Posts by Lallabalalla

Your security is just dandy, Apple Pay, but here comes Android

Re: Security chip?

Even a webpage can scan your card for the numbers using the camera - pay the Dartford Crossing toll some time and see for yourself.. So getting the device to do it should be a cinch.

Pan Am Games: Link to our website without permission and we'll sue

Ruin somebody's weekend??

There's a couple of lawyers in Toronto worked a few extra hours and are now ordering themselves another new Mercedes. Trebles all round, I'd say...

We tried using Windows 10 for real work and ... oh, the horror

Great review

If your aim was to convince me that win10 is a complete clusterf*ck and I should stick with 7 for absolutely as long as possible, then you've succeeded, and in spades.

Unions call for strike action over 'unusable' Universal Credit IT

I effing hate this government

That is all

Smart Meter biz case still there, insists tragically optimistic UK govt

A Govt technology scheme in danger of being a costly failure??

Shome mishtake shurely?

Kobo Glo HD vs Amazon Kindle Paperwhite: Which one's best?

I've tried both, and the winner is...

Kindle by a mile.

Out of the 2 Glo's (and a non-glo) I've had, one Glo broke after 13 months and all of them were/are subject to random freezing (very annoying on the train or especially on holiday) requiring a complete reboot and re-acquisition of content. The screens *must* be refreshed every page in bright sunlight or you can see all the text from previous pages still etched on the screen. The software is slow and clunky compared to Kindle, with typing so laggy you'd think it's stopped working leading to triple-letter mayhem as you re-type letters. The book choice is expensive and IME limited (YMMV).

The plethora of controls is a red herring: you set the backlight and font size etc once and leave it alone, no-one is constantly resetting stuff, the idea is to read the book not reformat it.

The kindle responds fast and accurately to input; buying from the store directlly on the device is a breeze; I've done it over free wifi while on the tube, completing a purchase before the train headed back into the tunnel! By comparison the Kobo wouldn't even have got its browser fired up in that time.

TL;DR: I'd climb over any number of free Kobos to get my Kindle back.

Got a GUITAR, daddio? Wanna plug it into iOS or Droid? Try the iRig 2

I've got the older version

It's horrendously noisy and generally sounds awful. Maybe as a musician of some 35 years and programmer for 15 I'm just not smart enough to use it properly, but I can't ever get anything even remotely approaching the quality of their demos. I'm not about to rush to try this one as a result.

The other problem is that using it with a phone is awkward. As mentioned, the balancing act is a pain and you really need little fingers. An iPad is a *much* better bet though.

I'd kind of like to try an iPad on a mic stand then into a proper amp - could be quite gigworthy?!

Why OH WHY did Blighty privatise EVERYTHING?

Re: A world run by money

You mean the current free-market system of food banks?

Samsung caught disabling Windows Update to run its own bloatware

Re: I'd hazard a guess

+1 for "DOS freemem tuning" - I'd forgotten all about that little joy :-)

Google's new free music service is classic Google: Take someone's idea and slap ads on it

All streaming services are for music fashion victims

You know, people who listen to Katy Perry ad nauseum for a week becuase they're the Best Artist Ever until it's Lady GaGa's turn, or Fleet Foxes or who-the-hell-ever for another five minutes.

Not for the likes of us.

We who are actual fans of actual artists and buy their records (CDs, mp3s, whatever) and listen to them over and over for years at a time. I'm still listening to Meddle and Let It Bleed and Magical Mystery Tour.

Re: Eeeeee...

We used to see what was on The Gramophone in our house. It was usually Family Favourites sending out Nelly The Elephant from "BFPO 40 to my darling Ned".

Apple CORED: Boffins reveal password-killer 0-days for iOS and OS X

A car with a serious flaw in its operation...

would be recalled and fixed... sometimes.

Sometimes, in the past the mfr has decided its cheaper to settle the surviving family members' lawsuits than fix the flaw. Or just ignore the issue like with diesels' fuel filters, or VW Touran ABS modules and flywheels falling apart.

Doh! iTunes store goes down AFTER Apple Watch launch

Re: Pig arse-ugly?

1) ANY watch that is encrusted with actual jewels

2) Any watch that is encrusted with fake jewels

3) Pretty much any watch under a hundred quid, with one or two exceptions, IMO

Because you can't polish a turd.

The Apple Watch (NOT iWatch, dunderheads) looks kind of all right I guess, though personally I prefer round. One of the guys at the office has one and the way the display keeps turning on and off while you're moving your arm around is a bit distracting. And he's a bit annoyed that when you look at it, it doesn't always turn itself on. This would piss me off no end.

Screw you, Apple! We're still making phones no one wants – Samsung

Samsung Vs Apple

It's pretty clear from the relative number of thumbs up/thumbs down votes whenever somebody posts a direct comparison between Samsung or Android and Apple or iOS that the ratio of apple owners is around 2:7 or 22%.

Given that the remaining 78% won't all have a Samsung but will have an Android of some description has to tell you something - so does Samsung have + or - 22% of the market?

Re: Samsung Crapware

Well, a question is not a statement of fact. For further clarification of this point, see this: http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-06-07

As far as the actual post: see title of article. If they weren't crap everyone would want one. Simple enough equation even for you?

Re: It's not Apple

Samsung don't "struggle" on service. They *don't bother* on service. Same with their TV sets.

Re: Samsung Crapware

Because even crap-free, they are still crap?

HTC reflects on Champions League iPhone cock-up

Re: Still in business .....

Because nobody ever uses the camera on a smartphone? I use the camera on my phone all the time. I make calls.... almost never.

Déjà vu: Virgin Media jacks up broadband prices

Re: So - lots of whining, but.....

Nobody, then. They're all crap.

So - lots of whining, but.....

as a VM customer with cable.... who SHOULD I be getting broadband from? Not BT, not Plusnet, TalkTalk NEVER .... any suggestions?

Never trust a developer who says 'I can fix this in a few minutes'

Those who can - code

Those who can't - always find a way to bugger everything up.

Hey! Want a FREE TOASTER that makes BITCOIN? What? You DO?

Erm....

Why does it cost extra money in electricity bills if the electricity was going to be used anyway. I don't unplug my fridge - ever. And when the telly or the washing machine is on - it's on. So what have I missed? Maybe these devices use a tiny bit more leccy than otherwise? Or what?

Why recruiters are looking beyond IT's traditional talent pool

Recruiters are only in it for the money

Recruiters will recruit anybody for anything - the wildness of the mismatch is of no concern to them so long as you last long enough for them to get paid.

There are a very few who take great pains to place the right person in the right position because they know the true value of reputation and repeat business. Like excellent IFA's and honest politicians they are few and far between but they do exist.

Ivan 4

"We have the job of writing the specifications ... detailed specifications full operating instructions, photographs and diagrams ... and still the developers ... get it wrong by missing some essential sequence of operation."

That would be some essential sequence that you missed out of the specifications then.

I'm a programmer and I'm sick of being blamed for other people's cockups. If you wanted the red knob turned after the blue valve was shut you should've said so, we're not mind readers.

The Apple Watch: Throbbing strap-on with a knurled knob

Re: maybe on valentine's day?

Ew. End of relationship right there.

Re: "objectively gorgeous"

No it's a tautology.

HTH

Re: That is massive.

It's about the same as a Seiko Divers. I have puny wrists and they fit OK.

Apple Watch RIPPED APART, its GUTS EXPOSED to hungry Vultures

Re: Rolex

Cost Rolex some sales? Don't be silly. Anyone with that kind of disposable income will simply buy both. To add to the collection which will include Patek Phillipe, Omega, Breitling etc etc.

JetBrains releases CLion - new cross-platform IDE for C/C++ users

Re: I like it

That's funny - it takes a full 5 minutes to start up on my Win7 8-core machine. On a good day.

Running the standard Java dev env I find I can't change the code or variable values when stopped at a breakpoint... surely this should be a given these days?

Daniel Radcliffe to feature in GTA biopic flick. Well, it's work at least

But why?

After the HP series Daniel Radcliffe never need work again, he is rich beyond the dreams of Croseus. Therefore I assume he only does the roles he wants to. In which case

a) he must love GTA and/or

b) WTF?

Why doesn't he do some proper indie films with a proper story and proper acting. Oh.....

Steely wonder? It's blind to 4G and needs armour: Samsung Galaxy S6

Re: Meh!

And not as good as an iPhone 6, which with 64Gb memory is actually cheaper, too! Fail!

What a turkey

So tl;dr - it's more expensive than an iPhone 6, the battery only compares well with iPhone 6+, it's outstanding feature is the camera and it's outperformed by the iPhone 6, the reception is even worse than the original "you're holding it wrong" iPhone 4... WTF? Why would I ever buy this thing? Oh because it's got an OS that's open to hackery, trojans, malware and anything else you can put in an app from the largely unregulated Wild West Store.

Really don't think so.

Tick one of the following:

A) I read this article and came to some conclusions

B) Everything made by Apple is Inferior Rubbish for Sheeple

C) Everything made by Samsung is Wonderful Joy

D) Whatever, I just hate Android

E) I love Apple and Samsung are just wannabe's

F) None of the above

Turkey PM bans Twitter, YouTube as 'tools of terrorist propaganda'

I totally agree with this

If youtube and twitter can't abide by their own policies they should be shut down. Allowing themselves to be used to broadcast ransom demands and beheadings, and to be the media outlet of choice by terrorist organisations, they should be ashamed of themselves.

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom to blackmail, kidnap and murder.

HTC One M9 Android smartphone: Like a M8 with a squinty eye

Re: Time to change

What goes on? Trying to bring the price in under the iPhone6 AND out-spec some of its numbers (e.g. the camera).

Apple's portable power podule patent promises paroxysms of fanboi joy

Form already follows functionality - to an extent.

To the extent that my iPhone 6 battery lasts a couple of days - more if I don't check mail/messenger/facebook all the time. And the camera's pretty damn good thanks.

Find My Phone does just one thing but Samsung's messed it up

Chance'd be a fine thing

Both my kids have Samsung handsets and the chances of my finding either of them using Samsung's frankly awful "find my device" webpage/system are about 1,000:1

It's buggy, slow, unreliable and soul-destroying to use, to the point where I give my eldest my old iPhone4 if I'm really going to need to know where he's at, because the Apple version works immediately, quickly, reliably and without fail. Everything the Samsung system is not.

I know the apple-haters and Samsung apologists will be downvoting the actual reality of my personal experience but hey. Haters gonna hate, potaters gonna potate.

Samsung, your "find my device" stuff really really sucks.

Apple - yours doesn't.

Android SDK nonce flaw lets hackers fiddle with your Dropbox privates

sloppy coding in Dropbox's SDK Version 1.5.4 for Android

So, iOS not affected.

Open is better though, right?

Apple Watch: Wait a minute! This puny wrist-puter costs 17 GRAND?!

Re: Bye bye upgradable laptops

It's easily upgradeable. They hold their value so damn well you just flog it and buy a new one every year or so. Cheaper than upgrading components!

Re: Bye bye upgradable laptops

But they are cheap. Cheaper to produce that is. So profit margins are hiked twice over: once, given the high price and again, by saving production costs.

Soldering things straight to the board also increases reliability and makes them thinner and lighter, which apparently is what everybody wants.

I don't have to cart a laptop around anywhere so it's not much of a selling point for me, although having said that I would rather sit around with that thing on my lap than our old Dell!

Apple Watch 'didn't work on HAIRY FANBOIS, was stripped of sensor tech'

You're wearing it wrong

I wear my watch on the inside of my wrist to prevent me constantly banging it on door frames and stuff. I don't know about you but the inside of my wrist is definitely not hairy, and the sensors would work just fine.

Euro ministers ditch plan to ban roaming charges

Corporations own our lawmakers

Why else would voda be let off £4 BEEELION (as elreg would have it) in tax, and be allowed to continue this roaming charge nonsense?

Trolls prevail because good men do nothing: boffins

There's a principle at stake here

It's the same one that says rape victims should not be accused of provocation because of what they were wearing "Don't use the Internet" .... REALLY? "Don't wear a short skirt, or you're just asking for it"

Such BS.

However, I'm not surprised people don't want to get involved. A friend of mine once intervened in a bloke getting pushed around on a tube platform one night. The original victim ran away and *he* ended up getting a good kicking.

Telly behemoths: Does size matter?

What's my size?

There must be a mundane equation to work out the best size TV for a room of a given shape/area. Can't be bothered to work it out, myself.... but as used to be the case with websites of old, you can make them as pretty as you want but if there's no content, there's no lasting traffic.

Probably our age but we struggle to find more than 90 minutes of TV a night, and that's including re-runs of trivial stuff we've missed (9oo10cats does countdown for example). As far as new content? There's very little, we're kind of picky when it comes to movies and we don't follow sport.

The only real reason for bigger and bigger TVs is "because we can". The home cinema for the super-rich must be a diminishing market, since more and more wealth is rapidly being concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people (no citation need, I think)

TalkTalk 'fesses up to MEGA data breach

How did that actually work then?

Not that I want to scam anyone (not even Clarkson), but how, if banks are "secure", is it possible to set up a DD or withdraw money or whatever if all you have is a/c & sortcode.

I am the naivest person ever but I, like Clarkson, assume you could only put money IN with those.

I'm probably also naive if I think anyone is going to explain it to me, tbf, but anyway...

Inside GOV.UK: 'Chaos' and 'nightmare' as trendy Cabinet Office wrecked govt websites

This makes me really angry. Why?

Because it's us that is paying for these Utter Hoxtons to bugger everything up and ruin people's lives. Gaah!

Mozilla's Flash-killer 'Shumway' appears in Firefox nightlies

Re: I thought that HTML5

There is definitely a right way and a wrong way, but after 2.5 years of it I still haven't got it all down perfect - every day is a schoolday as they say.

There's a right way to do Javascript IMO but there's more than one right way. Ditto HTML5 and CSS. I prefer to do as little HTML and CSS as possible, and do everything else on the Canvas using Javascript in a strictly O-O way. But that's just me and the people I work with.

Re: I thought that HTML5

Despite all the razzmatazz, getting HTML5 to do everything Flash can do - at a reasonable framerate (24 and above) - on a reasonable subset of devices (S4, S5, iPhone5, iPod Touch, iPad 4+ .... nobody doing HTML5 codes for *just* desktop) - is Quite Hard. Simple stuff, yes of course, but tens or hundreds-of-thousands-of-lines applications? Games, slot machines, anything properly interactive? Not easy, trust me. Much easier to knock out a swf. Apart from anything else it has built in support for loading all the assets gracefully, playing sounds RELIABLY,all sorts of stuff which you otherwise have to write yourself or use a 3rd party framework. And DON'T get me started on those. You're back to relying on other people and that might as well be Adobe as anyone.

Boffins baffled by the glowing 'plumes' of MARS

It's the underground race of Martians

Previously undetected, they have been hiding from us ever since they launched the "B" Ark all those years ago.

Interstellar sci-fi WORMS its way into spinning black hole science FACT

Meh to the video

The BBC's clickonline have a better one.

Now not even muggers want your iPhone

Re: urrr... they will still steal your device

Urrr... apparently at least 25% WON'T steal your device, that's what this article is actually about.