Posts by Ian Ferguson

PDF spam tsunami hits email inboxes

Greg and Andrew:

There's an old saying; you can't con an honest man.

Everyone wonders who is still caught out by these stock scams, as it is so obvious that they are fake; the answer is, people like you who think they can join in the con and make a profit.

It's the same as many con tricks - the mark is fully aware that they are joining in a scam, but they think they're the con artist, not the target.

For this reason, I don't have any sympathy for people who try and fail to take advantage of these scams.

Space Shuttle Endeavour heads for the skies

Junk

I'm glad they're bringing back their rubbish for a change. Good PR if nothing else.

If they can prove that the pilot is sober and none of the crew are stalkers, a good result all round for their press office.

P.S. Can we have a Register login cookie to save us typing in username and password for every comment?

Pentagon chief: no more oil for blood, man

Mushrooms

I'm going to convert my loft into a mushroom farm, it'll make me a fortune, I tell you.

Mind you, I wonder what country is the number one mushroom producer... that'll be the next to be 'liberated'.

Finnish Football, LA riot journo join attack on YouTube

FBI Quality

Although I'm personally on YouToogle's side here, I just love the expression 'FBI Quality'. Exactly what is this meant to express? That it'll be barely legal and involve shady undercover deals? That dissenters will be assassinated and records altered or covered up for 50 years?

Broadband claims mislead on speed

It's advertising

Advertising is based on lies. Period. Should we start getting shirty with McDonalds because they describe their latest fat-filled greaseburger as 'tasty', when only four out of ten people polled return a maximum verdict of 'nearly tasty'...?

(Well, actually, yes)

Boffins flick Quantum vacuum switch from suck to blow

Genius

I stuck live geckoes to my hands and feet years ago, in the hopes of becoming a gecko-powered spiderman (geckoman?). The problem is, I've been sitting in the same position ever since, permanently stuck to the ground. Maybe this is the answer I'm looking for? Please could somebody ask these boffins to install polarity-reversing switches (aka any given Star Trek episode) on the backs of my geckoes, then I'll be able to climb buildings AND hover.

Teaching hacking helps students, professors say

Indespensable student

"He had a failing grade and did not take the tests, but he maintained all the computers in the lab and the teacher found him indispensable."

Let me guess... despite never taking the tests, he mysteriously returned a 99% average and passed the course with flying colours?

Planting trees will not save the planet: official

Obvious

When will Joe Public learn that Pine Trees =/= Virgin Rainforest? The fact that 'Carbon Neutral' companies are funding conifer plantations (which are a returning long-term investment, by the way) does NOT counteract the rape and pillage of carbon-soaking original forests.

Charities turn to text to tackle gangs

U HAV ££ ON UR HED & WILL B SHOT TMRW

The mind boggles.

Vodafone pulls Facebook ads

Re: marketing people need to get a clue

Jeremy, I would have thought the obvious solution is not to remove the content, but establish a more technically advanced advertising system that either scans the content and decides on suitable ads, or allows blacklisting of ads against certain sections of content. For example, Facebook could blacklist Vodafone ads on groups that Vodafone objects to. That would, of course, rely on common sense on the part of Vodafone.

Intel revolted by its own 'insensitive and insulting' ad

African-American

I heard of an American lady on holiday in Britain who met a black man. She thought in puzzlement for a moment then referred to him as a 'English African-American'.

Victim turns to Facebook in hunt for brazen burglar

Facebook groups will save us all!

Is it just me or are Facebook groups now a cure-all for all problems? Call me cynical but the SOUTHAMPON IZ GR8 DOWN WIF POMPEY group doesn't seem to be a positive influence on local politics; to say nothing of looking for lost pets, children and burglars.

Second Life will dwarf the web in ten years

Great concept, poor execution

I have to admit, I loved Second Life... all through the installation process. When it came to actually using it, I realised what a bag of shite it actually is.

The concept of 3D online worlds seems great, in just the same way that the concept of web pages seemed great ten years ago. I remember everyone and his dog creating their own web pages, just because they could. SL seems to be in the same state - people use it just because they can.

However, we've come to learn that websites are only useful if they have a purpose. SL has no purpose. Selling 'virtual goods' is not a purpose - you might as well set up a US$-to-Monopoly-Money exchange and hope to profit from it. Something like WoW has a purpose, gaming, which is why it does well.

I had hoped that SL would be a controlled, limited environment, which allows people to interact in a simple manner (like Facebook), but it's too random and uncontrolled (like MySpace), allows people to do too much, meaning they don't do anything useful or productive. The sheer complexity of the creativity means it's impossible to get involved, unless you're willing to spend every second of your spare time learning how to use their stupid system.

eBay rethinks firearms policy

Guns

Quite frankly I don't see why anyone should be allowed to buy or sell items which have the SOLE purpose of killing other people... but who am I to question the wisdom of Americans.

Could live P2P video be the antidote to YouTube dross?

Whatever happened to Webcams?

It's funny how far and few between webcams are nowadays. In the heyday of Web 1.0 webcams were one of the biggest buzzwords - every startup internet bubble business (and their dog) had an office / workshop / water cooler webcam.

Recently I haven't seen any - all the more surprising seeing the prevalence of broadband. Any idea why this is? Youtube and its ilk is all very well and nice but none of these services seem in the slightest bit interested in live streaming.

The only application nowadays seems to be videoconferencing, not streaming from one camera to a website. It's very strange. I was looking at setting up my MacBook camera as a webcam to keep an eye on my kittens from work, and couldn't find any suitable software for love or money.

MIT in Matrix 'Crowd Farm' plan

Re: This would still work

"All of these people walking around the train station are just wasting their potentially untapped energy"

Not quite, sorry. Surprisingly, they are using energy to... walk! The purpose of walking is to move you along. Add a friction dynamo system - like a stepping machine at a gym - and you get the same energy output, but you won't go anywhere.

All you'll end up with in reality is lots of sweaty commuters desperately pumping at the floor while moving very, very slowly towards the train, just as the doors close.

This idea blatantly ignores the law of energy conservation - you can't get free energy from nothing. And saying that untapped, potential energy is 'wasted' is equally stupid - it's being stored, it's not leaking into the ground!

Disability question turns on employee's abilities

Re: A slippery slope

DZ-Jay: No, that's not the same. Dyslexia is a disability; you being stupid is not. You chose not to have training and experience; this guy cannot do anything about his dyslexia.

(btw, I hope you're really called DZ-Jay, it must be embarrassing)

Anon (state of disabilities): Generally UK employers are extremely good about disabilities. I'm pretty amazed that this case got so far. Dyslexia is widely accepted, and extra time in exams is always given (in the education system, anyway) to dyslexics.

E-petitions could be debated in the Commons

Great! A little late though

I would have loved to see them debate whether Tony Blair should stand on his head and juggle ice cream.

Gmail: a short, sharp rant

Relative to..?

Fair enough point you're making in the article, but do all other POP3 providing email services send you a warning when you're reaching the server-side storage limit? It's not clear whether you're complaining about Google not providing a service which is accepted as standard, or whether you're complaining that Google isn't providing an extra service which you want them to but they could not have justifiably thought of in advance.

I suspect it's the latter.

By the way, I've pointed this out before, as have many others: Stop assuming you should get better customer support just because you're a journalist. It's petty, selfish and won't do you any favours in the long run.

MySpace erases 29,000 sex offenders

Hasn't society come far

It's a good thing MySpace didn't launch in the 50s, or all known homosexuals would be ignomiously kicked off the site.

Suit blows £105k in London bar

Champagne Spraying

That amount of champagne couldn't possibly have been drunk by 18 people so I suspect a lot of it was sprayed... that painfully wallet-hurting extravagant sport usually reserved for Formula 1 drivers and very happy successful people with more money than sense.

Jesus Phone needs an exorcist

Updates

Don't forget that the iPhone can (and will) get firmware updates, pushed out through iTunes, so effectively mandatory. Unlike all other phones, which will usually retain bugs and security flaws throughout their lives, as nobody except the most diligent will go to the trouble of finding and installing firmware updates.

Crazed NZ fanboy mows down churchgoer

Apple al-Qaeda?

I always thought there was something fanatical about Apple fans. Is this the start of a new wave of quasi-religious extremism?

OLPC project goes into production

Great stuff

To all the naysayers, remember that oft-quoted nugget of wisdom; give a man a fish, and he eats for a day, teach him to fish, and he eats for the rest of his life*

It is one of many forms of aid for the third world, but this time instead of handouts it's all about education and helping children to stand up on their own two feet in this digital world. Personally, I'm hoping this is the catalyst for a digital revolution that will end in the IT industry being based in Africa and South America, and the Northern hemisphere reduced to food and crop production to support our OLPC-wielding overlords.

*That is, until the lakes dry up from global warming

Culture matters: Why i-mode failed

Interesting, I haven't been told

I'm an O2 i-mode customer and have used it this morning as usual. Is it yet to be dropped?

I've never more than dabbled in the m-commerce aspect - the subscription content model is a good idea, eg. 20p a month to access a mapping site - but it's just too damn slow to be practical (for the aforementioned mapping site, whenever I've tried to use it to find out where I've got lost, it's taken at least ten minutes to load up the relevant maps before I've given up and asked a local)

As well as being too slow, the main problem is the usual mobile tie-in content thing - O2 are too keen on pushing partner services (mapping, dating, m-pr0n) without acknowledging that customers may wish to use alternative (maybe free) services.

The thing that really appealed to me is the handset I got - the NEC 343i - because it's so simple. It's a little bug-ridden but is straightforward, nice clear screen, big buttons, no unwanted video/mp3/flippy/slidey bollocks. Hopefully some network will twig soon that what customers like me want is simplicity and reliability, not the latest features.

And pigs might fly...

Jonathan King in Harold Shipman song rumpus

Publicity

Why give this sad little man the publicity he so obviously craves?

O2 lacking Apple focus

Works for me too

Works fine for me, but then I do use Firefox. To be fair on O2, Safari doesn't work with a lot of sites, not just theirs. It's a poor browser, full stop - much worse than IE, despite the populist whining. As long as the O2 site can be accessed on the iPhone's browser... oh wait...

Yes! It's the USB typing-speed indicator lamp!

Great!

I think I'll strap one to the head of each employee in the typing pool and fire the ones who are blue for too long. That'll keep team spirit up if anything will!

Apple emasculates the iPhone

eh?

When I plug my iPod mini into other computers with iTunes, the songs appear 'greyed out'. It never occurred to me that I could play it through a secondary computer as a jukebox. Are you sure about this? Combined with the comment already posted here, it makes me wonder if you're confused with the options, not limited by the device.

ICT cast down into the eternal fires of hell

Use in the real world

Although I hate the term 'ICT', it is a widely used acronym, used in business, unlike mobe and lappy which are just... stupid. To further the point, you wouldn't use LOL in a business paper or serious news article, but you would use TWAIN, as although it's stupid, it has a technical meaning.

Google goes back to court over Vista search tools

Part of the OS

I really don't understand Google's case here, if anyone cares to elaborate. Why shouldn't desktop search be part of an OS? It is in OSX and nobody's suing Apple. I'm no fan of MS, far from it, but if everyone is so determined to cripple Windows, no wonder new versions end up with such a lack of features.

BOFH: Computer room deluge

Underground

There's an underground stream running under our building... it has its own nice little crawl space, which happens to be the only under-floor means of cabling from one end of the building to the other. We've sent many cussing engineers down there in waders with one end of a cable... it would be so tempting to route the power through to the particularly whiney ones. I'm sure we'd get away scot-free too - I think the stream only comes out once it arrives in Southampton docks...

Insuring iTunes: are your digital downloads covered?

Interesting

Not something that even occurred to me, I have to admit. But surely legal download services like iTunes keep a record of the music you own? Can't you just log in again and re-download your music? I might have to test this theory.

As to music you have ripped - if you lose the physical copy (CDs) too, you have effectively lost your license to own that music, and thus can easily claim it on insurance.

I would have thought the only music you would lose in this situation is stuff you have ripped or downloaded and do not have any proof of ownership - and thus I can quite understand insurance companies refusing to pay out!

Dinner party guest makes gruesome discovery

Re: I blame the internet

It's obvious really, we should ban video games with freezers in them. I think Half Life 2 had a kitchen scene with a freezer in the corner, let's demand it's banned until that scene is cut.

O2 gets UK iPhone deal

It's pretty

It'll sell. It's pretty and has the right brand name behind it. No more is necessary. After all, the iPod wasn't the best MP3 player when it was launched, in terms of price or features.

It's not aimed at the discerning techie crowd - it's aimed at the MUCH larger mass market. After all, I bet nobody whining about lack of features here buys Nike trainers - but they sell in huge amounts simply because of the brand name.

iPhone hackers disclose vulns and hunt for clues

Buggy?

Everything has bugs, it's just the most popular products which end up being hacked the most as they're the most attractive targets. Hence Windows, iPod, iPhone, etc. They're a victim of their own success.

I would be careful about saying Apple products are 'more' buggy - expose an alternate modern smartphone to the same levels of hacking and you're sure to come up with comparable results.

BBC iPlayer finally hits the streets

Re. Windows

Although I don't usually form a defence for Windows and/or DRM, I think it's only fair to point out to all the Linux whiners that the restriction to (one version of) Windows is for copyright reasons, not because of lazy BBC coders. If they do make a Linux client, there are so many tinkerers around that the DRM would soon be circumvented.

The DRM that the BBC have chosen just happens to be Windows-only - they haven't chosen it BECAUSE it's based in Windows, they've chosen it because it's the only DRM they feel they can trust.

And as to why they have DRM at all... not everything the BBC spurt out is 100% paid for by licence payers, various people own the copyrights, who would be very unhappy if people started copying their material worldwide. Especially with the lucrative DVD market and foreign TV rights.

Not to mention... controversially... you're paying your licence fee (I assume), and in return you're getting value from the BBC. Wouldn't you be a bit pissed off if everyone else was copying it for free?

Google Earth for charidee

US based

I was excited until I read the 'US-based only' bit. You would have thought that with all the pretty maps they have, Google management would have learnt by now that there's a world outside the USA.

Virgin Trains's mysterious full-price ticket promotion

Re: We need a new law, maybe

If you think rail prices are bad, take a look at flight prices. Practically everyone on an aeroplane has paid a different price for their flight, and nobody bats an eyelid. But try to apply the same variable pricing structure to any other service and there's uproar. I know as I work in theatre, and even if there's a special offer, people compare prices and complain if they've paid more than the person sat next to them!

Moral: Seat pricing is never about finding the customer the cheapest price, it's about finding the highest price they're willing to pay. If Virgin find people are buying anyway during their 'computer problems', expect to see discounts withdrawn in future!

eBay resumes Google advertising

What a shame

And it was just the other day that I wanted to buy and/or sell Shane Richie on eBay.

Pump-and-dump scammers issue German prospectus

Re: Can you profit from a pump-and-dump?

Rather risky. When you receive the email, you don't know where you are in the chain - yes, you might be able to get in before everyone else, but equally you might have received the email later than everyone else and buy just before it plummets.

If you tried it over a number of scams, I suspect it would average out to a loss - rather like gambling. The house (in this case the scammers, who got in before sending the email) always wins.

To tell the truth, I rather suspect the only people being pulled in to these scams now are people who recognise that it is a scam, but like you think that they can beat the system. A typical con, actually. After all, do you really think people genuinely believe the image-based stock tipoffs?

US gov in Bill Gates inspired robot probe

Non-threatening?!

Is Robota seriously meant to be non-threatening?! Jesus H Christ on a stick, that thing is scary. It's like a hybrid between the Terminator and Children of the Corn. I wouldn't want to be in the same room as it on my own, let alone 'interact with it'.

Blogosphere is the net spawn of Satan: official

Re: Changes

English does indeed change and adapt, but there's a difference between that and contrived words promoted by a single commentator or small group of influentials.

Blog I can cope with, as it's a word that has grown, but Blook reeks of copy-cat marketing speak. And Blogosphere is blatantly a journalistic attempt to define a growing medium.

Mobe isn't in quite the same league - it's a shortening of an existing word, and a fairly poor one at that. It's a bit like Ya instead of You - hardly worth the effort. Myself? I can hardly cope with Mobile or Cell, let alone a further shortening.

Citizen Kane declared greatest US movie

Hollywood films, not US films

It's telling that Apocalypse Now isn't near the top, as it usually is with 'greatest film' lists - it famously being a non-Hollywood-produced film. By 'US movie' they mean 'Hollywood movie' - not that the average punter knows the difference, sadly.

DARPA scramjet nudges Mach 10

Sydney to London in...

Most Scramjet stories are ended with a line such as 'This technology will cut journey times from Sydney to London to as little as two hours'. If the takeoff is anything like the picture shown here I'll stick with the long haul...

UK invades California in cyber MMORPG wargame

Storming the beachfronts

Not very realistic is it? Can you really expect the UK and US to storm a beachfront with actual troops, on their actual feet? If this scenario really played out, all we would do is chuck bombs willy-nilly from a safe distance at anything that moved.

Not to mention the problems stabilising a region even after invasion (look no further than the Middle East for some real-life examples).

Cynicism aside, I hope this kind of virtual war game helps avoid real conflict.

Why is Hotmail so bad at spam?

Legitimate senders

Hotmail are impossible to cope with from a legitimate sender's point of view too. I run a subscription based website and to validate accounts, customers need to click on a link in their email. I get almost daily complaints from Hotmail users claiming we haven't sent them their emails. I have the same problem with BT Internet addresses - and they don't even receive them in their bulk/spam folders, they just vanish, without even a bounce message back to me.

Requiring senders to cough up sounds a good idea but would wipe out legitimate newsletters and website subscription systems like mine. There's no way we could afford even a penny per email when we're sending out tens of thousands of emails a week.

I wouldn't mind some kind of sender verification system except that the general public are dumb and wouldn't be able to figure it out if they had to actually do something to be able to receive emails.

London out paces NY as global Wi-Fi hub

Duplicate story...

Suspiciously like this story:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/14/london_wifi/

C'mon subeditors!

London gains lead in transatlantic battle for Wi-Fi supremacy

Duplicate story...

Suspiciously like this story: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/14/rsa_wireless_survey/

C'mon subeditors!

Hello, Apple PR. Dr. Freud will see you now

Hacks

I get constantly irritated by journalists demanding invites and free stuff. I work in entertainment and always have a strictly limited number of press invites. Journalists not invited immediately assume they're being snubbed, but you have to realise that there is a pecking order and you might not be top of it - website-based news might be increasingly important, but the realistic reader/viewer numbers are still nothing like as big as newspapers and TV.

Humiliated, indeed - If you start giving bad press purely based on the way you are treated as a journalist and nothing to do with the company's product, that is the worst possible strain of journalism.

Just because you don't get a free invite to an event, don't start throwing your toys around.