* Posts by DR

202 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Feb 2008

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Vodafone chief tells mobile users he knows where they live

DR

am I the only one.

who really wouldn't care about deleting a message for a few quid off.

as it is O2 are constantly sending me adverts anyway,

that started sometime last year, then they called me to check what adverts i'd like to recieve, I said none but they kept coming, I find it less trouble to delete the messages than to call them up for a rant.

so if they want to start paying me (by reducing the bill) to delete their messages, then I welcome it.

Botanist sues to stop CERN hurling Earth into parallel universe

DR
Boffin

@everyone saying why sue in america

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/science/29collider.html?ex=1364529600&en=e0f3790b6598f9ca&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

seems that the reg left the important detail out.

American companies are supplying some components, the person is asking CERN to comply voulentarily, but the law suit intends to kneecap the project by taking away components needed during the build.

Dump IE 6 campaign runs afoul of dump IE 6 campaign

DR

@There's a better solution

what solution is that?

last time I checked NO browsers were entierly standards compliant.

in fact last time I checked mozilla didn't support all the html4.0 tags.

(border color light / border color light, instead choosing to either apply shading for 3d effect if they are not specified, or choosing to just render grey if the colours are specified...

so there, quit your bitching. when [insert your favourite browser here] is fully standards compliant then perhaps you'll have a point telling others that they shouldn't be using their choice as it's lesser. until the stfu.

@Hudin,

oh so you didn't notice that someone else had the idea before you? but it didn't stop you running your mouth off when someone else had the idea after you.

and i seem to remember that years ago I knew someone who put notices on his websites telling people that I.e was shite,

that same person also detected screen resolutions and made jokes at people running in low res.

you're not the first to have the idea, and you won't be the last.

/rant

Apple forbids Windows users from installing Safari for Windows

DR

someone actually read the EULA?

This has always been in the EULA.

I assume it's for the following reason.

when you buy an Ipod you are, (or at least you used to when I got my Ipod) be provided with two apple sitckers,

Apple give you the stickers, and say you can only use the software on your apple labled box, perfectly legitimate, they give you stickers and then expect you to advertise to yourself family and friends that you have and own apple software.

those people who have itunes probabl have it to use with their Ipod which (second hand asales aside) should have come with apple stickers.

those who were bothered about this EULA clause will already have an apple sticker. installed the software.

those who don't have an apple sticker applied wouldn't have installed Itunes to start with and thus won't be auto updated...

the point isn't that safari forces the user to break the EULA, it's rather that if the user doesn't have an apple stickered box. and they do have Itunes they've already chosen to break the EULA.

why should the update software not assume that the end user has already agreed and complied to the terms of the license?

Pork and politics energise the biofuel delusion

DR

controversy in numbers, i think you've missed the point

"Sure, producing ethanol CAN use more energy than the ethanol is worth.

....

If 10 gallons of every barrel of oil is consumed when producing oil the conventional way and only 5 gallons is consumed producing ethanol (plus natural gas and/or coal) then THAT number really matters."

you say that producing a barrel of oil uses 10 gallons, but there are 100 gallons in that barrel, hence 10% of the energy is lost, but if what you said in the first sentance is true, producing ethanol uses more energy than the ethonol is worth, then your 100 gallon barrel of ethanol uses the energy contained in 110 gallons to produce. i.e you've lost energy. you go from 90% efficiency to -10% efficiency.

the real question is where the energy used comes from.

e.g if electricity is used in the conversion process does that come from a coal fired station, or does it come from a solar pannel?

if it comes from a solar pannel then there is no [environmental] damage in loosing that energy. in fact it's probably a good trade to mobilise the energy stored in crops to a form that can be carried and burned in cars.

wasteful? yes, harmful? no.

unless it was me who missed the point.

BT 'security upgrade' causes email headaches

DR
Coat

internet problems

How long will it be before BT block port 80 as thats where all the porn and malware etc gets downloaded on?

Google's riches rely on ads, algorithms, and worldwide confusion

DR

the point

The point isn't that the ads cost more

it's that click throughs are less.

I know myself having designed a site, when testing ad placement I noticed that on my indie music label site that offered CDs

there were a lot of irrelevant google ads for plumbers. not a mention of anything plumbing related on the site.

that kind of tipped me off. basically google had charged these plumbers for that ad to appear on my page, even tough it's likely that there would never be a click through.

i don't doubt that google have an algorithm for displaying ads, what I do doubt is the complexity of the algorithm... it'ssem that it's pretty much...

quick scan page,

does it have anything relevant to our ad bidders?

?yes > display relevant ad

?no > display irrelevant ad

either way they'll take the money. and it's particularly hard to prove that it goes on. but it does go on.

negligence like this will inevitably be the unmaking of google.

for a start those with the ads will loose ad revenue as people won't click through irrelevant ads, so the page makers will just stop displaying google ads and go for another ad company

also those buying ad space will notice that they are paying a lot more for a lot less, and will stop displaying ads on google.

Scotland Yard criminologist: DNA-print troublemaker kids

DR

it's that old if you've got nothing to hide thing again

if you've got nothing to hide then there's no problem right?

I don't plan on commiting a crime. so I don't mind if my DNA goes on record.

and maybe if there was everyones DNA on record it'd stop people raping other/committing crimes that leave DNA evidence.

preention is better than cure right?

'Freetard ? more like advert programmed PAYTARDS!'

DR

2c

well for what it's worth to chip in...

I think the beer anaology is as such

*paytard* beer is a lovely glass of premium quality bitter, pumped from the taps of your local, you gives yer money ans you sit down and enjoy.

*freetard* beer is more like homebrew. You have to have a slight startup cost, (buying the brewing kit, or getting a computer).

you wait a while (for it to brew/download) then you get to drink your pint. somewhere you feel the sense of achievement because you brewed it yourself/ripped of a corrupt industry. but after th initial sense of achievement wears off ou realise, it's just not as good dammit, and I want the real thing.

@poster above

However as the productors are quite willing to loose money on 3 films out of 5 we have to pay for their backing of the wrong horse.

and that's the big problem here, that's one reason why the freetards exist.

I *don't want* to pay for someone else's mistake.

_IF_ record execs choose a lemon, then they should get a better team.

I frankly don't give a crap about shite music, I won't buy it, and don't want to subsidise it in my legal paytard persuits of good music.

I do buy CD's but it annoys me to now that the money I paid for a good record, (lets say of a now dead artist) is not going to the artist, (s/he's dead), it's not even going to the estate of the artist in a lot of cases, it's going to subsidise the elevation of the next big thing that never works out. or it's going to payout the rest of the development contract that the next latest greatest shite massivly marketable, yet equally unskilled artist.

somewhere in the middle seems to me to be the best idea...

i.e. if artists really want to be artists, then they should strive for public acceptance first, by releasig thier stuff for free for download.

then if there is public interests then by all means a record company can come in and see what they can do to further elevate/profit from said artist.

but surely you get annoyed knowing that the money you paid for your SonyBMG released CD is going to be used to prop up the second CD sales of last years (now forgotten about) [popidol/americal idol/reality TV show] winner, rather than the profits of it going to the artist.

@Leo Maxwell

And when you listen somebody pays, the radio station, the bar, the supermarket, but the money very rarely gets back to the artist.

ummm... wrong. go look at ppluk.com if a radiostation/tv are playing music by artists they have to be registerd here, they note what they play and the artists are given royalties, there are even fixed percentages, for guest performers on records, recording artists, session musicians etc...

in short you're wrong. the money does get back to the artists.

@Magilla -EPIC fail (ha, ha, actualy your response was the epic fail)

Firstly, ever heard of a cover band? If not, they are bands who play other peoples songs, often get paid for it, but don't pay royalties. In effect, there are your cheap MFIkea knock-offs.

most cover bands play in pubs and clubs, certainly in the UK there is a PRS fee for playing live or recorded music. so yes, the artists do get a percentage. even if that percentage is paid to them before they've done any work when the recording company are laying out money so they can record their first album.

(e.g. a pub might loop a single song each day, but the band won't get paid for everytime that song is played, however the recording companys will get a fixed fee for allowing their music to be played in places signed up with the sceme, this money (or a percentage of it) will end up back with the artist

@poster above

[paraphrased]

Q, I pay for the music i like, but down load shit music to play at parties -why should I pay

A, because you and your friends are still getting enjoyment out of it. if you don't like it, don't get it. tell your guests to bring CD's of music that they like.

I love that whole, I steal because I support the artists crap, because it is just crap.

the recording company pay the artist and like any other business

no money in = no money out.

if you seal from the recording company you are not suporting the artist, even if you think that by going to a show you've shown more support you've still chosen not to pay them.

that said, I do support the try before you buy theory of downloading.

Free software lawyers warn over Microsoft patent pledge

DR

a format that will last in 20 years

why not write in HTML?

or plain text.

this comment is written in plain text, and unless something very *very* drastic changes it'll still be around in 20 years.

the intersting thing about this comment is that whilst there are no text formatting the line feeds and emphasizing of words still seems to work.

I don't feel the problem here is necessarily a standards issue so much as an idiocy issue, we don't need new improved latest and greatest files, than can embed all kinds of crap in them. we need less standards being maed and more standards being standardized and adhered to...

Wider London c-charge mooted as road pricing bounces back

DR

car sharing

I car share... it's easy.

I don't work in a big company, but I do happen to work some 15 miles outside of work.

in a town between two bigger cities.

it's not difficult to car share, I simply said to one guy, rather than drive, do you want me to pick you up in the mornings.

now I drive ten minutes out of my way, to pick up a guy and I pay half the fuel that I used to pay.

I don't care about the environment, i care about how much I pay in fuel. and right now a ten minute morning inconvenience has halved my fuel bill...

it's not hard. how many of you saying they can't car share have looked outside their own street to see if anyone else comes from the same area? if i could share with another person I would.

Hacking attacks can turn off heart monitors

DR
Boffin

pretty close

just how close do you have to be?

can you fit some kind of cantenna to your death ray to increase the distance?

you'd have to be pretty messed up to do this, but then there are plenty of messed up people in this world.

how many politicians living a sedentary life style have this kind of device fitted? will this be the new form of revolution? what sort of security are they fitting to these, and lastly. isn't a gun a far more accurate for of assasination than rendering an ondemand heart device inactive?

surely those with the intent to kill would use a $100 gun rather than a $30,000 deathray?

Microsoft Office Online falls into Halloween time vortex

DR
Paris Hilton

more pedantic

having looked at the page, the clock don't go back at 1am either,

the clocks go back at 2am...

Windows better off closed, says Microsoft

DR

leaked source code

given that the leaked source code from MS before was full of explitives and dodgy hacks to cover holes I can only say that I feel releasing the source code would be a great idea.

but for this reason and this reason only.

to save face before releasing the code engineers would have to spend hours going through it and tidying it up to stop it getting a million and twelve blog posts about how dumb you have to be to work at MS...

of course this sort of code review should happen anyway. I just think that there would be more preassure to actually do it if it were opened up to the public.

Has your shifty foreign neighbour got 16 mobes?

DR

IT workers

Working in IT, I'm frequently seen walking around near high profile buildings (i.e data centres -where a lot of highprofile organisation hold sensative kit and data).

carrying a couple of phones, (personal and business) and carrying a rather large and awkward to carry backpack (damn old heavy laptop).

still I've been looking for ways to have more fun on my frequent business trips to London.

Pentagon attackers stole 'amazing amount' of sensitive data

DR

@posters above

"My god they use windows" -yes, I think this is a problem, but I'd also think it was a problem if they used Macs and a well known expolit was used to own the box, and the same for Linux, it's be a problem if a well know exploit was used to own the box.

"My dog could do better." I was going to post a very simillar response until i figured out this very simple thing.

I could do better, and it's be all very well until the latest greatest hacker evaded the system I put in place.

it's the any man and his dog feel he can do better ethos that's sending everyone down the tubes.

next they'll employ a bunch of ethical hackers I'm sure to design and test a system...

in truth there is only one way to secure a computer against remote attack and it involves the external data connection cable and a pai of scissors...

there are clearly a lot of best practices, and these are the ones that my collegues and my self advise on and implement on a daily basis, but the truth of the matter is that no system is 100% unbreakable.

Ballmer pledges PHP love in Microhoo future

DR

@microhoo!

I think that the most sensible approach is to not change a thing.

they may consolidate a few things, but in all honest I doubt they are going to re-brand the Yahoo! portal to look the same as the MSN portal (AKA get rid of yahoo), for a start those who want to use the MSN portal already do, those who want to use the Yahoo portal do so probably because they don't want to use the MSN portal.

I assume they'll attempt to keep customer loyalty by not changing branding at all.

they aren't going to say to every Yahoo! Mail user that they've not got a hotmail/MSN address and that they can no longer sign in from the same place.

However I imagine that behind the scenes they may consolidate.

I.E they can have single mail server farms for both Yahoo and Hotmail, reducing server costs, a single portal backend that just serves content to two different web farms for front end.

a single search engine database that serves data to two distinct web front pages.

in all it's mostly about getting ad revenue from MSN pages and getting add revenue from Yahoo! pages.

they aren't going to take away Yahoo pages because upsetting peoples habbits are going to make them look elsewhere, not necessarily to MS.

the simplest way to look at it is like this

ad display shares (and thus ad revenue) is split (I'm making the figures up for simplicity

35% Google

25% MSN

20% Yahoo

20% Other (dogpile, ask, hotbot etc).

with microsoft and yahoo combined it'll look like this

45% Microhoo!

35% Google

20% Other

the take over isn't about rebranding apps and changing logos and portal pages, it's about getting a greater foothold in the money making areas of the web -adverts.

if microsoft can display twice as many adverts as they once were then they are now claiming twice as much ad revenue.

Also they will be seen as the biggest add provider, thus more people will want to advertise with them knowing that their ads would be displayed to more people.

Yes, perhaps in the future MS might use some of that money to push silverlight apps and such into google applications like web chat/mail etc... but at the moment there is no rhyme or reason to be doing this.

Microsoft plays IE 8 interoperability pick and mix

DR

@Peter Fielden-Weston

whilst it may be true that all standards should be supported... that is impleied...

they have already said that they intend for IE8 to support all the current standards and are now working on a way to implement standards that are pencilled in for future release as a standard.

they can pick and choose these standards because as they said, these are not standards, they are looking for what are the most promising to actually get standardised, and looking at what people will want to use and getting those out.

arguably IE has a much slower development cycle than other browsers,

are ou suggesting that they should only implement current standards and then be behind until the release of IE9, or would you actually support the current proactive view that they are taken at looking at new and emerging standards and looking to include those so that they will be supported in the browser from the word go?

I guess to sum it up.

yes you're right they should adhere to all standards,

but you are wrong (or didn't read the article properly).

they don't have to adhere to non-standards and can indeed pick and choose what to support (until they are standards) then they should support them.

US Air Force: Looking for a few good cyber warriors

DR

This is my rifle this is my GNU

Good God, Cyber warriors?

that guy who owns Mildenhall.com must be really shitting himself now knowing that he'll be e-gunned down by a real cyber warrior dept...

the only thing I'm worried about is how long it'll take the UK to follow this example.

Prosecutors target first 'Facebook harassment' conviction

DR
Paris Hilton

pull push

by that same logic I can send you hundreds of emails because you have to physically pull them from the server and read them? so you've chosen to accept them.

critical misunderstanding of everything me thinks?

Why you should care that Jimmy Wales ignores reality

DR

credible?

"El Reg seems to pursue Wikipedia to the max at every mis-step"

who is watching the watchers? I don't care. the fact that people read Wikipedia and treat it as fact is proof that it more than deserves the bashing that the Reg gives it. it's not about unfair and unbiased journalism, the reg does seem to be blatently biased against it. though anyone that uses the reg as their sole source of opinion on life the universe and everything is as stupid as those who rely on wikiperdia for the same.

Personally, I use Wikipedia, it's a fairly good source for relativly easy information, but i'd never totally trust it.

but it's good that it provides links at the bottom for reference, so I can check the facts etc.

I have never donated to Wikipedia and given Mr Wales dodgy expense claims I'm rather glad that I haven't...

I'd never trust Wikipedia for facts, and on a forum i moderate if any argument or disagreement is tried to be solved by wikipedia links those links are immediatly questioned...

Wikipedia is exactly as it says...

What i know is this...

trouble is what I know might not be right, I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again, that's just human nature.

Road charging, the sequel - Kelly unveils 'wired m-way' plans

DR
Go

spending too much time looking at your speedometer?

umm, that kind of implies that you're used to driving too fast anyway.

IMHO the average speed check cameras are a great idea, certainly they work. I happily speed and slow down for spot check cameras, but if they monitor my average speed and it'll make damn well sure I'll monitor my average speed as well. -it's not all that hard to drive at a constant speed. and these great little inventions take the point out of speeding, since if you do drive at 100MPH then you have to slow down to an inordanantly slow speed to stop getting caught -thus no sense in driving fast in the first place.

in truth it's just sad that these extra special things need to be put in place to make you and I obey the law!

why watch the speedometer anyway, just drive say a few miles an hour slower [than the limit], it won't massivly affect your journey time, and you'll get to stop looking at the speed clock/worrying about being caught speeding...

seriously, that's just common sense surely...

the speed limit is meant to be a maximum speed, not a target that you have to get as close to as possible...

like at a train station, when a highspeed train passes through you don't stand as close too the yellow line as possible, you thikn f your own personal safety and usually back away beyond the yellow line.

try thinking of the speed limit as that yellow line designed to protect the safety of you and the others around you.

Should Europeans pay to receive phone calls?

DR
Paris Hilton

did anyone actually read the article properly?

by the comments I think not....

what they are saying is that the recieving party is already paying to recieve the calls. the report recommends scrapping the termination fee...

Tool makes mincemeat of Windows passwords

DR
Thumb Down

damned if ou do and damned if you don't

"Microsoft is sure to point out that it's made possible by features built into the IEEE 1394 specification. That's true, but we're not sure that's enough to get Microsoft off the hook for failing to fix a weakness that's been in the public domain for at least two years."

Well the sure are to point out that it's the spec.

just like the guys coding Linux are sure to point out it's in the spec...

the question is who breaks the spec first?

do MS break the spec, fix the hole and then get critisism for not following a standard spec, or will the Linux guys do it first, leaving microsoft getting critisised for leaving the hole open...

after reading the article, I was somewhat surprised the author didn't refer to MS as M$, micro$ucks, micro$haft or any of the other innane I just don't like microsoft nicknames applied by his ilk

long and the short, it's not a nice bug, but it's also not microsofts fault. -if anything that researcher finding it affected all systems should have taken his beef up with the engineering council who wrote the specs.

When the music costs nothing, why do freetards prefer to leech?

DR
Unhappy

grrrrrr

really it just takes the piss...

still I guess that no matter how cheap the music is some will always want for free...

no matter, I'm still off to buy it

Microsoft picks Exchange and Sharepoint for the online draft

DR

get a new business

so MS can use their software to host the services that you offer??

how is this any different from if I set up a hosted service providing email and such?

from what I've seen most hosted services are a rip off anyway

e.g 1&1 offer 1 exchange mail box for £5.99 per month (£7 after VAT) it's the same price in dollars actually on the .com site!

there is no way it costs this amount to host mail boxes...

perhaps you should look at your business and pricing structure and ammend where needed to make the pricess more fair.

competative industry my arse, it's all about who's willing to run the most streamlined business and provide the best deal to staff...

by my fag packet calculations

1 mail box = £5 per month.

you might pay £5000 a year to upgrade infrastructure and software

and your 1 admin to rn your 1 server might cost £25,000 a year.

total costs are £30,000 a year so you only need 500 customers to make your one server pay off. and pay your admin.

now how about you have 2 servers.

total costs = £35,000 a year

now you only need 584 customers,

why not just restructure your priceing scheme? there are saving that can be made.

plus if you actually offered customers a fair deal, you'd find that you'd sell the service a hell of a lot more as well.

(fag packet calculations are notoriously innaccurate and neglect hosting costs, administrative staff etc. but also i suspect exchange email hosting isn't your only business).

either way the message is clear, either adapt your business and pricing structure or die (as a business).

Ballmer deploys greenery in CeBIT charm offensive

DR

power saving over XP

mostly because they buggered up powersaving hibernation and idle modes in XP.

great, so what they mean to say is they've fixed bugs that shuld never have been there in the first place?

Nine Inch Nails cracks net distribution (maybe)

DR
Pirate

few points

@The Avangelist

"To whoever it was above who stated that nobody would know who NiN are without an industry, yes you're right."

I think that's wrong, you might not have, that doesn't mean i wouldn't, I enjoy music, and finding new music, as a consequence of this and my online searching (myspace etc)/going to gigs/listening to CDs with mates I rarely ever have time to listen to the radio, or TV adverts for music... and when I do I'm often sorely disapointed.

"It happens all the time, there are only 3 Record labels in the entire world. Almost all others are owned or distributed by these 3 conglomerates."

.no, there are more record labels, just they are truely independant...

which does kind of proove your original point, most of the independants are too small to get on the RADAR of the average person. doesn't mean they aren't good though. in short these companies are independant in the nobodies heard of them way.

you are right though. the thing is that without a good set of people nobody is ever going to get heard. your average person won't be able to do it on their own...

I know a guy who's just recorded his own album, he has been marketing it in the way that NIN have been marketing their stuff. ('cept minus the free). but the paid pricing is the same.

he had to pay for the outlay though, he had to put down money from his own pocket for studio time to get something that people will want to buy. he's had to pay for album artwork, (thugh admitadly this has been done by a friend graphic designer who also want's to get a foot hold for recognition).

making money out of music shouldn't be easy. it's a job like any other job. work hard get paid a lot. work little, get paid little.

Zend to extend Windows PHP work

DR

@Joel Stobart

Mysql isn't free when you start having to uy the enterprise versions.

also with the advent of SQL 2005 which upped it's game, SQL is a more enterprise level server than MySQL is.

thus the two aren't exactly comparable,

try comparing Oracle with MSSQL, do you automatically assume that MSSQL is better because it's cheaper? no you look at what each can do, and how well they do it...

if you go to ZENDs site you'll see that PHP with their support tools isn't exactly free either... (in fact it's not too far from being a visual studio price).

nor is a full enterprise release of say redhat with the support and updates free.

it all goes back to the fact that free Linux, free MySQL and free PHP are for people developing small sites, whilst people making business critical apps, generally pay for the business level support from their vendors and the two technology platforms work out about the same price...

considering that Linux generally has a shorter (officially) supported life cycle, (from memory I think w2k was stopped being supported in 2006, [release 2000 support stop 2006 = 6 years] whilst red hat AS 3 was release in around 2003 or 4 and support stopped in 2006/7 -you can't get updates anymore, so that's a 2 or 3 year support cycle before you have to pay out again for the product, and pay for updates)...

this pushes a Microsoft platform to being a cheaper option that Linux... even if you can seemingly download desktop versions of Linux for nothing. (redhat charge in excess of £1000 for the ability to download updates and fixes [for a limited period of time] whilst microsoft release updates and fixed free of charge [for the life time of the product]). -both releases eventually go out of support.

with this price argument out of the window (we'll say that over the life cycle they are about the same even though figures seem to suggest that MS software is much cheaper), it then comes down to what platform does the job best, and which platform is maintainable.

the point is here that Microsoft are trynig to up their game and get better performance on their platform.

Software company says it can still resell Microsoft licences

DR

licensed not sold

If MS software is really licensed not sold then it should be perfectly legal to download copies after the original disc is lost/scratched/broken.

after all you only pay for the serial number, which is a license to use the product.

try phoning microsoft and saying you've lost your install disc, can they send you another... (the cost should be what 12p for the disc + P&P?).

if you buy the license disc et al then it should be perfectly OK to sell the goods you buy. after all you rarely buy goods for your exclusive use on an exclusive computer... you're allowed to transfer the license from one PC to another after you upgrade...

You can transfer a license between individuals when someone leaves they don't take the license with them...

if your company was bought licenses could travel with assets.

in this case all that's happening is as a company that's in trouble is selling it's assets, this should be perfectly acceptable, and as long as it helps MS maintain business monopoly I can't see why they are so fussed about it.

Ofcom to clamp down on 'unfair' charges

DR

it's not just BT

telewest used to charge me an extra £5 per month for the privellage of paying my bills manually.

and yes, this really does need to be law, not guidance.

I absolutly refuse to believe that in BT's case the cost to them to end a contract early will be all of the remaining contracts fee's + £70...

that's utter bull...

having said that I'm currently signed up with Virgin, their contract exit fees are just finish paying your contract, since I sign a contract and essentially promised in that contract to stick with them for a year I don't see this as being too bad.

so far as making people more aware, it's all on the websites, I signed a six month contract on a rented house, so I needed to know how much it's cost to be telco free when I moved out, it was easy enugh to find, those that can't find it must eiter be blind, dumb or both.

Boffin: Coconut jumbo is millstone in disguise

DR

simple solution...

get pissed more...

ethonol can be a by product of the beer brewing industry...

I'll be doing my bit to combat global warming down the pub later.

Comcast pays Americans to oppose net neutrality

DR

i'm confused

firstly... why did they wear yellow tags? is this some kind of mark of the devil or something?

Secondly, why didn't their competetors pay to fill the seats with people who would make a lot of noise and complaints?

Filesharers petition Downing Street on 'three strikes'

DR
Pirate

misinformation?

the misinformation spread by various websites?

I read that article and don't really see much difference between there and what was being written here all of last week regarding how it maybe done and what technical issue are thrown up?

"The only workable solution is as has been used in the US, where uploaders are targetted"

when you down load from a torrent you download parts and upload parts. therefore, when downloading you're also uploading and by your own logic should still be targetted.

"Don't assume that the rest of us happily pay this "Freetard Tax" because you won't play by the rules."

I've bought all the music I've ever downloaded, or deleted it and been glad i didn't waste my money... funnily enough, i have broad musical interests and can't sample all the music I want to buy just by listening to the top 10...

by stopping me from finding good new music all the BPI are doing is ensuring that I won't be buying as man CDs as I used to. since I won't have the access to get to listen to new music.

Minister defends National ID Register security

DR
Unhappy

40% against...

of course means 60% for...

but I was never asked,

I doubt that 99% or more of the population have been asked.

is this a case of we asked a ten people who we found in a meeting and only 4 objected.

that doesn't take into account those who didn't object but were actually not for ID cards.

or do they assume that ID cards were a govermnent proposal and 60% of people voted for a party with that on the agenda completly ignoring all other agendas,

can we use the same logic to say that 60% wanted to go to war?

I don't think you can.

deeply unhappy face: i feel misrepresented

Bitlocker hack is easily prevented, Microsoft says

DR

Just use another device to store the encryption

All security measure (well most) have the weakest link at the user...

except these tools...

as far as I under stand the problem is that on boot you enter your password, this forms a vital part of the encryption/nencryption process, and that's why it's cached in the RAM, else everytime the system needed to read/write data you'd have to re-enter the password...

thus the key is stored in the RAM and is recoverable...

simple answer, don't store the data in the RAM, store it in a USB dongle or smart card etc.

of course then you have to realise that when users know that they need said USB device always plugged in to be able to read/write data from the disk, or always have the smart card pushed in the slot then they'll tend to leave said smartcard/dongle with the PC... so nothing is really changed here...

i.e if the laptop is stolen then the key is stolen with it...

thus caching the key is the lesser of two evils as this seems only fallible to highly unlikely attack.

of course, what should happen is that when the device shutsdown/suspends/hibernates the key should be erased from the memory.

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

DR

not really a problem though

"While the case focused on the utility, it's not hard to imagine other companies - say, large search engines whose business model depends on storing huge amounts of information about its millions of users - having similar problems."

yes, but the information on search engines is largly publically available, and you can search your own name to find out what is available...

in fact it's the entier business model of search engines to catalog information and make this available for people to search.

HMRC pays criminal for 'tax dodger' discs

DR
Thumb Up

@AC

"Also who decided that our laws were the correct tax laws rather than Liechtenstein's?"

our government decided our tax laws were right and correct, Lichensteins government decided that theirs were correct.

those who want to live by the law of Lichenstien should go live in Lichenstein,

those who choose to live in the UK should obey the UK laws, even when it costs them money.

I don't fully agree with paying criminals for money, but paying one crooks to catch a hundred doesn't seem all that bad. (of course it is really)

Scientist warns against technology addiction

DR
Coat

RE; disapointing

"...that it didn't tell me how addicted I am"

perhaps you need to invite 20 friends before you can get the results

cDc automates Google Hacking

DR

@@Time (AC)

Yes they are l337 doodz, and acting like kids.

nobody denied that they done loads for security.

but both IE and firefox have bugs, an holes and security fixes.

and the fixes are rolled out at roughly the same speed. and massive holes in both have gone unfixed in the past for ages on both browsers.

the point is that when they act like the little script kiddie bratz saying stuff like firefox is so cool, and you need to use it, and if you use IE we won't even let you use our site...

that's when they loose credibility

Doctors back more tax on booze

DR

cut the smount of alcohol in blood for drink driving

Further than suggesting cutting the limit of alcohol in blood from 80 to 50 per 100 I'd suggest cutting it to zero.

drink driving won't stop being a problem till everyone realises it's just not acceptable,

I know full well I could drive after only 1 drink, but the ambiguity is in my size build, tollerance to alcohol, speed at which it passes through my system, mow much I've had to eat, strength of the drink etc. etc. etc...

what should really happen is that they should cut the limit to zero.

nobody has an excuse anymore, if you've been drinking, just don't drive.

and those who get hammered and wake up thinking that they're fine have little excuse nowadays either since it's *well known* that alcohol stays in your body the day after too.

Microsoft splits Server 2008 for SMB

DR

still with the bundling

I seem to remember reading somewhere that MS advise you not to have AD/exchange/SQL running on the same box... but that's exactly what the SBS does.

Facebook loses a few bitches

DR
Happy

well I use it...

I don't like the application requests, and I'm well aware that each time I add one I'm 'giving away' my marketing details to developers, else they wouldn't have gone through the trouble of creating them...

and virtual hugs/flowers/presents etc are all very well, but also a bit... well shit...

so why do I use it?

I use it to keep in contact with friends, it's cheaper than a text message (free) and less formal than an email.

when was the last time I emailed a friend? years ago, when was the last time I sent then a quick essage to say hello how are you on facebook, earlier today.

so far as not contacting people,

yes, I agree, I've got 'friends' on there that I met in school that I didn't talk to in school and don't talk to now.

conversly, it's a nice thing to be put back in contact with friends who I still talk to in person as well as on facebook.

also it provides a nice platform for people to update people on what's happening, (such as event invites to friends birthday parties), -like one I'm going to at the weekend.

it has it's use, those people who left their old schol buddies because they didn't like them won't like it, those people who'd circle of friends extends little further than the walls of their office/house/local pub won't find a use for it,

but I do find a use for it, keeping contact with some old friends who have moved too far away to see all the time, but who I do still like to talk informally to.

Ofcom cracks down on London pirates

DR
Thumb Down

intefererence is possible if not unlikely

"Ofcom claims the pirate stations interfere with air traffic control and fire brigade radios, ... ...

Air traffic systems are closer to the FM band (between 108 and 137MHz), so interference is possible, if unlikely."

without the technical speil it's just summed up in two words, side bands...

transmissions aren't just on a single frequency, there are other frequencies that are also transmitted, these side bands are different frequencies that decay in power the further they get away from the main broadcast frequency...

since 108 is extremly close to the consumer airspace of FM radio, unmonitored unlicensed stations transmitting on whatever frequency they like it not just "possible if not unlikey", it's "possible and highly likely"...

also if you set up a radio station and pay for your airspace, you've bought spectrum, that's yours to transmit on, why should you have to put up with people stealing your airspace and degrading the commercial service that you are offering?

@dave bell...

yes another pirates vs. ninjas debate... just what the internet needs :)

DVD Jon aims to smash digital Tower of Babel

DR

@Mark Rendle

no, I thought that too..

allowing people to share clips...

because they'll only want to share their own material that they are writing right?

I'm fairly certain that anyone with the technical ability to write and record their own materials to be offered for download, has the original master copies and the technical know how to export from their mastering program to whatever format they like...

this is a great product as it'll allow people to transfer music they own between the devices they own.

breaking DRM is just something that I think should be done, (using the analogy of being able to play a CD in my home stereo and car stereo).

but providing a platform for sharing the files globally once the DRM has been removed is a little too close to the setting up of a pirate network.

a fairly stupid move that will inevitably lead to the site being marked as a place where pirates go for music and attract unwanted attention from the people like SONY BMG (big money group?)

Counterfeit vans: A little-known online grocery scam

DR

what's the difference

so you understand meter reading scams but can't see how this is different?

meter reading scam...

person pretends to be a meter reader to gain access to the property, then mugs little old lady in the privacy of her own home, with no-one around to see and leaves whistling and smiling, nobody bats and eyelid because it looks legit.

how's is this different from:

person pretends to be a food delivery man to gain access to the property, then mugs little old lady in the privacy of her own home, with no-one around to see and leaves whistling and smiling, nobody bats and eyelid because it looks legit.

it's just a safeguard, perhaps not a well thought out one, but neither are the ID cards that meter inspectors read. they are just limited measures to put worriers minds at rest.

Claimed ignorance foils Economist domain case

DR

@AC proud to be british and use .co.uk

"I know not of this The Economist, that you speak of :)

Isn't .com US, if this is a UK company why not show some pride and use the .co.uk domain, "

no.

.com stands for commercial

com - Commercial

.net - Networks

.org - Organizations

.info - information

.biz - Business

.edu - Educational

.gov - Government

.int - International Organizations

.mil - Militry (US Dept of Defense)

.co.uk - UK Companies

.uk UK

.de - Germany

.us USA

.fr - france

.nl - netherlands etc...

since the economist is a world distributed rag and a commercial organisations brand name a .com name would be fine.

surely the web site creator, should have been proud to be American and used a .us name...

re: the itunes case, yes, I'd forgotten about that, I wonder if the economist could use this to form an appeal of some kind, usually past law can be use as test cases in stuff like this. is there even an appeals process for this or is all of this decided on the flip of a coin/biggest handouts or something?

Enraged vegan spitroasts Reg hack

DR
Dead Vulture

"...but he feels that vegetarians and vegans are a safe bet."

"but he feels that vegetarians and vegans are a safe bet"

cause they are usually to pale and pasty to fight back!!

vegetarianism is not a minority group,

though it seem that those with a sense of humor are a minority group

icon: dead bird blood dribbling from mouth...?

not really my cup of tea, but seemingly fitting

Critics chuck MS 'friendly worm' plan on the compost heap

DR
Thumb Down

bit torrent? they can f-off with that one.

and what if you have a cap on your usage?

1GB transfered, now call me cheap, but I don't want to pay for updates to be distributed from my workstation.

for example, I just put a fresh copy of xp on a box at home, and had to down load a couple of hundred MB of updates...

if I had a 1GB cap I've already used well over a tenth of my monthly capped usage in a few hours just making my system secure (I can't believe I just said that... anyway on with the point)...

I don't want to waste more of my traffic allowance helping others update their systems.

that's why there is a windows update server, so people can download from it, not me.

on the business front,

if I want my windows updates to be mandatory I can set up my own WSUS machine, and force patches that I've tested to be installed at any given time on any given day... even force reboots afterwards if I want to.

this idea is bull crap,

it's useless for business, for the reasons outlined above, and it's unfair on the home user who have already paid for the crappy software once, without then further paying to help the world richest get richer by allowing them to leech the services that they are paying for.

besides which my connection speed is shit enough without distributing windows patches through it as well.

not that I'm completly against torrents...

a torrent of something like Linux is fair enough, you're getting something for free and contributing something back whilst others get bits from you over your connection. -but that's the kind of ideology you sign up for when you start to torrent stuff, not when you buy a product off the shelf.

London Congestion Charge becomes CO2 tax

DR

confusion

I think there is some confusion here over whether it's

The punitive £25 charge applies to (pre-2001 cars and long-cab pickups) with three-litre engines or bigger

or

The punitive £25 charge applies to (pre-2001 cars) and (long-cab pickups with three-litre engines or bigger)

no there are not many pre 2001 cars with three litre engines, but there are plenty of long cab pickups with big engines.

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