Posts by P. Lee

Oh the irony...

We are now a Microsoft house, so we are getting rid of the part of the company which does security and good service.

How is this better than using a pad & paper

and faxing them over a private NHS voip system?

Seeing as the government appears to be trying to sell the data commercially, why not just use IM or gmail to transfer records as needed?

Multi-channel thunderbolt FTW!

Better yet, lightpeak for an out-of-box experience.

Am I right in thinking thunderbolt doesn't offer enough bandwidth for SSD?

Ribbon fiber-optic cables anyone?

Perhaps we'll see more x16 slots on server motherboards.

all I want for Christmas

Here's my list:

A colon on the main keyboard page (so I can type http:// ) better yet, an "http://" and "https://" key.

Proxy capabilities for web access

Web authentication capabilities for the video client

mpeg2 for video client

Decent mic sound (skype and BT tethering is awful)

An ereader that works - I have calibre converting everthing to pdf because preader doesn't seem to like much.

editable mime type associations

Hmm

Not sure I believe the 50% thing. 10" screen is about the minimum to display A4 on and makes a reasonable browsing space for touch devices. A 10" pad != 10" netbook. Netbooks are still a bit hobbled by wanting to be a pc though perhaps this will change with Gnome3 and Metro. Perhaps the distinction will be blurred further as ARM chips gain more power. Hopefully, the Android folks can bring more nice productivity apps to android as performance allows.

However, itunes as an easy-payment platform certainly drives ease of use on ip*ds. I can see amazon being more interested in easy purchasing than google appears to be. Amazon has a larger inventory than apple and could easily do media - indeed does already do media for the "want to own rather than stream" crowd.

Why shouldn't publishers be allowed to set the selling price of their own books?

Because Publishers aren't fixing the price that they want to sell the book for, they are fixing the price that everyone else is allowed to sell at. So if Amazon wants to sell at 20% margin instead of 30% they can't.

I suspect the issue is that Apple wanted to protect its margins so it "arranged" that the publishers don't allow Amazon (as a retailer) to compete on price with Apple. There was competition and now there isn't.

The publisher can always set the wholesale price for books, its retail competition that Apple may have been trying to stifle. Retail in this case is of an undifferentiated product (an ebook is an ebook) with very low distribution costs. For Apple to compete they would be competing head-to-head with Amazon's retail experience.

Apple has itunes, which is a fairly compelling story for apple device owners, Amazon has a much broader product range, economies of scale and can reach any device. Who will buy or use an ipad if the same product is cheaper elsewhere? The last thing apple wants to do is cut margins or have to monitor the competition to see if they are competitive. They want to be a one-stop-shop for content producers and consumers. Being cheap is not what apple does so they need to stop everyone else from being cheap to maintain sales.

There are some things that apple do well and have value - timemachine makes backups easy enough for normal users and having backups adds value to their products. Just inflating selling prices is not adding value, its profiteering. I wish apple would concentrate on doing things better rather than using politics and the legal system or backroom deals to try to squash the competition.

anonymisation(sp? gr?) doesn't work

It's surprisingly easy to reassemble disaparate information to find out who the original person is. Ever heard of web profiling?

Anyway, the point is somewhat missed - the government doesn't "own" this information, it is given to medical staff in confidence for the purpose of diagnosis. I can't imagine that this idea would pass data-protection requirements.

Is it just me?

or does anyone else think it would be better to reduce the number of channels being broadcast and up the quality/bandwidth of the broadcasts, rather than needing software gizmos to get a better picture?

It isn't that we need it (we know they are all lying)

but I want it hooked into the beeb's fx facility to elongate the nose of anyone on camera who is lying.

Note to Australian vendors

Amazon opening a data centre in AU?

J&B are the *least* of your problems!

I'm so sick of the prices here I don't buy locally on principle, if I can help it.

just wait til Apple see an hp touchpad

Apoplectic response awaited...

Not sure how the big "Samsung" word on the bezel isn't a bit of a giveaway. HP's tab has no such moniker.

It works in portrait mode too!

The problem is...

they still run Windows.

Unlike a Mac Air owners, your system still looks like everyone-else's while operating *and* it probably has the same rubbish-looking logo on it too.

Now, show me an ultrabook with a gigabyte mobo in it which can run all sorts of OS's and you may have a winner, although you still might be as convincing as a status symbol as "that furniture sale those rich people don't want you to know about."

What did android invent?

Android doesn't have to invent anything. It doesn't have to be new. You don't have to invent something new to make money off it. You're quite free to build a mousetrap using the standard design and dress it up in your own packaging. That's what Apple did with the hardware and software in the iphone and hence their obsession with patenting the way something looks.

At last we find someone with no interest in licensing MS tech (selling WinMoPho or outlook sync) and finally we have someone willing to point out that the emperor has no clothes.

Big thanks to Barnes and Noble!

Those downloads were a sale, not a license?

Excellent, it's mine then, to do with as I wish

To the Torrents!

re: Close but still worse than it's main competitor

Not to mention the Mac's huge trackpad.

It doesn't even come close to the screen on my ancient *Compaq* NC8000 which runs a 1.5 Mhz Pentium M.

Why do manufacturers think "widescreen films good, A4 documents not required" when it comes to screens? I presume it's to extend the battery life, but really, why is Apple the only one putting some R&D effort into this instead of taking the easy way out of cutting specs?

User interface - it isn't just the gui.

Fixing?

It sounds from the article that they are being mis-sold due to dumbed-down sales analysis.

It's easy to fix - select the handsets you want to support rather than everything under the sun and only sell those. Know what to sell to whom, too.

Make it simple:

Phone lite - makes calls, browses web, but don't rely on it because it doesn't do flash, no angry-birds

Phone standard - Does everything you would expect, but you may not like the screen or case.

Phone pro - does everything fast, is pretty too.

There's too much focus on the OS, which most people don't care about. Sell the capabilities instead.

A different question...

Why do employees want to bring their shiny devices to work?

Phones I can understand for calendar sync and mobile email. Calendar sync should be easy though mobile mail is more difficult to do properly. Webmail over a vpn through a firewall is probably the way to go here to keep things clean and easy.

But laptops, as indicated in the article? That tells me that the company kit is rubbish. The CPU is rarely the issue, so what we are usually talking about is the screen, keyboard and mouse.

No problem with users bringing those in, though I would say that a good screen will probably pay for itself with enhanced productivity. Go for a couple of 19-24" each - they aren't expensive compared to an employee. A decent mouse & keyboard is also a fairly low-cost option which makes people feel important. I've seen quite a few (dell?) detachable keyboards which have all the grace of 1980's tech with none of the nice clickity-click feel. They are like typing on a corpse. Yuck.

Think of the kit as a slightly higher recruitment cost.

Not just google going for the lawyers

Anyone seen an HP WebOS Touchpad unlock screen?

In part 2...

We ask why you didn't read part 1...

media-hopping wake-up calls?

Seeing as wifi sucks phone battery, it would be nice to have your phone power its wifi radio down and just wait for the router to give a wake-up call over BT if it wants to communicate.

Oooh look, iphone + airport gives amazing battery life.

It's probably also good enough for keyboards etc and would allow always-on services such as IM to function without needing to power up the wifi radio - only with airport...

All you need to do is associate a BT link with a wifi link and you're good to go.

Quick, to the patent office!

Digital Alley

To be inhabited by caterwauling firms wanting tax breaks...

re: This is like monitors

+1

Form follows function here. You need a screen and rounded corners so you don't hurt yourself when you drop it in your lap. Also, the interface port is a different shape.

I have to agree that Samsung could have saved themselves a heap of grief by having an hdmi port.

Ban them both until resolved.

Cue...

World-wide warranty available on Galaxy tabs.

Also available from a major reseller in air-freight-friendly Hong Kong and Norway.

Well done Australia, you have successfully exported some more retail trade.

Do you think they rely on gmail's protection?

GPG all round, I suspect!