Posts by Morely Dotes

SanDisk goes launch-crazy

Ah, the Good Olde Days...

There was a time when an 8G drive was considered absolutely huge (say, around 1992, perhaps).

Try to install Windows Vista on one today and prepare to be laughed at by Microsoft Technical Support.

On the other hand, I have a very nice, speedy install of Ubuntu Linux running on a 5GB drive using the Fluxbox desktop, Open Office, Firefox, and Thunderbird; everything the usual office worker could require, all free software, and great performance in a relatively small amount of storage.

I wonder how long it will take for Microsoft to buy SanDisk and stop the shipments of solid-state hard drives, to prevent further embarrassment.

Newest Ubuntu dubbed 'Hardy Heron'

@ Anonymous Coward

"Claiming that Ubuntu Linux is as useful as Windows is just wishful thinking. Most of the applications on Ubuntu are unfinished, buggy, badly documented, and have horrendous, offputting user interfaces."

I think you'll find that you're actually looking at Windows Fistula, er, Vista. Ubuntu is the one that works, and doesn't place "bling" ahead of function.

The only thing "offputting" about Ubuntu's user interfaces is that the user has a choice. I suppose if you are a ranking member of the Chinese Communist governmnet (or Bush's Cabinet), you might fidn that offputting. Personally, I like being able to switch from KDE Desktop to Fluxbox to Gnome at a whim. This is not Windows; this is a real Operating System with a choice of user interfaces, and a choice that's real, rather than a choice of "how bad do I want the performacne of this crappy toy OS to be today?"

@ Robin

"Are you implying that we only have three more windows releases left (XYZ) before M$ go bust or something?"

Don't tease me.

Viacom slaps YouTuber for behaving like Viacom

The proper response:

File a copyright infringement lawsuit against Viacom for their unauthorized use of the Jedi's original video, demanding actual damages of whatever the equivalent of 3 minutes of one of their major films grossed, plus punitive damages equal to their annual gross income.

The let the lawyers work out the difference.

Moller touts flying-saucer hovercar, again

I want my Repulsive Gecko Feet!

Once you've successfully inverted gravity, then *and only then* can you successfully market a flying car.

I much prefer to think of the average dimbulb chav floating off into the stratosphere, waiting for the flying towtruck because he ran out of whatever magic fuel we're going to use to replace petrol, than to think of him slamming into Big Ben or the Ferris Wheel at 170mph (or whatever terminal velocity of a falling M400 might be).

Russia plans 2025 Moonbase, 2035 Mars shot

@ Chris

That being the case, Utah is apparently owned by pirates.

http://www.pirate-party.us/

AVG cries wolf at Adobe Reader

AVG is correct

Adobe Reader is a malicious software package - details already provided above.

Bioshock is a malicious package as well; the behavior of the DRM that is included is exactly what should be expected from a trojan.

TurboTax has in the past had a "phone home" component, so it's likely that AVG caught that - correctly.

I can't address FinalFantasy nor F.E.A.R. explicitly, but if they were "full free downloads," chances are very high that you've got *real* trojans.

The lesson here is that software publishers have a finite pool of anti-virus products they need to satisfy vis-a-vis the safety of their software, but AV publihsers have an almost infinite (and constantly-growing) pool of potential malicious packages they must test. Ergo, it is incumbent upon Adobe, et al, to test their products against the AV packages and fix any so-called "false" positives before release. It is *not* the responsibility of Grisoft, Symantec, Panda, and the few other AV vendors to test the myriad of crapware published by every software house in the Universe.

And if your AV package says you have malicious software - better safe than sorry. Get rid of the crap. There are alternatives to *every* software package (even Windows).

Produce-licking YouTubers attacked by 147-year-old American grocer

Well, it's cRap Video

I won't watch it, nor listen to that sort of "music" - but I can't help thinking A&P must be desperate for publicity to bring such a suit. Haven't they ever heard of the "Streisand effect?"

"How can we make sure this really bad video act gets loads and loads of exposure?"

"I know! We'll sue them and try to force them to take it down! That always works!"

Microsoft promises less-annoying Vista OS early next year

Re: I Like Windows Vista

"This is to all of the un-educated Computer Users. Learn how to use Windows Vista, it's great. Grow up & quit knocking a good product."

I have published software in the International market. I have written programs in Assembly and then hand-assembled (e.g., I converted each opcode to the Hex necessary, and punched the nubmes in directly, without using a compiler). I have built driver disks for the network interface cards manufactured by the world's largest chip maker (both for their own brand, and OEM products for Compaq and HP). I have owned and used computers starting with the Z-80 processor back in the early 80s, and ranging up to today's AMD64 and P4 chips. I have used every version of MS DOS and Windows ever released, and a few that were never relased.

I am hardly an un-educated computer user. I can say, based on my own extensive experience *and* education that Windows Vista is by far the least user-friendly product ever released by Microsoft, and it is the worst choice for an operating system available on the market today. *ANYTHING* else - including old copies of OS/2 Warp - is better in terms of productivity and usability.

VXers rain on YouTube's parade

I ran the Malicious Softweare Removal Tool...

...and now Windows is gone!

;-)

Anyhow, the VXers are once again demonstrating that no one ever failed in business by underestimating the intelligence of the average punter.

Think again, FSF tells Microsoft on GPL3

@ Geoff Mackenzie

If the software *author* has chosen GPL3 (and so specified in his/her license statement), then all users and distributors are bound by GPL3. Full stop.

Sony bundles rootkit-like software on USB drive

Proposed:

In future, whenever a multinational corporation commits a heinous violation of customers' rights (to include, but not limited to, outright illegal acts such as installation of rootkits), it shall be called, "doing a Sony."

Republicans hammer Brit artist's Bush

Re: Armchair Philosophy

"president as the head of state is a Christ figure much like the Pope. Bush is Christ and like Christ and other Messiahs a figure not to be trifled with."

But would it be all right to crucify him? Just a little bit, you know, nail him up on, say Friday morning, but take him down on Saturday?

I'd love to see that b4st4rd try to rise from the dead after 3 days.

Light sabre on cargo manifest for next Shuttle mission

@ Gilbert

We had a state-funded JarJar Binks. He resigned this week, finally.

The "light sabre" probably masses about 6 ounces, so we're looking at about $3750 to send it into space. It would cost a lot more to send Gonzo and Bonzo up there (but that would still be cheaper than what it has cost the US to have them in Washington for the past half-decade).

Aussie gov anti-porn filter 'useless', says teen

Here's a better idea

Compulsory parent-qualification testing. Those who fail won't be allowed to have children (or keep the ones they already have, if that's the case).

Proper parenting prevents access to inappropriate material - it's not rocket science, and it doesn't require an $84million investment. Of course, it does require investing some time in your children. I suppose those of extremely low intelligence or next to no moral fibre won't be willing to do that. But if they can afford a computer and an Internet connection, they can certainly afford to spend some time raising their children, and teaching them right from wrong.

Depending on the Government to raise your children leads to Nazi Germany, or Communist China. Is that what people really want?

HTC slides out TyTN II 'super 3G' smartphone

Windows mobile? Ugh!

No thanks. My current phone is Windows Mobile, and to be charitable, it sucks.

I'll be changing to something running Linux or something else as soon as possible. Pretty much anything else, really.

Power corrupts, says workplace bullying survey

Morally bankrupt; a job requirement for managers in the UK?

"The report also looked at the reasons why organisations should tackle bullying at work. Improving low morale was the most cited answer, followed by improving productivity and reducing absenteeism."

It is glaringly apparent that it never occurs to these people, when asked why bullying should not be permitted in the workplace, that "it's morally right to ban bullying" is the best answer.

Boffins bend space and time to measure neutron star

@ David Tonhofer

Frank Shu said, "A sugarcube of neutron-star stuff on Earth would weigh as much as all of humanity! This illustrates again how much of humanity is empty space."

Frank was obviously thinking of the generous distribution of intellect across the entire species - a few anomalous concentrations of high intellect, like raisins in a pudding, with a large volume consisting mostly of vacuum.

However, NASA has the size of the neutron star as around 5 miles. That's only 8 km, or roughly 25% of the measured size of Serpens-X1

No wonder the USA keeps losing spaceships. Simple math seems to escape our engineers. :-(

World of Warcraft exploit PKs servers

Re: And in related news?

For those too lazy to look it up, enter into your IPCHAINS:

deny from 222.184.0.0/13

That takes care of Chinanet-js (a well-known long-time hoster of malicious Web sites).

HP writes big fat cheque for 'Print 2.0' ad jamboree

Bollocks!

HP's printers now cost 3x as much to operate as competing products with equivalent quality and speed; furthermore, HP drivers have generated quite a number of Windows BSOD events here at work over the past 8 months, while drivers of other printer brands have generated no such crashes.

Perhaps if HP would spend less money on hyping their very-expensive products, and more on writing good driver code, they could sell their products on merit. But I suppose that doesn't fit the Marketing MBA model of doing business.

In any case, we're moving towards becoming an HP-free zone.

Ex-astronaut offers apologies, Huggies to 'love-rival'

Huggies? Really?

That's a brand of disposable diaper (aka "nappy") in the USA. Was that intentional?

AT&T turns screws on iPhone unlocker

Inferior handset, bullying tactics, poor service network

What moron would buy an iPhone? It can't do voice dialing, it comes locked to the arguably poorest cell phone network in North America, it's priced higher than comparable unlocked devices that *can* do voice dialing, and now AT&T is trying the be the RIAA of the cellular providers.

How stupid would a person have to be to buy an iPhone?

IPTV/VoD: The tortoise and the hare

@ frank denton

"Does anyone out there have real world experience of setting up and running a couple of PLN bricks and have they tried measuring the actual data rate?"

Regardless of the medium (Wi-fi, LAN, PLN, or a wet string and two tins), take the rated speed and divide by 3 to get a realistic estimate of the saturated speed; that is, transferring files larger than the data buffer in your network interface card, you can expect around 33Mbps actual throughput on a 100Mbps CAT-5 network.

If your W-fi is giving you significantly less than 54/3, then (a) the software is reporting the wrong speed, (b) your neighbor is enjoying the "free public wi-fi" he's found at your expense, (c) your Wi-fi manufacturer is very optimistic about his labeling, (d) some of the drivers are seriously buggered, or (d) your own bandwidth is being shared with other devices than the one which is the "measuring station" (see point b above, for example); perhaps other computers in your home.

Windows Genuine Advantage cries wolf (again)

Why is anyone surprised?

"Microsoft blamed the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) glitch on server problems, since fixed."

This is what happens when you try to run a commercial service on a Windows server. You can't have 100% uptime on a server that has to reboot every time you apply a security patch.

Siphoning MySpace tunes using Safari

@ Michael

"Oh please, what a bunch of nonsense. The door is open because people want you to listen to their music and so they upload it to the site."

Proper streaming software would be reading the file from a directory outside of the Web server's "sandbox." If that were the case, no URL would give you a direct link to the mp3 file; the Web server would not be able to access the MP3. It would have to rely on an external application to generate the stream.

MySpace has apparently chosen to use the "cehap and cheerful" instead of the "free open source software that's secure" route.

BioShockers delivered from DRM hell

DRM == lost sales

That's it. End of story. I won't steal it, but I won't buy it, either.

DRM is properly termed "Technology Users' Rights Denial System," or TURDS for short.

I don't buy anything that contains TURDS (except lawn fertilizer).

I really want this game, too. Ah, well, I'll buy a new MP3 player - one without TURDS - instead.

Teen sticks Xbox 360 power supply in bowl of water

@ Andy Worth

I'll host it at the "personal or family" rate. Seems like it's a good way to improve the human "family."

So, what's the velocity of a sheep in a vacuum?

Corrections

"everyone knows that Welshmen do not in fact have intimate relations with sheep"

That's because the sheep are so bleedin' fast, but 'twere another story altogether if the Welshmen could start without the 6-pint handicap.

I do wish, however, that _El_Reg_ would stop using speed and velocity interchangably. According to dictionary.com (and my Science instructors, back in the day), speed can be in any direction*, whereas velocity is "A vector quantity whose magnitude is a body's speed and whose direction is the body's direction of motion." I'll grant you that dictionary.com makes that the secondary definition, but if you insist on writing a scientific article, you should stick to the accepted scientific definitions. Incidentally, you neglected to provide the most important unit of volume as defined in gf - how many gf in a pub pint?

* - and that direction can be quite random, to judge from the gits I see driving on the daily commute, particularly on Friday after work.

London man coughs to 172mph Porsche jaunt

Velocity? Or speed?

Does our author know there's a difference?

Movie pirate forced to ditch Linux

Not merely a felon, but a moron

Two computers - one really crappy one picked up at Goodwill for $20 running Windows 95 and the monitoring software (permanently browsing any web page that auto-refreshes from time to time). One decent one running Ubuntu.

Problem solved - and the Goodwill PC with Win95 is cheaper than any current version of Windows *without* a computer.

'Microsoft' to compensate 419 victims

@ Christopher Emerson

"If anyone falls for that I'll eat my hat."

I hope you've got a tasty hat; it is impossible to underestimate the intellectual prowess of greedy people.

Astronauts bring space-grown bugs home

@ Idgarad

"A more concerning issue that this may help is, if there is bacteria throughout the universe what prevents\assists alien bacteria and viruses moving from solar system to solar system."

Nothing. However, let's assume a meteoric body carrying some possibly-hostile bacteria from the Centaurus system, some 4+ lightyears distant, to good old Earth. Give it a really, really high speed in order to escape the gravity of the three stars in Centaurus (Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Centauri), say, 288,000 kmh. Assume for simplification that it will travel at a constant speed, and ignore the effects of gravitational slowing and acceleration, and give it a straight-line path.

A conservative underestimate of the distance is 36,329,472,000,000 km. At the speed postulated, that's 126,144,000 days or 345,600 years.

Seems like rather a long trip for a dubious meal. Good way to colonize distant planets, but not so good for invading planets which already have well-developed life with its own immune systems - and a chemistry which is likely to make it inedible or even toxic to our tiny unicellular cosmonauts.

Foxy Brown hauled off to jail

@ lansalot

"fling mobiles and blackberries at each other"

No, sorry. Live grenades. Last gangsta standing goes to prison for life. Good riddance to the rest of this humanoid garbage.

Is US Army ordering robot spy blimp?

@ stu

"my 94 year old grandfather could see it 10 miles away"

True - if he knew where to look. There's a manned airship that operates near my home more-or-less regularly; it's probably a good 4x the size of this unmanned blimp. The only times I see it are when it's near the horizon directly in front of me when I am driving home. If it's flying above 2,000 feet (or about 610 meters), the engines are quiet enough that I can't hear it above normal noises in my neighborhood.

I'm out actively looking for it frequently (so sad, I'm a blimp-spotter), but I still onlt see it once or twice a month.

The Army's version will not be on a predictable schedule, and it's more likely to be directly overhead than on the horizon, so will be effectively smaller visually - that's the same effect that makes a full Moon visually smaller overhead than on the horizon - and spotting it will take a great deal of luck. If it's flying at night, you'd have a better chance of spotting Fatima doing the Dance of Seven Veils 10 miles away (which would be preferred viewing anyhow if you were a normal man).

Crash bug blights Cisco IP phones

Happy enough

We use VoIP for voice calls to and from our remote offices in the US and Canada. Quality is equivalent (or superior) to POTS, with a uncommon "underwater gargling" effect when the bandwidth (also used for data) is saturated. That could probably be fixed with a QoS patch to prioritize voice, but it really isn't important enough to bother.

At home, I have what is essentially VoIP on my fibre data feed, and only rarely do I notice anything less that the quality (or lack of it) we got with POTS. It's vastly superior to the voice quality of my cellular service (I'm on Verizon and have used AT&T, Sprint, and a couple of smaller cellular phones. The kindest thing I can say is that Verizon sucks less than the others).

AMD's marketing chief bails ahead of Barcelona

If I were a MCP...

I'd say something about the time of the month, but really, I think it's just El Reg reporters trying to one-up each other with their little digs at the people in the news.

There's really f*ck-all news in this story without the snide remarks.

UN moves to preserve Bounty mutineers' lingo

re: begging for a punchline

"Someone else can do the Norfolk joke about talking with a mouthful of turnip (or relative)"

Is there a DNA test to determine whether it's a turnip, or a relative? Or would that test be inconclusive?

The tweed, third from left, thank you.

CNET insists Google ads are good for you - and fun!!!

Oooh, I don't think I want to see that...

"If you look at the bog posts from, say, Peter Glaskowsky"

One hopes he has plenty of bog paper.

Serial eBay fraudster jailed for two years

Solution to the overcrowded prisons problem

Divestiture of citizenship, and deportation. Deportation not to some paradise like Australia, but deportation to Iran, Libya, Gaza, Mongolia, North Korea, or a similar "Peoples' Paradise." Deportation without documents of any kind, with only the cloths on his back, no wallet, no jewelry, nothing. No need to ask the permission of the destination government, either; it's not as if these are people we want as friends. Well, I suppose a parachute might be a reasonable possession, and perhaps 5 minutes of instruction would be a gift that's appreciated at some point.

It's not capital punishment; it's an opportunity to learn how to get along in a world where hard work and honesty are rewarded (with a casket around age 35).

Broadbandit nabbed in Wi-Fi bust

@ Oscar

"I've seen an ALARMING amount of machines set to accept all incoming Wi-Fi connections with SSID names like "Free public Wifi""

Windows is designed to default to connect to *any* wireless connection it can find; it's the operating system of choice for idiots, and therefor it's meant to help idiots do what they want to do, no matter how stupid that thing they want to do may be.

Take a look here http://blogs.chron.com/techblog/archives/2006/09/free_public_wif.html for a more in-depth (and less rabidly anti-morons) description of the problem.

The first thing I do after a Windows install is check the "connect only to access points" box in the wifi control settings, thus eliminating the problem of my field people finding themselves connected via a "man in the middle" when they're trying to VPN back into Corporate HQ.

Naomi Campbell piles into Vogue

Naomi Campbell is BlacK?

And female? I couldn't tell from looking, has anyone got a certified DNA test?

No curves, and to judge from the courts' commentary, the self-control of a 12-year-old boy... Hmmmm.

Perhaps "she" can't get on the cover of _Vogue_ because they've discovered the truth - what's under that kilt isn't a zuchinni, after all.

Microsoft vs. Google – the open source shame

@ Tam Lin

"Unlike Microsoft, Google has never had period of non-evil. Microsoft's reign of evil began with Ballmer"

Where were you in the Eighties, Tam Lin? I remember MS-DOS 2.x and later, and Bill Gates was an evil arsehole back then. Nothing has changed at Microsoft except the *face* in front of the evil. Oh, and the fear that they *won't* control the entire world - that's a welcome change.

Amazon punts grot flicks to hardcore Natalie Portman fans

@ Liam

If I understand this correctly, you are a *former* Amazon customer - and they continue to send you unsolicited bulk commercial email.

That's what we call "spam" out here on the Innanet.

Amazon has a history of that sort of thing; it's why I am not nor, nor will I ever be, a spAmazon customer.

US boffins demo steampunk artificial arm

@ Luke Adam Oglesby

"Anyone else slightly disturbed by the fact they gave it a gun at the end of the video?"

Yes. That should have been the first thing done after final tuning.

El Reg protests North Korean internet domain

Inaccurate

"I think the point is that those who can't spot a joke are more likely to be American, not that all Americans can't spot jokes."

As a former professional entertainer*, I have to tell you that the British are the best people in the world to have in the audience during a comic's act; they laugh at every joke three times. You see, the British culture (at least of those sufficiently well-off to purchase an admission ticket) has taught then to be unfailingly polite. Thus, whenever a comic tells a joke, the Brits laugh, because they are so polite. Then when the comic explains the joke, the Brits laugh, because they are so polite. And an hour later, the Brits laugh, when they "get it."

* - Stnad-up comic, children's clown, US Army Mech Infantry Bradley commander, IT tech, Web hosting company CEO... I'm a man for all sorts of comedy.

Customers can sue AT&T, after all

Hidden clauses

In the US, it is extremely common for cell phone providers to deal with customers in a brisk fashion, and rush them through the sign-up process. Sometimes the whole transaction is telephonic, and the new cell phone is sent through the Post; the customer is asked something incomprehensible, "agrees" to it verbally, and has no idea what was just asked.

I love my country, but I fear my government, and despise the corporations which obviously own it.

Sensible, practical anti-terror tech shocker

Can't be done, it's not expensive enough

"Apparently, Lin's five-year biosensor programme is costing the US taxpayers just $3.5m"

That'll be binned, then. No project costing less than a billion dollars ever survives the porkbarrelling negotiations.

And @ Graham Bartlett: this device is to determine if a *human* has been exposed, not to see if the local area is contaminated. We use canaries for that (infinitely more sensitive, and as a nice side benefit, they sing prettily while they're otherwise idling).

Patch Tuesday update triggered Skype outage

Re: Inadequate choices

"Just because the user isn't watching the screen doesn't mean that the machine isn't doing essential tasks that shouldn't be interrupted."

Oh, be serious! Even Microsoft knows that no one does anything essential using MS Windows. That's why it's OK to reboot spontaneously whenever there's an application crash (or are you unaware of the default settings for that?).

If you're doing something essential, you should be using a real OS, not the Xbox Game Console OS.

Boeing touts feeble Hummer-mounted raygun

@ Karim Bourouba

In the USA, a project which is championed by the Senator or Congressperson whose district stands to benefit most from that project is referred to as a "porkbarrel" project. I believe that comes from the barrel of salt port which was the standard rations on sailing ships a century or more ago. As a rule, lawmakers trade pork with each other: "I'll vote for your Boeing ray guns if you vote for my tobacco farmer subsidies."

Gentoo cuts key parts of itself from net for its own good

@ Peter

"Microsoft must be having a big party this weekend..."

While the latest zero-day exploits for all versions of Windows and MS Office allow malware distributors free access to hundreds of thousands of consuerm and business PCs, until the September "Patch Tuesday."

Yeah, great.

I think I'll stick with an OS that let's *me* find the security holes by looking at the source code, and tell anyone I like (including the original authors), thanks anyhow.