Comment Exactly same situation... why do you need N? (Score 1) 427
I need more speed than G because I have an ultrabook with no ethernet port and I store files on my server.
Comment Bittorrent Sync (Score 1) 146
I'll add my voice to the recommendations for Bittorrent Sync. It's fast, encrypted, doesn't rely on a third party hosting, and it doesn't even have to leave your LAN if you're at home. Avoiding needlessly uploading over a crappy ADSL connection is a major plus point.
Comment I for one... (Score 1) 257
I for one welcome our military petrol-powered gigantic robot flea overlords.
Submission + - Valve introduces Steam Controller - "A different kind of gamepad" (steampowered.com)
lga writes: Valve's new Steam Controller looks very different to a conventional one. Sporting two circular trackpads instead of sticks, each one has a resolution that "approaches that of a desktop mouse." The controller has a clickable screen in the middle and 16 other buttons.
Haptics play a big part in the precision of the controller, "capable of delivering a wide range of force and vibration, allowing precise control over frequency, amplitude, and direction of movement" although "employing dual linear resonant actuators" sounds like a recipe for a resonance cascade.
The controller is also designed to work with older games by emulating a keyboard and mouse, which should aid Valve in bringing PC games to the living room with SteamOS and Steam Machines. It should be available in 2014.
Haptics play a big part in the precision of the controller, "capable of delivering a wide range of force and vibration, allowing precise control over frequency, amplitude, and direction of movement" although "employing dual linear resonant actuators" sounds like a recipe for a resonance cascade.
The controller is also designed to work with older games by emulating a keyboard and mouse, which should aid Valve in bringing PC games to the living room with SteamOS and Steam Machines. It should be available in 2014.
Comment Terminal... (Score 1) 300
I installed the links browser just so I could pick the first option.
Comment Re:Hardly anyone affected by this (Score 1) 230
Yes, that is what the "except for those over 65" bit at the end of my sentence was about.
Comment Hardly anyone affected by this (Score 4, Informative) 230
Yes, it's crap that applying for these benefits requires ancient browser tech, but note that this is for three specific benefits which will affect hardly anyone. The most common of these benefits, Disability Living Allowance, is closed to new applicants because it has been replaced by Personal Independence Payments. And Attendance Allowance was long ago replaced by DLA, now replaced by PIP except for those over 65.
Comment Re:Gmail (Score 1) 282
The other privacy fear apart from adverts is open access for the state to trawl through Gmail's servers at will.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/03/26/andrew_weissmann_fbi_wants_real_time_gmail_dropbox_spying_power.html
Of course here in the UK the government want to intercept communications before they even get to Google's servers so the only real answer is a vpn and a private mail server in some other country.
Comment Gmail (Score 5, Informative) 282
Best method of storing and searching old email? Gmail. It can import from pop and imap so you can point it at your other inboxes and let it get on with it.You can upload from other mail clients to Google's imap server. Obviously it's amazing at searching through the archives.
Best method if you're concerned about Gmail's privacy? I'm still working on that one.
Comment Re: Processing power and scalability (Score 1) 93
The Model A Raspberry Pi has been available for the last week.
Ask Slashdot: How Should Tech Conferences Embrace Diversity? 343
An anonymous reader writes "The Register is reporting on how debate over diversity has managed to get a Ruby conference in the UK cancelled, as the speakers were 100% white male. The person running the conference, Chuck Hardy, said he 'was not prepared to put [himself] in the position of legal liability and cost ramifications if a sponsor were to pull out under social media strain.' He added, 'The ramifications of comments such as race and gender can have financial and legal consequences for the conference organizer. Raise these issues but allow the conference organizers the chance to highlight and act on these industry level issues. Accusation and slander is not a solution.' Should conferences embrace diversity from the start, or should they go forward even if the speakers are all of the same denomination? How far do we have to go to ensure we are diverse?"
Comment Unanswered questions (Score 2) 358
This product doesn't quite add up.
I've watched the video of their presentation at DEMO and the concept is basically a 4U box containing 120 hard drives and has three fans on the front. They claim it takes 45% less power, 66% less space and 38% less heat output.
I can see that requiring less power for cooling would reduce the overall power consumption, but can't see how pumping the same heat out of three fans would achieve that. They also don't say how these drives are interfaced. Presumably there is some kind of controller in the box since there aren't 120 SAS connections coming out of it, but somewhere you have to have a server in charge of those disks and a connection with enough bandwidth to run them all. And then we need to know if there is any RAID intelligence in the boxes or if the server gets them as JBOD.
Comment Re:Starting 05/09/2012 (Score 2) 194
Oops...that should read 9/5/12.
May was three months ago!
I'm in the UK.
Comment Starting 05/09/2012 (Score 4, Informative) 194
I should have said in the summary that this all starts on the 5th of September.
Submission + - Productivity and creativity software coming to Steam
lga writes: "Valve announced today in a press release that they are expanding Steam beyond games and will start to deliver other software. This means that Steam will compete directly with Microsoft's Windows Store and perhaps explains some of Gabe's disdain for Windows 8. The ability to save documents to Steam Cloud space also brings Valve into competition with the likes of Dropbox and Skydrive.
According to the press release:
According to the press release:
"The Software titles coming to Steam range from creativity to productivity. Many of the launch titles will take advantage of popular Steamworks features, such as easy installation, automatic updating, and the ability to save your work to your personal Steam Cloud space so your files may travel with you.
