Like they'll be in power in 2018.
Posts by Mike 29
48 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jun 2011
ACCC clears copper for the NBN
Qantas' biggest problems are … Apple, Samsung and Google?

Yeah, no.
The in-flight entertainment was never a reason to choose Qantas. Besides, once I had *any* form of entertainment that was out of the THIS IS YOUR CABIN CREW SHOUTING THROUGH YOUR EARPHONES, YOU ARE ON A PLANE, IT IS GOING SOMEWHERE, THAT PLACE HAS WEATHER, ENJOY YOUR FLIGHT ear pain loop it won over anything any airline had to offer, even if it was just an mp3 player, screens be damned.
App to manage Android app permissions

Re: But...
Yeah, what?
The business is apparently built on "you can't trust anyone else in the play store, but you can trust us" and there's no evidence as to why and plenty of unusual permissions that I would suspect indicate malware from anyone.
e.g. Phone calls
directly call phone numbers
reroute outgoing calls
read phone status and identity
I maybe get reading the IMEI for your billing requirements, but calling phone numbers and routing calls have nothing to do with the headline of "stopping those naughty apps with their dodgy permissions".
Neither does the nanny crap with "stopping texting while driving" which is what? Some kind of parental setting for people who have children that are somehow old enough to drive, but not old enough to take responsibility for their own phone, and that requires the GPS to be on all the time?
Maybe you should have invested less millions in development and done one thing well, with a minimum permission set so you could explain why you need each one. Instead you're an example of why the permission model on android is ridiculous.
Britain's costliest mistake? Lord Stern defends his climate maths
You THINK you're watching your LG smart TV - but IT's WATCHING YOU, baby
Australia's Electoral Commission won't release vote-counting code
Mobe SIM crypto hijack threatens millions: Here's HOW IT WORKS
Microsoft 'funds' new Oz CO2 trading scheme

Re: expected revenue from tax levied at has already been accounted for
That would be taxes to pay for the related benefits to zero out the one against the other. The whole thing was likely slightly revenue negative as they never seemed to cost anything properly, but you know, rant away, conspiracy theorists are fun.
Windows 8.1: So it's, er, half-speed ahead for Microsoft's Plan A
Microsoft reveals Xbox One, the console that can read your heartbeat
Microsoft honcho pleads with media: 'Stop picking on us!'
Chinese state tightwads help strangle Asia-Pacific PC sales in 2013
Dongle smut Twitstorm claims second scalp
So: 6,500 Win 8 laptops later, how are BT's field engineers coping?

Gotta admit, skimmed a little, but I didn't see anything that Windows 8 enabled over the same hardware with Windows 7, and without getting initial drop in productivity while they struggle to get that Metro UI crap off their screen and into the applications they actually want.
But hey, I'm not writing puff advertisment pieces and passing them off as journalism.
Microsoft blasts PC makers: It's YOUR fault Windows 8 crash landed
Intel CEO: PC market slogging along at half speed
Oz cinema chain to stream new releases

Re: In the immortal words of Monica Dickens,
Oovie is $3:50 a night and has all kinds of freebies and discounts on top of that, and I can still barely be bothered to commit to turning up 2 days running to the supermarket.
That would make $4 a good price for "just out of the theater" streaming, then I might watch more than 2 newest release movies a year. And yeah, I don't pirate them either.
Does Box really need $284m in VC cash?
Pandora plays beta beats downunder
Apostrophe’s cause problem’s in e-health system’s
ICANN’s archery contest misses its target
Yellow Pages targets zombie survivalist market
Facebook co-founder renounces US citizenship pre-IPO
Microsoft tears the wraps off Windows 8 Enterprise
Banks toss $8bn into Facebook's lap ahead of IPO
Qantas lets fly with 'net access
NASA snaps show Arctic melt
'Kill yourself now' - Torvalds throws openSUSE security tantrum
Digital Realty gets real in Victoria
IT guy answers daughter's Facebook rant by shooting her laptop
Quickflix adds Android with Samsung

Excellent
More and more delivery systems for non-existant content.
It's good of el Reg to continue to accept their press releases, but Quickflix streaming is a wasteland. I actually consider their advertising to be bait and switch given they don't have any TV shows at all but their help page says:
"Enjoy the flexibility of watching Movies and TV shows via the post or online with one of our great value subscription packages."
And their meta on Google is:
"Over 50000 Movie & TV Show titles for hire. Unlimited hours of movie streaming available. NO late fees, NO lock-in contracts and postage is FREE!"
But their entire streaming catalog is 290 titles at the moment, 25 of those released 2010 or 2011.
NewSat scores $AU7.5m in new deals
Teen net addicts pee in bottles to stay glued to WoW
Duqu attackers: master coders, Linux rookies
Netflix rules out Kiwi launch
Facebook IPO said to set value at $100bn
Virtualisation: just a lot of extra software licences?

The author handily ingnores the fact that patching and rebooting 100 virtual servers has a labor cost too.
The security argument is even more laughable, given the difficulty of tracking, monitoring and cleaning those servers should a windows worm make it onto the network. Just tracking ownership of a fleet of servers that has no limiting factor is bad enough.
Facebook boss-lady is up the pole on the glass ceiling
Mozilla updates to Firefox 8, disables add-ons
Siri gets over her huff, returns useful as ever
Windows 8 secure boot would 'exclude' Linux
Samsung preps anti-iPhone 5 lawsuit before it's even out
HP sued by investor over PC and TouchPad antics
Dell XPS 15z 15.6in Core i5 notebook
Facebook revamps privacy settings (again)
For Australian small biz, NBN retail prices look fabulous

*facepalm*
Wonderful, you can download 200Gb of pr0n and moviez at 500kbs for cheaper than NBN pricing. Similarly I could commute the 20 minutes to work on a motorbike for cheaper too, and it would only cost me 20 minutes extra at either end in changing clothes. If I wanted to take an hour to bicycle in it would be cheaper again! Cheaper is better, on your bike!
Next you compare dedicated wired bandwidth with a highly contested wireless connection. I regularly use both Telstra and Three 3G connections and even though the average bandwidth used on these services is tiny, you rapidly see the effect of bandwidth connection if a few people are trying to do a sustained download.
The NBN does not close the market, if someone wants to build a competing technology there is nothing to stop them doing so. However, most advocates of competition forget that stops at the outskirts of Sydney and Melbourne and no private telco would build coverage for 96% of Australia at even bandwidth regardless of the technology used. If you can get 90% of the income for 10% of the expenditure that's exactly what you do. You only have to look at the competing telco's mobile coverage to see how that works.
As for SME's, they're dying for a decent network at a reasonable price. The article mentioned TransACT and how hard it is to get numbers on business connections in general, here's a recent TransACT quote for comparison with NBN prices:
- 50Mbit connection
- 24 month contract
Installation charge: $10,000
Monthly charge: $1650
Download Supplied: zero
That's right, bandwidth goes on top of that. And the same company will do a 100/20Mbit connection for consumers for $149.95/month + bandwidth costs.
Samsung Series 470 250GB 2.5in SSD

Maths is hard
Perhaps it's SATA II because 3Gb/s > 250MB/s
Unless you're talking one of the 500MB/s drives there's no point in putting a SATA III interface on a drive that isn't capable of filling a SATA II bus. Except that middle management types might be willing to pay more for the same performance...