Posts by Joe 35

Why you can't move a mainframe with a cloud

"Cloud computing is another style of utility computing.... "

" ..Cloud computing is another style of utility computing, but it clusters cheapo servers together instead of using a large monolithic machine "

Well THERE'S your problem, because that is not the definition of cloud computing, you have confused how it's often provided, with what it is.

What it is, is computing resources provided over the internet, usually with contractual conditions where it is provided with matching small increments of cost for small additions of extra use, for short periods of time. Now , I'm sure you could enhance or pick into that definition, but however its defined, the type of computing resources used to provide it should never be part of the definition.

For example, a cloud computing service could equally well be provided by shared use of a stonking great mainframe, as by many cheapo computers. Indeed, going back 40+ years, a mainframe timesharing setup fits the definition of cloud computing.

Microsoft steers OEMs away from putting Phone 7 on Tablets

"Tried to find a good Android tablet ..."

Give it a few months, they are coming.

Behind the Kindle, under the iPad: an unholy alliance

Isnt the point ...

"Uh... isn't the point people are trying to make, that if I buy a book, "e" or otherwise I should within reason be able to do what I like with it "

Nope that ISNT the point I am responding to. Thats a perfectly reasonable argument, perhaps you can make that, and I'll respond *(see below).

The one I"m responding to is the pure and simple "cant lend it to a friend" argument.

They dont say "it damages my inalianable right to wipe my arse with it", they say "I cant lend it to a friend".

IME ,when you lend a book to a friend, you never see the bloody thing again anyway, so you are better off without that particular freedom.

* as a starter, there are many things I cant do with real books, which I can with ebooks.

For example, I acquire the practical freedom to reread a book, because the reality with paper books is, I give them away because of the room they take up, so I actually cant reread them. Thats a freedom I GAIN. (I recently took 4 bags of books to a charity shop). I did that every year.

Another freedom I GAIN is the one to take 10 or 20 books on holiday with me, one that airline restrictions and practicality imposes on real books.

As I don't wish to paper my walls or wipe my arse with books, I'm not bothered about losing those particular freedoms.

The other right I DO NOT lose, which anti-ebook proponents sometimes talk as if I do, is the right to still buy actual paper books. Larger format textbooks for example, books with lots of illustrations or pictures, are IME better in paper and I continue to buy those. 'ordinary' format paperback format fiction and non-fiction,and textbooks with few illustrations, are better as eBooks. They are always cheaper compared to new books, and sometimes cheaper even than second hand ones.

Lending books - a bizarre argument

I often see this advanced (mentioned here a few times) as an argument against eBooks

"Hah! Try lending your ebook to a friend"

But why would anyone base their decision on what book format to buy, on the basis of whether you can lend them to a friend??

"hmm, think I'll buy the hardback as the print is larger and Fred has difficulty with small type. Pity, I'd have preferred the cheap paperback or the even cheaper eBook."

Let the cheapskates buy their own books, I'll buy what suits me thanks, not what might suit some unknown person at some indeterminate time;

"Fred, do you want to borrrow "Stuck In the Past"?

"No thanks, I had that on my Kindle already, and it was rubbish".

Doctors' appointment system goes tits up

"some eejit has overlooked the need for a fallback process"

Indeed, even my local dentists office has the wits to print off tomorrows appointments at the end of the preceeding day in case of a computer glitch in the morning.

Google shocks world with unthreaded Gmail

"Can somebody please give me a good reason against it?"

Yes, you can lose a reply because its stuffed in amongst the other messages.

Steve Jobs chops student hack down to size

"Doesn't she know the first rule of journalistic sourcing: Wikipedia"

Indeed, as it has the useful side benefit that if there isn't an article there, you can always write it yourself and then quote it. Though in this case the lazy would-be journo would it seems be unlikely to be arsed to do that.

London bike hire scheme suffers pre-launch wobbles

"I didn't even get as far as entering my card details"

Please, for the benefit and sanity of everyone else here, can you tell us why you would even want to use this scheme?

Its not because its cheap, because using buses or taxis would likely be cheaper once you factor in a years worth of use.

Its not because its cheaper than owning your own bike, even one of those expensive neat folding jobbies, not at £368 a year even before you get on a bike

Its not because its healthy, because you'll get fit only to be squashed by a bus which I understand is extremely unhealthy

Its not because its convenient because you still have to find somewhere to park the thing, and while you are at your destination, and leave it (assuming you can find somewhere) you are paying for the privilege, like a taxi meter clocking up.

So PLEASE- why?

'External experts' replace Oracle on £13.2m Uni IT project

Doh ! It's an application

Nothing to do with the database, its an application that's the issue here. As you don't seem to appreciate the difference, think its safe to discount your views on SQL server also.

Image recognition – defense against a Lampard replay?

How will cameras see the ball when players are on top of it?

"TV cameras at the correct positions will do the job."

I've seen incidents when there are several players over the ball, goalkeeper right on top of it, cameras would have some difficulty with that.

"Putting tech ... is certain to FAIL."

AIUI the tech inside the ball is a solid chip, so very rugged, and its passive, so there is nothing really to fail, the location decision is taken by computers connected to the sensors outside the ball (in post, under goal line etc) , not inside it, same as the tech for cameras, and you could always just have two or three sensors in the ball just in case.

I have no vested interest in either, would like to see some proper comparative trials.

Ludicrous miscomparison on GPS

The comments regarding GPS are pointless, I have no vested interest but there is at least one company that makes goal line technology using GPS-like technology, but rather than try and use satellites 24,000 miles up it uses sensors in the goal posts, cross bar and under the goal line.

Such technology has the obvious advantage that even in a melee of bodies the ball can still be tracked, unlike with cameras. Why not discuss that instead of 1/2 the article discussing obviously unsuitable technology?

This is all about goals though, offside is far more difficult because its much more than a simple positional problem, its tied into the instant someone kicks a ball ,and who is, and who isn't "interfering with play", something that no technology can do for the foreseeable future.

Mega new climate science: 'Runaway' effect exaggerated

re "who there calm down"

Are you American or something? Look up the meaning of "sarcasm"

Microsoft dubs Windows Phone 7 'ad serving machine'

Mmmmmm, a phone who function is to continually spam me

What genius dreamt that one up? GIven that or a phone which doesn't actually take calls when you have the temerity to pick it up with your hand, looks like its an Android model for my next smartphone then.

iPad apps may need to be disabled-accessible

How is an ipad Application a Website?

As per title, FFS how can an iPad application be considered a WEBSITE?

Contractors dodge ID cards axe

Missing the point - be glad they are gone

Most of these comments about retrospective contracts miss the point entirely.

There were two IT aspects to ID cards, issuing them (part 1), and using them (part 2).

Part 1, The infrastructure for issuing them is essentially the same as the infrastructure for issuing passports, so very little change there, still got to issue passports, so as seen, its only Thales, involved in the bit that printed a card, that's really affected.

Part 2, **The part that had not been costed at all**, that no one knew how it would work (flick a card and listen to it was as far as it got IIRC) , was the massive national infrastructure for reading the cards, for checking that the card is genuine, that its holder was who they said they were, all that junk. None of that was ever costed, it would have been horrendous, that's now not going to be implemented. Be very thankful for that.

This is all aside the civil liberties issues, as someone else posted, never mind the cost, focus on that.

But part two, if it ever came to fruition, would have been *incredibly* expensive to implement (even ignoring the fact it would likely never have worked).

Health records riddled with errors

"Quality"

<<So what data quality is acceptable? Simple answer to this one folks. 100% accuracy, otherwise what's the f**ng point?>>

The point would be, the good that is done by fast access to correct data, compared to the harm done by innacurate data. As long as the former outweighs the latter, thats the point.

To say that something should be 100% correct or not done at all is idiotic, nothing is 100%, and that would even include the situation if records were sent back to patients to correct - inevitably, some patients will mess up their records when they were correct in the first place. (It might be a good idea to do that but it wont get you perfection - you can't have perfection )

I'm presuming you don't decline drugs, antibiotics ,or operations on the grounds they arent 100% safe?

Drought effect on rainforests is negligible

"Lies and mistakes from climate change deniers"

Leo D said "Is the reason The Register doesn't run similar stories about debunked claims from climate-change deniers that it would be a fulltime job to document the lies/mistakes that come from that side of the debate?"

I hope its because the junk like this that finds its way into IPCC reports affects us all in the form of money removed from our pockets by the government in the spurious name of green taxes which are spuriously claimed to prevent these non-events from happening.

And no doubt that will be the next claim "oh look you paid the tax and the Amazon didn't catch fire, so lets bung on another £100 on your air fare to stop it happening again".

Monty launches frantic 'save MySQL' web campaign

Thanks for the publicity - or did you mean spam ?

"as a result I have signed it and posted on to a few hundred others who are likely to be interested."

Wow, these are all personal friends are they? Or are you just trying out a new career as a spammer?

US Supremes to hear text-message privacy case

25,000-character text allowance ??

"exceeded their monthly 25,000-character text message allowance"

WTF? How do you monitor that? A limit on messages I could understand, you could even get a reminder when you exceeded it, but counting up the number of characters?

Surely even the backward US cellular services don't charge by the character?

Trojan plunders $480k from online bank account

"but then I don't click on attachments "

Doesn't matter. Visit a compromised website (which may be reputable, not just dodgy porn/warez) and you've been done. Just visit them as a Windows user and you've been infected. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/31/sinowal_trojan_heist/

As for those who say that its all down to dominant market share, tosh and piffle. Do they think there is something magical about market share that makes it technically possible to break in once a system attains a high enough percentage? If *nix could be broken easily, it would have been done already, irrespective of market share.

Mac users, with no virus protection, and presumably on average higher net worth as they can afford the Apple Tax, are already much more lucrative targets than Windows. Yet number of Mac viruses=zero, Mac trojans=2. That's not because no one can be bothered to attack the systems, its because, so far, they have proven much more secure, by design.

Mobile operators pooh-pooh universal phone-snooping plan

Impressive .....

... to realise I apparently have a 10 kilometer pile of books on my desk (eg a 1 Tb drive). Not sure what thats got to do with the price of fish, or its relevance to whether or not the encryption can be broken though. What on earth lead the GSMA to issue this pile of drivel?

Twitter transformed into botnet command channel

"And this is why we block Twitter at the firewall."

Errrrrmmm ...because you have lots of infected computers behind it?

Barclays online banking borked

Annoying ads

Seems to be working now, Adblock Plus essential to remove the new and highly intrusive mid-page adverts.

So slow it logged me off :-)

Managed to logon, started a transaction, but it took so long to complete, it logged me off before it finished. Now I cant log back in to see if the transaction finished.

From what I could briefly see before it failed, it has exactly the same functionality as the previous service, it just looks different. Rounded buttons instead of links, some sets of functions with a funky border round them instead of just a dull list, that sort of thing.

Massive FAIL.