Disqus - Latest Comments for og01

Re: Php Nuget Server

Paul Grove — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 09:37:10 -0000

I am also getting exactly the same in 4.0.0.1
edit: scratch that I was missing pacakges php-zip and php-xml

Re: Hands-on: Dell Venue Pro 11 review - Windows 8.1 Tablet

Paul Grove — Fri, 06 Jun 2014 07:15:49 -0000

There are 3 versions of the dell venue 11 pro, and I think some reviews overlook the cheaper atom based version of the tablet. I got my tablet (with the mobile internet option) at an auction (not online), I wasn't expecting to buy it, but having used it for a a few weeks here is my review of the tablet.

The Good:

Running a 32bit version of windows 8, the tablet is capable of running any application that you could normally run on a desktop PC.

The latest atom processor isn't a power house, however I have been more than impressed with its performance. The tablet boots up exceptionally quickly, in under 30 seconds. and the user interface is as smooth as butter, web browsing is a breeze, and scrolling is smooth on even the most complex of websites.

Performance wise, I have no benchmarks to give you, but as an example, I've installed steam, and have installed and played a few games, including Portal 2, plugged in an xbox 360 controller (into the full size usb port) and it played perfectly well at a decent framerate, albeit with some of the graphical options turned down, it was very impressive. Also Civ5 works well too!

Not specific to this tablet, Steam's new in-house streaming works very well also, allowing me to play my steam games at full graphics, streamed from my desktop onto the tablet while around the house. I'm seriously considering buying the dock to use the tablet as a games console connected to the TV.

I've also installed XBMC and MythTV, and being able to watch TV over a network share throughout the house is a joy.

I am a software developer, and while my intended purpose for the tablet is more entertainment rather than productivity, I've installed my usual array of software tools, (cygwin, scp/ftp clients, git, vim, etc), all of which start up and run just as well as they do on my powerhouse desktop. However with a weak processor and only 2GB of ram, its not like I'm going to be spinning up any Virtual Machines or anything.

The screen is beautifull, better than a lot of other tablets I've seen, although as mentioned in many reviews, disable the auto brightness - it just gets it wrong all the time.

And also its worth mentioning that the cheap atom model has no fans or moving parts and is completely silent, the more expensive i5 has exhaust fans.

Battery life is amazing. I dunno, I havn't timed it, it can run all day like a mobile phone, even with fairly heavy use (see playing portal 2) then if you get the keyboard it lasts even longer. The review above says they expect the slightly smaller battery in the cheaper model means that it will last even less - but they havnt taken into account that the atom processer draws a lot less power, and that there are no fans to run, I have no proof, but judging by the above review, I recon that the battery lasts longer in the cheaper model.

The the atom version is comparably good value, I got mine for £350 at auction, and I see on ebay that the device can be had for a similar price. Even direct from dell the atom processor version is only £439 far cheaper the Microsoft Surface 2, and far more usefull running windows 8 rather than the very limited windows RT. while slightly more expensive that the Asus T100, the dell has a better screen, and the build quality is apparently higher.

There are two types of keyboard for the Dell, other reviews say the mobile (bigger) keyboard is far nicer and has an extra battery, so that is the one I bought. It's nice to type on, and although it has no numpad (or even alt keys for the numpad). it does have everything else, including everything one might need to write code :)

The keyboard essentially turns the tablet into a laptop, great if you can't decided what type of device you actually want (like me), or if you need the flexibility.

Finally windows 8 actually works OK on a tablet, even if it doesn't seem to make sense on a regular desktop PC.

The Bad:

Dell's update software - out of the box - seemed broken, I wanted to update to the latest drivers using the included dell software, and it seemed to a) not show all the available updates, b) fail to install the optional updates that it did find.

I thought I had updated my tablet to the latest drivers, however it turned out that I was 3 or 4 versions behind.

Without the latest drivers the tablet was jittery and crashed a lot, the wifi was slow for no reason, and the tablet battery would discharge before the additional keyboard battery - making it useless.

I found however that if I went to the dell website and entered my service tag id there were many updates - most importantly the bios update to version A07 and the latest wireless driver and a few registry fixes that sort out connection issues with the keyboard, now I have no complaints, the device works perfectly.

After installing these updates manually, the dell update software seemed to sort itself out and I think it is detecting new updates correctly now and more importantly the device is performing really well.

Dell deserve a lot of flak for releasing a device with so many issues and they deserve even more flak for their driver update software not working correctly - I'm sure there are many people out there who do not realise that their devices are not up to date, and are putting up with an unreliable and buggy device.

I'm sure this has heavily hurt the reputation of Dell and this device.

However if you manually update then, in my case at least, I'm exceptionally happy.

Other negatives for the cheaper version at least, is the limited drive space, 64GB is not a lot, your left with closer to 40GB after taking into account the windows installation, and if you install large games and applications then you quickly run out.

While the tablet is cheap, it doesnt come with the keyboard or dock, and both are expensive, pushing up the price of the tablet. (ebay saved me a lot of money here).

Conclusion:

The tablet far exceeded my expectations, well, after fully updating the device anyway. I didn't believe the atom processor and integrated graphics would work so well.

The device - after updating is rock solid - Everything is working as it should do, and the device hasn't rebooted in over a week (my shell I opened last week is still open and running!).

Space is limited on my cheaper model but I've put a 64GB SD card into my tablet and this helps a lot, I've moved my games and larger applications onto the SD card, the games load slower - but it works. (if you do use a SD card, reformat it as NTFS, I had a lot of issues with exFAT).

My impulse buy at the auction really paid off for me, and after looking at the alternatives in detail, I think I have the right tablet. I don't feel like I need or even want the more powerful i5 version of the Venue 11 Pro (although I do slightly envy the larger SSD), and I don't miss android or iOS, preferring the ability to run regular windows applications, windows RT is a big fail.

This device is useful. I feared that if I got a tablet would end up in a drawer unused - so I didn't want to spend a huge amount on one. But I don't have this fear any more, me and my wife use the tablet every day, its a second portable TV and a comfortable device for web browsing, a travel laptop for when we go away, and even unexpectedly a portable gaming platform and a power game console for the TV (xbox 360 controllers highly recommended).

Highly recommended. 9/10. One of my best purchases.

Re: Jewellery Web Shop

Paul Grove — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 15:24:21 -0000

I'm so proud!

Re: Engadget UK Giveaway: win a Samsung Galaxy S III courtesy of Expansys!

Paul Grove — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 08:10:17 -0000

\o/ need to replace my aging HTC Desire!

Re: UK High Court rules ISPs to block Pirate Bay, forgets it ain't the boss anymore

Paul Grove — Fri, 04 May 2012 10:32:20 -0000

Yes - people don't want them, unless they are free.

The shiny content we get isn't worth it, I'm happy to go without the huge media industries if it means I keep my rights.

The music Industry in particular spends huge amounts in production and advertising, when artists these days can produce and become popular without these high investments. More effective and realistic awareness will come from more modern means such as twitter trending for example.

These Industries will shrink because of technology, and change is hard, but with technology the in the hands of the people, it is all but inevitable.

There may be an initial drop in production quality, but people will still make entertaining things and people will get better at making them - and like the opensource software industry they will thrive off donations and other sale avenues.

Re: Ultra HDTV technical standards agreed on, more pixels is a good thing

Paul Grove — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 12:41:54 -0000

You need to adjust your DPI settings. Without the underlying operating system knowing the pixel density of your screen it will be unable to correctly render your fonts and other media at the correct size.

You can change your DPI settings in windows - but unfortantly you wont get the granular control I desire.

Personally I think displays should calculate their DPI based on current resolution and pass this information back to the rendering device- there by producing User Interfaces which scale in quality by resolution rather than in size.

-edit-

I take that back - looking at the settings in windows 7 there is a 'Set custom text size (DPI)' option which provides granular control - and also a measurement system so you can hold a ruler up to the screen and percisly set your dpi!

Re: UK court orders ISP to block Newzbin 2 filesharing site within two weeks, Hollywood smiles

Paul Grove — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 10:39:48 -0000

Decent usenet access costs perhaps £10 a month - Content providers could be taking their share of this fee from these users - and probably the torrent crowd if they could provide a service that was just as good or better.

At the moment - Tools and programs exists that make the illegal route not only cheaper - but also bring a higher quality user experience.

With a little technological know how it is possible to setup a system where by you simply enter the name of a film - and it is automatically downloaded in whatever quality you desire, ready for you to watch at your leisure. Same goes for TV shows - enter the name of the show and it will be downloaded automatically as and when it is available - no ad breaks - no nonsense and complete collections.

Combined with a sleek home media center (perhaps with xbmc) you can get a user interface and experience that far exceeds purchasing physical media. Not only do pirates get the movie quick, free and high quality - but they also get fan art, review scores, plot summaries cast biographies and more.

Provide the same level of automation - user friendly-ness - the ability to keep keep own drm free digital copies and combine with a friendly to use sleek ad-free interface, without running their wallet dry and perhaps the MPAA will win back some lost customers.

Instead they are determined to do the opposite - more adverts, more drm, more warnings about piracy (pirates dont see these messages - paying customers do!), and more and more expensive.

-edit- wth? weird.

Re: UK court orders ISP to block Newzbin 2 filesharing site within two weeks, Hollywood smiles

Paul Grove — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 10:39:40 -0000

-edit- What? why did that double post - i only clicked once!

Re: Duke Nukem 3D is coming to Android, old rope shares soar

Paul Grove — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:25:38 -0000

http://www.dosbox.com/

Re: BT Openreach launching 300Mbps broadband in the UK - high in fibre, low in fat

Paul Grove — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 07:33:13 -0000

I dunno, they've rolled out to quite a few places now, I would get it myself - only I dont want to tie in to a 12+ month contract right now.

Re: BT Openreach launching 300Mbps broadband in the UK - high in fibre, low in fat

Paul Grove — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 07:31:23 -0000

With all respect to SJ, this comment has nothing to do with the article. Why do you feel like you have to post comments like this everywhere?

Re: BT Openreach launching 300Mbps broadband in the UK - high in fibre, low in fat

Paul Grove — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 07:27:49 -0000

Thats good, and I agree - thank god you can get this service with a reseller!

Re: BT Openreach launching 300Mbps broadband in the UK - high in fibre, low in fat

Paul Grove — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 07:25:55 -0000

FTTC should suffer only minimal loss of bandwidth, Normally the loss in bandwidth is a side effect of Cross talk and noise over copper cable, which with ADSL runs from your home to your nearest exchange (possibly around 2Km away) if you live in an area which has been outfitted with FTTC the copper portion your connection will only be as far as the end of your road.

There are other factors which might limit speed, but for most cases with FTTC you should expect a 300Mbit (or whatever you pay for) connection.

Re: LauncherPro dev's skinnable UberMusic player finally hits the Android Market

Paul Grove — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 08:40:19 -0000

video is of the Metro UI skin for the music player. It's just the skin thats a rip-off

Re: Insert Coin: YouTurn accelerometer-based turn signal system for cyclists

Paul Grove — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 06:36:56 -0000

And here I thought Samantha Carter came up with all the best tech!

Re: Quantum dots could coat the world in nano-sized solar panels

Paul Grove — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 04:45:01 -0000

http://www.dwavesys.com/en/...

Commerically avaliable Quantum Computer, recently sold to Lockheed Martin.

Re: Sony Pictures breach affects 37,500 users, far less than Lulz Security claimed

Paul Grove — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 04:27:41 -0000

You are missing the point, LulzSec isn't trying to compromise account data, they're not trying to steal peoples passwords for any sort of personal gain, it doesn’t matter how many accounts they post online, they only want to prove they can. It wouldn't surprise me that they did have the resource to take the entire db, only they haven’t based on the fact that their goal is to embarrass the industry, not to compromise people’s identity. They say their doing it for the lulz, but really what they mean to say is, "Look we're doing it for the Lulz, now imagine what I could have done if I was serious!".
My interpretation of the events is that they - like me - care about data security,
and they are here to protect the online community against incompetence.

Re: Firefox 4 is officially released, how are you liking it?

Paul Grove — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:37:36 -0000

Wait? IE? Friends dont let friends use IE

Re: Kinect hacked for home automation, does your mood lighting for you (video)

Paul Grove — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 05:42:41 -0000

Please may I refer you and your incorrect understanding of the word hacker to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

edit: reply was intended for Adam Conkle

Re: Kinect hacks let you control a web browser and Windows 7 using only The Force (updated)

Paul Grove — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 11:30:33 -0000

If you're a anybody, you can get linux (and a bunch of other stuff) for == $0

Re: ASUS DR-900 e-reader escapes into the wild, gets a video overview

Paul Grove — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 09:00:49 -0000

I have a Sony PRS-650 and a friend of mine has a Kindle 3. Side by side we both agree that the Sony is better for its far better PDF reading, touch screen, faster multiple page turns. The Kindle has wireless, 3g, web browsing, and easy access to Amazon.

I always point out that easy access to online repository of Proprietary DRMed books is probably not a good thing.

Either way, display wise they're both the same so um apples and pears.

<edit> my crappy spelling/grammer

Re: Android 2.0: Too Big For The G1?

Paul Grove — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:44:33 -0000

Version 2.0 will fit without problem on the G1. The SDK emulator rom released is only a few Mb too large, and will likely fit ok with a few simple optimisations. the 1.6 SDK emu rom was the same and the offical release was shrunk to fit.

Even if it doesnt fit and an offical 2.0 for G1 is not released by t-mobile, a community release will be possible using a adp/rooted phone, and by keeping parts of the OS stored on a SD memory card.

Cyanogens' release is so far ahead of t-mobile in terms of performance and features than the stock t-mobile release that its the prefered option anyhow.

I cant recall if you reported on this or not, but Cyanogens' release is now 100% legal. They have got around the re-distrobution problem by simply providing an100% opensource Update that must sit atop the offical t-mobile firmware.

Re: Sony and Panasonic: 3D Wars?

Paul Grove — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 06:51:02 -0000

Room for both methinks, The hardware to display/watch the content is not so important, it'll be much the same fair as the difference between LCD, Plasma and OLED displays, it doesn't matter which you buy you can still watch your DVDs.

The important batttle is going to be over the standardisation of the format for carrying the video.

Also if they are going to want to be able to have a single solution for 3D Game consoles and 3D Movies then they're gunna have to come up with some kind of method for providing a standard input and output for the 3D device (be it the polarised TV or the shutter glasses (or other))

These things need standards else we might end up with a mass of different solutions, one set of shutter glasses for the Xbox another for the playstation and another set for the DVD player.

The way I see it the TV should house the 3D solution and the console/player should provide two images (2xhdmi for example) for the TV.

End of Ramble.

Re: Android Facebook App Coming?

Paul Grove — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:31:37 -0000

There are a few 3rd party facebook apps available on the android market, and have been for some time now. Also the HTC Touch flow interface has facebook support integrated into the core functionality of the UI.

Re: New Ericsson 'Rachael' Photos+UI Video.

Paul Grove — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:48:35 -0000

According to pdadb Racheal will have a 360 x 640 24bit display. It does not however have measurements.

Have a gander at the datasheet:
http://pdadb.net/index.php?...