* Posts by carlos

14 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jul 2007

Mozilla Google relations strained by Chrome

carlos
Black Helicopters

Firefox: 20.78% or 44.2% ?

How come results are so different between these two counters?

http://www.netapplications.com/newsarticle.aspx?nid=45

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

Am I missing something?

Adobe pinballs 64-bit Flash Player 10 alpha into Linux orbit

carlos
Thumb Down

@Roger Williams

i third that (if possible, that is).

what's the point on making an insult out of people who don't or can't pay for something? and further more why would you want to call linux users something in the lines of "retard"?

do windows users have a cute nickname too? or are they OK because they pay (I'm sure most of them don't) ?

Alan Sugar leaves Amstrad

carlos
Happy

@Richard Tat

cpc wasn't tat, it still ain't tat

it served me (and many others) very well as an introduction to computers

and just now i have a cpc6128 running a windows interface and some 3000+ games in a hardrive connected to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-fiWidGC9M

check out symbos, symbiface, bonnydos, cpcbooster+

http://www.cpcwiki.com/index.php/SymbOS

soon to be hookable to the net also

talk about retroupgrading

Brennan JB7 Micro Jukebox

carlos

21st century machine?

True, very bad of them not to add RJ45 or wifi to the thing. Don't want to have to synchronise the music collection in two different places.

And on top of that it would have been nice to have the ability to record CDs too.

Amy Winehouse pitches for Bond theme

carlos
Paris Hilton

@Ash

I think you're mixing apples with oranges.

That Manynard is a guy and the Mars Volta are guys too. Could you put an example of a female artist comparable to Amy right now?

This would include a beatiful voice, interesting lyrics and equally original band members.

Before Amy it was Norah Jones I would have thought (she got a lotta grammys too, but then again she was critisized for not being Jazzy enough).

The bad propaganda shouldn't impair people from enjoying the music, and personally I couldn't care less if she snorts, pops or smokes whatever. I just hope she lasts enough to give us a lot more good music.

Or would you rather have Britney Spears? feckin Paris Hilton?

In-flight calling given lukewarm reception

carlos
Alert

RE: Safe mobiles

"Next we'll be told that mobiles don't cause petrol stations to explode. Or that we can use them in hospitals."

I did read somewhere an investigation concluding that the benefits from allowing doctors to communicate with each other in realtime when in a hospital outweighed the inconveniences created from mobile interference (i.e. more lives were saved or less wrong legs chopped).

I don't know about petrol stations though.

Spanish police cuff 76 net fraud suspects

carlos

that's a typo there

they managed to nick 3 million euros, not 3 billion.

did some bank phishing and posed as "hacienda" (spanish inland revenue), not just ebay stuff.

by the looks of it they also mimicked ebay's pages too.

Spain bows before la blogosfera

carlos
Paris Hilton

so?

@the author:

What is actually the point of your article?

Are you pissed off at the spaniards saying "blogosfera"? are you happy? do you have a copyright on words? what's your point?

The terms you consider "newbies" have been around for decades, maybe you have just started learning spanish and believe that the language is growing with you but...

"Briks de leche" are called like that because they come in what used to be called "TetraBrik" ("in 1963 the company introduced Tetra Brik, a rectangular carton" - from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetra_Pak). So that's us using a swiss trademark name which in turn borrowed a bastardisation of your "brick" word.

We have the word "Paquete" (Packet) but we don't do bundles, instead we just do boxes full of things (with games, playstations, tequila, whatever). Does it bother you if we borrow the word "pack" it to promote "bundles"? otherwise we'll have to use paquete which can also be understood as men's genitals (maybe not nice to print in big letters).

Regarding acronyms and initialisms. What do you suggest we do about this then? Shall we turn...

DVD into DDVV (disco de video versatil)

GPS into SDPG (sistema de posicionamiento global)

IP into PI (protocolo internet, and also 3,1416)

HTML into LDMDHT (Lenguaje de Marcado de HiperTexto)

LCD into PCL (Pantalla de cristal liquido)

MP3 into ??? MP3 (Mocion Pintura Expertos Capa 3????)

PC into CP (Computador personal) or OP (Ordenador personal)

PIN into NDIP (Numero de identificacion personal)

Internet into Redinternacional

Modem (modulator demodulator) into Modem (modulador demodulador) ????

Maybe that would make things easier for everyone:

Imagine the DVD consortium having to design a logo for each different country

or recruiters looking for people with HTML skills in foreign countries having to learn an array of "multi-cultural initialisms"

or having scientists quarreling in the lab about who's the real PI, Internet or maths

or a company wanting to order some PCLs from a British manufacturer

or Sony thinking for the Spanish Betamax name...Betamaximo!!!.

As I said, I totally fail to see the point of this article. Sounds to me like a very retrograde observation you're making here and reminds me to a grafitti I saw yesterday on the street next to "una shop de ordenadores", it said: "Technology is a Cancer".

@snafu:

I'd have thought it is quite handy for us to say "chatear" as it already implies that is being done across the Internet and in text form, whereas "charlar" is still understood as the act of verbally talking to someone. Otherwise we'd have to say "charlando en el chat/ charlando por internet" which would be a waste of time better spent on siesta.

Paris Hilton because she would provide us with this sort of journalism if she only knew how to use a pen.

Linux squeezes into connected devices

carlos
Black Helicopters

Motorola E680i

Bought that mobile in Singapore in summer '05, *nix phone too and hacked to death already (see www.motorolafans.com). Touchscreen and a very iPhoney style, in fact Apple and Motorola were together back in the day in order to release a MP3 Phone thing.

Still stands the test of time so I guess it was some €300 well spent.

New Red Hat CEO checks open source claims

carlos
IT Angle

RE: This is broken in the release version

Yes.

Not take over, increase the installed base in a slowly but surely manner...yes.

It's not black and white, there are different shades of grey. Not that Windows has to vanish for Linux or Mac to surface.

Or are we all still driving Black coloured Ford T's nowadays?

carlos
Linux

evince

Well, my point is that you CAN open that pdf document but it so happens that not with the default application in certain distro (thanks for pointing this out, I will change the settings for that type of file). You might need to do a right-click and then another click but that would render your .pdf as intended. No need to generalise or put it in a way that sounds like "Linux won't open PDF". I take it you knew other software would open that file correctly (KGhostview and KPDF for example) but you didn't bother mentioning it...hence disinformation. Or at the least not a constructive attitude which helps nobody (well maybe M$).

Before I go on into your next paragraph I have to mention though that Adobe Reader 8 in Windows opened that file flawlessly fast too, so no point in doing benchmarks there (at least in the PC I tried, perhaps benchmarking this in older machines would make a point).

Regarding breakness I have been using the debian distro on the Desktop for nearly a year on a E6300 and I have yet to get it thoroughly broken. Sometimes I might have run into dodgy stuff by installing conflictive software from non-debian repositories, but it was very easy to do "apt-get remove nameofproblem" and then either installing another version or look for a replacement.

It is a different way of doing things, but I feel as it is much easier and quicker to tell the computer "install this" or "remove this" than all the parade that Windows makes you go through whenever you want to do samely.

And many a times you can also find yourself with broken Windows due to dodgy hardware/drivers, welcoming you with a BSOD. Yes this can be solved, but you do have to take your time to boot in safe mode and do the deed and restart again hoping for the best.

In the worst case scenario the whole thing will be non-workable and the only viable solution (or the one most widely accepted) is to reinstall the whole thing, which will then take you a good half a day.

You can use Ghost too, but does the average user know how to operate that?

I haven't the time right now to pick on each of these: "poor documentation, unfixed bugs, badly designed code, imitations of other software, poor quality user interfaces" and I don't think it will be worth it as I doubt there's people looking at this that could benefit from this. To make it short:

- Barely anybody makes any proper documentation nowadays and I still have to find people that actually reads it when there is. The software in fact should be engineered for the average user and software not to need documentation (that's why we decided to use icons and stuff after all isn't it?)

- Everybody has bugs (and some of them take forever to fix them, see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/20/more_vista_copying_problems/).

- I dread to think what the code will be like in some applications that have been building on top of the same code for years/decades where the programmers/tools have also been changing.

- Imitation as in the same software but now free of charge, and perhaps faster. Sure that at times it won't be as polished or fancy to the eye...but we also did switch from 35mm to digital photography because it was cheaper and quicker.

- And for dessert I'll mention another Windows parade about the user interface...clearing the recently used documents list. In XP it took me at least 3 times the amount of clicks and a lot more mouse travelling than it did in Gnome. I hope Vista helps that one too, because we should be heading for usability and getting the user rid of nonsense so that he can effectively get on with his/her life.

Cheers,

carlos
Paris Hilton

ftp://ftp.cs.arizona.edu/snobol/gb.pdf

yer right, that pdf doesn't seem to open correctly on Evince but it does open correctly with KGhostview and KPDF and I dare to say seemed to open almost instantly (272 pages long) than on Adobe's Windows equivalent. Then again I would have to do some serious benchmarking to confirm this, which I might just do for the sake of getting rid of the misinformation people is so willing to spread day in and day out about the penguin.

On the other hand I have successfully converted myself, dad, mom and some friends to Linux in the last two months. I believe the key is to setup the machine for them (just as you would do with their Windows any day, but only much quicker and with less user intervention) and spend some time with them guiding them through the thing making sure they can still do what they used to.

Yes, sometimes you will get printing problems and I still don't fully trust NTFS drivers (haven't tested 3G and others lately though). But then again that's what a dual boot is there for, make sure they can still access their documents either by copying them to the HOME directory or mounting the Windows drive and slowly make them save them into EXT, ReiserFS or what have you.

Even if they have some scientific software needs (IDRISI for Windows) I discovered it runs perfectly under WINE. And then again there's a free alternative (GRASS). I will conduct benchmarks on this too (Idrisi on windows, Idrisi under Wine, and Grass all doing the same job), so that I can make an educated opinion on which is more beneficial for the actual user.

And I'll get my coat, because I am not used to post in forums. I believe this is my first time posting here, but I've just had it. If people are just allowed to puke in public even in Christmas I shall exercise my right to do so as well.

Or I'll rather put the PH to symbolise all those that just don't have a clue and are not interested to have it either.

Merry Christmas

PC superstore suffers breakdown over Linux notebook

carlos

interview

back at Uni I did apply for a technician job there....

in the interview they asked me what would I do if the brought me a non-booting computer, to which I answered:

"i'd ask the customer if the hard drive is failing, look at the BIOS, look at the boot files, try to boot fail safe"

the interviewer cut me short and said:

"NO! you would have to ask if they have an antivirus"

so I ended up trying to sell ironers and casio digital pianos in Comet just across the road, where I managed to last one day :D

Dismal Q2 evidence of deeper problems at Motorola?

carlos

Motorola E680i

"With the iPhone carrying all before it, Motorola CEO Ed Zander must be haunted by memories of his company’s aborted attempt to co-create a music phone with Apple two years ago, and of possible opportunities missed."

That bit makes me curious. I did buy a Motorola e680i in Singapore exactly 2 years ago and it does look a lot like, say, a dated Iphone. It runs in Linux, is an excellent MP3 player as the built-in speakers really do justice to music and it is also able to play videos in full screen (you can also call, SMS and it has a phonebook too :D). The external design is also quite Apple-esque and simple (although batteries can be swapped in this one).

I always thought the Iphone idea and looks were very similar to the Motorola e680i. Would you happen to have more info into the bit I reposted (motorola and apple collaboration)?

Regards,

Carlos