Posts by gribbler 102 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Jan 2009
"I do hope, however, that m.theregister doesn't get neglected as a result of development on this app."
I use m.theregister every day (I really don't see any point to apps for news sites) and it would be hard to see how it could be any more neglected! I haven't seen it change for years and most of the quick links at the bottom are broken.
I would love to see this mobile site updated (instead of the app) or better yet, el reg could go all modern and make their main site responsive. That would brighten up my (admittedly rather sad and boring) life!
As someone from a military family background, with family all over these isles, I was born and raised British.
I'm not English, Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish. I'm a Brit.
My family (who for at least the last 3 generations have served and fought for their country) didn't do that for Scotland or for England, they did it for The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Even my passport says that's where I'm from.
I'm almighty pissed off that I don't get a chance to vote on the future of my country and whether or not some nationalistic little wanker can carve off a part of it for him and his mates because they have a different accent to the other parts.
The fact that I can't even watch the debates and that the similarly small-minded little Englanders don't consider it important (it wasn't even mentioned in the first 10 minutes of the BBC 10 O'Clock News) is just the final kick in the teeth.
I truly hope that my country still exists by the end of September.
You never click on the sponsored links? Crazy. In my world I use them to punish companies I don't like.
Search for a flight and get a Ryanair sponsored ad? Click that advert and make 'em pay! Then go and buy somewhere else...
I realise that this is futile and that the few pence they pay for my click is nothing, but it still brightens up my day. I reckon over the years I've probably cost Ryanair more in adwords than I spent flying with them (once and never again). I find that very satisfying.
"In 2013 a VPN and encrypted disks are beyond SMBs resources?"
Yes. Many small businesses have to get a consultant/contractor in to unbox their PC's and plug the cables in. Most have no idea how to set up a network and rely on a serviced business package from someone like BT.
I know someone who works at a small insurance brokers (lots of sensitive information) that when they need to print they have to copy documents to USB and take them to "the printing machine" because that's the only computer plugged into the printer. They didn't even realise they had a network, just that they were all connected to the internet.
I'm with you mate. I'm also based in Spain, I'd happily pay the Beeb a license fee just to get (legit) access to iPlayer, instead of paying for a proxy service. The license fee would cost me more, but I believe that the fee is worth it for the great content they produce. If only they'd take my money!
For the rest, I download a lot of US shows so that I can watch the English versions. There's nobody here I can pay for them, or I would.
was during the Rugby World Cup in 2011. The matches were at such a godawful time in the morning that I couldn't face the walk to the pub. Next World Cup is in 2015 and it's in the UK so all the matches will be at reasonable pub times. Maybe I'll watch ITV again in 2019, not sure where that World Cup will be.
Personally, I find the outlook.com website EXCELLENT. I've never used the Android app, I didn't even know it existed. My Android devices all have built in mail apps... and the latest versions are great so I've never felt any need to install a 3rd party application.
Apple trail a long way behind the other major players in cloud capabilities, as is often mentioned on one of those online news sites I visit frequently. If only I could remember the name, it's called The Till or some sort of synonym of that. I seem to remember it has something to do with buzzards.
Oh, and + some generic rant about Apple and rumours and fanbois and stuff...
It would appear that you both have your rose-tinted glasses on. On both Android and iPhone a great number of apps (and virtually every game) are full-screen and block the notifications. That means that you need to exit the application to see your emails. If BB10 doesn't allow their message hub to be blocked then this would make accessing emails a lot more convenient. Oh and my Nexus 7 allows me to go directly to the individual emails from my notification bar, not to the inbox.
Who reads an article like this and (instead of wanting to start a debate about whether The Clash as punk or post-punk or whatever) wonder:
What are the actually calling the square? Plaza Strummer? Plaza Joe?
Where is the plaza? Is it one of the main ones or just a tiny little out of the way place?
Oh well... I suppose it's my fault for thinking that there might be some factual information in the article beyond the headline. Google here I come...
I had the misfortune recently to use a new "smart" TV (I think it was a Sony). Whoever designed the UI and remote controls for these should be taken outside and shot. In the legs. And left outside in a forest. Tied to an ants nest.
I'm not an Apple fan at all, but I can guarantee that they will at least be able to make a usable device, with a functioning interface, albeit locked down to their services. An Aplle TV would give some impetus to other manufacturers to start building decent systems.
Would like to take the plunge and try a Lumia 920 but I live in Spain and buying one unlocked is difficult and expensive... I may just save the hassle and get the Nexus 4, it's cheaper, I know that Android is a good OS and more importantly for me I can order online at a low price and get it delivered unlocked straight to my door. I know I'm not the typical contract customer but I am interested in WP8 I think I'm probably just too lazy to go to the hassle of getting hold of one. Please Nokia or Microsoft just open an online store and sell me one directly!
Again, this depends where you are. I live in Spain. Just bought myself a Nexus 7 and one of the most exciting features for me was the offline maps. Right until I got the message "Part of your map will not be available". No further explanation. Turns out that offline maps don't work at all in Spain (or many other countries for that matter). I found this out by spending about 45 minutes searching G+ forums. It's ok though because Google are going to make this feature available when they can, again no idea when that is, but at some point in the future if they can be arsed they will get round to it.
I've been an Android user since the early days and I'm now seriously considering the new Nokia. Great hardware, camera and maps. Those are the killer things for me. I'm just not sure if I can live with WP...
I'm typing this on my Nexus 7 where I've been recently incredibly impressed with the new MS Sky drive app. If WinPho works as smoothly as this then coupled with my free 25gb of storage and a top notch camera I'm feeling pretty tempted. My only concern is whether WinPho is quite ready yet, first one was interesting but flawed, this generation is looking better but it might make sense to wait for the next one.
"In addition, the Maps app is vector-based, making zooming and rotation smooth and seamless – and making Google Maps look oh-so last decade – and supporting a 3D Flyover mode with real-time rendering of buildings in select locations."
Google Maps on Android have been vector based for some time (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/17/google_maps/). It looks like Apple (quite reasonable) got upset with being offered an inferior service.
When I upvote a post (which I don't bother to do very often) I get the message:
Upvote post
We’re glad you liked this post!
Your vote will be recorded in a few moments.
It's the middle sentence that bothers me. As a long-term register reader, I refuse to believe for a second that any of the staff give a monkeys one way or another whether I like some commentards witty remarks. It's got that sheen of false politeness that just makes me squirm and an overly enthusiastic exclamation mark at the end... makes me shudder. Surely more accurate copy would be:
Upvote post
Now you feel like you've contributed, bravo.
Your vote will be recorded in a few moments.
... or something equally cynical?
Exactly. I bought a decent 40" TV about 3 years ago. It does HD and digital and all that malarkey and I don't imagine I'll be buying another TV until I break this one. The only recent innovation seems to be 3D and that isn't going to sell me a new TV until the technology gets MUCH better and MUCH cheaper.
This new forum stuff looks pretty good in general, but I always use m.theregister.co.uk (mainly to avoid the annoying pagination in your longer articles) and the forums and comments sections are a bit rubbish on the mobile version. Shirley something that can be improved.
You must stick with commentard. As an expat, one of the reasons I come back to el reg on a daily basis is to get my dose of snarky, mildly-offensive British-English. The day you start to treat us lazy punters and commentards politely is the day I start worrying what you're plotting....
What kind of idiotic anti-MS bullshit is this? MS traditionally made operating systems. They helped to make computers cheap and widely available and didn't limit in any way what software people could run on the platform or what they could do with it after they had purchased it. Please explain how this damaged creativity?
I have to both agree and disagree with this statement. Being open source doesn't in any way force software to be harder to use, but unfortunately this is normally the case. I'm a big advocate of open source (because I'm a geek) but there's a reason why Windows and OSX dominate on laptop/desktop. They're simple, fairly idiot-proof, no set-up or technical knowledge is required and they have marketing support and advocacy. Personally, I love messing around with different versions of linux, but 90%+ of my friends outside of the tech world have never even heard of it.
In the mobile sphere, people love iOS because it just works and Android is rapidly taking the old MS position of strong brand, pretty good and plenty of marketing dollars to support it.
A true open source mobile OS is likely to end up with the same market share as linux does on the desktop and it's precisely because it will be harder to use and is unlikely to be supported by comprehensive marketing (so nobody will even hear about it).
used to see the same (3 or 4 years ago) when I looked at the web analytics for a large company. Mac/Safari was a tiny proportion of the user base but spent well above their share. Personally, I interpret that to mean that Apple users have more money than sense, but only 'cos I think it's fun to wind them up!
"With the clear success of the Kindle e-Reader over the past 3 years, and Kindle Fire possibly succeeding in the low-priced Tablet market, we view this as the next logical step for Amazon."
I'm not so sure. Phone users are likely to buy apps (which are relatively low-margin) but e-books and film/TV are a pretty poor experience on a phone. If the (statistically irrelevant) usage patterns of smartphones that I've observed amongst my friends and I is accurate then the most common activity is web browsing - and I don't see how Amazon can monetise that.
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