Posts by GreyCells

Google to axe IE 8 support, cuts off Windows XP lifeline

And other browsers...?

I'm not that knowledgeable about Windows, but can't you just install Chrome or Firefox et al on XP?

LOHAN flashes fantastical flying truss

Hmm...

What happens if (when) one balloon rises faster than the other? Eeek!

First SMS Trojan for Android is in the wild

Police Warning for Householders

The police are warning that if you let a strangers into your house (who may or may not be wearing masks, striped jumpers and carry bags marked 'swag'), they may well steal your stuff.

Duh.

Linux police offer deviant Android return from exile

Would love to see...

Would love to see this mantra in a proprietary stack: "No you can't ship that to our customers, because it's crapware. Make it better, then we'll ship it."

Nah, that'll never fly.

Google Maps absorbs Earth view

But only for Mac & Windows....

n/t

Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 embraces - yes - HTML5

Blimey

Is Beelzebub lacing up his ice skates?

'Severe' OpenSSL vuln busts public key crypto

Open vs Closed

A fascinating insight into just what security researchers get up to in their lunch breaks. Also an excellent comparison between proprietary and Free software:

Requirements for cracking Free Software:

1. Control of the victim's power supply (i.e. have physical access)

2. Fluctuate power > 9,000 times

3. Load results onto an 81 machine cluster

4. Run more than a hundred hours of processing time on that cluster

5. Get it all done before the patch is pushed.

Requirements for cracking 'the OS that shall not be named in security reports':

1. Visit a malicious URL.

Hehe, perhaps I should apply for that job at the Daily Mail...

Apple's iPad - fat iPhone without the phone

Really disappointed

No web cam, no USB, no SD card slot, no Vorbis/Thedora.

For God's sake someone build a decent open web pad... C'mon Arrington, where's the CrunchPad Mk2?

I would like to use the Epic Fail icon, but of course it's Apple, so everyone will buy one, then in six months when the camera gets added, they'll buy another one. Muppets.

Scott McNealy signs off in style

Very sad day

Sun was the best tech company to work for - by far. Their culture was unique - the only company I would have considered going permie at...

Truly a great loss to the industry.

Oracle is all about the shareholders - no longer really tech driven, nor focused on customers.

Let's hear one last 'Hooray!' for Sun...

Manchester ID staff suffer isolation as new dawn fades

Bargain

Only £384 worth of marketing per card? So just another £25 *billion* required in marketing funds to get the whole UK population on board. Bargain. Good to see our taxes well spent.

Of course not all 1,300 actually went all the way through and ended up with cards quote: "have applied and attended an enrolment appointment for an identity card"

Note the political semantics.

I think we need a bigger epic fail icon...

PsiXpda pocket computer

Psion of the times?

If this is 'state of the art' for 'the times', then I think there's been an interruption in the blah, blah, blah.

Psions had style, a bullet proof OS and were works of art in their own right. Just give me a Series 5 chassis with network connectivity...

Microsoft tells UK schools: buy our software, save money

Microsoft is taking lessons...

...from that other (probably more ethical) business - give away your product to the lids, get 'em hooked young and you've got yourself a user for life.

We should be teaching our children how to use software, not how to use specific products. i.e. Teach them how to use a variety of word processors or spreadsheats, don't just teach them how to use MS Word/Excel.

We should also be teaching our children (and our own generation) the difference between free (gratis) and Free (libre) - all too often the free lunch erodes the Free enterprise.

Microsoft predicts Linux will fail mobile 'quality' test

Microsoft Mocked

I was going to add a comment along the lines of: "This 'quality' analysis is coming from the company that built *Windows*?", but it appears you've all beaten me to it in various flavours of the same.

Must be truly embarrassing for the leaders/employees of Microsoft to be continually laughed at by their peers... If they weren't so damaging to the industry, you could almost feel sorry for them - the big bully trailing haplessly along at the back.

Google to mobile industry: ‘F*ck you very much!’

Karma

The mobile manufacturer/network combination has been shafting it's customers for years - good to see them getting a taste of what they've been dishing out.

In-depth probe fails to hit the G-spot

Sounds like religion to me

"It is rather irresponsible to claim the existence of an entity that has never been proven and pressurise women and men too."

Isn't that a job for the church?

Zuckerberg pictures exposed by Facebook privacy roll-back

tee hee

This is what you get for eating the result of your own dog food...

The return of the Psion-sized PC

Bring back the series 5 with connectivity

If this were a properly connected Series 5 chassis (i.e. wifi, 3g etc) then I'd buy one tomorrow. As it is, your picture of the Series 5 still looks uber cool and ergonomic, whilst the 'new' model already looks a decade out of date and useless.

Where's the progress? If they bought the S5 production line, then get producing the thing...

Microsoft promises 'open' Bing strategy

Yawn...

Microsoft is a typical playground bully: If it’s not my toy, I’m not going to play with it (unless the teachers make me). And I’ll beat up anyone who doesn’t play MY game.

Most children eventually learn this is not the way to behave in a civilized society. Sadly, it appears the ‘grown-ups’ in charge at Microsoft never learned social skills at school.

MS store staff in spontaneous electric boogie

Like watching your Dad dance at a wedding

To quote Mr Royle: "Spontaneous, my arse"...

New York Times Editor drops Apple tablet in talk

Not invented here?

Is there really anything (important) that the Times Reader does with Adobe Air that could not be done with in a browser with a little creative use of html, javascript etc?

Watch out for those open standards - you might catch something viral...

Microsoft howls as Google turns IE into Chrome

Does this mean we finally get SVG?

By 'we', I mean us developers. Now that would be progress. I'll be able to remove all my 'deoptimizations' that are necessary to stop VML barfing under load.

Troll blockers take Microsoft SGI patents

Microsoft probably can't sell directly to OIN...

... doesn't OIN have a 'we all agree not to sue each other policy'?

Brit inventor wants prison for patent crims

It's mine, all mine...

...and I don't share.

Greed always exposes mankind's worst side.

Note that the quote is slightly inaccurate: "...the patent is *potentially* worth a million pounds..."

A bit like saying my lottery ticket is potentially worth a million pounds.

Linux patch sidesteps Microsoft's TomTom patent

Re: Mono's next in the line...

@ElReg!comments!Pierre: Yes. Greed (usually for money, but often for 'power') even corrupts the reasoning of the smartest people.

Remind me again - how do software patents *promote* innovation?

Opera applauds scepticism on MS browser pledge

Revisionist History

Name any non-MS product in the IT sector that has remained dominant for six years without any updates (and only then because FF was gaining ground). Only a monopoly could achieve this.

Let's face it, IE is a legacy product (it singularly fails to properly implement virtually every open standard it touches and completely omits others), yet still contrives to hold the major market share.

A bit like seeing Trabant* holding a 90% share of cars and then ripping into Ford, BMW & co for trying to sell a better vehicle through the dominant Trabant dealerships (who have all the available forecourts contractually tied up).

IEisPants - it is the Trabant on the information highway...

[* substitute Austin Allegro if you like Trabants]

Microsoft architecture chief: Google Wave 'anti-web'

Oh, the irony...

Hmmm - where are the non-open source third party implementations of Microsoft's opaque, overly complex and undocumented applications/apis?

Smacks of: "Damn... I wish I'd thought of Wave."

lol

Microsoft promises IE web-standards love

Lack of SVG sums up Microsofts 'commitment'

The long list of excuses as to why Microsoft did not, cannot, will not implement SVG pretty much says it all about their commitment to open standards. "We'll implement standards only if it's to our advantage and to hell with the developers (developers, developers, developers ad infinitum).

Having worked through 'til 2am last Sunday to work around the various incompatibilities and bugs in IE6 and 7 (severely disrupting my family life and the following work day), I don't think Microsoft really care about anything or anyone except themselves. IE8 will just be another bunch of incompatibilities and bugs that we'll have to work around, so I'm really looking forward to that....

As a developer, I don't care what browsers people use, so long as it is not any version of IE - what does that say about Microsoft's standing in the developer community?

Microsoft trades goodwill for TomTom Linux satisfaction

What a shame...

...that governments can't deal with playground bullies in the same way that head teachers and governors of schools can.

Can't compete on the quality of your products? Then use your vast wealth and the courts to stop your competitors from progressing the art. What a fine moral example we are being shown yet again.

Kuhn's statement is not completely accurate - patents have only recently become part of Microsoft's strategy (for anti-competitive reasons) - if there had been software patents around when Microsoft first started, then they would never haver gotten off the ground.

When will the IT industry giants stop lying to us (and themselves)? Software patents do nothing to progress the art - history has proven that. Copyright works just fine.

Tazzari specs up UK-friendly electric runabout

Same problem as Smart

What percentage of second cars (this would rarely be a primary vehicle) are used for the school run? At a minimum, we need 1+2 (i.e. 1 adult and two children) but preferably 1+3 to accommodate the nuclear family...

Lose the boot space for two extra (small) seats and you've opened up a whole new market.

Microsoft to act on IE8 'show stoppers'

IE 8 is Microsoft's first stab...

... at a standards-compliant version of its browser.

You've gotta admire a company that takes eight versions (and a little pressure from the EU) before it even considers trying to make a standards 'compliant' product. But where's SVG? Still stuck with the painfully slow VML for all those mapping applications.

Paris, 'cos she'll be pleased IE users will probably never get to see her between <video/> tags.

Apple threatens Palm chomp

So sad...

...that businesses have to rely on such patents to compete. It would be like Man. Utd. patenting a particular kicking technique or set piece positioning - once the patent is granted then they are free to win the league for twenty years un-fettered.

I have no problem with Apple patenting the physical (not software) implementation - i.e. the manufacturing process etc, just not the patenting of intuitive actions.

C'mom Apple: compete on the merits. Greed is not good.

Me, looking for my eight-year-old mobile phone in the pocket.

Mac malware tide on the rise

Ironic

So, let me get this straight: If you don't install anti virus software on a Mac, you're less ikely to catch a virus? Sounds like the AV industry needs is feeding it's own habit....

Mine's the one without pirated software in the pocket.

Linux to spend eternity in shadow of 'little blue E'

Don't underestimate Joe Public

Yes, most people are uninformed enough to think the Microsoft software is good, invented the www, and other such nonsense, but it's just down to plain ignorance, fed by the Redmond marketing machine and Microsoft's illegal/immoral dominance of the channel. People are not really that stupid, just habitual and badly informed (a delicious irony in the information age).

Your argument only stands up when you focus on the retail PC in it's current form factor. As soon as other form factors arrive (iPods, SmallCheapComputers, mobile phones), users have no problem transitioning.

As we start to see more usable internet devices arounf the home/business (no, Windows PCs are *not* usable internet devices), then people will not care to be struggling with the legacy Windows UI and swiss cheese approach to security.

Remember, Microsoft's desctop dominance (which is unlike the dominance in *any other* business sector, within or outside IT) was created (and is maintained) by proved illegal and immoral practices. It is not there because it is better.

Bill Gates [evil icon], because Microsoft has held back true innovation in IT by at least five years.

Leaked Met letter questions Speaker's version of police raid

Oh the irony...

...of the police using a leaked letter to defend their actions when investigating a... leaked letter. Who should investigate the leaking of the letter about the leaked letter investigation? Perhaps Damian Green?

How should software developers be paid?

Paid by the line? Hmmm...

...that'll be jQuery developers well and truly stuffed then.

Ruling makes it easier to get software patents in the UK

@Anonymous Coward

What a pile of tosh: 'My dad's bigger than your dad..." How mature our industry is.

Why not work together to build stuff that is greater than the sum of the parts - make a good living on the way and still have fun? Oh yes, I forgot: "Me, me me, it's mine, all mine and I won't share"

Even though you've stood on the shoulders of giants to get there, you're morally bankrupt enough to stamp on the toes of anyone trying to do the same. What an perverse moral compass you have...

Oh, by the way, Symbian doesn't really exist anymore as a viable company with a viable product.

Defensive patents my arse.

Bill (and Steve), because they epitomize this pathetic attitude.

Wh the hell are these SMEs?

Just who the hell are these SMEs that want software patents? As an SME, I sure as hell don't want them (copyright is good enough for me), and I have yet to meet anyone in the SME world (who hasn't already been bought out or simply dreams of making gazzillions on the promise of a patent) that has actually benefited from software patents - quite the contrary. A European SME cannot enter the US market because of the risk of infringing some submarine patent.

Shame on you Dr John Collins - greed is not an endearing feature.

And shame on Symbian - a once shining example of great British innovation (not the US definition of 'innovation') for falling down to the gutter in pursuit of your twelve pieces of silver.

Nokia boards Silverlight express

MS's Web vs Everyone Else's Web

This is just the start of the (latest) balkanization effort by Microsoft. Shame on Nokia for not realising they are be used. It's back to the bad old days of "this site best viewed with <insert proprietary product here>". And shame on any developer who creates publicly accessible apps using Silverlight (or Flash for that matter).

Why can supposedly smart people not see through Microsoft's game? Silverlight is proof positive that their recent posturing on 'interoperability' is a total pack of lies.

The 'not invented here' and 'we must own all your bases' attitude combined with Microsoft's vast wealth is the greatest danger to a free internet.

Paris, because she's a whole lot smarter than the developer who proposes a Silverlight development to their PHB...