Re: Back up? Not me me it isnt (12:09 pm)
Actually, scrap that last comment... I lost my connection to it, and now I can't log back in at all.
Posts by VinceH
3483 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Nov 2009
Page:
Natwest biz banking service goes titsup overnight
Tuesday 23rd October 2012 13:46 GMT
Back up? Not me me it isnt (12:09 pm)
It's back up now... for some values of back up.
I've logged in, and I'm in the process of setting up some payments, but it's being a pig at the confirmation stage; either coming back with an error immediately, saying it can't confirm my action, or taking a ridiculously long time to come back with that error - and in either case, the payments appear to be set up.
So I expect it'll all go horribly wrong when they're authorised.
Natwest Bankline - about as useless as Natwest's silly A5 statements, with four lines taken up per payment, and fitting just six on a single sheet.
New Oz road rules forbid touching mobes
Friday 19th October 2012 07:52 GMT
Re: Insanity?
"holding the phone horizontal a foot or so from your mouth, talking loudly to make sure the microphone picks up their voice
[...]
So far, every one of those anti-social sods has been an iPhone user. Is this a fallout from You'reHoldingItWrong-gate?"
I used to share an office with someone who did that - before the iPhone even existed.
It was annoying enough when sat in the office with him, but I eventually learnt to filter it out.
What was muchmore annoying, though was speaking to him on the phone.
Apple loses UK 'Samsung copied us' appeal: Must publicly GROVEL
ASA shakes finger sternly at naughty eBuyer over hard drive promo
Wednesday 17th October 2012 13:54 GMT
"Do emails count as advertising?"
Yes.
The CAP code also covers UCE - and has done since before the Privacy & Electronic Communications Regulations were introduced in 2003. However, the last time I wasted my time reporting an instance to them, I heard absolutely nothing back. In other words, they just didn't bother.
Archaeologists resume Antikythera Mechanism hunt
Facebook's CHAIR sat on by 1 billion people ... bitch
Thursday 4th October 2012 14:49 GMT
Optional
'"Anyone can sit on a chair," a soothing female voice informs us. Essentially, that is why "Facebook is like a chair".'
Ignoring whether or not the comparison is fair or just plain nonsense, putting it that way around is reasonable - but the advert actually claims that's why "chairs are like Facebook", which I see as something of an Apple move.
Next week, Facebook will be suing furniture manufacturers for copying their idea of creating something people can use to get together and talk.
Skype touts FREE* Wi-Fi across the UK
Wednesday 3rd October 2012 13:43 GMT
Re: nope, totally lost here...
"Because if you are a small coffee shop or pub or cafe etc you can add a useful facility to encourage people to visit your establishment, for an extremely small fee, and stop them going to Costa or McDonalds to get their free wifi fix."
But it's already simple enough to provide wireless access to your customers.
Momentum builds for iPad Mini launch
Pastafarians: Get your noodly appendages off that Facebook suspect
Now LG Display smacks Samsung with patent lawsuit over OLED
Blazing new comet may OUTSHINE THE MOON in 2013
Windows 8 and you – So, what's next?
Thursday 27th September 2012 10:41 GMT
Re: Appeal to teenagers, dual screen, low spec machines
"dockable tablets are what im waiting for... (currently a docked Lattitude user) lightweight slate for out and about, then dock the thing - a second monitor, keyboard, mouse and discrete GFX in the dock for proper work..."
Pretty much agree with this - it's more or less what I've been saying to people that I'd like. I haven't mentioned docks, just adequately connectable to the outside world, so at home and the main places I take my laptop (currently) I can leave a decent sized screen, proper keyboard and mouse, and plug in and work properly at each place.
Of course, I can do that with my laptop - but the difference will be what I'm carrying between offices/desks: A slate will be a lot smaller and lighter than a laptop.
Samsung slams Apple patent jury, wants new trial in US
Tuesday 25th September 2012 12:24 GMT
"just wait until HTC, Motorola or Asus come out with the next 'best' Android handset and you will drop Sammy like a pile of warm .... well you know."
There seems to be a point here that you are missing.
My last phone was not a Samsung. Nor the phone before that, nor the phone before that (etc). In fact, my current phone - the GS3 - is the first Samsung phone I have owned. (From memory, FWIW, I think the only Samsung branded device I've owned before - and still own - is my printer, with which I am very happy).
When my current phone contract runs out (or sooner if I decide to buy one outright - I've gone down that road before), the decision as to what phone replaces it won't be down to who the manufacturer is, it will be down to the specifications of the phone itself, and how closely they suit my requirements. That might be a Samsung phone. That might be a HTC phone. And so on. I don't care who makes the phone - it isn't important to me. It will not, therefore, be a case of "dropping" Samsung, as if I'm a long-time Samsung-only user/fan.
And I suspect the true is most of the other people who make pro-Samsung/Anti-Apple comments on forums like this.
iPhone 5 Lightning cables sticking in USB ports
Tuesday 25th September 2012 07:25 GMT 
Optional
This is just Apple reinforcing its walled garden and extending it to other hardware and peripherals: once you plug the usb end of the new connector into something, you can only ever use that connector in that usb socket - and therefore that socket can now only ever be used with an iThing.
Apple begs ex-Google bods to fix crap maps app
Apple's brilliant plan to fix iOS Maps: Get YOU to do it
LONDON iPHONE 5 MADNESS: 'You must be CRAZY to buy Apple'
The Jupiter Ace: 40 years on
Friday 21st September 2012 11:27 GMT
Re: Best investment I ever made.
"Bought one some time in the '90s for a tenner, sold it on eBay recently for something over £300. "
I get seriously annoyed with people who have done that.
Why?
Because I had quite a few of the old home computers in the early 90s, and eventually either dumped them, gave them away, or sold them for what I thought they were worth at the time - ie next to nothing.
BAH!
Swiss railways ticked off at iOS clock knock-off
'Apple's iOS 6 maps app is SHOCKING, rushed and half-baked'
Apple slip-up slows iOS 6 upgrades
ASA keelhauls Ebuyer AGAIN - this time for dodgy disk ad
Wednesday 19th September 2012 11:51 GMT
Re: Sigh
"The ASA is a toothless watchdog."
Quite. Which reminds me, they want some feedback from me about a complaint I made recently. I feel like going to as much effort as they did.
The complaint was about Sage. For the latest version of Sage 50, the site mentioned VAT returns, saying something like "It's now possible to submit returns directly from the software (now a legal requirement)" - the bracketed part being the reason I objected. Sage ignored me, so I took it to the ASA. Some time later, the ASA told me Sage had changed the wording of their own volition, so they left it at that. Oh, that's okay then. There's no chance any naive people just starting out in business and looking for accounting software might have believed Sage's claim in the intervening time, is there? Grrr.
Oh, and let's not forget the time ASA completely ignored another complaint I made, while the ICO agreed with me and told the subject not to do it again. (The ICO are also toothless, but at least they recognised the validity of the complaint - which was about spamming.)
Raspberry Pi patch adds warranty-safe overclocking
Wednesday 19th September 2012 14:36 GMT
"Buy it from another supplier then"
Yes. I've had one on order from RS since July, with "up to 11 weeks" given as the delivery time. I ordered one from CPC on Friday, just after 5pm, and it arrived yesterday.
"Granted it's now sitting here on a desk with nothing to do yet..."
On your desk? Mine's still in the box it was delivered in - which is much too big to put on the desk.
GCHQ in new challenge for cyber security wannabes
All you need to know about nano SIMs - before they are EXTERMINATED
Freeview kit to require retune tomorrow
iPhone 5 has 'laser keyboard, holographic images'
Malwarebytes branches out into enterprise security market
Monday 17th September 2012 14:00 GMT
"Malwarebytes, the anti-virus firm best known for its freebie scanner software, branched out into the enterprise with the launch of corporate products on Monday."
And what about other starships?
Being serious, though, MalwareBytes is excellent, and one of the first tools I turn to when cleaning up people's infected machines.
Smack your phones up, says Microsoft
Monday 17th September 2012 08:53 GMT 
Game idea
Once this game is developed, it will increase the sales of mobile phones tenfold[1].
How it works is this. You lay nine mobile phones out in a three by three grid, and you need a tenth phone as a controller. You launch the software on the tenth phone, and register the other nine with it. Then the tenth phone randomly rings the other nine phones, and the player's task is to silence them by whacking them as quickly as possible - the faster each phone is whacked/silenced, the higher the score.
And since people will need ten phones in order to play this exciting, innovative and totally original[2] game, they will buy ten phones instead of one[3]. It can't possibly fail[4].
We can call it Whack-a-mobe, which doesn't have a familiar sounding ring to it at all.
[1] No it won't.
[2] No it isn't.
[3] No they won't.
[4] Yes it can and probably will.
Apple iPhone 5 hands-on review
iPhone 5: skinny li'l fella with better display, camera, software
Thursday 13th September 2012 08:21 GMT
"So with the release of the iPhone 5 Apple are finally admitting that the glass back idea was stupid, the screen was always too small and a proper 16:9 aspect ratio is better."
In which case, expect the next iPad to also feature a more sensible aspect ratio - after which, there will be a reduced need to doctor photographs for use as evidence.
Dreaded redback spider's NEMESIS: Forgotten Captain Cook wasps
NASA reports first sighting of dry ice Martian snowfalls
Intel to turn Ultrabooks, all-in-one desktops into giant tablets
Wednesday 12th September 2012 12:52 GMT
Re: Touch on anything above 7 inch is pointless s41t
"That's all very well, and lovely and futuristic. But a question that's never asked in Science Fiction is:
Where are you going to put your cup of tea?"
Or, for that matter, your feet when you want to just lean back, put your feet up, and drink that tea?
I wouldn't want to put mine on that sort of desk - with or without shoes. (Especially not without - by the time we have that sort of thing, the technology will have evolved other senses, such as smell. It'd kill my poor... what should we call it? Deskputer? Desputer?)
Mars probably never wet enough for life, nuclear bomb crater indicates
Judge: Apple not liable for dropped, broken iPhone screens
Dredd movie review
Friday 7th September 2012 19:36 GMT
Optional
"You won't miss out waiting for the 2D version."
AFAIK, the 2D version is only getting a limited run - this is being primarily marketed as a 3D film.
My local cinema isn't one of those that will be showing it in 2D, and I'm not willing to travel to the nearest venue that will. I want to see it, but not that much.
Google snags patent on price discrimination
Friday 7th September 2012 11:48 GMT
Re: This is evil
"much as I love being old school, and i was using "directories" before windows even existed ,
I am warming to "Folder" - it is a hell of a lot more descriptive,"
And, of course, what is the icon used to represent them in most WIMP environments?
A BLOODY FOLDER!
Anyone who complains about people calling them folders, when that's exactly what most people see on screen, needs a good kicking.
Raspberry Pi 2.0 ready to ship
Thursday 6th September 2012 12:36 GMT
Re: Still waiting for mine
"And it was ordered at the start of July, apparently it may arrive in October!"
Yup. Ordered mine on 18th July, and the estimated delivery time (which it says is "up to" 11 weeks) could put it in October.
Receiving it in October works for me because I want to bung RISC OS on it and check my own software works, and then take it along to the London show at the end the month, instead of taking my normal computer. However, if there's no sign of it by the end of the second week, I might order another from CPC (noting the comment from someone upthread that they did so and it arrived the next day).
If the RS one then turns up, fine - I'll have a spare. I suspect I'll be buying a few more in future anyway. It's cheap enough. :)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
