Posts by Samuel Pickard

Windows Phone market share hits double digits in UK and France

Re: Horrible abuse of statistics

Yes, I agree, but the quote is

"nearly one in eight phones in the UK now running Windows Phone"

Which explicitly states that it is referring to all devices, not new sales.

Horrible abuse of statistics

Oh, Register, oh how you've been mislead and how you mislead.

Of all the industries I've worked in, then mobile is the most plagued by inaccurate reporting of statistics.

"nearly one in eight phones in the UK now running Windows Phone"

Really? Have a look on a bus in Leicester. Or do you mean this?

"nearly one in eight phones _sold in the UK last quarter_ is running Windows Phone"

Or even (and far more likely)

"nearly one in eight _smartphones_ _sold in the UK last quarter_ is running Windows Phone"

Sounds like one for the BBC and the 'More or Less' team.

Ex-Sun man Bray takes on paranoid Android role at Google

Hmm I must be a dick too.

What is the problem - I've just read it and I agree with him. Have I missed something?

Chris Morris jihad film good to go

The Guardian's exclusive clip?

The Guardian has this clip as an 'exclusive' http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2010/jan/21/chris-morris-four-lions-sundance - yeah, just you, El Reg and YouTube

Talking DAB and the future of radio

I really like DAB

OK, I feel like Billy No-Mates now. I really love DAB. I don't notice any quality difference in the audio quality, but admittedly I listen to Radio 4, 5Live and 7. I quite agree with him when he says that people complain about the audio quality when they mean the reception quality. He know that needs to improve. Does Absolute Radio on medium wave really sound better than on DAB?

Web 0.2 archivists save Geocities from deletion

This is a serious task

Well done that man. In 10 years time I want to be able to tell my son that I was there at the beginning of the web. I remember when animated gifs were the coolest thing on the planet; I've seen web pages with 20 frames, none of which quite fitted properly; I remember a time before CSS and DHTML; I remember how the web changed when Netscape 3 was released. I want to be able to show him these pages so he can poor scorn on his old Dad.

All this is after I teach him BASIC on my BBC Master though.

Mines the one with the spinning logo.

Apple cracks down on rogue app stores

So, how am I allowed to distribute iPhone apps?

Right, if I'm commissioned by a business to write an app for their own use (err, OK, perhaps an app for British Gas - each repairman has an iPhone with my app which tells them their calls for that day - for instance)

does this mean that it has to be approved and go on the app store? Can't I just put it on my site for the British Gas technical staff to install on everyone's iPhone. WTF?

Merchants and punters cry foul over Verified by Visa

Password policy is driving me to be less secure

My biggest problem with VbV and SecureCode is their password policy. I can see all the small steps they've made, and why individually why they're more secure, but the overall result is that I'm never sure what my password is.

So the password has to have a minimum length, intercapped, characters and digits - pretty standard. But passwords like this can be difficult to remember, but not impossible and its my cards right, so I should pay attention.

Then, instead of entering the password, I'm asked for three characters from it, and I find myself counting out what I think my password is on my fingers. And I get it wrong. Did I miscount or have I mis-remembered. So I try what I think it is again, and again its rejected. So I rack my brains for what else it may be, enter my best guess, find I've got it wrong again and now my password is disabled.

So I complete the form to reset the password (which is waayyy easier to break than my password), and for my new password I enter what I thought it should be in the first place. It then tells me that I've used that password and I have to think of (yet) another password for it. I try to make it sensible and memorable, but not obvious. I find adapting Bob Dylan lyrics particularly good for this (7h3yllst0n3y0uwh3ny0ur3ly1ng0nth3fl00r), but I now know that I'll have a problem remembering this next month when I want to use the card again.

So I end up emailing myself my password, in plain text, effectively nullifying their attempt at security, and now its my fault if my account gets hacked as I've sent my password though the internet.