* Posts by Glen 1

960 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Jun 2009

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NASA suffers rocket fail 20 seconds from firing

Glen 1
Headmaster

is it just me?

every time a post starts with "learn how to spell" (or whatever) i skip it.

If the first thing that occurs to the poster is that the spelling of a previous post is incorrect, then they obviously don't have have anything more important to say, and can be ignored without missing out on some great epiphany.

While I dislike text speak as much as the next adult, I won't begrudge people a few typos. As for spell checkers on "decent" browsers, I currently use FF 3, and don't have one.

Poor porn protection hurt Firefox 3 uptake

Glen 1
Troll

erm... who actually *types* in the address bar?

all the sites i regulally visit are saved as bookmarks, (porn, or otherwise), any other site i view is either an emailed link (clickety), google search result (clickety), or a non-linkified url in a web page (ctrl-C ctrl-T ctrl-V)

How often do i need to type in a url?

I can see that people who deal with business cards may do it on a regular basis, and web addresses need to be recalled from memory while using seldom used (or unfamilair) machines, but that is not something that i deal with very often.

As for pr0n mode, unless you are looking at stuff in the *same session* as the work/wife/kids are about, then setting FF to delete all history and cookies on exit, gets rid of a lot of the risk (and ability for other websites to track you - i remind reg readers that flash apps can leave cookie like footprints on your system as well - i suggest BetterPrivacy FF addon)

I can see why porn mode might be useful, but it still doesnt offer any functionality that didnt already exist (other than not arousing suspision by having an empty history - thats quite a good one, damn).

Bookmarks will still be an issue though, in which case either seperate browser (FF portable?), or for your regular haunts, actually use the address bar. (which will be forgotten about at the end of the session) No porn mode required.

In summary:

The awesome bar is useless, but only actually annoying if *other people* are using the awsome bar to track what you are doing (accident or not), in which case just make sure there are no tracks to find. (this should be on an entrance exam to read El Reg)

my personal way of dealing with this (in the event of laptop theft) is to have an sd card living in my lappy with a truecrypt volume on it, loaded with portable apps. (good password, force dismount blah blah) It also makes fixing other peoples computers a lot easier, not having to access the internet with a toolbar/virus laden IE (yes, i know viri can spread via such cards/drives)

Glen 1

oooh also...

I was a hold out for FF1 (or was it 2?) because the "close current tab" button was removed from later versions. Remember it?

I still occaisonally close the wrong tab by accident, Id close the current tab (farthest right), see that i was done with the next displayed page, and click again, except the tab on the far right (that i had the cursor over), wasnt always the tab that was being displayed. (i was looking at the web page, not which tab was highlighted at the top)

Thankfully, fellow reg readers suggested the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-W for closing the current tab.

Apple decrees Spotify worthy of iPhone

Glen 1
Troll

android/iphone blinkers

fairplay for porting to windows mobile, but no word on s60 :(

I curently use the free service, and I would *definately* pay for spotify if i can use it while at the gym/oot and aboot.

The only issues i have are a) catalogue size (which will only improve with time), b) i cant listen to songs that i already have as an mp3, and c) having it on my phone all the time will affect (effect?) the battery life

Striclty speaking, fixing b) will effectivley negate a) (at least for me)

£120 a year stacks up well against keeping-up-with-the-joneses mp3 players that rich people update quite often (but those also do video), not so well against the 4gb "have all the stuff i listen to on a regular basis with me" players.

It comes down to how much you would normally spend on music. If you average more than 1 album a month, the premuim account could be value for money.

Hell, simply for the convenience of having my music collection in one unified place and not having several copies of my songs accross various computers and mp3 players - it's pretty tempting.

Although i can forsee problems with a "familly" account where there are multiple users in a house all trying to log in on the same account (the fights over the remote control all over again :S)

In closing: I HATE ITUNES

Cops taser naked doorbell-ringing giant

Glen 1
Paris Hilton

Hes probably...

6 feet tall, and 7 inches long (ahem)

Riot police raid birthday barbecue for 'all-night' Facebook tag

Glen 1
Flame

To be fair...

if it had been a teenage girls profile, all that kit and personel would have been needed.

reg comentards moaning about how nieve the poster was "she had her profile open" or "members of the same group (group name UK) can see her profile" Oh wait! i'm having de ja vous

The fact that the police seemed on the ball about an "all night" party, in the middle of nowhere, details of which posted to an essentially public medium. I recon they should get points for effort, not ranted at for paying attention. After all, we wouldnt want coppers paying attention now, would we?

I agree that they should have done a reccy first, but if it *was* a full on rave, there wasnt *enough* recources involved.

Im also surprised that, at the time of writing (darn moderation lag - only kidding, we love you really) , only 1 of the other reg readers (superior intelect and all) seem to have picked up on this (the teenage girl angle).

Have we really devolved into Daily Wail readers moaning about "why aren't they catching real criminals?" one minute and "Of course the party was going to get out of hand, why didn't anyone do something?" the next?

Boffin calculates cash value of memories

Glen 1
Go

The Man is a genuis!!!!

"in response to increasing interest, on the part of his clients, in the use of scientific research projects as a route into the media"

So basically his job title is "think up sciency sounding things to be proved-by-survey in order to draw attention to how awsome a paying customer is"

(*cough* minus the "paying customer" bit = undergrad project *cough*)

Less hard work than being a proper writer, slightly less degrading than the joss stick and whalesong brigade, more money than being a lab tech.... Genius!!!!!1

UK to get Kindle in Christmas stocking?

Glen 1
Thumb Down

re: stuff

for it to be even considered, it needs to be cheaper than a ninty ds. This is so it can compete in the "expensive gift for elder relative" bracket.

How many people have bought one of these for themselves vs present for someone else?

(goes for both ds and kindle)

Stupid prices aside...

The main thing stopping me from taking this seriously is the same reason i dont want an ipod. Namely being forced to use 1st party drm out of the box. No randomly downloaded pdfs viewable on the ebook reader? Nah. Required software on computer? Depends if i like the software.(i really hate itunes)

If it was user customisable from the start, it would still be too expensive, but i would be more inclined to add it to my christmas list for someone else to pay for.

Femto cells with big ideas

Glen 1
Alert

erm...

what can this do that bluetooth/wifi/voip cant?

US feds subpoena names of anonymous web commenters

Glen 1
Stop

star trek fans...

currency of choice is gold pressed latinum

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