Who cares about Estonia or Bosnia?

Yes, they truly are staggeringly stupid. What do you expect when you place total allegiance in a vendor. They should know by now that the worm-eaten Apple has a management mantra: BOHICA! (Bend over, here it comes again).

Steve should have just ignored the ignorati and kept the money. Nothing like pure unbridled capitalism. Ah, isn't greed just wonderful?

P.T. Barnum continues to accurately portray the human condition, "There's a sucker born every minute."

Laughing at all the phemonenally dense Apple fanbois (doesn't have one Apple marketed item in my life, living in total bliss,)

Rich Wargo

The Stupids really earn their name if they think their $100 credit on the iPhone is enough. Apple reportedly earns up to of 100% profit margins on their products. This means that this "$100" is really only worth about $50 in "reality."

Also, a $50 credit to an Apple store is worth "$0" in "reality."

Way to get fleeced again, stupids. You clamored and waited in line for hours just to turn your $200 into 100 iTunes songs. Most of which, I'm sure are freely available on the net.

However, the real losers are the idiots who bought the 4GB, who not only lost $100 in real money, but also 4GB of storage.

Eatkimchi

That's Sir Saint Steve Jobs for you hacks in England.

Long Live OS X.
Glen L

Well, well. 100$ token for those who paid the full monty...

Apple does about 50% profit on the iPhone, right? So this could be the same with other Apple stuff. Stuff that you'd get with your token... So your token actually costs Apple 'bout 50$?

HA HA!

Dear Mr. Jobs. Try again!

Hey, and thanks for not providing the iPhone to Europe just yet, because we'd be p*ssed as well. Since we don't have the iPay here, we can't be upset!

HA HA!

Thorsten

So Apple has decided to include WI-FI into it's iPod. One question though, where is the social? I see no music sharing like the Zune. Or even WI-FI syncing.

The iPod Nano looks like it has the same proportions of the Zen V Series, something which will shock the Apple fangurls.

So we have seen a half arsed attempt from Apple to refresh it's iPod line. It has copied the name of the HTC Touch and it's nano looks awfully like a Creative Device. Add salt into the wounds, Apple desperately drops the price of its iPhone by $200. Despite the loyal legion of fanbois, there is a scream and Jobs is forced to give a $100 Apple voucher which is very crud if you ask me, especially when you consider the mark up on Apple devices.

Liam Billington

Virgin Media reverts to dinosaur call rounding days

I suspect your item may be a little misleading as BT and I TalkTalk both changed back to per minute billing recently. Virgin is, unfortunatly a follower rather than a leader here.

From BTs website
2.1 BT Together Options 1, 2 and 3

BT Telephony Services Terms and Conditions apply. BT Together options are not applicable to some lines and services. Most calls will be rounded up to the minute.

http://www2.bt.com/static/i/btretail/consumer/update/informed.html#1-1

I think BT started it (I get line rental off them so saw it in their bumff) then TalkTalk (I'm CPS with them) followed suit and virgin followed them. All very depressing.

Interestingly BT announced this as a price cut as the /minute rate went down even though it results in a price rise for many calls!

John

Bosnian embassy website uncannily similar to Estonian one

so from a short climpse at the html and after looking at the makers page of the estonian page i come to my conclusion that the bosnian page is a cheap rip off of the estonian page...

as from the html, inspiral.net made the estonian one...

Name supplied

hi,

i read Your article and checked some stuff...im pretty sure it was bosnian site that copyd estonian site, since this is the same file whats at estonian embassy site, Containing alot of Estonian language. and bosnian embassy site was in 2007 april like this when estonian embassy site was done as it is now in 2006 november ( http://web.archive.org/web/20061102164425/http://www.estemb.org/ ) if it matters or someone cares at all :P just pointing that out.

cheers

What are you talking about? It's just two minor sites looking the same. Who cares? Honestly, I understand if it's sometimes hard to find something to write about but this is going a little bit too far.

Pfizer computers zombied

I knew this day would come. This has been happening since I was an Exchange Admin for them over 2 years ago. There were so many open relays internally that getting removed from being blacklisted is nearly a full time job.

Pfizer has many internal issues from poor management to people that can't be fired by the existing manager because they are good friends with their managers manager. How do you fire someone who is friends with your manager? They can't fire this guy because he plays poker with my manager so we needs a guinea pig so fire that tech instead. Several levels of management needs to be removed to correct the problems at Pfizer.

I remember pointing out DNS issues within the company design to be reprimanded for it. I was told it doesn't make a difference because they all replicate the information. Ok by that logic if I buy my groceries from a store 50 miles away is the same as buying them from my local grocery store even if the prices are the same. I guess traffic and routes have no effect on a corporate network. That's the easiest way to explain that scenario. About 6 months after I left they amazingly discovered they had DNS design issues which I'm not sure they understand enough to properly correct.

Pfizer's messaging management and staff have created such a money scam for themselves that they won't let anyone in their little group. Does it make sense that the highest paid people in the company are the ones doing tedious items like mailbox moves which is something a low level monkey can do in exchange? Yet management lets it go or turns a blind eye to it all or try's to cover it with blending in a few low levels in the mix which are just guinea pigs when they top dogs mess things up again.

When they make a mistake they can get away with blaming other techs for their issues this includes management. I have seen many a good tech let go yet it was not thier fault it was one of the good ole boys. 2 of those people who were let go are now Microsoft engineers for exchange so they werent bad tech's they were just burned by the internal crews of Pfizer.

Since you published this I would be willing to bet the people really behind the problem won't be eliminated but instead will be the so called voices of reason for the company. Instead a lot of what they consider the mid-low end techs will be eliminated instead of the real problem people who have been told for years these problems exist.

Another problem is the management is smarter than the HR staff and the management buddy system goes up high. CYA management.

Pfizer is hiring HP to take over the messaging side but I can bet that management has covered their special crews once again and are moving them into HP.

Problem solved or attention diverted?

Please leave my name out although I am sure they will be able to figure out who I am.

More Apple flak

Apple's spin in it:

"You know what? It's a goddamn privilege that we let you buy the iPhone so cheap at USD599. You know who are the real losers? Those wanna be bandwagoners that can't afford to pay the first adapter's price. That's what separates you from masses. You have the money to be first. You see, we can't let too many people into that club.

That's why we are slashing prices. It's for the losers. You know they are posers when you ask them how much they bought it for and they tell you got it at the loser's price. Rebel in your status man. For you are the elitist, a truly a real Apple Fanboy."

Well done, Charlie. Those Applelites need some head unscrewing but if truth be told, it won't make a difference. Not one bit. It's just entertainment for those who are not Apple zombies. This sort of mesmerism is merely humans giving vent to having some meaning for existing otherwise, they have no reason to live for. We are ALL, without exception, mesmerised by one thing or another. Some stupid, some right at the other end, like some co-ed giving a genital wash a'la ora, and the recepient is merely some President at that time. You can't get more mesmerised than that even though the satisfactant was to remarked that, “Because it is do-able..”.

Having said all the above, entertainment should tranlate onto a higher purpose and that is getting to the truth about what makes people tick. And the answer is not, “Because it is do-able” but “Because we don't know why we are born or what we are born for”.

Of course, it is no use asking the scientific idiots or the religious lunatics for they dwell in fantasy, one manufacturing it and the other swallowing it. What makes humans tick is the Absolute Truth within every real human for that is the only aspect that unites them and whatever Relative Truths that make them tick on the outside, divide them absolutely. It is the difference between the human brain and the 3 human minds.

As such, relative entertainment, like being able to witness Apple zombies-in-action, is for making more of the same in other areas of fashion. Like a better CPU or a car or a better house. Yes, if only my wife looks and behaves like …..

Leave poor Microsoft alone!

I've been reading Inquirer for some time now, but I'm now getting a bit tired off your attitude.

You mock Vista and DRMs almost every article where it's possible, could you just try to be a bit more objective? (Vista and DRM is only example)

True, I don't like Vista nor DRMs either, but I just think a news article should be objective.

I still respect your news, I read daily your site and Daily Tech.

And no, I don't work for Microsoft or anything, just a normal student from Finland.

Sami Perttilä

Intel's 'Moore's Law' redefined by BBC

My.... i knew britain was a great empire. i do admire brits and if i were smarter i would have moved there 20 years ago.

Nevertheless i didn't know you had potatoes so large that you can actually double year on and year offthe number of computers you can put on 'em....

Say, are those OGM? And... if you use 'em for fish and chips, what kind of fish would that be? White Shark? A whale, perhaps?

Cheers,
Andrea

Nvidia, Linux and Dammit

Hello,

I found this quote rather laughable in the article mentioned in the subject:

"Oddly, major competitor Nvidia hasn't had any problems supporting Linux for years. µ"

Last I checked, which was just a short time ago, they don't support OpenGL acceleration in their open source drivers for Linux or BSD. The drivers included in X.org and XFree86 are based on some code from Nvidia, but they provide no 3D acceleration.

Furthermore I have an older Nvidia chipset, and they refuse to fix issues with the driver, relating to Xvideo and modern extensions to X11, such as Render, and Composite. To quote from the README that the NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-7185-pkg provides:

"Enables GLX even when the Composite X extension is loaded. ENABLE AT YOUR OWN RISK. OpenGL applications will not display correctly in many circumstances with this setting enabled. Default: GLX is disabled when Composite is loaded."

GLX is used for accelerated OpenGL.

Also, the Xvideo extension doesn't work with Composite enabled (again from the README):

"XVideo and the Composite X extension XVideo will not work correctly when Composite is enabled. See (app-u) APPENDIX U: THE COMPOSITE X EXTENSION."

So, I wanted OpenGL with Composite, and I'm left without, unless I buy another 2 Nvidia cards, so that I can use a newer driver for my displays.

As it is their driver has a bug in it, that I can't fix. I'm also not allowed to reverse engineer this driver myself, because I already accepted the license agreement.

If they would give out the sources and/or some decent specs for their hardware, support would be better. I'd even write a driver for my new window system that is an alternative to X11 if they did that.

Alas, ATI hasn't historically been much better, but Nvidia is pretty terrible in my opinion when it comes to supporting Linux.

Regards,
George

More on the Beeb

The same article (although the original error pointed out by you has been vanquished to the great digital bucket) goes on to say;

"But silicon is getting leaky and hot as the line widths shrink down to 45 nano- microns, the width of a human hair."

Now, I have very fine hair myself which can be a real bugger to perform anything even remotely close to styling on, but hair 45nm wide?!!

Dear oh lor, at this rate we will soon be able to load spreadsheets onto our wigs.

Pfft!

Ask yourselves if the article is accurate (apart from the odd typo) and relevant to business types.

Don't let your (usually) justified criticism of the BBC's computer journalists tar this guy as well.

He ain't a computer geek. His In Business (Radio 4) program is excellent. The man can do no wrong. IMO.

Regards

Rob
Walsall

In the same bbc article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6976053.stm) they have this little nugget:

"But silicon is getting leaky and hot as the line widths shrink down to 45 nano- microns, the width of a human hair."

I don't know about you but I haven't a clue what a nano-micron is :D

They have also corrected the earlier mistake... Got to love the quality of BBC journalism.

George

"His "law", that the number of transistors on a chip doubles roughly every 24 months, has provided a roadmap for the hi-tech industry ever since he first came up with the observation in 1965."

Assuming the BBC's page was checked before the article was posted this morning, then the fact "Last Updated: Tuesday, 4 September 2007, 22:50 GMT 23:50 UK" is written along the top is highly amusing.

Brendan.

You missed a big one here surely, I quote from the the same BBC article

"But silicon is getting leaky and hot as the line widths shrink down to 45 microns, the width of a human hair."

.Intel are making 45NM chips...

A micron is 10^-6 metres, or the width of a human hair according to Mr Day, a nanometre 10^-9 metres, 1000 times smaller...

Simon