Posts by Colin 29

Labour: Free British broadband for country if we win general election

It's always been about capacity, apparently the current track is running at 100%. Most people don't realise this because some bright spark decided to call it HighSpeed2

Billionaire Bezos unveils plans to land humans on Moon, with a little help from some old friends

Re: I don't know why

Because it just looks like a slightly scaled up version of what was achieved in the 60s?

I see your blue passport and raise you a green number plate: UK mulls rewards scheme for zero-emission vehicles

Despite the misleading name, HS2 is primarily intended to increase capacity not reduce journey time

UK Home Office primes Brexit spam cannon for a million texts reminding folk to check passports

Re: First problem, right here ...

Have you seen the messages on motorway information screens? You might need different documents on Nov 1st so you need to check (but we don't know yet so there's no way for you to check).

Brilliant, thanks for that.

It's May 2. Know what that means? Yep, it's the PR orgy that is World Password Day... again

Re: Use a password manager and, like everything else, back them up

Me too, Dropbox to sync the encrypted database between devices

They did it! US House reps pulled their finger out, voted to restore net neutrality in America!

Re: This is hardly a US speciality...

Nope:

1) 52% voted for any number of different versions of 'leaving', depending on who they listened to.

2) 83% voted for parties supporting Brexit because it's a two party system and there's basically no choice.

3) Politicians are representatives not delegates, look up the difference.

4) YouGov issued a clarification because their poll numbers were being mis-represented to suggest a majority support 'no-deal'. The poll data does not show this.

GA'day, mate: Open the plonk, turn up a banger, Visual Studio 2019 is officially here (don't get too excited, Mac devs)

Re: A bunch of stuff I didn't want and none...

Am I the only one that hates this trend of moving menus and tabs into the titlebar? The titlebar should be controlled by the OS not the application, and it should be consistent. Now I have to hunt around to find some of the titlebar I can click on to drag the window

Ministry of Justice abandons key plank of £280m IT project

Parts of CPP have been successful

I think you'll find, if you ask anyone who has to use these systems, that they only work sometimes. I'm not sure you can class that as success.

Ticketmaster tells customer it's not at fault for site's Magecart malware pwnage

CSP + SRI

Have none of these organisations heard of CSP and SRI?

Ooo shiny! First Visual Studio 2019 sneak peek here in time for Chrimbo

Why do MS devs insist on filling the titlebar with other junk? It's a titlebar that now doesn't even display the title! How am I supposed to drag the flipping window around?

Draw whatever you want in the client area, leave the titlebar alone

With the 6T, OnePlus hopes to shed 'cheeky upstart' tag and launch assault on flagships

Re: No headphone jack

OnePlus are good at providing updates. I'm still getting them regularly for my 3T

In Windows 10 Update land, nobody can hear you scream

No warning

Closed the lid on my laptop over the weekend and returned hours later to be greeted by the "Finishing installing updates" screen. Windows had installed the update and rebooted, closing all my running applications in the process.

No warning, nothing.

This is unacceptable. Why do Microsoft find this stuff so hard to get right?!

DVLA denies driving licence processing site is a security 'car crash'

Certificate chain

If there's a problem with the certificate chain how come only Firefox is complaining about it and not all browsers?

Windows slithers on to Arm, legless?

Re: Going from 32 to 64 bit was so simple nobody really noticed it happened

I have VB6 running on Windows 10 64-bit, no problems

Well done, UK.gov. You hit superfast broadband target (by handing almost the entire project to BT)

Re: Moving house

No, but their "solution" was to install another physical line to the property which would have cost £

Moving house

I'm moving house in about a week. Several weeks ago I contacted BT to arrange for a telephone/broadband service to begin the day after I move in. Long story short, after a dozen phone calls I've learnt that it's not possible to arrange in advance, you have to wait until after you move in and then wait up to 2 weeks for them to complete the process. Requests made in advance are cancelled by OpenReach because the line is still in use *now*.

This experience is not consistent with "great engineering achievements".

Intel’s Meltdown fix freaked out some Broadwells, Haswells

I don't know why anyone's having to 'rush' out fixes, they've known about these issues since the middle of last year!

Coincidentally, we've just been given 2 days warning to implement changes relating to new EU card charge rules coming into affect tomorrow. Those rules were apparently announced the middle of last year too.

Kernel-memory-leaking Intel processor design flaw forces Linux, Windows redesign

Recommended benchmark

Can anyone recommend some good benchmark software I can run pre and post update to assess the impact on my home machines?

I'd like some evidence to present if I need to ask for compensation.

TIA

Sigh... 'Hundreds of thousands' of... sigh, web CCTV cams still at risk of... sigh, hijacking

"Good" manufacturers?

So are there any manufacturers providing decent cameras with regular security updates?

'Windows 10 nagware: You can't click X. Make a date OR ELSE'

EU

Come on EU, investigate MS over this. That'll add a few more votes to the Remain campaign!

Samsung sued over 'lackadaisical' Android security updates

OnePlus

I've had a good experience with my OnePlus One. I've probably had 6 or 7 updates over its lifespan and it's now on 5.1.1 (originally 4.4.2).

Certainly different to my past experience with Samsung.

2015 was the Year of the Linux Phone ... Nah, we're messing with you

Re: Nearly makes me want to look at Linux again.

With my Win8.1 laptop installation reaching the point where it needed a tidy up / re-install late last year I did some research and decided to switch to Linux. I tried a few different flavours ending up with plain old Ubuntu but all suffered the same problems:

1) Resume from hibernate buggy

2) Over-sensitive trackpad

3) Buggy support for my bluetooth mouse

4) Unable to read files from my GoPro

Now I'm obviously a Linux noob and maybe someone with more experience could sort these issues out but I spent quite some time researching and attempting fixes and eventually reached the point where I couldn't afford to spend any more time on it. I then installed Win10 and all these things worked. I'm not happy about Win10's spying but I've changed settings to prevent this as much as possible.

Bottom line - despite having a machine considered 'Linux compatible', being enthusiastic, persistent and reasonably intelligent, I couldn't get a Linux desktop working to my satisfaction. I'm sure many will succeed but suspect I'm not alone either.

So how do Google's super-smart security folk protect their data?

Pasting not allowed

Password managers are a good idea but there seems to be a recent trend to prevent pasting into password fields that makes them difficult to use. For example I reset my ebay password the other day (I know, I know!) and had to use Firebug to turn off javascript for the page so I could paste the strong password generated by KeePass. 99% of users would have given up and used Password1.

Antitrust this! EU Commish goes after HOLLYWOOD’s big guns

BBC?

Does this action cover the fact that I can't legally watch BBC content from their website and iPlayer when abroad despite owning a valid TV License? Or is that strictly a BBC issue?

Fancy six months of security nirvana for free? Read on...

Borked

I bought and installed BitDefender on my Dell XPS 13 (which, as an aside, is a nice piece of kit). It worked OK initially but within a day or two had [presumably downloaded an update which] borked the machine, preventing it from booting and requiring a system restore to fix. I gave it the benefit of the doubt and tried installing it a couple more times but the same thing happened on each occasion.

A BBC-by-subscription 'would be richer', MPs told

Fairer?

"Various alternatives were discussed, including a Scandinavian model where public service TV is paid for via personal income tax rather than a "poll tax" flat fee - a fairer arrangement, since the richer pay more"

How is paying different amounts for the same content fairer?

China plans astro-farms on Mars

Why? The moon's already made of cheese

Android bugs let attackers install malware without warning

Fix

How do google plan to roll out a fix? Will it involve patching handsets?

I have a Samsung I7500 Galaxy (is there a Samsung product that doesn't contain the word Galaxy in it?!) but it's still on Android 1.5 because Samsung refuse to update it. If some kind of update to handsets is required I'll certainly not get it.

Microsoft rejiggers EU browser ballot after complaints

Multi User

Anyone know how the ballot screen will work in a multi user setup. My home machine has 3 users configured, two of which have Firefox as the default browser, and one with IE. Will just the IE user be prompted to change browser or will none of the users be asked?

Samsung's Galaxy stuck in history

Issues

I recently got a Galaxy, not because of an irrational hatred of the iPhone but because I want to write apps for my own personal use and I don't have a mac. Generally I like the Galaxy and didn't expect it to get an update to 2.0 (though it would be nice!) but it seems to have been rushed out despite the delays. These are the issues I've had so far:

1) APs not setup out of the box so web browsing, email and MMS didn't work initially

2) The software supplied on the included CD doesn't work with the Galaxy, it won't update the firmware either

3) The only way to update the firmware is by taking it to a Samsung service centre. When I contacted my nearest one they said they couldn't guarantee to do it while I waited so it was better to leave it with them for 24 hours. Even better they couldn't give me a replacement phone in the meantime. How many people can afford to be without their mobile phone for 24 hours, especially when it's needed for work?

4) The Market icon is missing from the menu meaning that I can't install additional apps (I know it's possible using the SDK and the app's apk file but they can't honestly expect Joe public to do this). After Googling it seems that the firmware update may fix this but Samsung support couldn't confirm this and since I can't get the firmware update at the moment anyway (see above) it's a moot point.

Despite this I do quite like the phone but maybe I've just had really bad ones in the past. It does worry me though that manufacturers won't update these phones and that many new apps won't be available because they've been written for a newer version of android. I had assumed that since the Galaxy runs vanilla android it would actually be more likely to get an update than the customised HTCs, how wrong I was.

Google kicks Maestro into touch

Vbv Joint Account

Myself and my wife have a joint account with a Visa debit and credit card. The VbV system is too stupid to know if it's me or my wife making the payment thereby requiring me to remember both my wife's and my own passwords so that I can successfully complete the transaction depending on whichever account it randomly decides needs to verify it.

And to repeat what has already been said, how can doing this in an iframe and being able to reset the password by entering a dob possibly be secure enough to absolve the banks of all responsisbility for fraud.

What a joke.

Colin