Posts by JaitcH

Apple's Marketing Honcho Schiller Not the Brightest Spark as he ....

broke a well known rule in Marketing.

NEVER knock the competition - it makes customers check them out.

With all this new found wealth ...

it is time to PUT MONEY INTO BT PENSION FUNDS.

BT, along with it's air equivalent BA, have been ripping off employees for years by under-funding the pension funds and potentially making the average tax payer responsible for making up the deficits.

Credit bureaus - a two edged sword

I don't 'need' credit as I have always lived within my income and now, as owner of a house and two mid-size 'motel' style hotels and a company with 35 employees, I continue to pay cash.

For reasons forced upon me by an inheritance, I had to open an account with HSBC. One of the conditions of the account was that they can copy my information to credit bureaus.

This, in normal circumstances, would have caused me to get somewhat excited but since I reside overseas and had a minimum amount in the account I was less concerned and much of the information was accurate only for my stop over in the UK..

But this mandatory loss of privacy has a silver lining.

In the years subsequent to opening my account, HSBC service has declined and the on-line 'customer service' only offers 'service' in name. So I acquired the personal information of senior HSBC management, and a few other do nothings employed there, by accessing credit information.

I can assure you, such people receiving an SMS message from an angry customer quickly elevates attention, and service, to address the problem!

Poetic justice!

In many countries this data appears on screens in many businesses and police authorities. This is worst in the USA.

What a meaningless, self-serving statement

"HP has provided information to the UK Serious Fraud Office, the US Department of Justice and the SEC related to the accounting improprieties, disclosure failures and misrepresentations at Autonomy that occurred prior to and in connection with HP's acquisition of Autonomy."

An obvious reflection of the incompetence of the failed politician running the show. She is just trying to protect her interests, like employment.

If I had "provided information" of an alleged wrong doing, it is meaningless unless established by facts.

Californians doesn't know how lucky they were!

Just what a country emerging from years of suppression needs - Cisco routers & LAN equipment

Once again, the US government is demonstrating how venal it can be by promoting totally inappropriate goods to a country that is decades behind in all basic infrastructure.

Why would a huge population, living it very basic housing, and often with no running water or electricity want a damn router for? Sewer pipes, yes.

Much of Burma is in the technological Stone Age. Smartphones? How about telephones?

The Chinese are well ensconced in Burma (Myanmar) and their prices are very reasonable, too.

Go home, Yankee carpetbaggers - and wait about a decade.

Apple will also start using wireless charging this year ...

APPLE is not know for using KISS design principals so you can envisage them using yet another non-standard device. It could have a unique modulation schema, with reception only possible on genuine iCrap, coupled with serial number verification, etc.

The EU should mandate inter-operability for these things.

Still, living in the copyright free area of the world, where fully compliant Apple umbilical cords, complete with switching chip, cost USD$5, I am sure our Chinese friends across the border will circumvent any pseudo-security proffered by Apple and at a fraction of the price.

Given the advanced state of ...

antenna technology, along with the frequencies in question, the French should be told to install systems that are less omnidirectional.

Canada shares a 4000-mile border with the USA and has few problems.

It doesn't seem to matter to MS

as you are still able to buy XP original software, i.e. not copied, from MS who are quite happy to charge an exorbitant price for it.

"but it would also free them from reliance on Samsung"

Unfortunately, Samsung has taken an interest in a Japanese manufacturer making screens for Apple.

So much for freedom.

All they need is the letter 'i' and a watch strap and ...

they have Apple beat - the iStrap Phone 2.

Who needs curved glass or some knight to design a winner?

Don't cry for Boeing.

We have no need to pity Boeing over it's inability to keep it's 'plastic' plane in the air because the company has a large umbilical cord attached to the US Treasury as well having monopolistic manufacturing facilities for the Apache helicopters - the one the US Forces use for recreational killing of civilians and reporters in Iraq (see < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13qWADMfQnQ >).

I am sure the paid Boeing hacks are already soliciting Congress people, as well as the Pentagon, angling for a contract for the investigation in to the use by transportation community to (better) understand the risks and benefits associated with high capacity lithium batteries including military aircraft.

No doubt the delay is occasioned by the time taken to develop a snappy acronym for the project. Perhaps < www.acronymfinder.com > can give them some ideas.

The contract need not be large - say USD$5-billion - enough to buy off the airlines who have all these plastic things stranded at airports around the world.

Why stop at Lane ...

fire the whole damn lot of dummies and take loser Whitman with them.

"paranoia about Android-based technologies being vulnerable to legal attacks"

Since when have petty details ever prevented Chinese manufacturers from stealing foreign IP before?

The Chinese are clever but trying to avoid using Western tech is kind of late, given that so much of their telecoms infrastructure is international compliant already. They already bash out TETRA-compliant base stations and handsets for use in their cities, with many more advanced features than UK Plod has, but the underlying technology makes it totally compliant with other systems around the world.

Euro bid to build Hubble-thrashing 'scope

No site, based n earth, can take better definition pictures than Hubble.

The big difference? Airborne pollution. And, as you might expect, it's getting worse and affecting all parts of the world.

Still, spending a pittance on this is better than making bombs and bullets to kill people, many of whom are innocent.

Thank You, Firefox

Any Reg readers checking their Options will discover that Mozilla 'nuked' Java, with as much as a request.

I'm thankful, as both my wife and daughter, undoubtedly like many others, haven't a clue on how to disable Java.

What of Internet Explorer?

Sony has a couple of tricks few others emulate, and definitely NOT Apple

Rain proof/splash proof and waterproof features.

Put here in the Tropics iPhans have to carry their Apple toys in cheap sandwich bags as our typical 'shower' is very effective at killing protected electronics.

Sony, and a UK company, are two of the very few offering this essential feature which is so necessary in much of the world and, increasingly, the US of A with potentially climate change induced storms.

Anyone who has lost a cell handset through a brief exposure to water learns just how useful the Sony feature is!

Can anyone explain why ...

the Apple cable that can be plugged in any which way needs a chip?

Much better to use a standard connector ... but Apple couldn't screw it's customers USD$39 for the thing. ($5 in China)

Great fun, but impracticable ...

Many regions of the world are wood-adverse.

Take the Asian Longhorned Beetle is a large wood-boring insect native to China, it will chow down on any wood remotely soft. Now, thanks to softwood pallets there are large colonies in the USA, Canada, Europe and elsewhere.

The only answer to these pests are hard-wood or concrete.

Then there is the bureaucracy. They are the architects friends who seem to have but a single purpose in life - to generate business for architects. Then there is the construction trade who think everything but everything is beyond the intending home building plebs. Seemingly only the building trade can employ unskilled labour and produce a building.

Unfortunately, these designs in wood are impracticable for my part of the world, well entrenched as it is with Asian Longhorned Beetle, so we create in concrete. I have constructed three buildings, now, one being my home and the other two what government calls 'mini-hotels' (which have over thirty rooms each.

Being a pleb builder, I studied very hard. I did unusual things such as making all 'techno-structure' (pipes, wires, etc) accessible with the minimal of bashing concrete - unlike professional builders who bury all such infrastructure under mounds of concrete. I used insulating concrete forms (ICFs), factory made rebar forms, welded window inserts into which windows (or doors) can fit knowing the frame is dead square.

Even crazier, according to the local 'construction experts' was my use of large-diameter plastic pipes as concrete forms instead of using tatty-looking things made from wood and nails. I simply split piping longitudinally and used packing bands to hold them together whilst the concrete dried. Strangely several 'professional;' builders are now copying my technique in the area.

My first mini-hotel used containers (surplus or 'hot' units costing me USD$300-400 delivered) and it took an engineer to explain to the planners that a container will support many, many times their weight and that my height of five-seven containers wasn't a challenge.

I wish Wikihouse every success, however I fear they will best succeed in places such as Africa for 'advanced' countries throw up to many obstacles to make this practical. I must admit, there are many authorities in Canada, outside the larger cities, who will happily accept DIY home plans, and offer technical help in making the plans meet 'code'.

Michael Chertoff

has zero credibility, especially after he backed the SEE-ALL AIRPORT SCANNERS which have recently been withdrawn from service by the TSA.

One benefit is ...

that even legislators will be able to see the stupidity of accepting some / most of Apples 'patents' which will eventually lead to the much needed revamp of the whole system.

The problem with HP lies within it's ...

board of directors who must number amongst the most inept in American corporate history.

They have totally abandoned the principals of the founders Messrs. Hewlett and Packard. The resultant mess and corporate meandering totally vindicates the concept used by the founders from the beginning.

Apple loses, again - American corporate law prevails

The simple fact is David Einhorn and his hedge fund Greenlight Capital won - and Apple capitulated - after the SEC gave them the boot.

At last, justice prevails

After all the trials and tribulations of the first trial, at least a semblance of justice is entering into these proceedings.

The trial made a mockery of American 'justice' notwithstanding how warped it is.

For the technically minded ...

Check out:

< http://www.uk.amsat.org/ >, < http://www.360app.co.uk/ >, < http://www.screaminspace.com/ > (terrible web site contrast), < http://www.sstl.co.uk/Missions/STRaND-1--Launched-2013 >. Also: < http://amsat-uk.org/2013/02/26/radio-amateurs-asked-to-collect-strand-1-telemetry-data/ >, < http://amsat-uk.org/satellites/strand-1/strand-1-videos/ >, < http://amsat-uk.org/2013/02/07/isro-plans-sarl-and-amateur-radio-satellite-launch-for-february-14/ >.

You can use SkyGrabber software < http://www.skygrabber.com/ > (works with PC card or Dongle) and an appropriate antenna.Orbit map: < http://www.uk.amsat.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Initial-Pass-of-STRaND-1-640x451.png >.

Gyproc/plaster board/drywall has gone high tech

Innocent looking is often the cause of signal reduction as you can get it with rear lines in water proof, steam proof, foil covered and even ballistic - the latter capable of stopping bullets - kind of handy if you live in an American 'hood which have a high frequency of bullets.

Then there are the metallic 'tinted' windows such as the Royal Bank Building in Toronto which is also a very effective attenuator.

But you do have peace/freedom from cell rings.

If India has rockets for rent, how come Cameron is ...

sending them aid money?

No wonder the UK is broke.

My salt and pepper shakers ...

though only two or three years old and made of nicely finished stainless steel, are Dalek imitations - bought in Singapore!

Darleks are celebrated the world over! Still!

"monstrous libel on a public figure based on the flimsiest hearsay"

This applies to Savile, too. No judicial authority has ever made a finding as to his culpability.

We have plenty of Plods proclaiming their thoughts, an ex-Plod holding himself out to be an expert on child abuse and we have a group of adults who saw fit to withhold their allegations until Savile was in no position to defend himself.

I make no judgement about what Savile may, or may not have, done but only of the wagon train that rolls out more and more accusations. There are legal procedures that could be implemented, should the government wants so to do.

If this is British Justice it sure has fallen pretty low.

Old media, and a new player

ELP has the new LT-500 model laser player, the perfect thing for zero wear on your old 33.5RPM discs/disks, and the perfect instrument to play noise caused by dust. Only $8,000 - a bargain.

And you will need a wet LP cleaner, with a vacuum system, to clean the records - only $140!

No needle was as good as this.

Whoops! There goes another ...

Apple screen supplier.

It might have to buy screens from Samsung yet. How humiliating would that be?

California Cool tossed by East Coast Partypoopers

That noise emanating from Jobs box in Alta Mesa Memorial Park, Palo Alto, is most likely the response to East Coast people interfering in his former fiefdom.

Good to know Apple still has to kowtow to some laws.

"is getting more than a little press"

which means that Google is learning from Apple who can spin air in to a story to keep their name in the papers.

At least Google has working models.

In other words ...

MS wants the crooked, bribe-accepting politicians to skew the rules their way.

WHAT the world really needs is a global patents law so every country handles things the same way. And this doesn't mean the American way, only.