Posts by Morely Dotes 939 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Apr 2007
"Redmond's planned patch, whose release date remains unclear, is targeted at Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP with Internet Explorer 7 installed. Vista "
What about Vista? Perhaps the rest of the sentence would go something along the lines of, "Vista is not so much an Operating System, as a chocolate teapot, and since it can't be reasonably expected to do anything useful, may safely be ignored when applying Operating System patches."
"I think the ad campaign is totally idiotic though. Huge numbers of men die on roads and I do not it should be turned into a sexual inferiority complex joke"
If you think that driving dangerously proves you're bright and well-hung, you *are* inferior - both in the mental and tackle categories. Dickless wonders die from driving too fast, and from driving under the influence (and often from both at once). if it were only themselves at risk, I'd say let them die - but they usually take innocents with them. But they *are* sexually inferior.
In my experience (12 years driving in Germany, France, and Switzerland, 3 in Central America, and well over 30 all over North America), the people least capable of driving *well* at high speeds are the ones most likely to insist they should be allowed to do so.
Also, the louder the car, the less likely the driver is capable of making important critical judgments (and the more desperate to prove his "manhood" he seems).
"Notice how many posts here are anonymous ? Ask yourself why"
Those who refuse to back their statements of their convictions with reasoned discourse deserve no consideration. The UK is not China (yet); you need not fear summary execution if you don't look foreign.
If your government is abhorrent to you, you can (1) try to change it through non-violent means, if you are at all moral (think of Ghandi), or (2) move to another place with a government that suits you better.
Of course, in the UK, you have been disarmed so that those in charge need have no fear that you may choose to change your government. The government here in the USA is abhorrent, but it *will* be changed within a couple of years, and the criminals currently in power dare not try to remain in power by any obvious exercise of force.
If Microsoft did, in fact, have any *VALID* patents that Red Hat was violating, Microsoft would be in court trying to sue Red Hat out of existence. However, MS is well aware that *every single patent they have ever filed* would be overturned in court because of "prior art" or total lack of innovation ("fails the obviousness test"). Ergo, MS *can't afford* to sue Red Hat.
So, fact #1: Steve Ballmer is a lying sack of bovine fecal matter.
Windows Vista has failed miserably in the marketplace. Althouhg MS has succeeded in force many OEMs to push Vista on the unsuspecting new-computer buyer, one of the largest, Dell, will still sell you a machine with Windows XP if you ask for it (because when they tried to force Vista on corporate customers, they bled sales like a whale with an explosive harpoon stuck in). And unlike Halo 3, people who already have computers with older versions of Windows are NOT lining up and clamoring to buy Vista to "upgrade".
Fact #2: Microsoft is in serious trouble. they have enough cash to stay in serious trouble for a long, long time before going titsup, but unless Ballmer can convince people that Vista isn't crap (and he'll have better luck convincing Osama bin Laden that GWB is a devout Muslim), MS is going to lose the desktop; maybe not to Linux, but someone will certainly take over.
And those are all the facts one really needs.
Oh, and since we're talking about Windows - where's the IT angle? After all, Windows isn't an IT product - it's a toy OS for game PCs.
Most places in the US, a cop firing a weapon is put on suspension with pay *automatically* while the shooting is investigated. Usually the result is "a good shoot" and the cop goes back to work - but not always. Once in a while the cop is found guilty of unlawful use of force, and many of those cases result in an ex-cop facing criminal charges. All of them result in disciplinary action.
Institute such a rule for tasering as well as firearms, and cops will be a lot more careful to use their weapons (both lethal and intended-to-be-nonlethal) when it's appropriate, and *only* then.
"I have a blu-ray machine already, and one which is of very high quality and is constantly being kept up to date through firmware updates."
I don't suppose you've considered that "kept up to date" also means "the next generation of software designed to prevent me using my Blu-Ray player as I wish will be installed whether I like it or not."
Mind you, I'm not an HD-DVD advocate, either. There's no compelling contenet in either format, and my plain-vanilla DVD player works just fine - without new Technology Users' Rights Denial Systems (aka TURDS aka DRM) being installed secretly and without my consent.
"Does this mean I can take my business elsewhere and decide not to give any personal data to the inland revenue?"
Well, yes, actually. But as HMRC has the exclusive francise for the UK, you'll have to take your business *and* yourself to another territory - France, Germany, Turkey, Iran, China...
You get the picture.
X10 sells a "video sender" system here in the USA that is probably more-ore-less what you're looking for for.
Many caveats:
1. Don't visit X10.com without major spyware and virus protection. Don't use Internet Explorer for it, either.
2. Their system is composite only - no S-Video, no SCART, no RGB.
3. I had the old version and inadvertently hooked up the wrong wall wart, which let the smoke out. If you get this, or a similar system, be sure you keep track of which wart goes with which unit (a simple tape-and-magic-marker system should do it).
4. The x10 Web site is easily the ugliest and least-well-organized I have ever seen, beating out many Government sites in that regard. Peril-sensitive sunglasses are recommended.
I'd be interested in inexpensive units that use CAT-5 or Wi-Fi to accomplish the same end.
- Synchronising ringtones with your PC
- Downloading pictures from the phone to the PC
- Synchronizing email and SMS messages with the PC
And since it's Wifi, all of those could be done remotely; say, when I am in Quebec and my PC is (as always) in Oregon.
But I'm not going to write anything. Let Nokia do it.
There are really only three kinds of spam:
1. Spammer advertising something he allegedly sells.
2. Pump & Dump/Phishing/419 scams.
3. Spammer advertising someone else's product.
In case #1, anyone who sends money or a credit card number has about a 99% chance of throwing his money down the bog; there probably isn't any product at all. If it's credit card number, move to spam type 2.
In case #2, the victim either buys into the scam directly (pump & dump) or actively helps the spammer to steal from him. It would be a sort of economic Darwinism, except that the biggest cases involve the "victim" embezzling someone else's money to give to the spammer in (vain) hopes of reaping a windfall return.
In case #3, but the recipients of the spam, and the damfool who paid the spammer are victims. However, I would support a law which confiscated 100% of the business assets of any business which paid a spammer to advertise for them; it's not as if this sort of thing is a rarity any more.
So the money comes either from the recipients (with a rate of return of closer to 1/100,000 than 1/1000) or from stupid and greedy businessmen who think they can get advertising to millions of pairs of eyeballs for the price of a pair of socks.
Remember the Sony/BMG audio CD rootkit? Remember the Sony USB thumbdrive rootkit?
Why would anyone be thick enough to believe that Sony hasn't boobytrapped Blu-Ray with some kind of rootkit?
This version of Technology Users' Rights Denial System (aka DRM, but more properly known as TURDS) is just more proof that Sony wants to control all your technology - with or without your permission.
Be smart; don't buy anything with TURDS in.
Eventually.
Over here in the States, Visa is running a series of TV ads which insult anyone who doesn't use Visa to buy, well, anything, from fast food to clothing. The catch phrase is "Life comes at you fast." The implication is that using cash or checks is much slower than using Visa, which is, of course (1) patently false; (2) insulting to the point that I am nearly ready to tell my bank to either give me a non-Visa ATM card, or I will change banks; and (3) going to be infinitely amusing when (not "if" - I am an I.T. professional, and I promise you it _will_ happen sooner or later) Visa's processing network suffers a major cockup.
The arrogance of these people amazes me. Well, no, thinking about it, I suppose it doesn't. People who don't know WTF they are talking about are usually pretty arrogant on the subject.
"The Dirtbox360 has reached the peak of what it can achieve, and other consoles are in for the long run..."
If, by "other consoles," you mean the Nintendo Wii, you may be right. On the other hand, the PS3 has about as much chance to dominate the market as an English wine in Paris. It's too expensive, too tied to Sony (the company that brought you rootkits on both audio CDs *and* USB thumbdrives), and insufficiently supported by third-party game studios.
But I would expect the 360 to continue to hang neck-and-neck with the Wii for several more years. Microsoft has more cash reserves than most small nations; they can afford to continue taking losses on the consoles while raking in 85% profit margin on the games.
'Perhaps we should consider our priorities, health care, education, CHAV extermination etc etc before we go sniffing for other peoples "problems"'
Yes, and we shouldn't spend all that money on developing new machinery when we can send navvies down to dig up coal for the old machines, and what's all this nonsense about "microscopic animals" causing diseases? Everyone knows that diseases are God's way of punishing sinners, by sending demons to possess their bodies.
You Luddites ought to go live someplace that has nothing that was developed using modern scientific research. You'd probably love Tehran, Rangoon, or Wales. Your inability to grasp that science *always* develops useful things (by accident, or so it seems most if the time) simply proves that not *all* humans have evolved; some are still stuck in the "you talk words me no get, me use rock, break bones" stage of development.
I have installed Ubuntu 6 and 7 on numerous systems, including several with ATI Radeon graphics (ranging from the Mobility 9000 in a laptop to the 9800XT in a desktop). I've never had any issues that could not be resolved quickly using (in order of precedence) the online documentation, the official forums, or Googling for the specific issue I had.
If you can't get a resolution in the forums, the odds are excellent that you have failed to correctly describe the problem. I get this all the time (I have to support Windows users who, when I ask them to read the error message to me, reply, "Oh, I clicked it off. It said there was an error or something.").
I've never seen *any* OS attempt to shutdown a PC during installation when the PC didn't have an underlying hardware problem.
Less than 30 seconds work on Google finds that the ATI Radeon 7000 can be made to work thusly:
"The driver chosen by the installation was radeon. I changed this to "ati" in /etc/X11/xorg.conf and now it works."
Of course, the real question is, "Why didn't you try the LIVE CD first to make sure your system can support a modern OS, before you installed it on the hard drive?"
"BT says it'll know who carried out any illegal activity and that access to the network will be secure."
Less than 2 hours after deployment of a few FON hotspots, you may be sure that the nefarious types will have figured out how to hide their own identity from BT, and how to gain access to the network without having a membership.
What's worse, whatever they do will most likely appear to be done by the person whose whom the Wi-fi router is in.
It's a lovely idea - but for BT to claim they "know" who did what is a load of old cobblers.
"Well, only until we can think up a fate worse than death..."
Windows Vista Ultimate. Pentium 4/1.2GHz, 512MB RAM, 7-inch display, 32-bit color, all settings locked and the prisoner has "unprivileged user" status. All food and drink must be ordered via the Internet Explorer interface to Hotmail. Bathroom breaks likewise.
Did I mention he's on dialup via NetZero?
"Another subscriber wisely noted that the whole mess could have been avoided. If only the email mailout system had not been set up to automatically forward replies."
This is the Department of Homeland Security - couldn't they find even *one* system administrator willing to run a moderated mailing list for them?
If only the Nazis had been equally unable to find people willing to work for them... But then, without the Nazis as an example, perhaps people today wouldn't know how dangerous DHS is.
"Bad company like the rottent apple need to be punish,"
"Saddly most apple users a just brainwashed sheep. Such a nasty (criminal and illegal) move apple should be ground for a planet wide ban on all apple (inferior) product."
"simple: apple user = mindless drone"
Amazingly, I find that rant to remain at least as apropos if one substitutes "Microsoft" every place one finds "apple."
But then, my choice is for *open* standards, not proprietary standards.
Well, it's moral justification for software piracy, anyhow.
Although anyone stupid enough to steal Microsoft products deserves what he gets, especially with so much free open-source software available (and with the ability to run "windows" applications on linux, why would ever think of installing Windows?).
But there are specific laws *forbidding* that behavior (price-fixing) in the USA. I guess in that one small way, we are more advanced than Europe. Don't even talk to me about privacy, though.
Consumer uptake of both of the high definition DVD formats has been, from a Marketing perspective, abysmal (to be charitable).
Perhaps that's because, at long last, the consumer has enough of the MPAA and their ilk trying to sell us the same thing we already own, but at a higher price, and with even more trapdoors to prevent the consumer from exercising his legal rights.
Here's an idea, Hollywood: Try offering us *quality* content without the TURDS (Technology User's Rights Denial Systems, or as you lying bastards like to say, DRM) in.
We're not buying any more TURDS. Got it?
The rise of the Pirate Party should have you shaking in your boots. Arrrr!
With most of the malicious attacks on my own server originating in China, it comes as no surprise to find that visits to the Red Army's official "web security" site would be the trigger for even more malicious attacks.
It's typical of the sort of thing that prompted me to classify all Chinese IP space as "firewall on sight."
"Is there something you fear in the Information you can Share, Anonymous Vulture, that would make you so anxious and unctuous?"
The short version of that is "the innocent have no reason to hide." Which is bollocks. There is a fundamental human right to privacy, which is why all of our homes have shades on the windows.
Those who would remove that right deserve no more consideration than a gnat - they should be eliminated and the remains disposed of most expeditiously, in order to preserve the lives and liberties which they accepted the job of preserving, and which duties they have chosen to abrogate.
Here in the USA, the Pledge of Allegiance does *not* contain the phrase, "One nation, under surveillance," and it is the duty of Americans (and that includes the American military) to ensure that phrase is never appropriate. Armed insurrection is a terrible thing, but according to the Declaration of Independence, it is sometimes necessary.
I sincerely hope the US Government does not push us, the American people, that far.
Seriously, under the current US Patent system, a patent application sufficiently long, dry, and boring which described how to buy something using cash *would* be approved, and the process of buying things would then be covered by a patent.
The concept of granting patents to software is as addle-pated as allowing patents for existing processes.
"Tell me what other single app gives you all the usual VoiP services + free cross platform voice conferencing between systems + free cross platform video chats?"
If by "the usual VoIP services" you mean "voice chat," then:
Yahoo messenger can do that.
Personally I'd use Gizmo and a separate vid chat app, however, as (1) I use Linux, and (2) in my experience, both audio and video chat apps on Windows are prone to crash, and I'd prefer to only restart one app, rather than lose the connection completely and have to start over with the whole "ring the other party, wait for them to accept, start the video/audio/txt" bit every couple of minutes.
As it happens, I'm mostly using Ventrilo for voice these days; I don't talk to people on the POTS system after work much.
"Microsoft said users of its new service can only create or edit online documents if they have Office software already installed on their machines."
That's a bit like requiring someone to purchase a Volvo before they're permitted to ride the Tube, innit?
Shortsighted? Counter-productive? Just downright stupid? Pick three.
"The UI itself is awful I simply can not understand why the Mac has such a good reputation for its UI. It features a number of annoying limitations and assumptions that make life very difficult, from simple stuff like the spell checker coving up what you are trying to spell check so you can't see the context, to horrible window management in general."
Mac's UI look and works so well *in comparison to Microsoft Windows" that it is help up as an example.
But then, the same is true for the Ohio Art Etch A Sketch(tm). And, like OSX, it isn't subject to the viruses, trojans, or rootkits that infest MS Windows.
Then you ought to install the MVPS hosts file on your computer (the hosts file works on ever OS which uses TCP/IP, inlcuing Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux).
Go visit http://www.mvps.org and use their search box to find "hosts." everything else is explained on their site.
The use of the file blocks your computer from even locating many malicious Web sites, so no matter how you feel about DoubleClick, it's still a good idea - you can't be infected if you computer refuses to connect to the bad guys.
"I am forced to use XP for some things at work I really struggle to come to terms with the concept of preferring XP over another OS."
Well, if by "another OS" you mean Mac OSX, or Linux, I'd have to agree. Right now I have a Vista machine, an XP machine, and a Kubuntu Linux laptop on my desk. The Vista machine has roughly 4 times the hardware horsepower of the XP machine, and equal performance. The laptop has one-quarter the hardware horsepower of the PX machine (or less - it's only 128M RAM vs. 2 gigs on the XP box) and nearly-equal performance.
So, yes, people who actually want the PC to do some *work* (as opposed to running pretty screensavers, and having a user interface designed by some horrible gene-spliced combination of Fisher-Price and the Marquis de Sade), most people prefer "another OS" over Vista.
...is that the FCC specified the "open device" rule. Ever since the breakup of AT&T, the FCC has, during Republican administrations (especially Reagan's), been slowly aiding the mega-telcos to merge, and deliberately and knowingly choking off smaller service providers who might, without government interference, have provided some competition to Verizon, Sprint, and Cingular (the Death Star company), and might also have provided some innovation in the field.
Innovation is bad for monopolies. The FCC has bent over backward to ensure that no innovation takes place.
Apparently, the Commissioners thought that they could use sleight-of-hand to hide their refusal to require wholesale access, by distracting us, the public (the VOTERS) with the bone of open devices.
It's not working. This move will positively cause the Republicans to lose even *more* seats in the Senate and Congress next year.
And I am no Democrat, either - but I can see who will benefit from the FCC's stubborn support for monopolies. It's not going to be good for Bush and Company.
...at the Xbox 360. Microsoft sells it at a loss. The cost of the parts alone, without assembly, is higher than the street price (or "MSRP") of the console.
This smacks of parallel importing to me. After all, the parts are being sold for less than the original manufacturers' intended selling price. If it's illegal to sell Microsoft products at lower than Microsoft directs, then surely it must be illegal for Microsoft to sell the products it has purchased from others at prices lower than the original manufacturers intended.
And since Microsoft is a convicted monopolist, they should have already forfeited any protection against *any* form of competition in the eyes of the law.
I smell a bribe here.
There were some terrible things about the British Empire, but as an American, I have always been impressed by the sheer amount of civilisation that the UK has exported.
A new British Empire is extremely far from the worst thing I can imagine happening.
You might even civilise the French. Miracles are said to be more common than we realise.
And, all levity aside, my best wishes go to the people of Burma, and their popular leaders - the monks who have the moral and physical courage to stand up for freedom. May the despots all be reminded graphically of Guy Fawkes.
"Microsoft has announced a bevy of new vertical engines that work in tandem with core search. These include a local search platform with more info about individual businesses, a shopping platform with more info about products, a health platform with more info about bodily functions, and an entertainment platform that tracks the worldwide popularity of Salma Hayek."
I notice that Microsoft *didn't* mention how much of your personal information they collect when you use Internet Explorer, or Desktop Live Search, or their new Internet Live Search.
I have about as much trust in Microsoft as I have in George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, and for about the same reasons.
I'll stick to Firefox and Seamonkey, Linux, and Google, thanks.
And pay them in "sold debt," much as mortgage brokers do with home loans.
If the US fails to satisfy the debt of several billions of doallars to Antigua, interest will accumulate, and Europe may press the claims by impounding American goods.
That would be a disaster for the Bush Administration.
Furthermore, if Antigua chooses to suspend the observance of US Patent and Copyright claims, under the terms of the WTO treaties, they may *legally* make millions of copies of movies and CDs and ship them for sale elsewhere; or, they may choose to provide safe harbor for so-called "pirate" peer-to-peer servers.
Another disaster for Bush.
And an invasion of Antigua might be the straw that breaks the camel's back, and gets both House and Senate to begin impeachment proceedings.
One may hope.
"Customer choice is good, but only to those who are capible of making those choices"
And who gets to decide who is capable of making those choices? You? I think not. You can't even spell simple English words? Me? Most people wouldn't care for my choices. The government? Those bloody fools can't even manage to maintain a Web page free of malicious software.
In a perfect world, one could go into a shop and choose from the bare PC/laptop, one with an OS bundled (and not *just* a Microsoft OS - there are others, you know), and one with an OS and applications bundled. And in a perfect world, Norton/Symantec would be in receivership, and their crapware would be bundled only on Sony computers, which would be priced at 10x the highest competitor's similar product to discourage the idiots who currently buy them.
But the world's not perfect (nor is it a Pervect), and thus we should still be permitted to choose between an unbundled bare machine and a bundled one - WITHOUT PC World claiming that software somehow invalidates the hardware warranty.
And that *should* be the law. I find myself in the uncomfortable position of supporting the French court's decision.
"does Windows Mobile 6 even have daylight saving time support yet?"
Who flippin' cares? I want a telephone that makes and receives calls.
If I wanted a mobile home with a hi-fi, an Internet-connected terminal, a kitchen sink, and a toilet, I'd have bought a motor home.
Neither Apple nor Microsoft need ever offer me *any* mobile products. They're both over-priced, over-hyped, and under-performing for the dollar.
"If the cop had shot her it would have been on their conscience for the rest of their life"
Uhm. Are you aware that most of the "real" suicide bombers have a "deadman switch" that causes the device to explode if they let go (e.g., they've been shot dead and the had relaxes)?
If the cop had shot her *AND* she had actually been wired with a bomb, chances are the cop - and everyone else within 15 meters - would be dead or critically injured.
"nobody over there seems to think this is a bad thing."
Wrong. The general citizenry think it's a bad idea. Unfortunately, Herr Fuehrer Bush and Herr Reichschancellor Cheney think it's a wonderful idea. And since they have the military power to enforce their hare-brained ideas, the rest of us are patiently waiting for the next election.
One nation, under surveillance.
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