Posts by Nick Miles

The server's down. At 3AM. On Christmas. You're drunk. So you put a disk in the freezer

Nic behaved appropriately by ending his elbow. Repeatedly.

How did he end it and why did he have to do it repeatedly?

Was it a tricky bugger to take down?

We must be told.

Osbo PRINTS first Tory budget in 19 years with his BARE HANDS

Re: If you're an IT Contractor

If you are an IT contractor running a LTD company and taking the low salary / more in dividends route, this budget has introuduced a new 7.5% tax that you'll have to pay on any dividends you take in a year after the first £5,000. This makes 1 man band ltds about £2,000 a year worse off.

Apple's ONE LESS THING: the iPod Classic disappears

Re: Perhaps

Not at all, mine is mostly filled with audio books and podcasts. Great for longer journeys where (as others have said) there is no coverage for streaming.

E-cigarettes help you quit – but may not keep you alive

Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times

- Twain

007 hardware: Gadgetry, spyware and things that make you go Boom

Re: Q ≠ Armourer

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/06/may-i-suggest-that-mr-bond-be-armed.html

Has the exchange of letters from Boothroyd to Flemming, along with a video of him and Connery.

Nikon launches D600 lightweight full-frame DSLR

Re: Exchange rate?

But the US prices are generally quoted before the Sales Tax that gets applied differently in each state, and UK prices are stated including tax.

So, you will need to add approx another 10% to that figure to get a retail price as I understand it, making it $2200 in the USA. Admittedly still less than in the UK, but not quite as much.

Pirate Bay founder arrested in Cambodia

Re: Someone else

Having spent some time in Cambodia, there is pretty much no way on earth that he would have been stumbled upon. Same for yer man in Laos. There are just so many places to hide and live out your life.

MPs: 999 HQ revamp FAIL cost £469m

Hmm

Your reference to Station end makes me think that I woul dhave been sitting next to you for most of that 2 years.

I agree wholeheartedly with your comments, with teh single exception that no mention was made of a certain chinless wonder.

Apple to offer own-brand HDTV, claims analyst

Heard it before

Jason Calacanis talked about this almost a year ago, so this isn't exactly news.

http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/natelanxon/0,139102300,49299275,00.htm

Calacanis: Apple to release networked HDTVs

...Love him or hate him, the bloke's got contacts, and he confirmed to me that he knew first-hand that Apple was working on a networked television. These LCD HDTVs will be fully networked, with the ability to stream all your iTunes content from your Mac or PC. In fact, Calacanis told me they'll function like a standard TV with an Apple TV box, only without the need for the box.

MySociety denies role in Blears sacking

stupid titles

So the actual story is...

1.) She used google and ended up on Hazel Blear's page on TheyWorkForYou.com

2.) She clicked through from it to Hazel's official site

3.) She found the 'contact me' page on the official site and then

clicked on the email address, which, using a mailto: tag popped up her

work email client.

4.) She wrote and sent her fatal email, which was delivered from her

DCSF email account, not her Hotmail which she'd normally use.

Microsofties lose their iPhones

Moto

One of the first things a head honcho at Moto did when he came in was to order that instead of Moto only handsets, all staff were to use competitor ones, so as to get a first hand look at what they were up against.

Still not seen a good handset out of them yet though.

Airline websites forced to clean up

Ryanair

Changes that will hopefully highlight the fact that when i recently purchase five 1p flights from Ryan Air, the total cost is actually £550. Including a wonderful £50 charge to pay for the flights.

Sacha Baron Cohen scars Paula Abdul for life

how long is life?

I love the fact that in the article, she was "Scarred for life for a year"

;o)

Budvar beats Anheuser-Busch in latest Budweiser battle

NOt all Merkin beer is bad

Just most of it.

The Steam beers are just lovely IMHO as are some of the Pale Ales, Sierra Nevada for starters.

The good book: How to bet better online

debt of honour

Yep, that is correct in the UK at least. Gambling debts are not legally enforceable, so a Bookie can decide not to pay you if they want.

Apple plays catch-up with new iPhone features

Losing the plot

That's a few average products / Apps that Apple have come out with in the last year or so. Are they now becoming tired?

Sofia Dark Knight Englundh protests footie chant slur

Irish

Now if she were an Irish Girl...

WTF FTW.

Web maven gives convicted botmaster keys to new kingdom

*groan*

"For most of that time, serial entrepreneur and Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis was in the dark because no one at the company had bothered to Google the employee"

I expect they used Maholo rather than Google and it turned up 0 hits.

Etailer flogs signed Jade Goody biog for £1,000

@Joe K

Couldn't agree more. Which is why I'm adding to this thread and thus improving the ranking of the story

Ten of the Best... laptop stands

Alternative

I use the Bakker Elkhuizen Flextop 270 on the desk and it's a wonderful piece of design. Pretty good at doing what it's supposed to to. (pricey tho)

El Reg suffers identity crisis

Blimey!

I can't believe that the Daily Mail called El Reg "A respected technology news website" I feel somehow dirty for reading the Reg now.

Satanic net neologisms - nominations invited

First!

First

T-Mobile G1

Different Hware

Hell no, Android on the iPhone, now that I'd buy.

GooTube snubs McCain's call for DMCA favoritism

Music Piracy

At a previous poster: I was under the assumption that the McCain campaign had all the relevant rights to play whatever music they wanted. You pay the PRS, you can play music. Isn't it that Simple?

Tesco reveals unannounced Dell 12in netbook

PC World

Recently bought myself a Dell Lappy from PC World as I needed one sharpish, and when i registered it online later in the week, it was showing as being bought from Tescos. So even if you don't buy one there, Dell still seems to think that you did.

;o)

LaCie's rugged rubber drive hits 500GB

Missing the point

Yes you can get cheaper drives and you may also be able to get more reliable ones, but you will be hard pushed to find nicer looking ones.

You're paying the premium for the design.

As for reliability, I've got a TB of LaCie drives at home now, the oldest being 2 years old and I've never had a crash.

Billy Bragg: Why should songwriters starve so others get rich?

Thanks

Thanks for reminding me what a great artist and Bloke Mr W Bragg is. I'm off to download his backcatalogue right now.

Cuba lifts ban on computer sales

Mobile Phones

Back in teh late 90's I worked on the design for a prepay mobile phone system for Cuba. Amongst the strange things about it was that everyone would get given credit fro the govt monthly towards the cost of calls in Pesos and could then top up in USD separately if they wanted. Of course USD were not official currency but the govt sponsored telco glossed over that fact. Things all went well until they discovered that the hardware we were intending to use was HP kit and at that stage it all fell over. Because HP were an american company. (dual core? no, Dual standards!)

NZ charidee cybersquatter fears burning in Hell

Hey!

Palmerston North was my favourite place in NZ!

Polish builder sacked for humping hoover

Hetty

You sure it was a Henry and not a Hetty? After all, Hetty does come in a rather fetching pink colour. And she's got these lovely come to bed eyes..

UK rattles 'three strikes' filesharing sabre (again)

Really?

So i pay close to £100 a month to Virgin for a package from them. If I get booted from internet access by them under the three strikes ruling, will they just lie down and let that £1200 a years walk off to someone else?

Enraged vegan spitroasts Reg hack

Guinea Pigs

You can take your Guinea Pigs and Roast em.

http://www.trekearth.com/viewphotos.php?l=5&p=38940

Cigarette ash proves a drag for Nintendo's Wii

Typo

Enough of this debate on smoking, let us not forget the spelling mistake in the article.

Accumlation? No, it's accumulation

I'll get me coat.

When Green Computing attacks - hype or heaven?

Highway driving in a Prius

In terms of emissions when most of the driving is motorway based, my Baby Beemer 2 litre diesel is "greener" than a Prius. cheaper too.

Vodafone USB Modem 7.2

Other Areas

If I had to make a guess at the next area to be included it would be Newport Pagnell Services. That always used to be the busiest cell in the country for 3G usage.

Cash-strapped NHS seeks Project Manager

Not uncommon

That kind of thing appears on the jobsites all the time. It's just lazy recruitment agents.

Dell parks itself in PC superstores across Europe

The Tech Guys

For me, PC world splits in two when I think of it. I have always found the stores to be manned by poorly trained people with (I assume) massive sales targets. But the Tech Guys have always been good in my experience. We have a stand alone TG store near us that I've used, both over the phone and in person and I've recommended to people. All of us have had good experiences and cheap too.

It's alsmost as if they are two completely separate entities with differing corporate paths.

Data centre looted in multimillion pound overnight heist

Nah...

Are we sure they were dressed as coppers and not as strippers?

Nokia to jump on music download bandwagon?

OD2

IIRC, a company called OD2 provide some software for music downloads, Nokia have bought them a while back and the software is supposed to be added into new versions of the PC Suite.

OD2, (Peter Gabriel set it up didn't he?) have been hiring dev people for some time for this now.

Nick

Vodafone sinks to new low

Videos

If you are interested there are several videos of the flood on you tube.

Outisde

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMw8ZN6zE5M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMw8ZN6zE5M

(second one complete with staff trying to work out how to cross a road)

And inside

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMw8ZN6zE5M

Is your phone free?

What's in a name?

Colgate means "Go hang yourself" in Spanish IIRC, but it's generally cars that go for bad translations; Cortina - Curtain; Sierra - Saw;

and the MR2 from Toyota if said in French, means "shit" MRDeux / merde.