"You simply call your bank from the petrol station (they are required to be able to let you call) and query the refusal, it's then accepted, this takes a matter of minutes"
A matter of minutes - not to me it didn't. Had the same thing happen with my Visa debit card.
In Ikea - queue mounting behind me, card kept getting refused - they then put me on the phone with Santander and it took forever for their side to pick up - then we went through the usual stuff of confirming who I was etc. Turned out they put a block on my card because of an "unusual" transaction. That transaction was me ordering a once every 5-10 years TV... online... delivered to MY address... and they'd blocked my card for over a week without telling me.
They also couldn't let the current Ikea payment go through for 24 hours until they unblocked the card. My wife then had to pay with her card, which was for the same joint account.
Up until that point I never carried credit cards or cash - now I make sure I've got at least 1 backup payment option.
Re: And if you remove the friendly marketing speak:
I bought a couple of EA games on android once - it was a small download - which then kicked off a larger installer which downloaded the majority of the game to the SD card (along with some DRM crap I'm sure). I think originally this was required because there was an app size limit imposed in the market place, but Google has since increased that limit - but I bet they EA don't change the method of delivery.
I'm now left wondering how long before these games that don't actually require any servers to actually play the game stop working because they don't have servers to check in to for updates at the start.
Needless to say, I'm not buying any more mobile games from EA.
"siphon the kids bathwater into a waterbutt for the garden during the summer months, etc."
Do you let them wash with soap? For some reason I see bubble-bath, shampoo, soap as being bad for plants. Is that not true? If not, I may consider a similar thing - ours has a bath every other night - we aren't metered, but I limit baths to every other night because of the cost of gas heating a bath full of water.
This is essentially the same as what I did back in 2008 - problem running Windows for my 2008 Macbook Pro were:
Windows drivers for the GPU weren't up to much, running the GPU hot at idle (metal case = burnt thighs too). Disabling Aero for Windows 7 didn't help any.
Bootcamp took a good few updates to get any sort of mutlitouch enable for the trackpad. There are some issues I have with sleep meaning the laptop actually goes into some sort of hibernate mode - so when you open the laptop it goes through a minute long boot before becoming usable.
Not to mention the fact that Apple don't fully enable all features in the bootcamp drivers for things like auto-dimming the screen, brightness of keyboard lights, etc. The keyboard layout is different too, the " and @ are in the wrong place for UK keyboards etc.
Having said that, the hardware is great and the one time I've need support (replacement faulty battery) they've been really good, swapping for new no questions asked in store. But from my experience Apple really don't want you to have the best experience you can have with Windows installed on a macbook pro, even though if they spent time on the Windows drivers you could.
My next laptop will probably be an XPS or Alienware laptop... don't know enough about the current specs to recommend one for you though. Sorry.
There are 2 distinct points in my life that I remember thinking how much I liked tinkering with computers.
1 - a teacher in primary saw I was eyeing up the bbc micro in the corner of the room and set me a task - write a program (BASIC) that asks you what flag you want, and then displays that colour flag for you. Then he left me to it, occasionally coming over to see how I was going on, praise me on progress, help me on bits I was stuck on. I was about 9.
2 - playing with LOGO and something similar to the the big track thing (looked more like a turtle though) - this was again primary school.
Secondary school it all went down hill. I got taught that computers worked by having little men sat inside the keyboard, and they run up and down the wire shouting at people inside the monitor to change picture.
I also got banned in secondary school from using the bbc micros and (when they eventually got them) the early windows PCs. Why was I banned you [didn't] ask? For changing a couple of strings in menu system on the BBCs, and for changing screensaver text on a windows machine. Apparently it took them weeks to figure out how to change them back (honestly), they didn't trust me to change them because they didn't understand what I was talking about when I described how to do it.
Seems like with the right teacher you can get inspired and learn alot - with the wrong ones they will punish you and hold you back. I eventually regained my love of tinkering in college, and work as a dev now. :)
I've heard "just Bing them" once on a US show. I laughed my ass off, then cried a little when they interrupted the dialogue to show them actually typing in the persons name into Bing.. :'(
"You’ll also need a pair that are comfortable to wear for long periods and which don’t cost the earth"
£120 for a pair of occasional use headphones is "costing the earth" as far as I'm concerned - I know you can get more expensive ones, but there are also perfectly reasonable cheaper ones that do the same job.
"Can you post some links to this skirting board trunking?"
I'd be interested to know this too - I own, but I'm about to redecorate a few rooms (replacing damaged skirting) - may as well do some networking while I'm at it. :)
I'm far from an Apple fanatic, but their customer service in the Trafford Center (Manchester) store is pretty awesome.
I had a macbook pro battery that randomly stopped working, it would die after half hour running off battery. They diagnosed and replaced it no questions asked (even though I'd stupidly booked the appointment in the wrong store).
Another example - my mother-in-law managed to turn their battery cover the wrong way on the wireless keyboard once - it wouldn't open. She took it into an Apple store to see if they could open it, when they said they couldn't they asked how old it was.
"3 years... " she replied.
"Ah... it's out of warranty then - but it's obviously faulty.. here, have a new one on us."
Can't fault that.
Unfortunately though the one time every few years I might need decent customer service doesn't outweigh the cost of the products for me now I have kids, plus I don't like the direction OSX is heading in now.
Re: Modern software - throw more horsepower at it...
I'd agree with that. I've had similar experiences, playing with strings when I'd begun working in .NET was always an interesting one. :)
The optimisation point about it being the last 10% - I've seen that in larger teams. It had a lot to do with getting the logic in place first, then refactoring - rather than spending time optimising code that might not make it to final product. Shifting requirements and dropping features through lack of time and so on.
Re: Modern software - throw more horsepower at it...
""You really don't know how software works."
Explanation, please."
Okay... my explanation of my comment (driven by the insinuation that I as a modern developer am lazy) is this:
"In the old days, programming had to be *massively* optimised to eek out as much functionality as possible on hardware with, by todays standards, exceptional limitations."
Software also had very limited requirements in the "old days" - simpler hardware, lower expectations on what software could do, less support for multiple devices/setups. The nature of the languages at the time often required the developers to be working at a lower level than alot of today's developers anyway. I say alot, because those types of developers still exist. As embedded developers, driver authors, and many other roles you're not really thinking about.
"These days, the era of optimised code seems to have been shelved."
Not true, though it may seem that way from your casual desktop/smartphone user. Every place I've worked in there's been a drive to optimise anything they could, be it UI for desktop software, processing of data on embedded devices running ucos, or whatever. I worked for a manufacturer who built their own processors, and as a result could control and eek out every last bit from the chips.
"Instead, we have frameworks on top of frameworks, all geared to making a developers life easier, at the expense of raw processing power."
Frameworks on top of frameworks help separate complication, encourage code-reuse, and let people deal with higher level problems without the need to get into the nitty gritty. So in a sense, it does make a developers life easier - that doesn't mean their work is easy, or that raw processing power is lost. If processing power is lost, there is either a very good reason for it, or as you suggest they are terrible frameworks.
"I recall a similar outcry with newer releases of iOS running on older iOS devices - my now aging touch 2g was spankingly fast until I upgraded to iOS 4."
I'm assuming they added features, bug fixes, support for new features (that probably arn't available with your old hardware) - that doesn't come for free in terms of processing power really. It's the same on android, it's the same on windows. The more services/complication you add to the setup the slower things get. If it was that slow they should have warned you, or given you the option to downgrade.
"It's a continuous hardware upgrade cycle driven by software - sure, that's always been the case - but I can't help feeling modern programmers have got really lazy ..."
The hardware upgrade cycle isn't driven by software, it's driven by companies trying to sell more devices, or meetinf the demand from consumers for faster/cooler/smaller devices that exceed the previous devices specs/features. If anything the software is driven by the hardware cycle - software has been struggling to keep up with the hardware improvements. Multi-core development, the thousands of devices with different specs, the call from people using new phones that they want support for their device - while people using 3 year old devices demand the software also works for them still.
But, thanks to those "lazy" developers and frameworks all that is possible.
I'll probably get torn apart for a very "boo hoo, we developers are hard done to" style post... but I've had to quickly smash the post out in like a minute before I leave - so I'll have said some silly things... probably. :)
I had the K700... it sucked donkey balls. After not wanting to go back to Sense UI or root my phone I bought the new Sony Xperia S... The build quality of the recent Android attempts by Sony has been a million times better than the K700 or the K750i.
Having said that, they've always struggled on crap software - the added bloatware (timescape, FB, PS store, the video/music unlimited crap) is really starting to p*ss me off and is unremovable (aside from music unlimited). The annoyance could just be because I was previously running Oxygen rom on my Desire, which was stripped bare of everything bloaty, but I can see myself rooting and stripping the bloat after a year.
"Naturally I appreciate you'll get upvotes and I'll get downvotes because the audience here is anti-establishment"
Not so - even though I agreed with the premise of Lion sucking (compared to snow leopard), you also made valid points (I don't use auto-hide dock though) - so I up-voted you both. :)
For some reason I was shocked at all the negative comments about notepad++... then realised you mean't actual "notepad", that POS that MS pushes in every version of Windows, not the awesome lightweight, free (as in beer and speech) and just pretty darned sweet source editor.
*claps solidly smiling proudly* Finally... somebody else said it. I really regret upgrading to Lion for all those reasons and more. (Launchpad, reversing the scrolling direction, hiding my scrollbars, incompatibilities with NTFS software I'd been using, time machine gaffs, to nam a few more).
These days, the only thing I'm really missing in Windows 7 that OSX provides is multiple virtual desktops (though work are kind enough to provide multiple monitors, so I have several real desktops instead)... and possibly Adium... love that application.
Re: "I used to regularly set off the SLOW DOWN- 30MPH sign...."
The second they smooth over the hole ridden gutters, replace the missing grids, add bike lanes to every road - I'd happily pay for a numberplate. Right now I'm taking all the risk cycling in Manchester traffic, with very little incentive from the government to leave the car at home (other than increasing fuel duty every year).
FYI - I'm also a driver, I just cycle for cost/exercise reasons 4 days a week, about 16 miles a day.
The thing is, you're also interviewing the company - so if I got asked this sort of question it would immediately ring alarm bells for me. I wouldn't want to work for a company that thinks this sort of thing is acceptable, legal or not.
My response after a long pause (trying to work out if it was a joke or not) would be something like
"After careful consideration I have to refuse your request. I just don't think you're the kind of employer I could see myself working for, so I would like to withdraw my application of employment, and please don't contact me again in the future."
I've been using premium for a few months and a good selection of artists I listen to don't exist on there. Recent examples are Rammstein and Metallica. It's not even like my tastes are fringe or anything.
Then my biggest gripe.... Playlists I've generated since using the service now have a good number of tracks unavailable.... In under 2 months songs they had and I listened to are no longer available.
Until they sort out their licensing between record companies I'm always going to need my own library. Also, their recommended artists and songs are crap, I have no interest in Rihanna, yet they constantly push her and all the other pop/rap people at me claiming its recommended just for me.
My university had similar wavers to sign as part of our final year projects. I questioned this with several higher ups, they basically said:
1 - it's was done to protect the students work from exploitation from others, not to exploit it themselves
2 - In reality, it wouldn't stand up in court if they ever tried to enforce their ownership of the copyright, so just sign it anyway.
I think like the article suggests, education should really be focusing on helping students and pupils understand the power of holding rights, rather than penalties of infringing them!
A pain felt when the world moved onto ICS and ICS compatible drivers weren't released for some HTC Desire components.... upshot is, I'm limited to Gingerbread forever, or a really unoptimised/hacked ICS port.
Unless things have changed in the last month or so... last I heard there was a petition for qualcomm to write and release ICS drivers needed for a Desire port, the suspected outcome was that it'd be ignored.
Realistically I don't see how Google can force phone manufacturers (to then force component manufacturers) to give up their driver source code. It'd be nice, but it wont happen.
I've had an iPhone and a couple of android phones (Desire being the current one). I've had a few of games that were on both too... Peggle is the one I play more often that was on both and it was almost identical on both my Desire and the iPhone 3G. Maybe the iPad/iPhone 4S have a different game experience now.
The only issue for me was it took like 2 years for it to to show up on Android Marketplace after the iPhone release, despite being promised a port fairly soon after the iOS version.
Aside from the fact that EA are the devil, they are releasing decent quality games on Android and iOS now, I've got Sim City Deluxe, Peggle, Plants Vs Zombies and Worms and all are pretty high quality and run well on my ageing android phone.
Even if you based your troll-opinion on these two articles - the quality of the graphics on the android roundup were just as good as the iOS games, if not better (ShadowGun, Sprinkles) - the games scores were mainly in the 90% range for the android games, iOS were more around 88%. The iOS roundup had more rehashed retro games too - less originality.
But besides all this - the two articles were personal roundups of games on different platforms by diffierent authors. Not a summary of the very best available on either platform.
The only real places I think Android suffers in terms of game quality are:
1 - half-arsed ports of existing iOS games that take over a year to come out after the iOS versions... but now Android has more marketshare in mobile space I expect that trend to be reversed.
2 - Lack of HD games aimed at tablet screens. I don't see this changing until the tablets get cheap enough to grab more users and equal the iPad in popularity.
I know they were both essentially personal lists - but I'm a bit surprised that neither Plants Vs Zombies, Peggle or Angry Birds didn't show up in Android or the iOS game roundups.
Re: Cheap Nokias - is this how they hope to compete?
Don't worry... it's all part of the plan. Eventually Nokia will get into serious hot water, and then Microsoft will buy the company for next to nothing and begin manufacturing their own phones using the remains of Nokia.
Re: Re: "Why does this article read like women in a marriage have no real importance?"
"by splitting up the kids are being denied their usual family lifestyle and they shouldn't have to suffer too much financially"
Trying to maintain a decent lifestyle for the kids on only 3.5 billion per parent... I know I'd struggle. :'(
Personally, I think if a wife (or husband) was off work to raise the kids while the husband (or wife) was busy building the company then they should be entitled to half of it as they were contributing to the success as a family. Then again, I'm not a billionaire, so easy for me to say.
"Scroogle - a not-for-profit search engine that offered users something of a pro-privacy antidote to Google - has been killed off by its creator."
It wasn't a not-for-profit search engine, it was a search engine proxy - there is a difference.
Not that I'm belittling Brandt or the people who use it - I'm all for privacy and tools that help with that goal, used it a few times myself. I just think calling it a search engine is a little bit of a stretch.
Think it has more to do with the placement at the very very very top of the phone, rather than a size/font/name problem.
If it was in a more normal place (like between the speaker and screen, or at the bottom of the screen) I'm sure the sony label wouldn't be half as odd looking.
"a. the two tablets were held ten feet away from the lawyer (an appreciable distance) and b. both tablets are, well, tablets and all tablets are basically black rectangles i.e. they do not have novel designs (just like TVs)."
Erm... that was from the article you linked to... the problem being that from 10ft away and turned off, most tablets are just black rectangles... didn't you read it?? :S
Not looked at the Win 8 beta myself (if it's even out yet) but I'm assuming they'll make it fairly seamless to the average user switching from legacy installers/applications to new metro-enabled ones.
Nobody really notices if a 32bit program is installed on a Windows 7 x64 machine or not, they hide the fact they've placed it in a Program Files x86 folder rather than the the traditional program files dir. They hide the fact the registry keys for these applications also get stored in the wow6432 tree too, and loads of other tweaks to get that application working on a 64bit machine.
Sure there are usually a few teething issues switching to new things, but worse case I'm sure they will mix a static tile or icon list and just use the current icon packs or something - I'd expect them to do that as a minimum.
"suspending apps [snip] is the best way to preserve UI performance and battery life."
Android already does this.
"background agents is a great compromise that allows apps to do important stuff every so often again without battery drainage."
Background agents in WP land are just called broadcast receivers in android.
"Allowing all apps to do whatever the hell they like all the time is a recipe for chaos"
Allowing developers to run in background isn't a recipe for chaos, it's a recipe for flexibility and user choice. Applications running in the background have to notify the user by adding an entry to the notification tray. Users are aware of what is running and can switch to it. The user makes the choice of potentially battery drainage.
"as a lot of Android users will verify through their poor user experience"
The user experience of multitasking?? It's very simple: if the application isn't up front then it's basically suspended or closed, unless it has an entry in the notification tray, in which case, you know it's running something still.
"random crashes and slowdowns"
Any OS has to handle applications crashing in some way. Android doesn't fall over by applications that stop responding, it'll give you the option to force it to close, or wait more. As far as I know WP just returns to the home screen? No notification or anything?
There can be a million factors that slow phones down, badly designed applications, hardware limitations, background tasks. I've 100% sure I could slow a WP down by running a simple resourceintensivetask background agent - not all background agents need be lightweight battery-friendly processes, it depends on the developer and application!
If you really want to know the main differences between them, and what they can and can't do, look at these tech docs on the subject...
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852 posts • joined Thursday 31st May 2007 13:04 GMT
Page:
Re: Sigh...
"You simply call your bank from the petrol station (they are required to be able to let you call) and query the refusal, it's then accepted, this takes a matter of minutes"
A matter of minutes - not to me it didn't. Had the same thing happen with my Visa debit card.
In Ikea - queue mounting behind me, card kept getting refused - they then put me on the phone with Santander and it took forever for their side to pick up - then we went through the usual stuff of confirming who I was etc. Turned out they put a block on my card because of an "unusual" transaction. That transaction was me ordering a once every 5-10 years TV... online... delivered to MY address... and they'd blocked my card for over a week without telling me.
They also couldn't let the current Ikea payment go through for 24 hours until they unblocked the card. My wife then had to pay with her card, which was for the same joint account.
Up until that point I never carried credit cards or cash - now I make sure I've got at least 1 backup payment option.
Re: lol @ todays "hackers"
"has been sent to jail" - has been incarcerated. ;) Or "sent to prison"... I don't think we use the term jail much over here.
Re: Wifi vs Ethernet
<-------------------------- Do not feed
Re: And if you remove the friendly marketing speak:
I bought a couple of EA games on android once - it was a small download - which then kicked off a larger installer which downloaded the majority of the game to the SD card (along with some DRM crap I'm sure). I think originally this was required because there was an app size limit imposed in the market place, but Google has since increased that limit - but I bet they EA don't change the method of delivery.
I'm now left wondering how long before these games that don't actually require any servers to actually play the game stop working because they don't have servers to check in to for updates at the start.
Needless to say, I'm not buying any more mobile games from EA.
kids bathwater
"siphon the kids bathwater into a waterbutt for the garden during the summer months, etc."
Do you let them wash with soap? For some reason I see bubble-bath, shampoo, soap as being bad for plants. Is that not true? If not, I may consider a similar thing - ours has a bath every other night - we aren't metered, but I limit baths to every other night because of the cost of gas heating a bath full of water.
Re: Buy the Mac
This is essentially the same as what I did back in 2008 - problem running Windows for my 2008 Macbook Pro were:
Windows drivers for the GPU weren't up to much, running the GPU hot at idle (metal case = burnt thighs too). Disabling Aero for Windows 7 didn't help any.
Bootcamp took a good few updates to get any sort of mutlitouch enable for the trackpad. There are some issues I have with sleep meaning the laptop actually goes into some sort of hibernate mode - so when you open the laptop it goes through a minute long boot before becoming usable.
Not to mention the fact that Apple don't fully enable all features in the bootcamp drivers for things like auto-dimming the screen, brightness of keyboard lights, etc. The keyboard layout is different too, the " and @ are in the wrong place for UK keyboards etc.
Having said that, the hardware is great and the one time I've need support (replacement faulty battery) they've been really good, swapping for new no questions asked in store. But from my experience Apple really don't want you to have the best experience you can have with Windows installed on a macbook pro, even though if they spent time on the Windows drivers you could.
My next laptop will probably be an XPS or Alienware laptop... don't know enough about the current specs to recommend one for you though. Sorry.
Re: Where have you been hiding?
And that's the hardest part about being a real programmer - constantly learning, keeping up with times and evolving.
@ Pierre Re: Err...
There are 2 distinct points in my life that I remember thinking how much I liked tinkering with computers.
1 - a teacher in primary saw I was eyeing up the bbc micro in the corner of the room and set me a task - write a program (BASIC) that asks you what flag you want, and then displays that colour flag for you. Then he left me to it, occasionally coming over to see how I was going on, praise me on progress, help me on bits I was stuck on. I was about 9.
2 - playing with LOGO and something similar to the the big track thing (looked more like a turtle though) - this was again primary school.
Secondary school it all went down hill. I got taught that computers worked by having little men sat inside the keyboard, and they run up and down the wire shouting at people inside the monitor to change picture.
I also got banned in secondary school from using the bbc micros and (when they eventually got them) the early windows PCs. Why was I banned you [didn't] ask? For changing a couple of strings in menu system on the BBCs, and for changing screensaver text on a windows machine. Apparently it took them weeks to figure out how to change them back (honestly), they didn't trust me to change them because they didn't understand what I was talking about when I described how to do it.
Seems like with the right teacher you can get inspired and learn alot - with the wrong ones they will punish you and hold you back. I eventually regained my love of tinkering in college, and work as a dev now. :)
Re: 13 employees and no cash flow
He's not buying it for the staff, he's buying it for the user base.
Re: This is news?
""...look them up on Bing""
I've heard "just Bing them" once on a US show. I laughed my ass off, then cried a little when they interrupted the dialogue to show them actually typing in the persons name into Bing.. :'(
"You’ll also need a pair that are comfortable to wear for long periods and which don’t cost the earth"
£120 for a pair of occasional use headphones is "costing the earth" as far as I'm concerned - I know you can get more expensive ones, but there are also perfectly reasonable cheaper ones that do the same job.
Re: When?
"Can you post some links to this skirting board trunking?"
I'd be interested to know this too - I own, but I'm about to redecorate a few rooms (replacing damaged skirting) - may as well do some networking while I'm at it. :)
Re: Capture....
"Er, no. If you have ever had to take an Apple product back (and I have) you DO NOT get a new one."
I've only ever seen them replace for new - but then again they weren't iPhones, maybe their policy is different there.
Re: Can't knock customer service
I'm far from an Apple fanatic, but their customer service in the Trafford Center (Manchester) store is pretty awesome.
I had a macbook pro battery that randomly stopped working, it would die after half hour running off battery. They diagnosed and replaced it no questions asked (even though I'd stupidly booked the appointment in the wrong store).
Another example - my mother-in-law managed to turn their battery cover the wrong way on the wireless keyboard once - it wouldn't open. She took it into an Apple store to see if they could open it, when they said they couldn't they asked how old it was.
"3 years... " she replied.
"Ah... it's out of warranty then - but it's obviously faulty.. here, have a new one on us."
Can't fault that.
Unfortunately though the one time every few years I might need decent customer service doesn't outweigh the cost of the products for me now I have kids, plus I don't like the direction OSX is heading in now.
Re: The story of a beta install.
I may install it after Easter and have an easy week just setting up my dev box again instead of writing any actual code... thanks for the tip! :)
Re: Modern software - throw more horsepower at it...
I'd agree with that. I've had similar experiences, playing with strings when I'd begun working in .NET was always an interesting one. :)
The optimisation point about it being the last 10% - I've seen that in larger teams. It had a lot to do with getting the logic in place first, then refactoring - rather than spending time optimising code that might not make it to final product. Shifting requirements and dropping features through lack of time and so on.
Re: Modern software - throw more horsepower at it...
""You really don't know how software works."
Explanation, please."
Okay... my explanation of my comment (driven by the insinuation that I as a modern developer am lazy) is this:
"In the old days, programming had to be *massively* optimised to eek out as much functionality as possible on hardware with, by todays standards, exceptional limitations."
Software also had very limited requirements in the "old days" - simpler hardware, lower expectations on what software could do, less support for multiple devices/setups. The nature of the languages at the time often required the developers to be working at a lower level than alot of today's developers anyway. I say alot, because those types of developers still exist. As embedded developers, driver authors, and many other roles you're not really thinking about.
"These days, the era of optimised code seems to have been shelved."
Not true, though it may seem that way from your casual desktop/smartphone user. Every place I've worked in there's been a drive to optimise anything they could, be it UI for desktop software, processing of data on embedded devices running ucos, or whatever. I worked for a manufacturer who built their own processors, and as a result could control and eek out every last bit from the chips.
"Instead, we have frameworks on top of frameworks, all geared to making a developers life easier, at the expense of raw processing power."
Frameworks on top of frameworks help separate complication, encourage code-reuse, and let people deal with higher level problems without the need to get into the nitty gritty. So in a sense, it does make a developers life easier - that doesn't mean their work is easy, or that raw processing power is lost. If processing power is lost, there is either a very good reason for it, or as you suggest they are terrible frameworks.
"I recall a similar outcry with newer releases of iOS running on older iOS devices - my now aging touch 2g was spankingly fast until I upgraded to iOS 4."
I'm assuming they added features, bug fixes, support for new features (that probably arn't available with your old hardware) - that doesn't come for free in terms of processing power really. It's the same on android, it's the same on windows. The more services/complication you add to the setup the slower things get. If it was that slow they should have warned you, or given you the option to downgrade.
"It's a continuous hardware upgrade cycle driven by software - sure, that's always been the case - but I can't help feeling modern programmers have got really lazy ..."
The hardware upgrade cycle isn't driven by software, it's driven by companies trying to sell more devices, or meetinf the demand from consumers for faster/cooler/smaller devices that exceed the previous devices specs/features. If anything the software is driven by the hardware cycle - software has been struggling to keep up with the hardware improvements. Multi-core development, the thousands of devices with different specs, the call from people using new phones that they want support for their device - while people using 3 year old devices demand the software also works for them still.
But, thanks to those "lazy" developers and frameworks all that is possible.
I'll probably get torn apart for a very "boo hoo, we developers are hard done to" style post... but I've had to quickly smash the post out in like a minute before I leave - so I'll have said some silly things... probably. :)
Re: Modern software - throw more horsepower at it...
You really don't know how software works.
Re: Dear Sony...
I had the K700... it sucked donkey balls. After not wanting to go back to Sense UI or root my phone I bought the new Sony Xperia S... The build quality of the recent Android attempts by Sony has been a million times better than the K700 or the K750i.
Having said that, they've always struggled on crap software - the added bloatware (timescape, FB, PS store, the video/music unlimited crap) is really starting to p*ss me off and is unremovable (aside from music unlimited). The annoyance could just be because I was previously running Oxygen rom on my Desire, which was stripped bare of everything bloaty, but I can see myself rooting and stripping the bloat after a year.
Re: Windows 8 too (@Greg)
"Naturally I appreciate you'll get upvotes and I'll get downvotes because the audience here is anti-establishment"
Not so - even though I agreed with the premise of Lion sucking (compared to snow leopard), you also made valid points (I don't use auto-hide dock though) - so I up-voted you both. :)
(God was not amused.)
... a slight understatement...
Re: real coders use notepad
For some reason I was shocked at all the negative comments about notepad++... then realised you mean't actual "notepad", that POS that MS pushes in every version of Windows, not the awesome lightweight, free (as in beer and speech) and just pretty darned sweet source editor.
Re: Windows 8 too (@Greg)
*claps solidly smiling proudly* Finally... somebody else said it. I really regret upgrading to Lion for all those reasons and more. (Launchpad, reversing the scrolling direction, hiding my scrollbars, incompatibilities with NTFS software I'd been using, time machine gaffs, to nam a few more).
These days, the only thing I'm really missing in Windows 7 that OSX provides is multiple virtual desktops (though work are kind enough to provide multiple monitors, so I have several real desktops instead)... and possibly Adium... love that application.
Re: 28 what
I concur.... as a fellow fatty.
Re: "I used to regularly set off the SLOW DOWN- 30MPH sign...."
The second they smooth over the hole ridden gutters, replace the missing grids, add bike lanes to every road - I'd happily pay for a numberplate. Right now I'm taking all the risk cycling in Manchester traffic, with very little incentive from the government to leave the car at home (other than increasing fuel duty every year).
FYI - I'm also a driver, I just cycle for cost/exercise reasons 4 days a week, about 16 miles a day.
Re: Surely this is illegal
The thing is, you're also interviewing the company - so if I got asked this sort of question it would immediately ring alarm bells for me. I wouldn't want to work for a company that thinks this sort of thing is acceptable, legal or not.
My response after a long pause (trying to work out if it was a joke or not) would be something like
"After careful consideration I have to refuse your request. I just don't think you're the kind of employer I could see myself working for, so I would like to withdraw my application of employment, and please don't contact me again in the future."
I've actually walked out of interviews for less.
My problem with spotify is...
I've been using premium for a few months and a good selection of artists I listen to don't exist on there. Recent examples are Rammstein and Metallica. It's not even like my tastes are fringe or anything.
Then my biggest gripe.... Playlists I've generated since using the service now have a good number of tracks unavailable.... In under 2 months songs they had and I listened to are no longer available.
Until they sort out their licensing between record companies I'm always going to need my own library. Also, their recommended artists and songs are crap, I have no interest in Rihanna, yet they constantly push her and all the other pop/rap people at me claiming its recommended just for me.
Re: St Paul's School, London requires the same
My university had similar wavers to sign as part of our final year projects. I questioned this with several higher ups, they basically said:
1 - it's was done to protect the students work from exploitation from others, not to exploit it themselves
2 - In reality, it wouldn't stand up in court if they ever tried to enforce their ownership of the copyright, so just sign it anyway.
I think like the article suggests, education should really be focusing on helping students and pupils understand the power of holding rights, rather than penalties of infringing them!
"Julia Donaldson, who wrote the The Gruffalo"
A Gruffalo ... what's a Gruffalo?
Re: Do these guys really think that's large ...
A pain felt when the world moved onto ICS and ICS compatible drivers weren't released for some HTC Desire components.... upshot is, I'm limited to Gingerbread forever, or a really unoptimised/hacked ICS port.
Unless things have changed in the last month or so... last I heard there was a petition for qualcomm to write and release ICS drivers needed for a Desire port, the suspected outcome was that it'd be ignored.
Realistically I don't see how Google can force phone manufacturers (to then force component manufacturers) to give up their driver source code. It'd be nice, but it wont happen.
Re: Cross-platform
I've had an iPhone and a couple of android phones (Desire being the current one). I've had a few of games that were on both too... Peggle is the one I play more often that was on both and it was almost identical on both my Desire and the iPhone 3G. Maybe the iPad/iPhone 4S have a different game experience now.
The only issue for me was it took like 2 years for it to to show up on Android Marketplace after the iPhone release, despite being promised a port fairly soon after the iOS version.
Aside from the fact that EA are the devil, they are releasing decent quality games on Android and iOS now, I've got Sim City Deluxe, Peggle, Plants Vs Zombies and Worms and all are pretty high quality and run well on my ageing android phone.
Re: Amazing how much better
I smell a bit of a troll.
Even if you based your troll-opinion on these two articles - the quality of the graphics on the android roundup were just as good as the iOS games, if not better (ShadowGun, Sprinkles) - the games scores were mainly in the 90% range for the android games, iOS were more around 88%. The iOS roundup had more rehashed retro games too - less originality.
But besides all this - the two articles were personal roundups of games on different platforms by diffierent authors. Not a summary of the very best available on either platform.
The only real places I think Android suffers in terms of game quality are:
1 - half-arsed ports of existing iOS games that take over a year to come out after the iOS versions... but now Android has more marketshare in mobile space I expect that trend to be reversed.
2 - Lack of HD games aimed at tablet screens. I don't see this changing until the tablets get cheap enough to grab more users and equal the iPad in popularity.
I know they were both essentially personal lists - but I'm a bit surprised that neither Plants Vs Zombies, Peggle or Angry Birds didn't show up in Android or the iOS game roundups.
Still, nice list. :)
Re: Re: Why no mention
">>Identify: cursed Flint-bladed knife of lactose intolerance."
It's been a very long day (or I'm easily amused) but I lol'd to that post and woke my kid up.
If I could "like it" twice I would. Thank you. :')
Re: Cheap Nokias - is this how they hope to compete?
Don't worry... it's all part of the plan. Eventually Nokia will get into serious hot water, and then Microsoft will buy the company for next to nothing and begin manufacturing their own phones using the remains of Nokia.
"I pointed this out because there are some very crazy people out there"
And yet, you're the only one to suggest any of this type of crap here... interesting.
Re: Re: "Why does this article read like women in a marriage have no real importance?"
"by splitting up the kids are being denied their usual family lifestyle and they shouldn't have to suffer too much financially"
Trying to maintain a decent lifestyle for the kids on only 3.5 billion per parent... I know I'd struggle. :'(
Personally, I think if a wife (or husband) was off work to raise the kids while the husband (or wife) was busy building the company then they should be entitled to half of it as they were contributing to the success as a family. Then again, I'm not a billionaire, so easy for me to say.
"Scroogle - a not-for-profit search engine that offered users something of a pro-privacy antidote to Google - has been killed off by its creator."
It wasn't a not-for-profit search engine, it was a search engine proxy - there is a difference.
Not that I'm belittling Brandt or the people who use it - I'm all for privacy and tools that help with that goal, used it a few times myself. I just think calling it a search engine is a little bit of a stretch.
Re: New branding
Think it has more to do with the placement at the very very very top of the phone, rather than a size/font/name problem.
If it was in a more normal place (like between the speaker and screen, or at the bottom of the screen) I'm sure the sony label wouldn't be half as odd looking.
Forgive me if I'm wrong but...
... isn't that the whole reason why they make things in China to begin with... it's cheaper??
Not saying it's right - just that it would have been one of the major plus points of building in China over somewhere like Britain, Canada or the US?
RE: Err...
hang on a minute... are you saying we don't write our pin in the signature strip these days?! :S
RE: When your own company lawyer...
"a. the two tablets were held ten feet away from the lawyer (an appreciable distance) and b. both tablets are, well, tablets and all tablets are basically black rectangles i.e. they do not have novel designs (just like TVs)."
Erm... that was from the article you linked to... the problem being that from 10ft away and turned off, most tablets are just black rectangles... didn't you read it?? :S
Not looked at the Win 8 beta myself (if it's even out yet) but I'm assuming they'll make it fairly seamless to the average user switching from legacy installers/applications to new metro-enabled ones.
Nobody really notices if a 32bit program is installed on a Windows 7 x64 machine or not, they hide the fact they've placed it in a Program Files x86 folder rather than the the traditional program files dir. They hide the fact the registry keys for these applications also get stored in the wow6432 tree too, and loads of other tweaks to get that application working on a 64bit machine.
Sure there are usually a few teething issues switching to new things, but worse case I'm sure they will mix a static tile or icon list and just use the current icon packs or something - I'd expect them to do that as a minimum.
RE: Groundhog Day
I was sort of with you up until you mentioned ribbon in a positive light... I've now come to my senses...
People like what they like... most people don't like drastic change, especially in software they use (or forced to use) daily.
For me it seems to flip-flop between like and hate.
Like Windows 7... hated Vista...
Liked XP (ignoring the blue skin), hated Win ME...
Lliked 98, hated 95
So I'm expecting to hate Windows 8... be it metro, lack of start menu, or more ribbon using, but we will see.
@ boltar
"ActiveX was one of the most braindead ideas Microsoft ever came up with and the competition there is pretty steep."
Auto-run being a close second?
@ Jim...
"suspending apps [snip] is the best way to preserve UI performance and battery life."
Android already does this.
"background agents is a great compromise that allows apps to do important stuff every so often again without battery drainage."
Background agents in WP land are just called broadcast receivers in android.
"Allowing all apps to do whatever the hell they like all the time is a recipe for chaos"
Allowing developers to run in background isn't a recipe for chaos, it's a recipe for flexibility and user choice. Applications running in the background have to notify the user by adding an entry to the notification tray. Users are aware of what is running and can switch to it. The user makes the choice of potentially battery drainage.
"as a lot of Android users will verify through their poor user experience"
The user experience of multitasking?? It's very simple: if the application isn't up front then it's basically suspended or closed, unless it has an entry in the notification tray, in which case, you know it's running something still.
"random crashes and slowdowns"
Any OS has to handle applications crashing in some way. Android doesn't fall over by applications that stop responding, it'll give you the option to force it to close, or wait more. As far as I know WP just returns to the home screen? No notification or anything?
There can be a million factors that slow phones down, badly designed applications, hardware limitations, background tasks. I've 100% sure I could slow a WP down by running a simple resourceintensivetask background agent - not all background agents need be lightweight battery-friendly processes, it depends on the developer and application!
If you really want to know the main differences between them, and what they can and can't do, look at these tech docs on the subject...
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh202866(v=vs.92).aspx
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/04/multitasking-android-way.html
or perhaps just shorter pockets?
hopefully they'll release it for the WDTV Live Hub... it's not arrived with recent updates yet.
I lol'd, thumbed up.... then remembered I was a trek fan... :(
Lies - old faithful El Reg would NEVER do this to their users....
*pretends the whole "fixed width" layout thing never happened with the revamp*
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