Posts by Allan Rutland

Intel gears up for for 45nm frenzy in 2008

Re: Anonymous Coward

From how they've reacted since the launch of the Core 2, AMD has seemingly resigned itself to fighting in the court room as apposed to with chips. I have to admit through the K6 and Athlons I've loved everything AMD shipped, but since the "empire struck back" (yes bad I know) Intels been amazing, by far the superior CPU across the board, and also fantastic pricing. Unless AMD can pull a rabbit out of a hat with something special, it looks like bargain bin CPUs are where they are heading.

Europe too cynical for iPhone

SMS

The UK sends (from that info they said a few weeks back) over 1bn sms messages per week. But to Apples marketting fools sms is a old, useless technology...hmm, odd how its something most people want and use a lot.

Cripple whats a massive feature on phones, add in lack of features and charge a fortune. And no matter how pretty or shiny it is, it stinks of a waste of time.

Nokia to offer unlimited music downloads... for free

Subscription...

"Once the year is complete, customers can keep all their music without having to worry about it disappearing when their subscription is over."

The music is "free" but the service is a subscription model. Its the same old Napster and Amazon type thing, but they're throwing in a free year to get people onboard first it seems.

Vista vs XP performance: Some informal tests

Memory usage

Been using Vista (and yes flame away all you like, but I've had no issues other than drivers) for over 18 months now, and have found a few intriguing things.

Personal favourite has to be booting the machine, and dropping it to sleep again. Haven't yet figured out what’s not restarting (everything runs correctly, all services are still there etc), but you will regain between 20-30% free RAM back. And a bit of a performance improvement.

And Readyboost is also quiet interesting, depending on machine seen next to no change, up to 15% speed boost from it. Although this does confuse some users having a USB drive stuck in the back of the machine permanently.

Guess a lot does depend on what’s being run, how lazy the dev's were who made it when they just kept hacking things together and using code going back 10-20 years or so. Things progress, and really performance can't be really regained until backwards compatibility is dropped (yes I know the jokes here about Vista's compatibility).

As others have said above, this was the same with going from 2000 to XP, it was slower. And the jump from 98 to 2000, or from 95 to 98, it's always been so. Every time I upgraded my Mac (which makes a nice doorstop) yes, it got slower also. It's always happened, and always will. Adding more to something makes things bigger as odd as that may seem to many.

Great artical though. Anyhow, flame away :P

Gamer takes Microsoft to court over Halo 3 'errors'

What a twonk!

If its a disc error, you get it swapped? or is he to lazy to winch himself off the sofa and return it. If it was a bug, it would be more common, defect in pressing or the as reported earlier dodgy boxes, then that again is something to return it over. Not sue them.

Why is the iPlayer a multi million pound disaster?

Waste of time

I am not one of the loons out there who run around screaming about the evils of DRM, or the lack of compatibility. I actually feel they made the correct decision on not supporting insignificant market shares for the majority in the first place. But the overall model which they followed does seem all wrong now we're used to things such as YouTube etc. It's still a much more prefered medium for viewing BBC content than anything the BBC actually provides.

But, my big gripe with the project, was the lack of streaming off the site, and also lack of choice on it. Probably the lack of content is the bigger issue. If it's supposed to have 50 years of old TV we can wonder through, where is it? 400 staff and what the heck did they do? obviously not digitalising content.

And come on, what could be more useful for the beeb to get users watching it that doing things people want to watch. How about watching an England sporting disaster live at work, via your browser with only having to whack in you license fee number? No client, no faff. Thats how it all should of been.

Amazon's $399 folly book reader

Wheres my ZX48 plug in...

really, it looks right out of the early 80's. Must plug in the tape somewhere to load new books :P

Will Christmas sound the death knell for Atari?

Very sad

It is a huge shame. At this rate there will only be the big Japanese companies, MS and the still insane size of swalling up all before it EA. Shame thought to see such a great label slip into history.

iPhone to solve UK unemployment

SMS

The biggest flaw, of which the phone has many (the review of it on Channel 4's Gadget Show was quiet good), is the SMS support. As was clearly shown this week, we in Blighty send 1.2 BILLION text messages per week. And that's increasing. While Jobs and co may whine its an ancient and evil technology which we should avoid, the fact is, we won't.

We like our texts, and until the iPhone gets better support for SMS, it will be nothing but a pointless fashion statement lacking real world features...like the majority of things Apple make then!

Macs seized by porn Trojan

The weakest point...

of any system is the user sadly. Those pathetic meat bags are a real security hazard, surprised Symantec not tried marketting a straight jacket as a universal firewall againt possible human judgement attacks. Although installing anything by Norton falls in that same category.

As the others have said though, odd we haven't had the usual fanboi comments yet...or are they all busy downloading some new codec for Quicktime to see the latest Jobsy porn :P

Bring on our lizard over lords to protect the world from those terrible meat bags infecting the world!

Asus launches tiny PC

XP on 4GB

As others have said, XP can shrink very nicely. We use XP embedded a lot, and with plenty of tweaks, even leaving in IE and WMP you can quiet easily get XP down to a 62MB install. It's all a matter of how ruthless you want to be at removing things, and what other things you then want to add...Java etc is a right pain to add. Don't expect Vista Embedded anytime soon though :P

Microsoft shouts 'Long Live XP'

Re: Downgrade rights?

As far as I understand it, just like with XP Pro, if you have Vista Business or Ultimate you can downgrade to anything before it...XP, 2k, whatever.

HP and a few others are using this on certain machines by throwing in a old XP restore disk with the Vista one also since the license supports it.

Then again, in a business environment, XP is still working well. Will be quiet interesting to see how MS does Vista embedded...but currently can't see anything happening at all in that line. But there are so many things which XP is used with, which currently, there just isn't anything else.

Why Microsoft vs Mankind still matters

Apple needs Microsoft, and Microsoft needs Apple.

Apple is a weird one. You do mention they should license out their kit...but remember what happened the last time they did this. The competition ripped them to shreds. The Power Computing machines and Motorola Mac’s where better, spec’d, better built, and much lower cost. And in the end Apple in it’s usual mood swings killed them by it’s usual underhand method of withholding parts and licensing.

Could they do the same again today? Quiet possibly and easily with OS X. But would it actually be economically a good idea for Apple to sell off a few licenses to Dell or someone, which results in the a massive loss of revenue from Mac hardware sales. From anyone who has taken apart a Mac knows, the components are usually pretty lousy., wrapped in a nice fashionable glossy shell. Which has proved a good revenue maker for them. Now is that really something Apple wants to sacrifice?

Another issue with Apples ever declining market share (globally) is how much do they really want to annoy Microsoft? The biggest software developer on the Mac is Microsoft after Apple themselves. They produce the software which no matter what the fanboi’s say is used and needed by them. Why does Microsoft support them, when they could be simply all “evil” and remove all support, and in the process really go after the Mac market share? Quite simply it is handy to have them there. A small element, which keeps the market not falling fully into a monopoly, it gives that little thing to assist Microsoft in keeping governments off their back. Quite simply, Apple needs Microsoft, and Microsoft need Apple.

Sod robots, send people into space: report

How Much?!

"The group argues that, by 2015, the UK could send two astronauts into space at a cost of roughly £50m-£70m"

Ok, am I the only one missing that our gov wants to spend £50m-£70m on sending two astronauts into space by 2015, when we could for £100k each give them to Branson to fire up into orbit on the cheap? I know the gov loves to find new and intriguing ways to spend out hard earned tax cash...but some on, this doesn't work out. For that much cash surely it would be more worthwhile buying a SS2 and mother ship off Branson and using it for "gov" purposes.

The gov really needs to get the whole buying off the shelf is cheaper than starting from scratch thing down. They waste way to much this way.

HP inks deal for micro-needle skin patch

Compatibles

And that is also a great line for something like this also...if it ended up going along the lines of the (ok maybe not due to the number of bad compatibles), of the good compatibles out there. This could be good. Lots of compatibles, insert the drug of your choice from any major drugs supplier (I mean legal here), and get it set up to run along whatever line you need from your doc. And great, this could be an amazing advance over the current lines of patch’s for smokers and hormone replacement...which let’s face it, insulin is, so why not.

But yes, compatibles could be great along the lines of this...even more so in areas of the world where health care may not be cheap. I’m not knowledgeable on how something like diabetics are treated in the depths of Africa for example...if at all. So something “compatible” would be great.

Brilliant

Love it, sounds a great development. As mentioned by Rob above, for injections for insulin this should prove a huge advantage. I know the NHS is currently fumbling around with the varied (and rather iffy) inhaled insulin’s at the moment, and while they have some potential the technology is somewhat lacking with them and are quiet lacking. The patch using tiny needles may seem a bit of a step back, yet if it works more reliably than the inhalers; than I am sure many a diabetic will be very happy to get their hands on it.

It also sounds as though it could be a cheaper technology to implement, which let’s face it is always good news for the cash strapped NHS. Hope it gets the backing it deserves from the big drug companies.

Apple slashes iPhone prices

Over priced...

I'm not going into how the crApple fanboi's are all morons, and the general idiots we all know they are. But look at it, 2 months after release a huge price drop and a huge slap in the face of early adaptors. "Ohh it always happens"...not really so soon, and not if its as "successful" as the manufacturer claims. But thats just pointing a bit to Apples customary number fudging to prove things again *cough* benchmarks *cough*.

Anyhow, a few cases in point...Sony on the original PS1 launched for £299 in the UK, almost two months in they slash it to £199...what happens? they send the early adaptors two free games. Another case, Microsoft with the original Xbox in the UK. Early release £299, short time after a quick drop to £199. What do they do? give the users a 2nd controller and a pick of two games from a list of all those currently released.

Big companies have done price cuts early but its not usually there to milk the early adaptors, or even due to manufacturing costs early on. Its because sales haven't gone the exact way they wanted. And slapping early adaptors isn't a bright idea either, but then again it is a bunch of fanboi's and they needed it frankly.

Would I buy one now? not likely as it is still an incredibly awful product lacking the functionality it needed, and the applications it needed. And until its priced closer to the competition on a similar set of rules it can quiet happily be a fanboi fashion item of no real use in the real world. Yes its getting onto a similar price now as a totally unlocked N95...opps, the N95 out features and is "unlocked". Then again, on a similar note, if you don't mind a contract you can pick up the N95 for FREE.

If Apple wants to sell the damn thing, make it into what its claimed to be, a smart phone. And give the users the functionality it needs to actually be of use other than a fashion statement.

Apple rings in changes with iPod Touch

So its...

Lemme get this straight...basically its an iPhone without the crap bits? but still a insane price tag...considering flash memory is so cheap currently, the differance from the 16GB Pod and the 8GB Phone seems to hint more of either Apples continued excessive charging, or of them looking for some way to pass off a load of bits they seem to of kicking around off the Jesus phone.

Sad thing is it will probably still sell just like the iPod...fashion first and foremost.

Email has workers tearing their hair out

Sadly true

Am with Neil on this one...can't go an hour without checking El Reg! As for the email isn't that what the spam filters for. Boss = Spam, Colleages = Spam. If they really want something important they can get off there backsides and come find you in the cupboard, or send some other poor gopher to find you.

If not, than it can wait a few days till the spams emptied :P

NASA issues Constellation/Ares enviro-impact estimate

But...

When did NASA try and put a Reliant Robin in space! Thats true British spacefaring at its best.

Mars? pfft no lager there. The Moon? no chance as finding a good cuppa theres a real pain.

We could for the cost the yanks are blowing on this have a huge fleet of Robins being launched from somewhere uninhabited like Scotland or Wales and really show the world the marvels of British engineering! Talking of which? anyone seen where that duct tape went?

'Grim reaper' dog senses nursing home deaths

Sad

"It's not like he's a grim reaper. It's kind of comforting to know that maybe at the end of our lives, if we don't have family members, there will be somebody there to be with us."

Quiet sad unfortunatly. Although am sure if it works this well, the NHS could use it for nursing homes over here. Lets face it, must be plenty of new canine cheap staff available this way.

iPlayer Politics: Behind the ISPs vs BBC row

Easy Target

I personally see this more of the BBC being a big enough, and much softer target for the ISPs to go for than Google, and the others. In the whines in which they target the beebs iPlayer, they also target the other channels also come hard down on YouTube. This isn't about the system they use, or DRM, or open source anything. It's simply the ISPs avoiding spending money on the network.

We all know how competitive the ISP market has become. Heck, remember back to ten years when we used to pay £300-£400 a quarter for 56k access...or slower. Things have improved. Yet some of the big pushes the ISPs are chasing are bundled services. Many smaller ISPs are sadly vanishing now, and the behemoths are pushing for bundled services with VOiP and TV. With that iPlayer is competition, and worst of all its free competition which they have to provide (if they don't block it) to people who pay the extra or not. It makes there own services look very silly. Why pay BT for ipTV when all I want is available from a smaller, cheaper, more reliable ISP and I can get the Beeb or Sky? You don't. And that must be really pissing them off.

Given half a chance, they will screw the Beeb for cash, then try Sky (roflmao...as if that will get them anything) and even no doubt Google. But lets face it, we all know they haven't a hope in hells chance of getting that, but the Beeb? hmm, dunno. Seems a much softer target really.

AT&T's race car logo lawsuit crashes and burns

Bloody silly

Ok, don't watch the wierd hick racing stuff...but why shouldn't they be able to advertise. It's like AMD and Intel arguing over "you can't sponsor Ferrari as you have an Intel sticker" in F1. It's all just bloody silly.

Seems like the entire worlds run by lawyers, cival servants who make shite up to give themselves something to do and libertarians. Things would be a shedload better if we rounded the lot of them up, and glued them to a runway at Heathrow and "claimed" they wondered onto the track from the hippy camp :P

Australia declares war on net porn

Bahhhhh

"Reducing the variety of pornography viewable by Australian Internet users"

So is this scheme soley designed to fund the crocodile porn coverage? or perhaps limiting Oz usage to sheep only coverage :P