Posts by Shades 911 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Mar 2008
(Well, not exactly, I wasn't thinking about your wife. Not that there is anything wrong with her! *insert any "So you're saying you fancy my wife? So now you're saying she's ugly?" scene from a film here*)
I was born in '77 and haven't considered myself a "youth" for quite some time... Not that I would want to be still considered to be a "youth" either, not if todays actual "yoof" is anything to go by!
This is actually a very good idea! I've got a HD2 (living in its pouch) which is bit of a pain to pull out just to check a text message or email is worth/necessary replying to. Hopefully some of the extremely clever folks over at XDA Developers can figure out a way to get this working with WinMobile. If they can do that then I'll most definitely be chucking some wedge SE's way.
One question though... Does it actually function as a watch when at "rest"?
Or you could use an FM transmitter that can be powered by batteries AND has a power connector that can connect to a cars 12v DC (cable included) or a cheap home AC-DC converter (not included).
Belkin do one. Though last time I looked they had changed it to a fixed power cable and no battery compartment.
...your calculations are off (and a little convoluted) and you may be wildly exaggerating the file size of a film. After a little bit of research it appears most Blu-Ray films (stripped of everything except 1 video stream and a 5.1 audio stream) at their original bit-rate weigh in between 16GB and 24GB. Furthermore I also think you are getting your megabytes (MB) and megabits (Mb) confused or have fallen for the ISP trick of confusing megabytes and megabits by using "Meg". But, for the sake of clarity, we'll use your 40GB file size:
// 1GB = 1,024MB
1,024MB * 40 = 40,960MB
// 6.5Mbps (MegaBITS) = .65MBps (MegaBYTES) (= 650KBps) [1]
40,960MB / .65MBps = 63015.38 seconds
63015.38 / 3600 = 17.50 hours
[1] if your line really was 6.5 megaBYTES per second (6,500kbps) it would be advertised, by ISPs, as 65 Meg broadband. Currently Virgin Media's top-of-the-range offering is 50Meg (or 5 Megabytes per second, or 5000kbps).
...the disliking of WinMo phones. I've got a HTC HD2 and I think its great. Sure HTC have gone to great lengths to hide WinMo with the Sense UI, but occasionally dropping down into WinMo itself it not a great pain. Personally I prefer the freedom to tinker that WinMo phones give you straight out of the box, no jailbreaking this, no flashing that (unless you want to install a cooked ROM). I couldn't go back to a normal phone now (not even Android) so if Microsoft have taken the middle ground where do >I< go for my next upgrade??
"remember anyone within the borders of the U.S. of A. enjoys the protection of The Constitution, not just American citizens."
Until you actually successfully pass through border control you are not yet within the borders of the United States and hence do not enjoy the protection of the Constitution. This is how the PREVIOUS administration justified the searching, and retaining, of personal data when it was introduced.
"iTunes [...] you need it to properly sync everything with your i<trademarked the lot>"
No you don't. In terms of media management WinAMP, with the ml_ipod plugin (as the built-in iPod support is rubbish!) is, in many ways, actually far superior to iTunes and doesn't require CrapTime to be installed either (which is the main reason why iTunes will never go anywhere near my computer!)
Granted it does take a bit of effort to setup (properly*), but then again anything that is designed to give you more flexibility than that aimed squarely at the technically inept does, doesn't it?
* For instance, transcoding ANY audio file you care to throw at WinAMP
...for all the stick Virgin Media get, which from my experience* is completely undeserved, I cannot really fault them**. They advertise 10Mb, I pay for 10Mb and I get 10Mb.
A friend is waiting for her BT hub to turn up and I can't wait to see how much she actually gets of the "12Mb" line she's paying .
* Cable connection
** Apart from their brief dalliance with Phorm, and I don't even mind their daytime bandwidth restrictions.
It may not be the greatest news story in the world but it is a mildly amusing tale of a BBC webmaster/editor having a bit of a larf with the Register. As far as costing tax payers money if you think a couple of pence in man-hours is wasting money (the BBC apparently has an all-you-can-eat agreement with Getty and PA so it didn't cost them anything extra for flip-flopping between images), compared to some of the absolute tosh the BBC output (and huge expense), then you are quite clearly stark raving bonkers!
Lighten up guys, its just a bit of harmless* fun, sheesh!
* Except for the tea-boy, but he's back now so its okay.
I think it's Bernie you want a word with.
Unlike years past, where local TV facilities and directors were used, FOM brought it all* in-house and now supply the world feed. So, if Bernie doesn't want to do HD broadcasts then NOBODY in the entire world** gets F1 in HD.
* Except for the Monaco GP
** Except the Japanese for some inexplicable reason but even then only for the Japanese GP.
O2 have, as far as I'm aware, always had a fair usage policy but it was never rigorously enforced, unless you completely hammered your connection... or had an iPhone.
The cut-off date to be able to SIGN UP for "unlimited" internet on O2 is actually tomorrow I believe. From tomorrow new 02 contracts will have what is essentially metered internet access (£5 per 500Mb, I think!). Existing customers, already with "unlimited" internet as part of their contract, will continue to enjoy "unlimited" access until their contract expires.
Speaking from personal experience, my Freecom Mobile Drive XXS (admittedly the 250Gb version, though I can't imagine this making much difference) will happily run, on a single USB cable, from a Samsung Netbook... thats ALSO with a USB bus powered Hercules DJ Mix Hardware controller (4 channel audio in and out soundcard, and midi controller) >AND< an el-cheapo USB bus powered scan convertor. So I imagine even the limpest of USB ports would have no problem with the drive. Actually, I've just checked and according to the USB Root Hub Properties, it consumes 96mA.
The drive, even in a quiet room, is, as near as makes no difference, silent. The only noise being what I presume is a slight click when the head(s?) are parked after a period of activity. I've no idea if the rubber is a good conductor of heat but the drive never gets even warm to the touch, even after being used for hours on end.
As for vibration, if you pick it up you can tell something whirring away in there but I certainly wouldn't call it a vibration.
Hope that helps :)
I have a Freecom Mobile Drive XXS (250Gb version) and I'm pretty sure that spins down, it even produces a click which I assume is the heads being parked. Futhermore, it also takes a few seconds to spin back up if it hasn't been used for a bit, more evidence I guess that it does indeed spin down. I presume it also does this natively as I took all the included software off of it (and have never used any of it) as soon as I got it.
In fact, while I'm at it, I thoroughly recommend the Freecom Mobile Drive XXS. While they only have a thin(ish) rubber sheath to protect the drive mine has survived a few waist height falls undamaged. Also, with the entire case being rubber, and not just four tiny little feet like some other drives, it helps ro prevent the drive from being pulled off of surfaces accidentally, by the USB cable; the USB connector will let go LONG before the rubber case slips. Surfaces also have to be tilted to some crazy angle before the drive will slip off too, which helps if having to transport a connected drive on top of a closed laptop lid (not recommended I know, but I guess we have all done it at some point!)
I may be tempting fate now but I've also never had problems with the drive itself either (which in my case is a Samsung part). That may be down to the fact I try to treat drives carefully (I've got a 14y/o 17Gb drive that still works with NO errors!) but this drive in particular gets chucked in a bag and transported everywhere!
Long story short... My next portable HD will be a 500Gb Mobile Drive XXS!
(p.s. I know it may sound like I work for Freecom but I don't. I just think this little drive is great!)
...you should either stop believing your own (the companies?) sales twaddle or stick to the white goods section. I've never known any XP based Netbook to not play DVDs once DVD playback software (or more specifically, the DVD codecs) have been installed. Guess what, XP Netbooks will even do 1080p video too! And ANY productivity software you care to choose (albeit, in some cases, a little bit slower than a full-fat laptop). Not that the staff in a local major retailer will tell you that while simultaneously shuffling poor sods to the larger, higher priced (greater margin?) machines that they didn't really want further along the display.
So the Sony, having 1 less status LED than a Samsung NC10, is a good compromise compared to a LED-less Dell? Funny compromise!
Actually, while we're on the subject of status LEDs... I've never understood why the NC10 has a backlit power button AND a power status LED on the front too, why not just have the power button one... which could have also changed colour when the charger is plugged in too, that would have been neat.
I must be mad then because I've JUST got a HD2 and it is absolutely awesome. Although I'm not a "fan" of WinMo it, to me, seems like the lesser of three evils. The iPhone is, personally, far too restrictive and side-by-side with the HD2 looks like a Fisher Price style "My First Phone". Android is a no-go as I'm not giving Google access to my "offline" comms as they attempt* to do with my "online" activities.
Besides, the efforts HTC have gone to to hide WinMo are quite amazing really. Yes, you do sometimes get confronted by WinMo but I'd say its only if you are a bit of a nerd wanting to do nerdy things with your phone (like I do!). I reckon someone who just wants to use a kick-ass camera phone with a slick interface, as a camera phone, would very, very rarely, if at all, have to encounter any raw WimMo screens.
* FF and NoScript to the rescue. It staggers me no-end the sheer amount of sites that reference the Google analytics and Google domains.
"Firefox and Opera favouring the presumably free but proprietary and distinctively sounding Ogg"
Eh? OGG is open-source, not proprietary. H.264 is proprietary, not open-source. One is free, the other is not. One you have to (as far as I believe) pay to encode/decode (the pay to part hasn't kicked in yet... but it WILL), the other you don't. Can you guess which is which?
Theora (the video codec, OGG being the container) is, visually superior to H.264 at the same bitrates, much like Vorbis (the audio codec) is audibly superior to MP3 at the same bitrates (Vorbis also gives a nice, richer, warmer sound).
Who, in their right mind, would choose H.264 over Theora?
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
