Posts by Christopher A Light

Roger?

Sorry, we don't have Rogering here.

We do have the occasional Woger though... From time to time. When the mood strikes.

Hmmmm

Should the Google phone be capable of the following:

Making PHONE CALLS (a revolutionary idea, I know)

WiFi

Bluetooth

A day's normal usage without recharge (3 on standby)

Email

Web browsing

Selling at a reasonable price

I might be interested - though a 'greasy screen touch control interface' is a bit of a turn off.

Mobile phones are about UTILITY, as in the 'pick it up, dial, talk' variety. Not DESIGN, as in the 'Oooooh! Shiny! Must have regardless of the cost' JesusPhone variety.

I see...

And what about Capillary action?

That's how water penetrates most materials. And if the treatment prevents that, how exactly does it 'breathe'?

I suspect this product only works on certain materials, because to 'breathe' it has to be able to allow water vapour to pass, but not water droplets - that's how Goretex works, it's actually a PTFE membrane full of holes. Holes too small to admit water droplets, but large enough to pass water vapour.

I'll believe this stuff when I see it applied to a piece of woven Cordura which, which then becomes totally waterproof...

Mine's smaller than yours...

Bugger the dodgy chemicals, suspect maths and all...

MY 37" LG manages 130w and the heat emission is FAR lower than my previous Pansonic 28" CRT (which you could burn pizzas on, never mind keep them warm).

Seems to me that there are HD LCDs out there, and HD space heaters...

Of course, if you really want to bugger the environment, have to install AirCon, and generally be an enviro-vandal... there's always a Plasma screen :-)

Oh really?

OK, s bunch of you loved them to bits.

I bought from them twice. Twice I got faulty goods, twice I got (very) delayed delivery. The delivery was entirely DHLs fault, probably the worst courier firm I know of. But the faulty goods really put me off, bad luck it may have been, but after twice in a row I wasn't inclined to go through the resultant delay a third time.

Komplett aren't the only firm I've had poor experiences with and decided to avoid in future though...

Overclockers for me these days. Fast, reliable, good deals and, when you do get the odd DOA, well, they sort it out cheerfully and commendably quickly.

I for one won't be missing Komplett.

What these firms seem to fail to understand is that what most of us want is:

• An easy to use, well designed shop

• Accurately described items

• Accurate stock level indication

• Goods delivered promptly and in working order

• Reasonable prices (cheap is NOT always the priority - not when you need something NOW

• A simple but secure payment system

• Prompt delivery by a reliable courier service at a reasonable price

If they fail to tick the boxes, well, there are plenty of others to check out...

This looks like...

...Leopard SP1 to me.

Me, who just discovered that Time Machine broke about two weeks ago - with no warning to that effect. Now what good is an automated 'backup system' that quits and doesn't actually TELL you it's not working?

So, I have a 'backup system' that contains some 370 Gb of data that I can't access. Luckily I discovered this before this wretched excuse of an OS fell over completely.

Bad news is that, because I have the latest Desktop Pro (now THERE'S a laugh!), I can't backgrade to Tiger. That at least 'worked', to quote Stevie 'Boy Wonder' Jobs, and didn't pretend to have an automated backup system.

The more things change...

I mentioned 'backgrading' from Vista to XP recently - this makes it sound like the right decision.

The 95-ME-Vista comparison is unavoidable, Micro$loth hardly have a stellar rep where introducing 'new' OS' is concerned, but then neither do Apple if you think back...

Consider, if you can remember this far back:

OS7 was a crashy disaster which caused many to 'backgrade' to OS6 for a while - but it did mature into 7.6 which was a fairly nice system.

Both OS 8 and 9 were slightly cranky from the start, but swiftly improved.

OSX was pretty much an alpha release, which many, including me, were forced to 'backgrade' to 9, despite the inherent difficulties in doing so, but has now matured into an OS that I'd love to be able to run on 'PC' hardware (yes, I know what's in my Desktop Pro thanks, but you can't run X on a PC - yet). But the fact remains that the first reliably usable X was 10.2, 10 was an alpha and 10.1 at best a beta...

Micro$loth seem to have a worse problem, in that they have a nasty habit of releasing systems that have serious fundamental issues which the simply can't fix - viz 95/ME, and Vista is looking worse all the time.

Still, it's worth remembering that the original XP was pretty nasty. And in fact didn't become what it is today until SP2 - how many years after release? Talk to people who had to 'backgrade' to W2K, twice, before they felt happy using XP...

The really worrying thing, well, it would worry me if I were on the board of Micro$loth - and it probably causes the Apple dictatorship great amusement too - is that, in 2008, with the world awash with 64 bit PC hardware, Micro$loth is still unable to field a workable 64 bit OS.

I've now tried both XP 64 and Vista 64 and neither has anything like proper 64 bit support. Yes, the third party drivers are there - apparently, but largely don't work!

I've tried XP64. The supplied motherboard drivers didn't work. Neither did the latest versions from Asus, despite being clearly marked XP/Vista 64 compatible. Same with WiFi adapters. Same with audio drivers.

Yet none of the driver installers came up with a 'not Micro$loth signed' warning on installation - so, Micro$loth are clearly signing off drivers for 64 bit use which don't actually work!

Same story with Vista 64... had to 'backgrade' to Vista 32, then again to XP.

Still, give Micro$loth a couple of years and they MAY get a working version of Vista out...

But the move to 64 bit really does seem to be giving them problems. Which I suppose is partially explained by the wide range of hardware/drivers required. The issue there seems to be that Micro$loth are too willing to sign off third party drivers which simply don't work acceptably.

Yes, Apple cleared that hurdle with much less problem - but then they DO control the hardware platform. They have also taken the step of providing their own drivers for a lot of third party peripherals built into the OS, which has helped a lot.

Micro$loth might do better to take a few leaves from Apple's book here - forget attempting to get close to Apple's human interface (which they haven't succeeded in yet anyway) and concentrate on emulating Apple's handling of the move to 64 bit.

Or better still. Treat Vista like ME. Forget it and start thinking of getting XP 64 up to speed, by including an extensive driver library that works so they have a usable 64 bit OS, maybe do XP 64 SP3, then start again with the proverbial clean sheet on a new OS. Possibly based on something like, um, Linux?

I know it's an old chestnut - but aren't you glad that neither Micro$loth, nor Apple for that matter, manufacture, say, cars? Or aircraft?

Welcome to the wonderful world of OS software releases! :-)

Nothing new, situation remains the same

A point to remember is that, during the 'Cold War', it was very common for Warsaw Pact 'fishing boats', trawlers, frequently more than one, festooned with masses of comms and radar antennae, far more than any Western trawler would ever carry, to play chicken with NATO vessels, especially during NATO combined manoeuvres.

Interestingly there was rarely, if ever, any response to hailing or other attempted communication. But you might put that down to differences in national temperament.

In addition submarine crews were frequently subject to cat and mouse manoeuvres by Warsaw Pact subs and surface vessels - all this in international waters BTW.

The whole object in these incidents was to study NATO response in emergency situations and gather ELINT data for analysis.

Did NATO behave similarly? Well, yes, on occasion, though rather more subtly.

Then of course there were the Warsaw Pact aircraft that used to skim the borders of Western airspace, not so much as a sabre rattling exercise as to gather data on response times, ground control comms, etc.

It's interesting to note that the Russians have, to a somewhat limited extent, recently resumed that practice under our friend Putin's direct orders...

Whatever... this sort of thing has been common in the past, so it's no real surprise to see it happening now between the Americans and Iranians.

Of course the Iranians aren't as well resourced, or trained, as the Warsaw Pact forces were during the Cold War, hence the use of domestic spec speedboats and the, apparently, less than rational behaviour of their personnel.

This is placing the Americans in a difficult position. The obvious response is to react defensively to aggressive behaviour, hopefully drawing a line and transmitting a very clear warning message.

However, given the level of rationality exhibited by the Iranian government, the chances of that message being heeded is slim.

However, I don't see that the current outcry is helping them much either. Much better, IMO, to deal with the situation calmly professionally and above all, quietly.

Unless of course the Americans have simply had enough of these antics and are escalating the situation? Next time warning shots maybe? And the next time...?

The resulting rants from the Iranian government would be a great argument in favour of preemptive action to deny the Iranian government any future possibility of deploying nuclear weapons.

It's geo-political poker you see.

Don't confuse manufactured with assembled

@ Vernon, Mage and Scott

The 120 Gig HD in question was clearly marked 'Made in China'. As have all the failed in warranty components I've encountered in the last six-nine months or so.

Computer hardware is just like computer software - GIGO applies.

Using Chinese made components, it matters not if the product is assembled in Eire, China, the US, or the middle of the Kalahari Desert - the duration of its continued function is likely to be limited by that of a Chinese manufactured (if that's the right word) component.

Wait and watch. You'll see...