Posts by Slions

Linus Torvalds goes back to a mechanical keyboard after making too many typos

Meanwhile, I'm happy with very own silent keyboard:

https://slions.net/resources/interface.14/

Why is Big Tech hellbent on making AI opt-out?

AI craze is real

Can't see which GitHub repo you are working on, AI is to blame;

https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/147855

My phone manufacturer, Honor, calls MRU list AI suggestions...

Microsoft declares 2025 'the year of the Windows 11 PC refresh'

Windows Android vs AI

I was sold an OS that could run Android app now that feature has been deprecated in favour AI bloatware. You would think a company the size of Microsoft could work on both features at the same time, apparently not.

Indonesia's president orders government to stop developing new applications

Compare that to the French government open source repositories which grew from 9k in 2021 to over 20k in 2024. Considering France probably have fewer than 2k islands worldwide I would say the Indonesians still have room to grow if they want to be as inefficient as the French. Assuming one country's inefficiency can be measured from its island count and software modules it maintains.

CII: country inefficiency index = software module count / island count

France CII: 10

Indonesia CII: 1,58

That's still fewer than 2 apps per island. How many software developers do they have on each island?

Sounds like they will just have to deal with 27001 apps.

Oh Sonos! App update borks users' favorite features and worse

WTF I did not even know about play.sonos.com until coming across that article. That they would do that without 2FA is criminal.

VBScript nudged nearer to the grave with next big Windows 11 update

Re: Pinned to taskbar

I do:

https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9pcrfnn71jdx?hl=en-us&gl=US

Ten years ago Microsoft bought Nokia's phone unit – then killed it as a tax write-off

Re: Stupid execs

Fair points, thankfully Symbian was open sourced but much too late. I can even compile most of it on Windows and even target Android. Very true that their UI strategy is what most certainly failed them in the end. UIQ, S60 was there S80 too at some point for the communicators then Belle which was based on S60 though if I recall.

Stupid execs

They only had to stick to Symbian and its large install base instead of trying out 4 other platforms who never ever took off...

Such incompetence is mind blowing.

Microsoft drags Windows Subsystem for Android into the trash

Next they will deprecate Windows

Windows is now deprecated, you all have one year to switch to Linux.

I mean official Android app support is such an awesome, no-brainer feature nowadays. How they could even consider dropping it beyond me. If costs are out of control, reduce the size of the team and review the roadmap instead of just cancelling everything.

Windows keyboards to get a Copilot key – but how quickly will users jump?

Out of touch

The execs at Microsoft... Looking forward to see what their keyboards will look like if they add a new key every time they try to promote a new app.

Meanwhile I've been using a giant Android tablet as a PC keyboard for almost a year and it's fair to say I'm never going back to physical keyboards.

Still I wonder which HID usage code they will be using for it?

Also saying keyboards have not changed in 30 years is rubbish. What about the whole media and app keys, pretty sure a lot of that happened since the Windows key.

Meta confirms decentralized Twitter rival in the works

With 450 users a month Twitter still has more employees than users. Expect more layoffs.

Project Union: Microsoft releases Windows App SDK 1.0, developers try to puzzle it out

At last a smart move

Win32 APIs with modern UI is what we needed all along. It's basically the logical evolution of WPF and you can optionally get package and permission support for better store integration I suppose.

Even though none of that makes much sense when looking at it from afar it's actually quite a natural evolution.

Win32 and WinForm

WPF and XAML

UWP XAML modern UI, package and permissions

WinUI has goodness from all of the above

Microsoft app development is just a very slow moving behemoth and you've got to wonder what's taking them so long to execute. I guess that's the price of success and backward compatibility.

As of writing C# WinUi is basic but usable. Multiple windows works as far as I can tell. Use CsWin32 for your native calls, you will need a lot of them for doing even basic things like changing the application icon. However XAML UI designer is one or two years away apparently, which will be annoying if you are designing complex UI. For basic apps it's fine though.

Microsoft brings Jenny, Aria, and more interface tweaks to new Windows 11 Insider build

Task Bar?

What about the broken Task Bar? Mine seems to be stuck in Apple mode for some reason...

Santa's sack is bulging with browsers: Vivaldi 5.0 arrives full of festive cheer

Did they fix the broken Ctrl+Tab behaviour? They can take a look at the Fulguris implementation if they need help with that.

Windows Subsystem for Android: What's the point?

Why no Windows 10?

I'm the developer of a little known open source Android web browser named Fulguris and I would love to get WSA for Windows 10 so that I could use it on desktop. To me that's the only interresting feature on Windows 11, everything else looks more like regressions. Which brings me to my next point. In the context of global warming it's ambarassing to see a megacorp like MS applying arbitrary hardware limitations to Windows 11 and withholding such features from Windows 10. Those cheap tricks to get people to upgrade and consume more material resources ought to be banned.

MS please, bring WSA to Windows 10.

Planet Computers has really let things slide: Firm's third real-keyboard gizmo boasts 5G, Android 10, Linux support

F(x)tec Pro1 weights 243g.

The BlackBerry in your junk drawer is now a collectors' item: TCL says no more new keyboard-clad phones

Looking for Qwerty? Go FxTec Pro1

Looks like I'm one of the lucky few owning a Pro1 from that FxTec London startup. I can tell you guys that product is most impressive for a startup's first release. Go for it, it's well worth it if you are a Qwerty junky.

Hopefully they will resume production once the virus scare has passed.

Back to school with El Reg - how about a chunky Lenovo for the student in your life?

For that price they could at least give it a trackpoint.

Please Lenevo m, get busy designing a 4th gen ThinkPad X1 Tablet instead. With mate screen finish this time.

Want an ethical smartphone? Fairphone 3 is on the way – but tiny market share suggests few care

The sum of the parts is €250 though I guess you would be missing the motherboard, CPU and RAM.

Shame they don't offer an AMOLED display, IPS ain't that appealing. Dual SIM is great. It looks like the fingerprint reader is on the back which I find rather useless.

Microsoft Chrom... Edge hits beta as new browser prepped for biz testing

Vivaldi

I'll stick to Vivaldi.

It's official. Microsoft pushes Google over the Edge, shifts browser to Chromium engine

Edge today can play DAZN smoothly

Vivaldi and Chrome, both chromium based, have some bad micro suttering when playing DAZN streams. I wonder how am I gonna watch my football once Edge joins the suttering crowed. The one good thing about Edge is that it's optimized for Windows. Now they want to take that away to make it multiplatform. Not such a good idea. I ought to try DAZN on IE.

Planet Computers straps proper phone to its next Psion scion, Cosmo

Re: I'll say it one more time...

Yes, I can't wait for Livermorium to deliver. Thanks for the link to Chen's twitter page, I did not realised he was posting updates there, until now.

Re: I'll say it one more time...

A properly designed slider phone can also be used on a flat surface and while holding it in landscape mode using thumbs to type and crucially while closed in portrait mode thus providing good user experience even for those silly apps lacking landscape support.

I'll say it one more time...

What's wrong with slider? Only one screen needed. Just give us an updated Nokia E7. Make it larger, give it a fingerprint reader, dual sim, sdcard and you are done.

Why insist on that pseudo touch typing keyboard format?

At last! Vivaldi lets you kill looping GIFs

Re: 200 tabs

On my screen the vertical tab bar fits 36 tabs per screen and right now I have 5 screens worth of tabs so I'm getting close to 200 already and that's on a new Windows 10 installation from 10 days ago.

I usually try to keep tabs from a same web site or topic grouped together so I can easily switch between them as needed. Sometimes I do loose a tab or two but eyeballing tab icons and titles quickly finds them again. I mostly rely on tab icons when scrolling through 200 tabs.

I'm not using Vilvadi Tab Stack but it's been a while since I gave it a try.

Vivaldi tab preview is sometimes useful to check if that's indeed the tab you are looking for.

At some point I decide it's time to get things back under control and sort through them closing the ones I don't need anymore before going on another tab opening rampage.

Don't ask, I like it messy.

Re: how's the browser?

I'm using it as my main browser with Firefox now being my second choice.

I like the vertical tab bar which I use in Firefox too.

Last I checked Chrome did not offer vertical tab bar and no plug-in would do a good job at it either.

I usually have around 200 tabs opened and it copes well with that.

Not using any adblock or VPN.

It still has some quirks though, like some unfortunate default shortcuts, which you can fix yourself thankfully, or the fact that you can't disable middle mouse button auto-scroll but I guess those are only issues from the point of view of a Thinkpad Trackpoint user.

Being able to customise tab double click actions and stuff like that would be nice too. I did try to get those issues addressed through the forums, without luck so far.

Windows 10 Creators Update general rollout begins with a privacy dialogue

Updated a couple of custom built machines, turned off all snooping options from the privacy screen.

First impression, it seems it's not happily using an insane amount of CPU cycles for telemetry or other mischief.

On earlier version of Windows 10 one of those machine could not come back from sleep without crashing, it seems that got fixed somehow. It would also wake from hibernate for no apparent reason. That too seems to be fixed.

Happy customer here.

Up close with the 'New Psion' Gemini: Specs, pics, and genesis of this QWERTY pocketbook

Re: Caution outweighing excitement

Check again on Indiegogo but I believe you can donate any amount.

I would have backed that project already if it was more like a Nokia E7 or Nokia N950.

Basically the screen facing the other way so that the device can be used as a smartphone when closed.

Then again with such a large battery it would not be practical I guess. That would be a different device altogether. I've noticed a few other people making the same observation. Another solution would the dual screen design on the Nokia E95 and other communicators. Right now the Gemini is neither a smartphone nor a laptop, it truly is a PDA.

As it is, I'm still hesitating...

Microsoft joins battery-saving browser bandwagon with Edge claims

Is that a chromium issue?

Would other chromium based browser like Vivaldi also use that much power? Ho wait I guess Opera is based on chromium too these days.

Still it would have been nice to see how Vivaldi fairs.

Microsoft rolls out first 'major update' to Windows 10

Re: Does it fix Creative Labs SBZ Dolby Digital Live?

Creative Labs Dolby Digital Live on SBZ is indeed fixed by that upgrade.

Small victory...

Re: Windows 10 works just fine

Just trying to show I'm not sold to MS I guess.

Re: Does it fix Creative Labs SBZ Dolby Digital Live?

Except that SBZ is Creative Labs latest hardware. Last I checked anyway.

Windows 10 works just fine

Got it setup since August on three machines, some quite exotic, and it's been working great so far. Two are upgrades from 7 and 8.1 and one is a new installation following SSD crash - bloody OCZ Vertex 2, that's just the second one giving up on me. You still get the odd bug - see above post - but all in all it's been a really smooth experience for me. I never could get used to Windows 8 without proper start menu but 10 really brings the best of both 7 and 8 together.

Looking forward for that upgrade.

Also running a couple of Linux servers. They are working fine too.

Does it fix Creative Labs SBZ Dolby Digital Live?

Dolby Digital Live keeps crapping up since Windows 10 on my SBZ hardware. It was working just fine on Windows 7. Though I'm pretty sure it must be Creative Labs issue it does no harm to hope.

Who wants a classic ThinkPad with whizzy new hardware? Lenovo would just love to know

Re: Bleutooth ThinkPad Compact Keyboard.

Precisely, how could you tell?

Got myself a mid range Surface Pro 3 and paired it with that Bleutooth ThinkPad Compact Keyboard.

Free Windows 10 upgrades from Microsoft will FLATTEN PC sales

Re: Would many people notice Media Center [sic] vanishing?

Tried MediaPortal yet?

Windows 10 build 10041: 99 bugs on the wall, fix a bug, add a feature, 114 bugs on the wall

We want theming

That they still don't have a system wide fully themeable UI "à la" Visual Studio 2012/2013 is just beyond me.

They have just been working on that UI for 20 years... I'm thinking this company is somewhat crippled by infighting and fear of change.

You'll NEVER guess who has bought I Taught Taylor Swift How To Give Head dot-com

MarkMonitorScrewedTaylorSwiftDotCom

Did they also get the .org .net .xxx .prn .tv .fck .fm .tm .scrwd .biz and .pwnd?

Now Samsung's spying smart TVs insert ADS in YOUR OWN movies

Re: @Abelsoul: Sony : 1 - Samsung : 0

You actually have five boxes under your TV?

Not so smart those TVs after all

Never liked the idea of smart TV. If I ever need a new one I'll be looking at one that's really stupid, Philips maybe? I do like that ambilight thing too :)

Sonic BOOM: 10 blast-tastic soundbars

I was looking to upgrade my 13 years old Yamaha stereo HiFi to 5.1 surround. Tried a Teufel Cubycon® 2 Digital HD. Their DecoderStation 7 emitted an annoying high pitch noise so I had it replaced, same issue, sent the whole kit back. Went to the local Mediamarkt where I first found out about Sonos and their product range. At first I was not impressed and thought that's just the new fashionable gadget. After some research I ended up getting PLAYBAR, SUB and PLAY:3s. It's an awesome set of networked speakers.

One thing though I wish the PLAYBAR could drive a pair of front left and right speakers too. It does a descent job as it is but as mentioned in earlier comments the sound bar form factor and proximity of left and right speakers is somewhat limiting.

Vanished blog posts? Enterprise gaps? Welcome to Windows 10

Re: What about skinning?

I'm just asking for the skinning capabilities...

What about skinning?

Can you use themes in the whole OS à la Visual Studio 2012-2013?

Can we eventually have a dark themed UI in the whole OS?

Now that would awesome.

HTC One M8: Reg man takes spin in Alfa Romeo of smartphone world

Screen flicker

I liked that HTC One M8 so I thought I'll try it out in a shop. That's where I noticed that terrible screen flicker. It's very noticeable when inputing text on a white background.

There is no way I depart with €700 for a flickering screen. I find it hard to believe they actually ship phones with such bugs. It's a shame cause otherwise it looks like a really good device.

+1 for making an IR remote more expensive than Logitech's.

-1 for still not supporting landscape in Home and AppList.

Microsoft: Surface is DEAD. Long live the Surface 2!

Not consumer

It will obviously never sell in the same volumes as iPads and Android tabs...

Not that bad

We got a few of those Asus VivoTab Smart in the office and they are actually not that bad. Admittedly I mostly used the classic desktop and VisualStudio. Though I'm sure some of the Modern UI apps are probably worth it. That Market application looked great anyway. You also need a few accessories to actually be able to use it properly. The stand/cover, a pen for when you are pissed off trying to use desktop apps with your fat fingers, a keyboard to actually do some productive work, a mate screen protector in case you get fed up looking at yourself in that glossy screen, and a sleeve (ISY).

Been travelling lately with one of those and a brand new ThinkPad Compact Bluetooth keyboard, that worked quite well for me. Good battery life, really small and light package so you can easily put it in your backpack.

Did not notice many people actually working with Android tabs and iPads on the move while I actually managed to be productive with that setup, though full HD would have been better obviously. You also very much need a small table to actually get it to stand, on your knees it won't work. Thankfully most planes and trains have that even in economy class, except maybe Heathrow Express but thankfully it is express.

The detached keyboard is actually quite good, makes me wonder if buying a laptop is worth it. I quite like working with the tablet on the table and the keyboard on my knees. Though I guess laptop would be the same just without the need for the table.

Anyway Surface Pro 2 and the likes look quite promising. It just does not make much sense to compare it with iPads and Android tabs.