* Posts by Adam

7 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Jul 2007

SkyFire beta goes public

Adam
Boffin

First impressions

Just installed on a WM6.1 Palm Treo Pro device.

- Install fails if you download to storage card and try to install, however download to main memory and install to either main memory or storage card and you're fine

- Upon startup, it calls the UK a "non-supported region" as yet

- It's pretty quick to start up and pages pull down with a good speed over the HSxPA connection on the Treo Pro

- Using the square 240x240 screen format was no problem

However - all this said, it's a very basic browser, sure it handles a lot of "stuff" on the web, but you always start with a page overview zoomed out and have to zoom into the bits you want and there's no menu option to create a "striped page" optimised for the screen size you're on, ala Opera. There's no way I want to keep zooming in, out and moving a virtual mouse pointer round a screen, whilst on the move, using my device one handed - all I want to do is just scroll down or up using the d-pad on the device.

So quick first impressions - it's quick, very few options/configurations, handles lots of web content and is light on memory (1.6MB) - but it's no excuse to uninstall Opera 8.65 from your device.

S60 knows where you're at

Adam

Indoors reception

The problem here with GPS is of course it's only going to work properly whilst outdoors. A-GPS just isn't accurate enough for working with pre-defined zones (i.e. falling asleep on the train, and not being woken up till you're a couple of km's away from your stop) - or having your "car" profile activated while you're still in your office).

The use of basestations/repeaters/WiFi or Bluetooth signals from other equipment, to say, lock/unlock your PC without passwords as you leave it at your work desk or walk back to it, however, I think is something useful... not earth shattering, but convenient.

Yahoo! knows! where! you! are!

Adam

@FathomsDown

...the service you're thinking of was called ZagMe and worked just at Bluewater and Lakeside; it was bought and rolled into a market research organisation (Valued Opinions). The SMS service was alright actually, there were discounts available by showing your texts at certain participating stores.

I think the key to any system like this is the controllability of your data. If I don't want to be tracked, I do nothing. If I do want to be tracked, I switch it on for a specified period of time - proper opt-in.

Awed fraudsters defeated by UK's passport interviews

Adam
Go

The interviews are weak anyway

My other half went for one of these interviews - it was his first passport application and the interview lasted all of 15 minutes and went something like this:

Them: Are you really who you say you are?

Him: Yes

Them: Really, really? Honest, promise?

Him: Yes. Really.

Them: Have you got a note from your doctor/MP/someone else saying the same?

Him: Yes, here.

Them: Thanks, here's your passport, bye now.

That's the REAL reason there's not been a fraudulent application detected, the process is so weak that all the fraudsters* are walking through the net.

* Not my other half. Obviously.

UK bank blames fraudsters for World of Warcraft ban

Adam

How would you do it in a cash based society then?

...sending your monthly subscription in the post? I thought PBM died out in the 80's?

Milton Keynes council embraces WiMAX

Adam
Joke

Totally no point for MK

I live in MK, worked with the "Broadband 4 MK" pressure group to get stuff like this done... what a total waste of time. I *desperately* need faster broadband as I'm stuck at 900k-1Mbit (in Europe's fastest growing city? Pathetic!)... but the WiMax install is aimed at the centre/centre west of the town center, where most people have a decent connection already.

If ConnectMK/MK Council had any sense they would have pointed this thing at the vast majority of us poor luckless souls that don't inhabit the -predominantly business zoned- central area (as per MK's design).

It's all spin and until they address the nonsense that is MK's comms infrastructure (some of us on aluminium cable, some on old fibre that never took off as a technology and some of us with tragically long copper lines - I'm 6.3km!) we're screwed.

There's a grid road system here with roundabouts; why not use each roundabout as a distribution node - fibre from the exchanges to the roundabouts, then copper into the individual estates. Problem solved, cheap enough to spin that little bit of fibre out, close/short enough copper lines to make a noticable difference; and none of this faffing about with WiMax that's aimed at totally the wrong type of customer.

Joke Alert icon as that's what this particular piece of planning is.

Adam.

Logitech plugs in 'world's smallest' cordless mouse dongle

Adam

Left handers

Being left-handed myself and having the good fortune to attend their reseller conference a few years ago, I asked their chief of mouse design the same question.

It seems that out of c.7% of the world population that is left handed, repeated research shows that 95% of that 7% use a mouse right-handedly anyway. So making a "proper" left handed mouse would serve just 5% of 7%, which doesn't make good business sense.

And yes, their head of mice was also a left-hander as was his boss!