Posts by Paolo

Microsoft names Windows 7 RC1 dates

RE: Long Live XP

"WindowsXP will be the last Microsoft operating system I will ever use."

That's funny, that's just what people said about Win2K when XP was released...

Twitter jilts Ruby for Scala

@AC 10:21

"Whats with all the crappy hand rolled marketingesque buzwords? "

You must be new here...

Tesla unwraps Model S

@AC 11:25

"They realise that running off electricity isn't an excuse for looking shit."

Here here. That's a good looking car, far better than any other electric offering we've seen to date (electric Elise not included of course).

Microsoft promises 'lessons learned' on IE 8 download day

Think you've got that wrong somewhere....

If they *don't* do anything and IE8 reverts to IE7 engine, assuming the site already works with IE7 what's the problem?

If however, IE8 actually defaults to the *new* engine unless you put a tag in then i can see an issue...

So which is it?

Teen sacked for 'boring' job Facebook comment

Unfair/wrongful dismissal surely?

Sacked on the grounds of a Facebook comment? There must be more to this or I'd be wheeling in the industrial tribunal.

Google AdWords: 11 herbs and spices revealed

@A J Stiles

Nice idea, but not workable. Where would your £15 go? Since the ads are likely supporting the websites you're visiting then the money should really go to them, but how is your ISP going to track the hundreds of micropayments in a cost-effective manner?...Not going to happen sadly.

Back on track - the AdWords thing is still a mystery to me, i've tried to set it up a couple of times but the calculations between per-click and per-day payments coupled with this auction business means putting realistic figures on your prices (i.e. I'm not paying £100 a click or prepared to pay £1000 a day) means no show 90% of the time for your adverts.

Paris - because I'm as confused as she normally is.

Nine in ten emails now spam

Wow

90% is a scarily high figure. Think of the processor power, bandwidth, electricity and ultimately money that's being wasted by ISPs filtering this crap. I'm amazed they haven't come up with something to stop this yet (or at least decided to really go for SPF and/or SenderID), they've spent enough years naval-gazing about it.

Then again, I wonder how much total traffic does mail account for? Perhaps saving 90% of sod-all isn't worth the bother.

Wisemen bring Jesus Phone (free) cut-and-paste

@Jim

Very good - I have a mental picture of a bloodied solidier asking his general for the next strategic move and his general waving his hand in the direction of certain death without looking up from tap-tapping his burnished walnut clad copy of solitaire...

Google Native Client challenges Microsoft and Adobe RIAs

2nd verse same as the first...

Native code running from the browser is good in theory, crap in practice.

Those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it etc, ActiveX anyone?

Ofcom rules on Clarkson strumpet gag

Victory for common sense

That is all

Entire class fails IT exam by submitting in Word format

Evening tuition?

1) File -> Save As -> [select some other format]

2) Resubmit to exam board with grovelling note

Why do they need evening tuition for that?

Would be interested to hear what formats they do accept. i can't see Edexcel being an activist at the forefront of open document standard, but I'll be happy to be proven wrong.

Lord Lamont joins Phorm board

sinister

"They bring extensive experience on government, business, regulatory matters and financial markets"

In other words they have the necessary contacts, influence and lack of morals to bribe the right people to conveniently ignore current legistation and push on with this crap regardless?...

Back the F:\ Up

LAME

Actually it's to "Make and submit a video of your worst computer nightmare "

Front runner is a girl putting her laptop in the fridge complete with exceptionally crap acting while doing it.

So funny I nearly wet myself. Not.

Sony pitches blue-laser Compact Disc revival

@Missing the point

If memory serves me right the master disk from which the cds are pressed is a laser etched bit of metal.

CD-R deteriorate over time because the dyes become chemically unstable with age and break down, I don't think a blue-laser written CD-R is going to fair any better (although it might bring down the cost of writers if you only need top provide one laser in your drive unit).

What is a Linux distro worth?

Does this compare to Windows?

Do we know how much Microsoft invested in, say, XP? Do we know the LOC count?

Would be an interesting comparison, and of course some validation of whether his economic model is total bollocks or not.

Western Digital sees future written on disks, not clouds

That's all well and good short term...

..but what happens once solid state becomes cheap enough and fast enough to encroach on WD's "middle tier" above camera cards and below high-end server storage? It's only a matter of time surely...

UK.gov IDs identity vendors

Round and round we go

Fujitsu, IBM, EDS - sounds very much like the shortlist for the NHS contracts and we all know how well that's going.

These big gummant projects need some new lifeblood injected into the approved supplier lists and sharpish.

Vodafone accused of talkingtoofastinradioad

@Nick

"We'll have our house back if you stop paying us money"

You owe me a new keyboard :)

I think that's a brilliant set of replacements for the small print waffle. In fact, I'm going to email the Plain English Campaign right now...

easyJet warns 'several websites' to stop selling its flights

2 million??

(No doubt there's a backlog of similar comments wending their way through the moderation system but here goes...)

2 million IP addresses?! I would have thought even Google doesn't have that number of machines, let alone that number with individual *public* IP addresses.

Me thinks the PR monkey needs more training...

BT starts threatening music downloaders with internet cut-off

Shades of grey

"AFAIK...downloading stuff isn't illegal, it's illegal to upload ("offer") stuff."

Actually it's even less clear than that - courts in america are arguing back and forth over whether "making available" is the enough to count as copyright infringement.

FSA fines stockbrokers for poor data security

Security

They've stuffed up here, no doubt about it, but in this instance - having a close enough relationship with your client that you can recognise their voice and know enough minutiae to spot when you're actually talking to them is probably *more* secure than relying on a random call-center agent to ask for a DOB and 1st and 3rd characters of your password to determine if you are who you say you are.

Crazy coders enable full-screen Crysis play on Eee PC

Hmm, how about renting crysis appliance time?

Picture a server room full of giant PCs, each being remotely accessed for an hourly rate to play crysis on your local pauper-spec box, 60s mainframe stylee.

Or - seemless application hosting for Adobe Photoshop on Linux for all those "I'd move to linux if only this app was available" types?

Just a thought...

MPs urge action as spooky caller ID-faking services hit UK

Reg Lexicon

I'd like to request a preemptive ban on "vishing" because it's such a toss, contrived word and nominate "Phuckers" for inclusion in the Reg Lexicon next to mobe and lappy.

Phucker - abj. a company, person or (more likely) government agency who allows possible revenue to overrule common sense decency.

Phorm in phormulaic logo phorm storm

Now I've been to the pub but...

Are you f**king kidding me? "3 man band in Sheffield has same name as hated spyware outfit shocker" on the front page?

Come on, are you phoning these articles in from the pub?

Wi-Fi spoofing sends Jesus phone disciples off the true path

@AC "Maybe it's just me"

> "Oh Noes say the wrong location comes up on the map, if anyone has even half a

clue they'd realise the map is wrong pretty quickly"

The prosecution refers m'learned friend to every "sat nav caused me to run over my own testicles" story ever run to date...

If my Jesus phone tells me I'm in the middle of Kansas while standing on Oxford Street who am I to argue?

London teen orders 'cab, innit'

O RLY?

So contrived it's not even close to believable, what a bunch of horse crap.

Sky Broadband puts the fault into default Wi-Fi security

Yeah, because that worked so well for the gmail switchover...

Sending out a notice that your WiFi key is easily compromised to your userbase that's *already proved* it's unable/unwilling to perform technical tasks (see switch to GMail's email servers for proof) seems something of a waste of time.

What are the chances of someone war-driving past your house AND you having Sky broadband AND it having a weak key AND they stop long if enough to figure out the MAc -> key algo AND can be bothered to download something before driving up the road for a pint and a pasty?

Mines the one with the aerial sewn into the sleeve and strange chalk marks on the back...