Posts by Two Posts

TalkTalk attack: Lad, 15, cuffed by UK cyber-cops

Re: HTTP://

It is also good to know that on this, at time of writing, landing page (https://myaccount.talktalk.co.uk/home/dashboard) you can contact

Customer Services & Techinal (sic) Support

for more information.

Just about sums it up really.

Google Chromecast 2015: Puck-on-a-string fun ... why not, for £30?

Re: DLNA?

I've used the Chromecast V1 since it was released in the UK in conjunction with a DLNA server.

I use the android app - BubbleUPnP

The app is free and almost fully functional when initiating mkv / mp3 streams from an external DLNA server but requires a license to stream content from the phone.

The DLNA servers I have experience with are the built in one on my Asus router and a Raspberry PI both running flavours of miniDLNA/ReadyMedia.

We dig into the GTech GDrive Mobile ... and watch WORST tear-down vid OF ALL TIME

Re: Enticing

I thought the original post was A Kind of Magic and didn't require any Back Chat.

But, Now I'm Here and you appear to be waiting for the other Hammer to Fall, might I suggest a Night at the Opera to provide the Flash of inspiration to Play the Game in future.

Reg tries out Google's Chromecast: Yep, we even tested smut sites

Re: Almost perfect

Casting from a miniDLNA server to a Chromecast here. The miniDLNA server is on my Asus RT-N66U router.

Downloaded Bubble UPNP from play store to my android phone.

On start up selected the library as my miniDLNA server and Chromecast as the renderer and that's it. I only have MKVs in my Video folder and MP3s in the music folder but everything is working great.

Thought the PC market couldn't get any worse? HAH! Think again

Re: Retail flail

There is of course a regular supply of return customers, as it is a well known fact that the number of bicycles a cyclist wants is always n+1

I have a hack / commute / shop / all weather aluminium hybrid bike, a whizzy carbon road bike and for the past few months the n+1 itch has had me oggling a steel cyclocross type bike with disc brakes.

Do I need another bike, nope, but this new bike would fit nicely between the others in the type of rides I could do, at least that is what I keep telling myself and a bargain at only £1250

Back on topic, I built a nice water cooled, i7 powered monster desktop PC earlier this year, gobs of RAM, SSD boot, 3TB data drive...it is by far the best PC I have ever had and replaced a 7-8 year old computer that was on its knees.

It is a joy to power up and use (once I get out of that damn TIFKAM interface) BUT what do I still do 80 - 90 % of my browsing / emailing / commenting (and therefore a majority of my computing activity) on - a roughly 4 year old netbook that is also nearly on its knees, why? because it is downstairs and on my lap whilst I am slouched on the sofa, or it on my bed side table with in arms reach or out and about when visiting family etc.

As others have pointed out, computing at home as changed and the desktop PC (and to a lesser extent large laptop) market is never going back to how it was.

Microsoft parades Windows 8.1, the version you may actually want

<joe-pesci-lw3>

Microsoft, they #### you in the Office then, when they're done ####ing you in the Office, they #### you in the OS. Where does it say you need a lopotomy to use a desktop computer?

</joe-pesci-lw3>

<will-smith-ir>

Microsoft, sh##ting on the power user.

</will-smith-ir>

Windows TIFKAM designed by Star Trek TNG fans, bringing the 24th century interface to your desktop today, without the intervening 300 years of development.

"There was I, digging this hole, hole in the ground, it was big and sort of round..."

Disclaimer:

Yes, I am still holding a grudge and being a bad will ambassador for Microsoft when the mood takes me.

I do actually run Windows 8 Professional at home (alongside an Ubuntu powered netbook and an Android smart phone), hey it was £50 and I can run my old computer XP disk images in a Hyper-V window which is cool (shame I can't promote this feature to family and friends, their XP/other Windows OS images are OEM). The desktop experience is better than fine, but like the Office ribbon interface, I can barely tolerate TIFKAM. Maybe I am too old, these days in the software world, new and improved means to me, more confusing and less productive.

For various reasons I need to run Microsoft products in 'out of the box' mode, so things like Start8 and kludging menus back into Office are a non-starter.

I'll use Windows 8.1 when it is released, if only to boot straight to desktop, as for all the other 'improvements', I'll wait and see.

Creative Suite cloud lurch crushes beret-wearers' cost-slash bid

Surely a courageous move if ever there was one.

...So say folk in Adobe's UK partner base who are digesting the "bold" move confirmed earlier this week....

Does El Reg not think Yes Minister (or perhaps it was Yes Prime Minister) merits an appropriate reference?

One of my favourite comedy moments is Paul Eddington's expression after he has been told that is plan of action was "courageous". Apparently on the day after the episode was first aired the only civil servant response to any suggestion was "That's very courageous of you."

... time machine. Iranian Dr Who claims he invented a ...

A FanEloi writes...

I have a time machine that works as well as this Iranian device, it is much smaller, spherical and made of quartz.

I will admit this device is a little expensive to run as the touch interface is powered by silver and for some reason only I am able to see the results.

Perhaps El Reg could set up a psychic projects bureau and have a regular column of future predictions from this device, it has to be worth it if only to generate click bait articles on future Apple products.

(Terminator for the time travel reference)

Deadly pussies kill more often than owners think

AndrueC said "I'm going to risk a few down votes"

I'll join you and hopefully cheer you up at the same time.

My dad told me a great story, about someone he worked with in the 50's who was "a real character" in his words and also in the office was a woman whose usual topic of conversation was cats.

This "character" started a conversation one morning about how the cats in his neighbourhood kicked off in the small hours and woke him up. "I opened the window and through a brick at 'em" at which point the woman leapt up in horror and said "That's horrible, the worst you should throw at a cat is water", quick as a flash my dad's mate said "Don't be daft, I haven't time to boil water."

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

Re: So its official

"since euro directives stopped newsprint being used for wrapping chips there really is no reason for these revolting dinosaurs to continue to exist."

How about In an emergency?

Now how does that Blackadder line go? something like "Soft, strong and ultra absorbent."

Microsoft to announce new Office version on Monday

Re: The Ribbion

<Mr Grumpy comes to El Reg attr=ON>

They'll play hide the feature again, using MS Word (MS Office) is like trying to play wack-a-mole these days.

Oh! and just to make it interesting they'll rename all the terms of reference for functions and commands and then, in the offline (un)Help(ful) file, not tell you what they have done. Try and find the term Grid Settings in Word 2010, I spent 30 minutes looking for that function first time round, as far as I'm concerned, I can't even RTFM, is that progress?

I 'got' Word 2003 and earlier, not my favourite document creation tool; Ventura (Xerox or Corel V8+ variants) was the one true way, however I persevered and never fought it, disabled the free format bar, created structured, style driven templates with automatic cross references and seldom had a problem. I became the go to person to sort out other people's free formatted, 100 plus page, 500 plus styles, unstable disasters. I can strip such a document back to plain text and using the original as rough style guide, construct a working template, outline numbered, and re-apply it in an afternoon.

I eat automated table of contents and indexes for breakfast. Two different numbering styles required to four hierarchical levels in the same document? no problem. The use of extra carriage returns, tabs and spaces to make something fit or line up causes me physical discomfort.

Now I can't even find things like Grid Settings.

I have tried for 18 months to get anywhere near as speedy and productive with the Ribbon interface but am now reduced to the same level as everyone else as the interface cannot be tailored to how I like to work.

I learn new stuff all the time in my job, I relish it, but every time I see a ribbon interface I just get angry and want to punch the screen. Is it me or is it not possible to set up the visible interface in Word to show which style is applied to the current paragraph your cursor is on? (I know you can show the equivalent of a styles pane but you sometimes have to scroll this to see what style is selected) To be honest I haven't tried that hard to do it.

I have no choice but to use Office 2010 when it is rolled out eventually at work, it is still the lingua franca, but I will curse Microsoft from then until retirement (if I ever get to it) and become a bad will ambassador for Microsoft products to anyone that will listen, because of it.

Am I a Grumpy Old Man? you better @!*%ing believe it.

'....I think this is the most transformational release...' my arse!

</Mr Grumpy comes to El Reg attr=OFF>

Build a bonkers hi-fi

Buy from Amazon?

Seriously?

I'd like to see the insurance claim for this stuff when it is left

On the doorstep

in/behind a wheelie bin on collection day

Stuffed in a hedge (out side your house if you are lucky)

Fortunately it appears that Amazon don't cater for the audiophile whose brain may be made of denser stuff than some of this kit.

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS: Like it or not, this Linux grows on you

Re: you know...

The even sadder part about it is, as a netbook user, I still can't get on with the Unity interface, three revisions in and it is nowhere near as easy to use as the Remix spin.

Oh well one more year of 10.04 support before I have to decide what to do.

Probably take a tablet and see how things look the following morning.