IonMonkey

I don't even care what an 'IonMonkey' is, I want one!

Doorstep

600 light years? I'll start packing my suitcase. Will I need a jumper?

Business as Usual Please

Hopefully they won't screw it up, as it's a handy service when living abroad. Normal post takes forever to arrive, so this service means I can forget people's birthdays right up until the day before and still get a card there in time.

Not Just The Pros

"Survey after survey finds that IT professionals’ number one concern about cloud services is security."

I'm quite unprofessional and I worry about it too.

That Boffin

That "boffin with a Back To The Future hair-style" would be Martyn Poliakoff. He supervised my mate's postdoctoral research and is well-respected both in the UK and internationally. Give the man some credit.

But I'll concede that he does have Back To The Future style hair.

Hubba Jubba

I didn't read the article properly, but Shite-anic in glorious 36D? Ace!

Firebug

"According to Mozilla's stats, Firebug slows startup by 75 per cent."

Surely the target audience for that plugin expect that debugging-type tools will slow things down a little?

I use it at work and it's running all day, so a one-off 17.5 second startup time compared to 10 seconds isn't all that much of a problem, especially not while I'm doing the most important task of the day - making that vital first brew of the day!

SW

“This machine is basically a jet engine running on a hot liquid,” says top boffin Steve Wright

... shortly before playing "You Are Everything" for Sharon in Leicester.

p.s. I also have a famous name, so I'm well-positioned to crack this joke. Nonetheless, I'll get my coat.

The Ultimate Tweak

"Ryanair would do well to consider making tweaks to its website."

Like taking it off the internet forever, along with its late-90s style flashing ads for hotels and car hire.

Merry-go-round

Haven't we been over this before? If I search for a generic term like 'map' then I expect to see Google's map products promoted. They'd be idiots NOT to do that and I'd be an idiot to expect them not to do that. If I searched for a specific, competing map product and Google Maps gets a leg-up to the top then that's a different matter.

But even if they're not doing this, let's think for a minute. If Google's services weren't at the top, where would they be? Second? Fifth? On page 10? If Google's developers can't write Google's sites so that the Google search engine picks them up efficiently, then something's wrong.

So either they're deliberately promoting their own products and nobody really cares, or their own products are naturally appearing at or near* the top and nobody cares. These guys sniffing the barrel of the smoking gun apparently do care, so I'll leave it to them to find out.

* In my quick test, "email" actually sent Hotmail to the top with GMail winning the silver medal in second place. Maybe it's because my 'hl' parameter defaults to Spain? The other searches in this article perform as described.

(Oh)

I agree with all the +44 comments above, but don't see why we have the (0) thing. It's simple for us lot to understand but 'normal' people have to use it too.

i.e. 01234xxxxxx becomes +441234xxxxxx but when written on stationery it's usually +44(0)1234xxxxx.

My Spanish mobile number simply gets a +34 stuck on the front of it to make it internationally callable. 648xxxxx becomes +34648xxxxxx

When people visit me here, even in these times of international connectedness I still get asked how to call UK numbers.

Que?

"For years cellular operators have been charging ludicrously high roaming charges for calls in neighboring countries and making excess profits on overseas traffic. It has taken years of legislation from Neelie Kroes and others, to stop this profiteering."

In that case, can she take a look at some non-roaming charges down here in Spain please? It's cheaper for me to send an SMS from my roaming UK mobile, than it is for me to do so from my Spanish phone on the same network as the recipient. 11p versus 15 cents (at today's rate that's 13p)

Even considering that SMS isn't as popular here so will naturally be more expensive, this isn't right. And sending SMS to the UK, for example, is about 50p a go.

I don't use it much, but it's handy for the odd "I'm going to be leaving this really noisy bar soon" type message.

Hubble Bubble

"more than 200 engineers working on Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)."

I forget, what's that saying about the quality of broth being inversely proportional to the number of cooks involved?

Drove my levy to the levy but the levy was levied

"All this will be paid for by levying a 0.1 per cent levy"

They'll be ruling rules next.

You what?

"In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you. We need a [verified] name service for people. Governments will demand it."

Isn't that the electronic version of a head mounted barcode? Scary stuff.

Wolf?

Well, IT job people never listen to me so why should I listen to them?

"I've found the perfect role for you... 10k less than you said, 100 miles further than you said, with a completely different skill set."

Requests?

Before they go, can they spray-paint gossip show favourite Belén Esteban off my actual TV screen please? She's on the box so much that the image of her face has been burned into my old fashioned CRT.

(untitled)

What a Thuat.

The final picture

Well I for one look forward to watching 'NH-Ass'.

All of the above

This is a shit idea, out-shitted only by my 'email by post' idea (I've already submitted the patent, so hands off!)

It's also a solution in search of a problem. I've never had the need for anything to be printed by the time I get home. I can usually take the 5 seconds hit.

(Sorry, I've had a bad day)

The Furious Furniture Flinger

What's with this guy?

Whoever operates his controls needs to drink less. Or more. I'm not sure which.

Fleetwood Mac

> There's lots of uncertainty here, as is the way with rumours

Exactly. Why complain about lack of information about a product that may not even exist?

No problems here

Outside the scope of your tests, but still related to mobile broadband in general...

I use it regularly down here in Spain and find it a great alternative to fixed-line, with similar results (in Andalucia at least) to those that you show for 3 in the UK, using Movistar (Telefonica). Good for everything from browsing, Skype, work VPN access and 'streaming media' of course.

It's Your Letters

> which offers so-called "out of process plug-ins," or OOPP

Do we really have to do this with every single technical term? It doesn't help with our collective separation from real people when we talk in a stream of abbreviations!

iPad iPad iPad iPad iPad iPad

Their company page has a quote from somebody claiming that BDNA helped them find nearly 3000 servers that they didn't know about. How do you manage to misplace 3000 servers in the first place?

Small Print to the Rescue!

Hey, come and see our Zero Energy House!*

* True for large values of zero.