Posts by Sorry that handle is already taken.

ZoneAlarm slammed for scarewarey marketing

Me too

At the same time as ZA was spamming me with this garbage, Avast! was reminding me of talk like a pirate day.

AVG went to hell around version 8. Its previous behaviour on opening a directory full of potential threat vectors (e.g. a directory containing hundreds of assorted installers) was to block access to the files while it scanned them. As of version 8 it seemed to start blocking access to the entire directory, and in some cases caused explorer.exe to stop working while it was scanning the directory contents. Nuts to that.

Go to hell ZA. Time to look for a new firewall.

Nikon points D7000 camera at high-end enthusiasts

Ugh.

That's probably a bit of an oversimplification, since the D### series are more than just mid level.

Also, they haven't rolled the D### in to the new D#### series. I don't know what I was thinking...

Lack of 25p and 30p is a "bonus"?

Must be some strange definition of bonus with which I'm unfamiliar.

No, it wasn't.

It was D# (professional level), D### (mid level), D## (entry level). Now they've rolled entry and mid into D####.

Why not?

Because it would cost twice as much. Full frame sensors aren't cheap.

And before someone trots out Moore's Law to "prove" that they will quickly become orders of magnitude cheaper than they are today, no matter what you do to the size of a transistor, a full frame sensor is still 36mm x 24mm.

Ain't Competition Grand?

Also speaking as a Canon user, this should give them a kick up the arse. This does look likely to occupy a price point above the 60D however. I have a feeling the 60D will in time dispell some of the initial, and I believe irrational, disappointment, but I'd be seriously looking at the D7000 if I weren't wedded to Canon.

Now pardon me while I go out and buy that 7D I've been eyeing off for so long.

Budget DSLR Cameras

APS-C vs Four Thirds

The imaging area of four thirds is 17.3 mm x 13.0 mm = 224.9 mm².

The imaging area of Sony style APS-C sensors is 23.6 mm x 15.8 mm = 372.9 mm², or 66% larger than 4/3. Even if you're only talking linear dimensions it's still 29% on average. The maths isn't that hard.

My thumbnail's bigger than four thirds, and I just trimmed it.

Steve Jobs lectures devs, dodges antitrust action

Half a loaf is better than one?

That seems to be a bit of an overly optimistic assessment of the flash situation. Unless it's loaf in the sense of "pinching off a loaf"...

Godly Aussie MP accused of being online 'smut' junkie

It's fine

It's left to the intelligent reader to finish the proverb in their head.

State vs Federal Politics

Here is an article about a NSW state MLC, and inexplicably there are two entirely unrelated paragraphs added regarding the federal government. Who are these politicians with highly moral agendas to which you refer?

"Aussie gov is clearly on a Mad Witchhunt"?

I have no idea where you got that from. This is state politics, the federal "Aussie gov" is not involved and doesn't even care.

It's scandalous because of the hypocrisy of an ultra-right wing bible thumping parliamentarian, who spends his time trying to ban everything that might make people happy because it's "impure," caught looking at porn.

Oh but it's okay because it's for "research" purposes. Right.

Texan cooks up deep-fried Guinness

With any luck...

...it will result in Guinness finally being fit for human consumption.

AMD to dump ATI brand

Yeah

"ATi brand prior to its AMD take-over was more synonymous to me of crappy drivers support."

Changing the name from ATi to AMD isn't going to change that. I wish it would, but I guess it was unreasonable of me to expect the AA and AF on my new 5850 to, you know, reliably work.

Oz greenies rattle politico cage with robocalls

Conceded

I suppose I shouldn't have conflated "I've mentioned this on the odd occasion" with "you've never got it right."

No worries, I hope.

Spam

When John Howard did it during the 2004 election campaign, The Chaser dumped a wheelbarrow load of Spam on his campaign office's doorstep.

Uhh

".. Why the *&%$ are people in Aus worrying about "climate change" when this *&%$ing internet filter is still going to go ahead???"

Non-sequitur in aisle five, aisle five.

Not Labour.

Can The Register get this right one day? It's the Australian Labor Party.

Turkish groom accidentally sprays wedding guests with bullets

RPGs fired up

The classic RPG-7, the one that everyone thinks of when someone says "RPG", typically has a timed fuze on it to ensure it goes off even if it misses its target. Therefore, it's not coming back to earth, at least not in one large piece.

How an ancient printer can spill your most intimate secrets

Well there's a stroke of luck

And I only just threw out my DM printer too. Fifteen years ago.

Liberal Google, Yahoo!, Apple hurting America claims Reagan

Gorbachav

Heh.

Aussie broadband is slower than a slow thing in a slow town

The key word is average.

I don't know whether you think every Australian has access to a reliable connection with a minimum speed, but considering ADSL2+ subscribers within 1km of an exchange and on a good quality ISP receive 24Mb/s, and there are cable subscribers in limited areas on 30Mb/s in this country, there's a long way to fall to bring the average down to 2.6...

There are vast swathes of this country that have no access to ADSL at all, even within major cities, because all the telephone lines in the country are owned by a single, formerly government owned, company, and this company has grown fat, lazy, stupid and spendthrift.

Apple releases multi-touch 'magic' trackpad

Re: Thanks but no thanks

"I'm pretty certain (but not 100%) that most people who buy Apple stuff don't do so based on it's name."

Not the name, that kitsch^H^H^H^H^H^Hstylish glowing logo on the back of the screen.

Apple brings iMac line up to date

16:9

Having recently bought a 27" monitor, the fact it's 16:9 and not 16:10 is a non-issue when the screen's almost 34cm high and you've got a vertical resolution of 1440 pixels. A 16:10 27" is less than 3cm higher.

And no, I can't see 2.35:1 aspect screens (presumably the "cinema aspect" to which you refer, although a monitor whose aspect ratio is an approximation of pi might be worthy of geek cred) becoming mainstream. The MSOffice ribbon would take up have of the screen.

Those massive CRTs of yours probably cost more than a 27" IPS LCD does today...

Re: Quite right!

Isn't delusion grand?

I need a smiley whose eyes are too far apart for this one.

Airline ejects passenger for being hungry

Whoops

This was intended to be a direct reply to our esteemed colleague, Anonymous Coward and FRIST POSTER OMG.

Didn't quite turn out that way. Hope that puts my ramblings in context. Ahem.

When's the last time...

...you heard of someone being detained for the use of an Australian colloquialism on an aeroplane?

http://www.smh.com.au/news/travel/fair-dinkum-lingo-sparks-us-scare/2007/08/10/1186530594123.html

Oh, right.

Flight attendants aren't hired for their knowledge or intelligence. You'd think they would be hired for their hearing acuity though, but perhaps not.

Street View's Wayne and Garth: The most excellent truth

Most excellent?

Bill & Ted were most excellent, Wayne & Garth were merely excellent.

Way!

Waterfall Niagara speakers

Gah

I don't read The Register for breathless and unquantifiable advertorials about reassuringly expensive audio products that may, or may just as likely not, be any better than something worth 1% as much.

Parliament misled over Climategate report, says MP

"A leading backbench MP"

What exactly is one of these? Do you have house we-don't-actually-do-anything leaders in UK politics? I'm not good enough to be given responsibility but they still think I'm swell? I'm a backbencher but I crave attention?

Brace yourself for 4TB drives next year

Okay

Please post links / studies / etc. on every claim you've made.

Bigger hard drives next year than this year

More news at 11.

Professor warns Aus firewall is undemocratic

Regulation != Censorship

There's more to the media than just "free speech". For starters there are codes of practice and ethical guidelines. Remove these (or just fail to enforce them) and the quality of your media sinks to rock bottom.

Who's who?

So are the LIB/NAT coalition the muslims and the ALP the communists, or is it the other way around?

Lindsay Lohan goes down for 90 days

Blimey

She's looking pretty rough for 24.

3D TV: Avatar or Ishtar?

To be fair...

...they were both pretty bad.

Finn finishes Finnish mini-digger odyssey

What's the artic circle?

Is that something to do with the human heart?

Romford coppers try to stopper young snapper

Groan

Ignorant coppers would be hilarious if they weren't so dangerous.

England versus Germany: Quaff real ale

"Hops aren't a sedative ... That's an urban myth."

I guess the Biochemist with a PhD is wrong then. Good thing you sorted all the confusion out.

New Aus PM may dump comms minister

I'm afraid that's not her natural colour

As she once revealed in an interview with Chris Taylor and Craig Reucassel.

Leica M9 rangefinder camera

Lenses

Leica have been making M rangefinders for 56 years. I think it's fair to say they also made a few lenses in that time.

Very, very expensive lenses.

It wouldn't be a Leica M then

Part of the appeal of a rangefinder is the big, bright and clear viewfinder.

Function Following Form

Now that they're fully electronic and automated, and no longer beholden to design constraints of the film advance system, you'd think they could move the shutter button to a more ergonomic location wouldn't you?

Hands on with Sony's NEX DSLR-quality compact camera

Lenses 2.0

Hah, that 18-200 lens makes the camera look ridiculous(ly unergonomic) and makes the small form factor of the camera completely pointless.

Nobel Prize winner on dodgy World Cup ball

Re: Consistantly in the top ten

Racism... that's a new one.

Ubuntu-based Windows XP looker freshens up

"Ylmf OS"?

Well that just rolls off the tongue.

What about MylfOS?

Aussies rage at 'strings attached' iPad sales

News?

So a sales assistant saw a solid gold opportunity to take some of their more gullible and suggestible customers for as much as they thought they could get away with at the point of sale?

The only thing about this article that's newsworthy is that it was JB and not usual suspect Harvey Norman doing the rorting.

Security gaffe exposes addresses of elite iPaders

Please re-read

I didn't use the word "possible".

Celebrities hey?

Having your email address disclosed doesn't make you vulnerable to phishing attacks. Being a complete clot makes you vulnerable to phishing attacks.

Amusing security attack there too.

Sarah Palin 'boob job' debate dominates US right - and left

Sense of humour malfunction?

I simply found the line amusing, nothing more.

Google Caffeine jolts worldwide search machine

Presumably...

...a large proportion of that "hundreds of thousands of gigabytes each day" updates/replaces existing information in the index, rather than being simply dumped on top of the existing index.