* Posts by jai

2310 publicly visible posts • joined 8 May 2007

Pinhead Mac Trojan sticks it to fanbois

jai
Jobs Halo

no, not yet

can't stop the smug "no viruses here" just yet, cos this isn't a virus - you need to be a numpty and install it to compromise yourself

New road made from pigsh*t in Missouri

jai

where's Tina Turner when you need her?

[the Blaster has reduced Missouri's power supply]

Auntie Entity: For God's sake, what now?

The Master: Who run Missouri?

Auntie Entity: Dammit, I told you, no more embargos.

The Master: More, Blaster.

[the Blaster puts all power out]

The Master: Who run Missouri ? Who... run... Missouri ?

Auntie Entity: ...You know who.

The Master: Say.

Auntie Entity: Master Blaster.

The Master: Say loud!

[the Master turns on the town loudspeakers]

Auntie Entity: Master Blaster.

The Master: Master Blaster... what?

Auntie Entity: Master Blaster runs Missouri.

The Master: Louder!

Auntie Entity: Master Blaster runs Missouri!

The Master: Lift embargo.

A multitasking iPad? Let's bin the netbook

jai
Jobs Halo

laptops too

i have a laptop that i use when i'm too lazy to walk into the other room to use the desktop to surf the web or write some emails

so for me, the appeal of the iPad is even greater since it's far lighter and smaller than my laptop

my main worry is that it'll reduce the functionality of my iPhone to be just a phone and an iPod. 90% of the apps i'd rather use on the iPad's larger screen

there are no deal breakers that i can think of yet. if i need to use something that the iPad can't accomodate, i've got a desktop in the other room with all the connectivity and horsepower i'm likely to need... if i can just be bothered to get off the sofa and walk the 10 feet to the desk....

Ten Essential Android Apps

jai

re: my fav

what do you mean "if you buy a new phone"? the new OS will run background apps on the old 3G phone too

Apple to reveal hallowed iPhone 4.0 on Thursday

jai

SCSI Probe?

oh my, now there's a whole flood of nostalgia

such innocent happy days of my youth, in what seems now like a forgotten age

sniff

Irish civil rights group takes aim at iPad launch

jai

They ought go Boondock Saints on Cupertino

Oh wait.... What day is it today?

Perhaps I'll wait until tomorrow before believing this article, it's just too funny to be true

Pandora plus Endor: Multi hab-moon motherworld discovered

jai

cold?

also though, would it not be the case the half the time that the moon takes to orbit the gas giant, it'll be in eclipse from the sun, and so be very very cold? that can't be good for life can it?

so perhaps, less Ewoks and more Wumpa?

SeaWorld killer killer whale must die, Bible insists

jai

physically impossible?

how do you stone a killer whale? the velocity of the rock is going to drop drastically as it enters the water, you might get a lucky strike if it's close to the surface, but then it'll dive down and there's no way someone could throw a stone with enough speed to hit with any force

for that matter, how the hell you do stone an Ox without pissing it off and getting gorged/trampled yourself?

Experts rubbish iPhone for health use

jai

Curley said the ideal mobile device for use in hospitals would....

...would be the MOOOOOOON onna stick!! that's what Curley wants, the MOOOOOOOON onna STICK!!!!

Note to Captain Kirk: Warp speed will kill you

jai

Culture

this is why StarTrek will never become the future. we all know it's pure hokum

now the Culture, that's the type of futuristic sci-fi that we should be aspiring to follow.

BBC clambers onto iPhone bandwagon

jai

without apparently noticing that HTML could (and does) provide provide a standard platform

provide provide? that's taking doublespeak rather literally isn't it?

JooJoo men strike back at CrunchPad suit

jai

screen advantage over the iPad

but it's horrifically green!!!!

Virgin Media battles privacy campaigners on P2P monitoring

jai

how's it work?

when they look inside the p2p files, does it have to be a complete file? if someone is pulling down RAR archives from rapidshare or usenet or bittorrent, will it still be able to match the acoustic fingerprint? or doesn't it only work if they're getting an entire mp3 file in one transfer?

is the solution not just to apply some encryption to the source file?

Apple's mega Mac on hold (again)

jai

really?

mine shipped on Saturday - so did they shut down production yesterday?

Brits to get 3G iPad early - and at a reduced price?

jai

questionable

you say "That implies to us that a low-cost 3G package like the one Apple announced it's providing through AT&T in the US isn't a given over here."

if just last week they anticipated that they wouldn't be able to release the 3G one till June/July that but now they expect to release it alongside the US one, doesn't that in fact suggest that their talks with the UK operators are going very well and have speeded up the procress?

Amazon deletes a 6th of its catalogue in book price barney

jai
Dead Vulture

crazy

lol - seems like a very childish reaction by Amazon that's pretty much playing straight into Apple's hands. Throwing the toys out of the pram like this is surely just going to hasten the amount of publishers that start using Apple's iBookstore as a distribution channel.

Experts fret over iPad security risks

jai

risks?

so, what you're saying is that the iPad will pose the same number of security risks that anyone who surfs the web faces (regardless of platform) but has the added benefit of being safe from flash attacks?

i don't get the point about pdf files. you can open them by default in OS X. i thought the vulnerability there lay in Adobe Reader's execution of code within the pdf? but it's not Reader that you'll be using to view them on the iPad

Apple's iPad - fat iPhone without the phone

jai

multi task?

why do you need multi tasking for work?

so that you can run twitter and IM in the background while you're "working" ?

there's going to be nothing to stop you writting a document in iWork, then switching out and reading an email, then back to the document, then flip into the photo viewer, copy a picture, back to document, paste, launch Keynote, put together a few slides, into Safari to look something up on the web

because all the apps will autosave on close, and when you open them, they'll likely go back to where they were last, they don't need to be persistent in the background. and you yourself can only do one thing at once

besides - if you're going to be working, you're going to want to be sat at a desk, so might as well use a desktop or a laptop. the iPad is aimed at those of use who sit uncomfortably on the sofa with a heavy and hot laptop on our legs and just want to surf the web while watching telly

jai

stock price

stock price being down is not interesting - it's ALWAYS down after an Apple event. either because everyone is cashing in on the recent spike leading up to the event or because all the websites and media had been speculating so wildly about the new product that the real thing could never hope to live up to

Apple: iPhone App and iTunes stores don't make money

jai

loss leader

funny, but in my dictionary, "a little above breaking even" isn't in the definition of "loss leader"

Apple earnings leap 50 per cent

jai
Jobs Halo

re: Impressive...

perhaps you should do some research and read El Reg's article on the Q42008/Q12009 report before you are so quick to 'meh'.

For a time when the economic fit hit the shan, as you say, it's hard to tell that they were even impacted by the downturn that everyone else experienced:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/22/apple_q1_results/

Can the iSlate kill off Web 2.0?

jai

underestimate

i think you underestimate the consumers

granted, you're old and these new-fangled gizmos are confusing to you and if you can't find the keyboard straight away you get worried and confused and have to get a cup of Horlicks and a bit of a lie down

but your demographic doesn't count for toffee any more

the real consumers are the kids and the teens and those fresh out of college/uni earning their first wages and wanting to spend it on bright shiny things to watch bright shiny bites of entertainment that won't tax their short attention spans

and they're smart enough to work out how to input on a soft keyboard and won't complain that the lack of tactile feed back is disturbing because they have no nostalgia for the rubbery zx spectrum keyboard to sound of a reed switch clicking

they are ones who's opinion counts in the new age of computer use, not dinosaurs like yourself

iSlate leaves fingerprints all over the net

jai

this

+1

i suspect you've hit the nail on the head right there

added to which, games and media apps are going to be the most graphically intensive and challenging apps - and also the ones that are mostly to be written using the developers custom classes instead of those provided by the SDK. and so are most likely to break on a higher resolution, and also best placed to stress test the new hardware

jai

not iSlate

all the evidence currently points towards the name being iPad - which makes sense, keeps it inline with the 'Pod and the 'Phone

More problems for Apple's top desktop

jai
Dead Vulture

are you sure it's problem related and not high demand?

i have a 27" iMac currently on order, and it's not due to ship until next week.

i've just checked, and there's no change to the estimated shipping date

are you sure the move from 2weeks to 3weeks is not just due to high demand as everyone has a fresh wave of hope that they've fixed the screen issues and that it's worth placing an order now?

jai

balloning forum threads?

of course, you fail to mention that the majority of the content in those threads is just 4 or 5 posters arguing with each other. the signal to noise ratio is at least 1:2 if not greater

3D TV: Minority interest for years to come

jai

glasses?

a colleague here at work keeps on saying about how great it'll be when all tv is 3D

but i really doubt the average consumer is going to want to have to wear stupid cheap 3D glasses just to watch the news or Eastenders.

at least, not until the likes of Oakley start making 3D specs :)

New York Times builds paywall - very slowly

jai

why did they stop charging in 2007?

is it because no one was bothering to pay to read their articles?

do they really think that we're all so desperate to read the news that we'll suddenly start putting our hands in our pockets to get to it? when, instead, we can just watch one of the 24-hour news channels, or read a site like El Reg that will collate and comment on all of the news from everywhere instead and save us the time

or even, shock horror, pick up a hardcopy version at the newsagents

Too much sitting can kill: Official

jai

have a break....

so if i spend 5 minutes every hour having a KitKat then i'll avoid being obese? awesome!!

Sony Ericsson Yari

jai

typo?

if they renamed it the Sony Ericsson Yuri gaming phone i bet they'd sell a lot more

Apple's 'latest creation' debuts January 27

jai

lol

yes, i wouldn't be surprised in the small text at the bottom of the invite says "Regtards not welcome"

Steve Wozniak, your time is up

jai

re: dancing with the stars...

"He's enjoying himself. He's the little kid performing in the grade-school talent show."

dude, if i was dancing opposite a pair of legs like that, i'd damn well be enjoying myself and grinning for all i'm worth as well

i know our comments get moderated, but sometimes i think that the El Reg articles ought to get moderated before they get published too. this one is clearly due to Rik Myslewski being too lazy to do any real journalism and instead decided like to laugh at the fat geek - thereby probably alienating 90% of El Reg's readership

China's doomed attempt to hold the world to ransom

jai

top article

and very easily and interestingly explains the science bit so those of us without brains the size of small moons can understand.

Chinese Avatards go mad for Pandora

jai

bad advise

"I strongly advise real estate developers and urban administrative inspectors see the movie and learn from it."

that seems like such a bad idea

they'll watch the film and think "hmmm, burning down the housing and carpet bombing to clear out the resistant tennants - what a good idea!" and after all, it's not like the resident of a 'nail house' is likely to have access to weird and wonderful alien creatures to use to fight off the invading bulldozers

Next-gen iPhone rumored for April

jai

offer the new phone to large corporate clients as a "litmus test"

this doesn't make much sense, because they already know they'll sell the things faster than they can get them to the shops

that said - didn't they only release the original SDK to corporations, and then to a limited number of individuals, and then finally to everyone?

Mini-asteroid sneaks up on Earth

jai

expected to burn up in our atmosphere

of course, they _would_ tell us that, wouldn't they, regardless of if it's actually true

i would run for the hills, but that didn't save the dinosaurs did it?

Spider-Man 4 washed down plughole

jai

to really kill the franchise...

they should get Joel Schumacher to direct it !

Google gets all Minority Report with Street View

jai
Big Brother

google-hate

the google-hate is only because google are so dishonest about being a company that exists to make money

they insist they exist to make the world a better place for us all. but they won't acknowledge that

if they came clean and said "we're making gob-loads of money from this, and as a side-effect, here's some cool things for you, the hoi poloi, to play with" then we'd like them more

jai

why not replace the real ads

when i read the article, i thought you meant that Google were going to be overlaying ads on top of the billboards and posters shown in the streetview images

that would be cool

Google to mobile industry: ‘F*ck you very much!’

jai

an new challenger has entered the game

suddenly a new bread of El Reg reader has come out of the electronic woodwork in force

we've long had the war between wintards and Jobs-zealots (with the occasional smug volley from a freetard linux user)

but now it seems there's a new catelgory of googletards/oompaloompafidlers that the Nexus One seems to have brought into the limelight

one of these days El Reg is going to have to arrange a flashmob fight in a park somewhere where we can finally put the argument to rest

Greenpeace: Apple ain't so brown anymore

jai

wii = global warming?

so Nintendo are the lowest ranked company - yet the Wii is the biggest selling console and arguably most likely to be found in any home. given the current weather conditions in the uk, it seems likely that we're all going to die in Day After Tomorrow style cataclysm and it's all Nintendo's fault!

Dell chalks up tablet PC

jai

shiny

yes because everyone's noticed how fingerprints are SUCH a problem for iPhone screens and it's crippled sales of the device hasn't it??

presumably you've never used any device with a shiny black screen even though you feel the need to disparage them, but when there's a bright light behind the screen, you won't see the fingerprints on the front. and when it's powered off, you're not looking at the thing anyway so who cares

if you're THAT vain that you have to check your reflection in the screen every 10 seconds then buy a small mirror you freak!

jai

hello? hello?

only if that is a microphone in the bottom right corner of the screen

Ion add-on to equip iPhone with full Qwerty keyboard

jai

but...

surely the whole point of wanting an external keyboard is to enable text entry without the virtual keyboard taking up so much screen space. but without being able to override the iPhone's keyboard popping up, all this does is remove the portability of the iPhone - if you need a fullsize keyboard that much, get a laptop!!

Ghost of Gates' tablet haunts Microsoft's future

jai
Jobs Halo

kinda missed their goal?

it'd be easy to assume that the reason for the announcement was to try and steal some of the media frenzy that is building ahead of Apple's announcement later in the month. showing three devices, referring to tablets as slates, etc.

but if that's the case, they seem to have gotten it wrong. by such a lacklustre announcement surely they've just made Jobs task all the more easy. No need to turn the RDF up to 11 when all you've got to do is do better than Ballmer's effort

Paramount prepares to scale Dune

jai

i do not beleive this

how can you have a movie based on battleships? it's the stupidiest idea ever

perhaps it will have an M. Night Shyamalan twist at the end where, you think he'd finally found the 5 squares of the last enemy battleship, but it turns out to just be a submarine and a cruiser together in a line

Welcome to the out-of-control decade

jai

"can choose to avoid"

the trouble is, but taking ourselves out of the loop and keeping control of our "digital dots", the few times we do show up on the radar screen is going to loop suspicious and we'll end up being the first against the wall

Hackintosher's new line: Linux and T-shirts

jai

Mac - not Dell or HP or Sony or any other

You don't know very far then.

Mac is a brand name. If it says you can only run it on a Mac computer with an Intel processor then you can only run it on a computer with the Mac brand on it (and Intel chips inside). and currently, those are only available from Apply.

Nike trainers are not any old trainers that you can put your feet into. In the same way, a Mac computer is not any old computer that you can load OS X on to.

jai

what about an ebook

when you buy an ebook, you purchase a license there, don't you?

and if amazon had their way, you won't only be able to read it on their proprietry hardware

Microsoft wants someone to turn Xbox into Xphone

jai

re: Microsoft caught in temporal shift

there's nothing new about this - i have a bumper sticker at home somewhere that says "Windows 95 = Mac OS 89" - all that's happened is the magnitude of the temporal distortion has decreased. Conversely, in the past, when Microsoft copied Apple, they made lots of money from it, these days, they're not *cough*Zune*cough*Vista*cough*...