Posts by Matty

UK to fly the flag for OOXML

So will there be a new sign at Heathrow?

>So will there be a new sign at Heathrow?

>By Morely Dotes

>Posted Wednesday 26th March 2008 22:43 GMT

>Jobs Horns

"Welcome to the United Kingdom (A wholly-owned subsidiary of Microsoft)"

Can't mate - we're already owned by the rest of the world! No manufacturing left, virtually no motorcycle industry, almost no car plants left - Jag off to India, there's almost nothing we produce ourselves - successive governments have seen to that. Now Gordon's sold us out to Europe so we won't even own ourselves any more! So M$ won't get a lookin.

Digital TV sales soar as Brits flock to Freeview

Sky / Virgin

Be interested to know how many people have CANCELLED their subscriptions to Sky and moved over to Virgin or just stuck with Freeview. We nearly cancelled ours because our 3rd box died within 8 weeks of replacing our 2nd dead one and they wanted to charge us £68 for it. Told them to stuff it and cancel our account, we'll try Virgin. Never seen someone wriggle so bad to get a sale!! Mention Virgin and they'd give us ANYTHING! Ended up with a FREE new box - and the good one at that, not the Amstrad junk we'd had - and NO contract! If it dies again - it'll be Freeview or Virgin for sure.

Information wants to be free... except at UK Customs

Typical Gov't Webite

I needed to log on to the DVLA to get a replacement licence (Well I didn't - it was in the washing basket but that's another story). Easy - I'm British, NI number? Licence Number? Nope - an eGov ID account is required. OK - where do I get one of them then? Follow the link from the DVLA site that says, "No account? Register here then..." but what thousands of Forums around the world from IT Speciality sites to Baby Food comanies already know - our Government Web developers seem to have forgotten. There IS no "Register" link. You have to go to the gov't home page - and there it is. Call me thick but it took me an hour to find it, and even then I Googled for it! Not rocket-science is it? It's called a LINK. Put it in a header include file or style sheet or whatever the use now - and it'll be on all pages. S'easy!

And don't get me started on the online process for getting a new licence...!!

Steve Ballmer lies to my mother

Hotmail? Whats that then?

I've NEVER used Hotmail, and never will.

Reason? Microsoft.

Says it all really.

Quake rocks Britain

Mine's bigger than yours..

Oh for heaven's sake - come on children! Mine's bigger than yours? Sounds like the school playground! In the UK we get around 200 quakes annually. Most are so small they co un-noticed. We don't live on a volcano and don't have cities wiped out. Some countries do and thousands die or are made homeless. For the NZ/anti-NZ bunch above it's not a fun thing that happens on a big scale. We were woken up in Peterborough by the house shaking and a very loud rumbling and I thought initially one of the local RAF Harriers had perhaps crashed, but then thought it was probably and earthquake. Must admit, my immediate thought was, "Cool!" But I'd hate to be in the real deal where buildings fall down.

Virgin Media taps Microsoft in lengthy email outage

>I'm not really sure how the EU would view this....

>I'm not really sure how the EU would view this....

it's not bundled INTO the OS. If you don't want it, don't install it. Or install a different web server. Windows Server OS's all come with IIS - should we complain about bundling that then - although you have to opt to install it? Your average distro comes with several options and a default setupthat works - usually Apache - cos it's secure, OS and just works, used to be Sendmail and fetchmail - your own secure, reliable email server inbuilt - IF you wanted it. If not, don't use it. so please DON'T compare it to Microsoft bungling - sorry - bundling IE and Media Player into Windows. It's NOT the same thing at all.

I'm with F9 (plus.net) and they use Squirrel. Very little spam (now they've fixed it), simple interface for webmail, reliiable, just works.

Parallels makes nice with Red Flag and Ubuntu

Me too

I'm in agreement with Rob - I'm currently evaluating VMWare GSX and ESX server. GSX is free, runs on both Windows and Linux, runs both Windows or Linux and I use it at home for that reason. ESX - all 32MB of it - runs both too, the new ESXi will come supplied on an EPROM i presume so no disk space and lightning-fast boot times. It will address shed-loads of memory, multiple processors and runs the host OS faster than on hardware. But I'm no gamer either so I don't give a stuff about directx. I'm just consolidating my servers.

Microsoft preempts Hyper-V release with virtualization vision

Love it...

Microsoft - more U-Turns than the Labour government!

I'll stick with VMWare I think...

Former DEA agents sue over American Gangster

They seem to be suprised and upset...

C'mon guys - this is Hollywood we're talking about here. Since when did Truth and Facts ever mean anything to them? Look at all the 'factual' films they've made - especially where other parts of the world are involved. The yanks won WWII, won every battle in 'Nam (so how they lost the war is anyone's guess!) etc etc ad infinitum. I just can't watch some of the drivel they churn out any more.

Fertility watchdogs approve first human-animal hybrids

Here we go then... the slippery downward spiral has begun

This is a very very dangerous and slippery slope we're on now. We've crossed the line and it's going to be almost impossible to go back again. So what's going to be next? Little by little the 'boundaries' will be erased in the name of science and 'seeking new medical cures'. What happens when something goes wrong and chimera tissue or DNA gets mixed up with human and mutates? It may never happen - I'm no scientist - but what if it does? Sorry - but this is just plain wrong!

Sony, Nintendo sued in console controller patent clash

Timed well it then...

How long ago was this case put forward? Was it as soon as the controllers appeared? No... it was over a 18 months after release of the consolses when there's been one or two sold and a nice wedge to be had. There should be a time limit of how long after the patent breach that the originator can apply for a slice of the dosh. Maybe there is - I'm no lawyer. They're not having my Wii though.. !

Opera hits Microsoft with EC complaint

Unbundle Windows the GUI... er.. sorry... that IS Windows!

Unbundle the Windows GUI! ;0) - ooh - can't!

I'd love to see alternative WMs for Windows. KDE for example, or some of the really lightweight ones - be more stable that Vista, let's face it! I'd like to be more in control of my desktop. To control my own computer - shape my own destiny... oh - I already do - I dual-boot with Linux!

Geek gifts for Christmas

Lego

I want the Lego book! Me and my 11-year old son will do battle with the repressive girly regime we have to co-exist with! WE WILL be all conquering with our high-voltage 4x4 as it seeks to traverse the inhospitable landscape of a 14-year old girl's bedroom (bet it can't!).

IBM hopes open office is Symphony to your key-tapping fingers

A fash from the past...

I remember the original Symphony too. Still got it im mint condition 5 1/4" floppies. And 123!! I STILL prefer SmartSuite to MS Office. Still far easier to do some things in SmartSuite97 than Office 2003 and I think it was a better office suite My wife still thinks the best word processor she ever used is still the DOS version of WordPerfect! I've been a user of OpenOffice since it was the origional StarOffice before Sun got their mitts on it and I like it but it's not quite there with M$ Orifice yet.

A fash from the past...

I remember the original Symphony too. Still got it in mint condition on 5 1/4" floppies. And 123!! I STILL prefer SmartSuite to MS Office. Still far easier to do some things in SmartSuite97 than Office 2003 and I think it was an all-round better office suite. My wife still thinks the best word processor she ever used is still the DOS version of WordPerfect!

I've been a user of OpenOffice since it was the origional StarOffice before Sun got their mitts on it and I like it but it's not quite there with M$ Orifice yet. Bring back SmartSuite - with the pretty coloured 'filing cabinet' drawers along the top that made funny 'whoooosh' noises when you opened them! Smart-tags that actually workd and that you could customise... and... and...

...I'm getting all misty-eyed now. How sad is that?

Pee-powered battery unveiled

Console batteries....

Pii-Wii? And can you recharge them with Mii-Pii?

Pee-S3?

Getting sad insn't it...?

Funny though! :0)

Say goodbye to Office 2003, Microsoft tells PC builders

OOo M$ Lotus Wordperfect

Personally I don't like M$ or their products. And NOT cos I'm a 'Nix fan either. I use Office 2003 at work, alongside OOo and OOo at home on Suse 10.2. Don't have any problems opening P-Point documents either. Vista looks nothing special really, just playing catch-up with Apple and Linux - again. For publishing I've started using Scribus, Publisher is just junk - we publish newspapers so we should know. Personally, I won't be upgrading to 2007 or Vista.I still like Windows 2000 Pro, actually. It just works without trying to be clever. Best version of Windows MS ever produced - almost half as good as Unix.

I loved SmartSuite, and could do stuff on it in seconds that took experienced Word users ages in Office. My wife still thinks that the DOS version or WordPerfect is the best WP she's ever used, and she should know.

I hate in Windows not being able to get to the command-line properly as a different user, and to be able to open several at once. Cmd just isn't the same at all. Or being able to open a second and third GUI session as a different user.

I'll continue to use my open source software, NOT pay the M$ taxes, and have a faster, more reliable and virus-free time.

And I have asbestos underwear on so the flames won't hurt. So there! ;0p