Posts by SteveNZ

3.2 billion pixel sky-watcher a step closer

@PFFT

Give it a few years, and the iPhone 10 will probably come as standard with a 3.2 (or is that 3.4?) Gpixel camera

RIM's BlackBerry OS 6 may be too late to fend off Apple

@Citizen Kaned

With a BIS account (compulsory anyway on many carriers) you can link to any email account out of the box and with no software. What BES(E) gives you is CONTROL and functions way beyond what your ipod can give you.

How about running a search on my 2GB mail store - could my ipod achieve that in a short time - nope - but I can on my 9000 (OS5) with BESe.

It's not hard to set up - and once it is, the two way sync, email functionality, actual PHONE functionality, contacts, calendar - almost everything beats all other handsets I've owned (exception of web browser- iphone/pod wins hands down on that - maybe OS6 / WebKit will fix that one)

And OS5 works great on the 9000, is easy to install - and it's pretty hard to brick a blackberry since even a badly loaded or corrupt OS doesn't brick the phone cos the loader is still active.

'Secure' PayPal page is... you guessed it

Well.... if we are using Wikipedia as the truth....

Looks like Netscape had the edge by a few months....

Netscape Communicator 4, which supported HTML mail was released in July 1997. Since Outlook Express's predecessor, included with IE3 - "MS Internet Mail and News" (get it - that's where msimn.exe comes from!) did NOT support HTML mail, it was the first version of OE - bundled with IE4 in Sep/Oct 2007 that provided MS's first dive into this fire....

So - without spending hours finding out who was first - looks like at least it ai'n uncle Bill's fault - this time!

Bill Gates chuckles at Google Apps

@ Anonymous with the Worthless Opinion.....

So you don't think that Google think voice searching is a good idea?.....

http://www.google.com/goog411/

Difference between Google and Microsoft....

You know it's funny to watch and try and be impartial to all these comments. Google has done a wonderful thing - commercially I mean - it's kinda like the old adage about Satan - the greatst thing Google has ever done is convince the world that it's not about the money.

And Money is the root of it all - we just seem to believe that Google isn't making it faster than the average mint. (the one with money, not the strong taste). Google is our "friend".

Everyone hates Microsoft - and why - is it the bugs, is it the exploits, is it the poorly written software... no. It's not. All software has bugs - the exploits come as a result - not of the quantity of bugs.... but the exposure those bugs get. Poorly written software - some of the Linux releases I've seen have been terrible... hard to use, hard to configure, hard to learn - but we accept it because it's free - thank you world for such a wonderful free tool.

Google (our "friend") has built a whole mythology on this concept - and good on them too. Google starts by creating a search engine better, more friendly and seemingly more accurate than the rest. They give us that for nothing - free - gratis - out of the goodness of their hearts. Google is our "friend".

Now when you search they show paid adverts - but never mind - they are somethimes helpful, and well targeted - so we don't mind them - even like them - Google is our "friend"

The best (arguably) free email client (concept stolen from Hotmail - which didn't used to be MS anyway)... same but with a cool new organisational method and almost limitless (and growing!!) space. All this for free - Google is our "friend".

and more... free apps, utilities, toolbars (Hey MS - We'll beat you to one of your best loved Vista features by stealing the concept), local search tools .... and of course the best mapping and planet visualisation tools (noone wonders where all the money comes from to buy that data....) Google is our "friend"

How is this paid for - well those friendly adverts on almost any site you visit these days - as intrusive as most banners and popups (more so in some cases), and they analyze and chop and shape (and use and ultimately in some form or other sell) our demographic and web use data - but we don't mind this - they give us so much for free - they are our friend. But still the money (ultimately OUR MONEY!) rolls in - just not quite as directly.... and we welcome it.

People hate Microsoft because they see paying for the products as a tax. Everyone hates the licensing model, and everyone hates Microsoft.... but do they invade your life a sneakily and underhandedly as our "friends" - that's an exercise to the reader.

I use all three technologies in the areas they work best (Ie MS, Google, Linux) and others too.... and I hate paying the MS tax on everything as much as you do... but that alone isn't enough to consider everyone other than MS to be holier.....

Dreaded Blue Screen of Death mars some Leopard installs

@Thynis

1: You may be right - hard to tell - no comparison here - tho PS has always really been better on a mac...

2: Try this from http://www.winvistaclub.com/t22.html

If you find that your screen resolution keeps changing, on every re-start or re-boot of your computer, here are a few suggestions you can try :

1) Ensure that your Drivers are up-to-date.

2) Disable the screen saver and see if it helps.

3) Else, 'Run' msconfig. Then, on the Boot Tab, ensure that the BaseVideo option is un-checked. Re-start.

4) Try changing the Power Settings, to allow for Sleep Mode, when sharing media.

Then from an administrative command prompt, 'Run'

powercfg -h on

3, turn off UAC (see http://www.petri.co.il/disable_uac_in_windows_vista.htm if you've never done it before)

4: Not seen that behaviour before - are your wireless drivers up to date - my vista laptop connects as soon as logged in. Areyou changing access points between starts?

5: Recycle bin is more convenient than the "Delete" key?? never use it... I spent all my time trying to hack it away in XP! :)

6: "Home" versions don't support RDP 'in' - there are hacks out there though ... google "Termsrv.dll "

7: Again .. not seen too many reall problems - only ones I've seen all ended up with someone forgetting to allow/modify/turn off windows firewall - maybe your issues lie here...

Good Luck!!!!!

Steve

Teen accused of hacking emergency 911 system

Hacking the system

It's easy if you have (or can socially engineer...) access to a PABX.

It's fairly trivial to set the outgoing CLI over ISDN lines - this is how companies with big phone systems still manage to send the caller ID of a persons DDI number - despite the fact the actual call may have com from one of many IDSN lines...

Set CLI to random house, make call to 911, bingo.

Despite all the technology - emergency services (and other things - such as mobile phone voicemailboxes etc!) still rely on good old caller ID to to their work (of course emergency services see even CLI blocked numbers)

Sinclair ZX Spectrum: 25 today

The little black box that launched a million careers.....

It's got to be hard for anyone outside the UK to appreciate the significance of the Speccy. As someone "up there" rightly said - it was the price that really made it special.

It was technically capable (just) to keep up with the competition - but it's price meant that most families could afford one... and this price meant that an unprecedented and vast range of software was available.

Of course the tape based software was easy to copy (mostly) - and this meant almost everyone had lots and lots of games.

I am honestly shocked that nobody mentioned the iconic "Manic Miner" easily the most addictive game in the spectrum catalogue (even more than Chucky Egg). Of course, even after 20-odd years I can remember the cheat instructions...

Stop Tape when screen goes black

BREAK

25 Poke 35136,0

RUN

Start Tape again.

This gave you infinite lives, and, i believe, the only real way to complete the game!

I had a 48k rubber key and a +2 (not the nasty A version!)

I had a light pen and a RAM Music Machine - MIDI sequencng and sampling !!! (a whole 1.5 seconds of sample time! ... "n-n-n-n-n-nineteen" <-- you had to be there in the 80s)

PSION VU-3D was incredible, I have happy memories of making a video "splash screen" for some home movies with a full 3D video tape animted...

Then there were the Text adventures.... Hobbit (of course), Ten little indians, Wizard of Akyrz, Circus...

...ahhh happy days... HAPPY BIRTHDAY SPECCY!!!!