Posts by Colin Wilson 176 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Apr 2007
Nicely put together, simple and effective installer front-end for newbies, but on my box using Wubi, the first "user-interaction" upon rebooting asks me what settings I want to import or click forward to bypass. I can't bypass OR import settings, as the "forward" button never becomes active.
Off to file a report with Canonical now !
I take it you're both in the US, yet still moaning about fuel costs - time to get a grip, you've got it soooo easy compared to the UK !
Right now, regular unleaded ("gas") 95RON is around £1.06 per litre, and diesel is around £1.16 per litre.
This equates to $2.10 per litre, or $7.95 per (US) gallon of gas, and $2.30 per litre of diesel, or $8.70 per (US) gallon
Richard - I believe you're thinking of Frak! (not Frank!)
I too only got as far as Deadly on Elite, but, and I haven't seen it mentioned elsewhere in the comments, everyone go google RIGHT NOW for this little gem (now "officially" removed following a complaint* by David Braben - yes, THAT David Braben)
Elite TNK (The New Kind) by Christian Pinder
It's Elite as you knew and loved it on the BBC, fully ported (bugs and all) to the modern PC.
Seriously, go - now - and find an illicit download :-)
*David Braben was "forced" to act to protect his rights after someone used the source for TNG to compile a PDA version, and stupidly included a copyright notice - which they had no right to do.
Damn, I *so* wanted a thargoid or cargo logo for this comment !
Each country will have to have it's own borders set up to fingerprint immigrants...
I'm missing something here, i'm sure, but I fail to see the motivation to saddle themselves with "returned" immigrants from the intended's eventual destination.
Is this like the way the french are so keen to stop the immigrants in camps like Sangatte from moving to british soil ?
"If you run software that ONLY works on windows then it's a bit pointless people saying install Linux or get a Mac"
How about you download VirtualBox for free for either of those platforms, and install your OS of necessity as a virtual machine (using your existing legit license code(s) of course), while continuing to use the benefits of the other OSs you mention :-)
My machine boots '95 in 10 secs, '98 in 18 secs, 2k in 40 secs, and I can back them up or restore from a backup very quickly and easily.
It's what Microsoft gained from their unlawful use of his software, and in turn should pay punitive damages on top of the yet-to-be-agreed fees for abusing their position of "trust".
It's all well and good teaching kids about copyrights, but when they themselves blatantly ignore copyrights of others, they should pay a fair market rate.
They were happy enough to sell licences for others to use "their" goods without lawful authority, now it's time to pay.
Let's face it, what they're paying him is chump change compared to the profits made from their illegal use of HIS software - it's probably not even a single days' interest on Bill's billions, a significant proportion of which is directly attributable to sales of Office.
I notice that they only seem to be offering information on new / hideous / unused / unwanted / unloved protocols...
Can anyone clarify whether they've ever released full file specs (word etc) for earlier and far more commonly used products ?
(Paris, because it's the only one with a question mark)
Perhaps this was a joke (not sure, didn't read into it too hard), but I wonder how you do CRB checks on foreign nationals to see whether they have known "tendencies" towards kids ?
...what if their country of origin keeps little in the way of records, or they just haven't been caught here yet ?
Paris, because i'm sure she's safe around kids too...
The talk about the number of updates between the two systems, and the relative security offered by both need to be looked at in context.
Take two machines...
1) Install the standard WinXP (first release, not SP2, which was basically a complete re-write - or for that matter, use SP2, it still has holes) - DON'T use a seperate firewall, virus checker, or spyware detection, and don't bother updating - most users are still too dumb to bother - if you're really brave (should that be stupid?) try browsing a few salubrious sites.
2) Install linux (pick a flavour, any flavour). Don't update etc as above.
Stick both online, and see how long they last before they're completely owned by an unknown third party.
Going back 2 years or so, the lifespan of a "virgin" XP box was down to about 8 seconds of first being connected to the internet before it was well and truly rogered and turned into someone elses' bot-bitch.
If the linux machine lasts more than that, you have your winner.
I wonder how long before the UK government use their shiny new DNA database to track errant "fathers" - not only to reclaim benefits already paid for a child, but to stitch them up for all future maintenance payments.
Not only would you be able to get a match via direct DNA match, they could extrapolate "supposed" familial matches to widen the net to get offspring of people already in the database to narrow the search.
If the data could be trusted and 100% accurate, no problem - the issue here is it isn't. The error and false positive rate is soaring as the database fills.
One of the best articles you're likely to find on what the government won't tell you is wrong about DNA matching (and they've actively tried to get the page removed from the net) can be found by searching for "nutteingdq" or "nutteing2" in google.
(don't bother using the newest Firefox beta on these pages though, as it crashes on mine :-})
The guy should have been "de-arrested" - he will no longer be able to get into the US without having to phuck about getting a visa in person* in either London or Ireland now (I think they're the only two embassies in the UK).
* having been arrested, he is no longer able to sign the standard visa waiver prior to landing
They've seen the "best" that Microsoft had to offer (Vista hehe) and don't want to be associated with them !
On a slightly related note, is this "takeover" not also a tacit admission that Microsoft can't code shit^H^H (cough) create a half decent search engine, and have to do their usual - buy a company that can ?
1) allow keyloggers to be installed on all their machines that may (or may not) contain sensitive data, and collate data about all websites they visit
2) publish this data automatically to a public website
3) install a password-free VNC server for everyone to see what they're doing...
4) automatically assume they're guilty themselves for anything that may be legally dubious, copied, plaguarised, have a couple of bytes that coincidentally happen to be the same as someone elses couple of bytes who may have had them first, and most importantly, pay their standard "fee" to anyone who asks for it on this basis...
...THEN I might consider letting them install the same shyte on mine !
I already recommend that route to anyone who has had malware issues in Windows - it's not worth the risk of hoping the often-most-useful removal utils (i.e. those supported and recommended by sites like CastleCops - and usually written by mere mortals for free distribution) are 100% effective, given the speed at which new variants can update themselves.
That said, it's a great idea - and for the small cost of knocking out a few discs sounds like a winner to me !
Question is - which do they use, and how well supported is the hardware across the distribs... Ubuntu is fairly good, but I suspect Knoppix (especially the DVD release) has better support for hardware - but then you have the issue of crap USB modem drivers rearing its' ugly head.
Perhaps all the UK banks could get together and split the cost, putting their IP addresses in - but it may then highlight any deficiencies in their own websites which may (or may not) fail under linux due to bad coding or reliance on unsafe / non-standard IE extensions (did I hear Barclays had issues recently, possibly with Safari ?)
Who the f**k would want (or choose) to use fister ?
Lets see now - correct me if i'm wrong - i'm sure i'm missing something :-) :
a) a much slower and heavily crippled OS where content is concerned
b) in a restricted pool of memory where 2GB is only just "get out of bed"
c) on emulated hardware, where even real hardware runs like a bag of sh!t
Nah, i'll pass !
(it isn't even worth adding "thanks" to that)
I'm getting old - the Amiga could do a GUI desktop in <300K (even with pinching screen memory from RAM) and was as happy as larry with 2Mb, multitasking with the best of them.
You can:
1) fly to the US (although we prefer Canada)
2) buy it at an Apple store
3) fly home
4) declare the purchase to customs and pay the import duties
5) send off the claim form to get the sales tax back from Canada
...and it'd STILL BE F*CKING CHEAPER than Apple are trying to sell it to UK buyers for :-/
Switch off all the tellytubby eyecandy XP throws at you, and go back to classic mode - your machine will be more responsive, and won't look like it was another botched Mrs "Bob" Gates project...
Sure, this cunning plan will fail if enough people do it to make it obvious, but as a starter for ten...
Paris icon used because she probably likes tellytubbies.
It'd be interesting to find out what a £20 note is actually worth now against real world objects compared to the £1 when it left circulation... (ignoring the crap the government put out about inflation, excluding "major" factors such as the cost of fuel, which it has continually milked for additional tax)
I think my first pay packet as an apprentice in 1985 was for £192
"The new rules permit the Borders & Immigration Agency (BIA) to levy civil penalties"
It seems that many legally dubious "grey" areas of law are now being set up as "civil" cases so as to avoid proper burden of proof and testing in court.
Just look at parking deregulation, and the number of scams going on with that now.
No reason to be stuck in that situation, just remember to pay by credit card - the card issuer is jointly liable under Sec.75 of the consumer credit act once the cost gets above £100 (as low as £50 for some card issuers), and if the vendor plays hardball or acts dumb, you simply go to the credit card company and tell them to get sort it out.
Going for the card issuer not only puts the ball in their court, but it also lets them know a vendor is unreliable and unwilling to fulfill their legal obligations.
Those with a long enough memory will remember extended warranties bought with a computer from Tiny had to be paid for by the credit card companies.
I suspect this will become a much more common attack vector in the future (along with rootkit-alike hacks), given that most malware is now network aware, and automatically updates itself to keep one step ahead of the AV / Anti-Spyware companies.
Perhaps we need some sort of "master" DNS server system for financial institutions, which must authenticate results from a non-master DNS server's results.
In the short term, perhaps banks should give out their actual IP address on any statement, with a small explanation why they no longer give out "human readable" web addresses.
Since several people seem to have asked why you can't just switch off updates - might I humbly suggest you do some reading on the subject.
Microsoft don't follow user settings, nor do they abide by the rules of the Trusted Computing Group (http://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org), of which they are members, by ignoring the basic principles, such as "The owner controls the trust relationship."
You could do worse than starting here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/14/microsoft_dispels_stealth_update_rumors/
My next machine *will* run linux. No way in hell will I ever touch Fister !
If they didn't have the file to begin with (actually, who cares whether they did or not), why are they being asked to call to justify why they cannot find it ?
I wonder if Davenports will try to coerce people into installing something like VNC (which might be a security risk in itself) on their system so they can check^H^H^Hsnoop in person ?
The recipients of the letters are the people being accused of a civil breach of copyright - it should be down to the accuser to prove that, and not the defendant to do the legwork for them.
I wonder if anyone did download the files in question, whether they did so because of an unreliable DRM / rootkit technology that prevented or limited their use of the product they paid for...
The offender is, and should only be liable for damages for tracks she herself distributed personally - and then only for the number of instances to those she directly distributed the file to.
No further breaches of file-sharing by a third party to whom she had no knowledge or influence over should be relevant.
Kids used to learn about basic electronics by being able to build their own simple tuners (i.e. cats' whiskers radios) - by forcing the change to a digital format the government will be closing off yet another simple introduction to the sciences we've fallen so far behind in teaching.
FWIW I don't have a digital radio, and see no reason why I should have to have to pay excessive amounts to replace perfectly good equipment.
I suspect the enforced change to digital TV will cause an enormous amount of carbon "waste" emissions - both in the early disposal of existing equipment and the manufacture of new equipment (set top boxes etc.which will no doubt be "updated" every few years requiring new purchases to be made).
Am I missing something, but are about half of the titles on offer over ~four years old (more resampled shyte to "make" them HD ?) - and the newer titles being distinctly "average" in their IMDB scores ?
I wonder if this is more of a case of dumping old stock they can't otherwise sell wrapped up in an "offer" to make it sound interesting.
Add to that DRM that prevents you from doing what you want with a legitimate purchase - i'd rather use a blag copy and be able to watch it anywhere !
Maybe it's time we started to see the IP address of people posting comments.
While it isn't the direction Microsoft want people to take ("upgrading" to XP rather than "degrading" to Vista), perhaps the consumer really should be given that option by default.
Just because a car manufacturer brings out a new Coupe doesn't mean everyone will want or need it - sometimes you need a people carrier to get where you want to be. Putting a different badge on the boot of the Coupe doesn't mean it gives you the functionality you need.
One fly in the ointment is the way Microsoft blatantly ignored peoples' update settings and forced through a set of updates recently that hadn't been asked for or agreed to - and i'm sure many people have had "issues" with updates that either broke the machine or dragged down performance to Vista levels.
...Some of you may know what I mean i.e. installing .NET 3.x - if this was forcibly rolled out to customers without asking, you'd have to move to linux !
The more recent idea of "backporting" Vista^H^HKafka-esque functionality to XP is also a little worrying.
Thankfully Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon is out in four days, and will install to a file under NTFS using Wubi offering dual boot capability - you can have the best of both worlds without risking your primary OS :-)
Funny you should mention that you can't find a linux distrib that runs on your Win98 box - people had been working on linux since 1991 using even slower equipment than yours - they didn't take a 10 year break to wait until new equipment made it worthwhile.
Perhaps you need to find yourself an old distrib, Redhat 5.x perhaps. If you're desperate, i'm sure i've got it around here somewhere - you can find my email address over at http://www.coreutilities.co.uk
...Wait... you mean you want a new distrib with all the features ? - if you're so sure it should work, go and buy Vista for it. If you're so sure a new linux distrib should work on it, i'm sure Vista will too !
*You* might be able to get in to a parking space, but the car either side of you is going to have to gently "shove" your new gadget out of the way to get out themselves. This will be neither use nor ornament to anyone unless all cars have the same facility.
Why do you think it completely failed last time ?
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