Sign in / up

* Posts by Ian 70

27 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Dec 2009

Mega city council's Oracle ERP system still not legally safe, compliant... 2 years after rollout

Ian 70
Reply Icon

Isn't "Greater London" just the name for an area made up of much smaller councils with no actual central authority?

1 1

Windows 11 unable to escape the shadow of Windows 10

Ian 70
Reply Icon

I even remember this argument from people saying they preferred Windows 3.1 over Windows 95

0 0

To make this computer work, users had to press a button. Why didn't it work? Guess

Ian 70
Reply Icon

Re: Bad design

I bought one of those simple because it fit into my SO's hands better. I was then pleasantly surprised just how accessible everything is.

0 0

Not to dis your diskette, but there are some unexpected sector holes

Ian 70
Reply Icon

Re: LSI11/03

Definitely not just a UK thing. Much more an entrenched this is how we always have worked mindset leads to this. You see it the world over.

10 0

Real-time software? How about real-time patching?

Ian 70

Italians not trusting anyone

I used to work in the gaming industry making what most people would describe as fruit machines.

The Italian market was crazy. Because they assumed everyone working with them was corrupt they did all sorts of things to ensure you weren't trying to cheat them. One of the requirements was you had to compile your exe in person in Rome. I flew out, taxi to the hotel in the dark, taxi to an office, Spent 2 hours waiting for a guy to turn up with the required laptop for me to open VC++ 6.0 and press F7 to compile it.

Then taxi to the airport and flight home.

My boss wanted was surprised I only had the two taxi trips on expenses and nothing else.

4 0

God of War: How do you improve on perfection? You port it to PC, obviously

Ian 70
Reply Icon

Re: Pick up the Horizon port again

Just don't do what I did and keep getting distracted by all the side quests and then forget the plot entirely by the time you get back to a main mission.

0 0

Oops, says Manchester City Council after thousands of number plates exposed in parking ticket spreadsheet

Ian 70
Reply Icon

Re: MC1192

£1 postage! Forget it

2 0

The engineer lurking behind the curtain: Musical monitors on a meagre IT budget

Ian 70
Reply Icon

Do like me some What goes up might come down.

0 0

Begone, Demon Internet: Vodafone to shutter old-school pioneer ISP

Ian 70
Reply Icon

Re: SMTP push was useful to me then

Based on that domain address you were a lecturer at UCE.

For some reason the URL stuck in my head from way back.

2 0

You know all those movies you bought from Apple? Um, well, think different: You didn't

Ian 70

Steam handles games differently

I've noticed that sometimes a game will vanish from the steam store when a license expires. It stays in my library though for me to re-download. Even Microsoft have done similar with the Xbox marketplace so clearly some companies figured out a way to handle it.

35 1

Two's company, Three's unbowed: You Brits will pay more for MMS snaps

Ian 70
Reply Icon

Re: mms

I used to have one of those then they forcibly ended it and tried to move me to something that cost 50% more and has a limited data allowance.

I jumped ship and went monthly contracts with various people since then.

0 0

Dear Santa: Can gov.UK please stop outsourcing?

Ian 70

Councils and IT contracts

Way way back when I was a fresh faced graduate temping in a council office to fund a trip to Hong Kong I was exposed to the cost of outsourcing.

Siemens had the contract for Coventry City Council at the time and when a floppy drive failed in a PC it was going to be £40 for the engineer to come and look at the PC. Then when they saw it was a failed floppy drive they would go back to pick one up. The new, perfectly standard, 3.25" drives would then be charged at £80 and as they had to come out again there would be a second £40 fee for that.

This was a time when I could have walked into one of several computer component shops within 2 minutes of the office and picked a drive up for £14

6 0

Gran Turismo 6: Another glossy, gorgeous Mario Kart on steroids

Ian 70
Reply Icon

Nope still no damage modelling so you can use your opponents to slow you for the corner while sending them for a spin with no penalty.

2 1

For PITY'S SAKE, DON'T BUY an iPHONE 5S, begs FSF

Ian 70
Reply Icon

Re: Blah blah blah -@AC 14:24

I've visited the US and they don't have my fingerprints.

Now if you had said, if you've visited the US in the last 10 years or so, then it'd be closer to true. Incidental it's why I've not been back since.

14 1

Ubisoft probes sudden rash of hijack attacks on gamers' accounts

Ian 70
Reply Icon

Re: You can sign up any time you like

What frightens me more is that when it's stolen if they link it to their Facebook account what happens? Apparently it can't be unlinked to give it back to you.

1 0

2012 Games Preview

Ian 70
Thumb Up

And for those wanting a little more classic gaming

What about Legend of Grimrock? PC and later Mac, dungeon master style game updated for the modern era.

http://www.grimrock.net/

Certainly looking forward to that more than any console title or it's usually lacklustre port.

0 0

Hands on with Star Wars: The Old Republic

Ian 70

I played briefly...

...and I was utterly bored as well as plagued with lag.

There are plenty of free MMO's out there that fill my need now. If I'm going to be paying for it, it has to be something special and for me this is not it.

0 0

MS kills, un-kills Zune HD media player

Ian 70

I still use my Zune every day

While I could use my phone for it I prefer to have a separate player to save the battery on my phone for making phone calls.

I had to import it from the States but it's worked flawlessly ever since, compared to the small stack of iPods I have sitting under monitor waiting for me to do something with.

Personally I hope they do a revamp iPod Touch style based on the windows phone but without a phone.

0 0

Amazon to kindle Fire tablet tomorrow

Ian 70
Reply Icon
Thumb Down

Well you can get their kindle app from the regular Android market place. Also it's not necessarily Amazon but the rights holders such as the publisher being different in two different regions and having differing opinions on eBooks in general.

Of course with a little work you can easily circumvent the region lock and purchase direct from the states should the deal be cheaper.

0 0

UK probes ebook pricing

Ian 70
Boffin

I had this issue...

And the most annoying thing is not that they cost the same as a paperback book from Amazon, in the case of the price set by a publisher they cost more.

Then to really twist the knife, when the paperback comes out because the price is set by the publisher on the eBook it wont drop in price until they update it manually. I find an email to said publisher usually does the trick.

I still object to paying MORE than a physical copy costs though.

0 0

First SMS Trojan for Android is in the wild

Ian 70
Reply Icon
Flame

Nahh

that's just because it's not worth the time and effort to infect both of them

1 3

'Suspicious' Android wallpaper app nabs user data

Ian 70
Reply Icon

Or of course

You could just pay attention to what you are installing.

Would you seriously install a wallpaper application downloaded from the internet on a desktop machine?

3 0

Intel answers Microsoft's Linux 'noise' with MeeGo show

Ian 70
Reply Icon

Don't confuse size

with value

1 0

Sci-fi and fantasy authors wade into Amazon spat

Ian 70
Reply Icon

If you are affriad of the ebook maker screwing you over

simply don't by the Kindle or Sony.

Have a look at the BeBook. It supports almost any format you care to think of (though of course not Amazons own) and will manage DRM on epub and mobi should for some reason buy from somewhere that does.

Alternatives do exsist.

0 0
Ian 70
Reply Icon
Unhappy

Finally

A resoned response.

The whole argument is also about Amazon want to be "publishers" on the kindle. which means of course they get a nice big cut of the profits and hand 30% back to the real publishers which is hardly going to cover the cost of editing, advances and type setting.

If Amazon want to be publishers they should do it all not just the bit they know makes them money and throw thier toys out of the pram if they do.

I do own an eBook. Titles purchased? 0. I'm still making my way through Project Guttenburg. But I would happily pay around $15 for a book if it's somethign I really want to read. Once it's dropped to paper back and a coresponding drop in price I would look to buying other authours. This is exactly the type of pricing MacMillan is talking about doing which Amazon was denying them.

If you want to point fingers and shout RIAA look no futher than the mighty Amazon. Sign up with them and to get the best deals you give them publishing rights and if you do sell your ebook elsewhere you are not allowed to sell it any cheaper than them.

0 0

Council saves quarter mil' from mobile bill

Ian 70
Reply Icon
Unhappy

When I was working in the local council

Siemans had a terrifying hold on tech support. A couple of things I saw personall.

Floppy drive failed in a desktop and it was a cost of £40 for someone to come look at it, £80 replacement part (clearly gold plated) and then another £40 for the second visit to install it.

Power supply failed in a desktop. Again £40 for someone to come look at it. £200 pounds and a month wait for a new one then another £40 for teh technitian to come out again.

Most of the time people just did thier best without.

0 0

Blu-ray boys finish 1080p 3D spec

Ian 70
Reply Icon
Flame

Or my Samsung BDP-1600...

That's upgradeable. In fact the majority of Profile 2 compatable players are. Also I paid less for that and my games console separately.

More a win for people who didn't jump onto Sonys over priced console.

1 1