* Posts by Tony Paulazzo

1099 publicly visible posts • joined 2 Feb 2008

ONS: Growth forecast for Blighty worse than expected

Tony Paulazzo
Big Brother

>Osborne told Parliament last week that he was hoping to see UK growth rise to 2 per cent next year and to 2.7 per cent by 2014.<

And I told El Reg that the magical pixies at the bottom of my garden would be distributing Manna from Heaven by 2014 (just as likely to happen). And, oh yea, I think I love you Ben 50.

Disclaimer: I am not an economist.

Hollywood studios line up to kick Kim Dotcom

Tony Paulazzo
Pirate

Clusterfuck

Overreach

SNAFU

Adobe Photoshop Touch

Tony Paulazzo

Re: So it's starting then

>Apps are starting to drop support for the first gen iPad<

Ipad 1 - 256 MB RAM, Ipad 3 - 1 GB RAM

Photoshop...

You do the math.

The Ipad 1 still does all the things it did, brilliantly, but new apps are gonna demand more hardware. It's the nature of the beast.

Sidenote: That extra memory really improves web surfing too - now if Apple could add a touch UI to Safari - a back button, really Apple? in 2012?

New iPad sales hit 3 million in first 4 days

Tony Paulazzo
Happy

>I would really, really love to have a reason to buy one.<

Just look at it and pretend you're captain Picard, you can even download an lcars app to make it look more Star Trekky - totally brilliant! You don't even need another reason to own one, 500 quid is worth that feeling alone.

Really happy, geeky, Android phone owning, PC engineer who loves his 'The New iPad'.

Testicle-boiling new iPad ignites fanboi fury

Tony Paulazzo
Unhappy

The heat issue is a real thing with this 'The New iPad' iPad 3. Luckily, I guess, I've always run screen brightness at 50% with the auto brightness thing on, even with my original ipad, so I'd not noticed the warmth thing, but when I read about it I switched brightness to 100% and played a 3D game and yea' that bugger runs hot after about 15 minutes.

Returned to 50% and auto on and it cooled right down, but... long term effects? if it burns out after 15 months (or 3 months out of warranty), who's out of pocket - fine in America (class action suit) or Italy (2 years warranty), but us in the UK (don't know about Australian Warranties), shit out of luck.

So really, we need to know within the 14 days grace period - how much damage is that heat wreaking over time? whether to exchange it for an iPad2.

iPad 3 costs Apple 30% more to make than iPad 2

Tony Paulazzo
Happy

>what matters is that Apple has cannily taken the extra cost on the chin<

Thanks Apple - other companies please take note, your profit margins don't need to be obscene, you just need to make a profit.

>If you want proof that they're not selling all they can ship, buy one.<

You might have to drive some, but PCworlds still showing shop floor stock (16 miles from me), Argos and Amazon are out - and PCWorld could be lying: Reserve an ipad3, get there and they say, we've got these nice ipad2s at a good price, or how about a first generation Asus Transformer ('cause even tho gen3 is almost out PCW still have no Primes to sell).

PS Lovin' my 'The New iPad 3' iPad...

SF iPad launch subdued as Apple fans wise up

Tony Paulazzo
Happy

I succumbed...

I'm weak, surfed pc world last night, just out of curiousity, they still had stock so I reserved one, picked it up this morning, love it! but it's an upgrade from gen 1, so I'm enjoying the speed bump as well as the display and extra memory. Also jumped from 16 to 32 GBs. Off to delete all those previous posts swearing I wouldn't upgrade.

Still, should get a ton for my old one.

UK Home Secretary approves TVShack's O'Dwyer extradition

Tony Paulazzo
Coat

>Blame yourselves in UK for not making any changes in the government.<

Er, we did, the last election was called a hung parliament, where no party got a major vote, so it was down to the most liberal party (the liberal democrats) choosing to share power with one of the other parties -

1) Labour (the left), seduced by Hollywood moguls into forcing the anti piracy DEA thru, signing this extradition agreement, whilst simultaneously being for 'spying on our citizens' and spunking cash trying to buy their way out of a global economy dive... or the

2) Conservatives (the right), which is who they chose and immediately forgot they were the Liberal party and agreed to everything David Cameron wanted (pretty much), so - shutting down community centres, libraries etc and raising the cost of University fees, not getting rid of the DEA or camera's and proving that -

3) it doesn't matter who you fucking vote for (I used to vote Liberal Democrat - splitters!).

Mumble, whinge, moan, damn kids - GET OFF MY LAWN!

iPad 3 benchmarked

Tony Paulazzo

Re: They did increase the battery capacity 70%

>According to Apple they increased the battery from 25Wh (iPad2) to 42.5Wh on iPad3, which is a 70% increase just to get the same quoted battery life<

Wow, if the ipad was just that, and maybe an SD & HDMI slot / 1GB RAM - I'd have upgraded, a tablet lasting for two or three days hard use between charges, sweet!

DISCLAIMER: Not a photographer or ipad games player.

Tony Paulazzo

I think, photoshopped image or no, that there's going to be a lot of buyers remorse in the not too distant future. Course, they'd die rather than admit it publicly but if I was gonna buy an iPad, I'd go for No2 personally. It felt like the entire reason d'etre for this iteration was to up the display, so yea, faster GPU to move pixels, slightly better camera, but that's it.

And I think the main problem is now battery life, they can't put out something with less battery life than the first one, so faster processor, more memory (keeping more working apps in the background), plus better graphics would just cane it.

Megaupload boss: Site popular among US government users

Tony Paulazzo

Why was MegaUpload really shut down?

MegaBox was going to be an alternative music store that was entirely cloud-based and offered artists a better money-making opportunity than they would get with any record label.

"UMG knows that we are going to compete with them via our own music venture called Megabox.com, a site that will soon allow artists to sell their creations directly to consumers while allowing artists to keep 90 percent of earnings," MegaUpload founder Kim 'Dotcom' Schmitz told Torrentfreak

Not only did they plan on allowing artists to keep 90% of their earnings on songs that they sold, they wanted to pay them for songs they let users download for free.

"We have a solution called the Megakey that will allow artists to earn income from users who download music for free," Dotcom outlined. "Yes that's right, we will pay artists even for free downloads. The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works."

Why was Hollywood created:

Over a century ago Thomas Edison got the patent for a device which would "do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear". He called it the Kinetoscope. He was not only amongst the first to record video, he was also the first person to own the copyright to a motion picture.

Because of Edisons patents for the motion pictures it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures in the North american east coast. The movie studios therefor relocated to California, and founded what we today call Hollywood. The reason was mostly because there was no patent.

There was also no copyright to speak of, so the studios could copy old stories and make movies out of them - like Fantasia, one of Disneys biggest hits ever.

Asus: We are NOT killing off Transformer Prime

Tony Paulazzo

>Can't even sniff one within a hundred miles of me. Retailers just nod knowingly when I ask for it. (Yeah, I'm a curmudgeon that wants to buy it at a retailer and take it home to play.)<

This, a thousand times this, I need to hold one instore, see how widescreen looks and feels in actual use. PC World / Curries don't even mention its existence.

@ Misco guy, they're not advertising the fact on their website, just TF101's.

Actually Amazon do have them in stock now so this post has just become existentially pointless but now I'm waiting for the TF700T with better display and fixed wifi/GPS/reboot issues. Nice own goal there Asus.

>Unfortunately, his crracked near the hinge within a few weeks - another known fault<

Not known by me it wasn't... (holy crap nearly three million results in Google) - one of the pleasures of 'not' being an early adopter. El Reg, how about doing a follow up story about this issue?

Apple resellers left to pick bones of dwindling iPad stocks

Tony Paulazzo
Happy

It's all good

After seeing what the iPad3 contains, I'm still happy with my first gen iPad, the battery life is still amazing, there are one or two apps that demand an ipad2, but I have no desire to create music or edit video's on a tablet, I'm guessing the HD res is for 20 year old eyes, and for serious game playing I have my desktop and 42 inch TV.

This allows the dust to settle and see what's forthcoming, the third Asus Transformer will be out in a month or two, Samsung may release a third tablet with a working SD slot (I def prefer 4:3 format over widescreen, yet most Android tabs are widescreen (Prime) or SD slotless (Xoom2)).

As for the shortage thing, I believe it's called marketing. A rare thing is a desirable thing.

Windows 8: Thrown into a multi-tasking mosh pit

Tony Paulazzo
Gimp

Bring back the start menu and allow a configurable ribbon and Win8 would be a worthy upgrade.

That swipe left (even on my touch screen laptop) is an abortion of the highest order when other windows are in the way, and being that I use two monitors in extended mode I can't just whack the mouse into the left corner to bring up the start screen, I'm forced to radically slow down my mouse move and bring it to a perfect stop before flicking into the next monitor, doable but aggravating and annoying.

And I'd love to meet the designer who thought putting the shutdown / reboot options worked well in the settings screen, not exactly intuitive - maybe on a tablet since it's rarely turned off, but a desktop / laptop? Just dumb...

US telly big boys open fire on 'cloud streaming' biz Aereo

Tony Paulazzo
Happy

Re: good luck

>But the bad guys have got unlimited funds to keep the law suits going.<

They're assuredly not 'unlimited', and eventually there will come a time when they'll make more money treating their customers as valued assets rather than common thieves.

They might need to lose a few more billion to understand, but with what the lawyers are probably sucking up shouldn't be too long now.

'Regrouping' Android tablet makers extend Apple reign

Tony Paulazzo

TBH, if Apple force other tablet makers to reduce their prices, I ain't complaining.

'The new iPad' revealed: Full specs, rumor scorecard

Tony Paulazzo

I'm gonna get the Transformer Prime (Once I've heard they fixed the reboot issue), okay, the screen res and WS format isn't as good, but a better camera (still not really sold on them for tablets), 2 sd slots (I'm tired of having to delete stuff off my gen 1 ipad), USB and inclusive keyboard with extra battery life kind'a wings it for me.

I'll just keep my first gen ipad as well. :-)

Jeez Tim Cook, all you had to do was include an sd slot... I don't hate iOS, prefer the non widescreen aspect of the ipad and have invested a fair amount in iTunes, but the 'new iPad' just isn't enough 'more' for me.

X-com reboot's gameplay showcased

Tony Paulazzo

RE Carmaggedon

Is being remade, by the original developers no less, stainless games.

http://www.carmageddon.com/home

Not sure how far off completion it is tho'.

Xcom looks good, was really crap at the original tho, but this looks like it might be worth a whirl.

Workers can't escape Windows 8 Metro - Microsoft COO

Tony Paulazzo

Disclaimer: Hate the MetroUI design, but Win8 doesn't stop you from running multiple windows (one of the tiles on the start screen is for the desktop, and multi monitor setups work just fine - I use two monitors, Extend rather than Duplicate), and apart from having to stop the mouse in the 'sweet spot' between both monitors, it works fine, and so far, most of the time I've not had the Metro Ui onscreen.

But I do agree, Windows shouldn't get rid of the start button just because the iPad doesn't have one, it screams of 'me too' rather than 'innovation, and the graphical implementation of Win8 is awful, Solitaire looks like a 5 year older version of itself.

In point of fact, an Android rip would've been better, widgets (or the Vista Sidebar, but free of being locked to the side of the screen, rather than Fisher Price blocks), streaming weather, facebook, stocks etc placed on the desktop as user placed options.

German court tosses out Samsung AND Apple patent sueballs

Tony Paulazzo
Holmes

So who's paying for all this wasted court time? I realise the companies are buying their respective lawyers new houses, but who's actually paying for the lighting and heating and judging that presides over these earth shakingly important cases?

Hefty mobile bills should be capped by punters, says Ofcom

Tony Paulazzo

Virgin Mobile

Been with them for about five years, I have a monthly credit limit of £100.00, amount spent this month, roaming switched off by default, and your allowances, all info shown on the front page of your account. At the start of the next month all unused allowances roll over - and they just sent me a new HTC Sensation with a £10 a month reduction.

I am most happy Virgin Mobile customer (do they fuck up? yes, of course, but a phone call generally resolves the problem @10p no matter how long the conversation).

I assumed all mobile phone companies operated like this, I find it unbelievable someone could get a £2,500 bill (I'd probably suffer a massive coronary if I got that).

Apple claims its 'innovation' creates 514,000 US jobs

Tony Paulazzo
Happy

Re: Best Way to Create Jobs

Introduce the three day week

Metro breakdown! Windows 8 UI is little gain for lots of pain

Tony Paulazzo
Unhappy

Bad bad bad bad bad...

Ten... top iOS games

Tony Paulazzo
Happy

Cheers for the Cthulhu heads up, wasn't even aware of that.

Perhaps El Reg should run a readers best of... For example, a 3 colour match up game, 'The treasures of Montezuma 3 HD', Ascendacy for 4X goodness (an old PC game), and iAssociate for word relationship game (barely any graphics but gets your brain working).

As for Apple vs Android I'm sure they're all equally as good as each other, so let's all play nice.

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet

Tony Paulazzo

So, crap battery, old CPU (Tegra 3 is the new desire), dodgy Ntrig hardware (doesn't compare to Wacom), crap speaker, some apps that don't work (supposedly not Lenova's fault), heavy, ugly and 70 quid more than the basic iPad - I smell win! (well, for Apple at least).

And the apostrophe s is there purely for aesthetic reasons.

Now Apple opens fire on EPAD trademark in China

Tony Paulazzo
Facepalm

Vowel-pad

Someone really needs to bitchslap Apple, and if they lose they should be forced to pay all the defendants cost.

Apple: We never said Siri would actually work in the UK

Tony Paulazzo
Happy

>All the info was there in the advert if he chose to pay attention.<

I checked their page out and found this is big bold text page centre:

>It understands what you say.

Talk to Siri as you would to a person. Say something like “Tell my wife I’m running late.” “Remind me to call the vet.” “Any good burger joints around here?” Siri does what you say, finds the information you need, then answers you. It’s like you’re having a conversation with your iPhone.<

In tiny light grey text at the bottom of the page:

>Siri is available in Beta only on iPhone 4S and requires Internet access. Siri may not be available in all languages or in all areas, and features may vary by area. Cellular data charges may apply.<

Almost like they're trying to hide the fact - so yes, the info is there, but a lie of omission is still a lie. Why not put the 'but' along with the main body of text?

>"May not be available in all regions" - then don't show that advert in that region!!!!<

Bingo.

Oh, and by the way, I just asked (using voice) my Android phone for the nearest McDonalds and it brought up a local map showing about four McDonalds, with SatNav turned on, so I guess, in this instance, Google (also an American based company) wins. Suck it!

(Saying 'the nearest pub' brought up a search page with 'the good pub guide' No 1 on the listing).

UK will share passenger data with US in Euro deal

Tony Paulazzo
Alien

>They'd prefer us aliens stayed at home.<

Here's one alien perfectly content to never go the US of A, and you know, with all this bending over and taking it, how come I can't get none? oh yea, I'm not a bully.

DISCLAIMER: All the Americans I've ever met have been great individuals, and I'm sure 99% of them are much like us, but man their content gate keepers and lawmakers are asses - I thought Barrack Obama was really gonna change the world, but I suppose, on the positive side he's not gonna get assassinated, he's too freaking white.

iPad 3 launch news pushes Apple shares to $500bn high

Tony Paulazzo
Happy

So I'm fucking autistic, thanks for the heads up

Shiny Happy People

Microsoft demos 3D desktop with transparent OLED

Tony Paulazzo
Alien

Apostrophe S

Should only be used where it's esthetically pleasing.

Also, if they're using a camera to track eyes (the kinect), I'm thinking (hoping), they could do that with touchscreen phones and tablets, creating a faux 3D effect with existing tech. That'd be pretty cool.

Viglen veteran Rolfe heads to Lenovo

Tony Paulazzo
Happy

I bought my second PC, a 386, from Viglen. They were based just off the Great North Circular, my first car (no tax - just a note in the window about tax being in the post), my first attempt to drive from South London thru the south circular with a London A-Z, with £1200 cash in my pocket... Ahh, the mad adventures of impetuous youth - all to play Ultima 6. It were a good machine too (until the 486 came out - for Wing Commander - natch).

'Nobody can resist the charming of iPAD'

Tony Paulazzo
Happy

@ Wile E. Veteran

Luddite!

But seriously, well done for realising that you don't require a tablet based computing form and not buying one (well, except for the Nook and phone which I'm guessing are 'quite' tablety in form and function).

I, on the other hand, love gadgets, always have, one of the first to get a 386, 486, Pentium, 3DFX, 5.1 Sound Blaster, Nvidia, touch screen swivel laptop and yea, now I have an ipad - still use it every day too.

Whatever makes us happy. Peace.

HP, Dell warn of price hikes after Foxconn wage rise

Tony Paulazzo
Mushroom

>However, according to Reuters, margins are so tight at the tech titans<

HP: 9.7 Billion dollars profit for 2011 fourth quarter

http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/21/hp-releases-q4-earnings-9-7-billion-operating-profit-for-fisca/

DELL: In its Q1 fiscal 2012 year results, Dell's profits were up 177% to $945m

http://www.computerweekly.com/news/1280095905/Dell-posts-177-profit-boost-after-increasing-enterprise-sales.

That's profit people, not income! (and that includes HPs abortive tablet attempt). Cry me a fucking river. And some poor Chinese person gets another 5p an hour for working 120 hours (assumption: Citation needed), making us pay another 50 quid for their tat that dies just after the years warranty runs out - Monday morning, who needs it? EOL.

Feds apply for DNSChanger safety net extension

Tony Paulazzo
Mushroom

>The alleged ringleader of the group, Vladimir Tsastsin, and another suspect have been already cleared for extradition to the US. Baltic Business News reports that local courts approved the extradition of the four remaining suspects last week.<

Eh? Why are they being tried in America? were no British or Estonian or Chinese PCs infected? When did the USA become 'judge, jury & executioner' for the entire world? Must've missed that memo.

(well done on taking down the botnet tho')

Unknown fault darkens Australia’s Internet

Tony Paulazzo
Happy

GAF?

No reason to panic, we're just testing the 'Great Australian Firewall', expect a few SNAFU's along the way.

Proview offers Apple peace talks amid Shanghai iPad ban bid

Tony Paulazzo
Headmaster

>We all hate lawyers and yet they are the silent winner here.<

I think Shakespeare had an idea about them and Utopia...

Megaupload honcho sprung from slammer (for now)

Tony Paulazzo
Gimp

Optional

>The FBI has said the Megaupload business netted more than $US175 million for its principals<

And have they released proof of this or are we supposed to simply believe them?

The entire control structure of America has become so corrupt and fear based it might be time to start again. As has the UK, Australia, Europe... in fact every fricking country on the planet. Time to press the reset switch Sim God.

Icon not fanboi but somewhat darker, sicker and wipe clean easi (c).

PS. Not a megaload fan, he's a wannabe gangster and probably not a nice guy.

An iPad in every pot, says Anna Bligh

Tony Paulazzo

>At least they can be sure that the iPad apps are secure adn the student privacy is protected unless of course they use google services...<

Or unless they use any ipad app that copies your address book to their servers (ie any and all of them) - http://www.enterprisemobiletoday.com/features/after_hours/are-iphone-apps-stealing-your-address-book-info.html

Including the Angry Birds app.

As for the article: Politician promises to do something if put in power that she totally won't do once in power... I think politicians who lie should be hung from streetlamps for treason.

Pirate Bay AND its users violate labels' copyright - judge

Tony Paulazzo
Big Brother

>Pirate Bay AND its users violate labels' copyright - judge<

The Music And Film Industry Association of America AND the Recording Industry Association of America corrupt human civilisation - citizen.

UK cops cuff suspect after RnBXclusive takedown

Tony Paulazzo
Big Brother

>Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) has arrested an individual in connection with the closure of UK music exchange site rnbxclusive.com<

Well, thank God all the murderers, rapists, wife batterers, happy slappers, and kiddy fiddlers are all behind bars, so the 'Serious Organised Crime Agency' can get to all the seriously organised criminal web sites out there.

Seriously? I wonder how many guns it took to arrest that individual, was he headed for his safe room in his ill gotten mansion? Point of fact, how does an individual get seriously organised & criminal?

Asus Transformer Prime tablet reboot fix fails to show

Tony Paulazzo
Unhappy

Could this be a hardware problem, as in unfixable via software patch? Thank Christ there's been none in stock. How could something like this get thru' hardware testing & design?

Now Proview seeks ban on ALL iPads coming out of China

Tony Paulazzo
Happy

I wonder, is Proview friends with Google? LOL!!!

If that means no iPad3 guess I'll have to go for the Transformer Prime (kind'a leaning that way anyway, but can't find one in stock anywhere) - and I'd really like to see what the iPad3 offers, I mean, for me, all that's missing is a working SD slot.

Happy ipad1 owner here, but soz Apple, you created this monster all by yourselves.

Apple demands US ban on Samsung's Galaxy Nexus

Tony Paulazzo
Mushroom

>However, what are the chances of Apple being done for wasting the court's time with all these actions?<

And therein lies the problem, shark lawyers getting fat, judges getting fat, everyone else going WTF? M.A.D.

Germany stalls over ACTA treaty ratification

Tony Paulazzo

Well done 'The People'. We is fighting the 'Corporate Whores' and we is Winning! Power to the People (used to be called democracy).

All grammatical errors made on purpose.

ACTA isn't about helping the struggling artist, it is about keeping much needed cheap medicines from third world countries and controlling the free flow of information.

Google Wallet falls open after casual hack

Tony Paulazzo
Devil

SNAFU!

HTC wants a hug after glum Q1 estimates

Tony Paulazzo
Facepalm

HTC Desire owner here, coming to end of a two year contract, looking at one of the Samsung ones now, why? because the speaker in the Desire is worse than crap. Everything else is great, no complaints (except for the lack of upgrades - thanks Virgin Mobile), but that one annoyance has now put me off HTC for life.

Here's an idea, instead of concentrating so hard on end of quarter figures, get back to concentrating on customers and quality of product, then you might actually get repeat business.

European revolt over ACTA treaty gains ground

Tony Paulazzo
Mushroom

https://www.facebook.com/groups/213491125413221/

If you wanna 'boycott Hollywood' - I've also put a link to the petition. Time this shit got real. Only two members so far :-)

Snaps confirm new CPU for Apple iPad 3

Tony Paulazzo
Alien

>Of course, the new processor might be a blancmange, with quad-soufflé cores and powerful graphics sponge cakes with greatly improved jam rendering. And a cherry on top.<

I'd eat that :-)

I do wish Apple didn't have this ridiculously secrety thing they do, why not let people know what's in the works, and when? - I've got an ipad1 but I'd like to know what the ipad3 has going for it before looking at the Transformer Prime, which looks like a supremely nice bit of kit (inc. working SD slots).

Swedish Supreme Court chucks out Pirate Bay appeal bid

Tony Paulazzo

>They are lucky that they will not be made to suffer the traditional penalty for pirates of walking the plank.<

Actually, I believe the pirates made the high muckety fucks walk the plank, pirates were hanged.

Boycott Hollywood!

Ukraine file-sharing site disappears

Tony Paulazzo
Alien

when you wish upon a star

makes no difference who you are

anything your heart desires

will come to you

Vera Lynne