Posts by Jaster 26 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Aug 2007
"Would it not make sense to plan to ditch terrestrial TV broadcasting, now that freesat is up and running ? "
More people in the UK have Freeview than have Satellite TV ... so no! nearly 80% of households already get Terrestrial Digital TV
I'll let the dust settle on HD (the various HDTV's/BluRay etc ...) before I commit to any new equipment ... but Digital TV is already here ...
Some like Windows/Office etc have open source alternatives, some have possible alternatives (Photoshop/GIMP) which many will not use because of an alien interface or lack of features, some have no alternative
Much of the software piracy in business is unintentional, unnoticed, or ignored
Many of the software developers who contribute to open source projects, write as their jobs the third type of program, many of these are vastly expensive "systems" that no-one could or would want to pirate since most of the cost is installation configuration customisation and maintenance not a price for just the licence (usually the cost of the licence is a minor part of the cost)
Microsoft seems to be redefining it and then still not "doing" it ...
.. as a company that sells software they cannot embrace open source without breaking their business model?
XAML is a proprietary technology to interface with a proprietary technology none of which is open source but some of which has been opened up so some of the interfaces are known and so it could be reimplemented (and some has been), but some of the technology is patented and so Microsoft could shut down any project they do not approve of at any time ...
A DAB radio in a fixed place on mains power works just fine thanks ....
.. I know several people who are very happy with it
But these people have a DAB radio and are not going to buy another one soon ... that's why the sales figures have fallen off - people who want one have it ...
What's the sales of FM radios like ..?
.. The problem with DAB is when you want it portable (use too much power, all or nothing reception)
.. or in a car - Again all or nothing reception (or bubbling mud....)
But how exactly will internet radio or freeview radio help this - both are non portable (over any useful distance) and cannot be used in cars ...
The thee things that put me off buying DAB
I already have freeview for fixed Digital Radio
The portable radios are bulky, ugly and power hungry
The In Car radios are still expensive and the decent coverage is patchy ...
Satellite Radio - Well if the receivers are cheap, coverage is good, and not power hungry then yes they will do better than DAB ... but I doubt all the above will be true (hey will be expensive, ugly, power hungry, and won't work indoors ....)
As said above the GPS satellites are a lot further out than the ISS
and anyway this is relative GPS - i.e. The Space truck does not care where it is, and does not care where the ISS is, it just cares where it is relative to the ISS - i.e. about to dock or about to crash into it ....
BT offered to make all local calls free - Ofcom said no that would be monopolistic (because no-one else could do it)
BT offered to Fibre everyone in the UK but only if they could become a TV provider (like Virgin/SKy all the cable companies) but no that would be a monopoly ...
So we are stuck with a semi monopoly who struggles on with copper and everyone else leeching of them because they don't want to fibre the nation (your ISP almost certainly does not have their own connection they leech off BT Wholesale and so pay by their rules)
The only exception is VirginMedia/NTL who are the result of all the mergers and takeovers of the majority of the cable companies who cabled some (the profitable bits) of the UK
Man works in Team A working on Product X
Man find problem in Product X , reports it, it is not fixed ..
Man leaves to join Company B working on amongst other things Product X (which is why they hired him), points out that the bug still exists and could cause problems
Man announces to the world he will demo the bug to the world (thus allowing Team A to actually have time to fix it...)
Sounds like closed source development to me ....when you don't tell anyone there is a problem don't let anyone leave unless they tell someone....
Twenty versions of the same software, all at seemingly random prices and no way to compare what you get for your money ....
All come with the guarentee that you will be missing at least one essential component , and to get this you will need to upgrade everything else ....
Their arguments are laughable
Only one backer Sun - Really? and OOXML only has Microsoft ?
Not widely used ? - Really? and OOXML is? Most people using Office are still saving to DOC etc so people can read it ...?
No implementations of the standard - Really? there are many and the ODF standard was written and then the software written to meet the spec. Unlike OOXML which describes the document format of Word (but Word apparently still does not meet the spec as published!)
Everyone will use OOXML because it is MSOffice - Well thi might have been true a few years ago but having seen the number of government organisations standardising on ODF (or other formats) to be open I suspect this is not longer true?
Researching using secondary sources is bad, this means Google and Wikipedia but also any encyclopedia (printed, web, CD) ,reviews, and abstract articles in newspapers and magazines ... all these are good for finding sources but should never be used as sources
Using a limited set of secondary sources will produce bland, similar work but so will a limited reading list ?
Perhaps they should teach how to research, using all available resources, and how to determine how reliable a source is?
To phone *from* a 3 phone is cheap but to phone *to* one is absurdly expensive!
They even had a promotion that paid their customers a dividend when they got people to call them ....
The other networks don't only want to lose customers but also don't want their customers complaining about the huge bills for phoning their friends since they moved to 3, try explaining to someone why the price went up and how it is not your fault ...
According to Freeviews own site the coverage at the British Nuclear Fuels Plc, Sellafield, Seascale which in the middle of the region already has 31 channels?
This does include Channel 4 ? (but not Five)
It's a rather limited list but it says "You should be able to receive some Freeview channels now, but when your region switches to digital you should be able to receive the most popular channels"
This is the list now (before the switchover)
BBC1/2/3/4
ITV 1/2/3/4
Channel 4 E4 More4 C4+1
CBBC Cbeebies CITV
News24 Parliment Community
Plus some teletext and radio stations
This is the difference between opensource and commercial
Commercial - if it's released you expect it to be fully tested and stable - but it usually isn't
OpenSource - if it's released it's mostly stable, but it might have some small problems
It depends which you prefer? they usually work about the same, are about as stable, but one gives the impression it's stable and isn't, and one give you the impression it's *mostly* stable and is ...
Upgrading your operating system never works, Windows, Linux, OSX any of them unless you upgrade a completely clean install with no other software and no reconfiguration...
Games are written for Windows because gamers have Windows PC's that's why games are written for the current consoles, people have them and want games for them, try buying a game for an old console? But it's a vicious circle, games are not written for Linux because gamers don't run Linux and Gamers don't run Linux because there are no games for it ...
Did you try installing the initial release of Vista and upgrading from XP? that would have failed as well, and the drivers for a lot of video cards, WiFI cards etc were buggy or missing
So Sky can "save" digital TV ?
If Sky went bust tomorrow Digital TV would go ahead without them, it does not need saving?
If it is not commercially viable then someone has their business model very wrong, pay for a licence to broadcast, get advertisers, buy or make some programmes people actually want to watch, sounds like the same model as conventional TV to me?
Dell Inspiron 530n (Ubuntu)
N-Series-Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core E2140 Processor (1.6GHz,800MHz,1MB cache)
Ubuntu Desktop Edition Version 7.04
Dell™ 19" Silver Wide Flat Panel (SE198WFP)
1024MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x512]
160GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB
128MB nVidia® GeForce® 8300GS
16x DVD +/- RW Drive
Integrated 7.1 Channel High Definition Audio
1 Year Base Warranty - Collect & Return
£416.61
Inspiron 530 Vista
Intel® Celeron® 420 Processor (1.6GHz,800MHz,512k cache)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium
Dell™ 19" Value Flat Panel (SE197FP)
Integrated Intel® Graphic Media Accelerator 3100
1024MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x512]
160GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB
16x DVD +/- RW Drive
1 Year Base Warranty - Collect & Return
Integrated 7.1 Channel High Definition Audio
£349.00
This comparison was made seemingly very difficult but I seem to be paying £67.61 to not have Vista ?
Kingston communications is a special case they were an independent communications company before BT even existed
They were the only independent telecoms company in the UK for nearly 100 years and so this means that if you live in Kingston upon Hull you almost certainly get your telephone connection *and* Broadband from them, they are the default carrier rather than BT
What this means is that if they have a problem then so does everyone in Hull .... It's like if BT has a problem then so does everyone in the UK ....
The internet cannot rout around the problem if there are no other routes ....
What is stopping Linux on the desktop are the three questions
You mean there is and alternative?
Yes there is and MacOSX proves it
Can I run Word/Excel/Access/Powerpoint on it ?
Yes you can, WINE anyone
Isn't that a hobbyist system ?
No, ask the people who are using it on production servers
The mess that is Exchange/IIS/Sharepoint is a nightmare to setup and maintain, please sign up for this three week course and read these big thick books, then call tech support .....
I got a LAMP server with a Wiki setup from scratch with no prior knowledge in 1 hour! (and most of that was the install time)
The various BSD's are the best versions of Unix to use if you want stability or security (pick your flavour for the facility you want) their only drawback is the difficulty of getting some software that works on Linux working on them, and your technical knowledge generally need to be higher
Please don't mention the joke that is ReactOS, if it ever takes off Microsoft will sue it out of the market, no matter how many code audits they do - It's a copy so it *will* violate copyright or if that is too hard to prove, it *will* violate patents .... no-one will trust enough it to use it
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