* Posts by Robert E A Harvey

3010 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Oct 2006

Sharp Aquos LC-32LE210E 32in LCD TV

Robert E A Harvey
WTF?

quite

The idea that 32" is 'compact' almost made me choke on my bacon butty. I was expecting to read next that it was good enough for the nanny's flat.

Android out-runs Windows Phone 7 on price comparison site

Robert E A Harvey
FAIL

1st?

How can something called windows phone "7" be excused as a 1st gen device?

Hacked Twitter spreads false Tsunami warning

Robert E A Harvey
FAIL

Why on earth

would anyone choose to use twitter , or presumably facebook, for this sort of thing? If nothing else it depends on foreign infrastructure.

Local licenced radio and TV stations, and loudspeaker cars can't be hacked.

Acer takes on iPad with Android, Flash, own UI

Robert E A Harvey
Linux

Me Miss!

I'll have them! I want the big one AND the phone one.

Ten... sub-£50 budget MP3 players

Robert E A Harvey

high volume

I only use max volume on my clip+ when listening to voice podcasts while cutting the grass.

The BBC have a very variable approach to audio levels in podcasts. Some episodes of 'In Our Time' I have to stick through audacity and increase the gain by 12db so they match other episodes.

Reg Hardware Reader Awards 2010

Robert E A Harvey

Sansa Clip+

lots of upvotes in your recent review

Samsung UE55C9000 55in LCD 3D TV

Robert E A Harvey

No thanks.

You can buy an awful lot of theatre tickets for 5K

Brits say 'no, no, no' to 3D TV

Robert E A Harvey

Porn

It will be for watching Porn, won't it?

Multi-colour e-ink to splash down in six months?

Robert E A Harvey
Thumb Down

software, not hardware

I reckon the readers are pretty good already. What puts me off is

* the risk of lock-in to one or two formats

* the limited range of titles available

* the pricing, which seems remarkably close to the cost of a paperback

* the licencing, which means I can';t give my surplus ebooks away or to the Oxfam shop

MS freebie anti-virus scanner auto-downloads provoke more anger

Robert E A Harvey

What I don't understand

is where all these computers with no virus checker come from.

You can't get out of PCwhirled without climbing over mountains of Norton boxes, and every laptop I've ever had to sort out for one of the great unwashed has had some sort of virus checker on it, OK, a proportion are out of date, but I have never seen a naked windows install I did not install myself from scratch.

We need a big ? icon

The forgotten, fat generation of Mac Portables

Robert E A Harvey

Sinister

Was this the device where the trackball could be shifted to the other end for southpaws?

US Marine hover-jeep to get robotic hands-off controls

Robert E A Harvey

Bushwacker

When I was a kid the Eagle comic had a strip about an Australian family who lived in a boat-shaped vehicle called a Bushwacker. It had wheels on outriggers from the hull, a jet engine at the back, and mast which could be used for propulsion under sail. The mast split into 3 rotor blades that let it fly like a helicopter.

I've been waiting for years for someone to build one. The cartoon-like drawing of the flying jeep reminds me just a little bit of it, and I still want my Bushwacker. Please.

UK.gov plans net surveillance by 2015

Robert E A Harvey

I knew it

When the defence review said that cybercrime was the biggest security threat to the UK, I knew that we would all end up being monitored.

And if I knew it, I suppose they knew that I knew it.

The only way to be secure is to have no secrets. I shall be posting my inside leg measurement and my library ticket number on the web tomorrow.

US Army's new $0.5bn British airship will fly 'mid-next summer'

Robert E A Harvey
Headmaster

R100

My old Grandad was fond of pointing out that the R101 was government built and crashed. The R100 was built by private enterprise and was fine.

Nominet forgets what the first .uk domain name was

Robert E A Harvey
Thumb Down

how can they not know?

Surely their only purpose is to keep records? If they've not done that then how can they settle disputes about ownership of domains?

If they don't know then shut 'em down and give the job to someone who owns a filing cabinet.

Deep space COMET FLYBY: First PICS

Robert E A Harvey
Coat

Hartley 2

Hartley 2?

Sonorous voice: "Just when you thought no-one cared about Fly Fishing..."

mine's the one with the slim volume in the pocket

Oracle beefs chips and I/O on x64 blades

Robert E A Harvey

tired

I read that as 'sodium' and got worried

First Windows Phone 7 handsets sell out

Robert E A Harvey
Gates Halo

Puzzling me a lot

It's not possible that M$ have actually done it right this time? after all, I've even heard good things about win7.

Orange intros MiFi gadget, refreshes mobile data deals

Robert E A Harvey
Thumb Down

'ow much Gggrrranville?

15 beer tokens for a GB, and you have to pay for the gadget too?

Do these people think I am MADE of money?

Dell skunkworks brews ARM server future

Robert E A Harvey
Linux

Christmas sorted

Now I know what the Feminus Domesticus will be spending her pension on...

Microsoft concedes on blank-screen operations

Robert E A Harvey
Thumb Down

Hang on

The wretched phones are already on sale and they haven't sorted out something as simple as this yet?

What on earth have they been up to in all the testing?

Gentlemen, start your engines – with your phone!

Robert E A Harvey

Oh no

A chum of mine has a french car, which uses a proximity-detected card to enable things. You don't need to stick it in a slot, just have it in the car.

So last week his wife dropped him at the airport, and he went off with the card in his pocket, but she still had the engine running so she was able to set off for home.

She stopped to do some shopping, only to discover that she was 200KM from home, had just stopped the engine and had no way to start it again.

Genius.

This idea is just as daft.

App Store II: Steve Jobs sucks Mac's soul

Robert E A Harvey

Ah yes

So it was.

Well done.

Robert E A Harvey
Flame

umm

Frying pan, Fire

Robert E A Harvey

Welcome to the 21st Century

Capitalism red in Tooth & Claw.

I am reminded of the wise words of Christine Keeler in other circumstances, when asked to comment on someone putting self-interest above integrity:

"Well, he would, wouldn't he?"

iPhone alarm bug: now it's the UK's turn

Robert E A Harvey
Headmaster

Please help a dumb iPhone user

Simple. You are /still/ cleverer than it is.

Crystal ball sees tepid IT growth to 2014

Robert E A Harvey

Ah but,

"Annual shipments for tablet devices will reach 81 million by 2015, as new players and handset manufacturers flood the market." - Juniper story last week.

Another yawny pontificate.

Plan A: make somethng really good that is unique - result sales explosion

Plan B: mee-too yourself a slot in existing maketplace - result sales trickle

Nothing wrong with plan B - if you are underpinning foundations or re-plastering cracked walls. To throw up a palace in a swamp you need plan A

Ten... bedside iPod docks

Robert E A Harvey
Paris Hilton

Missed point

I suspect the reviewer has more than one bed next to which he docks his ipod!

Paris - who else?

World+dog keep taking the tablets

Robert E A Harvey
Badgers

More futureologists drivel

"If we multiply the number sold this year by, say 28, then we arrive at a market 28 times bigger".

Hands on with the new Apple MacBook Air

Robert E A Harvey
Thumb Down

What is going on?

Instead of inventing something new, the planet seems to be full of people micro-differentiating the same market into thinner and thinner slices.

Nice product, shame about the price etc etc etc.

What ever happened to wearable computers, to merging all your home devices into some sort of multiprocessor farm, to truly functional shirt pocket things (what now resembles the original palmVX?), to voice op, to natural language processing?

Why can't I look up an itinerary on google maps, have it magically and silently shunted into my phone without button presses, and then shunted out into my car GPS when I get in the car?

Innovate kids, that is what will make things sell. Not ever prettier versions of something I already have.

Bechtolsheim races Arista to zero latency

Robert E A Harvey
Stop

Hang on a minute

So we have all this glorious technology, and the objective is what?

To reduce suffering in the world?

To eliminate animal testing from drug trials?

To improve agricultural production, or to provide home automation for quadraplegics?

No. We want it to make very rich people fractionally richer!

I am so pleased about that.

Navigon 70 Plus satnav

Robert E A Harvey
Linux

Linux & tomtom

The tom tom linux implimentation seems simple: you can see the file system in usb connection, and the whole experience is straightforward and unremarkably simple. It plays music from an mp3 directory and displays graphics from a picture directory. What's not to like?

Unfortunately the 'home' application needed to manage maps runs only on windoze, and there seems no excuse for that. When you are running it, however, it does everything you want. Although moving maps from the internal memory to the SD card requires an act of faith. You have an option to copy maps to the PC and to delete them. The obvious 3rd step, to copy them back to the device, is there but not visible until the situation arises. So the 'home' application ergonomics could be better, but it actually does everything it needs to.

But the overall package is excellent, and I think they remain the market leader, although I am not happy about their lastest pricing either for hardware or for the more advanced subscription services. I think they have started milking the cow.

OOo's put the willies up Microsoft

Robert E A Harvey

Oh?

"fully justified text is for the clueless, only; it markedly and obviously diminishes legibility."

That will be why it is used in so many books then?

Robert E A Harvey
Coffee/keyboard

Keyboard decoration

>Oh, that's right, they *can't* make a better product.

you owe me a new keyboard.

Robert E A Harvey
Gates Horns

bully boy tactics

>I received a call from MS, they've noticed a discrepancy in our number of

>licences and they want to do an audit.

I should tell them to P*ss R*ght Orf.

If I go into the co-op and buy 3 pairs of shoes they don't accuse me of shoplifting 3 pairs of socks.

Tell them that for security reasons they have to be accompanied at all times by someone who will cost them £45 per hour.

Time to install a linux server and some samba goodness, I feel.

Robert E A Harvey

yes indeedy

Migration training has been necessary for lots of MS re-issues, where they just changed stuff.

unfortunately I now work for $MEGACORP which thinks we should pay for our own migration training in our own time. Instead I just get slower and slower at my job.

And I run Debian at home, which has the side effect of ensuring I don't accidentally train myself for them.

One For All SV9380 Freeview HD indoor aerial

Robert E A Harvey
Thumb Down

Dodgy map

You provide a link to the manufacturer's coverage map, which is rather neat: the transmitters are shown on a mashup map, with neat colour coded concentric rings, and the colours map to a colour-coded range of products.

Two snags:

* The coverage areas round TV transmitters are not circular, but rather odd shaped, conditioned by beams and by the landscape

* The oneforall web page won't display on the rather short screen on my netbook. Oh, I get a scroll bar, but scrolling it does not change the bit of the page I can see.

http://www.thebigtower.com/live/Belmont/121P24000703011.htm

http://www.mds975.co.uk/txmaps/belmont.html

Do those look like circles to you?

Robert E A Harvey
Thumb Up

Practical Wireless

It's good to know there are still some geeks about who understand radio engineering. I like your impromptu impedance matching.

Robot goes berserk in Balkan lab: 6 boffins given dead arms

Robert E A Harvey

is this

ROTM?

TalkTalk reveals faster broadband plans

Robert E A Harvey

universal

>It arose long after it was renamed as Corsa.

Which, of course, means "I am a witless yokel who doesn't care what sort of rubbish I drive" in every language on the planet.

Robert E A Harvey
Heart

Hint?

so who would that be then? Sounds like what I'm looking for

Inside Windows Phone 7: ghost of Zune

Robert E A Harvey
Joke

Windows Mobile 6.5 remains Microsoft's business smartphone platform

Bwahhhaaa Ha Ha

Asus Eee PC 1215N 12in netbook

Robert E A Harvey
Linux

...and

Why did you not try UNR or crunchbangEEE on it?

Channel islanders attack Street View car

Robert E A Harvey
Badgers

For Glod's sake

A kid with a box brownie could cover the whole place in one afternoon.

Surely googlers can walk?

RIM opens its PlayBook – tablets clearly set for dominance

Robert E A Harvey

Parkable phone

I agree entirely about the parkable phone idea. It would be brilliantly small, only needing enough battery power for half an hour max.

I have another idea. I have a bluetooth earset that parks in its own battery recharging lump. A parkable bluetooth headset that would recharge from the larger battery would also be cool, and could be paired with the parkable phone too.

Microsoft caps Ballmer bonus over mobile phone, tablet failures

Robert E A Harvey
Gates Horns

untitled

>I'm actually surprised his salary is so low,

I was thinking that. We appear to have heads of individual hospitals earning that.

Final Ubuntu 10.10 and first Drizzle beta in release duet

Robert E A Harvey
Gates Horns

Perhaps?

>so why hasn't OSS triumphed?

The power of marketing?

The common 'plaint against M$ is its abuse of monopoly. The two local computer stores in my home town have both told me this week that they are 'not allowed' to sell me a computer without Windows,

But it is still the case that the fundamental weakness of FOSS is the absence of a huge marketing department.

Google's 'instant' search springs keyboard controls

Robert E A Harvey
Grenade

dislike adds

I pay mail.com so I don't have to put up with adverts.

I'd give google a pound a month to search without ads.

Ten... iPhone 4 cases

Robert E A Harvey
Dead Vulture

Ten Essential... iPhone 4 cases

TEN? ESSENTIAL? How many cases does the wretched thing need? Do all these fit inside each other, or something?

I hear the distinct sound of the bottom of a barrel being scraped.

Flying gyrocopter jump-jeep gets $3m from DARPA

Robert E A Harvey
Thumb Up

Cool

I want one.