Posts by daniel

Microsoft, Asus launch anti-Linuxbook campaign

But, but...

But "Familiar" Yes because through market domination, anti-competitive practices etc windows is more familiar to a lot of people.

"Trusted" Even my family who use nothing other than windows don't trust it. Who trusts windows. I don't. Its always going wrong. I've had Ubuntu 8.04 installed on this laptop since the day of release and nothing has gone wrong with it. It is compatible with the laptop's inbuilt wireless card, the on board graphics card, keyboard shortcuts, my printer and my camera.

Every time I want to add a new device to my windows running computers (which I don't use that much) I need this CD or to download that driver and go through an extremely irritating set up process.

The reason that microsoft doesn't want linux based operating systems to gain ground in this arena is very simple. People might like them. If people like using them and find out they can use them with their regular computer there would be less demand for windows operating systems for everything. If there were more demand for linux, vendors would sell it to us in the desktop market etc, then games companies etc would cotton onto the trend and hey presto microsoft will suddenly have competitors. The thing about these competitors though is they're offering something for nothing. Its very hard to compete with free, especially if the user finds it works better. Oh and they don't go round with smarmy advertising campaigns.

I was considering a new eee, but don't want windows, and don't want to pay for it. If I had the option of getting it with out (even if I had to go to all the painstaking trouble of installing an operating system on it myself*) I would. But Asus has lost another sale.

*Which not being windows, wouldn't be instant, and I would have compatibility issues, obviously. We need windows to protect us from having to use our brains once in a while.

Brown red in face after blusher found in cab

Please may I be the first to say.........

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, WAHAHAHAHAHAHHA, HAHAHA, HOHOHOHOHO, *Chuckle* slight pause, BAHAHAHA.

Paris, she's also careful when applying make up.

UK gov squeezes 'best pricing' pledge from MS

Or why not

just use linux based distros? That way they could save a heck of a lot more than they would haggling with M$. What does an MP actually do? Writes letters, reports and such (open office) Browses the web to engage with the yoof, send and receive e-mail from those who elected them and read articles about themselves and errrr "research." Firefox is capable of all of that.

I fail to see how a linux distro like Ubuntu can't be adopted. When it comes to public spending MPs should put up with a minor learning curve. It is minor, they don't have to use terminal or anything even slightly complicated. All they need to do is learn the gnome environment.

By using a free operating system the tax payers gain and MPs lose about 10 minutes being told that they won't see the "start bar" anymore.

BOFH: Defiling the profile

Keyboard, coffee etc.

Very well written, worth the wait, but any chance of more BOFH?

Cops taser JCB thief in 'slowest police chase ever'

@ Greg.

The reason it was an ARU is that they double as traffic units. They are treated as traffic units until such a time that fire arms are needed then they in effect become an ARU

Teen-bothering sonic device now does grownups too

@ Guide dogs.

Yes they do.

Same place where I can't eat outside, I'm not welcome to do that, because, I'm under 20. It may also have something to do with the fact I have long hair, but thats going out on a limb.

Anyway its a supermarket lots of people coming and going. Their was a blind guy and his Pal, must have 35, 40, wouldn't have been able to hear the device. The dog started playing up (as far as they were concerned) for no reason, just as they got close to the device. I let them know what was going on and it being the probable cause. The dog was trying to get away from the thing. The dog could easily have pulled the guy into the road. It fell silent about 2 minutes after they went into the store. I wonder if they might of had a word.

It affects wildlife, guide dogs, cats, anything that can hear with in that range. They are about the same frequency as a dog whistle a friend of mine owns.

@ Guide dogs.

"if an innocent teenager can put forward a case for WHY they need to hang around outside a newsagent/shop/private dwelling after dark"

erm, I'm allowed out after dark am I not? its my right to go where I want (obviously a public place or where I have permission to be) when I want. I don't hang around in front of shops. Its boring. But it says "I don't want you here" and I don't hear it only if I'm loitering so it affects me if I'm walking past, I get an ear full of nails down the blackboard type noise.

Further, they are employed during the day too.

there is one of these things

outside a local supermarket, I went in to buy some food, then wanted to sit outside and eat the food I had just bought, but in the time I was inside they'd turned the thing on. There was an older lady there doing the same thing, eating her food outside the supermarket, on the bench that they supplied, why do I have any less right to do that?

UK.gov says extreme porn isn't illegal if you delete it...

Enough of this Nanny state.

If I want to ride my motorcycle with out my helmet on, I should have every right to do that. At the same time, I shouldn't expect the NHS to clear up after me. If I want to watch extreme porn then I should be able to do that. If I want to use recreational drugs, I should be allowed to do that.

I'm not suggesting I want to do either. I don't. but people should have the right to make their own choices, regardless of nulabour's puritanical hogwash.

/rant.

Lords told to listen to science on cannabis

Whacky Jaqui

Still won't listen. She doesn't do reason, we all know that.

Tens of thousands of kids need to be protected from ContactPoint users

@ If I ever had kids.

Reminds me strangely of an XKCD comic.

I shall right an adaptation.

GA (government agent) - "Hi this is the government, we're having some computer trouble"

DBAP (database admin parent" "oh? Did he break something"

GA "in a way. Did you really call your son John')DROP TABLE children;-- ?"

In all seriousness though, This stinks of backtracking to me.

http://cu.nniling.us/327/ - original comic from XKCD

Texas cop tasers himself

@Kain

I don't think he was asking, "why was the gun loaded?" but rather, why was it in a such a state that just pulling the trigger would fire a round. Surely if it was loaded but first need cocking (Ie no round in the chamber) then it would be far less likely to erm accidently discharge. Also I'm not an expert but I'm reasonable sure that other than the trigger, there is no saftey mechanism on a Glock 40.

Porn breath tests for PCs heralds 'stop and scan'

Oh dear.

So Johnny Peado-terrorist has a USB Flash drive, He has Truecrypt on his laptop, Given this program is "just" looking for images, and they aren't going to take a look at your flash drives then all he has to do is go through border control insert flash drive, apply his encryption key. It doesn't matter if they want to have a look at the Flash drive either, because this program won't find anything of suspicion on there either.

When will people learn.

High-speed train toilet attempts to eat Frenchman

most modern train toilets

have "suction flush" so if your sitting on it when you flush and get a bit unlucky qell lets just say a relative of mine who is a train driver has had to release a few people on this side of the pond because the loo wanted to suck them in. There is a release valve. How ever they'll be a nice red ring all round your um, yeah.

Top prosecutor warns against growing state power

its all a matter of time.

A Reasoned public debate that will, in turn be duly ignored. Jaqui knows what she wants, and she'll keep on throwing her teddy out of the pram until she gets it and to hell with what anybody else thinks! We should be used to this. The public at large though (out side of IT profesionals) tend not to care very much. To them a Database means nothing, they don't think about what else it could be used for.

I can see the data that are stored on the Databases that will keep us all in check being sold to big companies for marketing purposes, to fund the things.

anyway sorry for the almost certian spelling mistakes.

Wacky Jacqui's yoof ID site goes silent

Whacky Jacqui?

As much as I like that, I'm not sure she is whacky, more cold, controlling and manipulative. When 42 days was revoked she said something along the lines of "Some people don't take the security of Britian seriously." Surely that is for the benefit of Daily Mail readers who will lap it up? One wonders wether she takes human rights seriously.

Aside from that, this is encouraging, The whole point of that site was to influence the yoof and say how positivily they responded. Its great to see that those who took part, blew it right back in her face. If I want proof of Age etc, I'll use my driving licence, why would I bother with a seperate card - aside from privacy issues.

Anonymous hacks Sarah Palin's Yahoo! account

this is why

We always use secure passwords of no less than 10 characters with upper and lower case letters, numbers and upper case characters and a few special characters two, we also do not under any circumstances use a real word, nor do we write our password down.

She should have been taught all of this.

I can not believe they think this is secure, I don't know about Yahoo! e-mail system but if it isn't encrypted all the way through (I suspect it is isn't) why is she using it? It could have been side jacked. She could at least use gmail and use the https always option.

This woman is beyond belief when you think about her, Abstinence only sex education, please tell me how that works, Kids are gonna have sex anyway.

Paris, because this has happened to her too!

Secret of invisibility unravelled by US researchers

News Flash

The US military has invested in suits to make their troops seemingly disappear. Now that they have got the so called invisibility cloaks it would appear that the Russians have just brought 80 million paintball markers!

the above is fiction.

Baptist church in assault rifle giveaway

Assault riffle?

I don't think a semi-automatic actually counts as an assault riffle, I thought to be an assault riffle it had to be fully automatic, and those are banned even in the USA. Though still giving any gun to kids is not a good idea. In fact giving guns to Americans is a bad idea.

Microsoft pledges to fight Vista 'myths'

I have no interest in Vista at all.

Its not that its a bad OS, it isn't too bad really. but my laptop, which is about a year and a half old now, wouldn't run it very well, so it makes sense to use Ubuntu on it, because it is fast stable OS with good support for most applications, and I can do everything I want to do with my laptop using ubuntu. My main desktop uses XP. Its a pretty good OS, and runs rather smoothly, and whilst it remains to be a good, well supported OS, I have no interest in moving to Vista, because XP is perfectly good.

Singapore forum 'scammer' faces caning and prison

friday

oh lord the grammar nazis are out in force. Hi how are you? Well to be honest, he deserves it. I hate it when electrical companies don't deliver on time.d

Paris - Because she delivers.

Chrysler shoves hotspots into hot rods

yeah

I think we can all see this one going wrong!

UK abandons train and tube scanners

For once, the man sees sense.

This government is like a badly behaved toddler, you tell them "don't touch that, Its hot." Then they do it anyway and then they wonder why the public burns them. Honestly. it doesn't matter who tells them that their stupid schemes are stupid they do it anyway. Then for once they do realise "hmmm stupid scheme is stupid" but it isn't far enough. they need to realise that the nanny/police state we are walking into is unacceptable too. School teachers are afraid to let kids climb in trees, or go pond dipping, we have more CCTV cameras than anyone else, The government is also behaving more and more like the NSDAP.

Trojan heralds OS X's 'new phase of exposure to malware'

well it was a matter of time

the problem is that all computers (like it or not) are vulnerable. It reminds me of that poster in my old school computer room a few years a go "The only secure computer is one that is buried in concrete, with no power and the network cable cut" they all have exploits. Which is exactly why I think the advertising campaign that apple ran was highly irresponsible. to tell the users "you are in no way vulnerable" is inherently wrong (yes you are more secure than a windows user - true) but when people start believing this and pay for macbooks that cost £700 and give you one gig of RAM, more exploits will come out of the woodwork. The other issue is anyone stupid enough to make such a transaction, isn't going to be the most technically minded of people, and so will properly help the exploits along. "It just works" indeed.

Brando attempts to get climbers hooked to storage

I'll pass

Hmm, I'll stick to my UIAA approved 25KN + 3 Sigma rated biners thanks.