Posts by OSBob

Gamer embezzles virtual cash to settle real debts

@Run on the bank?

"They were worried about a run on the bank? It's virtual currency - the bank (game admins) could have simply created some more money! It's not as if it's like a real bank"

Sounds much the same, isn't that called quantitative easing when banks do it?

And online games tend to be much less willing to do stuff like that, because everything is geared to taking out as much money as it going in to the game. Massive price fluctuations tend piss people off.

I mean, wouldn't you be pissed off if you spent years saving up for some new in game item like a house, then the economy took a nosedive and it became worthless because the admins were giving out money to people who didn't deserve it? Oh wait....

Adobe breaks sound barrier with Flash Player 10

RE: Linux fixes

"So after all this wait, have they finally fixed the longstanding bug under Firefox/Linux with the flash always appearing on top of other div layers?"

Yep. Well, in the release candidate it was anyway, but only with Firefox 3 not Firefox 2. Not sure about other browsers.

Mystery Fedora disruption prompts security fears

@ Dennis

"Actually, I could see this being a huge issue for any organization that uses Fedora for even one critical system."

Why would anybody use Fedora for a critical system? It is supposed to be a cutting edge distro with a very short (and community based) support cycle... not really something you should be using for critical systems.

So having established the absolute lunacy of using Fedora for critical systems, this issue should definitely be a cause for concern as I bet that's exactly what a number of companies are doing.

Anyway, in this case at least it's just the community test bed distro, if this had affected the Red Hat Enterprise Linux distro, then there would be major trouble ahead.....

Notebook sales lead Lenovo in Q1

decent little notebooks too

I like the T61p sitting next to me. Powerful and tough, which are the major items on my wish list. Hardware FDE is a nice bonus.... I wasn't planning to fill it up with peoples personal details and leave it on a train or anything, but it's nice to know the option is there.

I much prefer it to the crappy, flakey Dell machines I am usually forced to use. And personally I'm not one of these 'small is better' notebook people, mainly as I'm not planning to use it whilst lying around on the beach in a bikini like the Asus girl....

Anyway, glad to see they are doing well with their ugly little offerings, rather them than one of these style-over-substance manufacturers everyone seems to worship.

Mono man accuses Mac Gtk+ fans of jeopardizing Linux desktop

RE: What a load of balls

Now if only you'd demanded that people using Linux on the desktop be strung up, you'd get my vote for FotW.

Ransomware Trojan code break 'impractical'

Ah, maybe not.

"Buy the ransomware" AC again. OK, just read up and buying the ransomware is no good, since the files aren't actually encrypted with the key KL are trying to break, they are encrypted with a random symmetric key which is then encrypted with the public key. So the purchased software will have the key for your files, but only your files. Silly me, oh well :)

Guess the people who do get stung should buy the decryption prog and be more careful next time ;)

eBay slams UK.gov touting ban

@Ian Dennison

"Ever seen "Price bid tv"? Where you put your bid in for one of [x] many items, and the minimum bid to obtain an item creeps up accordingly?"

Don't those scam channels usally work the -other- way round. The minimum bid goes -down- until all the items are sold (so they claim) and everybody gets it at the same price (to make sure people aren't afraid to make early purchases).

And anyway they add £50 post and package or some ludicrous figure like that, plus £20 for the call to the premium number... ok maybe not quite as much but still loads more than it should be.

The other day flicked past one of those channels, and saw they had come tacky ring which they claimed would normally sell at £16k... watched to see the first price drop... down to £899... yeah right, of course it was worth £16k..

Real auction might work though.

Official: OOXML approved as international standard

Re: WWwidely adopted standard

"Apple fully supports OOXML. Google search also support OOXML BTW."

Apple currently has very limited support, you'd hardly call it a full implementation. Unless you are talking about "we're behind you" support. Which if you were would be irrelevant to discussion on whether it is a "widely adopted standard" as mentioned in your title.

Google search has limited indexing and rendering support, just as it does for the old office file formats, which has about as much relevance to the discussion as the flying spagetti monster. Google hate OOXML, and have rightfully pointed out that as a standard it is (to use the technical term) bollocks.

Not sure why we're adding extra W's to our post titles, but I didn't want to break the widely adopted standard. Even if it's completely unnecessary, probably a mistake and only previously adopted by one person.

Adobe cuddles up to Linux Foundation

Linux Support

"And by supporting Linux, of course they mean i386 Linux only. Have no dreams of running anything they release on your ARM Linux handheld. Hell, they won't even recompile for AMD64 (still waiting for flash support there...)."

Well, pony up the dough and I'm sure they will oblige. Platform support will generally come at the request of big clients who want to use Flash or where there is a demonstrable market. I imagine most of their Linux resource is tied up working on AIR at the moment anyway, hence why the windowless mode bug has not yet been fixed.

Since there is a workaround to run the 32 bit Flash version on a 64 bit OS (i.e. using a 32 bit browser or running through nspluginwrapper) I doubt it is as high priority as providing some level of support to all three platforms for the new desktop runtime. I expect that once we have AIR and the wysiwyg features in Flex Builder Linux, the Flash Player will get some love.

Or maybe we'll have to wait for the Flash 10 rewrite before the tiny niggles are worked out, but either way it's pretty good considering that it's only a few shabby freetards who actually want this stuff. Like me.

(oh, and ARM handheld? you'll be wanting to talk to the manufacturer of the device then.... if not Flash Lite, then a full Flash version can be implemented with the right $$$, a la Flash for MIPS on the PSP).

Microsoft and Adobe jockey on rich applications

Standards war...

"Flash, Shockwave, Silverlight, AIR, Flex... It's all crap that's non-compliant with standards and designed to lock-in users to a proprietary software model.

I wish they'd all choke on some dark fiber."

You're right, let's stick to standards and use AJAX for rich applications... most people who will be viewing the website will be on nice compliant browsers, no need for a million and one hacks to get it looking/working the same for everybody.... oh wait...

Anyway, the core languages and runtimes of of both Silverlight/Flash actually are standards based, see ECMA-262, ECMA-334 & ECMA-335. All this discussion is just the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD war all over... most people don't care who wins because they're happy with bog standard DVD.

But if this were the HD war, then Flash/Flex/AIR would be Blu-Ray ;-)

Ofcom auctions off high frequencies

next auction..

Coming soon, the Ofcom auction for the 400-790 terahertz frequency band.

The winner of this auction will get exclusive rights for this band, and can either sell on or rent parts of the range to others. Anybody who wishes to operate equipment in this range will require permission from the winner of the auction, and non-compliance will result in raids on premises to remove the unlicensed devices.

When asked why people were being kept in the dark about exactly what these frequencies were currently being used for, the official response was "to get people used to it".

Glaswegian piracy drive yields just 41 'possible' offenders

yep

Exactly as Paul Smith and others have quickly spotting this is just another example of assumption of guilt. It's a shame that we are moving towards this ethos in many areas, and more of a shame that so many people don't see an issue with it.

Pirate Bay slapped with copyright charges

Dear Cowards...

"So someone Pirates the Pirate Bay and you don't like it... ROFL. Surely that goes against the "ethic" of pirate Bay supporters."

I think you are lumping all Pirate Bay supporters with pirates... just because someone believes that the end users are the ones responsible breaking the law, and not the service through which the users make contact, doesn't mean you are an anarchist. Let's take the .com/.org thing as an example... ICANN enables cybersquatters, which is a type of copyright infringement... now, who do we shut down because cybersquatting is happening, ICANN or the squatters?

Strange that you say they have no respect for the law... when actually that's an outright lie, Mr. Coward. They are clearly playing the game. If you want to know what real lack of respect for the law is, look at Media Defender, the proxy of the "other side".

"The Swedish parliament passed a law - effective as of 1 July 2005 - banning all file-sharing, technology and software such as P2P file-sharing programmes, including Kazaa and E-Donkey."

Not to accuse El Reg of sensationalism, but the general consensus from other articles on that law is that it was the free exchange of copyrighted materials which was banned. Not quite the same thing... but you have a point, let's also shut down other services where copyrighted material is constantly being made available again and again to anyone who wants it... like the whole damn internet....

And regarding removing the copyrighted material, I suppose there are procedures copyright holders can follow to get material taken down... oh wait, the DMCA isn't a Swedish law, so rights holders can damn well follow the legal procedure in Sweden to get links taken down. And taking down material which doesn't exist on the servers is going to be a bit tricky too...

If they get found guilty then that sets a dangerous precedence, but if that is the legal verdict of course everyone has to accept that (once appeals are exhausted) but until that time I believe in the presumption of innocence.

I feel sorry for your children too, since you clearly want them to grow up in a world where the presumption of guilt is the norm. Just like you presume anyone who doesn't outright condemn the Pirate Bay must be a law-breaker.

minor points for the late comers...

"Still think it is legal? ... Swedish newpaper report. Access to Pirate Bay blocked by a Danish court."

How many countries have banned YouTube for how many reasons? Therefore by that reasoning YouTube must be illegal in it's home territory, because it doesn't adhere to the censorship rules of every other country in the world.

We know that downloading material is illegal in many of the countries where the pirate bay's users are, but that doesn't mean that pirate bay itself is illegal.

So yes, I still think the Pirate Bay is legal (in Sweden), even though I choose not to use it to download copyrighted material in my territory (UK) where uploading and downloading copyrighted material is illegal (although I have used it entirely within the law on several occasions).

"Bad business then ... Looks like they deserve to be put out of business then... Before they have creditors against them."

It's a .org. Not a .com. The .com version is a fake, and should be closed down for cybersquatting.

I've never even heard of the pirate bay pretending to be a business, and it's entirely supported by donations and adverts to cover the costs of hosting.

But maybe you are right, last I heard that parasitic google.org was losing loads of the money donated to them by google.com on developing renewable energy, and that's clearly bad business and should also be shut down immediately!

What a lovely world you live in, where nothing is worth doing unless it makes money.