Posts by Britt Johnston

Ten free apps to install on every new PC

iTunes etc. as organizers, not sellers

The article is clear that iTunes' strength is in searching a world outside for media.

ITunes has consequently lost focus as as a media player for my existing files, and is no longer good at this, so I stopped using my Apple MP3 player and iTunes.

You could consider looking at Windows media player, especially because iTunes synchronises with it to some extent. I'd also like other suggestions for this. I used to use Realplayer as well, it also got wiped about 4 years ago for similar loss of focus.

Thanks for the good summary.

Ash cans flights for another day

act of God?

Time to look at this from the social science point of view.

Interesting that all Europeans followed the GB initiative on the basis of their evidence. The trigger was safety, economic problems, medical need or inconvenience were not built into the model. None of the authorities had a plan to end the ban before they started it. Governments are left to balance the conflicting interests, and understandably cautious.

The approach could the same as banning road traffic on rainy days, as there is a definite safety risk. The main difference in approach is that flying is completly regulated, and driving, while highly regulated, is also in the hands of drivers and insurance companies. One problem is the grey area of ash levels between safe and unsafe (see chemicals regulation). Another is finding safe ways round the ash.

A further problem is finding workarounds to a ban in a regulated area. France has reduced road speed limits on rainy days, Moto-GP has wet and dry race rules. Denmark today permits flights above 35000 ft but not below - illogical for an interntional solution, but helpful in some cases.

One conclusion might be to temporarily deregulate, leaving interested parties to find solutions to their problems. If necessary, the European airlines could force this through, since they have been made responsible for acts of God.

Except of course, that this a catastrophe of committees, and very much an act of Man.

iPad stuck in US for extra month

really don't know where they are?

ebay is stuffed with ad's for US iPads, footsoldiers frontlining, no need for Apple to struggle to meet promises.

Big Brother Watch manifesto makes plea for privacy

link

The link isn't given in the article - as the article mentioned, if the topic interests you it is quite readable. So here it is, as a public service (over 18s only, I have not been vetted)

http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/

Volcanic ash grounds dozens of UK flights

long term no fly zone?

At last, a more realsitic danger than that dreamed up by anti-aircraft teams who nick drinks from passengers.

However, the eruption at Monserrat lasted over a year - I cant imagine even the most rabid control freak being allowed to ground all flights for that long.

Sorry, couldn't find a no-drinks icon, beer will have to do.

Cops' quango to come under freedom of information laws

real progress?

That will drive up GMP a couple of notches, then. We need things like this to keep the nation going in hard times.

Biting the bullet on ERP implementation realities?

core or modular?

We stated with finance and purchasing, which is really the core of our ERP, then added production, logistics and lately quality. However, for the purposes of your question, I take core to mean main implementation rather than first generation.

Pandora plus Endor: Multi hab-moon motherworld discovered

learning from aliens

The main attraction of the Na'vi culture is that it doesn't have TV.

They also have a built-in USB equivalent, a global add-free internet with ancestor channeling, and a working paperless office implementation.

YouTube accuses Viacom of secretly uploading videos

faint praise...

"the court documents........ supported the company's allegations against YouTube."

That's a starting point in the case against YouTube, but doesn't sound as if the spokesperson was really convinced.

MIT profs produce 'Ring of Fire' nanotube superbatteries

back-burner project

They were making a turbo-heater, and got an unexpected shock. This is the other way round to Li-ion batteries, then.

Think software patching is a hassle? You're not alone

A patch is a short-term fix - see OED

The security patches are only one type of product improvement - some others, more important, being add-on functionality, and bug fixing. In fact, it is a pain to track down any sort of patch, and mid-term one expects a supplier to sell the updated version of its product. Patch cumulation is also one of the main reasons for buying a CD version of a programme.

Regular patches are also a warning, a sign of thin ice.

Will we stop talking about virtualisation?

next big things

Here are three, since you ask:

- Running a Power station/Botnet/HomePC from my netbook

- Using the handphone to Baby-sit/Switch on TV/Turn off tap/Read the electricity meter

- in-ear MP3 player/radio

Intel: Just 3,000 employees run Windows 7

HW, SW necessary but irrelevant

In business, both hardware and windows are necessary but irrelevant, as both together cost less than 10%, spread over the suggested 4 years lifetime. The application portfolio costs slightly more, significantly so if you count SAP. In our company, the rest goes on rewriting the OS per department and country, flying in the outsorcerers, and paying for PR to hide the poor desktop support.

On the home machines the 4-year rule looks unrealistic - my suite of music applications is on XP, drivers for all don't exist for newer Windows. On the other hand, my wife's G5 Mac is stuck in the snow-leopard trap, and will switch soon, for an anti-virus app .

So it depends what you are working on - I bet the Intel employees who already switched are development or application support guys. Maybe Jerry Pournelle's 1980 dictum was right, and one application per PC is best.

Sexy is as sexy does: UK.gov struggles with sexualisation

causes of precocity

Mobile phones are contributing at least as much as sexualisation to the demise of modern youth.

If proof is needed, can I have a grant please?

US government rescinds 'leave internet alone' policy

time to move on, then

I see the idea that this all has to be regulated, and don't necessarily agree. I appreciate the internet from its non-financial side, as a collector and distributor of information. But the smell of money attracts predators. There isn't much difference between spammers, phormers and pfischers, they are just carpetbaggers trying to skim a living . The likely outcome of regulation as foreseen (each country in its own way, of course) is that new sub-criminal activities will become the domain of big business, like BT in the UK*.

However, companies have intranets, and can keep them safe. Where is the enterprise offering a similarly secure parallel net, encrypted, on wi-fi? Ditto for a system, decoupled, please, for safe financial transactions. Then we can all get on with post-internet life, for a price. Ah well, the internet was not for free, either.

* they are okay here in Switzerland, where they don't have a bagging division, and have to compete.

Cyclist Floyd Landis accused of hacking into doping lab

modern quadrathlon

Why don't we just make an anti-olympic combined discipline of hacking, legal protests, sport medicine and equipment tuning. I nominate Larry Ellison to the inaugural hall of infamy for four years of litigating over four hours of sailing. However, former greats from cycling, track and cross-country skiing have their corners reserved.

Betting sites balance fraudster nab and customer loss

assumption valid?

"A good industry rule of thumb is that fraud costs two to three per cent of a business's revenues."

I don't know that the same assumption applies for every business - I'd expect internet gambling to have higher fraud rates than casino gambling, not to mention other types of business, from banks to bakeries.

Police have more than 10,000 ANPR cameras

need not be 14 mio cars

It could be the same few (thousand) who fit fake numbers to fast machines, and get photoed thousandfold on a single trip.

Amateur CCTV sleuth site probed by privacy watchdog

Eliminating objections to this way of working

- use of amateurs - certify by police (income-sharing)

- reporting mechanism - prizes are not the best, but any number of solutions okay

- mass surveillance - the same method with wired-up vigilantes has worked, and not offended through data collection. If police were on the streets, it would be welcomed.

- use of cameras - if this were the problem, it applies to all sorts of uses. The main responses are "its our territory" and "cameras are useless without human intervention". The second one is being defrocked in this case.

As I see it, a genuine business proposition, to get value out of already installed cameras, shows up all public CCTV use as problematic.

Can the iSlate kill off Web 2.0?

if you really want interaction to stop....

enlist the support of polititians. They could come out with a keyboard tax, which would encourage a migration to iphones and slates. They could introduce an upload charge, even a few cents a word would help. With the new funds, they could finance a decent censorship scheme.

Google: Keep user data safe by letting us hoard it forever

Predictive storage date

The opposite argument would be that data is only worth storing until hacked. There will be a meaningful relationship between storage time and mean time between hacks. So, if outsiders feel info should go, they then just raise a hack request more often.

New avast freebie security scanner aims to keel-haul MS

both Pro and Anti Virus?

silly name arises from charging for freeware?

IE6 exposed as Google China malware unpicked

trouble with FUD

I just overwrote my XP laptop, and wanted to upgrade to IE8 from the standard site offering, MSN. I then got a message that the OS does not support this version of IE.

Which overlord should I kowtow to? Genuine Microsoft or my friendly Chinese OS support?

Is Mandy right to cut science funding?

like football, like science

Science and engineering, like football, were something Britain was good at in the early days.

When Brits stopped doing much, and only talked about things, they had to bring in foreigners to get results.

Next-gen iPhone rumored for April

screen size speculation

Stamp-sized screens are not futureproof; they have to leave room for googlespam.

The 4G iphone will probably come in 3 screen sizes, pebble (today's), slate (10") and tombstone (27").

The coat comes with a fashionable matching 27" rockwool case...

Google leaves censorship to China's experts

other countries want state access, too

Several countries are trying to regulate aspects of data flow, with differing approaches. There may also be some gain in picking on a black sheep as a warning to near-white ones.

Ion add-on to equip iPhone with full Qwerty keyboard

ION Piano docker

Musicians have been waiting for this since the laptop, since memory and progammability of electronic instruments is such poor value. In the meantime, software replaces several classes of hardware - sequencers and samplers, for instance - but a 'home studio' still consists several expensive boxes connected by almost as expensive cables (USB, audio or MIDI).

That said, 25 keys won't satisfy pianists and 88 keys with piano-feel would fail as a portable. Screen size of an i-touch is adequate, but does it run Logic fast enough?

Need an icon for "We're still looking", fail is too harsh.

US told to keep its beak out of European decisions

IT lesson

Just a reminder that a major cause of IT project failures arises when groups try solve other groups problems, rather than address their own.

Vetting database is mighty maths mess

community service

The idea of compulsory community service comes from Europe, where it is offered pacifists and flat-footers as an alternative to military service, now that the cold war is over. As members, we really should take the best ideas from Europe.

Young people can learn to do something useful, rather than stressing the job market. Like the army, usefulness need not be measured too carefully. For a goverment with no money I imagine the approach is attractive. Taking the logic to this end, everyone except the 500 finance guys who keep the City afloat should be on lifetime community service, and, after graduating from the unpaid market, be given a subsistence wage.

Here endeth the party political broadcast.

Boffins find new way to spot stars which have planets

cause and effect?

On most self-respecting planets, the aliens have got lithium battery technology nailed.

Police to keep innocents' DNA despite human rights ruling

sauce for the ganders, too

I am in favour of reducing the sentences of those responsible for this decision by 50%.

Melting ice sheets create new carbon sink, say boffins

@Blah blah blah

I think it shows that scientists have found one more parameter in their climate change model.

Things were already changing - agreed, Nature was not fighting adversity - before the research was done.

"Natural changes compensating for one another in the grand scheme of things" would be homeostatic? This a biological mechanism which always applies, unless feedback mechanisms go out of control.

Spain cuts off 3m pre-pay mobiles

a proper (right-wing) solution...

would be to allow ex-directory numbers at a hefty fee. That would keep out terrorists, who are misguided, unwashed and poor.

El Reg shrinks seven days onto one webpage

good start, next steps

If you could reduce this to 38 words, you'ld shudder Google's business model.

While you're at it, make it slick and graphic, you're on the way to a better universal portal.

Don't panic over the secret copyright treaty

world to UK opinion-reheaters

There are reasons why those outside the UK should be concerned, not complacent.

1) since a good legal framework is missing so far, progress from a pioneer would be welcome - if it makes progress on the full basket of issues

2) every state that goes down the wrong dead-end has to be hauled back with a treaty

3) other states may just wait, since something inscrutable is being hatched in an important country

4) yet other states may give up looking for a balanced solution, citing the UK lead

VMware Workstation plays lucky 7

we need to know !!

Have we finally reached the stage where we can quickly, securely and easily push or pull a managed business environment (standardised, boring, encrypted, ...) on top of any private laptop (multi-culti, cutting edge)?

Facebook enshrines dead people profiles

could be helpful

We had this problem recently, as my daughter died and we wanted to contact her acquaintances abroad. On way was to inform via facebook, but many were unbelieving, some even disturbed at a supposed prank. Also, it was a matter of luck that her boyfriend could access her account, and was able to add information.

New minister for Whitehall IT

Transitional management

Does that mean the people and policies Labour can pull together now that they're on the way out?

Depressing, the range of negative and politically insensitive statements expressed. Did Labour serve the IT community that badly, or are all politicians out of their depth?

Google Docs opens heart to students

so last millennium

Word and Word Perfect solved these problems in the DOS era, eliminating the homespun editor upgrades. Word Perfect had larger formatting problems going into the Windows era.

The Register primer on delivering data governance

Data Governance NE Information Policy

As free lunches go, this is instant soup.

If you were to replace Data Governance with Information Policy you could probably sell it again and reach more of a useful audience. Roughly, data is what goes into a system, and information is what comes out, if you are lucky.

We should be reading about how to improve our luck. I expect consistency of data capture and data use, an interface landscape, data warehouses and distribution to platforms to feature, as well as ownership, HR and legal questions.

The article deserves neither a thumbs up, nor a thumbs down icon. Perhaps you would like to add a second chapter?

What your database needs is a good thermometer

data zoos

Our databases are so tied up with access issues that there is no control of 'hot' data outside the transactional systems. Instead of managed filtering into OLAP warehouses, a download from the wild occasionally escapes into the business world, where it is replicated, joined with others and updated.

Arms biz: Your taxes mainly go on our fat salaries! Ha ha!

perpetual motion?

If there are 2.5 times as many defence workers as soldiers, and they pay around 40% tax, that would mean that they completely pay for an equally well paid army. And perhaps foreigners would pay dollars for some excess equipment. As you increase the number of defence workers, you can afford a larger army.

It still needs paying for? How about a cash for clunkers programme for the military? Or moving half the MoD to Afganistan, where they can be directly useful?

This article, and my musings, is what Creative Arithmetic (politics equivalent to Modern Maths) is all about.

Intel vows PC virtualization skoolin' for OEMs

clarify disadvantages, please

Interesting, I always hoped there would be some qualitative advantage to multi-core processors.

What problems were Sony and Fujitsu trying to avoid by leaving the option switched off? Performance?

Mac OS X Snow Leopard First Look

Next, the big picture?

A worthy article, as is Tim Anderson's on Windows 7.

Now, if you could just document a definitive discussion on which is the better of the two? You could pay for a jolly by buying shares in the winner shortly before you publish and selling them a day later.

What’s the point of desktop virtualization?

fast forward to bring your own?

The laptop from my company (>100000 worldwide) forces an environment, doesn't allow me to add applications, link to my mp3 player, etc. That would an obvious use, allowing more flexibility, but keeping a validated environment.

The other way round is challenging but more interesting - can I bring my own home laptop, and connect safely to the company environment? It would be similar to using my own pen and paper or car to get a more pleasant writing/driving experience. Think of the cost savings! Just a few old PCs and a fat drive to run the grid server.

Excuse me bringing a serious suggestion for once, did I mention that the company is downsizing IT?

Ditching ID cards would save £3bn

more !!! than yahoo ads

To rent a house in Cardiff, my adult daughter was asked for signatures from both parents to cover costs if she reneged on the contract. To prove the relationship, and ensure that we had income, we were asked to provide 3 consecutive bank records. This is normal, therefore obligatory.

Leaving aside that non-parents are unlikely to offer a blank cheque, the income check is useless, as we are the only parents she has. And blaming unnecessary nose-poking on missing ID cards is a perversion of privacy concepts.

I thought I have may have lived in Switzerland too long, but Chinese and German colleagues found that this Britain has gone crazy too. Can anyone attempt a rational explanation?

thinking like a bookkeeper

To show the true savings, can you subtract the cost of all replacement Tory projects, please?

Is Apple plotting a search of its own?

quick HAL test

Type "apple new model" to see how they express "I can't tell you that, Dave".

i-guff rather than i-hate.

IT's recession could be bottoming out

new software?

Ah yes, right up El Reg's street.

Talking of green shoots, are you planning a review of Bentos 2? Yes, I know some confuse it with a pack of sweets, but green shoots start small.

British Council faces legal action for offshoring

charitable definition

It is probably a charity in the sense that it doesn't make money. In fact I'm impressed that it can earn half its budget by selling English certificates, perhaps it could be streamlined into a proper business with the offshoring.

However, there are lots of other institutions that could be classified as charities if they just had to make a loss. The Houses of Parliament could pay wages by selling tours to tourists, political parties make thumping losses in fines and expenses, even GB itself deserves to be considered.

Perhaps a fairer definition of a charity is a body that avoids paying taxes.