Posts by Craig McGill 1

What is best for a house on three levels?

Gah, this article has only muddied the waters for me. Currently on the hunt for what would be best for this house (five bedrooms/three levels) due to everyone WFH and three teens ready to be sent home from school. TP Powerlines don't work well due to crap electrics so I need something I can run that works with Virgin's truly awful Superb 3.

I was always wary of kit like BT's because I was told it halves your signal power and what you can use? Am I being a dumb noob?

All and any kit (routers/mess/whatevs) suggestions welcome though...

EU completely misses a point...

Even when Europe and the Nordic areas create big companies or decent unicorns like Nokia and Skyscanner, they get snatched up by US and Asian companies. So that's always going to be a problem.

Of course, one of the reasons (I suspect) that the EU struggles to develop killer firms is the hassles in growing cross-market. China and the US are one-language markets, which helps growth. You can't do that in the EU.

Has anyone ever complained to The Reg...

About TITSUP? Just wondering...

Good read - well done cops and El Reg

More of this sort of thing please - and well done on the cops for not hiding behind bog-standard answers and being quite open. Nice one all round.

For the price of four iPhone X's you could fly in zero-g

Just to put it in perspective - one you would change in a few years and the other is an amazing experience. It really is a nuts price for a phone isn't it? (And I say this as someone who always buys a mac for the house and has had some overpriced howlers like the LC475 and PowerPC 4400).

Gemini will ship in 30 flavours - are they mental?

That seems a tad extreme - the variation and complexity there is surely OTT and will give them manufacturing grief...

(I always liked the Sony consumer kit trick of a base model, base model plus £50/£75 and then a third model at £50/$75 above that - was simple and you knew the differences.)

Are we sure this is UK and not England?

Are we sure this is UK-wide given the devolved nature of some of the emergency services?

Also, how bad is the coverage going to be in Scotland, where I wager most of the dead space is?

One good reason for the Kindle...

I'm trying to nag the kids to spend less time on tablets and phones but it looks a bit hypocritical if I'm on mine, so I've gone back to the Kindle to show that I'm reading and not doing anything else.

I keep meaning to pick up Jerusalem, but I may need to go to the gym first before getting that bad boy (and finish Artemis and the new Brookmyre)...

The Kindle has been a cracking device though - moreso for what it brought to the market than the hardware - but the price on the books has been getting ramped up a bit of late. I hope this reflects authors getting more royalties...

Petrov was the only non-military man on duty

All the others who were on missile watch had been trained in military schools, Petrov had not and I believe that he often cited that as one of the reasons he thought it through instead of passing on the alarm.

Give the users a break

Lot of snobbery on here. Lists are actually incredibly useful, especially when combined with Hootsuite or Tweetdeck. Great for curating lists of worthwhile people to follow.

Having said that, yet again this shows - along with the poor handling of name selling - that there's a total lack of business savvy in that place.

Fantastic tale, well told

More of this please El Reg! (And I second the RV Jones book - great read.)

Does it take into account when companies won't let you switch?

I tried to upgrade on Virgin to save money but they point blanked refused as apparently 'I wasn't in the right family of tariffs' so once that contract expires later this year I'm done with them - and downgrading the wifi as well.

Heh. That is a belter - but are you saying that legit SEO types also shouldn't bother getting in touch asking for a link as well?

Brilliant read

Cracking read. This is the sort of thing I come to El Reg for. (Utterly chilling when you look at the scenarios and implications but still a great read.)

Too late to tablet

Moshi Monsters wasn't a bad idea at launch but it failed at two things:

1) Was too late to adapt to working on tablets and phones. Having to use a desktop or laptop all the time absolutely hammered it. If they had the full service on tablets earlier they would have been doing far better.

2) They failed to adapt to a changing audience. While they always had the younger market sewn up, there was nothing for the early users who grew up. JK Rowling pulled it off with the Potter books but few others have managed it.

For those that can't make London, what's the odds on online material after the event?

Any better on the iPad2

Like a muppet I installed this on the iPad2 and it's made it horrific to use. Anyone know if this a) speeds things up or b) gives me back the option to pick how many emails sit in my inbox?

Amazon aren't bad

I need to say that 9/10 you can't fault Amazon for this. They do have customer service - humans most of the time - that do try their damnedest to get you off the phone or screen as quickly as possible - but get you off the phone happy.

A cracking read this - and indeed, sums up one key problem in many a firm. If you want the pay rise you have to get promoted, the old Peter Principle then comes into play.

You think more firms will realise that perhaps there's nothing wrong with having the guy in the middle or the bottom of the management ladder being the highest paid if his work is amazing.

It's true but the time is probably off

I think given that the older generations take longer to come off platforms that the younger crowd who are always looking for novelty, the theory is probably right but I would say it will be post 2020 before it really drops off. I think you'll see a longer fade-off of users. Unless they do some great privacy cock-up and they've survived most of them so far.

What about PressReader?

For those looking for all-you-can-eat press - UK and elsewhere - the app/site PressReader does a cracking job at £18 a month.

Doesn't have The Sun mind you.

Great for Data in Scotland

I hear horrific things about their voice service but their data connection across Scotland totally skelps O2 and others. Tie that in with their decent iPad 24-month plans and it's a winner all the way.

How many Aberdonians are reading El Reg?

Good grief, might need to talk them into running a Reg night. Wonder if the chef can get vulture...