Posts by Mr Spoon

O2 tries something completely new: Honesty

Re: Interesting side note...

was it anything like being a head floating in a jar?

Firefox for Android now runs on EVEN OLDER, slower kit

Re: 500MB?

Yep you're right that came out completely wrong, I blame lack of coffee. What I should have said is that less than 512, which in most cases means 256 as far as I'm aware, will lead to a not great Gingerbread experience and a bloody awful ICS one. Specifically Cyanogenmod on the Moto Milestone. Having said that, even my Galaxy note unloads pages from the stock browser when I task switch on JB quite often and that's with a Gig of RAM.

Spoon.

Re: 500MB?

Really 500MB is a minimum for comfortable usage on GB and causes a frustrating amount of app reloading on ICS, so for larger apps like FF it's not a surprising restriction.

iPhone 5 has 'laser keyboard, holographic images'

Re: Another surprise feature

No Chrome is crap in many ways. It's very nice and fast but the rendering still leaves a lot to be desired and it's pretty buggy.

Top spook: ISP black boxes NOT key to UK's web-snoop plan

Re: HTTP

I very much doubt they're claiming they won't parse the data, the question is about what the algorithm parsing it spits out to investigators at the end, which means it's pretty easy to separate content out provided you have a parser per protocol, including higher level "protocols" like Twitter's AJAX interactions etc.

GNOME emits 'head up the arse' desktop update

Not the same thing. If you launch 3 windows of an app such as Nautilus or Firefox, ctrl-tab doesn't cycle the windows.

Stars Wars icons join Queen Elizabeth on Pacific Island coin

@payton?

It's youthisised. Futurama told me so.

http://www.watchcartoononline.com/futurama-episode-507-teenage-mutant-leelas-hurdles

at 3:13

;)

(I'm sure that site is entirely legit...)

Who'd buy a fake battery?

0

Maybe I've just been lucky but I always buy 3rd party batteries. My Moto Milestone currently has a 3500mAh extra capacity that knocks the socks off the standard one and costs half as much delivered from China. My Vaio ran for ages off a 3rd party extended life battery, from Hong Kong, which cost 1/5 the price of the (lower capacity) one from Sony. Never had any problems with it, lasted longer than the original official one. I've just ordered a pair of replacement batteries for my new Canon S95 off Amazon, two for £12, vs £35 for one of the official ones. People on dpreview.com seem perfectly happy with them.

US Navy produces smart, cheap 6kg fire+forget missile

@SkippyBing

In EVE (yes, the computer game) it's referred to as kiting (you stay outside their range as they try to get within theirs, like you're dragging along a kite). If you have the higher speed and the better engagement range you basically win by default. Unless you manage to fuck up and let them get within their range of course.

Oh real war? *sad face*

BBC-led RadioPlayer arrives at last

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

Great more Flash lock-in. Still no BBC radio on Android. Of course it's OK for the smaller installed base of the iOS devices to use direct streams, but we couldn't allow that for Android oh no.

Turing papers could be saved after auction fail

@Tigra 07

Woooosh!

Gmail inbox experiment auto sorts 'important' messages

@Shakje

I've never used my gmail inbox. Never publicised the address. It has something like 4000 spam emails in it, not counting the ones that were actually marked as spam.

Oracle forms new 'axis of evil' against open source, claims Adobe

@Lou Gosselin

Indeed. Suddenly GPLv3 doesn't seem like such a bad idea eh?

Secret X-37B space plane lost by sat-spotters for 2 weeks

@Marcelo Rodrigues

Unfortunately, while I take your point, American does mean 'of the United States', as well as meaning 'of one of the American continents'.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0023560;jsessionid=1BE8C8FD0B0C8BDD59995335D8E0842E#m_en_gb0023560

Android PHP option planned for Javaphobes

@John Dee

A lot of PHP's OO design was based on Java so I think you're wrong there, it can be comfortably used similarly to Java a lot of the time.

PS3 owners: This cinema is buff!

@Anonymous Coward 13:26

The X in XBMC stands for XBMC these days :)

Monty launches frantic 'save MySQL' web campaign

"LAMP clearly is a toy system for toy applications."

Also:

Facebook

YouTube

Wikipedia

Yahoo Finance

Twitter

Early adopters bloodied by Ubuntu's Karmic Koala

Love / Hate

I love Ubuntu once it's installed and working.

However. Their QA for new releases is and almost always has been shockingly bad. I'm pretty sure they can't possibly have 20 or 30 machines in a variety of configurations around to test releases on or they would simply see how buggy they are. That or the obsession with time based releases trumps releasing a solid system.

I think I've had one Ubuntu release upgrade flawlessly, and I normally install each release on 3 machines, pretty much every time one or two of them have serious upgrade failures that I wouldn't be able to fix if I hadn't been working with Linux for as long as I have. This time it's the nvidia kernel module failing to compile for the release kernel.

WTF is this country called America?

@AC & @Alex King re: Britain vs Great Britain

Back to primary school for you chaps.

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/CUSTOMS/questions/britain/britain.htm

http://www.slipperysnake.co.uk/geography/united-kingdom/united-kingdom

Britain is often used as a shorthand for Great Britain and the UK, but it is not the same thing.

Britain is technically England and Wales. Great Britain is England Wales and Scotland.

@Michael Jennings

To be fair using Britain as a shorthand for the UK should be incorrect too, as Britain is technically England and Wales. It's become common use and is pretty much accepted as a shorthand for the UK now of course.

Lloyds TSB's online banking system shows no love for Firefox

@ Andrew K Jones

Thanks for the private browsing mode tip, saves me having to boot a Windows VM to boot IE. ;/

DDoS attack rains down on Amazon cloud

@Don Micthell

- GoGrid

- Rackspace Cloud Servers

Red Hat Enterprise clone poised to 'die'

@yossarianuk

Respectfully-ish, you're talking a load of shite.

I'll preface this by pointing out that I use Ubuntu for desktops and my home server and work with Debian daily, I'm a big fan of both distros.

- RPM is a bag of shite - dependency errors are common using standard yum repos (suse is o.k with smart)

Dependency errors have nothing to do with the package format or package manager, they're to do with people not managing the dependencies properly.

We use CentOS for our hosting servers and have no dependency problems that we wouldn't have trying to solve the same requirements on Debian (namely requiring newer packages than the OS revision we're using supports and not wanting to upgrade the entire OS for certain specific reasons).

- Centos is too old technology - I.e ancient PHP/MySQL/HTTP

Think of a CentOS or RHEL release as being equivalent to Debian stable. Debian stable has far older packages toward the end of a release lifecycle than Redhat. However this is generally fine on both platforms as they backport security fixes.

- the kernel is 2.6.18 which is missing many great features - i.e tickless - the accountancy modules that allow iotop to run - a lot of newer hardware is not supported - It sort of feels like linux did 1/2 a decade ago...

You're aware this is a server OS right?

- The main web server control panel (Plesk) often has issues updating to the next version (debian based system are usually flawless)

If you're using Plesk you're doing it wrong.

- They alway take longer than other distros to ship security fixes - I know they have to wait for RH enterprise to issues theirs first..

That's just wrong.

- I do not like clones....

Why? It's just a recompile, it's the same code.

@yossarianuk again...

I forgot to mention. Much as I like dpkg and apt, RPM is actually a much better package manager if you need to maintain your own packages as it allows for separate diffs for each patch rather than one big unified diff which is very difficult to pull specific patches out of.

Last chance to vote to cut phone termination rates

@ac

If i'm a mobile telco i have 40% of the market then I have to pay a termination fee for around 60% of the calls my users make. If I have 10% of the market then I have to pay termination fees on around 90% of calls. BT of course has to pay the termination fee on all calls to mobiles.

iPhone security cracked, smacked and broken

@Aaron 10

I'm afraid you fail at comprehension. Gaining control of a device is not the same as decrypting data on it.

If you steal my laptop you'll be able to gain access to my user account. You won't however be able to decrypt any of my work files.

Actually the above isn't entirely true because I use full disk encryption, so unless you have my password you won't get anything, but for partial encryption as the article is talking about the above is true.

@My New Handle

There's a large difference between not offering encryption (by default) and offering encryption by default that doesn't actually protect you. The latter is more dangerous as people are more likely to leave sensitive data on the phone thinking it's safe.

Windows mobile does offer encryption out of the box, if you choose to use it, and to my knowledge it isn't broken. I certainly think we'd have heard it it is. Personally I use FreeOTFE on Windows Mobile though.

So yes, Apple is the only one offering broken encryption.

Google's vanity OS is Microsoft's dream

@northern monkey

Hmm. No, you may be right there. I was sure I'd read it in a quote from a Google employee. Now I can't find that quote. I may have misread, so apologies on that one :)

Some more research maybe?

Come on, I've only read a few brief articles about this and I'm still seeing misconceptions in this piece. I broadly agree with the gist but it's all a bit sloppy.

The article talks about this OS as if it's going to be a Linux distro, it's not it's just using the kernel and its own UI, much like Android.

Also: "Android would have been a much better choice". This is being based on Android....

Also, Java isn't an interpreted language, seeing as it must be compiled to bytecode to run on a VM first.

Yes the Gimp has a bit of an annoying UI (though it was recently greatly improved) but picking on one app is a little unfair. If you look at the vast majority of Gnome apps they adhere quite strictly to the Gnome UI guidelines, certainly far more so than Windows apps, particularly Microsoft's.

"Google doesn't really have a lot of faith in its own cloud computing applications if it needs to take a huge multiuser OS and strip out the innards, just as a backup." : It's not stripping out the innards, it's only using the innards (Linux itself, not the GNU userland).

I could go on...

Government rejects Lords' surveillance criticism

Can I just say...

Aaaaaargghhhhhh!!!

This government drives me up the bloody walls with their complete refusal to listen to a bloody word anyone says!

Mozilla invites all comers on post-tab future

Tree Style Tabs

+1 for this extension. I'll never go back. Memory and CPU allowing I could comfortably manage 80+ tabs with this, probably more.

Beeb tech boss seeks to expand TV licence online

@ac1 and ac2

I think the real problem there is the beeb don't have the rights to show much of their content abroad. As I understand it even the stuff with a BBC logo isn't wholly owned by them these days, which was one of the reasons they ended up scrubbing their idea of a huge archive of old TV.

Adblock developer offers 'please unblock me' tag to sites

@James

They can have javascript in the page which checks whether the ads have been removed from the DOM or messed with in some other way.

I'm sure there are other ways but that's the first thing that springs to mind. You then get an arms race between the checkers and the blockers as they try to out-smart each other.

Ten of the best... noise-isolating earphones

@Pete

Seriously, who the hell listens to 128k MP3 these days? All the MP3s I buy are 192k avg VBR or 320K CBR. To the vast majority of listeners both these formats are completely transparent when compared to CD.

Shuttleworth gets cloudy with Ubuntu 9.10

@Anomalous Coward

What's wrong with the fonts? sub-pixel hinting is working fine for me and looks lovely and sharp with no halo-ing. Are you sure your font settings are right for your monitor?

@Anomalous Coward

While I'm at it ..;)

I just switched back to NM from WICD because WICD was periodically refusing to connect to my network (fine for a few weeks then bam, no dice), tried everything then gave up and switched back to NM and it's working perfectly...

EC will force users to pick a Windows browser, says Microsoft

@Anonymous Coward, @R Cox, @Gareth Edwards

The point isn't that it's illegal to bundle software with an OS, it's that if you have a monopoly in one area then it's illegal to leverage it to gain a monopoly in another.

Apple threatens Palm chomp

Palm patents

Seems likely to me that Palm would have a fairly hefty war-chest of basic patents regarding mobile devices stashed away. This might not be a fight Apple really wants.

Android goes Skype, iPhone to follow soon

I hate to say it, but WM is leading here.

Awful as Windows Mobile is (truly it is, I'm a freetard on all my other devices) it seems to currently be the only choice if you want a wide range of apps, not those chosen by the vendor. Android will fill that role eventually, I hope, but it's too young to have the range of apps just yet.

The problem with WM and VoIP unfortunately is that the earpiece isn't easily accessible by developers, however they're slowsly finding their way on this issue. I believe Skype supports the earpiece on certain OMAP devices from HTC, and Agephone (a good SIP client) supports it on HTC OMAP devices, the Touch Diamond, Touch Pro, and the SonyEricsson Xperia X1. Possible the Touch HD too, I forget.

Aside from that earpiece issue there aren't any restrictions, all the VoIP clients can use 3G. Whether your 3G connection is up to it is another question, mine has the bandwidth but it's not stable enough for SIP really, and at times has awful latency. Annoyingly whenever *I* test it it's fine, but when I need to make a call to someone it's invariably awful and I end up having to make the international call from my mobile as normal :(

Wikipedia self-flagellates over vanishing 'farmsex'

@ AC posting on18th December 2008 18:27 GMT

Of course it's not, and anyone that thinks a collaborative work like Wikipedia can be used as a definitive reference is deluded, but that doesn't stop it being useful. In the topics I know about personally I've found Wikipedia to actually be very accurate.

It's a useful place for getting an overview of a topic, if you want peer reviewed research then buy the bloody peer reviewed research, if you want first hand sources then find them yourself, but the problem isn't with Wikipedia, it's with people who think it should be a *definitive* reference as opposed to a *useful* reference.

Yes all the shady committees and back-biting make it an easy target for ridicule, but the actual basic functionality is still very useful.

Who cares?

Listen I get the point about Wikipedia, it's far less democratic than it likes to pretend and the elite are weird backstabbing obsessives, but seriously, why so many articles about it? They can be vaguely entertaining, but no more so than an equivalent article about some flame war on alt.whofkingcares.

Is there axe being ground here or something? I really don't get the fixation.

World Bank denies hackers pwned key systems

So they're not denying the e-mail is real?

Because it seems pretty explicit to me, I don't really see how it can be mis-interpreted.

Bebo users release interstellar spamgasm at Gliese 581

Oh dear...

I can't help feeling that any advanced spacefaring civilisation receiving a message like this would conclude that it were best to just put us out of our misery...

Adobe yanks speech exposing critical 'clickjacking' vulns

@Peyton

Actionscript (Flash's scripting language) is basically Javascript (ECMA Script) so a JS flaw looks likely.

Confirmed: HTC's big-screen Touch HD smartphone

@Richard

Sorry did you say control? I presume you mean Apple's control over what you can run? I'm no fan of WM or Windows in general (all my computers are running Linux) but at least you can install whatever apps you like.

Boffinry bitchslap brouhaha: Higgs and Hawking head to head

@Richard Harris

As we're discussing science, I think you meant hypothesis rather than theory. Otherwise you could end up sounding like the ID brigade. We wouldn't want that.

Ubuntu man says Microsoft's about to 'swallow a hand-grenade'

Yahoo/BSD

"Yahoo!'s doing the FreeBSD thing.". That's still true on the server side (AFAIK) but they're transitioning their BSD desktop boxes to RHEL.

Office 2007 fails OXML test

Ugh, embarrassing

OK so before I start let me clear something up. I'm against the way OOXML was forced through the ISO process, I'm horrified by the stunts MS pulled to get it through. I use OO.o as my office suite and I run Ubuntu as my primary OS.

Now that's out of the way, can you squawkers just tell me how exactly you expect a piece of software published before a standard is created to conform to that standard? The whole point of the BRM was to fix as many issues found in the ECMA standard (which Office 2007 does conform to) as possible. Now I'll agree that not enough was fixed, but that very process of fixing will by definition mean that Office, released before the changes, *can not* conform until it's patched. It's a logical impossibility.

Engage brains before opening mouths please.

Is Red Hat doing its part to win the 'open source' war?

RedHat

"Of late, I can't fathom who RH even thinks their customers are."

RedHat is still the biggest supplier of Linux to corporate clients by a wide margin. These are the kinds of customers that lap up RedHat's corporate friendly support packages.

I use Ubuntu personally. I only mention it because if you express any opinion on Linux these days people assume you are evangelising the one you use/like/sleep with.

Booze worse than Speed or Acid shocker

Asumptions

I wonder if Mark and Tom have actually read the methodology in the Lancet article or if they just saw the 40% in this article and assumed that the health care cost and danger of a drug are being measured based on totals rather than per user?

Because from reading the Lancet article it seems to me that they're measuring it per person not as a total. They do mention the high figures for health costs of tobacco and alcohol, but only as an example.