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* Posts by andy gibson

565 posts • joined Thursday 24th May 2007 11:52 GMT

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andy gibson

Re: Virgin Sucks

How can it be an "island on Rutland Water" when its connected to the land?

Posted in Head over Heels
andy gibson

Alternatively

If you're emulating a Spectrum, just make sure it includes a Multiface then pop in the POKE for infinite lives.

andy gibson

BBC Micro program

The program for creating your own Ceefax clone was called SEAFAX. The last time I was mooching around the emulator sites nobody had got a copy uploaded.

andy gibson
Happy

Hudson Hawk

Glad to see its not on the list. Has it got to the stage of "So bad it's cool"?

andy gibson

"Building a redundant SDP would be very expensive, especially considering how rarely it would be used"

It would be £10,000 cheaper if you didn't blow your money on Battersea Dogs Home.

andy gibson

two points of view

While I don't agree with the extradition issue, I think the guy and his mother need a reality check if they think he's done nothing wrong.

Did she not even question the £147,000 he raked in? You don't get that kind of dosh from a website and Google ads.

In the never ending battle of the entertainment industry of the US versus the internet and the way they use the US legal system did he honestly think he'd be completely safe from prosecution? Maybe he should have read The Reg and seen all the stories that have been published over the years.

andy gibson

Maybe we should do a trade?

Deep sea creatures in return for Celine Dion?

andy gibson

Simcopter

Bring back Simcopter!

Posted in Carmageddon
andy gibson
Happy

Destruction Derby

Was worth it for the tacky voice overs - "You're on fire!"

andy gibson

@ rob44

I think the "bigger picture" when it comes down to fossil fuels is efficiency when its burnt.

I don't know the current figures for how efficient a car is, but perhaps it's more efficient for the fossil fuel to be burnt in bulk at a power station rather than in each individual car.

andy gibson

101 / 111

This is only going to cause confusion. First we have 101 for non emergency 999 calls, now 111 for non emergency medical calls. What next, 121 for non emergency fire brigade calls - cat stuck up a tree, smoky neighbour's bonfire? What about 131 for non emergency mountain rescue and 141 for non emergency coastguard?

andy gibson

Payment for chores

Rather than shooting her laptop, her dad should have made her listen to the Godawful song "No Charge" by J.J. Barrie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwWNCVLysKY

andy gibson

as long

as there are people willing to pay full price for one e-book and an "official" case rather than a cheap Ebay copy or know a mate with a DVD full of thousands of e-books.

andy gibson

Orange Monte Carlo

I noticed this alongside the Orange Monte Carlo. Although it's £119 in the Orange stores, is currently on sale at Argos for £80 (if you can still find any in stock that is). I'm a little confused at why Orange has released this model, unless the Monte is too "big" - the screen does look rather huge alongside it.

andy gibson

Playmobil or Lego

Has to be the latter, purely to send this into space:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_QIkHRKCv-3Y/SiM03gMPhMI/AAAAAAAAAoo/gFPj8n-vfbs/s400/Darth04.jpg

That's no weather balloon, it's a space station.

andy gibson

@Paul Shirley (90Mb is too little free space)

This reminds me when places like Currys and PC World were selling Vista PCs with 512Mb of RAM.

Its poor specs and performance like this which mars the Android system.

andy gibson

Homebrew Dizzy

I was quite active on the Speccy PD scene in the 90s when the fall of communism (indirectly) led to the explosion of home made Spectrum clones and some incredible programmers. I think we had about a dozen unofficial homemade (but still incredibly made) sequels around at the time.

andy gibson

Kogan Vs Transformer

I had an Asus Transformer tablet first. Beautiful piece of kit but so expensive.

I then got a smaller Kogan tablet direct from them for £80. Works beautifully, much more compact and manageable, fits in the pocket far easier rather than carrying it in a special carry case, and at that price I don't care if I drop it or sit on it.

andy gibson
Happy

Great Article

Ever since my first Amstrad and Z88 I've collected similar beasties. The NEC PC8201 and Olivetti are also pretty similar to the Tandy. I've also got the lesser spotted WP2.

There's contention whether the Epson HX10 and HX20 should be included because of the little printer and tape drive.

andy gibson

My list...

Mr Atari2600 creator

Matthew Smith

That is all

andy gibson
Happy

"£50 voucher to spend on software and accessories"

That'll be Norton AV or two Belkin USB cables then

This post has been deleted by a moderator

andy gibson
Coat

Tomorrow's World

Showed some fantastic technology, but technologists couldn't invent anything to stop Keith Chegwin p*ssing on her clothes in the wardrobe when he was hammered.

andy gibson

Talking about the next product

Are you sure Jobs wasn't rambling about the old NeXT?

andy gibson

Original Teletext

Was brilliant. The BBC did Telesoftware, Channel 4 did 4TEL and lots of related content from their 80s computing programme 4COMPUTERBUFFS. Then Bamboozle and Digitizer in the 90's when the licences changed.

andy gibson

Small engined diesels

The problem with small engined diesels is that they are generally used around towns and on short runs. The problem with diesels is that this kind of use fills the engine with crap. Yes, diesel particulate filters will help a bit but soon get clogged. I've seen loads of small second hand cars with clogged EGR valves and Diesel Particulate Filters which look like bargains but cost several hundred pounds to get sorted.

andy gibson

"better" voices

No, the only appropriate voices are default or none at all. "Comedy" voices are funny for about two seconds, unless you're Colin Hunt (see Fast Show)

andy gibson

The media reported

people laying flowers outside Apple stores. I don't understand why anyone other than a close friend or relative would do this.

andy gibson

@ Alan Buckley

My Orange SF is the same. I have the screen set to auto-dim and turn off bluetooth and wi-fi when I'm not using it. I only have to do a couple of charges a week.

andy gibson

@Disintegrationnotallowed - The Reg always gives budget Orange Android Handsets a very favourable review.

andy gibson
Happy

Specsavers Shuttle Advert

Where the Shuttle lands at Gatwick - not so far fetched after all then!

andy gibson
Happy

ASCII smileys

how professional

andy gibson

Limited car fitting

Its all very well but we're slowly losing the ability to fit third party stereos into cars, unless you get third party manufacturers making surrounds to allow them to fit. But my experience has been they tend to look a little cheap and out of place from the original - particularly if its curved. And on my current car - Peugeot 407 - removing the radio would mean everything in that region - climate control, and some car settings - would stop working.

andy gibson

Looks nice

But need to see it in a hand to really visualise the size.

andy gibson
Unhappy

Ah, consumerism

People are worried about rising costs in fuel and food, the security of their job. But throw a discontinued piece of tech at them with a huge discount that they probably don't want or need and they can't wait to empty their wallets.

andy gibson

thin USB flash drives

have always been a little dearer than the usual sized:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/LaCie-iamaKey-USB-Flash-Drive/dp/B001V7XPSA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313583573&sr=8-1

andy gibson
Happy

ZTE Blade successor

is the ZTE Skate or Orange Monte Carlo. RRP £150 or about £119 if you're already an Orange customer.

andy gibson
Happy

@jackharbringer

If you go around saying solanum lycopersicum you're asking for a slap!

andy gibson

Chrome Deployment

I've just overseen a deployment of Chrome on over 300 machines at my place of work and have recommended it to sister organisations. The reason we went for Chrome is simply that Firefox seems to have become bloated and is very difficult to configure for multiple mandatory and roaming profiles and Group Policy, whereas Chrome was a doddle.

andy gibson

Angrybirds on Orange SF

Runs well if you upgrade to a ROM like Japanese Jellyfish and make use of SetCPU.

andy gibson

x-com's 8 bit successors

Believe it or not, UFO Enemy Unknown almost made it to the Spectrum.

During the 1990s when the Iron Curtain had fallen and people were building their own Speccy clones, I ran a PD software library and was once sent the preliminary code and part working bits of a very good Spectrum version.

andy gibson

@ code monkey

Maybe you'd think otherwise if someone was masquerading as you to avoid prosecution for a crime, just like the bloke on that fly on the police-car show on Channel 5. He was stopped for driving offences and gave a false name. The cops used the fingerprint gadget on him and soon found out the truth.

andy gibson

no confirmation on "request"

When the girl puts in "10" there's no confirmation. Seems a bit odd.

andy gibson
Happy

@ Jim McNally

or Stewie Griffin.

andy gibson

Another 2K3 user here

Could it be that Microsoft finally got it right with XP and Server 2003?

andy gibson
Happy

Sinclair 8 bit virtualisation

With the Sinclair Spectrum 128 you could run multiple (2) instances of a ZX81 emulator. Quite why I could never figure out, but it was still cool to do it!

andy gibson

@jonathanb

Yes, in theory its a good idea to dump Microsoft in favour of an open source office app, except that the licensing usually encompasses Windows & Office bundled together - (ours here does, so we pay whether we use it or not and there's no discounts) And then there's the third party software writers who (badly) write their apps to look for and work only with Adobe Reader and Microsoft Office applications.

andy gibson

Follow up to "a fine won't work"

I've had a better idea:

The public should be allowed to take over the paper and print as much muck and dirt about the usual staff as they can:

DO YOU KNOW REBEKAH BROOKS? DO YOU HAVE ANY SEEDY LITTLE STORIES ABOUT HER? CALL OUR HOTLINE NOW AND WE'LL CALL YOU STRAIGHT BACK AND GIVE YOU ££££££ EVEN IF ITS NOT TRUE - WE'LL STICK IN A TINY APOLOGY AT THE BOTTOM OF PAGE 41 IF ITS FALSE.

andy gibson

A fine won't work

When you have a nation of morons willing to pay it for the company by buying their papers.

The only way to hit the company where it hurts is to ban them from publishing - a sliding scale from a week onwards, depending on the crime or lies they've published. And if they use page 1 to tell a lie, they should use the same page and font for the apology, not tucked away at the corner of page 20.

andy gibson
Joke

Probably get flamed for this...

But they look much more realistic than the rounded fake ones from the alleged moon landing.

http://cdn.zmescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Moon-Landing.jpg

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