* Posts by Matt Hawkins

176 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Nov 2007

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MPs prepare to beat off phantom Olympic hooker invasion

Matt Hawkins
Thumb Up

Hype

I don't think the Olympics will result in Mr Jowell watching any more dodgy films than normal so the British taxpayer can breathe a sigh of relief.

Windows 7 - The Reg reader review redux

Matt Hawkins
FAIL

RTFM

"When you enter a folder it doesn't auto expand in the folder pane"

It does if you if bother to read the "Folder and search options".

Windows 7 lessons - the must know before you buy

Matt Hawkins
Gates Horns

Browser Ballot Screen?

Installed Win 7 last night. There was no Browser ballot screen it just installed Internet Explorer and I had to download Firefox and delete all the IE shortcuts myself.

What happened to the European ruling? Did Microsoft just ignore it in the end?

Revolting postmen force early Windows 7 launch

Matt Hawkins
Grenade

Yawn

What are the post office striking about this time? It's getting a bit boring now. They are flushing their industry down the toilet just like the unions did the British car industry.

On the plus side I've got my 2 copies of Win 7 from PCWorld. So thanks all round to the CWU! Keep up the good work lads!

Boffins demo 'through-walls' people tracker

Matt Hawkins
Stop

Prime Directives

This is old news. Robocop could do this.

Although admittedly that was in the near future.

MP urges Royal Mail rethink on postcode site takedown

Matt Hawkins

@chris 233

@chris 233

You can lookup the post code if you know the street address for free. That isn't what the fuss is about.

Mel Gibson to put hand up Jodie Foster's Beaver

Matt Hawkins
WTF?

Original Films

With the only films coming out of Hollywood these days either sequels, comic adaptations, computer game adaptations or book adaptations every one thought Hollywood had no original ideas left.

Well who is laughing now suckers! Hollywood is back.

With a beaver.

Texting peer released from prison

Matt Hawkins
Unhappy

Are we surprised?

Wow he didn't have to wait long before his mates rescued him from prison.

If he hit a stationary object on the motorway then he was simply driving too fast. It's as simple as that.

One rule for them, one rule for the rest of us.

There just isn't a wall long enough to line up all these bankers, lords and politicians.

Virgin Media boosts bottom tier broadband

Matt Hawkins
Thumb Up

Heinz Enters Broadband Market

"Branston's crappy traffic shaped broadband service can advertise itself as 'up to 500Tbps' for all the good it will do when you try and use it."

Do Branston do broadband? I thought they stuck to foodstuffs?

My 10mbs cable connection is brilliant and always has been. I started out with 512 and it has been upgraded over the years.

I would rather have a reliable fast shaped service than a crappy unshaped "upto" 8mbs ADSL service that never exceeds 1mbs.

If you know what you are doing the shaping doesn't really stop you downloading what you want.

Texas lawyer sues Citibank over fake cheque scam

Matt Hawkins
Happy

Ha ha ha

Good. It is always funny when someone trips over their own greed.

Obviously in the UK he could have cried a bit and got the UK Government to bail him out. If he actually made a few nail bombs he could have claimed an extra £12,000 of tax payers money.

Pro-Palestine vandals deface Army, NATO sites

Matt Hawkins
Pirate

White Phosphorus

I would rather people deface websites than deface civilians with chemical weapons. Maybe the Israelis should learn a bit of HTML and get hacking ...

Microsoft gives XP another four months to live

Matt Hawkins
Thumb Down

Vista Sucks ... Your Resources

"It was good, but half the people who want it now haven't actually really tried Vista, they just like to insult it"

I've tried Vista. It offers almost nothing over XP except that it used twice as many system resources. On my mates PC it uses 40% of the CPU just to run the desktop.

Why would you want an operating system that sucks the life out of your PC just to give you a few transparent windows? More secure? I've had XP for years and had no security issues. Vista isn't exactly without a few security holes.

"Not worth upgrading if you're running an ancient comp though."

So best to buy a new PC, double your CPU and memory, pay for Vista Sucker Edition and get the same performance as your old PC ... but with a few fancy tweaks to the interface!

Go on you know it makes $ense. To Microsoft's balance sheet at least ....

US customs: Yes, we can seize your laptop, iPod

Matt Hawkins
Pirate

Just ...

Encrypt your data using Truecrypt but bury the datafile in a windows system folder and call it xyz.temp or similar.

When they try spying on you they will stand no chance of even noticing it.

Alternatively just stop travelling to the US and go somewhere more liberal. Like Burma.

Court slaps UK BitTorrenters with landmark damages award

Matt Hawkins
Gates Halo

How many times ...

-- "you cannot steal something that is not there"

-- Can you steal electricity? I believe you can be convicted for that form of theft.

You can steal electricity because it is a limited resource. By using it you are depriving the owner of selling it to someone else. Every unit of electricity you use has to be generated. The cost of creating a song, film or software product is a fixed cost whether you sell 1 copy or a trillion.

Copying something digital does not deprive the original owner of the product.

File sharing of copyright material is not "theft" just as taking a picture of a car isn't "car theft".

You can argue it is wrong but claiming it is "theft" is simply stupid and misinformed.

Virgin Media and BPI join forces to attack illegal filesharing

Matt Hawkins
Boffin

Priorities

Why doesn't Virgin Media bother doing this for people accessing other illegal content on the net? Why is it that they are taking action against people downloading music rather than someone committing a real crime like downloading child porn?

I guess we all know where their priorities lie ... but then we've known that for years.

'We could wake up smarter' - Ballmer hints at Win XP reprieve

Matt Hawkins
Gates Horns

Vista slamming on the performance brake ...

Even if you had a new PC why would you want to take a 50% performance hit just to run Vista? MS are crazy if they think transparent windows are that important.

Why pay for multiple cores and multiple GBs of RAM when half of it is going to used to display a desktop and handle some file operations?

I'm sticking with XP. If I want the Vista experience I will pull out a stick of RAM and underclock my CPU!

Sony, MS want control of PS3, Xbox iPlayer, Beeb boss claims

Matt Hawkins
Thumb Up

Well Done BBC

I'm with the BBC on this.

Sony and MS either want the content or they don't. They don't fund BBC content or the iPlayer so I don't see why the BBC should run around meeting their silly demands.

Sony and MS have produced consoles for years now and have only just allowed half hearted XVID playback. I think that sums up their commitment to media functionality.

If MS and Sony opened up their systems someone out there would not only produce an iPlayer for their console but it would walk all over anything MS or Sony could produce in house. Just like XBMC.

It seems as if big companies are trying to bully the BBC with demands they wouldn't make of other companies. Well done to the BBC for standing firm.

Information Commissioner: Phorm must be opt-in only

Matt Hawkins
Flame

What out for false endings ...

I wouldn't call victory yet. They can still hassle you for your opt-in or your ISP could opt-in for you via small print.

Phorm will be looking for ways to regroup and represent their technology.

This is the bit in the movie where the heroes think the monster/robot is dead and drop their guard.

It has just blinked. What are we going to do? Stand around cheering while it slowly gets up behind us or keep kicking, blogging, spreading the word and signing petitions?

They have taken a blow and are on the floor but I don't want Phorm beaten ... I want it dead, sliced, diced, burnt and buried under a motorway bridge (or airport terminal).

Aussie laser-pointer dazzle attacks on airliners: Bad

Matt Hawkins
Joke

ILS

The trouble with automatic landing systems is that it is all too easy for a terrorist to take over a disused terminal computer and adjust sea level causing the plane to crash. I saw it in a documentary once ...

AT&T to crush copyrighted network packets

Matt Hawkins
Gates Horns

What Other Packets Would M$ Like To Bury?

I can see Bill Gates rubbing his hands with glee as he starts destroying Open Office and Firefox packets whizzing around the Globe.

Government piles filesharing pressure on UK ISPs

Matt Hawkins
Thumb Up

Allow Consumers To Download Legal Content

"As for the region-coding of the DVDs, the only GOOD reason for this, is different levels of censoring"

This is not a reason for region-coding. The UK is in the same region as Japan, Arabia and South Africa. They all have completely different censorship systems and different languages.

Region-coding is there for one reason and one reason only. Price fixing. I have never seen a rational argument to say otherwise.

"(some blood+gore not allowed in civilized countries, some natural things not allowed in some uncivilized parts of the world)."

This seems a little snobbish. You will find in most Western countries that violence and gore is far more acceptable than "natural acts". People getting their brains blown out is far more acceptable than people getting blown. One is illegal and one is perfectly legal. Which one gets censored?

While the content providers attempt to prevent consumers paying for their content they can hardly act surprised when consumers consider downloading it.

Give the consumer the ability to purchase content for a price that fairly reflects the cost and people will jump at the chance. iTunes has proved that people will pay for stuff that is available for free.

More people would pay if the price was fair. £0.79 per track? Why is this the same as physical media when the distribution cost is so much lower?

People want to download media. They like the mechanism.

Give us the mechanism for a fair price. But they aren't going to do that because it is all about keeping certain people rich. Whole layers of the movie and music industries are redundant and they are fighting for survival. They are the coal merchants fighting electricity ... they are the farm labourers fighting the combine harvester ... they are the typists fighting the PC ... times have changed and the industry will have to adapt.

UK.Gov green lights nuclear power

Matt Hawkins
Pirate

Nuclear Waste Disposal Problem Solved !

Lucky we've solved the disposal of nuclear waste problem ... oh hang on. We haven't ... but at least we've got energy security ... oh hang on we still need to buy uranium from other countries.

Once the Chinese start building more nuclear power stations the uranium supply isn't going to be any more stable than Russian gas.

I'm glad nuclear electricity is going to be 'cheap'. It hasn't been in the past but I suppose the nuclear industry have got some secret magic technology that has suddenly made decommissioning and waste disposal that much cheaper. I'll look forward to hearing all about it. Or not, as the case may be.

'Draconian' Microsoft promises to make Office work again

Matt Hawkins
Thumb Down

Hello Open Office

I've got plenty of old documents I would still expect to be able to open in the future. If M$ think this is unreasonable I guess Office 2003 SP2 is the last M$ office product I will use.

OO gets better and better while Office ... well .... doesn't.

Plus you can run Open Office from a USB stick.

Office update disables MS files

Matt Hawkins
Happy

M$ Office. So 2007.

People are still using Micro$oft Office? How quaint.

US surgeon snaps patient's tattooed todger

Matt Hawkins
Jobs Horns

Mobile Phones Other Medical Myths

There is no reason why you can't use a mobile in hospitals ... other than they like fleecing people to use "patient line" (or whatever it is called) at 30p/min.

If mobile phones affected medical equipment then that medical equipment wouldn't be fit for purpose.

Animal rights activist hit with RIPA key decrypt demand

Matt Hawkins
Alert

Stalin's Russia

Glad to see there are plenty of people who are happy to brand this woman a terrorist despite there being no evidence to support it. I guess these people are the same people that determine your must be guilty if shot by the police.

Just because the police decide to take an interest in your private life doesn't mean you are guilty of anything. This is Britain, not Stalin's Russia .... well not yet anyway.

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