Posts by Chris Haynes

Go back to the future with Red Dwarf

Excellent news!

Are you absolutely sure, sir? It does mean changing the bulb.

As long as Chloe Annett isn't in it, I'll be happy.

Apple kills code-signing bug that threatened iPhone users

Nope...

Tagline: "Hacker who discovered it remains excommunicated"

And rightly so. You cannot sign up to the iOS Developer Program, find a bug and then release an app to exploit that bug. This guy sounds more like a fame-hunter than a security professional. He should've informed Apple about the bug and let them fix it. He probably had betas 1 and 2 of iOS 5.0.1 and could've raised it with them if it were still present in those betas. As far as I know, he didn't.

CERN boffins re-running neutrino speed test

A new dataset is expected by the end of November

November?! I thought these things were moving faster than the speed of light?

Apple cofounder Steve Jobs is dead at 56

Rest in peace, Steve Jobs

An amazing man who made technology accessible and fun. His vision will, hopefully, live on at Apple for a long time to come.

Apple outs iPhone micro USB adaptor

Third-party hardware...

...including cars, speakers, alarm clocks, blood sugar detectors etc. use the Dock connector. It is ubiquitous. You cannot do this with a USB connector. Yes, Apple could simply add such a connector in addition to the Dock connector but why should they? They have complied with an EU directive, and still have the full functionality of the Dock connector.

I'm really sorry, but you moaned because the iPhone was missing the USB connector, and when Apple added it, you find a way to moan anyway! What's next on the list? A missing SD card slot? I've never needed to add storage to my phone. I agree that some people do, but not everybody does.

If Apple added everything you wanted to the phone it would be prohibitively expensive and look like something out of the early-2000s from Nokia.

Apple makes a hash of password security (again)

Huh?

"Why do they have to take Chinese food distributor just because God knows what."

I find your lack of sentence construction disturbing.

Balls...

...up.

I'm a happy Mac user, but I really wish that Apple, with their many fucking billions in the bank, would employ one or two really good security guys and sort out these simple problems. There's no excuse for this.

Anonymous, LulzSec go legit with PayPal boycott

Already binned them off

I stopped using PayPal's 'service' last year when they declined to delete my account until I proved to them I was a business by sending them "the required documentation", which they never defined. I'm not a business but they won't convert it to a personal account until I prove to them I'm not a business by providing them with "the required documentation"... Ah, you see where this is going.

Bunch of fuckweasels.

How to... change sleep-screen pics on your Kindle

Wallpaper?

You could put your contact details on the wallpaper, and only have one image in the folder; or lots of images with your details at the bottom of each one.

Just an idea.

Twitter (officially) buys TweetDeck

Brilliant.

Another Twitter client that'll be fucked about with by their new corporate overlords.

Twitter have bought the ideas behind TweetDeck, not the app itself. They don't need the app. They'll just grab what they can (code and engineering talent) and wrap it into Twitter itself, and it's bye bye TweetDeck.

Soon, the entire world will be under the control of Mega Corp! *puts on foil hat*

Apple, Amazon trademark spat turns surreal

www.theappstore.co.uk

I own the domain www.theappstore.co.uk. I trust Apple will be sending me legal papers soon to demand I hand it over...

Vodafone grabs £7bn, leaves France

An dog on an skateboard

I was going to mention the tax-avoiding scumbag company that Vodafone is, but multiple people have already beaten me to it.

Still, tax-avoiding scumbag company. Pay it to HMRC! etc.

Acer Android tablets priced

Confusingly-named tablets doomed to fail?

Me: "I have an iPad 2."

Someone else: "I have an Aspire Iconia Tab A101 XE.H6REN.006."

Another: "I have an Aspire Iconia Tab A101 XE.H6TEN.006."

Apple's marketing strategy is to keep things simple. Call it an iPad and release version 2 about a year later, then iPad 3 a year after that. We know that the iPad 3 will be better than the iPad 2 because Apple's strategy clearly defines it.

Acer will continue to bring out multiple different models with different specs, and no one will be any the wiser about which is better until you compare specs. Just give the product a simple name and you'll get people buying it. The Samsung Galaxy and Motorola Xoom are the only non-Apple tablets I've heard of because they have names that people remember.

Yes, Acer are covering all their bases by offering various models to suit everyone, but the iPad and iPad 2 aren't failing because one size fits all; they are winning because one size fits all. They are winning because your average Joe customer *doesn't care* that it doesn't have a mini-USB port or an SD card slot. They just want something to work, and it does.

Acer won't grab significant market share per model, but the iPad will, and is.

Google 'clamps down' on world of Android partners

Title

Don't you already have incompatible and confusing versions? Each manufacturer adds their own UI and various tweaks.

Interwebs stunned by musical atrocity

OMG!

Bieber has had her hair cut. Bl00dy lesbian.

Lexmark adds Twitter to printer

Like fitting wheels to a tomato...

...time-consuming and completely unnecessary. (Courtesy of Blackadder II.)

Why would anyone, ANYONE, want to tweet from their printer? Oh, you don't need to switch on your computer to get your tweets? But you do need the computer on to make any sensible use of the printer, right?

I think my HP has Scrabble on it. I haven't tried it yet as I have a life.

iPhone fanbois run off road in CoolBrand race

Tiny Temper*

Who is this person, and why does he have any say in what is and is not 'cool'?

*I spelled his name incorrectly on purpose because the fashion for naming yourself like a retard has long gone.

Apathy kills Google's new-age Wave

Apathy...

I just asked my friend if he'd heard of Google Wave. He said, "I got an invite and I couldn't understand it so I didn't bother again. It seemed a bit pants."

I, too, had an invite, saw nothing of interest in it, and haven't used it in months.

Inevitable Mac OS X 10.6.4 update problems surface

No problems here...

Sorry for being smug about it, but both my Mac Pro (Early 2008) and my MacBook Pro (Mid-2009) are fine. No problems with fonts, iTunes, or anything else.

Apple apologizes for iPhone 4 gaffe

It's snafuzalems!

Or something equally cutesy because it's Apple.

ID card scheme barely broke 13,000 mark, minister confirms

Wasn't this supposed to help?

Damian Green replied, "There were approximately 13,200 identity cards issued before 11 May 2010."

Approximately?! I thought the ID cards were meant to keep a track of people? How can they say approximately?

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM GULLIBLE_DUFFERS might get the right number.

Pope pooh-poohs airport perv-scanners

El Poperino?

Hasn't anyone tried to bump off this old fool yet?

A = Sin, B = Sin, C = Sin... Z = Sin

There's fuck all left we can do that isn't a sin or an offence to someone or other.

Fuck religion, and royally fuck the Pope.

Too fat to fly: Kevin Smith and OpenOffice

Ian Ferguson, I think you're wrong

I just listened to Smith's SModcast where he states that he only buys two seats because he doesn't like sitting next to people. He *can* fit into one seat, and was actually on the plane (not at the gate), buckled in when Suzanne/Susanne (the SWA girl who had rather stupidly previously cost him $200 by printing out the tickets for three seats instead of the two he had ordered for this flight) came along and told him that the pilot said he was breaching Health & Safety rules.

He *did* make his flight, in fact he was early and wanted to know if he could get on an earlier flight, to which they said yes and put him on the standby list for the earlier flight.

He also pointed out that there was a much much fatter guy sitting a few rows behind him and he wasn't asked to leave the plane.

I think you're wrong on this one. I'd side with the person who just put out their side of the story - Kevin Smith. Your response was factually inaccurate on more than one point.

Oh, EeePC girl. Something about Ubuntu? I missed the rest of the article.

Google Wave invites stack up - who's still playing?

Erm...

I. Just. Don't. Get. It.

I've had an account for ages and it's utter crud.

Like fitting wheels to a tomato, it's time-consuming and completely pointless.

Freed Peter Moore will be 'paid in full' for time as Iraq hostage

Does he get paid for weekends?

Does this chap get paid 9-5 or 24/7. I mean, it's unlikely he was only incarcerated during working hours - his captors were savages, not accountants.

Either remuneration should push him comfortably up the league of most minted chaps.

Apple misses self-imposed Windows 7 boot camp deadline

Works fine here...

15-inch MacBook Pro from June 2009. Installed Windows 7 Professional 64-bit via Boot Camp without any problems. Everything seems to be working, including the iSight camera.

Vampires not good role models for Catholics, declares Vatican

NEWSFLASH!

Pope not good role model for anyone, declares Common Sense.

Are we to assume that the demons and 'Satan' character as mentioned in the Bible and various other mad texts of fantasy, divisiveness, intolerance, bigotry and foolishness are then, mere imaginations? Or are those ones real?

Seriously, if a movie or book about IMAGINARY creatures is immoral, why is a book that tells us of, ahem, REAL creatures moral?

You can't write a book about vampires, but you can frighten kids into being good by telling them they'll burn for ever in fire and have red hot pokers shoved up their a-holes for all eternity by little red minions of The Evil One (not Ratzinger... although...)?

F**ked-up.

Hey, Ratzinger, if your god thinks humans are the centre of the universe, what happens when other life forms are discovered? Do they know anything of Jerusalem? Bethlehem? Nazareth? etc.

I shall sign off this long rant with a simple: Religion. My arse.

Atheists smite online God poll

WHICH god?

The question is badly written. Do they mean the Christian god, or one of the Hindus' gods? What about Thor? etc. (You've heard all this before.)

If you put a poll up asking that question, and you get an answer that YOU don't particularly like, saying it's not indicative of the public is basically you choosing to ignore the results. But then, don't faith-heads do that anyway in the face of overwhelming evidence that contradicts their 'beliefs'?

I wouldn't want to follow something that felt infanticide was a great idea, genocide an awesome hobby, and slavery an absolute necessity of life.

Home sec puts McKinnon extradition on hold

Successive Home Secretaries...

"Successive Home Secretaries have refused to halt the case, saying they have no power to intervene."

Crap. They have the power to intervene. They have the power to PROTECT their own citizens from outside pressures. That's what they're there to do. The treaty is extremely one-sided and favours the US. Yes, McKinnon broke into their systems, but how could he have caused so much damage by looking at files?

If anything, he should be commended for pointing out that a guy with Asperger's could hack into the US military's computer systems with very little effort! Seems like $800,000 (or whatever the cost of the 'damage' he caused was) is pretty cheap for that kind of penetration testing.

Dual-screen Microsoft 'booklet' uncovered

I look forward to...

The Blue Left Page Of Death.

Microsoft pulls Windows 7 balloons from Euro 'launch parties'

Steve Ballmer's head

Balloons look too much like Steve Ballmer's head. That's why they were 'shopped out.

Paris, because she takes her balloons with her everywhere.

YouTube Lad from Lagos gets a bite

LOL, roflcopter? (whatever that is)

Love the badge... "I LOVE ANAL". Made me lulz (is that the right usage?).

Paris, because she, too, has a badge like that and we all know it.

Home Office ditches compulsory ID card trial

£4.9bn for this?!

Johnson said: "These cards will benefit young people who, on average, have to prove their age more than twice as often as adults and I want to make that process simple and secure.”

We're going to spend £4.9bn to make sure that adults who look young can buy their cigarettes and alcohol a little easier? Spend it on new hospitals, cancer research, free cookies for everyone, or wrenching Church from State...

I vote for a party on the moon.

Owners say iPhone 3GS is a scorcher

Come on...

This is clearly a result of this week's heatwave, and absolutely nothing to do with Apple's tech overheating.

Oooh, new icons. The choices! The choices!

Microsoft forbids changes to Windows 7 netbook wallpaper

@Graham 25

"You can have any colour you want as long as its black" - Henry Ford

Except he never said that. Sorry.

"You can have any operating system you want, as long as it's Windows" -- Monkey Man Ballmer, probably.

Desktoptards...

Is there anything more ludicrous? Can Microsoft handle this any worse? Customising your own PC is pretty much a given, and always has been. For them to stop you from changing your own desktop smacks of straw-grasping at ways of making the next version seem like the better choice.

Desktoptards.

MacBooks afflicted with SATA 'degrade'

Apple giveth... etc.

Not a problem for hard drive users, as you say, like me. I can understand peoples' anger, especially those who just ordered an MB/MBP with an SSD, and those who might want to get an SSD later.

As the hardware used in the old and new models is the same it looks likely it *can* be fixed via software, but this is Apple. They'll either refuse but not tell you they're refusing, or they'll fix it in a software update but not tell you they're fixing it.

Apple's 13in MacBook Pro in online strip tease

Yes, you need that much hard drive space

You really do. If you use the machine for collating your photos - something made slightly easier now by the addition of the SD card slot - that 160GB will fill up very quickly. Use it for games, movies, TV shows etc. and that space will disappear faster than the universe in contraction mode.

New MacBook Pro 13-inch is a great buy, and especially now since Apple dropped the prices across the board. Mine's a 15-incher though - I need the screen real estate.

Developers take Mac, Linux-friendly Chrome for a spin

Alpha Beta Ga-Ga-Google

Since many of Google's apps are in beta in perpetuity, when can we expect Chrome for Mac & Linux to be non-beta, non-crashing, and non-tat?

Vatican blesses iPope app for Jesus Phone

Apple rejected my iPhone app...

It was simply a picture of El Pope, and when you shook the device his head bobbed about a bit.

The reason for rejection was something about ridiculing public figures... Surely, El Pope has done enough to ridicule himself? Condoms cause AIDS, etc.

Paris because, well, she would, just for the publicity and the blinged-up Popemobile.

Conspiracy theories aplenty as Amazon delists gay books

Longest book title ever?

"You Don't Have to Be Gay: Hope and Freedom for Males Struggling With Homosexuality or for Those Who Know of Someone Who Is"

Well, I use the term 'book' in the lightest possible sense. Right-wing toilet paper more likely.

I wonder if the author is religious? Check.

While you're reading this comment, why not check out my new book: "You Don't Have to Be Religious: Hope and Freedom for Anyone Struggling With Bonkers Religious Notions of Supernatural Sky Fairies, Supremacism and Downright Toss-pottedness or for Those Who Know of Someone Who Is".

Skinny, curvy Asus Eee inspired by MacBook Air

I don't get it

When laptops first came out they had small screens, and were bulky because the tech at that time wasn't particularly small. Then laptops improved and we increased the screen size. As the tech got smaller we made the laptops thinner, lighter, etc.

Now, we have netbooks which are basically small laptops - small screens and small tech. We had netbooks with 7-inch, 8-inch, 9-inch and now 10-inch screens.

Who will be the first to proudly show off their 11-incher at the trade fairs? (ahem)

Of course, this will be available for 'under £500', and a 12-incher will emerge for 'under £600', etc. You can get a good 15-inch laptop right now that'll do a lot more than a netbook will, and it'll do it for under £300 right now.

The netbook industry seems intent on supplanting the existing laptop industry. In five years, netbooks will be the laptops of today, except we'll be paying more because small means big money.

Nokia reveals Tube's UK launch date

But, seriously...

Will it blend?

Dawkins' atheist ad campaign hits fundraising target

@John Savard

"Religion isn't just a bunch of silly rules that make people's lives miserable; it is also a source of solace, by providing hope that there will ultimately be justice for the oppressed and miserable."

So you admit religion is, among other things, a bunch of silly rules that make peoples' lives miserable? Cool.

Also, why mourn someone's death and hope that they're in a better place? According to the rules that Christianity (more specifically, Jesus) requires, no one is ever going to get into heaven. Why not celebrate that person's LIFE? Remember their achievements, their personality, their friendships, their manner. That's the best way to remember them.

Turkish court bans Dawkins' website

Can we ban Harumph Yada Yada Yada?

Or whatever his stupid pseudonym is, please?

Oh, it wasn't a scientific discussion... So what?! Your book is nothing more than a pathetic attempt at forcing your own, frankly, barmy ideas onto impressionable minds, and handing out a few hundred copies for free simply goes to show that. Send me a copy, I've just run out of bog roll.

I'm sick to the back teeth of reading about how creationism is a 'science'. Show me ONE piece of scientific evidence that a creator exists, and we'll discuss putting creationism (which brand?) into our schools. Until then, Adnan Oktar, feck off with your pathetic little musings on how YOUR particular religion is correct and the facts of science are not.

Have you read the synopsis on Amazon? "Living things did not come into being through the imaginary processes of evolution. All the living things that have ever existed on Earth were created by God."

PROVE IT! Why your god? Why not someone else's god? Fool.

To state that the evidence backing up the theory of evolution isn't factual, and to go against one of the most brilliant minds in evolutionary theory today (Dawkins), you have to be a complete numptee. Mr Adnan Otkar, I think your book is trash, and that you are stupid. Feel free to sue me for that. When you provide proof that evolution is false, then I'll pay you compensation, and I think the Nobel Prize board might have a gift for you. Until then, feck off.

Russell Crowe to play Bill Hicks?

Dear <non-specific deity>, No!

Bill Hicks deserves much much more than Russell Crowe can deliver.

You think if Bill Hicks comes back, he's ever going to want to see Russell Crowe play him?

Fuck, no!

Virgin warns 800 punters for file-sharing

Is this something VM and BT should be doing?

I was under the impression that BT and Virgin provide a broadband connection from your computer(s) to the internet?

If that's the case, then why are they now acting as the police? Should BT send letters to customers who download terrorism manuals, or do we leave that to the police?

Virgin and BT are only doing this because they've been given some form of incentive by the BPI.

If BT and Virgin can't provide a connection to the internet without pimping out your personal information to companies of dubious morals (Phorm), and without bowing down to the corporate bullies in the BPI, then why would anyone use their service?

Unfortunately, I'm stuck with BT for another few months, but you can bet I won't be sticking with them once the contract's up.

Rare Mac Trojan exploits Apple vuln

It always ceases to amaze me

When the blended vuln in Safari and IE on Windows was discovered, Microsoft's recommendation was for users to not use Safari. A better workaround was to change your default downloads directory. Problem gone. Simple solution.

El Reg hasn't posted any of the many workarounds available for the ARD problem. TUAW has a few solutions here: http://www.tuaw.com/2008/06/19/ardagent-setuid-allows-root-access-but-theres-an-easy-fix/

I'd guess an awful lot of people out there don't need to be managed by an admin, so can safely stop this problem in its tracks until Apple release a fix.

No one is reporting the solution though, only the problem.

Music biz proposes 'iPod tax' in return for format-shift freedom

Well, the CBG says no...

The Chris Business Group (MBG), an umbrella body that lists as its members organisations like the Bob Defiance Group (BDG), the Association of People Who Don't Want To Be Taxed For Music (APWDWTBTFM), proposes that there is no tax on MP3 players, and that the UK simply changes its law over fair use, to allow people to pay once and use anywhere for their own personal use.

I like this group much better, because it costs me nothing.

Dutch MP releases anti-Islam movie

Fitna...

The film would be much better if Paris were in it.