Search results

  1. S

    dSLR thread

    On my way through the airport last week for a work trip I dropped in to the duty free electronics shop to get a US power adaptor and ended up buying a D800 with a 28-70 lens. I haven't actually had a chance to use it yet since I've been really busy with work and annoyingly I can't find an...
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    eBook Readers

    I have one of the older Sony readers a PRS-505. I'm constantly cleaning the screen even without touch functionality so I know I really wouldn't want that, but then I don't make notes on books either. I generally use Calibre on Linux to handle transferring books on to the device, it works well...
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    Big screen phones? Anyone have a HTC Sensation?

    I'm pretty sure the Sensation does have a microSD slot. Only one person I know has owned one, there was some kind of persistent problem though and he got rid of it and got a Galaxy Nexus instead and is much happier. I don't really remember the details though so it's not much help I guess.
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    HomoLED

    Custom roms like Cyanogen use the back lights on the back and menu buttons of some Samsung phones as notification lights. That works pretty well on my Galaxy S and is probably preferable to something that has keep part of the CPU and graphics chip running to keep its notification going...
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    Virtual Offices

    If you just spent a little more time with them, that someone could be you...
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    Virtual Offices

    Hosted PBX is probably a better option for the scenario you describe than setting up your own. PBX's are not fun to configure and if you set it up you'll get blamed for everything. If people are working from home or from a small office then you're probably going to be dealing with consumer...
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    question Which Tablets

    The Toshiba Thrive is probably the best fit, 1280x800 display, reports vary on if it's IPS or PVA but it's better than TN in any case (But not nearly as good as the 10" Galaxy tabs screen). It has a full size USB2.0 port supporting exfat formatted mass storage devices and a full sized SDXC card...
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    Android phones: Tips, tricks?

    I was pretty surprised by HP announcing that they're definitely going to continue to support WebOS, they're open sourcing it and they'll think about actually shipping products that run it...
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    iPhone syndrome

    Apparently they've fixed some of the serious problems with getting data on, and more so off, iThings. Or so I'm assured by people who use iStuff more than I and like it about as much. But the fixes are quite recent and before that iDevices were pretty strictly monogamous.
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    Android phones: Tips, tricks?

    Assuming you don't insist on full size SD the Huawei MediaPad seems to have you covered. In the US it's old as the T-Mobile Springboard. The inevitable catch is that there is no WiFi only version, hence T-Mobile (Or Orange in the UK) being involved.
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    The destruction of liberty

    You could do it with one time pad encryption, one key decrypts the data to something harmless, another to something incriminating either way they have exactly the expected amount of data. Of course you then have the problem of storing the keys safely...
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    Android phones: Tips, tricks?

    I'm not sure that article is particularly accurate. I'm pretty sure Medfield is actually Intels second attempt at a mobile SOC, it's just that the first one (Moorstown) was more like an SO5Cs and nobody ever actually put it in a shipping product. Even Medfield is more of an SO3Cs, and I doubt...
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    Linksys E4200 134.99 at local Costco

    At least some of the packets in the early part of a wifi hand shake are unencrypted and contain the MAC address of the endpoint so getting a MAC to spoof is just a matter of timing (Or interfering with the network enough to force endpoints to reconnect). The best looking option I've seen so far...
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    PC Gaming = World of Suck

    I think a lot of the people who didn't like it, myself included, would disagree about the humor. But it has a lot of toilet.
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    The obligatory Blackberry thread

    I'm guessing that that guy doesn't realize that the notification bar can be pulled down. I've found that to be a pretty common problem amongst people who are given Android phones for work. They download a file from a web site or email and the file comes down O.K, but they don't know that when...
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    Linksys E4200 134.99 at local Costco

    WPS incorporates multiple authentication mechanisms, one of which requires you to push a button. Another one requires the connecting device to supply a PIN which is usually printed on the WPS device. The PIN mechanism is the one with the recently discovered gaping holes and it doesn't require...
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    Something Random

    Ultraviolet sort of seems like the studios trying to do something worthwhile but I don't think it's quite there. The need to use only their software (Which is reputedly pretty ordinary) or devices and the need to be online to watch anything kind of kill any usefulness it might have had. In...
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    Android phones: Tips, tricks?

    Got my first taste of Ice Cream Sandwich today, not impressed. Looks mostly like Honeycomb, only I remember Honeycomb having a menu button along with the back, home, and tasks buttons. In ICS the menu button gets moved around on a per app basis, it's horrible, as bad as the back button in iPhone...
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    Android phones: Tips, tricks?

    I've wanted a Thrive for a while (IPS screen and full size SD card slot = win for photography), but they only became available over here recently and are kind of expensive (Not quite 2x the woot price but not far off). And with CES next week likely ushering in a whole host of new gear to drool...
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    The obligatory Blackberry thread

    I don't think RIM are in any great danger of going bust, but last I heard their assets were valued at more than their shares and if they don't turn that around soon someone may well buy them for their patent portfolio, customer base, and trade marks. There are lots of people out there who still...
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    Android phones: Tips, tricks?

    I think the key with e-ink is just to get used to how long it takes to refresh the screen. Once you really know the timings you can hit the next page button before you finish reading the current page and have the redraw occur while your eye is traveling from the bottom right to the top left of...
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    Wii

    The best games on the Wii are generally the first party ones. I've enjoyed the Zelda games, the best FPS is probably Metroid and Mario Galaxy is generally well thought of (Might be a little advanced for a 4 year old but there is an option for one player to play and a second to help with another...
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    TV programs you like?

    In the first half a dozen episodes of Torchwood every single regular character had at least some sort of same sex encounter regardless of that characters apparent sexual orientation or weather it made any sense in the context of the plot at all. Throwing the fan girls (And boys, there's plenty...
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    TV programs you like?

    I quite enjoy the new Dr Who, bar the occasional really cheesy episodes, but I can't stand Torchwood. The characters always seemed to be really bad at their jobs and their myriad personal problems seemed to be pretty much their own fault and entirely avoidable. They just all came off as...
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    TV programs you like?

    I find Sanctuary surprisingly unterrible, and although I can never quite remember how I manged to get through the whole first season of Fringe it managed to improve substantially after that and is now pretty reasonable (Turns out the writers are much better at long plot arcs, or they've all been...
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    Android phones: Tips, tricks?

    It depends a lot on what you do, and somewhat more on where you do it. I use my phone online quite a bit but I've very rarely away from a WiFi access point (Maybe 1 hour a day most days) so I use less than 500MB/month without having to watch what I use.
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    Bluetooth dongles

    I think my mother used to use bluetooth to sync her Palm before she got an iPhone. That was on 32bit Vista though and using the built in bluetooth on her laptop, I think she mostly used usb though because it was just easier. I only have one Windows PC (64Bit 7) and the bluetooth is part of the...
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    PC Gaming = World of Suck

    The controls in Skyrim take a huge hit from the consoles. They are, in a word, dire. There are already some mods which start to fix the issues so hopefully they'll all get sorted. It's pretty sad though that the last 2 Elder Scrolls games both had better controls. (As did Fallout 3) That said...
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    Video Re-encoding Software

    Have you tried ripping the DVDs with something like DVD decrypter before giving them to handbrake? I know the issue isn't DRM but you might be able to get the ripper to alter the files structurally enough to let handbrake handle them. (E.g. by removing logos and things while ripping instead...
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    MagicJack+ opinions

    I'm pretty sure Google Voice uses SIP so any SIP ATA should let you hook it up to a POTS telephone and any SIP desk phone should work (It's worth specifically checking before buying a device though since SIP support is often pretty spotty). You still can't port a land-line number to them though.
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    MagicJack+ opinions

    If you have a smart phone there should be a way to just use that (over wifi) with a voip client rather than having to have a separate device. Google voice would work except that they can only port mobile numbers but I'm sure there are at least a few similar options. Unless you want a separate...
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    Congratulations to WD for finding a whole new way to make hard drives wrong

    I don't think anyone here would dispute that it's kind of annoying... Just that it's any sort of mystery.
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    Congratulations to WD for finding a whole new way to make hard drives wrong

    A small percentage of the market buy an external hard drive based on speed, reliability and the manufacturers reputation. Everyone else gets the largest capacity drive for the lowest price and those being equal gets the physically smallest package. Taking out bits most people are never even...
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    Has anyone messed with modern Homeplug equipment?

    I have a couple of Netgear 500Mbps Homeplug adaptors (Or draft homeplug 2+ or whatever it is, I don't thing the > 200Mbps draft is actually final yet). I use them to stream HD video to a PS3 which works well. Transferring some files to the PS3 over FTP I'm seeing about 5-10MiB/s, mostly hovering...
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    Android phones: Tips, tricks?

    I didn't realize Samsung had finally started doing OTA updates. It's long past time, Kies was always rubbish and even some 3rd party ROMs have been doing OTA updates for a while. When did Samsung start doing them?
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    The obligatory Blackberry thread

    The reason teens in the UK get in to BBM is because they can get unlimited BBM IMs on pay as you go plans. They can convince their parents to buy them the phone for under 100 quid and then talk to their friends for 5-10 pound a month. Now, cheap Android devices with low cost data plans are...
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    The obligatory Blackberry thread

    I saw an article today about RIM expanding their server platform to support IOS and Android. I don't think anything can save all of RIM but if they can switch over to being the enterprise server guys in a heterogeneous mobile workplace then they could probably survive in some form, maybe even...
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    iPhone syndrome

    None specifically (I didn't actually handle the phone personally so I didn't try many things) but being able to set alarms and call people were the main trials, we kind of assumed if you could do chargeable things and really annoying things you could probably do anything. It's kind of good that...
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    PC Gaming = World of Suck

    The Elder Scrolls games have always been insanely huge and open games but I think they really stepped up the writing and quest design with Skyrim. There are some pretty significant chunks of story telling that have absolutely nothing to do with the main plot. Apparently Bethesda have promised...
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    Cotton Candy (a mini Android & ARM based computer)

    The Raspberry Pi looks like a slightly better option to me, not quite as much grunt but you could build a small cluster of them for the same money.
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    Android phones: Tips, tricks?

    Samsung have confirmed Android 4.0 for a couple of phones and the Galaxy S II is indeed on the list. Also the Galaxy Note which seems to be an S II with a (much) bigger screen, a stylus, and even better battery life (2500mah, apparently lasts about 9 hours looping video). If it wasn't over 550...
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    Football

    Yeah, I'm an Aussie, but I'm a tech geek first so I don't actually like to watch any sports. The Welsh generally assume that I'll care about rugby and the English assume I'll care about cricket. Fortunately no one actually thinks I'm likely to care about any form of football, except perhaps...
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    Bear Track Cases add

    Yeah, I use one of the Peli cases for my camera when I go snowboarding, I also have a couple for rifles. If you need to carry anything heavy for any distance I recommend the Peli Storm cases, they have more comfortable handles.
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    iPhone syndrome

    A co-worker got a 4S this week as well, we tried a few things with Siri and I was surprised to see it effectively makes locking your phone pointless. I've never exactly relied on having the lock on a phone keep people out so I don't find it that big a deal but it does kind of negate the whole...
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    Football

    Since moving to the UK I've discovered that football (soccer) is the only sport which is so boring that the fans spend vastly more time discussing the teams managerial decisions than discussing the actual game. (It's at least 70-30, often more) From my limited experience with American football...
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    Televisions as monitors: What are you using, and why?

    My old Samsung TV flaked out a few months ago (Just sat switching off and on for ages when turned on), it was out of warranty but was a known issue with the capacitors so if I'd called they might have come out and fixed it, but I'd probably have had to take half a day off work to be there. For...
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    Macbook Pro first impressions

    Insert I don't use anyway, but yeah, not having delete is really annoying. I think Command + Backspace does the same thing, but that's 2 keys and you can do it in 2 keys anyway it's just... Annoying.
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    Recommendations on USB memory sticks?

    I have a SuperTalent Pico attached to my keys. I agree that it doesn't always fit in all USB ports (though it does in most) but I've had no problems with the durability. Mine's been banging around in my pocket for years and other than a few minor dents and scratches isn't any the worse for wear...
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    Macbook Pro first impressions

    There is an anti-glare version of that Macbook, it's $50 extra from the online apple store or probably about $300 extra in a brick and mortar (or chrome and glass) apple store because they bundle it with the abusively expensive 100Mhz processor bump. The anti-glare version still isn't perfect in...
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    Android phones: Tips, tricks?

    My experience with Skype on Android has been a bit hit and miss. If you have a good connection then it's fine, but if you lose your connection a lot then it will rarely be in sync and will tell you people are online when they're not, tell you they're not when they are and tell them you're not...
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