Posts by Gannettt

SACRILEGE! Hitchhiker's Guide game's back ... and it TWEETS at you

Re: A nice cuppa

Reminds me of a similar line by Spike Milligan: "these two are identically different, except for the other one" One thing i miss since I moved to the States, surreal humour!

Why can’t I walk past Maplin without buying stuff I don’t need?

Just wanted to add my 2p!

Started shopping from the Maplin catalogue in about 1988 - even then wondered why you paid 5 quid for the catalogue but they never gave you a discount or free postage on your first order.

Along with cables and a set of PC speakers, i recently bought a MEGA-EAR, looks like an MP3 player with a condenser microphone and headphones and amplifies the sound to ridiculous levels - just holding it in your hand you could hear your heart beating. Totally useless but fun...should be Maplin's advertising slogan.

Computer expert and broadcaster Ian McNaught-Davis dies at 84

It was the way he said the words "computer' and 'micro' with his northern accent that sticks in my mind, among a great deal more stuff. MAC was from the era when your dad or uncle passed on the benefit of their experience, rather than the cool older brother/sister giving you useless tit-bits of info like now.

Well remember tuning into Micro Live every Friday evening, and feeling that excitement about what was happening in computers. MAC seemed to look down on computers as entertainment, so you have to wonder what he thought of the whole smartphone concept.

App-maker King hopes to CANDY-CRUSH $500m from IPO

Honestly can't understand why they need to go public, unless it's to rake in investor cash for yet another Shariki-based game with a name ending in Saga.

STRIPPED DOWN and EXPOSED: Business kit from the good old days

As a spotty work-experience lad in the late 1980s working for a company making milling equipment, someone pried open a locked cupboard door and found a hoard of candles, drinking water and ancient packs of Walker's ready salted crisps, apparently stored up during the 1973 3-day week. We all went home with boxes of huge white candles, but nobody was very interested in the water or crisps (I guess nobody liked ready salted!)

At school we were taught to type on ancient Olympia and Silver Reed typewriters similar to those pictured. The teacher was of a similar vintage and looked like she had stepped straight out of a 1950s office, including perm and Dame Edna glasses. The smell of the fluid she used to clean the typewriters was intoxicating. It was sad when she retired and the new broom junked all the machines the old teacher had so lovingly cared for over the years and replaced them with electronic daisywheels.

Android users running old OS versions? Not anymore, say latest stats

Totally agree. Own an S3 here and see no reason to upgrade, though might look for something newer this summer.

My missus is one of the Gingerbread hold-outs, using an ancient HTC Inspire 4G. She tried my phone with a 4.3 custom ROM and said it was too complicated. Doesn't stop her moaning that half the apps she wants don't seem to be compatible with her aging device, though!

Facebook unwraps Paper, a content-hoover application

Re-read the article, but still don't quite understand what this app does. Definitely a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, unless that problem is "not enough revenue".

Smog-hit Beijing shows sunsets on a giant TV to remind people what the sun looks like

With the record-breaking drought we're experiencing in California at the moment, there has been speculation as to whether all this pollution being generated in China is to blame for the changes in weather patterns. I keep an open mind, but seeing that awful pall, makes me think of the awful pall when the hills surrounding our city are ablaze with wildfires.

Ubuntu unleashes dual boot tool for Android mobes'n'slabs

"...in the dead days between Christmas and whenever you go back to work..."

For me, Boxing Day. My last employer in the UK, before I moved out to the good ol' USA, invariably gave us the week between Christmas and New Year off; here it's off at 3 on Christmas Eve, and back to work on the 26th. :( There are a lot of things I like about living out here, but the three things I don't like are the measly 10 days' paid holiday a year, only getting Christmas Day off, and the awful plastic cheese!