* Posts by frymaster

385 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Feb 2008

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Virgin Media blames Activision for Call of Duty lag problems

frymaster

fool and his money

while being throttled there's more than enough bandwidth for gaming. what's far more likely is that there was some sort of issue with your connection; going to 50 meg involves changing from DOCSIS 2 to DOCSIS 3, and an engineer visit. Chances are whatever they did resolved your issue.

and let's not have any crap about "using what you're paying for"... you're on a consumer broadband connection. You're paying for a contended service -> you are getting what you paid for, unless you're paying at least 3 figures a month

Microsoft breaks own world record for IE nonsense

frymaster

pretty much

This "native" malarky is basically MS banging the drum about the graphics acceleration - AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN which, given that HTML5 is looking to replace at least some of the kinds of thing people used to do with flash (and could have done, but didn't, with silverlight) may actually, at some point in the future, be worth mentioning.

RIght now, the only real-world difference I notice is that IE is better at displaying 30,000 by 30,000 pixel images than opera.

MythBusters: Savage and Hyneman detonate truthiness

frymaster

can't be done

the assertion of existence of a deity isn't falsifiable - it can't be tested. This is the reason why it's not a question for science

Natty Narwhal with Unity: Worst Ubuntu beta ever

frymaster

not wrong but...

you're not wrong, but the default experience is still critically important. All new users, and I suspect even a very large proportion of existing users who upgrade, will judge ubuntu on what it chooses to present to them, and why shouldn't they?

This doesn't affect me so much since my main experience of ubuntu is via ssh terminal ;)

Microsoft+IE9: Holier than Apple open web convert?

frymaster

Your history is wrong

ie6 was released in 2001. Firefox wasn't released until 2004. The issue was not the state of IE6, the issue was that a new version of IE wasn't released until 5 years later.

frymaster

uh... am I missing something here?

what happens if you just turn off cleartype? does it turn it off for the OS but keep it on for IE9?

Windows 7 customers hit by service pack 1 install 'fatal error' flaws

frymaster

true but not the whole story

that is indeed part of why people use command-line, (a similar phenomenon on windows is "registry hacks" instead of just checking the checkbox in options), but part of it is when you are wanting to walk someone through something, it's easier to tell them to copy&paste from the command line than it is to say "bring up this menu, then that menu..." ad infinitum. Windows server MSDN articles do the same thing; to enable a lot of functionality they'll tell you to type something into an elevated command prompt rather than click on the "install server role" option or similar

MS embraces/shuns Google's open video codec

frymaster

"Redmond, you see, has a certain aversion to open source software"

in this case, not true. It's nothing to do with not liking open source and everything to do with the possible patent-infringing nature of WebM. Many industry experts are fairly sure WebM may be violating some patents, but there's been no court cases as yet - mainly because it's suspected that any potential litigators are going to wait until someone with a lot of money comes along first (like, say, microsoft). GOOGLE WILL NOT GUARENTEE THAT WEBM IS FREE FROM PATENTS therefore the responsibility is with the implementor. So if MS distributed WebM, they would be sued, not google.

ISPs to spill net traffic management beans

frymaster

Missing the point

While some probably _ARE_ selling above their capacity, home broadband is and always has been a contended service, a tradition going back to the days of dial-up where they owned less modems than they had customers, meaning it was possible for you to call the number and get an engaged tone.

As soon as even 2 people are using something, traffic management can be useful, for latency reasons even if not for bandwidth reasons. e.g. on a line that can get 100 meg throughput, someone bittorrenting at 50 meg can knacker someone's voice comms which only uses 1 meg, even though there's spare capacity, simply because the voice comms is more sensitive to late or missing packets.

Virgin Media to issue firmware update after Superhub slows to crawl

frymaster

no and yes

the bottlenecks with cable are a lot more local. So VM don't have an overall capacity problem - mine never dips below max - but they _DO_ have a problem in your area.

frymaster

indeed

i also got the previous router (this isn't the superhub) that was a VM-braned netgear firmware. From a throughput capacity, the firmware was ok, but it was woefully under-featured (couldn't do static routing, couldn't do nat for LAN clients)

a quick dd-wrt sorted that

this new superhub seems to be causing issues. If they ever get around to implementing bridge mode, it might be ok

Photo loss blogger to Flickr: You're f*cking kidding

frymaster

_decent_ software?

"Decent photo management software should be able to handle tags at the very least"

hell, even the MS live photo gallery thingamabob does this!

Intel 'Sandy Bridge' mobile platform

frymaster

SATA issue shouldn't affect it

it's only the 4 slower SATA ports that are affected, and only after sustained heavy use. In a laptop, things should be plugged into the primary 2 SATA ports.

Cold call scareware scammers aim to bring Mac fans into the fold

frymaster

He's right (also, you're wrong)

"Are you claiming that www.support.me is a kosher LogMeIn site?"

Connecting to www.support.me|77.242.193.195|:80... connected.

HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently

Location: https://secure.logmeinrescue.com/Customer/Code.aspx [following]

Yes it is.

"Then LogMeIn are complicit in these scams. Why hasn't anyone sued them?"

No they're not.

The whole point of LogMeIn is that you go to the site, enter a code, and the person the code belongs to can then remotely control your computer, for tech support purposes. If you're daft enough to let a complete stranger remotely control your computer, how is that their fault? It's just a tool - if someone tells you to throw a hammer at your computer, you can't sue the guys who sold you the hammer.

Apple's Jobs stand-in touts iPad's enterprise reach

frymaster

"being evaluated"

"being evaluated" is a code-phrase meaning "the boss covets the shiny". It doesn't mean it's going to be used seriously, it just means someone wanted to play with a new toy while the company picked up the bill.

Who will rid me of these obsolete PCs?

frymaster

No

No, because then it could be argued that you're trying to get around the tax laws. If a company "sold" you a new car, or a new computer for that matter, for one dollar, they it's pretty obvious that it's tax evasion.

In this situation, not so much, but you still have to sell them for "fair market value", based on what similar computers are going for.

Microsoft ends year with Patch Tuesday bang next week

frymaster

Why patches are monthly

See the other discussion thread about testing. By releasing once a month, an IT department can sit down once a month, discuss what patches apply to them, test them, and release them. If patches are drip-fed as and when, the admin overhead involved in properly testing updates before applying is such that many companies don't apply them at all.

Frenchies, Germans wave fat pipes at embarrassed Brits

frymaster

2-4 meg WOULD be a better thing to aim for

I know someone who gets sub-1-meg speeds he's so far from the exchange, and someone else who only gets dial-up.

while it's nice to get faster internet, imo we should concentrate on getting a decent minimum before we spend money improving the speeds of those who already have decent broadband

Horror AVG update ballsup bricks Windows 7

frymaster

shouldn't need catch-up

"Okay, when it came out Security Essentials had a lot of catching up to do "

shouldn't have. Certainly when it first came out, the virus definition files were identical to those of its big-brother product Forefront. (which is the domain-controlled, central-reporting, costs-you-money version)

it's also both inconspicuous, AND doesn't have a "please ignore and run the virus anyway" option on its pop-up

for anyone saying "just don't get infected", remember you can get infected from flash. Before someone mentions noscript, remember there have been cross-side scripting exploits on youtube before. Just because you browse legit websites only doesn't mean you're safe, that's like saying uprotected sex is safe as long as you stick to "nice girls"

Stoke Council avoids fine over lost childcare data on USB stick farce

frymaster

fining the person who lost the data...

...results in some poor schmuck who doesn't know any better getting in trouble, while the manager who didn't implement proper procedures in the first place gets off scot free.

Putting the internet into neutral, or neutering the net?

frymaster

Did you miss out part of a sentence?

"Another argument is that 5 per cent of the users use 95 per cent of the traffic on the internet"

true

"so traffic shaping is needed to block in particular video piracy"

huh? What's piracy, or indeed video got to do with it? That particular argument is between real-time services and bulk downloads. From a network usability point of view, the engineers don't CARE if it's a pirated disney film, or your granny's home movies, or some non-video large download. They don't have to figure out what trackers P2P is associated with, they just need to go "peer-to-peer, bulk download, deprioritise, job done"

A Linux server OS that's fiddly but tweakable

frymaster

indeed

"And further, all that chart measures is how many people have visited the distribution's page on Distrowatch"

and put it this way, I already know what ubuntu is, so I'm never likely to visit its distrowatch page

Anti-piracy lawyers 'knowingly targeted the innocent', says law body

frymaster

I don't know if this has occurred to you...

... but it's not the SRA's job to prosecute random people. It's not even their job to sue random lawyers on behalf of random punters. It's their job to police their profession. As such, all they can do is kick folk out of said profession. You want charges brought against them, go see the police.

MS security tool interferes with Chrome and Adobe updates

frymaster

even less than minor

for the chrome issue, it occurs when multiple users are simultaneously running chrome on the one machine, and at least one of them has right-clicked and selected "run as admin" instead of just double-clicking. The scope of the issue is that said users can't auto-update chrome.

The adobe issue is that certain updates would require a reboot.

It's hardly the end of the world, is it?

New owner slips into unwitting BoJo's domain

frymaster

er... when did they register the domain?

from the sounds of it, you guys had a trademark, and decided on the basis of that, that you should be allowed to use some random domain name which had been registered for donkey's years. I'm afraid that's not how it works*. The idea is that you've been using a trademark, and then someone's gone and registered the domain in an attempt to make money off your PR. _THAT_ would be cybersquatting. Refusing to give up a domain name just because someone's come along later and quite fancies using it is not.

If I've somehow misinterpreted your remarks, please let me know; this is mainly due to the "years ago and appears to keep it around for that reason." part of your comment.

*ok, not how it's _supposed_ to work, I'm aware of the many failures of the system

Internet Explorer 9 preview thinks inside box, outside browser

frymaster

not the beta

the IE9 beta has only had one release; that's the one that has multiple tabs, bookmarks, has the taskbar docking etc.

the platform preview is what's had its seventh release. That's just the renderer in a window; you have to go file>open to even open a URL.

Tory councillor arrested over 'stoning to death' tweet

frymaster

are you honestly saying...

...that chief constable Plod sat in his office and said "I could detail a couple more people to this protest, or I could send them to arrest an MP over a twitter message... let's do option 2"?

It's different people on a different day from a different department. It really isn't an either/or thing.

In any case, the current thinking is the police _COULD_ have deployed more people to cover the protest, but didn't expect it to kick off, and so didn't. Whether or not that was a good idea is open to question (though from what I hear, the people who started the trouble were rent-a-mob fodder not associated with the actual protest anyway)

Two-year wait for Windows 8, MS blurts

frymaster

kinda

the MS OS evolution makes a lot more sense if you posit a "missing" OS between XP and Vista that was eventually abandoned. this explains why vista didn't do half the things they said it would - because it's technically a different OS - and also why it doesn't seem to have 5 years worth of improvements - because they weren't working on it for 5 years. The incremental improvements from XP to Vista to 7 then make sense

Lone Android dev 'almost brought down T-Mobile'

frymaster

actually it _IS_ saying that

"Looking at wired infra that would be like saying that net neutrality forbids NOCs to counteract DDoS attacks"

the way the fanatic fringe - ie the part that gets the publicity - of the net neutrality brigade are phrasing things, that's exactly what it would mean.

I agree the circumstances in which ISPs can discriminate traffic need to be locked down, but the tubthumpers (again, only the very fringe, but the people who get quotes) are going on about total neutrality. I want ISPs to be able to:

- deal with (D)DOSs and faulty apps like in the article

- prioritise based on tcp/ip headers (icmp vs udp vs tcp, for example)

- to further be able to prioritse based on traffic type (real-time VOIP and gaming vs web pages vs bittorrent/ftp/binary newsgroups)

...all of which make sense, but we're in danger of throwing out the quality of service baby with the sneaky underhand revenue generation bathwater

Grocery terminals slurped payment card data

frymaster

easy to do in any big chain in any country

walk in wearing the right uniform, say "i'm here to upgrade your card readers mate", know exactly where to go, know the corporate lingo, and it's easy

all it needs is someone to work in an Aldi for a couple of weeks to learn the lingo, and see what company their till support contract is with

as a part-time university job I worked at mcdonalds, an engineer came to install a wifi access point for customer internet one evening when I was shift manager and I had a HELL of a time tracking down that he wasn't, in fact, some random dude trying it on (especially because I was short-staffed and had to leave him along in the back office by himself). The idea that someone would want to confirm an unannounced maintainance visit was almost unheard of

frymaster

not true

"banks dont refund debit transactions in the UK"

i've had them refunded after my card was lost and used after it was cancelled before

then again, that was in the days of switch, and was covered by some inter-bank guarentee... now it's visa debit / maestro (mastercard) debit, who knows....

Anti-piracy lawyers' email database leaked after hack

frymaster

not totally WTF-y (just most)

I've seen some all-in-one hosting sites that put the maildir directories in a customer's file area, 1 level up (so you'd have 2 dirs, mail/ and httpdocs/)

if someone did a total backup and then stuck it in the wrong place... they'd still be total idiots, but at least it would explain what the emails were doing on the server in the first place

Microsoft secretly yanks TechNet product keys

frymaster

not a grey area at all

it's not any kind of grey area; technet downloads are supposed to be used for IT staff testing deployments, not for general purpose use. and unlike the exact number of keys you get for each individual product (which is NOT specified in the contract or T's & C's), the "testing only" restriction is quite clear

frymaster

doesn't really suck

@vigilante... just out of curiosity, what LEGITIMATE use to you have for your keys that works with 10 but doesn't work with 5? bearing in mind the keys are for testing purposes only...

IPv6 uptake still slow despite looming address crunch

frymaster

wider meaning of security

knowing someone's mac address may not help someone to hack them*, but it means you can track someone across IP changes.

though yeah, the solution is "don't use your mac address in your ipv6 address"

*though for OEM PCs it might give you a clue on things like what virus software could be installed, or if it's a server board etc.

How do you copy 60m files?

frymaster

robocopy can handle large filenames

....which makes me very interested in what he was doing, and why robocopy wasn't an option

I've managed to use robocopy to create files I couldn't delete from windows before (because I'd gone from c:\ to d:\somefolder\someotherfolder and that pushed the bottom of the folders past the filepath limit)

RUSE

frymaster

uses steam tho

...while I personally consider it the best thing since sliced bread, and while that means that even if you buy it in the shops you can re-download it onto any computer you have access to, and don't need the disk, some people consider steam a "DRM" implementation. and you _will_ need internet the first time you play it, at least (steam's offline mode only works on up-to-date games that have been run at least once)

Ubuntu man responds to GNOME 'coattail' claims

frymaster

confused

wait, they only boot fast on windows machines?

or booting fast is only important when you dual-boot windows?

not sure what you're saying here

Die-hard bug bytes Linux kernel for second time

frymaster

"valid account on the machine" is stretching things a bit

let's say your linux PC is a mail server, and it scans incoming mail for viruses. Let's also say there's a bug with the archive tool you use, meaning a malformed archive can be used to execute code on the machine (it's happened)

congratulations, you now have a "valid account on the machine" and can use this exploit. see also: anything that manipulates images, and a malformed image, etc. etc. etc.

you don't need to have SSH access; you just need to be able to run commands on the machine

Steve Jobs carried 'ninja throwing stars' in hand luggage

frymaster

link?

if what your saying is true - and I've no reason to suppose not - wouldn't it be an idea to acutally post the proof so the story can be updated?

Do the Webminimum

frymaster

command line has its place

note that, especially with the enhanced ability to do thing from the command-line (remember there's a version of server 08 that doesn't have a GUI), microsoft are increasingly giving instructions out in the form of "run these commands"... not because it's more intuitive, but because IT'S EASIER TO COMMUNICATE OVER THE INTERNET. All the other person has to do is copy and paste the commands.

In a similar vein, if I were on a linux server and needed to install apache*, I might fire up my GUI package manager, search for it, and click "install". but were someone to ask me how to install apache, i'd say "apt-get install apache" - not because this is the most intuitive way to install server software on linux, but because it's the easiest instructions for the other person to follow. the downside is that the other person hasn't learned anything about installing software in general.

*bad example since in that case I _DO_ know the exact package name and would probably just do it from command-line, but this isn't always the case

Unity – iPhone code swap approved by Jobs (for now)

frymaster

I'm sorry, but...

...the minimum criteria for being able to criticise iTunes is not "being able to write something better" any more than the minimum criteria for being a film critic is being an academy-award-winning film director.

also, claiming "itunes works OK on my mac" isn't helpful when it's required software to use your iPod on windows ;) In any case, the issue isn't so much that it may be crap as that it's REQUIRED i.e. you can't use any media organisation program you like.

Internet Explorer 9 beta due on September 15

frymaster

Before you added that tag, I'd have thought you'd read up on how it's used

..IE8 _IS_ most-standards-compliant* by default. You only _NEED_ the extra header to force IE7 rendering instead of most-standard-compliant

http://dorward.me.uk/www/ie8/

And yeah, border-radius works

*I can't call it "standards compliant" really :P

Unpatched kernel-level vuln affects all Windows versions

frymaster

all new?

I didn't know there was supposed to be evidence to the contrary, after a cursory google I can't find anything to suggest that vista's kernel was supposed to be all new. Got a good link for that?

(all I can find is random blogs and stuff about "Longhorn")

frymaster

what?

are you honestly saying linux doesn't get this kind of vulnerability? If so, I'm glad you're not in charge of my systems. I suggest you subcribe to your distribution's security list, and start reviewing it.

Granted, an issue as generally exploitable as this comes up rarely, but "local attacker can get root if you're using n" issues come up all the time. I've got a "PAM vulnerability" from 7/7/10 (ubuntu) in my inbox right now, for instance

Social-engineering contest reveals secret BP info

frymaster

doesn't matter

I'm fairly confident that it would come down to the individual person answering the phone, regardless of company policy

HTC says sorry for Orange Hero Android 2.1 update delay

frymaster

actually...

...the only customisation I've seen is an orange logo for part of the boot process, and the default bookmarks (and homepage) point to orange URLs. Certainly there's no massive UI changes or restrictions (tethering still works, for example)

NatWest sets lawyers on student site

frymaster

Bloody hell

sounds like, though the numbers are being stored in a sensible format and transactions go through in a sensible format, the UI is converting them into floating-point to add up for the confirmation. That's serious fail

Software giant SAS loses copyright case in London

frymaster
Joke

Quite write

copyright coveres specific arrangements of words (or source code), not ideas

What SAS wanted was a patent....

Developer slips tethering into iTunes

frymaster

Overstating the case a bit

if the manufacturer of an android phone wanted to remove built-in tethering, they could. And those apps on the marketplace require being root (i.e. the equivalent of iPhone's jailbreaking)

that being said, they HAVEN'T removed tethering, and it works just fine on my HTC hero... :D

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