Disqus - Latest Comments for David Russell

Re: Claws Mail vs. Thunderbird – A comparison

David Russell — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 10:05:25 -0000

The reason Claws Mail is so fast is that it doesn't really do much. I could write a tic-tac-toe program right now that will run faster than the one included in Gnome. That would be because it would be text-only, have a horrible interface, and lack most of the features people have come to expect. Much like Claws Mail actually.

Re: CrunchEee: CrunchBang Linux for the Eee PC

David Russell — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:26:15 -0000

I haven't had any luck getting the Fn volume adjustment to work (unsurprising since I've had CrunchEee installed for all of four hours :P), but you can at least open the volume mixer quickly with Home Key + V

Re: Banshee 1.0 is out. - Miguel de Icaza

David Russell — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 05:59:41 -0000

Will the Windows version support external devices (in my case, the iPod classic)? I'm almost salivating over on-the-fly format conversion.

Re: OpenOffice 2.0 Beta disappoints

David Russell — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 14:34:58 -0000

Have you actually used the new beta? Maybe it would be better to do so before tearing it apart since it is supposed to be significantly different from 1.x versions

Re: OpenOffice 2.0 Beta disappoints

David Russell — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 14:34:58 -0000

Have you actually used the new beta? Maybe it would be better to do so before tearing it apart since it is supposed to be significantly different from 1.x versions

Re: Internet Explorer 7 has tabs

David Russell — Thu, 09 Jun 2005 07:04:35 -0000

So basically the W3C should screw the CSS standard just so that IE can pretend that its standards-compliant?

Re: Internet Explorer 7 has tabs

David Russell — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 17:32:59 -0000

According to the BBC, IE 7 also has RSS support (and adds some MSHTML-style 'additions' to the format)

Re: 2008/12/12/gmail-pdf-viewer/

David Russell — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 16:21:01 -0000

Would be more useful on my EeePC if it allowed resizing/removing the sidebar. As it stands, this is only usable on screens with enough horizontal real estate that they can probably run the Adobe Reader with no problems.

Re: Stop Wine From Beating Your Windows Apps With The Ugly Stick | Tombuntu

David Russell — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 14:05:16 -0000

To be honest I'd rather time was spent on making Wine work with more programs rather than making it use an Ubuntu-like theme.

Re: Memeorandum gets more hype and new feature

David Russell — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 05:03:31 -0000

Windows Vista? Oh yes the OS that requires 2Gb of RAM. It's the best thing that ever happened (to Apple).

Re: Geek gadgets: New way to distribute software; iPod to AV system box

David Russell — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 16:53:04 -0000

The essential problem with U3 is that you MUST have administrator rights on any computer you want to use it with - therefore the users who would actually benefit from U3 (ie students, corporate employees using computer they can't install software on) are not able to use it.

Re: Eye-Fi: Solving the digital photography pain

David Russell — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 16:59:04 -0000

Bzzzt! That was the sound of my digicam's battery running out due to the strain of using Wifi. And why would I want to use wifi to view/transfer pictures on my PC anyway, when by definition I would be in front of the PC anyway? The two seconds it takes to plug in a USB cable is less than the 10 seconds+ it takes to establish a wifi connection.

Re: “Don’t paste ads over my Windows” Nick Bradbury says

David Russell — Sat, 06 May 2006 19:23:14 -0000

The problem is that Microsoft being in the ad business presents an important conflict of interest. A good web browser developer will include decent ad-blocking facilities to their browser - which Microsoft has so far not done to Internet Explorer 7. Doesn't bother me anyway, I'm a Firefox user and always will be.

Re: Is blogging important? 157 million hits says it is!

David Russell — Sat, 06 May 2006 19:25:08 -0000

Most of those are probably comment spammers!

Re: Phone call about new Xbox 360 blogging features

David Russell — Sat, 06 May 2006 19:28:01 -0000

These are worthless automated messages - there are only about 10 in tota (they get reused) - written in a boring, commercialist tone which is just about as exciting as trawling through C# Express source code. Scratch that - the source code is much more exciting. Possibly the most worthless 'feature' of the X360.

Re: From my sponsor: latest hard drives from Seagate

David Russell — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 18:38:54 -0000

Sure, you get sponsorship from Seagate. Whether those payments positively influence your opinions of Seagate products or not is a matter for your own conscience. What matters to me is that (unlike some less scrupulous bloggers), you have been upfront and routinely point out that you are sponsored by Seagate, to let us make our own judgements.

Re: O’Reilly responds to code of conduct feedback

David Russell — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 18:47:19 -0000

Tim O'Reilly was the one who started the incivility. The substance of the censorship charter, sorry, code of conduct, was bad enough, but Tim's choice of language only inflamed the situation further. Anyone who debates in a way he dislikes is 'pig wrestling', apparently (the code post). Anyone who uses words he doesn't like is 'potty mouthed, apparently (response post).

A word I used in my blog response to this was 'sanctimonious' - I think it is exactly the sort of attitude Tim is showing right now, and it is why I will never take part in any Code of Conduct which has his name associated with it.

Re: Oh, Microsoft and the DOJ

David Russell — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 10:23:38 -0000

As much as I dislike Microsoft (why did the US Government chicken out of breaking them up a few years ago?), I have to agree with them on this one. Not so much in terms of the market share/antitrust issue - any business that seeks to pollute my screen with ads deserves any price gouging it suffers - but from a user privacy point of view combining Doubleclick's tracking cookies with Google's user database is something approaching 'evil'.

Re: Google to Yahoo and Microsoft: the $1.65 billion was worth it

David Russell — Sat, 19 May 2007 12:20:17 -0000

That's what Google does with ALL of its 'extra' services - YouTube, Gmail, Google Apps. None of these actually make any money, they are all aimed at increasing loyalty to the Google 'brand' and increasing/maintaining Google's market share in its main search business.

Re: No Java, no Flash, no .NET/Silverlight for iPhone?

David Russell — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 03:35:19 -0000

'No .NET apps, no Silverlight apps'

Sorry Scoble, but that's what happens when you rely on proprietary formats and runtime libraries, instead of open standards.

Re: Reading feeds

David Russell — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:26:07 -0000

Thanks for convincing me to give Google Reader another go. I tried it when it first came out and it was pretty bad, but now it's fantastic and has replaced BBC News as my homepage.

Re: Valleywag getting crap for posting my phone number

David Russell — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 14:11:49 -0000

The ONLY potential id theft issue with phone numbers is if you give out your home (ie landline) number. That's because some shoppings sites use match the phone number you give them against your cardholder address. Cell phone numbers present no more identity theft risk than giving out your website address (less, in fact, given the WHOIS database for domains).

Re: Calacanis is right: startups can’t afford slackers

David Russell — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 13:00:50 -0000

Firing people for not working during their lunchbreaks? Jesus, he's lucky America has third-world labour laws. In Europe that would be a lawsuit at the very least.

Re: We don’t need a Gandhi

David Russell — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 10:07:56 -0000

Before the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, did 'the Catholic community' apologise every time Catholic terrorists killed innocent people? Did 'the Protestant community' apologise every time Protestant terrorists killed innocent people? I'm a (Scottish) Catholic, but I don't feel responsible for the deaths of people killed by the IRA just because the IRA are [nominally, but not in their actions] mostly Catholic, in the same way ordinary Muslims have nothing to apologise for just because Al Quaeda are [nominally, but not in their actions] mainly Muslim.

Re: WordPress Admin Editor Screenshot

David Russell — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 06:41:07 -0000

I would like Wordpress 2.0 a lot more if it was possible to disable the pointless bloatware 'post preview' - which only works AFTER YOU HAVE PUBLISHED THE POST!

Re: 17″ Macbook Pro Battery: Revolutionary or a Deal-breaker?

David Russell — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 08:02:33 -0000

Deal breaker. A £1500 laptop that is effectively disposable (the 'battery replacement program' is actually 'hand in your own, new-to-you machine and get someone else's second hand refurbished one back') is pathetic even by Apple's ripoff standards.