Chrome’s shine getting lost in translation

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

Google’s developers might be as smart as a Savile Row suit with a masters degree in quantum physics, but sometimes software makers can be too clever for their own good.

Take Google Chrome, for six years the browser of choice for your correspondent. It’s clean, fast and simple, yet increasingly it tries to second guess how I want to browse the web.

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Hokum watch: Safer Internet Day

Tuesday, February 7th, 2012

It’s Safer Internet Day! The day on which we’re meant “to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology”, according to the official website. Instead, it seems many companies are using it to peddle irresponsible nonsense. Here’s just a few of those we’ve found – let us know if you find any more on comments below, and we’ll update the blog.

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Prepare to be patronised: it’s Safer Internet Day

Monday, February 6th, 2012

Nowhere, in a world full of vacuous guff, are grown adults treated with such unbridled contempt as when it comes to “advice” for keeping your children safe online.

Exhibit A: the latest video from the Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre (CEOP), a staggeringly insulting four minutes of patronising, big-budget twaddle, that’s about as informative and entertaining as getting an enema from Charles Bronson. I challenge you to watch all three minutes and 59 seconds of it, without wishing to punch someone in the face, primarily yourself.

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Dear Sony, Samsung and every other tech company in the world: stop trying to be Apple

Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

Given a choice, I can’t think of any technology company that wouldn’t like to have what Apple has. A proprietary system that ties people in every step of the way: the device in their pocket, on their desk, and pretty much all the content that sits within them. (more…)

CES: Why booth babes are bad marketing

Monday, January 16th, 2012

I spent last week in Las Vegas, which is always a bit strange for women, surrounded as you are by very pretty ladies, in very little — and often very sparkly — “clothes”. I’m speaking, of course, not of the casinos or bars, but of CES and its numerous “booth babes”.

The BBC did an excellent piece on the subject — if you haven’t seen it yet, the video is here, and it’s well worth watching — interviewing female tech journalists, marketing staff, booth babes and CES head honcho Gary Shapiro.

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Warranties, app stores and me

Friday, January 6th, 2012

My late uncle and I were very different people. Despite being the two ‘fixers’ in the family, the ones who got the busted kettles and the snapped gear cables from the rest of the clan, we were poles apart in one area: our approach to warranties. Even though he would keep his cars going for 20 years, he had a very sharp understanding of what should be his responsibility, and what was down to the vendor.

Actually, that’s an understatement. Woe betide the firm whose slipshod customer handling captured his attention. Once the horn-rimmed specs and the Brylcreemed bonce were aimed in their direction, he would pursue them relentlessly, his measured drawl torturing their receptionists until they actually did put him through to the MD or the Company Secretary (which incidentally is still quite a good one to try, since chancers seldom know enough about company law and structure to try that route).

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New TweetDeck: more mainstream, less flexible

Saturday, December 10th, 2011

The TweetDeck desktop client has seen a major overhaul, with a move away from Adobe Air and a whole new approach to accounts and feeds. It’s all very snazzy, with a blue theme and some very welcome touches: I’ve long loved Tweetlist’s highlighted usernames and links, so they’re very welcome here, and tweet boxes that scale dynamically to the length of the tweet are long overdue. That’s the positives covered.

On to the not-so-positives. The tweet box now pops up and steals the focus until you close it. A small change, you might think, but I regularly half-write tweets while I keep reading those of others, then react as I go. Sometimes I leave a tweet for ten minutes to decide whether it should really be sent (it usually shouldn’t). This prevents that, and it’s totally unnecessary. You also can’t send a tweet using Enter, and if you think you can go to Settings and change that, you can’t – it’s been pared back to the idiot-proof basics.

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Dell’s misleading graphics card buying advice

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011

Dell should be commended for going out of its way to help novice PC buyers, but its entry for choosing a graphics card — accessible by clicking the “Help me choose” link when customising various Optiplex models — contains a glaring and potentially expensive error, as spotted by Reddit users.

While the text is basic, it’s accurate enough for beginners. Instead, it’s the image that contains a dangerous chunk of misinformation.

The monitor on the left, labelled as a PC that uses a “standard graphics card”, is displaying a Windows desktop that’s washed out and blurry. The seemingly identical Dell TFT on the right, powered by a “high-end graphics card”, is showing the same desktop – but this time it’s much sharper and more vivid. They’re both outputting at the same resolution. (more…)

Apple: IP protectors or patent trolls?

Wednesday, August 31st, 2011

Apple’s recent behaviour has been understandably overshadowed by Steve Jobs’ resignation, but it’s been on the warpath over the past few weeks – with Samsung in Cupertino’s crosshairs.

Apple’s already tried, and failed, to have the Galaxy Tab 10.1 banned, and new documents reveal that Apple’s now gone through the Dutch courts to get the rest of Samsung’s Galaxy family pulled from the shelves.

The problem? Patents. Apple already has one that seemingly prohibits competitors from producing rectangular computers, and its latest IP claim is just as vague, concerning the mere act of scrolling through pictures on touchscreens. It’s so vague, in fact, that Apple has been accused of manipulating images to make Samsung’s devices appear more like Cupertino’s kit than they really are. (more…)

Six stupid things said about Steve Jobs

Thursday, August 25th, 2011

Steve Jobs has — as you’ve heard, no doubt — stepped down as CEO of Apple. He hasn’t retired; he’s now chairman of the board. And, despite many publications clearly running their pre-prepared obituaries as “profiles”, he hasn’t died.

His departure as CEO is clearly big news, the end of an era, and, given that it’s inevitably down to his poor health, quite sad. No matter what you think of Apple, its products and how it operates, Jobs at the head of that company was a powerful combination.

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