Posts by SilverWave

Intel preps x86 Android for summer release

"And then there was MeeGo." Harsh but fair ;-)

Stupid name any ways LOL...

Google vanishes Android apps from citizen phones

Agreed - Its needed.

Its a balance to be sure, but you have to give your apps an unreasonable amount of trust tbh.

I actually hope that Google do scan the crap out of anything that hits the Market and kills anything suspicious.

If I didn't trust Google, (more or less ;-) then I wouldn't be using an Android now would I? D'oh!

There have been a few apps that said they needed access to my contacts (which is way out of line) which I binned... but how many less technical users will think twice?

HTC Desire ftw! LOL.

Mozilla: Our browser will not run native code

Yeah but No.

True - I can even watch bbc content as it uses flash...

But it will die and the new google assist (with the WebM thingie) will help bring it about faster.

Cheers Google nice one.

Apple debuts Safari 5 for Mac and Windows

Safari Reader FTW! (Readability Knockoff?)

Fantastic - no more need for greasemonkey scripts to clean-up fugly sites!

*cough* thereg *cough*

I had just loaded up the Readability add-on for firefox and it does do an OK job.

Of course now that Apple have built this in, Mozilla will fall over them selves to out do them :-)

I just <3 browser competition, it keeps everyone on their toes.

Mind you I wonder what Advertisers will make of this... heh, is that screaming I hear?

Google open codec wins OSI love after patent shield rethink

Free and Open - Nice!

>But at least we can all now agree that VP8 is the way forward — with the exception of Apple, Microsoft, and the MPEG-LA.

Microsoft said that if you have VP8 installed then IE9 will use it.

I believe the same is the default behaviour in Apple Macs.

Firefox and Opera are on board...

Drinks all round?

Oh an hahaha MPEG-LA, hahaha :-)

Microsoft picks over Google's Windows exit strategy

Use MS Security Essentials - does the job.

There saved £30.

Mozilla and Opera call for Google open codec in HTML5 spec

Although they do get a bit huffed if you ignore them ;-0

LOL

Best code around patents - prior art tricky argument to get right

http://news.swpat.org/2010/03/transcript-tridgell-patents/#do-read

Quote:

[↑menu↑] That first type of defence is really the one you want, it’s called: non-infringement. And that is: "we don’t do that. The patent says X, we don’t do X, therefore go away, sue someone else, it’s not relevant for us". That’s the defence you want. If you can demonstrate really strongly that you do not do that, then you’re in the clear. And you wanna make sure that you demonstrate it really clearly. And if this is a patent that you really have to be concerned about, you really have to check your arguments with a patent attorney, but, that is the argument you want to be aiming for.

[↑menu↑] Next one, prior art: someone did that before. Someone else has done that before. Before what? Before the priority date for the patent, which is actually, in many countries, a year before the patent was filed or even earlier in some cases. I’ll be talking about that later in the talk, about priority dates. Basically the argument is: somebody else did that before. It’s a very, very tricky argument to get right. Extremely tricky, and it is the most common argument bandied about in the free software community. And if you see it in the primary defence against a patent, you should cringe because it is an extremely unsafe way of doing things. You’ll see why as we go through examples.

Yeah they come off sounding like a bunch of kids TBH

http://www.crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?17:iis:1012:201005#b

Oh Dear...

Nope its important to keep the web free

D'oh!

Google Own YouTube - WebM Wins.

All that money they paid for YouTube just keeps looking a better and better investment.

Firefox, Opera and Chrome have it built in.

All the browsers will play the VP8 codec if its installed.

Any holdouts will fall-back on flash which will support VP8.

Google have hardware manufacturers on-board.

Content creation apps as well.

Game over man, game over.

Goodbye H.264 we all hated you and are glad to see you go :-)

__________

Notes:

https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/389029/33b71acac7c6ffd8/

http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/First-Look-H.264-and-VP8-Compared-67266.aspx

The actual guarantee of the MPEG-LA's patent pool is quite weak

Quote from Swift and predictable reactions to WebM

"Despite MPEG-LA's promotional material suggesting that blanket rights to

use H.264 come with a license, the actual guarantee of the patent pool is quite

weak: "

Quote:

"In other words, submarine patents and patent trolls can threaten H.264 —

and in theory, On2 and Google may hold such patents."

https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/389029/33b71acac7c6ffd8/

Unless you design them that way?

This codec has been designed not to infringe, that's why some of the choices look a little odd at fist glance.

But look for your self:

http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/First-Look-H.264-and-VP8-Compared-67266.aspx

It looks fine :-)

Goodbye H.264

Lots of hardware companies are signed up :-)

Google has prepared well and have a lot of industry clout.

I would imagine that a later reference spec for android phones will include the need for hardware support.

WebM clever design around patents - Good Quality.

Quote from: An analysis of WebM and its patent risk

"What we can obtain from this (very thorough – thanks, Jason!) analysis is

the fact that from my point of view it is clear that On2 was actually aware of

patents, and tried very hard to avoid them. It is also clear that this is in no

way an assurance that there are no situation of patent infringements, only that

it seems that due diligence was performed. Also, WebM is not comparable to H264

in terms of technical sophistication (it is more in line with MPEG4/VC1) but

this is clearly done to avoid recent patents; some of the patents on older

specification are already expired (for example, all France Telecom patents on

H264 are expired), and in this sense Dark Shiraki claims that the specification

is not as good as H264 is perfectly correct. It is also true that x264 beats the

hell on current VP8 encoders (and basically every other encoder in the market);

despite this, in a previous assessment Dark Shiraki performed a comparison of

anime (cartoon) encoding and found that VP7 was better than Apple’s own H264

encode – not really that bad."

http://carlodaffara.conecta.it/?p=420

Microsoft sneak peeks Hotmail makeover

Is this actually a loss leader for MS?

I mean that a lot of storage space and a lot of users...

Recipe to lose money?

Unless they are a LOT more efficient than Google... Heh!

And make more from the adds than Google... Heh!

OK so I wonder just how much they are losing per year on this thing?

Anybody?

heh The ad banners pushed a mate to using firefox :-)

It the lack of spam that make the difference on Gmail.

Email is actually a pleasure to use again.

Mozilla spills plan for, yes, Firefox 4

Yes

Just Yes

If it crashes that's you not FF

Really

It just doesn't crash and I'm using the daily for ubuntu Lucid.

and lots of stuff... 362MB 31 tabs. chromium 797MB, 2 tabs.

Enabled Extensions: [34]

* Adblock Plus 1.2

* Back to Top 5.3.2

* BarTab 1.5.1

* Boox 2.6beta1

* Download Statusbar 0.9.6.8

* DownThemAll! 1.1.9

* Fission 1.0.9

* Gmail Notifier 0.6.4.1

* Greasemonkey 0.8.20100408.6

* Hide Caption 0.7.6.1

* Image Zoom 0.4.4

* Informational Tab 0.3.2010032901

* Linkification 1.3.8

* Locationbar² 1.0.5

* Make Link 9.11

* Menu Editor 1.2.6

* MR Tech Toolkit 6.0.4

* NewTabURL 2.2.0

* Nightly Tester Tools 2.0.3

* NoSquint 2.0.3

* OptimizeGoogle 0.78

* Places’ Full Titles 3

* Platypus 0.81

* Pronounce 1.4

* Reliby 1.5.0

* repagination 2006.4.5.1

* RequestPolicy 0.5.13

* Shelve 1.22

* SQLite Manager 0.5.15

* Stay-Open Menu 1.5.3

* Tab Counter 1.8.4

* Taboo 0.6.1

* Toolbar Buttons 0.6.0.8

* Tree Style Tab 0.10.2010040201

'Beauty with antimatter bottom' created out of pure energy

Top Man Lewis

ah...

Anyway Liked it a lot :-)

Cheers.

Mystic Met closed Europe with computer model

But... that's the fun, sorting out the Troll bait from the real stories...

Looking at the video links posted in the comments they do seem to indicate cause for concern...

Andrew Orlowski Comments and Ratings?

Damn I actually like the article...

TANJ

You are asking thereg this question? Seriously???

LOL

Mozilla pegs worldwide Firefox share at 30%

34 tabs open atm.

Bar Tab makes opening FF lightning fast even with this number.

Novell (not SCO) owns UNIX, says jury

What colour is the sky on your world?

The people associated with this are becoming a laughing stock.

Novell retained the copyrights.

"That's it man, game over man, game over!"

Germany warns surfers against Firefox

Lucid 10.04 Beta1 FF 3.6.3pre

Gain access to the latest ubuntu-mozilla-daily ppa.

Code:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-daily

Now install Firefox as below (or via the Synaptic Package Manager).

Code:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install firefox

Done in 5mins Panic Over :-)

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3pre) Gecko/20100316 Ubuntu/10.04 (lucid) Namoroka/3.6.3pre - Build ID: 20100316073122

Or just use chromium until FF is patched.

Microsoft wishes it could be a Google number two

Its only Abusive Monopolies that get into trouble.

As long as Google don't abuse their monopoly position they are in the clear.

iPad forces operators to shave their SIMs

There will be a convert kit out in about 60 days :)

Apple £69.90

No-name £5

Obama scraps Constellation moon mission

Agreed Human Space Flight is not practical with present Tech past LEO

The "Mars Exploration Rover" and the Cassini–Huygens missions are examples of the right way to do space exploration.

Given the tech limits at present its just not practical.

Which is a shame but you cant argue with physics :(

The best idea I have seem is to stick to one launch vehicle

and having a big enough production run.

If Boeing had a production run of 30 of a new type of plane the price per plane would be ridiculous.

Same with rockets if you had a run of 3000 then things

would look a lot better.

Mozilla's Firefox syncer Weaves out of beta

Addon Next?

Now that would be useful.

Firefox 3.6 goes live and final

Its Good - Like it.

They are starting to narrow the gap with Chrome which is good.

I use Chromium for opening stupid big html files.

Firefox for everything else.

The new 3.6 continuous improvement dev model is a great idea.

Much to my shame I even like Personas...

...

3.6 tips:

about:support is nice and has a button to open up you profile location.

Turn on browser.ctrlTab.previews

Control Tab shows all tabs in preview and you can search.

Saving Space until 4.0

To save space I now use "Toggle menu bar" from Toolbar Buttons.

This way I can have my cake and eat it too :)

(That is save space and still have easy access to my tools).

This allows me to just hide the Menu Bar until I need it. Simple, Neat.

Toolbar Buttons 0.6.0.8

If used with Hide Caption 0.7.6.1 then most of the time I am saving 2 toolbars worth of screen real estate.

New avast freebie security scanner aims to keel-haul MS

If you have a legitimate Win7 OS....

Easy solution is to just install Microsoft Security Essentials and forget about it.

I am not a MS fan but if you are going down that route you may as well use it. I recommend it to family as there is no renewing the license rubbish.

Its seems quick and to have a low overhead based on the last laptop I installed it on.

TBH with MS in the game the writing's on the wall for the AV vendors.

And _my_ machine is running Linux, as you have to be nuts to run an OS that needs an AV.

:)

MS spins IE security disaster into Windows 7 upgrade opportunity

Move over to Firefox/windows(short term) then Firefox/Linux(long term).

It's the only way to be sure...

Oh and thanks to Microsoft for this classic security FAIL.

Near-ready Firefox 3.6 gets second RC sausage

Its very nice...

3.6 is faster and more good ideas to come - nice to see Mozilla stepping up their game.

Plug-in isolation next in 3.6.1 in a month or so :)

Then ui process isolation? Oh pretty!

Mozilla teases surfers with near-final version of Firefox 3.6

Pinning the ubuntu-mozilla-daily PPA

"I regularly use a package from the Ubuntu Daily Mozilla PPA. Unfortunately the PPA also contains snapshot builds of Firefox 3.5 and XulRunner 1.9.1, which I want to keep at their standard Ubuntu versions".

The Pinning Solution

To make apt-get upgrading as painless as possible set a lower Pin-Priority on the PPA, this will stop unwanted package versions from installing. Once set, packages from the ubuntu-mozilla-daily PPA will always lose in any contest with packages from other repositories, even if they have a higher version.

Create the file:

1. /etc/apt/preferences.d/ubuntu-mozilla-daily-pin-400

2. Add the following to the file:

Package: *

Pin: release o=LP-PPA-ubuntu-mozilla-daily

Pin-Priority: 400

(previous 3 lines should be one after another - no blank lines).

Use the following commands, before and after, to check that the Pin-Priority has been updated.

apt-cache policy

apt-cache policy firefox-3.5

ubuntu-mozilla-daily 3.6pre

Firefox 3.6 & 3.7 Available via daily ppa

Gain access to the latest ubuntu-mozilla-daily ppa.

Karmic Code:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-daily

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install firefox-3.6

sudo apt-get install firefox-3.7

These packages install in their own directories so you can use 3.5/3.6/3.7 side by side.

The new FF3.6 will be found under the name "Namoroka" in Applications > Internet.

The new FF3.7 will be found under the name "Minefield 3.7 Web Browser".

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2pre) Gecko/20100109 Ubuntu/9.10 (karmic) Namoroka/3.6pre - Build ID: 20100109051341

Shuttleworth steps down as Canonical CEO

Pure speculation? - so tahts not a definite no then is it?

Hmm Google could buy them up for the Google Chrome OS?

Google expands plan to run own internet

May be safer than your ISP?

Just thinking Virgin provide a good service but are always falling over themselves to sell you out. 1st Phorm, Now DPI spying etc.

It looks like Google is not as fast as my ISP here in the UK..

Using "namebench Open-source DNS Benchmark Utility" it looks as if my ISP has outsourced to OpenDNS as well...In my testing OpenDNS was 50-83% faster with Virgin a little behind OpenDNS .

So may come back to googledns once it speeds up a bit... not sure about OpenDNS's privacy policy but I wouldn't trust Virgin as far as I can throw them.

Oh using Virgins re-badged OpenDNS as you can opt-out of redirection at no charge.

Microsoft acted on Opera's modified browser proposal?

Tying of Internet Explorer with Windows.

..."tying of Internet Explorer with Windows,[...] distorts competition on the merits between competing web browsers insofar as it provides Internet Explorer with an artificial distribution advantage which other web browsers are unable to match."

Remember they were recently heavily fined by the EU so now tow the line.

Good One EU :)

Nice to see bad behavior being punished.

I think market share(excluding MS) would have been OK but random works for me as well.

Ironically I don't think this will help Opera much, rather the big winner will be Google because of brand awareness.

oh and for the ms apologists - Its supposed to hurt ms - it a punishment. D'oh!

Google hoodwinked into pushing Chrome OS scareware

I'm on Linux you Morons :)

LOL

New sensitive space gloves: NASA spends wad freely

Try bending an inner tube when it's inflated.

This is something that needs fixing, money well spent.

"Harrison "Jack" Schmitt was a Ph.D. Geologist and was one of the last guys to walk on the moon. A few years earlier I heard him tell a small group of us about how the space suit gloves didn't quite fit. The faulty gloves pried his fingernails loose on the moon when he was trying to do work. "

and

"Your finger muscles really get knotted up. Your fingers must really work hard. Being in the space suit is like being inside a fully inflated inner tube. Try bending an inner tube when it's inflated.You're on the inside. Bending it is really hard to do."

From: The best mad scientist memoir of the year - Zuppero's zingy tale of space travel and bonkers weaponry

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/15/zuppero_solar_system/

Users howl as Fedora 12 gives root to unwashed masses

I call bullshit.

@Displacement Activity

I was going to give you a reasoned critique of all the errors in your post... but I just cant be arsed as you are so obviously full of it.

I call bullshit.

But I cant help myself answering a few that are real howlers :P

>5) When I've worked with customers who run Windows, no-one has ever stopped me from installing software without an admin password (although, if necessary, IT will just give me the admin password anyway). It would be crazy to stop trusted users installing software - IT would spend their whole lives running around installing things, and no-one would ever get anything done.

LOL you obviously haven't worked for many large enterprises as they spend a lot of time and money locking down the user desktop so that the users gets what they are given and installing stuff yourself is a sacking offence.

Also they spend a bit on scanning for unapproved apps as well - so if you are a smug user who is sitting there thinking "I renamed it and put it elsewhere" - yeah we know and your manager & HR will be getting a report rsn.

>IT would spend their whole lives running around installing things, and no-one would ever get anything done.

LOL that is the absolute limit - laughed and laughed at that one.

They buy a Electronic Software Deployment program to do do this remotely you nugget.

>6) On Windows, I can do transparent updates on, for example, Firefox. I don't think I can do this on Linux at all (or possibly I can if I run Firefox as root, but I'm certainly not going to do that).

Well this is because the distro will look after this for you.

>This is just plain dumb, and means that I always run an old Firefox on Linux; it's just too difficult to upgrade. Surely this is a *major* security vulnerability?

No as they will push out a security update once they have checked it wont break things.

>I already have an implied contract with Mozilla; I trust them to send me non-malicious code. Unfortunately, some anal retard in the Linux world has decided that I'm not smart enough to undertake this contract, and that I need to be protected for my own good.

Yes lets take them in order:

>not smart enough

Check

>need to be protected for my own good.

Check

You have just proved all that from your comment. It could be that this is not _totally _ your own fault, as "Linux is not Windows" (TM) and it does take a little time to see the benefits.

Your distro has, very kindly, agreed to take this burden off you. That is unlike windows your distro will update Firefox for you, they will even test as well, add it to the repositories and digitally sign it so you know it is safe.

If you did want to update manually it is very easy - loads of guides out there.

If you don't know how and haven't bothered to learn - then you are the last person who should be doing it.

you should change your name to Cowboy_Dev as it would save us all some time... or not as you were very entertaining :)

Filesharing laws to hit websites and newsgroups too

It will all be locked down eventually - but that is still a way off yet.

ISP were always the obvious choke points, just surprising it took so long tbh, it was just as obvious 10 years ago.

The drivers are that the big media orgs have lots of money to suport their agenda.

They will be back each year until they get what they want and they only have to get lucky once.

The Internet was disruptive technology and it takes a while for the governments to come up with ways to control it.

The Internet at the start of 2000 was like the wild west and there was very little in place to cover it.

The Internet of 2020 or 2030 will be a very different place, enjoy your freedom while you can.

Mozilla kicks rebel coders to kerb with Firefox 3.6 'lockdown'

NOT related to the .NET Add-on mess.

Remember it could be blacklisted _because_ it was an Add-on. A badly designed; crap; installed without you knowing it; security hole care of MS kind of Add-on but an Add-on nonetheless.

This is related to apps that don't even let Mozilla blacklist them.

HELL-beam project now one step from jet-fighter raygun

Tinfoil and welding goggles?

Sounds likes BS but interesting.

Mark Cuban counsels Google-busting bribery

Suicide by Bing.

Yes I have posted a longer comment but on reviewing "Suicide by Bing" says it all.

Not on Google == Not on the Web. D'oh!

I have http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en set as a home page... Because its useful, stupid.

I have the "New Tab Home Page" extension installed because my work flow with any new tab is 95% "search for something in Google".

For any site who took this money it would be Suicide by Bing.

There is a reason that these sites _pay_ for SEO (search engine optimization) on Google, this idea is the Anti-SEO.

Firefox syncing tool Weaves its way into beta status

If Firefox implements an Opera feature...

Shirley thats a "Good Thing"?

I mean if its good that Opera has it and then Firefox also implements it, thats not a ding for Opera but confirmation/praise that Opera was right?

In a way it is actually better that Firefox implements it really, as this great feature will then be of use to the much larger Firefox user base.

I mean if its only in Opera then not many people are ever actually going to use it are they...

Mozilla aborted IE in Firefox clothing

RM Flash Cookies

@ wsm

rm -rf /home/tbw/.macromedia

done