* Posts by qwarty

248 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Jun 2010

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Google forks WebKit, promises faster, leaner Chrome engine

qwarty

Re: Long overdue cleanup starts.

Totally agree. Needs rationalizing but this must be difficult when webkit has so many vested interests to satisfy, especially Apple. Dump some of the #ifdef hell. Ditch some craziness (for instance www.webkit.org currently states Visual Studio needs the 2005 edition, use an old DirectX sdk, need to install the QuickTime sdk, unnecessary use of Cygwin; Chromium project at least supports VS2010).

Entire internet credits snapper for taking great pic while actually dead

qwarty

Re: "The Industar look"

What Instagram does and more was being done many years before Instagram was invented. They popularized well known effects.

Nvidia and ARM: It's a parallel, parallel, parallel world

qwarty

Re: Too Little Too Late?

Tegra 4 is certainly too late. Also, Google like diversity when dealing with suppliers of reference devices so the Nexus 7 refresh switch is hardly a surprise. Rumor also has it that Microsoft will switch from Tegra for Surface RT 2013 models. All the same if Nvidia succeed in catching up and we see Tegra 5 Logan samples late Autumn with Kepler integration etc., they must be a strong contender for the next wave of 2014 devices. A few million orders here or there doesn't say much about anyones future prospects in such a fast moving industry. What with the ARM competition, Intel Haswell and the upcoming 14nm process I'd hate to place any bets in the mobile space concerning the next couple of years except whatever happens it will almost certainly benefit us users of the devices.

Lenovo: Windows 8 is so good, everyone wants Windows 7

qwarty

Re: Enterprise

Furthermore what enterprises use whatever the OEM has pre-installed anyway?

$1.5k per complaint. Up to 1,900 gTLDs. Brand owners, prepare to PAY

qwarty

Re: Cluster...

Agreed. Its difficult to see any benefit from the whole farrago. I thought ICANN was supposed to be a charity aimed to promote the public good but all we are seeing here is a recipe for money grabbing, scams and a worse internet than we have. If they were based in the UK I'd be requesting a review of their charitable status and an investigation as to why they are up to these antisocial tricks.

PC market to spend ANOTHER year soaked in blood, warns IDC

qwarty

Re: How do they not get this?

Indeed. Madness that we are obliged to nurse our old laptops along in the hope that the OEMs finally get the fact we don't want to downgrade our screens. The claim that somehow 16:9 TV screens somehow affects costs of 16:10 laptop screens makes no manufacturing sense either as far as I know.

qwarty

Re: Windows 8 is killing their laptop and desktop markets

Exactly how does a projected decline of 1.3% equate to falling off a cliff?

Review: Living with Microsoft's new Surface Pro

qwarty

Windows (and Desktop Linux or OS X) does far more than Android so your comparison proves nothing about the efficiency of the OS. Most of us here, I expect, need a lot more from a notebook than the TF300 delivers, but a great device if it meets your needs.

qwarty

Re: Damn.

Maybe iPad remains fashionable in some circles but so was the MBA and Surface Pro can replace the iPad+MBA combination at a much lower price with an apparently good build quality. I'm surprised to say I'm impressed (although it would take a higher spec version to persuade me to dip hand in pocket).

Netbooks were a GOOD thing and we threw them under a bus

qwarty

Re: Battery life and ARM

"I have a feeling", "miracle that has been promised" is just FUDspeak/sloppy writing. We just don't know enough about the Haswell design decisions to have an opinion beyond being confident Intel are releasing lower power parts.

Agreed about screen, also wireless esp. with increasing use of cloud, LTE.

ARM v Intel makes for interesting competition of benefit to users, you may hope that ARM is the way forward Gordan but hope doesn't mean we won't see Intel products dominating personal computing again on mobile devices if they make the right calls on the 14nm shrink designs and pricing models. We shall see. I, like most people, simply welcome competition if it brings down prices and improves functionality.

Nokia tries its luck with a sub-£150 Win Phone 8: The Lumia 620

qwarty

Good value, not a bad spec, it can't be long before there are good phones sub-£100 PAYG opens up a whole new market of people who would never go for a £35/month contract or pay £400 up front for a smartphone.

Microsoft tries to sell home Office users on subscription pricing

qwarty
FAIL

Re: UK users?

The UK price is £79.99 per year including VAT. Presumably the reg missed out that fact to catch you out with that £99 presume!

No UK date, no biz disties: Will Microsoft cock-up the Surface Pro too?

qwarty

Re: I am going to University in sept this year.

@select I'd wait see what happens between now and next academic year, esp. with Haswell coming along in the summer.

Amazon-bashed HMV calls in administrators, seeks buyer

qwarty

Rents and rates

Its surprising we have any high street shops left with the high rents and and the ludicrous business rates charged by successive governments hell-bent on killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Review: HP ENVY x2 Windows 8 convertible

qwarty

Re: Decent idea but lean on spec...

Can't believe I'm defending a 768 display but IPS at 11" is not garbage as it would be on a 14/15" notebook. CPU is definitely underpowered although its a trade for people unlike you or me who won't sacrifice that much to bump the battery life. Agreed on the right track just not there yet for many of us.

qwarty

Yeah, seems pricy for a low performance model, especially with Microsofts Surface Pro with Core i5 etc. coming soon. A detailed spec. comparison with MBA etc. would be helpful, not a very useful review.

I like the convertible concept but looks like its a wait and see unless HP and others can do better than this price/performance compromise.

Thunderbolt interface strikes YOUR PC: What's the damage?

qwarty

Re: Thunderbolt display support

Thanks, I'll read that as meaning we'll need Thunderbolt 2.0 or HTML 2.0 to handle high definition displays in practical situations.

qwarty

Thunderbolt display support

Does anyone know whether Thunderbolt can support 4K Ultra HD display resolution at 120Hz in Apple or PC implementations or will we be moving to HDMI 2.0 for monitors etc?

2012 in tech: Apple up the Cook without a paddle, ARM, slab wars... and MORE

qwarty

My three tablets for 2012

iPad 4. Demonstrates that a good quality HD screen makes a difference for larger tablets and can work well given adequate GPU/CPU.

Surface RT. Shows that convertibles are an effective way to go and it is possible to offer a different take on UI/UX for mobile devices.

Nexus 7. Illustrates that a pocket sized tablet can be very effective when well thought out.

None of these tablets are perfect,a negatively minded person can find flaws with each. However in 2013 we can look forward to further competition among these different types of devices and form factors with fewer compromises in the next generation. A very positive prospect for the New Year.

My personal favourite of these for 2012 is the Nexus 7. It has raised Android on tablet from second rate to a genuine alternative to iOS.

Apple said to be testing 46, 55-inch big-screen TVs

qwarty

Re: I still think Apple won't sell "screens", just the STB...

Good points.

Our lounge TV is about 5 years old and going strong. Since we bought it, the added value is from the games consoles and media centre we've added plus a Virgin Media TiVo box. We never use the built in tuner. In 5 years time every Apple product currently on sale will be obsolete (as with Google and Microsoft products I'm not bashing Apple).

Sure Apple could take the notion of smart TV to the next level and release a cool device but within a couple of years it would get to feel old and although we can accept a short lifespan for an iPad or phone, most people expect a TV to last longer before it gets annoying. User expectations from a TV are very different to the mobile gadgets that made Apple what it is today.

I guess one good opportunity would be to pioneer 4K UHD TVs, use their buying power to reduce screen costs at a different pace than Sony etc. are currently expecting and introduce higher bandwidth connectors etc. Store integration, good multi-device integration etc. One external device to plug in the consoles etc. and a wireless link from that to the TV itself. Its easy for many of us to come up with some good designs for future TV but traditional manufacturers are floundering and directionless leaving a classic opportunity for Apple to claim to be the innovator simply by using their financial weight. Quite a commercial risk though IMO.

Slash A THIRD off Surface RT price or it's toast, Microsoft told

qwarty

Re: I'd give it a go for 250 squids

One of the new cortex a15 socs or an a6x equivalent. Tegra 4 Wayne looks promising but lets see if it makes CES. Bump the display to 1080p and for me Its an iPad beater. Your mileage may be different. as commented already this doesn't appear to be a Microsoft objective with surface rt.

qwarty

Re: I'd give it a go for 250 squids

I'd pay the 399 if it came with cover/keyboard AND 64Gb AND the Tegra 3 was replaced with a state of the art ARM SoC. I tried using one and its a neat device but for me a bit underpowered for what it tries to do - shades of the iPad 3 experience now corrected by the 4th generation.

As it stands, looks more like a reference device and something for developers and evaluators, not a mass market product. Limited distribution and priced high to avoid discouraging OEMs from making RT product. Nexus 7 sales were low to begin with as well, no reason to damn Android.

Windows 8 fails to revive world CPU biz

qwarty

Re: Could it just be......

I like the flexibility that Windows 8 on the new x86 convertibles offers although I've not yet found a device that exactly meets my requirements graphics resolution/ports/trackpad/performance. Clover trail gives reasonable battery life but my own work needs more performance so I need core i5 class CPU at least. Some of my software uses GPU so I don't want to be stuck with Intel integrated graphics. Happy to turn off the power features when I'm on the move but when I'm plugged in at work or a clients I need performance.

Perhaps the Haswell improvements next year will give me the device I'd like without a meage battery life. I'm possibly more demanding than the average user so the fact the current Windows 8 systems don't quite make the grade for me doesn't make them a fail.

I'm also looking forward to seeing Linux implementations with good convertible support. What make me positive about the whole business is the fact that laptops have largely stagnated over the last few years and we now see real signs of change.

Credit where credits due Apple with retina displays and Microsoft with touch and convertible devices are making for more choice in laptop replacements and we can look forward to less of the one size fits all mentality in 2013. I fail to understand why some commentators here apparently feel this is such a bad thing and are always looking for evidence of gloom and doom.

A valid use for Windows 8?

qwarty

What else? Great for desktop perhaps

Know its a controversial suggestion to use Windows 8 on a desktop PC but I prefer 8 to 7 on my own desktop (dual 24" monitors, no touch input yet). I don't miss the start button but appreciate some of the small but useful improvements on 7. For my work right now it seems Ubuntu in a VM and the Windows command line are getting much more airtime than TIFKAM but maybe one day we'll see some compelling apps and cool they will run on both desktop and tablet. My main gripe with 8 is the way the Microsoft rush to TIFKAM has left desktop/professional applications stuck in the 20 year old Win32 space, roll on a new class of modern desktop apps, WinRT or whatever.

Can supermodel Heidi Klum save Windows 8? Not so fast

qwarty

Re: Personally

If you really feel so worried about taking the plunge you could install 8 on a separate disk partition. Similar situation, I didn't have the time to fiddle around with VM experiments just crossed fingers and did the update. No problems with any software I use so counts as 100% success so far but I don't use RSAT at the moment so good to have the heads up if your problems aren't just VM related.

Sinofsky OFFSKI: Is Windows 9 now codenamed 'Defenestrate'?

qwarty

Metro all the way?

Full/split screen applications work for some applications in some contexts. The notion that windowed applications are finished, legacy, classic, what you will is nonsensical. Reimagining the desktop would make for an interesting Windows 9. WinRT/desktop for Windows store needn't wait so long, Beta for Build 2013 perhaps?

New iPad's innards: Good news for recent fondleslab buyers

qwarty

Re: iPad 3 has an A5X processor NOT and A6 !

Not a mistake.

iPad 4 offers compelling benchmarks against Surface RT and Nexus now and prepares Apple to to compete well with the faster Tegra 4, Samsung Cortex A15, Qualcast etc. based Android/RT tablets coming in the Spring. Mainly aimed at new customers. However Apple wants the 'same as the old boss' type reviews as delivered by the Register here to minimise upsetting the proud owners of the old new iPad. They want to boost the Mini and deflect interest in 7" Nexus and Kindle. The mini is old tech so why draw any more focus than necessary on how much faster the iPad 4 is. Overshadowing is good for a little while. Thought that was all obvious.

Surface RT: Freedom luvin' app-huggers beware

qwarty

Re: Software costs?

This non-commercial use of Office seems the craziest part of the whole concept, presumably the result of some internal turf war in Redmond. Nowadays we use our personal devices for all sorts and to have to consider whether a given document has commercial value or not is sheer madness. Something Microsoft need to be pressed on. Hard.

Windows 8 unleashed! Midnight launch for world+dog

qwarty

Re: In before

At least we don't need to socialise with the miserable old gits who take pleasure from putting a negative slant on everything they see. Unfortunately you weren't here quick enough to post before the low esteem/expectations guy and the twat commentator.

Positives. Windows 8 and RT have already stimulated some creativity in new notebook and tablet designs. Apple have countered by bringing forward the x2 performance new new iPad. No idea what Google have lined up for Monday. At last there seems to be some competition returning to the PC business less of of the same old, looking forward to what the fresh thinking brings in 2013.

Windows 8 'bad' analyst says Store is a weakness

qwarty

many more years...

"When I tried to move to Android in the early years I found the app store very lacking and thus stayed with iOS for many more years. ".

Android 1 was released 4 years ago. The tablet-oriented Honeycomb 3.0 released only just over 18 months ago. In which universe did this bloke spend all these years?

Microsoft Surface: Designed to win, priced to fail

qwarty

Re: Yeah, show them how it's done!

Biggest mistake with Zune to my mind was keeping it a US-only product, most successful consumer products nowadays address the international market.

qwarty

Re: @h4rm0ny "...using it mainly to make a......

@h4rm0ny good point about the link to iPad pricing making it tougher for Apple on iPad pricing and new model introduction strategy next year.

Furthermore looking to 2013, there are a few obvious improvements to Surface RT to make for a new premium model using the same overall chassis and design. 1080p and Tegra 4 I think we can take as a given, possibly some other incremental improvements such as a cool rear facing camera, USB 3.0, LTE module, though thats all be speculative. At that point a relaunch of the entry level model at a lower price point would follow the approach Microsoft have taken with Xbox. It is also more than likely that Xbox Next will launch before next years holiday season, a factor we shouldn't regard as totally independent of other Microsoft initiatives in the consumer space Windows, Surface and phone. What actually pans out will depend a lot I suspect on whether OEMs such as HP and Dell embrace Windows RT over next 3-4 months, the final decision of whether to go ahead on Surface 2 manufacturing can probably wait until February or so.

Taken in this context, price points seem to make sense to me in the short term as part of a longer term thought out Microsoft strategy.

qwarty

UK prices

Including VAT. Base model 32Gb is £399, same as iPad 3 (16Gb); Keyboard model 32Gb is £479, same as iPad 3 (32Gb). So basically the same price points and need to weigh the slightly larger Surface display + extra storage or keyboard against the higher dpi iPad display. Swings and roundabouts.

It allows room for RT OEMs to compete on specification or price point, which I guess was one objective of not pricing more aggressively.

HP's Whitman: 'I will turn this company around – by 2016'

qwarty

Be a devil and go for 2015

Earlier this week we heard about the HP ElitePad 900, a Windows 8 tablet aimed at the business market. With the wrong sized screen for Windows 8 - too narrow in ladscape mode to support the key Windows 8 Snap" feature.

Fire the people responsible for making this kind of cockup in the product lineup Meg and maybe 2015 not 2016 is achievable.

Sleep easy, Tim Cook: Surface, Win8 tablet shipments looking poor

qwarty

A bloke in the pub thinks otherwise

They may well be right, probably are this year assuming they have some info from Chinese manufacturing and Redmond not known to us bystanders. But unless they have insider info their guess is no better than that of the man in the Clapham pub. Speculation on pricing of surface et al suggests niche but fact is we don't know the pricing yet, at least I certainly don't.

But 2016? Really. Even to make a forecast implies stupidy highest order.

Analyst says Surface could hurt Ultrabook, Windows 8 tablets

qwarty

NAND flash pricing?

I thought NAND flash cost about $1/Gb in volume in which case why does Eric Chiou imply bump from 16Gb to 32 Gb would add $100 to retail price?

Microsoft RTMs final Windows 8 and Server 2012 code

qwarty

Roll on October

Looking forward to seeing the effect of Win8 on new PC models. Notebook and desktop PCs from the leading OEMs have gone very stale in terms of improvements over recent years and just maybe Win8 will stimulate some competition and interesting new designs.

Canon debuts EOS M compact system camera

qwarty

No VF?

Really, no VF or EVF at this price? Hopeless.

Dell readies Linux Ultrabook for autumn release

qwarty

Dell costs will probably be comparable Ubuntu v Windows, they'll be paying abot £20-30 pounds for 8 Pro but extra support costs for Ubuntu likely cancel that out.

RIM: What's all the 'bleeding' fuss about BlackBerry developers?

qwarty

in denial

Does anyone outside RIM expect BB10 to be anything other than a flop? It wouldn't cost much to cover bets with android and wp8 developments so maybe this is happening behind the scenes. Otherwise can't see them lasting a year.

Tablets, copycats and Weird Al Yankovic

qwarty

Correction. Anyone under the age of 68.

Ballmer plays down sales impact of Surface

qwarty

Getting Windows RT to developers

Very few Windows developers currently have access to Windows RT systems for development/testing, only 3 months before RT launches. Makes for a pretty weak starting app store. Suspect this is one of the motivations behind an early Surface release although if digitimes is to be believed there are problems getting volume on the magnesium alloy case.

Surface: Because Microsoft does so well making hardware?

qwarty

Same here, I'm a developer, multi-monitor, and have no problem with Win 8 desktop at all.

I'm also developing a Metro app part-time and during development usually running that in a window using the simulator.

Nobody has ever suggested (as far as I know) that Visual Studio ought to transition to Metro.

In short, be wary of basing your opinions on what you read in a newspaper article or some online blog.

Microsoft takes on tablets with keyboard-equipped Surface

qwarty

Re: No release date or price

The decision to develop the Surface familymust have been made sometime last year or earlier.

The Windows OEMs have done a really poor job in recent years with laptops. Intels Ultrabook initiative however flawed at least woke a few product designers up. Microsoft coming up with some designs that put HP, Acer, Dell and co to shame further highlights that fact and hopefully will spur those companies to offer some competitive products e.g. add an LG retina panel to 15".

Battery life and price, sure we need to know more.

Release date - there was no way Microsoft could have done an Apple and veiled Surface in secrecy until it is ready to ship, the OEMs will be unhappy enough as it is.

Apple introduces 'next generation' MacBook Pro with retina display

qwarty

UK pricing

'Retina' (sic) display MacBook Pro is listed on Apple Store as from £1799. At £300 over the base MacBook pro model (still with a quaint 1,440-by-900), considering other facets like more memory and hard drive not too bad a premium for a state of the the art laptop display. Shame about the unimaginative PC vendors Dell, HP, Acer, SOny etc. always leaving it to Apple to grab headlines but hoep this is the first gust of a wind of change.

HTC locked out of Windows 8 tablet party

qwarty

Boomberg: "HTC engineers wanted to build a Windows device with a customized home screen that would be distinctive to its devices, as manufacturers are allowed to do with Android."

At least Microsoft are robust none of this nonsense on Windows RT so hardware manufacturers can't mess up the standard look and feel of the device, just add to the user options (e.g. Nokia maps for WP7 Nokia hardware only).

Intel partners prep 20 Clover Trail Windows 8 tablets

qwarty

Advice for OEMs

Illustration shows Metro Start screen in the old fashioned 768p format.

OEMs, please note Metro UX is better on 1080p on 10" display up and the visibility of tiles makes it much easier for consumers to spot the low resolution duds on the shelves than is currently the case with netbooks. Worth spending a few dollars on the BOM.

Also note for 15" displays you should now be looking at 1080p minimum for budget devices for 4Q 2012 systems. Premium 15", also consider the 1440-1600 panels already available in the supply chain.

Dual-screen, detachable and Windows 8 star at Computex

qwarty

Great to see evidence of the start of a period of fresh innovation in whto has become a rather tired notebook market..Not sure if I have an application of a 19" tablet but some people will have and good to have wider options. Also looking forward to seeing the somewhat overdue refresh of the Apple MacBook line next week.

Windows 8 Release Preview open for download

qwarty

Re: Changes?

Updating the CP in place took a little less than half an hour.

Not new, but I'll mention that on my 1080p laptop, the start screen shows 5 rows of tiles, not the three rows shown in that graphic in the article which must have been snapshotted on a low res display. Makes a significant difference. Hopefully this will encourage OEMs to ditch those ancient 768 panels.

First thing I noticed yesterday was faster boot time, then improvement in dual monitor support, hot corners work better now (found them annoying in CP version), can drag metro apps from screen to screen.

UI for Visual Studio 2012 RC is more usable (colour icons etc.) good enough to go apart from the ALL CAPS MENU. Felt more comfortable immediately than the Beta.

Generally not much obvious change really apart from the fine detail though in sum this feels closer to a real product that that CP.

I mainly work with desktop apps, apart from cosmetics its pretty much same as Win 7 (though we are told the Aero chrome is to go by RC so more change to come before can really voice an opinion, no problems so far though).

Still no compelling Metro style apps as far as I've seen - Kindle app works but needs more options such as double page mode on widescreen display. Will be handy to have the option of Metro style apps that will work the same on laptop, desktop and tablet can imagine some will prove useful but examples so far seem lightweight. Even basics like standard camera and Photo apps still missing what I'd consider essential features.

Free Windows 8 desktop app development is dead

qwarty

Re: Stupid, stupid, stupid

They state on that Beta page that Express editions for Phone and Azure are to follow.

Understandable Microsoft is focussed on the Metro stuff right now. Fair bet they will be catching up on desktop next year IMO, would indeed be pretty stupid otherwise.

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