* Posts by Steve Foster

834 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Oct 2007

Raspberry Pi DUMBS DOWN to target world+dog

Steve Foster
Headmaster

Re: A good thing in small doses,..

Um... ...third.

Snappers binned, mobe-armed hacks drafted at Chicago paper

Steve Foster
Joke

Cue Content Infringement lawsuits from Apple?

...because if the pictures/video is created with Apple equipment, surely they'll claim ownership rights? (that is in the Ts&Cs, right?)

How Microsoft shattered Gnome's unity with Windows 95

Steve Foster

Re: "Revolting"

Drat, beaten to it (good job I checked, or I'd have looked like a right noob!). Have an upvote.

Graphene QUILT: A good trampoline for elephants in stiletto heels

Steve Foster

Cutting it?

Cling-film is supplied with a handy cardboard serrated "cutter" for dividing rolls into handy lengths. Will graphene-film be as easy to cut?

62,000 fewer shops: Welcome to the High Street of 2018

Steve Foster
WTF?

Re: "who will actually pay the taxman ?"

Eh?

According to the description attached to table 3.11, it shows the cumulative gross income for various regions, and how that breaks down between different types of income. All income from employment (of any kind, regardless of "collar") is a single colour. So I don't see how you can make the claim you've made from that table.

Sony's board debates breaking up with Spider-Man

Steve Foster

Re: How about a stock buyback??? Seems like smarter move...lots smarter than giving in to Loeb

Companies are generally better off being focussed on a core set of operations.

Diversification should be done by the shareholders, not the companies. That way, if you want to buy an electronics manufacturer, you might choose Sony, and if you want to invest in "Hollywood", you buy Sony Entertainment.

Right now, investors wanting the former are put off Sony because it also owns Sony Entertainment, and vice versa.

Steve Foster
Facepalm

Perhaps the better option?

Would be to spin out the Sony hardware side, and give that a new name instead.

Oi, Google! Stop LIBELLING us Germans, fix your autocomplete

Steve Foster

Ruling seems reasonable

«"We believe that Google should not be held liable for terms that appear in Autocomplete as these are predicted by computer algorithms based on searches from previous users, not by Google itself," the company said.»

And the ruling isn't doing that; the algorithm can continue to do what it does. BUT if someone complains about a defamatory/libellous result from the algorithm, then Google must do something about, or they will become liable.

Google adds Atari Easter Egg for Breakout's birthday

Steve Foster
Boffin

@AC

Does too.

EPIC AC FAIL!

Degenerate dwarfs tear neighbors limb from limb

Steve Foster
Holmes

Re: Oh Noooooooes Only 4 *billion* years left.

But if we don't stop squabbling about how to get off this rock, we're going to run out of time (and construction projects practically always overrun, so there's added urgency!).

Annular solar eclipse LIVE!

Steve Foster

Librarians: Argos site is top priority to be preserved for future generations

Steve Foster

Re: Argos catalogue is a great example of something that should be archived

One glance at the thumbnails and you know it's the Spring/Summer edition (without looking at the cover pic).

[for the terminally slow, the presence of the gardening section at the beginning is the clue - it was always at the back (and much smaller) in the Autumn/Winter edition]

Steve Foster
Devil

Re: The Laminated Book of Dreams

Only if there's room next to the Tears of Joy.

How did something so small and pink cause so much trouble?

Steve Foster
Facepalm

Re: Drifting slightly OT ....

Obviously it wasn't Dave Allen, or we'd have heard about it from the man himself.

Politically-correct 'Fairphone' goes on pre-sale next week

Steve Foster
Holmes

"Differences"

Apparently minor colour variations count:

* white/black back, and

* black/blue side strip (easily missed between 1&2)

YouTube channels at $1.99 per month could launch this week

Steve Foster
FAIL

I don't have high hopes for anything organised by YouTube

as they're telling me they've "updated my preferences to English (GB)" about every 3 days or so at the moment.

Apple fanbois get one last chance to see spectre of Steve Jobs

Steve Foster
Headmaster

Re: @jediben

Not only that, but the spelling is correct!

Microsoft to unveil new Xbox console on May 21

Steve Foster
Joke

"Always-On" nature indicates naming?

New from Microsoft: XBox 365...

Apple fanbois' accidental bonking ruled too obvious by watchdog

Steve Foster
Headmaster

Re: In the words of a very wise geranium ...

...who was plagiarising a bowl of petunias...

Eerie satnav boffinry claims it can predict THE FUTURE

Steve Foster
Devil

Re: Flaw in theory...

Ah, as in Microsoft's WSYP project?

Steve Foster
Facepalm

Flaw in theory...

"However, there’s no reason that a mild to moderate electric shock can’t be delivered through the steering wheel to drivers who don’t get the message"

This does rather assume that said drivers have their hands on the wheel in the first place.

WhatsApp exec: Google takeover? It's news to me

Steve Foster
Joke

Obvious Mashup

between Google Docs and WhatsApp to produce the word processor designed just for Bugs Bunny: WhatsApp Doc...

Tax man to take a bite of tech employees' free meals?

Steve Foster

Perfectly Normal for this to be taxed

However, it's usually the employer that settles the bill by coming to a sensible arrangement with the tax man (it's impractical to expect 000s of employees to manage it at the $10 level; much easier to account for it at the $m/$b corporate level).

Here's how HMRC do it:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/payerti/exb/schemes/psa.htm

USPTO backs down on iPad mini trademark objections

Steve Foster
Facepalm

Re: Really, WTF?

Yes, but assuming the application goes through, surely you realise that it will have been invented by Apple...

Major blow for Apple: 'Bounce back' patent bounced back by USPTO

Steve Foster
Devil

Re: Wait, whut?

I suspect it's Apple Lawyer-puke for "we think our client's pockets are deeper than those of the USPTO".

Yahoo! drops! size! limit! on! email! attachments! with aid from Dropbox

Steve Foster
Devil

@KjetilS

Sounds like they're essentially automating that process, since it's apparently "too hard" for Yahoo! email users.

Merde! Dummkopf! Google Translate used as spam cloak

Steve Foster

Re: So the moral of the story

Since the spammers are still at it, they're presumably earning enough that it's worthwhile. Ergo, the answer to your question is: apparently not.

Stephen Fry explains… Alan Turing's amazing computer

Steve Foster
Happy

Re: And he's not a bad writer

Judging by your post, that may have been one page too late... (but possibly for a slightly different, yet related, reason)

Bye-bye Telinco - death warrant finally issued by TalkTalk

Steve Foster
Boffin

Re: Dinosaur Brands

And I have a Freeserve address from when I used them for dial-up internet.

Steve Foster

Dinosaur Brands

There are many instances of these that are all still ticking along - even the allegedly deceased Tiscali (I exchanged emails just this morning with an acquaintance who has an @tiscali.co.uk address).

First Samsung Galaxy S4 review leak: Stop FONDLING, start FINGERING

Steve Foster
WTF?

"So if you want to watch a YouTube music video while working purely to listen the music you have to watch the video now?"

Erm, isn't that what music players and internet/FM radio are for? Why waste bandwidth on video that you aren't interested in?

Ten ten-inch tablets

Steve Foster
FAIL

@Himalayaman

It looked rather nice, so I went to check the actual specs: resolution 1366x768.

(obvious icon choice, aimed at Lenovo, not Himalayaman)

RBS and NatWest FAIL downs services across UK

Steve Foster

@Paw Bokenfohr

"First Direct try to get you to install Trusteer Rapport"

I don't know how Trusteer managed this flim-flam act, but they have, and now just about all of the banks are doing the same.

Squillionaire space tourist offers oldsters a holiday to Mars

Steve Foster
Devil

@NomNomNom

Surely it's got to be Alpha Centauri? (no idea if the game is actually any good, but it does have Sid's name on it)

Microsoft unwraps sysadmin-friendly Office 365 for biz update

Steve Foster
Devil

"cloud storage based on Microsoft's commercial-grade hosted infrastructure"

Ah, yes, that'd be Azure-based, right? Oops!!!

Microwaves thrash fibre on speed... if you like two-nines uptime

Steve Foster

So how about...

...vacuum fibre? (ie instead of a glass core, a vacuum-enclosed tube instead [glass, or perhaps carbon nanotubes as they're the "in" thing])

How would that compare (assuming we could make them)?

Dell's PC biz craters as servers and networking chug along

Steve Foster

Re: Overpricing => falling sales

Oh, I didn't mind that the original quote could no longer be met. My point was that Dell were asking more in Nov 2012 than in 2011 for a 2011-spec PC, and then gave an even higher price for an equivalent new model in Jan 2013.

Steve Foster

Overpricing => falling sales

I'm not surprised Dell's PC numbers are down. When we came to quote a client for a few additional PCs in November, and asked Dell to give us prices for some SFF Optiplexes with identical spec to ones ordered a year earlier, they came back with prices that were higher than the original machines. And then by the time the client made up their mind about six weeks later (about something they'd said was "really urgent") and actually placed the order with us (sending a cheque through the post to cover the pro-forma we issued), Dell had withdrawn the specific models we wanted, so we asked them to come up with an equivalent, current, Optiplex and they came back with an even higher quote. In the end, they did match their own (by now almost) 2 month old quote, but they nearly lost the deal.

Reg readers scuffle over the ultimate cuppa

Steve Foster

Re: <raises hand>

I have a rather nice MSDN mug made from glass that works quite well.

Steve Foster
Devil

Re: I live in america

Commiserations, Sir.

Hard drive sales to see double-digit dive this year

Steve Foster

@southpacificpom

"You're not a Windows user by any chance?"

Windows 7 and 8 both support installation from usb stick. Not sure about Vista (and not willing to experiment!).

Windows Server 2012 kicks ass: discuss

Steve Foster
Joke

@Harvey Trowell

Of course, the logical next step is to articulise[1] these comments too!

[1] new verb for the process of converting commentard input into ElReg articles that I just invented, patented, trade marked, etc.

Help us out here: What's the POINT of Microsoft Office 2013?

Steve Foster

Re: "Btw BCM is quite the hidden gem, a great crm for small scale deployments."

One of my clients is using BCM2010. They were asking about the new Office last week as I deployed a brand new Dell PC with W7 Pro and Office 2010 H&B for them. Now I know to tell them to steer clear of Office 2013 for now at least.

Steve Foster

Re: "customise the ribbon"

But that only appeared in Office 2010...

Office 2007 users were limited to "Customise the Quick Access Toolbar" (which was not actually terribly usable).

Steve Foster

@Andrew Moore

I think you missed his point about being able to _import_ PDFs.

Steve Foster

Re: PDFs

So can LibreOffice (and has been able to do so for some time). Not sure about OpenOffice.

Now, I'll admit that LO turns PDFs into Draw documents, rather than anything else, but it does seem to be quite effective.

Opportunity celebrates nine years on Mars

Steve Foster
Terminator

Cleaning Crew

'Tis a pity that NASA couldn't have equipped Curiosity to be able to perform maintenance on Opportunity (and perhaps Spirit as well) to prolong its mission.

No UK date, no biz disties: Will Microsoft cock-up the Surface Pro too?

Steve Foster
Meh

Re: @The BigYin

Interesting site. Getting to your hardware spec for their 14" Ultranote, the best I could do was £760 inclusive. Dropping the Windows OS looks to be the only way to get below £700 for that hardware (pretty close to your £680 then).

However, the resolution is just 1366x768, which IMHO, is pretty poor for a 14" screen (especially considering that Surface Pro will be 1920x1080 at 10.6" [near "retina" PPI]!). 1920x1080 would just about be acceptable at that size.

Steve Foster

@The BigYin

You can? Which model would that be, does it have a decent screen resolution (for its size) and from where is it available?

Ofcom: You like to make CALLS, yeah? Tell us what you want from mobiles

Steve Foster
Joke

"readers will be shocked to find that only the Scots rated price as more important"

Shocked????? Surely that's the understatement of the millennium!