Posts by Scott

Microsoft search bribery machine in Black Friday breakdown

Much worse than being reported in popular media

You should see how much havoc this was causing to people on slickdeals.net.

Here:

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid=327000&t=1046236

and here:

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid=327000&t=1042651

are a total of around 5,100 posts in two threads - the most postings I've ever seen on that forum about one deal. I was there on BF for the morning, waiting for the deal to go live, then suffering for hours waiting for live cashback to come up. Nicknames given to it were "live crash" and "crashback".

$236m judgment lands on mom and pop spam shop

@Henry and James

I'm guessing they don't even have $2m laying down the back of their sofas. My point is that it doesn't matter to the spammer whether the ruling was $2m or $236m<<<

Okay, so they have associates they sell spam leads to. Enter a judgment against those associates also, at 1/10 the judgment amount. If you want to discourage people from using spammers then make punitive judgments up their food chain.

There is no punishment in the current system to encourage sales-sleazes to consider how their leads are generated.

Microsoft: Finding flaws on our website is OK

XYZ

Our software has less flies! (Still a steaming pile, though.)

Official: OOXML approved as international standard

Have you heard the sage advice

There are two things in the world you never want to see being created:

chicken soup and standards.

Now you've seen a standard being created. Do you have the stomach to see the other one?

Canadians go out clubbing

Don't kid yourselves

If the seals had arms they'd be clubbing Canadians.

They're coming right at us!

Or, let's thin their numbers!

Whatever it is uncle Jimbo is required to say this year.

Keyboard PC design recalls Amiga era

Wow, reconditioned units already for sale too

One picture of the unit shows a Card Reader; I'm guessing the target market for this is POS. Hope it holds up with an inch of dust caught in the fans. The top-mounted air inlet makes sure all the operator dandruff gets sucked in.

US auto-emissions cleansed in urine-tech shower

When truckers are introduced to the technology...

...it should turn into a real pissing contest.

Microsoft rolls out Vista SP1

Did you check before posting?

> Does anyone actually check the extent of these issues before responding with the usual "MS is shite" stuff?

Yes, actually I went through the process of clicking through all their readmes, release notes, software affected by, and readme firsts. Funny how I have to use El Reg to find the download link, but that's another rant.

Clicking on them doesn't work to well if you're running Firefox with NoScript, as their site is mostly scripted and has hooks to a dozen web-metrics sites. I "Print Preview"ed them and they looked like shiite so I try again on WinXP with Internet Exploder. The Print Preview looks like shiite there too.

It prints like it looks though. 52 pages of Hotfixes and Security Updates. 10 per page. Did you read them all?

There's even buried in there somewhere a link to a video presentation on how my Windows Genuine Advantage experience will change if I'm not genuine.

Windows better off closed, says Microsoft

How many competitors will SCO the company if they open up?

How much has MS stolen from competitors?

Certainly, the few dozen lines of code MS claims Linux developers stole from them would be rewritten within hours, so MS couldn't hold large customers up for ransom.

The latest value: $1mil per user:

http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2008/03/06/microsoft_moonlight_patent_protection/

Microsoft Office Online falls into Halloween time vortex

What is it with that company and Halloween?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/06/microsoft_wins_latest_halloween_pr/

The Halloween memos.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_Documents

http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/

NetApp changes name to NetApp

A lower-case n, obviously, but

shouldn't they rename OnTAP, their filer OS, to "o".

Then you could just say "no" to their boxen.

Microsoft's LAMP answer arrives in pieces

student download or push crap that isn't enterprise yet

https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com/Products.aspx

Previous poster said it's $0 for students.

Okay, so student d/l this stuff, writes a student-grade project, then goes out to the brave corporate world to do good. You get him in to support your already-written stuff because there's no way in hell you're trusting a frosh with new development and he opens his mouth, drools, and says "wow, that stuff is old, I don't know how to use that!", then starts telling *you* how all that old crap should be rewritten because MS PR told him gadget X is just the thing to solve this problem. The problem you solved two years ago.

Point being: if you can get the kids trained only on the latest product that your corporate clients won't adopt, then maybe your corporate clients will be forced to buy another $100k of your product (and another $2 mil of labor to rewrite it).

Meanwhile, LAMP costs, how much, in a real project again?

BOFH: Insecurity complex

Jim, not Jeff

Problem is, if you take out Jim he finds a Larry H Parker to sue you for millions, so the company has to pay him even more money not to work than it was paying him before.

A previous employer used to use their Jim to their advantage. They'd team him with you. If you complained he was not doing work they'd shovel all the work into your lap, and make an entry in a book somewhere about him. Trouble was, he had been there 25 years and was union (a unionized systems engineer!), so he couldn't be fired. Saw it happen over and over again. I heard he never got raises, but he never did any work for the company either so that's expected.

Microhoo! or YahSoft!? The! people! must! decide!

None of the above

The moneypit, formerly known as Yahoo!

MSN 2.0

My Internet

Portal de Vista

Microsoft South (Microsoft North being Redmond)

eBay: 'We will lower listing fees'

Getting rid of the gallery fee helps

That's the little picture you see when you're just scanning a bunch of listings. I think it is $1, and you pretty much have to have that little picture or people won't click on your listing.

Former DEA agents sue over American Gangster

British heroes broke Enigma?

> Maybe the UK government and the British heros who actually broke the code should be suing too.

Um, wasn't it Poles that broke the Enigma code? Then handed it to the British several years later?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cipher_Bureau

Lawsuit on it's way.

California to snatch control of citizens' air-con

Energy panel changes tune on mandatory control of energy

(Maybe they'll change again, but this article seems to indicate they've backed off a bit)

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/01/12/news/top_stories/9_02_1801_11_08.txt

In an about-face, the California Energy Commission plans to give customers final control over the energy-saving thermostats that are to be required in new homes, Claudia Chandler, the commission's assistant executive director, said Friday.

The so-called Programmable Communicating Thermostats are called for in a pending revision to state building codes.

As initially proposed, these programmable thermostats would have deferred in emergencies to a radio signal from utilities, wresting control from customers.

After public protests, Chandler said the commission staff has suggested letting customers choose whether to accept the emergency control.

The staff will make the recommendation at the energy commission's Jan. 30 meeting in Sacramento. The changed proposal would be taken up at a later date.

"The consumer or customer can override the emergency control," with the change, Chandler said.

This state will do anything except build more power plants

California's been democratically controlled for decades.

Instead of building natural gas or (gasp!) coal-fired power plants they just play politics with permits so only solar or wind can be built. Heck, they even grab my money away from me and throw it at solar and wind. Here, take it! And we still have power shortages.

Welcome to a party unencumbered by the thought process.

Latest Vista SP1 tweak open to everyone with a week to spare

Pfft! Opens favorite beverage

Here's to another lousy millennium.

How to be a failure at Guitar Hero III

South Park

You don't need p2p for South Park anymore - they put them all up online for free.

The Guitar Queer-O episode:

http://www.southparkzone.com/episodes/1113/Guitar-Queer-o.html

Americans can swear at toilets, judge rules

Maybe more to it - Daily Kooks

...34 year old Dawn Herb, a single mother of four children. ...

Dawn responded with a series of loud oaths and curses, all directed at the toilet and at urging her daughter to respond with a mop and bucket; but which also carried out an open bathroom window and across the street, where they were heard by 12 year old Sydney Gilman who was letting her dog in. This young lady dutifully told her father, Patrick Gilman, that there might be a fight going on and he went out to investigate.

*

What he heard, he later testified, was a woman shout, "Are you fucking retarded? Get me a fucking mop!" In response Mr. Gilman might have been solicitous of his neighbor’s crises. But instead he says he yelled, "Watch your mouth! There are young children in this neighborhood!" Mr. Gilman says Dawn then shouted back, "Shut the fuck up!" However Dawn says he told her to "Shut the fuck up!" and she responded by telling him to "Mind your own business." But whatever the particulars, Dawn was clearly exasperated and Mr. Gilman was clearly offended. Under normal circumstances he would have called the cops, who would have shown up, cautioned her to be quieter and asked him to be more understanding, or, if he insisted, Mr. Gilman might have sworn out a complaint, and that would likely have been the end of it. It happens a thousand times every night in neighborhoods all over America. But these were not normal circumstances because Patrick Gilman is a Scranton police officer. Officer Gilman was off duty at the time, but when a cop calls a cop, they respond.

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/12/15/104929/48/628/422446

Sun spikes Java IDEs

Another year, another confusing name for C compiler

What will it be called in '08?

No, really sir, it's the same "cc", just a completely different name.

Forte

Sun ONE studio

Java studio creator