Posts by Adam Collett

Any clouds in your sky?

Thin client?

Isn't this going round in circles a bit - use servers/web for stuff you need access to from wherever, use your machine for the personal stuff that you don't want others to see. I really don't see a future in "The Cloud" as it will take too much effort to supply the services that are required, imagine trying to get ALL applications onto the Cloud - that's what businesses and individuals will want.

There is mileage in having your DATA available anywhere, but applications? Why?

Also in the UK with the already overstretched broadband/internet access there are going to be bandwidth problems as well.

If you can run it locally, do. If you need access to data - whack it on a secure server or web host - but running the apps over the internet with effectively a dumb terminal at the end? Why?

We stopped doing it years ago - connectivity goes down, you loose the LOT, all your apps, all your services etc etc - not good for your business, and then who is to blame, hmm ISP's are going to love THAT clause in their contract - "Due to lack of service we were unable to do any work at all, therefore we are suing you, Mr ISP, for loss of money/business"

BT slams bandwidth brakes on all subscribers

Zen Internet

They give you a connection, a username and a password - the rest you do yourself.

They do not throttle your bandwith or perform any packet shaping - you just get the line and that's it.

The only drawback is there is a monthly cap, but to be honest I download quite a few "linux distros" over bittorrent and rarely cap out the 25Gig limit I have and they do do a 50Gig if you are happy to pay, which for completely un-throttled speed is pretty good.

Wünderbra! German policewomen take 'Action Brassiere'

Well done El Reg

"The projectile-impervious boulder-houlders are available in standard sizes up to the maximum cup size of SS"

For the first line in a while to make me have a coffee-keyboard interface calamity

Bonce-antenna education downloads foreseen in 30 years

Two quotes

1. Einstien - "I do not know how the third world war will be fought, but the fourth will be with sticks and stones"

2. Angela Bassett (Mace) Strange Days - "Memories are meant to fade, their made that way for a reason"

Microsoft urges Windows users to shun 'carpet bombing' Safari

CHEER!

"Derek -- You clearly have not had the required minimum exposure to Monty Python. Please refrain from visiting tech sites until you have spent at least 96 hours (preferably in a row) absorbing their work. Their treatise on tigers in Africa is an absolute necessity in the modern world of IT. You may also find the BBC's seminal 4-volume treatise on the history of the Black Adder and the collected works of Dougals Adams greatly enrich your experience of the Register and sites like it."

I heartily agree! All techies should have a basic grounding in cynical and sarcastic sureal behaviour!

Electrosticky droid boffin in spider-gecko tech bitchslap

Life imitates art

"military actions" and "urban reconnaissance, sensor deployment" and of course carrying a nasty syringe full of horrible goop!

It's Tom Selleck in Runaway all over again

I want a baby, coos broody Paris Hilton

South Park

Anyone remember the Stupid Spoilt Whore Video Playset episode where she "adopts" butters and treats him like a pet?

Life imitates art once again...

Ticked-off former Motorola 'insider' gives his two cents

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Quality.

It is unfortunate that this is very often something which cannot be displayed on charts or excel spreadsheets.

A good example is call centres, there is no way to measure the quality of a call, wether the customer is happy, wether the issue was satisfactorily resolved. The only thing that can be easily measured is the number of calls in a set time period (usually one day) this means the quality of the calls goes down as the customer is often told "Just do this and ring back it there's a problem" just to get them off the phone and push the fake call "Statistics" up.

When reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance I found some solace in the idea that Quality was what every human being was striving for and that if we took the time to measure the Quality of things then the world might be a better place.

Unfortunately AC above is correct, so many large companies are not concerned with Quality of product or service and only see the fast buck as the one that matters.

The wonderful consumerist society triumphs again....

Google ships database porn tool

Doh!

And there was me hoping that somehow google was providing a new database of indexed pr0n sites! DOH!

Mesh Ultimate Q8 Tri-SLI gaming PC

Cheaper

Build it yourself from Aria (just an example)

CoolerMaster Black 832 Tower Case £144.82

ASUS P5N-T nForce 780i 3xSLI socket 775 Mobo £156.22

Intel Core 2 Quad 2.83Ghz £359.49

3 x Asus Extreme 8800 GTX 768MB PCI-E £747.48

Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm 1TB drive £163.27

OCZ 4Gb PCs-1066 Reaper memory (2x2gb) £270.19

Zalman CNPS8000 Ultra Quiet CPU Cooler £24.38

4 x 120mm Blue LED Pattern Fans £37.36

Aopen 20X DVDRW - Black Dual Layer £15.22

Tagan 1300W PSU £199.74

Total of £2118.17

There's a couple of bits missing there, no HD-DVD or Blu-Ray and the processor is slightly slower, but otherwise the same spec with 3x8800GTX cards

Calls to ban hoodie-busting sonic weapon

Hang on?

Are these devices on ALL THE TIME or only activated when someone of the relevant age starts causing trouble?

If they are on all the time, then that's a bit daft. If they only go off when activated then they are no worse than rape/attack alarms that numerous people carry - are we going to ban those too because they might hurt someone about to rape us?

I heartily agree with Ferry Boat in that we are being forced to tackle to problem not the symptom - if more money went into developing areas rather than MP's fat bellies then we might find kids had more to do than hang around menacing old people in front of shops.

Just watch Bowling for Columbine - the bit where he goes to a so called "run down" area in Canada - they have playparks and areas for kids to do whatever they want - there is entertainment and things for kids to do - that would solve this problem quicker than anything, but it takes effort and money - ah, yeah - I'll get my coat.....

French motorwonk savages hybrid cars

@ Quiz Time

Oh dear, if you are going to make jokes then at least get them right...

Citron - means Lemon in French

Citeron - is not a word in any language

Citroen - is a brand name of a French car manufacturer, I'm not saying they're NOT lemons, but you might want to check your French grammar before poking fun!

Mobe snap murderers face justice

Sentance

How about sentancing being what they say?

If he gets life (as someone else pointed out) he will actually be allowed out again before his "Life" is over - so that's not a LIFE sentance then is it?

I agree that people like this have gone outside our society and the agreements we have made to each other in that society, but killing is wrong and the "law cannot contradict itself" comment made sense.

If we actually locked them up for as long as we say we are going to it MIGHT just act as more of a deterant.

People who KNOW they are going to be in a concrete box for 20 years if they do something are going to think somewhat harder about it than if they know they'll get told 20 years, but only serve 1-2 of them, surely?

YouTube biker clocked at 189mph

Speed Kills???

I keep seeing these Speed Kills signs everywhere and I'm getting sick of it.

If speed kills then everyone who EVER went in a jet plane would be dead.

As a biker a hearty HEAR HEAR for those of you who know and have stated that speed is not the killer - idiots who don't know how to control their vehicle are.

I see idiots in cars and idiots on bikes - they're all the same, and they are the ones to spoil it for everyone else.

That said, as a biker, I have to also mention that for a small fee you can take your new monster on a track day and have immense fun blasting round a race track to your hearts content. The surface is better for it, there aren't going to be any trucks/lorrys/tractors/grannys or anything else in the way and you can film it using your latest webcam/phone or whatever. I don't have a problem with people going at speed, I agree that people who drive stupidly should be clamped down on rather than those speeding. But I do also think there is a time and a place and sometimes a main road/motorway isn't it.

UK gov sets rules for hacker tool ban

How?

How are they actually going to find out that we are using these tools?

Also, any IT bod with half a brain will just use a VISA or Mastercard and pay for their hosting is the US, Sweden or anywhere that this law doesn't cover! :)

Germans debut kitesurf-powered autonomous windjammer

Oh dear oh dear oh dear

"This is the start of a revolution for the way ships are powered"

Admiral Lord Nelson would be turning in his grave, as would several other prominent sailors.....

Flash-based iPlayer is go

@Mark

I don't think it's what you said that'll get the fanboys flaming you - it's the arrogant way you dismissed all the uber-geeks that'll do it!

Frenchman calculates 13th root of 200-digit number

Life, Universe....Everything?

Simple, the answer is 42...

Western Digital drive is DRM-crippled for your safety

Simple

Just use FreeNAS, it's a fantastic distro and you can run it off a PII with 128Mb RAM quite happily. It does software RAID 0 and 1. It does SMB/CIFS, FTP and AFP for those Apple users out there.

It has a web front end which is really easu to use and no DRM whatsoever. It's going to be a lot cheaper too as you just find a machine lying around not doing anything and whack as many big drives in it as you can afford! Bingo!

Slave kids working UK cannabis farms

Legalise

"Sure, because that's working so well with alcohol at the moment."

Erm, yes - two guys in a fight at the footie - have they been drinking or smoking hash? DRINKING!

Alcohol makes people violent, Hash chills people out - if we legalise it then we end up with a LOT more chilled out people. Problem is you are still going to get people drinking and getting violent....hey ho....

MEP plans EU build ban on cars faster than 100mph

Planes, Trains and Automobiles?

So, if he is going to ban Cars based on speed then perhaps he should think about the planes and trains that travel well in excess of 100mph? They are guzzling more fuel and chucking out more pollution that most of the ENTIRE UK's cars put together!!