Posts by Mark

HP puts Linux on business PCs

APT

The reason why APT works so well is that people take a LOT of time and effort in getting it right.

There's NOTHING that apt does that RPM couldn't do.

The problem with RPM is that most people are really quite crap at making them. They don't put the care in to them. And so they depend on things that for your system is in two different RPMs because you picked someone who built the RPM without checking what someone else had done.

The applications can do it.

The users are generally not bothering to put as much effort in as the Debian people.

Which may be a problem with people grunting out software for Ubuntu: if they don't take the requisite care, apt won't work quite so well.

re: Mmmm....just wait until...

"Linux is great when it's all running well, but once you start to install "extra" software the hell breaks loose. "

Uh, does your desk jockey install software for themselves under windows, or does the IT department do it for them (and only approved software)?

Because if it's your IT department, why is this a problem? You buy software that works with the operating system (so no Win98 programs purchased for Windows Vista) and it installs on that operating system.

It's only if you try to install software for a different OS (Say, Classic Mac software on your PPC Mac Book Pro) that "all hell breaks loose".

I love the smell of burning FUD in the morning...

No retraining?

So when the UI changes from XP to Vista, no retraining. But changing from XP to KDE does?

When Office 2007 brings in a completely new format and the ribbon UI there's no retraining or conversion problems, but when you move to OpenOffice, you can't open your files and must be retrained how to click on a "printer" icon to print..?

@Anonymous Coward

"Err....Linux does need a firewall and you do have to keep it's patches up to date. No real difference there. An idiot on Window will, no doubt, be an idiot on Linux too."

Err. it isn't an add on. It's part of the OS and doesn't yibber in your face about how you need to mollycoddle it. Because the OS is more secure against drive-by shootings from the internet, the firewall doesn't need to be as complex as Windows (because Office Help Files are HTML and use the HTML renderer, thereby opening up Office to a HTML attack if the IE renderer has a security bug).

"But I think they still need to do more work to bridge the gap between the uber-geek and the common user."

No, there's no gap to close between the uber geek and common user if you mean "the guy who knows how to install Linux" and "Aunt Tillie" because Windows DEMANDS any user be either an uber-geek or run a botfarm member.

The gap between the user Windows requires and the user Linux requires doesn't exist except that you can't go into PCWorld and buy off the shelf software for it. That's not Linux's failing. The gap's not there.

The only place there is a gap is the uber WINDOWS geek who knows how windows works but doesn't know how computers work.

that gap can remain open if the only way to close it is to give Linux the same security problems and lamebrain ideas on how to tie stuff together.

Hmm

"Linux is for geeks."

How do you work that out?

Do non-geeks know how to administer their Windows boxes? Do they know how to keep their firewall up and working, their virus checker up to date and complete? Do they know how to reinstall software to stop the terrible things done to the Windows Registry by installers to clean up? Do they know how to back up their data (in case they get hosed by a trojan)? Do they know what a trojan IS?

All these things MUST be done, else any problems with windows is beacuse of the dumb users, not Microsoft.

But if it isn't for geeks, why must they do all this and more?

Do you have to do this with Linux?

No.

So why is Linux for geeks and Windows not? Surely, if anything, it's the other way around.

Sony sued for collecting kids' data

Rootkits?

It wasn't *just* rootkits. It was wide-scale, for-profit piracy! LAME? GPL'd. Used against the license for the profit of the people committing the infringement.

Information on 30,000 kids

gets the same total award as 30,000 CDs siezed in a raid is said to be worth.

Anyone else see the idiocy here?

Is filming someone in the street a breach of privacy?

How does idiocy turn up in a photo?

All I can assume is that in that case, the idiot is behind the camera.

Re: Your photo on a bilboard

Uh, I'd be puzzled.

you?

Or do you have something to HIDE????

"I operate a typical camera, which is a passive sensing instrument."

So is your eye.

Both require a brain to work out what it contains, else all that is there is a bunch of coloured photons.

@Nebulo

And society cannot work if all photos with people in them need to be asked for each person on it whether they should remain there.

And what do you do if they say no and it's a film camera? Tell everyone to eff off while you take a shot?

The TV crew are bastards because they should ask first if they are going to present the picture of someone for a reason. There are professionals, called models, who do this as a job and trying to use a member of the public is cheap and trying to avoid having to pay someone. Not all models are fit and skinny.

But just because this woman demands respect, I demand she respect herself. If she doesn't, there ain't nobody gonna give a good cahoot. So respect yourself.

If I want respect, I have to earn it. If I want to be listened to, I have to earn the trust. I can't just DEMAND people listen.

@Steve not in the UK

Well, not with respect to defamatory comment and libel.

Mind you, some actions taken in public have been considered public because of the deliberate actions thereby. See Pamela Lee-Anderson's attempt to get the dogging video off the internet. Failed because the judge said if they went specifically out into a public place to do this, they lost their right to privacy.

But in this case, I would agree. The TV station should, because they are a member of society, ask first. Any number of people would say "yes" even under those circumstances, so they lose nothing by it. But the woman's actions are illustrated by considering the difference between someone being nice to someone else vs someone demanding people be nice to them.

If she'd lef it at "they should have asked because it's not nice" I could accept it, but bringing in all that legal stuff tends to make me think they are just trying to pad the account up so they get the result they want.

I don't like it. It's like (though not as bad) when the police double dip and put "trespass" an "illegal entry" and "Breaking and entry" into the charge sheet. So they can get you for all three and browbeat you into accepting just one of the charges. It's abuse of process.

On dignity

It is about the fact that society itself should show dignity, not that she deserves it preserved for her.

Because it is our treatment of others we show our humanity.

But that doesn't mean we have a right to DEMAND that dignity be afforded, since that isn't asking that society be nice to others, that's demanding treatment. That way lies a world where you can't give someone an honest opinion and must lie or avoid the question.

If your arse IS fat, then yes, your bum DOES look big in that.

But society should not go around offering the unsolicited opinion about the size of the hindquarters because that's not nice.

If she demands from others then she should apply herself to the aid likewise. Exercise. Eat less. Be healthier. You'll live longer and when older will still be healthy rather than worn before your time. If you DEMAND that people stop calling you fat, try to work towards, oh, I dunno, not being fat?

And me? If I'd seen her picture on the TV and knew that she hadn't been asked for its use, I would have told the TV producer off. But she demands dignity from others in the face of truth, and that's a different matter.

re:privacy

"I think a lot of your posters mistake privacy for being in private. ...Imagine if a TV programme showed you looking at a group of children playing in the park, or apparently following some girls along the road and ran a voice over "one in ten of us is a child molester...."."

I think some posters are reading the invisible runes.

I have not yet seen that the woman didn't have a legitimate complaint. Just not that her privacy is infringed. Her dignity, yes.

Which isn't the problem with the hypothetical you posted either. the problem there was insinuation that the person's image is that of a paedo. That's not ***privacy*** that's ***slander***.

Just because it's not illegal under one law doesn't mean it's not illegal under any law.

Sheesh.

Some people need to get the fat out of their head...

re:So judging

I don't see anyone saying that except for the AC who derides that.

So please stop putting words in people's mouths and then lambasting them for saying it. That's called "strawman" and the farmers need the straw for winter feed.

re: "If she is fat then she shouldn't...

Where is that a comment? Can't find it on the page, so the only person to say that stupid comment is you, Mike.

re: Being in public is not consent to remove privacy

"i.e. using footpaths does not entitle TV companies to use your fat image. "

No, and that is the common decency aspect: a civilised society would have them ask before the image can be used on TV if they are the reason FOR the image.

That isn't a privacy thing, it's defamation (if the context given for your image is bad, i.e. look at lardy). It's an insult. And insulting someone is or can be illegal.

So ask.

But if your wide load is traversing a landmark someone is filming for TV, it isn't insulting. Unless they say "Jeez, that' guys arse is nearly blocking the view!!!!"). The image is of the landmark, not your butt.

@Sarah Bee

I don't see where I thought she lost her rights. She should not be held up for ridicule for commercial or public use. They SHOULD have asked. If only because "here's some pictures of fat people" and having your picture on there is insulting (depending on how you approach the subject: some won't mind). And so they were wrong in putting her picture up without consent.

Heck, criminals are blocked out from "Cops" or whatever, even when they have been found guilty before airing.

What she can't go and do is complain that it's a privacy issue.

It isn't.

It's one of dignity and insult to it.

And THAT is the reason they should have asked.

She's a lardarse

and therefore cannot be concerned about her personal dignity.

there's no dignity when it takes a few seconds for outlying regions of your own body to stop walking.

And I speak as a bit of a porker myself (15st 5'6").

Where she DOES have a compaint is that they used her on a TV program. That should be asked for. If they filmed her and she was "in the crowd" then there's no problem: her visual was an unavoidable consequence of it being a public place. But if they take a piccy and use it specifically for a point, they should ask if you're OK with it.

That's not an invasion of privacy, that's just common decency. It's not as if they can't find another lardarse out there to film and ask them if the woman refused.

Native-Linux music player Amarok gets major overhaul

An interruption of the 'musical message' is bad.

Yet radio is still used to sell music.

Individual files shared on P2P is still "killing the music industry" (though you don't get the whole album, or liner notes, etc).

Some people like the album.

Some don't care.

re: What's it for?

It's for the people who wanted Windows Media Player (which lets you watch your music, but doesn't have a command line) or iTunes (ditto).

It's for them.

This is why "Why is it so confusing! Pick ONE application and use it, don't ask me which of twenty several versions of the same thing I want!!!" is wrong.

Because left to one of them, you won't have ogg123. Left to you, they can't use ogg123.

"I'd just like it to simply play MP3's,"

that's a problem with software patents and mathematical patents that have been abused.

Or do you demand that KDE and amaroK break the law?

re: typical linux rubbish

And in order to use the singular app "Word 2007" I have to install a complete Operating System (in 4GB).

Shite, I tell you, all shite.

re: I call bullshit

Nope, because KDE isn't just the UI (like Gnome) but an entire system (like Windows). Kparts and KIOSlaves are inherently part of KDE and these allow (especially KIOSlaves) access to a device (such as iPod) or other stream (such as iPlayer and iTunes music store) as if it were a disk (like file:/) or website (like http:/) See the fish protocol (fish:/ KIOSlave) which allows an SSH login to look like a normal file system to Konqueror (or anything that uses a KIOSlave).

FBI recruits former Lehman Brothers IT exec

James Woods, who is still in charge?

Shrub.

So how is a hiring decision from shrubbers obama's fault?

Nappies OK'd by beaks in Nowak space loverat fracas

re: Nappy vs Diaper

The tablecloth (Nap) was put there as a hygenic alternative to throwing the bones over to the fire so the dogs ate them and wiping your hands on your clothes. You wiped your hands on the table cloth.

Soiling it.

Of course, later that got stylised and eventually unless the tablecloth was SPOTLESS after the mean, you were a messy eater and a slovenly cad who should not be out in polite society.

But that was it's original use: to wipe your hands on rather than use your sleeves.

Biased?

"astro romanta-rat Bill Oefelein, who apparently enjoyed the affections of Nowak and Shipman concurrently while Nowak remained married to a brother Navy flier"

This does seem to have a tone of opprobrium against the Bill in the triangle. But it's at least a quadrangle: Nowak was cheating on her husband.

Face it, women are just as sex mad as men.

We get to boast about it (or make it up as per personal situation demands) and they get so say "No" (which is often the situation that makes it necessary for men to lie about it).

Raids net police £1m in pirate game and movie discs

re: Re: Can't you lot read?

So if the 1m is not about just the 30,000 discs found, how do they know how many disks were sold before they got there?

Paris would like to know.

We'd both like to know how that was "the bleeding obvious" too.

re: Don't forget.....

WE didn't forget. That was the reason and the excuse behind the hugely inflated statutory penalties for copyright infringement. It wasn't for someone sharing for free 24 songs so it should be punished $150,000 x 24, it was for seeing a warehouse mostly empty apart from a few unshifted copies.

But the copyright cartels "forgot" the reason for the statutory damages and applied them where the excuse for making them doesn't work.

WE didn't forget. THEY did.

See, THIS is piracy

Commercial exploitation of someone else's copyrighted works for monetary gain.

Oz men's mag recovers inflatable jubs

re: coat -> door

Yeah, but real ones come with this biological waste product attached.

Oh, I didn't know the cloakroom was this small. Or had spikes in it...

Sigh. Unable to get the consignment on the right boat.

Obviously they made a right tit of themselves.

At least they got the problem off their chest.

It would have been better to nip it in the bud, though (wonder if that "bud" is allowed what with the KP scare and all...).

Sorry, gotta go, me mam's calling me...

Why the IWF was right to ban a Wikipedia page

@Drew Cullen

"Since when were the comment pages of any internet publication an unfettered forum for free speech?"

But that is what the article uses to justify the censorship of Wikimedia: that they didn't allow an unfettered forum for free speech in wikimedia.

Ergo showing that if this were what El Reg thought, they are guilty of censorship too. And therefore, since this is the reason why they say Wikimedia cannot complain about IWF's censorship, El Reg can't complain about censorship either.

Which would kill off about 1/3 of the public sector and security topics on El Reg...

re: negative ratings?

There may be so many negative ratings because the arguments they use are crap. Utterly terrible. Very poor. Bad. Whatever.

The problem is it's "potentially"

Everything is *potentially* illegal. See SCO's "Methods and concepts" idea (meaning copying the ideas would be illegal, since it is argued in court, it must be potentially illegal) and the later "negative know-how" which likewise, since it was not repudiated by the court as a malicious and obvious misapplication of law, must therefore be considered *potentially* illegal to use "well, when he did it this way, it didn't work, so I'll do it a different way".

Is the image illegal?

Yes?

Block it.

No?

Don't block it.

Not "is the image possibly illegal?". That is just fooking retarded. Find out if it IS illegal (see also a recent El Reg topic on the subject) and if it is, persue it as illegal and block it in the meantime so you aren't colluding in an illegal (not potentially illegal) act.

I mean, by selling me a CD, amazon are potentially helping me to copy the CD in breech of the copyright act and therefore potentially, by selling me a CD an illegal act is done. Aiding and abetting a potentially illegal act?

Again, the icon for obvious reasons.

Reg readers in the dark over extreme porn

likely to result in serious injury to the anus, breasts or genitals.

What about Casino Royale?

Ofcom rules on Clarkson strumpet gag

Never understood the reasoning of the "insult"

It was derogatory about TRUCKERS, not women. It didn't intimate in any possible form that truckers are allowed to murder women. So I never understood why it was "it's an insult to women" and "Hurtful to those who lost loved ones". If it had been a bunch of truckers or a trucker union complaining that their members were being maligned, I could understand.

This?

No.

Icon for obvious reasons.

Entire class fails IT exam by submitting in Word format

re: The DiDA documentation is misleading

No, it isn't.

Why is a compatability pack needed to make the native format of an application compatible? It is either compatible without it since there is no problem with the format or the native format isn't compatible, and therefore why do you assume that the native format is changed?

It's just that you want Word used because you think that it must be used 'cos you use it and MS wrote it and they're great and everyone else is just poopy-heads and we need kids who don't read instructions but can use Word and and and and...

re: Didn't accept MS Word?!

Well, reasons may include

a) Only Word can manage Word, and costs to buy. You shouldn't have to pay to be educated.

b) Which version of Word

c) Word is a great way of passing around viruses

Any one on their own is good enough reason.

re: Are there other formats?

Yup.

Plain text ASCII.

Acceptable anywhere.

re: Odd choices.

I don't think Powerpoint has much of a virus cross-section compared to Word.

Maybe that's why.

re: What about DOCX?

Have you used it? No? Well it reads to me like the compatability pack allows, for example, PDFs to be displayed in Office 2003.

It doesn't (and should not) change the Word2003 format and that would mean that it cannot be the compatability pack makes the Word2003 format acceptable. So it remains verboten.

Office doesn't understand its own formats much any more and the days of Word understanding all the major players in the document creation market ended when MS killed all the competitors to become the market leader. The other formats could go hang then.

re: Resonable response...

And thereby giving them 7 more days than anyone else to submit their work.

Which is unfair.

Add to that the course is about how to prepare and send documents and one element is how document presentation is a very different kettle of fish from document preparation (e.g. You don't print out the postscript language to PRESENT the document, you run the program to turn those directives into an image. But to CREATE the postscript image, you may use a plain text editor to enter the right directives, or even a program) and by submitting their work in a documentation *production* format shows they have failed to learn the course, why shouldn't they be failed.

With a fail and having to do a new exam:

a) they don't get extra days to finish their work

b) they will finally learn the difference between the production and presentation aspects of documentation.

UK e-tailers scurry to scrap dodgy Heavy Metal covers

re: oh well whatever nevermind

And what about the Crazy Frog's froggy doodle being visible on adverts? He's just as believable a person as the Simpsons...

Pirates pee on Amazon's MP3 parade

re: Let's take a look...

And even worse, the used version of the CD NONE of the money goes to the artist!

OMG!!!!!

@Sean Baggaley

"I love the architectural ouvré of Nash and his contemporaries -- you'll see examples all over London. It has wonderful aesthetics. Does this mean I should be allowed to live in any of their houses for free?"

No, but you CAN build a house that looks EXACTLY THE SAME. Maybe from cheaper materials and in a less desirable area.

That's what an MP3 copy IS.

And as Dan said: what about the estate of Hans Christian Anderson or Charles Dickens (hell, Mozart/Handel/Lizt and Shakespear himself to cover most of Art), we don't take over dead people's houses unless we BUY and then own them and they become OUR house.

Now show me the receipt that says you bought any rights to any of their works.

Show me ANYONE who has bought the rights to the works from the descendant of one of those people and so they now own it.

They don't?

Then either

a) Copyright ("Art" as you put it) isn't property

b) You're all trespassers and should be jailed

"small, independent music labels who can't sell either physical media, OR downloads."

And I can't sell buggy whips or house cardigans (cardigans that fit over the house).

should the government step in to make sure?

Now what this label CAN do is help promotion of the people who pay them. They can produce the professional looking CD's and other merchandise for the bands that want to pay them to sort the details out.

If they don't want to do that, why should the government help them out? They don't help ME.

re: Copyright, DRM et al ....

You forgot "Do we get life + 70 years rights on the code" and "Do we expect to be paid for work we HAD done, not work we ARE DOING".

And 90% of programmers do not work for Microsoft (Software division), Symantec, Eidos, etc. So without copyright, your boss still needs you to secure the computer perimeter. Still needs you to write a script that will display the monthly data for the board by next Thursday, etc.

And we do not get copyright on our stuff, so we lose nothing. The company sells no software so lose nothing.

@Anthony

And in the laws Piracy is COMMERCIAL LARGE SCALE copyright infringement.

And legal terms REALLY DO mean something when you're talking about the FUCKING LAW.

"did you deprive creator a sale"

No.

Deprived of what would have POTENTIALLY been a sale.

But then again, I could potentially cop off with Angeline Jolie. It's POSSIBLE!

"your a thief". No. Civil tort, not criminal theft.