Exactly my thoughts, as far as I know, in the UK the only network that provides EDGE is Orange, therefore Orange is the most likely network to provide the iPhone in it's current state. Upgrading the iPhone to 3G (UMTS/W-CDMA) will make it a better phone and make it compatible with all networks in the UK I believe.
I understand that in some countries, you are legally compelled to provide the keys to access files encrypted with PGP, GPG, etc. if the authorities demand access.
Yes I believe that is the case in the UK (I am too lazy to find out if this is actual law now, to be honest I'm a bit confused if it is or not)
However, I don't have a problem with this. We use GPG encryption for all our corporate emails, some of our staff are working in countries where it is quite likely that somebody at an ISP could be bribed to pass on our private emails to our competitors.
Yes, we are paranoid.
But, we have encountered situations where it seems everything we did was known by our competitors (Big US corporation).
It does give us the freedom to discuss business and financial matters confidentially and ensure that information such as bank account details is authenticated.
If the police want to see that information, we'll gladly trust them and hand it over. Then immediately revoke the keys and issue new ones
I don't understand why you find that funny. There are certainly parts of Lagos and Abuja which are desirable areas to live. I freqently stay in a 5 bedroom rented house in Victoria Island worth approximately NGN 150,000,000, or US$1.1m based on valuations a few years ago. I am sure it must be far higher than that now.
I wish you could see the people of Nigeria that people like this dead fool have taken advantage of. They work hard for a very small wage that barely pays their house rent and childrens school fees, forget about medical expences or any other emergencies such as having to be bailed out after wrongful arrest by corrupt police officials. Then these people go to church on sunday where their pastor insists that "giving money to God" (tv's, fridges, Air Conditioning units, cars also accepted) will help them prosper. Having faith that the pastor is telling the truth because his own affluent lifestyle is a demonstration of his relationship with God, makes them give that little bit more. The people give, the pastor buys a new S Class.
Churches with paid ministries need to be eliminated.
Why is it "the tropical swamps of Africa", rather than an idea about the countries involved?
Africa is a huge place, The Worlds second largest and second-most populous continent after Asia with a hugely diverse population in 61 countries and territories.
My point is if you hear about animals found in "tropical swamps of" Asia, or North or South America you would normally hear the actual country or even state within the country it was found in otherwise you have no idea what sort of environment to imagine.
From "tropical swamps" we can only derive that it's one of the countries in Sub-Saharan africa that fall in the tropics, and that's the biggest, most diverse part and it's not one big swamp!
I could forgive them if these fish eel things are swimming all over sub saharan africa but then I would have to say what the hell have they been doing all this time?
If they are everywhere then I've probably eaten a few of these myself. Mmmm.
'a few years back' being the operative. But where are these maps anyway? Every project so far we've consulted government and academic sources in Nigeria and obtained nothing but 4 year old satelite photos and mapping that WE did in earlier projects that has been leaked to the public domain. In Nigeria most maps available date back from around 1992 around the time of the most recent census and there has been a great deal of development since then. In Lagos entire districts have been razed to the ground and redeveloped, also new suburbs have been developed that were just swamps 5 years ago. Property Development in Lagos is I think comparable to Western Metropolises! This echoes development in other West African Cities. of course YMMV.
Imagine you want to construct a reservoir in a remote part of a city outskirts and then discover that an entire town now exists where your map shows nothing but abandoned farmland or swampland.
Actually you are unlikey to find any detailed maps of west africa, I have worked on extensive mapping projects in Nigeria over the last five years, and All our maps have to be created from expensive satelite photos or even more expensive air photos. The government has no coordination with regards organising this information and simply relies on World Bank stumping up the cash for new satelite photos or air photos each time an up to date map is required. It makes me sad to see such waste.
I'm not totally familiar with other west african countries but I think if you are expecting to easily find accurate digital road maps, state boundaries and cities then I'm afraid you will be extremely frustrated.
As for GPS equipment, we use Leica surveying devices but we have also had good results with Garmin. A particular problem is that there are fewer GPS satelites over that part of the world so that there is a larger error in the data. The Leica equipment allows us to calibrate a base station device to eliminate the error.
"Every english perosn paying for the privalage of having a TV or radio,"
Points of correction. Welsh and Scottish people also pay a TV license in the UK. I'm pretty sure they do in Northern Ireland too.
It's also only one license per household not each person watching TV. I think Pensioners get a free license now and you don't need one to listen to radio.
It does pay for the BBC and it's a hell of a lot cheaper than cable. Theres more to watch too.
That doesn't mean the security patches are not applied.
Don't forget that even Debian Stable is using Apache 1.3.26 yet the security updates are backported to that version by the glorious debian community shortly after the announcements from Apache foundation.
not just those with built in GPS trackers as a lot of people here seem to think.
I looked at this service a few months ago when I first saw it on a tv news buletin. It's working with regular GSM phones by triangulating the position of the phone based on the signal strength monitored at the GSM base stations dotted around the country. It's information that the GSM networks have had available for a long time, it just required a third party to co-ordinate the service for all the UK networks.
As for all the privacy concerns voiced on this page I recommend people read the faq. Most significantly:
Can I locate any mobile I like? No, mapAmobile can only be used with the permission of the user of the mobile you wish to locate. We ask for this at registration and send regular text messages to remind them that they are being located. The phone must be on O2, Vodafone, Orange or T-Mobile.
I understand that the old txt msgs aren't very popular outside Europe, Asia & Africa (ahem) but trust me, the vast majority of GSM Mobile Users are very familiar with it.
I spent some time working in Nigeria and watched the local people erecting 4+ storey buildings using bamboo as scaffolding and for supporting newly laid concrete floors.
My Structural engineer friend told me that Bamboo is better than steel if used properly and since it just grows like grass it's basically free.
A bamboo bycicle would be neat but, as a natural product you aren't going to get uniform material to work with so every bike would probably be completeley different to an other. You wouldn't be able to mass produce these things.
And what happens when you run out of 07 numbers? Don't tell me "it'll never happen".
07 numbers are followed by 9 digits, so when the last mobile number 07-999-999-999 is sold they'll have to just add a digit. bearing in mind that I believe there are about 60 million people living in the UK thats more than 16 telephone numbers for each living person. hmm, that might take a while, don't you think?
Don't you have that "crazy" per-minute charge for local calls on your land lines?
Actually most of the nice telcos offer 0p per minute on local calls after a very small connection charge, or minimum time so it's not too bad. Its better than paying to recieve calls by a long shot, at least you are in control of the cost of your calls.
Windows Me and Windows 2000 make it extremely simple to switch registered file types.
Right Click on a file,
choose Open With >
you are presented with a list of already
associated programs AND an option to choose a
new program.
Also you should note that a similar facility was available in earlier versions of windows when you hold shift and right click on a file.
So please do your research before you start microsoft bashing. It just makes us look as bad as they are with their speaches likening GPL software to Cancer.
As an aside:
I have no idea if this works on Windows XP. And I don't want to know as I never intend to deploy it in my office. Bwahahah!
AS others have reported before on this site I have found the Dell Optiplex systems to be the Quietest PC systems I've ever come across.
Unfortunately the quietness of the 15 machines we have in our office often goes unnappreciated.
I am a British ExPat working in Lagos, Nigeria. (largest population in Africa if you didn't know) and because of where we are we have to have powerful (2hp+) ACs on all day and because of the huge power supply problem here (almost as bad as California) we need to be running huge Backup Generators most of the time, and they sit just outside my window.
And don't forget the 6kVA UPS unit that sits proud and unmovable (damn things heavier than me) next to my desk whirring its fans to keep the batteries cool while keeping our server running almost 24/7.
What I need is real soundproof generator housing, a more regular mains power supply and then maybe get God to turn down the temperature a bit here so we can shut down some AC's. Then I will be happy.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly my thoughts, as far as I know, in the UK the only network that provides EDGE is Orange, therefore Orange is the most likely network to provide the iPhone in it's current state. Upgrading the iPhone to 3G (UMTS/W-CDMA) will make it a better phone and make it compatible with all networks in the UK I believe.
There's plenty of options for this. Personally I use Enigmail with Mozilla Thunderbird, or GPG4Win Comes with a plugin for MS Outlook.
Yes I believe that is the case in the UK (I am too lazy to find out if this is actual law now, to be honest I'm a bit confused if it is or not)
However, I don't have a problem with this. We use GPG encryption for all our corporate emails, some of our staff are working in countries where it is quite likely that somebody at an ISP could be bribed to pass on our private emails to our competitors.
Yes, we are paranoid.
But, we have encountered situations where it seems everything we did was known by our competitors (Big US corporation).
It does give us the freedom to discuss business and financial matters confidentially and ensure that information such as bank account details is authenticated.
If the police want to see that information, we'll gladly trust them and hand it over. Then immediately revoke the keys and issue new ones
...the most sought-after parts of Lagos and Abuja
I don't understand why you find that funny. There are certainly parts of Lagos and Abuja which are desirable areas to live. I freqently stay in a 5 bedroom rented house in Victoria Island worth approximately NGN 150,000,000, or US$1.1m based on valuations a few years ago. I am sure it must be far higher than that now.
I wish you could see the people of Nigeria that people like this dead fool have taken advantage of. They work hard for a very small wage that barely pays their house rent and childrens school fees, forget about medical expences or any other emergencies such as having to be bailed out after wrongful arrest by corrupt police officials. Then these people go to church on sunday where their pastor insists that "giving money to God" (tv's, fridges, Air Conditioning units, cars also accepted) will help them prosper. Having faith that the pastor is telling the truth because his own affluent lifestyle is a demonstration of his relationship with God, makes them give that little bit more. The people give, the pastor buys a new S Class.
Churches with paid ministries need to be eliminated.
Ah, Digital Cracking.
Slightly more effective than Patella Cracking but the end result is the same.
An Exabyte (EiB Exbibyte) is 2^60 or 1152921504606846976 bytes
A Gigabyte (GiB Gibibyte) is 2^30 or 1073741824 bytes.
So 16 EiB = 17,179,869,184 GiB not 16,000,000.
that small error is 17,163,869,184 GiB of extra space!
Why is it "the tropical swamps of Africa", rather than an idea about the countries involved?
Africa is a huge place, The Worlds second largest and second-most populous continent after Asia with a hugely diverse population in 61 countries and territories.
My point is if you hear about animals found in "tropical swamps of" Asia, or North or South America you would normally hear the actual country or even state within the country it was found in otherwise you have no idea what sort of environment to imagine.
From "tropical swamps" we can only derive that it's one of the countries in Sub-Saharan africa that fall in the tropics, and that's the biggest, most diverse part and it's not one big swamp!
I could forgive them if these fish eel things are swimming all over sub saharan africa but then I would have to say what the hell have they been doing all this time?
If they are everywhere then I've probably eaten a few of these myself. Mmmm.
"Truckers, Diggers and THIEVES"???
When I read them 10 - 15 years ago, it was Truckers, Diggers and Wings.
There was a televised series of Truckers
How many other things are there that guys can boast about having a smaller one?
Well, there's a LOT of oil there and those oil company's need their email.
'la barbe' is the one that makes me chuckle...
Beard in french is feminine.
As a Rightie myself I prefer to have my right hand controlling where my car is going while my left hand is shifting gears.
And I have driven with both setups.
'a few years back' being the operative. But where are these maps anyway? Every project so far we've consulted government and academic sources in Nigeria and obtained nothing but 4 year old satelite photos and mapping that WE did in earlier projects that has been leaked to the public domain. In Nigeria most maps available date back from around 1992 around the time of the most recent census and there has been a great deal of development since then. In Lagos entire districts have been razed to the ground and redeveloped, also new suburbs have been developed that were just swamps 5 years ago. Property Development in Lagos is I think comparable to Western Metropolises! This echoes development in other West African Cities. of course YMMV.
Imagine you want to construct a reservoir in a remote part of a city outskirts and then discover that an entire town now exists where your map shows nothing but abandoned farmland or swampland.
Actually you are unlikey to find any detailed maps of west africa, I have worked on extensive mapping projects in Nigeria over the last five years, and All our maps have to be created from expensive satelite photos or even more expensive air photos. The government has no coordination with regards organising this information and simply relies on World Bank stumping up the cash for new satelite photos or air photos each time an up to date map is required. It makes me sad to see such waste.
I'm not totally familiar with other west african countries but I think if you are expecting to easily find accurate digital road maps, state boundaries and cities then I'm afraid you will be extremely frustrated.
As for GPS equipment, we use Leica surveying devices but we have also had good results with Garmin. A particular problem is that there are fewer GPS satelites over that part of the world so that there is a larger error in the data. The Leica equipment allows us to calibrate a base station device to eliminate the error.
Anybody have an idea if leather clothing would reflect the 'incidental millimetre-wave radiation it receives' the same way human skin does?
"Every english perosn paying for the privalage of having a TV or radio,"
Points of correction. Welsh and Scottish people also pay a TV license in the UK. I'm pretty sure they do in Northern Ireland too.
It's also only one license per household not each person watching TV. I think Pensioners get a free license now and you don't need one to listen to radio.
It does pay for the BBC and it's a hell of a lot cheaper than cable. Theres more to watch too.
That doesn't mean the security patches are not applied.
Don't forget that even Debian Stable is using Apache 1.3.26 yet the security updates are backported to that version by the glorious debian community shortly after the announcements from Apache foundation.
I looked at this service a few months ago when I first saw it on a tv news buletin. It's working with regular GSM phones by triangulating the position of the phone based on the signal strength monitored at the GSM base stations dotted around the country. It's information that the GSM networks have had available for a long time, it just required a third party to co-ordinate the service for all the UK networks.
As for all the privacy concerns voiced on this page I recommend people read the faq. Most significantly:
Can I locate any mobile I like?
No, mapAmobile can only be used with the permission of the user of the mobile you wish to locate. We ask for this at registration and send regular text messages to remind them that they are being located. The phone must be on O2, Vodafone, Orange or T-Mobile.
I understand that the old txt msgs aren't very popular outside Europe, Asia & Africa (ahem) but trust me, the vast majority of GSM Mobile Users are very familiar with it.
My Structural engineer friend told me that Bamboo is better than steel if used properly and since it just grows like grass it's basically free.
A bamboo bycicle would be neat but, as a natural product you aren't going to get uniform material to work with so every bike would probably be completeley different to an other. You wouldn't be able to mass produce these things.
Doing a little googling I found this report about using bamboo instead of steel in reinforced concrete.
any way that's my bit out of the way.
A
07 numbers are followed by 9 digits, so when the last mobile number 07-999-999-999 is sold they'll have to just add a digit. bearing in mind that I believe there are about 60 million people living in the UK thats more than 16 telephone numbers for each living person. hmm, that might take a while, don't you think?
Don't you have that "crazy" per-minute charge for local calls on your land lines?
Actually most of the nice telcos offer 0p per minute on local calls after a very small connection charge, or minimum time so it's not too bad. Its better than paying to recieve calls by a long shot, at least you are in control of the cost of your calls.
As the Reuters article says, this came from the Observer. So why not read the original article here
Windows Me and Windows 2000 make it extremely simple to switch registered file types.
Right Click on a file,
choose Open With >
you are presented with a list of already
associated programs AND an option to choose a
new program.
Also you should note that a similar facility was available in earlier versions of windows when you hold shift and right click on a file.
So please do your research before you start microsoft bashing. It just makes us look as bad as they are with their speaches likening GPL software to Cancer.
As an aside:
I have no idea if this works on Windows XP. And I don't want to know as I never intend to deploy it in my office. Bwahahah!
I found that my old CD-ROM drive made a dreadful noise as it spun up to speed.
What cured it was when I places a small spirit level on it and set the screws so that the drive was as level as possible and it became silent.
It seemed to perform better too.
AS others have reported before on this site I have found the Dell Optiplex systems to be the Quietest PC systems I've ever come across.
Unfortunately the quietness of the 15 machines we have in our office often goes unnappreciated.
I am a British ExPat working in Lagos, Nigeria. (largest population in Africa if you didn't know) and because of where we are we have to have powerful (2hp+) ACs on all day and because of the huge power supply problem here (almost as bad as California) we need to be running huge Backup Generators most of the time, and they sit just outside my window.
And don't forget the 6kVA UPS unit that sits proud and unmovable (damn things heavier than me) next to my desk whirring its fans to keep the batteries cool while keeping our server running almost 24/7.
What I need is real soundproof generator housing, a more regular mains power supply and then maybe get God to turn down the temperature a bit here so we can shut down some AC's. Then I will be happy.
That's my two naira over with.
Similarly a trillion is 1,000,000^3 and a quadrillion 1,000,000^4
However In my A-Level Physics class we were told to always use the american scale of numbering, but it was never explained why...