Posts by Gerry

Microsoft claims IE8 is 'a leap forward in web standards'

Leap Forward

20% sounds like a failure to me, let alone a leap forward. This is just marketing spin but no doubt there are people out there stupid enough to swallow thaiscrap.

@ Don Mitchell

I see, the tests are biased against Microsoft. They must be losing their edge when they can get shafted by a mostly toothless committee. Lame excuse.

Concerted Linux-netbook effort needed to beat Microsoft

Strange to see ...

... Dell Mini being advertised in a mass readership daily paper (London Lite, I believe) for £199.00 with Ubuntu installed. This is progress. Seen it advertised online without a mention of Windoze.

The Sun shines out of certified Java programmers

Not totally useless

I doubt whether my Java certifications have ever swung a job in my favour. However, I still enjoyed working for them insofar as they defined the bounds of what I am expected to know. That at least is the case where SCJP is concerned.

My beef with SCJP, however, is that it isn't difficult enough. The problem for Sun, I suppose, is that if they make it too difficult fewer people will sit for it, thereby resulting in loss of revenue. Mind you, I doubt that certification is all that much of a money earner for them. The value of the other certifications is less certain since they are highly technology dependent. SCWCD and SCBCD are not much use to you if you don't go anywhere near JSPs and EJBs.

Neil Young posts angry YouTube missive

Neil Young - Legend

Even if you don't always agree with him his music speaks volumes.

Behind IE 8's big incompatibility list

Simple solution

All MS have to do is let IE8 default to Firefox as User Agent. This has 2 immediate benefits as far as I can see - MS get the critics off their back and Firefox usage stats goes through the roof.

Dear Obama: Please consider open-source a waste of your time

What's your problem?

To the author of this article -

What's your beef with open source anyway? I suppose that's what's really at the bottom of your rant.

Rich-interface patterns get Quince treatment

Anti-Pattern

<http://quince.infragistics.com>

Why do I need Silverlight just to view the patterns?

I mean, patterns are patterns.

Am I missing something here or is this just another Microsoft/Silverlight sales pitch?

Silverlight 3 and 4 to 'open up new areas' - Microsoft

@Chris Young

Are you a Microserf then? 'Fess up son.

Microsoft axes 5,000 staff as Q2 profit dives 11%

My Two Cents Worth

Revenue per share down by 2 cents so you make your staff pay by making them unemployed as if they are to blame. It's not as if M$ have made massive losses or something. This is not a uniquely Microshaft dirty deed but par for the course for them all the same.

Ubuntu's Shuttleworth praises Windows 7, welcomes fight

@Gordon

Gordon, you're a muppet - you need to learn how to spell correctly.

The application platform’s in play. But where’s it going?

What's an Application Platform do?

Are application platforms really any different to application servers? Is this just rebranding by Microsoft and its band of merry followers

In any case why am I required to login and provide a whole load of personal details just to listen to the broadcast? This all sounds like a load of M$ shite to me.

Asus sexes up Eee PC 1000 series

Yet Another EeePC

160GB HDD storage? Asus marketing department running out of ideas by the sounds of it.

IWF pulls Wikipedia from child porn blacklist

Reprise Blind Faith 1969

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_faith

That controversy died down too, after a while. A collectors item, both for the cover and the music.

Microsoft preps IE 8 for the web-challenged

Death to IE5, 6, 7, 8, ..., N

May this piece of shit sink without trace.

'Bloody' is an offensive word, declares ASA

Bloody Stupid!

Yet another example of PC gone mad.

Carphone Warehouse denies mass Linux Webbook recall

Linux still not really ready for the desktop

I use Linux out of conviction that supporting M$ is an immoral act. I run an EeePC 1000 because I am on the road a lot and I've got Ubuntu Hardy Heron installed and mobile Internet access is through a Vodaphone's USB stick.

I installed my first Linux distro back in 1995 (Slackware) and have played around with SuSE and Debian on and off for many years since. With all that said, I don't believe Linux is ready for the desktop mass market. Any company adopting it would have to retrain their personnel to use it. How many are willing to do so?

Then there's the security model. I tried to add a plugin to SeaMonkey the other day only to be told I didn't have root access. This is just getting in my way.

Although I am comfortable using a console for commands, I prefer a visual display of storage. And what do we get? Nautilus! A more idiotic piece of software is unimaginable. There is no way a Windoze user will be comfortable with this irritating piece of crap. It is buggy, clunky and unintuitive. I've no doubt the people who designed this software considered themselves good designers. I disagree. Why not just copy Windows Explorer rather than inventing something with poor usability?

The only way to conquer the desktop is to offer users an interface they are familiar with. Most users are not techies like us and having to wrestle with the interface merely gets in the way of their real jobs. As far as I'm concerned, if it means nicking ideas from Windoze then so be it. There is no other way of wrestling the desktop off the evil empire.

New Scientist goes innumerate in 'save the planet' special

Growth without growth

"But that doesn’t change the fact that the basic point that they’re trying to make, that we must curb growth because it will inevitably mean the consumption of more resources, is simply wrong."

And what happens in the case of growth in population and in consumer demand (as we are witnessing in China and India, for example)?

Thanks for clearing up what GDP means but your carping about the central point of the the New Statesman is bollocks. Just playing the purist for the sake of looking smart.

Home Office acts to kick out Iceland's hate preachers

Why Liechtenstein?

'cos they nicked our national anthem, that's why.

Windows 7 and Microsoft's cloud - The Reg takes a MicroBite

Remind me again

"To put PDC in perspective, previous years saw Bill Gates unveil .NET and Windows Vista. And we all know how they went"

As I recall Vista subsequently went tits-up.

.NET? It's there on most Windoze platforms but so is the start button. No big deal there then.

TfL considers life without Oyster

@Deebster

Sure, but some thieving bar-steward rail companies are now charging 30p (to you youngsters out there that's 72 pence in old money) even if all you want is a slash. Talk about taking-the-piss.

Designer touts 'super sight' sunglasses

All-round version, please

A 360 degree all-round version would be rather handy. I'd be able to walk around at night without fear of being spooked.

RM Asus miniBook Plus netbook

Depressing

It's depressing just thinking about Windoze fouling another good machine. I wonder how much less the package would cost with Linux installed?

Psst! Arfhur, is it really you writing for El Reg?

Sun: OpenSolaris 'pretty freaking amazing'

NO ONE USES JAVA ANYMORE???

What do they use then? Ruby? DotNet? Try building enterprise IT systems with these. I'm don't know why I bother responding to this sort of bait. And why shouldn't Sun fly the Java flag? It is present on most Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac installations. The JVM, that is, for those who assume Java is nothing more than a language.

Boffinry bitchslap brouhaha: Higgs and Hawking head to head

Creating matter from nothing?

Ahem, the event under inspection is not big bang but the period shortly after; i.e. fractionally after big bang.

"The Universe started with a Big Bang – but we don’t fully understand how or why it developed the way it did. The LHC will let us see how matter behaved a tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang."

http://www.lhc.ac.uk/

The distinction matters.

CookieMonster nabs user creds from secure sites

FirstDirect - PASS

Seems to have passed but I hope someone else tries the test.

Acer Aspire One A110

Headline price

£220 headline price is all very well until you start adding extra battery and storage to make the machine worth your while. By that stage you should have well and truly breached the £300 barrier. Might as well go for the EeePc 901 or, better still, EeePc 1000 which has has got a bit more poke with 1GB RAM and 40GB SSD.

Microsoft readies XP for One Laptop Per Child computer

XO is about M$ world domination and not about learning.

XO was supposed to be about learning, not about software. Until M$ came calling. Did M$ make Negroponte an offer he couldn't refuse, I wonder.

Doctors: Third babies are the same as patio heaters

Latterday Malthusians

The doctors are only expressing what Malthus, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthus, had to say about over-population. And look at the trouble he got into with his theories.

As for the ageing population issue, there's an argument that goes like this:

1. People are living longer after retirement;

2. Therefore, we need a larger workforce to generate taxes for pensions;

3. The native workforce is dwindling so we must increase immigration to help us meet the commitment to a decent pension for all.

There's a flaw in that logic, unfortunately. When this larger workforce eventually hits retirement we will need even more taxes to pay their pensions. So we will need to increase the size of the next generation of workers yet again, ad infinitum. I think we know where that scenario is leading. I believe people should be encouraged to work longer. There is a problem with that proposition of course because of the endemic ageism in society. You need look no further than IT for instances of such an attitude.

Going back to the population-size issue, I suppose the difficulty a lot of people have is conceiving of natural limits, not just to population but also to many other areas of human activity, such consumption. Petrol is a good example. This is a limited resource; most people concede this fact but proceed to consume it in the kind of way that suggests they actually believe it is limitless.

Personally, I don't see ever emerging the kind of global consensus we need to tackle over-population and over-consumption. It's a dog-eat-dog world. Our politicians will continue to sell us a dream of a better tomorrow because that is what we wish to hear. If they say otherwise then we dump them out of office.

For those who still believe over-population is not a problem for us I recommend watching events in West Africa. Distance-wise, it is very much on our European doorstep. There is as yet a tiny trickle of people heading for Europe in their effort to escape poverty. The damage to their environment can only accelerate this mass emigration.

Microsoft pledges love and money to open source

What The Hell?

M$ cosying up to ASF? And, possibly, Eclipse? What's going on? Has hell frozen over already?

This is worrying;-) No sooner has Bilious Gates departed than M$ start going straight.

MS products just too cool to comprehend, say MS geeks

@Mike

You may be right that the latest drivers are not up to scratch. The question then is this: Why aren't manufacturers pulling their digits out to get up to speed? Afterall, MS and the OEMs have been in cahoots for decades forcing users to go through perpetual upgrade cycles. Both parties made a lot of money at the expense of users.

Maybe the OEMs have wised-up that Vista is one OS too far and thus won't invest money in driver upgrades. Maybe users realise this too and refuse to shell out money every few years for the latest system that doesn't deliver extra functionality or performance. Either way I think this cosy cartel is coming to an end.

What I'd actually like to see is MS going it alone in the future by developing performant OSs that don't require new or upgraded hardware. Just buy whatever new OS they release and install it on your old hardware. That would bring a smile to OEM faces, not.

Dell's Ubuntu love-in expands to new laptops

Inspiron 1525N In, EEEPC-1000 Out

Just placed an order in the UK for a 1525N. It was that or wait an infinity for the eeepc 1000, the delivery of which (by Amazon) has slipped again to late August.

Think tank slams paedophile paranoia culture

@Anonymous Coward

If it saves just one child's life...?

Works the other way too.

There was a sad case recently (I no longer have the source of the story in the media) where a child drowned even though there was an adult in the vicinity who was too afraid to go to the child's aid, fearing accusations of paedophilia.

And if children choose to bully you in public then you just put up with it, otherwise you get banged up by the police if you try to defend yourself, just to be on the safe side.

Sick society.