Posts by Jamie Swithenbank

Yorkshire bloke's Jolly Roger flag given the heave-ho after council receives one complaint

The way I read the rules, he doesn't need planning permission if he simply adopts the flag as his personal emblem. Make up some letterhead using the flag next to his name and send a letter back to the council, "I have adopted this as my personal banner and symbol, and it is therefore exempt from planning permission requirements"

Let's see them reply to that one.

Quoting the requirements:

"A number of categories of flag may be flown without consent...

...Categories of flag that can now be flown

...House flag - flag is allowed to display the name, emblem, device or trademark of

the company (or person) occupying the building, or can refer to a specific event of

limited duration that is taking place in the building from which the flag is flown "

If he lives there and declares this as his emblem, he is exempt from planning permission requirements.

Man buys new MacBooks, pulls them to bits, takes pics

@ SATA Drives aren't new...

The key here is SATA for the OPTICAL drives is new: Previous MB/MBP revisions may have had SATA HDDs but were lumbered with PATA Optical Drives...

They now use SATA for the Optical drives too... small revision should have been done a long time ago - so I understand your confusion.

A videogame that truly takes the p*ss

@ Home Version

Yep, it's already been done in Japan (go figure)

Available for sale through Thinkgeek here:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/superpiipii.html

USB 3.0-sporting devices start to appear... sort of

@Bronek

It should work yes, it doesnt mean it will - there's always the chance they'll put a check in looking for Server 2003... if it goes that way even.

It's the same way you can't install a windows 2003 service pack on ANY XP system - not even a 64 bit one!

@Shakje

I don't know... MS bashing aside - I'm tempted to side with Stuart on this one.

Microsoft NEVER released USB2 drivers / device support for Windows 98... EVER... the manufacturers had to do their own drivers... this is why under windows 98 the USB2 device names vary so much from manufacturer to manufacturer (e.g. high speed USB etc etc) - there was no standard device name / device support, since the manufacturers all had to develop their own extensions....

Microsoft only produced drivers/support/updates related to the USB2 release on their most recent offerings in each category of use at the time (Windows XP for desktops, Windows 2000 for servers)

Do you honestly have reason to expect different when the time rolls around for USB3 support to be implemented that MS will do differently?

So depending on WHEN USB3 comes out, the probability is that support will only be implemented by MS for Vista (on the desktop) and then... either Server 2003 or Vista server (to cover the server market)

Oh and don't you be thinking you'll just install that windows server 2003 update on your XP machine (if USB3 comes out soon enough) if history holds it will be part of a service pack, so tied to server 2003.

That's not to say you won't have USB3 support on XP - it will just be provided by manufacturers and so will be non-standard and therefore somehow not as integrated as the MS provision.

Microsoft puts dusty, old Office code on web

@ Embedded video / audio / Gif

Actually this kind of meta-data is supported in ODF by means of it's ISO extensions mechanism.

RE: Can Microsoft ever win?

Your point 2 shows a lack of in-depth knowledge of the isssue... understandable though because it is a piece of Microsoft FUD

ODF is an extensible XML ISO standard - it has the ability to incorporate all ISO standards in order to store extended and meta information about documents.

It's a very flexible container, which microsoft could use to represent ANY document they currently create.

Did you know that between office 2000 and office 2003, the binary format microsoft used to store files didnt change? Macros etc and application capabilities changed somewhat - but Excel 2000 can open a file saved in Excel 2003...

ODF has nothing to do with the capabilities of the application using it.

In fact the rather odd thing is, considering people make this point about ODF somehow being inferior, is that comparing the ISO standards for ODF (v1.2, not actually fully implemented by any application yet - so go ahead MS if you want to) and OOXML - ODF actually contains considerably more functionality and flexibility than OOXML, including a featureset for accessibility for the disabled that OOXML does not even touch on.

Another thing to remember for those with sketchy memories is that Microsoft was on the board developping ODF, and only left when OASIS rejected the submission of material microsoft was retaining the patent on, into a required section of the standard - OASIS instead opted to gain the same functionality using methods that NOBODY held the patent to.

Go actually look at the standard (not the applications implementing only part of the standard, applications that are playing catch-up with regard to featureset with microsoft) - when you find anything that microsoft can implement in their file format, that cannot be represented in ODF then come back and talk to me... until then take the MS FUD with a pinch of salt.

Also, your point 4: They have not done this - the criticism comes from the fact that they have created their own standard... their "standard" xml contains definitions like "Render RTF like Word 95 does" - i'm terribly sorry but this is something ONLY MS could do.... They also define their own way of handling dates, tables and many other things - things there ARE ISO standards for, but MS has defined their own custom, may i add, patented, ways of handling them - that's why the MS "standard" proposal is 4x the length of the average ISO standard (6000 pages)

Microsoft were invited to propose any additions to ODF that they felt needed to improve functionality - instead they proposed their own new standard which does not reference existing international standards.

This is the source of the criticism... it's not a case of "poor old MS can't do anything right!"

ODF is already an ISO standard.

You state that ODF is battling in the ISO race - this is misleading - ODF already IS _the_ ISO standard.

It took the slow track, lasting a total of 5 years, and was approved as the ISO document standard last year.

Microsoft however has tried to fast-track it's own document format through, via ECMA, to be an ISO standard and has so far failed. This is partly due to the many problems with the standard it's self that they are trying to propose (rather than using existing ISO methods of doing things, it difines it's own ways, making it over 6000 pages long, and despite this still incomplete to the extent not all required methods are fully defined) - and partly due to the fact that the un-bribed ISO members question the wisdom of having more than one ISO standard for the same thing (office documents)

There is also concern among the ISO members that under the 'standard' proposed by microsoft, it would retain complete control over the standard - rather the more traditional approach of having it controlled by the ISO.

This is not a 'race' to become an ISO standard - ODF is already there, it already won that race - Microsoft however doesnt want a standard that it doesnt exclusively control.... it doesnt want a standard unrestricted by microsoft patents... it doesnt want a standard without the ability to have undocumented 'extensions' which would allow it to taint a document in such a way that only microsoft software would be able to accurately render it - it wants OOXML instead.

RE: the other format

At least El Reg is being honest about this article and filling the rest of the page also with paid-for microsoft adverts (in my browser anyway)

Boffins: Antimatter comes from black holes, neutron stars

How it gets away from huge gravitational fields...

Perhaps I'm just being stupid... but, why is this a mystery?

It's been long thought that anti-matter would show anti-gravity - isn't the fact that it seems to escape such huge fields actually proof of that?

It could also be the reason WHY we see it in such large quantities - if matter/anti-matter is oalescing from the energy within (theory goes that when energy coalesces it forms equal quantities of matter and anti-matter) the only thing that will escape to be 'seen' is that able to escape the gravitational field.... i.e. something with anti-gravity, anti-matter...

T-Mobile wins iPhone Germany exclusive, paper claims

Hmmmm I wonder

What would happen if you got an e.g. German iPhone and then tried to use it with a US T-Mobile Sim? might that do the trick?