Posts by marc

Steve Jobs rescues freetards from BBC iPlayer wilderness (for now)

scrap it

If little boys can't respect copyright, then scrap iPlayer. Go buy a DVD instead, or order it online if you're afraid of leaving the house!

Nine Inch Nails cracks net distribution (maybe)

I don't get this....

So one perspon buys the top version and uploads a Torrent of it... back to where we started! Honest people paying for it, and scroungers downloading it for free.

Newcomer punts miniature 'pub phone'

that's what I use my Nokia 3510i for

It cost me £15 off ebay. Use it for festivals, clubs etc where you wouldn't want to take an N95.

Microsoft turns to Zune for mobile game edge

java on XBox?

Would a Blu-Ray add-on for the 360 mean they'd have to include a JVM? Ohhh that would be good :)

Microsoft releases latest XP SP3 build

I'm so cool

I upgraded to a non MS operating system! I also wear Nike trainers! DUDE look at me! Cool as

Redmond puts key Vista update on ice

No one remembers Mac OS X

No one remembers Mac OS X and 10.1, 10.2? it took apple 3 years to release Panther, a version bug free and responsive enough to be usable.

Murdoch could save Yahoo! from Microsoft!

I'd cancel straight away

I currently pay for Yahoo Mail Plus. I'd cancel straight away if I though Murdoch was getting his evil, grubby little hands on my money.

Automated crack for Windows Live captcha goes wild

DO A CREDIT CHECK

Take £1 from their account and then put it back in a day later. That would stop automated registration :)

PC World cuts £250 off the price of Apple's MacBook Air

*shock* another anti DSGi article

Is this a new site or a place for bad journalists to air their rants?

Stealthy Adobe Reader update fixes mystery security bugs

Time for MS to include their own Reader

The folks at Adobe seem to think everyone's world revolves around their shoddy document reader. It's always checking for updates or getting in the way with startup items. It's a document reader folks, not the centre of my work day! Lucky Mac users get their own reader in the form of Preview. Why on earh can't MS do the same?

It's official! DVD plus/minus war ends in a draw

Go for whichever's cheapest

Unless you intend to watch that movie you've just burned in a DVD Player, then minus seems to be better supported.

Nokia E51 executive phone

Battery Life?

This is what made the 6210 so popular with business folk, it always had battery left. What's it like on this baby?

The protection's off, as Warner commits to Amazon

Offer downloads for free when baught with a CD

I've always thought Amazon should offer downloads for free when you buy a CD. That way you have a digital copy instantly, and a top quality copy on its way in the post. The best of both worlds! Only there's no need to charge twice for it... it should be an added extra, or maybe an extra 10% on top of the CD price at most.

Europe too cynical for iPhone

a lot of folk are halfway through another contract

I'd like an iPhone - but I have 15 months left on my 18 month contract! By the time I have finished the contract, there will no doubt be a better 3g iPhone.

for now then, an iPod touch will do fine.

Carphone slated over iPhone porkies claim

Not so - phil

With the insurance, you can cancel at anytime but you must give back your phone. I once made the mistake of taking out a new contract with the intention of canceling my CPW one later... turns out the girl at the till had sold me the wrong insurance and i was stuck with two contracts.

Dixons grinches Christmas

stop advertising the cheap rubbish

PC World should stop trying to out-dell Dell, and promote the decent kit, like John Lewis do. Let the cheap folk go and buy their low margin £299 laptop that will be dead in 6 months from ebuyer or dell, and concentrate on selling quality gear with higher margin. Price isn't everything to a lot of people.

Why is the iPlayer a multi million pound disaster?

Individual Programs have it..

The likes of Newsnight, Daily Politics and Working Lunch let you watch the last program straight from the web site, no software (except Real Player or Media Player) is required. Why not extend this to all BBC owned stuff (obviously imports like Heroes wouldn't ever be allowed to be streamed) - much better IMO.

Google funds hold Firefox fate (for sure)

Pay per click?

I always thought Google was paid by advertisers per-click. Therefore Firefox gets its share per click. Therefore users blocking adverts won't click (they can't see any adverts!) and nothing unfair is going on. It's not as if Google is paying Firefox for those users that don't see anything. Users who see the adverts are clicking them, and paying Firefox. If Adblock suddenly became mainstream, no Firefox users would ever click Google's adverts - and so just by the way it works, the Firefox revenue would go down.

As has already been pointed out, ABP does not block Google's ads anyway :)

Beeb news website goes titsup

Only some of it was down

My RSS Feed linked me to some science/tech and entertainment stories. It seemed only the serious stuff was unavailable. Maybe they are on different servers?

Still, at least we had El Reg :) The IT Industry's answer to The Sun

Vista Business sales soar like leaping dachshund

Dual Boot

Why don't OEMs do what Apple did with Mac OS 9 and OSX. Have both! Eventually, folk would move to Vista for its new Tech (.NET, DX10 etc) but could boot into XP to use the 10 year old scanner and AOL CD.

Microsoft shouts 'Long Live XP'

It's not Microsoft's fault

Blame hardware manufactures. Quite reasonably, they ain't gonna put shed loads of ££ into developing Vista drivers for 4 year old products - not gonna sell much kit that way are they?

As for the average consumer. Just because their "tech friend" couldn't get on with Vista, it means it must be rubbish. The simple fact is, if you turn off User Accounts Controls most software will work quite fine.

PC superstore suffers breakdown over Linux notebook

RE: PC World Sucks but.....

Anonymous writes

"99% of all people that go there and actually buy stuff at stupid prices are computer illterate muppets!"

I am sure you are a illiterate if you can't even spell illiterate, but that's not my point. Not everyone can be a master of everything, while you may design CPUs in sleep and probe USB ports in your dreams, most people don't.

If you walked into B&Q and asked a technical question about plumbing, would they laugh in your face about you being "pipe illiterate" muppet?

Some of the comments on here do nothing but solidify the stereotype computer geek who thinks because he can use a computer proficiently he's god. Try flying a plane or saving lives for a living. I'm a software developer and I know my place, I don't look down on people like a lot of you ignorant folk.

Xbox 360 Elite games console

The PS3 can now record TV

The PS3 will be getting PVR like facilities. Will this get added to the XBox 360? I'd like to think so... but somehow I think Microsoft would rather we all bought Vista Media Centre PCs for that.

Microsoft and Nokia team up for Windows Live

Not on N95/T-Mobile

Nope I had to go and download it manually, it wasn't under download. It doesn't work via GPRS (T-Mobile block non web stuff) but over wi-fi its a charm.

I could do without the contacts/hotmail stuff however, the IM is all I need.

Apple readies Mac OS X-based iPods?

Oh great....

Having been an iPod user since the very first, I bought a 5th gen a few months ago because I had a feeling apple might go and ruin things with a touch screen, no wheel and plenty of gimmicks.

Bring back the "real" scroll wheel it was so much more responsive!

As for adding OSX to the iPod... this must mean something like WiFi or a web browser will be included, so users can add widgets. I can't see why else. My 5.5g iPod does struggle to scroll down my list of about 3000 songs at speed, so maybe its for performance reasons - but it must be at the expense of battery life?

At the end of the day, people want an iPod to play music. Cover flow, touch screens and videos are just gimmicks that drain battery power. WiFi and the ability to sync iTunes is all I can think to add.

Gmail: a short, sharp rant

It's not in their interest to make POP3 service good

After all, if you use POP3, you never see the adverts. Unlike Yahoo and Hotmail who charge a small fee for POP3, Google don't make any money from it, and they have to hope they one day you will start using the web mail, maybe from work, or while on holiday, and so you'll see their adverts. Yahoo even offer a free POP3 service to UK customers, on the understanding they may receive the odd advertisement though email.

So if you have to log in once in a while to check your quota, Google wins.