* Posts by Matt Smart

49 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Sep 2007

Ofcom coughs 3G coverage maps

Matt Smart

@Eponymous Cowherd

The pdf does say that it was dated December 2008. That said, I can't see the coverage will have improved much by then.

Seriously shocked by o2. May think twice about moving to them...

BT abandons Phorm

Matt Smart
Pint

YAY!

Fan-phucking-tastic.

That is all.

Samsung ML-1640

Matt Smart

@kissingthecarpet

Yeah, should have mentioned. Works native in Ubuntu (~ debian) without any fussing. Compared to my last printer, I was amazed.

Matt Smart
Thumb Up

Worth mentioning

...that the predecessor of this printer, the ML-1610, does have a cover for the paper tray, and it's almost identical in specification. And it's cheaper. And I can vouch for it being bloody good for the price I paid.

Homer Simpson speaks out on satnavs

Matt Smart

Hmm.

I acquired a pack of voices a few months ago and one of them was (a very poor) Homer. This is tempting now that it's real. Too expensive though. Wonder how long before it'll appear on <your torrent site of choice>.

Facebook to offer vanity URLs

Matt Smart
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Hmm

Have to say I'm quite surprised they didn't charge for this. Seems rather a good idea.

HTC's third Android spied online

Matt Smart

Seriously

What is it with the little bent lip at the bottom? It's fugly! Phones should have a flat form factor!

Vodafone shows off HTC's second Android phone

Matt Smart

Nice, but...

...couple of problems. One, it's on Vodafone (terrible signal for me) and two, it does need the hardware keyboard. That said, the up-and-coming Samsung android mobile is much prettier (so much so that I could settle for a virtual keyboard) and the Pre... well, that's what everyone's got their eyes on at the moment, methinks.

I7500 pictures and video released online

Matt Smart
Thumb Up

Want.

That is all.

Koreans cook up glow-in-the-dark beagles

Matt Smart
Thumb Down

Ugh :(

This is just cruel...

Snacker discovers Nokia phone in crisp packet

Matt Smart
Coat

@Jolyon

Surely, "Ready Cell-ted" would be better...

BlackBerry advert sticks it to Apple

Matt Smart
Go

@Ian Davies

I believe "lol" about captures my response. Oh yes, and "I rest my case". But you're right, perhaps "Appletards" and "iPhoneTards" would have been more apt.

Matt Smart
Happy

Hehe

I love this. And it's really funny to see the mactards getting wound up. I refer Ian Davies to many other adverts that don't feature the product - take the Cadbury's gorilla advert, which massively increased sales, for example.

Don't get me wrong here, though. I don't like the iPhone (why bother explaining that?) but I also think the Storm is a bag of crap which should have had a lot more production/refining time. Shame, because it could have been a competitor, given how good the Bold is.

AA sniffs out Blighty's best bacon sarnie

Matt Smart

@ Pete James

(Again, non-Stourbridge folk, sorry).

Pete, a friend of mine has done some research (!) and found it's on St. John's Road. Which is (you guessed it) the little caravan on the ring road. Can't believe it, I've always avoided the place! Will certainly be going there to sample it now.

Incidentally, For my "quality" "local news" I'll rely on the Chronicle;) (although I'm Halesowenian now).

Matt Smart
Happy

Wow!

I come from Stourbridge! That's great. I feel almost starstruck. Saying that, though, I can't work out where Bob's Big Bite is - can anyone shed light?

Cocaine now cheaper than lager

Matt Smart
Coat

This "crack"s me up...

I'm leaving, I'm leaving! (Yes, I know they're not quite the same...)

Yes! It's the cardboard PC!

Matt Smart
Thumb Up

Wow

I really want one! More specifically I want the case... this thing is very cool.

Street View vehicle kills Bambi

Matt Smart
Unhappy

Horrible :(

El Reg, you've ruined my Friday. Damn Google!

Coming soon: Pills to 'turn down' your ears at clubs

Matt Smart
Coat

Sounds...

...'ear'-ly good. Sorry. Mine's the one with the dictionary of puns.

Google spins out Chrome 2.0 pre-beta alpha

Matt Smart
Unhappy

Sigh

Come on Google, where's the Linux version? Surely it makes more sense to get the browser out for all operating systems at version 1 before working on version 2... oh well.

Register Hardware revamped

Matt Smart
Thumb Up

Nice

I'm sure there will be a plethora of comments saying "I hate what you've done in this, this and this bit" from granddads who don't like progress. So let me be (hopefully not) the first to say I really like it; well done.

130,000 inflatable jubs missing at sea

Matt Smart
Coat

I'm sure...

...that the bloke responsible for this "feels a bit of a tit right now".

Mine's the one with the... meh, I don't have anything in my pockets.

Dixons plunges to loss

Matt Smart

@AC

My personal vendetta against PC World, Dixons et al. is that I used to work for The Link, and if you know much about what happened with Dixons offloading The Link, you'll understand my general dislike of DSGi. So personally (whilst I wish all of the poor employees of PC World etc the best for the future), I hope DSGi goes under, and fast!

Matt Smart
Thumb Up

Hehehehe

Not long now... *crosses fingers*

Sky channels return to cable

Matt Smart

About time.

I'm a big fan of Sky (not so much of Murdoch but I try to block that part out), but they were being incredibly childish on this one, so I'm glad a deal has finally been reached.

UK confirms e-voting death

Matt Smart

@Francis

Actually (although I partially agree with your point), one of the big problems of electronic voting _is_ identifying people. One has to be sure that a voter is who they claim to be (to prevent ballot stuffing, etc), whilst also ensuring that the voter's vote remains anonymous. The only way to guarantee that a person is who they say is to have a reliable identity infrastructure. I'm against national ID, but let's face it, in the current system, you don't have to prove who you are in any way. Rubbish.

Incidentally, actually counting the votes is one of the easier properties to solve...

Matt Smart
Thumb Down

Sigh.

I'm actually a little disappointed. This is the field I work in, and I'd like to see the government giving some actual thought to it. The problem is that the currently in-use systems (cf. Diebold) are dire. There are so many protocols for e-voting which would do a fantastic job. Oh well! As people have said, I guess it comes down to having a good, secure digital ID. Until that happens we're stuck with the (abysmally insecure, traceable) voting scheme we have now.

T-Mobile Googlephone to hit UK in two weeks

Matt Smart
Jobs Horns

@Aristotles...

Yes. It really is just you.

Although I hasten to add, the G1 is a little ugly. Can't wait to see what they put android on next. Also, I'm sure the axioms about early adopters apply... wait until the next release!

Windows Mobile on iPhone a cruel joke?

Matt Smart
Thumb Up

Just because you know you want to know...

"Welcome to sonic emotion, the 3D sound experts.

Others talk about a soundfield, we create it!

Wheter you look for a professional sound system or a license for your consumer products, sonic emotion offers the right technology."

(note the typo).

Source: http://www.sonicemotion.com/ch/index.php :)

UK crypto boffins turbo-charge quantum cryptography

Matt Smart

Hmm

Although this is rather impressive (despite the research behind it having been available for a long time), it's not really "quantum cryptography". It's using quantum physics to distribute a value. The cryptography used is still the same rsa/dsa/shared key/whatever. Thus surely it's still susceptible to the same attacks - if quantum computers "make it", then brute-force attacks on ciphertexts become simple.

Of course, the problem is lessened by using the keys as one-time pads, but still, cracking messages is possible, surely.

Apple rattles legal sabre at Canadian tech school

Matt Smart
Thumb Down

Sigh.

Apple are shooting themselves in the foot here. Like the guy who wrote the rebuttal said, are they inferring that any educational institution with an apple-like logo is infringing patent? The school apparently uses exclusively apple machines - why deliberately lose that business?

One of the suggestions is to change the leaf angle. Seems fair to me.

Martin Sheen backs Paris for president

Matt Smart
Paris Hilton

Loves it.

That is all.

Asus sexes up Eee line

Matt Smart

Tsk

Bit of a poor effort with the copying and pasting of the new Eee onto the hot Eee Girl, kids - I can see white edges and everything!

(As an aside, the thing looks considerably bigger than before - less likely that you'd just pick it up and take it to the beach!)

Renault looks to wee-hued windows to cut car power draw

Matt Smart
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Ugh

It's hideous!

Asus gets new girl as Eee lass makes Mac move

Matt Smart

The Old Eee-ve Ho?

...love it. What I _don't_ love is the new (boring, schoolmarm-y) Eee bird. Bring back the old one.

Carphone Warehouse Webbook

Matt Smart

@AC

Actually, it's not £600. You're paying £25/month, of which £15/month is for the internet dongle, which orange sell on its own. So actually, you're paying 24 months x £10 = £240, which is a little less than retail value for the laptop.

Not that I'm saying £15/month for mobile internet is a good price, of course - it would have to be closer to £10 (with a much better guarantee of reception).

Android and Windows Mobile 'complementary', claims HTC

Matt Smart
Gates Horns

Damn

I was rather hoping the highly covetable Touch HD would appear with Android on it, but no sign of that at the moment...

All of this gets me thinking. Shouldn't we have devil/angel Sergey Brin/Larry Page icons?

O2 denies subsidised MacBook broadband sign-up lure

Matt Smart

@Richard

I see your point but... iPhone 3g? Subsidised?

Microsoft dumps hilarious comedy duo

Matt Smart
Thumb Up

Am I the only person

...who actually thinks these ads are funny? They're enjoyable to watch. Who cares if they don't relate to anything? They're clearly building up to something. It'll be interesting to see what comes next.

RIM flicks open first clamshell BlackBerry

Matt Smart
Thumb Down

Eugh!

My God, it's bloody horrible. What's going on with that hinge? And not even 3g? Get with the times, RIM...

Apple channels Pandora with iTunes 8

Matt Smart
Unhappy

Pandora

I really hope Apple aren't going down their usual path and ripping off a great idea, like (in this case) last.fm - it's a brilliant service (as was Pandora) and to see it suffer because iTunes copies it would be a great shame

Also, @James Dunmore: Spot on. Although I'd recommend Amarok - much, much better than iTunes. For one, it has an "enqueue" function. Surely that's pretty simple to implement, Apple? No? (don't go telling me to use the stupid party shuffle tool, people)

Dixons Group still suffering

Matt Smart
Happy

Can't wait...

...until Best Buy opens here. Anything that will give PCW (/currys/etc) a run for their money has got to be good. Best Buy have alluded that they're much more worried about Tesco's buying power than PC World's high street "monopoly". The sooner DSG pack up and leave, the better!

iPhone passwords not worth the paper they're written on

Matt Smart
Happy

Wow

I'm quite surprised... as of the time of writing (9 posts), an Apple fanboi hasn't yet appeared to describe this as a convenient feature which all phones should have. However, give it a few hours and I'm sure the page will be full of such comments ;)

Orange sees broadband subscriber exodus

Matt Smart
Thumb Down

@Gerard

...it may also have something to do with the shocking price. Until this month Orange charged a compulsory £30 connection fee. If you don't have a monthly contract with them you pay what is basically a really high price for a really poor service.

...And then, you've got the £7 extra or so per month if you're not "in an orange broadband area" (hah). Yet still customers buy it! I'm with Sky broadband, and I'm happy to admit the speeds are disappointing and the uptime is poor. But I'm paying £5/month for basically unlimited downloads. I can't complain!

Sub-£100 Eee rival ship date slips

Matt Smart
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Disappointing "Friend"

Dear me, Elonex. She's really not a patch on the eee girl. I mean, she's not even on a beach!

As a side note, that machine looks seriously top heavy...

PC World, Currys staff to be dumped in DSGi rescue plan?

Matt Smart

@AC: DSG remaining in business

To be honest, PC World are still open because the general public simply don't know that there are alternatives, and it seems a better idea to get "help" (cough) from a physical employee than to save money and go to ebuyer (other sites are available).

Apart from Maplin (who, let's face it, aren't that approachable), there isn't a chain store which people associate with computers and parts. It's a shame really, because like you say, PCW employees generally know little about PCs, and they're a rip off. The situation isn't quite as bad with Currys, but what gets me is that both now sell each other's products - PC world selling TVs and sky? ugh!

(I'm just bitter because I used to work for The Link until DSGi sold us out...)

Asus launches second-gen Eee PC

Matt Smart

re: XP Home worthless

In fact, I'd imagine the XP version would be more expensive anyway, due to the cost of the licence (perhaps this is balanced by the size of the hard drive - less storage, but xp = same price). Slightly annoying that the 20Gb version will be the only one offered with Linux though - I'd happily have a 12Gb Linux install.

Perhaps this version will work by default with WPA2 Enterprise (damn my workplace)...

BBC to launch iPlayer for Wii

Matt Smart
Linux

@Mark Fell-Crook

Afraid so... mind, that's only £3.50. Granted, it's £2.50 in the states (sigh), and the Internet should be free, etc etc, but you're paying for the ability to browse the net whilst sitting on your arse in front of the TV. Money well spent to me!

Tux because I too would like to see a Linux iPlayer...

Oyster card evolves into OnePulse

Matt Smart

oyster readers

Yep, oyster works by radio (contactless smart card), so it won't damage the strip. But what a great cock up if it did.. ;)

I don't even live in London and I'm tempted to get one (call me sad but it's my field of research).