Oh no, where'd Magee go?

Subject: Long live Magee!!
Dear sirs,

I never met Mr. Magee, but I've followed him in his reporting endevours because he is simply the best. One time I emailed the publicly available email address with just a small remark (nothing like an actual news tip or anything), and he actually responded. Considering that it must've been 0200 hours over there in Europe, and that it was just a remark rather than something useful, that left me with an incredibly positive opinion of the man.

When I read the title, I feared was another falling out, but I see that he's just "retiring."

Yeah, right. Undoubtly he'll be back, because reporting and causing trouble it's in his blood.

I wish the best to Mr. Magee, his family, and I'll toast to him tonight.

Cheers,

Giovanni Vajna de Pava

Subject: Leaving the Inquirer...
Dear Mike,

I've just read the sad news that you are leaving the Inquirer.

Thanks a lot for everything in the past years, I hope you will be back with a new project.

Wishing you the best for the future,

Endrik

Subject: great days
Hi Mike,

Sorry to see you go. Has been a great 7 years read. Seen some great days pass, and a lot of rubbish ones. Somehow I think the rubbish ones were more fun to write about.

Wish you well in whatever you do in the future and all that jazz.

regards and respect,

Graeme

Subject: WindowsVista/Windows7
I am an atheist and therefore I do not believe in the concept of evil but if I did a known think I could find anything or anyone that is closer to a definition of evil than Microsoft. This is a self-serving Corporation who continues to peddle junk for billions of dollars. It will be difficult for you to convince me that Microsoft was not well aware of the failures of Vista as indeed they were well aware of the probable failures of millennium long before it was released upon an unsuspecting public. Vista, Bob, and Millennium, are just examples of a deeper malaise within this corporation. Something is going to have to be done sooner or later. If we do not take some action this ugly Corporation will continue to ship garbage programs to the whole world. The programs are garbage on so many levels that it would take me literally hours to tell the story. Bill Gates has now moved on and will take the rest of his life to spend his ill-gotten gains. There is a movement afoot in various locations around the world to move away from Windows. Whole countries are looking at askance at Microsoft in the scrap that they produce. I sincerely hope that someone will come along with the guts and the balls to put a stop to Microsoft before they destroy the entire web and take down the financial system with it. Keep writing about these creeps Egan. The more exposure we give to this horrific corporations conning of the entire planet the sooner we can hope for resolution.

I am also having a lot of trouble with the idea of this foolish verification code. This annoys me to no end and I sincerely hope you folks will get rid of it. Reminds me a lot of Microsoft.

L Babcock

Subject: firefox
You obviously do not program in html? Firefox is very limited in which effects can be used AND I disagree with the numbers you are quoting, linux fan..:

Check hitslink for other figures.

IE7 linguishes? Does the word Linguish mean Increase?

lgf

Subject: Blizzards

I know....It must be 'global warming' causing these blizzards. This so called 'global warming' is causing the beautiful country of 'Greenland' to freeze over. *sarcasm*

Have a good day

Brett J. Mueller

PS.
I drink my first cup of coffee every morning and read your website, it is addictive.

Subject: google?
are you kidding me? how has google _INFLUENCED_ anything?

Sorry.. they're a one-trick pony.. yeah they made search better.. but it was about a decade ago, not in 2003 or nothing rofl

and google is _NOT_ worth more than IBM or Oracle.. I mean.. WTF is wrong with you guys

what a bunch of homos.. sorry that you guys don't have a MSDN license and you think that linux is 'worth the effort'.

I don't think that it is.. if your webserver isn't worht $349 then I don't know what the heck you're doing wrong

and how are these intel guys so -influential- sorry.. they made processors.. big friggin deal

how about AMD? They invented x64 and first to come out with dual core chips for windows?

Intel let 64-bit chips launguish for a decade.. I was taught in college that the itanium was going to take over the world.. HP and INTEL were spending 100 Billion on it.. and it was going to be the bee's knees.

Looks like someone forgot to include AMD on your list; AMD has had more innovation than Intel in the past decade.

And Bill Gates mother friggin rocks kids..

Go get a new processor and a couple of GB of ram..

I personally skipped from Windows 2000 to Windows Vista.. so I was ready for some artsy fartsy crap

Aaron

Subject: " Vole"
Why is Microsoft referred to as "Vole"?

Comport

Subject: The most important inventor missing from the list of influential techies

John Von Neumann invented program code consisting of instructions; the way ALL computers made after 50's are programmed.

Nobody uses Turing machines in real life, everyone uses Von Neumann machines.

hkultala

Subject: FYI mister!

Actually the winvistaclub is a pro-vista site run by a indian microsoft employee called Mr.anand K of pune.

He,and his company Microsoft is just denying this just to make sure vista will not get any harm from rumors of windows 7 releasing.

In reality,most underground M$ spygeeks knows that windows 7 is releasing on mid of 2009 for sure.so,I think Mr.Egan,you should add this detail to ur article as well.

let the people choose to believe it or NOT?
-windows XP is here to stay atleast for 3-4 years :p

AS

Subject: Windows 7 and...
the end of the world will be released on December 21, 2012

Tom Condon

Subject: dvi to hdmi
At least they are the same spec graphically, and a cheap adapter gets you - minus the audio - from dvi to hdmi.

kenbob

Subject: Pipex
Dear Inq,

enjoy reading your website on a daily basis, which admittedly is much hampered due to a lack of a broadband connection at home.

Just wondering if you are interested in my story of Pipex "upgrading" people which results in them losing their broadband service. I have been without broadband since around the 16th of December and still have not been re-provisioned.

I have been with Pipex on an 8mb line, since 4th April last year after migrating from Tiscali(!!!). On the 18th of December I returned home to no ADSL. Pipex said that the line had been ceased in error and would send a request for provisioning to re-provision the line.

From the 2nd of January onwards I have been persuing an activation date from Pipex. They have given me some of the most ridiculous information I have ever heard.

The first reason that I was without a service was apparently to move me off a BT line to their LLU equipment in order to give me a "performance" increase over the BT line that I had previously used without issue.

My local exchange only gives a maximum data rate of 6.5Mbps, so I cant see how moving me between a BT line and a LLU line will change that performance. Despite multiple failed orders to provision me on their LLU equipment, they have not re-provisioned me back on the BT line, despite numerous requests to do so from the 3rd of january.

I asked them as to why they did not notify me as the customer to this service disruption, to which their response is "it always works so there is no need".

I also received two letters from Pipex saying that the activation date would be the 13th of January (which is a Sunday) and a second letter to say that they could not provide me the service at the speed that I requested. I called them up repeatedly about this to which I was guaranteed a working service by 12noon on the 11th of January. The 13th of January is a Sunday and I dont know any ISP that activates broadband over a weekend.

After repeated attempts to speak to a Customer Service Manager, I eventually spoke to Sam Page as a customer services manager on the 14th of January. She told me that they were taking the problem seriously but could not also explain the fact that Pipex tech support told me that I was essentially being treated as a new customer as my login details changed. She also said that this was Tiscalis problem as they provide the backbone connectivity and that they believed its a fault due to them. On speaking with Tiscali, they advised me that Tiscali only resells the LLU equipment to Pipex Homecall and they were no issues with Pipex provisioning the broadband, and that Pipex provisioning had a call in their Remedy software sitting since the 3rd of January to rectify the fault.

My wife received a call last night from another customer services manager (Mugda Sharma) to advise me that were waiting for a response from Tiscali and the update would not be for another 7 days.

I wonder if I ever will receive broadband at home at this point, despite calling and chasing this issue with them repeatedly. Even though I have asked for them to speak to me directly I get the impression they are just trying to avoid me, as one customer services adviser had pointed out that a lot of existing customers have been experiencing these problems.

Makes you kind of wonder that Pipex are cutting off existing customers to satisfy demand for newer customers.

Would love your thoughts on this since it seems that Pipex are regularly shafting people like this and are still getting away with it and not doing enough to fix the problem in a timely manner which is what you would expect from an ISP that so proudly states

"We're No 1 for both 'Quality of Connection' and 'Ease of use'." by the uSwitch survey 2007.

many thanks,

Mark

Subject: vista made to be more compatible with spwyare
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943302

I was just patching up my vista system today and noticed that spyware WinAntivirus Pro 2007 was on the list of programs to be made moe compatible... just thought it was odd microsoft would do this. I mean do you really wanna change windows so spyware works properly on it? The very sign your system is sputtering dead should be a sign with flashing lights and laser beams.

The patch is probably to keep computers from crashing when it has winantivirus on it but it should be noted that is spyware.

It's what i would call a virus to my tech support callers because i dont have 10minutes to explain to every single person what exactly spyware is and why people want to put this on their computer. Also why they should call their bank to change their card info and get credit protection or identity lock service to prevent a real catastrophe.

weird wild stuff

Dicobalt

Subject: Validity of Slashdot's Poll...
I for one still use XP, and am comfortable with it. I'm interested in Windows 7, but if it's anything like Vista, count me out.

That said, it should hold SOME promise. I hope. Maybe. ...well, probably not. But here's to hoping. Ha.

In any case, Slashdot wouldn't even be close to "indicative" of a decent sample. You're looking at the Top 10% of people as far as "nerdiness" goes (if such a thing can be qualified)...certainly not a typical fair/balanced SRS.

The sheep have little in common with the geeks, hence why Vista is still doing fairly well, and why Jobs is still pawning over-priced shiny plastic.
If the majority actually had a decent concept of price-performance and someone bought them some anti-PR bunny spray, the world would be a much better place.

Trevor

PS. I like the publishing of letters more than comments. Something to cheer over when you actually make the page.

Subject: OS/2
I didn't think that OS/2 was much used any more but one of the big banks teller machines here in Australia at my local shopping centre had frozen with an OS/2 Warp logo showing. The machine was made by Phillips I think, so maybe IBM doesn't want to release the code for reasons other than MS intellectual property.

Dog

Subject: your leavetaking
Hey Mikey

What the hell is this business about you leaving. That is unacceptable. If you leave who am I going to hassle about language issues and other things? I've always enjoyed the answers that you give because they give me insight into a hideously sharp intellect. I can hardly wait to receive the Inquirer Monday mornings. There's always something there to make me laugh and to piss me off. I like both of them although I think I enjoy being annoyed them more than I enjoy the other things. The word is that you will not be retiring. I wish you well in future endeavors.

Lorne Babcock Sr.

Subject:Slightly stiffed
If you compare the US price against the Japan price and account for the 5% vat in Japan, the exchange rate being used is about 116 yen to the dollar.

It is actually about 107 at the moment, but that is historically low - 116 is a pretty reasonable rate to work on for a programme that will last some time where currencies can be expected to fluctuate. So - all in all - fairly reasonable. Japan will be cheaper than the US if the dollar goes above 116/7 - which is quite likely.

For the UK before Vat, the price is about 85quid, with the dollar/pound at 206. So for parity the dollar would have to be 150. So - Brits ARE getting shafted.

Nick

Subject: Good story
Good story man

Chiswickken

Subject: Apple does it again

It looks like Apple found a way to make non-proprietary hardware proprietary. Apparently the Nvidia 8800 upgrade kit they sell for their Mac Pros will only work in the ones shipped last week. The card is PCIE v2, but to get around that pesky backwards compatibility with PCIEv1 they made the bios on the card will only work with 64bit EFI and not the 32bit version they have on all previous Mac Pros.

Michael Smith

Subject: Mike Magee to leave the INQUIRER
I Knew Somethings Wrong When I Saw Msr. Magee Building New Computer At PC World With BLACK Apron On. (Black Is Symbol Of Death).

Todays Been BLACK FRIDAY For Dozens of Friends.

Michael, Where Will We Read TRUE Inside Story, Now? HEY-Mike, Wake Up to NEW Lifestyle: Ultie_Mike.LOL

Signed:PHYSICIAN THOMAS STEWART VON DRASHEK M.D.

Subject: Mike Magee's departure
Well, if he decides to come to Singapore, let me know so I can buy him a pint or 5. ;)

rashkae

Subject: He was crap anyway
Good riddance, he was crap anyway, as is this site. Take some journalism classes you lot.

Willy Wonkless