Posts by Tom Wood

Beefy Fedora could use a dash of miracle whip

Re: Menu in top bar

Not just the top of the screen... often a completely different monitor!

Menu in top bar

why? Who thinks this makes sense? It's one of Unity's many bad things, why did Gnome have to do it too?

Samsung warms up smartphone operated oven

Ovens for as long as I've been alive

(since the mid 1980s) have featured timer clocks. Set the temperature, the cooking time, and the time you want it done, and your lovely dinner will be awaiting when you get back.

That is, assuming you don't forget to put the food in the oven, as my mother doesn't like you reminding her she did once (or twice, or...).

Not died for the lack of a "chilling" part to this arrangement yet (unless it's a baking hot day or the oven isn't cold when you start, your food is unlikely to go off in the several hours before it gets cooked...)

Nominet to launch .wales and .cymru

Why?

"i.e." (id est) does not mean "for example", it means "that is"...

Try moving to Egypt.

Crap PINs give wallet thieves 1-in-11 jackpot shot

Re: Simple solution

Remembering regularly-used numbers is easy.

Remembering numbers for cards you might not use very often is less so. Many people might have several day-to-day cards plus others that they only use on holiday or on infrequent business trips or something...

That's all very well

until you have a card you don't use very often and forget which system you used to derive the PIN...

"The researchers modeled banking PIN selection using a combination of leaked data from non-banking sources"

Don't know about people in general, but I use a "much more random" PIN for my bank cards than I do for a mobile phone unlock code, for instance.

I wonder how many people use part of the card number as the PIN?

New driver-snooping satnav could push down UK insurance premiums

Will it do anything to detect whether in an accident there really was any chance of whiplash?

Because it's spurious whiplash claims and dodgy claims management firms that are really making insurance so expensive, not dangerous driving per se.

Hackers may be able to 'outwit' online banking security devices

Halifax/Lloyds

uses telephone authenication. Basically they call you on one of your pre-selected phone numbers (home, mobile or work) and enter a PIN displayed on screen.

Initially I thought this seemed like a poorer, cheaper solution than the card reader/pin sentry type devices, but having a second channel is probably a good idea really. Unless the fraudster can somehow nick my mobile or break into my home or office or somehow divert my calls at the same time as getting my online banking username/password, they're going to be pretty screwed.

Sysadmins: Don't get in your own way

Unexpected item in bagging area

Where do you shop?

The self-checkouts I've experienced seem to be a perfect example of a system where the requirements have been overly simplified and as a result only works for a small proportion of the tasks a user might want it to do.

Buying a bottle of milk? Works fine.

Buying several bags' worth of shopping? Sorry, can't cope.

Buing something really light? Sorry, can't cope.

Buying a bottle of wine or other age-restricted product? Sorry, can't cope.

Have a rucksack that already contains items bought in another store? Sorry, can't cope.

Even when they do work, they're incredibly annoying. "Please put the item in the bag". "Please take the item out of the bag". "Please do the hokey-cokey and turn around". And so forth.

London Underground Wi-Fi pusher to be announced in spring

Ooh, a portal!

How 1999.

The Register to publish other sites' blacked-out content in SOPA protest

Does not compute

1. "These stupid protests just like the occupy protests are a waste of time."

2. "Governments will continue to crack down on priacy so the pirates might as well face reality."

3. "SOPA may have been a poorly written attempt to stop piracy..."

You have acknoweleged the problem that the protests are aiming to highlight (3). We are talking about it so (1) is clearly false; without the protests we would not be talking about it.

(2) is your opinion but it's largely irrelevant to the issue here. The protests are not about piracy per se, they're about US.gov using sledgehammer legislation to crack piracy nuts and destroying everything else while they're hammering.

Kids should be making software, not just using it - Gove

Maybe the most sense that Gove has ever talked

(which isn't saying much.) But beware the trap that lumps "programming", "software engineering" and "computer science" under the same heading. Software engineering includes more than just programming and computer science includes more than just software engineering. You can't really study computer science properly without including a fair bit of maths... are they going to look at the maths curriculum too or miss out such fundamental concepts as boolean logic and non-decimal number systems?

Facebook VERY SLOWLY rolls out Timeline

Tennis match

Is it just me that feels as though I'm watching a tennis match whenever I try and read the profile of someone who's converted? Two columns of data is daft on screen where you can keep scrolling down forever, why should I be looking side to side as well as up and down?

HSBC pinpoints branches with sub-atomic accuracy

Femtolinguine?

Surely.

Dammit Ramnit! Worm slurps 45,000 Facebook passwords

How?!

It would have been nice of you to mention *how* this thing harvests facebook passwords.

I'm guessing it's some kind of Windows keylogger thing that won't affect someone who only uses Facebook on Linux and Android... but it might have been nice of you to mention such things.

Shed Xmas flab and debug code with treadmill laptop contraption

If you can focus on text on a laptop screen or use the keyboard

while on a treadmill, you're using it wrong. Run faster!

The moment a computer crash nearly caused my car crash

"If you ignore the "service me!" warning for too long"

Don't, then.

Six cuffed in £1m student readies phishing probe

Actually, if done right

this could probably be a pretty convincing phishing scam.

For a start, the student loans scheme seems to operate under various guises, and various domain names, not all of which are .gov.uk domains either (Student Loans Company, Student Finance Direct, Student Finance England etc). So it wouldn't be that hard to register a convincing sounding .co.uk domain and knock up a pretty convincing website.

It doesn't say how the money was extracted from bank accounts, but getting sort codes and account numbers would probably not arouse too much suspicion, since that is how student loans are paid. Getting usernames and passwords for online banking would probably be harder, but if done in a convincing enough manner I suspect a fair proportion could be persuaded to hand these over. Perhaps debit card details would be easier to obtain ("Enter your sort code and account number here. Thank you. As a final check, to enable us to validate your identity, please fill in your Visa Debit or Maestro card number, expiry date, and card security code.).

Even if only a small percentage fall for it, the scammer would be quids in - and it is surely more convincing than those "XYZ Bank asks you to confirm your details at www.xyzbank.bankonlinetoday.example.com" type phishing emails.

UK.gov to build child army of software coders

Who are you trying to recruit?

Routing traffic with iptables is sysadmin stuff. Important but it's not exactly innovative software development.

I thiink the point is that we should be training kids to be good computer scientists, or perhaps software engineers, rather than IT technicians.

At least our games industries are innovative... but they're not the only innovative tech industry we should be trying to develop.

To use your example, we shouldn't be teaching kids how to use a firewall configuration tool, rather we should be teaching them the basics of how a network works and how someone might try to attack it and what a firewall does. Then they may be interested enough to study such things further and eventually one day design a better firewall, or a new way of defending against various attacks (or if you fancy working in a certain area of the industry, a new way of attacking systems...), or whatever.

In reality

they'll give some books to existing IT/technology (and hopefully mathematics?) teachers and expect them to teach the stuff.

I just hope that they don't focus too much on "how to program in [choice of language]" or the "games" angle. Teaching "computer science" which actually turned out to be just "games programming" would be like teaching art that was actually just watercolour painting, science that was all plant biology, geography that was all volcanoes, etc.

Of course games programming is exciting to a certain subset of kids but computer science obviously has applications far beyond the world of games and you can't have an education in the subject without delving deeper - and there's no reason for Britain to neglect other parts of it's tech economy in schools either.

Ubuntu penguins build Linux TV challenge

"Linux already powers a TV from Sony, the Bravia"

That's quite an understatement.

Most of the current crop of "connected TVs" run a Linux kernel with a custom stack on top (certainly, those from Samsung and Toshiba do). Somewhere in the user guide or on-screen menus you'll find a copy of the GPL licence which confirms this.

Most set-top boxes made in recent years also run a Linux kernel.

Though the OSs on these STBs and TVs aren't the same as Ubuntu or whatever in that they're not full-blown distros - rather a Linux kernel, most likely Busybox utilities, drivers for the manufacturer's hardware, and whatever custom middleware and GUI stack the manufacturer is using.

Tablets mean tubby HDDs must get thinner - A*STAR

Anyone remember Microdrive?

They were hard drives 5mm thick. They died as a technology when flash memory became cheap and capacious.

Reg reader seeks living room Myth advice - can you help?

Not available yet, AFAIK, but...

what would be awesome is a MythTV client built right into a smart TV. The latest TVs from the likes of Samsung run Linux anyway. Samsung are developing a remote client for the RVU protocol (remote user interface that sits on top of DLNA/UPnP) built right in to the TV (initially working with DIRECTV in the US) so I guess in theory there's nothing stopping either Samsung or another manufacturer developing a MythTV client to run on their TVs, or MythTV developing a RVU interface once such things become much more widespread.

In the meantime the TrimSlice looks pretty cool, though I can't find anyone that's got a Myth frontend running on one yet.

Visa to tell shops where their punters' wallets went next

"Pay cache [sic] and all those costs disappear."

And are replaced with the cost of paying someone to cash up, bank deposit charges, charges for withdrawing coins for change, insurance/security costs for keeping large quantities of cash on the premises, secure cash collection services or the risk you will get robbed on the way to the bank, etc...

Microsoft moving embedded systems to Windows 8

Why?!

I can understand that maybe you might choose Windows for an embedded system that is primarily a GUI (ATM, supermarket checkout, ticket vending kiosk etc) - lots of these things run Windows XP currently.

But why on earth would you choose any Windows derivative for a proper embedded device, rather than say a Linux/Busybox system? The latter is open source, royalty-free and can be squeezed into a few megabytes of flash...

UK.gov moves to close VAT loophole on etailers

So closing this tax avoidance loophole will cost each of us a few quid a year in VAT

but all the fuss about this will distract us from the million-pound tax avoidance schemes that the super-rich have got going.

Why your tech CV sucks

What sort of techie never writes an email... or a report... or a proposal? If you can't write clearly about yourself why would anyone expect you to be able to write clearly about business matters?

I took great care over the layout of my CV when I last got a job, and sent a PDF to the recruitment firm, who insisted on having an Word version so they could cut and paste it into their own template to send on to the employer. At least the employer had the sense to see that the resulting layout issues were the fault of the recruitment people and the content was thankfully still the same.

Adobe confirms mobile Flash Player's race is run

It's still here

And very tasty it's been, too, all these months while you've been stood outside the buffet in the cold looking in waiting for something better to finally come along.

Fedora 16 goes final with cloud and virtualization

I've been using Ubuntu for a year or two now but recently made the mistake of "upgrading" from 10.10 to 11.10. Compared to Unity, Gnome 3.2 is a dream. But it won't run on my machine on Ubuntu 11.10 without all sorts of rendering issues.

Fedora 16 Live CD works fine, so I'm probably going to switch back to Fedora - but compared to Ubuntu, isn't it ugly? The default theme is cold and metallic and font rendering is awful - thin, spindly pixellated text with none of that nice antialiasing and subpixel rendering that Windows and Ubuntu users are used to. It's nearly enough to put me off the switch.

Best Buy to shutter all UK megastores

Not sure why you would buy electricals from any big box store

Internet prices are much more competitive and with better service...I recently ordered a fridge/freezer from the cheapest place I could find on the internet which turned out to be a really efficient large independent high street store in Birmingham which had moved with the times and invested in their own national delivery service. Ordered on a Sunday, delivered on the Tuesday evening. If you need something fairly ordinary (say a vacuum cleaner, toaster, iron, printer etc) "now" then Tesco, Asda and Argos offer cheaper prices and a wider selection than Currys/Comet or Best Buy. If you want top class service with bricks and mortar and are prepared to pay for it then you go to John Lewis. It's no wonder these big box businesses are struggling.

Google explains 'why' ads target user's Gmail

Um...hello

"I have so far found no site which is supported by adverts which I can't live without."

Byebye El Reg, then?!

The creepiest adverts I've come across lately are those by Criteo - you look at products X and Y on some shopping site, then later on that day you are reading the Guardian website or whatever and a load of products similar to X and Y are shown in a flash banner for the shopping site you were on earlier.

Definitely one to be wary of if you actually are browsing for Christmas presents etc on a shared PC...

Public transport 'is bad for commuters' health'

Pretty good.

If you pay attention to where you are going. It would be even higher if it wasn't for all the drivers, taxis and buses.

There are thousands of cyclists in London and statistically few of them get injured - those that do are often doing silly things like undertaking lorries at traffic lights.

Maybe, if you don't already own a car.

"public transport comes in well below the cost of running a car."

Although if you already own a car (to use for journeys other than commuting), but choose to commute via public transport, the economics are considerably different to if you didn't own a car at all - thing such as insurance, road tax etc are largely fixed costs so the more you drive the cheaper it becomes per mile.

It also depends on where you live - in London or a few other cities if you're near the tube/tram etc then public transport is (relatively) cheap and convenient and driving is slow and expensive. If you're anywhere else in the country public transport is generally less convenient and more expensive than it is in London and driving is mostly relatively quicker and cheaper than in London.

Personally - I live and work in West Yorkshire. My commute is 9 miles, I generally drive three times a week and cycle twice a week. Driving is generally quicker than cycling, but only just, and it does depend on when you leave - avoiding the worst of the school run makes things quicker in the car but not much different when cycling. I could get the train but due to the changes involved it takes longer than cycling and is more expensive than driving and is only worth doing where beer after work is involved...

Groupon will replace 1 in 10 sales staff to ensure growth

I subscribed to Groupon for about a week

then unsubscribed. I would have thought it might appear somewhere in Direct Marketing 101 to ask a few questions about your target audience and tailor your offers towards them a little - I have zero interest in beauty spa offers, for instance, but it seemed there was no way I could stay subscribed to groupon without getting dozens of these offers every week

RIM stands, staggers, falls again

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4414&Itemid=35

Blackberries are owned by people who think they're incredibly important, whereas iPhones are owned by people who think iPhones are incredibly important and Android phones are owned by poor people who don't matter."

BlackBerry BBM, email offline AGAIN

Eggs...baskets...

The Internet works well because it's distributed. Sure, if your company email server goes down nobody can communicate with your company for a while, but the rest of the world is OK.

Outages like this demonstrate quite nicely why relying on closed proprietary networks is a bad idea.

Spotify's rising revenues gobbled by royalties blackhole

Last.fm

is great as a user. I like being able to occasionally log in and see my music listening history and the recommendations for things I might like (particularly local gig listings).

I never listen to the last.fm "radio" anymore and I'm not surprised they don't make any money, though.

Visa muscles into Olympic pay-by-wave with microSD kit

not one person can PayWave on...unless they have a card

Many Visa credit/debit cards support PayWave... just not the NFC variant.

BBC One and bureaucracy spared in Auntie cuts

Since when has Wales

been in the North?

Play.com swallowed by Rakuten

Aye, well

if it focuses the collective attention on getting a few quid extra from the likes of you and me buying CDs then we might be less likely to notice the millions that continue to be lost in much bigger tax avoidance schemes by rich folk.

UK-US corporate world slams 'dot-brand' domain plans

Clearly a broken idea

Trademarks only apply within a specific field. Why should Apple Computer be any more entitled to ".apple" than the Fruit Marketing Board of Elbonia? Why should Halifax bank be able to claim ".halifax" any more than Halifax, West Yorkshire or Halifax, Nova Scotia? If Halifax, Elbonia manages to grab .halifax then it's just asking for phishing attempts like "onlinebanking.halifax"...

Android bakes bitter 20th birthday cake for Linux

I could point out

that Linux is just the kernel, not the whole OS, and that the Linux kernel has massively widespread use other than on servers, desktops and Android. Embedded Linux drives all sorts of stuff from your set top box to your broadband router to bits of hardware that you didn't even know existed.

IDLENESS sees Brits haemorrhage cash to mobe firms

I've gone to switch a couple of times

but T-mobile have always managed to match the best price I could get elsewhere at the last minute (on the most recent occasion, only on the day after I'd requested my PAC code, but they still matched it nonetheless).

So I'll gladly use competitor's prices as a bargaining tool, but that doesn't mean I actually have to jump ship.

Docs and devs: Health secretary wants healthcare apps

Presumably

devs are free to charge for their apps, have advertising etc.

It could be good PR if you are a developer of an app that could already be considered to be health-related. There's a number of excellent fitness apps that presumably also qualify.

AES crypto broken by 'groundbreaking' attack

Depends on your readership

In cryptanalysis, yes. But the previous headline would be sensationalist even in an academic journal. In a mainstream news publication it was basically scaremongering.

Most readers of El Reg don't know what the specific definition of "break" is in the cryptographic community and many would have interpreted the previous headline to mean "is fatally flawed and therefore completely worthless". Cue all sorts of panic.

The new headline is much more level-headed.

Headline

Seriously... informative article but the headline is downright misleading. It doesn't "break" AES crypto, any more than throwing a handful of sand at an toughened glass window breaks that. Scratches, maybe. Weakens, ever so slightly. But not breaks.

Oxford adds woot! to dictionary

Yes

it's absolutely illegal. As are fire hoses, water jet cutters, and the sort of water cannon that may be threatened as a way to disrupt a riot.

Using any of these devices, or even thinking about jets that are not of the engine variety, will get you a jail term of between 6 months and four years. And you better not live in a council house or you'll lose that too.

Yours,

The Government.

Australian bank to run trial with human teller in ATM

So,

it will let me do a bunch of stuff I can already do at an ATM, or another bunch of stuff that I can already do online or via the phone to a more-or-less real person in a call centre in Bangalore/Bradford/wherever.

And the advantage is what, exactly? Do you really want to be able to see the person working in the call centre?

Google lands patent for, um, estimating shipment time

Still, prior art.

*phone shop*

"Have you shipped my thingy yet?"

"No"

*wait a bit*

*phone shop*

"Have you shipped my thingy yet?"

"No"

*wait a bit*

*phone shop*

"Have you shipped my thingy yet?"

"No, but we'll send it next Thursday"

*wait till next Wednesday*

*phone shop*

"Have you shipped my thingy yet?"

"Yes. First class. It should be there tomorrow."

*wait till tomorrow morning*

*phone postman*

"Have you got a thingy addressed to me"

"Yes. I'll be round about 11"

*stop*