Posts by Sean Timarco Baggaley

Beware evangelists

@Bluegreen:

So you expect six billion people to just give up on doing stuff overnight? Most of our jobs *require* energy. Without those jobs, there will be a lot of people living on welfare. (Some nations are already almost entirely dependent on charitable donations from other countries.)

Climate Change isn't a lie, but the mountains of fatuous bullshit it's buried under obscure the fact that our climate has been changing since the Earth cooled. Climate Change isn't news. Running out of cheap / easily-accessible fuel isn't new either. The "Peak Oil" problem might happen tomorrow or in a few generations' time, but it's not the first "Peak" the UK has ever seen: our forests were almost wiped out during the Late Medieval period as our population expanded, resulting in what could be termed a "Peak Wood" crisis.

The short-term solution is to address the worst excesses and prime the R&D pumps. The medium-term solution is push R&D into alternative, *continuous* energy sources. (I.e. not windmills and sunshine.) The prognosis for a workable form of nuclear fusion seems decent at the moment, but it's still a work in progress. In the meantime, we need something to tide us over which isn't too dirty. Nuclear fission has an undeservedly poor reputation thanks to the shoddily built Chernobyl plant, but the French seem to have this technology nailed.

Fission would bridge the gap between now and the day when fusion (or something else) finally goes mainstream. In the meantime, the pitiful amounts of nuclear waste needs to be disposed of. Using subduction zones for this purpose seems to be viable technically. This removes the final obstacle as nuclear waste material isn't particularly abundant (or even all that dangerous when handled properly) compared to fossil-fuel waste.

The UK needs new power stations *now*. We're already talking about electrifying more of our rail network. We're also seeing—at last!—the beginning of the end of petrol and diesel-fuelled vehicles. Where are we going to get the electricity to run all this?

Snow Leopard security - The good, the bad and the missing

Security...

... has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with people. Others have pointed this out, but there seem to be far too many people missing it.

Every security system has the exact same weakness: human beings. *We* are the weakest link in the chain.

Now, I could bang on about how I've never had a single virus, trojan, etc. on ANY computer I've ever owned—and I've been using computers since the days when CP/M was still considered trendy. Why? Because, until the early '90s, just *getting* a virus or trojan was hard enough. But even with the rise of the Internet, the trick is *education*.

I've been writing code since 1981; I know intimately how computers work. I suspect many readers of El Reg are in a similar position. We don't "get" how people can be so "stupid". In fact, they're not being stupid. They're being *ignorant*, which isn't the same thing. The trick is to *educate* those users, instead of just swearing at them.

*

On a completely separate point: ASLR is, by definition, just another form of "security by obscurity". Either this is a Good Thing, or it's a Bad Thing. You don't get to have it both ways. Which is it?

*

On another completely separate point: Apple don't compete in the corporate sector. Microsoft do. (GNU / Linux tends to do well as a server OS too.) Therefore, pointing out that Microsoft has something like "90%" of "the market" is misleading. Microsoft have 90% of the *total* computer market, but at least 60% of that market is PCs sitting in office blocks the world over.

These market share statistics are missing something. That something is *context*.

Apple's focus is, and always has been, on the high-end *consumer* computing sector. Microsoft's share in that sector is rather lower. Strip away all that corporate stuff and Apple's share of their *target* market is actually pretty high—by my own research, I'd pin it at around 30-40% or so.

Apple's main rival in this sector is Sony, not Microsoft. Microsoft don't make home or office computers. They just sell some *components* for such computers. Like Broadcom, NVidia, AMD and Intel.

Snow Leopard - what doesn't work

@George 24

What the hell are you smoking? Kippers?

*Every* major Windows release was followed by a flurry of updates and whining developers. I've been using computers since the days of CP/M and I've yet to see a single major upgrade like this NOT break *some* apps! Windows 3.11 - Windows 95, anyone? Windows XP to Windows Vista? (Oh, how I *loved* answering "Why doesn't my Nvidia-and-Audigy-stuffed PC no longer run your game without crashing?" queries from early Vista users.)

(Oh yes: and a beta of ClamXAV 2.0 has been released in time for SL. It's a complete, ground-up rewrite of the 1.x app, so I shan't hold the beta status against this Open Source coder.)

I note, however, that Adobe's main CS4 apps *and* Microsoft's Mac Office suite are conspicuous by their absence from the list. Most of the apps which appear to have broken tended to do hacky things. Cyberduck is no great loss: Transmit pisseth all over it from a great height. And Coda runs just dandy.

Hell, I upgraded to Snow Leopard today and only Photoshite Elements 6 gave me any grief. No great loss. Pixelmator is a better app anyway. (Oh, and Pixen. Which seriously rocks. Especially if you're an ageing 8-bit era pixel-pusher like me who misses "Art Studio" on the Atari ST.)

All in all: a good effort. Not scintillating, though the tweaks to the stacks and dock are much appreciated.

Quicktime X, however, is a big disappointment. That Apple decided to leave the previous version in the "Utilities" folder speaks volumes. It's "iMovie 08" all over again.

Men in Green step back from GM's 230mpg Volt claim

Consistent metrics are important.

(Just found this, btw: http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/07/aist-lithium-20090727.html — it's a recent paper; has it been covered in El Reg?)

There are two main types of car: single-power types (e.g. petrol only, diesel only, electric only, etc.), and the dual power / hybrid power type.

For single power-source vehicles, the most useful metric is:

"Total Range@[x] km / hr. on a full tank / charge".

* The cost of providing that energy represented by that tank or charge is also noted. (This gives a comparable metric across the different types of battery, be it a Li-Ion or "tank of petrol". Both are just a form of energy storage.)

* Another key point here is that two figures need to be quoted: one where [x] is the typical national *urban* speed limit (approx. 50 kph in the UK) and the second where [x] is the typical national *extra-urban* speed limit (approx. 100 kph in the UK). This mirrors the current practice of similar figures for urban and extra-urban usage, with a combined average figure also shown.

The upshot of which would be an idea of how far you could go before you need to replenish the energy store, and how much that replenishment would cost you. For salesmen who tend to do a lot of long-distance driving, the extra-urban figure is of most interest; for city runabouts, which aren't meant to be used for anything other than local travel, the urban figure would be more prominent.

This gives a single, consistent metric across all forms of motive power. A battery is just a tank for electricity; that you have to charge it rather than refill it is irrelevant. It's just an energy store, like petrol, diesel or LPG. That energy has to come from *somewhere*, and it will cost you money.

The sticking point will be "cost of replenishment". Depending on how your electricity is generated, this can vary wildly for electric vehicles from nation to nation. The French have lots of nuclear power stations; the Swiss tend to prefer hydroelectricity; we Brits have rather more fossil fuel supplying our grid. (The US' power generation pattern follows a similar one to the UK, mixing some token carbon-neutral generation with a heavy reliance on fossil fuels.)

This means each country will also need to publish an annual, average cost per kWh and similar figures for other energy sources. This would give manufacturers a standard by which to show how much their cars will generally cost you to run.

Thus, for a hypothetical electric-only FIAT 500 wrapped around a Li-Air battery stack (see link at top), you'd see something like:

1600 km. @ 50 kph. (Li-Air Cell, cost for full charge / cartridge swap £5.00)

You can read that as: "£5 for a full tank which gets you 1600 km. of travel if you're driving at roughly 30 miles per hour." (The FIAT 500 is a very small city runabout car, so you wouldn't want to put big batteries or motors in it. It has little enough boot space as it is!)

I suspect that electric cars will take off almost overnight in countries like France, where most electricity is already produced by nuclear fission. As nations start to move away from fossil-fuel power generation—a process which can take generations—we'll see petrol and diesel slowly becoming marginalised, until it's only found on a few specialised vehicles, such as some military, farm and construction machinery.

(I'm in favour of more fission plants here in the UK. They're not perfect, but they're better than burning coal, gas or oil, all of which can be put to far better, more constructive, uses. Fission is a stopgap, buying time for researchers to sort out a better replacement. Which might be fusion, or might turn out to be something else entirely. Such as an emphasis on micro-generation.)

HTC Hero Android smartphone

Re. "exploding iPhones"

" The fourth centres on a secondhand iPhone 2G that no one knows what the previous owner(s) did with it."

Firstly, phones don't explode: batteries do. Lithium and water react violently and extremely exothermically. *All* the major mobile phone manufacturers, including the likes of Sony and Nokia, have had reports of exploding phones. There's a damned good reason why Lithium-based batteries have "Do not dissassemble, puncture, crush, heat or burn" notices printed on them (and in a nearby user guide) in big, easy-to-read letters.

From the articles I've read on that incident, the iPhone seemed to be giving serious problems long before the battery failed, including high-pitched squealing noises and a blurry screen. These are rather blatant symptoms of something being very, very wrong with the device.

Palm slams Apple, hoodwinks iTunes

"Market share"

"Apple have the market share with itunes and the ipod. therefore locking out competitors has now become anti-competitive."

Er, no they don't. Most people out there do NOT own an iPod. Contrary to the Guardianistas and other media luvvies attempts to convince you otherwise, digital music downloads are nowhere near close to traditional CD sales. Even Amazon make more money selling boxed CDs with music etched on them than Apple make from their iTMS. This is in no way, shape or form a "monopoly". Anyone who continues to spout such arrant nonsense needs to get out more.

iTunes Music Store does NOT make a profit. It never has. It's effectively revenue-neutral: The only reason it's there at all is because Apple's overall vision for content is that it's downloaded, rather than distributed on physical media like CDs, so they wanted to provide a complete end-to-end service for buyers of their iPod products.

Apple are *entirely* about vertical, integrated product design. That's the whole damned POINT of Apple's products. To whine that Apple aren't Microsoft or GNU / Linux is to completely misunderstand what Apple *do*.

Apple are a commercial business. They're in this to make *money*, just like Palm, Microsoft and Nokia. None of these companies are charities. They're sure as hell not obliged to support competitors. The ONLY reason Microsoft have been so forced—and I entirely disagree with the EU's actions—is because they've been convicted of having a monopoly in a court of law.

As others have pointed out, Palm could have written a trivial plug-in for iTunes to make their device work pretty much seamlessly with Apple's combined media manager / iPod sync tool. It's not hard. There are plenty of people out there who've even written iTunes plug-ins for free. Hell's bells, even *I* could write an iTunes plug-in! It's not exactly hard.

XML is an *open standard*. AAC (part of the MPEG-4 spec.) is—shock!—an *open standard*. Only some video formats are packaged with DRM, but that's not *Apple's* fault. Like any other similar company, they'd be quite happy not to have to pay support people to deal with DRM-related issues.

Yet Palm have designed their Pre to impersonate an Apple iPod. This means if iTunes tries to do something the Pre doesn't actually support, such as a firmware update or whatever, it's an "iTunes" error message the users will see, not one with a big "Palm" label at the top. So guess who'll be paying support people to field questions about a piece of hardware they don't even make?

Apple have never made any secret of their integrated approach to design. They're the Mercedes or Rolls-Royce of the IT world: they make kit for people who don't care *how* they get from A to B, as long as it's comfortable, doesn't break down and lets them read their copy of The Times in peace while the chauffeur gets on with the driving.

Microsoft are a little more secretive about their real "killer app". (It's Visual Studio, in case you're wondering.) They're all about the developers. The BMW or Ferrari of the IT world. For them, it's all about the *driving*, the power-slides, squeezing the machine until it screams.

GNU / Linux is a sad, mewling ADD-suffering basket-case as far as most normal people are concerned. They're all about the *technology*. The Caterham kit car of the IT world; for them, it's all about what's under the bonnet. Not the journey. Not even the driving itself, but all the grommets, pistons, fanbelts and overhead cams.

(I've written at length on this very subject on my own site here: www.bangbangclick.com. Saves me having to repeat myself.)

Pick the company whose philosophy most closely matches your own, but please, god, stop banging on about how *your* philosophy is the One, True Way. Because there's no such thing.

Windows 7 Ultimate product activation hacked?

@copsewood

"Actually Microsoft have been learning from [Unix / Linux] for many years. Examples have included the Mach kernel, WIMP (x-Windows, Icon, Mouse, Pointer) interfaces, multi-user discretionary access control, preemptive multitasking and preventing applications from overwriting the address space of other applications"

Check your facts. Seriously.

Microsoft may not have invented those, but neither did Unix or its descendants. Example: Xerox's PARC may have produced the first well-known implementation of the WIMP paradigm, but the concept dates right back to the 1960s, before Unix had even been invented.

Similarly, pre-emptive multitasking and decent memory management were not invented by Unix either. (And the BSD Mach kernel was the starting point for NeXTSTEP / OpenSTEP, better known today as Mac OS X. Windows, like Linux, is built on an older "monolithic kernel" design.)

Unix and its descendants have been heavily influential in the internet and related networking fields; encouraged the view that hacked-together programs with appalling user interfaces are somehow a Good Thing, and also bears some responsibility for the undeserved ubiquity of the C family of programming languages today.

(Oh yes: decent memory management requires a decent MMU. This is a piece of *hardware*, not software. You can fake most of it in code, but without that hardware support, it's never going to be as good.)

Tiny typo blamed for massive IE security fail

@boltar

The problem with C / C++ is that they're not high-level languages and were never designed for the kinds of uses they're being put to today.

Using these languages to write high-level stuff such as ActiveX controls is wrong. End of story. Use the right damned tool for the job.

Of course, we're using operating systems and legacy code written at a time when C and C++ were still considered The One True Way. This leads to a lot of readily available libraries and lots of documentation. Sadly, this means there's tons of mediocre code for mediocre programmers to just copy and paste into their own source files. Which explains so much about the quality—or lack of it—in today's software.

(And yes, I do know a number of assembly languages, C, C++ and Objective C. I used to write games on 8-bit and 16-bit microcomputers back in the day; I'm not ranting from a position of ignorance.)

The older generations of the C family do have their place, but writing application code for complex modern operating systems isn't one of them.

Apple-apeing Microsoft spins out retail store prototype

The focus on Surface is interesting.

It pretty much fits in with my view that Microsoft and Apple aren't actually competing directly. Surface is no use to most consumers—Apple's market—but has some applications in the corporate sector.

The proposed layout is typical Microsoft: They're a technology-centric company, with a strong track record in catering to developer rather than the end user. Corporate buyers like this as the larger companies do like their customised software. (Every corporation likes to believe it's "unique" in some way, even when it isn't.)

Microsoft has always been about the driving, not the car itself (Linux), or just getting from A to B as painlessly as possible (Apple). Between the three of them, we have the full gamut of technology: those who care only about the destination; those who care mainly about the journey itself, and, finally, those who are interested in how you're going to make that journey in the first place.

If you want Apple to open their stuff up, so you can assemble your perfect component system, stick with Microsoft. If you want Microsoft to expose their technologies for you to tinker around and play with, stick with Linux. If you just want to get stuff done and don't much care how the magic works, stick with Apple. None of these attitudes is "right" or "wrong". They're just "different". Deal with it.

Palm restores Pré iTunes synchronisation

@DrXym

" just like they deliberately restrict their OS when there is no technical reason for doing so."

Apple aren't in the business of selling operating systems. They're a *hardware* company. Their software is intended to sell that hardware. If you still don't get it, I explain it all rather better here: http://www.bangbangclick.com/?p=48

Apple are not to blame for the failings of their competitors. As so many people keep tiresomely pointing out, Apple's hardware is rarely all that advanced technically. It's the *design* that makes all the difference. Hell, the first iPhone wasn't even 3G, but it still flew off the shelves.

Nokia alone have produced over 700 mobile phones in over two decades. If any company should know how to beat Apple in the mobile phone market, it's Nokia. So what the hell is their excuse? Are some of you now going to claim that Apple have some kind of "monopoly" in the mobile phone sector too?

Apple aren't doing anything special. They've just worked out what people want. It seems many people quite like well-designed, quality products which are easy to use. Who knew?

@Sampler

"Why would Apple want to prevent the Pre in particular from being able to sync with iTunes?"

Because if anything goes wrong, it's Apple the Pre owner would be phoning or emailing for customer support. Customer support costs money. (Oh yeah: their iTunes Store is a loss-leader, not a profit centre. It's a bullet-point on the iPhone and iPod's packaging—an effect of their design philosophy. The Pre doesn't *COSTS* Apple money.)

And why the hell should Apple be forced into spending *their* money training their call-centre drones on Pre-related sync issues—"Waaah! Why won't my Pre play my DRM-wrapped movies and songs?"—when it's Palm's damned problem? This is the same problem raised by the Psystar Mac clones: they're making the money from sales, but they're palming (sorry!) off support to Apple, who takes that financial hit.

Apple isn't a software company; it's a hardware / appliance company and design boutique. Stop whining when they don't cater to your, very specific, whims and wishes. You're more than free to build your own software.

And no, I don't own an iPhone.

Engineer commits suicide after losing iPhone prototype

@Wallyb132

Did you forget to switch your brain on before writing your post? Or have you conveniently forgotten all the other companies Foxconn is *contracted* to make products for?

Apple—and any other company who works with Foxconn—is limited to reacting to events, not micromanaging a company they do not own and therefore have zero control over.

Dropping Foxconn and transferring all production to another (Chinese or Taiwanese) corporation isn't exactly something you can do overnight. Retooling a factory to build iPhones isn't something you can do in an afternoon. And most factories like these are fully booked for months in advance.

Yet you suggest dropping a major subcontractor over an *ALLEGED* beating which has NOT been proven in any way as yet? Just because a source makes an allegation, it doesn't mean it's true. Unless you are the kind of idiot who thinks that anything that's displayed in a web browser must be true.

Clever attack exploits fully-patched Linux kernel

Re. "@Sean Timarco Baggaley"

The problem is that the developers chose a linear, text-based UI designed in the 1970s to convey their instructions to the computer.

The 1970s was the tail-end of the era when most computer applications were non-interactive, transactional processes. E.g. payroll runs, bank account systems and the like. You started the program, let the machines chew through all that (serial) magnetic tape, (serial) paper tape or (serial) punched cards and waited until it went "BING!"

Very few developers write linear, non-interactive applications like that any more. Yet we are still using textual programming languages. Consider that *all* languages are fundamentally linear: we read from left to right (or vice-versa in some societies), top to bottom, from the beginning to the end. Programming languages are *inherently* linear.

When you try and remove that linearity—e.g. with many OOP attempts—you end up with a language so stuffed to the gills with structural scaffolding and similar fluff that you end up with code that's obfuscated behind umpteen layers of brackets, punctuation and meta crap. Because—I repeat—all languages are INHERENTLY linear! No matter what colour you paint your cat, it'll still be a cat.

Now, textual user interfaces are still used in IT today, but they're no longer centre-stage. Most people prefer graphical interfaces. You can convey a lot more information visually than you can with words alone, yet software development tools are stuck with a "text in text files!" mentality that is arguably doing far more harm than good. Just because textual interfaces is how we've always written code in the past, it doesn't mean this is how we should continue writing code in the future.

Linear, text-file-centric programming languages are the wrong tool for the job. That there are practically no mainstream alternatives reflects very poorly on the IT industry and its conservatism. (If the FSF movement really wanted to make a difference, this is where they should be concentrating. The world really does not need more UNIX clones.)

The rise of multi-core CPUs should be a rallying cry to designers of development tools the world over. There's a massive market simply gagging for the right answer. C is not that answer. Neither are C++, C#, COBOL, Object Pascal, x86 assembly language or Java.

To researchers and students who are looking into this field, please do not invent yet another linear, text-based programming language. We have far too many of those as it is.

(I do have my own view on how programming *should* be done, but the essays I've written on the subject are long and unsuitable for a comments box like this. I'll post something to my website when I'm done evaluating CMS software for it.)

The problem is C.

That GCC was optimising-out a null-ref check when it could clearly see that the variable had already been used, is *expected behaviour* for the compiler and clearly documented in its manual. If the programmer couldn't be bothered to RTFM, that's *his* fault. not the compiler developers'.

That non-time-critical code for an allegedly modern operating system is being written in a portable assembly language that's getting on for nearly 40 years old is the real bug here. Even my humble Nokia 2630 is more powerful than the computers C was created for.

Oh yes: for those who haven't read the original article the Register's piece was based on, take note of the following quote from grsecurity's own website:

"Due to Linux kernel developers continuing to silently fix exploitable bugs (in particular, trivially exploitable NULL ptr dereference bugs continue to be fixed without any mention of their security implications) we continue to suggest that the 2.6 kernels be avoided if possible."

Note that they're referring to *multiple* instances of these kinds of bugs. The line people enjoy quoting was just one example, which the researcher used to write his proof of concept exploit. That the Linux kernel is *riddled* with such bugs reflects poorly on its developers.

This is also the kind of bug which, had the software been written using half-decent tools, would never have made it into the released code in the first place. For all the criticisms of Microsoft's ".NET" languages, the simple fact is that C# wouldn't have let you write such bad code in the first place. When a user interface—and that's all programming languages are—makes unwanted actions easy to perform, it is time to replace it.

Microsoft may have their flaws, but at least they're trying to do something about the appalling tools this industry insists on using. They're still a long way from development nirvana, but at least it's *something*.

(Oh yes: my computer is a Macbook Pro, not a Windows box. So please don't waste time accusing me of fanboyism. There's no such thing as a "best" platform. Only a "least worst".)

Spooks' favourite IT firm tells Reg readers to grow up

I'm a teapot!

Dear Politicians, Pig-ignorant Spindoctors and any other professional liars:

I would like to introduce you to a new word: Context.

Databases are merely collections of disjointed, context-free data. Data is not a "fact". It is just data. You need to analyse it *in context* to understand its meaning. Databases cannot do this. Computers certainly cannot do this—to a computer, EVERYTHING is just a bunch of numbers. Interpreting those numbers is entirely up to the programming. Only *humans* can apply meaning to a collection of data points, because only humans understand context.

Unfortunately, humans are fallible. They are not robots. They are not machines. They WILL make mistakes. How you handle those mistakes defines the acceptability, or otherwise, of any IT system. (No bank would install a computer system without ensuring a workable paper-based alternative is in place as a backup, for example.)

The problem with attempts at building national IT-centred projects is that this government—and those before it—are spectacularly ignorant about IT. Most of our MPs are plainly IT-illiterate. These people are in no way competent to define, describe or specify an IT project. They sure as hell aren't competent to *manage* one either.

The only sensible solution here is simple: define a *standard data format* for the personal information the many departments would like to have access to. Those of us who choose to provide our details in this format will also be free to demand a token payment for the *privilege* of granting you access to our *valuable* data.

*We*, the people, would therefore be responsible for looking after our own data, and we would have the right to pick and choose to whom we give it. If the Police, DVLA, etc. are happy to charge their own bosses—that'd be us, the people, again—for their services, I see no reason why we citizens shouldn't be permitted to do likewise.

Defining open standards is a far better use of precious government time and resources than building mammoth, monolithic IT projects like the massively overpriced NHS, HMRC and police IT cock-ups.

Apple ends Palm Pre's iTunes charade

If Palm's developers had bothered...

... to get off their arses and *think* for a few moments, they'd have realised the best solution would have been to build their own iTunes-like app, with links directly to *Amazon's* websites. Perhaps adding links to Spotify so their customers could hear a song all the way through, instead of getting just a random 30-second 'bite' of it.

(Windows Media Player even had a 'plug-in' approach to digital download stores, accessible from within its UI. I think it's still there, though I can't confirm this without rebooting my machine.)

But no. Instead, Palm decided to drop the ball and assume that their design duties began and ended with the Pre itself. Which is why both they—and it—will fail. Design begins with the user and ends in the deepest innards of the device. If that device needs to communicate through *another* device at any point, that process *also* needs to be fully and correctly designed.

Apple gets this. That's *why* they only support their *own* kit, running their *own* software, with only a few exceptions. (Their Windows apps exist at least in part to ensure a consistent user experience for those who have to use Windows in Boot Camp or on a VM.)

Microsoft also gets this, though they've been hamstrung by their legacy of being primarily a software tools company. Their XBox consoles are an example of how this approach to design can be made to work successfully. The XBox360 has trounced Sony's PS3 on all fronts by getting *all* its design spot on.

(Incidentally, MS are a development tools company, not an OS company. Windows is mainly just a convenient bundle of technologies and APIs for their massive community of developers to target. Visual Studio is Microsoft's flagship product, not Windows, whatever their marketing people may imply.)

Oh, and those of you bandying around words like "Monopoly" and "Restrictive practices", please stop. Just... stop. You're wrong. On oh, so many levels. The iTunes store has plenty of rivals now. That those rivals suck at design is hardly Apple's fault.

Unpatched Firefox flaw lets fox into henhouse

Would someone please explain why...

... Open Source is supposed to be so great again? Not only are people now seriously suggesting that *deliberately crippling* their golden browser is now considered "normal behaviour", but they're also wailing against Safari. Safari is built on WebKit which is *also* Open Source.

From what I can tell, Opera does everything Firefox does, in a much smaller footprint. Oh yes: and all those tabbed browsing, mouse gestures and quick-dial features? Guess who invented 'em! (Hint: 'fat lady singing'.)

Development tools and the Internet's present antediluvian infrastructure are the cause. Buggy software and code bloat mere symptoms.

Unlock your iPhone, miss your messages

What's with all the whining?

What an astonishing display of the modern entitlement culture. If you don't like Company X, DON'T BUY THEIR STUFF! It's not neurosurgery, is it?

The issue the article refers to is simple: some carriers do not have the necessary back-end components in place to support the iPhone! Big shock! Why would Vodafone or T-Mobile UK support push notifications through their servers when they don't (currently) sell or support any phones that require it? Granted, it'd be nice if Apple's SDK didn't cause apps to fall over when running on an unsupported carrier's network, but this clearly wasn't something Apple expected to see very often. (Even the developer mentioned in the article clearly states it's only 5% of iPhone owners who are "suffering" at all. The other 95% of iPhone users are doing just fine.)

Apple don't sell phone components like a separates hi-fi system from NAD: they believe in selling a complete *package*. (Call it a complete "user experience" if you prefer.) This is a *fundamental* element of their design philosophy, and there are plenty of independent books on design to support their contention. Apple are not being "restrictive" or "monopolistic" here. They're just fascists when it comes to design. If you don't buy into this view of design, you're free to buy someone else's products instead. Apple don't care about you. (No, really: they don't.)

Don't want an all-in-one package deal? Bugger off and buy somebody else's kit then. You might want to try some of those little-known mobile phone manufacturers such as, er, Nokia, Samsung, LG and HTC. Apparently, some of their phones aren't bad either. I can particularly recommend the Nokia 2630 for its battery life, simplicity and a stunning feature which lets me make and receive calls without crashing. Ever.

I'm getting seriously bored with all the sub-Slashdot flames and ill-informed rants. See that large masthead at the top of the page with "The Register" written on it? That means this site is *not* Slashdot. Please take your ill-informed piffle there, where you can wallow about with your peers in the blissful, happy, sunshine of wilful ignorance.

Don't like Apple? Don't *buy* Apple. It really is that simple.

FAIL icon, because it describes many of the commentards here.

Steve Jobs snubs LSD daddy

Altruism...

... is doing good unto others with *no* expectation of thanks or even recognition. If Bill Gates wants to be seen as altruistic, perhaps a little less self-aggrandisement is called for. Sure, he's giving away 5% of his mammoth wealth every year, but -- by Codd! -- does he want you to know about it.

Quite a bit of money given to charity is swallowed up in administration costs. Spending lots of money on something doesn't make that something inherently better, any more than throwing money at a problem always makes it go away more quickly. Money isn't always the answer.

As any decent programmer will tell you, if your basic design is buggered, no amount of code optimisation is going to make it noticeably better. Spending money wisely is far better than just pissing it up the wall on random charities in the vain hope that one of them actually pulls it off.

The very first Live Aid concert took place almost exactly 24 years ago, in July 1985, yet Ethiopia is still much as it was. Lots of money was given away... but what good has it done? Many of the water wells dug during the '80s have long-since dried up and been left to rot away through lack of ongoing maintenance and follow-through. This reliance on empty, short-term gestures is far worse than doing nothing at all: it creates a culture of dependance.

I'm with Jobs on this: most charities are literally a waste of good money. (Charities suffer just as much from internal politicking as any other organisation, profit-making or otherwise. Just look at the controversies surrounding groups like Greenpeace.)

I'm willing to give money to genuine, measurable research, but vague, hand-wavy "gesture" charities can get stuffed.

Speculation mounts over AVG plans for OS X client

Meh.

In 27 years of building, administering and even programming computers, I've only ever had one virus. It was the "Ghost" virus and came free with a cover-mounted disk from ST Format. Circa 1990-ish, I think.

I've never been stupid enough to let untrusted code run on my computers since.

Education is the best medicine. AV software is just sticking plasters for the ignorant.

iPhone 3.1 code goes beta

The added vibration feature...

... sounds like an edge-case feature for those who have trouble seeing the small 'jiggly icons' animation. Some people can the iPhone's display just fine, but find it difficult to see small movements.

I would hope that there'll be an additional setting to disable the feature for those who don't want or need it.

Safari 4: Apple's crash-happy shipper

It's Adobe's fault.

Credit where it's due: I've never seen Safari 4 crash. However, I *have* seen it crippled by Adobe's godawful OS X implementation of their bloated "media platform", known to most of us as Flash. Flash-heavy sites will often bring up the dreaded spinning beachball -- sometimes for well over a minute -- while Adobe's pathetic excuse of a plugin hogs all the system's resources for no adequately explored reason.

Flash is its own worst enemy. No wonder Apple aren't in any hurry to get it onto their iPhone.

(Incidentally, Safari 4's performance on Windows 7 is much better on Flash sites. And all you FOSS fans need to stop crowing too: Safari is based on the open-source WebKit engine. The same engine used by Android.)

Opera to take web back to the old days

So...

...it's P2P file-sharing done right, then.

'Alien' lifeform wakened from 120,000 year Arctic slumber

@keith9600

"Please don't extrapolate by inserting your own wild imaginings."

You're new here, aren't you?

Beeb says sorry after iPlayer network fail

Dear BT...

... The BBC isn't the company advertising "unlimited" internet access to its customers. Nor is it their fault that they're offering genuinely useful web-based content people really do seem to want.

BT, exactly which part of "unlimited" do you, your fellow ISPs, and all your marketing friends not understand? It's a very simple concept that even a five-year-old child can grasp. It is not a piece of obscure technical jargon in the IT industry: it is a common English word used every single day by everybody.

Either you need to educate your ISP customers and marketing people as to the dictionary definition of the word, or you need admit you are lying through your corporate teeth. I suspect the ASA might have something to say about that, but *you* dug the damned hole you're in, so quit your pathetic whinging.

Regards,

--

Your paying end users. (You know, the people who give your ISP reseller clients a reason to exist in the first damned place.)

Hitler kicked off iPhone

Risk aversion.

Shareholders don't like lawsuits. They don't like it when their baby is insulted or blamed for things beyond its control. So they instruct their board of directors to be risk-averse. Extremely risk-averse.

Pretty much anything could be offensive to *somebody*, so Apple's employees are told to play it as safe as possible. What Apple are doing is a symptom of the lawyer-happy society their HQ is based in. ("When in doubt, sue. Even when not in doubt, sue anyway as they might settle out of court just to shut you up." Either way, the lawyers win.)

And in case you think it's only Apple doing this, I suggest you pay closer attention to the news. (And no, it's not just the US either. The UK -- to pick just one EU member nation -- has become infamous as the capital of "libel tourism".)

Stop blaming the corporations. They're obliged to follow exactly the same damned, bat's-arse laws as you and I. The difference is that they're much bigger, wealthier targets and thus far more likely to get sued for money.

Xandros - the Linux company that isn't

Oh for f*ck's sake...

This is what really pisses me off about the GNU/Linux lot...

@Daniel Palmer: "Linux is a kernel."

Users DON'T CARE. What part of that did you not understand? Most users can't even tell where Windows ends and Microsoft Word begins. Hell, most users don't even "get" that software is not the same thing as hardware. (I handle customer support for an ESD games company. I've lost count of the number of users who told me their operating system was "DELL INSPIRON" or even just "Word". I'm NOT kidding. Programmers should never, EVER, be permitted to design a damned thing.)

Also, GNU/Linux doesn't exactly trip off the tongue. It's bound to be shortened to either "GNU" (which many people won't know how to pronounce), or plain "Linux".

After all, "Windows" isn't synonymous with "NVidia graphics driver" or "Adobe Acrobat Reader", but that doesn't stop people -- and yes, [INSERT PLATFORM HERE] fanboys, you're just as guilty -- blaming every single bloody crash or hiccup on Windows itself, regardless of which app was the guilty party. If you nerds can't get it right, what hope for normal people?

@Everyone who bangs on about the Synaptic Package Manager:

Why the hell is this effing app not called "Add / Remove Applications"?

And why pick a name only one letter away from that of a well-known manufacturer laptop trackpads? Why the hell would I even *think* about clicking on an app that my experience tells me should have more to do with my trackpad than installing applications?

Come to that, why is so little in the GNU/Linux environment sensibly named according to its function? Aside from a couple of exceptions like OpenOffice (which was originally a proprietary, commercial app anyway), and the abominations that are KOffice suite, almost everything is given ridiculous names.

Even "ls", for f*ck's sake! Who the hell thought that was a good name? Was "cat" (for 'catalogue'), "dir", "list" or "show" too much like hard work?

And the less said about "sudo" or "apt-get". ("Advanced Packaging Tool". Yay. What a fucking meaningful name there. I'm sure everyone who isn't a bloody Linux programmer will just naturally snap his fingers and mutter, "Of course! I need to use a 'packaging tool' to install applications from t'interweb! I wonder if it's an advanced one...?")

@The original article:

Xandros are doing the right thing. While the first EeePC's implementation was a little rough around the edges from a techie's perspective, it was fine for its target market. (The lack of updates is a problem, but the price you pay for being first is that you get to make all the mistakes along the way too.)

The future of Linux is as a behind-the-scenes OS, in embedded systems, certain server sectors, some vertical markets and "appliance" computers like the EeePC and its ilk.

Apple have been walking a similar path for over a decade now, and OS X is fundamentally just another UNIX clone. If Apple can do it at the Rolls-Royce / BMW / Mercedes end of the market, there's no reason why GNU / Linux can't provide the platform for the Fords, Opels and FIATs.

Triangular buttons key to touchscreen typing success - inventor

Missed the point again.

This isn't worth the effort. A smaller key graphic means smaller legends. The iPhone and its ilk already have small displays; making the virtual keyboard even harder to read is a non-starter.

As for the accuracy issue: the iPhone implementation displays an enlarged version of the key it thinks you're touching. If it's the wrong key, you can see it's the wrong key and simply slide your finger over to the correct key instead. Missed the "F" key and got a "G"? Slide the finger a little to the left and the "F" appears instead. Let go. The app gets the "F".

Virtual keyboards are compromises almost by definition; there's no tactile feedback and even if the display were deformable, it'll still be small and fiddly. A chordal design would be a better fit for this form-factor, but for occasional use, the virtual keyboard seems to be good enough.

Personally, I find Apple's implementation pretty good compared to the one on my not even slightly missed Windows Mobile 6-based HTC brick.

(Note that my replacement for the HTC brick is... a Nokia 2630. Nokia's Series 40 GUI is pretty much bang-on; Apple aren't the only ones who can get it right, though they do seem to be the most consistent.)

Firefox users flip out over sneak MS add-on

Huh?

I don't get it. MS installs a *plug-in* and you're complaining? That the original version was difficult to uninstall was FIREFOX'S FAULT, not MS'. Why the hell they're being flamed for releasing a *workaround for a Firefox BUG* I have no idea.

Note that MS' plug-in is NOT hidden from view, masked, or otherwise camouflaged. If you open up the plugin manager GUI, it shows up just like all the other plug-ins.

This is not a malicious "hack", it's being installed to make web-based .NET apps easier to use for the less IT-literate users. I.e. those who do NOT frequent this website.

You're a *minority*. Deal with it and stop demanding every IT company under the sun panders to your every whim for f*ck's sake. Not everyone who has to use a computer actually gives a shit how the annoying box of tricks does its magic.

Maybe if you whingers and moaners could actually create software worth a damn, you'd have cause to complain, but you can't, so you don't. Get your own effing house in order before you blame people for genuinely caring about making computers *easy to use*.

@Michael B.: The iTunes plug-in redirects iTunes Store-related URLs to the iTunes app, where the resulting info is intended to be viewed.

Adobe buffs and brands full Flash suite

@Chris Thomas

So, you're saying nobody will ever need or use more than 3.5Gb of RAM?

Interesting. Reminds me of something similar that nice Mr. Gates once said.

Microsoft fortifies Windows 7 kernel with overrun buster

@James Dennis & Rob

"Both the Firefox and Safari vulnerabilities that he proved were exploited on a Mac OS X system"

Sheesh! Enough already. We KNOW. We were all here reading The Register when they reported on it.

From the Pwn2Own website: "With a little tweaking, he ran a sleek exploit against IE8, defying Microsoft’s latest built in protection technologies- DEP (Data Execution Prevention) as well as ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization) to take home the Sony Vaio and $5,000 from ZDI. "

So much for DEP and ASLR then. Guess neither Safari, Firefox nor IE8 are perfect and neither are OS X or Windows. Gosh! Who knew?

</sarcasm>

@Rob: you need to check your Twitter feeds more often. Haven't you heard? Jesus grew up, died, then got better. (Allegedly.) If he's still crying over harmless, inconsequential chit-chat like this, it's no wonder the Abrahamic religions are so f*cked-up.

@Goat Jam

"It's no wonder windows pc's are constantly being p0wned by every script kiddy that is out there."

Weird. In over 15 years owning and running PCs, with every version of Windows from 3.1 and up, I have never, *ever*, had a virus, trojan or other form of malware infection.

The security industry -- and make no mistake, it *is* an industry -- instantly activates their "Danger, Will Robinson!" mode, flailing their arms around and spreading panic, whenever there's even the remotest *possibility* of an exploit. Here's a clue: 99% of malware can ONLY be installed on your PC if you're been conned into visiting a specific website -- i.e., most of today's security problems are caused by ignorant users installing *trojans*.

Unix is no more proof against ignorant users than Windows. An operating system cannot read the user's mind. It has no way of knowing whether the program it just downloaded is malicious or benign.

You can either tell your users to avoid doing "X", without giving them any reasons why, or you can go that extra mile and *educate* them, so they know *why* they shouldn't do "X".

The former is like giving a starving man a fish; the latter is like teaching the man *how* to fish.

I switched to Apple in 2005, not because of all the FUD about its alleged insecurity. I simply don't like the GUI all that much. Windows XP's was mediocre at best -- it even allowed background apps to grab focus and switch to the foreground without warning -- and I just got fed up with its ever-increasing quirks and design flaws. Windows 7 looks interesting though.

OS X is currently at the top of my "Least Worst Operating System" list. (#2 is the late, unlamented "GEM"; I miss its drop-down menus.)

Hackintosh maker files for bankruptcy

@Matthew Barker

"If not MS, it must be Xerox, getting even with Apple for stealing their ideas"

Apple *paid* Xerox (in share options) for a tour around their PARC projects. They didn't "steal" a damned thing.

And before anyone accuses Microsoft of doing the same, bear in mind that one of their employees was Charles "Hungarian Notation" Simonyi. This chap wrote the first ever WYSIWYG word processor for the Xerox PARC "Alto" project. This is the chap you have to thank for creating Microsoft's Word and Excel apps.

Change the f*cking record already.

If they can break the law, why can't we?

@John Smith (and others)

I'm half-Italian. Silvio Berlusconi may be a tosser, but at least he's not in a position to do much harm. (Italians aren't major players on the world stage, and they know it. Hell, they don't even bother with Eurovision any more. They have far better things to do.)

The national government in Italy has far less influence on national affairs than our own equivalent. Italy's regions are far more autonomous. What affects Perugia is usually dealt with by Perugia. National infrastructure is dealt with by national institutions or corporations. (Granted, planning law is a bloody nightmare, but that's mainly due to the Italian skills in Pure & Applied Bureaucracy. The French may have invented the word, but the Italians have turned it into an art-form.)

Germany, Switzerland and a number of other nations in the EU have a similarly regional approach to government. Devolution works.

Democracy -- with the capital 'D' -- scales terribly with population size. The more people you have, the less the perceived value of each vote and the lower the incentive to do so. 20 million people shout "TORY!"; 15 million people shout "LIBERAL!", but 25 million people are shouting "LABOUR!" Only the latter is heard clearly above all the hubbub, so those 25 million "win", even though there are *more* Tory and Liberal voters. Why should 35 million votes count for nought?

First Past The Post must go. It isn't even slightly wrong, it's *completely* wrong. So some loonies might get into Parliament! So what? That's the whole damned point! I disagree entirely with everything the BNP says, but they have as much right to *say* it as the Liberals, Tories and Labour.

FPTP was, in fact, democratic right up to the early 1900s. Up to that point there were the Tories -- today's Conservatives -- and the Liberals (now merged in the Lib-Dems; it was the Liberals who laid the foundations of our welfare state, not Labour.) With only two parties to choose from, the winner was pretty much guaranteed to have polled most of the votes.

The rise of the Labour movement around this time split the vote three ways instead of two. As a result, damned few of the governments elected in the UK since then were elected by a majority of the votes. Tony Blair's first term of office was won on the back of just 44.3% of the total. Logically, this means a whopping 55.7% of voters DID NOT want Blair in office. In 2001, New Labour won again with just 42%!

How is this democratic? By what possible twisting and bending of the term's definition can anyone seriously justify the FPTP system as anything other than rule by a vocal *minority*?

Sure, the Italian system isn't perfect, but its flaws are mainly due to having Italians involved. (Consider that this is a country which fought *with* the Nazis, yet nobody ribs them quite as much about this faux pas as they do the Germans.)

The German system shows PR *can* work if done right. Yes, it'll need a lot of though and planning, but nobody's suggesting tearing out FPTP *overnight*. Any government that gets elected will have at least four YEARS to thrash out the details. Any complex system will need maintenance an tuning as a matter of course, so it's not as if we'll be stuck with a lame duck of a system for all eternity.

Jeeze! Live a little, people! Try something *new* occasionally.

Number-crunching.

(With apologies to Private Eye magazine.)

Number of ALLEGED expenses-twizzling MPs:

NEW LABOUR: 60

TORY: 48

LIB-DEM: 10

OTHER: 8

(Total: 126.)

Number of MPs in House of Commons at present: 646.

Please note the qualifer: "ALLEGED". We cannot clean up the House of Commons by stooping to their level. As a people, we're angry, yes. But angry mobs can -- and do -- make mistakes in the heat of the moment. (Remember the "paedophile" / "paediatrician" mess a few years back?)

Calm down, people! We need *considered* decisions. We may even need those radical changes and reforms -- the Lib-Dems have been banging on about just that for *decades*; how come none of you were willing to listen back then? (Come to that: why was New Labour ever re-elected after starting that illegal war in Iraq? Where were your high principles then, O England?)

If members of our government are venal, corrupt and apathetic to the needs of others, perhaps it's because *we* have been just as venal, corrupt and apathetic to the needs of others too? We tend to get the government we deserve. If we want a better government, we have to be better ourselves.

We cannot be judge, jury and executioner, no matter how hard the media implores us. Yes, there have been some shocking ALLEGATIONS, but I, for one, want to see hard evidence examined by expert, independent auditors' eyes first before I'm willing to pass judgement.

And remember, 520 MPs are NOT on the list. Granted, 126 *allegedly* corrupt MPs is nothing to be proud of, (and it's quite likely that some of the remaining 520 are just better at hiding corruption), but it is NOT the end of the world.

The greatest scandal of recent years is the sheer, bloody *incompetence* of our recent governments. It's hard to think of a single bloody thing that New Labour have managed to do *right*. (Ditto for the post-Thatcher Tories. It's easy to forget just how bad John Major's lot were.) We're in a dire economic mess and we *need* people with real financial chops to help turn this once-great nation around.

The only voice worth listening to of late has been that of Vince Cable. Unfortunately, I can't stand Nick Clegg and his Blair-Lite cronies. If the Lib-Dems want power, they'd better bring the ill-treated Charles Kennedy back. (Yes, I'm well aware he had a drink problem. So what? Winston Churchill helped win WW2 while suffering from clinical depression! Frankly, you'll start a lot less wars if your foreign policy consists mostly of, "You an' me, pal! You're me best mate, Ahmedin--HIC!--Ahmadinnajacket! No, aye! Y'are! How... how 'bout another whiskey?")

Jobsian cult indoctrinates American children

@Dave

"Try mentioning 'Ethics' and 'Apple' in the same line to the employees/slaves at Foxconn in China. "

Because, of course, Foxconn only makes Apple gear and has nothing to do with PCs running Windows or Linux... right?

Right?

No wonder this industry is in such a bloody mess: it's populated by idiots. Switch your f*cking brains on for once; you're worse than all those users you love to whinge about on The Daily WTF! At least they have the excuse of not being alleged experts in the field.

Foxconn makes stuff for Nokia, Apple, Dell, HP and umpteen other manufacturers. Including that darling of the "netbook" age: Asustek! (Hello Linux fans! Squirming yet?)

This lack of contextual understanding is *why* we see so many retarded comments from morons who see only the current affairs fact-cannons blasting individual items at us like lead shot from a blunderbuss. No context. No joining of the dots. No "big picture".

Because most of us simply don't realise that the news media isn't in the business of doing our thinking and research for us. They're there to report the facts. Just the facts. And nothing else. YOU have to process these facts and refine them into the Truth. YOU have to do some legwork too.

For crying out loud, grow the hell up already! You're embarrassing.

EZY Technologies MyXerver MX3600

@Alex

What the hell are you smoking? A FreeNAS system makes sense only if you don't value aesthetics or peace and quiet. The only "old PC" I have access to makes a noise not entirely unlike a Harrier Jump Jet in full flow. (And has similar energy requirements too.)

As for the aesthetics issue: where do you think most people's routers *are*? In a convenient basement, or a cupboard under the stairs? Or -- like mine -- next to the phone socket in the living room, about two feet from the TV? If I'm going to have to stare at the bloody thing all the time, it'd damned well better be small, quiet and unobtrusive! No FreeNAS box is going to be that unless that old PC happens to be an old Mac mini. (And if I could afford to leave one of those gathering dust in an old shoebox, I'd have bought a bloody Time Capsule in the first place!)

Being easy to use is a given: it's the 21st Century for f*ck's sake; stop accepting shoddy design when there's no reason to suffer so! Apple have *done* the R&D already. Just make something almost, but not quite, as good, for a bit less.

For goodness' sake, how hard can it be? </CLARKSON>

Renault intros e-MPV

Er, no.

Battery-powered cars are a dead-end technology for Old World countries. Where do I plug my car in when I live in a basement flat in a converted 200-year-old Georgian house with neither off-street nor on-street parking? (I used to park my car in a nearby supermarket car park, but few residents in the area have even that option. Most UK housing was built by the Victorians and predates the rise of the automobile.)

The solution isn't hydrogen -- that's a stopgap measure at best. Why do we insist on driving individual power stations around our roads at all? It's ridiculously inefficient. Trains have been running on electricity for over a century now and they don't use batteries. (Well, not for the actual moving anyway.) They get it distributed to them through overhead wires or live rails. Trams and other forms of light rail use similar power supplies.

Granted, stringing wires along the roads isn't going to make them look any prettier -- though a glance at cities like San Francisco suggests nobody there would notice the difference -- but that's far from the only, or even the most practical, solution...

Bombardier have built an induction-based system for their trams which sits entirely beneath the surface. (http://www.railwaygazette.com/news_view/article/2009/01/9282/primove_catenary_free_induction_tram.html.) This exact same technology would work just as well on *any* road-using vehicle. We're not allowed to drive off-road in London, so we're almost driving on rails anyway. Neither are most urban car journeys done at great speed. 30mph is a typical speed limit in most Old World cities -- often, it's lower. (Induction-based power would, incidentally, eliminate the need for speed traps / bumps and the like: just reduce the power to the induction grid in the relevant roads!)

"But this would mean digging up all our roads!" I hear you moan.

What do you think all those lovely, tarmac-slathered roads, coloured lines, floodlit signposts, traffic lights, zebra crossings, underpasses, bypasses, flyovers, motorways / freeways, roundabouts and the like were built for? The horse and cart? Not only have we already built brand new infrastructure for the car, but this infrastructure undergoes frequent maintenance and renewal: rolling out induction systems while performing routine resurfacing is perfectly viable and wouldn't add noticeable disruption. Batteries would get you through areas where the induction hasn't been fitted, but they wouldn't need to be optimised for long-distances: they'd be recharged while you're sitting at traffic lights over an induction-fitted road.

Remove the need to cart power-plants around in your cars and you can also make smaller, lighter, more economical cars. Making cars *smaller* is how we'll solve the perennial congestion problems in Old World cities like London and Milan.

Removing the emissions also makes certain civil engineering problems like road tunnels far easier to resolve as the ventilation requirements are drastically reduced. (Suddenly, the notion of tunnelling a replacement south circular A205 *beneath* south London's rat's-maze of a road network makes more financial sense!)

And if you've read this far, you need to get out more.