Posts by Paul 77 99 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Jun 2009
Yup, I remember the good days when (rarely) I had an issue you would phone someone in London, and if they couldn't sort it out immediately they would (shock horror) call you back. That all died when the support moved to India, and I left to move to Adsl24, where I could still talk to someone whose native language was English, and could actually do something to help me.
I cycle with headphones on, and I *can* hear traffic noise. I am aware of what is going on around me - not a problem.
I have used the Google Maps navigation whilst on the bike before, listening to its voice prompts with the phone (also providing the FM radio) in my pocket. It did work, but used an awful lot of phone battery life.
Yup, in the middle of the Pacific right now. Come to use the secure key, and, you guessed it, the display is shot. I don't know who they are getting to make these devices, but the Nationwide one that I also have has never had a problem (other than dead batteries (pair of CR2032)). Not impressed.
In reply to Don Jefe
I think "hatred" is a very strong word, and I am not sure thats it. I like some of the things Apple have done. Lets take, for example, the earlier versions of the iPod. They are great products, and I have two. But *why* make it so difficult to use from Linux? Why not actually document how the database system on the iPod itself actually works (maybe that has been done now, but it hadn't when I last looked). If there is a variant of iTunes for Windows, why not make one for Linux - I doubt its that hard, and I suspect it would actually be used by quite a few people.
Then there is the subject of the App Store Police, and (as the Reg reported some time ago) the incident where someone developed an app, which was then basically copied by Apple and then integrated into iOS.
All these little annoyances and frustrations add up.
Anyway, just my opinion.
For all those wittering on about latency over satellite being a problem for www.theregister.co.uk, I suspect its not that bad. The home page loads up in 11 seconds. Forum page for a topic loaded up in 8 seconds. not. Thats in the middle of the Pacific on a 2Mb/s MTN Vsat link shared between about 30 people.
Strange how comments about an article not directly about tape, degenerate into a debate about it, just because its mentioned in the title :-)
Anyway, still using LTO5 here. Why? Because the tapes are smaller and cheaper than equivalent disk drives. Thats important when you have to shift several of them several thousand miles.
I have a very nice (and cool) work laptop. It is a Lenovo T520. I'm typing on it right now. Other than not putting a foot wrong in the two years I have had it, it runs cool and has the best keyboard of any laptop I have ever used.
My only niggles are that you need an adapter to go from Displayport to HDMI (when I need to connect it to a large monitor/TV), and also that it doesn't have a particularly great graphics (i.e. I couldn't run a decent flight sim on it if I wanted to)-:
But for work purposes it is the bees knees. Oh yes, and it runs both Windows 7 and Linux Mint 15 (dualboot).
Yup,
I think it is silly that we're not allowed to use amateur radio from airborne devices. I have listened to a US Ham transmitting from an aircraft (on 14MHz) returning from a disaster relief operation in Haiti.
I can understand that they may wish to limit the power, and possibly dictate which bands are used (perhaps 430MHz and higher) so as to reduce the possibility of interference on a wide scale, but I cannot seen any reason for the current outright ban.
Paul (another radio amateur).
Have a Master 128, B+64, B+128, 6502 2nd processor, Music 500, and a teletext adapter. What I would have loved to get my hands on was the 32016 2nd processor. Has anyone actually seen one? Haven't actually switched one on for a while. Real life and having a son seems to get in the way of doing "real" computing these days...
I'm mostly into Linux, but I have scrounged an old PowerMac G5 and it is a beautifully put together piece of hardware - both inside and out.
That said I'm dismayed about the Apple app store Police, and will almost certainly not buy another iPod because (as others have already said) managing it is all but impossible without iTunes. This is a shame really. I do believe Apple could still succeed, as a company, purely on the design of its products, if they started using open standards. Please note: this doesn't mean they have to *support* use of iPods/iPhones/iPads under Linux, but they could at least make it possible by either using an existing open communication protocol, or documenting the protocols they use.
And yes, I know... Not strictly on topic. I'll stop waffling and leave now.
Well, even then you'd still have GLONASS, COMPASS and the very beginnings of a GALILEO constellation. And lets face it, its not gonna happen tomorrow.
My guess is that increasingly there will be receivers that can use all four systems to get a position. Hell you could get a combined GPS & GLONASS solution (Ashtech GG24) at least ten years ago.
Well, we had SunOS/Solaris workstations from Sun 3/60. through SPARCstation's 1/IPX/IPX/5/10/20, Ultra's 1/5/10 and Sun Blades 150 and 1500. It came time to replace the 1500's and... we couldn't. So we ended up getting a Sun Enterprise T5120 to run our stuff on. Problem is that we have some legacy stuff that will only run on SPARC, so we will have to keep it going for a while...
So, we are continuing to use the Sun Blade's as X terminals and to run some things.
I wonder if there's an open-source SPARC emulator that will run on an x86 Linux box... :-)
Hopefully it didn't happen, but suppose someone within one of these cell blackout zones suffered a heart attack, but help couldn't be summoned because of the lack of cell coverage, and the person ended up dead. I imagine it could be a rather interesting time in court for the railway people.
As for police with guns (which seems to have come up as a side-topic on this one) I believe that they should not be armed, other than in special circumstances. I travel to the US quite a bit (my other half is from there) and I am dismayed to see that even the people checking the passports of people from incoming international flights are armed. I honestly believe that the US should sort out its gun problem with the aim of eventually getting to the situation where regular police do not need to be armed with deadly weapons. Of course it will almost certainly never happen.
Galileo still only being built - not operational.
Last time I checked (which was a while back) the operators of GLONASS (ex Soviets) were struggling to maintain a full constellation. I was on a research ship in the1990's which had an Ashtech GG24 GPS/GLONASS receiver. Just for a test I put it in GLONASS only mode. Did not get much coverage. The ship was operating between the UK and the high Arctic at that time.
I'm with Chris Long, except that I don't believe you need to gymbal the whole engine, I think it might be possible to have a steerable thrust guide, sort of like a kort nozzle on a ships prop. I think that would get rid of the worry about flight control surfaces during the first phase of the flight - just leave them centred.
If they weren't horrendously expensive. Yes, like others above I would have liked Nokia to have made Meego available on my N900 - which I still use and love. I bought it unlocked for an awful lot of money, but have used it on two different networks, so it has definitely been very useful.
I wonder how difficult it will be to unlock an N9... And how soon they will start appearing on eBay at sensible prices... And also, how long before someone ports Android to it :-)
Yes, ISP''s have to take a lead on this, and once they offer an IPV6 service, then they have to shout about it, and make sure their customers know that it is available.
At present I run a Vigor 2820, and I understand that Draytek will not be upgrading the Firmware to deal with IPV6, so I will have to get a new router, and obviously there is no point in doing that until my ISP supports it.
Stop sign - for obvious reasons.
1 Are you saying the published birth certificate is fake?
2 What do his educational records have to do with the price of eggs?
3 Why do you care about his step-mother and half-siblings?
10 Personally I wouldn't want all my medical records to be released to all and sundry... Why do you want them?
13 Does he have to baptised to be president?
Unfortunately the screen was damaged - the glass is actually cracked - whilst it was on its way to me.
Anyone know where I can get a replacement CRT? Or how I can actually hook up an external screen using that edge connector?
I do know that the computer itself actually worked (and I guess the review who wrote the article can try this too), because I hooked up a terminal to the serial port and used something like:
stat con:=tty:
It may not have been *exactly* that command, but it was something similar. Different CP/M boxes called their serial ports by different names.
Great article though. Please, someone, do one on the RML-380Z - I have a non-working one of those too :-(
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