Posts by Ammaross Danan

Apple's mega Mac on hold (again)

Well

Apple makes some very pretty stuff. I, however, would never buy an all-in-one setup, even if it did have a 27" display. Can you imagine shipping your last year's worth of personal info and data off to Apple just to have them repair the screen? And if the screen was dodgy and they replace the whole unit, you better hope they mirrored the drive properly, and that the new drive isn't dodgy either.... Yes, you could make backups of the data (as you should be doing anyway), but it's still a pain not to even have the computer for the week(s) it takes to repair it, when you could have simply plugged in that old 19" LCD that your new machine's LCD replaced.... I just smell a design fail here. Not in usablility, but in the event something goes wrong.

Seagate pumps £60m into Springtown plant

Re: Why?

You spend money on the "dying" technology so it doesn't "die" tomorrow and force us to work with semi-immature, expensive technology such as NAND-flash or "holographic" storage, spintronics, etc. This will give us that "ten years" to further develop these technologies to make the transition from they "dying" tech work more smoothly. Anyway, why dump more money into the "dying tech" of silicon-based CPUs? We have "working" quantum computers after all.... (yes, this is the same thing, so don't flame me claiming it isn't)

eBay refiddles with auction fees

Type your comment here --- plain text only, no HTML

"And as many active eBay sellers point out in the company's forums, once the math is worked out, the lower upfront costs are often outweighed by the additional expenses."

'nuf said.

Toshiba looks ahead, sees a 14TB disk

Well...

I could see such a large-platter device having power-draw issues. Also, laptops at 2.5" 5400rpm are fairly slow as they stand. Dropping further to 3600rpm and you'll take quite a while to full-copy one... Granted, if all you do is store your DVD/BluRay collection on it, the read-speed won't be such an issue. But for special-purpose use, rather than a "stick one in every computer" mainstream, the price-point might be slightly prohibitive.

California school pulls 'oral sex' dictionary

Ah!

You must be the parent that complained!

The issue we have here is the extreme (brainwashed?) religionists raising such a ruckus that the [silent] majority gets drowned out in the flood of [two] letters. All of these "sexuality" issues are because the parents of some children are so backwards as to forbid and scold (beat?) their children from mentioning anything of a sexual nature because "God has deemed it unseemly" or somesuch lunacy. If God doesn't want us having sex, perhaps he shouldn't have "created" our complimentary bits then perhaps? I see it more as a "here you go, now use responsibly" kinda thing. But that's just me.

Steve Jobs uncloaks the 'iPad'

Well

Apparently you missed the numerous articles here on The Reg that go over the current Fail that is HTML5 video. Some developing bodies want to make money and push a hardware-accelerated codec. Others want a free codec so they can develop cost-effective browsers and editing tools. Since it's all up in the air at the moment, we're in for another round of IE5/6 vs. browser-community-at-large non-standard-DOM type battle.

Chinese Avatards scale Hallelujah Mountain

Correction

The people may be ruled by a communist government, but doesn't mean they (the government) can't be capitalistic in their pursuits. Usually with people in power, it's all about the money. If you can keep your people from having it, it just leaves more for yourself....

IBM's monster tape will take three days to fill

Last I checked...

Last I checked, I couldn't pick up a 35TB hard drive... A 2TB HDD runs near $150-200, and I'm sure these tapes will be at a premium of near $200 each, but will probably reduce to $100 in a few years. Even with a $4000 investment in the drive alone, large data warehouses (think IBM, M$, Apple, US DoJ, etc) will eat these for breakfast and ask for more. Cheap(er) removable media is why tapes have been so popular, even now. Up until now though, they've only had 800GB (compressed) per cartridge, costing near $60-100 each. So, $170 for a 2TB HDD (very reliable if you make it past that 1st month vetting period), or 2 tapes at $140, yielding 1.6TB (2:1 compression, if you are so lucky. I'd say 2:1.5 for real-world [think of what Pixar would get...]). Personally, I'd take the HDDs myself, but I haven't (yet) had to back up more than 1TB of data in a single go.

Damages slashed for US freetard

Re: Valerion

"There was no way she could pay $2m so there was no point in even trying to get the money from her. But $54,000 might be possible, and as she is not exactly wealthy will also have a fantastic effect on her quality of life, and that of any children she may have."

And even if she does have to pay it, that's one more mom +children that's on welfare, and if statistics are anything to go by, those 4 children will most likely roll through the justice system again later in life... hopefully not for shooting me over my pocketbook.

Bloated Office 2010 kicks dirt in face of old computers

Meh, 2007

Word 2007 can't scan an image directly into the document. You must use the document scanner, save it as a file, then insert it into your document. 'nuf said.

Of course, I do use 2007 for work, simply because I need to know how to show other people how to use the Ribbon. Have I found any features the old version couldn't do? No. But I'm probably not in that 1% of people who actually use them.

Mozilla buries heels on un-YouTube open video

H.264

H.264 is popular because vid cards are being shipped with on-board decoding for the codec. Once Ogg is in the same boat (or On2 if the Google rumor is accurate), then the we'll have a level playing field. Until then, why does anyone care that their system is somewhat bogged down while watching a YouTube video? Do you normally troll over YouTube while waiting for your computer to crunch Maya or AutoCAD renderings? I thought not.... Then again, I just read The Reg while waiting for programs to install or M$ updates to patch on new systems...

NASA pegs Noughties as hottest decade on record

However

This is great. They assume burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause of global warming, but:

"though there was a "leveling off" between the 1940s and 1970s"

Isn't that the time frame of things like the V8 cars/trucks that got 8mpg, nuclear bomb testing, and coal-based power plants burning at full steam with next to no regard for emission filters? Granted they have most likely built more coal plants since then, but all have been tightly mandated on emissions....Perhaps the nuclear blasts were saving us! (not likely, but hey, why not jump to conclusions?)

Also, wasn't it NASA that calculates "average global temperature" by averaging select regions of the world, while neglecting regions of africa, Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans, and large regions of the Antartic? Most of which are shown by satellite-based temperature-monitoring stations to have "normal" or "below average" temperatures....

Perhaps NASA just borrows data from our Climategate friends. Any Scientist's collected data has to be legit, right?

Don't get me wrong here. I full well believe something we are doing as a species is causing adverse effects on our environment. Just what that is? I'm probably as in-the-dark as these scientists, except I'm not publicising my stabs-in-the-dark.

Paris, perhaps the average temperature was raised by all the people she makes hot and bothered....

Amateur goof makes Twitter account hijacking a snap

NoScript good,....

Not having JavaScript running on sites that require it? Bad. Talk about a long exception list....

BOFH-making bug plugged in D-link update

@Michael Habel

"What the hell was so wrong with just a simple Log-in / Password?"

Because a login and password is far too easy to automate. Heck, even some attempts at CAPTCHAs are far too easy to automate... I have written one that is about 98% effective. Granted that is just against a noisey number string....

Health Net's missing drive could cost it millions

Fail

The need for encrypting data before it leaves the location is common knowledge to any IT jocky (note, I did not use "pro") in the industry. What all is explicitly stated in HIPAA may be unknown to a fair portion, but the general sense is quite obvious: use secure passwords, use encrypted channels of communications, encrypt portable data, etc, etc. This company obviously did not follow such common guidelines, let alone a HIPAA mandate. Also, the only user in an organization that would have need for 1.5mil records is either an IT person, or someone who needed an IT person to get it... (think upper-management or research/development)

Just plain fail.

Apple and Microsoft plot iPhone Google slap

@Phillip

"But I suspect it means little more than having the option "Bing" in the Safari default search options."

Perhaps not. You can see the contract mentioned with Verizon to allow ONLY Bing as a search provider in their browser. Perhaps the iVault-of-a-Phone will lock down their Safari searches in a similarly exclusive deal for the right price....

Virtualisation for Beginners

@Inachu

Cheer up then. Parallels is developing a graphics card virtulization method (as well as other well-known entities such as VMWare). From what I hear, they'll offer what essentially amounts to pass-thru capability... How many <insert small-to-large span of time here> it takes to come out is anyone's guess though.

MS spins IE security disaster into Windows 7 upgrade opportunity

@ Neal 5

About the following (at the very least):

USN-887-1 libthai 2010-01-18

USN-878-1 firefox-3.5 2010-01-08

USN-877-1 firefox-3.0 2010-01-08

USN-875-1 redhat-cluster, redhat-cluster-suite 2009-12-18

USN-886-1 pidgin 2010-01-18

USN-870-1 pygresql 2009-12-11

I don't know about you, but I don't have a Linux box set up in a redhat-cluster environment, nor use pidgin as an email client, nor have python PostgreSQL extensions (nor PostgreSQL for that matter) installed. I don't speak Thai, so libthai is out (since I don't install language extensions either). You can chuck Firefox 3.0/3.5 out the window since that is platform independant anyway (and who doesn't run the most bleeding edge ALPHA version anyway? [sic to Win7Beta-still! runners])

Your 1000-long list of alerts is for any and ALL packages (and versions of such) that Ubuntu "supports" in their distro.

"I might just consider switching to an unpatched XP running IE6 out of box, with no firewall and no anti-virus"

And last I checked, this setup is infected in less than 6 seconds last I checked...PASSIVELY (as long as you're not behind a router, which apparently isn't even safe anymore either)

MS to issue emergency patch for potent IE vuln

@AC

I must also echo the lament of having to use multiple Anti-whatever softwares to attack these problems (however each has merit in its own use). With IE8 at least, I've seen a marked decrease in the "auto-executing"-type malware and it seems to come down to a process of:

"Your computer have a Virus!!! Click here too remove!!" (misspell intentional btw) -> User click "OK" -> downloading.... -> Run / Save / Cancel -> Click: Run -> Windows: "Are you sure you want to run this executible?" -> Click: Yes, I'm sure (are they ever? REALLY??) -> BOOM! Virus.

Really, now it is just coming down to end-user computer dummy-mode (read BOFH for that wonderful episode) where they are just clicking "yes" to everything. So, end-user fail (hence the icon).

Poisoned PDF pill used to attack US military contractors

Of course....

Of course, one would wonder who would open an attachment in an email that perhaps has spelling/grammer mistakes in line with "USA Department of Defence invite you too our Las Vegas show!" (see if you notice all of what's wrong in that statement) or other common spam-from-non-native-English-speakers issues.

US will complain to China about Google hacking

@AC: Re: Cut them off

"China should be cut off from the world wide web."

Not only would this stop (most) hack attempts, but I do recall that a fairly large bulk of spam/virii comes from this region of the world... might at least alleiviate my spam filter from having to work so hard.

Yes yes, I'm aware of the M$-hijacked Windoze (l)uzers that are part of a spam botnet, but even that is tolerable if the developers are sitting in a sandbox.

Just wait until they start hijacking satelite internet feeds and have to get on the net that way.

World standards body maps out 3D TV generations

@Ken Hagan

"That would let you watch...from a (mobile) vantage point anywhere within the scene itself."

I would have to agree. I'd personally fork out for even a slightly bulky HD VR headgear kit if I could view my (insert show name/type here) from any vantage point. Just give me a small keypad with forward, backpedal, strafe/sidestep right/left, duck and jump (and perhaps a shoulder-mounted .50cal-type weapon just for fun. Would give a whole new meaning to "expressing your dislike" of a movie...two thumbs down? Try 2 Mike-Mikes to the face....)

Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB Sata 3.0 HDD

@Ivon

"How did you fit a i7 940 chip LGA1366 on a P55A motherboard LGA1156."

It's simple. You buy the LGA1156 version of the i7 940 chip.

Microsoft Office 2007 retailers dodge patent injunction

Alternative

Last I checked, OpenOffice was free. It comes in a variety of versions though...one for PowerPC, one for Linux (x86 and x64), one for Windows (x86 and x64), one for MacOS, Solaris... well, you get the idea. Cross-platform, open-source, interoperability. Sure, it may not format a word doc 100% like the original, but if it did, I'm sure M$ would sue. "How dare you make a product that functions as well as ours and have the nerve to GIVE it away??!?!"

Paris, because she's probably hiding a patent somewhere too....

Next-gen iPhone rumored for April

But

"- customisable home screen

- bigger clock

- my own wallpaper as background

- my own message alert tone

- calendar event notification on the home screen"

All of which exist even in my workphone crackberry 8900....

And as for:

"Dual core. No multi-tasking apps allowed. Does not make sense."

Perhaps Apple is simply reserving a full CPU core for their GUI/OS and allowing the App(s) to have a single, full CPU to play with? It would certainly SEEM like improved performance (as long as they stay at relatively the same [or faster!] MHz speed).

Mine's with the pinch of salt in the pocket.

Avatar renders this earthly life meaningless

Here's a thought

Why don't any of these "lost souls" get off their mopey rears, do some college studying, and develop a neural interface that allows people to have a virtual "avatar" self in an immersive virtual environment similar to that shown in Avatar, complete with bio-feedback? Then they could "go" to Pandora whenever they want, and actually contribute something to society while doing it. It's such a waste to hear people wanting to off themselves thinking it will do any good on the hopes of getting "rebirthed" into a Pandoran-like world. Your probably more likely to get "rebirthed" into an African trible-like society where you get eaten by a lion-type predator when you're 6, and then "rebirthed" in a feudal-system realm where your menial labor starts at age 8 (or sooner) just to die by 25, to be "rebirthed" as a.... well, you get the idea. Life is tough. Live with it. Off yourself if you dare roll the dice on the off chance "something after" is better.

Symantec Y2.01K bug still stymies customers

Answer to a question

There are several people assuming a string-comparison of a date as "2009" should < "2010", but there are several programming languages that have multiple date-comparison functions built in. VBA (if you've ever worked in M$ Access databases) has a string-to-date type function that has a cut-off date around 1910 or so. So, if you put in "10/20/25" it would translate out to 20 Oct 1925, but if you put "10/20/05" it would translate out to 10 Oct 2005, instead of 1905. If Symantec's lib function translates "01/01/10" to 01 Jan 1910, instead of the expected 2010, it could be a date interpreter and NOT the comparison function that is the root cause.

Just a thought.

FAIL (but I'll let you decide for who)

Mainstream flash making eyes at 3Xnm tech

Um

"It is going to introduce a SG2 product with 128MB capacity"

So, that's roughly 40 MP3s (32 MP3s if you dedicate 25MB to the OS)... Might make things interesting for a mini-disc replacement, or perhaps something akin to cassette tapes for MP3 players.

Perhaps this can be a mini-cam storage for my RC Heli...

Sex in the Noughties: How was it for you?

If church ideology was law...

If "church" ideology was imposed as law as often as the sectarianism world believes, things would be a bit different. (of course, it would depend on the "religion" in question, as I'm sure the Church of the Jedi and the like would have little-to-no stance on some things...)

1) LGBT would be outlawed. Period. Those found guilty would be put to death (for those Old Testament or Qur'an followers)

2) Theft would be enforced with more than a fine or light jail sentence/probation (Mosaic law anyone?)

3) Divorce would be a punishable offense (good old Catholic no-divorce, ever, there)

4) We would have laws for "Crimes against Mother Nature" (I'll let you fill in the religion for that one...)

5) Oh, and don't forget legally-compulsory church attendance, since the government would be the most likely to adopt the "sitting in a church makes you a saint" stance, while I try to make the box sitting in my garage an Audi...

Enjoy the chafing this may cause and any warm responses that may follow. :)

Googlephone Nexus One leaks more news

I for one...

I, for one, welcome our "Nexus One"-toting armani overlords. Perhaps this status symbol handheld will take better root amongst the capitalistic industry heads for means other than "oooOOoohh shiney..."

China cages game Trojan hackers

Designer Bags

We all know that these chinese blokes just wanted the new designer Harris Pilton bags that Blizzard just released in-game.

Ladies put off tech careers by sci-fi posters, Coke cans

@Nusato among others

@Nusato (only for part)

What a wonderful rant to read. Thoroughly amusing. Although there are some points I do agree with. It has been my experience that most women are simply not as interested in IT as they are in other "stereotypical" fields (I'm not listing them due to the obvious need for a fire-retardant line of fashion....). Throughout my schooling in computer-related courses, the head count was 1 (one!) female in the class. MAYBE. Similar thing for the math/science courses. Women in those courses (few as they were) were there due to a Major requirement (for medical sciences or somesuch *cough* NURSING *cough*).

Why there is this trend has been the topic (or in this case, the side-effect observed) for many research attempts. I say attempts since they haven't really definitively PROVEN anything yet, have they? Except perhaps statistical analysis (funny ANAL is in that word...) has shown that more men are in IT than women...which is where stereotypes come from: percieved patterns in a group. If a pattern didn't exist, there wouldn't really be a stereotype for it (albeit an outdated stereotype). I'd like to see the more obvious stereotype of the "IT Geek" who has some form of caffinated beverage at hand (or recently disposed of, since we're not "slobs," as our mind-set doesn't allow it!), tasteful posters of interest (be it "natural art" that should be under the bed, an AMD/Intel poster of preference [but that's what the sticker on your PC/Mac is for...], or the sci-fi type poster [who wouldn't want the Movie poster for Core on their wall???]), and the obvious PILE OF MISC. CABLES that you have a nick-name for... These things, along with a healthy pile of computers in various states of life (newly minted and yet to be christened to being eaten by dust bunnies and other semi-solid quartermass animorphous lifeforms....) and fulfilling various roles laying about the office.

Real IT people's offices look like someone actually does work in them. Perhaps women are too put off by the "mess" that you have no time to clean up properly before more is brought in? I know I would be [am, actually] at the very least daughted by the shear volume of work that needs to be prioritized and worked through. Maybe it's the pressure of never being "finished." At least in network admin/ support role....

Google's reCAPTCHA busted by new attack

Missing something...

I'm sorry, but you can't simply split your statistics by stating: "If we presume that in half of the cases the failed word would be the unknown word for reCAPTCHA..." and expect double success rate.

1) The "unknown" word made the "unknown" list due to being mangled (see definition: foobar) in the first place, makes it less likely for a hack-attempt at OCR to do much better.

2) The original text was more-or-less easily OCRed, and thus removing add-on distortion would grant a better success rate.

Either way, I saw no reference to state whether the "correct" responses were to the "unknown" or the "known" text, which throws off the possibility further. One would then have to assume all "correct" answers were to the "known" word, giving a 9% (5%+1in25[4%]) worst-case scenario in the tested data-set.

Which is all a moot point considering the dataset is two years out of date...

Just stick with a grid of 9 images and have the users click on the "puppy" (with minor distortions to throw off checksum or color/location sampling hacks).

Video surfaces of alleged Apple tablet

Fake

Yes, that hand has a very definate bluish-tinge of light on it, even when a mostly-black bottom-bar pulls up...

'Friends with Benefits' sex does no psych harm - profs

Re: It is?

"I've tried doing some research, but all I can find is contradictory assertions by advocacy groups -- half of which imply that the US funds ONLY abstinence-only classes; the other half implying that the US funds ONLY contraception-based sex education classes."

The US Gov-funded sexual health programs are required to be abstinence-only based. It does not mean they can not mention contraceptions, they just can not "advocate" their use. "Advocate" is, of course, loosely translated anywhere from "mentioning it at all" to the more reasonable "You should always use a [insert-contraception-of-choice-here] in all sexual encounters" lecture. They can simply mention the existence of--and the purported (supposedly reported) effectiveness of--the various contraceptive options.

A case-and-point of "advocacy" rulings was the termination of a local school teacher for handing out pro-gay/lesbian information during a sexual health class.

-Paris, because we all know what would be in her "sexual health" curriculum.

Might I suggest Victorian regulations in a "melting-pot" of a country is just bollocks?

Ruggedised botnets pushing out even more spam

Windows?

Sorry, but I just had to allude to the whole "why write virus code for a low percentage population" argument. Personally, an apache-attacking linux virus would be nice to have IMHO, due to high bandwidth and always-on status.

I await the day when Linux (or OSX heaven forbid) take 80+% market share and Windows is able to take the Apple-stance of "Look at me! No viruses to worry about! [because we're insignificant]"

Apple to appeal after OPTi's $21.7m patent infringement win

"wilful infringement"

Of course, a simple way to escalate this problem from accidental infringement to "wilful infringement" would be to have notified infringing parties of the patent and seek proper recourse. Upon continued denials for royalties, it could have been persued as "wilful infringement" and won. ...but I'm not a patent lawyer.

Fanbois Apple buyers howl over crocked iMacs

Just swap it!

If my computer (PC) came with a monitor defect or the like, just swap the part! If most likely is replacing an older system anyway, so I'd have a spare monitor to use while the new broken one is repaired/replaced. But, oh wait. It's an iMac, the all-in-one that requires "special" repair. Have a bad PSU? Mobo? Have to talk to Apple.

Ever have to replace a MacBook Pro LCD? Granted, Laptop LCDs are by no means a end-user "grandma can do it" repair, but the $800 USD that the Mac store quoted me made me a do-it-yourselfer in no time. $200 USD later, had a nice new LCD with the new 1yr manufacturer warranty. Wonder if a new LCD from Apple would come with anything more than their 90 warranty for the fix...

Yes, cynical I know. I'm not trashing fanbois, nor advocating PCs (since there are a LOT of bum PC parts too). Cost doesn't mean quality. Look at the cost of Vista development for proof of that.

Superconductor forcefield to shield re-entering spacecraft?

@Ian Michael Gumby

@Ian Michael Gumby and other "why doesn't NASA..."

The article clearly states that it's the EU Space Agency, not NASA, that wants to test their tech. Hence the Russian missile and not a US aircraft (BB or F16, etc).

It, of course, would make no nationalistic sense to have a global space agency working in cohorts with each other for the betterment of space exploration...

Mine's the one with the "Federation" communicator on the left breast.

Japan claims latest long distance e-car record

Also...

Let's not forget the idea of driving a 'lecy car in the first place is A) cheaper fuel costs by buying electricity instead of gas, and B) Being "Green".

Of course, "being Green" is a flat-out FAIL due to the fact using electricity is merely carbon-displacement, since the coal-burning 'lecy factories dump a fair amount of CO2 getting that power to your wall plug.

Once they convert to a more CO2-friendly means of 'lecy generating (nuclear, wind [sic], or ocean-tidal), electric cars will merely be a marginal benefit over gas-powered 50+mpg diesel burners.

Boffins boast newfangled rootkit blocker

et al

@elderlybloke:

Since [most] hackers like to use the powerful tools that are Linux-only, silent rootkits rather than debilitating virii are the weapon of choice for infecting Linux boxes.

@LaeMi Qian:

The researchers most likely used Linux due to being able to have access to the entire system source code, which I doubt M$ would have released for their research even if they were sleeping with Balmer.... However, you are correct in this potentially being an OS agnostic strategy.

Of course, for myself, why load up a system with anti-spyware, anti-malware/virus, root-kit disablers, etc, etc, etc and lose 30+% of system performance? Apparently this kit whacks 6% off to boot and we all know the opinion on the [lack of] performance of Symantec or the like.

Paris - yeah, you'd probably get a virus from her too.

Mozilla plans to tie Firefox 3.7 pigtails in pretty Ribbon

Office version error

"Microsoft debuted its controversial Ribbon interface that it prefers to dub “Fluent” in Office 2003."

I'm sure this line was a simple typo, but it should read "2007."