Posts by Graham Lockley

Music in China: The Inside Story

Re:Where is the WTO?

Never mind them, where is everybodies favourite pigopolist ?

Would be fun watching them try to clamp down on illegal copies in China :)

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard - Finder

Whats that smell ?

'I mean OS X is built on solid foundation. Vista is just Microsoft Windows. Does't that say it all!'

Someone left the catflap open and something crept in and left a 'fanboi' on the carpet.

:D

(Vista is POOR INCARNATION of windows, to be precise)

Seagate's US customers get refund

Who cares

So Seagate get their wrist slapped for something any computer savvy person knew anyway. 1Gb is 1024mb, always has been and always will be. If not then why arent memory chips and various other components measured as 1000 ? Or does this mean my PC has been 'upgraded' and now has 2.1Gb of memory ? In other words, why should HD manufacturers be allowed to count differently from all the other component makers !

DARPA looking to verify imported military chips

Scary

'All your bases are belong to us' takes on a new meaning :)

Lords debate airline liquids ban

Moron ?

'You're all F*** morons, you want one of these going off in the cabin on your next flight?'

Wouldnt want to be sat next to it (probably sting a bit) but its unlikely to bring an aircraft down ? Unless it was upscaled to a good few gallons, but then security etc. may start to notice.

Hundreds for chop as Tiscali launches Pipex jobs purge

Me Too

You can add yet another ex-Pipex customer to the lists above and yet another one who held them in high regard. Fortunately I bailed out round about the time Ti(ts up)scali got their mitts on the company so I didnt have to put up with the 'support' others have.

Motorola Razr 2 V8 mobile phone

But still...

... even if it is the latest model, being seen using one marks you down as a Chav :)

Tool opens iPhone, iPod Touch via web

Am I missing something ?

Isnt this a little worrying, that the product can be hacked remotely and so easily ? How long before the malware crowd start to take notice of this trick ?

What a wonderful thought, Zombie iPhones spewing out Viagra spam :)

BOFH: A foray into HR

Back on form

Alcohol, IT and violence all nicely mixed in the same story. Simons back on form :)

Oh and isnt Stella something that the docs prescribe as a diuretic ? Or it tastes like the result of administering one ?

Whats the matter Stella boy ?

:)

ISP blows the whistle on router chip 'fault'

Sorry but...

'I'm with Bulldog, an LLU line. Yes, Bulldog!!! :-) I put my successes down to the fact that I'm not with BT.'

Im afraid you only hand off in the exchange, the cable up to Bulldogs equipment is still the same as everyone elses and this is the area that causes most problems. When you went LLU, the wires between you and the exchange didnt get magically altered :)

Apple iPhone is AT&T's top-selling handset - analyst

@Maliciously Crafted Packet & Pooper Scooper

And neither of you will understand why the rest of the world looks on and shakes its head sadly

Ubuntu goes 3-D

Who Cares ?

Most of the above chatter simply illustrates, for me, why Linux will struggle to enter the home and displace MS.

Me at PC World: I want a computer

Salesman:Certainly sir, heres a nice Dell, what OS would you like on it ? Windows or Linux ?

Me: Err Linux ?

Salesman: Certainly sir, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Mandriva... (100 names later) ? And which grapical front end to go with it?

Me: Sod it, cripple it with Vista

And until all the Nux geeks can stop bitching it will remain that way for Joe Public. In the meantime, good luck Ubuntu and I look forward to a really successful launch of Stoned Stoat :)

(oh I have a TM on that, just in case LOL)

Terminator will be back in 2009

The PHA ?

Surely the PHA is that she becomes the saviour of the human race by bravely giving her body up as a sperm bank to preserve a wide variety of human DNA ?

</hat-coat-exit>

MSI lets slip AMD 790FX mobo

The way it goes

'Where the BLOODY HEll are my 33Mhz, 32bit PCI Slots?!?'

Getting scarcer on all mobos Im afraid, most stuff we used to slap on PCI now tends to get stuck on USB 2.0 (modems/video capture/tv tuners etc.) or built on to the board (sound/LAN etc.)

Yeah it sucks a little, the inside of the pc has the clutter reduced but it gets transferred to the clutter of USB cables that hang off most modern PC's

DRM on steroids controls backfires on Blu-ray

Blu-Ray ready for mainstream ?

How can they consider this medium as mainstream when you have to hook up your player to a broadband connection to get a disk to work ? Guess what ? NOT EVERYONE HAS AN INTERNET CONNECTION.

Even if they did, do they imagine that the average joe would realise they need a firmware update ? How many 'man-in-the-street' types would actually understand what firmware was ?

Come back in a few years when you have sorted this sh*t out and Joe Soap can buy a player that just works.

Australian court rings to the sound of satisfaction

RE:at least ...

"at least it wasn't male sounds"

It lasted 20 secs, if it had been male then there would have been at least 10 secs of snoring :D

O2 lurches into MySpace

The Real Prize

Now lets talk about the REAL Holy Grail for the phone companies, mobile access to Sadlife with ad revenue :)

Vista Business sales soar like leaping dachshund

Volume Keys

"The home market is clearly the driving force behind Vista so far and they won't have the availability of volume licence keys."

The ready patched ISO's of Vista are freely available with volume keys, automatic updates work fine etc. If anything its easier to install one of these rather than a genuine copy of Vista, no buggering about with activation etc.

Everything Ive read so far just convinces me that in reality we have no idea how many copies are installed, as opposed to the number actually sold.

Apple reminds customers who's boss

Love it !

Seems that there are two things that will fill El Reg's postbag. Stories about Christianity and stories about Apple/iPhone etc.

Maybe the hacks at Vulture Central could invent a piece about Jobs offering an iPhone to God (as one deity to another).

Now the reactions to that would be fun to watch :)

Judge parks 172mph Porsche driver for 10 weeks

YadaYada

"Speed doesn't cause accidents, crap drivers cause accidents"

Yeah, trouble is its easier to measure speed and to quantify the effects (on the human body).

Mind you its easy to measure crap drivers, they are all the ones who are travelling more slowly than me ...

Ramones sticksman sues Apple and Wal-Mart

Nope

"He was by miles the fastest drummer The Ramones ever had, is Richie slowing down in his old age?"

Nope he's getting up to speed and realising that by suing he can get far more bucks than he could from royalties from a few semi-obscure songs. Dont blame the guy for trying tho.

Chuck Norris to do battle in El Reg Arena of Death

Well I Suppose

The IT angle on this story is possibly the lame Photoshop illustration :)

Messaging snafu madness blows pot deal up in smoke

Reefer ?

I seem to recall thats a sort of jacket worn by certain young types such as Marlon Brando :)

Apple coughs up G4 refunds to dissatisfied Danes

Now why wont I buy a laptop ???

Reading through the above only reinforces my belief that laptops etc. shouldnt be treated as anything other than disposable computers. I have a (4 year old) Acer laptop that (mostly) works but is used for those times when the main PC is unavailable or not convenient. On the other hand my main PC was bought from Escom (remember them ?) back in 1989 and has slowly evolved into what it is now without the trauma of losing everything at any point. OK so the floppy is the only original part (I think it still works OK, been so long since I tried it) but at no point have I had to start afresh or send it off for a few weeks only to have all my data wiped.

NBC unveils self-destructing, ad-addled anti-iTunes service

They still dont get it

"We're guessing that our overseas readers won't have access to NBC Direct. The service isn't likely to be accessible outside the U.S. Our overseas always get the long the end of the stick."

Well a little bit of IP redirection/spoofing would probably sort that but really... who cares ?

Firstly, I cant think of a single TV show that originated in the USA that Ive felt a desperate urge to watch as soon as its aired (actually very few Ive wanted to watch at all but thats another story)

Secondly, if I did have such a desperate urge then lets consider the choices. I could download from the official NBC site and be able to watch ( for a week only ) an ad laced programme or I could download a pirated version via a torrent with no adverts and no expiry .

Difficult choice ?

Kung fu monks battle Colombian karate assassins

Dimac ??

"now if only he knew DImac too he would be invincible (if you get that one, congratulations your as sad as me!)"

Goddamit Im a 10th Dan Master and Im not as sad as you.

If anyone wants to disagree they will find me down at the Flying Swan in Gods country, ready to take all the posers in the poll on.

Boffins develop Terminator-vision goggles

Dont dream it

"If you've ever wondered what it's like to trip on acid"

then go out and do it,

Anyone who has actually taken acid knows that the visuals are only part of the 'trip'. I suspect the VR stuff here could be fun for 30 mins or so but ulimately dull as the effects become predictable after a while.

Of course I wouldnt say no to a quick test drive just to prove my point :)

Porn-star cop's job not saved by First Amendment

Damn !

Waded through all that dull legal stuff only to find someone had beat me to the Dible/Dibble/TC punch :)

Firefox hits 400m download milestone

No IE until....

.. it supports my favourite Firefox plugin, NoScript. Oh and develops a (proper) NoActiveX equivalent. Let me decide what scripts etc. run, then Im happy.

HP inks deal for micro-needle skin patch

Tattoos ??

Yeah right Im gonna trust HP to tattoo me WITHOUT banding :)

Premium rate Virgin Media cuts tech support jobs

Really ?

'FYI: I found NTL/VM's cable offering to be wonderful.'

Having just spent the last 3 months using a cable connection, I would love to know what number I have to call to get a service that actually approaches the 4mb that is sold. Packet/Traffic shaping is so bad that after about 4pm the service is almost unusable. No way am I going to call tech support only to be charged 25p a min to be told that the reason the BBC website is timing out (on the frontpage FFS, not a streaming media page) is the Beebs server problem ! My 512k Pipex connection was faster than this POS !

Bluetooth comes to set-top boxes

Oh f*cking great !

Another to add to the list. Now you can add to your security fears the possibilty that some war-driving geek will hack your remote and change channels for you !

Wonder how long after these things are on sale that the first exploits are publicised and 'service packs' are released ;)

AOL restricts free security software to friends and members

Seems free to me....

Being no great fan of either McAfee or AOL I have to say the product appears to be free, the only requirement is an AOL e-mail address which is free to sign up for.

Ive already got an AOL addy and the prospect of something for free was very tempting but past experience with McAfee has left a slightly bitter taste in my mouth so I will pass on this offer.

Government warns parents of food-colouring danger

Common Ground

Ok I've read all the 'research' and read all the personal statements above and the only common factor I've spotted is 'sugary foods'.

Im not a biologist ( or any other kind of 'ist') but isnt sugar a 'now' fuel to our bodies ?

Having said that, I worked as a lab technician to the soft drinks arm of a major multinational back in eighties and saw some of the coal based dyes that were added and wasnt happy then with it.

I thought Tartrazine had been banned along with one we called Supra Green ?

Mac, Linux BBC iPlayers in the offing, says PM

YESSSS !!!

'I hate to nit-pick'

At last, someone else who understands we dont have the American presidential electoral system.

Ok, nothing to do with the story, someone call me a cab ...

:)

Orange promises rethink on deleted email accounts

Grey Area

'So, those that have had free email services from Orange, Tiscali or whoever, think yourselves lucky that your ISP has been generous enough to give you access to your email for such a great length of time since you stopped actually sending them any money.'

Ok, so you are no longer a customer and you no longer donate to the coffers so you have no right to expect an e-mail service for free.

In that case would someone please explain to me how Hotmail/Gmail/Yahoo and all the other hundreds of FREE mail providers survive ?

Maybe on advertising revenue ?

I dont actually care either way but it seems a little foolish of Orange to stop a service to non-customers that costs very little and yet may provide good rep as being trustworthy. Sadly the bean-counters cannot put a dollar sign over that so it probably wasnt considered.

Master crim leaves vital clue at scene of burglary

Oh my

'The gene pool needs a little chlorine'

I really cant add to that, shame the Darwin Awards are only open to deceased nominations, maybe we could press for a rule change to include 'mentally deceased' ?

Court junks $11m judgment against Spamhaus

Missed Point ?

All the arguments seem to revolve around Spamhaus's abilities. 360 have a long track record of spam/spyware and yet there seems to be no condemnation of them, having had to spend time cleaning 360's crap from peoples PC's Im in no doubt about where my sympathies lie.

Another investigation into Pirate Bay child porn

How can they do otherwise ?

Given that the legal age of consent varies from country to country, to actually try and remove torrents based on a 'child porn' tag would be very difficult. Google may be trying to do something but hey, they have slightly more resources (and probably more kiddie porn on the books).

Its a difficult situation for PB but would I be correct in demanding my local Telco blocks all calls that paedophiles make to their victims ? Surely better that users pass on details to local police forces of torrents that may contain child abuse images ? Simply banning such torrents from PB wouldnt stop them from being shared, reporting their existance at least gives the plod a chance to get the culprits.

'Morality may be a quaint term to cretins like Himod. Hopefully he does not represent *any* of the others at Pirate Bay.'

Maybe you would like to consider that statement the next time you download an MP3 track or film using torrents or similar, Himod isnt questioning morality or defending rape etc. its simply the same defence that ISP's have used for years (and newspapers/tv/radio etc.) e.g. we are dumb bit-pipes/blank shields. If you are going to hold PB responsible for every torrent they index then Google is in DEEP shit :)

China looking to develop scramjet missile tech

Nothing wrong with a little paranoia

'Just like back in 1995, when Bubba Bill Clinton signed off on the selling of VERY sensative ICM Missle,' <snip>

To paraphrase a chart single of recent years ' Who let the Trolls out ? '

Maybe if 'Phreaky' had employed a spiel chicker program I may have got further into his argument.

Nuke-frying raygun 747 all ready bar the raygun

Pork Barrel

While its very interesting watching the debate about how useful/ vulnerable this 'weapon' is likely to be, personally I doubt it will ever see anything more than token active service. It all just smacks of Ronnie Ray-Guns Star Wars all over again. Another excuse for the contractors to feed at the trough and deliver a defense for a problem that doesnt exist. While it may make (some of) the American public proud that they have such inventive weapons I doubt it will make the average grunt in Iraq/Afghanistan/<insert next victim here> feel much safer while he runs the daily gamut of snipers and car bombs. Unless of course they develop an air-support version of course....

' This is Black Hawk, please get the Big Bird to vapourise the building in front of us...'

Now Im scared !

TV makers go ape for 100Hz LCDs

I think Im seeing the rise of..

... the Teleophiles

People claiming that the higher frame rate/refresh rate of Brand X makes a noticable difference sounds suspiciously like the audiophile arguments that have bored me for years. As with audio (as Apple et al found out) , someone will figure out that what the great unwashed (and with regards to TV that includes me) want is 'just good enough'.

Now maybe some kind company would broadcast something worth watching on these super-tv's. Or a way of making all those Youtube vids watchable :)

FCC to fine network operators who can't find customers

Re:Sometimes it is necessary...

So one tramp making a nuisance of himself is a valid reason for tracking everyone else ?

I know you dont mean that :)

Gunplay fingered for internet slowdown

That explains....

No doubt that is the reason my Virgin (on the incredulous) cable connection is slower than my dial up connection at work, obviously all their interweb thingy traffic is routed through here.

I always knew the Yanks were to blame somehow :)

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

Help !!

Would someone please point me at the guys with the white hats ?

Have to admit tho that the Vultures cynical view chimes enough with my own that the red corner seems more appealing.

OK girls, handbags at dawn it is :)

Peterborough bloke warned over 'offensive' t-shirt

Plus Ca Change...

I got warned back in the late Seventies, a policeman warned that he could arrest me for the t-shirt I was wearing.

I was dead proud of that shirt, it was blagged from the launch party for Stiff records and read 'If it aint Stiff it aint worth a fuck'

Didnt stop me wearing it and I never heard a complaint from anyone else.

Taser markets electric cattleprod gun to the laydeez

Jeez....

.. the thought of coming across a crowd of British saturday night ladettes with these stuffed in their purses gives me nightmares !!

BT's IPTV aims to lure footie fans

Unfair ?

'f I wanted to watch this service (which thankfully I don't) I would be up in arms about how unfair they are.

They have tied the TV package to their broadband package so you can only watch these matches if you take their DSL as well.'

Yeah, why should I have to deal with the dirty diggers outfit, Sly, or Bransons mob, Vergin' (on the farcical) just to watch something that they have exclusive rights to ?

The above two outfits should be forced to unbundle the broadband/TV/phone packages they offer. Vergin should be made to allow other ISP's access to their network and Sly should be made to give other TV operators access to their satellites.

I wont hold my breath waiting for it to happen tho :)

O2 serves notice on i-mode service

Difficult choice ?

Choose between restricted content etc. of i-mode or T-Mobile's £7.50 a month 'all you can eat' real internet ?

When it was launched I thought i-mode had a slightly 'WAP-ish' smell to it and nothing since then has changed my mind.

T-Mobile forced to connect Truphone numbers

Assistance please

Would someone point me at the guys in the white hats ? Im having trouble spotting the good guys in this one :)