* Posts by Conrad Longmore

454 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Apr 2008

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Windows XP update fails in infinite .NET patch loop

Conrad Longmore

Reissued

I looked on our WSUS server, and I can see that these patches were reissued yesterday. If you look on the Microsoft Answers threat, the first question and reply are on 8/9th May, followed by a bunch of new posts yesterday.

Windows Update isn't doing anything that abnormal IMO, I think these are simply updates to existing patches.

Nokia Lumia 900 WinPho 7 smartphone

Conrad Longmore

Re: no mention of...

"And why does MS not permit SD cards?"

Because they slavishly followed Apple' s policy of no removable memory and built the entire OS on that assumption. It's tricky to change now.

How politicians could end droughts forever But they don't want to

Conrad Longmore

JG Ballard and tilting at windmills.

Where does all the salt (and other waste) go? Presumably you have to ship it off and dump it a long, long way away. Yes, I have read JG Ballard's "The Drought".

Here's a greener scenario. If you ran the desalination plants at night to top up storage, you could use some of that wind generated energy which doesn't have much of a market at 3am in the morning.

Another alternative is to build a bloody big pipe from the north and west to the south and east!

ARM creators Sophie Wilson and Steve Furber

Conrad Longmore
Thumb Up

I wonder..

I wonder what would have happened if Acorn hadn't won the BBC gig. The development of the ARM processor was partly as a result of the success of the BBC micro, although by the time it came out Acorn had been bailed out by Olivetti. It's possible that ARM might have been developed anyway, but the tiny foothold it got in the market with the Acorn Archimedes range demonstrated exactly what could be done with the fast little processor..

..and of course, ARM processors are everywhere now.

Twelve... classic 1980s 8-bit micros

Conrad Longmore
Thumb Up

Re: Sam Coupe

You can still get a Z88 from rakewell.com. I've been tempted because they really are excellent devices for writing stuff on.

As for the PCW show.. I think these ended around 1990 give or take a couple of years. Of course, PCW is gone to magazine heaven now along with BYTE which I still miss.

Linode hackers escape with $70K in daring bitcoin heist

Conrad Longmore
FAIL

Linode

A really don't think that this is an isolate breach at Linode. In the past few months, Linode servers have regularly been used to serve up the Black Exploit Kit, promoted via spam and drive-by downloads. These servers often have legitimate sites on then, which leads to to think that Linode's servers have been getting hacked for some time. They're not the only mainstream host to have this problem too, so my guess is that whatever mechanism was exploited at Linode is being exploited elsewhere too.

Court rejects Tesla’s latest libel spat with Top Gear

Conrad Longmore

Range anxiety

One of the things that TG pointed out was that the range of an electric vehicle varies depending on how you drive it.. no surprise there, as it is true of fossil fuel cars too. So, the car might have a range of 200 miles if you drive it like a vicar, but if you drive like a nutter and have the airconditioning on then you'll get a lot less.

Now, we've probably all suffered from "range anxiety" where the petrol tank is looking low and there's quite a distance to go.. but with an EV it's critical since you can't just pop into a recharging station (if one exists) and be out in 5 minutes as you can with a petrol car.

AFAIK, there is just one model of EV on the market that doesn't have this problem, and that is the Chevrolet Volt (aka the Vauxhall or Opel Ampera). The uses a petrol generator as a range extender. The problem with *that* car is that it is still quite small and fairly pricey, but it does have the huge advantage that if you run out of charge you can still keep going..

Has Microsoft finally killed off Windows 8 Start button?

Conrad Longmore
FAIL

Don't be so certain..

Don't be so certain.. when I first got Office 2007 I spent ages hunting for the setting that gave me my pull-down menus back. Of course, it wasn't there because as well all know Microsoft is just a couple of guys in a garage and I guess they didn't have time to code it..

Google-hosted blogs to be censored on country-by-country basis

Conrad Longmore

blogspot.us

Google acquired the blogspot.us name from a.. errr.. domain speculator in about the middle of 2011. So, it's quite possible for the US to have its own TLD for this exercise too.

Windows Phone to overtake iOS in 2015

Conrad Longmore
Coat

I was going to take the piss..

I was going to take the piss out of this prediction.. after all, how can struggling Microsoft beat the mighty Apple in the smartphone market?

But actually the prediction makes some sense, as what it is really saying is that the market for non-iOS/non-Android smartphones will consolidate around Windows Phone rather than other the other platforms. And that might (just might) squeeze out Apple in terms of volumes shipped.

Remember, whatever the figures, Apple is making much more per unit than rivals, so the units shipped doesn't tell the whole story.

'Space Monkey' craze: Texan students 'get high' by choking each other

Conrad Longmore
Coffee/keyboard

You owe me a new keyboard..

..for "generally as part of a cheery group event with pals rather than as a solo Tory-MP-style experience."

Fresh Apple lawsuits target 15 Samsung gadgets

Conrad Longmore
Thumb Down

For f**k's sake..

For f**k's sake, give it a rest Apple.

Sites knocked offline by OpenDNS freeze on Google

Conrad Longmore
Trollface

Yeay

I use NoScript, and I'm used to having to temporarily enable the domain that I'm using. But some sites are just awful and you end up going through seemingly endless domains just to load the damned content. There are some sites where virtually everything seems to rely on a remote script to load. Madness.

Conrad Longmore
Holmes

"..for the uninitiated.."

"DNS, for the uninitiated, is the vital system that points browsers at the correct servers.."

For heaven's sake, this is El Reg, not AOL. How many readers don't know what DNS is?

The moment a computer crash nearly caused my car crash

Conrad Longmore
FAIL

Wheel slippage

I've heard of this problem before, in this case it was somebody who had missed an exit on an temporarily empty-A road and was attempting a three point turn across the road. One of the wheels slipped and the computer crashed, leaving the car stranded in the middle of what suddenly started to become a very busy A-road. In this case that car involved was a Smart, so the computer inside was presumably Mercedes derived.

Cops bust den of text-spam spewers

Conrad Longmore

Report them to your carrier

You can easily report spam texts to your Carrier. Forward them to 7726 (SPAM) on T-Orange and O2, 87726 (VSPAM) on Vodafone and 37726 (3SPAM) on 3. If the carrier gets enough complaints then hopefully they will act on them.

Retailer reveals Nokia Lumia 710 UK debut date

Conrad Longmore
Meh

Price

If the 710 sells for Nokia's recommended price it will be about £277 SIM free (including tax). The equivalent price for the 800 is £431. The phones are nearly identical apart from the display (the 710 has a TFT, the 800 OLED), a slightly downgraded camera and a less sexy (but probably more practical case).

So of course Nokia don't want to put the 710 on the market before Christmas!

Where is the Elop icon?

Nokia's Great Lost Platform

Conrad Longmore
FAIL

7710, 9500

I have a Nokia 7710 and 9500 in my collection of big, weird Nokias. I never knew that the 9500 was based on Hildon though!

On paper, the 7710 looks great. It does everything that the iPhone could do, but it came years before Apple's phone hit the market. That's on paper.. in reality it was awful, mostly because the hardware was simply not powerful enough just then, partly because the UI still needed work. Bizarrely, the 7710 lacked 3G or WiFi, so there was no high-speed network access at all.

The 9500 wasn't bad, but again there was no 3G (at least this time it had WiFi). Of course, it it was based on Hildon it could have had a touchscreen!

The 7710 was a sales disaster, the 9500 wasn't much better. The principle was good, the implementation wasn't. But instead of going back and improving the hardware and software, Nokia simply shitcanned the whole lot. Alas, this is a typical Nokia approach..

Mozilla stirs netizens against US anti-piracy law

Conrad Longmore
Facepalm

DMCA

I've grown to like the DMCA over the years, especially because it formalizes a very reasonable takedown process for copyrighted material. Yes, it can be abused.. but if you are a small-scale content provider without deep pockets, then it can be a godsend. Non-US citizens can also file DMCA complaints if the service provider is in the US.

Every system gets abused, and the DMCA is certainly one of those. But SOPA is nuts.

Jim Westwood, home micro revolutionary

Conrad Longmore
Thumb Up

Z88

You'd never get away with making a device like the Z88 today.. which is a shame. If you want to take written notes, it is probably the best possible device.. and the battery lasted forever. There still seems to be quite a lively user community too.

Hague refuses to name nations which cyberattack Britain

Conrad Longmore
Mushroom

So..

..China then.

Nokia: The first year of the Elopcalypse

Conrad Longmore
FAIL

The MeeGo disaster

The MeeGo project was a complete and utter disaster. Maemo was developing nicely and most people expected the next Maemo device after the N900 to be a real iPhone killer.

I remember watching the live video of the MWC 2010 event and *expecting* to see things like the E90 and N900 replacements, and instead we got a pile of shit and the news that Maemo was to be canned just at the point it was getting good.

So Nokia spent 18 months not following up the N900, and of course the N9 was irrelevant anyway by the time it came out.

But what did MeeGo do? As they had just shipped a product that consumers actually *wanted* (there's nothing that drives desire more than being told you can't have it), did they capitalise on this and start pushing MeeGo as a real alternative? No. They canned the project again to merge with LiMo in order to form Tizen, which might come up with some shipping OS in 2012. Or 2013. Or 2014..

Farewell then, Sony Ericsson

Conrad Longmore
Thumb Up

Content and prestige

The advantage that Sony has is that it controls a lot of content, and Sony's products are viewed as being prestigious.. maybe not as much as Apple products and heaven knows that they've done a lot over the past few years to screw their reputation up, but still a Sony is usually a nice thing to own.

In terms of content, they have the stupidly named Qriocity service, plus music, TV shows, movies and then they can continued to leverage sub-brands and technologies such as Walkman, Playstation, Cybershot and Bravia (there have been Bravia phones in Japan). Sony will add the Xperia sub-brand and then cross-sell like mad I guess.

Back in 2001 the JV was the way to go. If you remember that far back, people really did just buy mobile phones and at most a couple of ringtones and some Java games. Ericsson was probably a stronger brand those days in that market, so it worked. These days people buy a whole experience, and really Ericsson is a B2B outfit now and has very little consumer engagement.. where Sony is very consumer oriented.

In those ten years, they've had some pretty influential handsets. The article mentions the P800 and P900 (and I guess P910) smartphones, and the T610 looked brilliant.. my personal favourites have to the the W800 and K750. After that it went into a decline until SE upped their game with the latest Xperias.

My guess is that the Ericsson name will disappear from the handsets after the deal closes in the New Year.

C and Unix pioneer Dennis Ritchie reported dead

Conrad Longmore
Thumb Up

Exactly right

Exactly right. Ritchie provided the foundations, Jobs made it usable for the masses. These two people are part of the chain of human progress.

Conrad Longmore
Thumb Up

Multics and Unix-in-your-pocket

Unix was derived in part from Multics, a venerable OS from the 60s and 70s which was tied to GE (later Honeywell kit). Ritchie worked on the Multics project and realised that it did some things very well, and some things arguably very badly (and there were a lot of arguments in the 70s and 80s). Unix of course won the day, mostly because it was relatively lightweight and wasn't tied down to specific hardware.

People who read El Reg probably understand what impact Unix and C has had. Even though Joe Public has probably never heard of Unix, all iPhones (via Mach) and Android smartphones (via Linux) run an OS derived from the work Lell Labs and Ritchie did. And C is pretty ubiquitous too.

It took nearly 40 years for the technology developed at Bell Labs to end up in everyone's pocket. I wonder what he thought of that?

Thanks Dennis. The world is a better place for the pioneering work you did.

Biker gang plunders Covent Garden Apple Store

Conrad Longmore
Facepalm

There's a guy camped outside

There's a guy camped outside the Covent Garden store waiting for his iPhone, some pics of the aftermath here:

http://robshoesmith.blogspot.com/2011/10/day-7-apple-store-has-been-robbed-in.html

Meltemi is real – Nokia’s skunkworks Linux

Conrad Longmore
FAIL

Errr Symbian?

Nokia really is a basket case. Looking for a small, lightweight in-house OS that can replace Series 40? Oh yes.. that would be Symbian. Surely it would be better to use *that* than try and write a new OS. Remember how long MeeGo took?

Man who blasted five million text spams gets wrist slap

Conrad Longmore
Terminator

4 years, 9 months

If it takes 30 seconds to deal with an SMS spam and he sent 5 million of them, then he owes society 2.5 million minutes or 41,666 hours, 1,736 days or approximately 4 years and 9 months of either punishment or payback.

Renault Wind Gordini roadster

Conrad Longmore
Happy

BRABUS innit

Ah well, that's the BRABUS engine rather than the standard 80hp one. In design terms the Roadster *was* loosely derived from the little ForTwo city car.. but done properly in terms of design: rear-engined, rear-wheel drive, stuck to corners like it was on rails and an old-fashioned turbo with real turbo lag (kids these days don't know what turbo lag is!)

I moved from a Roadster to a Twingo RS. The Twingo isn't nearly as fun (although the power to weight ratio is about the same as the BRABUS Roadster). It's a helluva lot more reliable though.

For added madness, you could get a Roaster with a Smartuki coversion, basically a 160hp motorike engine..

Conrad Longmore
FAIL

REN 133?

REN 133? That would make it the 133HP Renault Sport version surely? I have the Twingo version of *that*, and it's a highly entertaining hot hatch with nice things like cruise control (in a Twingo!) as standard.

The Wind is a horror to look at though. Where the Twingo is a bit bland (and a bit silly with the white painted-on bits), the Wind is just ugly. It is too tall and narrow for a roadster, which is a shame because the punchy engines are very good and the build quality is a lot better than Renaults of old.

It's a shame that the designers of the Wind had apparently never heard of the Renault Sport Spider - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Sport_Spider

Got a non-iPad tablet? Weirdo

Conrad Longmore
Thumb Up

I didn't really want a fondleslab, but the HP TouchPad was too good a bargain to pass up. I find that my Android phone is fine for light surfing anyway, and anything more requires a proper computer with a real keyboard.

TomTom fights falling satnav sales with iPad app

Conrad Longmore
Facepalm

TomToms are great

TomTom PNDs are great, easily better than most phone based satnavs.. but by heck are those map updates expensive..

New UK 'leccy meters remotely run via Voda 2G

Conrad Longmore

McAfee Labs

McAfee Labs had a blog post about issues with these type of devices a couple of days ago:

http://blogs.mcafee.com/enterprise/mobile/why-does-my-car-have-its-own-smartphone

How long until people start nicking the M2M SIM out of your water meter for downloading movies?

Chinese government under cyber siege

Conrad Longmore
Facepalm

Hmmm...

Pot. Kettle. Black. Make a well-known phrase with those words.

Motorola hints at Microsoft deal

Conrad Longmore
Happy

"getting a similar deal to Nokia would help"

..you mean Microsoft paying Motorola a great big pile of cash? I daresay it would..

State-sponsored 5-year global cyberattack uncovered

Conrad Longmore
Black Helicopters

Isn't it odd..

Isn't it odd that there seem to be no Chinese victims.

Nokia ditches letters for all-number names

Conrad Longmore
Unhappy

Right now..

Right now they have three different naming schemes for products that you can buy right now.

The classic four-digit series(e.g. 1616, 2700)

The newer letter and two-digit series (e.g. E72)

The crappy one they have just ditched (e.g. C6-00)

And now a three digit series that makes it harder to tell if this is a Series 40, Symbian or Windows device.

And that's ignoring the ridiculous Nokia Oro and the developer-only N950.

Although to be fair, Nokia aren't the only one to go through this silliness. If you want a really stupid name, try the "Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro".

We still need an Elop icon.

HTC delays Evo 3D release

Conrad Longmore
Trollface

HTC Sensation

The EVO 3D is almost identical to the HTC Sensation, apart from the 3D crap and the EVO's better camera. So, if you want a fast and fairly big HTC right now then the Sensation is probably the one to go for.

Scottish TV news pumps goatse link

Conrad Longmore

JLS

I saw some condoms with JLS on them in Boots the other day. Isn't that the same thing?

Nokia reaps the Dilbert years

Conrad Longmore
FAIL

Nokia's firsts

Nokia's first Internet Tablet? The Nokia 770 in 2005.

Nokia's first touchscreen smartphone? The Nokia 7710 in 2004.

I actually own a 770 and a 7710, and they're pretty crap.. but then the technology in those days *was* pretty crap. However, they had the right ideas and had products to market years before the competition.

The world would have been different if Nokia had stuck to its guns with these products and invested some proper money and R&D. Instead, they killed the platform the 7710 was based on and the Maemo.. well you could write a book about what went wrong there.

The best thing that Nokia can hope for is to come out of these as a smaller, but profitable company. The worst thing is basically Armageddon..

Other manufacturers shouldn't feel too smug though. RIM is in almost exactly the same boat..

NASA eyes Atlas V for 'naut-lifting duties

Conrad Longmore
Paris Hilton

Not sexy

Not very sexy though is it? Well, obviously it looks like a giant penis.. but it looks like a huge step back from the shuttle in terms of.. well, looks.

Of course, the design flaw with the shuttle is that it is placed *next* to the rocket component where bits can fall off and damage the spacecraft. With the Atlas, if anything falls off then at least it won't damage the spacecraft perched on the top.

Apple said to be sampling Samsung, LG iPad 'retina' screens

Conrad Longmore
Devil

Monopsony

Because that's what you can do when you're a monopsony.

Nokia WinPho handset resurfaces in factory flick

Conrad Longmore

Nokia 770

Indeed, the Nokia 770 was Nokia's first Internet Tablet and it predated modern tablets by several years.. except these days it looks more like a SIMless smartphone. Funny how Nokia can get everything so right and so wrong at exactly the same time..

Conrad Longmore
Windows

Well..

Well.. yes, the N9 is the already announced MeeGo device. But that certainly looks like an N9 to me!

Perhaps the reason that the N9 *wasn't* cancelled (because MeeGo is a dead-end) was to provide a hardware platform that could be used in Nokia's Win 7 device.

But.. this could just be a developer device. Remember the pics of the N950 which everyone assumed was going to be the consumer MeeGo handset? That turned out to be a developer-only jobbo.

(We still an Elop icon)

Google dumps all 11+ million .co.cc sites from its results

Conrad Longmore
Thumb Up

Good riddance

Good riddance. Perhaps they can dump .cz.cc too?

Feds crack multi-million scareware ring

Conrad Longmore
Thumb Up

Sagade

As far as I can tell, the Latvian hosting company was Sagade. Good riddance!

MeeGo and the Great Betrayal Myths of tech history

Conrad Longmore
FAIL

Shambles

The whole MeeGo development thing was a shambles. Effectively, Nokia didn't announce any new high-end smartphones for the best part of two years because they ditched the N900's Maemo platform just when it was becoming viable, in order to dick around with Intel.

You can't sit around tinkering for two years while your competitors are busy creating products.

And remember, although the N9 has been "announced" there's no projected availability date which is never a good sign. It could be December for all we know..

BMW intros revamped Mini as sporty MG-alike

Conrad Longmore
FAIL

Dear BMW

This is how you turn a mini into a roadster:

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/autoexpressnews/210892/triumph.html

Oz alkie gets hammered on hospital hand sanitiser

Conrad Longmore
Pint

Apparently..

Apparently it tastes better with a splash of fruit cordial.

It has happened before too: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/297369

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