Posts by Synonymous Howard 358 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Apr 2011
Remember that the first APC was sold at $49 Android PC in July 2012, although that version is still available its gained speed and memory etc and is now $79 or $99 with 'book' case ... so expect a $199 version next year 8-(
Meanwhile the Raspberry Pi 'Model B' rev 2 doubled the memory of rev 1 and is still £30 inc VAT+delivery.
Boot up times are important for Windows because of the monthly patching + reboot.
However I find the only time I need to boot up my laptops is after I perform a hardware upgrades otherwise they just stay in sleep mode but that could be because I use MacBooks.
They can't currently reduce the price (without cutting their very high margin) of the iPad Mini because their displays are currently too expensive due to the use of a new layering technique which currently has a low yield (hence a high price).
They will drop the price a bit on the iPad Mini when the iPad Mini 2 comes out.
I tried Andriod with a Nexus 7 .. had a go for 6 months but gave up have just sold the 7 .. I've tried the iPad Mini in a store and it feels great, fits my pockets fine (as did the 7) and I find the iOS applications have the edge on Android ones (even Google maps now operates better on iOS than Android 8-) .. so its getting my money (and I'm notoriously tight).
I have a RaspberryPi running XBMC (RaspBMC) and have installed CatchupTV, EyeTV and Plex add-ons ... just added a £3 IR remote control today. Tweaked the config.txt, bought the £2.40 MPEG2 hardware decoder licence and I'm even using a Class 10 SDHC card to get it to run a bit quicker.
I would however say that the Pi is noticeably slower compared with my AppleTV2 (which I have jailbroken and added CatchupTV, Plex and XBMC etc to give comparable flexibility). However the AppleTV2 was twice the price of the Pi setup .. so for the price a RaspBMC setup is rather good.
Because the Disney press release of two weeks ago said ...
"The last Star Wars movie release was 2005's Revenge of the Sith – and we believe there's substantial pent up demand. In 2015, we're planning to release Star Wars Episode 7 – the first feature film under the "Disney-Lucasfilm" brand. That will be followed by Episodes 8 and 9 – and our long term plan is to release a new Star Wars feature film every two to three years."
So it only looks like their "long term plan" is getting shorter.
Its true that the Nexus 7 has a somewhare disappointing battery life (especially compared to an iPad) and I find I have to keep turning things off (like wifi, bluetooth and GPS) to get through a full day which I find completely unnecessary with an iPad.
My Dad now has a hankering for a tablet and has been looking at the cheap end ones (because he is a pensioner you know). As my Mum has a kindle for reading then, naturally, he is looking at the Fire HD but I've been trying to steer him away from the Amazon lock-in which appears worse than Apple.
If he had a smartphone then I would suggest the wifi Nexus 7 (he can then buy mine as I personally find Android to be a 'meh' compared to iOS) but he doesn't, so then a 3G version would be best.
If he had the budget I would direct him towards the iPad mini with 3G as it would do everything he needs and be so simple to use (and for me to remotely support!).
However, I'm still unconvinced he actually has a real use case for a tablet .. although he is after a replacement SatNav and a small tablet makes a great SatNav (co-pilot live, Skobbler, navfree, google maps, etc).
If only iOS was available for the Nexus 7 then it would be a no-brainer 8-)
It's absolutely illegal to EVADE taxes .. these guys are legally AVOIDing taxes ... something of which we are all capable of doing.
For HMRC the issue appears to be that the companies have very 'clever' accountants and lawyers and so just find different ways to 'interpret' the laws and regulations ... when one loophole gets closed down, another two open!
Moral and fair? Well that depends upon your view of Capitalism and The Market 8-(
Surely Ireland's financial woes was mainly due to its over-inflated property development bubble bursting, rather than having megacorps employing locals?
Also don't a number of British companies act in the same way and funnel profits to wholly-owned subsidiaries based out of a holding address in the channel islands? (that lovely near-shore tax haven)
That's not a recent phenomenon though .. I'm ancient enough to remember the opening of Tesco Home'n'Ware stores back in the seventies when they started to branch out of being a pure 'pile it high, sell it cheap' supermarket; I loved Green Shield Stamps though (later to become Argos) especially when mum did a 'big shop' and the till would spew out tons of licky-sticky-stamps.
Ah nostalgia .. it ain't what it used to be.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Don't buy a month contract .. buy a phone outright using a cashback credit card (www.aquacard.co.uk will give almost anyone a 3% cash back card), ideally through a quidco.com link and then get a cheap sim deal from Three etc.
This Samsung is looking very 'yawn'some .. no USP and a relatively boring design ... pass.
The Google Nexus range is looking much better .. early access to latest Android versions, good build quality (not quite up at Apple's end) and a reasonably low price (definitely not at Apple's end!).
I'm debating whether the Nexus 4 is too big compared to the iPhone 5 (which is very nice to hold and use) .. so I'd want to play with one before deciding to buy or not .. but where would I go to see one?
Indeed the satellite image coverage is very hit and miss .. I saw very similar results when I started to use the Google supplied maps on my iPhone 3GS three years ago .. it slowly got better but now I've upgraded that same 3GS to iOS6 its like going back in time ... very disappointing and I've been using the "report a problem" button a lot over the last 24 hours!
It is clear to me Apple know it was going to be like this as they have included a very comprehensive problem reporting form directly within the Maps application.
I'm Googling for an easy way to downgrade back to iOS5, the maps app is that important to me 8-(
Gone are the days of Victorian over-engineered cast iron masterpieces (tis a shame). I'd be very happy to have a miniature beam engine pumping the water at the end of the street.
You would wonder if these same nimbys would moan if the iconic red phone boxes or pillar boxes were being removed from their leafy suburbs? (although I would moan if they painted the nearby ones that ghastly gold regardless of whether someone peddled faster in an oval or threw a metal plate further than some others).
Maybe if they got Johnny Ive to design them we'd all be happier?
I've always thought of "safe harbor" as an oxymoron because of the US Patriot Act.
"The U.S. Safe Harbor framework does not protect any personal data from the USA PATRIOT Act until a U.S. court declares otherwise.
Regardless of where a company's office is outside the United States, like Google UK or Microsoft UK, if the company that owns that subsidiary company are wholly owned by a US company, the USA PATRIOT Act can be invoked. "
IANAL but I wonder what would happen if you encrypt all your data prior to uploading to a cloud service? ala CipherDocs
I had one of those calls from my credit card company saying they wanted to check some transactions to confirm I had made them ... I asked for them to prove who they were when they asked me and they said, no problem just ring us on the published freephone card security number and say you have been called. So I did that instead after checking that the freephone number was the correct one.
The most freeky calls I get though are from NS&I who have an automated service which rings you up when you want to reset your password ... you get to a point on the website with some random numbers on it and then immediately the phone rings and an automated lady asks you to read out the numbers currently on the screen .. only after you give the correct numbers will the new password be set. It's a net two-factor authentication approach but its just a pity the rest of the NS&I website logon and interface is such a pain to use 8-(
I remember when twm came out as "tom's window manager" before it was renamed .. but then again I remember the transition from X10 to X11.
I hated the Motif widgets that CDE was built on (UI design by committee was never nice) ... always felt my eyes bleed when I used it .. too many nested rectangles and a bloated API/callbacks ... but then I did write my own X11 widget set 8-)
Nothing beat twm + xvt (the xterm replacement written by ex-colleague JB@ukc) for a minimalist developer desktop .. + xclock & xeyes if you must have some eye-candy !-\ Ah, happy hacking days, now replaced by meetings and reports.
me2 .. as ebuyer had free next day delivery and I could go through quidco I did not bother with Google play.
Still have not found anything worth spending the £15 play credit on (no music in the UK store) .. Going through the free apps first .. although the app quality does not yet seem as high as the Apple store variety.
Have watched Transformers 3 as it was free though.
Plus what about the cost to eBuyer etc ? (That sentence spoken to my nexus7 that arrived this morning came out as "post what about beer cost for a bike" 8-)
Its not just being sold direct by Google (who are charging for delivery) but also by online retailers like eBuyer (who are giving free next day delivery) so there must be something in the costings for their margin even if its razor thin.
My initial impression of nexus 7 is that Google is giving the iPad real competition both in hardware and software ... I'm hoping that means Apple will up its game because its GUI is looking extremely dated now.
Yep .. Radio Shack / Tandy "Science Fair" - 'N-in-1electronics kits' where N was 5, 10, 30, 50 or 100 etc. I've still got mine in the loft from 30+ years ago. I got it after building a crystal radio kit after reading the Ladybird 'Story of Radio' book (sigh .. the Labybird history and technology books were great in the '60s/'70s ... then I moved on to Babani books by peeps like Parr and Penfold for move complex stuff ... 555s, PSUs, OP Amps, etc).
Still got a working valve radio I bought for 50p from a jumble sale when I was 9 years old ... excellent mellow sound.
25 watts .. really? Now that would be loud on such a small device 8-)
I've ordered a 16Gb Nexus 7 to hack Android on from eBuyer with free next-day delivery (maybe next Friday if the stock comes in) and 2% cash back from Quidco and 5% cashback on a Capital One credit card .. so not a bad piece of kit for £175 then.
I know that and that's exactly my point .. its not the hardware that is at fault its the *current* lack of an accelerated X server. The point is this £30 piece of kit has a lot of potential ... e.g.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Fy63w6WxOw
http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=4649
So I suspect it will just be a matter of time (and OSS effort 8-) and considering the >300,000 Pi orders, worth it, to get a faster X server running. I'd certainly be interested in helping out with the effort where possible as I have 3 Pi's humming away here and I did a fair amount of work on X11 back in the 90's R2 R3 and R4 days.
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