Posts by Steve Woods

Unpatched PowerPoint flaw spawns Trojan attacks

Is this..

.. what is meant by death by Powerpoint?

Apple to slash prices by up to 15% on Black Friday?

Good comedy is all about timing

...and this comes just in time for Buy Nothing Day!

Kentucky commandeers world's most popular gambling sites

A little history lesson

Kentucky judge sanctions theft of property - I'm amazed anyone is surprised. The US of A is not a democracy but a kleptocracy: after all, all of its territory was stolen from the original owners.

Microsoft dumps hilarious comedy duo

Wrong duo dumped?

Not Windows and Office then?

Microsoft makes another play for UK schools

@AC: Open Office is not crap

"Have any of you actually tried to use it for anything important?"

Yes, probably unlike you.

I've worked as a freelance translator for nearly 20 years. For the last few of those I've been using Open Office daily to turn do my work - and not a single complaint from a client about the quality of the finished product.

Semantics

"while offering Microsoft products with a reduced price tag to the public sector might be viewed by some as a move in the right direction"

Anyone with half a brain would view it as something else: bribery and unfair competition.

IPS ditches e-passport system

To misquote scripture...

Well done thou useless and expensive public servant.

Geldof backs Davis 'For Freedom' by-election

Singers

Whenever the likes Geldof or Bono open their mouths, I'm afraid I'm reminded of the wise words about singers from the KLF's tongue-in-cheek guide to making a Number One single, i.e.:

"Singers - good or bad - are invariably a problem... they also tend to confuse their role as singer of songs with that of would-be world leaders."

UK and US agree biometric heavily vetted trusted traveller deal

Typical UK government behaviour

Uncle Sam: "Bend over!"

HM Government: "How far?"

Mine's the one with the Eurostar single ticket in the pocket.

Microsoft turns up volume with new licensing agreement

@AC

"Some years ago, MS stopped sending out real-life paper licences ("licence confirmations") "

Are you sure it was so recent? I'm still waiting for confirmation of my Windows licence registration from 1988.

UK.gov calls on white hat hackers to spot data leaks

Trust?

"The risk we must counter is that citizens and business lose trust in the Government to handle their data effectively."

What trust? I never had any in the first place.

UK is not a surveillance society, MPs claim

In other news

Father Christmas exists and unicorns graze in the wooded glades of this fair land.

Paris, 'cos she's got more brains than your average elected member.

Developing world buoys up software pirates

@AC

"Open source is useful to a degree but only to developers and those wishing to wade through the code".

That sir, is what is technically known as complete tosh. I use Open Office for my word processing and other business requirements, Firefox for my web browsing and Linux as my operating system. All these are free/open source. However, I'm neither a developer nor do I have a desire to examine source code: I'm a freelance translator with a business to run who wants stuff that works for me, doesn't cost the earth and keeps the BSA's software police from my door because it's all legitimate.

Japan to tax MP3 players

Abuse of tax revenue

Taxation should be used to fund public services, not be collected for distribution to line the pockets of private business.

This is rewarding the music industries for not keeping pace with technology and adapting their business accordingly. What the Japanese government is proposing is like putting a dinosaur on life support.

Microsoft to punt pensioner-proof PC

Patronising the elderly now MS?

“HP computer that comes equipped with user-friendly software ...”.

Would this be the return of Microsoft Bob by any chance?

And will it have the grey screen of death?

I think we should be told.

Microsoft slings sack of green at US universities

Tokenism from a bunch of hypocrites

This is just small change to salve MS' conscience after producing a dog of an OS that requires a high-powered beast of a machine on which to run.

As for low-powered computing* this has already been done (e.g. LTSP and thin clients); it's just that Redmond's radar cannot spot it.

* e.g. 20 workstation mobile suite & server laptop power consumption = 500 W.

Lords defy Government by proposing criminalisation of data rogues

If this amendment makes it through in the final act...

I hope its provisions are made retrospective so there will be some redress for all those whose details have been mislaid by incompetent public servants in recent years.

VXers slap copyright notices on malware

Copyleft anyone?

Haven't these folks heard of the GPL?

Mine's the one with Stallman is God written on the back...

Europe moves against Internet's 'virtual training camps'

Coming soon to a statute book near you

Yesterday's terrorists, e.g. the likes of such internationally acclaimed figures such as Nelson Mandela, would probably have died in jail had legislation like this been in effect at the time.

How much longer can it be before plod can arrest people on a charge of 'looking at me in a funny way'?

Downing Street removes Labour Party link

Non-political speeches

I loved the bit of the old site giving a link to Brown's non-political speeches. How did he give them? With his mouth shut? I think we should be told.

Paris 'cos she's got more competence than the whole body politic put together.

Local council uses snooping laws to spy on three-year-old

Welcome...

.. to HM Open Prison United Kingdom.

Minister: Waste wood is 'huge potential resource'

Another huge wasted resource...

... is the amount of hot air generated by useless ministers making vacuous statements.

IPS wants ID card service pilots

A soft target

"We're still in the process of thinking through how we might start this with young people..."

That's right, pick a soft, gullible target before foisting this crap on the rest of the population.

HSBC pops thousands of customer details in the post

Password protection

“The disc was apparently password-protected, but this can be overcome fairly easily by an IT-literate person."

For those without John the Cracker, the password can presumably be obtained by reading the post-it note stuck on the CD cover, if previous revelations of British IT security procedures are to be believed.

Mine's the one underneath the pointy hat marked with a large capital D.

HMRC tax credit database takes the week off

The age of HMRC's hardware

Knowing Whitehall's aversion to change and penchant for soldiering on with out of date equipment and anachronistic practices, they're probably taking the equipment offline to give the coal-fired boilers a service.