Posts by Joel Stobart

Microsoft unveils 'do not track' option for IE9

Whitelist

I wonder how much an advertising company has to pay to be added to the default "allow" whitelist?

and I wonder if it will block bing advertising tracking by default.

Orange to 'dump unlimited data tariffs'

Insider trading?

This all seems a little too convenient....

DoH tells NHS to dump IE6

Why do they suggeest "upgrading" to ie7

Firefox, Opera or Chrome, are safer and better. Even ie8 is out...

?

Avatards rush to name sprogs Pandora

All About Adrian

it's just a mass re-reading of the Secret diary of Adrian Mole... I might be wrong

-J

Major IE8 flaw makes 'safe' sites unsafe

Tit-for-tat?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/20/google_plug_in_bug/

It seems that Microsoft and Google are going toe-to-toe over security.

@neal5

An[sic] GOOGLE flaw reported on by a MICROSOFT spokesman.

All in the space of a weeks worth of multiple new MICROSOFT releases. Should be fun.

... fixed that for you

What are you talking about? Firefox isn't exactly a cracking tool, unless the crack is the most trivial tool in the world. The rest of your diatribe could be poured over for generations for signs of intelligent life in 2009.

Joel

Small biz slams Harman's equal ops law

Small business vs 250 people

I would put companies with 250+ people firmly into the medium category myself.

- Joel

Google shares plummet past $300, reach three year low

@Solomon Grundy

Surely the market cap is more relevant than the shareprice. The shareprice is largely determined by how much the companies are going to make over the medium term divided by the number of shares.

the price earnings ratio is going to determine which stocks represent good value. I would suggest that googles shareprice will bounce around over 40 for a considerable time to come.

Do you think that microsoft at 21 (Mkt Cap: 189.03B) is a "bargain"?

Alternatively, If you talking about the whole google empire being worth $40? I would buy it at twice the price.

- Joel

Retro piracy - Should the Royal Navy kick arse?

pirates vs...

cant we just send in the ninjas?

BBC's TV detector vans to remain a state secret

Crazy Talk

"Requests for authorisations for the use of detection equipment must be made in writing to the Head of Sales and Marketing or anyone holding a more senior role within the TV Licence Management Team of the BBC" .... like the janitor, seriously the guy responsible for authorising requests that fall under RIPA is the S&M guy. That there is blue-pie-in-sky thinking.

"the number of detection devices and how often they are used will change the public’s perception of their effectiveness." .... so there is only one

"the technical elements of the detection devices would leave open the possibility of people analysing them to find weaknesses to evade detection equipment"... and the information we do retrieve is buggy and flawed.

TV licensing's database is simply the PAF so that's flawed too.

Carpetbomb bug tarnishes Google Chrome

@Richard Stubbs

Why there own browser... this browser is not to compete with Firefox or IE, its to compete with Air, Silverlight and Flex. And onwards to basically attack the offline office products market (MS Office). Google want to make there online apps into installable applications. (hence the gears embedded).

If Google want to take the Enterprise they need a web browser where they can guarantee that there application wont crash within it. The couldn't do this where pron can crash the browser through another window. They have open-sauced it all so that FF and Apple can take anything (gears, process-isolation, and ramped JS speed) for them (a plus for google).

I see this as google making a play for MS core business by making the browser a new layer in the operating system. Heavyweight boxing should be good sport this year.

- Joel

US judge says University can ignore Christian course credits

@Dodgy Geezer

I think the judge was right

"an Animus is an undead monster created through the use of both arcane and divine magic. They are unique to the Great Kingdom and its successor states. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animus+(Dungeons+%26+Dragons)

And the judge was right, the university was not acting like an undead monster.

- Joel

Government waves cutlass at IT budget

Outsource.... to Google

Replace all the os/s with Linux (5 year hardware life), and use Google docs... and gears for the whole public sector. Reward excellence and sack failures. Put all the applications on-line and then there's very little people actually need. kill off ID cards - because they cost lots, and no-one wants/needs them. we could actually get the 486's out of the cleaners cupboards and start using them as desktops.

Maybe getting rid of the ID cards could pay for free dentistry... that would be nice. And invest in new open-source IT solutions for public sector so that we stimulate growth in the IT sector, and lead the world in IT....

I love my pipe dreams...

- Joel

UK.gov plans central database for all your communications

Can't Imagine that they can fit all of that data on CDs?

So how are they going to lose all of this information on a roundabout? or by posting it? Government are going to have to resort to some of that new-fangled interweb stuff to really cock this one up.

Airbus jets could be converted to fuel-cell propulsion

Differences between Branson and Airbus

Airbus builds planes: if they want it to be towable, they can make it towable. If Branson wants to make old planes towable, then he has to pay someone (like airbus, or boeing) who makes planes to make them towable.

I still think building runways at 50000 feet is the most rational fuel saving measure.

- Joel

Virtual Earth puts human face on data

So after choosing microsoft for everything why....

did I choose a Microsoft mapping service?

a) Because I'm a rebel

b) Because I wont try anything outside the MS stack on the project

c) ...

You chose Microsoft because you develop on a very limited stack. This means you limit the problems you have to that of one company.

Apart from the obvious eggs in one basket, the money and the proprietary nature of the software I can understand your simple approach. Its enough of a challenge developing with bleeding edge software.

MS Maps are however, uglier than the Google counterparts.

- Joel

(btw. I note that you skipped the excellent Yahoo maps?)

I want a baby, coos broody Paris Hilton

baby names

I reckon "itsa" ... "Itsa Madden" ...

BBC should not pay for fibre, Ofcom tells MPs

@Roger

I think your analogy is flawed. The BBC is arguing that by building an airport - it shouldn't have to upgrade every motorway in Britain. I imagine that the on-off ramp for BBC traffic is a significantly large "road" that they have paid lots of money for.

Fortunately for the BBC there are people called consumers who regularly pay an internet "road-tax" to pay for access to the "roads". I suggest they should consider paying for the "road-maintenance" - and if necessary raise the "road-tax" in order to fund it.

- Joel

Microsoft teases mobile developers with 'big' Silverlight deals

Anything flash(lite) can do....

... Microsoft can copy

Google's Great American Wireless Auction 'game' annoys US lawmakers

whos the daddy?

From my point of view - good on you google. You won the American government billions, made the airwaves open; all at no-cost to yourself.

Just as a side note it appears that Cliff Stearns is the US phone industries poodle (from a mere google search). He has tried to legislate[2] for American telcos, and receives ample (financial) support in return[1]. I think these statements are just Verizon moaning that they had to pay more than they wanted; for a product more open than they wanted.

- Joel

"Verizon Wireless, which bid more than $8 billion in Auction 35, urged the FCC to acknowledge that winning bidders have the ability to opt out of their bids earlier this year when it became clear that licenses were not going to be transferred to winners in a timely fashion. In the U.S. House of Representatives, Congressmen Cliff Sterns (R-Florida) and Rick Boucher (D-Virginia) introduced legislation requiring the FCC to allow winning bidders to opt out of their bids; " - [2] Sep 2002

[1]: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PJR/is_/ai_110308259

Telco PAC Donations To Stearns, 2002

Verizon Communications $2,000

Source: FEC

Telecom Equipment & Services PAC Donations To Stearns, 2002

Verizon Wireless $6,000

The figures represent 2001-2002 PAC contributions and are based on data released by the FEC on Monday, June 9, 2003.

[2]: http://investor.verizon.com/news/view.aspx?NewsID=374

Zend to extend Windows PHP work

@Wimp?

Isn't it WISP? Windows, IIS, SQLServer, PHP.

The problem windows has is ...

Windows/IIS is (oem) £82.48, SQL Server (£1000+), and PHP is free

which doesn't compare favourably with

Completely free(1) option from the LAMP stack.

Add this to the fact that the applications that are built are built for lamp and will only be in best-effort leads to the conclusion that Microsoft's WISP/WASP/WAMP stacks efforts will be in vain.

1) and powering only tiny websites like google, and yahoo so be careful of the reliability and scalability....

Want to snoop on your neighbors? Come and work in Wisconsin

@RW

Your first truism; I thought it was more like:

You could be cracked; no matter what you do. The likelihood of this happening is determined by the (apparent) value of the data, combined with the relative difficultly of performing the crack. Sometimes there is 'kudos' element (see yesterdays police attack).

The usual technique for avoiding being cracked is to raise the cost of performing the cracking so that it doesn't represent a good economic value to the cracker. So they go to some lower-hanging fruit. e.g. In the UK the Customs and Revenue service are pretty good at giving the data away...

- Joel

Google in mass 404 land grab

@A Gould

I'm with you on this one:

Google is just replacing a microsoft feature with a Google one*.

Its application specific, and you can use the "Uninstall programs" to get rid of it

It only works on people for windows, on IE, so install Linux, Firefox, or Safari, ...

- Joel

*bye-the-bye I hate that Microsoft gets to claim "30%" of search from people typing what they want into the address bar. People who use live search don't know what it is.

HMRC self-assessment online gets awards nod

Great award- how would you feel if you lost???

Online tax system 'too risky' for the famous (and mps, and royalty)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/01/26/ntax126.xml

You've already mentioned that it crashed on the biggest day of the year.

who's kidding who on this being a success?

- Joel

Firefox 3 beta is live

@matthew re:bloat

FF3 is QUICK, Small (>7Mb), it does a couple of things to protect the user (like stop them going to sites that install malware). It doesn't install an AV Client.

For me FF3 is a must.

- Joel

Microsoft! bids! $44.6bn! for! Yahoo!

So ... zimbra forked then....

@Kris Will! Happen! Eventually!

Its like a guy in high school pestering a girl; eventually she'll give in.