Posts by Pete Slater

Samsung Omnia 16GB smartphone

You forgot to mention one of the main reason for buying it

The one overriding factor in my decision to buy the Omnia was simply that it supports Ogg Vorbis out of the box. This is about the only decent phone recently that does so and for someone like myself with around 800 Gb of music in Vorbis format, makes the phone a great media player.

It is not without its problems but then which phone isn't.

The one thing I would like is for the implementation of JavaME to include JSR-256 and JSR-258 so that I can actually write some interesting Java code for it.

Oh and the A2DP stereo bluetooth works a treat on the Omnia - really good quality and nice large reception area.

Firefox 3 Download Day falls flat on face

Now its broken

Damn, RC2 was working like a dream on my Linux box.

The actual final version has introduced a number of bugs which are really pissing me off :(

That and the hour long wait for their servers to come back to life means its a big lose from me.

Nintendo Wii 'like a virus', games boss sniffs

Poor Epic

I don't see why he has to whine so much, its not like it is really affecting him.

Like a lot of games industry people and gamers in general, he is annoyed that people who, until this point, had no interest in video games are now suddenly buying the Wii to play Wii Sports or Fit or whatever pseudo game is the flavour of the month.

He also seems to be really concerned about the capabilities of the system. Like a lot of game nerds, he has fallen for the graphics > gameplay way of thinking. And with Epic fully bought into that premise, they really have nothing to offer the Wii because the hardware is not good enough for the games the company makes.

As for the attach rate, I can't speak for anybody else but I have bought all the AAA games out for the system. Paper Mario, Mario Galaxy, Metroid 3, Trauma Center, Battalion Wars, Mario Kart, Zack and Wiki and a few others. All very enjoyable and well worth playing. As long as they keep coming up with good games for the system, I will be buying them.

Its true that I haven't played it for a couple of weeks, but that is down to GT5 on the PS3 and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles on the DS. But as soon as I tire of those games, I will be back to finish my Wii games :)

O2 PR calls Reg readers 'techie nerds'

Just in time

Great timing, I was just thinking of joining them this afternoon but after reading this article, my decision has been overturned.

Maybe 3 will want my custom ;)

Facebook loses a few bitches

About time

Never used the site, just seemed like a complete waste of time for me. I almost signed up once, but realised that social networks are just too much hard work for me. When I am not coding, I like to spend my time away from the machine. Using it as a gateway to contact my friends is not my thing. I have an email client and a mobile phone for that.

And having been in the software industry for a good many years now and survived one large bubble bursting, I can't wait to see this new emporer fall from grace.

It is anythibg but revolutionary and for it to continue this pretence is laughable.

Apple ships Air

Hmmm

It's the most useless computer I ever did see and there have been plenty of them in the past, lets be honest.

Samsung YP-T10 4GB MP3 player

Slowing down audio playback

Most reviewers find it hard to come up with a good reason for changing the speed of audio tracks whereas I actively look for it as one of the main selling points when buying a digitial audio player. The reason being that I study Japanese language and spend a lot of time listening to conversations. Any as student of a foreign language knows, slowing down the speed of audio is a great help in picking up new words or bring a fast speaker down to the normal speaking rate you may be more accustomed to.

Couple that with the fact that this player supports Ogg Vorbis and has a radio, two things which the iPod is missing, and I think you have an easy win for me.

The only thing missing, which I would have liked to see, is an OLED screen. The review doesn't mention what type of screen it has so I assume it is LCD?

Surge in encrypted torrents blindsides record biz

Dangerous wording

Some of the wording in the article, such as 'When encryption is used to cloak torrent traffic it tends to be to hide something' seems to imply that if you encrypt torrent traffic then you have something to hide.

This is dangerous ground and I am sure that privacy advocates will have a field day with this type of story.

Walkman completes Sony conspiracy to hammer iTunes

Vorbis?

I would really like to get one of the new Apple digital audio players, they look very sexy and, quite frankly, make the competition look shabby in comparison.

Even the new Sony walkman players seem to have grown up a little bit and exude more style then they ever did.

But the problem for me is... I have over 300Gb of music in Ogg format. Which pretty much means I am going to have to get a player from one of the Korean or Chinese companies that offer a wider range of audio codecs in their digital audio players.

I don't really care about online music stores, I tend to buy CDs and rip them myself. Why don't any of the majors players in this industry support ogg? Samsung does (now and then) so why cant Sony or Apple.

eBay rethinks firearms policy

Even megatron was banned

eBay have been very tight on just what firearms related auctions they ban/remove.

A few friends recently tried to auction the Transformer toy Masterpiece Megatron which is a robot that transforms into a oversized, but realistic looking, gun. The auctions were cancelled and removed and they were told that new firearms auction rules for eBay were the reason for it.

Seems silly to not allow people to auction obvious pretend weapons on the site.

BBC iPlayer finally hits the streets

Erm Linux?

Looks like they have forgotten the ginger haired child of the OS market segment - Linux.

/Strokes ginger haired child