Posts by JB

Internet abuzz with BitTorrent bypass code

All this fuss and bother...

...so people can share Linux distributions.

Free anti-virus scanner hits the cloud

Happy camper

I'm pretty happy with Antivir. Switched from AVG last summer - was getting sick of having to wait about 5 minutes for AVGRSX.EXE to stop grinding my hard disk to pieces at startup.

I'm a bit behind the times, though - does the cloud-based detection free up system resources?

Big Phone to US: 'Give us spectrum. Then shut up'

Rubbish!

These idiots are just talking up potential investment. Anybody outside the circle knows that the US is so backward when it comes to mobile broadband: crappy phones, expensive data plans, even voice plans are archaic (what other developed country still charges you to receive calls?)

When AT&T and others get less greedy and give us a more European model (yeah, right!) they may well pile on users!

Nikon D3s

Pro DSLR

The high-ISO sample shots might not have been all that impressive technically (it's hard to get correct white balance under street lighting), but when you consider you can do nightime shots like this hand-held, that is impressive.

I would love to play with one of these professional-level cameras, but even if i had the money, i don't think I'd bother buying one - it's overkill. DSLRs are a pain, I find I take loads more pics when I take my old Canon A620 with hacked firmware, and I suppose actually pushing the shutter button and taking the pics is the most important thing, whatever camera you have.

Intel's redemos six-core Gulftown

"Grandad...

...tell me about the days when processors only had one core!"

BBC to cull radio stations, halve websites in painful biz review

Growing old

To all those who are giving up on Radio 1, isn't it just natural that you're going to grow out of it? I used to listen to it all the time until the early 90s, then it just didn't appeal any more (except Mark & Lard).

At one time there seemed to be a ready-made progression of BBC radio: Radio 1 > Radio 2 and then you could add in Radio 4 or, if you were really cosmopolitan, Radio 3. But now that Radios 1 and 2 are just commercial-free clones playing bland rubbish, there just isn't anywhere to go.

Personally I find 6 music rather boring, but just because I don't happen to like it, doesn't mean it's crap.

Somebody needs to take some REAL radical (ie commercially suicidal) ideas to liven up radio, otherwise it's just going to die the death, if it hasn't already.

@AC: "And Shadow Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt is so far up the backside of the big media owners he can see what they had for breakfast." - that is genuinely funny, I've made a note of that!

Fanboi Opera lovers get 10.5 beta

Ad blocking

Opera is great, I run it alongside Firefox (my missus won't use anything other than FF for some reason). Only with there was an equivalent of AdBlock+ with opera, then it would be near perfect! Can't wait to try out the 10.5 beta.

Windows 7 'genuine' nagware winging its way to OS

One way to stop all this rubbish...

...make the damn software cheaper...$200 for this is a bloody rip-off. XP is beginning to look creaky, I'd update to Win 7 tomorrow if it was half the price. If it weren't for the risks of getting a warez version of Win 7 I'd get it. Oh well, it's going to be XP until I can save up for 7!

iPad forces operators to shave their SIMs

Different standard....

...like that bloody annoying little blob of plastic on Apple USB connectors tat stops you using it on everything else. I suppose if you're rich enough to afford this rubbish, you're rich enough to buy bespoke USB leads and tiddly SIM cards. I dunno.

NASA Titan moon-balloons to run on cloud fuel

Patio gas?

"Hot-"air" droid gasbag probes for patio-gas iceworld"

I chuckled at this one. Haha, one of the best so far this year!

Sony confirms 3D TV channel plans

Not everyone...

...can take advantage of this 3D technology. I have a very pronounced squint, and so cannot percieve 3D nearly as well as those with normal sight. At the moment 2D Tv is watchable by anyone, even spazmos like me with less-than-average eyesight.

I worry that at some point in the future 2D will be like black-and-white, sidelined and ultimately dropped. Perhaps I'm just worrying too much.

Let's have a good run with HD, large flat panels etc before all this ridiculous 3D rubbish.

The Prisoner set for Sunday release

V for Prisoner

I doubt whether this will be any good. Just look at the remake of V running on ABC at the moment; pretty insipid, thinly veiled terrorist plots, etc. If The Prisoner isn't as disappointing as this, I'm a monkey's uncle.

Toyota Prius fourth-generation e-car

MPG in European cars

It amazes me that here in the States 30mpg is considered 'fuel efficient' when in Europe you routinely have cars that can do 40+mpg. Just imagine the money they could save here with a combination of cheap American petrol and European MPG levels! These Yanks haven't got a clue.

Top prices, old shows - the Beeb's iPlayer goes global

Ex-pat licence fee

I and lots of other British ex-pats would pay an annual fee or monthly subscription to be able to access the normal UK Iplayer, including the radio channels in their full quality. It would be better than paying for a VPN, and you wouldn't have to have the torrents going all the time (cough).

Just a thought.

Ammo rationing at Wal-Mart as panic buying sweeps US

Shots fired?

Nine billion rounds sold? I can't imagine 9 billions shots have been fired in a year in the US, let alone by civilians. Must be those right-wingers in the south. I'm a British ex-pat, and in the part of Northern California where I live I know nobody who owns a gun or wants to. Probably the same in most urban areas in California, except for the gang members and the minority of nervous householders. Probably a different story out in the countryside, though.

But honestly, why do you need a gun? If you come up against somebody with a gun who wants to rob you, having a gun isn't going to help you, it would probably make things worse.

If I encounter an intruder, I think I'll stick with one of my late father's shove-ha'penny trophies with the nice heavy marble base, that'll teach 'em!

Apple iPod Nano 5G

@teecee

Funniest thing I've read all day! Nice one!

Facebook acquires 300 millionth user

Stanches?

Shome mishtake shurely...staunches!

Tomorrow's World comes back to the future

Not in your area...again

Damn! All this wonderful stuff and I don't get to see it. Like this stuff's potentially commercially very lucrative or something! Looks like I'll have to shell out for a VPN in lieu of a TV licence!

Dell Latitude 2100

I rather like it

Just to be different. I like angular stuff, why does everything have to be curved these days? I like the rubberised coating, no creasy fingerprints all over a shiny surface. Yes, the spec is pretty mediocre, but if all you're going to use it for is surf the web and a bit of office now and again, who needs super-dooper processing power? If I had some spare cash (damn economy!) I'd snap one up tomorrow.

US broadband speeds 15 years behind South Korea

Total fail

When I came to California to live 2 years ago I left a 20 Mbps provider and now enjoy a 'blistering' (AT&T's word, not mine) 1.5Mbps connection and pay about the same for it. It's amazing just how much you miss the faster speeds, and how frustrating the slower ones are. Advantages are that you do get the full speed 24/7, and the full speed using newsgroups, but that's about it.

Come on, surely the most technology dependent country in the world can do better than this? Why are sods like Comcast dragging their feet?

Windows 7: Microsoft's three missed opportunities

Price, dammit!

You mention us XP diehards. I'd love to have Windows 7 on my machine, but the price is prohibitive, what with our household being on a very low income and tight budget. Surely they know that this is going to be on the vast majority of desktops, millions of them, so why not sell it as a loss-leader? It looks like we'll be sticking with XP at least until someone gives me and my missus a job!

Apple loses students to netbooks and Windows

What?

spokesfolks?? Is this another El Regism?

Man blames cat for child porn downloads

You couldn't make it up....

...though it certainly sounds like he did!

German cops cuff Brit potato iPod scammer

Title

Kartoffel durch Technik, as they say in Germany!

The old bait 'n' switch rides again!

Projector-phones due by Christmas?

The bus to work

First we had crap music through tinny speakers, now here's something else the effin schoolkids can piss us all off with on the bus to work. I say make these projector phones age-restricted, that'll teach the effers!

CGI Thunderbirds sadly not go

Too late

I admire Gerry Anderson for his staying power, but sure TV has moved on. ITV are a shell that just show dumbed down news or cheap reality shows between the adverts. I get the feeling Gerry still thinks ITV is what it was 15 or 20 years ago. Doesn't he realise they dropeed kids programmes years ago? And unless it's got Ant n Dec in ti, he won't get that early Saturday evening slot. Come to think of it, I'd like to see Ant n Dec stuck forever inside a communications satelite!

Sorry, Gerry, while I'm with you, I think you're flogging a dead horse.

Atlantis hitches a ride to Florida

A fine sight

That really is a pretty impressive sight. But is it just me or does the aeroplane look better than the shuttle? The space-plane looks so boxy and ugly, you'd think it was built by GM!

Sky shoots Swan Lake in 3D

Oh well

May be a good idea, but for someone like me who has vision problems and who has a permanent squint, meaning my pupils aren't lined up exactly, no 3D technology will ever work. I remember having a go at those green/red glasses, just looked like green/red to me. Also those "magic eye" pictures were totally wasted, just looked like NTSC signal on a PAL TV!

I won't believe it until it's the sort of cube screen we were promised in the 70s, where you could walk around it like it was a glass case. Now THAT would be 3D!

British court backs eBay piracy stance

Sometimes good

Look, if you see a Rolex being sold at a considerable discount, alarm bells should be ringing. I believe 110% in the saying "if it looks too good to be true..." etc.

Personally I lower my sights when it comes to buying on Ebay. It's great for generic stuff, like the USB2 IDE hard drive enclosure I bought for $12 recently, but anything branded, give it a wide berth!

Ebay isn't what it used to be anyway. The days of it being a sort of small-ads on speed are gone, it's just a cheap way to e-tail now.

(where's that sideways thumb icon??)

New Kindle: Wider, but still no broadsheet

Hmmm

Very nice. Don't think the price will do it any favours, though.

I am a bit of a luddite, you don't need batteries to read a paper book. But being partially-sighted, the idea of being able to enlarge the print is great - reading those old Ulverscroft large print books we had at school, it was like being shouted at.

I think I'll wait till the price crashes, and we get a good open-source book format.

PS: we have a thumbs-up and a thumbs-down icon, how about a thumbs-sideways for situation like this?

Ofcom slaps Bristol radio for uncoolness

Local radio, what local radio?

Like the man said, Ofcom need to conventrate more on this radio land-grab by the big media groups rather than whining about music.

It's such a shame that true local radio is virtually dead. The cycle was always the same:

Happen on new local station, with local presenters, good mix of music, that tinge of entertaining amateurishness. Then you tune in one day and there's some looped recording promising big changes on the way. And then the new station hits the air, it's borged and blandified overnight. You tune to the next-door station, get into that, same alien takeover happens. It's even more galling when you can tune between the two adjacent stations, they're playing the same bland tune at exactly the same time, only the adverts are different.

I'm originally from the so-called West Country, and grew up with stations like Severn Sound, Radio Wyvern, the original 80s GWR, DevonAir, all swallowed up by the media companies, all totally unlistenable. I now live in California, and the stations in my town are even more appalling than the UK commercial stations. The only difference is some are actually broadcast from my town, not fed down the line from a central studio to 57 other stations, masquerading as local.

When in the UK, I would tune in to the temporary special event radio stations, and even though I wasn't really into the music being played, I found the local presentation relly fresh and I'd keep listening. Let's have more of these.

Fusion-io ups SSD ante

Mighty oaks...

Come on, it's early days. I remember back in the late 80s when the PCs at our college had hard discs installed, and hefty 20Mb drives at that! Perhaps it won't be all that long before the hard drives of today look as dated as punched paper tape and magnetic drums.

Bletchley's Colossus makes beautiful music

Re: Ah Halogen Days

Don't you mean:

10 PRINT "Fuck off!"

20 GOTO 10

RUN out of Dixons

I remember back in the day seeing a couple of bad kids do that on a C64 in WHSmith, and laughing at the puny efforts of the clueless shop assistants trying to stop it. In the end they just switched off the Trinitron TV!

I can't imagine kids trying to do that on some laptop in Currys.digital.

Bletchley Park fires up Big Green-Eyed Monster

Retro look

I do like the wood trim and formica of these cabinets. Now if they could bring out a wood-trim Eee PC... :)

Woolies to be resurrected as online-only store

Caching-in

I heard an interview with someone involved in this venture on Radio 4 this morning. The chap was gamely trying to convince us that it will be the same old Woolies only online. Yes, they're cashing in on the name, that's business, but why all the publicity crap about it being the same as the good old Woolworths? I suppose if they didn't bother trying to publicise it in that way, it would reveal the venture to be what it is, just another cookie-cutter e-tailer. I suppose it's Commodore and Littlewoods all over again.

White Space lobby leaps to Europe

One-way traffic

I'd like to see a European lobbying group cross the Atlantic and try and strong-arm the Americans into some money-making scheme, they wouldn't last five minutes. Why is it always one way traffic? And this whole White Space concept sounds pretty dodgy. What sort of applications would it be used for? Seems to me only PMR radios that have a range of about 100 yards would work in these cirumstances, but then I'm not a lobbyist being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to push it.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1 12Mp µ4/3s camera

Not quite there yet

I am quite excited by the concept of Micro Four-Thirds, and would love to get rid of my huge DSLR and monster lens in favour of something as small as this. But I think they need to cut the apron strings and try something more revolutionary. I'll wait till the G2 comes along!

US to postpone analog TV death

Oh no, please...

Does that mean we have another 4 months of those bloody adverts with the woman in the funny pink coat or the 'cool cats' George Jetson wannabe ("Visit dtvanswersdotcom on your computation machine"); the live digital tests where your program is interrupted so you can stare at a screen saying 'digital ready' for a minute; and hearing the dread words "Are you ready for the digital switch?" and "My TV is DTV"? God help us all!

Disabling Windows Autorun - there's a right way and a wrong way

At last!

For years it has just pissed me off when that window keeps popping up whenever I put a DVD in the drive or attach a USB stick. Why didn't someone tell me about this years ago? :)

Opera sings praises of Microsoft-browser statement

Maybe then, but not now

Maybe back in the mid-90s, when relatively few people used the internet, would it have been advantageous to include a browser with the operating system, but they have no excuse now. Personally I think people should have more than one browser on their machine, for example I visited a site today and had to use my three browsers before I could get it to load properly. Either that, or there should be more publicity telling average users that other browsers are available, like on the Radio Times ads.

Virgin Media to dump neutrality and target BitTorrent users

@Steve - Newsgroups

When I was with VM, I had the 20Mb option. When I used Newsgroups the most I could get was 5Mb/s (that was using Windows...using Linux I got the full 20Mb/s!?!). Even if you ran multiple clients, the total was still 5Mb/s. So they're even on to that.

I'm now in the States and have AT&T broadband, it's a mere 1.5Mb/s, but at least it's *always" 1.5Mb/s, any time, whatever I'm doing.

Norwegians spill Opera 10 alpha

Great!

I hope they've added the ability to open a new tab by right-clicking a bookmark entry and selecting from a context menu, and they've had a go at their content/ad blocker. Apart from that, Opera is just great, as far as I'm concerned, and I'll be giving the beta a go when it's available.

Reg readers in Firefox 3 lovefest

Two-timer

I use both firefox and Opera about evenly. The issue with firefox, where scrolling pages with fixed backgrounds is sooooo sloooow annoys me to hell - how come Opera can do it? Opera has annoying features too, eg why can't you right-click in the bookmarks menu and open a bookmark in a new tab/window like in Firefox? Horses for courses, I suppose.

Dell's dinky designer desktop

Small is nice

I like these mini desktops, and if it came with XP I'd have one. How about its performance in hot weather? I had a PC with an AMD64 which gave up after a few weeks of 90+ degree temps here in California, and that was with lots of active cooling. Will this one give up when the temperature rises?

Quirky blank Qwerty keyboard goes on sale

Blank keys

I achieved the same effect by using the same, cheap-arse keyboard for 18 years, the letters just rub off anyway!

Thieves take out Cable & Wireless centre

Scrap Metal

Yes, these idiots will steal anything rather than get a proper job. We recently hired a skip and filled it with household crap. The next morning we woke up to find two blokes clambering about on the skip with about 5 kids hanging around filling up a supermarket trolley with any metal bits they could find. We thought "not doing any harm' and left them to it. Three hours later they were still there. We rang my brothers; you should have seen the chavs' faces when a car pulled up and three huge blokes climbed out! They couldn't get that trolley down the road quick enough. Priceless! Now you see "No Scrap Metal' or "Building Waste Only" signs on all the skips round here. Sorry, a bit off topic, but there you go.

Dualit DAB Lite radio

Ugly

I agree with the comments about DAB radios being rather ugly. I bought a Roberts radio a few years ago and my father tut-tutted, wondering what the hell had happened to radios these days. Say what you like about the Evoke radios, but they're simple and effective. As for stereo, as long as it had a stereo headphone and/or outputs to a stereo amplifier, that would be just fine.

Canon EOS 450D digital SLR

Low-end DSLRs

Something in me says that the manufacturers saw the potential to sell lenses and hastily dropped the 'bridge' cameras (good quality compacts like the G series, but on the G7 or G9) in favour of these affordable DSLRs.

Nice to have these cheaper DSLRs for those who take their photography seriously, but what I object to is the way the manufacturers are trying to sell these things to Mr Average when really all he needs is a good quality compact, which don't exist anymore.

Beeb's online music stations get rewind button

Hands off!

I agree with some of the other posters - hands off the web-based radio iPlayer. I paid my TV licence for years in the UK, now living in California, I listen to Radio 4 every day. I really don't know what I'd do without it.

Asus confirms Lamborghini ZX1 specs

ZX1?

Surely an 8 missing here! Isn't it amazing just how much computing power phones have now. Imagine a phone powered by a ZX-81 computer....hmm