Didn't Sony do this a few years ago?
Wonder how well it turned out. Wikipedia's entry of the device doesn't add up (I've never heard people praise the device or even talk about it since it was launched and reviewed on El Reg a few years ago).
Posts by RAMChYLD
723 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Nov 2010
Digital dongle transforms European XBOXen into tellies
UK WhatsApp duo convicted of possessing extreme porn
Wednesday 6th August 2014 08:31 GMT
So that's it?
People send you porn, and all of the sudden you're guilty even though you didn't ask for it or didn't watch it?
What kind of sick, stupid law is that? What if people wish to get someone in trouble? Sending that someone porn is enough?
Is the UK cops suddenly money hungry and extremely corrupt? Where's the EFF? This is miscarriage of justice and extremely sick (aside from some horror stories my friend in London told me about hospitals in the UK - untrained, error-prone nurses and unsanitary wards). Seriously.
Nintend-OH NO! Sorry, Mario – your profits are in another castle
Thursday 31st July 2014 03:00 GMT
Re: They need to drop the gimmicks.
Problem is, unless they re-open the Nintendo Wifi Connection for the two devices, the Wii and older DSes are pretty much dead. To wit, Nintendo shut down WFC for both the Wii and pre-DSi systems back in May, the devices are pretty much screwed where multiplayer and online services are concerned. And even then certain DSi titles have ceased online support.
Sonos AXES support for Apple's iOS4 and 5
Apple winks at parents: C'mon, get your kid a tweaked Macbook Pro
Apple fanbois SCREAM as update BRICKS their Macbook Airs
Thursday 24th July 2014 08:41 GMT
Re: top tip
Actually, the Dual G5s would be fine for video editing. You just need to drop the penguin and Cinelerra or KDenLive onto it.
PowerPCs have a higher MIPS count than x86 chips. And the G5 chips are also 64-bit. Filled with enough RAM it would be a force to reckon with. Sure, you can't play most PC games, but well, PowerPC CPUs live for media work, not games.
Thursday 24th July 2014 08:30 GMT
Lucky you
I've had worst with HP/Compaq. Bought a brand new Presario 930 lappy, six months into the issue and the backlight goes fizz. Crappaq's response? "Oh, the model has been discontinued, buy a new one". I told them to fuck off. And I never recommended crappaq or HP laptops ever again.
I've also had the same crap treatment from Dell- laptop fails due to known defect after upgrading to Windows 7. Coincidently one month after the warranty expires. Dell support's response was "oh, the recall only applies to the US of A. Asian countries are exempt from the recall. You need to buy an extended warranty, since the three years on that unit is also up" (it was an XPS M1210 which was notorious for having a GeForce video chip that burns out due to overheating). I never recommended Dell again either.
Cheer up, Nokia fans. It can start making mobes again in 18 months
What's inside AMD's life-support machine? A big pile o' PlayStation 4s and XBox Ones
Friday 18th July 2014 06:37 GMT
Osborne effect
I have been in the market for a new AMD gaming laptop for months. I'm an AMD fanboi, and have briefly considered the Richland-infused MSI GX60, but have been holding back since the Kaveri Mobile announcement. Unfortunately, laptops featuring said chip have not yet materialized, and thus they have not gotten my money.
I think this is called the Osborne effect?
Gust catches Amazon's skirt, reveals glimpse of 'Netflix for books'
Hey, remember the iPod Touch? Apple just did
Friday 27th June 2014 01:47 GMT
Well, think of it this way
What the PFY calls it: The iPad Micro.
Unless Logitech et al would release a MFI bluetooth controller for the regular iPad, playing Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on the thing is an invitation for RSI. Can't hold it for more than 5 minutes without suffering pain to the palm.
OTOH, a MFI gamepad for the iPhone fits an iPod Touch just as nicely.
Microsoft tests HALF-INCH second screen to spur workplace play
Wednesday 25th June 2014 04:46 GMT
Workplace play?
Didn't they try this before?
First time it's called Microsoft Bob, and second time it's called Office Assistants.
The ladies may like it, but the men...
Also, I agree with Hero Protagonist. How long before it's being abused to send bangers and balls to people you don't like in the office?
Mozilla to cram a full web-dev IDE inside Firefox browser
Wednesday 25th June 2014 01:41 GMT
Re: Already done with the Mozilla engine
>SeaMonkey already has a 'compose' feature and built by Mozilla already, plus it has a
> mail client (Thunderbird) and an IRC/ICQ/Etc. client.
Exactly my thought. Why reinvent the wheel when they could just beef up SeaMonkey's composer to bring it into the 21st century? It's a nice little thing that has been neglected so much it can only do HTML 4. They should just leave Firefox as is, people use it for the lack of bloat.
DANGER MOUSE is back ... and he isn't half a GLASSHOLE
Yet another reason to skip commercials: Microsoft ad TURNS ON your Xbox One
Alienware says it WILL ship a Steam Machine in 2014 – running Windows
Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi! 3D HOLO-PHONE hinted in Amazon vid
Windows XP fixes flaws for free if you turn PCs into CASH REGISTERS
Friday 30th May 2014 04:38 GMT
Re: And so the countdown begins
One more thing I forgot to Mention- Bethesda is another one of them evil developer. In fact, I'd think they're very evil since Fallout 3 and New Vegas are Windows only where PCs are concerned. It even uses the Games for Windows Live framework, despite already being on Steam.
Wednesday 28th May 2014 05:51 GMT
Re: Even better idea
Hmmm, reminds me of the time I tried to get VIA drivers and was driven to a website purportedly hosting VIA's drivers, but demanded $$$ before I'm allowed at them. In other words, due to my lack of coffee, I had mis-clicked on a google link and was taken to a scam site.
Be careful out there!
As for your driver issues, you can do what I did- find out what chipset and video hardware it's using, and go straight to the manufacturer and take a potshot with the manufacturer-provided drivers.
But honestly tho, you should just stick with Xubuntu. As for the fingerprint scanner, try this: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_enable_integrated_fingerprint_reader_with_fprint
It's for a ThinkPad, but knowing Linux I'd think it would support other fingerprint sensors as well.
Wednesday 28th May 2014 05:30 GMT
Re: Is it not ethically and maybe legally questionable to provide this reg hack?
Do you listen to radio music on your Pip-Boy? That's my biggest pet peeve right there.
Sure, if you have a Creative sound card and run ALChemy, that would fix the radio problem, but how many people use an external sound card, particularly one from Creative, anymore?
RealTek's 3D SoundBack doesn't seem to be working for that game for me.
Thankfully tho, the freezing isn't as common and I've only encountered it half a dozen times through the game so far. My biggest annoyance is that I have to disable the Pip-boy radio unless I am running ALChemy, which for some reason requires admin access (which also annoys me, I don't trust programs that require admin access to do things. I usually do my everyday activities in a limited user account).
Although I should try reinstalling the games again and check it out, just to see if they did indeed patch the bug. Last fired it up last year, before I got yanked away to several other games.
Wednesday 28th May 2014 04:53 GMT
Re: And so the countdown begins
I need to be clearer, sorry. I was actually talking about two different things. SteamBox and the stream of Linux games from Valve is nice and all which I wholly support.
Then you have evil developers like EA who for some reason doesn't want to support Linux directly (they will only support Linux if it's a casual freemium game for Android, or if someone forms a partnership to port their game to Linux ie Loki Games' scenario), or ActiBlizz who refuses to support Linux outright and has been said to even bans accounts from Battle.Net if they catch you running the game in WINE (although how they find out if you are indeed using WINE is a puzzle to me).
Wednesday 28th May 2014 04:44 GMT
Re: And so the countdown begins
Gamers will still be using desktops for whatever reasons. Thing is, while tablets are nice and all, some still prefer the classic WASD + mouse . I tried playing Sonic 2 on my iPad for 5 minutes and gave up because of the lack of tactile feedback made it difficult to find the jump button if I'm not looking at the position of my fingers. That, and the fact that it's a thin, unegronomic slab makes my hands ache if I attempt to hold it like a Game Boy for more than 5 minutes. I'd rather play that on a proper gamepad and with a decent screen any day.
Also, tablets are not intuitive for office work unless you buy a bluetooth keyboard.
Tuesday 27th May 2014 01:44 GMT
Re: And so the countdown begins
Not if ReactOS beats Linux there first ;)
Honestly tho, I think the year of the Linux desktop may come sooner with the SteamBoxes. But unless WINE improves to the point that it can run all Linux software effortlessly (I keep seeing regressions- one version runs a particular game fine, the next version would break support for a game while fixing a issue with another game that was broken several versions ago), there will always be a place for XP. Heck, the 2013 SimCity was supposed to run in WINE, but when I tried to it gave me some stupid message about activation failing...
Tuesday 27th May 2014 01:34 GMT
Re: Is it not ethically and maybe legally questionable to provide this reg hack?
Honestly, unless M$ uses BOFH's cattle prod on several software developers so that they fix their software and let it run properly on newer versions of Windows, there will be a market for XP.
Case in point: Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. Runs like pants on Win7 and newer systems with the random freezing and stuttering radio music. Bethesda seems to not only not want to release a fix for these games, they're actively issuing takedowns to file hosting sites hosting fan-made fixes for it. Honestly? I paid 60 freaking Malaysian Dollars for my copy of Fallout 3, and that's even during the Steam sales. And they did not offer me the experience I desired because of the freezes and stuttering music.
And the kick in the nuts is that the game was released when Windows Vista is already released and the problem should've been noticed and fixed.
Still watching DVDs? You're a planet-killing carbon hog!
Friday 30th May 2014 04:17 GMT
Re: So, how do I stream when
As my reply pointed out, not everyone is in the UK.
PS: BBC Entertainment Asia _did not_ air The Time of The Doctor >.> They have no excuse to do so, but they're standing their ground that they will not air it despite the regeneration of Matt Smith to Peter Capaldi and several other plotholes that would possibly result from missing the special. I would not have gotten to watch it if it wasn't for importing the DVD and then watching it on a region-free DVD player. iPlayer et al wouldn't let me watch it online because of my location.
For your next privacy panic, look no further than vending machines
Valve says no Steam Machines until 2015, fingers crossed
Valve's Steam streaming service lets you play games on the toilet
Friday 23rd May 2014 02:15 GMT
Re: Why show steamOS and linux seperately?
I guess they just want to market their SteamBox/Piston/whatever machines as a console instead of a PC. Saying that your Steam-games-playing-device runs SteamOS is akin to saying that your device is not a PC because it doesn't use PC-centric OSes.
On the other hand, you can also install SteamOS onto desktop PCs, so long as it has an x86-64 CPU and uses the UEFI firmware...
Robotics pioneer: Intelligent machines are 'scary for a lot of people'
Thursday 22nd May 2014 01:39 GMT
ATM language
> "Every time you go to the ATM machine – every day for the last five
> years – it says, 'Do you want to speak Spanish today?'
Funny that. My recently implemented a service when they asked me my preferred language exactly once while I was signing up for my bank card, and they programmed my preferred language into the card's chip. Every time I walk up to an ATM and insert the card it automatically chooses "English" for me...
Imo more banks should implement that feature. It's too bad said feature only works on my own bank's machines.
Microsoft walks into a bar. China screams: 'Eww is that Windows 8? GET OUT OF HERE'
Wednesday 21st May 2014 01:45 GMT
ReactOS
China should look into sponsoring ReactOS if XP support is so important to them. Seriously, there are a lot of programs, namely games, that won't run under 7 or 8 properly if at all. Even in XP mode (because of said 3D requirements). Ie Fallout 3, which has broken BGM under 7 and Bethesda turning a blind eye to the issue.
WINE? When I last tried to run SimCity 2013 in WINE it gave me some cryptic error message about activation...
Apple 'rainbow' logos set to fetch $10-15K at auction
Tuesday 20th May 2014 01:34 GMT
Surely that can't be right?
> They were once displayed at the company's Cupertino headquarters
> and are being sold by an Apple employee who obtained them in 1997,
> after the firm abandoned the Rainbow logo pattern for the current
> one-color Apple logo.
I thought Apple abandoned the logo in 1999? My Beige G3 from 1998 still has the logo.
Fast-fingered Filho flicks aside WinPhone-furtling fumbler after 4 months
Monday 19th May 2014 06:59 GMT
Re: Who the fuck cares?
Ever lived in one of those countries where they hold text messaging competitions where the winner can win a year's worth of free fuel from whatever big oil company is holding the competition?
(Yeah, I was a sucker. Probably spent upwards of a hundred dollars in prepaid messaging airtime during that period).
Real, hovering SPEEDER BIKE can be YOURS for cheaper than a house
Nintendo says sorry, but there will be NO gay marriage in Tomodachi Life ... EVER
Friday 16th May 2014 02:29 GMT
Re: "such a significant development change"?
Actually, I'd think that the thing that makes a person male or female is a simple field in the record. Surely the game has to determine if you're female or male by asking, and then surely it has to store that somewhere. A simple if (x.gender==y.gender) check with the success condition being that the marriage would not proceed and an error thrown instead would have prevented this.
Game of Thrones written on brutal medieval word processor and OS
Thursday 15th May 2014 07:44 GMT
Not worried about viruses?
I've watched the video and he says he's not worried about viruses because he uses DOS?
Surely he jest? I've bad memories of Denzuko, AirCop and AntiCMOS (the last one was even introduced by a copy of WordStar my mom brought home from work! those were the days where stuff is saved on those black, filmsy 5.25" floppies with an effective storage area of 360kb).
Even today, the legacy PC I built just to run old DOS games is set to fire up Central Point's, sorry, M$'s, AntiVirus TSR from autoexec.bat before running anything else.
Microsoft throws Kinect under a bus, slashes Xbox One to $399
Wednesday 14th May 2014 02:33 GMT
Re: Meh.
Well, no. The biggest problem with the XBox fail boat is XBox Live Gold still not available in many countries i.e. Malaysia. PS+ is available in any country where there is PSN, which in turn is available in most countries that has an internet connection. That, and the XBox One is still not available in many countries as well. So keep your dreams alive, unless M$ rectifies this and takes a page out of Sony's books and remove these regional exclusion hooplas, nothing changed.
Russia to suspend US GPS stations in tit-for-tat spat
Ninten-DON'T: Wii U bomb blows Mario Kart giant off track – but new console promised
Thursday 8th May 2014 09:01 GMT
> Nintendo needs a better strategy or they are toast
I have a better strategy for them.
Bite the bullet and go global.
Look at Sony. PSN is available practically in any country where there is an internet connection. Yet here I am unable to buy from the eShop or get a Nintendo Network account just because I'm in a part of Asia that is neither South Korea nor Japan.
Seriously, if Nintendo is going to scoff at people who're willing to give them money and turn down said money, they're just asking for it.
> The amount of money they could make from games by selling Mario,
> Zelda, Metroid to the other consoles.
You forgot their biggest cash cow: Pokémon. That, and one cult favorite called Animal Crossing.
Slow IPv6 adoption is a GOOD THING as IETF plans privacy boost
Wednesday 7th May 2014 05:19 GMT
What IPV6 really needs
Is the ability to NAT. Seriously. I'd like to plop one machine behind a dual-homed firewall and just use the firewall to block unwelcome traffic. Much more time saving than going to the machine one by one and setting up a handful of allow rules by hand (plus, leaving the machine connected to the net is still prone to IPV6 spoofing and MAC spoofing even with said rules in place. With a dual-homed firewall I can tell the firewall to shoot down any connect requests coming from the public facing interface, since the computers will only be making requests from the private facing interface and thus any request from the public interface is a spoof).
VMware seasons its cloud with a sprinkling of ye olde spinning rust
DeSENSORtised: Why the 'Internet of Things' will FAIL without IPv6
Tuesday 29th April 2014 07:54 GMT
Re: Running out of addresses might sometimes be a good thing...
@Decade
Well, I think the router's IPV6 support is experimental at best. The only option provided in the IPV6 pane is a checkbox to enable or disable IPV6 and nothing else.
Thing is, I the way I attempted to do this is configure all my lab machines with a static IPV6 address like I would with IPV4 (I got my /64 from this one websites that generates IPV6 ranges- come to think of it I don't know now if that was a good idea and if it's a good idea to take the site seriously), and then point the gateway towards the IPV6 address of the firewall. However, the plan hit a snag when OpenBSD's documentation said that I can't use RTSOL and IPV6 forwarding at the same time.
Thursday 24th April 2014 15:42 GMT
Re: Bridging IPv4 to IPv6
Well, at the moment, my solution is Squid sitting on a IPV6-connected machine and all the other IPV6 "blind" machines use it to connect to IPV6 space. Need it since as mentioned before, IPV6 is allergic to NAT. Unfortunately, I rely on NATting and firewalls to prevent guests using my WiFi from getting into my lab network. That, and my ISP- provided router has strange ideas about IPV6 security (ie it ignores devices who did not take it's RA offer and configure it's route through it, effectively saying "if you didn't take my RA/RS offer, you can't use me).
In other words, if I enable RTSOL, I can't use the firewall to route. But if I don't, the telco-provided router won't play along and route my IPV6 traffic.
Thursday 24th April 2014 15:29 GMT
Re: Running out of addresses might sometimes be a good thing...
The bigger problems with IPV6 is that there is no reliable documentation on how to set it up the way one would with IPV4 and that there's some weird taboos that doesn't exist with v4 that makes v6 a pain to work with. For example, my network is protected by a dual-homed firewall proxy running OpenBSD (one public-facing interface and one private-facing interface) which interfaces with a router provided by my telco and acts as a secondary firewall to keep guests out of my home lab's network. The public facing site is DHCP while the private facing site is static. Apparently, to have it route IPV6, both interfaces has to be static- I cannot have the public-facing interface use RTSOL to receive the settings from the router. But for some reason I cannot set up the public interface statically, the ISP-provided router refuses to recognize the firewall box if the settings are manually set instead of set through RTSOL.
Seriously, I can have the public-facing interface on DHCP while the private interface on static with IPV4. Why am I not allow to do that with the IPV6 equivalent (RTSOL on public and static on private)?
Although I must say, my current improvise seems to be alright (using Squid on the firewall as a 4-to-6 bridge). But surely there's a better way?
Top tip, power users – upgrading Ubuntu may knacker your Linux PC
Tuesday 29th April 2014 04:31 GMT
Ah, inability to boot
I just filed a bug report for it this weekend. Seems pretty silly that they forgot to include the dm-raid modules in the initrd and thus renders the rebuild of my media center unbootable since I decided out of the blue to convert the box to RAID5 (and convert it to Linux from Win7, but that's because of my lately-increased hatred for M$). It's a pretty silly mistake since the modules are needed for the machine to boot. I did manage to fix it tho.
Bugreport: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1313169
Ironically, I have two other RAIDed Ubuntu boxes and they upgraded and boot fine, albeit they're fitted with RAID0 instead, since they're built primarily for my gaming needs.
I also have a problem with the NetworkManager applet not showing on all three boxes- may file a bug report later, once I figure out how to fix that- the internet searches seems to suggest that there's an error in the dbus config somewhere.
Dell charges £5 to switch on power-saving for new PCs (it takes 5 clicks)
Thursday 24th April 2014 14:50 GMT
Reminds me of two years ago when my sis blew a huge chunk of money (almost four thou) on a Latitude without consulting me. When I pointed out to her that other brands with the same specs costs under two thou, she defended her choice by pointing out it has a backlit keyboard, and apparently backlit keyboards are a fashion statement now. I was dumbfounded, but well, it's her money in the end and she bought the darn thing without asking me first.
And it doesn't even have a good video chipset! Only an Intel GMA!
Also, My mom had an XPS notebook. The NVidia made video chipset burnt out, and from what I can gather it was a widespread problem and there is a mass recall, but only in the US. Sucks to be in Malaysia, where the only option offered was pay three thousand for extended warranty (coincidently, the problem started exactly after the warranty has expired). Told customer care that they can go fly a kite. Took it to a computer repair store and it can't be repaired because the damn graphics chipset is not replaceable. I got my mom a MSI after that and we've had no problems with that notebook since.
Next Windows obsolescence panic is 450 days from … NOW!
Tuesday 22nd April 2014 10:08 GMT
Re: Reasons NOT to upgrade?
Unless I've been given the runaround, the Server 2012 evaluation I downloaded from M$ has the goddamn TIFKAM/Metro/Modern on it >.>
Also, we're still using Ascential DataStage. IBM bought over Ascential and then killed the product line for whatever reason. The last version of DataStage still doesn't support WS2008 or newer. We've not yet found a replacement (Yes, I'm aware of SSIS. The big problem is that the product we're using Ascential DataStage for (bulk loading data to said product) doesn't support SSIS for whatever reason even though it uses the SQL Server 2008 R2 as a backend), although to be fair they did say that they're also discontinuing support for DataStage and have discontinued support for Server 2003 since last year.
I've been given the signal from my higher ups to move away from Server 2003 R2 this morning. Oh joy. Now I have to work with the vendor to find a DataStage replacement.
Note: My problem isn't the migrating job itself. It's the corporate red tape when it comes to acquiring new software...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
