Lots of good beer if you know where to look for it. Shipyard use yeast from Ringwood and even brew a decent version of Old Thumper, and I've had cellar conditioned locally brewed beer from a hand pump in a bar in Portland, Maine.
The Concord Trailways services in Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire have free wifi at their terminals and on the coaches themselves... all totally free.
BBC America show it, not sure how often they repeat it though, and NetFlix have just about all the modern series available, apart from the Christmas specials.
Also apparently although I'm allowed not to have a Job Role (I'm currently unemployed) I HAVE to provide a Job Sector (which makes less sense than making me give my job Role) and I have to tell you how big the company I don't work for is and how big an involvement I have in IT spending.
Methinks you need to look at that part of the profile too.
Then I had to manually down load the .NET patch to fix the silently installed OneClick extension for FireFox that MS buried in one of the .NET runtime service packs and installed the extension in such a way that it can't be uninstalled without hacking the registry. Now if we want to talk about dodgy MS Practices then that's one we really should be looking at. Anyone who has FF installed and has the .NET packs installed really needs to check their FF add-ons and get the fix to get rid of it.
They did the same sort of screw you job with their last "wonderful" deal which was a blatant rip off and when the person at BT phoned me to find out why I was leaving, when I actually managed to understand what he was saying because even if he did have a script to read from he couldn't actually read it, I told him and it was hilarious hearing him trying to defend the huge increases in prices that I was able to show him that I'd suffer from.
At the end of the day with the credit crunch causing a lot of companies to do pro-active downsizing I think we all need to be singing from the same hymn sheet and do some blue sky thinking about this. Going forward it is obvious that pushing the envelope by thinking outside of the box is the only way to keep in the loop and keep all our ducks in a row.
I think maybe its time for a new El Reg competition for made up management bullshit.
I've got Beta2 installed along side 2 and have had for weeks so I can simply swap between them (it takes a few seconds for the plug-ins to revalidate). So far its shown itself to be fast and stable and doesn't seem to have a memory leak any more. Couple of problems with bookmarks but apart from that its good!! I think the Smart Bookmarks are an excellent addition!
If you look at what happened to the voting committees and what has happened since then. The whole playing field is mis-balanced and its causing major problems as getting things ratified is proving to be difficult because the pro MS voters don't care about anything so don't bother to even take part.
So MS in its greed to force its crap on the world as an ISO standard has actually shafted the whole ISO process . Brilliant move Bill... and you wonder why people don't trust your company.
I think Ballmer's statement that Linux is a cancer is wrong - Microsoft are the cancer.
I've actually got one of these things (the full unit not the expansion one) sitting in my Parents loft with its printer (and spare font wheels) and a couple of games on the hi-speed tape.
Its sitting next to my Memotech RS-128 with its "Muffin Oven" CP/M box.
"Second, an application written to use DirectX rather than GDI should perform better, other things being equal."
Well that's hardly a surprise - make GDI applications run like crap and people will abandon it and use DirectX instead. Typical Microsoft behaviour - kill the opposition no matter which system is better/more flexable
Firstly I'm not actually looking for a new laptop at the moment and secondly if I'm going to get a laptop I want one with a nice spec. Dell's rather stupid idea of restricting the Linux installs to the bottom of the range models means that even if I do buy a laptop from Dell its going to be one which I've had to pay Microsoft for an operating system I don't want.
Dell obviously don't actually understand the Linux market.
Powered mine up the other day - told me there was a new version available. Downloaded just over 700MB of files and it worked perfectly - this is on an old Toshiba SA30-203. No DNS issues, no connectivity issues at all... but then again I've not got IPv6 enabled and why the hell would I?
BTW : your link to the Ubutnu Forums comes back with "Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms."
But "down-grading" chips has always been the way :
Selling chips at a lower clock speed because some on the batch had failed the speed tests.
Taking CPU with failed onboard maths coprocessesors and selling them as non maths coprocessor components.
I could go on. but.......
I agree that AMD really should investigate the failures but why not let them sell off chips that are essentially sound - it could well reduce the unit costs as they will be writing off less on each production run.
" I wonder if MS is so desperate they are getting people to post for them. That would be pretty pathetic"
Well they've got previous for it - there have been several stories about Microsoft "buying" bloggers etc.
Nothing about Microsoft surprises me - they will do anything to ensure we all remain locked to their bloatware. OK maybe not anything.. I really do hope they would draw the line at murder, but everything up to that point (bribery & corruption, coercion, threats, etc.) seems to be perfectly acceptable to them.
I'm very disappointed that my suggestion for one of Monkey Boy wearing a jesters hat has not been taken up. We really do need a "Microsoft are taking the piss again" icon
How can shoving a few off the shelf parts into an off the shelf (well off the cargo truck) part be counted as innovative... oh that's right.. its the extremely flawed US Patent system....again.
I'm sure there is prior art - governments around the world must have similar setups to cope with major civil disruption.
Could spout their completely unproven FUD about Microsoft's infringed patents in a country that doesn't recognise 99.9% of them
Well done Mr Ballmer - who else could, single handedly, make Microsoft look a bunch of fools. Maybe we can buy him a Jester's outfit for Christmas.. Actually can we have that as an icon? Steve Ballmer in a jester's hat?
Is it really that long since I picked up my first CD player (A Philips CD101) ? I remember the claims about the durability of the the CDs and my mum tested it by knocking a CD out of the open window in my bedroom which skated down a pitched roof, dropped onto a concrete patio, bounced across it and landed in the flower bed. Dusted it off and it played perfectly.
I've still got the CD101 - I don't use it any more but its still fully functional.. who knows, in time, it might be worth something
So another month goes by and another set of patches that fix identical problems in Vista and XP appears.
As each set of such patches come out it makes Microsoft's claims that Vista was all new code and was "secure by design" look more and more like the typical MS Spin everyone else said they were.
Has anyone asked Steve Ballmer about his statement that " it (vista) is the highest-quality, most secure and reliable Windows operating system ever, there should be no need for a service pack."
How long is this "surface computing" idea going to last in real life? Have you looked at the state of the average glass table in a hotel lobby, and what happens when someone puts a coffee cup down on it, or spills their drink onto/into it?
Now if it can work out that my beer glass is almost empty, and workout which beer I'm drinking and order another for me then I'd be all for it!
SCO might not be about specific patents but neither is it purely down to copied lines of code. SCO have brought up, on more than one occasion, that it is also about "Methods and Concepts".
Methods and Concepts is maybe not exactly patents but it is a lot more than just copyright.
To be honest the SCO case has been going on for so long and so much ground has been covered that the exact reason for it has been forgotten by a lot of people.
Even if they are different the fact that Microsoft's latest bluster is being compared to SCO is not exactly good news for Microsoft.
Looking round the net and the articles being written I think its fair to say that from Microsoft's point of view this has been a complete PR nightmare.
Microsoft have been putting this but of FUD forward for a while now.
They refuse to tell anyone which patents have been infringed which seems a bit odd - similar in a way to the way that SCO claimed Linux had infringed their intellectual property and when challenged their response was basically "you know what you stole"... and look how that turned out.
So until Microsoft actually detail the patents they claim Linux infringes and those patents can be proven to be valid (which will be much hard since the KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc. case) its all just more blustering bullshit from Redmond.
And tough luck if you dont use Windows or a Mac...
"The iPlayer application will only be available for MS Windows initially, but the support roadmap reveals interesting priorities: cable TV service support will come first, followed by Apple Macs and then Freeview boxes."
Those of you running Linux will just have to wait until hell freezes over.
Think I'm going to ask for a refund... or maybe the BBC will pay for a Windows licence so I can use the services I'm paying for...
Once again DRM shows that its not about Rights but about Restrictions.
"Clearly if one writes to a public authority and gives the personal details of a constituent, such as their CSA [Child Support Agency] claim, information relating to their children and so on, that information should be protected. It should quite clearly be protected under the current Act. However, inadvertently, someone may release it,"
Surely personal information passed to the MP (and then subsequently passed on to others) is covered by the Data Protection Act.
Saying that MPs should be excluded from FOI legislation because a third party might make a mistake is really taking the piss isn't it?
I assume David Maclean has got rather a lot of skeletons in his cupboard that he'd rather people didn't find out about....
Register
34 posts • joined Friday 20th April 2007 09:44 GMT
beerWi-FiRe: USA does free WiFi so much better
Lots of good beer if you know where to look for it. Shipyard use yeast from Ringwood and even brew a decent version of Old Thumper, and I've had cellar conditioned locally brewed beer from a hand pump in a bar in Portland, Maine.
beerWi-FiRe: USA does free WiFi so much better
The Concord Trailways services in Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire have free wifi at their terminals and on the coaches themselves... all totally free.
Yes
"Broadcast" accounts are: Flickr, twitter, Statusnet, Qaiku, Facebook, Friendfeed, Digg and Identi.ca
@Chris Seiter
BBC America show it, not sure how often they repeat it though, and NetFlix have just about all the modern series available, apart from the Christmas specials.
I see no options..
To change my handle.
Also apparently although I'm allowed not to have a Job Role (I'm currently unemployed) I HAVE to provide a Job Sector (which makes less sense than making me give my job Role) and I have to tell you how big the company I don't work for is and how big an involvement I have in IT spending.
Methinks you need to look at that part of the profile too.
@Brian Morrison
Not on my laptop it didn't. All worked fine.
Then I had to manually down load the .NET patch to fix the silently installed OneClick extension for FireFox that MS buried in one of the .NET runtime service packs and installed the extension in such a way that it can't be uninstalled without hacking the registry. Now if we want to talk about dodgy MS Practices then that's one we really should be looking at. Anyone who has FF installed and has the .NET packs installed really needs to check their FF add-ons and get the fix to get rid of it.
Same old, same old.
They did the same sort of screw you job with their last "wonderful" deal which was a blatant rip off and when the person at BT phoned me to find out why I was leaving, when I actually managed to understand what he was saying because even if he did have a script to read from he couldn't actually read it, I told him and it was hilarious hearing him trying to defend the huge increases in prices that I was able to show him that I'd suffer from.
BT? Bunch of Twats, the lot of them.
Thought shower
At the end of the day with the credit crunch causing a lot of companies to do pro-active downsizing I think we all need to be singing from the same hymn sheet and do some blue sky thinking about this. Going forward it is obvious that pushing the envelope by thinking outside of the box is the only way to keep in the loop and keep all our ducks in a row.
I think maybe its time for a new El Reg competition for made up management bullshit.
Mine's the one with the P45 in the pocket
So...
Can I sue every single lawyer in the US for abusing my surname?
Thought I'd fallen through a time warp
I've got Beta2 installed along side 2 and have had for weeks so I can simply swap between them (it takes a few seconds for the plug-ins to revalidate). So far its shown itself to be fast and stable and doesn't seem to have a memory leak any more. Couple of problems with bookmarks but apart from that its good!! I think the Smart Bookmarks are an excellent addition!
Is there really any doubt?
If you look at what happened to the voting committees and what has happened since then. The whole playing field is mis-balanced and its causing major problems as getting things ratified is proving to be difficult because the pro MS voters don't care about anything so don't bother to even take part.
So MS in its greed to force its crap on the world as an ISO standard has actually shafted the whole ISO process . Brilliant move Bill... and you wonder why people don't trust your company.
I think Ballmer's statement that Linux is a cancer is wrong - Microsoft are the cancer.
Ahhhh
Nostalgia.
I've actually got one of these things (the full unit not the expansion one) sitting in my Parents loft with its printer (and spare font wheels) and a couple of games on the hi-speed tape.
Its sitting next to my Memotech RS-128 with its "Muffin Oven" CP/M box.
God I'm sad!
Ahh
My brother did get the classic "Drive C is full. Please Insert another Disk and Try again"
With only an OK button.
And "blem wit" of course is matched by the completely empty windows dialogue box with just an exclamation mark in it and an OK button
GDI v Direct X
"Second, an application written to use DirectX rather than GDI should perform better, other things being equal."
Well that's hardly a surprise - make GDI applications run like crap and people will abandon it and use DirectX instead. Typical Microsoft behaviour - kill the opposition no matter which system is better/more flexable
I voted...
But I haven't bought from Dell.
Firstly I'm not actually looking for a new laptop at the moment and secondly if I'm going to get a laptop I want one with a nice spec. Dell's rather stupid idea of restricting the Linux installs to the bottom of the range models means that even if I do buy a laptop from Dell its going to be one which I've had to pay Microsoft for an operating system I don't want.
Dell obviously don't actually understand the Linux market.
Oh come on...
Someone must have some good Nigerian Spam jokes on this whole subject. I'd try to come up with one myself but I'm jet lagged!
Problems? What problems?
Powered mine up the other day - told me there was a new version available. Downloaded just over 700MB of files and it worked perfectly - this is on an old Toshiba SA30-203. No DNS issues, no connectivity issues at all... but then again I've not got IPv6 enabled and why the hell would I?
BTW : your link to the Ubutnu Forums comes back with "Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms."
@kevin
But "down-grading" chips has always been the way :
Selling chips at a lower clock speed because some on the batch had failed the speed tests.
Taking CPU with failed onboard maths coprocessesors and selling them as non maths coprocessor components.
I could go on. but.......
I agree that AMD really should investigate the failures but why not let them sell off chips that are essentially sound - it could well reduce the unit costs as they will be writing off less on each production run.
Don't you mean protect copyright?
rather than a method for "copyrighting content on t'internet"
Feedback?
As long as they don't put a feedback mechanism in - I'd hate to get electrocuted just for thinking about Linux.
@Ole Juul
" I wonder if MS is so desperate they are getting people to post for them. That would be pretty pathetic"
Well they've got previous for it - there have been several stories about Microsoft "buying" bloggers etc.
Nothing about Microsoft surprises me - they will do anything to ensure we all remain locked to their bloatware. OK maybe not anything.. I really do hope they would draw the line at murder, but everything up to that point (bribery & corruption, coercion, threats, etc.) seems to be perfectly acceptable to them.
@Andy Enderby
I'm very disappointed that my suggestion for one of Monkey Boy wearing a jesters hat has not been taken up. We really do need a "Microsoft are taking the piss again" icon
Patent?
How can shoving a few off the shelf parts into an off the shelf (well off the cargo truck) part be counted as innovative... oh that's right.. its the extremely flawed US Patent system....again.
I'm sure there is prior art - governments around the world must have similar setups to cope with major civil disruption.
Only Microsoft
Could spout their completely unproven FUD about Microsoft's infringed patents in a country that doesn't recognise 99.9% of them
Well done Mr Ballmer - who else could, single handedly, make Microsoft look a bunch of fools. Maybe we can buy him a Jester's outfit for Christmas.. Actually can we have that as an icon? Steve Ballmer in a jester's hat?
Ahh nostalgia
Is it really that long since I picked up my first CD player (A Philips CD101) ? I remember the claims about the durability of the the CDs and my mum tested it by knocking a CD out of the open window in my bedroom which skated down a pitched roof, dropped onto a concrete patio, bounced across it and landed in the flower bed. Dusted it off and it played perfectly.
I've still got the CD101 - I don't use it any more but its still fully functional.. who knows, in time, it might be worth something
"All new" Vista
So another month goes by and another set of patches that fix identical problems in Vista and XP appears.
As each set of such patches come out it makes Microsoft's claims that Vista was all new code and was "secure by design" look more and more like the typical MS Spin everyone else said they were.
Has anyone asked Steve Ballmer about his statement that " it (vista) is the highest-quality, most secure and reliable Windows operating system ever, there should be no need for a service pack."
Its not looking too secure from here
Glasses and coffee cups
How long is this "surface computing" idea going to last in real life? Have you looked at the state of the average glass table in a hotel lobby, and what happens when someone puts a coffee cup down on it, or spills their drink onto/into it?
Now if it can work out that my beer glass is almost empty, and workout which beer I'm drinking and order another for me then I'd be all for it!
Methods and concepts
SCO might not be about specific patents but neither is it purely down to copied lines of code. SCO have brought up, on more than one occasion, that it is also about "Methods and Concepts".
Methods and Concepts is maybe not exactly patents but it is a lot more than just copyright.
To be honest the SCO case has been going on for so long and so much ground has been covered that the exact reason for it has been forgotten by a lot of people.
Even if they are different the fact that Microsoft's latest bluster is being compared to SCO is not exactly good news for Microsoft.
Looking round the net and the articles being written I think its fair to say that from Microsoft's point of view this has been a complete PR nightmare.
We've heard it all before
Microsoft have been putting this but of FUD forward for a while now.
They refuse to tell anyone which patents have been infringed which seems a bit odd - similar in a way to the way that SCO claimed Linux had infringed their intellectual property and when challenged their response was basically "you know what you stole"... and look how that turned out.
So until Microsoft actually detail the patents they claim Linux infringes and those patents can be proven to be valid (which will be much hard since the KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc. case) its all just more blustering bullshit from Redmond.
And tough luck if you dont use Windows or a Mac...
"The iPlayer application will only be available for MS Windows initially, but the support roadmap reveals interesting priorities: cable TV service support will come first, followed by Apple Macs and then Freeview boxes."
Those of you running Linux will just have to wait until hell freezes over.
Think I'm going to ask for a refund... or maybe the BBC will pay for a Windows licence so I can use the services I'm paying for...
Once again DRM shows that its not about Rights but about Restrictions.
Running before they can walk
As its OUR money that the BBC are splashing around it would be really good if they concentrated on one area of delivery.
Satellite reception for a lot of the UK is not good, for example - it only takes very heavy rain or clouds and my Sky box just gives up.
Freeview is pretty ropey as well.. for various reasons.
So we will have two flawed methods of delivering digital TV content... brilliant!
I assume we get both and then use a third box to combine the two crap signals to produce one slightly less crap signal?
Or maybe the next move by the BBC will be cable delivery?
DPA?
"Clearly if one writes to a public authority and gives the personal details of a constituent, such as their CSA [Child Support Agency] claim, information relating to their children and so on, that information should be protected. It should quite clearly be protected under the current Act. However, inadvertently, someone may release it,"
Surely personal information passed to the MP (and then subsequently passed on to others) is covered by the Data Protection Act.
Saying that MPs should be excluded from FOI legislation because a third party might make a mistake is really taking the piss isn't it?
I assume David Maclean has got rather a lot of skeletons in his cupboard that he'd rather people didn't find out about....
$3..
for the privilege of buying, by their own admission, an obsolete operating system.
$3 for the privilege of being infested by viruses, having your machine hijacked, having your personal details stolen....
Still its better than paying about $400 for it.....
OK this morning
I grabbed the full "alternative" install (696MB) from canonical this morning - only took about 55 minutes.
So either they've fixed their problems or everyone has given up