Posts by Nigel R

DAB lobby launches radio scrappage scheme

car's where it at (NOT)

Since I can get Internet radio at home I've no incentive to buy a 2nd DAB radio. Have discovered that though DAB works nicely in the bedroom, it does not on the ground floor of the house. I live in Reading.

If my car maker were to offer a decent replacement head unit (proprietary - no chance in my car fitting a standard one) with an effective DAB (with DAB+ compatibility for Europe) aerial very neatly integrated and fitted to the car at under £200 I'd still be sorely tempted. Spend too much time in the car and analogue won't offer the choice I want.

Just a sad fact that no carmaker wants to offer retrofit (proprietary ) head units at a realistic price, if at all.

Blighty to get mobe-download barcode rail tickets

That'll be £3 for the privilige, then

Just like greedy cinema chains that offer downloadable booking barcodes, the rail co's will no doubt want to levy an extra charge for this 'privilege'

UK IT job outfit punts 491 private email addys

er, so who at El Reg....

...is applying for / was on the distribution list of likely candidates for the Web Developer post then?

Tesco Internet Phone rings off the hook

Choose the biggie, Skype Out and flat rate if needed.

By coincidence I signed up couple of days ago for Skype Unlimited World at GBP 8/month (there are also cheaper Skype flat rate deals for more limited regions). This after carefully evaluating the call quality to loads of destination thru standard Skype Out.

Only catch is the rather expensive solutions to make Skype portable around the house/home office.

Blighty surrenders to Street View

did Google use the one-off chance to map all our WiFi's?

Wonder if Google had a WiFi sniffer running along with the cameras...this was Google's 1 off opportunity to collect a full DB of every UK WiFi Router's signature for non-GPS location services (as www.skyhookwireless.com has done before).

Skype arrives on Nokia Symbian phones

Won't install on my Nokia... solution is SKYPE LITE!

On seeing this "The Reg" article I Scuttled off to install this on my n78... greeted with ""Unable to install: Component is built in" error and no known workaround.

Then I discovered there's a long existing app called Skype Lite for my phone, installed in a jiff.

Had already tried Fring before - awful audio and lag.

Skype Lite using Skype Out service sounds almost like a normal mobile call - clear and little lag. Fring promptly uninstalled and happy.

The myth of Britain's manufacturing decline

and it's been going on for longer than you think

I used to customize control systems for the feedstuffs industry - which basically control the whole factory.

Once on a site visit I remarked on the spookily empty canteen - large room, one or 2 people in. The customer/supervisor who was with me said 'yeah, it's these control systems you lot put in - we used to have 50 people working here'. The shift was being run 2 people at any one time and it was obvious there was still time to do the Sun crossword.

This was on the 80s - so where automation will take us in the future is anyone's guess.

Disconnection phone scam targets UK consumers

Undocumented feature / nice little earner for BT

Once or twice after failing to hang up a cordless phone correctly, I found the line was still open - quite some time later.

For how many minutes do you continue to pay for the call if the other party has hung up? Nice litter earner / undocumented feature for BT, though.

Australia mulls botnet takedown scheme

if it were that easy to detect...

if it is so easy to detect that your PC is sending spam, why can't any existing AV products do it?

UK.gov won't drop 50p high speed broadband tax plans - yet

expect a 50p subsidy at phase 2 (do they ever think anything through)

Looks like this 50p tax will push us even faster towards the US idea of why bother with fixed lines anyway. It is predicted to trash business models that depend on cheap reliable fixed line infrastructure.

Article - US losing 700,000 fixed lines per annum:

http://www.economist.com/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=14214847

Expect a 50p fixed line subsidy to be introduced at phase 2 to protect this remnant of the UK infrastructure!

Samsung intros skinny watchphone

look ma, no....

eerm... so where do we stand with hands-free use of this product in the car?

Fifty Quid Bloke, meet Spotify's 14p man

er..pricing model?

Have Spotify thought about experimenting with their subscription pricing? Where did they pluck £10 from?

Like most 50somethings, I have others costs like getting son thru Uni on an average but highly taxed income.

Also like many 50somethings I use Spotify for roughly 2 hours a month - but love the idea that it's unlimted if I want it.

Did I hear £2.50, anyone? Or maybe thrown in as a freebie with one's bank account or season ticket.

Oddly enough, all the artists that refuse to play ball with Spotify, I either already own the catalogue of or don't like.

Panasonic patches cameras to block rivals' batteries

legacy equipment just doubled in second hand value!

Wa-hay, my 2 unpatched Panny cameras have just doubled in value when I come to put them on Ebay one day!

Obama disconnects 'obsolete' cell phone tax

just as a new Broadband Tax is added to all UK phone and cable lines....

funny, this happens just as the UK is planning to introducing a 50p per month 'broadband' tax, presumably 50p for your land line, an additional 50p for your cable.

But not, oddly, 50p for your mobile and not for any USB 3g dongles you happen to have about the place.

And then, what about individually directly dial-able business lines?

Will the "passage of time, advances in technology, and the nature of communication in the modern workplace" have rendered the new broadband Tax obsolete before it gets introduced in the UK?

Asus Eee PC 1008HA Seashell

Asus own site says screen is "Glare-type"

'nuff said

UK spectrum map uncovers mysterious emissions in Cumbria

no satellite frequencies here at all

No matter how many sensors it carries, the data collection vehicle is not going to detect anyone transmitting using a sat dish, too directional.

Plus, the incidence of WiFi usage is going to depend on how long people's front gardens are - long garden = no detection of WiFi signal = no WiFi in use?

Humax Foxsat-HDR Freesat HD digital video recorder

Single cable and LNB to record 1 / view another at same time is posible

For those of us who don't want to loop and new 2nd cable around the house and drill new holes, plus add to the spaghetti in general, this Foxsat enables a new standard of LNB to be used, that allows all channels to be received using both tuners simultaneously, on ONE cable and ONE LNB. This LNB is pricey at say £80 but may come down with time. This is also designed as the solution for using existing single Sky type single cabling to distribute Freesat within apartments.

Toshiba NB100 netbook

1024x600 lovely jubbly

1024x600 native resolution on a 9 to 10"" screen - lovely, just right for email and web browsing where seeing icons and text properly are the issues. Could it even be by design?

In the ditch with DAB radio

Prediction: Europe goes 100% digital before UK

It's worth remembering that DAB+ is hugely more resistant to the burbling mud effect, due to a better error correction system. You lucky lucky mainland Europeans - the Euro AND DAB+ too!

Sharp shows first 'zero-emission' telly

220 KWH should read 2.2 KWH?

220 KWH is enough to power a small town.

Even 2.2 KWH is suspiciously high for a solar panel - what is the real unit of measure?

How to beat AVG's fake traffic spew

Al-Qaeda training manuals

So, if you entered some keywords about Al-Qaeda training manuals AVG would visit the actual training manual page on your behalf behind the scenes and your ISP would register that fact...

Ofcom swoops on caller ID-faking firm with... request for information

'It was SpookCall wot made me do it!'

Perhaps someone holding diplomatic immunity could do us the favour of hacking someone's voice mail (ideally an MP's) using a spoofed ID then publicise what he finds to the national press. He could even turn himself in at the local Police Station and say 'it was SpookCall wot made me do it!'. Would anyone then finally act?

BBC should not pay for fibre, Ofcom tells MPs

While we all ignore Butter's Law of Photonics

Similar to Moore's Law (where "bang per buck" in hardware doubles every 24 months):

Butter's Law: The cost of transmitting a bit over an optical network decreases by half every nine months and he bandwidth available to users increases by 50% annually (presumably at no extra cost and at same profit level to the bandwidth providers).

Why have both sides of the warring parties - and the spectators - forgotten about this?

UK Reaper drone wrecked in Afghanistan

so nothing changes then...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lions-Donkeys-Dinosaurs-Blundering-Military/dp/0099484420

Carphone Warehouse stares down BPI and UK.gov on three strikes

er... and for households sharing a connection?

What will be the 3 strikes situation for households sharing a connection? Teenagers with their own computers, or a shared house with 5 computers on the same connection?

I suspect a disconnection policy not been done successfully anywhere in the world yet.

How the BBC plans to save your ISP

What to do with all the spare banwidth in 2013?

Not much doubt that within 5 years a (very) cheap PVR will buffer all of the 10 favourite channels for a week or 2. So the traffic arrives thru the aerial and the server is in the home under the TV set. We'll just have to think of another way to use up all that surplus ISP bandwidth in 2013. HDTV thru one's ISP anyone?

GCap reaches for DAB off switch

and you still can't listen on the move

(without carting 1 tonne of steel and [plastic with you)

If DAB was meant to be the future of portable radio, why did they not spec the system to work on portable devices? You still cannot listen to any radio station in the UK reliably on public transport or while jogging/cycling using DAB or anything else.

Eee PC: better with Windows?

The XP Killer App - IME for Asian Languages

Being able to use the English keyboard to type Asian languages such as Simplified Chinese is the app I would need on day 1. So far I was not able to confirm if this familiar interface, a clone of the Windows IME for East Asian Languages, is available on Linux.

Killer App number 2 is drivers for GPRS/3g modems or usb dongles, to leverage that portability. Not to mention, would the Eee be able to recognize Internet Banking usb stick readers?

Anyone?

Creative Zen media player

1 of several MP3 players with a DAB tuner

http://www.breezily.co.uk/products/iriver_b20_2gb_dab_radio_mp3_player

Eurostar cancels 29 Feb 2008

-20 mins +20 mins

Yeah but it will take 20 mins+ longer for anyone to the South or West of London to reach St. Pancras compared with Waterloo.

IE + RealPlayer = Security hole

Any other way to listen to BBC?

I use FF and other media players but they don't work reliably (eg in FF you cannot adjust the player volume on the embedded player page). It just seems easiest to use IE and then, as explicitly recommended on the BBC website (where the player's download link is pointed to), Realplayer free.

iRobot offers crawling Wi-Fi spy-n-chat housebot

Could't they have made a slicker version of THIS?

With one of these the kids might be able to remotely help Granny sort out her gadget problems:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/sep/13/guardianweeklytechnologysection.news

Lawyerless eBayer sues Autodesk over garage-sale miracle

In that case, is THIS legal or not?

After reading the item above about not being allowed to resell Office, I have to ask, has this activity been made illegal yet - the organized reselling of old MS Operating System and Office software: http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/01/02/munich_buys_windows_2000/

Software developer sues to muzzle website users

Still need protection against cunning plots

If you whinge about a massive monopoly like MS or BT it makes little or no difference to their sales. If someone whinges on a Forum about a product that has loads of competitors, where it's easy to switch buying decisions, it can hurt.

Perhaps the court should order that the complainers reveal their identities to the complained-about and have it verified that there was no cunning plot to diss a competitor. A forum post that goes on about 'feelings' could indeed be a cunning plot as it evades the law on libel.

Firefox hits 400m download milestone

so what are El Reg's stats?

Perhaps El Reg could share it's stats with us on this - what percentage of Reg pages get browsed via Firefox?

Yahoo! Unveils! New! Mail! Service!

Yahoo UK binned it's text service a while back??

I was a user of the Yahoo UK web based texting service for a couple of years, the advantage being replies could go to my mobile as usual. Yahoo sacked a bunch of UK based developers and binned this service about 6 months ago, taking my remaining credit balance with it. Fortunately 18185 (UK) has now stepped into the breach with a 1p per text to anywhere in the world text service that also ID's my own mobile to the recipients.

http://www.18185.co.uk/sms.php

AwayPhone aims to slash mobile roaming costs

Much worse deal than 0044 Global (which has been around for years)?

Many such services have existed for years, eg http://www.0044.co.uk/global-sim-card.htm where calls say, inside China are 22p/min instead of 50p with AwayPhone. And you keep a single SIM the whole time with something like an Andorra or Isle of Man mobile number.

Meanwhile, voice calls are just so last century. What about any decent deals for GPRS data roaming?

Zero-day security flaw leaves Firefox wide open

Proof of Concept link always succeeds in launching OE even with NoScript installed

Strange, while a host of blocked Java scripts show up on The Register's site, landing on xs-sniper.com does not show any scripts active. Can click on the proof of concept link eg the news one and it gets as far as launching Outlook Express - then maybe it seems to fail due to a "Not Recognized Format" error.