« CPUs & memory | Main | Graphics cards »
More on the Quicktime hijack and the Atlantic divide
Some respondents to my blog about Apple's Quicktime seem to have missed the point: Windows without QT opens .tifs and allows you to save them; it will not save them with QT loaded, unless you pay extra as prompted or (if you know how) you have unchecked the file association.
Retrying this exercise today I discovered that if you change the file association within the QT control panel, the software simply switches it back again. Only by changing the association from within Windows (My Computer> Tools> Options> File Types) could I persuade the machine not to open .tifs using QT.
I do not suggest deliberate fraud in this attempt to get you to pay for functionality QT has itself disabled, and it may even be a bug - the software appears to be under the impression that a .tif is a movie.
I would however point out that more than one TV company in Britain has recently got into trouble for phone-in competitions for which people were allowed to enter after the result had been decided, at some small cost to themselves and considerable profit to the companies involved.
Again there was no suggestion of deliberate fraud; but the courts took the view that mistakes providing profit to the perpetrators should not have happened, and stemmed from institutional laxity resulting in a breach of public trust.
The overaggressive marketing of QT Pro is similar in principle if not in scale, constituting a breach of trust that happens to be potentially profitable to Apple. At the very least the QT installation and screen prompts should have made clear that changing file associations might disable some functionality and that, as an alternative to buying QT Pro, users could try giving .tifs back to Windows which will happily save them for free.
To answer another of my flamers: my comments were not anti-American; they were my perception of cultural differences. Pretending there are none is not going to bring nations together. You would, for instance, have to recognise that most French people speak French before you could even speak to them.
Western Europeans tend to be more suspicious of big business than Americans, partly because there is a stronger left-wing tradition here, and perhaps also because so many big companies are American and we fear being swamped. To take another glaring difference: there would probably be riots in the US if strict gun controls were imposed; in London there would probably be riots (well, noisy demonstrations) if they were lifted.
Looking at the figures for gun deaths in the US, I think the attitudes of many of its good citizens towards gun control are crazy; but it's their funeral (literally, in many cases) and I don't hold it against them so long as they don't point the wretched things at me.
Historic ICT 1301 on show
Computer history enthusiasts will be heading on July 13 to a car rally at a Kent farm where the only working ICT 1301 mainframe computer from 1962 will be on display. The machine, nicknamed Flossie, has the serial number 6 and was the first machine out of the factory of the company which later merged with English Electric to become ICL. Its designed, Dr Raymond Bird, is pictured above visiting the restored machine in 2004 when he was aged 81. It is a second-generation UK computer design, clocking 1MHz, with 4000 printed circuit boards using discrete germanium transistors, a decade before integrated circuits began to make their mark. It boasts 2000 words of 48 bit magnetic core store, several drum stores, and an optical card reader and punch. It was originally used to process London University GCE results and is set up to do pounds, shillings and pence as well as new-fangled decimal currency. Later it was sold as scrap to students who used it to process large club membership lists in the 1970s. Now a group of enthusiasts is trying to recover software contained in half inch 10 track magnetic tapes. It is now at Buss Farm, in Kent, venue for The Darling Buds Classic Car Show on July 13.
RSI rates soar 30 per cent, but is it just ambulance chasing?
The number of reported RSI incidents shot up 30 per cent last year, according to a 1003-person study commissioned by Microsoft.
Eight per cent of office workers now struggle with the painful digits and sharp pains shooting through their bodies associated with RSI (repetitive strain injury), while 68 per cent of office workers suffer from some sort of pain (like back ache and sore eyes)
John Allen, managing consultant at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), said "there have been some high profile court cases that have attracted very large damages awards recently and as such more people are becoming more aware of it and reporting RSI." He also expects RSI injuries to increase in the future as technology use increases.
Bronwyn Clifford, a chartered physiotherapist, advises that "keystrokes, rather than using the mouse, help against RSI". Voice activated commands, taking breaks (like a proper lunch break) and, in some cases, using a more sensitive and even a bigger mouse can also help, she said.
At PCW, we use vertical mice and tablet pens to easy the pains of using a computer. Little, however, can help our eyes from the strain of staring at a screen for 10+ hours a day.
The browner side of Cebit
Despite the headlines, the Green Village only accounts for about 1/50th of Cebit this year, perhaps not even that.
One of its biggest contributors, Fujitsu Siemens, is trumpeting its energy-saving credentials inside, while fuelling a dozen quad bikes outside.
Climate Savers Computing also sits in the Green Village and is recommending 80+ per cent efficient power supplies for PCs and the proper use of Windows’ power management settings.
Big companies like Microsoft, Intel and HP donate cash to Climate Savers and in return its website advises you to buy Microsoft’s, Intel’s and HP’s products. They have to meet various Energy Star targets, but heaps systems not on the list do in some way.
Barbara Grimes from Climate Savers said it would be too costly for manufacturers to calculate their carbon footprint per unit sold, forcing the price up for end users and forcing smaller companies out of the market due to the resources required. Greenpeace, on the other hand, announced yesterday it thinks carbon dioxide is a relevant issue.
If quad biking is too dirty for you then there are game booths, where you can play a bit of Counter-strike or Call of Duty 4, in every other building. Intel has the best one though, with five racing car simulators side-by-side so you can see who is best.
Don’t mention the HD DVD!
Aside from a brief Q&A session, HD DVD was strictly off the menu at Toshiba’s annual product tradeshow in Hertfordshire earlier today.
Journalists present were told Toshiba representatives at the show would not be commenting on the company’s decision to drop its HD DVD business, which was formally announced on Tuesday.
During the Q&A session a spokesman denied recent HD DVD player price cuts were an attempt to shift stock before the announcement, insisting they were simply trying to make high definition video affordable.
Indeed, many of the Toshiba representatives appeared just as surprised as we were about the company’s decision. As you can see, the DVD player room at the tradeshow looked very empty with just a few upscaling DVD players on show.
Toshiba says it will continue to support those who have bought HD DVD players (700,000 units have been shifted), but it added that it would cease all HD DVD shipments by the end of March.
Unsurprisingly, Toshiba confirmed there were no plans to manufacture Blu-ray drives, but it did say it was still reviewing its PC drive strategy for HD DVD.
Needless irritations with Nokia's E51
Despite a T-Mobile store telling me it was an old model and about to be discontinued, I've finally got hold of my Nokia E51 - a phone I previewed last year.
I was impressed with the preproduction model and am equally pleased with the finished article.
There are, however, some annoyances - not least that it comes with preinstalled email accounts for AOL, NTL World and Yahoo installed as default. I wouldn't mind so much if I could actually delete these, but there appears no way to get rid of them.
It's the same story for the internet bookmarks section. Does T-Mobile really think permanent bookmarks such as Download Graphics and Download Themes are going to persuade me to one day pay for this stuff? Infuriatingly, once again, there is no way to delete them, leaving my own bookmarks (the ones I actually want) sitting down at position 11.
Another irritation is that despite a variety of ridiculous ringtones preinstalled, there wasn't a single standard 'ring-ring' tone (i.e. one that doesn't make you look like a complete fool when it goes off on the train). This left me to scour the web looking for a free one - a task that proved harder than you might think. Perhaps T-Mobile hoped I'd buy one using its helpful internet bookmarks...
Despite these grumbles, I am still very impressed with the E51. Despite coming from Nokia's business range it sports a good mix of business and entertainment features and, most importantly for me, will happily keep going for over four days on a single charge if I go easy on it.
Is the HD DVD Xbox 360 imminent?
With the Consumer Electronics Show just around the corner, the latest rumour is that Bill Gates, who will be makin
g his last CES keynote speech, will announce an HD DVD version of the Xbox 360 console.
The Xbox 360 Elite wasn't released that long ago, but aside from more storage, HDMI and a new black chassis, little had changed from the original version.
An HD DVD update would certainly make sense, but with Sony's PS3-lite shipping with a Blu-ray drive for just £299, Microsoft will have to make sure the addition of HD DVD doesn't push the price up too far.
McAfee wants to pay you to read spam
Have you ever wondered what would happen if you actually replied to all the spam and unsolicited emails you received? Well, McAfee is looking for five volunteers to spend 30 days doing just that as part of a 'Super Spam Me' research project.
The challenge is part of an academic study into the potential dangers of responding to those ‘great offers’ which pop up in your inbox from completely unknown sources (usually scammers and cyber crooks). The study aims to highlight the scams and risks web users across the world are exposed to everyday living their lives online.
The five participants will be paid £300 in return for letting a team of academics read all the spam they receive for a month.
If you are interested in taking part, please send an email giving details of your age, gender, occupation, daytime phone number and the average number of hours you spend online to superspam@redconsultancy.com
Twin-tuner PVR for under £50 - while stocks last
Those still using VHS tapes to record TV shows will be interested in Goodman's latest offer.
The company is selling its GHDD1785DVBT PVR, which includes two digital tuners and an 80GB hard drive, for just £49.99. There is, however, a catch - there are only 50 of the half-price PVRs available.
An 80GB hard drive isn't great for a PVR and will only store around 40 hours of TV, but at this price you really can't grumble that much.
Head to the Goodmans site at 10am on Monday morning (10th December) to be in with a chance of buying one at the cut-down price - they'll go on a first come first served basis.
Should I upgrade to Nokia's N95? Orange doesn't think so
After months of anguish, I finally decided to upgrade to the Nokia N95 - a phone I reviewed back in April.
The only real stumbling block for me is the battery life, but having lived with the power-hungry N70 for a year or so I decided I could cope with having to charge it pretty much every day.
What I wasn't expecting was for Orange, my network operator, to basically tell me not to get the N95. The customer services assistant first asked me why I wanted to upgrade to the N95 specifically - which I though was a little odd - then proceeded to say that Orange has had some "very negative feedback" on the N95, including bad battery life, sat nav that keeps losing its connection and regular application freezes.
Just to be sure, I asked whether Orange was recommending people don't upgrade to the N95, to which the answer was "yes".
I ended up finishing the call without getting my N95 and in a slight daze that Orange is so critical about the flagship phone of the world's biggest mobile manufacturer.
