Posts by Greg J Preece

VLE?

As Fractured mentioned above, lots of places already have VLEs that do this. I do a lot of development for Moodle, which is free, open source, and already does all this. To hell with MS' ad campaign.

@Dale

Won't impact Google at all. The reCAPTCHA system doesn't accept the word of one person. It waits until three* or more people put in the same word for a given CAPTCHA, then asserts that that result is the correct one.

*I think it's three. Feel free to correct me.

So it's...

...slower, has a much shorter range, and costs a lot more?

I bet they'll be queuing round the block for that one...

Not complete

My postcode is there, but my parents' is not.

God, he looks scary!

As title. I only ever normally meet people like that in mosh pits.

Firmware fix?

That ethernet speed seems so horrible as to be considered broken. Wonder if a future firmware upgrade would fix the problem. Ethernet just isn't that slow.

@The First Dave

"If you really think that the cowon devices are superior, then you really need to ask yourself what the company is doing wrong when it can't sell a device that has (according to you) a better spec than an iPod. Maybe it is you that is wrong and the iPods are actually a better deal all-round?"

Yeah.... Let's play Spot the Idiot:

Apple's 2008 Marketing Budget: $468 million (not sure what % of this is in the UK)

Cowon's Marketing Budget in the UK: $0;

Do the math, you berk. And if they can't sell them to people they're not even advertising to, how do I have one?

A keyboard! Yay!

If it's got better battery life than the G1, I'm fecking having one! Finally be able to develop my mobile apps. I'll miss some of my WinMobile kit, mind - until I re-create it on Android, bwhahaha. ;-)

@Mr Bear

I know a lot of people lunp a lot of places together as "The North", but Barnsley is not as close to Leeds as I think you're imagining.

@Ty

"The Elite"? Uh-huh. I have a nice little theory that you fit with rather nicely:

If you want to look like you're getting work done, use Windows

If you want to actually get some work done, use Linux

If you just want people to look, buy a Mac

@The Other Greg

Bah, you know what I meant! :-p

Hate touchpad tapping. It's up there with Jade Goody on the Scale of Evil.

@Michael C

You're a bit of an idiot really, aren't you? Does the fact that it's called WinMobile 6.5 not give something away to you? The clue is in the version number. You're accusing an operating system that has been around far longer than Android or that shitty iPhone of not having any longevity, not having enough apps/backwards compatibility, etc, etc.

You know what that makes you? Stupid.

I would love an Android phone myself, but unless the HD 2 impresses, I'll stick with my WinMobile device for now. Already got all the apps they're still developing on the other platforms. All I want is an up-to-date Android phone with a physical keyboard and a battery life that doesn't suck donkey balls.

Yay!

Been wanting USB3 for a while. You know full well it's going to be a million times more widespread than Firewire or eSATA, and the size of the backups I'm running now could really do with a USB3 port. Get it done, then release a PCI-X expansion card. Oh yesh.

They broke Fallout 2?

The bastards! Never mind the fact that Fallout 2 will run on ANYTHING. Win95, 98, ME, 2k, XP, Vista, 7, WINE, the works. How the hell did they manage to break it?

@deegee

"Sorry to the Linux crowd, but Windows and OSX are years ahead, especially in usability. You won't get any mass exodus from Windows/OSX until you provide a comparable platform.

The only people that I recommend Linux distros to are home desktop "enthusiasts" who want to do nothing but surf, email, run OpenOffice and GiMP. There literally is nothing else you can do with it other than specialized educational/gov stuff or web/file servers, and most corporate desktops do not fit into those categories."

*Splutter*

What?

Are you actually serious? Dear Lord, I haven't heard anything that stupid in years. I sit here every day of every week, running Linux, doing a whole host of different things. No, it's not as refined as Windows in terms of usability, and I think that's possibly down to a "too many cooks" problem. Linux definitely has its problems, but it also has MASSIVE upsides. It's far far far more efficient than Windows, it provides the best programming environment going, and the hardware compatibility in some areas is reaching godlike levels. I can shove a bluetooth/3G dongle into Ubuntu and it simply works. Doesn't ask for drivers, doesn't prompt me for anything - let's see Windows do that. I've seen, owned and used Linux on everything from desktops to servers to media systems, and to suggest it can't do anything more than run a few basic applications is either tremendous ignorance, or sheer stupidity.

So which is it?

@IGnatius T Foobar, @VoodooTrucker

Ingatius, has it occurred to you that a *lot* of us are running Win7 already? Lots more people are trying out the release candidate because Vista was THAT bad they're desperate to get away from it.

Voodoo - yep, same here mate. The instance I have a screenshot of was copying 4GB between 2 15000rpm drives, which in Win7 took an hour. Yikes.

Hahahahaha

This is why I took the time when installing IE8 to go through the laborious startup wizard and shut off all their attempts to collect my browsing data.

Then again, I don't use IE8 for anything except stuff that absolutely requires it (ie, stuff written by stupid people that I don't have a choice in using).

FUD

"Microsoft once again pointed in the direction of its software's oldest enemies - viruses and malfunctioning code - both of which it claimed dog dodgy copies of its Office suite."

You can smell the bullshit right through your monitor! </Penn_and_Teller>

"Don't need no stinky license to run Linux"

Errr, yes you do. It might be called GPL, but trust me, it's a licence. Or did you think the "L" stood for "llamas"?

Oh, and we're English here. Quit putting the letter "s" where a "c" should be.

Dear idiots

I doubt the kid was actually reported as thinking he was in a video game. That's El Reg's comment on his stupidity. Which has led to my comment on yours. :-p

Case closed.

What? I'm ill today, so I'm cranky.

Could this be because...

...in Japanese cities, everything around you is probably a computer of some kind, so smartphones aren't necessary? I mean, why carry an expensive gadget around with you when you can probably get an answer out of the wall you're leaning on.

You cannot ban the spice

The spice is life.

Would still like a definitive answer...

...to what happens to my pre-order of Win7 E. After they dropped the E version I had this strange feeling that the orders would disappear and we would get shafted for full price retail copies instead.

@Steven Raith

"Careful with the moon."

Great, now all I can think of is Praxis...

TWENTY SECONDS??

That's ridiculous! Leaving a suspect writing in pain for 20 seconds is even mildly acceptable to our police now? If 20 seconds doesn't seem a lot, find a clock, and count them off to yourself. That's how long you'd be electrocuted for as someone not guilty of any crime.

Yet another reason to speed up my emigration plans!

Nice, but one question

Windows - Is that XP or 7?

Maybe he meant "barbies"?

What? He could have.

@Craig

I'm with you mate. Right handed, watch on my right wrist. I get people telling me I'm "wearing it wrong." It's on my wrist, isn't it? Being right handed, looking at my right wrist for the time seems more natural...

£500 though? It's a fecking phone, and not an amazing one at that! There's nothing that special in its spec, and I'm willing to bet the battery life is crap. And as others have previously pointed out, much cheaper wristphones already exist.

Me, I want one of them Japanese "Finger Whisper" ones that send the audio up your bones, so you just stick your finger in your ear. That is freakin' awesome.

@Jolyon Smith

With you on this. I do love my PS3, but if I had to buy it again I'd still buy one of the older, bigger ones. Higher power draw, true, but more options - such as Linux - and it does look muuuch nicer. I like the old PS3 logo. It looks excellent on the glossy black background.

Or at least it would if my cats would stop sitting on it.

Firefox 3.5 is in Ubuntu 9.04

As Shiretoko. ;-) The package is firefox-3.5. However, while it is faster, it's definitely buggy. Crashed it more than once and when I switch workspaces the keyboard quits working in the browser. I'm hoping the final build in Karmic when they remove the Shiretoko branding and just call it Firefox will be better.

Firefox 3.5 on Windows, incidentally, has been frickin' ace.

And for the love of GOD, I've said it a million times, if you want to check actual compatibility of your plugins rather than wait for the authors to update a version number and re-release, install the Nightly Tester Tools and turn off compatibility checking.

X-box Life?

Achievement unlocked!

Auto cutoff not working?

Last I checked, you couldn't keep the throttle on a small outboard running without your hand being present. Automatic cutoff or a sping-loaded throttle. Could just be the type of outboards I use.

You haven't got insurance...

...but you can waste £30 on a crystal ball and then put it in the bloody window?

Ooh, organic

I would *LOVE* for them to go organic-only, just to prove what a load of bullshit organic farming is.

@Bob Gateaux

Don't be a fecking idiot. You acknowledge that I'm a programmer (ie, someone with a modicum of computing knowledge, numbnuts) then suggest I can't keep the system free of malware that slows down file copying in exactly the same way as a bug you claim no longer exists?

And as for Maven being the cause of the slowdown, you obviously can't read. That's only one case in which it occurs, and it's much, much, much faster on Ubuntu. XP too.

Prat.

This could be awesome

If he charges and other people don't, the morons who actually believe anything his "news" outlets put out might look elsewhere for their info!

SEVENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS??

To go to college?

In the Bronx??

Bloody hell!

@Bob

"Why people use this one? He say "most secure way to surf the web" on the front but it have a bug every new day which risks me having computer germs and filth installed. I don't use because we have IE free and it works fast."

You're an idiot. Think about it. It's considered far more secure than IE because when vulnerabilities are found, they're patched, and patched a damn sight faster than those in IE.