* Posts by Neil Hoskins

424 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Jul 2007

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Phone-fondling docs, nurses sling patient info around willy-nilly

Neil Hoskins

NHS IT is unbelievably restrictive, partly due to misguided security policies and partly due to outdated hardware and software (Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP is typical). So staff are always going to do whatever they can to bypass the bollocks and use time and labour-saving 21st century technology. As they're medics and not techies, this will be done with high-street defaults rather than more appropriate security. The solution is obvious: the IT departments need to catch up with 2015 technology.

Cambridge boffins: STOP the rush to 5G. We just don't need it

Neil Hoskins

2G around here would be a novelty.

NHS quango fatcats spend £2m tax dosh on iPads and iPhones

Neil Hoskins

Oh Dear

So you'd prefer our health services to run on paper, would you? This pathetic feature reminds me of the boss I had who didn't want CD-ROM drives on the PCs because we would just use them for playing music all day.

DRUPAL-OPCALYPSE! Devs say best assume your CMS is owned

Neil Hoskins
Unhappy

Re: Total nightmare!

One of the reasons I chose Drupal was that it's what the Whitehouse uses.

Mobile coverage on trains really is pants

Neil Hoskins

Re: Almost every developed country seems to do much better

Developing countries too. I got better coverage on a holiday to Kenya in 2007 than I get at home in 2014 (T-mobile / EE).

EE accused of silencing customer gripes on social media pages

Neil Hoskins

Conspiracy Theory

I just got back from a touring holiday in Spain and France which had been planned around use of mobile technology (on T-mobile) for using booking.com, location services, etc etc. Three days in, PAYG roaming just stops working. You can imagine I was more than a little miffed. My formal complaint when I got back is still not answered, maybe because I used profane language ("bloody inconvenient", I think I said). So how about this for a theory:

- EU forces providers to bring down the cost of roaming

- Some customers (me) are on old tariffs that are extremely good value by present-day standards

- So you give those customers lousy service in the hope that they'll change to a more reliable tariff or leave completely.

- Customer decides to move to Vodafone but in the meantime will cause a stink on social media

- Such discontents on social media must be silenced.

Video of US journalist 'beheading' pulled from social media

Neil Hoskins

It's Ali G, innit?

To my outside-the-M25 ears he sounds like Ali G. "It's 'cos I'm black, innit?"

Microsoft Cortana EULA contains the Greatest Disclaimer of ALL TIME

Neil Hoskins

Shirley...

... that's got more to do with demonstrating it to your mum:

"Cortana, open a web site I might like."

"OK, 'sex with vegetables' coming up."

Giant pop can FOUND ON MOON

Neil Hoskins

Weird...

... because Pocari Sweat is supposed to be an isotonic rehydration drink, so the logic of dehydrating it evades me.

Nokia: What to do with our euro BEELLIONS... Eh, let's spaff some on connected cars

Neil Hoskins

Re: Nokia sat nav

I only just found out that the current Lumias don't do re-routing according to traffic conditions, so my N8 has been pulled out of the drawer; so much for convergence. Maybe Nokia should spend some of their billions on bringing Here Drive back up to the standard it was several years ago on Symbian. With Google now pushing towards offline maps, Nokia are in severe danger of being left behind in mapping, just as they were with smartphones. With mapping gone, there won't be much left and they'll have to go back to selling wellies.

Dropbox defends fantastically badly timed Condoleezza Rice appointment

Neil Hoskins

Irony

And they say the Yanks don't do irony. Actually, this is no more stupid / ironic than making Blair a peace envoy to the middle east.

Reg tries out Google's Chromecast: Yep, we even tested smut sites

Neil Hoskins

Re: Almost perfect

Thanks, but I have a houseful of DLNA-compatible gadgets. I despair of people developing yet more proprietary protocols when a suitable standard has been around for years.

Neil Hoskins

Almost perfect

But can we also have DLNA/UPNP for local streaming, please?

How Britain could have invented the iPhone: And how the Quangocracy cocked it up

Neil Hoskins

I don't think...

... the iPhone's success was because of its touchscreen; I think it was because it was made by Apple and was therefore cool and shiny. The fanbois and bloggers and tech-journos-who-should-have-known-better like the BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones then wouldn't stop blathering on about the sodding thing. The only reason that everybody has followed suit is that the Apple spin doctors have convinced everybody that that's what they want. Personally, I hate bloody capacitive touchscreens: most people's fingers are too fat to get any real control, and you end up with smudges all over your screen - it's complete madness.

First the Yanks, now us: In-flight mobe use WON'T kill us all, say Eurocrats

Neil Hoskins

Earphones

The main deal with taxi, takeoff, and landing is people listening to music through headphones. If you've got Van Halen blasting your eardrums, you won't be able to hear important announcements, and then, trust me, I *will* trample you underfoot.

Finns, roamers, Nokia: So long, and thanks for all the phones

Neil Hoskins

Re: Nokia couldn't make a smartphone because it was too focused on the phone side.

Nail - head.

Neil Hoskins

Re: Maemo? MeeGo?

"Maemo was a developer OS, not a user OS"

But it was *very* close: *almost* usable by the average numpty. But then they chucked all that in the bin and started all over again with MeeGo; leading to the delay that Mr O seems to be saying was the final nail in the coffin.

Terror cops swoop on couple who Googled 'backpacks' and 'pressure cooker'

Neil Hoskins

Closing Sentence

Spot on.

Pen+tablet bandwagon finally rolling, Nvidia leaps aboard

Neil Hoskins
Thumb Up

TFFT

I was a late and very reluctant adopter of the now-ubiquitous smudgy-finger-powered capacitive touchscreen and never understood why everybody had to jump on the iPhone bandwagon. I tried a capacitive stylus and found it useless.

Living with a 41-megapixel 808 PureView: Symbian's heroic last stand

Neil Hoskins

Other significant selling points:

- Removable battery: you can either replace a clapped-out one or upgrade to an enormous Mugen replacement that will last you several days away from mains power.

- SD card so you're not going to run out of storage. You also used to be able to install apps to SD card on Symbian but I don't know if this is still the case.

Neil Hoskins
Unhappy

"BBC’s iPlayer arrived on Symbian first"

Couldn't swear to it, but I have a distinct memory of them doing it for the iPhone first, despite it being just an over-hyped feature phone (at the time), and the ubiquity of Nokia and Symbian (at the time). Or maybe it was downloading that iPhone got first; something really annoyed me anyway.

Fraudster gets ten years after selling fake 'ionic charge' bomb detectors

Neil Hoskins

But...

...from what we've been reading on these pages over the years, it's just an extreme example. Most of the devices and security measures in place at airports are a complete sham, to keep the public scared and the terrorists thinking they might get caught. They're still taking drinking water off passengers, despite the fact that there was never a viable liquid bomb plot. At Schipol, they make you stand in a big perspex box that looks like it's out of Star Trek, which I can say with a fair degree of confidence, does FUCK ALL.

It was the Reg what won it: Online Hitchhiker's Guide thriving

Neil Hoskins
Facepalm

Mobile

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a wholly remarkable book, was, of course, primarily a mobile device. Douglas Adams foretold the popularity of smartphones and connected tablets while we still thought digital watches were a pretty neat idea. Which is why I've always been puzzled about the H2G2 site being aimed primarily at desktops. There does, in fact, seem to be some content at h2g2.mobi, but this looks really cut-down: text-only, in fact. What is needed is something aimed primarily at 4" and 7" devices.

EE extends network: Soon, 1 million users will pay us for 4G

Neil Hoskins
FAIL

What a joke

2G around here would be something of a novelty. And I don't live out in the sticks, either.

WHITE WHALE spent 4 years trying to tell us something, then stopped

Neil Hoskins
Boffin

It's Clearly...

... taking the piss out of humans. "This is what you sound like, ha-ha..."

Galaxy S III dumps universal search, tries to dodge Apple's sueballs

Neil Hoskins
Facepalm

Re: Prior art?

... and surely I remember it being on Nokias from around 2006?

Being a skinny is much more unhealthy than being fat – new study

Neil Hoskins
FAIL

Here we go again...

I think you may be confusing correlation with causation. Underweight people are probably underweight due to an underlying pathology; that is, they're already ill. Overweight people are likely to be overweight because they eat too much but are otherwise healthy... for the time being.

Swiss space-cleaning bot grabs flying junk, hurls itself into furnace

Neil Hoskins
Unhappy

Chocs and clocks?

OK, I know you're just making a little joke, but this perception of the Swiss has annoyed me ever since I visited one of their machine-tool companies in the eighties. For years I had to listen to Thatcherites saying that we could base an economy on financial services, "like the Swiss", knowing it to be utter bullshit.

A preview of SOPA: Web shut down before my eyes

Neil Hoskins
Flame

This is a local dispute

I have no interest in it. Wikipedia's decision to take the whole English-speaking world offline demonstrates once and for all that they are a dangerous cult and we shouldn't become too dependent on them.

Olympics volunteers urged not to blab online

Neil Hoskins
Unhappy

Me too.

Netflix UK to stream BBC shows

Neil Hoskins
Meh

Blinkbox

I really hope that doesn't mean they'll be taken off Blinkbox. I, for one, am not going to have anything to do with any service that involves a monthly subscription.

Nokia's Great Lost Platform

Neil Hoskins
Thumb Up

Nice one...

Any plans for a similar feature on Maemo? I'm still intrigued by the decision to chuck it all in the bin and start again with Meego, just as it was coming together.

Nokia's Windows comeback: Great but what's next?

Neil Hoskins
Black Helicopters

Nothing new under the sun

I'm glad you pointed-out that the People app isn't really a new idea, since my N900 has something very similar. But that's the whole point about the mysteries of marketing, isn't it? Bill Gates was trying to shove tablet PCs down our throats years before the iPad. There were UIQ touchscreen smartphones years before the iPhone. As far back as the seventies, I remember Yamaha bringing out a bike with a "revolutionary" square-four engine, but some grey-haired old duffer then remembers that a British company had tried something similar about a hundred years previously. It's all very, very strange.

Leo DiCaprio slated to play Turing in biopic

Neil Hoskins
Meh

'Enigma', the film...

... was a film of the novel, and was therefore a work of fiction. If you watched it thinking it's an inaccurate documentary, then you're a plonker.

Canonical ARMs Ubuntu for microserver wars

Neil Hoskins
WTF?

"...ARM-based netbooks were taking the PC market by storm..."

Either I'm very tired and missing something or this bit doesn't make sense. Googling for "ARM-based netbooks" results in several articles from two years ago saying they'll be here any minute now, and, er, this one.

Nokia WinPho handset resurfaces in factory flick

Neil Hoskins
WTF?

Are you getting mixed-up?

The N9 is the already-officially-launched Harmattan Meego device.

Educating Verity the OU way

Neil Hoskins
Meh

Java

After two whole years of Java, when they still hadn't shown us how to write and deploy an actual program that would run on an actual computer or other device, I decided it was time to jack it in and buy a book about Android.

Moderatrix kisses the Reg goodbye

Neil Hoskins
Angel

Sub Headings

I think it's the sub-headings I'll miss more than anything. The English language at its finest.

Nokia's Windows phone outed on video

Neil Hoskins
Boffin

"...I would really like to see an Android Nokia phone - that would tempt me...."

http://nitdroid.com/

Easy-peasy, and most of it actually works. Not a huge fan of Android, though, I'm discovering.

Neil Hoskins
Meh

In other words, a bit like the original iPhone launch

I remember that one fondly. Tuning into the live video feed surreptitiously on my work PC, then:

"It's got a touch screen.".... wild applause.

"It's got a calendar."..... wild applause.

"It's 3G.".... wild applause.

America demands definition of fourth generation

Neil Hoskins
Thumb Up

Can we please...

...have a sub-heading of the month vote.

Hannspree Hannspad 10.1in Android tablet

Neil Hoskins
Devil

Skype

Skype was never going to be very good on mobile devices, being dependent upon always-connected 'supernodes' whose owners don't mind their resources being gobbled up. It's not even very good with networked modern desktop devices. If you want to make free/cheap VoIP calls, use SIP, if you want to make video calls to the grandchildren in Australia, use Google Talk or similar. (And no, I have no idea if google talk video works on android; it doesn't work too well on my N900 but no worse than Skype.)

Nokia unveils Contractual Obligation Meego Phone

Neil Hoskins
Linux

I tend to agree

The Maemo tablet series bubbled along quite happily in the background until they made the catastrophic decision to chuck it all in the bin and start again. This is the 'start again' and I must say it looks quite good. I agree the average spoilt-rich-numpty doesn't give a toss what OS his/her phone is running. The UI looks intuitive and simple. The third party apps look good (they've had plenty of time to get them right, let's be honest). If the price is right and it's bug-free on launch, I think it may well sell. Apart from anything else, it's an alternative if the first windows devices turn out to be crap. Certainly the flash support and tethering-out-of-the-box is one in the eye for the fanbois.

Earth may be headed into a mini Ice Age within a decade

Neil Hoskins
Boffin

Who the hell drew a straight line through those data points!?

Whoever it was should be taken outside and kicked to death by respectable physicists.

IATA: this iPad could BRING DOWN A PLANE

Neil Hoskins
Holmes

It does seem foolish...

...to go to huge lengths and expense getting all electronic equipment on an aircraft certified as not emitting too much interference, and then allowing carry-ons made by just about any tin-pot manufacturer.

IAEA: Handling of Fukushima has been exemplary

Neil Hoskins
Unhappy

Meanwhile...

Four fatalities in Pembrokeshire. I bet they don't get as much publicity.

What is UltraViolet™ and why should you care?

Neil Hoskins
Facepalm

Just one little problem:

The titles that they actually release in this way will be crap.

Nokia betas some DLNA love

Neil Hoskins
Holmes

Oooooo.....

Like I could with my N95 three years ago?

Twitter forced to hand over user details to English council

Neil Hoskins
Facepalm

context

I think you've taken his comments out of context. Maybe it's the criminal waste of taxpayer's money that's decided his future voting habits....

Neil Hoskins
Black Helicopters

"...celebrities said to have taken out injunctions..."

If that's what this debate has been reduced to then it's a real shame. To me it was always more about not being allowed to say that Banker A has been found to be incompetent, or that Russian B trying to buy an English football club is an ex-con.

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