* Posts by alex dekker

64 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Feb 2007

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Nine-inch Asus Eee not doomed after all?

alex dekker

Obvious headline

"Shen ignores Benson and hedges his bets on netbooks"

Although of course some over-zealous corporate content filters might end up blocking it.

Nokia N79 smartphone

alex dekker

"keep your fingers crossed that the N80 won't get here too soon"?

"It's well worth getting, but if you take the plunge now, keep your fingers crossed that the N80 won't get here too soon."

Why? Would this phone suddenly stop working if its successor were to be released? I think Vista vs. XP thoroughly disproves this line of argument :-)

Google Chocolate Factory now building routers?

alex dekker

Contract renewal time with Juniper?

Nothing like spreading a bit of FUD in the press to strengthen your hand when renegotiating your contracts with a key infrastructure supplier, is there? Or, from a more sinister angle, perhaps they're hoping to depress the stock price so they can pick themselves up a bargain.

http://finance.google.co.uk/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:JNPR

Deception of 'up to' broadband speeds exposed

alex dekker

Corrected for distance

Are these figures corrected for the sync speed a customer gets? If they're a long way from the exchange and can only sync at 1M, it's not exactly the ISPs fault if they're not getting 1M, is it? A fairer test would be, what percentage of the sync speed is the customer getting [minus 13% for ATM overheads].

Novo Minoru - the world's first 3D webcam

alex dekker

Maths

Thanks for taking the time to explain that 500 is 10x50.

Royal laptop theft 'will expose picture'

alex dekker

No excuses for this kind of rubbish any more

Truecrypt is free and works with Linux, Mac and Windows. It's an absolute doddle to install and get working. Why do we keep hearing stupid stories like this?

Native Client d**k-swinging met with fake Googasm

alex dekker

Freetard developers?

What, pray tell, is a 'freetard developer'?

Apologies after teacher's 'Linux holding back kids' claim

alex dekker

Talk about being late to the party

Why are you publishing this story without mentioning that the author of the blog cleared this up with 'Karen' three days ago?

ADSL - the VoIP killer

alex dekker

Pay peanuts, get monkeys

If you're not prepared to pay for an ISP that provides you with a decent-enough quality connection [which could involve more than just raw bandwidth - QoS that favours VoIP traffic helps] , then you'll get poor quality VoIP calls.

Logitech Squeezebox Boom wireless music player

alex dekker

re: wot no uPnP?

Regarding the NAS box, most of them run Linux anyway, so you could install slimserver on there and away you go. In fact, a NAS box is probably the ideal place for slimserver if you don't already have a Pea Sea on 24 hours a day. To be honest, given that the slimserver software will run almost everywhere [UNIX clones and Windows], uPnP is moot.

Hackers jailbreak T-Mobile's Googlephone

alex dekker

RE: Naive of me

"Not closed nor open, Perhaps the OS is slightly ajar."

Q. When is a Googlephone not a Googlephone?

A. When it's ajar.

Microsoft's Hotmail hybrid struggles to life

alex dekker

Getlive/gotmail

So long as it works with either of the above, who cares?

Debian all business with Lenny and Squeeze

alex dekker

Tory Story

Presumably Tory Story is about a group of unbelievable characters you've never heard of, lead by a plastic-faced man.

Euro mobe companies mass against cap proposals

alex dekker

Bravo, Big Five

Thanks guys. I'm so glad we've got you to look after our interests for us. If it wasn't for you, I'm sure we'd be absolutely done over by the government.

German court bans VoiP on iPhone

alex dekker

Sipgate

"Sipgate only runs on iPhones of the first generation up to firmware 1.1.4"

Been using Sipgate with Asterisk since 2005, tyvm.

How to stop worrying and enjoy paying for incoming calls

alex dekker

Why not both systems?

Given that the task of calculating who owes what to whom at the end of the day will be worked out by a computer, surely it can't be beyond the wit of Ofcom + the industry to allow for more than one charging model? Keep the 07 range as it is now - caller pays - and add a new number range for callee pays [say, 04]. That way everybody's happy. The GSM spec even allows for 2 lines per SIM [Orange Line 2 being an example of this], so you could even have both if you wanted :-)

Burned by Chrome - Fire put out

alex dekker

"the Services"?

What are "the Services" you speak of?

Info commissioner says comms database is leap too far

alex dekker

Context for figures

Out of interest, could you update the article to compare it with previous years figures on complaints?

BSA slams EC's 'narrow-minded' interoperability vision

alex dekker

If the BSA are against it...

...it can't be all bad.

easyJet warns 'several websites' to stop selling its flights

alex dekker

re: quick whois on RIPE shows

A lot more than 4, but still < 2M:

inetnum: 91.102.184.0 - 91.102.191.255

netname: UK-MSFG-20061106

descr: Moneysupermarket.com Limited

country: GB

org: ORG-ML58-RIPE

Canon EOS 450D digital SLR

alex dekker

DIGIC what now?

You describe DIGIC III as being a nice new enhancement over DIGIC II, but don't actually quantify it.

Dutch boffins clone Oyster card

alex dekker

re: Can't do on-line DBMS

"We'll end up having to invest in tinfoil-lined wallets, and extract our cards at the gates like we used to do with paper ones. Sigh."

Funnily enough, that's exactly what one R.M. Stallman suggested - google for "stallman oyster foil". And they say RMS is crazy!

1,076 developers, 15 years, one open-source Wine

alex dekker

re: Typical of open source

Yes, but what about Wine?

Becta schools deal stuns British open-istas

alex dekker

The beauty of open source

Yep, that's right: you don't have to be an officially sanctioned member of the open source establishment to participate and do good things. Somebody get Mark Taylor a waaaaaaaahmbulance.

Linux to outship Windows Mobile by 2013

alex dekker

Where do they get this stuff from?

How can this bloke possibly predict this five years hence? What's he going to do if Apple's 3G iPhone suddenly becomes the most popular phone of all time? Nobody predicted how popular the iPod was going to be in 2002, did they?

3 told to cut rates

alex dekker

Why one or the other?

What a lot of the wailing and gnashing of teeth seems to have missed out on here is that there's no reason why either system needs to be exclusive of the other. As one person has already pointed out, Orange offer a geo number, albeit only in a couple of area codes and not from one's bundled minutes. Let's have both systems, and let the market decide which is best.

Ofcom sharpens cutlasses for pirate radio assault

alex dekker

Physical radio becoming less relevant?

Surely with the rise of internet radio stations and internet connections everywhere, the need to operate a pirate radio station is diminishing?

FBI probe discovers counterfeit kit in US military networks

alex dekker

Fake Cisco gear easy to spot

If comes with more than 90 days warranty, it ain't genuine.

Watchdog bares teeth at mobile premium rate scams

alex dekker

re: Where do the fines go?

John, you're assuming that fines that they levy actually get collected.

Ruckus and Terranet rewire Mesh Wi-Fi dream

alex dekker

If the key to the viability of mesh networks is price...

...then look at open-mesh.com. $50 a pop, but no distributor in the UK. How about a review or group test, el Reg?

IBM gives mainframe another push

alex dekker

Where's the review?

Can we expect a reghardware review then?

Want to snoop on your neighbors? Come and work in Wisconsin

alex dekker

Not just private utilities in the US

FOAF works for a large public sector IT contractor. He is convinced that the July 7th bombing was some kind of inside job, because he searched the comprehensive government database system he's tasked with maintaining and couldn't find any of the named suspects.

Newcomer punts miniature 'pub phone'

alex dekker

re: Pun phobe

Tom wrote: "what's the point in buying a phone to do the job you probably have in a box under your bed already"

is that a reference to the dildo-esque appearance of this handset?

Faster broadband through bonding

alex dekker

re

re: Going around in circles?

http://samknows.com/broadband/mapping/mapping.php

re: DMT

http://dmt.mhilfe.de/

I used this to tweak the SNR on my BeBox and got an extra meg downstream; SNR is now ~4.5dB, and the current session has been up for three weeks. Can't say fairer than that.

re: need the tech. not the speed

SDSL is going end of life shortly. ADSL2+ gives faster upstream than SDSL anyway!

Freeview lobby cries foul on Ofcom HDTV plans

alex dekker

Don't waste UHF on TV

Terrestrial TV is a horrific waste of spectrum that could be put to far better uses. The sooner everyone moves to satellite or wired distribution the better.

UK gov issued 250k snoop licences in nine months

alex dekker

Definition of a phone tap?

What do you mean by phone tap? Actual eavesdropping on a live conversation, or merely call detail records for a line? The article does not make this clear, but judging by comments here most other readers assume it means the former.

Software pirates put sizeable dent in UK economy

alex dekker

Business Software Alliance == BS Alliance

Sometimes the jokes just write themselves, don't they?

But seriously, it's not like the billions of pounds [or whatever number they've pulled out of their fundament this week] that hasn't been given to the cartel that the BSA represents has just evaporated into thin air, is it? If it was spent on software from the BSA members then the chances are that 90% of it will have disappeared overseas to the American companies that bankroll the BSA.

So, what exactly does the UK have to lose by pirating software?

Becta exec admits mistakes on education IT

alex dekker

Replacing good practice?

From TFA:

'''Becta's current emphasis is on replacing "islands of good practice" in individual schools and authorities with a more integrated approach.'''

Interesting; if it's good practice, why replace it? Presumably 'islands' of good practice have arisen in spite of top-down 'integrated' approaches; what are they going to do differently this time?

PS Why no Government Incompetence icon, you insensitive clods? I suggest a wad of £20s on fire, or perhaps an enveloped with two CDs in that has grown a pair of legs.

Sprint axes 4,000 jobs, closes 125 stores

alex dekker

Time for Google to flash some cash?

This could make a nice acquisition for Google. They're not short of a bob or two, and with Sprint's stock likely to plummet further, Google could snag a bargain.

3 to carry MVNO

alex dekker

Re: RE: Mage

Used to. 3 use O2 now, and will probably use T-Mobile in the future as they're already partnering on 3G infrastructure.

Netgear extends next-gen Wi-Fi into 5GHz band

alex dekker

An audacious claim, if ever there was one

It's not every day a company claims its products to be exempt from the laws of physics, is it?

"The snag with 5GHz is reduced range, but Netgear claimed its new metamaterial antennae ... more than compensate, effectively eliminating the limitation"

Perhaps in the next version they could "eliminate the limitation" of needing an external power source, by the use of metapixiedust to keep the thing running?

PS Where's the icon for "just cut and pasted a press release without adding any value to it"?

Feel the burn: in the aftermath of year's biggest hype

alex dekker

Au contraire...

"Underscoring how far Google's platform ... has to go, ... was the fact that that ... Open Mobile Alliance ... lacks backing from ... Nokia, Verizon and Microsoft"

On the contrary, I think that lack of backing from Nokia, Verizon and Microsoft is one of the many things Android has going for it. Can you imagine what a handset designed by that unholy trinity would be like?

Nokia wins hearts, minds with breakthrough mobile

alex dekker

Pinnacle of mobile evolution

You would have thought that surely after 7-odd years, this phone could have been bettered, but no. I don't know if that's because this is such a great phone, or because mobiles are now designed by 12 year olds for 12 year olds; I suspect a mixture of both.

Any time anyone at work sees my phone, laughs and asks me why I'm not using the Motorola they gave me, all I have to say is "two weeks on standby". After that, it's me that walks away laughing. Long live the 6310i. I almost wish some Chinese manufacturer would start making counterfeits, maybe then Nokia would recognise the demand.

The year's biggest big thing? You be the judge!

alex dekker

Wot, no Android?

You insensitive clods!

O2 to join IPTV fray next year

alex dekker

Call me a Be fanboi if you want, but

I have to take issue with "And a creaky old infrastructure that's asked to deliver ever-more data without significant upgrades in the last mile.". I've got Be broadband and I get 13Mbps pretty much whenever I want it. I download the entire internet every day, and Be don't take me to task for it. In my experience Be are the best ISP I've been with, for the lowest price I've ever paid for broadband.

Wikipedia COO was convicted felon

alex dekker

Shit-stirring vs investigative journalism

Why on earth does the personal life of a Wikipedia official deserve this kind of scrutiny?

Telling lies to a computer is still lying, rules High Court

alex dekker

Courts yet to decide on a more critical matter

Is lying to amanfromMars still lying?

Nominet plots one registry to rule them all

alex dekker

Inaccurate article title

The exact opposite of what the article states, in fact!

As for the AC who posted first, if you don't use ENUM it won't affect you, so why cry about it?

Telecoms regulation encourages investment

alex dekker

7% over two years?

I'm no economist or statistician, but...7% over two years hardly seems statistically significant once you factor in inflation. Where's the story here?

Start-up sued in US courts over GPL 'violation'

alex dekker

Sue the hell out of them

If you do business "without a firm understanding" of what the GPL means, you don't deserve to be in business. I'm neither a lawyer or a developer; yet I know exactly what the GPL means. For a business build around GPL code, not having a firm understanding is inexcusable.

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