Posts by Nic

Millions opted into UK mobile phone directory

@Havin_it

@Steve Evans

By @Havin_it Posted Tuesday 9th June 2009 12:11 GMT

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update tbl_numbers set ex_dir="1" where mobile_num="07123456789"

???

Even simpler:

delete from tbl_numbers where mobile_num="07123456789";

And it had better bloody well be the latter if I have asked for *removal*.

------

True but expect to find yourself back on when they import from another list. Thats the problem with a lot of subscription services, email included. They have to keep something so you don't get added again.

I don't like this service so don't take this the wrong way.

Shifty study proclaims Brits a nation of freetards

Justifying your actions

This is the usual run of comments from a bunch of copyright thieves.

Yes you are stealing. Yes it is illegal.

Here are your usual flawed justifcations:

1) It was a rip off to buy...

2) It's a TV series broadcast on TV so it's okay to download

3) They make squillions anyway

And a new one for today

4) The statistics are flawed.

Well if it makes you feel better than well done you. If you want to steal then steal but don't wrap it up in some bullshit "power to the people" rant.

Wikipedia bans Church of Scientology

Religion on Wiki, Fact?

Putting any religion including the big three on Wiki is always going to be a problem. None are fact based so they will always be in dispute.

They're all as crackpot as each other so really there should just be one Wiki article called Religion which states:

“Antiquated mythological activity practised by persons of limited intelligence. Derived from an early human fear of death and a lack of understanding of basic astronomy, physics, chemistry and biology.”

/flame on!

Facebook value plummets $5bn

@James 00:20 GMT

"My girlfriend is one of these... and she's how old??? Although I've trained her not to use it when I'm around but I can see her wince every time it bleeps or whistles, desperate to get her hands on it."

I would imagine she is corresponding with your soon to be replacement who presumably isn't arrogant enough to think he can "Train" his girlfriend?

Adblock developer offers 'please unblock me' tag to sites

@Pascal Monett

Nice response. I concede that not all adblocking people pirate music/software and I assure you it wasnt a troll. My point was the frequent posts with reference to DRM, Anti-Piracy and any kind of copywrite laws also seem to come from the same people who aren't prepared to tolerate a little advertising.

I also take your point in reference to annoying ads. Yes shouty multi-media ads are often irritating and I wouldn't miss them if they vanished.

I suspect you were not my target for my original comment. It was more aimed at the less reasonable block everything, pay for nothing crowd.

My 2 cents

The concept of ads on information sites in my opinion is entirely legitimate. Those of you who state that you pay for your phone line and ISP seem to have little understanding of the commercial model. You are not paying for "The Internet"

The closest analogy I can think of would be paying for petrol and car tax and expecting the bookshop you drive to to provide you with free books as a result.

I hate to say it (and I will probably get flamed as a result) but there seems to be a loud minority of commenters on El Reg that consider anything on the net should be some sort of hippy hand in hand free for all. That we should all have access to as much music, software and information as we can cram down our connections. These same people seem to have a warped view of any reasonably large software corporation. As if somehow their success automatically makes them worthy of derision.

I don't know what most of this group do for a living but I can take a guess at some sort of development or administration role. Would you do it for free? Or worse would you mind people stealing the product of your work.

Why not go the full hog and never buy a newspaper again. Just read them in the magazine stand or over someones shoulder. Why should you have to pay?

Start-up Bee pledges 'affordable' British e-car

standard response to the Coal fired power station whiners

500000 cars with ICB or 500000 with electric motors. Once we are over to electric we have centralised the power generation and can therefore change the method at any point. IE it doesn't matter too much that our power generation is largely carbon based right now. We change to nuke/solar/wind/fusion etc in the future and are car model still works. We don't have to change every flipping car over each time which would be the problem with other models such as hydrogen.

Hybrid Jaguar XJ en-route?

@ AC: 14th April 2009 10:59 GMT

You're missing the bigger picture. Several million cars on the road using fossil fuels versus several million electric cars on the road with a plug in to a power grid which can and will improve its fossil credentials. It might not have an immediate effect but at least it transfers the problem to a more manageble consolidated one.

Hollywood to totally recall Total Recall

Hey man I've got 5 kids to feed

Makes me wish I had three hands.

PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE say they leave in the tripple nipple....

Facebook downplays eternal user data grab

@AC - 04:30

I love reading comments on the register from people claiming that facebook users should get a life.

Oh the irony...

I have a facebook account, so do my friends, family and village. I like it. I don't put anything up there that I wouldn't want to be shared.

HP UK pulls Linux from all new netbooks

@Cavehomme

I agree with you in all but the lazy comment. Sometimes its just down to time. I want to be earning not tweaking.

I am 100% with you ref smartphones. The ONLY reason I don't yet have a netbook (serial tech buyer) is my iPhone does just about all I would ever need to use a netbook for. Namely email, web, rdp (albeit a bit small), SSH (albeit a bit slow to type, only used in an emergency anyway). Oh and make calls!

I love the fanboys

Wow from reading these comments. That's almost 10 sales HP will have lost!

El Reg is hardly the best representation of netbook users. I personally use Vista for my development PC and Linux for my servers. I know there are plenty of good Linux OS's out there but I really don't care.

MS aren't evil, they are successful. I know that might be an alien concept you some of the commenter's here but thems the breaks.

Guess what, HP are pretty successful too. They got that way by making smart business led decisions. Not catering to a bunch of freetard whiners who seriously don't sound like they get anything done other than tweaking their Linux Distros and commenting on El Reg. In this case their decision was likely based on what sells.

(Insert your fav linux distro here) may be more powerful and cheaper but if it doesn't shift Netbooks in any numbers, no company in their right mind are going to go to the effort of stocking it just for the odd techie who might buy it.

Microsoft phone coming Zune?

Zune?

or Micro-phone...?

Tell Santa to bring more assault rifles

@AC - 17:10

"To answer Scott's question yet again about "need" (because he's very slow and just doesn't get it) - need has nothing to do with it. Zero - zip - nada - zilch. How much of those foods in your fridge should you have to prove that you *need*, Scott? "Uh oh - out with that ice-cream and pizza, tubby...." - in truth, there's not a whole lot that any human really *needs*, see?"

That's the scary bit AC. The want to keep guns it what bothers me. Why not collect nooses electric chairs too?

Don't get me wrong, I am all for hunting for food (I am in the process of getting a shotgun for exactly that purpose here in the uk) but are you honestly telling me that's why you keep your guns? It seems to me to be more a weird obsession.

SuperSpeed USB 3.0 spec finalised

@Simon

Quite!

While we are at it, do we really need more than 512K of Memory?

Judge says tech-addled jurors undermine justice

@Anyone thinking the internet is beneficial in this circumstance

You're all idiots.

You are missing the entire point of a prosecution and defence. They are the advocates and it is their job to present both sides. The Jurors have no right to go all CSI and they will and have knacker up trials as a result.

Hotmail users bitch and moan about new interface

@Rob Re @Nic RE: @AC - HTML Pretty emails

Okay so no point 3 I can live with that ;-)

I don't agree with your basic premise about plain text being the better option. I own an ESP (Email Service Provider) business. The stats just don't add up in your favour. Typically we receive a much higher click through rate for HTML emails.

Oh and before you ask, no I am not a spammer. These are all opt-in lists for my clients newsletters etc. We force them to use the text alternative too! (It also helps for spam filters)

My original point was that Ian Furgason was talking as a creator of email templates, not talking about sending an ordinary email. Plain text isnt the way to go.

@AC - HTML Pretty emails

Wrong wrong wrong.

"Rule 1 Never, I repeat NEVER use HTML in an E-Mail and expect it to look the same on the recipients computer as it did on the senders system." - There are plenty of services out there including Return-Paths system that allow you to previews all email clients and therefore be sure.

"Rule 2 Don't forget blind people will probably be using a 'screen reader', loads of HTML = fail, plain text will work just fine." - That's what the Text Alternate version in Mime Email is for. Clients using screen readers will use that.

"Rule 3 Don't use E-Mail until you really understand Rule 1" - What? You just wanted to come up with three points but could only muster 2?

Police poison speed debate with fuzzy figures

@realpolitik and Igor Mozolevsky

Igor Mozolevsky Posted Friday 24th October 2008 15:21 GMT

"I would be in favour of having fines linked to the driver's income, though, as is the case in Finland, I think

If you go to Magistrates court rather than go for a fixed penalty that is excatly what you will get. Fines are banded as perecentages of your income.

That goes for all fines in court.

@The Other Steve

Seconded.

@Register Reader

Firstly of course I teach my children proper road sense.

Secondly, well we agree on built up areas so lets leave that one. As for motorway speeds; true they did not have speed restrictions at one point. Well done, there were far fewer cars then too and they had slower top speeds. / queue german motorway responses...

"so don't try to pretend that it is always automatically unsafe to drive over the limit if you have had proper training."

The quote above interest me. Its what I hear a lot of in one of my lines of work (which has a lot to do with this subject). Trained police are indeed permitted to travel above the speed limit. With that exception all others are not. Plain and simple dont speed it's law. Deal with it.

Oh and on that note. It's people who claim that they know what they are doing so they can speed that put everyone in danger. Do you really expect the police and courts to accept that and say "Yeah you sound like you know what you are doing so you can go above the speed limit, all others can't though". EVERYONE (with the exception of my late grandad!) thinks they are capable of speeds over than 70 and that they know what they are doing.

Plenty of people think they are okay with Class A drugs too. Should we let those that seem okay to take them?

Drive at 70 and relax. It's not a slow speed, you will get to your destination and you may even live longer.

/ I sound like I am 80 in this post and I realise that. I'm actually 30 FYI.

@ replies to Nic

The Ball bag comment made me laugh :)

I keep my kids safe as I can and yes I do teach them as well as possible.

I agree speed is not 100% of the cause of accidents but accidents at slower speeds cause less fatalities. Simple.

For the sake of getting there a couple of minutes early (or worse pissing away fuel by accelerating up to traffic lights like so many numpties do) you are willing to put peoples lives in further danger.

Of course YOU are a safe driver, its all the other idiots on the road. They don't have your skills. For that matter, you drive better with a drink in you. Blaa blaa blaa.

The only reason most of the anti-cam prats in this thread are so verbose about the subject is that it is one of the few aspects of law that actually affects them. Okay so you don't go shop lifting but you DO break the law on the road. But that's not a real crime, not really no...

wake up and smell the sh!t you are spreading.

Oh and to the Motor Bike guy. You sound like an angry teenager not a grown adult.

Self involved commentards

Those spouting the usual crap about why don't they catch real criminals, cash machines etc. sound completely idiotic and irresponsible.

If your child was run over by someone speeding you would soon change your tune.

When you are awarded a licence to drive on the public highways you are given permission to move roughly a tonne of metal and glass at speed through areas populated by flesh and bone bodies. It doesn't take a genius to work out that you should operate them within the constraints of a speed limiting system and take great care. The concept that when you see an empty road you should/can put your foot down is idiotic and irresponsible.

The government is YOUR government. If you are not happy with it run for something and stop armchair prophesying. Any income from speed cameras comes from people breaking the law. You don't need to do it. You can opt not to fund speed cameras by simply not speeding. If you can't do that then don't drive or at least don't drive anywhere near my kids.

BT claims UK broadband boost breakthrough

You lot really are whiners some times.

So a relatively positive item about a company offering something to potentially improve BB speeds is responded to with usual El Reg commentards bitching about conspiracy theories and blame.

Seems to me this solution (yes I already knew about the bell wire cut option) is a nice clean way of doing something to a phone socket non-techies would have previously been scared of.

Stop whining and go back to watching Stargate re-runs or whatever it is you do.

/and yes I am in a bad mood today.

World Camera offers enhanced reality via iPhone

AppStore?

Cant find it in the app store yet.

Big and bendy e-ink displays on way

Wipe clean Jazz Mags?

I can see a full colour whipe clean version of this being a useful cross over between certain web sites and certain top shelf publications.

Mines the full length dirty mac

Google releases open source browser

I'm using it to write this

And so far so good!

Try the right-click "Inspect Element" Awsome! Like Dom inspector/IE Developer Toolbar.

Very slick so far and the tabs work really well.

The Google-isation of all the net's access points

@Solomon Grundy

Seconded! Well said.

Microsoft's IE 8 puts giant web hole on notice

my oar

I am a web developer with 10 years experience and I use IE as my primary browser.

Shock horror!!!

Intel's Atom laptots 'are here'

laptot = uttra portable sub notebook

If so I think it's a pretty clever name and shame all you haters.

Analysts slam iPhone security and battery life

re: re: Not sure about the battery life issue

Yeah I am using push.

I moved from the t-mobile WM6 MDA Vario II and I have to say the iphone kicks the nuts of the Vario or any other WM6 device I have come accross. Which by the way lasted as long on battery as the iPhone.

But then I like toys and I am prepared to have a device that is not perfect.

And yes I will probably upgrade when a new iPhone comes out.

Not sure about the battery life issue

"makes it impossible to maintain synchronisation with an Exchange server for a full day even if no calls are made"

Hmm, well I use mine for exactly that, either through wifi, 3g or GPRS depending on location.

I can go at least 1 day syncronising and performing other tasks, phone calls, photos etc without any problem.

The battery life is far from ideal but it can perform better than stated here.

The biggest issue from my business perspective is the lag when talking to exchange. Accessing contacts to email or sms can freeze the whole phone for 10 seconds or more, seamingly at random. I hear 2.1 should address this though.

Ten Tech Toys for Travellers

okay I am going to say it...

Where is the iphone in that list?

/ducks

But seriously. At least half of those gadgets are only really doing something that one phone (dare I say the iphone with a few extra apps installed) can do in one?

Listen to radio, watch tv (well vids at least at the moment), GPS, take video (again with extra App).

That way you don't need the great big rucksack

// disclaimer. I KNOW the iphone is far from perfect. I am just illustrating a point about taking one nicely built smart phone out with you rather than a tonne of gadgets.

El Reg nails Street View spycars to Google Maps

Am I the only one

who thought the Street View thingamy was quite nifty?

If by some freak incident my mush ended up on one I can't imagine crying myself to sleep.

Big TV flips ad blockers the bird

Imagine all the people...

As always a load of freetards demanding something for nothing. I have no idea why you think a site providing free content doesn't have the right to advertise.

If you disable their ads then you are only one small gray step away from theft.

El Reg is a classic example. Alright there are quite a few ads and the expanding jobbers are especially irritating but they are there for a reason. It's how they pay their staff to get the content you so lovingly bitch about on to the site in the first place.

If you want a micro-payment web instead then fine. I personally don't mind the ads if I can get some free content in return.

Windows Vista has been battered, says Wall Street fan

Yay FUD

I have absolutely no problems running Vista SP1 64Bit on Ultimate. It runs very well and handles a vast array of open programs with ease.

Saying that, I agree that the OS doesnt have enough punch to warrant the extra hardware required. I forked out for an uber PC to get it to run well. What I now have is a very smooth & fast system with (as yet) no crashes or halts. The average home or corporate user isn't going to want to fork out on a new PC capable of running Vista at a sensible level so all in all I do agree that Vista is a hard OS to promote.

What hell hath science wrought lately?

re The BigDog

and re the pack mule comments. The technology is simply amazing but as you said, very loud. If only we could sold the power usage and excess noise issues...

Perhaps we could create some sort of organic version, it would obviously need protection from the elements, so perhaps a fur coat of some sort. It would need to listen for predators, so some ears. Throw in some eyes too.

The power source could be some sort of digestive system with a mouth at one end and an anus at the other...

This smells like America's pens that work in outer space to me.

Pencil anyone?

Chinese telco jumps starting gun in 3G race

@Allan Rutland

It was subsidised to increase take-up. RTFA...

Microsoft urges Windows users to shun 'carpet bombing' Safari

@AC and others

MS is doing the right thing (although I wouldn't doubt with a small degree of pleasure in this instance).

AC I don't agree that it's MS's fault because the vuln isn't present on other platforms. It's for the application developers to ensure compatibility and security for their app and how it interacts with the OS and clearly here they missed the mark.

Ballmer and Gates defend Vista, drop Windows 7 hints

Vista aint great but its not as bad as you whiners make out

Okay so I have a very high end computer but Vista 64 ultimate crashes far less than XP did for me and I can handle vast amounts of open programs at a time.

I like new toys so I shall be upgrading as and when.

Petrol stations deploy anti-theft stingers

@Ash

I assume you operate this principle accross all purchases, if you consider them too expensive you steal the item?

PS3 update fails to fix Grand Theft Auto IV woes

@ any 360 cheaptards

Just because you couldn't afford the PS3 doesn't mean you have to come and jump on this story. Go back to your inferior console, watch your retro DVDs and send your mum's off to Iceland.

/ducks

Facebook security hole exposes Paris Hilton's . . . um, pics

@Luke Wells and others

Well if the site tells you it will keep the images private then I don't see why you wouldn't/shouldn't.

Webservers are used for lots of Private data. On-line banking anyone!?

You CAN make data secure and private on a webserver. What you absolutely shouldn't do is claim privacy when there is none or what is there is badly written. This does so much damage to consumer confidence.

Image URLS can be direct

But a nice clean way is to use mod_rewrite and pass them through a script.

I typically setup something like:

www.site.com/pics/x/y/id.jpg

Where x = width, y = height and id is the db reference to the image link or similar. The whole thing is mod_rewritten to an image handling engine like PHP Thumb but with the inclusion of user security so you can tell unauthorised users to go stick it.

Easy peasy.

/ducks waiting for abuse from someone that knows better.

Airline pilot sacked for 777 Top Gun stunt

Gutsiest move I ever saw Mav...

Hey Slider... you stink

Bloke takes missus up the Oxo Tower

As my friends have always said...

"Try the brown wings". It sounds like taking my wife up the Oxo tower will be the best place get to them.

Serious Flash vulns menace at least 10,000 websites

@anyone other than Michael

Nice one Michael, said it better than I could have.

Flash can make quite innovative adverts. The only type that annoy me are those that jump on top of the text content.

All others are fine and being a highly advanced human (well at least smart enough to say, dress myself), I am perfectly capable of reading text content even with pictures on a page moving or not. If you are not capable of doing that then I worry for your own capacity.

El Reg etc require the funds from Ads. Guess what, people DO click them! I'm sure you think that it's just idiots but take a look around you. My guess is you have plenty of crap you don't need that you bought from somewhere.

Why is the iPlayer a multi million pound disaster?

Why the offensive "special needs" comment?

No need and offensive to plenty of people. Grow up.