Posts by Goat Jam

Microsoft proposes gadget feature disabling tech

Quiet Carriage?

Where I live we are thankful to find a "Can squeeze in the door" carriage.

Paris, because, um, something about squeezing in . . . . <sigh>

Gates threatens to buy millions and millions of servers for Microsoft

I wish them all the best

I'm not sold on the whole "Cloud" thing. ISPs wont like it so they will do their best to either break it or co-opt it so that they are co-offering it with MS. At the moment ISP's in Australia love capped plans. It is hard to find a reasonable uncapped plan anywhere in the land, so why on earth would I want to spend pennies to use a craptastic online service when I can do it for free in openoffice? (I don't care much for the portability thing)

But that's not the worst of it. Do people (ie companies) really want all their documents sitting on a server at Google or MS? I know I wouldn't. Can't trust any of the bastards IMO

So, go for it Bill, spend the last of your billions on a massive infrastructure rollout that if even moderately successful will cause you to kill your OS+Office cash cow (monopoly) for ever.

If only Yahoo would reconsider their position.

Tux, because the only winner from this idea will be Linux

Peter Gabriel cranks his f*ck machine

Underwhelming

Well, I managto get in, several hourslaterand they had fixed the site (either that or the Vulture Effect had subsided). Now, I realise that is still beta, but the start of the registration process asks you to choose 3 music genres from the list;

Blues

Jazz

Reggae

Country

Latin

Rock / Pop

Electronic

New Age

Soundtracks

Folk

R&B

World

Hip Hop

Now I realise that I'm quite the auld phart, but there are a few things about this list that deserve comment. For instance, where are the catagories such as "soul","Heavy Metal","Acid","Dance","Motown". These come straight to mind, I'm sure there are others, even without having to drill down into things like 50's, 60's 70's,80's etc

Also, since when are Rock and Pop synonymous? If I like KISS, does it follow that Rick Astley would also float my boat? (yes, I know, I am showing my age)

Does R&B refer to classic R&B or that modern rap flavoured dreck that has hijacked the term and from my position is indistinguishable from hip hop? (what is the difference between rap/r&B/Hip hop anyway)

Now, one could argue that they are only targeting the youf market and I am outside that demographic which I could understand but then why the hell do they include Jazz in the list? Or has jazz been taken by the rap crowd too and I hadn't yet noticed?

Soundtracks? Who makes a habit of buying just soundtracks? If I buy the soundtrack to Bridgett Jones Diary does it follow that I would also like to buy the orchestral score for say, Star Wars? If you are going to limit the number of genres to support why on earth would you include such a spurious genre as "soundtracks"

I've got to say if their algorithm is as "well polished" as their seed genres, I can't imagine it would do me much good.

I was hard pressed to select 2 from the list, and I only got that far because I chose pop/rock. Apparently that was insufficient and it wouldn't let me proceed any further.

Acer punts £199 Linux laptop

Alas poor asus

I knew him, Acer.

Mines the one with the skull in the pocket

Asus announces 10in, HDD-equipped Eee PC

Uh

What drugs are those guys at Asus on?

It seems like every week we see an article about the latest model, sometimes before the current model has even been released (here in Aus)

Do they want people to keep putting off buying these things forever?

On top of that I thought the whole point of the eePC was that it is small and cheap. It still seems reasonably small but it's no longer cheap. As others have posted beforehand, you can get a "proper' laptop that is not a lot bigger for not much more with much better specs.

And where the hell is the beach picture?

Developing world buoys up software pirates

I'm rooting for the BSA

"We expect this trend to continue, meaning industry and government must increasingly focus their efforts on combating piracy in these emerging economies,"

Let's hope so. Anything to further accelerate the adoption of open source software . . . [e-mail]

Becta asks EC to probe Microsoft school deals

@Edward Rose

Uh, Edward, why are you trying to lock down FF? Why don't you just use a proxy and put your white list on that?

Microsoft slams OEMs over XP SP3 install cock-up

MS may not be directly responsible

But I can't believe that NONE of their alpha or beta testing uncovered this problem.

What the hell is beta testing for if not to uncover WIDESPREAD compatibility problems?

Paris, because she will never have compatibility problems . . .

Windows XP SP3 blame game begins

@Adrian Esdaile

In what way does the ubuntu nvidia driver not work? I've been using it for ages and it works fine, even to the point of running HL2 under wine flawlessly.

Microsoft denies Zune copyright cop

One group that's conspicuous by their absence

is the users.

If Microsoft spent some of their prodigious resources concerning themselves with how they could better serve their users then they might have a chance of producing a product that sells.

All this waffle about being "sympathetic to copyright holders" and the like is entirely irrelevant if nobody is using the product in question.

The could create the worlds best DRM system ever and the rest of the world would still be using iPods.

Paris, because she knows how to serve the needs of her users

Set-top box modders sent to prison

Farenheit 451

Burn all the books! Burn them! Burn them!

Local mag claims Aussie Eee PC buyers will pay extra for Linux

Hmmm

Either the APC article is a cock-up, or Microsoft are shitting bricks to the point that they would pay people to use their products.

I'm honestly not sure which option I like more.

Normally I'd run a mile to avoid giving MS any of my hard earned, but if MS is going to pay me to take their product I might just let them and then install Linux as soon as I get home.

Comcast mulls overage fees for bandwidth lovers

Pah

Due to an unfortunate cock-up by my previous ISP I have found myself as a subscriber to Australia's largest formerly-govt-owned-telco's adsl service.

For the princely sum of $79.95 per month I get a "whopping" 25Gb.

Yay

DoJ beats up tech firm for H-1B only job ads

Good economics, bad karma

The problem is that these companies love to spout "market forces" when it suits them, but when "market forces" requires them to treat their employees with respect, pay them a decent wage and basically provide a work place environment that is sufficiently attractive to retain those employees then all of a sudden the mantra of "market forces" goes out the window.

What they want now is to employ desperate people who they can subsequently pay less, respect less and basically treat them like shit, all with the knowledge that they can't go elsewhere to work because their H1B visa won't allow it.

What they want is only one step up from indentured servitude.

These companies and their management need to be rubbed out, but we're gonna need a mighty big rubber I'm afraid.

Apple update trick triples Safari share

@Tyler

Re: Confusion icon

Paris, because she is perpetually confused

Microsoft and Yahoo! renew their marriage talks

Give me an 'M'

Give me an 'I' etc etc

Go Microsoft!

Go big Steve!

<waves frilly underpants at crowd>

Dubya archives White House email by hand

@Daniel B

Don't forget, they would have got a free MS showbag from Bill after they got into power and muzzled the DoJ in the anti-trust case.

"Thanks George, here have a 100,000 seat Exchange license as a token of our gratitude" - Bill Gates, circa 2002*

NetBeans 6.1 packs welcome additions

Huh?

I've been waiting for Netbeans 6.0 move out of beta on Linux for ages, albeit I haven't manually checked lately. What I do know is that Netbeans on the still-hot-off-the-presses Ubuntu Hardy is still on 5.5.1 so I am amazed that (I assume) Windoze is now up to v6.1.

What gives Mr McNeally?

Paris, cuz I'm currently as confused as she is

Uh

That should be Mr Schwartz

I told you I was confused

OK

Seems it is available for Tux from the Sun website now.

I think I will go and have a lie down.

'We could wake up smarter' - Ballmer hints at Win XP reprieve

SP3

@ Matthew

They haven't released SP3 (despite what it says above) What they have done is a "release to manufacturing" which means they send it to their oems and whoever it is that prints their cd's so they can incorporate it into their product lines.

The general release has yet to come.

Tux, because Ubuntu 8.04 is born today

Microsoft rolls out Live Mesh preview

This is all well and good

but it is utterly useless while a good proportion of people are still languishing on capped broadband plans. When you are forced to count every byte coming in and out of your network lest you hit the dreaded "your bandwidth has been slowed to 64kbs" wall then these "all your files are belong to us" schemes will be destined to fail.

If Google and Mickeysoft truly want the great unwashed masses to embrace their so-called cloud vision of the future then they are going to have to find a way to make isps play nice with consumers and let them have the unlimited bandwidth plans that are required to make this stuff useful.

Even then, it is highly debatable whether this stuff will ever be useful but that's one for another day.

Atom-based Eee PC to hit UK in June

You can tell a product is hot

when you keep putting off buying it until the next incarnation.

I've been thinking of getting a beach-ready laptop for a while now but I keep putting it off and waiting for the next one.

Paris, cuz she is beach-ready already

Sony delays PS3 virtual world Home - again

Hopefully

they will get it working before the PS4 launches

Apple gets (slightly) less sneaky with Windows Safari play

@Frank Bough

There are two differences here Frank

1) Those picture viewers all come by default with the distro with the "favoured" one getting default status.

2) If I install, say, amarok on my linux box, it doesn't go and stealthily install an unneeded and unwanted picture viewer and add insult to injury by setting it as the default viewer.

That's the difference. I installed an audio jukebox. And for decision I get

1) an audio jukebox

2) an unwanted (but at least forewarned of) video player that is so feature poor as to be almost unusable.

3) An unwanted picture viewer that is not mentioned anywhere and acts as a nag by proxy service for the unwanted video player.

4) An unwanted and unnecessary "apple software updater". Unnecessary because all I wanted is one application which should be able to self update without the help of an always running, cycle burning, memory hogging "software updater"

5) An attempt to slip an unwanted, insecure browser onto my system by pretending it is a "apple software update"

And all because I simply wanted to install iTunes.

If that doesn't count as disdainful and arrogant then I honestly don't know what does.

How long before apple come up with a "desktop & web search toolbar" and unilaterally decide that iTunes can't work without it?

@Ainteenbooty

Yeah, which is why I lumped apple in with "Real et al" in my subject line.

As for the myriad of pre-ticked check boxes that seem to festoon all windows crapps, I am long practiced at automatically unticking everything during install.

The trouble with the apple apps is that I installed iTunes. I was told that Quicktime was required so I installed that too.

Nowhere during this process was I informed that I was also installing apple "Picture Viewer" as part of the deal. This along with the fact that the "stop frigging nagging me you piece of utter crap" checkbox did absolutely nothing to stop the constant "reminders" that Quicktime wasn't the "overlord of all multimedia" on my PC is enough to inspire anyone into becoming a "complainer".

Fortunately, I don't use this machine for anything other than playing around occasionally to see what all the fuss is in Windows Land, but the whole sorry affair is pretty much indicative of the supreme arrogance and disdainful attitude towards customers held by most players in the proprietary software ecosystem.

apple is no different than rest, they want their customers to bend over and take it without complaints and don't care whether you enjoy it or not.

Paris, cuz she likes to take it from behind too

Apple is as bad as Real Networks, Microsoft, Adobe et al

<rant>

I mainly use linux, but I do have a windoze PC with itunes (and the mandatory quicktime) and somewhere along the line quicktime has decided that being "the worlds greatest movie player" is not enough, and now it is also the worlds greatest picture viewer. So in order for me to benefit from all its apple goodliness it unilaterally decides to set itself as the default picture viewer.

Once having done that, now, everytime I click on a jpg the it then insists on telling me (ie: nagging at me) that quicktime is not configured as the default player for all known video formats and asks me to click yes or no to fix that aggregious state of affairs. Helpfully Apple also provide a "don't ask me again" checkbox which is somewhat comforting.

Comforting, that is, until the next time I click on a jpg where I am once again presented with the exact same nag dialog.

So I figure what the hell, I can't be bothered figuring out how to change the default picture viewer to something slightly less fascistic (linux user, remember) and I don't want frigging quicktime anyway cuz the stupid POS won't even work with xvid stuff on 'doze anyway so I what the hell I'll just uninstall the bugger, that'll shut it up.

Which it did.

And that kiddies, is how I learnt that iTunes *requires* quicktime to work.

</rant>

Ballmer bitch slaps Vista

UAC vs Linux

The way that UAC works is not nearly the same as things do on Linux.

Firstly, Linux is _far_ less likely to demand root access than Windows/UAC. It seems to me that Vista is "warning" me and requiring a click-thru almost every 3 or so things that I click on. Linux only requires root if you install an app or run an admin app that can mess with system settings.

Secondly, when Linux requires root, it asks for a PASSWORD. This is so that some prat can't come up to your PC and fsck with it while you are at a coffee break. All Vista UAC does is say "this requires administrator access" and then asks you to click yes. How does UAC know that the person clicking yes is allowed to do so? It could be anyone really. No, UAC has no clue, it is just there to annoy you, as was recently admitted to by one of the head honchos at MS.

To make things even more annoying, they have even designed UAC so that you have to click yes _a_second_time_ to do whatever it was you were trying to do in the first place. Once to ask you whether you want to allow administrator access and the second time to give you administrator access. WTF is up with that?

UAC does such a good job of annoying ppl that they either;

a) Get click-fatigue and click yes without reading

b) Turn off UAC

c) Switch to Ubuntu

@brent

Always run as root? FFS why?

Paris, cuz she likes root, too.

Malware still malingering for up-to-date anti-virus users

Uh huh

72% of corps VS 23% of home lusers? I've gotta say that comes as somewhat of a surprise. I guess the difference is that once the malware gets past the corporate firewall it has free reign over all the hosts on the LAN, but it it is still surprising.

I would have guessed that the stats would have been the other way around actually.

The only thing we can be certain about is that 100% of the infected PC's will be running Windows of some form or another.

Creative climbs down over home brew Vista drivers

Good reputation

Since when has Creative enjoyed a good reputation amongst the geekosphere? Not since the 90's I would think. It was about then that they gobbled up Aureal (who made a better product) and became known by most well informed geeks as being a bunch of fat, lazy, arrogant scumsuckers. They have long had a lousy reputation regarding the quality of their drivers as well as their complete disdain for providing customer support. As far as I can tell they have shown no sign of changing for the better part of a decade.

But I do agree, yay for "Power to the People"!

Thailand cracks down on cut-price castrations

Third world country

We do things differently over here of course. When men in the west want to castrate themselves they find their are many parties out there more than willing to do the job.

We call it "marriage"

Apple unleashes monster patch batch on Mac faithful

@ Grant, @Chris

Vista SP1 may indeed cover n versions of Windows (and who's fault is that?) and it may also be smaller if you d'load it via Windows Update (of course I found out about it via Windows update and WU reported it as being a 435MB dl on a fully patched system as well so I'm not sure this correct anyway but nevertheless . . . ).

So, even if we pretend that the WU version is a more sane size this is pretty much irrelevant to most IT pro's. I never install MS Service Packs via Windows Update. I always dl them for offline installs as I don't want to have to keep dl'ing them over and over again every time I have to do a cruft reduction re-install.

Of course YMMV