices cost me nothing. I like to read on the kindle and browse the web (and draw!) on the iPad. If I decide I want to throw a few quid/bucks apple's or Amazon's way, that's fine, but I do get to choose,a nd both deices are very usable without having to constantly visit the stores.

Groupon backs away from scheduled IPO

Sorta true

My wife bought me a groupon for a local microbrewery. When the brewery went out of business, Groupon refunded the money in full.

Still, I'm not defending them, definitely shaky ground. It makes me think of a dodgy character with a suitcase full of cash, but only the top layer is actually money, the rest is newspaper.

Samsung unveils 20Mp EVIL shooter

Canon

Would love to see Canon make their G series into EVIL cameras. Would bridge the gap nicely. I would like to trade in my bulky but excellent Nikon D80 and 18-200 lens for something like this (but on Samsung), as I don't shoot enough to justify the DSLR bulk. Let's hope this sector does grow.

Tablet wars set for Apple vs Amazon head-to-head

E-ink

For me the biggest selling-point for the Kindle is the e-ink screen. I know the technology isn't quite there yet, but if they could come up with a tablet with e-ink, that would be awesome.

Windows 8 ribbon entangles Microsoft

Look...

...we invented the ribbon, and we're damn well going to implement it, OK!

Osun MushRoom Green Zero USB charger

My eyes!

Damn the Replace Color function in Photoshop!

Acer to announce ultrabook at IFA

Xbox?

Nuff said.

eBay biz millionaires proliferate as high street suffers

Not a journalist, then

If you were, you'd know that you need to a) get the punter to click the link in the first place, and b) make sure they read past the first paragraph or two. This is a textbook example.

Britain's iconic red phonebox turns 75

Ah memories

I remember one round the corner from us in the 70s, I would go round with my older brother and he'd let me put the 2p coins in so he could phone his girlfriend...had to get out of the box when the chat started, though! :)

Many years later, in 1989, I remember walking along the same street and, to my horror, saw a crane lorry parked by the old red phone box, with one of those horrible open silver ones on the bed all wrapped in plastic. I've since moved to the States, and went back to visit recently...there isn't even a phone box there now.

And that smell...yes! There's an 'English' pub here in Sacramento, California with one, and it has that signature smell inside!

Virgin Media flogs off UKTV stake for £339m

Oh noes...

I hope they don't put more programmes in to interrupt the adverts! UK TV has been on the slide since about2001 when they dropped all the slightly obscure, but entertaining stuff for looped repeats of Only Fools and Horses and what was on BBC 1 five minutes ago. They totally lost me when the ad breaks seemed to last longer than the programmes - I just gave up and switched. Somehow this announcement doesn't seem like it will improve the channels, just an excuse to run all the crap from Food Network - I'm sure the UK is totally ready for a Chopped marathon!

Hey dumbo, Facebook isn't sharing telephone numbers

Paste this into your status message:

"I'll fall for anything!"