Posts by Criminny Rickets

How many? 28 million fewer PCs and tablets to find a home in 2020

I do have a PC. The laptop is for when I am on the move and being able to work on personal things at work (approved by the boss).

My older laptop has been acting up lately and I've been looking into getting a new one. My problem, they are asking WAY too much for what I am looking for. I'm not looking for a high end machine, just something I can read install Linux Mint on, read email, browse the web (with a few tabs open) , listen to music and watch or stream videos on. I also want to use it offline, which rules out Chromebooks. However, I am not going to pay over $600.00 CDN (354 GBP) for it.

Broadcom sues Netflix for its success: You’re stopping us making a fortune from set-top boxes, moans chip designer

Sue Happy

Does this mean I can sue Netflix. Amazon, and the other streaming services for curtailing my ability to resell all my old VHS tapes? It doesn't matter that I only have 5 tapes, each of those companies owe me millions of dollars each for preventing me from selling my tapes.

LastPass stores passwords so securely, not even its users can access them

Re: Seems a bit cheap

I have an encrypted folder in my cloud account that I keep my Keypass db in, which I can also access from all my devices.

Google touts managed Linux, gets cosy with Dell in Chromebook Enterprise push

Cloud

Yet they haven't yet been able to manage a native Linux app for running Google Drive.

Watch as 10 cops with guns and military camo storm suspected Capital One hacker's house…

Darwin Award Contender

Wow, if she actually did as described in the story about doing the hack then logging into her Github account from the same VPN connection, the police didn't have to follow any breadcrumbs, they just had to follow the BIG red arrows the the words "Hacker Here" pointed right at her.

Facebook celebrates Independence Day by lighting up American outage maps

I's not just the US, It's North America. I'm in Canada and also experiencing the issue.

UK pr0n viewers plan to circumvent smut-block measures – survey

Alternate Sources

I wonder if this means Usenet will be making a comeback, for those that do not plan to go the VPN route.

YouTube's pedo problem is so bad, it just switched off comments on millions of vids of small kids to stem the tide of vileness

Oy Vey

So they are saying... rather than surgically remove this skin blemish the tip of your nose, we are just going to fire this bazooka at it. That should clear it up.

'Occult' text from Buffy The Vampire Slayer ep actually just story about new bus lane in Dublin

Re: pro-Buffy flame war.

"Once more. With Feeeling.

Best episode ever :)"

I still listen to the Soundtrack. :)

The ink's not dry on California'a new net neutrality law and the US govt is already suing

Re: Why companies can regulate interstate commerce, and States cannot?

bombastic bob wrote: "If you want to talk about 'corporations' running things, I suggest starting with the Demo[n,c][R,r}at "'

TROLL, There's a troll in the comm... oh wait, this isn't Harry Potter... Carry on.

Do not adjust your set, er, browser: This is our new page-one design

Nice job

While I normally use an RSS reader for El Reg (have for years), there are times that I do visit the main site. I have to say that I actually do like the new layout. I find it is cleaner looking, and doesn't look as cluttered. It's also easier on the eyes to scroll through.

Tardis Reference

Ah, you've went and changed the front page around. I don't like it.

ICANN't get no respect: Europe throws Whois privacy plan in the trash

Slippery slope

"If they store data of Europeans it applies regardless of where they are based"

What if a pay grumble website is in a country with relaxed laws that says someone only needs to be 15 to view the content. Yet, in the EU, the law is that one has to be 18 to view such content. Does that website have to restrict people under 18 from seeing the content as it violated European law, even though it is legal in the country is is based? Can the EU fine that website for allowing under 18 yo's to get a subscription and view the content of the site, even though it is not based in the EU and is following the local laws?

US Supreme Court blocks internet's escape from state sales taxes

How will this affect companies that are headquartered outside of the US? All Amazon orders will now be processed by Amazon Canada. They can then say, "Sorry, we are not an American company so are not obligated to collect State taxes."

Oracle demands dev tear down iOS app that has 'JavaScript' in its name

Self Promotion

I prefer to use Coffeesscript myself.

How sure is the author of the article that Guo actually did receive a cease and desist letter, and it is not just him saying this so as to get free promotion for his app?

Sorry spooks: Princeton boffins reckon they can hide DNS queries

Do you connect to the ODNS Stub server with your request, which then encrypts it and sends it on.

Great, so then TPTB just need to watch the ODNS stub server to see what everyone's DNS requests are, and the originating IP.

What do Cali, New York, Hawaii, Maine and 18 other US states have in common? Fighting the FCC on net neutrality

Re: And the daily letters are: FUD

"About the only thing any did was throttle torrents"

Other that block Google Wallet, as it competed with their own, or blocked video sharing sites as it competed with their own, or throttled online radio station as it competed with their own.

Net Neutrality is not Net Regulation

Government is not taking over. The Net Neutrality rules do not regulate the Internet, they regulate the providers of said Internet to do just the opposite of net regulation. Net Neutrality says that providers cannot do anything to discriminate against internet traffic, be it VOIP, video sharing, file sharing, gaming etc. It is basically telling the providers that just as the government cannot, they also are not allowed to regulate the Internet.

ICANN gives domain souks permission to tell it the answer to Whois privacy law debacle

I was thinking along similar lines. Why not, when someone is registering a domain, have a clearly seen notice, notifying the person registering the domain of the following?

By continuing the domain name registration process, you implicitly agree to allowing your personal information such as name, address and phone number, to be publicly available to look up, in conjunction with your domain name. If you do not agree, you may cancel the domain registration. In addition, if at any point after registering, you change your mind and wish to make your information private, you may submit a domain cancellation and personal information purge request to your registrar. It may take up to 7 business days for information to be purged, to allow for propagation through the Internet backbone.

Mozilla whips out Rusty new Firefox Quantum (and that's a good thing)

Re: Got scared about losing extensions

Another that won't be ported, that I use quite frequently, is the ......

Update, I was going to say that DownThemAll Download Manager would not be ported, but upon checking the authors website, found that he will be doing so after all. but due to limitations in WebExtensions, it will be a scaled back version.

This is part of what he had to say...

Progress?

September 27, 2017

I decided to make a “lite” DTA web extension after all.

Of course, it will have serious limitations and far fewer features, but that’s a limitation of WebExtensions and what can you do?

On a maybe positive, it should be easy enough to support Chrome too (and Opera, etc?)

Google to kill its Drive file locker in two confusing ways

Re: Linux client

Dropbox works really well on my Linux Mint box.

Oracle throws weight behind draft US law to curtail web sexploitation

One problem with this is that the Justice departments usually see all persons involved in the sex trade as victims, whether willing or not. So if Sasha in Nevada, where prostitution is legal, has a web page offering her wares, this law can be used to punish her.

MongoDB quits Solaris, wants to work on an OS people actually use

Re: Welcome to commercially driven open source...

You make some good points. I agree that as long as it is being used by a few people, it is still worth developing. However, at what point is it no longer worth the time and effort to work on something. According to the article, money is not the reason they are dropping support, but because most of their clients do not use that platform, and the ones that do use Solaris, are migrating away. So if none of your clients are even using Solaris, why put the time and effort into developing software that is never going to be used?

PayPal peed off about Pandora's 'P' being mistaken for its 'PP'

since they are in the same industry...

@ The First Dave

One is a payment processing company and the other is a music streaming company. How is that the same industry?

Re: For once I am with the plaintiffs

At first I agreed with you, but then I thought about it.

Yes, at first glance they do look similar, but at second glance, the P is both a different shape and font, and the colour of blue is a different shade.

So Paypal is saying that no other company that start with "P" can use a blue P as part of their logo, even if it is a different looking P and a different shade of blue.

Combine that with the fact that one company is a payment company and the other is a music streaming company, leaves one hard pressed to see how any logical person can confuse the two companies or think they are related in any way.

Intel pitches a Thunderbolt 3-for-all

Re: Dare I ask

Hate to break it to you, but Linux isn't just a techie OS anymore. I know a few non techies that use Linux.

Pioneer Kodi plug-in unplugs

Non issue

I never used Navi-X anyway. I tried it out, but found there were other Add Ons that were easier to use for the content I was looking for. Add On's such as Classic Cinema Online or Crackler, both of which are available without resorting to Third Party Addon Ons.

Bye bye MP3: You sucked the life out of music. But vinyl is just as warped

Backmasking

About the only thing I miss about my old vinyl was the ability to manually play them backwards.

The two main ones I remember doing back in the day are...

Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven when played backwards went - Oh my dear Satan, the one who has forsaken me. Oh the power of Satan.

Queen's Another One Bites the Dust - It's time to smoke marijuana, it's time to smoke marijuana.

Cloudflare goes berserk on next-gen patent troll, vows to utterly destroy it using prior-art bounties

Policing websites

"we remain committed to our belief that it is not Cloudflare's role to make determinations on what content should and should not be online," "

Nor should they be making a determination of what should or should not be allowed. If they are forced down that slippery slope, where would it end? Should Cloudfare boot El Reg because they posted nasty articles against Santa Cruz Operation (SCO)? Should they block American websites that promote America first and advocate for the removal of all Muslim's from the country?

If the website in question if distasteful, complain to the website or originating host, if they are breaking the law, such as offering pirated software, report them to the proper authorities. Cloudfare is offering a service, it is not their job to police the websites that use that service, anymore than it a DNS provider's job to police computers that use their service.

Re: bow and arrow - good!

@AC

"Cloudflare seem to be shifting the issue away from whether that patent held by the troll is actually valid"

They are offering a bounty for anyone that can prove prior art for said patent, so they haven't totally shifted away from it.

Mozilla to Thunderbird: You can stay here and we may give you cash, but as a couple, it's over

Re: Apart from security fixes - why change Thunderbird ?

@ Doctor Syntax

"Make Lightbird a component instead of an add-on."

I prefer to use the Google Calendar Tab extension. Whenever I open TB, Google Calendar also opens in a separate tab, so I always have access to it. Anything I add into it is synced to Google Calendar on my phone.

systemd-free Devuan Linux hits RC2

@oiseau

"I ran on MS-Windows OSs for many years, from DOS 6.0 onwards through 3.0, 3.11 and all the versions of W95/98/NT/2000/XP with the exception of Me."

I was reading your post and could not help think that your experience and mine are almost exactly the same, including the running of Linux Mint 64bit. The only notable difference from what you wrote and myself, is that I've also used ME, Vista and Win 7 (which I have in a VM for the very rare instance it may be needed).

'Sorry, I've forgotten my decryption password' is contempt of court, pal – US appeal judges

Re: Actual case aside

""The appeals court found that forcing the defendant to reveal passwords was not testimonial in this instance because the government already had a sense of what it would find."'

So wouldn't this be the same as if it was a murder trial where the glove found at the scene of the crime fit the defendant; wouldn't this be like like saying - forcing the defendant to "testify" against himself is not testimonial in this instance because the government already had a sense of what it would find?

Two words, Mozilla: SPEED! NOW! Quit fiddling and get serious

Re: Australis hate

I forgot to mention, and this is the one that really peeves me, is I have to go into about:config and set it to save my tabs on exit, so I don't lose all my open tabs when I close Firefox. Why they ever changed that from the default behaviour still astounds me.

Re: Australis hate

The very first thing I do when installing a new copy of Firefox, is go into the settings and enable the Menu Bar. That is quickly followed by installing NoScript and uBlock.

Re: Privacy

Why should it even have to report window size? (Not being sarcastic, I legitimately would like to know)

New PayPal T&Cs prevents sellers trash-talking PayPal

Bad Mouthing

There was an incident in Canada last week in which a News Media company, which uses Paypal for receiving and making payments, had submitted an article from their newspaper to a Canadian Media Awards company, along with the requisite payment via Paypal. The story had to do with how well a Syrian refugee family was settling in Canada. Paypal, being an American company, then froze the account of the News Media company as it had flagged the word Syrian in the transaction. Their explanation was that the News Media company could have been trying to funnel money to Syria, which is a no no in the current American regime.

Of course, with this being a News Media company, they of course published a story stating what Paypal had done. Hence, the badmouthing part.

This story also raises some VERY red flags. The companies involved are in Canada, not the United States, so why is Paypal applying American law on transactions taking place in a different country? Does this mean they could do the same thing if someone in the UK was trying to buy something from someone in Damascus and was paying by Paypal?

Dropbox: Oops, yeah, we didn't actually delete all your files – this bug kept them in the cloud

Um What???

-- "Typically, we permanently remove files and folders from our servers within 60 days of a user deleting them. However, the deleted files and folders impacted by this bug had metadata inconsistencies," Dropbox employee Ross S said on the company's support forum.

-- "So we quarantined and excluded them from the permanent deletion process until the metadata could be fixed."

If the files were scheduled for permanent deletion anyway, metadata inconsistencies would have been a moot point. Would this be another example of an alternative fact?

Aaarrgh, zombie! Dead Apple iOS monopoly lawsuit is reanimated

Re: How were they not customers?

"Now I've muddied my own picture. In this case, Apple is acting as a clearing house, not a store. The app writers set their own price, not a price dictated by Apple. Yes, Apple takes 30%, but that's actually not bad considering most "consignment" shops take 50%."

Except that consignment shops aren't offering their own competing products. So not only are the app dev's being charged a 30% fee, they are also competing against Apple's own apps, that does not have the burden of the 30% fee.

TfL to track Tube users in stations by their MAC addresses

Re: switch off your Wi-Fi...

I normally keep my mobile data turned off. I run an app called Smart WIFI Toggle. It automatically disables my WIFI, and only enables it at hotspots that I have specifically indicated (such as at home or a coffee shop that I frequent). Not only does it protect me from errant hotspots and scanning of my phone when I am not specifically using it, it also cuts down on the battery drain. In addition. I use an app called Autosync. It keeps the Sync disabled unless my data or wifi is enabled, then Autosync will automatically turn on Sync and automatically disable it again when my data or WIFI is disabled..

Firefox hits version 50

Wifi Hotspots

In regards to Firefox and Chrome. I have both on my phone and I have noticed that when I go to a place that has a wifi hotspot that redirects you to a page where you have to accept their user agreement, Chrome does not like it. With Chrome, it will not redirect, it just keeps telling me it can't load the page (ie Google Search), but Firefox right away redirect to the sign in page to be able to access the wifi hotspot.

Re: I like GUIs to be obvious

I haven't used Classic Theme Restorer. When I install a new Firefox, the first thing I do is go to "Settings", select "Customize" at the bottom, click on "Show/Hide Toolbars" in the lower left corner, and click on "Menu Bar".

The next step I do is go into about:config and change browser.showQuitWarning to true. (So I get prompted to save my open tabs for the next time Firefox starts).

Thunderbird Menu is similar, I go to "settings", go to "Preferences" and click on "Menu Bar".

Gone in 70 seconds: Holding Enter key can smash through defense

Bad user!!! BAD

I tried this on my Linux Mint system earlier tonight. All I got for my troubles was a lot of loud beeps from my computer telling me how bad I was for trying this, before giving me the screen to enter my Cryptsetup password.

Portable drive, 5TB capacity. Hmm, there's something fishy here

Let's see, a misleading headline that states there may be a problem with the drive (something fishy here). Instead of an article about problems with the drive, it's actually an ad for said drive disguised as an article. Is this el Reg's way of getting advertising around ad block software?

McDonald's sues Italian city for $20m after being burger-blocked

Re: The real reason

@Rattus Rattus "I feel that if a city decides they do not want a particular business there, then that is their right and privilege."

I am not disputing that. Someone made the argument that they should not be allowed as McDonald's would not be following the traditional look of the neighbourhood. That is what I was disputing. If McDonald's agrees to keep the look of their storefront the same as the others, then they should not be automatically disallowed, but looked at based on their merits. If the council then decide they do not which to have a fast food outlet on that street, then they are within their rights to say no.

Re: The real reason

"To be fair, foreign beer is ( if you like brown beer with bits in ) crap. It's all plain lager."

I am in Canada. I have not yet had the privilege of visiting Britain or Scotland, but one of my favourite beers is Innes & Gunn, which, for me, would make it foreign. Doesn't taste like crap to me.

Re: The real reason

"Here's a clue people...celebrate cultural differences, it is part of what make foreign places ,well, foreign."

McDonald's has previously shown that they are willing to adapt to local cultural menus.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30115555