Posts by Gareth Howell

Twitter airport bomb joke conviction binned in common-sense WIN

Re: Dumb question

It was probably the airport search for itself in Twitter, as all large organisations do now, to enagage with its customers.

Grow up and recognise twitter isn't private!!!

I think I must be on of the few not celebrating that this conviction was overturned. Everyone is talking about humour, and that isn't the issue here. The issue is the venue! Nothing on the internet is private. So while a joke is very funny down the pub with your mates, shouting it out in the middle of a crowded town centre isn't. As the subject says, twitter isn't private and you don't control who sees your tweets. So something you and your mate find funny, others won't. And how do you tell a threat from a joke? No one has answered that yet. All this case means is idiots are still able to post comments to the web without any come back!

What would have happened if everyone assumed this was a joke and then something did happen? Those self same people critiscing the police and CPA for (rightly) charging this chap, would be the first shouting why didn't they stop this.

Roku 2 XS IPTV player

I've bought the roku

It seems a lot of the comments posted here are from people who haven't tried the Roku. I bought one a week ago and I'm happy with it.

The key point I would like to make is REMEMBER THE TARGET AUDIENCE. This device isn't aimed at us techies (yes, I'm a techie), it is aimed at the non-techie user who want Plug and Play. Those of us who know that we need different codecs for a video rather than different software to make it work or its a video why won't it play, are probably not the target audience for this device.

In regards to the content, the thing has only been out a month, give it time. How many channels did it have when it was launched in the states? Any early adopters will complain about content. I wonder what a first gen Kindle user would say about the choice of books when they got it! I would also point out that we don't really have many established streaming channels in UK, I can only think of six (LoveFilm, NetFlix, BBC iPlayer, ITV iPlayer, 5 on Demand, and Channel 4).

Google's cloud printing goes physical

Why???

Generally when you (ok, at least for me) want to print you want the hard copy now. What is the point of printing a document out on the train home when I'm still an hour away? Or better yet printing when I'm on holiday?

If I don't need the print out immediately, then I can either wait till I get home to print it, or (big shock coming, you've been warned) I don't need to print the damn thing out to start off with.

This just seems like a marketing gimick and a case of developer syndrome.

Developer syndrome, is where a developer always want to work on the latest and greatest tech, some times when it isn't appropriate.

Google geek slammed over XP exploit

A fix is not a click on your fingers

I find it interesting that people are expecting Microsoft to have a fix out in only five days. As a software developer myself I know that a fix in that time frame needs to be either:

a) Super critical, something that is going to cost your company massive amount of money or drastically affect your customer base enough that you will just throw money and resources at it

b) The bug is so simple that it can be found, fixed and tested in a matter of hours.

Please remember how complex a system the operating system is. I notice above that some commenters said well XXXX open source project would have fixed it by now. One thing to remember that open source OSs do not have the same compatibility that Windows has (oh and before I get flamed I'm writing this in Firefox on Ubuntu). Microsoft will need to fix this bug and then test it against every configuration it has in its test library.

For those of you not in software development here is how the bug might have been handles

1) Bug gets sent into Microsoft, possibly to a dedicated bug e-mail address/contact with hundreds of other potential bugs.

2) Someone has to go through each and every bug submitted and try and replicate the bug in their test environments.

3) If they can replicate it then a priority would be assigned to it based on the severity of the bug, ease of exploitation, what can be done with the exploit etc.

4) The bug gets picked up by the developer/development team as long as there is no high priority bug. The developer then needs to step through the code while using the exploit to see what needs to be fixed. Simply saying it is related to the white list of the Help tool isn't as bigger help as you might think.

5) The developer fixes the code

6) The tester tests the fix against the original issue and see if it fixes the issues without raising new ones. They'll have a list of tests that that they will need to run on this functionality.

7) The tester or more likely a team of testers will test the fix across multiple configurations of Window to see if this fix breaks any other element of the OS. This is called regression testing and means test will Windows.

8) Prepare fix for release.

Now if anyone believes they can do that in five days, then I suggest you submit your CV to Microsoft ASAP. My experience is with web sites, but I would estimate that you're looking at at least two weeks for a fix, if the bug has a sufficiently high priority.

As posters above have also pointed out you would then have weeks until the fix would have been rolled out sufficiently.

The person who found this fix was irresponsible to the point of criminality for releasing the details of this issue when Microsoft is probably still trying to confirm the issue and give it a priority.

Privacy campaigner vows legal challenge to Google Street View

Missing the point

I think what most people have missed here, isn't that the blurring algorithm is buggy or what the legal issues on taking the photos are. The point is Google's response to the privacy concerns is that people can remove offending pictures just by asking; how do you know if you're in a street view picture in the first place? As far as I know wasn't present when any of the street view pictures where taken, but do I need to check all the places I've been in the last twelve months just to make sure that if I was pictured I've been blurred?

I think some more development and though needs to be put into this whole issue.

Staff internet policies must be Facebook-ready, warns expert

Barmy

So not only does a company own your working life, they now own your private life? Where will this stop?

If you work for a car manufacturer, can you only drive their cars or you will be fired?

Supermarket staff can't shop in a rivals store?

Surely the company is only entitled to what they pay for 9-5:30!