Posts by Scrote

Tick-tock! 40% of PCs start Windows XP malware meltdown countdown

Seems amazing that there are so many companies out there with bespoke software for Windows XP. Does everyone have their own software made for them? Surely quite a few of that 40% of WinXP computers have no bespoke software and will just upgrade before the deadline.

Attention, CIOs: Stop outsourcing or YOU will never retire

I used to work for a company who made a software product. They decided to cut costs by offshoring the development to Poland. That was a disaster in many ways. To fix the problem they moved the offshoring to Vietnam. That also was a disaster. Now they offshore to India. Amazing.

Smartphone users prefer LOVELY apps to fiddly mobe websites

Better use of AJAX on mobile sites would help to make them more like apps in terms of speed/responsiveness. This would mean loading only the parts of the page that a user requests instead of the whole thing every click. It could also mean showing a fancy loading animation until the content is retrieved. Offline (local) storage could also be used to hang on to content (same as amazon's cloud reader downloads books).

Hopefully a few new mobile OSes like Firefox OS, Tizen and Ubuntu, will make companies think they need an improved mobile site rather than 3 more apps. The cost of developing specialised apps for the iPhone, iPad, Android, WP8, Firefox OS, Tizen, Ubuntu and BlackBerry will be enormous compared to a mobile site.

Reg readers brew up the ultimate cuppa

proper tea

Weirdly I just watched Doc Brown's Proper Tea rap before reading this story. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtK_vfp8po8

Microsoft holds off on shooting Windows Live Messenger

MS should have created a new version of the Skype client and dual branded it to help users get used to it. It should have contained a fair chunk of the Messenger chat features as well. As it is they are forcing their users into a downgrade where they lose useful functionality.

It will also be impossible for me to use it for personal use and work use at the same time. I use a work email address for Skype and a personal one for Messenger. I have no interest in merging them. The new Skype client should allow multiple logins at the same time to manage this scenario.

Tizen mobile OS releases v2.0 code

I really hope FireFox OS turns out well and influences all these other platforms. Surely developers are going to get in a right mess developing for iOS, Android, WP8, Blackberry, Bada, Tizen, Ubuntu, Sailfish, etc all at the same time. I know some tools exist to make apps across some of these operating systems in one go but that hardly covers everything. If Mozilla can prove their HTML5 apps idea really works and their APIs become some sort of standard then we might see the end of the app store bollocks and the beginning of something a little bit more open.

Top Firefox OS bloke flames Opera for WebKit surrender

Re: WebKit alone

The web has broken bits because dumb arse developers use non-standard features in public facing sites.

Re: Last nail in the coffin of Opera's irrevelance

The engine itself is not something the average user thinks about. They're more interested in what the favourites or history looks like. If Opera can create a few unique features in their GUI that separate them from the usual bunch then they might do well. It's just a case of marketing it.

Re: bah

I wouldn't say firefox is awful on my pc, but it is noticeably slower than either chrome or internet explorer. This applies to starting up and rendering pages. It doesn't hang for 5 minutes however.

Apple: iOS 6.1 network overload caused by our Exchange SYNC OF DOOM

Re: So it's self correcting?

I'd guess everyone was plugging the bugger in before it ran out then.

Opera joins Google/Apple in-crowd with shift to WebKit and Chromium

Re: But if IE uses chromium/webkit as well then

IE9 and 10 render pages pretty well. Probably on a par with Firefox and Chrome. It's just the old ones that are awful.

A world with one rendering engine is obviously bad. There would be no competition and therefore no reason for the browsers to continue to evolve/improve. We would basically be back in the land of IE6 and proprietary lock-ins like ActiveX or the newer Webkit touch events, neither of which are W3C standards.

If Microsoft were to give up on Trident, then I would rather they sided with Mozilla to keep competition alive.

'Dated and cheesy' Aero ripped from Windows 8

bored of the old

i'm looking forward to the new interface. aero's getting boring after all these years.

Snake slides back onto Nokia smartphones

Not bad

Just tried it. It's not bad. You have to press the number keys on the picture of the old phone to make the snake turn.

In response to Rameses Niblick the Third, I don't think MS has anything to do with its pricing, it's published by dsd 164 B.V.. Whoever that is. And there is a free trial anyway.

Nokia exec: Young fashonistas 'fed up' with iPhone

a marketing problem

If only WP7 was marketed properly. The adverts for it are almost all shocking piles of crap, "it all starts with a windows 7 pc" doesn't make anyone want to buy it. The worst thing is that it isn't even true, there's some bit of software for a Mac that you can use instead of Zune on Windows.

One of the comments above states that WP7 doesn't have multi-tasking or the ability to put contact addresses on a map. Other comments say they won't touch it because of WinMo6.5. It's all just because the marketting is useless, of course it has multi-tasking and the ability to stick a contact's address on a map. The WinMo6.5 was crap argument doesn't work because they chucked the whole thing in the bin and started again.

In my opinion we should all be having a go at Microsoft about the awful marketing. The actual product itself is pretty good.

Apple shouldn't bother with TV...

All I want is to control my tv with my phone. It'd be a million times better to look at the guide on the phone while the programme you're watching carries on going on the big screen...

Nokia market share to fall below Samsung, Apple

sad times

I hope Nokia recover from all this crap in the news. All because they've decided to switch from a dodgy old OS to a shiny new one. Might have helped if they had a new product out though...