* Posts by Tom 35

3040 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

Microsoft's uncloaks Phone 8 developer preview

Tom 35

iPhones 'are all fart and no poo'

So MS is all poo and a fan?

Tom 35

Re: The race is on!

If anyone bought one in Canada they have a three year contract.

Not that I've seen one in the wild, but there must be some suckers out there.

Ten... pieces of tat for Apple fanboys

Tom 35

Re: cufflinks

You could just buy the Dell Cufflinks. They are exactly the same but cost less. :P

Adobe feeling drained by new model, but hopes things will improve

Tom 35

Upgrade tradmil

If they fix the bugs instead of bloating it up with useless features to justify the next upgrade it might be worth subscribing. I have been skipping 2 or 3 versions up until now.

CIOs should fear the IP police ... have your get-out-of-jail files ready

Tom 35

Re: Oh what sensationalist nonsense...

"Because the people who did the work are long since dead, and it is their children and even grandchildren getting paid for doing fuck all?"

Or some corporation, maybe a bunch of lawyers.

The Little Mermaid is clearly still worth something, who should Disney be paying?

LCD TV shipments slip for FIRST TIME EVER

Tom 35

Duh

People have upgraded to Digital/HD now and are good for a few years at least.

Like the upgrade to CD give sales a big boost the upgrade to LCD is not something that will go on forever. The attempt to get people to upgrade again with DVD Audio failed and the attempt to get people to upgrade again with 3D or "smart" TV is almot sure to have little effect.

ASA: Rooney tweet was advert, not written expression of his thoughts

Tom 35

It is an ad

So you don't have to say it's an ad if it looks like one? Where do you draw the line? Who decides if it looks enough like an ad to be obvious?

If it's an ad, mark it as an ad as the law requires.

Vendors have second stab at smart TV standard

Tom 35

Fat chance

They could not even standardize remotes.

Samsung S3 finally catches up with the Palm Pre - if modified

Tom 35

Re: wireless misnomer

WAY back when I had a Motorola analogue flip phone it came with a charging doc. You had to put the phone in right side up, but it did the same thing your talking about without all the wireless junk.

It seems they have dropped supplying docs with most things now to save a few cents so I expect charging mats to join docs in the cost cutting bin as soon as any novelty is worn out.

Tom 35
Thumb Down

Wireless charging was a key feature

Hardly.

Top US Senator to Apple, Google: 'Curb your spy planes'

Tom 35

The first would give

time to paint a giant "body part" on the roof or mow "Google Sucks" into the grass.

Microsoft takes on tablets with keyboard-equipped Surface

Tom 35

Re: ARMvsIntel Win 8

No the same people who returned netbooks with Linux because they would not run Windows.

At least that's what all the MS people were saying happened.

Tom 35

Re: Microsoft has worked hard to up the hype this launch.

"Likely Metro capable devices will overtake iPad by next Summer"

Only if your counting all the current Windows computers that could have Win8 installed.

If your thinking tablets then you better cut back on what ever it is your smoking.

Tom 35

Most early keyboards were not "multitouch"

I remember when "n" key roll-over was only on high end keyboards.

Tom 35

Microsoft has worked hard to up the hype this launch.

So like the Zune launch.

The Intel pad should have enough power to run the squished flat Win8 but will cost too much to be anything but an executive toy.

The Arm pad might have a chance if it's significantly cheaper then the iPad and they can get people to develop for it (both a big if I think).

Don't Apple have the patent on doing both the software and hardware on a mobile device? :P

Earthquakes will release captured carbon: Stanford study

Tom 35

large-scale CCS

I don't think it will ever happen anyway, takes too much energy to separate and pump the CO2 into the ground and would cost too much even if nuclear powered.

It's just something the oil companies like to talk about.

No problem with that Turbo V8 SUV/Pickup because we are going to make it all OK real soon now with Carbon Capture... not that carbon is a problem.

Tech boffins: Spend gov money on catching cyber crooks, not on AV

Tom 35

Re: The long arm of the law doesn't reach that far

The "scurvy rats" already know that. They target their attack by country to avoid hitting someone who can hit them back, or even outsource to another country like the fake AV call centres in India.

Or are you going to call in a drone strike?

Sure there are some locals you can go after but that's just the dumb ones and never going to have a significant effect.

FCC: Let's kill analogue early, fob diehards off with converter boxes

Tom 35

Re: Kill all the cable operators now! (To paraphrase Shakespeare)

I live in Canada and in my area the local monopoly is Rogers.

Sure I can buy a cable box in Bestbuy but it's a Rogers labelled box and I have to call Rogers to activate it, and if you get a PVR they can control it. I bought it from a 3rd party, but Rogers still own it.

But I don't want any box. my TV has a digital cable tuner built in.

Just give me basic cable using standard digital cable.

But if they did that it would be much harder to get me to click that pay per view button, or sign me up for two years of the super sports package(s).

You can't get a new analogue account, and if you want to change anything on an existing account they force you to digital.

Tom 35

Re: Kill all the cable operators now! (To paraphrase Shakespeare)

All of the "must carry" stations should be standard QAM. I should be able to get basic cable without a box (and another remote!).

They encript everything to force people to buy/rent their box, then they are just one click away from pay per view. Want to record something you can rent their PVR (that they control).

Forget it, I'm not intrested so I'll just keep my antenna for local stations.

Windows Metro Maoist cadres reach desktop, pound it flat

Tom 35

Re: They have to gut it

One of the upper management types at work has a Dell Latitude ST tablet. It's a $1,000 netbook with no keyboard. Came with Win7 Pro and it's a slug.

Installed the current Win8 release and it feels a lot faster, if only it had some useful aps it might be useful. Using Excel on it still sucks without a mouse / keyboard.

But even with Windows 8 it's still way too expensive to be anything but a management toy.

Tom 35

They have to gut it

So it will run on a tablet.

For years they have been adding flash to keep everyone on the wintel upgrade treadmill.

Now they just want to get in on the iPad gravy and need to strip things to the bones so it will run on cheap hardware. They want tablets so bad they will do anything.

Council chief overrules blackout on Scots 9-yr-old's school lunch blog!

Tom 35
Thumb Up

Good for Martha

She will get better food* (at least until things die down).

The local council made themselves look like fools.

Mary's Meals got a nice boost.

*If you look at the blog it was not always saying bad things about the food, she often gave 9/10. But there were also some really poor 4/10 meals.

W3C: 'Do not track' by default? A thousand times: NO!

Tom 35

Stops?

"New technology that stops websites gathering information about users"

Like the Do Not Call list stops people from calling me to say I won a free trip, need to clean my carpet... ?

It can't stop anything, it just asks them not to. The same marketing companies that think calling spam an email blast (totally different thing!) makes it OK, are not going to give a crap.

Music SEVEN times more valuable to UK plc than first thought

Tom 35

Re: Interesting...

For a small fee I can pull what ever numbers you want out of my butt.

Oracle staffer accused of sex-for-favours in Singapore

Tom 35

You get a bribe because it's a bad deal

My old boss got a free $5000 TV. Company paid $60k for software that almost worked. I spent 6 months fixing it every 3 days until it was scrapped and replaced with something that worked for $40k.

Volkswagen Up!

Tom 35

Re: Frankfurt Motor Show

I don't think I want a Blue one.

Apple Passbook card-'n'-ticket app paves way for iOS e-wallet

Tom 35

That location tracking is a real innovation

Please tell me your being sarcastic.

World smart TV sales surge

Tom 35

Re: Internet connected != smart

HD != high quality.

Youtube has 1080p compressed to hell video. Yes it's HD, no it's not high quality.

Tom 35

Media Player

I found it better to just buy a media player. A TV should last for years and I don't expect any updates after a year or so, but for a lot less then the price of a new TV you can buy a media player that works far better then the junk built into the TV anyway. If new features come out you can buy a new media player.

Apple's online store goes offline

Tom 35

I don't see anthing new

Maybe they just broke it. Maybe management was getting a tour of the new data centre and one said "what is this button for..."

Microsoft so sorry for limp wedding tackle gag gaffe

Tom 35

The real problem

Is that the "Microsoft" joke is OLD. The show looks lame from the start anyway.

Global warming helps Arctic algae suck CO2

Tom 35

Re: LOL!

phytoplankton blooms in other more studied locations are often bad news for fish.

16GB BlackBerry PlayBook flushed away by RIM

Tom 35

Re: Fact check

In Canada (bestbuy or futureshop) it's an extra $50 for the 32GB and another $50 for the 64GB. IPad is $100 for each step.

Tom 35

"jettisoning the low margin 16GB"

Unlike Apple the step up to 32GB or 64GB is not that big so I expect most people just bought bigger then 16 GB.

So it could just be a poor selling sku getting killed.

Intel to target TV viewers with facial recognition ad tech

Tom 35

Easy to fix

A wad of gum or some duct tape should do the trick if any cable company is dumb enough to try and give people a set top box with a camera in it.

Barnes & Noble files official complaint over ebook settlements

Tom 35

Would you like some cheese to go with that?

If Amazon is doing something wrong, go after Amazon.

If they are not doing anything wrong (just stuff you don't like) to bad.

Price fixing is not in the public interest no matter how you want to twist things.

MPAA sympathetic to returning legitimate Megaupload files

Tom 35

Re: $9000/day storage cost?

Maybe that is what they were charging for the space / what they thing they can get from a new customer. But they get nothing while it's sitting there.

Windows 8: Not even Microsoft thinks businesses will use it

Tom 35

Re: Why Windows Server 2012 then?

They just want to sell more system center 2012 licences.

Intel phone boss: 'Multi-core detrimental to Android mobes'

Tom 35

Did I hear that before?

“In some of the use cases we’ve seen, [the] second core is detrimental because of scheduling.”

Sounds like PC dual core CPUs when Intel was behind AMD and working to duct tape two Pentium cores together.

Once they had the Core2Dual out everyone needed dual core.

UK music-rights collection: Where does all the money go?

Tom 35

Where does all the money go?

You didn't answer the most important part, how much did the songwriters and composers receive?

Advertisers slam Microsoft over 'Do not track' decision

Tom 35

Right

These advertisers with there flash cookies, zombie cookies, and every thing else they do to track people who clearly don't want to be tracked are going to stop because of a do not track setting?

At best they will change the name (no we are not tracking you... we are following you, totally different).

Ultrabooks: objects of desire but just too darn expensive

Tom 35

"laptops costing £800 or more have never taken more than 7.5 per cent of notebook sales as a whole."

And I bet most of that is corporate laptops like Latatudes for the "Important" people in the office. Very few are people spending their own money.

I need to multitask, but Windows 8's Metro won't let me

Tom 35

Re: My standard desktop use at work

So it sounds like you are saying Metro is totally fucking useless, just use the desktop.

More or less what everyone is saying. Or just stick with Windows 7 might be even better.

1 in 6 Windows PCs naked as a jaybird online

Tom 35
Holmes

study by McAfee

Finds more people should buy their stuff.

Intel inks deal to let Ultrabooks leech off Wi-Fi net

Tom 35

Not theft but

"automatically bypassing the café's logon screen and advertising."

You normally have to check the "I agree" check box, so you don't even know what you are agreeing to as you walk down the street.

I think I'll be looking at adding a captcha to the system I administer, and I expect others will as well.

BBC uses lifted Iraq war photo to depict Syrian slaughter

Tom 35

mindless theft

Besides the fact that it's not theft and you know it, that's the least of the problem here.

They are cutting out real reporting to save money, and printing random stuff people send them, or stuff they found on the internet (see Onion stories posted as real for example) and calling it NEWS.

Using a picture they don't have the right to use is just a symptom of a much bigger problem.

If they had paid for the picture that would not fix anything, it would still have nothing to do with the story it was posted with.

The story here is that they used the wrong photo, not that they didn't pay for it.

It's not that they are trying to save money by not paying for a photo, it's that they are trying to save money by not paying for reporters to actually check the facts and write the stories.

Who needs Spotify? Samsung launches Music Hub

Tom 35

But I want commoditised bit pipes. How about having a network that works if you want me to sign up with you.

And for the black box shifters, you just need to make the best black box.

I don't want another ituns trying to lock me into one make of device, or service provider.

Microsoft forbids class actions in new Windows licence

Tom 35

Re: I must be missing something here

They are a big company (along with others) that gave money to politicians to insure the right people got on the supreme court so they can do what they want.

2011 sets new record for counterfeit electronics

Tom 35
Holmes

most counterfeits come from Asia

So do most of the real ones.

Diablo III

Tom 35

Re: Only 85%

Are they just going to replace getting killed by cheaters, with getting killed by people willing to spend extra money on fancy weapons?