* Posts by JC_

426 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Mar 2011

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LG: 1mm bezel on your telly, anyone?

JC_

They're Tellies, Not Monitors

Nothing is broadcast in better than 1080p, so going higher is a bit pointless at the moment. Anyway, at the typical viewing distance for a telly, the extra resolution wouldn't be resolvable.

16:9 is the normal aspect ratio for tellies, so you won't be getting 16:10, either.

BT fibre rollout reaches Scotland, Wales

JC_

True, and that sucks, no disagreement. My post was a reply to "Tony Humphreys" who was claiming he'd be a martyr and take 2Mb service over 40Mb service, for the sake of £7. Somehow it ended up as a stand-alone post.

El Reg, for god's sake, sort your reader account-handling out!

JC_
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£18 for 40Mb capped.

£25 for 40Mb uncapped.

Whining on The Register about £7? Priceless.

Apple Thunderbolt Display 27in monitor

JC_

@AnotherNetNarcissist

Half right, but the Dell U2711 is still available, has the same resolution, the same IPS panel and costs £600 on Amazon. It also has a USB hub, so is a docking station, of sorts. That said, the Apple one is clearly prettier and I'm all for the move to making monitors a single-cable hub for a laptop.

Anyone know why DisplayPort monitors with USB hubs don't (in my experience) carry a USB signal on the DisplayPort cable? It's in the spec, right?

Cnet slammed for wrapping Nmap downloads with cruddy toolbar

JC_

Adobe's Flash update page had checkboxes for installing McAfee pre-checked. A bit annoying, but not usually a problem; this time, however, the checkboxes loaded *after* the download button, so I started the download with the crapware included without noticing. Sneaky bastards.

Happy birthday, Apple QuickTime

JC_

Volume Control

Anyone else remember when the volume control on a QuickTime window was a little thumb-dial, just like on transistor radios, and how bloody infuriating it was to use? Hated it ever since...

Lovefilm dumps Flash, BLINDS Linux fans with Silverlight

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Weird that people get their knickers in a twist over a switch from one proprietary plugin to another - what's the difference? At least SL has Moonlight. It's even weirder when someone running Windows insists that they won't install SL - what principles are you putting at risk?!?

Microsoft to offer dual upgrade path for Windows 8

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Fix/Replace Your Hardware

or the driver(s). Something's broken, and it's probably not Windows!

Obama says his birthplace is 'in Asia'

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How far did you go at Harvard, Dave? By the way, Hawaii isn't considered to be on any continent.

NEWSFLASH: Chips cheaper than disks

JC_
FAIL

Using Enterprise Drives...

...to store movies?!? Good grief, how silly can you be? Cost aside, the spinning ones run hot & noisy. Yes, there're 500GB+ SSD drives in shops right now, the M4 costs about £1/GB.

BSA name-and-shame tactic may have backfired

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Freetards are Thick

They don't seem to realise that a lot of software is very industry-specific and if it isn't paid for, noone is going to write it, let alone support or document it.

JC_

Nope, not specious. If a user can't do something they need to efficiently (or at all) with the open-source application, then what's the drama about paying for the closed-source application?

Few people would argue that GIMP* is as good as Photoshop; even fewer would claim that there are open-source equivalents of the thousands of LoB applications out there.

I love the fact that Linux exists and use it everyday, but one would have to be a zealot to insist that open-source is always the solution.

JC_

Not Defending the BSA

But switching to open-source is hardly the solution, unless you think GIMP really is the equivalent of Photoshop. Some software just has to be paid for, or else it won't be written or supported.

Disk prices double after flood - and could 'double again'

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Are HDDs with less than 128GB even made these days? None the less, I agree; if the cheapest 2.5" HDD has doubled in price, then something like the Kingston V100 (£100) is a far better choice.

iPad 2 made from T-Rex fossils costs £5m

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I'm No Geologist...

...but 75 million years old is hardly the oldest stone on the planet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_rock#Oldest_terrestrial_material

Daft idea, fools & their money and all that.

It's time to end the Windows Wait

JC_
FAIL

The 2 year old SSD kicks off my Dell desktop instantly, but reading this article you'd think that only Apple-users have access to such futuristic technology... And since when did HDDs become volatile? The data's still there after a power-cycle. Baaaad article.

A rapid first hands-on: Nokia’s Windows phones

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Automatic Downvote

for using "M$".

JC_

Free, worldwide offline sat nav doesn't differentiate the Nokia phones at all? What else do you want? A free blowjob & a ride on a unicorn?

Virgin Media touts high-speed signups and TiVO

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Virgin's Great, When They Work...

When our 10Mb line worked, it worked at 10Mb every time. Of course, it doesn't work all that often - we've had multi-day outages due to 'rain' and at least 20 outages in the past month. The workmen that installed it didn't even label the cables at the boxes, so when Virgin finally agreed to send someone out to look at it, they didn't know where to start. This is in Shoreditch, which is supposed to be Silicon-Something-or-Other.

Back to BT ADSL for us; despite the horror-stories, they can't be worse than the prats at Virgin.

Dell Vostro V131 13.3in Core i5 notebook

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Two screws to remove the panel on the bottom. Another couple to free the HDD tray. Disconnect the cable and swap. Done it twice. Piece of piss.

IRS audits Google for funneling profits to Ireland

JC_
FAIL

@simple

I believe it's called "race to the bottom".

Starbucks extends gratis Wi-Fi to UK

JC_
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Presumably the user that voted you down has never been in an airport abroad, desperately needing to get online, and been hit with horrific charges to do so. There's always one idiot out there...

JC_
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If there's no login requirement then there's not much to stop any old punter using it. Fair enough, you might think, but they're businesses, not charities.

JC_
Joke

You go to Starbucks for the coffee?!?

Future Firefox to slurp updates silently

JC_

That's gonna happen...

Yeah right. When you're in a country with $15 / MB data charges, there's no way your even letting your phone synchronise without keeping an eye on it, let alone your tethered laptop.

JC_

"Sure, it breaks standards a little" - yes, well, MS could have said that about their Java implementation and IE up until recently!

JC_

Isn't Google punching a hole through security already? AppData is not the intended location for application executables.

Firefox devs mull dumping Java to stop BEAST attacks

JC_
WTF?

"Not on planet Earth, where there's plenty of companies (including some I do work for) that ban IE and using it to access the web can get you a written warning."

Really? That's just bizarre, since Firefox doesn't play well with AD & group policy. Surely it's better for users to have up-to-date IE than any old version of Firefox?

If it's such a big issue to prevent use of IE, then the written warnings should go to the network administrator for being too incompetent to stop it...

JC_
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NoScript + typical user = broken internet.

Yeye, I use NoScript, too, but most people can't be arsed to put up with Javascript not working by default.

Java, Adobe vulns blamed for Windows malware mayhem

JC_

Auto-update (for security patches, not feature improvements) should be automatic and the user ought to have to explicitly choose to opt-out, accompanied with appropriately scary warnings. i.e. the sensible behaviour should be the default.

The amazing shipping container: How it changed the world

JC_
Trollface

Interesting story, shows that anything can be turned into an anti-EU rant.

Now Windows 8 goes into the ring to face Apple's iOS

JC_
Trollface

Yeah, you can stick with XP and stop whining. You said exactly the same thing about Vista & Windows 7, right?

Windows 8 to boot in 8 seconds

JC_

Read the Article

Yes, the laptop in the demo video has an i7 chip and an SSD. It'll probably be just as fast after six months though, going by the 2 year old SSD in my Win7 desktop, which hasn't slowed down at all.

JC_
FAIL

Read the article. MS have statistics for boot / sleep / hibernate usage and re-booting is still up there.

Amazon to give up the fight in California

JC_

Good One, California

'Outsourcing revenue collection points' in the same way as every bloody bricks & mortar store already has to do it. Amazon come across as chiselling thugs in this case - hope they get costs & penalties assessed against them.

How are we going to search our hard disks now?

JC_

Another Reason to Upgrade

To 7 or Vista. The search in XP did indeed suck, but isn't half-bad in Vista/7.

Microsoft begins cagey Windows 8 disclosures

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Who Cares?

"Expect me to never install this on anything but a VM with wireshark installed for research purposes."

Why do people post things like this? Do you seriously think anyone at MS could give a toss? You're not Steve Jobs and you're not going to move the market by declaring your (quite extreme) preferences...

Stick with (or switch to) Linux as it seems like it would suit you much better.

JC_
WTF?

3 Years is About Right

Win7 was released over 2 years ago, or even longer if you were using the release candidate. Given MS's track-record on compatibility, it's a safe bet that your mice & keyboard will keep working.

"where on about windows 8 already" - have you got a copy you can share?

PS - the shift key is on the left, the spell-checker is in your head.

Google SHOCK! Snaps up Motorola phone biz for $12.5bn

JC_

Elop, Elop, Elop

Only 8 negative reviews to 4 positive - where've all the Android-fanboys gone? ;)

Seriously, how would it look for Nokia if they'd signed up to Android and then this had happened? No doubt the existing Android phone manufacturers are re-evaluating their options - there's not much point in helping your competitor.

JC_

Elop & Nokia

Not such a bad move after all?

Ten... Desktop USB 3.0 HDDs

JC_
FAIL

3TB HDDs are Expensive

3TB drives are priced at a premium and cost more than twice the price of a 2TB drive.

Seagate's flash-disk hybrid crosses the chasm

JC_

Bit Late

The hybrid drives were a good idea, but with SSDs getting ever cheaper I can't quite see them getting popular. A 500GB XT costs more on Amazon than a 96GB Kingston SSD, for instance. 96GB is plenty of storage for the OS, applications and data of most people, with an external (or 2nd drive) used for big movie & music collections.

The performance of the SSD will blow away the hybrid every time, but the extra capacity of the hybrid often be used.

Microsoft preps 13 updates for August Patch Tuesday

JC_

Damn Straight

You're completely right - you deserve a full refund of all that money you spent on IE! Afterward, switch to Firefox, Chrome or Safari - they never need patching.

MPs slam government's 'obscene' IT spend

JC_

@Anonymous Coward

A mid-range workstation costs over a grand and it doesn't take much to go higher. Add in the support contract and software and £3,500 is easy to reach.

As I said, £3,500 would be absurd for an average desktop. But it's obvious that in an organisation as big as the UK government there will some users who require more than the average desktop. Do ya think that maybe £3,500 was cherry-picked to get some headlines?

Dell & HP workstations are actually decent quality, in my experience. YMMV.

JC_

Seems Extreme

£3,500 would be absurd for a typical desktop PC, but what's the bet that this is the most extreme example that could be found? It may well include the cost of the service contract, too. Buy a quality workstation with a 4hr repair time and it won't be cheap.

Microsoft pushes Windows Phone Mango out to Japan

JC_
Trollface

Twat

Twat

JC_
Mushroom

@SteveBalmer, Troll

He's either suffering from an extreme case of confirmation bias, or is simply a repetitive troll. Certainly it's impossible to reason with someone like that.

Nokia reaps the Dilbert years

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@SteveBalmer, Troll

You do pop up whenever you get a chance to slag off MS, eh?

Anyway, Nokia had dreadful problems before and no effective plan for turning the ship around. Without MS they would still be in the same position they are now - haemorrhaging cash with products no one wants to buy - but now they've at least got a plan and are implementing it.

We'll see if it works. WP7 is pretty good and Nokia can make good hardware, so maybe it will.

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