Posts by phlashbios

Surface sales 'modest' so far, Ballmer modestly admits

Because it's missing features...

It needs to be better than everything else, if it is to muscle its way into the market, and missing features like GPS and an sd-card slot are just stupid design choices. Especially when the product is not even competitively priced against its rivals.

Hard to understand the thinking, unless they are hoping that the possibility of running Windows 8 across tablet/PC/Laptop/phone is going to be enough to swing it for punters to buy their tablets.

If they want to make inroads, it needs to have all the hardware features its rivals have, and be cheaper too.

iPhone 5 has 'laser keyboard, holographic images'

Oxymoron ?

Fox and news. Surely the very definition of an oxymoron.

Everything Everywhere bags 4G monopoly in UK - for now

Re: VodaFail

Re: "Try as I might, I'm finding it really fucking hard to have any sympathy whatsoever towards Three"...

They do have a shockingly poor customer service department. That said, their tarriffs that include "unlimited all-you-can-eat data" , do actually mean what they say, and are genuinely unlimited, and all at a price that matches other operators "unlimited but what we actually mean is 500Mb" plans. I have an HTC One X on one of Three's unlimited data plans and it works a treat for streaming music and TV without having to worry about nasty bills or data caps.

Daily Mail group in screeching U-turn on parody tweet persecution

Re: Good news

@jonathanb

No, you are incorrect. You absolutely SHOULD be able to say that "Durgledoggy is a convicted paedophile..."

Having said it of course, you should then expect the force of the law to be applied for libel or slander, if it isn't true.

There is either freedom of speech or there isn't. You can't have partial freedom of speech.

Microsoft tightens grip on OEM Windows 8 licensing

Re: Will not be buying win 8..

No it doesn't.

In the circumstance you describe, you might have to phone MS and get a new licence key or BIOS code or whatever.

Re: So...

Depending on how much hardware you change in a current installation of Windows, you may need to get a new key from MS. I would suggest that this situation will continue with the new methodology they describe too.

I have had to get a new key from MS before now, when re-building a PC with different hardware. The worst that I can say about the experience is that it was inconvenient as opposed to a show stopper.

It's worth noting that OEM versions of Windows are only licenced for the hardware they were sold with. If you want to build a new PC and re-use the licence, then you can't. You need a retail copy of Windows to be able to transfer the licence to a new PC.

Re: Well you are overlooking something

What do you mean "most people don't want Windows..." ?

And where you get the idea that "a large percentage of OEM installs get wiped before even booting once" is just bizarre, and is a fiction derived in your own mind.

I think you will find that most people DO want Windows, and don't want anything else, regardless of how unpalateable you may find that fact. Also it will be a tiny percentage that will wipe an OEM install, not a large percentage.

I am not sure how you have arrived at your views of what people buy and then what they do with their installations of Windows, but your views are patently at odds with the amount of Windows PC's at use in the office and at home. You would like reality and the facts to match the way you think it is, but they clearly do not.

Jobless yoofs! Get on your bike, er, mobe, and look for work

Re: there aren't enough jobs.

@AC, re: your 26 year old, unemployed daughter.

I am not sure what sort of luxurious lifestyle your daughter is managing to create on her £70 a week benefit for a single person, but if it's that good, maybe she could write a book about it and let everyone else in on the secret.

I am in full-time, well paid employment, but I have friends who are not, and they can just about manage to feed themselves adequately on their £10 a day dole money. Bear in mind that the £10 a day has to pay for heating and electricity, as well as food.

Re: there aren't enough jobs.

Those are temporary jobs, and even of they were permanent, that's not the issue. It was G4S failing to get enough people through the clearance and training process in time.

This is going to come as a shock to you, but many people who are unemployed, aren't the feckless, welfare scroungers that you think they are.

Again SJRulez, please go back to reading your Daily Mail. Or better still, burn it and read an actual newspaper.

Re: Another waste of money from a council

Only it wasn't "another waste of money from a council", was it SJRulez. It was money that they got from O2. Arguably it is then a waste of O2's money, but certainly not the council's.

Please go back to reading your Daily Mail now.

Devs can't be bothered with Nokia's Windows Phone – report

Who would buy ?

With Windows Phone 8 just round the corner, who in their right mind would be buying a Windows Phone 7 at the moment.

I am not exactly sure why the "market" or Nokia or Microsoft would be expecting good sales of the current Windows Phone devices, because anyone with common sense can see they won't be selling any. Particularly as all the indicators are, that Windows Phone 7 devices are not going to be upgradeable to Windows Phone 8.

Once Windows Phone 8, Windows 8 tablets and Windows 8 for PC's hits the market, there will be a more compelling reason for people to buy Windows Phone devices, for those that want a consistent look and feel across their devices, and I fully expect Windows Phone to push RIM out of the market completely in the next few years and become the third player in the battle with Android and Apple.

Let's talk about the RBS IT cock-up

It's still not fixed...

The press is currently reporting this as if the problem is now fixed. It most certainly isn't.

As an Ulster Bank customer, we were last in the queue to be sorted. At the time I write this, I still cannot see what direct debits have gone out of my account for June (in fact no direct debits at all are showing for the last week in June) and I currently have no idea what has been paid and what hasn't or how much money I really have available, given that I don't actually know what has gone out.

At this point in time, I am due to be paid again on Monday, still having no idea what my financial position is other than a statement from Ulster Bank saying "customers accounts will need some reconciliation over the coming days and weeks".

It is an absolutely ludicrous situation, and beggars belief that RBS group are a month into this problem and have still not resolved it.

Britain: A nation of txt addicts who prefer Twitter to phoning mum

Connected devices...

Amount of connected devices in my house that all are hooked up to the internet and used for social networking or other interactive online activities or media serving:

2 x PC

2 x Laptop

1 x Tablet

2 x Mobile phones

1 x Kindle

1 x Xbox (running XBMC)

1 x Raspberry Pi

1 x Wi-Fi router (running embedded Linux with media streaming)

Amount of people using these devices in my house ? Just me :-)

iPhone 5 poised to trounce Android, devastate BlackBerry?

Statistics...

A statistically insignificant sample size, with no indications that they tried to select a proportionally cross representative sample of people.

I stopped reading after the "400 people were asked...".

This article isn't newsworthy in any way, shape or form. El Reg should have binned it.

Microsoft: Don't overclock Windows 8 unless you like our new BSOD

Someone better tell Intel...

Intel currently (and have for some time) sell CPU's with and without a 'K' suffix on them. The 'K' suffix denotes a CPU that is not multiplier locked.For example a Core i5 Ivybridge 3770K 3.5Ghz is an unlocked CPU where as Core i5 Ivybridge 3450 is locked. They deliberately market the 'K' series processors at the overclocking market, and you can reasonably expect the example 3770K CPU I have mentioned here, to overclock to 4.7Ghz in a system that is built to do so (specialist CPU cooler, good quality motherboard and other components)

Intel clearly wouldn't market overclockable CPU's if a) there wasn't a market for them and b) they collapsed in a heap when you tried to overclock them. I am not sure what the point of the authors article is, but I have been happily running my old 2.4Ghz E6600 at 3.4Ghz for the last 4 years with no issues whatsoever, having ensured I provided it with an appropriate cooler and good quality system components to compliment it.

You can get BSOD's on standard PC's with no problem at all if the components are poor quality, but there is no reason to expect overclocked PC's to be any less stable if quality components are used. Just ask Chillblast, Overclockers, Cyberpower, Yoyotech, PCspecialist, Palicomp, Scan, Wired2Fire and all the other specialist PC companies like them that build PC's to order and overclock them.

Chrome hits iPhone and iPad, storms to top of download chart

Re: I'll get it.

"If you're not paying for it, you're not the customer. You're the product being sold"

Is that so ? Someone better tell the Linux community that then, cos the last I checked, Linux did not require payment. It doesn't always equate that because you are not paying for something, that you then become the product being sold.

Google Nexus 7 price, details confirmed in pre-I/O leak

Nexus 7 ?

They need to get Harrison Ford and/or Rutger Hauer to do the advertisements for it :-)

Microsoft details latest Windows Phone update

And yet...

Still it can't play Flash or deliver content via HLS. They might not consider that significant, but many consumers do.

Sony slams Nintendo Wii U functionality

Re: Yeah yeah

Exactly, it's just Sony saying "boo hoo hoo, Nintendo beat us to market with something innovative and interesting again and now we are going to have to play catch-up like we had to with the PS3".

It's pathetic, it really is. Sony made such a success of the PS3 that Ken Kutaragi (the Chairman and CEO of Sony's games console division) had to step down in 2007, followed in 2008 by Phil Harrison (Sony's global head of game development.

Nice try by Sony to spoil Nintendo's market, but Nintendo are here this year with the new hardware and Sony's isn't due till next year, by which time Nintendo will have had a years lead and will again show Sony how its done.

Can't watch Flash vids in Firefox? It's not just you

Re: My workaround

Chrome for me too. With Adblock Plus and the Google Analytics Opt-Out plugins, it is a fine and fast experience.

Windows Metro Maoist cadres reach desktop, pound it flat

Re: They have to gut it

No they don't.

The version that is destined to run on ARM based tablets is Windows RT. Different version of Windows 8 than the Desktop version.

HTC locked out of Windows 8 tablet party

Re: HTC customized home screen

HTC's Sense UI on Android is a delight to us, and I can't offhand think of another manufacturer who offers a better Android interface experience than HTC. And, as other commentators have said, one of the joys of Android is that you can make it look how you want. Don't like the homescreen ? then change it for something that appeals to you.

O2, Be Broadband axe Pirate Bay access

Sod them...

Up until recently, despite being a regular Torrent user, my preferred tracker site was never The Pirate Bay. However, since these ridiculous bans came into place, I am now making a point of using TPB (via the ToR network) instead of my previous preferred tracker indexing site.

Congratulations to the people who brought this issue to court, you have now added a user to TPB who was never one before.

TalkTalk subsidiary's customer data placed on the web in IIS whoopsie

Re: And Windows Server

Boring, tedious, rhetoric once more.

If the thing is configured incorrectly by the person installing it, that is hardly the fault of the software.

It gets exceedingly stale, the constant bashing of anything MS on these forums. It is of course, fantastic that Linux is always perfect and is never misconfigured.

HTC phones held up at US ports after Apple patent ban

Re: Poor HTC

The One X is an elegant weapon for a more civilised age...

I have a One X myself. Yes, it is a large screen, but it is also a thin phone, weighs very little and is an absolute pleasure to use. I use mine for the obvious things like phonecalls and text messages, but also for web browsing, social networking, GPS, e-book reading etc. which are all far more practical on a device with a larger screen. Far from wishing the device was smaller, I just wish my One X had been available two years ago, because compared to my HTC Desire from that time, it is a mammoth leap forwards. The screen itself (one of the new Super LCD2 panels) is also incredible. Way better than any other phone screen I have seen, including all the AMOLED screens.

Nokia loses $1.7bn in Q1, sales chief falls overboard

Featureless phones ?

I have used Windows Phone 7 for a number of weeks and it is a slick, pleasant experience. However, when up against Android and Apple, the hardware and software need to be a compellingly better experience than the competition, and they simply aren't at the moment.

Here's a good example of just one area it falls short. Want to watch BBC iPlayer on a Windows Phone ? Well you can't, because Windows Phone 7 does not have Flash support or HLS, and there is no word from either the BBC or Microsoft about when there will be support and in what form it will take. That is just one example of the issues consumers face.

When you are trying to beat the competition, you are not going to manage it when your products are not as capable as others on the market, no matter how slick your OS may be.

I have just taken delivery of an HTC One X last week, which is where the leading Android experience is at currrently, and it simply does everything you could want and does it very well too. Until Nokia and Microsoft get their heads round the fact that competing in the Smartphone market will require them to offer something better than the competition, rather than targetting the middle to low end of the market, then they are doomed to fail.

Raspberry Pi supplier coughs to ship date delay glitch

Re: This is a frickin' joke

Never engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed man Mr. Hughes. You have fallen into the trap of responding to idiots, and that can only result in you lowering yourself to their level to compete :-)

Re: A level playing field for developers

I believe this is the same James Hughes that has a close tie to the Pi Foundation. If it is the same James Hughes, then his comments here are likely to be factual, as he will be posting from a position of knowledge regarding the current status quo, rather than speculation.

No they didn't. The postage prices were set by Farnell and RS (the distributors) respectively. Nothing to do with the "beards at Raspberry Pi".

And it is untrue about not being able to post critical comments on the Pi website either. The site is in fact full of critical comment, concerning the distributors, the delays, the need for CE marking, the board design, in fact you can find critical comment about every aspect of the Pi on the Pi forums.

Please stop trolling.

Re: A level playing field for developers

I believe the answer to "how can people have ported Linux distributions to the Pi when no hardware is yet available" is that the Linux distribution community understand what the target environment is and are able to emulate it under QEMU for testing distributions.

Re: Perhaps some has noticed that

The irony is appreciated :-)

On a related note, suggesting on the Pi forums that it might be suitable for running W8 on ARM, will first make one subjected to a deluge of vitriolic posts from "rabid, Linux beardy-wierdies", foaming at the mouth with rage that you would dare mention the word Windows, and secondly, some rather more reasoned responses regarding the fact that the particular ARM cpu being used on the Pi is not suitable for running Windows and that the 256Mb of RAM would make it less than an attractive proposition in terms of performance, even if it could be run.

Personally, I think the hacking community being what it is, and I use the word hacking here in its original sense of the word, will find some way of porting Windows 8 to the ARM 6 instruction set and getting it working, just because of the challenge. One has only to look at somewhere like the XDA Developers forums to see what is possible by the right minds turning their efforts towards a common goal.

One thing I do know, is that the little Pi, causes a nerdgasm in all of us that grew up coding in the 80's and I am very much looking forward to receiving mine in due course.

HTC slaps Ice Cream Sandwich on 16 handsets

Re: Not for Desire after all.

There are some excellent Gingerbread ROM's for the Desire while we are waiting for a fully functional ICS port from the XDA developers.

My personal favourite is MIUI (runs on Gingerbread Android 2.3.7) It's as smooth as silk, very stable and a vast improvement over the Froyo ROM's.

Fifteen minutes of your time will see the Desire rooted and ready to flash using the automated tools available. The standard Desire is quite probably the simplest of all of HTC's phones to root and flash with something new and interesting.

UK will share passenger data with US in Euro deal

No change

Does anyone seriously believe that this data isn't already exchanged ? Do people honestly believe that the security services have not been analysing and exchanging passenger data since at least the cold war ?

All this is doing, is formalising what will have been going on behind closed doors for years.

Tomorrow's smartphone tech today

Re: Some bug fixes would be nice...

As with all bugs, this particular bug will have a priority associated with it to be fixed. I would suggest that as this particular bug you have chosen, has been waiting for a fix for some time now, it doesn't affect a sufficient number of people to have made it a pressing enough matter to reach the top of the bug fix pile.

Shiny and new also sells way better than old and dull. Even with bugs in :-)

Ask Apple. They are experts at shiny and new ;-P

Re: Re: Something missing

If you have a modicum of technical ability, the HTC Desire is easily unlocked to be able to installl any one of a variety of different variations of Android, with a similar variety of different user interfaces. The XDA developer community are prolific in their endeavours with a whole raft of different HTC phones (and indeed other brands.

Me personally, I am running a variant of MIUI on an Android 2.3.7 base, and battery life is two days with phonecalls, fairly extensive web use and texting.

In short, things have moved on some since the 2.1 and 2.2 versions of Android that you find on HTC Desire's. HTC even offer an update to Gingerbread (Android 2.3) themselves if you hunt a little for it.

Hell, at the moment there XDA Developed even have a beta of Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) running on the Desire, which while it doesn't have every bell and whistle working atm, is still perfectly functional for most peoples needs.

Get playing with your phone, it can do more than you think if you take the reins off it :-)

Spacemen urge NASA to build nuke ship for Mars trip

Arnie....

As the great man said...

Get your ass to Marzzz !

Printed-out dissolving bones, teeth work well in rats

We have the technology....

Coming to a TV screen near you shortly.... Steve Austin the documentary :-)

Jarmageddon: Marmite spill sparks biohazard threat

Or the other measurement...

I believe the other standard unit is "covered an area the size of Wales"

Is it just me or....

Do we really have a story here about people being stuck on the "marmite motorway". I know it's a euphemism, but still ;-)

'Apple's iPhone 4S ate our SIM cards'

Statistics

@ AC who said " Unfortunately a few people can make a lot of noise when 99.99% of people probably have no problems."

Did you know that 84% of statistics are 74.3% made up ?

Statistics

@ AC who said " Unfortunately a few people can make a lot of noise when 99.99% of people probably have no problems."

Did you know that 84% of statistics are 74.3% made up ?

Chinese boffin uses panda poo for world's priciest cuppa

Blizzard will rake it in...

With Blizzards upcoming expansion to World Of Warcraft,entitled "Mists Of Pandaria" and featuring Kung-Fu Panda's as the main part of the expansion, does this mean a corresponding increase in the price of virtual panda shite as well ?

Activision, those, cunning, cunning owners of Blizzard, must surely see this lucrative opportunity to glean yet more wonga from their 12 million subscribers.

Harry Potter director takes on Doctor Who movie

Please god,no !

I am a big fan of the fantasy genre and read many books and play a variety of videogames all set in fantasy environments. However, I have been subjected to all the Harry Potter movies, and every single one of them as been a pile of unmitigated, steaming sh....ermmm... dung.

I am therefore, not greatly encouraged by the director of those movies, directing the new Dr.Who film.

I have been a fan of Dr.Who since childhood, and I am still a fan to this day, despite the best efforts of Russell T Davies to turn it into a camp farce during his tenure, it really doesn't need the director of the Harry Potter movies turning out a Dr.Who movie that is as big a damp squib as those movies were.

Get Ridley Scott to direct the new movie. Then we will see some interesting direction :-)

Facebook boss-lady is up the pole on the glass ceiling

It's painful....

The day that your job becomes more important than your family, is the day that you want to re-evaluate your life and get your priorities straight.

Remember folks, a family is for life, not just till the next pay cheque.

Google report reveals YouTube takedown requests... by country

Ermmm...is it just me or ?

I do not want any content being taken down unless it is as a result of a court order, i.e. it is content that is contrary to current law.

Otherwise, we have a situation where arbitrary and subjective censorship is taking place outside the rule of law.

0.5mm² ARM chip offers 5X energy efficiency, jacks up performance

Great for non-MS users ?

@Tom 7

Until Windows 8 is released for ARM next year you mean ? ;-)

Apple versus Samsung: key points in the ruling

Short sighted.....

@ AC who said "Samsung should stop supplying chips, IP or anything else to Apple. See how they like that"...

Yes, of course they should do that and lose the billions of $ revenues from those sales to Apple. It's the obvious answer. Apple clearly wouldn't go elsewhere for those items.

<sheesh>

BlackBerry services splutter back into action, again

Blah, blah, blah....

"Core switch failure and a failed backup" says RIM...

What they actually mean is that they have failed to incorporate adequate resiliency in their infrastructure, and they have similarly failed to carry out appropriate disaster recovery testing that would have identified such issues.

Apple snubs Samsung's Oz patent peace offering

No fan of Apple's behaviour, but.....

Yes, it punishes the the consumer when products aren't available and yes, it even perhaps stifles innovation while everyone tries to ensure that todays R&D that they are carrying out for tomorrows products, doesn't infringe a patent somewhere.

There are two issues here. One of them is the granting of patents that cover vast traunches of similar technologies, such as how a capacitive touch screen will respond, and the second is the legitimate defence of patent rights.

In my opinion, it is the granting of patents that needs looking at, so that broad patent definitions do not cover a particular technology that is in wide use (such as how touchscreens are used) and are limited to something more specific and less generic.

I would condone anyones right to defend their patents, but when the patents are too generic and widespread and start to describe how a device could be used, so that other manufacturers cannot make devices that use certain touch gestures, then I would say that the patent reach is too wide and needs to be more focussed.

It is a sadly accepted fact that these days a patent portfolio is a huge and commercially recognised asset for a business and is high on the list of assets looked at by companies involved in takeover bids. Litigation and commercial profit are not in the interests of anyone but the device manufacturers however, there is certainly no benefit for you and I.

TL;DR - Ensure patents are more specific before they are granted rather than broad spread, blanket coverage of technologies.