Posts by jackharrer

MPs urge government to stop Britain's phone theft wave through tech

If you look carefully, tons of them are so addicted to TikTok and similar rubbish they cannot stop even on the street. Thus having them in front of their faces all the time. It is really insane!

Will Flatpak and Snap replace desktop Linux native apps?

Re: Using Snap comes at a cost

It also takes a lot of space. I run small VMs for different purposes (general browsing, secure browsing, dev, etc).

I noticed I started running low on HDD space on them. Culprit? SNAP. It was keeping old versions of libraries that were not even needed. I couldn't find a way to remove them. So I nuked whole Snap (which was pretty much only used by Firefox) and replaced with Firefox from launchpad. Space saving: 5GB.

This is just ridiculous, considering that whole OS with LibreOffice and stuff is 11GB.

Snap also creates tons of mountpoints (one per app) slowing down startup/shutdown considerably. Yes, it may not be visible on dev workstation, but is as hell on quad core VM.

IT contractors raise alarm over HMRC mulling 'one-month' nudge onto payrolls

It may be exactly like in construction. I help few friends with their tax returns (they work in construction). Situation is that although they're self employed (with all the bonuses and drawbacks of it) employer needs to pay their "expected" NI & PAYE taxes. So when they do their tax assessments those usually come with large returns due to expenses they can claim.

I have a feeling same will happen here - they will ask employer to pay your contributions directly to HMRC and people can claim them back if you provide all the proofs. People are not directly employed (they are still contractors) but are on payroll. System is really simple and already implemented. For PSC, where you're not supposed to muck with dividends and so, it makes sense.

It will just increase number of Ltd companies, which are more headache to manage. That will also increase workload on HMRC to analyse tax returns from those Ltds thus will be very counter-productive and expensive, IMHO.

iPhone 4 coming to T-Mobile UK

Me too!

Another one Me Too Post. I've been on T-Mobile for 3 years. Their infrastructure is abysmal. Phone calls cut every now and then, but what is really bad is their data access. I used to switch to GPRS because 3G signal was so unreliable. Even on GPRS average speed was around 4-8kb (yes, bits) out of 56kb. Baaaaddddd. Good I don't really use that phone much nowadays, just to answer some calls, and such.

Mechanic drove three miles with angry bloke on bonnet

Crimestoppers

I always do this with CrimeStoppers. I just call them (it's anonymous!) and tell them that some extremely dangerous sh*t is happening. They tell me to call police (which is a waste of time) and I tell them that if somebody dies or get seriously hurt it's their fault. Then hung up.

Police always comes in 5min max. Plus you don't need to leave your details, so nobody harasses you afterwards. Job well done!

Mobe-wielding drivers getting away with it

Crowdsourcing

Make an offer: for a nice snap (or better, video) if fine is given you get a nice cut. Imaging all those teenagers playing police with their mobile phones. That would also teach morons who drive and chat on the mobile some manners.

It would be even better to give access to motorway cameras so people can watch it and if they spot dangerous driving flag it so it automatically notifies police. Same thing, pay a cut for each fine and you'll have a legion of grandmas watching it instead of EastEnders.

I think that would be much cheaper than police and there are many people who would be more than happy to do this.

Applesoft, Ogg, and the future of web video

There is another way

Google can open source (or just licence free) the VP8 codec and then enter partnership with Adobe. If Flash enables VP8, then all concerned parties would try to save themselves from H.264 fees and would recode to VP8. HTML5 has a much hype, but it's a very immature technology so far, whereas Flash is installed on over 95% of machines all over the world. That can be a game changer. Also that would not require any major investment and advertising campaign - they can do it using all those grassroots movements all over the web. It would have also benefit of being protected by Google's cash and patent pool - thus I said it would be better to keep it closed source and just release under irrevocable free license.

Just my 2p.

Jobsian Vendetta - Flash stabbed by Mac the Knife

Re:this is why..

Because if they don't agree with His Steveness, they will finish in the same naughty corner as El Reg. No invitations to product launches, no direct news, etc.

Jobs has quite a big part of tech journalism by the balls. Another reason to hate him? Like if there are not enough of them already...

Ubuntu's Lucid Lynx stalks PC and Mac converts

AppStore

What Ubuntu needs is a proper AppStore, kind of like Apple's one or the one on Android. Where people can easily buy (yes, BUY) applications and developers can actually make cash. With nice added option of donation for free apps. With current installed base of Ubuntu in millions, it can be a very viable place to make cash.

It's not surprising that Monkey Boy tried so hard to scream "DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS". Even the best platform, without software is only this, a platform.

Google Maps absorbs Earth view

Rubbish

Have you seen 3d map of Stockholm? That is 3D not that silly attempt to do something that add wireframe models onto flat map.

Check it out: http://www.hitta.se/LargeMap.aspx (then click on 3D and zoom to Stockholm). Best of all, those guys created it in one week of flights over Stockholm.

BT fibre upgrades hit full speed

Re: Grrrrr

Doesn't matter that exchange will go live. It will take another 10 years to pull this fibre to cabinets, judging by former performance. Guess how long for Fibre to Premises...

Poplar exchange has been full for last 2 years. I cannot even connect (expensive) business connection. Sorry, no space left. Actually there is a lot of space (I suppose pre-reserved) for AOL/TalkTalk which is such a rubbish nobody wants it.

Ridiculous, nothing more. They should be legally obliged to provide decent infrastructure.

GSMA trials spam snitch scheme

But...

Do you expect telcos to pay for that or governments?

Anyway, in both ways, we, us customers, are screwed. They don't care, as long as people don't complaint too much and it doesn't hurt the bottom line.

Times websites want £1 a day from June

Re

Yes, but when the price is reasonable. Quid per day? He's taking a p*ss. Dead tree version costs that much, but that includes printing, delivery, sales margins, etc.

Similar argument as with CD/Downloads... Somebody tries to profit and when it fails, complains will start about unfair competition, not a stupid business model. When will those people learn Economics 101 - Supply and Demand curve that dictates prices?

Microsoft tickles Bing with feather duster

Yeah

>>The firm's Todd Schwartz said in a blog post that Microsoft carried out research on Bing usage and found that 42 per cent of sessions required search decision "refinements".

Maybe they can refine that pesky stuff called "meaningful results"? So far Bing is just a waste of time. Maybe, sincerely very maybe, in the future they will wise up.

Commodore 64 reincarnated as quad-core Ubuntu box

Hmmmm...

I think I know what you need. It's called LAPTOP ;)

US Navy plans self-building floating fortresses

Re

It is actually wrong because of different reason. What's the point of shipping all those containers already in full shape? Flat pack them, IKEA style. Then add huge balloon inside and drop them to water. I don't really think propulsion and self-building capabilities are really so important. It's more about having some kind of machinery to haul them together so they can be joined.

Then when you have first layer, add some cranes and build second one. It will be high enough over waves and stable enough. Then you can add customised parts like comms, weapon systems, etc. Also building from cheap containers will make it really hard to destroy. Fire the torpedoes and destroy side containers. Big deal, drop few more and attach where destroyed ones were. At the end of operation, just take expensive stuff with you and let cheap floaters go down.

Generally brilliant idea, although needs little refinement. Maybe Blighty should start doing it?

Google redirects China to uncensored Hong Kong servers

Babies???

>>How many babies are they planning to kill?

I think we established this alreadyon Internet! Not babies, KITTENS, ficking KITTENS!!!

Facebook stands up to UK.gov's cyberbullying

True

It's been known as "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" for at least several centuries... Shame that UK.gov cannot learn this simple story.

Aussie smoko-proofing drug prevents ill effects of cigs

Smoking kills!!!

"At the end of the test every single mouse was dead. However, this was simply because the boffins had killed them in order to examine their lungs"

We always knew it! SMOKING KILLS!

Trojan armed with hardware-based anti-piracy control

Don't worry

Don't worry, soon we will be able to get a cracked version from TPB. We all know that there is no such thing as working DRM.

Microsoft guns for 2-for-1 sales with 'pre-installed' Office 2010 deal

Fricking title here

"Apart from the fact that it needn't cost either them or the customer anything"

As you noticed it will not cost them anything to install OO, but it will also not bring them some $$ from MSFT for installing their trialware... Guess who pays for that?

Yahoo! Nectar deal to link online ads to offline buys

Why?

Article says quite clearly: it is opt-in. Also every store card you can imagine does the same. That's the reason you get those funny little discount vouchers printed with your receipt. And somehow they always have something you bough recently (or been buying regularly) and you probably would like it.

If you really want to be anonymous, use cash only and wear oversized dark sunglasses, as maybe they can find something on store cameras about you. It is just simply impossible not to leave trace anymore.

Microsoft tests show no Win 7 battery flaw

Who needs a title?

Actually in Linux you can access all battery statistics straight in one text file. You can see how much capacity originally was available, how much is left, current power draw/charging, etc.

UK.gov unmoved by Internet Explorer 6 security concerns

Proof

It just shows how entrenched MSFT is in UK.gov. No amount of facts can change financial relationships between those guys and MSFT sales guys.

UK.gov tweaks open source policy small print

RFP

How many of you have seen RFP that have been written specifically with one company in mind? Unrealistic expectations, functionality that is not needed for anything but exists only in that one specific product, etc. Try to do the bidding for that...

Sadly that will change nothing. Most of the deals are done on CEO level, without any possible scrutiny. But nice somebody tried...

Amateur goof makes Twitter account hijacking a snap

reply?

Yes, but in most of the cases you whitelist sites you go most often and then just add new ones as you crawl there. It's not optimal, I agree, but heck, that's how it works.

I'd be happy to see a managed list (something like Adblock subscription list) with whitelisted domains. If somebody's paranoid, they can always disable it and go the old school way.

Fifty Strikes and… we'll tell your Mum

Another reason

There is also another reason why we should vote LibDems. To balance the parliament so no one party can pass any laws they want. If law gets stuck on discussion stage, newspapers are more likely to pick it up and trigger national discussion. That can only be a good thing.

Rugby Football Union scores 3D first

Wrong sport

It is obvious that the most important sport for 3D is Miss of Wet T-Shirt. That would fill cinemas nicely ;)

Integrated tube tickets not on the Olympic menu

Re: Mobiles on the UndergrounD

Actually mobiles work on most of District and Circle lines, at least IMHO.

Microsoft sees its chance in Googlephone

Same MSFT as few years ago?

Do you still remember comments of Steve B. about iPhone? I wouldn't trust them too much when it comes to forecasting future...

Spirit rover clocks up six years on Mars

Re:

I suggest to load from the last known working save game. Unless they forgot to save for some time...

Essex leaps into bed with IBM

BS

Yes, all cool and great. Except that workers here in UK pay UK taxes and contribute to local economy. And all outsourced ones don't do this. Plus IBM will find some nice tax avoidance rules so even less goes back. Outsourcing is bad for economy. Full stop.

Broadcom chip promises 20Mp, 1080p mobile devices

Cool

I always wanted 20MP in my mobile... NOT!

What's the point of creating files so terribly big, if sensors and optics don't match it? In a mobile package everything over 5MP is an overkill.

US told to keep its beak out of European decisions

She's good

Shame she's going... I bet the new one will be corporate sponsored wimp...

Webmasters fume as Google profiles signed-out searchers

Yes

So there is nothing like TrackMeNot to stop this? And CookieCuller? And Adblock? And anonymising VPN to Sweden (relakks.com)?

Shame ;)

MS honeypot research sheds light on brute-force hacks

Wow

It took them 1 year to come to this? I have some very innocent server sitting at home and can get to those conclusions in a week. Actually not anymore as fail2ban is doing very good job nowadays ;)

Have a server online - have tons of attacks. Simple as that. Strong passwords should be a norm, unless you're US Military and want to invite some UFO seeking guys ;) Banning users after few unsuccessful attack also. Port stealthing, and so on. Any admin worth their pay knows this. Sadly not many MCSEs... (yeah, I'm one, still prefer Linux)

Gov confirms plans for Sky box in charge of your house

Cool

Have you seen those big, funky displays made of windows on big buildings? You know, playing tetris, etc. Think about potential now! We can use whole cities as one big display. So much fun! All hackers rejoice!!!

Acer beTouch E101 touchscreen smartphone

Cheap?

You can buy T-Mobile Pulse for 140quid, which has a proper mobile OS (Android) not that silly MSFT abomination. Also it offers much more for less cash.

I wonder how could you give it 45% if the whole article just says how bad it is?

Brown's Building Britain website fail

Re: RichyS

If amanfromMars wrote their manifesto it would be very logical, in his twisted way. But it's not logical in any way, so it couldn't be him. Sadly ;)

amanfromMars for PM! ;)

Kingston SSD Now V 40GB boot drive

Re: More Tips

"Oh yes - and if somebody knows of a laptop into which I can install two 2.5" drives, then I'd be grateful, as I'm quite keen on the idea of using a hybrid SSD/HDD setup without having to drag around an external drive."

Pretty much every proper (not a small ones) IBM/Lenovo can do this, if you sacrifice Optical Media bay. You will need to buy a caddy that fits there (eBay around 15-25 quid) and put drive inside.

Tried it before - interesting option, although I used it in RAID not with SSD.

Spain cuts off 3m pre-pay mobiles

More interesting

First of all I suppose they meant registering the SIM CARDS not phones. Phones are irrelevant, anyway, can be easily swapped.

Second is that they need to tie SIM no to ID card no. How many illegals are in Spain? Half of South America ;) All them are without IDs. That was also part of the problem - hard to register if you don't have ID card.

Third - as mentioned before, how many of those SIMs are still in use? I have like 10 lying around at home, some from O2, they posted to me, some from some PAYG phones I bought and sent abroad, etc.

I suppose fallout will not be so big as expected. Most people would be able to register, if they choose to, while illegals have no voice anyway...

PC World punts Windows 7 £100 trade-in promotion

ebay

Everybody's to ebay now to order cheapest working laptop! Question how old that laptop can be? Will Osbourne be ok? Or some ancient 286?

IBM and Canonical pitch Ubuntu + cloud package at US firms

Year of the Linux

Year of the Linux?

I'll get my coat...

New police crime-mapping system crashes on first outing

Question time

Guess which company's software and infrastructure they use? Little clue: that company recently lost a lot of personal info of Sidekick users in US.

MS is trying to get into intertubes, but their infrastructure is badly inadequate. I tried to use Bing Maps (Virtual Earth and whatever past names it had). It is terribly slow to load. Couldn't they go with Google as Met did? At least it works as Google has enough bandwidth and processing power to cope with it.

Pork barrel, golf courses and stuff...

EC forces interop promise out of Microsoft

Re: Test Man

I suggest you take some time and try to read them. Ignore the spelling. Those posts are hard, but if you get between the lines they are actually very witty and insightful. Not always though, but mostly ;)

O2 Broadband puts brakes on BitTorrent

Makes sense

As long as they keep all customers informed it is fine. BitTorrent is a low priority traffic, and by specification saturates the whole link if possible. I personally think that all modern clients should come with those limits as default (50% during peak time, or so) with some explanation how to change them and why those are there. It would make whole experience better for everybody.

CCTV website recruits video vigilantes

Re: and still no-one will watch

But the chance is that somebody will. In normal case it is guaranteed nobody will. Still better that not having that option.

I suggest we force all those scroungers on Incapacity Benefit and such to sit for the whole day and watch this. Let them earn their wage. They can even lay down with a laptop if they want. It's just a matter of controlling software that checks they're not cheating and buggering off to the pub in the meantime. All for the price of cheap-ass laptop and internet connection.

MyConservatives website collapses at launch

dammit

Another site that requires www before the address. Why all those messed up sites are located in UK? Is it so hard to set up DNS properly?

The North Face trips over The South Butt

Free advertisement

Once again some small unknown company will have free advertisement because of large one's ineptitude. After short struggle.

I liked the part about bottle of burgundy. ;)

Wales adopts mobile average speed cameras

Great idea

With average speed cameras you can race like a maniac, without slowing down for normal cameras (as they're not there), and then just before end of the race, stop for a coffee for some time. That will definitely stop all teenagers from racing...

Put more fricking Police on roads instead of those silly measures. All GPS units will be updated to reflect this so it will once again not work. How many times have you got into trouble because there was camera ahead and all the traffic was slowing suddenly from 80mph to 50mph? And then back to 80mph. Moronic idea.