Posts by Mark Wilson

Shazam! Apple chucks £300m at Brit what's-that-song app – report

Re: android envy

Android actually had sound search in early 2013, it was just integrated into Google Now in 2015.

'Real' people want govts to spy on them, argues UK Home Secretary

Re: The idiocy of this runs even deeper.

There is a standard for that https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1149.txt

Ofsted downplays site security concerns

All Educational Websites

It seems to me that all educational websites practice weak to no security. My son's school recently sent us details of Mathletics, as a good parent I dutifully signed up and was gobsmacked that we are letting kids use such tripe.

Ignoring its use of Flash which is bad enough to start with, I quickly noticed that all I needed to log into the account was the copy the address which contained the session id, no password or anything. Then things got worse, after signing up for a parent account, I noticed that the username and password were there in plain text in the address bar ripe for any sniffer to pick up. Things didn't stop there however, realising that my password was now in the public domain, I went to change it in my account section only to see it there in plain text so clearly not hashed at all.

Oh and it only uses HTTPS for the sign in itself, everything else is HTTP.

I got in touch with the school who clearly got a stock response from the company behind this which ammounted to the password is sent using HTTPS so it is okay and it isn't really important anyway.

The school now knows my son will not be using this piece of garbage.

BT and Plusnet most moaned about broadband providers. Again

Plus.Net

Have to say I have been with Plus.Net for a few years now and have hardly had any issues and their customer service has always been friendly, compare that to EE who we were with previously who were just rude. As for Sky being the best? When we moved house we were without any services (TV, Internet, and Telephone) for three months because they messed up so badly. They messed up the phone migration, then wouldn't install the tv because we had no phone line, even though it was their fault.

Something useful from Cupertino?! Apple sees the light – finally

Already baked into my phone

My Zenfone 2 already has this and I am sure it wasn't the first so yet again we see Apple copying Android and claiming it as an original idea.

IEEE delivers Ethernet-for-cars standard

Re: It's not weight they are optimising for

Actually it is probably both, if well implemented, this will allow cars to save weight and cost by having a single power line to each part of the car, think how many wires are required to power the rear lights, with each having its own wire running from front to back. That is a lot of copper. With the ethernet, each light cluster could have a single data line running to it and tap power of the main conduit then decide which lights should be on.

Xombrero browser replacement

Re: Half joking

I still make regular use of Links, lovely little browser when you just want text information quickly, with the added advantage of no ads.

What the world needs now is Pi, sweet $5 Raspberry Pi Zero

Re: Overpriced

£4 includes VAT the $5 won't include sales tax which would be added at the checkout for US customers so the price in this case isn't so different. Anyway just ordered mine from Pihut for £4.

Gone

Digital only for Appple

From their site it looks like the 'complimentary' digital edition is only available on Apple devices not to Android.

Hi, um, hello, US tech giants. Mind, um, mind adding backdoors to that crypto? – UK govt

The Joys of the Internet

I have my own server in a foreign country, so if they want to view my emails etc... They have to first get a judge in said country to agree and then go to the owner of the service to get my data and that would be me. So they have a long and awkward process to follow just to see that my wife asked me to buy her some crisps on the way home from work.

Now just imagine how much harder it would if the target was a well funded terrorist organisation.

Has anyone noticed how many more terrorist attacks there are now in the UK since these technologies have been available than there were in the days of the IRA?

Anti-adblocker firm PageFair's users hit by fake Flash update

Telegraph

Not sure if it was the same attack but I did witness something like this, the other night on the Telegraph's website. Told me my Flash was out of date and I had to update to continue. As I don't use Flash anyway I didn't download it.

Amazon reveals $50 Android-ish Fire tablet it will axe in two years

Not bad at that price but...

It really is worth shopping around, I picked up a 7" Acer with 32GB of storage, a 32BG microSD card and a case, all of that came to approx £60. Sure it won't set the world alight with its performance but for browsing the Internet, checking emails and listening to music it does just great and that 32GB SD stores a lot of music and as a pleasant surprise it isn't so far from stock Android when compared to Samsung, Sony, Amazon etc...

Asus ZenBook UX305: With Windows 10, it suddenly makes perfect sense

Asus Build Quality

You know though with Asus' build quality it will fail as soon as the warranty expires. If it fails during the warranty term you get the joy of their return programme - good luck.

Ashley Madison made dumb security mistakes, researcher says

Reminds me

I went for an interview not so long ago with a company who shall remain nameless but which had big name clients, even before the interview, I was given an admin password to the back end of the site. Not only were the passwords for clients stored in plain text, the generated ones were clearly sequential and to make matters worse, they were actually visible through the web interface to an admin user.

Needless to say I did not take that job.

HERE COMES APPLE with some new sh*t or something

Excuse Me

But is this the right queue for more details on the Wiley Fox Storm?

Wileyfox smartphones: SD card, no bloatware, Cyanogen, big battery – yes to all!

Unlikely to be rooted

I doubt it will come rooted as it is Cyanogen OS NOT CyanogenMod, the OS version does not typically come rooted, as to whether it can be rooted, it was certainly possible to root the One Plus so I would imagine this would also be possible.

Fancy a mile-high earjob? We've had five!

No Audio-Technicas?

I would have thought that the ATH-ANC9s would have deserved a mention here, Noise cancellation on par with the Bose but not as bass heavy (though they are still slightly bass heavy) and they work even when turned off unlike the Boss. I use these every day in the office and they are fantastic.

Trebles all round: The BBC's won this licence fee showdown

Good Value?

"Today, the BBC is already a subscription service and is very good value compared to Netflix."

Not convinced of that, it is twice the price of Netflix, which has a much bigger catalogue of older stuff to watch and is increasing its new content, compared to aunty which is reducing its new content and only allows a limited section of it back catalogue to be viewed online. I don't pay Netflix as I don't use it but I do pay the TV licence fee as my son watches an independent kids channel but the law is such that we have to pay that impoverished BBC even though we do not make use of it's services. Really doesn't sound like good value to me.

Why is that idiot Osbo continuing with austerity when we know it doesn't work?

Re: Another Example

Taxation is far more than just income tax, even as a child you would have been paying VAT, that will continue into your retirement, as will fuel duty, road tax. Assuming you buy things from profitable companies, there will be corporation tax due on their profits, you may not be liable for that but is you who pays it. If you go on holiday by plane, you are taxed to use the airport. Depending on your value, you may even be taxed for your death. If you buy a house, there is stamp duty to deal with. Do you smoke or drink, don't forget the tax on that too.

After all that, the government still doesn't have enough money to pay for everything so since the early nineties governments have borrowed money, sold off the nations assets, etc... to fund the difference. Eventually we run out of assets to sell and max out the credit card, at that point you get the Greek situation. The reality is we need to look very carefully at the services government provides and get rid of some or improve the efficiency of others until we get to a point that we can afford.

Re: Another Example

I tend to favour the limiting of taxation and government taxation to a set percentage, during times where the economy does well they can get a surplus and invest for times of recession. Only in times of emergency should the government be able to whip out the nation's credit card. The fact that this year the Adam Smith Institute calculated Tax Freedom Day to be 31st May speaks volumes meaning that approx 5/12 of people's salaries will go on government spending.

The STEALTH Plug-in Hybrid: Audi A3 e-tron Sportback

The Eco Option?

So despite all this clever stuff, this small car still gets worse economy the my 2.2l large family hatchback and whilst I can't comment on this Audi, when I had a Prius as a loan car, the performance was so poor, you ended up flooring the thing everytime you wanted to accelerate even in an urban environment, unlike my car which I barely need to give any throttle to get me up to speed in a reasonable time that won't have a queue of frustrated drivers behind me sounding their horns.

Star Wars: Episode VII trailer lands. You call that a lightsaber? THIS is a lightsaber

Re: I'm pretty sure it won't cut your hand off

At best the sabre would have to be vertical to do any real damage to the user. Look at the size of the guards on some historical broadswords, whilst not sharp, you wouldn't want to be hitting yourself mid swing as it would destroy your chances of hitting the opponent with any degree of force, alonside that it would probably hurt.

LIFE, JIM? Comet probot lander found 'ORGANICS' on far-off iceball

Methane?

This does seem to be blown out of all propotion at the moment, we have known about methane in space for ages and it is well documented, though some sources may be controversial. At this stage they have found undetermined organic compunds which could be fairly simple organic molecules, even if more complex molecules are found it doesn't give any more weight to panspermia as a source of life, mainly because all it says is that life didn't start here. One thing we can say with certainty is that scientifically our current knowledge of what has been found proves very little and that every science article must include a quote from the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.

Printing Bad: Meth found in laser printer cartridges

You know you are getting old when...

You know you are getting old when you read meth in the title and assume someone has been putting methylated spirits in toner cartridges, did think it a bit odd!

Jony Ive: Apple iWatch will SCREW UP Switzerland's economy

Douglas Adams

“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.”

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

WordPress 4.0 is here, complete with one-click upgrade process

As used by web designers who can't be bothered to find out what is going on under the hood, they just want something that they can role out in seconds and don't really care about the lack of security.

Best shot: Coffee - how do you brew?

Filter Best For Me

I have tried other ways to make coffee but it always comes back to the good old drip filter with paper filters.

When most people go to France they stock up on alcohol and cigarettes, I stock up on coffee! Much better range over there adn far better price.

Pentagon hacker McKinnon reinvents himself as SEO guru

Snake Oil For Sale

Good stuff, none of my clients have died yet, and actually been used to fight infection* after use all clients recored 100%. Only £50/bottle.

*Test virus was nasopharyngitis

Gid E-Up? Vulture's claw presses pedal to metal on VW's 'leccy motor

Is that it?

That would be useless for me, the range wouldn't even cover my daily commute, and with lights, wipers, etc.. I am not sure it would handle one direction.

DISPLAY DESTRUCTION D'OH! Teardown cracks Surface Pro 3 screen

Why bother making things so thin?

Really what is the point making the tablets and phones so thin that they are so fragile? The user just ends up adding a case which adds bulk anyway.

Microsoft ups OneDrive storage, slashes prices to match Google Drive

Re: humph

Hubic doesn't. Much cheaper to (10TB for €9.99).

Google updates Maps app for iOS, Android, adds Uber support

Poor Battery Life

I used it today and whilst it has some great new functionality, it seems to kill the battery, on my daily commute (1.5 hours) the battery life fell 25-30% oh and that was plugged in and "charging" with 1.5A.

Sanity now: Gnome 3.12 looking sensible - at least in beta

Re: Location controls

Rather like stock Android then! Just turn on Dev Tools and it is there.

LogMeIn: We're stopping our free offering from now

Like the look of TeamViewer.

iOS motion control iRing here at last ... but it's NOT made by Apple

So now we can have an iTheramin!

Confirmed: Apple gives nod to gobblement of Kinect-maker PrimeSense

R&D budget increased again

It looks very much like Apple have increased their R&D budget once more i.e. lets research companies that do what we want and develop ownership of said company.

Firefox reveals new look: rounded rectangles

Reduce or increase

" The browser does its best to get out of the way with a few enhancements that reduce the amount of screen space occupied by its interface."

Yet they switch to rounded rectangles which are less space efficient than the existing ones. I am all for change for improvements sake but I do think this improvement will actually be more of a hindrance due to the fact I often have massive amounts of tabs open.

Have you reinstalled Windows yet? No, I just want to PRINT THIS DAMN PAGE

Similar Problems here

Had to print out a document urgently the other day, so sent it to the wireless Lexmark, a few minutes later a message pops up saying "Cannot communicate with printer", no worries, just restart the printer, it is a common problem with this printer. Hmm still no printout, reinstalled the drivers, still nothing, gave up eventually after exhausting all options. Two days later after changing nothing, the document decides to start printing! I know printers can be a bit of a dark art but this takes the biscuit.

Google RIPS aside curtain, exposes Nexus 5 phone, KitKat Android 4.4 coupling

The wait is nearly over

Give it a few weeks for the initial rush to go down and I will be retiring my iPhone 4.

OK, so we paid a bill late, but did BT have to do this?

E-On

I used to have a client who were with E-On and they would get reminders saying their bill was late just ten days after the meter was read threatening extra charges if the debt wasn't paid promptly. These companies don't like you paying when it suits you and would rather shift you on to direct debit so they make life as difficult as possible for those who pay by other methods.

Are you for reel? How the Compact Cassette struck a chord for millions

best forgotten for music

And how many artists resisted the move to selling MP3s because the quality was rubbish yet had an entire back catalogue available on tape? Even as a teen I despised the dead sound that came from even the best tape decks. Sure you get "metal" tapes which offered far better sound quality but they were expensive.

The only good thing about them was they made home computing more accessible, though somewhat noisier.

New 'BLOCKBUSTER' APPLE iTHING imminent - billionaire Einhorn

Am I just cynical?

So he buys Apple stock at a low value, says they have a major product launch coming up, then others buy the shares, value goes up, he cashes in.

Fanbois vs fandroids: Punters display 'tribal loyalty'

£20 or £400

So all those people who still do not use smart phones and currently spend <£100 on a phone will all suddenly decide that a £400 handset is for them, somewhat unlikely. Especially as we see Apple's growth slowing already and Android still rising.

Maybe these people will continue to use the dumb phones they are happy with.

When I eventually upgrade my iPhone 4, I won't be sticking with iOS I don't think unless Apple suddenly comes up with something genuinely brilliant which is something they haven't done recently.

Ofcom anoints broadcaster: Local TV is nearly here

How can I watch it?

When we brought our new house, we knew we would get Satelite TV so we didn't bother fitting an aerial and I still see no point in doing so. How many others will go the same route I wonder and as existing aerials get blown down in storms, will they really get replaced? I know I could get freeview through one but for the one or two channels I can't get on freesat, it barely seems worthwhile.

So the potential audience for these channels is going to get smaller and smaller as less people have the capability to receive their broadcasts. Especially if the quality of their output is anything like I experienced when living in Oxford which for years had a local tv channel which I never watched.

Major new science: Women more nude, more often online

Who'd have guessed

So guys pretending to be women online will wear skimpy clothing because lets face it that is who these people are.

2012: The year that netbooks DIED

Still using a 701

I have two of the original 701s and one of them is still in use as a fileserver on my home network. Most of the time it just sits there consuming very little power allowing the other machines in the house to drag files off the bank of external drives. It does an admiral job too.

Yes there are better options available but these cost nothing as a school I used to do work for gave me them along with a BBC Master which was about to be scrapped.

END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH: TalkTalk no longer worst ISP in UK

No surprise there

After trying Orange a while back and getting dreadful service, both technical and from customer support, we ended up getting released from our contract after about three months. The view I got was that the call centre in Asia really did not care about the customer.

Microsoft Office 2013 heads for the cloud but fails to soar

Not bad but hard to see why

I have been using it for a while now and bits are quite nice and I would have no issues buying it if I needed another copy of Office. I don't however need another copy and I really struggle to see a big reason to upgrade, I guess most people are in the same boat regarding this and many will ask 'why?'

McKinnon will not be extradited to the US, says Home Secretary

Wow a British goverment willing to stand up to their US counterparts. I hope we see future governments follow in their footsteps.

World+Dog hails 50th birthday of the LED

So that is who is responsible

For my lounge being bathed in light 24 hours a day, even with the lights off. Awesome invention.